Christmas 2008

The original plan for Christmas vacation was to leave SFO on a red-eye the evening of Friday, December 19, spend the weekend in Boston seeing friends, go to work meetings on Monday the 22nd, and then head up to Maine. The best laid plans... Due to the major snowstorm that hit New England on the 19th, my flight was not just delayed but completely canceled. The soonest American Airlines claimed they could get me a new flight was Monday. Meaning no weekend in Boston. I was so disappointed but tried to make the most of my unexpected weekend in the Bay, including lots of rest, seeing the Christmas pageant at church, and having lunch with friends.

Fortunately my flights on Monday were both on time: the first from San Jose to Chicago, with Steve Young on board in first class (!); the second from Chicago to Boston, where my dad picked me up. On Tuesday I caught up on some work, wrapped the gifts I had mailed to Maine in early December, and then headed back down to Boston with my mom to pick up my sister from the airport. On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, we three ladies went to Freeport for lunch and shopping at LL Bean, stopped to see my grandfather, and baked some cookies. A very relaxing Christmas Eve!

Christmas itself was a bit different than normal since my dad had to work at the hospital. We went to my grandfather's house fairly early in the day to celebrate with him, both my aunts, my uncle, and a family friend. We had a wonderful dinner and headed home around 5:30. Once my dad arrived home later that evening we opened gifts among the four of us. In short, a very family-centered, calm day in Maine, with cooperative weather.

(Ron, Barbara, Rachel, Sarah, Mom, me, and Grandpa - who turns 90 in February!!)

I had started to feel a bit under the weather yesterday - sore throat, fever - and today I'm completely out of it. I have barely moved from the couch, taken lots of naps, and still don't feel much better. The sinuses are pounding, my lymph nodes are swollen, the throat is on fire, etc. Maybe my pace in December caught up with me, maybe I'm just finally relaxing in my first visit home since April, maybe my immune system can't keep pace with the east coast now. At any rate, I'm hoping that by completely giving into this virus that I'll get over it soon so that I can enjoy my remaining week in New England!

Los Angeles

The weekend of December 12-14 I went down to L.A. with my friend Lisa from church. The primary purpose of the trip was to see "Wicked" Saturday night (which will soon be closing in L.A. and coming to San Francisco), but as Lisa is an L.A.-area native, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to get to know the region better. Quite frankly, I have never had a favorable impression of L.A., based solely off a couple of work trips where I flew in through Burbank and general stereotypes. I wanted to see some of the L.A. highlights and form an educated opinion.

The weekend started at 3am on Friday, when my alarm ungraciously woke me up for the airport. We left from SFO, a little later than planned due to some airplane protocol delays, and arrived in Long Beach in short order. We stayed on the Queen Mary in Long Beach:



Our room was actually a pretty decent size, we had a window, and there is plenty of hot water! I enjoyed staying on the boat and learning its history, although we didn't do any of the official tours.

After we checked in, we headed up to Venice Beach. As we did not visit in peak time, the beach seemed fairly peaceful:

The boardwalk was definitely bustling, however, including with many musicians selling their samples. Lisa bought a couple of CDs and we were on our way again.

Our next stop was at the Getty Museum, which I loved for all its eclectic collections - finally got to see Van Gogh's Irises! - and the view of city was impressive:

Note the defined smog line! We left the Getty a little after 3:30, which wasn't early enough to avoid rush hour traffic on the 405 (note use of "the" - L.A. peeps put a "the" in front of all the highways!). It took us awhile to get back down to Long Beach and the Aquarium of the Pacific. We had about an hour to explore the indoor portion of the aquarium and then ample time to see the outdoor exhibits, including a large shark tank and sting rays. While this aquarium is not as large as that of Monterey, it is still worth a visit.

After the aquarium, we met Lisa's friend Bryan for dinner and then headed back to the hotel. I was asleep by 9:45pm after the early wake up!

On Saturday, we were up fairly early in order to go meet up with Lisa's friend Joyce in Hollywood. Joyce has lived in the area for awhile and proved to be an excellent tour guide. We started the day with breakfast at Grub, an outstanding little restaurant owned by Betty from Season 2 of "Top Chef," right in the middle of where all the studios are located. Our driving tour then commenced, hitting highlights like the Paramount Gates, Sunset Boulevard, the Kodak Theatre, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and, of course, the Hollywood Walk of Fame:

After seeing the heart of Hollywood, we drove closer to the famous sign for the requisite shot. Here I am with Lisa:

We then drove around the upscale portion of town, including Beverly Hills, which truly is another world, and Rodeo Drive:

Needless to say, I didn't make any purchases on Rodeo Drive! After exploring that area, we drove onto the Farmers Market in L.A., which was fun, but not nearly as authentic as the ones I'm used to in Northern California. We had lunch there, then drove up to Mulholland Drive, which has some spectacular views of both L.A. and Burbank, including the NBC Universal building. We finally headed back to Joyce's house, arriving around 5:00 to get ready for the show.

We had dinner at Lucy's El Adobe Cafe, a Mexican restaurant on Melrose Avenue famous for being the favorite restaurant of former governor Jerry Brown. We then headed to the Pantages Theatre to see "Wicked." It was outstanding - great singers and music, an interesting story line that integrated well with "The Wizard of Oz," and fantastic scenery. Definitely see it if you get the chance!

Lisa and I got back to the hotel around 12:45am, which afforded us just 3 hours of sleep before the alarm for the Sunday morning flight. All was on schedule that morning, thank goodness since Lisa had to make it back to church for the annual Christmas concert. Her husband picked us up from the Oakland airport and we were on our way.

After taking in many of the L.A. highlights, I can very easily say that I'm happy I live in the Bay Area. L.A. is not for me, which pains me to say after the hospitality of my hosts. There's just something about it that turns me off. Maybe it's all the concrete. Maybe it's all the showiness and focus on image. Maybe it's the huge, visible disparity between America's anointed royalty and rich in Hollywood / Beverly Hills / Orange County and the utter destitution of the "bad" areas. For sure L.A. has its charms, good museums, and some great restaurants, but don't look for me to be moving south any time soon.

(Note: all photos from the L.A. trip can be found on Facebook)

BSC Year-End Celebration

To celebrate our department's accomplishments during 2008, we all gathered at City Beach in Fremont the afternoon of Thursday, December11. The event started with a review of 2008 highlights, followed by lunch, and then some team-building exercises. I had to depart early to retrieve (at last!) my car, but not before I was able to gather with Tiffany and Fran for a photo: