CATCHING AIR

At the beach, Tim and Traci introduced me to their new kite flying hobby. When I was a kid I built and flew a few kites in the back yard. That was fun, but boy have times changed. These are serious, stealth fighter-looking kites. They don't have tails, and have two strings with handle grips at the ends which make them extremely maneuverable and fast as hell. It was similar to steering the parachute when I went skydiving. This was much more of a workout than I expected. The wind was strong and really pulled at the lines. But flying these kites was really relaxing. When I was standing on the beach, flying the kites, I had no worries in the world at all... well, other than trying not to hit that lady who walked right inside my "kite zone." I just barely missed crashing the kite down on top of her head. That now makes two women on this trip who have given me really dirty looks. I am indeed enjoying this!

A little further down the beach, we came across some hang gliders in training. This looked like a really good time. Tim and I are already talking about signing up for this on my next trip back here. I can't wait!

On Monday, Tim and I drove down to San Diego and attended the first of three days we'll spend at Siggraph which is the world's largest computer graphics conference. It's really an amazing gathering of talent and technology. The last session we sat in on today was really inspiring. Four animation directors from Industrial Light and Magic showed samples of their work, past and present, and then discussed and showed examples of other people's work that influenced them. They told of the often long and difficult roads they took to get where they are. And while the forth director was at the podium, I turned to Tim and said I really wish I could speak a passionately about anything in my life as this man speaks about his work.

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HOLLYWOOD

Well, I had a hell of a time getting here, but now my first days of vacation are going great. Yesterday Tim, Traci and I went into Hollywood and saw all kinds of good stuff. There were a bunch of characters in front of Mann's Chinese theater, including this Demon. I'm not sure if I was supposed to recognize him from any specific movie, but he looked cool and was definitely popular with the crowd.

Just a few feet away, were Keanu Reeves (The One) and Lara Croft, but absolutely no one seemed to care. Not far down Hollywood Boulevard we came across Robin who was trying to get Catwoman out of her corset. When I went to snap a photo of this magic moment, she gave me a real nasty look.

That night we went to the Hollywood Improv and saw a number of great comics, including Ralphie May and Dat Phan from "Last Comic Standing." Admittedly, I haven't seen the show, but now I'm going to try and catch it. I understand that the way it works is that America has to vote for the winner. Well, Dat Phan is funny, but Ralphie May gets my vote. Most of his material will probably have to be tamed down for television, but I'm telling you, this guy is great! He had me in tears!

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APPARENT SUICIDE

Something strange is happening in the office. Stuffed animals are going "belly-up" at an alarming rate - three in one week! That's just not natural! I'm no Columbo, but I suspect foul play! These do not look like suicides to me. Could it be that someone has it out for our fuzzy little friends? I would hate to think that anyone could be so cold.

On a different note, yesterday I was supposed to begin my California vacation (woo-hoo!). Things unfortunately got off to a pretty rough start. The plan seemed simple enough. I'd work a half day, go home and finish packing, Paul would drop me off at the airport, I'd fly to Atlanta, transfer flights, and go on to California where Tim and Traci would pick me up at LAX. Solid plan, it seemed - too bad it didn't come together.

Paul picked me up at 3:45 p.m. which should have been plenty of time to get me to Washington Dulles airport (only about 30 miles away) for my 6:17 p.m. flight. Wouldn't it figure that there were all kinds of problems including accidents, a water-main break and a medivac helicopter landing that basically shut the beltway down. At 5:30 I called ahead and warned the airline that I might not make my flight. They instructed me to continue on and get things straightened out at the ticket counter. I was also warned that there would be a $50 transfer charge, plus whatever the difference in the cost of the new ticket. I had fears of a sudden $800 bill on my hands...

Well, we didn't arrive at the airport until 6:10 p.m., seven minutes before my flight left. Sadly, I didn't make it. AirTran would have no problem getting me to Atlanta on a later flight, but I was already booked on their last flight into LA that night. And since this delay was not their fault, they couldn't just throw me on another airline. So now my only option is to take the 6:00 a.m. flight out of Washington, transfer in Atlanta, and I'll be in LA by 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. And fortunately, AirTran didn't charge me a dime.

So once I realized that I wasn't flying out last night, I immediately called Paul's cell phone and asked him to turn around and come back and get me. But the way the airport access road is set up, Paul actually had to drive almost 20 miles before he could turn around... and he's running out of gas. Hey, neither of us ever thought a quick run to the airport would turn into a four hour road trip. I owe Paul big for this. But it's not over. We're running on vapors. The gas gauge says '0 miles to empty.' We took a different route home and avoided some traffic, but we didn't exactly know the area, and therefore didn't know where any gas stations were. I even jumped out of the car at one point to scout ahead at an intersection.

We finally got gas, and Paul dropped me off at home four hours after he originally picked me up. I had to be at the airport at 4:30 in the morning, and I wasn't about to ask anyone to get up in the middle of the night to take me back to the airport. So I called several cab and shuttle companies and the only one that could give me a reasonable rate wanted to pick me up at 1:00 in the morning. Yes, I said 1:00 in the morning for a 6:00 a.m. flight! When I questioned this, the guy asked me if it was a foreign or domestic flight... Huh?

Well, Paul came through again. It took us exactly 35 minutes this morning to get to the airport. Like I said before, I owe him big. Trisha, you married a good man. And now the we're about to land in LA and the battery in my Powerbook is about to die. Let the vacation begin.

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INDEPENDENCE DAY

On Friday I spent the 4th of July in Arlington with my friends Hillary, Ken and about five others. After a fine BBQ, we walked down to the Marine Corps War Memorial where we had a great view of the fireworks. That was great fun, and now tomorrow night, I'm off to see Blue Man Group for the third time in five years!

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