Irv’s Journal

Woohoo! Heading to Vegas this weekend. Going to attend

Which is a big Lexus get together. Plus it’s a built in excuse to hit Vegas!

Esther and I had a night out on Saturday. Took a Craig style dinner (aka 4:30PM) at Lawry’s, and then it off to the Pantages Theatre for…

WOW. What a great show. Honestly, ever since I missed the first LA run last year, I was a bit skeptical of how good this musical really was. I thought there was just a lot of ‘new musical’ type hype and whatnot. Still, when Esther had a chance to get pre-sale tickets, we grabbed them pretty quickly.

For those of you who haven’t followed the story, Wicked gives you the ‘backstory’ of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch as they grew up together. The story is well told, funny, most of the original Broadway cast is still in tact, and the music was great.

Obviously I couldn’t snap any pictures inside, but here are a few I was able to find online.

I know most of the performances have been sold out, but I did see a sign that there are limited numbers of front orchestra seats sold DAY OF SHOW via lottery! If you get a chance, I highly recommend you SEE IT.

Here’s some proof that I made it to Canada!  Mullets still rule…

Friday, 4/6

We started out late, due to the long travel. We packed Kaila in the car and headed out to our lunch reservation at The Flying Fish. I’m pretty sure everyone enjoyed their lunch. I got the fish and chips and thought they were quite tasty.

After lunch, we headed out to the new Olympic Sculpture Park. It was peaceful and for the most part relaxing. There were some interesting sculptures, and some that left me wondering what the point was. My favorite piece was one called Love & Loss.

An hour later, we were on our way to Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery for a tour/tasting. The tour took us through the bottling, fermenting, and storage areas. Even though I don’t drink, the tour helped explain the whole wine process, and even told me why dark wines are generally more expensive than whites! The tour of course ended with a tasting of three of the more popular Ste. Michelle wines, a Riesling, a Cabernet(?), and a Muscat dessert wine. I felt kind of bad, but Esther and I were the only two people on the tour that didn’t finish each wine (even though we were sharing one glass!). After tasting the three, Esther, Sarah, and myself each concluded that we preferred the Muscat wine, so Sarah promptly bought a few bottles to bring home.

Dinner was made at home. Amy made some yummy baby back ribs, and I helped make bacon wrapped scallops. There was a ton of food, and plenty left over. We were all pooped so we mostly lounged around in front of the tv before calling it an early evening.

Saturday, 4/7

We got up rather early. Hit the road for my first visit to Canada! The drive up from Seattle is a bit longer than I expected… We had a semi-late lunch at Taiwan Beef Noodle House, which was pretty yummy (I still prefer Mrs. Lai’s beef noodle soup, of course).

Spent the next few hours shopping on Robson Street (I tend to think of it as a cross between Old Town Pasadena and Third Street Promenade).

On our way back, we stopped by the Duty Free shop at the border. Of course we were taking some dorky pictures in front, and of course, I managed to step in the dog poo… grrreat! Inside, I found my first Seiko Premier, but unfortunately it was not the model I have been searching for. Still, I was tempted, because it was going for quite a bit under retail.

After our Duty Free shopping extravaganza, we rushed back into Seattle to grab dinner at Ginza in Bellevue. From the online reviews, this place has the best sushi in Seattle, and as far as I’m concerned, it was yummy. We barely made it back before the sushi bar closed, thank goodness.

Another day, gone…

Sunday, 4/8

Woke up early and made it to church for 9AM Easter service. Wow, when’s the last time I made it to church for the early service?

After church, we headed out for dim sum at Jeem in Bellevue, which, surprisingly or not was very clean for a Chinese restaurant. The food was great, and after stuffing ourselves we decided to relax back at the house before our flight.

For some reason, after we left the house, I felt like we should have checked the flight status. Luckily, Sean stayed behind and was able to tell us that our flight was delayed by 2 hours! Not again! Instead of going to the airport we went into town and Pike’s Place. Grabbed some yummy baos from the Chinese bakery and wandered around while the shops were closing up.

At the airport, Sarah recognized some guy from Survivor. When we got to the gate there were three flights coming to LA! One AlaskaAir, going to Long Beach, an on-time United Flight to LA, and of course, our delayed flight to LA. Boo United!

Didn’t get home until almost 11, and of course that was the end of the loooooooong weekend.

Took a weekender with Esther and Sarah to visit their sister Amy, hubby Sean, and doggie Kaila in Seattle.

Started out well. Took a half day off of work since our flight was at 6:30. I hadn’t packed yet so I ran home around lunchtime and threw some clothes together. Picked up the ladies around 4:30, and got to the airport by 5. Then the bad news begins…

THE BIG D word. D-E-L-A-Y! OH noes, I thought. Oh well, it was only a half hour delay so we decided to plop ourselves down at the Starbucks to just relax and eat some dinner before our flight. Eventually, we decide to check on the flight status, since it was getting close to the 6:30 boarding time. OH NO again. Now the screen just says DELAYED instead of giving a new time. What the…you know how this story is going, since they don’t even bother giving an estimated time.

FINALLY, we get the United employee to come give an announcement that the plane has a fuel leak, but they won’t decide on whether to cancel or get a backup plane until 9PM! What the… of course by this time it’s past 7 already, so Esther decided she would try to get us another flight. UNFORTUNATELY it was too late, the 8:30 flight was already full with a bunch of people waiting in standby, and of course by the time we were helped it was too late to get on the 8 o’clock AlaskaAir flight.

Eventually, around 8:45, we get an announcement that they won’t be able to fix the plane, but the flight wouldn’t be canceled. Another UNFORTUNATE note was that they didn’t have a backup plane, so we would have to wait for the 11:15 arriving plane to be used.

By the time we took off, it was a little past midnight. We didn’t touch down until about 2:30, and after waiting for our bags, we didn’t make it home until 3:30! I felt really bad for Sean and Amy, since they had to wait up for us…

And that, my friends, is how you spend the first day of your weekender. Argh to United.

As you know, I work out semi-regularly at the local Bally Total Fitness. For the most part, it is uneventful, and we get in and out without any issues. However, sometimes things just are NOT right.

1. Crowded parking lot. Okay, at the Montebello location, its understandable. The parking lot is shared by the whole strip mall, which includes a Carl’s Jr., amongst many other shops and restaurants. This peeve refers to the people who fight and wait and crowd the lanes for the closest possible parking spot, and then go walking or running inside. Give it a rest, people! Walk an extra 20-30 ft, it’s good for you. You can even call it your “warmup.”
2. Sweaty Equipment. Seriously. There is a towel requirement for a reason. Its rude to leave the equipment all dripping with your sweat. Why should I have to use MY towel to wipe off YOUR sweat? Even worse are the machines where the SEAT is wet. WHY/HOW?
3. BO. WTF? Yes, on occasion someone has a lack of deodorant or something like that, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m referring to the aura of nastiness that sometimes floats around even after the area has been vacated. As Darren describes it, “it feels like you hit a wall of BO.” I have no idea how this is even possible, but then again, I don’t really want to know.
4. BO Part 2.  Ok, the BO thing is so annoying that it deserved two points.  Another issue is when a piece of equipment looks like it’s been wiped, but still smells.  That’s some strong, penetrating BO, people.
5. Weight Hoggers.  Seriously, does one person need to have 3 different sets of weights?  Have a little courtesy and share, sheesh.  Does it hurt that much to finish one exercise before moving onto the next?

Okay, that’s all for now.  In case you were wondering, no, this didn’t all happen at once.  Actually, it’s just a list of things that I’ve noticed over the past few years at my local gym.

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Added a bunch of links on the blogroll, and made a page linking to my photography site.  Also added a comment spam blocker, so stay away, SPAMMERZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Except for the times when you’re stuck in the airport. Waiting, waiting and more waiting. BUT, it is always an exciting time when you get to a new place and you’re always filled with the anticipation of what’s to come. More so when you’re traveling with friends, instead of coworkers…

I can finally check Tokyo off my places to go list. Not to say I wouldn’t love to go back, but in the future I will try to avoid the typical craziness of Tokyo, at least I’ll try to expose myself to it in smaller doses. Thanks Amie, Andy, Craig, and Esther for joining me for this adventure!

This weekend: Seattle and MAYBE my first trek into Canadia? Updates to come.