I have some more time now, as I'm waiting for people to come to look at the apartment. I'm going to update with the rest.
July
At the beginning of the month, we got the Thursday and Friday after the 4th of July off. This year's independence day celebration paled in comparison to last year's (NYC, Belle and Sebastian, free food and booze at an unimpeded view at the waterfront in the South Street Seaport mall, etc). Then again, I think last year has been the best so far, with the time in DC under the Washington Monument a close second (that one didn't have Belle and Sebastian). Me, Nelson, and one of Nelson's co-workers went to the Marina Del Rey fireworks display. It was just ok.
The Thursday after, I did my last training run for the San Francisco Marathon - 20 miles. I started at about 6 AM in the morning, and got back at around 9:30 AM, inclusive of stopping at stop lights. My route was along Westwood Blvd. up to Wilshire, along Wilshire until La Cienega, La Cienega to Pico Blvd, Pico Blvd. to the beach, the beach to Arizona Ave. back to West LA/Westwood. I was told by friends to not go further with long distance training runs in the last month of training, and to taper off, though maintain. So after this one, I only did about 10 mile runs after.
The first weekend of July, I also went to Dallas, TX for my cousin's wedding. It was interesting for me, as I had never been to Texas, outside of the airport. It was actually kind of nice, though a little strange for me, culturally. It was also really hot and humid. Friday, the first night in, I met up with my other cousin and my sister and brother-in-law. We went to my brother-in-law's friend's place and hung out and had some drinks. After that, we went back to the hotel. Saturday, we ate at some small road-side diner for breakfast, which was huge. I had steak and eggs, and biscuits with gravy. So good, but so bad for you. Then again, I had run 20 miles the few days earlier, so I could handle it.
From there, we went to downtown Dallas and saw the Kennedy memorial and Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot. We also went to the grassy knoll. It was a bit strange though, to know that the main attraction of Dallas, aside from the sporting teams, was the fact that a president was shot in the city. In contrast, LA just bulldozed the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert F. Kennedy was shot; the only reminder of that site is a city sign on the median.
Another strange thing about Dallas was the fact that you can carry concealed firearms much more freely than in California. If shops didn't want you to hold them, they had signs on the outside that said "No Firearms." The 6th floor museum at the former Texas Book Depository had one such sign, to which my cousin ironically responded, "they're about 44 years too late with that."
After seeing the plaza and the memorial site, we walked around the area for a little bit, but it was too hot, and we all had food coma, so we ended up back at the hotel until the wedding/dinner. The dinner was at the City Center, which is the tallest building in Dallas. The reception was buffet style, and was on the 69th floor, so you could get a good view of Dallas. The wedding and ceremony were lovely, and it was good to see family in a place other than home. Since the wedding and reception were over by 10 PM, we went to a bar uptown, and again met up with Seth's law school friend.
Sunday morning, the cousin that I shared a room with had an early flight out, so he left. My sister and Seth had a mid-afternoon flight, so we gathered all the other cousins except for the cousin that got married and his family, and had breakfast at Breadwinners, a great little breakfast spot with unlimited bread. Their bread was pretty great, mainly the sweet bread. From there, my sister and Seth departed Dallas, and I went with my other remaining cousins to the Dallas World Aquarium. We spent a good several hours there because there were multiple levels. It was also interesting because there were all sorts of signs asking people not to touch anything, but then, in the cafeterias of the aquarium, they served alcohol, which just seems like a recipe for disaster; hard liquor too, not just wine and beer. After the aquarium, we went to get some Texas BBQ before I headed back to the airport and headed back home to LA.
All in all, a good weekend and a fun experience.
The weekend after, it was my birthday. We first met up at the 3rd Stop, across the way from Cedar's Sinai hospital. It's like the "Father's Office" of mid-town - great beer selection, and pretty decent food selection. I had a personal pizza, not a burger, but that pizza was pretty excellent. And nothing was too pricey, either. From there, we went to the Spaceland to check out The Rentals. It was so good. The new songs are pretty good, a careful balance of the synth songs of the first album, but the acoustic tracks of the second. After the concert was over, I started talking to Sara Radle, the new guitarist/vocalist of the Rentals, and the topic of running came up; she's running the Long Beach Half Marathon in October, and I had mentioned that I was running San Francisco. She also expressed interest in running the LA marathon, something that I was also interested in. We kind of said that it'd be fun to go running together, since we'd both have to train again. I don't know if anything will happen out of this, but maybe I just made running buddies with one of the Rentals!
Third weekend in July, Andrea came down to visit, and we went to dinner at the Palms Thai restaurant, home of Thai Elvis, and then caught another show of the Rentals' July Spaceland residency. Again, great set. Andrea made the observation that she never thought she'd actually see those songs played live. I have to say that I particularly like the new swingier version of "The Cruise."
Two acoustic versions of some of the Rentals' new songs
Finally, the last weekend of July was crazy busy. Friday night, I went to see Maximo Park at the El Rey Theater. My flight Saturday was at 7:15 AM, so I had to get to the airport with enough time to pass through security and all that. I initially wanted to take the 5AM Westwood shuttle, but because of the early hour of my flight, I was reluctant to leave from that site given the lack of other options to go to the airport (if I left later, I would have been able to take a Big Blue Bus, but at 5AM, I'd have to call a taxi if I screwed up). I called the van service, and the pick up was 4:30 AM. Ridiculous! Then, at 3:00 AM, they called me to tell me that the pick up was in an hour. Grouchy, I expressed my annoyance to the driver. I mean, I understand that there are other people to pick up, so I asked, "how many other people do you have to pick up?" The guy said one other person. I was irate.
I got about another hour of sleep at the airport, and then got on the plane to head up to San Francisco. I BARTed from the Airport to Justin Herman Plaza to pick up my race packet information. After walking around the expo and getting my free samples of various goodies, I headed over to Berkeley to drop my stuff off at Kevin's, and meet up with Harish and Anna for Cheeseboard Pizza. We ate on the grassy section of the median; it was a great time. From there, I went back to Berkeley, and had some coffee because of the late night/lack of sleep. Then, I met up with Andrea and Dan, and Dan's friend to get some food on College Avenue. I headed back after dinner to try and sleep, but I couldn't sleep until 11 PM or so because of the coffee, and the film production in Kevin's common room (Kevin's roommate is a film maker).
At 4AM, I woke up to get ready for the race. Jessica, Andrea's former roommate picked me up with her friends, and headed off. I was supposed to leave with Wave 5, but ended up in Wave 6, which started at 6:05 AM. The first part of the race was pretty calm. I felt really slow because I was used to running much faster, but was advised by many friends to run slower in the beginning. I had kept a pace of about 9 minutes per mile until we reached the Golden Gate Bridge, which had a huge bottleneck because they couldn't shut down the entire bridge, only 3 lanes, and there were so many people that you couldn't easily speed ahead. After I got to San Francisco, there were the roughly 6 miles in Golden Gate Park. That was tough because it was kind of hilly, and you didn't feel like you were going anywhere. I finally left the park, there was a huge half-mile downhill part around mile 19-20ish, which I felt I needed to make up for lost time with, so I sprinted down the hill, only to feel it during mile 22 to 23; that's when I started getting the first of many cramps. The last part of the race was around the ball park, and then to the finish line at Cupid's Arrow. I finished my race in 4 hours, 3 minutes, and 45 seconds, an average of 9:18 per mile. Not bad for my first marathon, and for San Francisco, given the hills.
There were a few memorable moments. When I was running up one of the major hills around Hayes Valley, there was this one half-marathoner that was running full speed up the hill. She made the comment, "This is *so* easy! I don't know why people think this is hard!" to which I replied, "maybe you should run a full marathon next time." When I was running around the ball park, the music station was playing James Brown's "I Feel Good." This also irked me, as I was NOT feeling good at that point. Lastly, we passed by Bottom of the Hill in Potrero Hill, a venue I used to frequent in my days of Northern California. When we passed it, I was thinking, "oh cool! Bottom of the Hill!" And then I started thinking of the hill that Bottom of the Hill was on the bottom of, and how, prior to that portion of the race, I had thought that it was all flat or downhill. This thought was a tad intimidating, but obviously, I was able to make it.
Some lessons for future marathons: 1) Better hydration and saline - during my training runs, I could get by on 20 ounces of Gatorade for 20 miles, but just barely. I knew this measurement because toward the end of my training runs, I'd always start to cramp up. But carrying a bottle of Gatorade is cumbersome for the race, so I figured I'd rely completely on the "Gatorade" that they supplied at the water stations. This is problematic because you don't know how much you're actually drinking. I think in the end, I probably had the equivalent of 1 bottle for all 26.2 miles, not good. 2) Watch the downhill speed - in efforts to boost my time, I sprinted down Haight during the downhill sections. This caused me to lose more in the long run because of the cramping in my muscles. On downhill sections of the race, I really need to watch my speed and how I run down hill so I don't screw up my knees or muscles. 3) Sleep! - I had very little sleep going into the race. I probably would have done much better had I been well rested. 4) Food - I didn't have *bad* food, per se, but I didn't have as good food as I could have had. Better eating would have made the race better.
After the race was over, we headed back to Berkeley, where I stretched out at Kevin's place, and showered. Jessica was having a post-marathon BBQ, so I went to her old apartment to hang out for a bit with Anna, Andrea, Dan, Jessica, and Eric, one of their friends from grad school. From there, I went back down to BART, and headed to Oakland to go to my cousin's California Wedding Banquet (see Dallas wedding - the same cousin had a California banquet for the family that couldn't go out to Texas).
Monday, since Harish and Anna were in the area, and it's not often that we're all back in one place, we all met up and went to El Farolito in the Mission District. We also went to another random Mexi restaurant and had some margaritas. Then we headed back home. I would have had dinner with Kevin, that night, but then he ended up in bed because of a bed sore, so I ended up getting a take-away crepe from Crepes-a-go-go, and eating it on the plane.
I finally got back to LA, and rested a bit.
August
For August, it was also quite busy. The third weekend of August, I went to Las Vegas for one of my co-worker's bachelor party. It was fun, but I'm definitely not a Vegas person. I think if people were to say "hey, let's go to Vegas," I'd entertain the idea and potentially go, depending on the situation. But I would never be the one to say, "hey, let's go to Vegas." If I were to fly, I would prefer to save up the money to go somewhere else, like the east coast. And if I were to drive, I'd prefer to spend that drive time to end up in the bay area where I'd have friends and family.
Fourth weekend, my dad came down from northern California to stay with me for a week. Given that I don't get along well with my dad, it was kind of a train wreck. My mom said that I wouldn't have to entertain him that much, but it didn't work out that way at all. Just getting a meal was tough because he's extremely picky, and also because he's extremely cheap. There's a brand new pizza place around the corner from the apartment, but it was too much for my dad; he only wanted to go if there was a coupon. That Sunday, I gave him a Lego store tour of Southern California (he's gotten really into Lego toys now that he has way too much time on his hands). We drove all the way to Carlsbad to go to Legoland, not because he actually wanted to go to the theme park, but because he wanted to spend an hour in the store inside the theme park. Then, on the way back, we stopped off in Downtown Disney in Anaheim to go to the Lego store there too.
Monday and Tuesday were tough, but Wednesday, I was out with Kate and Kristen, and to get my hair cut in Silverlake, and Thursday, I went back up North because my sister was in town.
Labor day weekend, I went back up to Northern California. Friday, I had lunch with my sister, Seth, my sister's friend Emily, and my mom. Then I met up with Scott and walked around Downtown Palo Alto for a bit. After, dinner was with my cousin and my sister. Saturday, I headed up to Berkeley, and had lunch with Kevin, and then headed to the Tennessee-Cal game with Patty and Seth, and then have some Thai food after. Sunday, I had lunch with my mom, and then headed home to LA, where I had to give my dad a ride to the bus station to go back up north on Monday morning, bright and early at 6AM.
I guess having my dad stay with me for a week wasn't too bad, but it's just really frustrating. He can't hear right, so every conversation is shouting match, and every public conversation is a spectacle or a scene. I was also pretty pissed off because I had spent several hours late on Sunday night preparing a bus primer for him to use in his site seeing of LA, and he asked me to re-do it. I felt it was very thorough, with words describing how to get places and snapshot google maps print outs, and legends to point out what things were on the map. After a shouting match of about 10 minutes, he understood the maps. So was the shouting match, and the re-do request really that necessary? I guess I put up with it because I'm sure that when I was a kid there were all sorts of things he didn't want to do, but he took me to. But I guess the difference is that he's an adult with the capacity to think through things and figure out directions on maps and use wordy supplements to orient himself, so it annoys me that after spending all that time to do all that stuff, he nonchalantly asked me to re-do it. Anyway, that's over now, so it's fine.
That's about it. The apartment showing is over now, so I'll hit "post" and be done with it!
