oh for the love of ..

donuts.

yes, donuts. i don't know how many of you know this but my sister loves donuts. and when i say love i don't mean how some of you love your parents, or love your significant others or even how you love your prada backpacks, i'm talking about the real thing here.

let me explain.

she visited me in CA a couple of years ago and i took her to burbank, ca. now, burbank is an awesome little appendage of los angeles. it's the home of warner bros studios, disney studios and for you older folk i believe some guy named johnny carson used to refer to "beautiful downtown burbank" on the tonight show (don't have a fit, of course i know who johnny is). so you can see there are many many things one can see in burbank. oh yes, and there is also a krispy kreme. at this particular krispy kreme they make the original glazed donut so when you walk in they're coming right off the line and you can eat one freshly made. quite delicious right off the line.

anyway, i took my sister to this krispy kreme so she could try one of these freshly made donuts. she loved it! how much you ask? well, i do believe in the week's time she was here we had to go back to that krispy kreme like three times. and she bought my friends and i donuts every time. i don't think i went back to that krispy kreme for at least a year after her visit because i had OD'ed on them.

she loves them so much that if you plan on visiting me or CA ever and ask my sister what's the one thing you should do while you're out here, she will tell you "go to krispy kreme in burbank!". think i'm kidding?

read the comments nicole posted (hers is the second comment, mine is the first) on aaron's blog here

now that you have an idea of her love for donuts this next story will make much more sense.

so i just got a new apartment and they allow me to have dogs. or at least i'm hoping they will allow me to have the dog i want. i want chloe. now, some of you know chloe as my sister's dog. she's a miniature dachshund and i love her. my new landlord, however, wanted to "interview" her before allowing her to live with me but unfortunately, chloe lives in NC. so in lieu of the formal interview, he wants to see a picture of her. i was told by the manager of the building that it's pretty much just so he can make sure she's not huge. upon this info, i asked nicole if she'd take a picture of chloe but put something in the picture so the landlord could have a reference to her size. i wanted her to look small.

this is what my sister came up with:



yup, that's a krispy kreme box.

so, i chatted with nicole today about this lovely picture and chloe's size. i'm going to post a little bit of that conversation for you to enjoy -- the yellow bubbles are me and the blue bubbles are her (if you click on it you can read it):



yeah, apparently my new dog is about five donuts long and maybe 2 donuts wide.

now THAT is love.

for a minute there, i lost myself

the weekend was awesome. friday i had a work function that proved to be a little more fun than i had expected. didn't bother to take my camera because i honestly didn't think i'd be staying that long.

saturday i spent the day at the beach. no pics from that because i was just too lazy to take my camera out. i know mom, "must be rough".

sunday was the cherry on top!

it all started with a bus ride:



that's me and TJ .. notice the blurriness? well, that's a product of two things: first, jody is a horrible photographer and second, we're so excited it's hard to capture it through a lens.

the ride takes us here:



for those of you that can't read or are not in the know .. that says Radiohead.

this night has been anticipated for four months.

and it all started with a girl and dream.

a dream to sleep.

let me take you back ... back four months.

four long months ago i was having a horrible bout of insomnia. at that time i didn't know why i was marked for such a plight. little did i know that those weeks of suffering would ultimately lead to this glorious night. let me explain. on one of the nights that i had yet to sleep i was up and surfing the internet around 4 in the morning. on that night i caught wind of a blog somewhere out there in the land of the interweb that spoke of a presale of radiohead tickets that were to be going on sale at a secret time. i was intrigued for i am a huge radiohead fan as are my friends. i searched deeper and found that it was highly suggested that that EXACT night i was doing my searching they were to go on sale. the excitement built as i desperately looked for the time. then, as if god placed his hand upon mine, i went to the ticket website and they were magically available. i'm not going to lie, it was a struggle. man against machine as i had to use all of my book learning to finagle my browsers to work against the rush that i was up against. thousands upon thousands of people trying to electronically grab the tickets that were to be mine. the battle started at 6 am and at around 620 i looked up from my computer in triumph. i had scored four box seats to radiohead.

box seats being the operative word here, for when you have box seats at the hollywood bowl you get to sit with such people as:



heather graham (that's my foot at the bottom of the screen)

and

the current love of my life



john krasinski though you might know him as jim halpert on NBC's the office (that's my head)

they were sitting in the boxes in front of us. not together though.

this was our box:



that's me, jody and tj.

it was lovely. we had four individual chairs in our own box. we even had tables for the picnic style food we had brought.

the fourth seat was for my other friend Sam



he kinda looks like jon stewart. don't be fooled by his expression. he still can't believe that we got box seats. the last time we saw radiohead we had to drive down to san diego and stand way in the back.

i realize these pictures aren't that clear. that's because we decided to follow the rules and not bring our cameras in. these were all taken with jody's iphone.

in any case, the show was amazing



and THAT aaron, is how you spend the perfect evening.

i love la .. WE LOVE IT!

ok, so we love it more when we win but when you get free tickets to see the LA Dodgers play -- you go!



they were up against the colorado rockies last night so upon getting free awesome tickets (thank you steve!) eric and i decided to go






plus we wanted to get a first hand look at the new guy



yeah. we saw him hit one good base hit but nothing fancy.




unfortunately, our lovely ladies could not see it through.

we lost.

new england state of mind

so last weekend i was in new england to visit stacia. there's a lot of adventure here so be prepared for the blog of your life.

i flew into boston and we spent the day in the city. i hadn't been to boston since i was a teenager and i had forgotten how awesome it is.

first thing, we went on a duck tour. the duck is a wwII amphibious vehicle so in layman's terms, it goes in water AND on land. amazing! AND they were built by women.



you know what else is awesome about the duck tour?



he let me drive while we were in the charles river.
i'm way less of a liability on the water.



views of the river and charles town bridge



stacia and i on the duck tour.

once back on dry land, stacia and i hit the streets to get a closer look at some of the sights we saw on the tour.



this building is quite awesome. on the balcony in the front is where they would come out and read the declaration of independence. and in front of this building is where the boston massacre occurred.

MASSACRE !!!! great word. really only five people died. but i guess back in the day that was like 1/5 of the population.

we then went to say hello to some friendly faces.



that's sam adams. he makes beer.
ok fine, he makes beer AND he apparently played an integral role in the rebellion against great britain AND was a signer of the declaration of independence AND did a bunch of other good stuff.

we kept walking, a little unsure of where to go and wishing for a little guidance. and then we happened upon:



the statue of paul revere and out of the corner of my eye i caught a glimpse of something.



you may or may not be able to see the figure in the photo above. it is, in fact, the ghost of paul revere. he whisked right by me and whispered "go that way" pointing behind him. now, i'm not sure how many people around me could actually see this patriot ghost but he did have a group of people following him and he kept turning around and spouting out various facts about the area to the group. oh yeah, he also had a name tag. very strange indeed.

i digress.

the ghost of paul revere led us here:



this is the old north church. it was here in 1775 that paul placed the lantern to warn that the british were marching into lexington and concord.

and for those of you that don't remember your history so well. it's also the place where ben and patrick gates tricked ian howe into going so he wouldn't find the treasure! (anyone get it? nicole??)

we also stopped by this little pub




this is the green dragon. it served as headquarters during the american revolution (see the little dude holding the flag)

and across the street from that is a holocaust memorial



it's actually very cool. it's just a bunch of glass panes with numbers etched into them. it's the numbers they gave all the residents of the concentration camps. they divided the panes by camp. if you look closely or open the picture you'll see all the numbers in the background.

boston was very cool but we soon left for portland, maine.



maine is very beautiful. it's exactly how i pictured it in my mind.



stacia lives right on the water and it's just harbors with fishing boats and recreation boats and even ..



tugboats!!

we did a lot of sight seeing and i got to see a bunch of awesomeness. i recommend going to maine for a vacation. there is tons to do and it's just beautiful.



we took a boat over to peak's island and enjoyed our day



on saturday we hung up our sightseeing shoes to pay tribute to stacia's little sister kasi.

she's getting married in two week's so we had a special "bride day" for her

she was so thrilled that we made her wear a veil all day.



we went to old orchard beach (it's kind of like myrtle beach with the amusement park and carnival food and games and stuff)



we had kasi do all sorts of fun things like gettin her palm read and getting a fake tattoo. that's stacia and kasi's mom in the background giving her best shocked face.

also, when a bunch of girls go out with a bride apparently the men folk love it.



i spent the whole day with stacia and some of the women in her family. we had a great time. it's nice to see that craziness doesn't just run in my family.

what? it's true.

i also got to spend time with the davies men folk.

well, one of them



that's rick.

he loves me.



or maybe just my hand. yeah, he drew a heart on my hand with our initials in it.

on sunday the sightseeing continued.

kasi, stace and i drove up north to boothbay harbor. ok, so kasi drove, stacia talked to her and i slept in the backseat. man, i love sleeping in cars. it's a problem, i know.



it was beautiful there. and it was also the site for my entire reason for going to maine.



that was my lunch. yes, i ate them. they were delicious. and many thanks to stacia for taking the reigns and cracking those suckers open so i could eat them.

on monday we hit a few more hot spots as we made our way back to boston so i could catch my flight.

we went to portland headlight



it's beautiful.



and so are we!

and then we drove to kennebunkport



this is an awesome place. very fancy. lots of expensive houses on the water. it's also where the walker/bush's have a place. you know, as in george walker bush.



it's basically a little peninsula jutting off into the water. here's half. this i believe is guest quarters and slave er i mean servant quarters.



and this is the main house.

and this is their view





and that's just a little taste of new england.

many thanks to stacia and her family for putting up with me and showing me a fantastic time!
i will definitely be going back!

saying goodbye to old friends and learning to love again

my weekend was a roller coaster of emotion. it started on friday night. i went to a birthday dance party (yes, dance party) for one of my friends.



what's this you ask??!! a girl in jen's blog?? could it be??!!
yes, this is jannea and i on the way to the celebration.



and this is melissa showing us some of her dance moves.

everyone had a great time. we danced and hung out and had a huge birthday celebration for our friend michael (seen here w/ roxanne - yet ANOTHER girl!).



i was thinking "wow! what a great weekend this is starting out to be!"

then i woke up on saturday:



we had to say goodbye to mr. bernie mac. it's a shame. i guess that means no ocean's 14.

a damper was put on my weekend. but i somehow managed to pull through it. i had already had a phenomenal friday and i was excited to post about my lovely evening.

and then, things got worse.

really worse.

i had to say goodbye to one of my best friends.



my camera. yes, i've had a few "accidents" with it. it has managed to squirm its way out of my hands on quite a few occasions (yeah, those black marks are dents and scratches) but it had always pulled through.

not this time.

so i've been mourning.

until today.
today, i found a new love.

old and busted:


(yeah, the screen is really that scratched up)

say hello to new hotness: