The Lyons Visit

The week that Bobby flew out, Mike Lyons flew in. Here is a rundown of The Lyons Visit.

Mike arrived at LAX on Friday night (on the same flight as Delonte West.) Finally my excuse to be a tourist in LA had arrived. That night we drove down Santa Monica Blvd. into Hollywood. When we came out to LA a year prior for Spring Break we felt lost in Beverly Hills as we tried to find our way from Rodeo Drive to Century City. Now a year later we were driving past these sites down the same streets we walked. We went to Jones (same place I went for my birthday) for dinner because it's easy to get into. After having buffalo chicken and marherita pizza we drove down the Sunset Strip. Lyons felt like he was at an amusement park. An amusement park with extremely good looking women.

Saturday we woke up pretty early and hit the road. We took a scenic drive up the coast to Malibu where we stopped at Zuma Beach and the Cohen Mansion. Ok so the Cohen Mansion is private property and is gated off, so we couldn't really see it, but the other houses in the area were pretty sweet.

The Future Lyons Residence, aka The Lyons Den.

Imagine attending Malibu High?

From Malibu we drove down to Venice Beach for lunch. We sat on the beach for a while then walked the streets. Classic Lyons Pose:

After a pit-stop at the LA Chalet (my apt.) we drove to Beverly Hills to see Robertson Blvd. and the Beverly Center. On the first cruise down Robertson we saw the Ivy Restaurant, but no celebrities. We went to the Beverly Center for an hour or so and returned to Robertson. This time there were paparazzi swarming from every direction to photograph Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond, Gladiator, Amistad) and Kimora Lee Simmons leaving the Ivy.

Photo Credit: JustJared.Com. Mine came out too blurry because Lyons was trying to get in the way of my picture.

Next we headed down the 405 to Huntington Beach. We arrived just in time to play some volleyball against Sutton and Josh. We went to HB favorite Las Barcas for dinner. We grabbed a table near a large one eyed homeless looking man who entertained us while we waited for our food. His topics of conversation ranged from never trusting anyone in the medical field to "Manny Fernandez" star of the Boston Redsox. Later Saturday night we met up with Sutton and Jenny for drinks on Main Street. Huntington is a good time.

Sunday we again woke up early and hit the road for San Diego. After stopping at the elegant McDonalds in Newport Beach for breakfast, we cruised down PCH through Orange County. Upon arriving in San Diego we scalped $7 standing room only seats for $35. Apparently Redsox fans had taken over San Diego and drove the cost of seats up like crazy. Petco Park in San Diego is a great stadium, we took the time to walk around and explore running into the Eagle family and Jamie from my Bentley softball team. We got to see a great pitching match-up, Peavy vs. Beckett. The Sox won a close game. After leaving San Diego we met up with the Eagles for dinner at Fleming's Prime Steakhouse in La Jolla. Probably the best steak I've ever had. Thank you to the Eagles for a delicious meal and a great evening in SoCal.

Lyons spent 8 straight hours watching Entourage on Monday while I worked. I dropped him off at the airport after catching a bite to eat in Brentwood. Thank you to Lyons for keeping me busy on my first weekend "alone" in LA.

As I finish this post I realize that this all took place a month ago, unreal how time flies, so... more updates coming shortly.

June Gloom

At the start of summer in Southern California there is a type of cloud called the Marine Layer. Every morning it washes in off the ocean creating a fog and makes the morning overcast. This is called June Gloom. Eventually when the sun gets hot enough it burns off and the rest of the day is sunny without a cloud in the sky. Up here in LA I haven't seen June Gloom, I think it's more of an OC thing. It made for a cool title so I thought I'd explain anyway. I don't have many pictures for June so I'm going to pull some off the internet to give you an idea of where I'm living and what I'm seeing.

Anyway, we moved to Brentwood, Los Angeles Memorial Day weekend. The first week we took 3 hour long shopping trips to Walmart (I never want to see another 2-story Walmart again), joined the gym in Santa Monica, and set up the monsterous television. Thankfully the TV hasn't consumed our lives too much, but it is great for watching movies.

The first weekend of June included the second anniversary of my 21st birthday. Bobby, Ian, Dave, and the guy who started Dusty Brand t-shirts went to Jones' in W. Hollywood off the strip. It's a Rock bar with an Italian menu. Great pizza. We met up with a kid named Fred who was Ian's friend's roommate in college. Fred was the personal assistant for Sacha Baron Cohen during the filming of Borat. The kid was a mess to say the least, but he was hilarious. It was a pretty solid night.

During the first week in June Sutton and Bobby had a commerical shoot, Dave for his ad agency and Bobby was among the talent. Pretty amazing stuff. If you live on the West Coast, but outside of LA, keep an eye out for the final product. It's an LA tourism ad in which Bobby plays a surfer. Photo Credit: Dave Sutton.

The second weekend in June included the visit of the infamous Dave Isaacs, the hilarious Mike "Cosmo" McCusker, the beautiful Adrienne Breslin, and Bob. I spent Friday night out with my 4th-5th grade buddy Matt at a bar in Santa Monica. It was nice to meet some new people in LA. Saturday I drove down to Huntington Beach for a haircut and an oil change. Neither went as planned (my hair was completely butchered and the oil change took like 5 hours). I ended up walking 8 miles round trip to the beach to wait. Saturday night I worked valet while the gang went out in Hollywood and Sunday we enjoyed the beach. Below is a photo of Dave I and I.

Monday night was one of my favorite nights out in LA. Bobby, Dave I., and I went out in Hollywood to an Italian place called Bella. Two bottles of wine later and Dave was trying to pick up the waitress. Bobby and I were very entertained. Dave was just full of great lines that kept us laughing all night long..."Now I didn't leave you a big tip because I know that's not what you want, you want to spend an afternoon with me tomorrow." Classic. We then went to the Sunset Tower Hotel Terrace for after dinner drinks. Great night in Hollywood, we felt like we owned the place. Oh and Bobby and I got checked out by Paula Abdul. Here is a photo of her leaving Bella that night...credit to Splash News.

The third weekend in LA was very relaxing. We mostly watched movies, but Bobby and I also headed down to Venice Beach. I think the best description of Venice Beach that I can come up with is Faneuil Hall...on crack. The street is lined with an eclectic mix of pot heads, tattoo artists, homeless people, street performers, freaks (there is a freakshow), and tourists. Fun stuff. The beach is really REALLY nice, but no one uses it because the main attraction is the street and the shops.

During the fourth week I dropped Bobby off at LAX as he is currently home 3 weeks. Things got pretty lonely at the LA Chalet. Luckily Lyons flew in for the weekend. The Lyons visit update is coming up next. There are some pictures from this one so stay tuned. In other big news, State Farm finally accepted liability for their insured in that little accident I was in. I will be able to get my car fixed next week and I couldn't be happier about it.

Don't Stop Believing

While I was typing the last blog I was watching the series finale of The Sopranos. This is the only episode of the Sopranos that I've ever seen. I thought the episode was absolutely brilliant. I won't post any spoilers, but if you want my opinion send me an e-mail. I have a lot of Sopranos to catch up on now.

Once the visitors came and went I started concentrating on finding a place to live in LA. The commute to and from Woodland Hills was just too far. Bobby was also looking to move to the city in support of his acting career. It took a few day trips to LA before we got any leads. After a few weeks we picked a one bedroom apartment in Brentwood that is a converted garage.

The place is really nice with a carpeted 12 by 12 bedroom and a very large living room/kitchen with a hardwood floor. We switched things up and turned the bedroom into an entertainment room and the living space into the bedroom. We moved up on Memorial Day weekend. We got a leather sectional couch that wraps around the room, a 40 inch LCD tv, and a surround sound system. It is definitely a bachelor pad. Things are pretty quiet in the new place. I've been working long hours and hitting the gym after work while Bobby has been working nights. It's definitely been a change from living in The Chalet in HB where there were 4 of us and something was always going on. I miss Huntington Beach a lot, it's where all my friends are.

Anyway here are some pictures of the new place (thanks to Dave I. for some of the pics)

Bobby and the couch:

The New TV:

The converted garage:

Assorted Room Pics:

More to come soon including: June, my 23rd birthday, and the visit of the iconic Dave Isaacs. Lyons flies in tomorrow night and I finally have an excuse to be a tourist in LA. There will be plenty of picures from the upcoming weekend. Well, 5 posts later and I'm signing off, so leave me comments!

In tribute to Bob Barker and since I just learned how easy it is to do this...Yes this is my roommate

Boston for 24 Hours

At the end of May my uncles, Doug and Paul, hosted a surprise 50th birthday party for my Mom. The biggest surprise was that I flew across the country to be there. I traveled 12 hours to be in Boston for 24 hours. So, I've been in California for 2.5 months now, less 36 hours. The exhausting travel was definitely worth it. Here are some pictures from that great night. Shout out to Doug for most of these photos (and thanks to Paul, Doug, and Dad for making the party happen and getting me out there).

Happy 50th Mom!

Mom arriving for the party followed by the big surprise:

Mom, Dad, Peggy, & Artie

Paul and Mom

Mom and her nurses

Some fam pics

Mom and Suzanne

AVP Tour

While playing volleyball down on Huntington Beach we scored free tickets to the AVP Huntington Beach Open finals. It was really cool to see pros playing in person. Here is a video I took of the final match and some photos from the event. Stein Metzger and Mike Lambert, aka Steiner and Lambo, won the tournament.

Random May

May went by way too quick. It was my second month in California and I think I spent most of the month playing volleyball on the beach. I will add some more commentary if I can think of anything, but for the meantime here are some May photos.

Sunset volleyball sessions happened pretty much 3 days a week for the month of May. Bobby, Josh, and I became a solid team. We had a serious rivalry with Dave, Ian, and Ben. Great times, I really miss this.

Random picture from Cinqo de Mayo I think. It's Ian, Carmen, and me at Jackie and Tony's place. Dave is sleeping on the footrest.

Car fire from the 405. This happens a lot, but this one was intense. "We are watching the ozone layer deplete as we speak."

myspacebar isbroken

Ohh hey there, do you still read this thing? If anyone stumbles across my recent update, please leave a comment and let me know you're out there. My spacebar broke and it's really annoying, so from this point on I'm just going to type and if the spacing messes up so be it. Truth is I have OCD and I'll probably fix them all after anyway.

So let's see...it's been over a month since my last update. It's not that I was lazy, it's that I have been super busy. I'm going to start where I left off, late April early May. The first few weeks of April were really hectic as I focused on getting settled in Huntington Beach. Around the end of the month things really started to come together. From then until the first week of May it was like the best of times the worst of times. Kev and Keith were here and it the best of times, that lady backed into my car it was the worst of times. Obey and Ian's friends Susan and Shannon were here and it was the best of times, I blew a tire out while driving it was the worst of times. Here are some pictures from the end of April start of May just to get y'all caught up. Next post I'll fill you in on May and the first half of June.

Best of times:

Worst of times:

Best of times:


Best of the rest: