2/20/05

I went to LA for a friend's wedding. It was a pretty interesting trip.

Woke up on Saturday morning to catch a 9:05 flight. Get to the airport at 8:00 and still get stuck in the C boarding group because everyone else printed out their stinking boarding cards at home. Next time ... next time.

Discovered that McDonald's in Terminal 1 at SJO (the Southwest terminal) has been replaced by Burger King. WHAT?!?!? This was a tragedy. This McDonald's was the last remaining one that I knew of that still had the old apple pies, the kind that are fried, and are all crispy and hot. I hear they still have those in Europe, but I'm not sure. Anyway, this was beyond sad. Also, to be replaced by Burger King adds insult to injury. Apologies to all of you Burger King fans.

Anyway, I have been feeling pretty lousy, and we almost decided to just go home and cancel our trip. But I didn't want to lose what we had paid for the hotel, so I decided to suck it up. The wonders of Advil and Dayquil kept me alive throughout the day.

Arrive in Burbank at 10:15 or so. It is raining cats and dogs when we land. The tarmac is a lake. Burbank is one of those airports where you de-plane outside via stairs and then walk into the gate. To make matters worse, when we picked up our baggage, it started raining even harder, and we had to walk quite a ways outside to get to the rental car counter. My backpack ended up have a little puddle inside.

Luckily, once we got our car, we headed over to our hotel and they let us check in early. It was now around 12:00. We got to lay down for awhile before we met up with some friends for lunch which was fun. Headed over to YN and checked out their new recording rig. It's pretty sweet. They got the second level Protools setup, and a bunch of nice preamps, digital recording console, etc. That's what I'm going to have when I get my home studio set up some day. Just kidding. Maybe.

Anyway, we went back to the hotel and got changed for the wedding. Went out to west LA to a very nice church, and then on to the reception which was in Santa Monica. The reception was very nice (classy), but the best part was that I ran into my cousin Jenni who works there on the weekends. It was really cool to see her, but I think I kept on getting her in trouble because she was talking to me so much. We took off since I was sick, and I didn't really want to hang around before things started gettin' crazy. We went back to the hotel and chilled down in the lobby for a little while before we got tired and everyone went home. I must say, though, that I am getting old. Brian and Eunice bought a place, and I was talking to them about washers and dryers. Rich was slightly amused. He was also slightly tempted to throwup.

Today, we woke up, checked out, went to YN for service. Got to see Fireman Dave lead worship with his sexy voice. He was cracking us up because he kept on looking over at us. Then we grabbed lunch at BJs before going back to the airport.

Anyway, the last couple of times I've been down to LA, I've realized that the chord is almost completely severed now. I just feel really out of it, definitely an outsider now. It's kind of sad, but I guess it's inevitable. There will be less and less weddings to go to down there, so eventually, we probably won't go very often. Maybe once a year at the most. If that, even. Well, I guess we all grow older and move on with our lives. College is officially in the rearview mirror. That isn't to say that's how I view my friendships, though. It's just that LA was such a specific part of my life, and it's just going further into the past.

Oh yeah, when we got off the plane in San Jose, we saw the UCLA basketball team. I knew almost all of them. Miriam kept on saying that I should have said hi. Or asked for their autographs. Personally, I think autographs are pretty lame. Especially now that I'm 26, going on 27, and I'm going up to these 18-22 year olds. But I wish that I had the nerve to say hi and give 'em a "Go Bruins!" Seriously, I LOVE UCLA athletics. Especially basketball and football. I root for these guys pretty intensely. Oh well, maybe I'll get another chance someday.