Where's Jimmy?

There And Back Again...

It's the Tuesday night after and it feels like I was just leaving yesterday...  It's actually the longest vacation I've taken since the original "Summer of Jim" that included the infamous "Road Trip", the stopover in Phoenix, the weekend in L.A. and the European vacation (not all at once though).  It was nice to get away and heading back to work tomorrow is gonna suck.  I hope to do something constructive with the remainder of the summer and the year.  We'll see...

Here's a recap of my weekend in L.A. with Steve and Tamara.

It's a great city by a Great Lake

Thursday I left MIlwaukee and landed in L.A.  Steve picked me up from the airport and we hit up Billy's in Glendale for some lunch, then headed back to his new place and then on to Jimmy Kimmel Live.  James Franco and Tommy Lee were the guests and we even saw ourselves briefly in the audience on the recording the next day.

Just before the taping of Jimmy Kimmel

After Kimmel we went to a bar near his apartment called Bigfoot Lodge for some drinks and then headed home for the night.

This was a very cool bar in Los Feliz, across the street from the Par 3 golf course

Friday morning we went to my favorite breakfast place in Los Angeles, The Griddle Cafe, on Sunset where we had way too much food.

The breakfast of choice.  We took home half of our pancakes in a box.

Later in the day we played some Par 3 at Los Feliz golf course before heading back to Bigfoot Lodge for some Happy Hour drinks. 

Best $5 I spent all weekend

After Tamara got home we met up with some of Steve's (and my) friends at El Compadre for dinner and then some drinks at Coach & Horses.

Saturday morning we had some great breakfast at a place walking distance from Steve and Tamara's apartment called The Alcove.

 

More "food porn".  This was delicious.

Saturday night we went to watch "Sixteen Candles" at a cemetary in Hollywood, along with a few thousand hipster Los Angelinos.  It was a blast and it was very cool that Steve and Tamara had lawn chairs, booze, a picnic basket, etc. all set up.  Highlights of the night were, of course, the movie, seeing Tamara's friend, Lisa and also the actress who played Long Duck Dong's girlfriend in the movie sitting about 20 feet from us.

 

Do as the hipsters do...

It's almost magic time

This was pretty awesome

Sunday we all went out for some sushi and then to the Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood to see "Pineapple Express".  Afterwards, Steve and I briefly stopped at Pink's before deciding to just get some ice cream somewhere instead.

Monday we tried to get me a massage (Hey, I was on vacation!) at a place in Studio City (Tamara booked it for me) but the massage therapist ended up calling in to say she'd be an hour late.  I got sick of waiting and left, which was pretty lame.  Steve and I met Tamara at a place in Hollywood called Jinky's for breakfast (although it was almost 1:00 by this time) and then just chilled the rest of the day.

Steve and I finally made our way back to Pink's last night to get a hot dog, which was a little anti-climactic.  We waited in line for about an hour and then ate in probably 5 minutes.  I chickened out and ended up getting the same thing I ate last time I was at Pink's and it was only "so-so".  Steve got a hot dog with sauerkraut, mustard and pastrami on it.  I honestly don't know how he survived...

This morning Steve dropped me off at the airport and I made my way back home, getting back into Milwaukee at about 3:30 this afternoon.

Thanks to Steve and Tamara for their hospitality and all the stuff that they planned out for me.  It was great to see all my friends and I hope to get back again soon.

More later...

Why Not?

Yesterday, after wasting most of the day away doing nothing (I went out to get a bagel sandwich for breakfast, I watched Half-Baked, and I took a nap), I decided to take a drive to Madison for some pizza and beer. Why, you might ask? Well, why not?

The drive from Milwaukee to Madison at dusk was beautiful and the GPS function on my iPhone worked great getting me where I needed to go. That thing is frickin amazing.

I found and parked in front of Ian's Pizza on Frances Street and then decided to walk down to the Union Terrace and see what was going on. The place was packed and there was music playing outside so I got myself a big beer, sat down by the water and listened to the band.

The iPhone doesn't take night pics so good

After a couple of beers I regrettably got up to leave and made my way back to Ian's for some pizza and water.

On the left is the Steak & Fries slice.  On the right is the BBQ Chicken w/ Pineapple.  Both were awesome and totally worth the 70 mile drive

"Bye, Madison!"

After that I just drove back home, listening to The Crystal Method the whole way. It was a nice trip but definitely one that could have been more enjoyable with a few friends along and a few extra hours on State Street. We'll see whether I can make that happen with the guys in a few weeks.

More later. 

A Guys' Night Out with The Dark Knight

Last night Jason (back in town from Lowsyana), Nick and I went out to the Marcus Majestic to see The Dark Knight.  I had been at the theater on Friday night to see Hellboy 2 (I give it a B-) so I bought us three advance reserve tickets for last night.  Good thing because I guess this movie's been pretty popular.

We started out the night at my place watching Batman Begins and after that went out to the theater.  Having the reserved tickets was sweet because we got to slide into our seats at 10:00 without having to worry about lines or anything.

Spoiler-free review, I'd give it an A-.  It was about 20 minutes too long and some of the plot threads didn't feel like they needed to be there.  But, Heath Ledger's Joker was incredible.  One of the best villains of all time.

Get out there and see it.

Nicky and Klein as The Joker and Batman.  Not really... 

My New iPhone

Here's the story...

Friday these went on sale at 8AM.  I got up early and went to Mayfair Mall and at about 7:15 there was a line about 40 people long.  Wow.  I got in line and, with the greatest of expectations, at 8AM the Apple Store opened and they started letting people in.  That's where the story really begins.

This was the line at Mayfair Mall's Apple Store.

The news has reported about it all weekend but the in-store activations just weren't happening.  Going to an actual store, buying the phone and having it activated in the store was the only way it was going to happen.  Well, iTunes or something wasn't working so people were taking way longer to get in and out of the store.

Long story longer, I got into the store at around 12:!5 and out of the store at around 12:40.  To be honest, the line sucked and to be herded together and made to stand for that long was ridiculous.  But, the Apple Store employees were all very patient and helpful and, when I called AT&T later in the day to try to finalize my number transfer from my old phone company HELIO, the customer service person at AT&T was very nice and helpful as well.  She wouldn't let me off the phone until I either had my transfer complete or at least a time of when it would happen.  As luck would have it, the number transfer happened about 4 minutes after I got off the phone with her.  Awesome.

So, it's now day 3 with the new phone and I have to say that I'm pretty amazed at everything.  Yes, there are things that my old phone did that the iPhone won't (shooting video, and, that's actually about it) and there are things that I wish that it did (voice dialing, stereo bluetooth, cut & paste in e-mails/text) but man, oh man, this phone is amazing.  I can literally do almost anything with it.  Internet is awesome, iPod is awesome, mail is awesome, making calls, texting and seeing voice mails is awesome.  I went to a movie this morning with my little brother Jonah from Big Brothers and we used the Google Maps search function to find the theater and he helped me navigate with the GPS (following the little dot).  We played a game on it while having lunch after at Culver's.  I ordered a new case for the phone on it when I couldn't find one at the Apple Store this afternoon.  I used a listing on Amazon.com to ask an employee at Best Buy if they had something I couldn't find and, when confronted with the drastically lower price, he suggested that I should just order it from Amazon.com.  All very, very cool.

I'm sure that I'll continue to love it and, if another one comes out in a year, I'll upgrade to that one (depending on the price).  So, that was my weekend.  Oh yeah, I went out to the bar with Tom and Nicky on Friday night (followed by a few games of Grand Theft Auto 4) and then went to Mo's last night with Nicky after a sweet gyro for dinner.

 

The sunset from the patio at Mr. Gyro's last night - taken with the phone

Vino at Vino...

Last Saturday night I threw a little get-together for about a dozen of my friends at a place about two blocks away called Vino 100.  This was the first part of the evening.  The rest of the night you don't get to see unless you were out with us.  Enjoy.

 

To all the wives, thanks for letting my friends go out after.  It was fun.

Photos from the night can be found here.

The Wizard of Waukesha

Saturday night I went to see Les Paul & Friends at the Pabst Theater with my friend Rob (who's also a Les Paul guitar owner).  We started the night off with some beers at Rock Bottom, went to the show and, after it ran long and we couldn't coax any of our other friends out downtown for some drinking, we hit Old World Third and then Wauwatosa for some more beers.

It was pretty cool seeing a living legend like Les Paul and, I liken it to seeing Michael Jordan play at the United Center before he retired.  Some photos from the night are below.

If You're Into It...

Tonight I got to see Flight Of The Conchords, live at the Riverside Theater.  They played some great songs and Milwaukee (mostly) behaved.  Wish I had photos from it but, unfortunately, that was pretty much impossible.

Thanks for coming along Pam.

You can also read a review of the show here.

Brewers Friday Night

Tom scored a bunch of tickets for a Civil Engineering (ASCE) Tailgate Party and game tickets to Friday night's game against the Cardinals (2 Cardinals games in a week was enough for me). Some of his old friends from Platteville came to town and we made a night of it. Klein was back in town from Lousiana, along with his wife Lisa, Justin Krohn was up from Illinois, Greg Stern was in from Madison, Nicky came out and many more.

The Brewers won in the last inning in a shocker and then we all made our way to Leff's for some drinking and such.

I swear that Stern wasn't that drunk at the game. Later... maybe.

The night ended at close but, unfortunately (thankfully) I didn't make it to Webb's.

Krohn, what are you thinking about?

Photos from the night can be found here. Enjoy.

Meet Me In St. Louie

The life of the terminally single got even more desperate when, for lack of any plans and anybody to come along - I drove to St. Louis on a lark to see a Cardinals-Cubs game, stay overnight and be a semi-tourist.  I've been toying with this idea for a couple of weeks after having less-than-stellar experiences being cooped up in the apartment watching DVDs, playing video games or something to that end.

6 hours driving, $35 ticket, $110 hotel, a tank of gas, etc.  Was it worth it?  Yeah, probably...

The question "How far could I get away from Milwaukee if I left Friday afternoon and came back on Sunday night" has been popping into my head recently.  On my drive to work on Friday, the thought of St. Louis, a Cardinals game and BBQ came up.  So, after a few tries at getting my brothers and Dad to come along with, I decided to go it alone.

This was the view of the stadium from the patio bar at my hotel.  The band was playing "Hungry Like A Wolf"

Friday night I made all the plans online (hotel reservation, game ticket, driving directions, locations of SONIC restaurants, etc.)  Saturday morning I got up and left at around 7AM to get into St. Louis by about 1:00 for a game at 2:45.  The drive was pretty uneventful, save for some awesome food at SONIC near Springfield.  I got to St. Louis with plenty of time to spare, checked into my room, changed for the game and walked across the street to the stadium with throngs of fans.  The place I stayed at, the Hilton St. Louis At The Ballpark is right across the street from the stadium and was filled with lots of people from Chicago since it was a Cubs game.

They pour them bigger in St. Louis.  I really liked the 24oz beer idea.  A little too much

The game was good (Cubs won by 6) and after I went back to the hotel and sat on the patio bar where they were throwing a "party" with a band.  I talked with a few people (I even saw the "Woo-Woo" guy) but then started getting really bombed.  I had to find someplace to eat.  I found the BBQ place I had read about a few blocks from the hotel and ate, all the while texting friends and making phone calls that probably sounded less than coherent (I really don't remember).  At about 8:30, I made my way back to my room and went to sleep, only to wake up at about 1.  I thought of trying to make it back out but I decided just to stay in bed.  Probably a good decision

Unlike Milwaukee, St. Louis' stadium is situated in the downtown, among the buildings - not in a sea of parking

Sunday morning I went to the St. Louis Arch (a short walk from the hotel) and the Budweiser tour before leaving the city at around noon.  The drive back was also uneventful (except for another stop at the same SONIC) and I was home and on the couch by 6:30.  All in all, it was a fun trip and I hope to do it again going to Twins, Reds and Indians games in the next few months.  We'll see what happens.

I learned this weekend that Saarinen designed the arch after a week-long binge on McDonald's food.

Photos from the weekend can be found here.

Brewers Opening Day

Through some good luck, I was able to finagle a ticket to the Leff's Opening Day Party once again this year. I went with Tom, Jenny, Danielle, Joe, Shea and Jill and ended up sitting with them in the bleachers.

The Brewers won and after the game we all headed to Leff's to give them some more of our money and we partied the night away. Our friends Nick and Rob (!) ended up meeting us out later and we walked down to Firefly later for a casual/drunk end to the night. I pretty much didn't do anything at all the next day (Saturday).

Enjoy photos of the day here.