I'm 27!!!!!!!!!

OK -- it's my Wii age -- but it counts!!!! I think I'm done testing my Wii age now. I'm happy with the 27 so I'll just keep that one. Rob is 30-something, Peter is 40-something and Jeremy has reached full retirement age. I wonder how much Wii Social Security is........it's probably bankrupt!

We've been having a good time with the Wii. Peter was the first to reach Pro status, in bowling. He lost it today in a sour game, but I'm sure he'll get it back soon. Rob is a Pro boxer, but I can probably still knock him out. I haven't tried since I KO'd him 6 times in a row 2 weeks ago and threw out my back -- TOTALLY worth it!!! Another 1 or 2 trips to the chiropractor and I should be fine!

I'm posting a few more New Year's Trip photos. The first is of the GIANT pots @ the Irvine Spectrum. I remember how amazed Cindy was when she saw them. After living here for a couple of years, they do seem kind of amazing. One day we had breakfast @ Norm's -- nothing like a healthy start! Then we saw Bolt in 3-D @ the Spectrum. The matinee prices were $12.25 and $11.50 for the kids! Matinee!!! Gees!!! Then we rode the ferris wheel at the Spectrum -- the one we used to have in our condo view. Side note -- our condo is now worth only slightly more than we paid for it in 1999 -- OUCH!!!!
Anyway after a lovely dinner @ Islands (aka the Wiki Tiki restaurant), we took the kids to Krispy Kreme. As you can see, they loved it! Of course, we got enough extra donuts so that we wouldn't have to buy breakfast on Sunday am.......


After the New Year's Trip, I was home for 5 days and the went back to LA for work. As I was following the snow plow out to the airport at O-dark hundred at some hideous temperature, I thought I might be crazy. OK -- I might be, but events later in the week confirmed that snow in your crocs is not the worst thing in the world. Actually, I found a pair of "winter crocs" @ Disneyland -- no holes on the side and they have fuzzy lining. So -- that Wednesday, we had a meeting at 3:00. We knew that there had been a tanker truck accident on the 210 that morning, so we left shortly before 2:00 instead of our planned 2:30. We even had a side streets route so that we would avoid the 210. At 2:45, we weren't even halfway there (it's only 25 miles). So, we called and said we'd be a "bit" late. At 3:30 we'd only made it another 5 miles -- still 10 miles to go. The meeting got canceled at that point. So we looked around one of our other properties for 10 minutes since we were in the area and then went back to the office. Got back to the office at 4:15. We were so frazzled that we decided to call it a day. I ordered some take-out and headed to my hotel -- which is only 5 miles from the office. Well, the stupid 210 was still shut down -- the tanker truck was filled with asphalt paving oil and had spilled into the sewer or some such catastrophic thing. At 5:00 I called the restaurant back and said that I'd probably be another 15 minutes and to please keep my dinner warm. I should have just parked the car then and walked......I didn't make it the last mile for another 45 minutes!!!!!!!!! They finally cleared out the stupid truck (13 hours AFTER the blasted accident). Two minutes after the radio station announced that the 210 was open, they came back on and said that there was another accident at the SAME SPOT which totally shut down the 210 AGAIN!!!!! The traffic photo is of the infamous 210 about 15 miles from the accident. I took the photo at about 9, after eating my cold dinner and working out. You can see that the Westbound traffic is moving pretty quick and the Eastbound is lots of red lights not moving very fast. I tried to get one short enough so that you could read the logo on the Fed-Ex truck, but I couldn't get enough light on the really short exposures. Just know that I futzed around for about 10 minutes while the Fed-Ex truck was in view.

A few miscellaneous rants:
- When did K-Earth start playing 80's music? Air Supply??? Really! I like them, but even I know they aren't classic rock! 80's!! Come on!!! K-Earth is the Oldies station!
- Why can't I listen to the radio on my iPod? Transistor radios have been around for decades? Why didn't Apple figure that out?
- Does Jay Leno have any jokes that don't slam George Bush? Jay has jumped the shark. It was time for him to move-on a year ago -- get Conan moved over already. Hey -- at least next year when Jay is clogging up a prime time slot I'll be guaranteed a perfect hour every day for Wii.
- I figured out that the entire taped shows of the Biggest Loser are taped before any of them air. So, the producers have the whole story line laid out when they decide what to air and they are deliberately trying to skew the results. Grrr -- I'm starting to think perhaps Vicki wasn't as evil as they made her seem last season. Ok -- I'm sure she's obnoxious, but she probably has 1 or 2 redeeming qualities. Yes, I know -- that's uncharacteristically generous of me. I'll get over it.....

I usually don't comment on politics since I assume that everyone knows what I think (cut taxes and quit wasting my money on stupid crap), but I heard this anonymous quote today and had to share it:

1.5 million people attended the inauguration. 14 missed work.

2009

This trip we decided to show the kids some of the other cool things about So. Cal -- like the Rose Parade, the Griffith Observatory, etc. So, we get up at the crack of dawn, go to D-land & ride some rides, then around lunch-time tear off and do something else exciting. Yesterday we went to the Griffith Observatory (you can see the Hollywood sign from there -- see photo). They liked it more than it seems from this shot. It was really smoggy yesterday, so Rob was fussing w/ the camera trying to get their faces & the sign to both look good.

Anyway, we saw about half of the floats while they were in process. Rob and I thought that was really cool. Peter got to write his name on a rose vial for the Cal Poly float -- that's the one w/ the roller coaster. We wrote Jeremy's name on a vial as well. We bought a couple of postcards which traveled down the parade route & they will mail them to us -- coming soon to a scrapbook near you! However, I think they liked the playground at the Rose Bowl park about as much as seeing the floats.

So, today we got up at the crack of dawn again, and headed up for the parade. Everything started out according to plan, although I didn't realize that breakfast was going to be chips, soda & pop tarts -- food options are limited on the parade route. It wasn't until we were leaving that we discovered the bacon wrapped hot dogs for sale. Anyway, the kids thought it took way too long for the parade to start. They liked the blimp, the sky writers & the B2 flyby, but about half-way through the parade, the "is it over yet" started. That was followed by "how many minutes", "can they move faster" and "are we doing anything else today". Sigh! We did decide to head back to our car when there were about 4 floats lefts in an effort to beat 1) the mad dash out of the bleachers, 2) the mad dash out of the parking garage and 3) the masses of idiots getting lost trying to drive out of Pasadena. Well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad and would have been a great success, except for the Jeremy factor. Turns out that he needed to go potty. The usual distraction efforts were not having much effect and we were stuck in the masses of idiots trying to leave Pasadena in a lovely one-way street area of Pasadena w/out much in the way of fast food or gas stations and moving very slowly. So, I started thinking up alternatives, quickly. We were in the Cal-tech rocket scientist area and I came up with the NASA option. Yup, that's right -- I handed a mostly empty bottle of Vitamin Water to Rob to empty and Jeremy filled it back up in the back-seat. I was fairly grossed out by holding the almost full bottle, so I opened up the car door and set it on the pavement. Rob was absolutely horrified by my dastardly action, but I think it's likely that the bottle got run over before a homeless guy found the 'lucky' bottle. Besides, if not and if the homeless guy didn't realize that Vitamin Water doesn't come in that shade, and doesn't smell any difference, then there's no harm done. With that cheerful thought, let me just wish you a Happy New Year!