Sam's Blog

Link: http://www.gnronline.com/

I started this post in November when it looked like it was going to rain. I guess it's not too relevant anymore now that it is December and it never did rain that day. I don't even know where to start. The last few weeks have been a blur. Thanksgiving passed by quickly. Then November ended and the days kept on flying by. I've been keeping myself busy with work and play and everything else that falls inbetween. I've been in some minor pain due to a huge cold sore on my upper lip that sprouted up on Thanksgiving day, but it is finally going away.

Thanksgiving was nice. I went to Ventura to hang out with Josh's family. His mom cooks up a storm this time of year and is always trying new recipes. I made green beans and bacon (stolen from Lisa's Aunt) and it was yummy. The food was great and there were a lot more people this year because Natalie's college roommate and her family joined us as well. They used to live in Ventura, but have since moved to Sacramento. We played pool after dinner and met up with Josh's old friend, Paul.

On Friday morning, Josh and I ventured into the desert with some friends and headed to Las Vegas. It was a quick trip. We were only staying one night. Went with Matt, Mike, Nadja, Andrea, & Nate and stayed at Bally's. We got there in time to see Big Elvis perform at the Barbary Coast (Tues-Fri, 3pm-6pm). Mike and Andrea were dying to see him. He was 600 pounds and a very BIG Elvis he was. We drank and ran around the strip and ended up at a gay club called Gipsy because they didn't have a dress code and they were very cool with us. Poor Josh in a gay club. He had fun just observing, as did Nate. We woke up and had the Paris buffet (yummy!) and left the city of sin. It was a very short trip, but it was way fun. Pictures are available here.

Work has been slowing down a little. I still can't train people very well. We are trying the best we can with the new guy, but there's just not that much new work for him to do. That will change very soon, but for now, I feel bad because it feels like we are not doing things, but I certainly am catching up with my portion of the work.

Thursday night, the Alumni Association hosted a recent grad event after the Bonfire and Rally for Beat $C week. It was nice to see all of the other volunteers again and to see people enjoying themselves around other recent graduates. Friday night was game night at the Girls' place (Eva, Dre, & MichGarr). They had tons of people there and we all broke off into small sections and played our own games. The highlight was playing "dirty Scrabble" which basically meant, anything goes and Josh and I won the Trivial Pursuit 90s edition. It is a very fun game. It was very awesome to see everyone again in the same room at the same time and having lots of fun. Some pictures are posted here from that night.

Saturday was a sad, sad day for UCLA. I didn't expect them to even win the game against USC really. I know that they are a great and wonderful team that is on fire right now. I just thought that it would be awesome if we were the team to stop them. I thought that we would at least put up a fight. I know that our defense isn't that geat, but our offense wasn't too hot either, which I wasn't expecting and therefore allowed a 66-19 victory for USC. So sad. But I guess we weren't too shabby considering Texas beat Colorado 70-3 that same day. So it's Texas and USC at the Rose Bowl. Very ironic that they are playing in UCLA's home stadium. But you will know who I will be cheering for. Greg goes to University of Texas and is having a blast there. I hope that his team will be able to stop USC. They are our only hope right now. But we won't know for sure for another few weeks. And if not, we will have to wait around for next season to see how they do because a few of their key players will probably leave school early and go to the NFL. I don't blame them in doing so, but the team will be very different without them. Only time will tell. Empires will eventually fall.

I went to Randy's fundraiser in Chinatown with Angela. We met up with Wynne and her friend and her old roommate from college, Michelle, who is coincidentally dating Angela's cousin in NY. Crazy-small world. We all drank a lot and danced a lot. The DJ was okay the first half of the night, but towards the end, he started playing every single hip hop hit from 1988-2002. It was like a really long medley of familiar songs. It was awesome. Some songs I hadn't heard in years, such as songs from Kris Kross and Public Enemy. It's cheesy hip hop but I love it because they remind me of junior high and some even date back to elementary school. It was awesome fun.

Angela and I stayed out until 4am. This is normally okay for a Saturday night, but we had volunteered to help Mike out on his final for law school the next morning. We had to be in downtown LA this morning at 9am. It was awful. We were so tired. Angela was a juror and I was a small witness and they were reenacting the Robert Blake case. Matt, Geoffrey, and Sarah were also there as witnesses. It went on for a good 4+ hours, so we were exhausted by the time it ended. We rewarded ourselves afterwards with lunch at Palms Thai. It was super yummy today. I loved it.

Josh and I went to USC's Animation screening to check out what their program was putting out there. Tripp's friend, Keren, was screening her film as well and we wanted to check it out. It was a cute screening, some films I didn't care too much for and others were really cool. I wasn't really blown away by any one film in particular though. I think that I have become desensitized after going to so many of these types of events. My standards are way high now after seeing Shane's film at the UCLA screening last year. It's just amazing. No one has been able to top it since. It was nice to see Kurt and Tripp again. It has been a long time since we all hung out together, especially since Tripp has been traveling all over Asia and on the east coast and such. Oh and a big congrats to Tripp on getting a new job. It looks like he and Rachael are going to be staying in LA for some time, which is most excellent news, even though they both didn't want to end up here. I told him that LA eventually grows on you, especially West LA. I hope this is true in their case.

Anyhow, time to sleep. I'm way exhausted.