I'm back....

For those of you who read our blog regularly, you'll have noticed that I took a small break this summer. Not planned, but I was back in the working world and forgot how little time one has when working. Well, work is over and I'm back.

But wait... work? Yes, work. For the first time in my life I actually worked over a summer break from school. As an undergrad at Davidson, I played baseball and goofed around with hourly jobs coaching basketball and "red-shirting" at a bar. This summer, however, being older and having loans and real responsibilities, it was necessary to work a real job. That job was as a summer intern in the corporate strategy group at Mattel. I like to tell people that I played with Barbie all summer, but in reality I barely saw a doll this summer. Working in the corporate strategy group, I was relatively removed from the brands on a day-to-day basis. In fact, my two individual projects had nothing to do any toy brands whatsoever. My first project was doing research on digital revenue trends in conjunction with a potential acquisition our M&A team was investigating. My second project involved benchmarking our Investor Relations department against our peer group and making recommendations about the size and responsibilities of our IR team.

It was a good summer. I enjoyed the projects I worked on and the people on my team. And Mattel is a great company to work for. Plus, on my second to last day, the Senior VP of my group made me an offer to join the firm after I graduate from business school. Its a great offer to have and I'm excited I got it, but at this point I'm still undecided on what I will do. My plan is to at least take a look at some of the other opportunities out there through on-campus recruiting. I don't need give Mattel an answer until December, so I've got some time to figure things out.

One of the nice little perks about Mattel is all of the free stuff they like to give away. Now, I'm not sure if they just do this for the interns or if the full-time employees get the same giveaways, but I walked away with 11 free toys and games after 11 weeks of work. Included in my take are four Hot Wheels cars, three board games and a money clip.

Legen....dary One Year Anniversary

Mike and I deviated from our usual weekend events and went to the Santa Monica farmers market on Saturday morning. It is actually at the end of our street down by the water, but we had never been before this weekend, having always preferred the Brentwood market on Sunday. When we got to the end of the block of the market, Mike looked around and saw several suspicious looking guys with large cameras. Paparazzi! Mike looked around and saw Alyson Hannigan, her husband Alexis Denisof, and their adorable daughter.

This is a VERY BIG DEAL for us. We love the show How I Met Your Mother and watch it every week, sometimes every day on the rerun channel, and we've tried getting tickets to a taping. We've seen every episode at least once, most of them a few times. So seeing one of the stars of the show picking out produce was pretty exciting. We decided not to take a picture - I mean, the poor family already had enough people gawking at them as they were picking out peaches. But apparently, according to Perez, Alyson and family have been spotted at a number of places in the Santa Monica area.

So, on the one year anniversary of us moving to LA, we saw an A-list TV celebrity!

Movie Review: Cowboys and Aliens

It's that time again... time for another movie review. Last week, Megan and I went to check out Cowboys and Aliens, the new Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig movie. For those of you who haven't seen the trailer, Cowboys and Aliens can best be described as a western meets Sci-Fi. The basic premise is that aliens attack Earth during the mid-1800's. So instead of Will Smith flying an F-18, you get Daniel Craig riding a horse.

Overall, it was a decent movie. Anytime you go see an alien movie, you know that its going to require a good deal of suspension of disbelief; Cowboys and Aliens is no different. It's a fun movie that is a little slow to get going and gets a little ridiculous at times. But its fun to watch Indiana Jones/Han Solo fight along side James Bond and kick some alien butt. And Jon Favreau did a pretty good job with the alien creatures. Instead of some humanoid-type creature with two legs and two arms, Favreau used an alien that resembled a squid or some other sea creature.

I should mention that Megan was the driving force behind going to see Cowboys and Aliens. We had bought generic movie tickets at CostCo a few weeks back and decided to get out a see a show. I suggested Crazy, Stupid Love, but Meg seemed intent on seeing Cowboys and Aliens. Don't know if it was Daniel Craig's American accent or the draw of a new take on a Western movie, but she was definitely the driving force behind this movie outing.

Roses

At the Farmer's Market there are a number of florist vendors, and one in particular has a small tent (compared to the others) and for the past few months has been selling single long-stemmed roses for $1 each. Every other week, Mike buys me a rose, and it sits in a small bud vase on our coffee table for a fortnight. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, walking home from the market, rose in one hand, Mike's hand in the other.

The walk home from the market is a quiet moment in our busy week. On Saturday we took another trip to Long Beach for wedding planning. We met with our coordinator at our venue and laid out our timeline for the day and all the tables and chairs and whatnot. We visited the men's store to look at tux options and purchase a few new work shirts. We caught a flick at the local theater (Cowboys and Aliens - bad story, good western characters, and very pretty Mr. Craig.) I took a nap. Maybe two. And I could smell my rose from my pillow on the couch.

I'm Thinking Arby's

Megan had a hankering for Arby's tonight so like the good husband I will be in a couple of months, I ran out and got her a french dip with curly fries and enough Horsey sauce to feed an army. I can't wait to see what kind of ridiculous cravings Megan has in the future when she is pregnant.

Carmageddon

This past weekend was an interesting one. The interstate by our apartment is one of the largest in Southern California and handles about 500,000 travelers a weekend. That's half-a-million, just in case you can't count all those zeroes. From Friday night to Monday the morning, 10 miles of this incredibly important interstate that connects northern LA to San Diego was scheduled to be closed while they tore down an overpass. "They" (I have no idea who "they" are) projected that there was going to be traffic jams backed up for 30 miles. If the construction lasted into early morning Monday rush hour, all hell might have broken loose.

So, expecting the worse, I biked to work Friday. It was a great ride, actually. I was able to take mostly back roads the whole way and I didn't feel like I was going to get run over by angry commuters. Mike got home early in the afternoon, and he and I parked our cars for the weekend, planning to only walk or bike where we needed to be.

Saturday I did errands on my bike and biked to the gym. We walked to the neighborhood bar Saturday night and to the market and yogurt shop on Sunday. And guess what? There was no one on the roads. Since they had been advertising the closing up to 50 miles away, everyone had the same idea to stay at home. It was quite amazing for a city that depends on motors.

They are planning on closing it again in a year (or maybe 6 months, I can't remember to be honest) to tear down the rest of the bridge. I hope the several millions in the city are smart enough to stay at home a second time.

New Gym

I don't "do" gyms. I don't like them much at all. I don't like people judging my 10 year old t-shirts. I don't like to feel like I'm competing with the 5'10" blonde gymrat on the treadmill next to me because I lose. Every. Time. And I don't know how to use the machines or what to do with the free weights. And I get bored running/biking/elipticizing in one place for long periods (i.e. more than 5 minutes) of time.

BUT... I have a goal to fit into my beautiful wedding dress and wear it all night without passing out, so I need to get my large-ish behind in shape (and not the distorted blob shape it is in now - I'm talking something that could be classified as "cute" or dare I even say "hot".) Granted, I feel a lot better about myself now versus 18 months ago, but I've hit a plateau and I need a jumpstart.

Therefore, today I found myself at Gym Box. It is a boutique gym half way between work and home, directly on my route. It is smallish, intimate, all classes included and unlimited, with free parking (yes, that is actually a perk), personal trainers, boxing, spinning, something called TRX that is hard to explain but looks cool, and then the usual other gym stuff. I took my first spinning class today, and I'm beat!!  And my bank account is a good deal lighter, but I'm hoping it is going to be totally worth it.

On another, totally unrelated note, my pocketbook is also lighter because today I bought gas. I'm pretty sure I was robbed. $64 to fill my tank. Ugh.

12 Down, 5 To Go

For those of you loyal readers (and let's be honest, we only have loyal readers since only about 5 of you actually still read this blog), there's a chance you might understand the title of this post. Go ahead and think about it for minute before you continue.... any thoughts?.... anything??

Well, today (July 10) marks exactly one year since I proposed to Megan, and it also marks exactly five months until we get married. In those twelve months, we've moved across country, Megan's found a new job, I've finished a year of business school and found an internship, and we're knee deep in planning a wedding. And we've posted about 157 entries to this blog. Not quite as often as we had hoped, but still halfway decent.

Thank you for staying with us all of this time. We hoped you've enjoyed this little window into our lives and hope that you will continue to read and comment. As promised, this will not turn into a wedding blog over the next five months, but we will be posting updates as we get closer to the date. And hopefully we can get our act together and start posting a little more regularly.

First Week of Work

It's a weird feeling looking forward to Fridays again.

This week has been interesting. Though I'm at work, I haven't actually started doing my job yet. Once I get through orientation and training, I will be Supervisor over the operations department. In order to supervise effectively, I actually need to know what my folks are doing and how they are doing it. So this past week (and next week, too) those that I will be managing have been teaching me the processes, rules, and ins and outs of the system. In could have been an awkward situation - the Coordinators are having to teach their boss's boss how do their own job. They have to tell me when I screw up and how to fix it. In fact, someone has to sign off on all my cases before they are submitted!

But in reality, it hasn't been awkward at all. It has given me a chance to really get to know some of the employees and in every interaction, they have been professional, positive, and helpful. I'll be looking forward, however, to when I get to start my real responsibilities and leave the processing to those that do it best.

In other, but related news, I decided that I didn't have any good clothes to wear to work. Even though we have a very casual dress code, I still think it is important that I feel professional. So... I decided to go shopping yesterday after work. I can walk to at least one mall, maybe two, from my office. That is bad news.

My Good News

So Yesterday was all about Megan, and rightfully so. She's worked hard over the last few months looking for jobs, talking to people and then preparing for her multiple interviews. But today was my day. About 2pm this afternoon I received an email from the Financial Aid office at Anderson telling me that I have been selected to receive the Anderson Alumni Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year. While the award isn't big enough to cover full tuition next year, it is a nice chunk of change and will help reduce the amount I need to borrow. According to the application I filled out in April, the Anderson Alumni Fellowship is given to "students who have been active during their first year at UCLA Anderson." I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I guess I was active in student clubs and socially, so that counts. Anyways, its been a good week for us, and hopefully is the start to a great summer.

Last Days of Freedom

As many of you may have noticed, I've been haven't talked much about my job search on the blog. There are a few reasons for that: 1) I have no idea who actually reads this; 2) I don't want to jeopardize any future opportunities by saying something about a company or person; 3) I'm not really superstitious, but I don't want to take the chance and jinx myself.

Today the self-imposed censorship is lifted. I got a job offer. I'm sorry, that wasn't nearly as expressive as I had hoped. Let me try again:
 I GOT A JOB OFFER!!!!!!!!
There, that is better.

This has been about a month-long interview process, but it has been worth it. It is a small company that is really growing. The owners are passionate about their service and their employees and wanted to make sure that the person that they brought in to the position was a good fit for the company. It took 3 interviews and a half-day in-office getting to know people and showing my skills to convince them that this was the job for me. I got the call this afternoon, and must admit, that I did a "Just Got A Job Dance" as soon as I got off the line.

I'll probably start on Monday, which means that I have 6 days of unemployed, unencumbered freedom left. What should I do? I'm open to all suggestions, those that are practical or practically crazy. Leave them in the comments section.

Honeymoon

Just booked our tickets. We're going to THAILAND!!!

Reunion Post #2

So I got to Charlotte Thursday night. I had dinner with my good friend Schulie and her BF and we had a great time catching up on life. I then headed up north the 20 or so miles to a little town that is near and dear to my heart: Davidson. I was quite nostalgic driving on the highway, one that I had driven countless times on my way to and from Atlanta. Since I graduated from college, however, the area has really changed. Exit 30 off I-77 used to have a stop sign and a gas station. Now it has two traffic circles, a Harris Teeter, a hotel, a strip mall, and 2 gas stations. Alas, progress. I checked into my dorm room, and you can imagine my thrill when I found out I was staying in my old freshman building. I walked into Cannon Dorm, and I swear to you it still smelled the same.

That night I got to catch up with my other good friend Bandy (of Little Rock fame) and her husband at the new bar in town. That makes two bars now at which Davidson students can waste away their Thursday nights!

Friday was pretty chill as more and more old friends arrived on campus. We soaked in a few hours of sun at the lake campus, had a meet-and-greet in the Union for alumni, faculty, staff, and coaches. And, in typical young alumni fashion, the class of '06 decided to forego the trivia night and instead throw a party on the porch of one of the frat houses, just like we used to back in the good ole days. It was such fun.

Saturday I picked up Mike, and you can read a bit about that in his post. What he left for me to share, was that following a nap after our cornhole defeats, I got sick. Really sick. Mike didn't even get to his food at dinner before he returned to our dorm room and rescued me by taking me to an Urgent Care center. There I was hooked to a saline IV to treat my ever-worsening dehydration. I returned to the dorms and promptly fell asleep. Mike checked on me a number of times throughout the evening, but I refused to let him stay in the room for long since he was only in town for 24 hours. I was so disappointed that I missed the festivities and getting to see many of my old friends. I'm STILL disappointed. I can't believe I have to wait another 5 years to see some of these folks.

Sunday a small group of friends had lunch at our old favorite, Joel's, who used to be located right next to campus and we could pay for our fried rice and cheap sushi on our Cat Card. It was as delicious as we all had remembered, but bittersweet because this was our last meal together as we relived our college days. Soon after, we all went our separate ways. I went on to Atlanta to spend a couple days at home while out on the East Coast.

Petco Park, San Diego

We are in The Diego, awaiting the start of the Nats v Padres game. We got all-you-can-eat tickets, with dogs, soda, nuts, and of course popcorn, included. We will be testing this concept and will give you an update on how much $$ the park lost on this deal.
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Weekend Update

I'm stuck in the Charlotte airport for a few more hours so I thought I would give you dedicated readers a quick update of our weekend.

Why am I in Charlotte you may be asking. Well this weekend was my 5 year college reunion and Meg and I decided it would be good to go see everyone again. The timing, however wasn't great for me. On Friday I took not one but two final exams and celebrated the end of my first year of business school. Late Friday night I headed to LAX and took the red eye to Charlotte to join up with Meg and the rest of my classmates in the festivities (which started Thursday night).

After dropping off my bag and changing clothes we headed out to the Lake Campus to join the rest of the class of 2006 and see who showed up. Lunch at Vail Commons and corn-hole on the Chambers lawn followed.

I'll let Megan take over the story from here as she will tell it better. But it was great to see a lot of my classmates again. Even though a lot of good friends from Davidson didn't make it, I had the chance to reconnect with a lot of people with whom I had lost contact. It was also a lot of fun to stay in the dorms again and see how much the Davidson campus has changed.

That brings me to now... going on hour number 6 at the Charlotte airport. My 38 hours in town has quickly grown into 40 and is at risk of growing further. Good thing I don't have anything to do tomorrow.
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Le Tour de Strand

Last Saturday, Anderson hosted Le Tour de Strand, a pub crawl with a twist: instead of walking or being shuttled between bars, we biked. With seven bars that stretched from Santa Monica all the way down to Hermosa Beach, Le Tour de Strand is an all day event that brings together current students, Sig-O's and alumni.

Including the ride from our apartment (point A on the map below) to the first bar and then along the route to the last bar, we biked about 19 miles, 16 or so which were right along the beach. It was a beautiful and sunny day, not too hot, and they scenery was splendid as was the company.



One of the funniest parts of the ride happened as soon as we arrived at the first stop. We didn't realized that this was a costume-encouraged event. There was a giant chicken and a giant banana, cowgirls, cops, neon yellow leaders (who got us lost once), a hula girl on roller blades and a boy in a tutu. I was in my sensible tennis shoes and layers because it was chilly in the morning and I had a backpack full of water, snacks and sunscreen. I'm already planning for next year's costume so I can make up for this year's nerdiness.

It was a long ride that lasted 9 hours, and we were SO tired by the end. So tired in fact, that we somehow  convinced our good friend to load our bikes into his car and drive us home (don't worry, he had not been riding or drinking that day).

I had to practically drag Mike to this event, but by the end of the day, we both agreed that it is now one of our Top Three All Time Favorite activities from this past year. We will definitely be Tour de Strand-ing again next spring.

Fashion Show and Celebrities

Last Thursday night was one of the Top 10 social events at Anderson: the Retail Management Association's Fashion Show. The RMA is a student run club and every year in the spring they blow their budget on a fashion show. They bring in professional designers, both big (Banana Republic) and small (usually friends of friends), hold tryouts for student models, and practice their best Blue Steel faces. Professors are also involved as models and even the dean gets out there and struts her stuff (in her own clothes I'm told).

The show as a lot of fun. Forty or so of my classmates sat through hair and make up sessions and then got up on stage of walked the runway. The event started out, however, a few hours beforehand, when the Wine Club held their annual pre-party. For a couple of hours, I sat with a large group of classmates in the Executive Dining Room at Anderson and drank wine. For the wine club, it was also a year end blow out as they emptied the wine fridge and spent the last of our dues on prosecco and snacks.

After the pre-party, I made my way up to Alumni Plaza, a big outdoor courtyard used for a variety of events. Welcomed by a mini-red carpet, we entered the show a constant flash of light bulbs and the small of Mexican food and more wine. For those of you who know me, I love Mexican food, so this was a pleasant surprise. After grabbing a plate of food and a beer (Meg's the wine drinker in the relationship), I found a good spot to view the festivities. There were a handful of seats, but only for VIPs. I'm not really sure who the VIPs were, but most of the seats remained empty throughout the show.

About an hour after I got there, the show started. First up was casual wear (knit pants and tennis clothes), followed by athletic wear and then what I'm told qualifies as "snappy cas." At "half time" the mood changed with one of my classmates singing a song from a musical (which one escapes me right now), followed by three dance routines (a hip hop dance, a lip synch, and an Indian dance). After the performances, the fashion continued with the professors, the dean and more students showing off their business and clubbing attire.

When all was said and done, and all the wine and beer consumed, the party continued with the after party at the W Hotel in Westwood. The place was packed, as most of the people who attended the fashion show managed their way over to the W. Megan joined me at this point (she had a phone interview in the afternoon and was focused on that - more on that from her later). The W was fun, we danced a little, talked to some friends and hung out with Charlie Sheen. Ok, hung out probably isn't the right word, more like gawked from behind his security perimeter. Yes, good old Charlie was there at the W, although no one from Anderson got to meet him. He and his crew sat in the outside patio with fake plants and trees cordoning off his private area. A big English bodyguard named Mack (we became buds as the night wore on) stood blocking anyone hoping to get too close.

All in all it was a fun night. It was my first fashion show and my "biggest" celebrity sighting since moving to LA. And, with the quarter coming to a close in two weeks and summer internships awaiting us all, a great way to hang out with some friends. Who knows, maybe next year I'll have the courage to get my butt up there and walk the runway.

Zac Brown Band at the Hollywood Bowl

Country fans, prepare to be jealous.

Last night I had the opportunity to go to the Hollywood Bowl for the first time and see Zac Brown Band's debut performance at this historic site. Mike's cousin, music reviewer for the Orange County Register, was able to score an extra ticket for the event, (thank you, thank you, thank you, Ben!!) and Mike generously let me take it. It was AMAZING.

First, let's start with the venue. It is epic. Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Elton John, Cher, The Beatles, Pavarrotti and many others have performed here. FDR, Fred Astair, and Mikhail Baryshnikov have graced the stage, too. It sits less than a mile from the Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater in the heart of Hollywood. Last night it was a sold-out crowd of about 17,000 people, and I was sitting close enough to be able to comment on the shoes of lead singer of the opening act, Blackberry Smoke.

The concert itself was awesome. Blackberry Smoke, a southern rock band based in Atlanta, opened the show. These beard-sporting guys were a throw-back to Skynard and ZZ Topp, complete with bell-bottoms, platforms, and the 70's electric organ that is iconic of that era. I was totally digging them.

Zac Brown and company came on shortly thereafter and rocked my world. They played all their hits which I thoroughly enjoyed, but my favorite parts of the night were when they totally rocked out. You will have to read the review to figure out where and when they did this because I lost track; but there were multiple times throughout the 2+ straight hours that they played that they just went nuts jamming. Clay Cook, one of their guitarists, was phenomenal. They also played a few covers. One of my favorites was "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" (Zac Brown is also from Georgia). I've probably heard that song several hundred times in my life, both the original by the Charlie Daniels Band and other live renditions. But I have never heard a band play it as fast as they did last night. It was crazy. And crazy good. One of my other faves of the evening was "Isn't She Lovely" along with John Mayer's "Neon," who also happens to be another Georgia artist. It was sick.

I was very sad that Mike couldn't go, too. I know he would've liked it. But I can't lie - I'm really happy that I had the chance to go. I've promised that no matter what he gets first dibs on the next concert.

Save the Date

Meg's slaving away in front of my computer working on the save the date announcements. She's creating her own design instead of using one of the prefab ones. But that means a lot more work. I should say that this is actually the second design she has created. The first one was in a demo of a program called Serif. The problem with Serif is that you can't really do anything except print to paper. The vendors we're using for the magnets require either a PDF or JPEG and all of the freeware for creating PDFs or JPEGs from other programs don't produce the highest quality documents. So now Meg is redoing the design in Publisher. It's amazing how much time and effort this whole wedding planning thing takes.

Lack of Self-Control

I went to the library today on my bike with the intent of getting a couple of research items. And came home with 13 travel books in my book bag for my uphill ride. My buns are burnin' and I'm regretting my "I'll just take this one, too" attitude. I'm intent on figuring out where to go on our honeymoon, which is harder than you might think. We want some beach/so absolutely nothing time, some action/adventure time, some great food, some warm weather, and something we've not done before. By the books you can see we are heading South. However, December is the wet season in the South Pacific and the busy season everywhere, so we have our work cut out to find the perfect destination.

Any suggestions?

Hats and Heels

Yesterday was an epic day of fun. First, we had one of my most favorite sporting events of the year, the Kentucky Derby. I don't know the first thing about horse racing. That is a lie; I know they run around in a circle and the first one to the end line wins. They also have ridiculous names that I enjoy, like Mine That Bird, Fusaichi Pegasus, Thunder Gulch, and my favorite Burgoo King. We went to a classmate's apartment with a bunch of other folks. I wore my hat, as you can see from Mike's last post, as did many other ladies. We sipped mint juleps - I wouldn't recommend them, they are pretty gross - watched the race, placed a bet, and cheered on Comma to the Top, my pick as the winner. Comma was in second place for nearly the whole race. Until the end, when it mattered. He came in last, which I think is as hard to pick as 1st, and I wondered why I didn't get a share of the pot. I only found out today that Comma hurt his ankle, poor guy. Regardless of the outcomes, I had a grand time. Mike and I stopped at our favorite Mexican dive on the way home to get ready for our next social engagement...

... Which was prom. Anderprom, as it is affectionately known, is a chance for all the students and their significant others to dress up in their finest and dance the night away. I wore a pretty dress and Mike wore a very handsome suit. We walked about seven blocks down our street to meet a big yellow school bus which took us downtown to the party. And it was nothing like the prom I remembered. First, there was alcohol at this shindig, which significantly enhanced the whole experience. Second, the dresses were much more stylish this go around. There were far fewer bedazzled skirts and men actually filled out their suits instead of looking  like sticks swimming in wool. Third, there was a lot less awkward conversation at this prom then at the first. I think it has to do with the fact that we are ten years older and, you know, actually capable of having adult conversations now as opposed to when we were seventeen and unable to look members of the opposite in the eye without awkwardly giggling. I digress. We had a whole lot of fun. I can't wait until next year's.

Derby Party

Meg won the best hat award.

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Wedding Planning

We've purposefully tried to keep this blog mostly free of our day-to-day wedding planning because didn't want this to become a boring wedding blog. If you will, permit me the opportunity to deviate from that a little as we accomplished a lot over the last few weeks, with a lot of that coming to fruition today.

Over that last three weeks, Meg and I have sat through about 10 or so meeting with various vendors, including photographers and DJs. Today we finally pulled the trigger on three vendors and decided on a DJ, hotel and photographer. Our DJ will be Bill Lovelace, an independent DJ based out of Long Beach. Ben Aguirre will be snapping photos, his part-time profession when he's not being an engineer. Don't worry though, we selected Ben (and Bill for that matter) because of his experience at the Ebell Club. He shot the wedding of the owner of the Ebell Club and does most of their promo stuff.

More importantly for you readers (how ever many of you there are) is that we are finalizing the hotel arrangements for our guests. We're getting a block of rooms at the Marriott Renaissance, which is a little more than a mile from the Ebell Club.

And more importantly for us, we've spent a good amount of time over the last week trying to figure out our honeymoon plans. After fruitlessly searching online for about a month, we were struggling to come up with anything. So today we went to Barnes & Noble and scoured the travel section looking for inspiration. After about an hour or so flipping through Lonely Planet books, we've narrowed our choices down to four: Thailand, Costa Rica, Argentina and the US Virgin Islands (a back up option).

Has anyone ever been to any of those three locations? We're looking for any and all advice people have.

The Royal Wedding

All day Thursday I was watching TLC because they had non-stop shows about the upcoming Royal Wedding. I'm not a celebrity follower, nor am I a royalist or even a monarchy sympathizer. But I do like pretty wedding dresses, hats, and princesses. (I mean, come on, all girls like princesses, and if they say otherwise, they are lying.) So my fascination with fascinators prevailed and there I was at 1am flipping through the numerous channels that were covering the grand event. Before Mike went to bed, I had him retrieve my own hat collection from the top shelf of our hall closet. I honor of the occasion I donned my biggest, most ridiculous hat. It is slightly off-white, with a black netting bow, black feathers and a diameter about three feet across. No kidding. I originally purchased the hat back in college when I went to horse race with some friends. I plan on wearing it again this weekend for the Derby. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it for you.

I did doze a couple times during the night/morning. I missed the live first kiss on the balcony but caught most everything else. She was such a beautiful bride. Radiant, glowing, every hair in place. Mike and I are getting married in a little over seven months, and I wont become a queen, princess, or even a duchess. BUT, I bet I will feel like all the above. And watching the Royal Wedding certainly got me excited about my own.

Staycation and History in the Making

I'm behind on posts. It happens. I'm going to try to catch up on some important life events over the next few days. First, as Mike mentioned in his last post, my good friend Anna visited me over her spring break. We had a really good time as she vacationed and I staycationed. Beaches, wine, ballgames, minor celebrities including Miss Maryland and the Harris brothers from Deadliest Catch, shopping, and good eats were all had that week. See some earlier posts for some good pics. Anna was a trooper and enthusiastic about sleeping for 5 nights on "Chocolate" - the nickname she gave my brown couch - while she was here. We had such a great, relaxing time. It was a little disappointing that we didn't have warmer weather. We went to both Santa Monica and Malibu beach, but I was in jeans both time because it was a little nippy.

As many if not all of you know by now, it has been an eventful night across the world. For posterity reading this, 3 hours ago, President Obama announced that American Special Forces killed Bin Laden. It is hard to describe the mix of emotions that I'm feeling. It is tough to take pleasure in death. But seeing the spontaneous gatherings of Americans in D.C. and New York make me proud to be an American, and I feel, perhaps hopeful is the right word, that Americans have reason to celebrate in the elimination of the worst enemy my generation has seen. I remember the exact seat in which I was sitting in my senior high school economics class on 9/11 when I learned that the towers had been hit, and I remember how my stomach dropped the first time I saw video of the second plane hitting. I think I will remember, nearly 10 years later, that I was sitting in my overstuffed pink chair tonight watching West Wing with Mike when he showed me CNN's homepage announcing Osama's death. We stopped the DVD and turned on live TV, and I suppose the rest is history.

Some of my friends from D.C. have been posting on Facebook about heading to the White House. This is the first time since we moved that I wished I still lived in D.C. Even living outside the city I would've been tempted to brave the traffic and craziness to be a part of history in Lafayette Park. Anyhoo, I'm sitting on my couch chanting with the rest of the country: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Challenge for Charity

So it dons on me that I never explained what Challenge for Charity (C4C) is, even though Meg and I posted a few updates from the event. C4C is a competition among 9 west coast business schools to help the Special Olympics and a few other select charities. The schools are judged on three criterion: money raised; hours volunteered; and athletic prowess. After raising money and volunteering all year, the whole competition culminates in one weekend hosted every year by Stanford where all of us former athletes (and quite a few people who think they are athletes) compete in a variety of sports, including flag football, basketball, table tennis, swimming.

Megan played doubles tennis and I played on the softball team. We both ended up finishing in 4th place, not bad, but I think we were both disappointing. UCLA, however, was victorious in the sports competition. We also volunteered the most hours, but were beat by USC in money raised (not surprising the rich kids from the private school beat us in money). All in all, USC ended up winning the competition and the Golden Briefcase.

The weekend was a lot of fun. We got to relive our glory days as athletes and hang out with friends. I also had a chance to meet a few MBA students from other schools, including someone from USC with whom I will be working this summer. At the end of the trip, we picked up Meg's former roommate Anna in Palo Alto and brought her back to LA. She was here for a week's long visit. Meg will have more on that soon...

Dodger Stadium

Anna is in town and we're at the Dodgers-Braves game. Meg made us all wear Braves jerseys.

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Challenge for Charity

We lost the competition for the Golden Briefcase to USC. Meg was sad.

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Challenge for Charity

Meg's got the Heisman pose down.

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The Man, the Myth, and the Legend...

... has returned to a diamond near you.

And by diamond, I mean a dirt patch with flip-flops as bases. So funny.
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Two Celebrity Sightings in Three Days

Yeah that's right. Thursday my parents (who are visiting for the weekend) and I saw Emeril Lagasse at Pink's Hotdogs. You may remember Pink's from our previous post. He was there finishing up some kind of shoot or something while we were eating our dogs. I got the special of the day, Emeril's "BAM!" dog. It had mustard, slaw, jalapenoes, american cheese and I thinks something else on it. It was delicious. And we got to see Emeril. Check out my pic on the food blog. By the way, TV is magic, because in real life he is a little older and little heavier. And there is really no excuse for that because his make-up lady was trailing him with a change of clothes and an apron full of brushes and powders. If I had that, I'd look like I was 21 and size 2 for the rest of my life.

Tonight we were in Santa Monica getting some dinner before seeing the Godfather at my fave new theater. We were at Blue Plate sitting outside and there was a tall, good-looking guy inside that I knew from somewhere. It took two hours searching the internet and wracking my brain to figure out the movie I knew him from. Finally, I could picture him riding a horse with a British accent. And thanks to Mike and my mom, we figured out he was the mean guy from a Knight's Tale. B-list actor? Yes. In more movies than you or me combined? Yes, so still counts as a celebrity.

Rufus Sewell (sorry it is a crappy pic, I was outside trying to stalk him indoors. He is the tall dark and handsome one just left of the middle of the picture, if you can't tell.)

Now that we have the famous people out of the way, let me give you a little weekend update. My parents are in town to visit so we are doing some fun touristy things. Friday we went to Catalina Island for the day. Very small town but beautiful views and serene water. I think Mike will talk more about this later. Saturday was wedding day. I showed my parents the Ebell Club where Mike and I are tying the knot exactly 8 months from today. (!!!!!) We checked out a hotel and had lunch at a potential rehearsal dinner site. And like I said, we saw a celebrity and the Godfather screening. Mike has been bugging me since I met him to see the Godfather, and I had in bits and pieces over the years, but never in one consecutive sitting. It is three hours long for crying out loud, and there is no love story or comedy and there are no particularly good-looking actors, either. It is hard to sit through on your couch. But seeing it on the big screen and being forced to sit still through the whole thing is totally worth it. Well done, Francis Ford Coppola - you make lame wine, but a damn fine movie.

Great Weekend

This was a great weekend. It started Thursday night with a chill happy hour at my favorite bar, Bar Food. It is practically across the street from our apartment, and they serve only beer, wine, and whiskey. Oh, and the most amazing fried potato puffs with a curry aioli. AND they give you a free hot dog for every drink you order during happy hour. Then we went on a bar crawl in Westwood with a bunch of his classmates. Here is a funny pic of Mike and I at Bar Food.

Friday we awoke early and slightly hungover and went on a micropub tour with the MicroBrew Club from his school. 14 young adults and a driver piled into a 15 passenger van and drove to San Diego to tour and taste at Stone Brewing. It was beautiful there, nothing like the industrial Budweiser plant I had visited in northern California years ago. After the tour we tasted 4 beers, a pale ale, a porter, an IPA and an ale called Arrogant Bastard, which I think is a hysterical name for a beer. I talked the bar tender into giving me a little taste of their russian stout, too, which was my favorite. We then dined alfresco with pretty darn good food, and yes another beer. We dined so leisurely that we had to cut out one of the remaining two breweries from our trip, and the second we changed to a nearby brew house. Lost Abbey was equally impressive. They had tasters for a $1, which was awesome. They had a huge bar in their brew house with fermenting tanks in the back and empty kegs for bar stools. I got home exhausted.

Mike with the 1/6 kegs. We thought it would be best to strap them on your back like jet packs.

Us in the garden

Yesterday was a chill day with a Target run and no alcohol whatsoever. We watched The Town and exercised. Today we lazed in bed most of the morning, Mike went to softball practice and I went to the market. You can read about my market adventures on my food blog. And finally, I got the pants beat off me at tennis practice today. We had 3 people practicing on the court, so we took turns being the 1 person versus the 2. And it was tough, with 2 players much better than me running me all over the court. But, all in all an excellent weekend.

Never too far from home...

We're at a BevMo in LA and do I find? Sudwerk beer.

For those of you who don't know, Sudwerk is a restaurant in Davis that brews its own beer (kinda like BJs). I remember seeing it for sale in and around Davis but I didn't expect to see it all the way down here in LA.

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A Couple Nights at the Movies

My mom and I have gone to see two movies since I've been home: Black Swan and Rango. I don't think there is anything I can say about Black Swan that hasn't already been said by other critics. But I loved watching all the dancing and I thought that Natalie Portman really did a stellar job bringing out the crazy. And can I just say that my every time my skin itched for two days after I thought I was growing feathers (which, let's be honest, would be pretty awesome.)

Rango was cute. My mom and I went on a Thursday night and there wasn't a child in the theater. In fact, there were only two other guys in there, which now that I think about it was kind of odd. But anyways, Johnny Depp in lizard form was adorable. Speaking of crazy, he was a little of that, too. You could certainly hear Jack Sparrow and the Mad Hatter in some of his scenes. The movie took on an interesting and somewhat political topic, especially for an animated feature. It was all about water and the power one can obtain when controlling it. Spoiler alert: it ended happily. Of course it did. It is a cartoon.

Mike saw Battle: LA. From what I understand, it was awesome in the same terrible way of The Day After Tomorrow  and 2012. I'm a little jealous, I must admit. Apparently Santa Monica gets wiped out. I'd like to see that (in a movie, only, mind you.)

Pink Fingers, Purple Toes, and Curly Hair

I had the opportunity to come home for a couple weeks to visit with my parents. I hated to leave Mike on his own during finals. I've missed spoiling him probably as much as he has missed eating good meals and not having to do the dishes afterward. But, he's a big boy, and as he's managed just fine on his own. He's finishing up his last final as I type, and I understand that there is to be class-wide whoops of joy and bar-hopping in celebration of their completed second quarter.

While Mike was studying the intricacies of corporate finance, I had a beauty day. My mom and I went Monday morning to get our nails done. While I was working in DC, the occasional pedicure was a treat for my aching feet that were stuck in heels all day. Since I don't have a job, getting my nails done has been a luxury that has gone by the wayside, substituted by home paint jobs. So I relished the time in the massage chair, closed my eyes as my calves, feet, arms, and hands were massaged, and picked the brightest most awesome (read: obnoxious) colors for my nails. That afternoon I headed to the hair salon. Two and a half hours later I emerged with a new cut and new curls. I smelled like a chemical plant, but I looked good.

One Down, Two To Go

I'm in the midst of Winter Quarter finals right now. This morning I suffered through Marketing. The final consisted of analyzing a case and developing a marketing strategy for the firm/product in question. The case we got today was about Rohm and Haas, a large chemical company, and their problems introducing a new metalworking microbiocide. What is a metalworking microbiocide you may be asking yourself. Well, I'm still not really sure, even though I read a 12 page case and wrote a 7 page marketing paper on it. It has something to do with killing bacteria and fungi in the water lubricant that metal working shops use in their machines. Anyways, I got through it somehow and now, most importantly, I never have to take another marketing class in my life! Some of marketing was interesting enough, but after 15 weeks and 2 poor professors, I just don't think I'm going to risk it. I guess if I wanted to go into marketing, I should have tried harder to get into Kellogg, Wharton or Stanford.

Anyways, I've moved on to Operations today, and boy, this is not fun. As one of my classmates so aptly put it: "tomorrow is going to be a bloodbath." I fully agree, but I've got another hour or so of studying left tonight and hopefully I'll get lucky with the questions tomorrow morning. After that its on to Corporate Finance, which should also be a whopper, but only because the professor said its going to be more qualitative than quantitative. If it was a quant test, I wouldn't have any problem, but word problems and theories are quite as easy.

The worst part of finals this quarter is not the finals themselves, but that fact that Megan is out of town. She's back in Hot-lanta visiting family. Her being out of town creates two problems: first, she's gone and that's never fun; and second, she always cooks for me during finals, making my life so much easier. Today I was relegated to having Costco pizza for lunch and leftover pasta for dinner. Such is life I guess.

Wendy's Commercial

As we were walking through Westwood today we ran into the scene seen below. Wendys was conducting market research on its new fries and giving away free samples. Never one to turn down free food, Megan and I decided to venture over test them out. In addition they were shooting interviews for a commercial. We passed the prescreening and lined up to get on camera but alas, the director decided he had seen enough just as we got to the front of the line. No TV time for us.

Oh yeah, the fries aren't bad. Wendys uses real potatoes now and sea salt instead of iodized salt. Pretty tasty.

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Sniff, Sniff

It has been a crummy week. I spent last weekend being sick with a cold, and by the end of the week, Mike was suffering from the same thing. It is funny how we can have the same virus but it affects us so differently. I had sinus pressure and a wickedly sore throat. Mike had a headache, sinus pressure, coughing, and a nose that ran from here to China. Here is the evidence:

That is a small trash can full of only Mike's tissues. One word: GROSS. We spent most of the weekend on the couch, Mike whining and me trying to nurse him back to health. I didn't fix any chicken and matza balls or dumplings, but I think he did eat two cans of soup in one day.

I think we are both better now. Thank goodness, since he has finals coming up in the next week, and I'm leaving Wednesday to go to Atlanta for a couple weeks.

About Thursday we were both doing OK, and we had a fun evening on campus at CRAVE, where we tasted wines from Pasa Robles region in California. I can't wait to go there. There were some very good wines, and most for a reasonable cost. They also served pasta and cheese. Have I mentioned how much I love cheese? I think I had 3 plates of just cheese and crackers. It was great because I could sip several different wines and eat the same cheese and the cheese would taste slightly different every time. And the wine would taste different depending on what cheese I just ate. It's edible magic!

BBQ, Korean style

Let me start this post by saying "I wish I had taken pictures of this!"

Last night Mike had a reunion with his friends he met on the trip to Israel. Significant others were invited along to meet for Korean BBQ at a local haunt. I've never had Korean BBQ until last night, but suffice it to say that I will be back for more. Soon. You order the meats you want to try and they bring them out to you uncooked. You slap the raw meat down in the middle of your table that has a built-in grill and you cook your food to your liking. We had so much food last night. We ate for two and a half hours. If we hadn't closed the place down, I'm sure Mike would've stayed for more. We tried so many amazing foods. There was pork, beef, chicken and seafood, in all types of varieties. Like pork belly. And sirloin. And octopus. And brisket. I can't wait to go back. I want to try pork neck and large intestines and tongue and calf intestines, too. I really enjoy playing with my food (fondue, build your own fajitas, create your own ice cream sundae), so this was such a fun way to eat.

The company wasn't too bad, either. Mike enjoyed the chance to catch up and reconnect with some of the folks from his trip. I had a chance to meet them and put some faces with the names I had heard so often upon Mike's return. Unfortunately, the place we went was jam-packed, and we had 10 people sitting at a table for 7, and I was on the far end and couldn't hear a whole lot. But it was a great time nonetheless.

Also, for anyone interested, I've started an additional blog. It is all about food! Shocker, I know. Check it out! http://yourreallifefood.blogspot.com/

LA Kings

We're at our first hockey game since we moved to LA seeing the Kings take on the Minnesota Wild. A group of about 40 people from Anderson are. Should be a good night.

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It's official!

I'm going to Mattel this summer. More specifically, I will be joining the strategy group at Mattel in El Segundo, mostly likely the corporate strategy group. Mattel won out over Genentech and Amgen, although it was tough to select the toy company over the top biotech firm (Genentech, that is).

I'm really excited about the opportunity. One of the biggest determinants in this decision was the chance to step out of the healthcare world and gain some other experience. As much as I love healthcare and find the biotech industry fascinating, a summer internship seems like the best time to try something new. If I don't do it now, I'm afraid I'll get the urge at 40 when I (hopefully) have a family to worry about.

But the type of work and the people I'll be working with also played a big part in this decision. As I said, I'll be doing strategy work, working in the corporate strategy group (instead of the brand or international strategy groups). I don't know my projects yet, but some of the previous summer projects included working with the CFO to determine dividend policy, cutting $100 million in costs without cutting jobs or work with the CEO as he prepares to give a keynote speech to investors at an annual toy fair. The people are also great. Most of them are former consultants who are very bright. It should be a great environment to be in for 10-12 weeks for the summer.

Breaking TV Habits

Mike and I have weird TV watching habits. We always sit on the same side of the couch, which coincidentally is the same side of the bed and the same side of the car (he mostly drives). If we are watching a movie, I usually trespass onto his side of the couch to cuddle, and then 30 minutes later move back to my side because I failed to remember, yet again, that no matter what anyone says (including myself) cuddling just isn't that comfortable on the couch for long periods of time. And it has to be 90+ degrees outside for us NOT to have a blanket on our laps while we veg. But the worst habit we have is that when there is nothing on TV we watch marathons of TiVo-ed episodes of How I Met Your Mother which are replayed thrice nightly on Lifetime. At any given time we have 20-30 episodes on the box. And we've seen them all. Several times. So in a bold move last night, we decided to set aside our reruns in favor of actually using our Netflix account and watching a new TV series: Weeds.

Suffice it to say, that show is legend - wait for it - ary (if you don't get that, please watch How I Met Your Mother. It is good, too.) Mike and I watched 5 episodes last night and 5 when he got home from school today, thus completing the first season in less than 24 hours. First, it takes place in suburban LA which cracks me up because I actually live there now. Second, some of the situations the family gets in are hysterical. Third, some of those people are CRAZY, but totally believable, and I really like that. I'm not a pot-dealing widow with two kids, so I can't really relate, but yet, I feel like I can. I understand now why Mary-Louise Parker was nominated for awards so many times for her role.

Seasons 2-6 are next. And then I think we'll head into Arrested Development or Dexter depending on whether we are feeling eccentric or just plain murderous.

Isn't this supposed to be fun??

Last night, Megan and I went to a "Sip N Scan" event at Macy's in Torrance. They had appetizers (oddly enough from the same caterer we're using), and vendor reps on site to help answer any questions we had as we completed our registry. In reality, it was just an excuse for everyone to hawk their stuff at us. Megan ate it up, scanning an estimated 20 or so items to add to our registry. Except, she didn't scan them, I did. In order to make picking out China and bed linens fun for me, I was given the pleasure of holding the scan gun. And what fun it was! First off, it wasn't even shaped like a gun, rather it was basically a PDA with a bar code scanner. Secondly, the damn thing kept shutting off and then wouldn't scan anything for 30 seconds while it rebooted. I also had trouble with entering the quantity we wanted. I'm pretty sure I signed us up for something like 15 sets of crystal candlesticks. Oh, and I didn't mention the best part yet: it took us 2 hours to drive the 15 miles from our apartment to Torrance. The event started at 6:30pm on a Friday before a three-day weekend, meaning we had to deal with weekend rush hour traffic. Plus, it was raining, and people in LA really can't drive in the rain. (I think it is because it only rains here like 15 days each year).

After Macy's, however, we had a nice little dinner at a restaurant in Long Beach called Cucina Picarelli. It's an Italian place not far from the E-Bell club, and a real potential location for the rehearsal dinner. I had Chicken Parm and Megan had Spinach Fetticini with Scallops in a basil cream sauce. They had a nice covered and enclosed patio that can hold about 25-35 people, so its currently on the short list. Oh, and by the way, thanks Kevin and Julie for dinner last night.

First Tasting

Mike and I headed to Long Beach last night to our wedding venue for a tasting. We were joined by another 80 or so folks to meet vendors, taste apps and dinner, and judge cake combos. It was a lot of fun and really got us both excited about the wedding. I was a fan of the tri-tip sliders, fried mac-n-cheese lollipops, and wasabi mashed potatoes in mini martini glasses. Dinner was yummy, too, but I think it is going to need a little work. One potential downfall of cooking a lot is that I'm starting to notice when foods are bland and boring, and some of the food last night was a little bland. Dessert was fun, though. I must've tried half a dozen pieces of cake, dessert shots, lollicakes, you name it.

The limo (!) took us back to the parking lot and we headed home with appointments with vendors on our calendars, a sample centerpiece from a florist, and heartburn from eating so much food. Friday we are going to Macy's for a registry "sip and scan." It is a serious wedding week.

Happy Valentine's

Valentine's Day actually fell on Sunday the 13th this year. At least in our house it did. Mike got his hair cut Saturday afternoon and his barber asked what he was going to be doing for V Day. (I'm not sure how the conversation progressed, but I imagine that there was an expression of panic on Mike's face then a hearty chuckle from the barber.) Mike then learned of a nearby independent theater that was playing Casablanca on Sunday night.

We had an early dinner then went to the Aero Theater to save our seats for the showing. It turned out to be a double feature, with Casablanca first followed by Double Indemnity. It was such a great experience. Mike and I had seen Casablanca at Movies on the Mall in DC (Monday nights in the summer where movies are shown right in front of the Capitol) but it was hard to hear and hard to see, so we didn't get the full experience. At the Aero, it was such a great way to see old movies. Everyone in the theater cheered at the opening credits for the title, stars, directors and music composers. Everyone laughs out loud at the jokes, gasps at the surprises, and applauds at the end. We had a wonderful time! And if you didn't already know, Humphrey Bogart was a darn good looking man. Not as good looking as my date for the evening, but nice to look at for two hours.

While there we found out that they were showing Breakfast at Tiffany's for Valentine's Day the next evening. Mike actually was heading out of town Monday afternoon for another interview, this one up in San Francisco (I will let him tell you about that) so I knew I was going to be alone on the real Valentine's Day night. Now, I have a serious crush on Audrey Hepburn. I think she is one of the most beautiful, classiest, leading ladies that has ever been on the silver screen. She has a fascinating biography, too. Though I was hesitant to go on a date by myself on the official Couple's Day, I knew I would hate myself if I missed the chance to see one of my favorite movies on the big screen. And I was so right. With a large bag of popcorn and Sour Patch Kids for dinner, I had an amazing time. There is something about seeing these movies the way they were meant to be seen. I own Breakfast and have seen it too many times to count, but I noticed things I had never seen or heard before when watching it at the theater.

I was sad to hear that I missed Gone With the Wind by one day - it played Saturday night. Hopefully they will play it again soon. They have a super schedule laid out for the rest of the month, with many screenings including panels or talks by those involved with making the movies (Angelica Houston, David O'Russell, Amy Adams to name a few to be there in February). I guess that is one of the many perks of living in Southern California! I think I won't have too much trouble talking Mike into taking me to see The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly this weekend.

Good news

Well, all that work has finally paid off. I got my first summer internship offer today! Mattel made me and offer to work with their strategy group for the summer. I don't know what I would be doing just yet, and, actually, I don't know if I will take the offer. I have two final round interviews next week, on Tuesday with Genentech in a portfolio strategy position, and on Friday with PwC Health Advisory doing healthcare consulting. I think I'm going to go through those interviews and try to get a better feel for those jobs. But at least I have an offer for a position I would really enjoy. It makes this whole six week application and interview process a lot more rewarding.

Super Bowl XLV

We had some folks over for the Super Bowl yesterday. We had a blast. We don't have a very big place, but we managed to set up stadium seating so that everyone could see the game. And we moved some furniture around (and the still-unpacked moving boxes) so that there was more space. I had a really great time cooking - stuffed mushrooms, potstickers, veggie tray, carrot bread, chocolate cookies, and lots of dips! It's the first time we've had people over to our place since we moved in (not counting Mike's study sessions.) I think we should make it a regular thing. Next up, dinner party!

Spider

Slap...slap, slap... slap, slap, slap, slap, slap.

That is how I awoke this morning, with Megan trying to kill a spider that was on my head. One problem: there was no spider (at least not one we could find). I'm guessing that Megan was in one of those half-asleep, half-awake states and was dreaming about a spider. Somehow, she projected that dream onto my head. No worries, though, I'm fine. Although, I did tell her that if she ever does that again I'm taking the ring back. (I was just kidding, kind of).

Up in Flames

I've been boring lately. Until tonight. I've been on a cooking kick over the last few days. That came to a screeching halt this evening. I bought some chicken thighs awhile back in bulk (won't do that again) and needed to cook the last six. So I slathered on some BBQ sauce and threw them on the grill. And a few minutes later when I went back to check them... they were on fire. Serious fire, spouting out of the closed grill, licking at the wooden railing, smoke threatening to infest the entire apartment building. I was totally prepared to put out the fire... if it was in the kitchen. Smother it with another pan! Air still gets in the bottom, sides, through the grill. Baking soda! I don't have enough and it is back inside. Ummm.... turn off the burners! Done, and fire still raging. Shut off the gas! Fire still going strong. Ummmm...... right, move the chicken! Surprisingly, it wasn't even burnt. Ok, fire getting under control, and getting smaller by the second. Maybe... blow on it? Sure, why not. Out like a candle.

Now the chicken is safely in the oven. I'm shaking like a leaf. And I'm leaving the grill to Mike for awhile.

'Dillas

Quesadillas are one of my favorite foods, possibly only behind pizza and ice cream. I'm not sure what it says about me that my fave foods could be confused with those of a 9 year old's, but you have to admit that when you slurp up a delicious flavor of ice cream or visit your favorite pizza parlor, you feel like nothing in the world could go wrong (except your blood pressure!) I've also discovered recently that I really enjoy "experience" foods, for lack of a better term. Anything that you eat with your hands, or that you dip, mix, swirl, or use unconventional utensils to eat would fall in this category. For example: sushi, nachos, cheese and crackers, chicken satay and peanut sauce, fro-yo and toppings, and anything on a bone would be an "experience" food.

All these foods are even fun to make. For example, when Mike and I don't feel like cooking, or when we don't have anything in the fridge to heat up, we pull out a frozen cheese pizza that we bought in bulk from Costco and we dress it up with whatever odds and ends we have. Often we split the pizza in half; Mike tends to keep his side uncluttered, with extra cheese, maybe some onion, sliced chicken breast from leftovers, and peppers. My side tends to be full to overflowing: onions, spinach, broccoli, banana peppers, cheese, steak leftovers, mushrooms, and whatever else I can find and that would be reasonably at home on pizza. One of our favorite toppings is fresh (not canned) sliced jalapenos. Those go on both sides. (Side note - for about 6 weeks in the fall, our local farmer's market had pints of multicolored jalapenos for $1. We put jalapenos on everything for about 2 months, and I think we are both now hooked on the spicy little buds.)

Quesadillas (or "'dillas," pronouncing the "ll"s as we call them) are also a go-to favorite. We ALWAYS have tortilla shells, shredded cheese, green salsa, and green Tabasco sauce on hand. Yesterday, I made some delicious ones for lunch. I sauteed some shallots and diced jalapenos until soft, then added some thinly sliced leftover steak until it was just heated through. Add some shredded cheese and voila! Other great combos: Brie or goat cheese with thinly sliced pears or apples and a lime-honey dipping sauce; caramelized onions and mozzarella; and pretty much anything with salsa verde. There are two keys to a good 'dilla. 1) You can put whatever you want in the middle, but the ingredients that must be adjacent to the tortillas is the cheese. This keeps the shells from getting soggy and keeps the 'dilla together. 2) Get the pan nice and hot to start then put in butter and let it fizzle around for a second. The fat will brown the outside and the high heat will make it crispy.

My latest hair-brained idea is to open a 'dilla joint. I think it could have a lot of potential. I'd have to find the right location, of course. Probably somewhere in close proximity to a college campus and 9 year olds. I would have tons of house specialties of my own creation, maybe even rotate them based on the seasons. And a "build it yourself" bar. And dessert 'dillas. Perhaps there would even be a food truck in my future, too. I would need a killer name. Any and all suggestions welcomed.

Mike is at a recruiting dinner tonight, so I'm on my own. After writing this post, I'm certain that a 'dilla is in my immediate future!

Update on My Life

I don't remember that last time I posted on this blog, so I thought I should update everyone as to what is going on in my life.

First, the recent events. Last night Meg and I joined the Davidson alumni group in Southern California at the LA Clippers vs. Golden State Warriors game to watch fellow Davidson alum Stephen Curry. Events with Davidson alumni groups are always fun; there's a special bond that brings us all together and its amazing how easy it is to converse with complete strangers who share that bond. Anyways, the game was fun, even if the Warriors lost, and Steph played great, racking up 32 points and 8 assists. I had a chance to see two old teammates of mine and catch up. Plus, this is our second event with the SoCal group, so we're starting to see some familiar faces and get to know people a little bit.

The thing that's been dominating my life right now is recruiting. It's only January and I'm already well into the search for a summer internship. Last week alone I had three interviews: LEK Consulting, Abbott Labs and Intuitive Surgical. This week I've got six more, with a variety of healthcare and consulting companies (plus Mattel, just for kicks). I've already heard one "no" (LEK), but felt good about the Abbott and Intuitive interviews. We'll see how the six next week go, but I'm already planning ahead and have applied for a couple more just in case.

In total, I think I've applied to about 25 jobs (with 7 responses still outstanding). Those 25 "resume drops" require not only customized resumes, but also customized cover letters. In order to customize a cover letter, not only do I need to research the firm and job, but it helps to talk to either current employees or second year students who interned with the firm last year. Setting up those talks takes some time, but really,I just hate trying to come up with interesting questions. I usually can answer any questions I have simply by research a firm, and asking questions like "What's a typical day like?" just doesn't do anything for anyone because the answer is usually "There is no typical day."

I'll be glad when this is all over and I have an internship. And I know Meg will be too. Even though I only have three classes this quarter (vs. five last quarter) I seem to have less time for her. I'm trying to make time - carving out 30 minutes for dinner or an hour for a walk, but I know she would like to see more of me (and me more of her). Hopefully I'll have more time when this ends in a couple of weeks. If not, I'll have to rethink how I organize my time.

My Birthday Present

Mike got me an awesome birthday present this year. A new bike! I've taken it out a few times already, including a 10 mile bike ride down the beach yesterday afternoon. There are bike paths in Santa Monica on most roads, and a bike path that travels the coast. It was a beautiful day and I took full advantage of it. Mike is a great gift giver, and this one was a great one.

It is also fortuitous that we got another mode of transportation this past week since we are temporarily carless. You may recall a car accident we were in, oh, about 6 months ago. We finally decided to pony up the deductible and get the eyesore of a car fixed. On a preliminary look, the auto center said we are going to need a new bumper, new undercarriage, new spare tire and probably more. Because of the extent of damage, we are looking at 10 working days to get it fixed. That is two weeks without a car in L.A. The bike is a good start, but we did end up getting a rental for the weekend so that we can get to some of the arrangements and appointments we have set up this week. More on our adventures of the weekend soon.

Movie/TV Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Big Bang Theory

How had I never seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest before?? First, I now finally understand the Nurse Ratched references. What a wonderfully flawed character. Second, I think this is the first time I've seen Christopher Lloyd in a movie where he doesn't have a shocking white mess of hair. Third, Jack Nicholson scares the crap out of me. During the week of Halloween this year, AMC was playing a bunch of scary movies, The Shining being one of them. I watched it at noon, in the broad daylight. I told my sis later that day that I hope I never run into Jack at the grocery store or something because I will probably pee my pants. Anyways, Jack was ridiculous in this movie. Was he crazy? Not anymore than me or you. But after gaining the trust of his comrades he absolutely held their lives in his hands. And that is scary. If you haven't seen it or haven't seen it in a while, stream it on Netflix. Jason, this means you.

Currently Mike and my's favorite TV show is Big Bang Theory. Jim Parsons, the star of the show, won a Golden Globe this evening. And Kaley, the starlett, was adorable. I was hoping they were going to win best comedy show, but it went to another guilty pleasure of mine, Glee. Anyways, last night we watched most of Season 3 on DVD. And made a drinking game out of it. Whenever the crazy atoms go by one the screen, drink. Whenever Sheldon laughs, drink. Whenever there is a "bazzinga", drink. Let's just say, I was hurting this morning. The show is hilarious. Smart, funny, awkward. (Hmmm, kinda sounds like Mike and me.)

On a related note, the Golden Globes is held at the iconic Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, CA. The hotel is literally 4 miles straight down the road from my apartment. Never thought I would say that!

Cooking for Others

Friday and Saturday this past weekend I spend some time doing something I don't normally do. I cooked and served others. And it felt darn good. I found the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition online and talked to Ted, the volunteer organizer, about the opportunities there. Friday night I loaded up the truck at the kitchen, which looked to be an out of business pita shop, and went a few blocks away to a West Hollywood corner. We pulled out our own tables and trashcans and there I served chicken, rice and beans to about 75 homeless, working poor, and down and out men and women. I was told that 75 isn't very many. By the end of the month when the money runs out for these folks, there can be up to 150 people in line for a hot meal. In addition to my serving station, we also had salad, soup, bread, and dessert. Many of the folks there were so grateful. Most of the servers come at least once a week, so the regulars in the line made a special point to say "hi" to me. One older gentleman even approached me while we were cleaning up (by the time we left, everything was spotless, and you couldn't even tell we had been there) and told me that I was very pretty. They really know how to get a girl to come back!

On Saturday, I was invited to return in the early afternoon to help with the cooking - a dream come true! Is there a better way to spend an afternoon than cooking for others who may not be eating?!? I think not. I didn't get to cook much, but it was so satisfying knowing that my 5 dessert trays full of gourmet cupcakes (donated from a local bakery) and my two huge catering-sized casserole dishes of rice and beef cubes (donated from Chipotle mexican restaurant) would be providing a hot meal to some folks in need.

I'm planning on being a new regular on the line. Is it too late to add "Service" to my New Year's Resolution list?

Movie Review: The King's Speech

Meg and I decided to get out of the apartment today and headed out to the movies. Even though Meg had previously expressed interest in seeing Black Swan, I was able to convince her that our quarterly movie outing (that's about how often we get out) should be spent on viewing something we both really wanted to see. So we went down to Marina Del Ray and saw The King's Speech. For those of you who haven't heard of it (and I'm guessing that is a lot of you), its a British flick about Prince Albert (aka King George VI) and his struggle to overcome a stammer. It's one of those typical movies that no one has ever heard of, but that gets nominated for all kinds of Oscars. Colin Firth plays the monarch with Geoffrey Rush filling the role of the speech therapist. Both are two actors who, at least for me, are easily recognizable, not but easily identified by name. Regardless, they both were great in The King's Speech, and Meg and I, in our infinite expertise, would not be surprised to see both nominated for numerous awards. Overall, it’s an excellent movie and we both highly recommend that everyone go see it.

On a different note, it’s been a busy week for me. I spent most of last week writing cover letters for summer internship applications. In total, I've now applied for 20 internships, with 3 negative responses and 2 invitations to interview. I should hear back from another 5 or so this week and I'll "drop" my resume for another 5-8 (depending on how much time I have and how many more cover letters I actually want to write). The primary reason I'm applying for so many is that my Plan A and Plan B have similar deadlines, so I'm applying for some jobs that are lower priorities just because I haven't heard yet from my top choices. This round of drops will finish in a week or two with interviews running through mid to late February. If this round doesn't work out, "Just-in-Time" recruiting starts in March and runs through June. Hopefully, something will work out and I won't have to worry about recruiting in the spring.