Well, I could write about this weekend, but instead I'm going to write about my trip to Europe this Christmas...

So I left on Saturday, December 20 for Paris (with a short stop in London). My buddy, Nate Roth, came along with me. The trip to Europe is always agonizingly long. I never seem to get enough sleep and I'm always dead when I arrive. I did find some help this time taking a dose of Nyquil (pill form). Sleeping pills just don't work on me. I've tried them and I never felt the least bit tired. Nyquil is pretty strong and I was out within a half hour. This kinda stinks though because as I was falling asleep, I really got into the movie I was watching, but I couldn't stay awake to watch the end of it. It had Woody Harrelson and John Cleese and it was about robbing a bank or something. I'll have to rent it. Anyways, I slept about 6 hours straight which is pretty good for a flight. I was still tired when I got to London. I fell asleep waiting for my next flight, but after we got to Paris, I was able to stay up until about 8pm.

The next morning, we got on the chunnel and went back to London. I'm totally serious. We decided to do the excursion to London after the plane tickets were already bought. I think next time I'll just go to London and take the chunnel to Paris a couple days later. The chunnel is very convenient. You can go from Paris to London and vice versa in about 3 hours. This is a trip that would take you the entire day by car/ferry. London is my favorite city in Europe. It's also great because people speak English there although sometimes I can't understand them with the accents. Not everyone in England has a pure British accent. So the first thing we did was something I wasn't able to do last time I was there which was go inside Westminster Abbey. There are tributes to many famous people throughout Englands history from William Shakespeare to Laurence Olivier. There are also many buried heros, kings, queens, etc. If you're not really into seeing the inside of churches, you can save 6 pounds ($10) and just check out the outside which is more impressive than the inside. Actually, most of the old churches in Europe look pretty much the same with a few exceptions. They are worth seeing for their architecture, but when you get back home, all the pictures look the same and you can't remember which church was what anyways. Also saw Pariliament, Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, the Thames River, Cleopatra's Needle, Tower of London, and Trafalgar Square. We didn't go inside many places. We were still getting over jet lag so I would get pretty tired in the evening. I almost fell asleep at dinner once and the other night I did fall asleep on one of those cheesy bus tours. It was pretty cold too, so going to a warm hotel room was very inviting. London is a very cool city to experience even if you don't do much touring. I was quite satisfied. We also rode a double decker bus and ate at an authentic fish and chips place. I definitely recommend the hotel we stayed at (Swiss Cottage Best Western). It's close to the subway (tube) station and just outside Central London. It's very affordable and gives you a less touristy experience of life in England. The hotel is actually in a neighborhood. It was pretty cool.

We got back to Paris on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, I got a scarf which came in handy. In London, I was wishing I had owned a scarf. Now I do, woohoo! I probably won't need it again until the next Christmas in Paris, ha ha. We watched Lord of the Rings at one of the local theaters. The movie was in English, but had French subtitles. Not bad except for when they spoke Elvish since those subtitles were in French. Luckily, there are only a few Elvish lines in the movie. I had already seen it in the US before I came over anyway. It was kinda funny since the text would appear before the lines were said so people would laugh about a second before the jokes were made. That night we also checked out some of the more familiar structures in the city like the Arch du Triomph, Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Seine River.

On the 27th, my friend, Pam, arrived and the next day we set out for Normandy. Normandy is actually a region, not a city, so we stayed in the city of Bayeaux which happened to be the first city liberated by the Allied Forces in WWII. My parents drove their car and my two brothers went with them. My friends and I rented the cheapest car (Citroen C2) we could fit 3 people into. We just barely fit. I thought my Honda Civic was small. It wasn't a very strong engine either. It was difficult keeping up with my dad at times. I'll never complain about gas prices in America again. I paid a good $5/gal in France. Gas is very expensive in Europe. Driving is considered more of a luxury than a need. However, having the car was useful for us since we were driving between all these small towns in Normandy. We visited the beaches of Normandy where the battle of D-Day took place. We also saw the American Cemetery where all the white crosses are. There are alot of our people buried over there. We also saw the grave of Roosevelt's son there. Even the President lost his son in that war. After the cemetery, we took some cool pictures from a cliff above the beach. The puddles had frozen over there and so we were picking up these huge sheets of ice and breaking them over are heads and stuff. It made a glass breaking sound. I guess we looked pretty silly. My parents said that looked like the most fun we had the whole trip. What do you expect from people who were raised in Southern California? We also visited an old island fortress called Mont Saint Michel. This is a really cool place. It's a must see if you ever visit France. I had to take a picture in front of it because it looks so fairy tale like, I doubt anyone would believe it was a real place. Returning the rental car in Paris was somewhat of a tense situation. Finding the return lot entrance was no easy task. We were driving in circles for at least a half hour. Parisians have got to be the worst drivers in the world. I'm sure the way the roads are set up has alot to do with it.

Well, I'll have to continue with part 2 later. It's late and I have to travel on business tomorrow to Florida. I'll be gone for two weeks. I'm not sure if I'll have access to the internet or not. If not, I'll be back on January 30.

How sad, no blogging for six days. I haven't been daily lately because of the new car and trying to get back on Pacific Standard Time. Well, I planned to give the Paris update this weekend, but I was working on a video for The Foundry. Remember the game, Clue, and then they made a movie of it. Well this one is a movie of the game, Mafia. It's a plug for our winter retreat. It's quite an undertaking. Normally, I'm the guy making the movie, but this time I'm only an actor. It took 3 days to film. One day before the holidays and Saturday and Sunday of this past weekend. I think my hair is a bit longer for the second period of filming so my hair is going to change lengths throughout the film. Oh well, ha ha. Anyways, it's exhausting to act. I really never thought much about it before. Three days was alot of work. I don't know how actors do it for months at a time day after day all day long. Anyways, the director used some of my ideas for the film so there will be plenty of silliness in there for sure. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product. My character is definitely very dynamic (maybe too dynamic). He ranges from serious to foolish to childish to cowardly. I play a med student.

On Sunday morning at about 5:30am, I woke up to the sound of a car alarm followed by alot of running and giggling outside. Normally, I ignore alarms because they only mean false alarms, but the running made me more suspicious. Then it occurred to me that I have no idea what the alarm on my new car sounds like. So I grabbed my keys to check it out. (Sidenote: I never cared what happened to my old car. The price of having something nice, sigh.) I could still hear the alarm in the elevator. The car was definitely close, but the alarm stopped before I got to the garage so I'm not totally sure if it came from the garage or if it was on the street. One check of my car revealed that all was well. All the doors were still locked and opening a door without a key is the only way to set my alarm off. So it must have been another car. After work on Monday, I decided to test my alarm to see what it sounded like. I had a little trouble setting it off since you pretty much have to jimmy the door to set it off. Using the key to open the armed door will still disarm the alarm. So I just used the panic button. It was the exact same alarm that I heard on Sunday. So I still don't know if it was my car or not. My guess is it was either a malfunction or it was another Acura nearby. Anyways, I thought I would do a little research on my car and theft and security. What I learned was not encouraging. Basically, there is no theft proof device anywhere. A professional thief can overcome any system in a matter of minutes. You think The Club is safe? Nope. Thieves will just cut your steering wheel with a hacksaw and slide it right off. It takes about 30 seconds. A Freon spray can also make the club very brittle and just takes one hit from a hammer to shatter it. My friend told me about a device called the Autolock that keeps the pedal from being pressed. It's Freon-proof, hacksaw proof, even bulletproof! I felt good about that until I saw a product called the Club Buster which can break a Club or Autolock in 30 seconds. It's supposed to be for locksmiths and repo men, but if they can get it, so can thieves. You got a nice alarm with sensors? Who cares? You can get these things called frequency scanners. They get your frequency by scanning your car or garage door, play it right back, and they are in. You can buy those on the internet too. But you think you're safe because your alarm has an immobilizer so the ignition won't start...nope. These systems are easily bypassed once the thief gets into your car. New cars are now coming out with transponders in the key (mine included) which makes it a little harder to bypass the system, but it turns out it doesn't take much effort to get the required documents needed to claim a key at the dealer. You can get a copy of a title and driver's license with just a little info and the internet. These systems can still be bypassed without the key as well. If that wasn't bad enough, I saw a few sites that not only tell you how to steal cars, but also how to make the tools! So what did I do? I bought an Autolock and some wheel locks for my rims. Not every thief is going to have a Club Buster and most thieves are looking for the easy job. If a professional wants my car, there is nothing I can do about it, but at least I can make it harder so the other thieves keep walking. I figure the cost of those items were marginal and I would be kicking myself for not doing it. One thing that is proven 95% successful is Lo-Jack which I'm considering alot more now. However, it's not much good if you don't realize your car has been stolen fairly soon otherwise it's all chopped up and on its way overseas or somewhere by the time the police track it. You can't worry too much about these things though. I think this says it all.

Tomorrow I'm getting the first dings in my car fixed. It's not as tragic as it sounds. I bought the car with dings in the hood and they promised to repair them for free. It was the only black one they had and I really wanted the car that night so I went for it. Yeah, I got it in writing too. These guys made a big stink about the extended warranty and said if my car was kept more than 6 minutes, they would give me a rental and I could go on with my day. I thought that was cool, but I was planning on getting the warranty already. Anyways, I thought that would really come in handy now that I had to get the hood fixed, but to my surprise on making the appointment, the tech rep informed me that I do not get a rental because this isn't covered by the warranty since it was something they agreed to pay for prior or some technicality like that.

So I said, "Ok, do you have a shuttle?"
"Yes, we have one way shuttle service." (This means I need to find my own ride back to the dealer from work. One of my friends was kind enough to do this for me.)

That same day I get a call from Acura with a survey about my buying experience...(insert devious "moo ha ha" here). I gave them good marks until the part about the delivery of the vehicle. I told them in my kindest manner...

"Yeah, the car had dings in the hood. They agreed to fix it though so I'm not too upset about that."
She asked, "Was there anything else?"
"Yeah, they made a big deal about getting a rental car if I was detained for too long, but when I asked about it they said I don't get one because it doesn't apply in this case. I have to work out my own transportation. I'm disappointed because I'm being inconvenienced even though the problem was the dealer's fault."

Heh heh, to say the least, it put egg all over Acura's face. I got a call today from the dealer. I got a rental car, ha ha. I think my sales rep got the heat for my complaint though which is kind of unfortunate because it wasn't him that told me I couldn't have a rental. He wanted to know who told me that. I told him, but I hope this doesn't turn into a huge deal. I just wanted a rental and it wasn't like I complained all irate or anything. I just told them what happened. No big deal. I am happy though that my complaint made a difference in my situation. I wish all companies dealt with their customers in this way. I would have expected a thank you for taking the survey and that would be the last I heard. Honda/Acura have always had good service though which is why I'll probably never buy any other car.

Phew, too much to tell this week. I haven't forgot about Europe...stay tuned.

Jet lag has been working out for me pretty good. I get to work early and then I head home early, but I get too tired to blog unfortunately. I wish traffic wasn't so bad so I could just commute at a regular schedule. Anyways, it's still nice to wake up early and not feel tired. On my way to work yesterday, I heard the common "thunk!" from the front of my car. I've been meaning to tape the light into it's socket, but I keep forgetting to. It falls out every other day. Anyways, when I got to work, I went to the front of the car to push the light back in where I noticed the fixture came out completely and is now probably on the 405 freeway somewhere. Now there is just a lightbulb hanging out of a hole in the front of my car. It seems that dead dog is haunting me. Well, I fixed that. Last night, I bought a car. They offered me $300 for my Honda as a trade in which means that stupid dog totalled my car cuz to fix the bumper would have cost more than that. Anyways, my old roommate wanted to buy the car so I sold it to him for a little more. Anyways, it was a good move to buy a new car. I'm very happy with my purchase. It'll take a little time before I stop looking for a red car in the parking lot.

The Paris adventure is coming...stay tuned.

I just got back from Paris (and with my bags too, yay!). My last trip from Europe, I wasn't so lucky. Not only that, they didn't even deliver my bags to me. I had to go get them myself the next day. But anyways, I wanted to write while I was on vacation since so much was happening, but I was so exhausted from sightseeing every day. I'm too tired right now to write about it since it's about 2:30 AM for me right now, but I will at least talk about today.

I got up early this morning for the quick flight to London and then the long flight to LAX. It was a pretty normal travel day. Traveling back from Europe is always the strangest experience. It's like a 40 hour day. It was particularly strange flying over the Arctic region. Even though the sun was bright when we left, it set for a few hours and we had the early morning light look when we were over the pole region and then the sun rose again as we flew farther south. Science is a cool thing. If you fly in the summer, it's daylight the whole time even though you've lost a night in the travel. Anyways, the trip is guaranteed to mess you up no matter which way you go. Anyways, since I had the "direct" flight (at least from London), I got home "quick". It's a tough thing though to sit for 10 hours straight. You can only watch so many movies in a row. I didn't even want to watch the 4th movie, but since I wasn't tired, and the guy next to me was asleep so I couldn't get my book, and the window only showed me an endless sea of ice, I watched a 4th movie. However, a couldn't bear to watch a 5th movie. Can you believe I had two more hours of flight after doing all of that? So then I listened to the music stations that the flight provided (which are better than on domestic flights). I found it particularly amusing that they were playing an anthology of Tom Jones on one of the channels. I listened for a bit only confirming what I had said earlier about him. It just sounds like karaoke to me. I don't know, anyone disagree? Anyways, the movies I saw (in this order) were Sinbad, The Medallion, Matchstick Men, and Out of Time. I really wanted to see Sinbad anyways because I really enjoy Dreamworks animation and I enjoyed that. I thought The Medallion would be good cuz it's Jackie, but it was just really cheesy and I think the flight version was edited so it was inconsistent in some parts. I don't think it's worth your time regardless. I never really cared to see Matchstick Men, but since it was free, I went for it. I enjoyed the story quite alot actually. It's definitely a good rental. Out of Time was another movie I didn't really care to see, but turned out much better than I expected. It probably wouldn't disappoint as a rental, although it is one of those movies where none of the characters have any good moral fiber which makes you kind of not care what happens to them. I tend not to like those, but the I'd give the story a little better than average.

Well, I have about 200 or so photos to check out on my computer now. I've only seen the thumbnail version so far on my camera so I'm curious to see how well the pictures turned out. I took almost every picture at large size which is really huge. At the end of the trip, I was wondering if this was a good idea. Anyways, I'll talk more about my trip this week. Hopefully, I will be able to blog faithfully as I adjust to Pacific Standard Time. If not, forgive me.

Footnote: I think it's funny that the spell checker on this website doesn't recognize the word "blog" as a real word.