this was my second annual, bi-annual Cal-UCLA football trip with the Campbells. Because of Barb's tight schedule, we caught the earliest flight we could saturday morning from Virgin America which turned out being the right way to start the day. With video games, tv, and music in front of you, we didn't want to get off the plane once we had Flight of the Concords queued.

After a convenient BART ride to Berkeley the Campbells picked us up where we headed for a quick crepe before landing ourselves at Raleigh's. I was bewildered by James's amazement that he'd never been in a beer garden. Really? Come to think of it, we're devoid of them here in LA. Maybe that's a sign for a career change for me.

We just missed kickoff, but were pretty amazed to see the stadium near full. It wasn't too inspiring of a game. Cal's offense had trouble finding it's rhythm which was fortunate because the Bruin's was far worse. The highlight of the game might be the highlight of the year or a lifetime. While the Cal Band was having reliably good show, out of nowhere they pulled out a recreation of "The Play". If you watch the video, it's not a little girl screaming, it's me hyperventilating.



The Bears pulled away in the fourth quarter, which was encouraging because this is the first time in years Tedford dropped his conservative play calling. Oh yeah, Coach Neuheisel is a douche. With sixty four seconds left in the game, why do you use your final time out playing defense on a first down to prolong the game down by twenty one points? Is it worth an extra play where someone might get hurt? UCLA deserves better.

After, we made a B-line to the best pizza in the world(Zachary's) and damn the hour wait. It's worth it. After dealing with a surplus of pizza and a 4am wake up call. It was time to call it a night.

For breakfast the next morning, Nikki found La Note on Yelp, which was the highest rated spot for morning meals in Berkeley. Everything was fantastic. Why didn't I ever eat at this place when I lived up there? Oh yeah, I could only afford Taco Bell.

Lastly we hit up the infamous North Face Outlet. When Campbell parked in the one hour zone, I told him you're going to have to move your car later. I wasn't joking. I've been there twice with Barbara and have shown restrain before. But I felt like I had been neglecting myself too long. I got a couple shorts and shirts, but I ventured into running shoes, which at $32 was an amazing deal. I'm not going to say how much I spent, but today the stock market went up 10%. Not a coincidence.

Don Rickles!!

I'll have to admit, I wasn't a big fan of Don Rickles until this year. I'm not a big fan of humor that attacks people, but that all changed when we watched an HBO special about his life, "Mr. Warmth". The first thing you take is that he's an icon of the great days of Vegas with Sinatra, Martin and the rest of the gang. Next, I didn't know that he's great, great friends with Bob Newhart, who's a polar opposite of him and one of my all time favorites. And lastly, I learned greatly to respect that he performs with no safety net and he disciminates everyone equally.


While Agoura Hills doesn't sound like the Mecca of comedy, it was the only place he was playing in the state the whole year. I bought tickets back in February. The amazing thing is that as an eighty two year old, he's as sharp up there as he's ever been. What's even more impressive about that is most of his comedy comes from the people he sees in the audience and made up on the spot. His show was one of the most special I've been too and if you have the chance to see him, do it fast.

San Luis Obispo

Barb and I got to get out earlier in September for a brief getaway up to San Luis Obispo. It's normally a 3 1/2 hour drive, but rather than having Barb nap in the passenger seat, I decided to get a taste of it the only way I could. By taking a train. It might have taken longer than driving, but it was so much worth it. Not just because it let me relax, but it's easy to work on a book or crossword.

We chose San Luis Obispo because: a)I love eating at Apple Farm and have never stayed there. b)Apple Farm has a package that included a county tour that included wine tastings. c)I spent a summer in SLO and have loved it ever since.

Green Acres Lavender Farm

After arriving in SLO we headed straight for Apple Farm. Little did we know that we'd be able to smell Firestone grill from a couple blocks off of our path. Their Tri-tip sandwich has received legendary status, so we thought we'd hit an early lunch. I'm one to believe that nothing ever lives up to that type of hype, but this sandwich exceeds it. From now on, I will only take the 101 to the Bay Area instead of the I-5 just to get that sandwich.

After digesting, we checked in at Apple Farm and immediately headed down to their wine reception. The wine was alright, but they included some pastries from their bakery. Damn them! So much good food in a day and it wasn't even dinner yet! We went to our room to recover before heading out for a long walk around the campus to burn off our sins. At the end of the walk, we found a sushi place which offered all-you-can-drink specials. That's ended our run of quality food. When we got back, Apple Farm had chocolate chip cookies waiting for us. 

The next morning, we grabbed a rental car and went off on our San Luis Obispo County tour. Our first stop was a lavender farm. I'm really unfamiliar with lavender as a species, and even less with it's many different uses.  I didn't pick up all the uses because we were too focused on their pets. It's a bit disturbing when a cat is bullying a dog, but you can't stop watching.

The tour also included a list of wineries with complimentary wine tastings.  The first one was JanKris which was decent, but they kept on pouring. And Barbara kept drinking. I reminded her the county had other wineries to go to, so Barbara asked about some of the local's favorites. They sent us to Halter Ranch winery, which didn't turn out to be our favorite. Their wine was on par with the last place, but the lady behind the counter was too "bougie" and she charged me separately for a wine tasting after Barb bought a bottle! It was a nice settling to eat our Apple Farm provided boxed lunches(way better than anything I've brown bagged), but please, steer clear of this place.

We got a little R & R back at Apple Farm before heading out for a stroll downtown. School wasn't in session, so it was nice to walk around because SLO hasn't become commercialized like Santa Barbara. After all our options, we decided to eat again(almost a year to the day) at Novo again. The food's pretty good, but atmosphere of the outdoor patio over the river is worth the price of a meal.

Our short trip was almost over, but we had to have an Apple Farm breakfast to leave this town right. Everything is very good, but the pancakes are the best. I should try to get a job there.

Barbara multi-taking at Apple Farm

The highlight of the train ride back was this 18-year old kid that would try(unsuccessfully) to strike up a conversation with any of the train's single riders. I could hear him keep telling people that he was travelling from San Jose to LA as part of his punk band's tour. I didn't really believe him because where was the rest of his band? The jewel was when he was talking to the girl in front of me and told her that he was in a Dead Kennedy's cover band called "Not the Dead Kennedy's". The girl was unfamiliar with their work, so he played a CD of a couple of their songs. Only he had to preface it with, "this isn't us playing, it's the group we're covering." Classic.

Lastly, we loved our train experience. Strangely, our train had to idle in Moorpark for about twenty minutes because the conductor explained that our train was ahead of schedule and had to wait our turn to go through the single track Santa Susana tunnel. Later that week, the Metrolink accident happened along the same track. Our prayers and thoughts go out to the families of that trajedy.

The New Rynews!!

About roughly three months ago, I went to the pound after I saw a beautiful chow mix online. It turned out that the chow was too big for my parents to possibly handle, but these two sisters caught my eye as well as everyone else's. They had just come in, but they weren't available for adoption or even to be looked out outside of their cage for three days, so we had to wait.


The following wednesday morning we showed up to the pound as soon as they opened. Through some weird processing system, we could look at Zooey, but not Franny for another hour. As soon as we took her out of the cage we knew we wanted her, but we came in mind that we wanted to keep the sisters together, so we waited. About a half hour later, another couple came to claim Zooey, but we didn't want to commit until we got a look at Zooey. After some deliberation, the other couple ceded that we could have Zooey as long as we kept the sisters together. As soon as we were able to meet Franny, we knew that both would be a perfect pair. We went to tell the other couple, but they had already left.



Zooey(the smaller one) is extremely docile around people, but is still aggressive when other dogs or cars go by. She is better at learning commands than Franny, but still needs a lot of work. Franny made a complete 180 change in her personality when she first came to our house. Mind you they were both recovering from being spayed, but Franny was very scared about everything the first day, making me think she was a little mental. As the week wore on, Franny not only started to warm up to everyone, but she became even more playfully active than Zooey and is very friendly as well.



Zooey and Franny at the pound

James Campbell - MARRIED!!

This last Saturday, I had the honor of being in the wedding party of James's wedding as well as giving a speech. This really was a hard wedding to describe because it was extremely solid from start to finish.

James and Nikki cutting up the dance floor!

I'm not going to comment on my speech, but much props to Chris Woo for delivering the goods as well on his speech. I loved his opening that along the lines like, "James and I have been great friends, like Luke and Han Solo in Star Wars, or Riggs and Murtock in Lethal Weapon, or even Jack and Ellis in Brokeback Mountain." Also much props to Parker, for some last minute editting on mine and Costello, for having to go last after we used up most of the good material.

Barbara admiring my handsomeness!!

Also I have to make mention of the bachelor party. Originally, we had planned on having it in Morro Bay, but it turned out there wasn't much to do there. Well, two weeks before the event after a pow wow with Costello and Trevor, we decided Morro Bay was going to be lame and switched the event to Palm Desert. Only, we didn't tell Campbell that. We made him try to figure it out himself as we picked him up.



I had known nothing about the Palm Desert scene, but it's actually got a Vegas vibe without the smoking. We stayed at the Marriot, which was the place to be. The pool was just filled with partiers and the club was awesome. Top Three Ever!! The cap though was the dinner. He went to a California Cuisine across to a place called Cork Tree. Everything was exceptional from the entrees all the way down to the bread. Awesome wedding, awesome bachelor party, and awesome awesomeness!!

Emerging Global Superpower Wins Harold Competition!!

Going into the competition, it was really hard to have expectations having never been in such a contest. All I knew was that I was part of a very talented group of performers, so I was willing to let the chips fall where they may. In our first show, we were pretty ready to go after having a really good warmup, but we came up with a performance that was atypical of our group. Maybe it was having watched the other group first before we performed, but I think we weren't too worried once the show was over. With the help of our supporters, we were able to forge ahead against the IO West All-Stars.

The next night we were a little more low key in our warmups, but there seemed to be an underlying confidence in our demeanor before the show. We won the RoShamBo again, but this time decided to go first. From that moment on, we had an amazing show from start to finish. Everyone was working so well together and continued to add layers with every scene that I didn't want it to end. It did, with us winning over team "Powerhouse", another team from IO West. In a way it felt being Wilt Chamberlin scoring 100 points in a game, you knew that something special was happening while you were doing it and that I'd remember for the rest of my life.



Strangely, now that we were one step away from taking it all, I really wanted to win the whole thing. Not that there's much that you could do about it other than performing, but it would really bring a validation for all that our theater, Bang Studio, has done for our group.

Unfortunately, the show before ours was running over and I could feel some of my energy fade a little. In the time inbetween, we got to meet some of the members of Ultimate Improv before the show and they were a really nice group, but I think both groups were anxious to finally get this thing started.

I didn't get the full rush of hitting the Main Stage because we entered second from a curtain downstage, tripping over a chair as I emerged. Fortunately, there was a mass in front of me, so I don't think anyone noticed, but I kicked the chair again anyways. Surely enough, we won our third straight RoShambo and elected to go first.



We started out with a bunch of energy and had a great few first scenes, but then I got a little caught up in the moment. I guess you would call it stopping to smell the roses. Just being able to take in the energy of the crowd, seeing the performance take shape and noticing that we were in the finals only a few months after forming as a group really made me feel a sense of accomplishing something. The rest of the show was a blur and before I knew it, it was over, which probably isn't the way you'd like to plan it.

It was tough to watch the next group, not because of their performance, but just because I wanted some closure. Both groups brought a lot of fans, but I knew that neither had a majority so the conclusion would rest on those that came unattached. As they were receiving the ballots, there were a couple of cries of "co-champs!" from the crowd and it made me think what a better show this would have been for both teams without the pressure. At that point, I wished they announced a split before the show and just let us perform so I wouldn't have to sit through the final decision.

When it came time for the announcement, I didn't want to be the one to go up front and thank god Ramsey decided to step forward. I was just happy to hear a name called, let alone it being us, because the time and energy put into this contest was starting to catch up to me. It was funny how over the course of the evening I had this massive sea change of being anxious to win to just being elated that it was over.

The trophy was huge(I didn't notice it at the start because of the chair situation), but being a hockey fan the first thing I noticed was that you couldn't drink out of it. There was also a $500 prize involved which had I known about even earlier, might have thrown me off even more. In the end, I was just happy to have the chance to bring some recognition to such a great team and to be able to carry a title with it as well.



Before I end, there are just a couple people who I'd like to thank. As I've heard before, would the World Series really mean anything if you had no one to play it in front of. Probably not. So this goes out to all that came to our shows, despite them falling on a weeknight, or in the AM with one of the worst parking situations in Los Angeles. Coming out to watch us took a huge commitment and there's no proper way that I can correctly convey my graditude to match the effort everyone made.

First, I have to thank the theater for having faith in Emerging Global Superpower. It's a tremendous honor to represent Bang and we hope we made everyone proud. Here's to the Bang Community that have played a hand in our group : Ezra Weisz, Sabrina Hill, Gretchen Enders, Mitchell Roche, Darrin Butters, Lorelei Butters, Tom Shannon, Nicole Marcks, Tom O'Connor, Marcus Alexander Hart, Evan Gore, and of course Aliza and Peter Murrieta.

Also, one final shout out to all that braved the elements to make it out. In alphabetical order : Paul O'Neil, his wife Annie Duke and their son Winston, my Stone Cold roommate Chinfoo, Veronica from the smartest University in our galaxy, Stacey with a tab in every bar Glazer, Stacey's bailbondsman Gretchen, Helen the proud mother of two Corgis, captain Dave and his third place hockey team, the bi-county hockey fan Matt, his better 99% Stacia, Nicole who's on one of my most watched youtube videos, the anti-Villarigossa LA Dave, mayor Daley's understudy Scott, Julie who would sacrifice her car to see our show, Nat's parents, Devil Rays fan Nick, Claire and her big smile, Vincent the reason for her smile, Rollo who has my old car, Troy who was born to root for USC, Akiko who's in school as much as Barbara, Jeff who already has Rose Bowl tickets for next year, the bi-polar working Raymond, Mitchell who didn't have a Big Gulp at our show, Marcus and his mind powers, poster inspiration Amanda, my baseball twin Matt, the amazing world of Steve, Laura "finger in many pies" Barbera, "Kevin Youkilis" Murrieta, Brian the Worm, the Ezra who'll be running while reading this, his many students, british conchord lover James, the Brian of twenty seven different improv groups, Ramsey's family and Simi entourage, Lisa and Matt and their 6k of their frequent flyer miles, Tom who doesn't carry cash Sage, Josephine and her attractive manfriend, Jim with the audible laugh Stevens, Zoya who must love subway sandwiches as well, Eddie who was happy they sold drinks, the only Anna I don't call "awnna", Vadim who was playing Breakout during the other team's show, my folks who normally fall asleep before the sun goes down, and to my most dedicated and lovely fan in the world Barbara.

Texasanaustonio!

Barbara had her last fellowship interview in Austin and I thought I'd tag along to visit one of my friends. Boy, was she going to be sorry. We caught a 6am flight out of LAX on the Monday after Easter. Even though we got about four hours of sleep the night before, we hit San Antonio running.

Barbara in front of...I can't remember

We headed over to the riverwalk and although we didn't hit the nice part, we still enjoyed it. Of course, no trip to the area would be complete without visiting the Alamo, which was actually cooler than other people had made it out to be. There was a lot of informative exhibits and friendly guides to share a lot of inside stories. You could tell that Texans have a lot of pride in that place and treat it like a religious shrine.

Mike and I after coordinating wardrobes

We then headed over to Mike's place. Now this wasn't a normally planned trip. Barbara didn't really have a choice on what date we were to come out, so of course, it was going to coincide with Liz's due date. Fortunately for us, she went into labor two days before during the UCLA-Texas A&M game. By the time we pulled up that afternoon, they had only been home an hour. Little Tyler was lying there bundled up and on display like a picture frame. Sam wandered in and was trying to make friends with his "bro". Impressively, at two and half years ago, Sam already is speaking three languages, which is three more than I have mastered.

"Hi Five, Sam"

We made it out to Austin that night and after a quick drive around, we gave it a quick thumbs up. It's full of a lot of unique restaurants, bars and museums without many of the generic starbucks, gap, pinkberry, etc. We ate at a restaurant called Trulock's, where Barbara got the trout and I had a sampler of steak, chicken and shrimp which both were exemplary. Amazingly, we refrained on a dessert that was a hard chocolate shell the size of a women's shoebox filled with ice cream, chocolate and fruit. The three girls sitting next to us each got one. They should have split just one between them. Everything is bigger in Texas.

I dropped Barb off to her interview the next morning and once I got myself together, I headed out to explore more. I headed over to the capitol first, which was real impressive in size and design. Strangely, having been heavily security checked going into LA City Hall a couple weeks earlier, I was surprised to just be able to walk right in. That's southern hospitality for you.

Video Highlights & Lowlights

I then headed over to the University of Texas campus to see what the state's finest had to offer. First, I headed to the football stadium which was already huge and was adding at least another 15,000 seats. It also had three gift shops built in which were all open four months away from football season! The rest of the campus is very dense, and it's hard to have enough space to tell if the buildings are nice or not. I also tried to go up the clock tower, but surprisingly it's been closed for forty years since the shooting and just opened for the weekends two years ago. I then wandered over to the local campus digs and it's actually very similar to Berkeley, except less transients and no "for lease" signs up.

U of Texas Clock Tower

I picked Barbara up from her interview around six and since traffic was so bad, we decided to eat into before heading back to San Antonio. One of the doctor's recommended a seafood place called Eddie V's. I'd say my salmon was just good next to Barbara's lobster which was amazing. Another thing I have to add is that all the local beer I tried was exceptional.

The trip ended on a bad note as the hotel we were staying in San Antonio(rhymes with "milton") was full and threw us in a handicapped room which had a broken shower head unsuccessfully kept together by a rubber band and a twin sized bed which forced me to sleep on the floor. After getting about two hours of sleep we headed out to the airport which went without a snag unless you count me accidentally throwing away my driver's license. In summary, we were very impressed with this part of Texas, especially since we've had bad experiences in other parts of the state. If Barbara does end up getting her fellowship here, at least I know she'll be in good hands.