California and Lyme

A few weeks back I took a trip with 6 friends to LA, 5 of whom I've known since 5th grade. It's our annual trip that we used to refer to as Spring Break, now we just call it SB. I think it's the over 30 version of Spring Break. My trip didn't start out too well. I flew into Dallas Fort/Worth at 11:45am and was supposed to leave at 12:45pm. Thunderstorms nearby decided to keep me there until 10:55pm. The one good thing that happened was getting my picture taken with Jose Canseco while we were waiting to board our plane. He was on the same flight as me to LAX, only he was sitting first class.

I hopped on a shuttle at LAX and met up with my friends on the Newport Beach Pier at 1:00 am. We had a blast until the bar closed thanks to numerous 1 oz drinks that come from Mexico.

One thing I observed is that the easiest job in the world, is probably being a weatherman in California. Every single day we were there it was exactly the same. Sunny, clear skies, 75 degrees, no wind. It was a motorcycle rider's dream come true.

The next day we were off to a hotel in Hollywood. We were 2 blocks off of Hollywood Blvd (the famous walk of fame with the stars on it). I feel lucky for all the people who have a star on there, because about once a day that star is covered on some type of bum excrement. Lucky.

The very first night, and probably within the first 2 hours of us being there, we were sitting on our patio, enjoying some fermented beverages, the 2 European senior citizins upstairs from us came down and said "Can you guys please be quite, we live upstairs and you're being awfully loud. This is our home." We're all thinking, great, this is going to be a long weekend, which will probably end in us getting kicked out. Then, an event, what I can only describe as an act of God, was dropped into our a lap. The old guy and his wife were walking through the courtyard and the lady fell off the steps backwards and cracked her head open. Not bad, but bad enough to cause a lot of blood to come pouring out.

One of my friend's, Tony Hakes, just happens to be an EMT, and when he saw the blood he offered up his services. The old man very graciously accepted his offer, just a couple hours after he had just gotten done yelling at us. Tony was upstairs for about 20 minutes, and upon his return he was carrying 3 bottles of wine. Cheap, $3 wine, but free wine, given to him by the old couple as a token of their gratitude. The very last thing the old guy said to Tony was "You are good guys, you can be as loud as you want as late at you want. Thank you." No, thank you old man, cuz you just made our weekend a hell of a lot better.

We got our picture taken next to our favorite actress. I just wish she had been there to give us an autograph.

(Just in case you can't read the name, it says Betty White)

On Saturday night we rented a Hummer limo and took it up the Pacific Coast highway, past Beverly Hills and up through Malibu and back. Now, I don't know if "Yelling at Trannys from a Hummer Limo" is considered a sport, but if it is, we could definitely achieve an Olympic Gold medal. That 3 hour trip was a blast.

Some other highlights include:
1) Seeing the Pooparazzi mob Ashley Simpson on her way into a club in Hollywood.
2) Surfing/boogie boarding at Manhatton Beach
3) Venice Beach (aka Muscle Beach) and all the wackos
4) Going to bar with a mechanical bull, and 3 of our guys riding it, and getting completely destroyed.
5) Late night talks with Bums


On a different note. We took our dogs into the Vet yesterday, and a blood test told us that Zella has Lyme Disease. There's 2 kinds, one that will make a dog feel sick groggy, and one that will kill them. Luckily Zella has the one that makes her groggy. She has 30 days of pills to take, and then she should be good as new. I guess it comes from ticks, so with all the construction / woods around our place, I'm sure there's insects galore.

I leave for Phoenix this Friday on a trip with my family to celebrate my parent's 35th wedding anniversary. We're going to attend our first NASCAR race. Looking forward to it.