Jess and Aaron's Visit Part Deux

The day after visiting the zoo we took a trip up to LA. We started at the Griffith Observatory. Here are some photos overlooking LA and of course the Hollywood sign.Inside of the Observatory there is a cafe. Since I have started reading Douglas Adams I got a kicked out of the name.They of course have plenty of information and displays about the solar system and star gazing. Here was one computer screen set up showing infrared and Derek stood below and took a picture. I thought it turned out pretty neat. After the Observatory we went to the walk of fame. Tons and tons of names I have never heard of and some I didn't really think had accomplished enough to have a fan club let alone a star. This however was pretty awesome:And this is what Michael Jackson's star looked like a couple weeks after his death. Funny because we never would have taken a picture of his star and technically all we wanted was to capture the craziness. Poor Queen Latifah getting no love.Kurt's sister lives up in Santa Monica and we had plans to have dinner with her (Nancy) and her husband. Here is the infamous Muscle Beach...We had a lot of fun with Jess and Aaron and now I know there really isn't much to LA that I care about. The stars were neat, but the novelty wears off pretty quick.

Jess and Arron's Visit

I have been talking for two weeks about getting caught up with the blog and how exciting it will be to post about things in a timely manner again. I have been talking about it, clearly I have not been doing it. Today I will share with you some of the things we did while Aaron and Jess were in town. I worked a lot of the time they were here so I don't have as many exciting stories as I did when Vinnie came to town. Also, we went to a beautiful spot called Point Loma and my camera batteries were dead so I have no photos to share. Instead of photos of beautiful cliffs I will start with the San Diego Zoo.


This was my second time visiting the zoo and Derek’s first. The layout is a nightmare because there is no single path you can follow to see all of the animals. This works in our favor so that when everybody comes to visit we will get to see new things every time. This guy was pretty cool and I am not sure what he blends in with in nature since he was in a desert enclosure.These are swamp monkeys, they share an enclosure with otters. We were not able to capture it in photo (I know Jess and Aaron did and will try and get a copy) but these monkeys would play with the otters. The otters swam around taunting them and the monkeys would grab their tails and hold them for a couple seconds.
Here I am as a scientist. There is a new exhibit called Elephant Odyssey that gives information about animals found in San Diego thousands of years ago and compares them to animals of today. The craziest part of the trip was the lion. The sun was going down and the camera's flash refused to cooperate so I do not have a photo of him. This lion was pacing the length of his enclosure and started growling. He then started pacing in a small five foot circle. Jess then pointed out a service dog standing outside of the cage. The lion was in great distress and wanted to make that dog his dinner. The woman with the dog apparently got a kick out of this and stayed there for quite a few minutes driving the lion crazy. She then walked away and remarked, "he wanted to make you his lunch."


The zoo also has a bunch of peacocks that roam freely. This one got on top of a building and the green bulb lit him up beautifully.

4th of July

On the Fourth of July Derek and I invaded enemy territory. We got two tickets to the Angels/Orioles game in Anaheim. We were invited by the brother of one of Derek’s coworkers so before the game we went tailgating with some new people. There were hotdogs and hamburgers, lots of yummy goodness. I also learned that “hotlinks” are awesome and must be present at more cookouts. We had some live music being performed right next to our tailgating spot.Here we are with our O's hats (you will have to take my word for it on Derek's) in front of the stadium.They brought out a big flag for the National Anthem.Fly overEarly in the game we were up by four points. Here is a photo of Brian Roberts scoring. By the end of the game the Angels took it 11 to 4, losing it O's style. They have a really cool bubble maker in the stadium that realeases these halo A's above the outfield.They turned out most of the lights for the fireworks display.Most of the crowd stuck around so we weren't able to score better seats for the fireworks. We could see most of them, just a few low ones we missed.

The Angels fans were a ton of fun. We got a few heckles but they were all in good fun. One of the hecklers even bought us a pretzel! According to one my super pale skin is the dead give away that I am not an Angels fan.

San Diego Fair

San Diego County has a huge fair every year. It is probably twice the size of the Maryland State Fair. There were plenty of fried foods, carnival games, and rides. When we arrived there were rows and rows of computers were set up, but for what? We still don't know you needed some card in order to use them, but we didn't have said card nor know where to find it. So instead there was an attempt to hack, attempt was thwarted by my desire for food and over priced fair fun.This was Derek skipping along to ABBA's Dancing Queen..And I think here he was praising the fair gods.The Del Mar fair grounds are so massive they have chair lifts.Derek gets nauseous on spinny rides so here he was on the Tilt-a-Whirl in spirit. Look at all the neon lights.From the top of the Ferris Wheel, I will go on rides with a million loops but this stupid thing scares the heck out of me.

Quick Update

It has been a few weeks since my last update so I have lots to share with everybody. Our trip back to Maryland was a lot of fun and really awesome to see family and friends.

On the 27th of June Jinx clothing company was having a photo shoot party. Samantha has been working for them for a couple weeks and so we went with her to meet her new coworkers. It was at a pretty nice bar down in La Jolla and they had video games set up for everyone. It was pretty neat and Sam got photos taken so maybe she will be in their next catalog.

This is one of the hosts from a show on G4 getting his hair and make-up done for the shoot.

Before heading to Maryland I had my teeth cleaned by the Orthodontist I work for, unfortunately she found some cavities. I made an appointment with one of her friends and had them filled. The whole right side of my mouth was numb and I thought I would take some photos and share because it amused me :)

Here I was trying to smile...

My attempt to look surprised...

There is much more to come, hopefully tomorrow.