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.