Day 1 - Stupid Drivers and Accordion Players

"Damn it!" I mumbled as I crawled out of bed. The trip began at the ass crack of dawn. The alarm went off at 6am; a time that I am normally not familiar with. There was no time for sleeping in, we had a mission to accomplish and a goal to achieve; getting on that plane. After taking care of the dog and loading up the car we departed at 6:15.

Instead of taking the normal route I decided to trust the Garmin, Keira. In her defense she didn't know that some jack ass would manage to cause an accident on the Southfield Freeway. I wish I had taken a photo of it, it would paint a better picture. One car was facing forward and the other one was upside down and facing against traffic. Almost as if he cut over, got wedged somehow into the wall and then flipped. This then caused the SFW to merge from 3 lanes down to 1 causing our 15 minutes delay.

We finally made it pass the wreckage. Although I was upset, I'm glad no one was hurt. We made it to the airport with time to spare. My sister was kind enough to drive me and Kevin to the airport so we wouldn't have to pay for parking. All it took was a little bribe ;) We went through security and made it to our gate. So far things were improving. That is of course until we sat down on the plane.

It only takes one crying baby to ruin a flight. So of course why not have two right behind me. Now I exaggerate a little, because these kids were about 3 or 4 years old, but even so I lost count of how many times the mother attempted to "shush" her children. Once every 5 minutes minutes a shriek would emerge behind me; such a sound that would wake me and make my eyes bug out. This lasted for the first 90 minutes of our flight. One down one to go. I will say the view was amazing. The random clouds in the sky were quite a sight.

We arrived in Houston 20 minutes earlier then planned (well done airline pilot). The only problem with that is, we now had a 2 hour layover. We soon discovered that Houston is Continental's main hub and it was enormous. We ended up walking up and down the halls of this behemoth until we stumbled upon the USA vs. Slovenia game. We were able to watch the last 25 minutes of that let down. (By the way, that was not offsides and we were robbed of that 3rd goal!) We managed to find our way to the Fox Sports Bar on the upper level and relax there for about 30 minutes or so. Good way to kill time, that's for sure.

We boarded our next plane headed for our final destination, Los Angeles. I boarded the plane to find a little girl, who looked about 8 years old, sitting in my seat. This is almost not worth mentioning, because this issue was solved in 2 minutes. I politely asked the flight attendant to fix the problem. Apparently people just sit where ever they want on an airplane these days.

After settling in I started reading my book, Common Sense. By the end of the flight I was able to finish it. First book I've finished in 15 years or so. Yes I know, very sad. After the book was finished I watched most of the in flight movie, Valentine's Day. It was actually better then I thought it would be. It made me think about situations and how I handled in the past. It only took 5 seconds for me to snap back to reality and realize I made the right decisions all along.

There weren't any loud and disruptive children on this flight, but there was a guy behind me that insisted on putting all of his weight on my head rest in order to stand up. Let's just say he wasn't a small guy. Other then that and it being a 3 hour flight, it was fine.

We arrived at the gate and made our way to the baggage claim. We then waited for Adam to arrive. The waiting game didn't last for two long. I say we give him a pass for leaving work early to get us and driving in semi-rush hour traffic in Los Angeles.Because of Adam having a day job we were dropped off at his apartment and were given a quick tour of the place. It has a really nice layout and pretty spacious. Booms and I decided to explore a little and by explore I mean turned right out of the apartment instead of turning left. We wandered around Korea town a little bit until we broke down and asked Adam for directions. We were back on track and headed towards the subway to wander North Hollywood or so we thought.

We hopped on the subway and road it to Hollywood and Vine. Silly me, I thought that this was the correct stop on the red line. Nope, we were about a mile away from where we wanted to be. And of course yet again, we went the wrong way.

We finally made our way down the Hollywood Walk of Fame and ended up by the Kodak Theater. We rested for a little bit and took some photos.

It was a very nice day for a walk so we decided to not only walk up and down the Walk of Fame, but also up and down a million steps at the Kodak Theater. I will say though, the view was much better from a higher vantage point.

I was tempted to see Toy Story 3 today at the "El Captain" theater, but at $20 per ticket. I think I will wait until I get back to Michigan.

After about an hour and a half to two hours of wandering around we decided to head back to the apartment. We hopped back onto the subway, and hitched a ride to Vermont and Beverly. There are some crazy characters that ride the subway on a daily basis in New York, Boston and especially Los Angeles. Booms and I were minding our own business when sure enough a man who looked to be about 26 years old walked on to the subway with an accordion strapped to his chest. He then started playing "top 40 accordion " songs on his squeeze box. Some songs I had never heard other songs, such as the theme from the movie "The Godfather" made me smile, because I knew them so well. I had thought about giving him a tip for a job well done as other had, but then the transportation authority came and busted him. Apparently you can't do such things on the subway, let along drink, eat or talk loudly (by the way $250 fine for eating on the subway, wow. . . are you hurting for money or what California). Don't worry, I took a photo of the guy performing before the police broke up his act.

As I was saying, I was about to give him some money. I'm glad I didn't because the authority figures confiscated all of the money he had made on that train ride. I'm sorry I feel he earned that money fair and square. He wasn't just sitting on a street corner. This young man had a gift. I don't see them bothering bums on the street and taking their paper cups with the words "War Veteran" on them.

We departed from the train and headed up to the surface to walk back to the apartment. Upon reaching one block closer to Adam's apartment we hear a crash. We look across the street only to see a lady get out of her car and walk to the front of it. Apparently she ran into a yellow pilon with cement on the inside going about 10 - 15 MPH, cracking her left head light. What is with people today and their horrific driving?

This blog is not meant to complain about my vacation. By all means I am thrilled to be on it and am relaxing :). But I would just like to communicate the fact that this stuff on my trip is really happening to me. I don't want to miss a single detail.

Well tomorrow we head to Vegas. My hope is I can give you many more stories, hopefully some more interesting then today. It is now approaching 1am pst (4am, back home) . . . Damn it!