2007 was an interesting and exciting year for me.  Not only did I not accomplish anything I set out to do (I always hated resolutions), but I had fun not doing them.  It was also a year of firsts for me. 

I camped out with Paul and Eva in January to get a Nintendo Wii in the cold and rainy weather.  And it was worth every minute of it.  I still play the Wii now as much as I did last January.

  
In July, I walked in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.   I was out in Los Angeles for a business/work trip.  It started off very bumpy, and I was alone.  But it turned out to be one of the highlights of my year.  I got to meet lots of amazing people in our LA offices and made lots of new friends.  I got to hang out with some old friends there too.  I got to go to Hollywood and Malibu. 

I changed jobs at my company.   That gave me the opportunity to learn a lot of awesome stuff and work with some amazing people.  It also sent me back out to California.  And this time, I wasn’t alone.  We were able to find fun in-between the hours we weren’t working.  We went to dinner in Beverly Hills one night and ate at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant.  We got a tour of Bel-Air, Westwood, and West Hollywood.   And for those of you who watch American Idol, I saw the folks that went out to Hollywood at LAX.  No, Robbie.  I won’t tell you who they are.

I got to watch someone grow up a lot and mature in ways I never thought was possible.   And that person is turning out to be able to maintain “cool” moments more frequently. 

I took my sister to her first ever Braves game.  And she enjoyed it.  Even though it was rainy and hot.I discovered Helen for the first time. And took my mom, brother and sister there this summer for tubing and sightseeing.  My brother fell in love with it, and my mom got a big bump on the back of her head from a river rock.  And how could I forget, we saw an Elvis impersonator there throwing beads to pedestrians.

Here’s hoping 2008 will have some pleasant surprises. 

Wow. I don’t think I’ve put anything useful or insightful here since I got back from Los Angeles a few weeks ago.

It’s been a very exciting and fast-paced 3 weeks. Week one was spent in Los Angeles for job training. I even got to see rain in LA! I managed to miss ALL of the Malibu smoke. Score. I learned a hell of a lot and my head was still spinning after I landed.

Week two was spent continuing to run after hitting the ground. Lots and lots and lots of reading UNIX documentation, sniping any sort of work I could get at work since the job change, and documenting every single thing I did just to keep it stored somewhere. I’m absolutely loving every moment of it though. Still as exciting as it was when it was announced I was moving to the new department.

Week three was spent doing some commuting to Norcross and back. Training up the new, new guy who just started. Still learning at an incredibly fast rate.

Week four has just passed. Wow. Still learning and feeling good about it. I even managed to troubleshoot and SOLVE two problems I was working on from the week before. I’ve come to learn that some of the work I’m now doing doesn’t have immediate gratification. Sometimes you have to coax it and mold it with finesse to get it to work. And I’m still learning lots and lots. I’m still loving every minute of it. It’s challenging and fun.

I have to say, though, I’m going to enjoy the next few days. I’m going home tomorrow. I have a birthday on Sunday. I won’t be back into the office until Thursday. At least I get to spend some time with my family. I wasn’t able to see many of them around Thanksgiving because of my trip to LA.

This trip out was much more relaxing and lower stress than the last trip.  Made my flight to LA just fine.  Everything went the way I wanted it to last time.

The real fun began, though, after I got home.  Hah.  Both of my toilets didn’t “flush” anymore.  The apparatus known as “the flapper” was broken in both of them.  So, I got to learn how to fix toilets.

My PowerBook’s adapter also decided to kick it in the big electronics store in the sky. I had to order a new one from Apple last night.  They’re not cheap; $79.  I believe the MagSafe ones are more expensive – but they’re not for PowerBooks. Oh well.  That’ll be in tomorrow.  In the meanwhile, I’m using my old XP box.

I’m heading back out to LA on Monday morning for a week.  I was out there about 4 months ago visiting one of our company’s offices in Westlake Village.  This time, I’m going back for training.  I’ve officially moved departments; from Web Dev to Technical Support.

I’ll specifically be working in the integrations portion of TS; concentrating on new internet banking installations and their components.  I’ll be doing a lot of UNIX admin type duties and scripting.  I’m pretty excited about it.  It’s going to be different than what I had been doing. Change can definitely be good.

I made it back East with little to no complications.  It was the complete opposite of my trip out West.  All my flights left on time.  I was able to catch my connecting flight in Atlanta, even though it was moved 2 concourses away from what was on my boarding pass.

We got back into Douglas around 3am last night.  Jet lag really got a hold of me.  I had a hard time going to sleep last night.  My body thought it was only midnight.  I slept until noon today.  I hope I can get re-adjusted to the time difference soon.

Tonight, after going bowling with the folks from the Westlake Village office I went out to explore Hollywood with a friend of mine from back home, Brandon.

Traffic was horrible tonight because of a Dodgers game and a concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

I got a bit “lost” looking for Brandon and walked the wrong way down Highland Avenue.  I meandered up and down Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard until I found Brandon.  I had been about a block away from him before I started walking in the wrong direction. D’oh!

Brandon and I ate at a Los Angeles staple, In-N-Out Burger, tonight.  It’s very good.  It’s not just just fast food, really.  All their food is fresh.  And since they won’t compromise their fresh ingredients, they won’t expand their operation outside of Southern California.   The specific In-N-Out we ate at was located on Sunset Blvd.  Just behind Hollywood High School.

We spent a few hours wandering up and down Hollywood Boulevard looking at the stars on the sidewalk and the big three famous theatres; Grauman’s Chinese, Kodak Theatre and El Capitan.  The third is where all the big Disney movies premier.

We walked down to the corner of Hollywood and Vine and saw Pantages Theatre.  It’s one of the big, historic theatres in Hollywood.  The Oscars and Emmys used to be held there.

I’ve got lots of photos that I promise to upload once I get home.

And…now it’s time for bed.  So I can get up early in the morning and head back east.

On my list of things to “see” here in California (please read that with Arnold Schwartzenegger’s voice) was the beaches.  Malibu is only about 15 miles or so away from my hotel, so I decided to drive out there this afternoon.

I drove through Malibu Canyon.  Words can’t really describe what it looked like, but I’ll try.  The road is narrow and windy through the Santa Monica mountains.  As you start down the road you see a sign that says “Scenic Route: Begin”.

The road winds through the mountains for miles.  There aren’t any guardrails along the side of the road on the canyon end.  And the “mountain” side has the road kissing the side of the mountain.  There are “Rock Slide” warning signs all along the highway.   There were even deer eating along the side of the road.

Malibu Canyon Road dumps you out onto the Pacific Coast Highway once you get into Malibu.  I stopped off at Malibu Bluffs Park to get a nice view of the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains in the background.  Just across the street from Malibu Bluffs Park is Pepperdine University.  The university is nestled among the hills overlooking the ocean.

I decided to drive a little further so that I could get to a public beach.  There wasn’t public access at the park.  I eventually end up at Zuma Beach.  I walked out to the shore and took several photos that I promise to post online as soon as I get home and can get them off the camera.  I left the cable at home.  D’oh!

I got turned around while trying to get back to the Pacific Coast Highway and ended up in some swanky area.  I don’t know who’s driveway I turned around in, but it was probably some celebrity’s.

I saw a white Yukon on my drive back to the hotel.  And for a split second I thought it was Lindsay Lohan driving trying to hit me.  But this car was way too stable on the road.  I got lucky…this time!

I think the scenery at Malibu made up for the malice I endured on Monday.  If you ever get a chance to get out to LA, I recommend driving to Malibu and seeing the Santa Monica Mountains.  It was possibly the most gorgeous area I’ve ever seen in my life.

So, I totally suck at keeping folks updated on what’s going on this week.   Here’s the story so far:

Monday: I get up at 4am and get ready to go to the Jacksonville airport to catch my flight to Atlanta.  My flight gets delayed in JAX because of bad weather in the northeast.  We take off almost an hour late.

When I finally get into Atlanta, I realise that my flight is halfway across the airport.  So, I run with my bags.  I get to the gate about 5 minutes after the flight leaves.  It would be the only flight that would leave on time.  Just my luck.

So, I get rebooked automatically by Delta for a 6:50pm flight.  7 hours after my initial flight was supposed to leave.  Wonderful.

I get on my 6:50 flight.  It takes off and turns around and comes back to Atlanta because the landing gear won’t retract. It takes another 2 hours for them to get our stuff moved onto another plane.

Eventually, I arrive in LA at 11:15pm (2:15am EST).  12 hours after I was supposed to be there.  It takes a while for me to get my car and get to the hotel.  I finally get into the hotel and into the bed at 1:15am PST (4:15am EST).  I had been awake for nearly 24 hours.

Tuesday: I try to sleep in a few hours but my body refuses to believe that it’s 6am PST.  So, I get up and shower, run a few errands, get a little lost and then drive into the office.  I meet with a lot of the folks from work and finally get to put faces to names and voices from phone calls.  It’s pretty neat.

I get in from the office and enjoy dinner at the Red Robin from down the street.  My waiter’s name was Jesus.  You’ll have to take my word for it as I didn’t get a photo of his nametag or a receipt.

I make a few phone calls to friends and arrange to meet a friend of mine who’s living in LA now this week.  Then I promptly go to bed at 9:30pm PST.

I’m going to California next week.  For work, not vacation.  I still think it’ll be pretty awesome though.  I’ve never been to California.  The furthest I’ve been in the western U.S. is New Mexico; and that was a Basketball Band trip. Yeah, I was the college band nerd type.  Laugh if you want, but I got paid to do it.

We were planning on renting a van from the hotel and driving out to San Diego on that trip.  There was usually a few day lull in-between games and we figured that would be the most interesting option for us.  There really isn’t much to do in Albequerque, NM.  We went to all the museums in one afternoon.  And we saw all the pueblos we wanted to see.

Unfortunately, the basketball team didn’t win their first game so we went home right after the game and never got to go on the impromptu road trip.

Check back next week for some photos of the trip.

I have decided that I need a vacation.  There are little things that are beginning to piss me off for no reason what-so-ever.  I’ve been yelling a lot more (than normal) when I drive.  Or when I’m in a store and wanting to get out in a hurry and I can’t because someone can’t work the self-checkout lane.

Unfortunately, most of the people I’d like to go on a “vacation” with are either in school or working.  So, I may just take time off for myself very, very soon and not do much of anything.

Bah.  I probably need to sit down and pick some days I want.