Sam's Blog

Link: http://www.coldplay.com/index.php

I start class today. It's so weird to go back to school, even though it's only one class. I am totally unprepared. I got a UCLA notebook and a pen and I'm set. I don't even know what to expect. I know that I will have to do presentations and have homework, but I don't know if it's going to be a lot of work. Either way, I know it will be good for me, especially since I am in the industry and it will teach me so much about it. A few of my coworkers are taking it with me, so I am glad that I will have a few familiar faces in the room.

Not too much going on right now. I have been trying to get more sleep, but it's kinda working and kinda not. Some days I'll get 8 hours, some days 5. It's a toss up. I have a lot to do before I go to Modesto this weekend for Loretta's wedding. Mainly errands and whatnot, but I know that I will be exhausted come Sunday night when we get home.

On Monday night, we all went to celebrate Michelle Garrett's (MichGarr) birthday at Electric Karma. The food and company was great, but the service was not so good. They were spending all of their energy on Nicole Richie and her group of friends that were seated next to us. They got there after us and left before us, so their service was way better than ours. I guess it doesn't matter really because that gave me time to catch up with people like Cheyl, Nemika, Daphne, and Badge. I hadn't seen them in so long and I missed them a lot. Everyone lives far away and are busy with their lives, so it was nice to see them all together in one place. Kristy, Kent, and Sumi went as well and it was great to see them too. We need to have a PRO meeting very soon! Anyway, while I was squatting and talking to Nemika, I was laughing really hard and swung my head down and hit her chair in my forehead. It REALLY hurt and it is still bruised today. Everytime I move my left eye, I can feel it. Boo. Anyway, Dre made a yummy chocolate cake and we hung out at the girl's place for a while. Josh and I left a bit early because we had to pick up Lisa and Marty from the airport. It sounded like they had a splendid time on the east coast and were exhausted. I realized that I hadn't seen them for a while, especially Marty, so it was good to at least chat with them on the way back from the airport and hear about their adventures.

Last night, I did nothing and it was nice. I watched shows that I missed on Monday and over the weekend, thanks to our lovely Tivo and started watching the bonus features on the Lost DVD. They have so much footage and extras, it's cool! It's gonna take me a while to watch it all, but it's worth it! I'm bummed that I will miss it every week because of class, but I can always watch it afterwards, which isn't the same, but I guess it will have to do.

The Morning Star fake meat Buffalo Wings are fabulous. Thanks for the recommendation Angela!

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Sam is: U-( not sure what class will be like after taking 3 years off school
Current Music: 'Transatlanticism' by Death Cab for Cutie

Link: http://www.weezer.com/

Every time I’m with Angela, it feels like we are far far away from everyone. Even though we’re in a café in Brentwood, which is very close to a lot of things that are familiar to us, it feels a bit ethereal. In any case, though I feel bad that Angela didn’t get a chance to study as much as she had hoped, it was a great pleasure to see her. I miss her because I think that she is one of the very few people that know me better than myself and it’s a good feeling. She questions things that I do or say and I question her and we chat about things, sometimes with substance, sometimes without, and we secretly try to set people up with each other. Usually these set ups are all talk and never happen, but its fun to talk about it. I am glad that I can get a part of Angela back in my life. A little bit is more than nothing and I am taking what I can get.

We were hanging out at Coral Tree Café and we discovered so many things. The mac and cheese is fabulous. They have wireless internet for free during the weekdays, but if you ask nicely, they will turn it on for you on weekends. They have lotion for customers in the women’s bathroom. There are no electrical outlets on the patio. Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) is indeed gay, but just hasn’t announced it publicly. I have pretty reliable sources and Angela wouldn’t believe me at first, but I think I convinced her. But it doesn’t matter either which way, I love Doogie. We also discovered earlier that day that the new phó place on Wilshire was overpriced for what it was. It was decent, but the service was horrible. I’d much rather get some at Noodle Planet or even Le Saigon. It’s hard to get good phó on the Westside.

Donna and Régis came over last night and we watched Extras, the new Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (The Office, BBC version) comedy. We watched the first couple of episodes and it was hilarious. I am glad that HBO is airing the first season (all 6 episodes) starting today. It’s so awkward and funny and sad and embarrassing all at the same time. I can’t explain it. You must watch it.

I slept a lot this weekend. It was nice and wonderful. Josh is slowly winning the boyfriend of the year award because he is so sweet when he wants to be and he’s also making many improvements to this website. Yay! I got him this t-shirt. He loves it and so do I.

S&TC Quote of the day:
“How did it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends? It's like seventh grade with bank accounts.” Miranda (Season 2 –Take Me Out to the Ballpark)

Link: http://www.ledzeppelin.com/site_flash/fs_home.html

It rained all night last night and is still slightly raining right now. It's funny how I was just talking about the weather getting colder and now it's raining. I don't mind it at all. It's been so long since we had any rain. The city smells, but I am hoping that the rain will wash it away and leave a cool and crisp after-the-rain smell. I love it. I don't think that the residents here were prepared for this. As usual, there was traffic this morning and people driving retardedly. I guess I'm going to be in my building all day today, which is nothing really different from any other day. I guess the only difference is that I'm ordering in today for lunch. I find it fascinating how many people here in LA absolutely hate the rain. I think it's quite refreshing.

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It stopped raining. I think that it went away completely, so I doubt that it will rain tomorrow, but who knows. The city still smells like wet trash, which is unfortunate. I saw Angela today. Yay! We are trying to see each other at least once a week. At least I can do homework with her once school starts. Yay! We're all about stability.

I saw Sex and the City on network TV while I was at Angela's and it was the modelizer episode. It was one of the very first episodes that they ever made and I don't know if it's because it's old or that it's on network TV, but it didn't have the same gusto that it had on HBO. Things were edited and there are commercial breaks. It was quite sad for me to see it that way. The show is destined to be on late night syndication for years and years and it will lose its lustre. It's a pity. I guess Fuel was right, "all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away."

Josh added a whole bunch of new features on my site. There's RSS feeds and we are working on fixing up the "Friends" page and make it more neat. He also added all of the things below for me to edit. Yay!

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Sam is: )-o tired.
Current Music: none actually, none at all, which is unusual.

Link: http://www.beck.com

I had a really productive day today at work. It’s not like I am not productive normally, but I felt as though I was ‘on’ today, which is surprising considering that it is a Monday and all. I am beginning to have a firm grasp of my job and now I have to organize everything. My desk is quite a mess right now. An organized mess, but a mess nonetheless. One of my bosses got back from a NY sales meeting and we went out to lunch. It sounds like my network is doing great and wonderful things in the near future, so I am excited. Lunch took quite some time, so I got back to work a bit late and stayed late as well. It’s starting to get cooler at night and the sun is setting earlier. Fall is coming and I don’t know if this will last. There is usually one last heat wave towards the end of the month or as late as mid-October. But leaving the garage at work felt so different because it was dark outside. I was perplexed as to how fast the seasons are changing. I know that people like other cities because they had “real” seasons, but I think that they are overrated. I grew up in Modesto and we had all 4 seasons and it wasn’t better. It got extremely cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Fall is probably the best time of year, but Spring is so unpredictable with the rain and such. I kinda like that LA is warm pretty much most of the year. I welcome the rain and the cold weather. It isn’t as bad as people think and it never lasts for very long (except for El Niño a few years ago). I think that there is nothing wrong with having a sunny Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s actually quite lovely.

I know that my life gets busy and complicated, but it’s hard for me to not think about the stress that my friends are under right now. I feel so helpless sometimes because there’s nothing that I can do in most instances. I feel so bad and the only thing that I can do is offer my ears and myself to them. That is what I normally do. I hope that in a strange way they feel better because of it. Not because it’s just something that I do, but I actually do care. I talked to a few people today going through rough times. I wish that I can help more. My heart goes out to them. You know who you are. Just letting you guys know that I am always here and that I am very easy to get a hold of. I am fortunate to have so many great friends around. I don’t know what I would do without them. I’d probably go insane.

On a lighter note, I saw my favorite dysfunctional family tonight. Arrested Development was on and I am so happy that they’re back on the air with their new season! I finally have something to watch on TV!! I’m kinda bummed that Fox would put them up against Monday Night Football though. It feels like they are trying to do everything they can to make them get low ratings, when I know that they can do better. Check out Oscar’s website that was mentioned in today’s episode. It’s a riot. The show was so funny. I missed it so much. And I love Tivo because I can rewind it at anytime if I couldn’t hear a joke or missed a part of it. Yay technology! Lost is premiering this Wednesday too! What a great week! I unfortunately will be starting a UCLA extension class that meets on Wednesdays, so I will have to watch it some other time. But I know that I will more than likely watch it when I get home from class. I’m actually excited about this class. It’s related to my field of work and I know that I will learn so much from it. Yay! I am just bummed because I found out that they are postponing Scrubs until January. I’m not a big fan of that at all. Boo NBC! Oh well, I guess I will have to find more constructive things to do with my time now.

S&TC quote of the day:
“Even before the first leaf falls, you can feel the seasons click. The air is crisp, the summer is gone and for the first night in a long time, you need a blanket on your bed.” -Carrie (Season 4 – I Heart NY)

Link: http://www.flaminglips.com/main.php

It’s been a busy few days. On Friday night, Josh and I went to watch Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride with Rob, Michelle, James, and Ashley. Though it was short (now that I think about it, most animated films tend to be short due for obvious reasons) it was a great movie. It was a good mix of macabre and lighthearted comedy at the same time. I was worried because there were a lot of kids in the audience and I thought that it was going to frighten them, but I was wrong. It sounded as though they enjoyed it. I am sure they didn’t understand a lot of the references and a few other things, but it was overall a great animated musical comedy. Danny Elfman was awesome, as always. His version of “March of the Bride” was brilliant and I am now thinking that I will use it for my wedding.

Yesterday was an all day music affair. We left LA at 9:00am and got back at 1:00am. All day long we heard great music. I was thoroughly entertained. I went with Angie, Jasmine (Angie’s roommate from freshman year, who I later found out was the person that took away my student ID card when I became a full time employee at UCLA. I miss my Bruin card.), and Nate to the annual KROQ Inland Invasion in Devore, CA (909 baby!). It was HOT during the day, not as bad as I expected, but still very hot. I got a tan, which I knew was inevitable and spent way too much money on drinks and food, etc. but had a wonderful time. The last time I went to Inland Invasion was 3 or 4 years ago with M. We had seat in the stadium last time, but this time we were on the lawn, which was pretty much the earlier you got there, the better choice of grass area. We got a pretty good location right in the center. The lineup was very good:

• Fishbone (finishing up as we walked into the stadium, but sounded pretty good while we were waiting in line)
• Bloc Party (Excellent, very excellent! Loved their accents.)
• The Bravery (Probably the worst performance of the day, I wanted to like them, I really wanted to.)
• Cake (They didn’t perform during the day and instead went on at the very end, but we left.)
• The Arcade Fire (I love the band, great performance, but had a lot of technical problems perhaps due to the many instruments that they played, unfortunately.)
• Live (Even though they are old, they were fantastic, I can tell that they’re pros at this.)
• Garbage (I [heart] Shirley Manson, electrifying performance, great stage presence.)
• Jet (They were a lot better than I thought they would be, though I wasn’t too fond of a cover of a Cure song that they did.)
• Madness (FUN! I really liked their energy and bazillion instruments. Brought me back to high school!)
• 311 (Same as always: all of their music sounds the same, but they were pretty good)
• Beck (I am a huge fan, he gave an exhilarating performance and brought the dancing kid out on stage for a few songs. Did a remarkable cover of The Flaming Lip’s “Do You Realize?”)
• Weezer (I will always love them, even though I don’t like their new album. The audience all loved their drug-related songs. Rivers didn’t wear his trademark glasses and Nate and I were thrown off a bit by it. They were awesome! They pulled out someone from the audience and had him play the guitar part for “Undone.” Very cool. They also did a superb cover of The Foo Fighter’s “Big Me.” And now my life is complete because they played "El Scorcho" live and that is all that I needed.)
• Oasis (They were very boring…no energy on stage whatsoever. They did play my favorite songs from “What’s the Story Morning Glory?” so it was worth it. They also did a great cover of The Who’s “My Generation.”)
• Travis Barker & DJ AM (Left before they performed, Nate and I wanted to stick around to see if Skeletor (Nicole Richie) would make an appearance, but we were all too tired.)

It was an extraordinary day. I am glad that I was able to go. Thanks Angie!

I woke up today semi-early to go to the Basquiat exhibit with Matt and Mike at the MOCA. There were a lot of fabulous pieces there and I soaked it all in. Here's one of my favorites:

I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. It’s a shame that he died so young. He had so much potential. His paintings had a lot of references to food and by the time we were done, we all were starving. We hopped over to Chinatown and grabbed some pho and spring rolls. It was yummy. We hung out a bit there, but we were all beat. I am still tired from yesterday. The sun drained all of my energy or something. I am just going to hang out and watch the Emmy’s later. Not too exciting, but I am too tired to do anything else, I suppose.

Link: http://www.toriamos.com/

One of my bosses let me borrow the first season of Lost and Josh and I have been watching it nonstop. (Well, he watches it while I sleep and go to work also, but he fills me in.) It's 24 episodes long (1 hour each) and it has sucked us in from the pilot episode. I have always liked the creator J. J. Abrams, ever since Felicity. The season 2 premiere is next week and we want to finish the episodes before then. At this rate, Josh is pretty much almost done. He is crazy. It's nice that he is able to work from home and is still on vacation. His sleep schedule is totally messed up! So that's basically all we've been doing.

Link: http://www.socialdistortion.com/

Wow, I just spent two hours ironing my clothes and watching Reality Bites for like the 100th time. I really do have a case of the Mondays. Well, if anything, my wardrobe is better because I can actually wear things now that they're ironed. I have been so lazy! I can actually look pretty decent at work now. I never really put much effort into it because its just work, but I know that I should do more. All that ironing made my back hurt. Boo, I'm getting old.

I got my car back, but it's only partially fixed. It cost way too much to repair everything, considering that it's an old car and that it would cost me more to fix it than what I paid for it 2 years ago. I'm gonna have to get a new car soon and though that sounds exciting, my finances aren't too excited. We will see. The most important thing is that I have my car back and I can drive it to work!

Oh yeah, have fun in Paris Lisa! We'll miss you. You will be back in no time!!

This week seems long already.

Link: http://www.blueoystercult.com/

"Guess what...I got a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell." If you don't know what I mean, watch the SNL skit with Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell. It's old, but it's brilliant.

Good things about this week:

1. Finally saw Angela after months and months. I had lunch with her a few weeks ago, but that was only for an hour because I had to go back to work, but still, very nice to see her again. I hope school doesn't suck her back into her reclusiveness. I miss my best friend. She's still my best friend, but we don't talk as much anymore.

2. Dinner with M was very successful in that we finally went to Chili's and had surprisingly great service. We were able to use our gift certificates that they gave us last week too! They have had a horrible track record with me when it came to service. I once went there with Josh and we left after 20 minutes because we never got a menu or were even acknowledged by our waiters. They've come a long way!

3. Recovered from traveling, for the most part.

4. Looking forward to next week at work because 2 of my bosses are gone to NY. And I am getting to know my coworkers better.

5. Keeping in touch with old friends. It's nice that I can be on AIM and use my cell phone during work. I never realized how awesome it could be until now.

6. Hung out with Josh's friends a lot recently. They're all really cool guys. I hope they are able to hang out as often when school starts up again.

7. Josh got me the Six Feet Under, Volume 2: Everything Ends soundtrack. It's fabulous. I highly recommend it. It has a cover of the quoted song for this post and has people like Radiohead, Coldplay, Sia, The Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie, Jem, Nina Simone, Imogen Heap and so much more. It makes for great driving music.

8. The weather has been fantastic!

9. Tentative New Year's Eve plans in San Francisco.

10. We now have Tivo! All we need is cable, which will happen very soon, I hope.

Not so good things about this week:

1. Work was busy!

2. My car is acting up and I had to take it to the shop this morning. I have a feeling that it's pretty bad, meaning it will probably cost a lot to fix. I wish I had more money so I can actually buy a new car, but I don't. I wish LA had better public transportation, but it doesn't. I will hear back from them on Monday, so we will see!

3. My nose is still stuffy/runny. My allergies are better, but I guess these symptoms are what's left of it. Bleh.

4. This week's been crazy and I haven't even unpacked or cleaned anything, including doing laundry. I hope that I can do some stuff today and tomorrow.

Okay, so my good things outweigh my bad things this week, so I have no reason to complain. I just hate not having a car in LA. I've become so dependant on it!

SATC quote of the day:
"Honey, before you buy the car you take it for a test drive!" - Samantha (Season 3 - Don't Ask, Don't Tell)

Mark Twain wasn't kidding.

We arrived in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon and it was very cloudy with fog. I knew it was going to be chilly, but man, I wasn't prepared for this. The marine layer is crazy there. Though I should've been more proactive about checking the weather the day of, I thought that I'd be fine. Luckily I packed two jackets, but the only thing that I forgot was closed-toe shoes. It wouldn't have been that bad, except for the wind chill factor. So I was unprepared for the weather, but I realized that after walking all over the city, I was actually sweaty and cold all at the same time. Not too shabby. I uploaded the pictures on my Flickr account.

I realize that I didn't write about last week. I forgot also to mention that while I was at club Pure, we saw Seth Green. The celebrity sightings follow me into different cities! Nate and I also saw the very lovely Jonathan Silverman (The Single Guy) in SF on Fisherman's Wharf. So strange that Nate and I can recognize him still, considering that he hasn't been doing much these past few years. I guess our eyes are always open for celebrities. Anyhow, last week seemed like a blur. I spent all last week recovering from Vegas. I was sick/had allergies all week and still have remnants of it today. Here's a brief outline of last week:

Monday - Dinner with Jamie, Alison, Aaron, Josh and Myra at India's Oven. It was my first time there and it was yummy! Alison and Myra were staying in LA until Tuesday.

Tuesday - I took a long walk with Josh and we ended up at Best Buy. I bought the new Clueless-Whatever! edition on DVD. Had dinner in the shopping center (I had Panda Express and Josh had Baja Fresh).

Wednesday - Had dinner with M, Antonio, and Anne at BJ's (we wanted to go to Chili's, but it was closed for a private party...who would rent out a Chili's? We did get a $10 gift certificate because of the trouble, so that was cool. M and I are going to use it tonight!). We convinced Antonio to go to the Hustler store in Hollywood and I got some cool cards and magnets and stuff.

Thursday - I finally had lunch with Amy P. after a whole year away in Japan. She seems really refreshed in a lot of ways. She is moving to San Francisco and going to culinary school. I am very excited for her and wish her the best to her fresh start. I love that girl. Ramona was in town with her sister Kiran. Kiran had just moved to New Orleans for med/grad school at Tulane, but due to the hurricane, she flew back home and is now looking for a school that can take her. I doubt she will be able to go back there in a long time. She left her car and a lot of her personal things there because she only packed to leave for the weekend to wait out the hurricane, but was forced to go back to CA when the levee broke. I hope that her stuff is okay and that her friends in her program are safe. In any case though, I am glad she is here in LA with us and not stuck there. I am sure things will work out for her. We had dinner that night with Kurt at the Library Alehouse in Venice. It was yummy. Kurt was having a crappy day so we went to his apartment and got him drunk. I was glad that I was able to help solve his problems temporarily, even though it was only for a night. I had a lot of fun with them and Tripp. He cracks me up. We watched a lot of Ali G. and The Chapelle Show and he showed us the R. Kelly "In the Closet" video (parts 1-5). Man, oh man was that hard to watch. It was so bad that it was hilarious. I am anxiously awaiting parts 6-10. Josh and I left their place really late that night and I didn't get much sleep. Not the best thing to do when you have to work the next morning and have to plan for the weekend roadtrip.

Friday - Work was good because I was able to leave at 12:30. I will miss summer Fridays. I took a long nap when I got home and was disoriented for the rest of the night. Jon was celebrating his birthday at Zanzibar, a very cool bar in Santa Monica where the fabulous KCRW DJ Jason Bentley spins on Fridays. Jon has become friends with him and he took requests from him, which made him a very happy camper. Jon's dad was visiting him for his birthday and it's so eerie how much they look alike. He really is how Jon describes him, kinda like an overgrown kid, but he was very endearing and him and Josh got a long very well. Kurt joined us that night and we had a very fun time. I chatted with Kurt a great deal. We haven't talked about meaningful things too much in a while and I am glad that we are finally hanging out more. It's so hard to do when we live on opposite sides of the city. It doesn't sound that bad, but with traffic, the drive is not very pretty.

Saturday morning was hard. Nate and I got up at 6am and got ready. I still hadn't unpacked from Vegas and so I just took all of the old clothes out and put some new ones in my bag. As I said earlier, I wasn't prepared for the weather too much. In hindsight, it wasn't that bad, but the nights were very very cold. We met up with Matt and Mike and embarked on our journey. We got into SF in the afternoon and checked into our hotel and wandered the streets. We all weren't familiar with the area at all, so it felt like we were tourists, stopping by and looking at the city maps at bus stops and such. (We realized that there are no maps of the city in LA and that there are so many more public restrooms/port-a-potties in SF than LA, which isn't really a big deal, but it is when you've been walking forever and need to go to the bathroom in a residential area.) We walked and shopped all over Chinatown, Union Square, and Nob Hill. I got closed-toe shoes (Converse) because I needed a pair anyway, so it was perfect. Apparently the hotel was in a sketchy part of town in the "Tenderloin" district. We had no idea when we booked it. The hotel was fabulous actually and it was centrally located to all of the places that we wanted to see, but the surrounding neighborhood wasn't that great. Oh well, it wasn't that bad. As Imee said that weekend, "There's nothing tender about the loin." We were to meet up with a few friends that night. We had dinner at a great Chinese restaurant and returned to the hotel and got ready. We wandered the streets of SF towards some of the "cool" parts of town. We got good tips from locals and ventured on in the streets of San Francisco. We ended up on 16th and Valencia, an area populated by young college students and tons of bars. We bar hopped in that area, first going to Casanova and then another bar that I forgot its name. Kristy, Imee, Marita, Camille, and Alison met up with us at a bar called the Skylark. It was a hip-hop club that played okay music, but was really crowded. Gavin stopped by for a bit, but it wasn't his scene, so he left shortly after. He only lived a few blocks away and was very tired because he had just gotten off work. At that point, we were drinking a lot and taking shots. Mike didn't feel too well and went back to the hotel, poor guy. We bounced from that bar and went to a very cool place called Delirium (thanks for the recommendation, Dan!). It had cool people and cool music. My friends met up with their friends Curtis and his friend that we named "Texas" for the night. We all stumbled around and met up with two British guys on the way to another club. Kristy drove her Land Rover and we all squeezed in. I sat in the very back trunk with Matt, Nate, and Texas. We all got out at Club 6 and I counted 11 people in the car. 11!! Holy cow. I don't even know how we all fit. We danced and drank and had a lot of fun. My friends are so great to me. I just saw them in Vegas and had a blast there. They treated me and my friends so well. Much love to you girls in the Bay. We got pizza at Steps of Rome and went over to one of their friend's house. He had the biggest dog that I had ever seen. It was the size of a pony. Anyway, we went back to the hotel in the wee hours of the night. What a great and crazy night. One of the best nights I've had in a really long time.

The next day, we tried to recover from the night before. We walked to the Castro district and ate at Chow, a very cute restaurant on the corner of Market and Church. I am impressed by all of the great little restaurants in the city. We were very pleased. Everyone is very polite and pleasant as well. We shopped at the Castro and decided to walk to Haight/Ashbury. It didn't look too far on the map. We took the direct route, going up 17th street. We realized that it was a bad decision because we had to go up the steepest hills. By the time we reached Ashbury Street, we looked down and saw how far we had climbed. It was wild! We could see a large part of the city at the top of that hill, it was awesome, yet also very tiring. We were saddened to see a GAP at the corner of Haight/Ashbury. Everything is so commercialized now. It did have great thrift shops though. I got a cute jacket. I was very pleased. We met up with the girls again at Golden Gate Park. There was a music festival there called "Doin' it in the Park" and it was an all day affair with DJs and BBQ food. We got there towards the end so there was no food left. We hung out for a bit and then went back to the hotel to get ready for the night. We were exhausted from the night before and from all of the walking that we did that day. We went to a yummy placed called Home, which basically served home cooking style comfort foods. The corn bread was excellent and the mac and cheese was mmm mmm good. I had the pot roast and it was the best that I've ever had. We hit up the Castro district again and checked out the nightlife. We went to The Bar and got a table on the patio. It was so crowded on the dance floor and started getting muggy, so the fresh air was fantastic. Monica met up with us there and it was SO good to see her finally. I think it had been over a year since we had seen each other, so I was ecstatic. She just started law school in the city and is enjoying life. I love seeing my friends happy; it's one of the best things in the world. We ran into one of Nate's roommates there and then followed him to Badlands, a semi "raunchy" club, according to Monica. It was way fun and there were a whole bunch of cute lesbians dancing in our section (including a girl wearing a bow tie, black bra, white suspenders and capris) and Nate and I were amused by them the rest of the night.

Monday was a beautiful day. It was the perfect San Francisco day. I couldn't ask for anything else. It was warm enough for me to wear a halter and capris. We met up with Gavin again and went to Fisherman's Wharf for some clam chowder. Matt and Mike are both from New Hampshire, so they wanted to try some. I'm not a big fan of chowder, so I got chili instead. Kristy and Marita met up with us and we walked around Pier 39 and saw the sea lions and did the tourist thing. It was actually really fun. Marita and I remembered going to the pier on our 8th grade field trip and we went with some friends into one of the singing booths and recorded ourselves singing to "Eternal Flame." We were such dorks! But it was so nice to still have those great memories. It's been a long time since then! Good times!!

We left the city and drove to San Jose to see the Winchester Mystery House. We all wanted to see it because we had heard so many different and conflicting things about it. The story that I believe and the one that the tourguide told us is that the owner, Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company fortune, had never really gotten over the death of her baby girl and husband. Sarah felt that her family was cursed, and sought out spiritualists to determine what she should do. A medium told her that their family was cursed by the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle, and that she should move west and build a house for herself and the spirits. The medium also told Sarah that should construction ever stop on the house that she would die. She built many oddities in her house, such as doors that led to nowhere and staircases that led to the ceiling in order to trick all of the spirits that were haunting her in the house. It was eerie because we went on the exact day that she died 83 years ago. The house was huge and interesting. I was amazed that it wasn't too damamged with the two big earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. We can see some remnants of the damage, but it wasn't that bad, considering that it is over 100 years old. Here are some fun facts about the house:

Number of rooms: 160

Cost: $5,500,000

Date of Construction: 1884 - September 5, 1922 (38 continuous years!)

Number of stories: Prior to 1906 Earthquake - 7; presently 4

Number of acres: Originally 161.919; presently 4

Number of basements: 2

Heating: Steam, forced air, fireplaces

Number of windows: Frames 1,257; panes approx. 10,000

Number of doors: Doorways 467, doors approx. 950 not including cabinet doors.

Number of fireplaces: 47 (gas, wood, or coal burning)

Number of chimneys: Presently 17 with evidence of 2 others

Number of cars at her death: 2 (a 1917 Pierce Arrow Limousine & a 1916 4 cyl. Buick truck)

Number of bedrooms: Approx. 40

Number of kitchens: 5 or 6

Number of staircases: 40, total of stair steps - 367

Number of skylights: Approx. 52

Number of gallons of paint required to paint entire home: Over 20,000

Number of ballrooms: 2 (one nearly complete, and one under construction)

Blueprints available: No, Mrs. Winchester never had a master set of blueprints, but did sketch out individual rooms on paper and even tablecloths!

It really was a great experience and I recommend going if you are ever in the San Jose area. We didn't get back home until 1am on Monday. It was hard to get up for work, but I survived.

It was Andrea's last night in LA yesterday. She's going back to school in Denver and I know that I will miss her. In true Andrea fashion, she requested that we go to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for dinner and then grab drinks at St. Nick's afterwards and we all did just that. Dinner was yummy. I had been craving fried chicken for a while and it was perfect! St. Nick's was not so hot. It was totally empty and we only stayed for a little bit.

Whew! It's been a long few weeks. I hadn't traveled in a long time and for me to go to Vegas and San Francisco one weekend after another was crazy. I am slowly recuperating. I know that it's all worth it because I had tons of fun and became a lot closer to my friends.

On a sidenote, my company is sponsoring a drive to collect items for hurricane victims. If anyone would like to contribute, please let me know. I went through all of my stuff this morning and donated a lot of things. It's nice that I can do that because this way, I don't feel as helpless. I never know how to help in situations like this. I am a believer that every little bit helps and I hope that it does. It's such a tragedy and my heart goes out to all those that are affected by it.

Happy Birthday Marty! I called but your voicemail was full. I miss you. I hope that we can hang now that Orientation is over! Woohoo!!