A Tight Squeeze

Things are still going pretty well, ladies and gentlemen. I’m now on Day 5 of getting back on track, which means 5 days of making good food choices and 5 days of exercise (I haven’t worked out yet today, but I will).  On Sunday, I made a big crockpot of chicken and veggie soup, so I’ve been enjoying that for my lunches. I’ve brought workout clothes to work, so I can get my exercise in after I’m done in the office.

While it’s a big improvement from how I was eating last week, I haven’t been perfect.

My New Roommate, Part IV

That’s right, I’m bringing Roman numerals back to the blogosphere.

I take having roommates very seriously. My family and friends are welcome to stay with me whenever they want, but houseguests are one thing, and roommates are a completely different matter. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never had any horrible roommate situations, but now I’m at a point in my life where I prefer living alone. I don’t want a roommate, I don’t need a roommate.

But there are always exceptions. And that brings us back to the Roman numerals.

Haunted Forest Hike

Of course it started to rain the other day as I drove to go on a hike.

Of course it didn’t stop raining until well after I got back in my car following the hike.

And, of course, it was one of the best hikes I’ve ever taken.

I had no idea what to expect when I left home for the hike. My friend Natalie had been in town a few weeks prior, and a friend of hers had told her about an awesome hike, which Natalie didn’t have time to do before leaving. On her last day, Natalie handed me a post-it with directions:

Mt. Lowe. Exit 210 at Lake. Head north until Lake dead-ends.

So, the other day, I did exactly that. I didn’t look into what was at the end of Lake, or the difficulty of the hike – I just went. I ended up spending over two hours on the mountain, ascending and descending into some serious fog. It was gray everywhere, and it was absolutely stunning. The fog added a huge element of mystery and surprise – I literally had no idea what was around the next corner, or which direction I was heading.

After the hike, I settled in with my laptop, and did some research into where I had just been, and what I found was utterly fascinating. Just like that, my hike went from awesome to awesomer.

Here’s what I learned.

The trail begins at the gate to the Cobb Estate.

Charlie H. Cobb made his fortune from lumber, and in 1918, he and his wife built their dream house in the foothills above Altadena, CA. They lived there for slightly over 20 years, until Cobb died in 1939.

Cobb made news in 1935, when, at 83 years old and armed with just a garden hose, he saved his house and family from an encroaching forest fire in the middle of the night.

Cobb left the house (pictured at right in 1930) and land (all 107 acres of it) to a local Freemason group, and over the next 17 years, ownership changed hands multiple times, until the Marx Brothers bought the property in 1956 as an investment. By this time, the house had fallen into disrepair and was used as a hangout for local teens (police arrested nearly 200 people for petty crimes at the dilapidated mansion). The Marx Brothers demolished what was left of the house in 1959, leaving only the foundation behind, which I found on my hike:

Eventually, the Marx Brothers wanted to turn the land into a cemetery, an idea that was hated by the community. In 1971, after those plans fell through, the Marx Brothers decided to auction off the land to developers. That plan was foiled by a group of high school students, who, in just one week, raised a commotion in the media and caught the ear of a local wealthy art collector, who helped them buy the land at the auction. They turned the land over to the Forest Service, with the condition that it could never be built on. The story of the auction is riveting stuff – read a great article about it here.

So I have a group of high students to thank for my wonderful hike. Thank you. Without your hard work, I never would have spent the afternoon amongst scenery like this:

The trail went up a mountain, and I got higher, the fog got thicker.

There were all these wonderful moments when I would see the trail curve ahead of me, and there was nothing beyond but fog.

At one point I saw these structures looming ahead – it turned out they were power line towers (I’m not sure what these are called, are you?):

After a switchback or two, the trail went directly beneath one of the towers.

The entire experience was unlike any other I’ve had, mostly because of the weather. Rain is rare is Los Angeles, and even though I was soaked by the end of the hike, I loved every second. For the most part, I was alone on the mountain (in 2 hours, I came across maybe 8 other people), and the fog and the gray made everything seem… a little unsettling. A little eerie.

Turns out I’m not the only one that thinks that way. One of the other things I learned after my hike was that the Cobb Estate has another name: The Haunted Forest.

I couldn’t track down specific stories of spooky occurrences or unexplained activity, but apparently the Cobb Estate is a whole different place at night – a place where there are weird lights and sounds, and where people have claimed to have been ‘touched’ when no one’s there. Thankfully for all of us, the very-official-sounding Los Angeles Ghost Patrol investigated the Cobb Estate – you can read their write-up (and watch videos) here.

Lastly, I also learned that had I continued on that trail for a few miles longer, I would have come across some more ruins from another fascinating chapter in Altadena’s history. I’ll share those details at some other point – probably after I go back andfind those ruins on another hike. It gives me something to look forward to.

I kinda also wanna go back to the Cobb Estate at night. Who’s up for a nighttime hike in the Haunted Forest? Anyone wanna come with?

And did I mention that it was an tiring hike? I have no idea how far up the side of the mountain I went, but I was definitely feeling it in my quads later that day.

Keep it up, David!

Attempted Murder

Someone tried to kill me yesterday. And it was one of my closest friends! Here’s what went down:

You’ve read about my friend Tavi before on this blog. He’s mentioned on this blog way too much as it is, and now, with this post, his head might quite literally explode. But just to refresh any foggy memories: I’ve known Tavi since high school, he’s an aerialist and dancer, he lives nearby, he’s one of my closest friends. Over a year ago, Tavi and I hiked in Fryman Canyon, a beautiful nearby park. Tavi took me on a gorgeous winding trail – check out pictures here. During the hike, Tavi casually mentioned that he usually runs this trail, which flabbergasted me, because I had difficulty walking it – there are parts that are very steep, and the trail is very narrow.

Earlier this week, Tavi says to me, “Are you ready to run Fryman with me?” I laughed, and replied that I’d never be ready to run Fryman. Tavi thought otherwise, and for the next day or so, I gave it serious thought. I always tend to underestimate my physical abilities. I never used to think I could ever run a 10K, but I’ve done it. Climbing nearly 100 stories without stopping seems impossible to wrap my mind around, but I did it just the other day. I could run Fryman, couldn’t I?

I decided that I could. And that’s how, yesterday afternoon, I found myself walking with Tavi towards the Fryman Canyon trail head.

The previous hike with Tavi wasn’t my first time in Fryman – I’d been there with Jen and Tiffany for a hike (possibly two) at the asscrack of dawn, and also hiked there with Chris. Even though the routes varied, there’s one constant: it’s steep. Fryman Canyon is located in the Hollywood Hills, and you enter at the bottom and can hike all the way up to Mulholland Drive, the road at the tippy-top.

As we approached the start of our run, the steepness loomed large in my mind, and I made a mental goal: Complete the run without stopping, and if I can’t manage to run, than don’t walk for more than 10 seconds. I wanted to keep moving. I knew that if I walked too long, it would be difficult to get back into running.

We started running at the base of the mountain, and thankfully, one of the steepest parts was at the beginning. I say thankfully because 1) it got a tough part out of the way early on, while I was still fresh, and 2) I knew that if I could conquer this part, I could conquer every other part of the trail.

The run was tough. Tough. After the first few minutes of steep uphill running, I felt ready to crawl under the brush and pass out. Having Tavi in front of me was a good motivator – and he was a good sport, stopping every so often and doing jumping jacks or lunges until I caught up with him.

The nice part about the run was that it’s probably the prettiest run I’ve ever done. There’s all sorts of great views in Fryman, which is loaded with ravines, ridges, and switchbacks, and with the narrow trails, high grasses, and encroaching bushes, there were times when a machete would’ve been helpful to clear the way. The downside is that it’s hard to take in the views because the trail is uneven, undulating, and rocky – if you don’t pay attention to your feet, you could easily twist an ankle or worse. And by worse, I mean stumble and fall down a 30-80 foot near-vertical hillside, which are all over the place.

At one point, you have to traverse a fallen tree to get over a ravine. Here I am not-so-gracefully dismounting from the tree:

But I hit the ground and started running again immediately:

After the tree came the second major uphill part, which seemed, at the time, to be as vertical as a ladder, and it was here that it first occurred to me that I very well might die. Tavi was trying to kill me. He was doing a good job of it, too – my heart was pounding, my legs and core were burning, and I was on the verge of tears. That second uphill part was the last terrible part, though, and the rest of the run was downhill or flat.

The run ended with a final descent down a steep embankment, where Tavi got this picture of me picking my nose:

I’m not picking my nose, I’m pushing my glasses up!

The final stretch was along a fire road that led to the street that we parked on, and we finished at a gate that I collapsed onto:

I finished the run in 41 minutes. Add in the walking to and from the trail head, plus a few minutes of catching my breath at that gate, and we were away from our cars for a little over an hour. Last time we walked this route in two hours. It felt great to cut that time in half!

My theory that Tavi tried to kill me evaporated pretty quickly once my heart rate fell back into a reasonable range. And I’m proud that I accomplished my goals: I never stopped, and the only time I walked more than 10 seconds was during the most strenuous uphill stretches, which were more climbing than walking anyway.

As we walked back to the car, Tavi mentioned “the next time we do this…” and I thought, next time? Isn’t doing it once enough? Just like stand-up paddleboarding and ice skating, I’m glad to have tried running Fryman, but whether I run it again is TBD. We shall see. I’m not going to be rushing back tomorrow to do it again, that’s for sure. Only time will tell if I do it again. Doing it once is enough for me to proudly say…

Keep it up, David!

Burpee Update, Chart Update

Two different updates today.

1) Burpees Update. Remember when I committed to the No Excuses 30-Day Burpees Challenge? It’s a workout challenge hatched by Scott over at Your Inner Skinny where you do burpees every single day for a month, adding one burpee each day. I was feeling a bit in a rut when the challenge began, and even though I hate burpees, I made the commitment as a way to push myself into doing something new.

Tomorrow would have been my 30th day, but I’ll cut to the chase: I abandoned the challenge a long time ago. I dropped it like a prom dress. In the end, my dislike of burpees won out, and after missing a couple days of burpees, I couldn’t rally to get back on the burpee train. The 10K didn’t help, either, as it was a workout goal that really excited me, so I had no problem focusing on that and letting the burpees slide.

I did complete 14 days of burpees before pulling the plug, and I had worked my way up to 28 burpees on that 14th day. Add in the 4 days of practice burpees before the challenge actually began, and I completed 361 burpees. I can be proud of that, and proud that I’m man enough to share my shortcomings, even if I’m not proud of my quitting.

I’m also a little worried that Scott, once he reads this, is gonna emerge from his northern Canadian igloo, strap on his snowshoes, and find his way down to Los Angeles to kick my ass. And he totally could – that guy is jacked. Better sleep with one eye open.

2) Chart Update. Stepped on the scale yesterday, and I liked what I saw. Here’s the update on my weight loss chart:

Down 1 pound! Not to sound like a snot, but I should hope so. I worked my ass off last week, pushing myself while training for my 10K, and then actually running that 10K. What I’m most happy about is that I’ve turned around my recent slow gain:

I’ve lost 1 of the 5 pounds I gained over the 6 weeks. Four more to go! A weight of 236 puts my total weight loss at 166 pounds. A couple more weight loss chart shots, because I know you love ‘em (and so do I):

Keep it up, David!

TOMORROW: My recipe for a healthy, delicious fall salad!

Back to the Blog

Yesterday’s post, where I compared my weight loss to M&Ms, bowling balls, country music stars, and more (did you read it? It’s quite fun!), was my first real blog post in almost a week, and it felt nice to post something again, although I must admit it also felt nice to take a little break from the blog for a few days.  I find that I put undue pressure on myself (in many regards), and last week I found myself getting stressed because I was struggling to come up with blog topics, and I started feeling like if I didn’t post I’d be letting my readers down, and that stressed me further and made it tougher to come up with compelling things to write about…

It was a nasty, vicious circle (and so unimportant, in the grand scheme of things), but I recognized it, and decided to step away from the whole situation altogether.  I don’t want that stress in my life, especially not linked to blogging, an activity that I enjoy, and find motivating and therapeutic.  Not thinking about the blog for a few days was a lovely respite, and, of course, once I stopped looking for topics, all sorts of great ideas came to me, including some of the weight loss comparisons in yesterday’s post.  So now there’s some catching up to do, and I look forward to doing it!

I thought I’d first catch you up on my exercise.  Last week I didn’t work out as much as I would have liked (which, I think, added to my stress).  Monday was a planned rest day, but on both Wednesday and Friday laziness got the better of me, and I didn’t move a muscle.  Luckily, I had great workouts on Tuesday (boot camp class) and Thursday (ellliptical, free weights, and recumbent bike at the gym), so the week wasn’t a complete wash.

So, on Saturday morning, I decided I couldn’t let the past week become a habit, and since then, I’ve had 4 fun, great workouts, and lucky for you, they all come with visual aids!

1) Slimmons (Saturday Morning): The theme for Richard Simmons’ class on Saturday Morning was all new music, and Richard decided to dress as a pink poodle to lead the class.  Because I’ve been posting videos from recent classes, you know that Richard goes all out when he dons a costume (this post has a video of him as one of The Four Tops, and this post as a video of him in KISS make-up and wardrobe), and Saturday was no exception.  Check it out!

Did you see me in that video?  I’m in a green t-shirt.  It’s strange – when you watch the video on YouTube, you can easily see me behind Richard during the last 10 seconds or so, but when I embedded it here, I get cropped out.  Oh well.  It was a crowded class, but a good one, and I’m quite certain the first class I’ve taken that was taught by a dog!  I saw Richard kiss a few people after class, and then wipe away the pink smudges he left on their faces… hilarious.  I got away pink smudge-free (we air-hugged).

2) Fryman Canyon Hike (Saturday Afternoon). I was putzing around my place later that afternoon when my friend Chris texted me, and proposed going hiking.  I didn’t have plans, so why not?  We headed to Fryman Canyon (which I’ve blogged about before – here and here), and had a great hour-long hike.  At one point, Chris snapped a picture of me on his phone, which he emailed to me later, with a subject line that read “Album Cover”.  Sure enough, it looks like it could be the cover image of a 1960′s folk album, so I had a little fun with photoshop and came up with this:

It’ll be available on iTunes and Amazon soon (and by ‘soon’, I mean ‘never’).

3) Run (Sunday Afternoon). It’s been a loooong time since I’ve gone running – the last time was way back on March 17 (with Chris, folk album photographer extraordinaire, at Porn Star Park).  So on Sunday, I laced up my shoes, grabbed my iPod, and hit the streets.  I set out without any goals, as far as route, distance, or time were concerned – I just decided to go for as long as I could, and since it’s been about three weeks since I’ve gone running, I didn’t have huge expectations, either.

So how did I do?  Not too shabby at all.  I ran for 47 minutes, and went 4.5 miles.  Here’s the route I ended up taking:

Wanna know how many fast food restaurants I passed along the way?  Ten.  Del Taco, Subway, KFC, Carl’s Jr., Taco Bell, another Subway, Burger King, McDonalds, El Pollo Loco, and Jack in the Box.  I’ve eaten at every single one of them, too, back when I used to eat fast food (I still eat Subway every once in a while).

Time to update my running chart:

• 9/21/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 41 minutes.  MPH: 4.53
• 9/27/10: Distance: 3.3 miles.  Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 4.4
• 10/5/10: Distance: 3.2 miles.  Time: 40 minutes.  MPH: 4.8
• 10/12/10: Distance: 3.8 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 10/16/10: Distance: 2.9 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 11/1/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 36 minutes.  MPH: 5.16
• 11/6/10: Distance: 5.1 miles. Time: 60 minutes.  MPH: 5.1
• 11/14/10: Distance: 3.9 miles. Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 5.2
• 11/28/10: Distance: 4.2 miles. Time: 46 minutes.  MPH: 5.47
• 1/4/11: Distance: 3.0 miles. Time: 34 minutes.  MPH: 5.3
• 1/24/11: Distance: 4.4 miles.  Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 5.86
• 2/1/11: Distance: 1.9 miles.  Time: 20 minutes.  MPH: 5.7
• 2/9/11: Distance: 3.5 miles.  Time: 38 minutes.  MPH: 5.52
• 2/16/11: Distance: 2.9 miles.  Time: 33 minutes.  MPH: 5.28
• 2/27/11: Distance: 5 miles.  Time: 60 minutes.  MPH: 5.0
• 3/3/11: Distance: 5.4 miles.  Time: 57 minutes.  MPH: 5.13
• 3/10/11: Distance: 3.0 miles.  Time: 34 minutes.  MPH: 5.29
• 3/17/11: Distance: ? Time: ? MPH: ? (I forgot to note everything.  Oops!)
• 4/10/11:  Distance: 4.5 miles.  Time: 47 minutes.  MPH: 5.74

Hello, Speedy Gonzalez!  That’s my second-fastest pace ever! Wowsa – wasn’t expecting that!

4) Gym (Monday Evening). After work, I headed to the gym, where I did 35 minutes on the Arc Trainer, and 13.5 minutes on the StairMaster.  Like last time, I tried to do as much of it (excluding some warm-up and cool-down time) doing 2 steps at a time, and this time, I also decided to push myself and see how fast I could go.  Normally I top out at Level 12 or so, but this time, I made it up to Level 14 (for about a minute).

The total numbers of floors I climbed was 70, so for today’s visual comparison, we’re going all the way to Yokohama, Japan.  The tallest building in Japan is located in Yokohama – it’s called Yokohama Landmark Tower – and whadya know? It has 70 floors!  Yep, I climbed the equivalent of this:

Between the Arc Trainer and the Stairmaster, I burned over 900 calories!

Keep it up, David!

Annie and Vasquez

Two parts in today’s post.

Part 1: Annie. Last night, I headed out to my aunt and uncle’s place in Glendora, a eastern suburb of Los Angeles, about 45 minutes from me.  We were going to go see Paula Poundstone perform at a local college, but first, my aunt Annie made a delicious dinner.  So, being a good blogger, I photographed it, which excited Annie, because she really wants to be in this blog, which is a fact she mentioned only about  14 times over the course of the evening.  OK, Annie, I hear ya, loud and clear! Honestly, though, I would have put it in the blog anyway, because she was very thoughtful in her cooking in regards to the way I’m eating, and plus, she used an ingredient I’ve never tried before!

That new-to-me ingredient is cactus.  Yep, cactus!  I’ve seen fresh cactus in the produce section of some Mexican supermarkets in Los Angeles, but I’ve never bought it, and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten it before.  So Annie’s cactus salad definitely marked a first in my life.  Here it is:

It has three ingredients – how easy is that?  There’s diced Maui onion, cilantro, and the star of the dish, the cactus.  Annie’s cactus came from a jar, where it’s pickled in vinegar.  They’re called nopalitos, and they’re cut-up strips of the pads from a prickly pear cactus.  I don’t know what brand Annie used, but here’s a random image that I pulled off the interweb:

They look like green beans, but they’re not.  Annie dumped the contents into a colander, draining the brine, and then rinsed them a little bit, so wash some of the excess vinegar taste away, then added the onion and cilantro, and voila! A finished salad.  It was delicious, and I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for cactus at the store – apparently it’s hard to miss in the Mexican food aisle.

Annie’s main course last night was turkey chili, which had at least five kinds of beans, and was topped with a little nonfat Greek Yogurt, cilantro, and a rectangle of homemade corn bread:

Dessert was strawberry shortcake:

While Annie tossed the strawberries in sugar, to pull out their juices, she set aside some of the strawberries for me before doing that, so my serving had no added sugar.  Annie also made the biscuits, and I intended to only eat half of it, but ended up nibbling away at the other half during our post-dinner chit-chat until it was all gone.  Oh well.  It’s just a biscuit.

The whole meal was very tasty and filling, so thank you, Annie – nicely done!

Then we were off to Citrus College, and we all had a great time at Paula Poundstone’s show.  I’ve seen her perform live once before, about 10 or 11 years ago, and she was great then, and she was great last night.  She interacts a lot with the audience, which makes each show pretty unique, and the way she weaves her material in and out of the conversations she has with audience members is pretty ingenious.

We got to meet Paula after the show, briefly, and she signed my program.  See?

I’ll add that to my celebrity autograph collection, which, up until this point, consisted solely of autographs from stars of the NBC soap opera Passions, which I watched religiously for 4 or 5 years, and loved.  So Paula’s John Hancock is in very good company.

I’m tempted to write about 8 more paragraphs on Passions but I’ll save that for another time.

Part 2: Vasquez. Regular blog readers know that I’ve been having a tough time with Sundays lately.  Two Sundays ago, I ate way too much at a party, and last Sunday, I had a cereal binge in the comfort of my own home.  Today, though, I had a plan of attack to get through my Sunday without getting off program – and that plan was: I gotta keep myself busy.

My friend Judie called the other day and asked if I would help her out at the garage sale she was having this morning, so I said yes, partly because I haven’t seen her in a while, and partly because it would take up the entire morning, and therefore be a big help towards the completion of a busy, binge-free day.  I was in my car by 7:30am, and stayed up at Judie’s until 11:30 or so, before heading back into town.

I say ‘back into town’ because Judie lives in Acton, which is about 45 minutes in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles, and it’s beautiful there.  My original plan was to leave Judie’s and head straight to the gym, but as I was pulling away from Judie’s place, I made the impromptu executive decision to go hiking instead.  Judie lives minutes away from Vasquez Rocks, a county park that is drop dead gorgeous, and I’ve never hiked it.

I’ve blogged before about Vasquez Rocks, because Judie and I stopped by and took a few pictures there back in November, so check it out – there’s also some great pictures of Judie’s animals (and she has a lot).

Vasquez Rocks is full of cool rock formations, and movie studios have been heading there for literally 100 years (since the birth of cinema) to use it as a filming location.  In addition to countless Westerns, Vasquez Rocks has been used as various other planets on the original Star Trek series, and the town of Bedrock in the 1994 live-action The Flintstones was built there, too.  Today, there were a lot of people clamoring all over the rocks near the parking lots, but once I ventured further in, it was peaceful and quiet, and I had a good 80-minute hike.  It was pretty easy, as hikes go – no huge hills or anything – and I want to come back, just for the scenery.  I didn’t go crazy with my camera, but I did snap a few pics:

Now it’s time to pay some bills, make some dinner, do some cleaning of myvplace, and a little later, I’m hanging out with a friend.  It’s a few minutes before 6pm right now, But I’m going to go ahead and declare than my Sunday has been binge-free and healthy.

Keep it up, David!

Photo Shoot

It’s been raining intermittently in Los Angeles for the past few weeks.  Luckily, though, on Friday, the skies cleared up and it was a beautiful, warm day.  I say luckily, because I had an outdoor photo shoot!

My friend Mike is an amazing photographer (Check out his website here), in addition to being a really sweet, funny, good guy (sorry, ladies and gents, he’s married).  I’ve been thinking a lot in recent months about how much I’ve changed, physically and in other ways, during the past year, and how wonderful it would be to have a few kick-ass photographs that illustrate that.  So when I saw Mike a few months ago, I asked if he’d be willing to snap a few pictures, and he said he would!

Last night, I picked out a few outfits and steamed them, and today, I went and met Mike.  We brainstormed a few ideas on where to go, since we wanted to be outdoors, and we settled on a part of the Angeles National Forest.  It’s only about 20 minutes away, and I had gone there on a hike with my friend Tavi in November (you can read about it here) and loved it.  There’s a burned-out bridge (thank you, Station Fire, the largest forest fire in Los Angeles County recorded history), some other ruins that are much older, a creek, and it’s really beautiful.

Here are some pics.  These are from the hike in November – they’re NOT Mike’s photos from today.  He’s gonna send those to me soon, and I’ll definitely post them.

This is the trail you take to head into the forest.  Because of all the rain in the past few months, it was a lot greener today:

The burned-out bridge:

Every so often there’s remnants of stone walls and foundations – making me extremely curious about what these structures were, and when they were built:

There’s also lots of dead trees that didn’t survive the fire:

It took me and Mike about 30 minutes to hike down to the burned-out bridge, and then it was time to shoot some photos.  I’ll be quite honest and say that I was kinda nervous – some people are naturally very photogenic, and I’m not saying I’m not, I’m just saying it doesn’t come easy for me.  Mike was very helpful and very patient and tried a few different tactics to try to get me to relax.  We tried a bunch of different set-ups – on the bridge, under the bridge, sitting, standing, leaning, and it took me a little while, but I think I loosened up.  What really helped was focusing on a piece of music, and letting it get stuck in my head, because then I was thinking about that, and not what I should be doing and tensing up and getting self-conscious.

The song I let get stuck in my head is one of favorites, and it’s called “Lay Your Head Down” by Keren Ann.  When it’s stuck in my head, it’s stuck at a much slower tempo than its actual tempo.  You can hear it, and watch the music video, here.

After the bridge, we stopped at one of the stone wall ruins, and took a bunch of photos where I’m leaning against or sitting on top of a dead-ivy-covered wall.  Then we pulled out the ladder and I leaned against the top step – oh no wait, I’m thinking of my brother’s high school senior photo from the early ’90s.

Mike showed me a few of the photos on the little screen on his camera, and HOLY SHIT, I can’t wait to see the full-sized versions.  I really had very little to say – they almost struck me speechless.  You’ll definitely want to check back in with the blog in the coming days/weeks, because I’ll be posting them here!

As I type this, it’s now about 1:30am on Saturday, March 5th, which means 2 things:

• 1) It’s technically my birthday.  I’m 32 years old now.
• 2) The deadline has passed to enter my Birthday Giveaway Contest.  It looks like I have close to 50 entries, although I haven’t cross-referenced them yet to see if everyone followed the rules – I’m serious about disqualifying the slackers!  I’m gonna take the remaining 22.5 hours off from blogging, so no new posts until Sunday, when I’ll reveal the winner.  Maybe it’s you!?

Oh, and I ended up having a bonus workout today!  I worked out when I woke up, doing 15 minutes of free weights, 45 minutes on a recumbent bike, and 15 minutes ofabs/push-ups, and then Mike and I ended up hiking to get to our photo shoot location!  It was about 30 minutes to get to and from the bridge – so another hour of exercise, all up- and downhill…

…Keep it up, David!

Fruit Trees, Hike, Goodbye Shoes

I hung out with my friend Tavi this morning.  I’m totally envious of Tavi, for a couple reasons.  First of all, he has a super cool job: he’s an aerialist.  Yep, an acrobatic, ultra-flexible, death-defying performer.  You can catch him right now in a show called Cirque Berserk, playing in downtown Los Angeles – go here for info and tickets (act fast – it closes this weekend).  I’m also envious because Tavi has fruit trees in his backyard.  Two grapefruit trees and a tangerine tree.  Check out his fruit!

I totally wish I had fruit trees.  How fantastic would it be to wake up and think, ‘I want some juice this morning’ and then walk 15 feet and pluck some grapefruit off a tree!  Since Tavi has more tangerines and grapefruit than he knows what to do with, he let me help myself, which I did:

Tomorrow morning, I’m making some juice!

Tavi and I also went on a great hike this morning.  The last time I went hiking with Tavi, which is documented here, it involved a burned-out bridge, leaping over creeks, and coming across a naked old man.  Needless to say, hiking with Tavi is fun!  This morning we went to Fryman Canyon, a nearby trail in the Hollywood Hills.  I’ve been to Fryman before, on an early morning hike with my friends Jen and Tiffany.  I told Tavi this, and he says, “you’ve probably been on the main trail.  I go on a steeper, tougher, narrower trail.”  Yep, it’s fun already!

He was right.  His trail was tough.  I was out of breath at times.  It wound up and down through the hills, through canyons, alongside ridges, and through countless different types of terrain: lush tropical rain forest-lookin’ parts, sloping fields of 6-foot shrubs, rocky chasms with streams at the bottom…  and there were some great views, too!  Like this one:

There was also a fallen tree than we walked across:

And a random trapeze tied to a tree (why I’m the one holding it, and not Tavi the aerialist, is a good question):

Oh and did I mention Tavi got a great parking spot?

Near the end of the hike, we had to come down a steep ridge.  Tavi ran down it, full speed, but I was a wuss and negotiated it foot by foot:

It was on that descent that I decided to was time to say goodbye to the pair of shoes I was wearing.  They’re Under Armour shoes, and I loved them, but I wore them out, and they don’t have any traction anymore.  No good.  I bought them probably over a year ago, and wore them as gym shoes for three or four (or six) months.  When I got new gym shoes, I kept these around to wear occasionally: like when it was rainy outside, or when I went on hikes and there was the potential for lots of dust, dirt, or mud.  But just a few minutes before starting to write this post, I tossed them down the trash chute, into the dumpster.

Goodbye shoes, you served me well.

Oh, and that hike?  It was nearly two hours long.

Keep it up, David!

LLAMAS! (Plus a Before and Current Photo Comparison)

I was on the road today before 9am, heading out of the city to go visit my friend Judie.  Judie lives in the mountains about 45 minutes northeast of town, and it’s beautiful up there.

I love going up to Judie’s, because she has a few acres, and a lot of animals.   We’ll start with a Before and Current Photo Comparison, because I found a photo from a few years ago that’s perfect for this sort of thing.

This photo is from 2007, when Judie first rescued Cleo, a German Shepherd puppy:

Cleo was adorable as a puppy, and now she’s all grown up and still pretty freakin’ cute.  Here’s a photo from today – with Cleo on the left, and Cassie, another German Shepherd, on the right:

But that’s not all – Judie also has two horses, Lacey and Sandy.  Here’s me and Lacey:

Judie also has llamas.  Llots and llots of llamas.  I think she’s up to 11 or 12?  Let’s see if I can figure this out:

When I first met Judie 7 years ago, she had just gotten 5 llamas:  3 girls (Chamesa, Oreo, and Cookie) and 2 boys (Jesse and James).  Jesse ended up going to live somewhere else, leaving 4 llamas.  Then James knocked up all three of the ladies, and a year later (there’s a year-long gestation period), the herd had three new additions: Melody (a girl), Billy (a boy), and Harmony, who everyone thought was a girl for a year, but was actually a boy (llamas are shaggy down there, it can be hard to tell).

That’s 7 llamas.  But the procreating didn’t stop.  James and all the ladies got busy again, and soon all three were with child again.  A year later, Judie welcomed Daisy (a girl), Bugs (a boy), and Bandit (a boy).  10 llamas.  Judie finally separated the boys from the girls, but not before James had his way with Melody, who, a year later, gave birth to Millie (a girl).   Millie is the 11th llama, and Melody should star in the next season of MTV’s “Teen Mom.”

Anyway – Millie is a sweetheart.  Here’s me and Millie:

And here I am, nose to nose with Billy:

And for everyone that hasn’t seen a llama up close:

Judie and I also took a long drive into the Antelope Valley, going through towns I had barely heard of before, like Pearblossom, Llano, and Littlerock.  There’s not much up there, except miles and miles of desert in every direction, but it’s always had an appeal: British author Aldous Huxley, best known for Brave New World, lived in Llano for a while, and we also drove by the ruins of a socialist compound that flourished from 1915-1918, until the 60 or so families living there got fed up with the intermittent water supply (the compound was near a river, but it was dry for most of the time) and moved to Louisiana.

Then we headed back to Judie’s neck of the woods and had lunch at a cute little place called Sweetwater Cafe – I had a great salad with spinach, mushrooms, scallion, hard boiled egg, tomato, and a grilled chicken breast, with a little blue cheese dressing on the side.

After lunch we went to Vasquez Rocks, a big park.  We originally intended to go hiking in Vasquez Rocks, but we were both tired and didn’t feel up for it, so we did the next best thing – drove around a little bit and took some cool photos.  Me and some rocks:

Judie and some other rocks:

Me and Judie and some rocks:

These rock formations are all over the place at Vasquez Rocks, and because it’s less than an hour away from Hollywood, the area has been used as a filming location for movies and TV pretty since much since film has been invented.  Tons of westerns have been filmed there, and also a lot of science fiction – actually, one of the more prominent rock formations is called James T. Kirk Rock, because it was used in a number of different “Star Trek” episodes in the ’60s, representing a different planet in each one.  In the ’90s, the entire town of Bedrock was built in Vasquez Rocks for the live-action movie version of “The Flintstones”.

Because I didn’t go hiking, this day will likely end with me not doing any exercise, but I’m not fretting over it.  I worked out the last 6 days in a row, so I’m due for a day off.

Keep it up, David!