leftovers

Since Thanksgiving is this weekend, we only had a half-day at work. I had found a guy on Craigslist selling a Sabian ride cymbal for $60, which I have been desperately needing, so after work I drove down to our old neighborhood near Beverly and Vermont and picked it up. The guy was a very young Latino looking guy with long, straight hair, who looked like he was from the movie "Wassup Rockers" (fun movie to check out if you haven't seen it). Then I went back up to Hollywood to do my now-annual Thanksgiving run to Food-4-Less. I don't usually shop there but to get the mass quantities of food I need for my pies and everything I make, it really is worth it to save the money and go there. I got home and started cooking away. Invisible Material had rehearsal tonight at the studio on 6th St., but when we got there it was not as usual - the whole place was under construction, with the wall ripped out and the floor tiles all broken up in pieces. It seriously looked like w...

I was sort of stressed about Invisible Material rehearsal since I wasn’t sure we would have anything that we needed, so I texted Robin to see if he had found a PA and if Jared needed a bass amp, but he said I didn’t need to bring anything because we were just going to rehearse at Cascade, which was slightly annoying since I had driven up to Granada Hills to get my drums and now I don’t really have anywhere to put them. Dylan hates it when I leave instruments all over the apartment. The rehearsal ended up going OK, it was at least nice that I didn’t have to set my drums all up. I borrowed some cymbals from Myles so I didn’t even have to pay to rent them... I don’t know why Myles has nice, brand new cymbals, but he does and he was nice enough to loan them to me.

It was another scorcher - once again, the thermometer registered over 100 degrees. It was too hot to do anything productive and I was just so ready for Dylan to come home! After work I had to go up to Ben’s house in Granada Hills to get my drums, since Invisible Material will be rehearsing in a new space tomorrow which is just an empty studio space belonging to someone Robin recently met (a drag performer who I’ve heard of and I think have even seen perform before). Since Dylan was flying back, I just decided to time it so that I could go to Ben’s and hang out for a little, load up my drums, and then take the 118 over to the 5 to the Burbank Airport. I had just seen the sign for the airport on the freeway when Dylan texted and said he had landed. It looked like the timing would be perfect! I made it to the airport and he had texted saying he was waiting for his bags. The Burbank airport is relatively small, and you can see into the baggage claim area from outside, but...

Dylan and I had to get up and around - before 2pm! - because we were going to a time-share presentation, which is how we had gotten the three night free in the Riviera. We drove down to where the presentation was, which was very near a condo we had stayed at for our 5 year anniversary (in 2007) and also had gone to a time share deal, although that time we were lucky and the guy told us to go have fun because he knew "we weren't going to buy anything." I guess looking back maybe that was sort of an insult but we didn't care, we were just glad that we didn't have to sit through it. This time we were both a little irritated with having to do the time share thing... we've done many of them before and I guess we are just to that point where it's just really annoying. We got there and the place was so busy that they stuck us in this room with a video projector showing this reel about the resorts they have and these families talking about how great there lives...

The student from Singapore who is going to be interning at the Hollywood Media District wanted to chat on Skype since he'll be here in just a little over a week, so I agreed that it would be a good idea, even though I had never used Skype before and didn't want to admit that I was so un-tech-savvy. Luckily I downloaded it and figured it out yesterday, so I was already for our session this morning at 9:00am. The first thing that surprised me was that he looked nothing like I thought he did. It turned out that when I was going through the resumes of the students, there were two with the same first name and I got them confused; one of them had a photo and that was the person I thought I was going to be speaking with and it wasn't. Anyway, we had a nice chat and he had a few questions that I hope I was able to answer to his satisfaction and so now he will be arriving here on May 17. I got a lot of other work done today, including figuring out the assessment formula for a pr...

I had a lot of stuff going on today. First, I got up and around so that Dylan and I could go get his bike from my office since he had left it there when we went to Tiger's show on Thursday. Rick and Melodie were working on some cut-away shots for the Invisible Material video and they needed my bass drum so we went there first, as Brandon was already there with his guitar and amp. They were up on the roof filming the shots. When they finished, they invited us down to their apartment to see a rough cut of the video. It was amazing! I can't wait until it's finished and we can show everyone. Then we went to my office and I got his bike, riding it down the sidewalk to where Dylan was waiting with my car. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever ridden it. It was pretty fun, actually. From there, he biked home and I went to Guitar Center on Sunset. They were supposed to be having a big grand re-opening of their drum shop, and I desperately need a ride cy...

I did some work and then I remembered that Dylan only had to work half a day because of Good Friday, so I called Susan to see if we were only working half a day. She said we were working a full day, but that she needed me to come up to her place to issue checks and that if I got done early I could go. So, I went up there and worked but I ended up only being able to leave about an hour early. It was nice anyway. When I got home, I had just enough time to finish cleaning and putting the drums back together before I had to leave for rehearsal. Actually, I ended up getting on the road later than I meant to and I was really worried that I would be really late getting to Ben's house. However, there was like no traffic because of the holiday so I made it to his place in a half hour, which is a record! It usually takes me an hour or more. We had a really good rehearsal. Brandon had brought Pabst Blue Ribbon which was nice, and I had my whole drum set since it was all now cleaned up a...

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...

I woke up at 6am and got right into the shower so I could start the day. After I got out, Dylan asked what time he had to get up; I told him I was going to go move Tiger's truck into the garage but stop and get donuts first so he could sleep a little more. When I got back, he was already up and showering so I started getting everything put together to load into the truck, and then we made several trips down to the garage. I met Rick and Melodie behind the Egyptian Theatre at 7am, having called Brandon on the way to make sure he was up (he was). Their friends James and Amalia met us there to help out. We realized that there was no way we could load the truck with all the paint and the background walls unless we first took out my drums and the PA; we were going to have to make more than one trip. So, we loaded up the cans of paint and then the custom made sprayers that Rick and Melodie had created in order to make the paint "rain" onto the band, and then the background ...

I felt like the big day had almost come, although today was almost just as big as tomorrow because of all the things I had to do to get ready for it! I had to go to Susan's house to cut checks for work so I did that later in the day and afterward I had to go to Staples because I was out of papers and paperclips in the office, so I also grabbed a few things for the video while I was there. After work, I went to Goodwill and got a shirt and a pair of pants for the video, and got supplies for the catering like paper plates and plastic forks. Then, I stopped at Ralph's to get the bread and meat for the sandwiches and the cheese for the mac and cheese (I already had plenty of pasta at home). Lastly, I went to Guitar Center on Sunset to get my drum throne. I had to tell the guy that I wanted the cheapest one - which was still $40 - because it was going to be ruined by paint in a music video. I didn't mention that I was also planning to still use it even after that! I guess ...

This turned out to be a busy day. I had to tear my office apart because I still could not find the my handwritten notes from our Advocacy committee meeting last month, and I really needed to type them up and send them out before the board meeting. I really thought I was not going to find them anywhere at this point, as I had gone through every box, pile of papers, folder, etc where I thought they might be, and I had even looked at home and in my car over the weekend. Over my lunch break, I went and picked up my drumset from Rick and Melodie, and then wenat and picked up a bass drum pedal I had found on Craigslist for $25. The guy who sold it to me said it used to be the drummer's from the band Bad Religion! It was missing a spring so I had to take it to the Pro Drum shop, conveniently located just a block from my work, and so they put on a new spring for me and I bought a new bass drum head since the one on my new drums is broken. I did send out a new agenda and noted that I wo...