I now live in Burbank, CA. And yes, there will be people reading that who will say, "WHAT?! You moved to California??? When did that happen?!" Well, catch up people! And for the rest of you loyal followers, I will now regale you with all sorts of wondrous details about my new form of suburbia.
• Burbank is by far the best town to live in California. So suck it, Beverly Hills!
• We have a Target here! That was actually a requirement before we moved to a new city.
• We live next to grocery store called VONS. It is the same thing as a Safeway, but for some reason they only had room for 4 letters on their sign and why they picked V-O-N and S is beyond me.
• There is also not 1, not 2, but 3 AMC movie theatres in Burbank. Movies are $12 here, unless you go before noon and it’s only $6.
• We have a cute little main street called Magnolia Boulevard. Lots of interesting stores and restaurants. Also for anyone who saw the movie “Valentine’s Day”, Ashton Kutcher’s flower shop was an empty store on Magnolia Blvd. If you look closely out the window and across the street you will the restaurant, Pinocchio’s. We haven’t eaten there yet, but we intend to.
• We have this restaurant called Porto’s. Well, it’s more of a bakery that also sells sandwiches and what not. People go ape shit for this place! It is ALWAYS packed. I don’t really get it, I don’t think it’s that great. However, I haven’t had any of their bakery stuff yet which I suspect is the key to their magic.
• We have an airport in Burbank! It’s small and quiet and I happen to be a fan of it. So if you ever come and visit us, fly into Burbank. LAX (and driving to stupid LAX) sucks.
• I get my eyebrows waxed at a place called Wax Poetic. My lady’s name is Michelle.
• We also have this super sweet candy store called Rocket Fizz. It has every candy you could ever want as well as a vast variety of strange and unusual sodas.
• Burbank does NOT have a Chili’s or an Applebee’s. This annoys me.
• There are, however, quite an abundance of Taco Bells.
• There are a lot of crazy squirrels that live around our apartment building. We think they are planning some kind of a coup.
• And now that we live in Burbank, we are told it got at least 2% awesomer.
Well I guess that’s all for now. Oh, did I mention that it doesn’t snow here and it’s been around 60-70 degrees every day this “winter?” Mwahahahaha!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Celebrity Watch
So now that we live in the entertainment capital of the world, we have had the pleasure of seeing celebrities in their natural habitat. Below is a list of those we've seen...and yes, we are taking some liberty with the word "celebrity."
Efren Ramirez - Best known as Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite. He actually works at an antique store here in Burbank.
Smitty (Martin Smith) - Best known as Jay Leno's Drummer. Saw him at a Hooter's
Rico Rodriguez - Best known as Manny from the tv show Modern Family. He was shopping with his family at the Burbank Town Center.
Chef Gordon Ramsay - From the tv show Hells Kitchen. He was walking into a Pinkberry as we were walking out.
Peter Facinelli - Best known as Carlisle Cullen from Twilight. He was standing in an alcove talking on his phone at the Glendale Americana.
James Marsden - Best know from a lot of things, but to me as Cyclops from X-men or Corny Collins from Hairspray. He was shopping in our local grocery store.
Len Lesser - Best known as Uncle Leo from Seinfeld. He, too, was shopping at our local grocery store.
Jay Leno - Best known as ruining Conan's career. He was driving down the street in Burbank in some really, really old car.
James Hong - Best known (to Evan) as Tia Carrere's dad in Wayne's World 2. He was a patron at Evan's play.
Kathy Baker - Best known (to me) as Jennifer Garner's mom in 13 Going on 30. She sat right in front of us at last night's production of Noises Off.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Decision Making 101
So I’m pretty sure I suck at decision making. I don’t know why, but I just do. I try really hard to not suck at it, but in the end I seem to make the wrong choice. This is nevermore apparent as in the grocery store or at Target. No matter what, I always end up choosing the line with the person returning 12 items, writing a personal check or filling out the form for a store credit card. This happens if I pick the shortest line or the longest line. I seem to always manage to pick the line that is going to take me the longest.
With big decisions, I take my time and reason it all the way through. I try to balance my gut feelings with common sense and rationale. I compute things, make lists and conjure up different scenarios and consequences. And just when I think I have it all figured out and make the decision, I am suddenly overcome with the feeling that I screwed up. Evan is constantly telling me how my brain and my heart never seem to play nice with each other and I have to agree. There is constant conflict between the two and I’m never quite sure who wins.
Case in point: I recently accepted and started a full-time position. Let me provide a little background…I was laid off from my job in CO in October and had severance through the end of the year. Score! So during that time I was looking for jobs in CA everyday. Because I wanted to try the acting thing, I was really focusing on part-time design or marketing work. Well, part-time jobs proved to be few and far between (except in retail and restaurants, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet), so I started applying for everything. In mid-January, I received a job offer…scratch that, I received TWO job offers…on the same day…within hours of each other.
Now, the first job I was offered was awesome. It was doing marketing for a local cupcake shop. It was nearby (like 2 minutes away), a casual work environment and, hello, they make cupcakes!! The job was also part-time…well, part time in terms of hours, but it would still swallow up most of the week (9-330pm M-F). The only drawback…it paid like crap. Like a buck or two more an hour than I made as an intern about 7 years ago. Ugh, I wasn’t happy with the pay to say the least, especially living in CA where everything is so damn expensive. But since nothing else was coming along after applying to something like 100 or so different jobs, and I thought I would kinda like it, I accepted the position.
Flash forward to about 1 hour and 45 minutes after I accepted the cupcake job. I receive a call from a job I interviewed for back in December. They called and offered me a full time marketing and communications job for about what I was making at my job in CO – and nearly twice the amount of the cupcake job plus more hours and benefits. So, thinking solely of the money and the fact that I like to eat, I withdrew my acceptance of the cupcake job and here I sit at my 40 hour a week job that’s 30+ minutes away, only has casual dress on Fridays and, needless to say, they don’t make cupcakes.
Aaaannd…here I am, again, certain that I made the wrong decision. My heart wanted the cupcake job, but my brain and my wallet made me accept the other. UGH! Why do I always do this?! So, now I’m somewhat miserable. This week alone I drove by 2 major filming operations on the street in Burbank on my way to work. I couldn’t help but see the symbolism in driving far away from the true thing I want to do with my life to go to work. Not like I wouldn’t have drove by them if I was going to the cupcake job, but at least I could have drowned my sorrows in some butter cream. [Insert stuff here about current job that I'm not supposed to talk about on the internet because Evan doesn't want me to get fired] And it’s nobody’s fault by my own. One day I’ll get it right…I hope. But for now there are only a handful of major decisions that I know were right…
• Deciding it was time to wear a bra after my sister told me I needed one
• Quitting soccer after 10 years to focus on drama and choir in high school
• Deciding to live in the dorms my first year in college and meeting my best friend, Marisa
• Marrying Evan
• Choosing Disney World for our honeymoon – seriously, THE BEST vacation ever!
• Witnessing my niece being born. (Technically this decision was made for me, but hey, I didn’t go screaming out of the room when they ripped my her from my sister’s abdomen)
Hopefully, one day I can add moving to California to this list, but right now that’s still up in the air… Dang this was a long post. I should add a picture of something…
With big decisions, I take my time and reason it all the way through. I try to balance my gut feelings with common sense and rationale. I compute things, make lists and conjure up different scenarios and consequences. And just when I think I have it all figured out and make the decision, I am suddenly overcome with the feeling that I screwed up. Evan is constantly telling me how my brain and my heart never seem to play nice with each other and I have to agree. There is constant conflict between the two and I’m never quite sure who wins.
Case in point: I recently accepted and started a full-time position. Let me provide a little background…I was laid off from my job in CO in October and had severance through the end of the year. Score! So during that time I was looking for jobs in CA everyday. Because I wanted to try the acting thing, I was really focusing on part-time design or marketing work. Well, part-time jobs proved to be few and far between (except in retail and restaurants, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet), so I started applying for everything. In mid-January, I received a job offer…scratch that, I received TWO job offers…on the same day…within hours of each other.
Now, the first job I was offered was awesome. It was doing marketing for a local cupcake shop. It was nearby (like 2 minutes away), a casual work environment and, hello, they make cupcakes!! The job was also part-time…well, part time in terms of hours, but it would still swallow up most of the week (9-330pm M-F). The only drawback…it paid like crap. Like a buck or two more an hour than I made as an intern about 7 years ago. Ugh, I wasn’t happy with the pay to say the least, especially living in CA where everything is so damn expensive. But since nothing else was coming along after applying to something like 100 or so different jobs, and I thought I would kinda like it, I accepted the position.
Flash forward to about 1 hour and 45 minutes after I accepted the cupcake job. I receive a call from a job I interviewed for back in December. They called and offered me a full time marketing and communications job for about what I was making at my job in CO – and nearly twice the amount of the cupcake job plus more hours and benefits. So, thinking solely of the money and the fact that I like to eat, I withdrew my acceptance of the cupcake job and here I sit at my 40 hour a week job that’s 30+ minutes away, only has casual dress on Fridays and, needless to say, they don’t make cupcakes.
Aaaannd…here I am, again, certain that I made the wrong decision. My heart wanted the cupcake job, but my brain and my wallet made me accept the other. UGH! Why do I always do this?! So, now I’m somewhat miserable. This week alone I drove by 2 major filming operations on the street in Burbank on my way to work. I couldn’t help but see the symbolism in driving far away from the true thing I want to do with my life to go to work. Not like I wouldn’t have drove by them if I was going to the cupcake job, but at least I could have drowned my sorrows in some butter cream. [Insert stuff here about current job that I'm not supposed to talk about on the internet because Evan doesn't want me to get fired] And it’s nobody’s fault by my own. One day I’ll get it right…I hope. But for now there are only a handful of major decisions that I know were right…
• Deciding it was time to wear a bra after my sister told me I needed one
• Quitting soccer after 10 years to focus on drama and choir in high school
• Deciding to live in the dorms my first year in college and meeting my best friend, Marisa
• Marrying Evan
• Choosing Disney World for our honeymoon – seriously, THE BEST vacation ever!
• Witnessing my niece being born. (Technically this decision was made for me, but hey, I didn’t go screaming out of the room when they ripped my her from my sister’s abdomen)
Hopefully, one day I can add moving to California to this list, but right now that’s still up in the air… Dang this was a long post. I should add a picture of something…
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Rain + LA Drivers = Craziness
yup....another post about CA drivers.
One of the reasons why we moved to LA was because I wanted warm weather. I grew up in CO and always HATED the snow and cold. Also, the thought of driving in the snow would make me so nervous and stressed that I would become physically ill. Even after 10 years of driving in snow, I never got used to it. However, if you go slow, don't freak out and just hope and pray there isn't another car when you go sliding around a corner, you do ok. Maybe all this driving in snow has made Coloradans better drivers because when summer rolls around and it's raining, it doesn't seem to affect drivers at all. However, out here in the big LA, it never snows so when it rains, hold on to your hats because things are gonna get crazy!
As soon as the first drop of rain falls from the sky, people start flipping their cars and running over pedestrians. Maybe this hysteria is fueled by the media as a rain storm prompts several "STORM WATCH 2010!!" Let's just say that I've never seen so many people freak the frack out over rain! CA drivers suck on dry roads, so it's no surprise that a little rain screws people up. Here are a few examples I've seen on the news...all caused by rain.
-A car flipped upside down on an off ramp. And no else was involved in the accident. Now that takes talent.
-A 5 car pileup on the freeway.
-And last night, someone in hollywood ran over a pedestrian and then crashed into a light post. The pedestrian had to have her leg amputated. And quoted from the news, "speed, alcohol and drugs were not involved." It was just the rain.
I would hate to see what would happen if it actually snowed here. It would be like an apocalypse and the end of Los Angeles as we know it.
One of the reasons why we moved to LA was because I wanted warm weather. I grew up in CO and always HATED the snow and cold. Also, the thought of driving in the snow would make me so nervous and stressed that I would become physically ill. Even after 10 years of driving in snow, I never got used to it. However, if you go slow, don't freak out and just hope and pray there isn't another car when you go sliding around a corner, you do ok. Maybe all this driving in snow has made Coloradans better drivers because when summer rolls around and it's raining, it doesn't seem to affect drivers at all. However, out here in the big LA, it never snows so when it rains, hold on to your hats because things are gonna get crazy!
As soon as the first drop of rain falls from the sky, people start flipping their cars and running over pedestrians. Maybe this hysteria is fueled by the media as a rain storm prompts several "STORM WATCH 2010!!" Let's just say that I've never seen so many people freak the frack out over rain! CA drivers suck on dry roads, so it's no surprise that a little rain screws people up. Here are a few examples I've seen on the news...all caused by rain.
-A car flipped upside down on an off ramp. And no else was involved in the accident. Now that takes talent.
-A 5 car pileup on the freeway.
-And last night, someone in hollywood ran over a pedestrian and then crashed into a light post. The pedestrian had to have her leg amputated. And quoted from the news, "speed, alcohol and drugs were not involved." It was just the rain.
I would hate to see what would happen if it actually snowed here. It would be like an apocalypse and the end of Los Angeles as we know it.
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