la river |

With last week being my return to a regular work schedule (and with no company holidays in sight until Memorial Day), it ended up feeling like a very long week. This weekend ended up being a lot of fun, although I think I drank more beer than I should have? This morning was certainly rougher than expected.

As for yesterday, we drove down into the Downtown LA Arts District, which is certainly a very “hip” neighborhood, with it having a ton of hipster bars and restaurants while also nestled up against one of the worst parts of town, Skid Row. So edgy! 🙂 Anyway, we drove in over the Fourth St bridge and luckily found a parking spot in the lot, and proceeded to enjoy the Brewery offerings. Of course I drank the beer while Larry just had to deal with me. It was awesome to get to see the old crew all together again (sans Nicki & Brian though) and it just reminded both Larry & me that we have some fantastic friends – it’s just that we don’t get to see them daily. 🙁 Welcome to the 30s, Tawny!!!

Jan 9, 2016 – Tawny’s Birthday at Arts District Brewery

Driving across one of the awesome LA River bridges

This is the Fourth Street Bridge

There’s DTLA!

Not sure what that all is

The very long Arts District apartments

Inside the Brewery

Our selfie

Carey & Paras

Larry & Me

Skeeball cast its allure to Larry

The exterior of the Brewery

This get-together had been an afternoon affair, so Larry & I ended up getting dinner back close to home at Jax. The jazz was still fun to listen to, although it had vocals so I think Michancy would have hated it. There was an amusing woman in front of us at the host desk who was absolutely PISSED that her wishes to be near the music were not conveyed in the reservation. She demanded to know when she’d get a table and when the host finally guessed an hour after getting badgered by her for that answer, she immediately demanded to know why it would be an hour. Bitch, STFU. Anyway, Larry & I didn’t care about being next to the music and got her table. Food wasn’t all that much to write home about, but it was good enough.

Finally, this morning, we did another Griffith Park run! I explored a little and ran west initially and discovered the bike path doesn’t go that much further west just yet. I do know that there are plans to make the path go the entire length of the river, but we’re not there yet. Thanks again to Fitbit guilt for getting me out on that run. Here’s hoping to continuing that trend and getting my health in check.

Today is the last day of my Christmas vacation. WTF? How did this happen so damn fast? I guess it really wasn’t all that fast, but it did feel like it as not much really of note happened last week while off from work. But that was nice at the same time. I got our tree down and stored away, a much-needed haircut, my ride around on the Gold Line…then we had New Year’s and it was nice and uneventful, in a good way, but then all of a sudden it was this weekend and damn, here we are. Yesterday was actually a great and productive day, especially with regards to the wedding. Not only was cake ordered, but we also made a decision on the officiant. That’s a huge relief and I think it’ll be a good choice for the ceremony we want to have. It’ll be somewhat Jewish in nature, but not really super religious in nature. It’s also the rabbi who performed Fran and Joel’s wedding, and that was a fantastic ceremony. And I also played plenty of video games, finishing up Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and its Jack the Ripper DLC, while also starting Hacknet (finishing that) and Undertale (in progress still).

Anyway, that brings us to today!

First, Larry was going off to run the bike trail by the LA River and Griffith Park, so I joined him – thanks FitBit Guilt.

It’s a nice and flat run, which is much appreciated. You run along both the LA River and the 5 Freeway, which is kind of interesting. I made it down to the Los Feliz bridge, where I turned around and ran back. I can see that my heart rate is getting pretty high in these runs which motivates me more to get in better condition. But I’m happy to be able to have the endurance in me still to do a 4.5 mile run.

After that run, I pretty much stopped being productive. It was an afternoon of movies. I ended up satiating my celebrity crush fixation on Chris Evans (aka Captain America) by watching both of the Captain America movies.

These are by far my most favorite of the Marvel Avengers movies. By far….

…for reasons, obviously. Also, because they are just far more interesting characters and movies. Totally unbiased opinion though.

Then after that, Larry asked about watching The Towering Inferno – as we had actually watched The Poseidon Adventure on Friday. Talk about some retro disaster movie fun! We fit in San Andreas yesterday too (I still enjoy that movie but some of the motivations for the characters there really are bothersome – but the special effects are insane!). So watching The Towering Inferno sucks up a whole 3 hours. Poseidon Adventure is certainly the better movie. Much better characters helps make it a more enjoyable movie. I still don’t get what Irwin Allen had against some of the characters – he kills off extremely likable people in both, while letting characters like Nonnie the catatonic lounge singer skate by while being a hindrance to others. But anyway.

Off to work tomorrow. No break in sight for a quite a few months – honestly, probably not until the wedding time. Ugh. I will be off to NYC and Philly this week too. Exciting times!