Happy...

Birthday Dad!!

Monday

Think happy thoughts on Monday, I finally have an interview.

What I am up to- End of March

Things have been a bit boring on the blog front. I wish I had star sightings to report, but alas I have been a prisoner in my apartment waiting for employers to call. A watched pot never boils, but it seems whenever I am not with my phone it rings. So since Thursday I have been sitting here staring at it. I think when I finally get a job, I will get a new phone because I have grown to loath the thing.

What have I been up to lately?

Wednesday...
night I participated in an anti-war vigil with Asher. It was great and we had a lot of support from passers by. The honking was non-stop and I am sure that it didn't make the diners at Pizzeria Mozza very happy. (I haven't gone there yet and although I like Mario Batali and the Bastianich family, I have heard that the service is not the greatest. Go in ready to spend money, if you aren't they will shame you into leaving.) Anyway, the vigil was a great experience and I hope that in five more years I wont be back at that corner for the 10 year mark.

On the home front.....
I have been getting to some of the art projects that I have wanted to get to. Including finally painting our bedroom. First a disastrous red and finally a nice toasted almond color. Sometimes at Home Depot, people aren't so willing to give out information regarding paint.

Other than that I am preparing for a visit from Asher's friend from France, who will be visiting next week.

I think that is it.

Currently watching: The Tudors Season I
Currently reading: White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Yummyist website ever

If you are cooking for Easter tomorrow and you are looking for something a little different to cook check out The Pioneer Woman Cooks! The most mouthwatering website ever.

It includes step by step photo directions as well as the recipe at the end.

Ree, the author of this blog and "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" was an urban cowgirl in Los Angeles who is now a mother of four living on a cattle ranch somewhere in the middle of no-where, Check out both blogs if you can, but Pioneer Woman Cooks is the only one with recipes.
Note: Don't look when you are hungry.

World Water Week

I am not sure if you knew, but this week is World Water Week.

For more information click here

Find out how you can participate in making clean drinking water for everyone a reality.

200

This is the 200th post of my blog. I hope you like reading it as much as I like writing it.

200 posts ago I moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles and started this little blog to keep you all posted on what I have been up to. Since then I have visited a lot of places, from Larchmont Village to Utah. Took day trips to Seal Beach and Santa Barbara.

Since then I have seen Michael Vartan, David Anders, ?uestlove, Lisa Marie Presley, Kirstie Alley, Jim Belushi, Dave Navarro, Rachel Griffiths, Justin Chambers, Giovanni Ribisi, Nia Vardalos, members of No Doubt, Tony Shaloub, David Krumholz, Paris Hilton and more that I can't remember.

I have brought you a lot of features like Here are the Places in My Neighborhood, What are they wearing and some best of L.A. picks.

Let me know if you are still hanging in and reading this thing. You know where you can always reach me.

Here's to 200 more posts.

I shared one of mine, now you share one of yours

A couple posts ago, I shared one of my top life experiences. I thought it would be fun if you shared one of yours. I would love to have this blog be more interactive w/ the family and I thought this would be a great way to do that.

I will be taking submissions for unforgettable experiences. Please submit them to my email address.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

One of my top 5 experiences in life...and so it goes

Last Sunday my book club met to discuss Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I don't usually chat about my book club online, but I will make an exception. The reason why this book club was so different and blog-able is that we met with a bookclubmate's grandparent's book club. Their youngest member was 79 and oldest was 95 years old (and boy was that 95 year old as sharp as a tack) We planned for both of our book clubs to read this book and meet together and discuss.

For those of you who have not read the book, briefly, it is about an author who wants to write a book about his experiences in WWII, especially the Bombing of Dresden. The book becomes a book about war, coping with life after the war, with a bit of science fiction thrown in.

What was great is that all of the people in the other book club lived through WWII, we had three people who fought in the Pacific Theater and many of them shared their stories. From what it was like to be there, to getting letters from soldiers that had sections blacked out by censors. Some of the stories were difficult to hear and because we talked for almost 3 hours straight hard to repeat every one. One of our members works for a radio show and we hope that it will be a segment that will be on air. I will keep you posted.

I really don't think I will forget this ever.

We decided to meet every few months to discuss a book. I can't wait for the next meeting.

and so it goes...

What I am up to again

I have been submitting to a lot of jobs and haven't had too much luck, which has got me a bit frustrated. To keep my mind off of being frustrated, I have been doing more to explore Los Angeles and its surrounding areas.

Huntington Gardens:
The Huntington was founded in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington when he signed away his San Marino estate for non-profit use. It is now home to gardens, a gallery and Library. It is a beautiful place and is so expansive that you couldn't possibly see it in one day.

Here are some photos.




Chinatown:
I finally went to Chinatown and had dim sum, something I have wanted to do for a long time. It was a lot of fun and I ate too much. I left my camera at home unfortunately. Having dim sum is a strange, but great experience. Having a team of people stroll around with carts that you can pick food off of, is a great invention. You eat instantly.

Another LA institution that I had the chance to eat at is the Apple Pan I think I just had that the best burger I have had in LA. It reminded me of my Lion's Tap days in Minneapolis. I didn't have room for pie, but I am definitely going back.

Still reading the books and I can say that the only movie I liked recently is Annie Hall, which I had never seen.

Day 6- Cabo San Lucas

We didn't really get to explore Cabo like we did the other ports. We met up with mom's friends and I got to use more Spanish in this port than the others. All I can offer you in the way of pictures are these pictures of the sunrise.

Quick notes

Just a quick note to let you know two things:

1) If you happen to read the comments on my blog, be very careful. People are using comments as a way to spread nasty computer viruses. I am doing my best to block or erase comments that are potentially dangerous.

2) Start sightings in the last week are:
Alex Kingston
Jennifer Coolidge

Think good thoughts, I am waiting to hear from a few jobs.

The Flyers

I wasn't sure if I should name this post "The Flyers" or "A Job I Would Never Like to Have"

Follow the pictures to see why. (Note: the top is 86 feet tall)

What I have been up to-Reading and Movies

Reading:
I have finished two books so far this year; The History of Love (Strongly recommend), Sharp Objects (Thought it was going to be bit trashy, which it was, but I liked it) and now I am reading Nancy Drew: Girl Slueth and Waiting: True Confessions of A Waitress.

Movies:
As well as helping Asher shoot his latest YouTube endeavor. I have been watching a lot of movies. My most recent venture out to a movie theater was to see Be Kind, Rewind which isn't getting the best reviews, but I really liked it. It was a very quirky heart warming film. It is totally up my alley, but I am afraid that if I recommend it to you, you might think it is just too weird. To be honest it reminded me a lot of Batteries Not Included which I liked when I was a kid.

Also, I saw "Definitely, Maybe" (Cute and a different spin on the romantic comedy) "Babel" (If you don't think it can get worse it does, and then gets worse from there) "Girl 27" (A great documentary about the early hollywood and the ways it was not as glamorous as people thought. Not for the youngins) Now I am into season one of the "Flight of the Concords", which is also quirky in my type of way.

Speaking of movies, I didn't hear from anyone about Oscar picks. How did people feel about the Oscar show? My highlights were when Marion Cotillard from "La Vie En Rose" and the people from Once won.

If you haven't seen either of these movies, I thought they were great and they are both out on DVD and if they are not part of your netflix queue add them now. (What do you know, "Falling Slowly" is playing on my itunes.)

This is how I think they can make the Oscars better.
1) I think that they can not televise the winners in the short film categories. Maybe 10% of the population gets access to see these films. I live in L.A. and the only time we get to see these films are after the awards show.
2) Televise only the winning song from the best original song category.  

3) Let more than one person talk when they get an award for a group. It is their award too, not just the extroverts.

What do you think? Email me.

By the way, 6 more entries and I am on my 200th post.

What I have been up to-Visiting

I have been trying to enjoy Los Angeles in between submitting for jobs. Today I went outside to enjoy the unreal weather and saw Jonah Hill and Nestor Carbonell . It has been close to 80 for two days.

Visiting:
I have had the opportunity to visit a few Los Angeles landmarks since I have been laid off. Including:
MOCA : (Museum of Contemporary Art) I saw, for free, the Murukami Exhibit A lot of you might not know who he is, but he recently collaborated with Louis Vuitton to make those classic handbags a little more colorful and fun.
The Getty :
Also free, the Getty has a very expansive and famous collection of art, including Van Goghs, Irises. I was there to see to see the Graciela Iturbide exhibit. I love Mexican photographers, they are my favorite. (At left is me pictured at the garden at the Getty.) I need to make it back there, because we barely made a dent in the Getty collection, plus they have all of these great events.
Griffith Park : I have gone hiking/picnicking about three times to Griffith. Each week the burnt area of the park looks better and better. By the way the Larchmont Wine and Cheese Shop has the best sandwiches this side of Robertson.

Speaking of visiting, I had a family visit by family last week. Beth and Katie were here last week on a road trip up the California coast. We met in Santa Monica and had dinner and chatted. It was so great to see them. What the February!?

I still haven't made it to Pinks, but I hope to visit it soon.

That's enough for this post. Up next Reading and Movies .....

Day 5-Mazatlan

Day 5 was our second day ashore in Mazatlan. I have to stop myself from calling it Mazdalan (for some reason)

Mom and I decided to have a girls day and do some shopping and beach time in Mazdalan, I mean Mazatlan.

First Stop: Baile Folklorico Show
As part of our tour we were whisked across town by cab to the Aztec Theater to see a baile folklorico show. Pictured left is the Mexican Hat Dance. We were also treated to an indigenous group called the Papantla Flyers, pictured right, who will be getting their own post next.

We winded our way through the maze of countless stalls of pottery, jewelry and other trinkets. We ended up buying jewelry, pottery and trinkets. Then onto the resort for free lunch, free drinks and beach time. It was great to relax and hear the ocean. I say hear because our view was obstructed by the wall of street vendors that lined the barrier that the resort had set up. It was also hard to get down to the water to cool off, because once you stepped out into the barrier, vendors descended on you like something out of a zombie movie.

"Brains!"


The resort was great and I loved the authentic Mexican food. Pineapple tamales are good. Here is a picture of mom and I underneath a palapa on the beach owned by the resort. You see them everywhere in Mexico. I would like one for L.A. Did I mention it is 80 degrees today.

Oscar picks?

I know a few of you will be watching the Oscars on Sunday. I think that there were a lot of great films this year. I am really having a hard time thinking about who will win on Sunday. I am wondering who you would vote for. See an official ballot here .

email me at eyemheer2@yahoo.com

Day 4-Yelapa y Mahauitas

Back to the trip again before I forget.
(This will be a heavy picture post)

Day four was the first stop at Puerto Vallarta. We chose to take a tour that left at 7 a.m., which when we signed up for it seemed perfectly reasonable, but when it came time, 7 a.m. seemed a bit too early.

We boarded the Catamaran to Yelapa y Mahauitas and saw something very unexpected.

Thar she blows!!!

(If you open this one up, you can see the whales eye)

This is just a few of the whale pictures I took. We were able to spend a lot of time whale watching. There were a few times that we got pretty close. From what I understood, this much whale activity so early in the morning was really rare.

This is a resort by where our catamaran stopped to snorkle. We did not snorkle, last time I snorkled with so many people, the view of the fish was obstructed by bright white backsides under water. We decided to enjoy the view from the ship and saw a lot of fish anyway.

After snorkling we headed another few minutes to a town called Yelapa. This town is only accessible by boat and just got electricity three years ago. They already have internet. As well as our hired tour guide, we also were accompanied by the oldest living resident of the town named Agupina, who is around 90 years old.

(The waterfall that provides the town's water)

(This is a picture of one of the resorts you can stay at)

On the way back was a going home fiesta, I danced, I laughed and I know that if ever I needed to get away from it all, I could just call Osvaldo.

Busy Busy

Sorry for the gap again in updating the old blog. I have been working really hard on the job search.

In star sighting news, I ran into ?uestlove on Valentines Day. I am sure many of you do not know who he is, but if you remember an earlier post of mine, I referred to him as "The Bomb"

I guess I could have had the opportunity to redeem myself and tell him how talented I think he is, but I just kept my mouth shut. I probably would have blanked and said:

"I think you are neat."

Keep your fingers crossed, I have five jobs out in cyberspace.

resumes,cover letters, references oh my!

I have been working hard getting job application materials ready. It is so very hard to write about how awesome you are in one page. It doesn't help that I am modest. When all is said and done this week, I hope to have 4 out the door.

On a star sighting note I did happen to see Justin Chambers who I think, although I have not watched the show is more handsome than McDreamy or McSteamy. Maybe because I am attracted to crazy. Anyway. He was just driving along Beverly.

If you do get the chance, let me know how you are doing. Email me at eyemheer2@yahoo.com.

Now back to the Mexico trip.....