Here’s what I like about California: 1) My parents. 2) My parent’s dog 3) Listening to loud techno in a mini-van with an above average sound system 4) thinking while doing number 3 5)Meals cooked by someone other than me, without me even asking for them 6) The sunrise drive through the big desert hills 7) Knowing I don’t live here when looking at smog or analyzing traffic 8) In-N-Out Burger 9) That my family is the kind of family who really stop everything and watch the silent tribute to our war dead at the end of the Jim Leher Newshour, which is just haunting and should be exceptionally relevant to our daily mindset as a nation – especially since that program is the only one doing it.(!)

What I don’t like about California: 1) My Parent’s TV, which is ironically my old TV, the pride of young teen years since I sold my saxaphone to buy it and it was the biggest most beautiful thing ever – considering we had a 13″ my whole life and it was 25″. I still remember seeing Picard’s big bald head on it the first day I owned it, and thus awash with pride. ( I watched a ridiculous amount of TV back then, totally ridiculous –) Anyway now the TV is way old and has a high pitched whine that only I can hear (well the Dog must hear it too but has just resigned herself to bear it I guess) – I cringe at the whine, at the commercials, and the volume that seems to increase with every visit – 2) The pathetic lack of any good sandwich places around where I work, I would sell your first born child for a Cosi or Chacarero in Corona, CA 3) The fact that I know two people here I would like to see and they are too far away to see when factoring in traffic and my insane work load. It’d be like working a 10-12 hour day in New York City and then trying to hang out with someone in Hartford the same night. That’s bullshit.

What I miss about Boston: 1) You, if you are in Boston 2) My Shower and its reliable instant heat and perfectly violent spray 3) My bed 4)On that note, You, if you are in Boston, and single, and perfect for me, and a woman 5) My dual monitors – working with Excel just sucks when you get used to them and then dont have them. 6) My 3 eggs every morning, the moment I get out of bed. 7) My poor pathetic plant which is alive because I remember to water it occasionally 8) That first “is it going to snow today?” day which I’m sure I have missed.

What I don’t miss about Boston: 1) College students, especially the ones in my building. 2) You, if you annoy me or represent everything I hate about the world, like People Magazine or raw white onions. 3) Irrational Red Sox fans intentionally burning themselves on the hot stove.

I have spend most of my time in California quite cold actually. Constantly cold. I brought two sweaters with me and a jacket and I’m practically wearing all three. Oase’s home office is air conditioned like a meat locker and my sister’s place is near Monterrey and even though it was remarkably sunny (normally fog galore) I was always cold. My sister never uses her heater either, I guess she is just used to it. Now I am the only member of my family who still lives in the Northeast and yet I am the person most bothered by the cold, and heres why: In the northeast you are cold when you are outside. Your cold is a matter of moments as you traverse from one place to another, or wait for your car (your car – I don’t have a car) to warm up…. but then the rest of the time, you are toasty warm. Your home, your workplace, the stores you frequent – these are all warm places. Warm and extra cozy considering the difference between them and the barren outside. (And when its really cold I’m not even cold outside cause I have flannel lined jeans and a huge goofy parka to wear, under which you have only an undershirt on and still be roasting)  Now here in California, its mostly hot throughout the year, and so the whole universe is built to avoid warmth. It was 46 today and I swear the A/C was on at work, set to “70” supposedly. So at home in the Northeast you really do live your life in the 70s, minus some cold hands or ears, for minutes at a time. But you have a coat on, you have a radiator to love you at home, a fireplace at some friends house or restaurant. I have spent this whole trip at like 55-60 and its wearing me down. — And while my apt is always too hot – I see mirages sometime in the middle of the day — but man I cant wait to have my 76 degree furnace of an apt back – tshirt and boxer briefs – hell yeah.

Otherwise – had a nice, if short, trip to San Fran on Saturday. This was precluded by me introducing myself to The Silicon Valley by driving around looking for a Starbucks (Wi-Fi) I needed to plan out my day in SF and so there I was, in Silicon Valley, unable to find a STARBUCKS.. IN SILICON VALLEY. When I finally did as I was trying to U-Turn I found some sourdough bakery with free wi-fi and real breakfast which meant I happily got to spend no money at Starbucks.(Push Back) At least now I have seen the Ebay complex. Drove across the Golden Gate bridge and gazed at it from its overlooking cliffs as I tried to forget how much I dislike tourists. Then I hit SFMOMA which was wonderful. Saw a great early Pollack, tons of amazing photography (& a Weston Mexico exhibition!), and they had this incredible videography piece in which this guy named Phil Collins (no, not Phil Collins) tapes a whole bunch of people singing karaoke to the Smiths – which was like a simaelotaneous (I fucking HATE spelling that word – seriously – fuck that word with its perfect meaning yet its pervasive impossibleness) love letter to humanity and humanity loving music. Just a funny joy to admire. Way to go Art, you rock! And they had lots of postcards so my bedroom witll be happy. Finally I met up with the seldom seen and always engaging Jordan Pierce, who I took out for dinner and then ended up on a cable car with as a result of my inability to read my map – but it was a happy accident and I got to see the Crookedest Street and wish I could afford a home in SF. (also there are still peep shows and nasty characters in absolute downtown San Francisco – which is astounding. It reminded me of the New York of my childhood. That kind of shit was pushed out of New York and Boston long ago. Now its all condos and, of course, Starbucks. Stay gold San Francisco! Keep on truckin, or err hookin…)

I rebuilt my sixth computer of the year, for my sister, who was using it only as a DVD player since she doesnt have the internet, because she is insane. Anyway I souped it up and installed all the video game emulators with all the games we used to play, and apparently she has been up every night since playing Castlevania and The Legend of Zelda (She’s never even played the SNES Zelda either – my god that was an awesome game) Running out of time in the year, but I still have two more re-rebuilds to do, which will bring me to 8 for the year a record I have no intention of making a run at again. And actually if you include rebuilding two computers for myself, that would bring it to 10. Damn.

Saturday – Saturday – Saturday – Saturday – Saturday – Saturday

(Flying from ATL to LAX)

So I’ve finished the first leg of my long trip. Just left Atlanta, the same airport I really got hooked on the Red Sox in 1999. (ALDS, Game 3 – a whole ‘nother story) My company was there for the annual IAAPA trade show, which is an amusement park show. I’ll let you take a second to imagine what an amusement park trade show is like. . . . . OK so it was basically 2 giant halls full of anything a theme park, carnival, waterpark, or party rental place could possibly want. One half of my entire hall consisted of what I have always called air bounces, although I guess they are just called “inflatables”. There were also dozens of arcade game vendors, other ticket/prize based game vendors like Skeeball and Dynamo, companies that sell those crappy toys kids use $15 worth of tokens to win enough tickets to win, 4D theater developers, mascot costume manufacturers, tons of laser tag equipment companies, and of course ride manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. One aisle away from our booth was a company that sells horror animatronics, so we had a giant dragon, dozens of gyrating zombies, and a headless horseman complete with haunted horse to distract us. Directly across from us was “the world’s biggest inflatable water slide” although with only a scale model to show off. To our right was a company who made giant water cooled blowers for cooling down a climatically hot work environment. To our left was a wild west ride, where you climbed up into a wagon and watched some show while the wagon shook from side to side. (2 notes about them, 1) I told the poor sap they had dressed like a cowboy that he should drink coke out a Jack Daniels bottle next year for greater effect, and 2) They apparently had the wrong saddle next to their wagon – as the Texan lady from the blower booth mentioned to be incredulously: “It’s a western show, but thay have an english saddle – it just doesn’t make any sense to me”) My company had a good show, in our opinion, albeit a bit long. (By the way, closing down the booth after the show ends was a miserable preview of things to come I’m sure. Who would have ever thought I would develop my box saran wrapppin skills at this job. Atlanta has been great – if cold – the restaurants were delicious (South City Kitchen especially) and most importantly – the people are so sincerely friendly in Atlanta – it was just a pleasure to deal with any random person you happened to come across. Also my hotel‘s trademark perk was that there are windows in the shower that look on the bed, and vice versa.

Today (Sunday) was my first real day to myself in a solid week, and I really took advantage of it. I woke up early, had some breakfast, and went to check out the Georgia Aquarium (largest in the world apparently). I cued up some Cliff Martinez on my Ipod, and really had an amazing time staring at fish and other marine creatures. They have the largest aquarium tank in the world – something like 25 olympic swimming pools worth – and you can walk under it and around it, or sit and look at this movie screen sized window onto it. It’s probably the closest you can get to seeing what the ocean looks like without strapping on an oxygen tank, and they have 3 (three) whale sharks in it. But while that was cool, and it was, it was nothing compared to the beluga whale exhibit. And it was not some show like you see with dolphins, it was the underwater experience, again through huge 3 foot thick acrylic windows. And when I got there they were feeding them above the water, so their long white bodies were right up next to the glass. And I was awestruck at how beautiful their bodies were – pure muscle – perfectly white – and so remarkably graceful. It was like watching a plaster Rodin sculpture come to life, the muscles so well defined, the powerful grace of their effortless maneuvering underwater. They looked at you to, and with that smile like expression they always have – you’d swear they were trying to guess what you were thinking just as you were wondering the same thing about them. I have always wanted to go swimming with whales, but now I’m plositive I must make a chance to do it. What enchanting creatures. On the smaller scale, Sea Dragons are also amazing in their own miniature right, a Ratfish is actually really cool looking, and Piranhas appear surprisingly still when they’re not ripping flesh to pieces. A very cool place, even with all the toddlers mistaking your leg for their parents – which is certainly adorable, but also pretty nerve wracking when 99% of your attention is on the 1000 fish swimming over your head – not the little tike your foot is about mangle. 

 

After that I took the MARTA (their subway, not impressed) over to the High Museum of Art, which was amazing. First off, its architect was Renzo Piano – who is a genius if you didn’t know. Second off, they had the best American art collection I have ever seen – at least as far as variety goes. And the special exhibits they had were perfect for me, a works on paper exhibit, a really diverse photography exhibit, and a major modern art painter’s exhibit, as I need to get to know more of the players in modern art, especially as I decide whether I like most modern art or not… so far it is a very strong love/hate response every single time. So I listened to the Thin Red Line score and some Shpongle and had a blast – spending 3 hours exploring and gazing. My only complaints are that they had the worst postcard collection I have ever seen, so I have zero new pieces to put up in my bedroom, and also they have some kind of photo permit policy I wasn’t aware of until I didn’t have enough time to catch my plane after getting the permit so I could take all the photos I wanted to take. (since they didn’t have any postcards and thus I may never see some of these pieces again) Oh and they don’t allow pens in the place, so like 10 times staff came up to me while I was taking notes with my nice mechanical pencil in my moleskin and doublechecked as to what it was. Eventually I’d see them start to troll over and I’d just blurt out “PENCIL”. Regardless, I can’t wait to go back as soon as possible, and am praying they have some printable images of their collection online somewhere. I must have written down 20 artists/pieces to go back and look into. I was in heaven. Who would have guessed Atlanta would be such a cultural hub!