A trip to Los Angeles

I went to LA for an extended weekend to attend a graduation and celebrate dad's 65th birthday.


I drove down with the family (8 in the Expedition) and flew back - it's a really long story of how the plans transpired but this was somewhat of a compromise. The drive down was very very very long. I can't believe I agreed to it considering I knew the parental figures would take advantage of the opportunity. I had wanted to borrow a mp3 player from H but was told that I should enjoy the conversation. So I kept borrowing the i-pods from the kids in the back row when I needed to block the parental issues out.


I-pods, hand held games and cell phones have differently made family road trips a whole new experience. Everyone in the car, at one point or another, was in a conversation on their cell.


We arrived in LA at around 10:30 pm (we had left the Bay Area around 4pm) and went out for dinner, after that we went to my sisters place for the night.


On Saturday, my sister and I got an early start and went to pick up a gift for dad's birthday, we decided on a laptop and picked that up.


We headed out to the campus after lunch. We had a lot of time to check out the campus and the surrounding areas given that the graduation was at 6pm. Westwood is the college town around the campus - it has some fun stores, so we walked around there for a bit. Saw this bag at a gift store there - pretty funny.



The graduation was at 6pm and we were to arrive at 5:30pm. Surprisingly enough the whole caln was actually on time - early even. We were seated well before the start of the ceremony. The ceremony was in the basketball stadium on campus - it was huge - pictured below. The program was well planned to keep people engaged and the whole thing took less that 2 hours - they were incredibly efficient in getting the grads up on stage with 2 announcers calling the names.



We went to dinner after the ceremony to a restaurant called El Cholos, it was a very nice place and the food was very good as well. There we celebrated both the graduate and my dad's birthday. My sister had picked up 2 cakes and saffron ice cream for desert. All in all it was a great celebration and everyone seemed to have had a good time.

On Sunday we all went to lunch to celebrate father's day and after that everyone went on their way. The Bay area contingent started their drive back. I went back to my sister's place with her and her DH. We vegged for a while and then went for a movie - saw Ocean's 13. While the movie wasn't on my to watch list, I was surprised I did enjoy it. I didn't much care for Ocean's 12.

Monday my sister went to work and I hung around her place with her dog. We played ball for a while - he is such a good dog. Everytime I threw the ball, he would bring it back and sit with it like in the photo. When I played ball with him indoors - he kept returning to this particular rug and would wait there.

I went shopping and visited Santa Monica for the rest of the Monday. Picked up my sister at work and then we went to dinner and then to the airport to catch my flight back.

It was nice to be away for a while and not have work on the mind.

At the finish line

I can't believe it, it's here! The finish line - the project I have been working on for all this time starts up tomorrow. Part of it started this weekend with some technical difficulties but great response none-the-less. Tomorrow it all goes into effect and the users start as well. It seems like for the past few months all I have done is work on this project, about 10-12 hours a day and into the weekends. It feels good to be here. I just want it to be Tuesday - past the first day and into the second!

I am thinking of all the things I want to do once I have the project implemented and under control but the reality is that I actually have to move onto another project and get that complete in less than a month - so just more work. Maybe not as intense but still work! I sure could use a day away from work and phone calls and problems.

Going to LA mid-month for a graduation. Can't decide if I will drive or fly, if I fly, I must rent a car there. I want to spend a couple extra days there so that I am not just there for the graduation and then driving back. It's dad's 65th birthday, so there will be a celebration there with everyone. So what's a good gift for a college grad and for dad's birthday and father's day? The grad already has a job at KPMG - Smariek, any thoughts about what rookies there could use?

Check out the top of this cab - not something you see every day. I've seen it a couple of times now and every time it goes by I have to do a second take.