FRIDAY 05 NOV 2004:
i left kinda early from work and headed back to brooktondale to do some final packing and preparations for the trip to los angeles. when i got back home, amanda had already packed for me, and there my nothing left to do but hug the piglet, although amanda still had more preparations.
our neighbor ben has been revealed to be more quirky than normal (“freakzoid” as amanda might say) as he has been pressing amanda to come to meetings of the landmark forum. perhaps he sees amanda as easier to pressure, as he never brought up anything with me and seemed plesant enough. perhaps i give off get-the-fuck-away-from-me vibes. however, amanda will not be around for quite a while, so perhaps he will calm down.

[tho, he did leave everyone (i presume everyone in our little gingerbread housing development) a note on 13 NOV about how great landmark was and how everyone should come to a meeting at his place next week.]

anyways, we eventually made it back up to buffalo and stayed at lainie’s place. we were also going to meet up with erika, but she apparently fell asleep before we got into town.

after the usual aimless discussion about dinner, we eventually decided to go to a place in allentown. it had a mega wait, tho, so we headed out to another place nearby called gabriel’s gate. there was quite a wait there too, but we stuck it out rather than look for another place.

dinner was nice. lainie pointed out the people who probably were there on “dates” as they kinda pecked at their food (and pecking at wings and burgers is hard to do)… a relavation that i never thought of before.
amanda wanted to meet up with her former radiology attending for dessert, but that was not really going to happen due to time constraints. we did stop by a dessert place on the way back and got a few cookie items for the road.

afterwards, it was bed for all of us as we had a very early flight, and lainie had to be off for work.

SATURDAY 06 NOV 2004:
we got up and made it to the airport a bit late, but we made it to the gate right when boarding started. we were delayed right before taxi-ing out to the runway due to some weird problem. as i understand it, it appeared that the hydraulics on one of the flaps were working, but the pilots were getting incorrect readings in the cockpit. we went back to the gate while maintenance did something, but they said all was well and we took off for pittsburgh.

our tickets seemed to indicate a nonstop flight, but we did stop in pitt. the pilot for the next leg asked the current pilot on our way out how everything was going, and the current pilot started telling him about the plane problems, but shot us a glance as we were passing and clammed up. there is probably some policy about discussion stuff like that around passengers. anyways, we left for a bit to stretch our legs, but when we returned and were about to get on the runway again, we again returned to the gate. this time the delay was much much longer as they investigated/fixed the problem, ran whatever tests were required, and filled out all the paperwork (which took a while in and of itself).

later on the plane, all seemed well for the rest of the flight. we were sitting in the back, and the flight attendant gave us free headphones because we were in the last row. we had a sandwich that amanda got in pitt for dinner along with the usual airline pretzels and drinks. the movie was the manchurian candidate. it seemed ok to me, but moved a little slow.
there were not many clouds during the flight, so we were treated to great views of the world below us. the only things that we specifically recognized was the grand canyon.

la definitely looked sprawly from the air. it was kinda weird when we landed as it was probably over 75F, sunny, and people were running around in shorts. it was very cold in new york when we left that morning.

the enterprise guy was very jovial and actually lived in the torrance, the town where we were staying. he did the usual sell of trying to get us to upgrade the car for x dollars a day. we did get additional insurance even though our credit card and normal insurance covered everything because i was unsure of the craziness of the local drivers and our rental car was pretty cheap to begin with ($15 a day?) so the insurance did not add that much. as it turned out, i found la drivers much more courteous than buffalo drivers (or even ithaca drivers). they usually allowed merging, did not run red lights or left arrows, etc. etc..
we made it out of the airport, onto one of the freeways… i as amused that aaa had a separate freeway map for los angeles… and to our hotel (ramada inn express) in torrance. the hotel was alright, but we just dropped our stuff off and headed out for dinner.

the enterprise guys suggested we go to hermosa beach, walk about, and eat at some place around there. hermosa beach was 10 miles or so to the northeast of our hotel. actually, it might only be 5-6, but driving around la makes distances seem longer. we headed straigt west from our hotel to redondo beach which was very very close, looked about, and headed north to hermosa beach. there was a pier there and commercial/entertainment area around it. we walked up the pier and watched the setting sun for a miniscule amount of time (amanda was starving). amanda called a few people to say that we were on the beach and were watching the sun and it was warm and there were pelicans. there were a lot of fisherman about; the fishing poles, smell of bait, and sea animal carcasses reminded me of virginia beach.

anyways, we had dinner at a tapas place (mediterraneo). when the sun went down, it cooled down very fast, so we ate inside the restaurant rather than outside. although they (and other places we saw) had those big portable heater things turned on full blast… much warmer than they would have in buffalo. dinner was very nice. we had a wide variety of tapas and a nice pinot noir. the tapas were more tapas-like (i.e. true small appetizer oriented) than other places i normally go to (toro in buffalo and just a taste in ithaca), but they were very very tasty. we got a marinated mushroom dish that i have to try making myself; it was simply mushrooms very lightly stewed in a reduced balsamic sauce… yumm! our waiter, renzo, was obviously very new and inexperienced but very very enthusiastic. he lived in torrance, too. he loved loved loved loved the fact i got a creme brulee for dessert but curiously was neutral on amanda’s tiramisu. in the chivalrous (or chauvinistic if you prefer) world of dining one might think he would be more fawning over amanda’s choice, but perhaps la is more enlightened than most places.

we had dinner early in west coast time, so the restaurant picked up considerably as we left. rezno said, “do you like salsa?” and shimmied and wiggled his butt at us and suggested we go to the marriot in torrance (right next to our hotel) for the weekly salsa dancing. we were beat, tho, and just headed back to the hotel and slept.
[as usual, everything in this weblog is to be continued…]