November at The Huntington

When Cort was here in November we also spent a day at The Huntington.  It never disappoints.

This guy was a teeny, tiny baby lizard.  So cute.

My favorite part of any trip to The Huntington

Cort wanted pictures of the duck butts; unfortunately her camera died, but mine still worked.





Why you lookin' at my butt?















And the last of the lotus flowers:

Giving Thanks

For Thanksgiving this year I decided on a surprise visit home.  I enrolled my youngest sister in the plan, mostly to make sure that no one was caught off-guard by an extra person for dinner, and began a disinformation plan with my parents to avoid suspicion.

I flew in early Thursday morning, called my folks from the hotel ...  Telling them that I had been invited to a friend's house (totally true), and was actually pretty excited for Thanksgiving (true again), and thought it would be really fun (again, absolutely true) .... and then met up with my cohort in crime and drove to my sister's house to surprise everyone.


I had to get up really early for my flight.  I flew out of Long Beach, and even though it is a small airport and doesn't have a lot of the same issues as LAX, I anticipated a crowd ... so I left really, really early.  It tool approximately 30 minutes to check my bag, go through security, buy a beverage and snack, get settled at the gate, and take this picture.  I found it particularly funny that everyone was acting like the security line was SO. LONG.  and the TSA had "all hands on deck", but that operation hummed right along, Long Beach airport is AWESOME!  

I really wish I had videoed my niece's reaction when she opened the door.  It was so fabulous and excellent, and totally surprised.  Her expression alone made the surprise worthwhile.  My parents were equally stunned to see me standing in the kitchen and it was totally worth the surprise. The only meh part was cohort in crime totally spilled the beans to one of my other sisters/nieces.  I had been looking forward to seeing their faces as well!

My oldest nephew, Michael, works at a movie theater and brought home some popcorn so his family could make kettle corn, or caramel corn, or something.  There was a tiny bit more than they needed so Jason brought the leftovers to snack on before dinner...


Random (sometimes blurry) dinner pictures...









I know it is blurry, but I had to post a picture of Neil's mountain man beard.

I was able to spend several days in Utah - working out of our Utah office into the next week.  It made it possible to see everyone a couple of times.  Especially since actual Thanksgiving dinner was only about half the family.  Aside from T1, all my other brothers and their families were elsewhere this year.  Additionally, I was able to visit all my favorite Utah eateries!  (I didn't take a lot of pictures; I was too busy enjoying the food and company.)

I do have pics from Purple Turtle.  My favorite burger place...their fry sauce and shakes are just the best.  (Their shakes come with a side of ... more shake, in a little side car.





Purple glasses, purple scarf, purple booth, Purple Turtle - with Mack.

There was also a dinner at El Chihuahua, it's Spanish for The Chihuahua (favorite Mexican restaurant and owned by the fabulous Quinonez family),  Pizza Factory (with lots of family, but I'm especially glad T2 was able to come.), and Brick Oven (with most of the original Taylor gals.... darn Jodi's stupid work schedule; we missed you.), and one new frozen yogurt place.

It was a fantastic visit, and I'm so grateful that I got to see everyone and spend time with some of my brothers that I don't get to see or talk to often enough.  So grateful!

A Very Special Late Late Show Event

At the end of the last post Cortney and I had braved general admission to go see the Thursday (11/6 and 11/20) taping of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.  

We still had those priority tickets for Friday, but hadn't decided if we would use them or release them quite yet.  While we were waiting in line we started hearing the 1Iota employees talking about the "special event" filming the next day.  They weren't really saying anything to anyone specifically, but we had mentioned to the umbrella girl that we had tickets for both Thursday and Friday and she enthusiastically recommended that we come back for the Friday show.

Talking amongst ourselves, Cortney told me that our Friday tickets, had originally been for 3-ish in the afternoon, but a while back she'd gotten an email saying that our priority tickets were being moved to a newly added 1-ish taping.  She hadn't thought too much about it, but here we were hearing all this buzz about a very special event.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun on Thursday, and after the taping as everyone was leaving, I could hear the staff around the sound "booth" talking again about how amazing tomorrow's event was going to be.  Cort and I took about 2 seconds to decide that we might as well show up again.  Especially since we didn't have anything else concrete planned. 

So we turned up on Friday, and waited (better prepared this time - I wore a watch, and we brought bottles of water) in the very hot sidewalk line to get in.  And soon enough, we discovered that the special event was Metallica.  They are appearing every night the week of November 17th, but taped it all at once.  So, we got to see the interview and a mini-concert, in seats close enough to touch them with about 150 other lucky souls.

I will say that it was a lot of fun, but here is where I admit that I had never before heard a Metallica song.  They were never really in my taste-wheel, and it wasn't until the sang "Enter Sandman" that any part of their legendary career sounded even vaguely familiar to me.  Also:  I am now deaf, and we apparently did some damage to the Price Is Right studio, that is directly below Craig.  (Ceiling tiles fell down, we heard from CBS security).  The best part about this was watching Craig during the concert.  And hearing him banter during the breaks.  (Yeah, I'm easy to please when it comes to a witty Scot!)  

So, everyone watch next week and you may catch Cort and I on your TV during the musical numbers each night.  We were third row center for all of them, and if you watch the Thursday show very carefully you may see that during the first part of the show Cort & I are sitting in different seats, wearing different clothes, than during the Metallica portion at the end.  

Overall, it was a fantastic experience, and I had so much fun.  It was definitely worth the standing in line and if people visit me here again, I will definitely try and take them to see one of  TV show filmed. 

5 Things: Late Late Night Edition

When Cortney and I started planning what we would do while she was in town I mentioned that I would love to go see a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, especially once he announced his departure from late-night TV in December.  Cortney took charge of securing tickets, and we both agreed that we'd prefer Thursday over Friday, but would take either.

She was able to get priority tickets for the Friday taping, and was wait listed for Thursday.  A day or so before she flew out Cort left me a long and rambling voicemail saying we had been upgraded to "general" admission tickets for Thursday and she really, really wanted to go wait in line because the guest was supposed to be David Tenant and she is totally a Who-vian (is that a thing?), and we could still keep our Friday tickets, and anyway .... long, rambling, voicemail story, short:

I texted back:  TAKE THE TICKETS!!!!!

So we headed out to West Hollywood on Thursday for what turned out to be a double episode filming, but with a cancellation by David Tenant.  :(  We decided to stick out the waiting-in-line because one of the guests in the second show was Matthew McConaughey, and well, I could happily listen to him read the phone book.  He has the best kind of drawling, but not redneck-y, southern accent around.  After hours of waiting (I think, it was hard to tell.  Neither of us had a watch, and we'd left our phones behind since we didn't want to wait in the line for them to be returned after the taping.)  we were among the very last to gain admittance.  We watched the taping for the Thursday, November 6th show, and the Thursday, November 20th show that day.

So, "5" Things I Learned:

1. Priority tickets don't actually guarantee admittance, just a place in the first-come, first-served priority line.  Same for general tickets - first-come, first-served, in the 2nd "you have a ticket, but not a good one" line.  The you-don't-have-a-ticket-and-just-showed-up-line, means you will probably never get in.  
2. Being in a live studio audience in more exhausting than you think. First you have to stand on a hot-sidewalk for hours (if you get there early, eventually you will secure a Late, Late Show umbrella to use for shade whilst waiting). Second, the energy-level you have to maintain in the studio is "Gimme a 10!" for 2 hours.  Third, all the fake laughing makes everything slightly less funny.
3. You have to applaud through the entirety of the commercial breaks.  Granted the breaks are quite a bit shorter than they are on TV, but that is still a whole lot of clapping, yelling, and high-energy.  
4. You are going to miss a lot of jokes.  Really, all the clapping and fake laughing means you won't hear about half of what is going on.  When you watch the show air, it will suddenly be 10 times funnier than in person because YOU JUST HEARD THE AMAZING JOKE.  And Marion Cotillard suddenly isn't as horribly awkward and boring as she seemed in person.
5. The studio is way smaller than you think.  Also, from our seats, you can see the hallway set-up that Craig and guests use to enter the stage.  That means you can also see that they are actually coming from the opposite direction, and occasionally you can see random hi-jinks taking place.

Other things I learned:

• Craig has tie-changing music.  
• When filming a double episode they shoot:  
• Monologues (tonight's, then the later episode's)
• Cold Opens (tonight's, then the later episode's)
• Guests (all of tonight's, then the later episode's)
• Anything else (yeah, same order..."what did we learn on the show tonight, Craig")
• Sometimes Craig (or Geoff) says something that they can't bleep out and they have to reshoot the whole thing.
• The audience guy and the warm up guy tell the same jokes every day.  (Or possibly they change them up weekly, but we got the same jokes both Thursday and Friday.)  They were hilarious on Thursday, not so much on Friday.

Next time:  the very special event on Friday.

5 Things - Birthday Edition

1- This was the Google logo on my birthday.



2- My co-workers decorated my cube for me.  I actually walked in before it was done, and caught them all looking a tad bit suspicious.



3- There were also gifts.





My Director gave me a really cool calendar with quotes about living an epic life, and my Manager gave me an awesome travel book detailing weekend trips in South Carolina and Georgia (on point considering South Carolina in on the short list for my next move).

4- I got this text from a friend in Philly, and it cracked me up all day long.

5- And the best.  Cortney came to visit!  (and brought the good granola bars my mom sent!)

Gulf of Mexico

Awhile back Cort basically talked me into coming on a cruise with her the end of September.  She was going with a friend, and her friend's sisters, and because it wasn't an itinerary I was really excited about I didn't plan to go.  But then, I was lured by promises of Chichen Itza (on The List), and before I knew it I was all signed up and ready to go.

Cortney flew into Houston a few days before and spent some quality time with the Texas Taylors before the cruise.  I flew in the night before and we met up at the airport to catch our shuttle to Galveston. We got through the embarkation process really fast and met up with the Peters' sisters (who boarded a couple of hours before us) on the Lido to relax while our cabins were prepared.  

I will be honest - the only pictures I took on the boat were of the towel animals (I love the towel animals) because the ship part of a cruise is my totally relax time.  I didn't even take my phone (for the camera) with me anywhere. I don't really do selfies, and I'm just trying to chill, read my book, play a little trivia, and meet some interesting people.  

But I did have a lot of fun on the ship.  It was a lot of fun getting to know the Peters sisters, and obviously, I had a blast hanging out with Cort!  I did manage to drag her to a couple of trivia sessions, one of which we got recruited to play on a team and met a super fascinating couple from Texas who had lived abroad in Iran and Syria and have had a generally interesting life.  These are the people I like to get to know on a cruise, and on Carnival - especially, it is a score to find them. As I said to Cort, "Isn't this so much better than hanging out at the pool with the drunk 'party people'?"   I believe her answer is yes.

We only had two port days on this (too short) 5 day cruise; the first we went to Chichen Itza (you can read about it over at 1000 Places), and the second was Cozumel.  Cozumel is famous for basically 2 things...beaching and drinking.  I don't beach.  So I settled on the Jose Cuervo tasting.  I was prepared for it to be a kind of lame tour, but it definitely exceeded expectations.  The tasting itself was very educational, very professional, and the lunch that was served afterward was incredibly delicious.

The first thing we learned was that tequila can only be made in a specific region of Mexico, much like Champagne in France and Bourbon in the U.S.  So there was no distillery here.  Our guide talked a little about how the agave is grown, harvested, and distilled and then he told us about the various types of tequilas, how to taste it properly, and how to smell the various "notes".  It was actually pretty fascinating.  He also talked about the various types and techniques of various tequilas, and explained that while many consider Jose Cuervo to be the "cheap" tequila that represents a small overall portion of their products.  

Mango and Chili powder 

We learned all about tequila tears and legs, and if you are drinking a 100% agave tequila when you swirl the glass it will leave a "rim" because of how thick and syrupy the agave makes it.

Blanca, Reposado, Anejo

He also talked about some of the new cutting edge techniques being used to mix tequilas for smoother taste, no color, and various added flavors.  Like I said, it exceeded expectations.

A fun and successful cruise.  I had a good time, and I'm already looking forward to my next trip!