leftovers

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I did some work from home this morning converting the newsletter to a print version and uploading it to Staples. Even though you'd think everyone uses e-mail now, there are still a lot of our property owners that we don't have e-mail addresses for, plus a lot of people just delete e-mails, so I still like to make a printed newsletter in addition to the web/e-mail version. For lunch, I tried this new place called The Veggie Grill which is up on Sunset and Crescent Heights. I had been wanting to try it for awhile but now was perfect since I've gone pescetarian. They had a fake chicken sandwich which was delicious and would probably even fool some people. I also got a side of kale that had a miso dressing; that was delicious and healthy. Anyway, it's in the center where Virgin Megastore used to be so I did get a little sad missing that store. When I first visited LA in 1998 or '99, I had seen it as we were driving down Sunset Blvd. and couldn't believe how bi...

There was this homeless count today in Hollywood as part of the 2010 Census that I really meant to and was wanting to help out with but I was just so frazzled by work and everything lately that I ended up just deciding to stay in the office and work. I did get the newsletter done so that was a big relief. When I got home, I spent a lot of time working on the computer trying to get it fixed, but nothing I did worked. I tried to reinstall the system from the CD, which it at least let me try to do, but I left and came back later hoping it was finished and it said it could not complete the installation. I was so frustrated so I finally just gave up. Dylan and I watched a few episodes of Nurse Jackie. He had gotten the last disc of Season 1 from netflix, as we had seen most of the season when we had gotten a free preview of HBO and Showtime on our cable and we DVR'ed most of them. So, now we got caught up to the end of season one. Dylan was very lucky to get a screener DVD of the e...

Today, Tiger came in to my office to tell me that he is leaving for Hawaii tomorrow! I'm so happy for him. He's going to Oahu, so I couldn't give him any pointers since I've only been to Maui myself, but I told him to check in with Brandon and Amy since they have both been to Honolulu. Anyway, Tiger had been next door to my work talking to Greytone about his upcoming exhibit there, so he had just dropped in to say 'hi' and 'goodbye' and I happened to be working late, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten to bid him adieu. Hello 2010, goodbye junk! NEW YEARS RESOLUTION LOG ENTRY 86 "King For a Day" by the Thompson Twins, 7" single. Going through the stack of 45s the other day while happily DJ'ing at home, I found a few that I had doubles of so this is the first of that pile. "King For a Day" is a one of my favorite Thompson Twins singles and I remember as a kid, I used to order records from this guy who advertised in Goldm...

I forgot to mention yesterday that I started recording a cover of "Hurt" by Re-Flex and when I went to play it for Dylan when he got home from his bike ride, my computer wasn't working. I tried to restart it, and that didn't work. It quickly became apparent that my computer is screwed. Hopefully it won't affect my blogging too much, and also I really hope I can get it fixed soon, because all the songs I was working on for my solo album were on there and of course like an idiot I never backed them up onto another drive. I made a really good brunch this morning - eggs with green onions, cilantro, and cheddar cheese plus home made hash browns. I sort of tried to fix the computer but nothing was working so I gave up really quickly. It did boot up from the CD that came with it, but it won't go to my desktop. We went to meet Brandon and Angie at the Drive-In to see "Hot Tub Time Machine" and "She's Out of My League" which we had been real...

I just saw a status update on one of my Facebook friend's pages that said, "if you think the govt is your friend, ur a fool." Well, first off, obviously the government is a legislative body and therefore not something a person can really befriend. But, knowing that this person is a conservative republican, I understand the point the person was trying to make. It's a very common "straw man" fallacy which is very popular with conservatives right now: make government out to be the "bad guy" and therefore anyone who supports the government is also a bad guy. How difficult is it to get someone riled up against the government? All you really have to do is bring up taxes and you'll get a pitchfork-wielding army of vigilantes hell bent on bringing down big brother. Who likes paying taxes? Nobody, of course; but who understands why taxes are necessary? It seems less and less people, these days. Anti-government sentiment has always been a popular t...

The dogs woke me up a few times in the morning, as Daisy tried to get up on the bed with Forrest and I a couple of times, but she was very good about getting down when I would yell "no!" Finally, around 11am, I did roll out of bed. I hung out for a little while petting the dogs out back by the pool but then I wanted to get home. On the drive back over Laurel Canyon, I stopped first at CVS to get some household stuff and called Dylan to see if there was anything we needed that I was forgetting about. When I got home, I proudly told Dylan how I had driven right by Weinerschnitzel, a hot dog chain that has become a guilty pleasure of mine. Instead, I cooked brunch. I was going to make this recipe I've done before, Baked Eggs with Creamy Leeks, but it turned out I didn't have any leeks leftover like I thought I did. What I did have was kale, so I used that instead. And, I didn't have any cream, but I did have a can of evaporated milk. So, they ended up being OK...

Today at work, a few people from a theatre company came to pick up my old desk. This is not the huge desk that I had the whole saga with a couple of weeks ago, but rather a smaller, but still really enormous and heavy, desk which used to be mine back when I first started working for the Media District, but for the past five years has just sat in the smaller room of my office suite. Things were hectic here on the lot, so we had to move the desk downstairs and then have them pull their van in, and then load it in the van. While we were loading it in the van, I pulled something in my back which then made it very painful to sit down or to bend over. I was pretty worthless after that for most of the workday, since I couldn't really sit at my desk, so I tried to go through the plastic boxes of files and put stuff back but I could do that either since I couldn't bend at the waist. On my lunch break, I walked over to Pavilions and go the ingredients for the stew I was going to make ...

No, it's not some holiday called Spencer Day, that's the name of a singer we went to see tonight at Upright Cabaret, which is located in the bar of Vermont Restaurant, on Vermont in Hollywood/Silverlake. I have been to Upright once before, when Tiffany performed her cabaret show there which I think I blogged about at the time. That was a wonderful experience, and tonight was just as magical even though I'd just recently found out about Spencer. He's a jazz singer/songwriter that Dylan discovered and his voice is like butter (or "buttah" as they say). He's got an amazing charisma on stage and he's just so adorable. Some of his songs had some really funny lines in them, too, which is good to balance out the seriousness. Apparently, he is playing at the Hollywood Bowl in August so his career is on a good trajectory right now and it was good to see him now because I think he'll be getting way bigger soon. I realized that I still had that song, ...

Nothing too special today, other than my brother got his new 8 track digital recorder which he is really excited about. At work, I finished the Spring 2010 Newsletter and sent it to Susan, so that felt good. I worked on that most of the day although I had other projects going on too.I stopped at Ralph's on the way home, calling my mom while I was driving since I didn't get a chance to talk to her over the weekend. At Ralph's I got the rest of the stuff I needed to make Shrimp Mole tacos. Since I had already made chicken mole tacos recently, it was really easy, and I already had Mexican White Shrimp from Trader Joe's that had been in the freezer for awhile. So I got shredded cabbage, scallions, and cilantro as well as rice (I already had beans at home since I always have a few cans of different kinds in stock). I got an avocado and some plain greek yogurt. I was really proud of myself cause I invented my own sauce. I wanted my shrimp tacos to be like the ones at ...

Dylan left for work, and for some reason I thought I heard our building manager come in to fix the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink. I swore I heard someone unlock and open the door, and the poke around in the kitchen. But, when I got home later in the day, the disposal still didn't work and it didn't look like anyone had been messing around with it. I told Dylan and he said they would have rang the doorbell before coming in. Is it possible that I dreamed that I heard those noises? Or did I just hear something outside and think it was that? This afternoon I went to LAYN - Los Angeles Youth Network - to tour the facility and meet the new executive director, Matt. He's only been there 6 months but they told him part of his job would be to head the Y!MBY Committee and since that's the group that puts on Connect Day, we decided to meet so we could start making preliminary plans for the event this year. I told him that most likely we will be pushing it back to fal...

Carrie had to get back to San Francisco, so we went to brunch (her treat) at Cafe Muse and then she started her journey on the bus down to Union Station, where she caught the fly-away bus to LAX and then a flight home. It was a great visit with her and I am so proud of all her accomplishments at law school and her life in San Francisco. If you had told me 8 years ago that she would be living there and about to finish law school, I would never have believed you. Kudos, Carrie! Work was fine, I finished moving everything back in to my office and getting things put back in order; I still have some organizing left to do but it may take awhile as I am working on other projects too. I had a couple hours of downtime at home after work to catch up on TV (I watched Parks & Rec and The Office) before I had to head to Cascade Studios for Invisible Material rehearsal. It was a good rehearsal; I had stopped at 7-11 and got beer for everyone beforehand. We worked on our set and did a little...

I was surprised by how late I slept in today, but I guess I needed the rest. When we finally did all get up and around, we piled into my car and we headed downtown for the fashion district because Carrie wanted to check it out. She hadn't been there for a long time, she said. It's funny because one of Carrie's many nicknames is "Downtown" which stemmed from a story that she told us once about riding a bus and hanging out downtown. I don't even remember much of the story but the nickname somehow stuck. So, we went to where I usually park and walked around the area near Michael Levine's which is the store I usually always end up visiting. It had just been featured on RuPaul's Drag Race so we all went in and went crazy looking at all the amazing fabrics they have. Dylan found some red and white striped swimwear fabric that he bought because he's been looking for the right fabric for a long time now to have a custom-made retro one piece swimsuit....

I got up a little before noon and was less hungover than I thought I'd be, but still felt pretty crappy. I felt bad since Carrie was here and I had slept in so late, I know she's an early riser so she must have just been hanging out waiting for us to get up. Anyway, I made some breakfast burritos for brunch so that made things better. I had some turkey spam, so I combined it with some green onions, garlic, blue cheese, cheddar cheese and red bell pepper, then put the eggs in and put them in tortillas which I then grilled in a pan. They were good. Dylan's mom called and I guess she was bored and wanted to come over. Dylan told her we were already going to a party, for Robin & Michelle's housewarming, but she just sort of invited herself to come with us. So, after she came over we all got ready and headed over there, stopping at Target so I could run up and buy a couple nice towels as a housewarming gift (Robin and I had talked about this night before at Brandon...

Happy 31st Birthday to my brother, Brandon! Welcome to the 30+ club! The workday went pretty well, and I went to work at Susan's house to pay bills and got to see her poor ol' dog, Forrest, who had been attacked by a wild animal the other day. He was laying on a blanket in the living room when I got there, so I was really worried about him. But later, he was up and around, and came and stood next to me in the office so I could pet him. Forrest is one of those dogs that I bonded with right away and he seems to know how much I love him. He always comes over to me and expects me to pet him, since I usually do, but when I stop he uses his paw to try to move my hand back onto his head! It's so cute. I stupidly left my phone at Susan's house and didn't realize until after I got home. Carrie was supposed to be meeting me so I could let her in since she is staying with us now for a few days, but I had no way to contact her. I tried e-mailing and IM'ing Dylan on ...

Ugh! Getting up in the morning was not fun! I actually had quite the St. Patty's Day hangover. Aren't I too old for this? I tried my best to get up early enough to make it to LMU - Loyola Marymount University - by 8:30, which is when Charley (Stauber, the student producer) asked us to be there. I was making good time, flying down the 405, which made me feel a little vindicated from all the times I sat there in morning traffic on my way to CKL. But then I took some wrong turn after I exited the freeway and then ended up north on the 405 somehow! So much for living in LA for ten years - I still can't get around properly. I was a little late, but still the first of our gang to arrive. Charley met me outside so I could unload my car, and he even helped carry everything in. Shortly after meeting two Jons who were also going to be helping Charley out in the studio, Amy, AJ, Laura and Carrie arrived, with Red Fox not far behind. While they LMU students set up the microphon...

My work day was filled with putting my office back together. It is looking so nice! Even though my desk is tiny, I think it will be better now so that I won't get into the habit of letting papers pile up all over it. My old desk could hold a lot of piles, which is really not a good thing. I put the ingredients for the Corned Beef and Cabbage in the slow cooker over my lunch break and when I got back near work I took a detour over to the Irish Import Store at Vine and Waring. I had never been there, but Mary Lou (my old boss), had told me about it and I always see it when I go to Subway for lunch. I decided since it was St. Patrick's Day, I should go check it out. Obviously, it was a busy day for them and looked like it had been busy for awhile. I was surprised by all the different items they carried, from t-shirts and cd's/dvd's to frozen food, snacks, drinks, gifts, decorations, etc... I had fun browsing but finally decided to buy some Malted Milk shortbread ty...

I worked from home most of the day, so I had my laptop with me and I was preparing for our Advocacy Committee meeting at 4pm. I had a message on the work phone from Susan that her dog, Forrest, had been attacked by some wild animal and she was taking him to the vet, so she didn't think she could make the meeting. I had already made arrangements with her assistant, Diana, to have her make the meeting packets since I couldn't access my copy machine. So, Diana drove down to my apartment to give me the copies. At 3pm, I went in to my office to see if the carpet was installed, and to get ready for the meeting. As I walked in, the carpet layers said "all done" so I walked inside and sure enough, both rooms of my office were filled with new carpet and that new carpet smell! I was so happy, but I only had a little while before the meeting so I had to rush over to the Musician's Union to get set up. The meeting got off to a bit of a late start but once we got going i...

I tried to do some work at home since my office is in disarray, but I had to go in to finish moving everything into a completely different room. Almost everything is carpeted now on my floor except for my office and the hallway around my office. So, I had a couple of my security guys come over to help me move the heavy stuff down the hall into one of the finished offices so that my office can get re-carpeted tomorrow. I had to rush to get ready when I got home because not only did we have a show later tonight, but we also were doing a radio interview for The Baub Show (www.thebaubshow.c0m). We've known Baub for a long time, because he is good friends with Eric who used to dance for us, and I think he was roommates with Denny at one point if I remember correctly. He had had an internet radio show for awhile now, which I've known about because he's interviewed Tiffany a couple times on there. I see him at almost every Tiffany show I go to. Anyway, Amy wanted to do the in...

Today we went to Dylan's cousin Shannon's place in Brentwood for her girlfriend, Suzanne's birthday. We had walked over to French Market and Dorothy's Surrender (or whatever it's called now) to get a card and gift certificate for her. When we got there, quite a few people were already there but we weren't late by any means even though we thought we were. It was nice seeing Dylan's cousins and friends that we don't get to see too often even though we all live in LA. After awhile the party moved outside where they were barbecuing and playing volleyball. It was a beautiful LA day and there were lots of children and puppies around. When it was finally time to eat, the food was delicious! Dylan's cousin Melissa was grilling and Shannon had prepared most of the food; there was carne asada, pork, and chicken and tortillas and stuff to make tacos. It was very nice. On our way home, Dylan and I stopped at Diddy Reise which is the ice cream shop near UC...

This morning we woke up fairly early and drove up to Granada Hills High School, Dylan's alma mater, to watch his niece Cody's lacrosse match. Neither of us had ever seen a lacrosse game before so we didn't know what to expect. I guess I should have at least realized it would be outdoors and involve sunlight, but I didn't wear sunscreen or bring sunglasses. Luckily, Dylan had an extra pair of sunglasses, and his sister Tracy had sunscreen. The game itself was pretty fun to watch. In lacrosse, they carry these sticks with a net on the end, and then they try to carry the ball in the nets and launch them into the goals, so on that end it's just like soccer. Cody's team is very new so they are still learning the game and didn't do so well in terms of the score, but they all seemed to enjoy it and are, by all accounts, getting better with each match. After the game, we went to Jersey Mike's with Tracy, Cody, Caitlyn (Dylan's other niece/Tracy's d...

Having stayed up so late last night working on the bathroom, it was quite an unpleasant surprise to wake up at 6:50 alone in bed, and then calling Salvation Army to hear the recording tell me my pickup was scheduled for 7am-10am! I jumped out of bed and went to the living room first to find out where Dylan was. He was on the couch, and said he had been coughing and hacking and didn't want to wake me up. I was a little upset that he never had gone to the doctor like I told him to, and now he was still having coughs, over a week since he got sick. I put on a t-shirt and shorts and went to the office as fast as I could, calling our security officers (they work 24/7) to come help me move the desk down. We met at my office shortly after 7am and thankfully the truck was not there yet. We moved the desk down to the curb, but it's a super heavy desk and unfortunately it suffered some damage on the way down, although it wasn't anything major. But, when the Salvation Army truck ...

Today I woke up at 7am and called Salvation Army to see what time they were coming to pick up my old desk. The recording told me they would be there between 9am and noon, so I just went back to sleep and got up at the regular time to go to work. I parked and started walking to my office when I saw that the Salvation Army truck was already there so I started running. I got there and told them to follow me upstairs to my office. When we got up there, the driver looked at the other guy and they said it was a really big desk and that I'd have to have it moved down to the curb before they would take it. I said I could do that, thinking they meant right then, but then they turned to leave, and told me to call them to come back tomorrow. So, I said I would. My Business Watch meeting was at noon and we had guests from Project Archangel, LAPD's counter terrorism unit. They had a lot of information about counter terrorism and some good questions from our stakeholders. After that I ...

Dylan still is not feeling well so he stayed home from work again today. I told him to go to the Doctor but he said he thinks he is getting better. After work, I met Bun at the TV Academy to see "The Crazies" which is a new remake of the horror film by George Romero from 1973 I believe. Dylan had rented the original movie awhile back when he heard about the remake, but I don't remember too much about it other than that I did enjoy it. The new version stars Timothy Olyphant who has been one of my favorite actors of the past couple decades, having been in two of my favorite films, Go! , and The Broken Hearts Club plus a ton of other stuff. In the new film, he plays the sheriff of a small town in Iowa called Ogden Marsh, where something strange starts happening to some of the townfolk. I love movies that are set in small towns especially when they show idyllic main street settings and farmsteads. I'm just a sucker for those! So, of course I was really into that par...

Staples delivered my new desk today, although I still haven't gotten rid of my old desk and I'd really like to before they recarpet my office. So I'm going to wait for that to assemble the new desk. I had contacted LA Shares (www.lashares.org) about donating the old desks to them. I had to go take photos of the intersection of Willoughby and Seward, which is in very bad shape, for the meeting we were going to have with Councilmember LaBonge this afternoon. After I took the pictures, I stopped by our board president's place and he printed the photos. We made arrangement to car pool to the meeting, so around 1:30pm I went to the car wash and vacuumed my car and tidied it up. Then I picked up Ron (our president) and another board member, Mike, and we headed down to city hall. They hadn't been to the councilmember's office before but I had been several times so it was kind of fun leading the way. Getting through City Hall can be daunting if you haven't do...

Now that I'm pushing 33, I can really feel the effects the day after hard partying. Ugh! I was so hungover today. When I got to work, the carpet had been ripped out in the hallways but my office was still just like I had left it on Friday, which was kind of irritating since I had gone to so much effort to get it ready for the carpet layers on Friday afternoon before I left work. Dylan had to work late tonight so I came home to an empty apartment after work, which gave me time to finish up the Naked Highway remix since I hadn't been able to finish it last night obviously. I also watched some TV; I watched "Life After People" which is a really cool series on the History Channel that I had seen bits and pieces of before but finally told Dylan to record it for me because I find it fascinating. I also watched "How I Met Your Mother" and J Lo was a guest star. I steamed and artichoke to eat but this time I left it in the steamer for 55 minutes or so, and it tur...

I set my cell phone alarm to go off at 9:40 cause I had so many things I wanted to get done before Joe's Oscar party. We go to his party every year and I had already e-mailed in my ballot with my predictions and choices yesterday but I really wanted to go see Hurt Locker before the party and I also needed to make my dish. It's a vegetarian party so no meat is allowed, and I have fun coming up with a recipe that is exciting without any meat in it. The theme of the party was "Ghetto Realness" inspired by the film "Precious" which I also regrettably hadn't seen yet. So, I found a recipe called Jamaican Red Bean Stew but I renamed it "Mrs. Weiss's Precious Bean Stew" after Mariah Carey's character in the movie (Dylan imdb'ed it get her character's name). I got up and took a shower, removing the tape from the walls - I forgot to mention yesterday that I had painted the walls above the tile in the shower area. I wanted to make su...

Slept in nice and late; Dylan and I were both feeling better when we finally got up. Dylan had bought cereal but not milk which was irritating. So after we got up and around we decided to walk down the street and get some brunch. There is a new place below the Trader Joe's in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd. that we wanted to try called Plaisir. I think that's French or Italian for "pleasure" maybe? Anyway, they specialize in sweets - baked goods, custards, ice cream etc... but they have some savory items too. We each ordered Quiche - we got a slice of ham & cheese, and a slice of spinach, and shared them. We were still hungry after that so we ordered a Belgian Waffle to share. A little bit of trivia about Belgian Waffles, via Wikipedia: "Belgian waffles were popularized in the United States during the 1964 New York World's Fair [ 1 ] at Flushing Meadows Park , USA . The waffle was introduced by Maurice Vermersch of Brussels, Belgium . Origi...