Jen made a comment yesterday as we walked down Hollywood Blvd, something to the effect that people in this town seem to do a lot of loafing; walking slowly, and purposelessly? I’d have to agree, I guess that’s part of the charm.

Yeah, so today we did the Walk of Fame walk, and we saw things like the Kodak Theatre and El Capitan, and we took some more shots of Harry Zimm’s office and the Hollywood sign from a distance.

Later in the evening, Jen and I walked the 30 or 40 blocks (it’s more like 30) from Wordy & Matt’s apartment down to the beach. We sat and watched the water for a bit. As we sat there (since it had been a very long walk, my feet were into sitting) we saw a young couple (M & F) some 50 or so yards down the beach. He was on one knee, holding her hand, and at first, I said to Jen, “I think we’re witnessing a marriage proposal.” This theory stood up just fine until after he rose and there didn’t seem to be much in the way of excitement or jubilation at a new engagement; in fact, their body language seemed to suggest just the opposite.

We talked a little more about it and decided that she probably dumped him and he was begging her not to go: “Please baby, please; I can make it all better again, just don’t leave me, baby.” That idea led us to agreement that she was kind of a bitch for dragging it along like that. Jen said that she probably enjoyed all the attention. I said, “bitch.” Then they seemed to kiss rather passionately, and clearly he wanted something that she wouldn’t give, and then, what the hell, he’s back on his knees again, this time he’s got his armed wrapped around her leg.

By this time, we were entertaining the notion that maybe *he* really screwed up and he was groveling for forgiveness; the leg-clutching seemed to indicate a grovel. I said that he probably had sex with her sister or something and he was telling her it didn’t mean anything and he was very sorry. We went on to agree that he was kind of an asshole, I mean, to get into bed with her sister, he was lucky she’d even talk to him again. And what’s with her sister, too?? Most likely, there was a beach trip planned for her in the near future as well.

It was around this time (and he was still groveling) that we got up and kept walking.

We went back to the 3rd St Promenade to find something for dinner, but first Jen found some things at the Gap. I found some things at the Gap, too, but I don’t really have the money or the belly for them right now. I should get on some kind of a program…

Ultimately, we ate at place called “Yankee Doodle’s.” We settled on that after glancing at a number of menus that I was luke-warm about, but when we got there, I think we were both just tired (again) of walking. Our waitress was abysmal. In a restaurant that had definitely gotten past its “busy time” for the evening, it took no less than eight minutes for her to take a drink order, another seven to bring said drinks back to the table, and we sat (I’m not exaggerating) for over twenty minutes waiting for the food to show up. A meal that easily should’ve taken 35-40 minutes lasted an hour. After a thorough conversation with Wordell the night before, we tipped 15%.

Time to go back home, and Jen, being a mass transit veteran from her college days, said “let’s just get on the bus,” so we did, and that was sooo much better than walking! We only had a five when the bus showed up, so the driver let us on for free.

Holy crap did driving down Hwy 1 take a long time. We were literally in the car for 12 hours. Well, I guess we weren’t in the car the whole time, but that’s how long the drive took, with the frequent stops for photographs and whatnot.

I told Jen several times during the winding up and down the mountains, this drive was kind of like drives you can take in Montana, except that things here are green, and there’s a large damn ocean on your right (when you’re traveling south).

Really, I feel like the whole day is better expressed visually, so go click that link for the pictures. I reorgamanized them to be dial-up friendly.

What else? Oh — when we were driving through Santa Cruz, I saw someone with a bumper sticker that said, “Keep Santa Cruz Weird,” and I thought that was sort of funny. Then later I saw someone else with the same bumper sticker, and it lost some of the magic for me.

Enjoy the photos, though, and will try to talk tomorrow.

Today Jen and I got up at around 7 AM to drive to San Francisco. We were out the door from Wordy and Matt’s at about 8:05. The drive was super-easy, it was a nice day, there was a lot of “fresh air,” and we made it to the city by the bay in roughly 5.5 hours (that’s like, door-to-door, their place to the hotel).

We wasted no time in commencing the vacationery activities. We realized that there were only two short days available to be spent in SF, and we had to get to business in a hurry. Our hotel (Club Quarters) is quite conveniently located just east of Chinatown in the financial district. We parked the car in a structure that’s nearby and walked for the rest of the day. Lunch was at “Jeanty at Jack’s,” and between the two of us, we only spent EIGHTY TWO DOLLARS WITH TIP. We explored Chinatown quite thoroughly, thanks to the help of Fodor’s 04 guide to San Fran, and then took a stroll down to Union Square. Jen tried, but ultimately couldn’t resist a bit o’ shopping, and we returned later to go to Macy’s.

After the investment at lunch, we decided on a cheaper dinner, and found a Vietnamese place that only accepted cash and had extremely reasonable pricing. Jen brought most of her sweet and sour pork home.

After dinner, we popped over to the comedy club that’s just around the corner from our hotel, but the show wasn’t going to start until 11, and we were both waaaaaaay too tired to be up that long. I mean, check it out; 10 to 11 and I’m gonna crash almost immediately.

Tomorrow we go to Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf, and whatever else suits our fancy. Take a look at the pictures; thanks to Joe for the camera, it’s workin out great.

I got to Waukesha and Jen was crying. Or she was within a few minutes. I met up with Joe, Raul, Jen and Christy at Ambassador around 8:40 (but Jen couldn’t have told you that) on the eve of my flight to Los Angeles for the second spring break in a row. So my big sis was most of the way through her first bottle of wine (after a pitcher of Leinie’s) and I was met with the startling revelation that SHE HADN’T PACKED YET. It was an entertaining evening out, anyway, and a fine send off to springtime debauchery.

All things on the flight went well; we watched Friends on the laptop and Jen took a slight nap. The surprising thing was that neither one of us suffered any ill alcohol effects. Or if we did, we were just sitting there and it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Oh, I did notice that it’s more entertaining to travel with a partner than by yourself. I dunno how long you’ve known me, but if you recall, I flew all over the place last year from Bozeman, always solo. The superior thing about the partner is you can make lots of jokes that only the two of you understand or laugh at. So that was good.

We rented a white Cavalier from Alamo, and the guy at the counter was a quiet mumbler. It was horrifically frustrating. For all I know, I agreed to pay $400/day for this ride. Jen got a little freaked out once we got on the freeway and I told her I had to “start driving like I’m in California,” which I’m fairly certain my cousin Adam can totally appreciate.

Went to lunch at Marina Pastries on Wilshire and it was fairly average as sandwich joints go. The bread was good. Jen and I both accidentally ate some meat.

Later on, there was a shopping trip to the promenade off Santa Monica because I totally forgot to bring sunglasses with me and we also needed a travel guide for San Francisco.

Nice to be in town and see the gang. We had the windows down in the car, the sun was shining, there’s no bloody snow at all.

Follow this link (or the one at the top of the page) for pictures.

See you tomorrow…

You want a reason it’s been so long, I’ll tell you: I was deeply engaged in some empirical research in which I discovered that 53% of all blogging is apologetic in nature.

To hell with that.

I’m finding that these Thursday nights waiting for Dave to get to the Union after class are the best time for this (blogging). The reasons for this conclusion are multi-fold:
— It’s the “end of the week” for me, so I actually feel as though the time is “free.” When it’s mid-week, even if I’m not doing homework, if I feel like I should, I will rarely engage in another “project,” as it were.
— I am an exceedingly more social creature in Wisconsin than I was last year in Montana. Quite frankly, I knew fewer people in Bozetown, we never traveled out of the city much (maybe we would have if I’d stayed, who the hell knows), and so during those times that I wasn’t in class, I was prone to get more web work done. What I’m saying is, the way my time is budgeted in Oshkosh is very different. When I’m “at home,” I don’t stay there as much. (I’m considering it further, and realizing that I could and should have gotten out more in Bozeman, but I got into a pattern of reclusiveness very quickly out there, and I just sort of rolled with it. I enjoyed the year. I really did. Even though I was alone a lot. And even though I ranted a lot about how depressed I was, particularly in the fall. But I digress.)
— My writing voice is more academistrated and universified immediately after class. This is a result of assimilating the text that I’ve been most recently in contact with. If you’ve ever read something I’ve blogged after watching TV for four hours, it sucks ass. That’s why I don’t do it very much.

This (blogging with Mozilla instead of in the webspace of MS Publisher) is working out for me so far. It’s easier for me to work with images around the text, and the whole thing seems to line up nicer when viewed as HTML, unlike the Publisher sites. I’ve decided, though, that there are still times when I’d like to do more artsy, constructive things with graphics or text-as-graphics, and Publisher is good for that. I’m going to be working with the sites in a variety of ways. Might be a good idea, might not.

So have you heard about this Passion of the Christ movie, with the Mel Gibson, and all the blood and the death, and the crucifying? What’s the deal with that? It occurs to me I need to read some reviews to find out…
OK, this might be a good way to look at this, a “reader review” collection from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/readersopinions/03PASS.html?ex=1078981200&en=119a4673233ab7bf&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

But yeah, I haven’t seen it yet, and I also can’t help having overheard all the people at work talking about it early in the week. One of my co-workers in particular loved it to death (pun not intended). She was also a particular sort of upset that anyone would think otherwise… Er, no, that’s not right. Allow me to reflect back there…. yeah, she was upset that people were mad at Mel Gibson for *making it*, and that is a much more rational thing to be upset about. I certainly don’t give a crap; Mel: make whatever you want. Is it a bad thing that Mr. Gibson is going to make 12 asstons of cash (reference to 12 not intentional) by “exploiting” the story of Christ? Different debate, I think, but this much is clear: if you’re a studio exec who said “we won’t make this movie,” you are a big dumb bastard.

This weekend I’m going to go out for fish, play Sheepshead, and do a lot of writing. I have some stuff to turn in for workshopping in my ficition class next Wednesday, and I’d like to have 8-10 pages down.

Damn, I gotta make a phone call. Catch you later in the weekend?