Not this past weekend, but the weekend before that I went down to a beach in San Clemente with Amy. We could only stay for an hour because I didn’t bring enough change for the machine in the parking lot (it was either that or pay $10 for the whole day).

Thursday night Byron came down from Edwards. We decided to go down to Ventura Boulevard again to find something to eat. We ended up at Barrone’s (http://www.baronesfamousitalian.com/); a joint right out of Goodfellas complete with a Jewish waitress that played accordion and five old Italian bald guys with old bleached blonde fake tan wrinkly sunglassed Italian grandmas. Apparently they were the first place in SoCal to offer pizza. After that we tried to go back to that same Bird and Pig bar and coffee shop combo we went to before. Parking was impossible and as we kept going up and up in the Hollywood hills we eventually just decided to keep going and check out the insane houses. Eventually we reached the top of one of the hills. One of the residents came out to get something out of his Porsche Cayenne. I ran down (he was about three houses from the top) and asked him what ballpark his house was in. He said his was 800k and the ones at the top were around 1.2-1.5 million. Not bad considering they all had some of the best views in the world. After going to the other side of the hill we saw we were probably less than a mile away from the Hollywood sign, so our mission turned to going as close to the sign as possible. It turns out you can drive up under it in a dead-end road a few hundred feet down the (very steep) hill. Getting any closer on foot gets you a $103 fine and a night in jail.

This past Friday we say The Ring 2. Not that great. Sort of interesting how they just make up these “haunting” rules as they go along (Roger Ebert agrees). Like – Now the animals can tell the little boy is possessed…or …is ALMOST possessed. Now he/she can repel water. The one good thing about the movie though was some artsy shots like the water at the very beginning. Maybe that is just me and my ocean water bubbles fetish.

On Saturday afternoon we were at Ralphs. As we left a guy came up to me and said he could fix my car at my apartment. He showed me his card that said he worked at “Tom’s Autobody” (which I called and apparently is legit). So I agreed to let him fix my fender for “two and a quarter.” Now, I assumed “two and a quarter” meant $225. After the guy banged around on my car for three hours it turned out “two and a quarter” meant $360. The body work was ok (but far from “perfect” as he kept insisting it was), but the paint is FAR off. It looks like somebody just sprayed neon green spray paint on my fender (and over sprayed onto four other body panels that were previously unaffected by the dent). To make matters worse he had to take my gas cap to “get the exact paint color right.” When he put it back he didn’t put it on right and it isn’t flush with the body. After examining the problem I’ve determined that one of the screws holding the cap mechanism to the body isn’t screwed in all the way and is competing with the swing-arm for space when it closes, thus throwing things all out of whack. The only problem is, I don’t have the tool to do this. The guy is supposed to come back next weekend to put a “gloss coat and wax” on the car that will (according to him) make the paint match. I doubt it will work, and the body work isn’t good enough to pass the test when I trade the car in however many years down the road. Since I never reported the “accident” to the insurance company I have to get an OEM look on the repair so I don’t have to take value off the car later. If that means going to the shop now after paying this guy almost $400 to try it then that is what that means. So, I was feeling uneasy about that whole debacle and then on the way to Amy’s house on Sunday my check engine light comes on. So now for the fourth time in six months I’ll be leaving my car at the dealership (this time a new one) and driving a crappy rental.

I’ve decided I should wait until June to have the car re-painted as I’ll have non-street parking by then (and parking on the street is how I got into this mess in the first place). Oh, what is that? Why would I have off-street parking in June? I forgot to tell y’all, I’m moving in June. I don’t know where yet (price will dictate that more than anything) but I like in and around the area I’m in now. The ironic thing is that lots of people back east have house mortgages and make less than what I do, but I can’t even afford a nice one-bedroom apartment (unless I find some amazing deal in the next few weeks). They can’t run into Ben Affleck at the bookstore though.