Browse Category: outings

Famous

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Nicole Kidman photographed by Annie Leibovitz

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The White Stripes photographed by Annie Leibovitz

Jes and I went to the San Diego Museum of Art today to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. I saw ads for it in the New York Subway but it was no longer being shown at the Brooklyn Museum. Luckily, I was surfing the internet last weekend to find that it was in San Diego until today. Score!

For those who are unfamiliar with the name, Annie Leibovitz is most famous for her celebrity portraits featured mostly in Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. More recently, she photographed the infamous Suri Cruise photos.

lassie.jpgI met her once back in 1995 when I volunteered at one of her Vanity Fair photoshoots. It was a day-long photoshoot that involved photographing one very large group of Hollywood stars from back in the day. I actually met several of them including Eva Gabor, Gene Autry, Milton Berle, and even the 5th generation Lassie. (see photo on the left)  My job that day was to be Robert Young’s assistant.  He was the star of an old tv show called “Father Knows Best“.  My job wasn’t very hard since he was in a wheelchair and practically unaware of what was going on that day.  Another funny thing that happened that day was that I was asked out by one of Annie’s assistants.  Haha.  I don’t know if I ever told anyone this.  To make a long story short, I was way too naive and shy back then and turned him down that afternoon.

Anyway, back to the exhibit… It featured a mixture of celebrity portraits, her photos from Serbia, personal photos, and coverage of the Clinton and Bush administration. The rooms were pretty crowded but we managed to work our way through the gallery. For $10/person and an 80-mile drive it was not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning. What made it even more interesting was walking through the Earth Day festivities including a bunch of hippie propaganda and a Hare Krishna parade. Awesome.

On our way home, we stopped at Joe’s Crab Shack for a crabalicious feast. For $22.95, we got a platter of dungeoness, snow, and king crab. Yum yum. Their clam chowder was creamy and smokey and the fried shrimp was also very tasty. It sure did make driving home a little tougher with food coma and all but it was worth it.

old stomping grounds

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After my evening with the girls, I headed over to Brother’s apartment and spent the night. We loafed on the couch and watched cheesy movies on ABC family until it was time to go to sleep. In the morning, we were up pretty early and shared a breakfast burrito at the farmer’s market in Santa Monica. Later in the day, we went to Westwood to check some stuff out. It was kind of cool to be walking down Le Conte and past the UCLA Medical Center and then up Bruin Walk to the UCLA Store. The store looked about the same and they were selling Final Four t-shirts like they were made of gold or something. I was there to buy a sweatshirt for myself and picked out one for Jes too. On our way back to the car, we stopped at Diddy Riese for some 35-cent cookies (they used to be 25 cents back in the day) and had lunch at In N Out. It’s hard to believe that I graduated almost 10 years ago. Sheesh, I guess I’ll have to wait another 10 years before I purchase another sweatshirt.

a beer and a victory

dsc_4867a.jpgLast night we went down to San Clemente for St. Patrick’s Day. Patty and Johnny (not the Brother) invited us to OC Tavern, which is owned by their friend. It’s a Sports Bar/Restaurant/Club that serves semi-gourmet bar food and has lots of widescreen plasmas showing sports in HD throughout the entire place. It’s a pretty large space complete with several bars, dining room with plenty of seating, pool tables, and mini concert area for their regular live bands that play there. Overall, it was a pretty cool place to hangout. It’s just too bad that it’s 23 miles south of our house so that means it’s an extra 23 miles south for any of you living in LA. It was, however, a good mid-point meeting place for me and Patty.

In addition to enjoying a couple glasses of beer and bar food, we also watched the last half of the UCLA/Indiana game. It was a close one but we squeaked out a victory and advanced to the Sweet 16. Phew, that was close.

outside all day

DSC_4610.jpgToday was such a nice sunny day. Luckily, I got to spend most of it outside. At 11:00 am, I met up with Sandy for brunch. We went to a place called Rockwell’s Bakery and Cafe in Orange (Villa Park) and I had some of their corned beef hash and eggs. Mmm…

Afterwards, I drove up to Santa Monica to pick up Brother and we went to The Getty Villa with some tickets that Ben gave him. Ben and his girlfriend Tiffany were working there today and we wandered around looking at the Roman and Greek art. We spent probably a good 30 minutes there before heading out. Last time I was there was about 10 years ago and I don’t think I’ll need to go back for another 10 years.

For dinner, we drove up PCH towards Ventura and ate at Neptune’s Net. I’d heard about it and seen in featured on the Food Network but never thought I’d have the opportunity to go there. Well, today was the day and the drive was totally worth it. When you first walk in, it’s a little intimidating with all the bikers hanging out in the front with their hogs and crotch rockets. But when you go inside, it’s your average order and pick-up kind of joint. We ordered from both the boiled side and the fried side. The first round was the 1/2 pound of peel-and-eat shrimp. It was so tasty and almost didn’t need the the lemon, butter, and cocktail sauce on the side. We then waited another 20 minutes for the fried round to come out. We had a plate of battered fish, fried shrimp, and fries with a side of tartar sauce and more cocktail sauce. With some Coors Light to go with it all made it simply perfect. After our meal, we Froggered across the street to check out the beach. The water was pretty flat but there were quite a few surfers out still. We took a few photos and headed back to Santa Monica.

After I dropped Brother off, I drove up to Hollywood to meet up with our wedding photographer. He emailed me yesterday offering to sell me my negatives at a discounted price. His business partner died in a terrible car accident a few years ago and he had been running the business ever since. I guess it was time for him to call it quits and move on to other things so he contacted me. So, now I own my wedding negatives and I can do whatever I want with them. Seems silly in way considering everyone shoots digital now.

So that was my Saturday in a nutshell. Here are the photos from today. And here are Brother’s photos.

stinky prom

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My mom got to have dinner with her kids last night. We took her to Koki’s Teppan and Sushi for some meat and entertainment. It was the usual chop chop fare with the cheesy strobe light antics of our chef in the big red hat. The unusual part of the dinner was being at the same table as a large group of high schoolers dressed to the nines. I think they were having their pre-dance dinner for some kind of winter formal going on that evening. Not only was our table filled with teenagers but another group of about 20 more arrived a little later and sat at the table next to us. It was kinda fun watching them as they sat two by two with their respective dates. The funny thing that we realized was that they were going to head over to their event with the distinct smell of grilled meat and seafood. I suppose it doesn’t matter as much if they’ll all hanging out with each other anyway. But can you imagine wearing a formal that you spent so much time picking out to have it end up smelling like Korean BBQ at the end of the night? Yum. Anyway, the food wasn’t very memorable but the experience was.

The Other Black Friday

IMG_5064.jpgI hardly ever go to the mall and on the one day that I decided to go was the second busiest shopping day of the year. It was on the day after Christmas. I know this sounds very yuppy of me but we went to the Crate and Barrel sale and it was actually kinda fun. They were extremely busy but extremely organized. They had lots of employees working and cleaning up after the shoppers, employees standing at the end of each line with a sign that says “end of line here”, and handed out doughnut holes and water as we waited. Marie and I took turns standing in line while the other shopped. Cole sat in his stroller and had a pretty fun time eating his snacks and enjoying the chaos. I only spent about 50 bucks but went home with a lot of stuff that was half-off.

IMG_5065.jpgThe rest of the day was spent on the other side of the mall and it was crazy. I’d usually get really over-stimulated and be ready to go home in a second but somehow it was just plain fun and exciting. Cole was a pretty good sport and even got to play at the Pottery Barn Kids that has a bunch of stuff out for kids to play with. By the end of the shopping trip, we left with several shopping bags and were all so tired.  I had a great time. I’m glad I only do this once a year.