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Sorry, couldn't think of anything good. Went to Boneshia's spin class last night. I'm always scared to go back after missing before and my fear is always justified. My thighs are killing me. They were already sore from my run on Sunday, but after spin... whew. At least today is a pilates day and we do virtually no quad work as we focus more on the hammies, so that'll be a nice break.

And something I heard about yesterday... former presidential candidate John Kerry taking heat for a joke he made about McCain. Come on... it was funny! Not like we don't know he's 282 years old!:

"Barack got asked the famous boxers or briefs question," Kerry said. "I was tempted to say commando."

"Then they asked McCain and McCain said, 'Depends,'" he added, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

LET THE FUN BEGIN...

Pictures from Budapest: http://picasaweb.google.com/kejercito/BUDAPEST

Hi there! I got back from Budapest a week ago and it was lots of fun. Some may say it's a little crazy to travel nearly 30 hours for only 3 full days in the city, but you've gotta jump on these opportunities when they pop up.

I left on Wednesday morning, went through JFK, and on to Budapest, arriving early Thursday morning. My grand plan was to take a sleeping pill on the JFK-BUD leg so I could sleep well and be ready to hit the ground running upon landing. You know... make the most of my 3 days. Well, I got up at 3 a.m. that morning and forced myself not to sleep on that LAX-JFK leg. I get on the plane and find out I have the whole row to myself. Woohoo. Right after we take off, I lay down for a bit (without taking the sleeping pill) and promptly fall asleep. I wake up when they start serving dinner. That's good and bad. It's good because I don't like missing any meals. =D It's bad because it would have been preferable to sleep straight through to Budapest because at this point, it's too late to take the sleeping pill since I won't have enough time for the pill to run its course.

After sleeping on and off through the 9.5 hours, we finally arrive. I usually pull money from the ATM as soon as I land in a new country, but of course the ATM is broken. I change $100 so I can have money for the shuttle to the hotel... and get HUF 17250 (that's Hungarian Forints)! Wow. I've never had a 10000 bill before. =P The airport shuttle is very affordable if any of you ever head out there. I was fortunate and had the whole shuttle to myself, so no other stops for me. Unfortunately, NATO was having a conference in town (actually, in the next hotel over) so there were many road blocks up and lots of security, so what is usually a 30 min drive turned into an hour.

I get into the room and it has an AWESOME view. After appreciating the view for about 10 minutes, I quickly change and go back to sleep... until about 2:30. While Laryna is at work, I decide to explore and walk around. This was made more challenging by all the road blocks set up for the NATO conference, but I managed to find Gerbaud, a famous coffee house and sample their cakes and capuccino... for lunch. Always a great way to start the day.

I walked around for a bit more then headed to the hotel to meet up with Laryna for dinner. We plan to get dinner on our own, but run into her co-workers who insist we come along on the big company dinner outing to Sir Lancelot, a medieval themed restaurant. Cheapos that we are, we go with the free dinner. It was lots of fun and they give you this huge platter of food. Mostly meat actually. Great for a carnivore like me. They also have lots of alcohol and entertainment. By the end of the night, I have no idea how many mugs (yes mugs) of wine I've had. But we're not done yet. No, those engineers are party animals and we move on to some bar on the way home... and then another one. When we finally head back to the hotel, it's 2 a.m and some of them are still going to stay out and gamble at the casino across the street. Crazy! They have to work the next day!

More on the rest of the trip in a bit.

TIME FLIES!

Wow! I can't believe it's already October. I sure am glad it's almost time to go to Budapest though. Woohoo! I'm going on a mini vacation and heading to Budapest for a few days while Laryna is there for work. I'm crashing in her nice hotel and walkin around while she toils away with the other blue tooth geeks. The only bummer is I'll be gone while Charlotte's in town. =( I haven't seen her in a while.

The rest of this week should be pretty fun. Friday night I'm going to see Wicked with some friends and then Saturday I'm going down to the OC for my aunt's birthday party. Then we make an encore appearance to celebrate Linley's 4th. Go figure! Miss Thang is 4 years old already.

So, totally random... I decided to weigh myself before and after my shower... and it's a 1.4lb difference! Must be all the wet hair.

CHEESEGASM!

Yep, that's right. Cheesegasm. Saturday night I had dinner at Comme Ca with Jenn, Caren, Gina and Kat. At Vaj's suggestion, we ordered the cheese platter - and it was SOOO good. They gave us 5 different types of cheese plus the proper accompaniments (figs, honeycomb, fruit), which I think really make a difference. We also shared the steak frites and pork belly. Those were really good too. We ordered coq au vin but I had no room since I chose to dig into the Mac and Cheese (excellent!). The service was great and the place is cozy cute. I just don't get the plastic lawn chairs. =P

Hmm... what else... oh, congrats to Tom, Cherrie and Mia! Little JT (Jayson Thomas) was born on Friday, September 5th at 5:52 p.m. at 6 lbs. 6 oz. I picked labor day in the pool. I wonder if I won. Cherrie wasn't due until later. She totally cracks me up since she was texting up until she was in the hospital and at 6 cm dialated. hehe. She's a machine!

A NIGHT AT THE BOWL...

Just remembered I took these... photos from Reggae Night with UB40 at the Hollywood Bowl:

USA! USA!

Whew, the Olympics are finally over! Good thing because it was really messing with my sleep schedule. Obviously I watched a lot of Olympics these past two weeks. I really enjoyed it, especialy that gold medal game for basketball. Fun! I didn't stay up til 2 a.m. though. DirecTV had some olympic basketball channel and they had the replay on at 8 a.m.

Charlotte came to visit this weekend. Unfortunately, their flight was delayed 5 hours, so our play time was cut short by quite a bit. Anyhow, she is so cute. She is quite the walker now and getting around very well. She's also very sweet, giving the dolly lots of hugs and kisses. She'll even throw in a hug or two for the relatives. =P She also knows how to brush her teeth. Unfortunately she was using a baby hair brush to do it. hehehe. yuck.

Two food events this past weekend: I tried a turkey burger and we went to Mozza Osteria. Whoever said turkey burgers were good, apparently have never had beef or are doing their best to convince themselves. I was just trying to be a little healthier, but I don't think I'll be going the turkey burger route again. As for Mozza Osteria - the food was good - but for the price and flavor, I would stick with Mozza Pizzaria. There was a $40 difference between what we paid at Pizzaria and Osteria, but that's probably because we had more alcohol at Osteria. =P

SLACKER

OK, so it's been quite a while since I updated. I know - I'm a total slacker. So what's been going on? Well, I was essentially out of the office for three weeks straight. First, I got jury duty. JURY DUTY! You'd think I'd get excused, especially on a criminal matter since I was an intern at the public defender's office, but I guess since I was just an alternate, it didn't really matter. So, I sat there day after day listening to testimony, but did not get to deliberate... and it was a hung jury! What a waste of our time! Send that sucker to the slammer.

The week after that, I went to Vegas, and of course it was burnin hot. I actually considered running, but just wasn't able to get up and go at 5 am when the temperature was still reasonable. After Vegas I took off for New York. Vuong actually came along since Gina was going to be there with Weyland. I have to say, it sucks to be working in NY while your friends are out goofing around. I did manage to get some good dinners with them though - Cafe Havana and Otto. Then we came back and Vuong, Lin and I went to Mozza Pizzeria. Yum! Mario Batali rocks. I've now had B&B (Vegas), Mozza Pizzeria (LA), and Otto (NY) and they have all been fantastic.

Anyhow, this is my first real week back to work and let me tell you, I walked into a PILE of stuff on my desk. Documents, shoes, you name it... It was horrid. I've managed to get through most of it, so hopefully tomorrow won't be as tiring. TGIF!