We've Moved

We've moved our blog elsewhere. Blogger doesn't do images very well. Hopefully our new location will make it easier to share pictures.

Our first visitors!

On Monday, September 17th, Darren and I had our first Canadian visitors! Mom, Dad and brother Ian decided a road trip was in order in the new I-Van, heading out from Saskatoon to experience the wonders of the open road. After driving down through Idaho, Montana, Iowa, and Nevada, they arrived late Monday afternoon for a 4 night stay at Chez Boyd. Well, actually they stayed in one of the guest suites, as our apartment isn't that large. Nevertheless, it was great to have them here. Monday night we had a quiet meal on Main Street (in Venice), and then went for a moonlit walk on the beach. We spent Tuesday toodling around running errands in the morning, and then 4 of us (Darren had to work) walked down to the Venice boardwalk where Dad got a tattoo and Mom tried not to laugh at the honesty of the signs the homeless people displayed - $1 for weed, Need money for beer - etc. We spent a few hours there, and then went back to collect Darren before going out for supper again.

On Wednesday, Mom, Dad, Ian and I went to the Fender museum in Corona California, which is currently featuring a Johnny Cash display. While the museum was much smaller than we expected (less than 1500 sq. ft in area), the displays were pretty cool. I really liked this display of Muddy Waters' Fender, built into a picture of him. We stayed off the interstates on the way there and back, and instead drove past a bunch of interest points, like the Staples Center (where the Anaheim Ducks play), and Disneyland.

Thursday Mom, Dad and I got up early and went to Hollywood. Dad got his wish of standing on the corner of famous Hollywood and Vine, and Mom and I had a great time checking out the foot and hand prints at Grauman's Chinese Theater. We saw Paula Abdul filming something for her Hey Paula! series, and were offered tickets for a Singing Bee taping, but couldn't make it timing wise. Took this pic of Mom and Dad, with the Hollywood sign showing the right-hand corner, and then drove home along Sunset Boulevard and through Santa Monica. We got home just after Darren had finished putting together the new barbeque, so before dinner we headed down for a walk around the Marina, checking out the boats. All 3 left early Friday morning, heading for the giant Redwoods, and travelling up the Oregon coast before heading home.

The weather was great, sunny skies but not too hot, the whole time they were visiting. The night they left, however, we got the rain storm I referred to in my earlier post. They missed it on the road, which was good, and had a nice drive home. Having been that way last year with Darren, I know they were treated to some pretty spectacular views.Thanks for coming guys! Come back and visit us again!!

I miss summer!

Well, it appears that summer has finally left, and I am now left with - oh wait a minute, still blue skies and mild temperatures. What has changed here is that it has finally rained - and I don't mean a little. On Friday, September 21, we experienced a downpour the likes of which I haven't seen in years, with rain falling in sheets off the balcony roof, and a couple of inches of water running over the main streets, making driving very scary. I was coming home from The Grove after dinner with friends, while Darren was home taking pictures. You can see in the first one that the water is running in from the edge of the balcony, with part of the rug not even wet yet, even though it is pooling on the table. Good thing Darren moved the cushions of the outside chairs. It took a few days over the railing edge for the carpet to dry out. According to the weather guys, the rainfall even hit Death Valley - dropping more rain there in a couple of hours than Death Valley has otherwise received in the rest of 2007!! This followed a very dry summer, with no measurable rain in the previous 5 months. The weather guys also said this is typical of December or January weather, not September. Guess this means the winter might be a wet one. At least I don't have to shovel it!!!!

Comic-Con

At the end of July Darren and I went to San Diego for 3 days for Comic-Con, the world's largest comic book, sci-fi and geek pop culture event in the world. Terrence came with us 2 days, and Jenn joined us for one afternoon (having to go to that whole job place to do that work thing in the morning).

Started in the '70s with 500 attendees, this annual convention now attracts more than 125,000 people a year to the Convention Center. This shot of the crowd doesn't do it justice, as you can't see just how wide, and how long the hall really is, and that is just the trade show part of it. On the next floor there were dozens of meeting rooms where you could go see talks on all aspects of the industry, and one huge hall where studios previewed movies and the actors, directors or producers would come out and talk to the crowd. Terrence and I went to one where Jessica Alba was promoting her new movie Good Luck Chuck, and we saw Peter Fonda talking about 310 to Yuma. All 4 of us went to a preview for the new Stargate movies. Many fans, of all ages, show up in costume - parents dressed up their babes in strollers, children of all ages wore their favorite character, groups of teenagers roamed around dressed as groups of Hogwarts students, and then there were these two women --- There were lots of superheros and sci-fi characters (these are just fans dressed up, not paid actors walking around. The only way to distinguish many of the actors from the fans was the ident badge the fans had to wear to get into the convention),storm troopers (apparently even intergalactic evil doers need to check in with the office occasionally),and a very large number of women dressed up in the gold bikini Princess Leia wore when held captive by Jabba the Hut. I think those women were very brave wearing such a costume, as the convention center was FREEZING cold, and they didn't have a lot on!Also, a ton of fans were dressed as Japanese anime characters, and it was fun to watch them act out scenes (even if I don't know who any of the characters are).
We were very impressed with the level of detail and the quality of costumes that were here. We talked to one girl visiting from the mid-west, who was rather dismissive of some of the anime costumes that "were obviously store bought". Apparently true fans make their own outfits. Like this guy dressed as J'Kar from one of my favorite series, Babylon 5!
Most of the studios, gaming companies and memorabilia folks were out in full force. The displays, from Batman out of Lego to a full size Jabba the Hut were amazing. I think Mitchell would really like to see the displays and lego characters, and of course the Batmobile!
We saw celebs like Jessica Alba and Lou Ferrigno, and stood in line for autographs from Amanda Tapping and the gang from SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.Terrence and I chatted for a while with Marc Singer, aka Beast Master, Jenn had her pic taken with other fans dressed as original Battlestar Galactica Psilons, and I had to document my encounter with the only Elvis Stormtrooper I have ever met.With Darren taking most of the photos, we don't have any with him in them! It was a great time, and we will have to go back another year.

Go Kings!

I think it must be fate that the very first game of the new season was won by Los Angeles! Especially considering they were playing the defending Stanley Cup Champions. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a good year of hockey. Of course, this is still pre-season, and two of the Duck's biggest names weren't playing, but still, I can still hope for a few wins by my local team :).

The room doesn't spin here, it shakes

I've been patiently waiting for my first earthquake experience since moving to SoCal. There's been a few since moving here, but I actually didn't experience them in any discernible way. Today, however, I finally got my first real earthquake experience. Well, sort of. It was a reasonable quake, coming in at 4.7 on the Richter scale. It was quite a distance from us, though, so the effect in Marina del Rey was barely perceptible. In fact, I didn't actually feel it. The only thing I noticed was that my monitors were shook. Rayla didn't notice at all, which isn't surprising, there really wasn't much to notice. In a way, I think we are still waiting for a 'real' earthquake experience (although, I'm not entirely sure I want one :)).

it's been too long

I've been delinquent in updating the blog, mostly because I can't load pictures from my new camera onto this laptop, and so I haven't been updating anything. I have decided to at least try to remember to put in the typing parts, and get around to the pictures when I can use Darren computer (we are shooting raw images on our new digital, and organizing them on Darren's computer).

On Saturday (august 18), Darren and I spent part of the day in the L.A. Fashion District. I had talked to a number of people that said this was a great place to buy clothes, that there were designers and sample sales. I went online to the website and ordered a map, as there are 90 blocks of shopping, divided into categories - women's apparel, men's apparel, sportswear, accessories, etc. I thought this was going to be heaven (and a place to buy the 2-1 sketchers my sister has tasked me with finding). You can imagine my disappointment when we arrived to find the area more like a Tijuana flea market than a outlet store on steroids. Great place to get cheap clothes, not cheap place to get great clothes. Knock off designer handbags and sunglasses were everywhere (and yes, I was tempted to get an over size pair of white plastic and rhinestone studded Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses like Paris wears, or a "real" Coach purse for $49.95, but I didn't. I always have a problem when there are no prices on things, and the sales guy says things like "Well, for you, today, I have special price, only..." I know they inflate the price when they see me coming. I really have to learn spanish to find out what the price is for the woman shopping ahead of me.

There was a sample sale going on, which we checked out as well. For those of you who don't professionally shop, a sample sale is when the designers sell the clothes and accessories they have had on models to show to wholesalers or other buyers. It usually means there is only 1 of each item, usually in small model-like sizes. My friend Agnes has bought dresses, purses and belts at sample sales, but since she is a model, she often gets to go to the ones right after the shows, and then can buy the stuff she wore on the runway. I wanted to check it out, and Darren was good enough to humor me . We paid the $1 admission fee to get into the auditorium, but saw really nothing that appealed to us. Okay, that's a lie. I saw one purse when I walked in the door, a nice white leather hobo bag, I think it was Channel. This one I would have paid $49.95 for, no problem. Oh, I'm sorry, you said $490. Right. I can only imagine what the retail was on it.

Did I mention it was also stinking hot? This was our first extended tip into downtown LA. After living on the beach for a few months, you forget how hot and sticky the rest of LA is. This area has few trees, no open spaces for air to circulate, and was packed with weekend shopping families all out to get the best bargain on their 3-for$9.99 T-shirts. We had some water with us, thankfully, and found a great place that made fresh fruit smoothies when we stopped for lunch, but it was uncomfortably hot. I made a comment about bringing Rhonda here to shop (since she'll fit the small sizes, she might find some great deals), and Darren just laughed, saying he could imagine Mike here too -- with weaponry maybe. Remembering how much he hated the heat in Vegas in March, I'm sure he wouldn't have liked the Fashion District at all. Best moment - getting back to the parking lot and taking a swig of water from the bottle we had left in the car, only to find it was as warm as a cup of coffee.

Anyway, we left there about 2:30. Not yet ready to head home for the day, and having bought nothing except lunch, we decided to try the Farmers' Market at The Grove
I thought it would be a nice, open air place after the hot and sticky downtown. It was certainly more civilized, and after checking out all the sites we even found a place to sit and have a nice cold beer. Much better! Not much for fruit and produce in the farmer's market, but a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon. Once I check out the outlet malls, I'll know all the best places to shop.

First project wrapping up

My first project is wrapping up at JibJab. There's still a few issues to work out, and lots of work ahead for the JibJab team. Unfortunately, I won't be a big part of it. Other than a bit of maintenance work to do before signing off, I am not continuing on the project. It would have been nice to continue working on. The JibJab team was awesome to work with, and the work itself was quite a lot of fun. To give you an idea of what I've been doing, here's a bit of my own handiwork with Starring You...

Back from the Homeland

I went to Saskatoon last week, for a quick trip to visit family and friends. I was able to fly through Calgary with layovers that let me visit with the Rhondas Tuesday night for supper (can't believe I forgot to take a picture!), and Emi and Erin were very brave to get up for an early breakfast Saturday morning.
I was a little nervous about the flight when I looked out the airport window and saw this pilot waving to the ground crew (if you look, you can see his arm on the side of the plane). I didn't know those little windows were supposed to open!
While is Saskatoon, I visited my Grandma Nora each day,

went to a birthday party at Tim and Jana's new house in Warman,
and visited with Ryan and Lorna Epp, and their new daughter!
Mom and I also shopped a lot, looking for a dress for her to wear to a wedding, and me just looking (I bought a lot of stuff for someone just looking!). Dad was able to enjoy the golf course every day, as it rained only twice, and even then it was early in the morning or late at night. He needs the time on the course, as he is working on killer tan-socks.

I had a wonderful, although short, visit, and am already looking forward to the next one!

A bit of Springfield in LA

kwik-e-mart-la.jpg
Originally uploaded by craftiness

It's silly when you hear about it on the news, but when you actually drive by a kwik-e-mart it suddenly becomes really cool! HaHa! LA is such a great place to get into pop culture.

A little nicer than Hull Estates

Darren and I went to see our first condos this weekend, a little place in the marina known as Azzurra.

According to one of the press releases, Azzura has "luxury residences in an art gallery styled building that introduced the first-ever permanent residential collection of paintings, photography and sculptures from the "LA Art Scene" of the 1960s and early 1970s." The top floor was designed by Andy Warhol, and features a number of his original works. Each of the 15 living floors is dedicated to a different artist, and there is art throughout the lobby and amenities rooms.

One of the things we were worried about most was noise, and there is some in the building, which is not surprising since it has floor to ceiling windows, but it is fairly minimal. Views on the Marina side are spectacular, on the city side not as much. Although we were told that you can see mountains, we went on a very overcast day, and saw nothing. Definitely a place for high rollers (yes Chris, it was very "fancy"), as all guests have their cars valet parked, there is a drive up drycleaner in the parking lot, and 24 hour car detailing, so you can drop your keys at the front desk at night and get in a clean car in the morning (please stop drooling Jamie). We looked at units ranging from 1450 sq ft to 2099 sq ft, and found a nice one with a floor plan that includes a wrap around balcony. There are only 2 units left with this plan, on the 17th and 18th floor. As soon as Darren sells a kidney we'll be able to afford the monthly condo fees. I think for now we will keep looking.

Watching volleyball is easier than playing

the energetic in action.
Originally uploaded by darrenboyd

Everything is easy on the beach, especially when you get to watch other people do the hard part. There are a few more pictures of us hanging out on the beach.

New Hobby, New Toys

Leaving Calgary meant leaving a very well outfitted woodworking shop. More accurately, it meant selling it. Woodworking was meant to be a hobby to get me away from my computer, which I spend far too much time working at to also spend far too much time playing at. Well, without woodworking, what will be the next hobby?

Rayla has been a photographer for a long time (many years B.D., or Before Darren). Since I've always enjoyed using the good camera that she has, I decided to pursue photography as a hobby. It will get me outside, and away from my computer, which is important. It lends itself well to a 'leisure' activity while still providing some mental stimulation which should keep me engaged. Since Rayla is involved, any hardware we buy will be used by her, just in case I don't find myself all that taken with the activity.

So, Saturday was camera shopping day. We found a very well stocked local shop that had the cameras we wanted to compare. Inside, we found an interesting salesman who, besides looking oddly like Crispin Glover in Back To The Future, was also willing to help us. By the time we left, we found ourselves with a slightly lighter wallet and a couple of bags of new toys.

This afternoon we had our first trip out to take some shots. The convenience of digital photography cannot be overstated. It's great to be able to play with different settings and see how it turns out instantly. Here's a couple of shots of the local neighborhood.


This is the street we live on. It's more of a lane, actually. The amount of traffic you see from here is quite usual. Not to far behind me the street dead-ends, so there isn't really any place to go on here, unless you are going home. The shot does give a good sense of the trees and bamboo that are growing around our apartment complex.


There is a crow's nest in the apartment complex that towers over above everything around us (you can see it on the main page of the apartment's website). This is a good shot to the West looking out over the houses along the beach to the typical late day marine haze over the ocean.

A wedding on the beach

Well, more of a wedding on a cliff overlooking the beach, but pretty awesome all the same. On Sunday, at sunset, we headed up the coast to Point Mugu to witness a small civil ceremony for Marcus and Kinga. Although they are "getting married" in Europe, in a fancy castle with all the relatives, the dress, flowers, etc., for legal purposes, they needed to get married on American soil first. Something about the waiting period in Hungary for a license, but no wait if you are just doing a "re-enactment" ceremony. Long story short, Darren and I, Agnes, Bernadette, Bojzana and Chris watched a brief ceremony performed by Kinga and Marcus' friend GP the JP (I know, I know). We then went for a wonderful dinner, where we were joined by a couple more friends of the bride and groom. We left our digital in the car, so I'll have to see if I can post some pics from Agnes' camera, or scan some of the prints from the film camera when I get them developed.

Our First Star sighting

ALERT - there are no pictures to go along with this post

Today we went for lunch with Terrence and Jen, who came to LA for the weekend to see Kathy Griffin perform. The lunch place was Baby Blue Ribs, which is a pretty well known rib joint on Lincoln, in Venice. The theme is all blues music and southern barbecue, and other than the ribs, the most famous dish is the mac n' cheese, made with blue cheese. Delicious foods, blues music in the background, and an awesome staff made this a fun place to eat, and we will go back. while sitting at the lunch counter, in walked someone to pick up a take out order - Jaleel White,
AKA Steve Urkel.

Now, this may not seem like that big a deal to some of you. No limousine, no entourage, no screaming fans. Bout considering I have lived here for almost 2 months now, it was about time I saw someone famous. It didn't seem very cool to take his picture while he was waiting to pick up a sandwich, and I was up to my elbows in ribs at the time, so this is the first one that got away. Oh well, maybe next time.

"The" bachelorette/bachelor party

Saturday, June 18 was Kinga's bachelorette party (BP for short), and Marcus had a "surprise" bachelor party that someone told him about the night before. We all met at Kinga's place, which is just around the corner from my apartment complex, with a suggested start time of 5pm. Now, everyone who was at the BP was like, "What in LA starts at 5pm?", and "if you want to be anywhere in LA by 5 in the afternoon, you need to leave the day before", so most people showed up between 6:30 and 7:30. I met Kelly, who is an assistant vice-principal at an elementary school, and super funny. She was telling me all about my next career, as a movie extra (apparently it involves a lot of standing around and waiting). She also let me know where I can go to buy fake social security cards so I can work, although she is sure that I could work under the table as an extra. I also met Sencee (don't know how to spell it), who has just moved to the US from Mexico, Mercedes, Ras, Bernadette, and Kinga's mom Bojzana. Agnes organized, so there was a good sized group of us. I was the only uni lingual in the group, as half spoke spanish as a fist language, and the other half hungarian. We left Kinga'a place to go to a favourite Mexican restaurant, Lula's, where this pic was taken [need to add], then off to Penthouse, a nightclub in West LA. We ended the night singing Karaoke at a little japanese place in a strip mall, which is open until 4 am, where they had to replace the books and the controller with English versions (although Kelly does speak Japanese). [add pics]
All in all, a very fun night.

Ice meets metal

Nothing more Californian than going to a party. Not just any party, of course, but a Stanley Cup Championship party! Rayla and I made the trip down to the Honda Center on Saturday to join in the festivities with the Anaheim Ducks and their hometown fans.The Honda Center is an impressive place. Although, parking was tough to find, especially since the parking lot was being used for the party! But, a local business was kind enough to open up their parking lot for the evening, which meant we didn't have to walk to far, and it only cost $10. Damn enterprising Americans ;).
The crowd was already crowded around the red carpet that the players would walk up. The attendance was estimated at 15,000, and I'm pretty sure most of them were there before we were. Still, there was plenty of room to walk around and check out the Honda Center, and do some people watching.

I must admit, it was quite surreal looking at the Stanley Cup banners on the building surrounded by Palms.

There were a couple bands performing on stage as people waited for the players to show up. After the bands, we got a couple of speeches, which took us to the arrival of the players.

The players were paraded down the street behind a firetruck with sirens blaring. The boys rode in this double decker bus with an open top. They basically drove up the street and parked out in front of everything.
I'm not sure how they got from there to the red carpet though, but they did. Especially after the cup arrived. Which, of course, arrived in a helicopter. Trust me, these people know how to entertain! The helicopter was a police helicopter and landed on the street beside Honda Center. This was a four lane street, surrounded by people (well, surrounded by lots of cops, who were surrounded by people). The street also had street lights on it. This was not a very big area for this helicopter to land. It was an impressive site.

This picture doesn't do it justice. If you look in the rear side window of the helicopter, you can see a shiny thing. That's the Cup. Even from where we were standing, you could see it through the window without any problem.

The players (who somehow made it down to where the chopper landed) then walked the Cup up the red carpet. I tried my best to get a couple decent shots. However, I had the camera over my head, the light was fading and I was in a crowd of folks doing the same thing. Here's the best I could do.

I also managed to get a very weird shot. Not that I could ever replicate it, of course. Lets's call it art :).
And, of course, what's a party in Southern California without a star sighting. Although, it's also a politician, so I'm not sure if the Governator counts as a 'star sighting' anymore. The light was low at this point, so I had to take a picture of the bigscreen.

For good pictures, check out the official slideshow.

Some sights around home

A shot of the marina at night. The camera we have isn't the greatest at night shots, but you can get a bit of an idea what the area is like at night. It's fairly quiet, although there are lots of people living in and around the Marina, so it is not super quiet. The calmness of the water is telling what it's like around the water once the sun goes down.

There are a few critters swimming around in the water. Lots of birds, and several big ones (I'm not up on my California fauna well enough to know what they are, well, except for the mallards ;)). It's not uncommon to see fish jump either. There is also the occasional sea lion that comes through as well.

Oh, did I mention my boat finally showed up? Hehe, I wish .

Who the ?!@# is Natasha?

Many of you will have read the previous blog postings about the difficulties we faced getting cell phones is America, so you will appreciate that I have spent a lot of time just getting to the point where I even have a cell phone number. Our land line is through Vonage, and the internet connection in the apartment is not that stable, so at times I do not have any phone other than my cell. This means that I worked hard to get a number, and that I rely on it a lot. So you can ONLY IMAGINE how I feel that someone named Natasha is so STUPID that she is giving out my number and telling people it is hers. It is the only explanation I have for the number of phone calls I get per week asking for her, the text messages from people thanking me for dinner, and the voicemail messages. it can't just be a wrong number, because everyone is asking for the same person. Now, most of the calls are from guys. Different guys, all rather insistent on talking to Natasha. This makes me think she must be hot. Unfortunately, she can't memorize the number for the autoclub or a local restaurant. No, instead she has memorized my number and is giving it out randomly. I could take advantage of it if I was single, using it as a dating service (although I suspect that the cute guys get her real number, not the fake one that really isn't fake). Being happily married, I am not inclined to strike up a conversation with these men, most of whom have fairly thick European accents and who don't understand the phrase "You have the wrong number". So Natasha, who ever you are, STOP GIVING OUT MY CELL PHONE NUMBER!!!!!

Was that 405 or 4 or 5?

The I405 runs through the West of Los Angeles metro basically from the top to the bottom. It joins I5 both North of LA and South of LA, but runs through the populated part of the city while I5 runs, well, through the other populated part of the city on the East side. Here we are, somewhere in the San Fernando hills.

This isn't the greatest picture in the world, as it's taken through the windshield of the car (which is covered in bugs). Notice how there is no blur in the tires of the vehicles around us? That's not because we have a really good camera. No, that's because nobody is actually moving.

The local joke is not that it's the 405 (I.e. four-oh-five). Rather, it's the 4 or 5; as in the number of hours it will take you to get anywhere, on it. Thankfully, we don't have to spend a lot of time on the Interstate highways.

Welcome to California

Four weeks and counting. Of course, my first post was the previous comparison shot of Rayla with her star double. I suppose I should actually write something a little more meaningful (although, they do take their stars very seriously here).

Rayla's post regarding the journey covered the gory details so I'll try and avoid repeating them. To say we were tired as we crossed the border into the U.S. would not be entirely accurate. Exhausted, for sure, but to add to that we were also overwhelmed. At least I was. Entering California, however, and at least being in the State we would call home started to make things much more real. In a way, it made the move a lot smaller, even though we were greeted by Mount Shasta.

The picture shown here is just over the Norther California border. I was looking forward to seeing Shasta again. The last time was in 2005, as we drove North up I5. This time, however, we are on highway 97, which gave us the wonderful opportunity to drive around the mountain. This shot was taken from just about due North of the mountain (see the blue dot on the map). We then got to drive towards the mountain, and around and past it on the West.

Of course, once the mountain is in the rear-view mirror, it's interstate highway the rest of the way, but that's another post.