Wednesday night Aaron and I culminated our four year friendship with the reason we met in the first place. Way back in 2000 (?) Aaron responded to an ad that I and Paul Rybak had posted around the OSU campus looking for a drummer. Aaron never had his set in Ohio, so I never got to hear him. On Wednesday we went to a jam session in the brewery district. It was actually the same place (artist colony) Amy and I had gone the previous weekend. After getting lost in a myriad of old dank hallways and freight elevators and unmarked doors….we finally found the place. The set-up was cool for playing music (the building rules were you could make as much noise as you want between noon and 11pm), but not for living we thought. Everything in the lofts was weird, strange “pub-style” (according to a tenant) bathrooms and such. The jam session quickly turned into an Andrew and Aaron improv that began to involve the other two guys less and less. I’m not sure, but we probably won’t jam with those guys again. The important thing is that I finally got to hear Aaron play the drums. Afterwards we stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall pizza place called La Pizza Loca. I thought it was pretty good, their cheese pizza being much better than dominos, little ceasers, and so on.

Friday night, Amy and I went to a restaurant over in Tolouca Lake near the ABC studios named Dalt’s Grill. I thought it was a nice place, but the portions of food were way too big. We made the mistake of ordering an appetizer as well. After returning to my apartment we went with Aaron to the Sherman Oaks Guitar Center, where he checked out prices on drum kits. I also bought new guitar strings since it has surely been a year or more since I’ve changed any…my acoustic strings are green now, very unhealthy.

Saturday morning Amy and I proceeded to San Diego. We stopped at Saeu’s at a shopping mall to watch the OSU game. I was impressed by the place, a much better environment to watch a game in than Moose’s in Pasadena. After that we drove to Amy’s aunt and uncles’ place in Rancho Santa Fe. They are very successful and live in a gated community that also boasts home owners like Janet Jackson. Supposedly it is the most expensive place to live in the world (or at least the US). All the homes are custom built, and so her aunt and uncles’ was very interesting. We spent most of the rest of the day with them, mostly talking about politics. Her uncle said that Missouri always sides with the winner because it is an accurate cross-section of America. He said that polls indicate Missouri will go for Bush…bad news…

For dinner we went with them and her cousin Wayne’s family to Pat and Oscar’s, a restaurant that Amy and I had never heard of. The next morning, Amy and I headed straight to Mexico. We walked around in Tijuana until noon and then headed back. She was on a mission to get a thick blanket for her mom and I was on a mission to find a new wallet (leather goods are cheap there) and I succeeded. I also got some interesting gifts to bring the folks back home next weekend. Originally we had planned to go to the San Diego “cove” and see the sea otters in the afternoon, but we were both tired from walking around that dirty city in the sun and decided to head back north. We got back to Amy’s around 4 and went to her 24 Hour Fitness club to work out together, which was fun.

Since I am going to Ohio this weekend, Amy has decided to visit her cousin Jennifer in Pennsylvania at the same time. She flies all the time, but this will be my first time since 1998, very exciting.

by the way, I have no idea why some of the words in this entry are linked… I’ve tried removing the links three times now and they just show up again when I hit “publish”…so please don’t click on them, sorry.