Bits and Pieces
 
Here’s some random updates:
  1. ‣Spent the weekend in San Diego where chef Brian was dishing out heaping portions of SoCal hospitality. It was quite refreshing to meet him and his friends, who all took some time to learn a bit about me and made me feel quite at home. And speaking of butt-sniffing, we all were at this totally rad muscle/bear pool party. It looked something like this:
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5.  
  6.  
  7.  
  8.  
  9.  
  10.  
  11.  
  12.  
  13.  
  14.  
  15.  
  16. Am I kidding? But really, a great group of guys and I’m honored to be sharing a pond with them.
  17. ‣I find that I have to drink much more fluids out here in the desert than back East, and even when I do pop open a bottle of vitamin water or a glass from the Brita, I find myself chugging the top half until I’m gasping for air.
  18. ‣I’m not eating much. Part of my stress. But a large part of what I do eat is sushi. Love me some California sushi. I’m still trying places out. Any suggestions? What about non-Japanese?
  19. ‣I think I forgot to mention what a huge deal L.A. pride is/was, back in June. The festival here lasts for two solid 12-hour days, overtaking a park wedged in WeHo. Three big performance stages, upon one of which I saw Joan Jett perform (a cruddy, pre-iphone cam pic on the right). Love me some Joan Jett. She didn’t do “Bad Reputation” but she opened with “Cherry Bomb”. Lesbians were swarming.
  20. ‣Got a message from my ENT in DC with the results of my final sleep study. It concluded that I still have sleep apnea, and that I need to follow up with someone out here. Yeah. Not happy. I’m going to call him back and get a consult over the phone... it may simply mean that I go back to the CPAP, and probably weight watchers or something. It also doesn’t bode well in terms of my search for health insurance. Give me strength.
  21. ‣L.A. is heating up and my cool thoughts have definitely thawed out. I need to get an A/C unit for my bedroom but the windows are casement, and the A/C solution for them is less than cost effective. So, I surfed around craigslist... there’s one in L.A. for $350... ugh. I went as far as san diego craiglist (2 hours’ drive) and discovered one down there for only $125. The woman has no idea of its real value, and I’m meeting her at noon tomorrow to snag it! Score! Does anyone know if they’re easy to install? What’s the best way for me to “plug” the remainder of a casement window?
  22. ‣iPhone update: Activation was easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, and within minutes I had leapt from my cruddy Motorola and into sweet the Apple goodness... with one glitch: the speaker didn’t work. I could hear anything from the supplied earbuds, but nothing external. Crap. It wasn’t a total crisis as I was still getting alerts through vibrate mode, but Monday I went back to the Apple store and after restarting and restoring to no avail, they exchanged it for some private stock they had in the back (the store was officially sold out). Since the SIM cards are built-in, they swapped them out using special tools they had (in the back, where I couldn’t see). One more sync and I was good to go! And everything works!
  23. I really love it. The compatibility with my computer is sooo key. After years and years of using hand-me-down phones I’ve finally invested in something really nice that completely suits my lifestyle. My monthly bill will be about $100, but I still consider that reasonable, as it will be my only line. I know! I have to get into the habit of taking more photos with it for the blog! I will, I promise!
  24. ‣The job hunt... well. I continue to look for opportunities online, and submit. I need to get better/more aggressive about meeting people and being social. I think I’m at the point when it’s time for me to petition y’all readers to consider whether you know someone out here who’d get a kick out of meeting up with me for lunch, a drink, whatever. I would humbly accept any sort of email introduction.
Happy 4th, y’all. I hope you’re enjoying your own brand of fireworks, whatever they may be.
On this day...
July 3, 2007
 
Category: life