With my two new classes starting at CSU and all the catching up at work on top of working on strategic moves, I finally found the time to sit and write a brief summary of my West Coast trip. I am not going to get into a lot of details because the pictures at the end of the blog will tell some of the story and the things that I have seen.
Overall, I loved L.A. the weather and the atmosphere was awesome. I am definitely planning to move out there sometime in the future, contingent on a well paying job that I plan on getting out there. The whole city is on the move and anywhere you go there is always something going on, unlike Cleveland where you have very limited points of social interaction and anything interesting going on. Anyway, I met up with my friend Chris on Tuesday who flew in from the Windy Chi. The first couple of days we spent the doing some sightseeing, places like West Hollywood, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Malibu, Santa Barbara. Chilling at the pool and just cruising and relaxing. Hit up a couple of gourmet food joints for dinner, lunch and general lounging. I got to visit Little Armenia and buy some Armenian records at the store and visit some of the local shops.
The first day I got there was Chris’s birthday so we went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris, the steaks melted in my mouth at a reasonable price. He lived in L.A. so he was pretty familiar with the area so that worked out nicely in driving around and getting to places. Nevertheless we had a sweet navi system in the 07 Escalade. We went to a couple beaches looking for jet skies and finally at Redodo Beach we rented jet skiis for a couple of hours. I had crazy fun on them because there were some serious waves so I got some good air like 3-4 feet off the water. Granted, I fell off twice going like 50 miles/hour in the middle of the ocean so it was a bit freaky. I definitely did not have any encounters with sharks, but I did see a seal swim by me and Chris saw some dolphins.
On the weekend we drove to Vegas. Of course the amount of money and tourism in that city is pretty absurd, but honestly after a few days I was ready to go back to L.A. because there is only so much stuff you can do on the strip and there were way too many people, which at times made me feel cluster phobic. I do not like to gamble my money because of the limited amounts that I have and plus it doesn’t really do anything for me on the whole excitement level. There are basically three categories of gamblers in my opinion
- People who are broke or have very little money and think they can get rich by gambling at the casino
- People who like the thrill and gamble in moderate levels and enjoy the social setting
- People who are power gamblers and high rollers who do it for fun and the pleasure of having the ability to gamble thousands and even millions of dollars.
I do not fall under any of these categories and personally think that category 1 is a bunch of stupid people who obviously have no clue about odds. Category 2 and 3 I am cool with because they do it for the amusement and self- entertainment purposes.
Maybe one day when I am filthy rich I will hit up the high rollers table and do some Texas Holden and Blackjack, but until then I was just observing. Walked around the strip, checked out the amazing architecture, watched the OSU vs. Georgetown game at the MGM’s big screens surrounded by crazy gamblers. Went to a few car museums where I saw amazing classics and new exotics and also bought some die cast models to expand my collection. We also got to rude on the New York roller coaster which outside of the New York New York hotel. Almost forgot, the first night we went to this ultra lounge Revolutions at the Mirage for a VIP party with a few friends and groupies partying until like 6 am, and well you know the rest, it goes something like this... "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"
Drove back to L.A. on Monday. That week we hung out with some of Chris’s friends and family. Went to the Getty center which are all the garden and artsy pictures you will see in the pics below. Cruised around the city and went to Rodeo drive and Beverly Hills center to check out the scene and the beautiful L.A. babies. I did not get to see any celebrities because I did not do too much late night partying in L.A. It was a bit of hassle to go clubbing because you had to know the hot spots and with valet parking and cover charges it was not worth the hustle and bustle and after doing stuff all day we were pretty tired. However I did see, the girl from the Hills, MTV show, she sat next to us at the California Pizza Kitchen in West Hollywood. Although, she is not much of a celeb, but it was cool to see her pretty face in real life. We also went to Universal Studios Theme Park which was not too packed because it was still the beginning of the season so we were able to make good time on rides and walking around the park. We went on all the major theme rides and took the tour of the universal studios. We got to see some famous movie from Jaws, War of the Worlds, King Kong. Saw some prop cars from famous movies and go to see how they make special effects. Although the rides can’t compare to Cedar Point, I would still recommend it because they all had unique movie themes and it was interesting to see how they incorporated parts of the movies into the ride.
So after 10 days of beautiful sunny weather I came back to 1.5 feet of snow on my drive way, but I was happy to be home and see my favorite little spoiled brat Lou. The vacation was fulfilling and relaxing and I got to catch with Chris.
http://public.fotki.com/dredawg81/la-and-vegas/ password: 2pac
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