Insider: How I went from a broken-down car to a fancy-pants bar in 12 easy Steps!

I think God reads my blog.

If you read my last post, you heard about the whole car break-down debacle and how I had to push my car up a massive street in 80+ degrees for about a half hour until I could pull into the first available drive;  the entrance of the Los Angeles Country Club.

Well go back and read it if you need a refresher.

Caught up??

OK - The big reveal......

THEY HIRED ME!!!! I GOT A BARTENDING JOB!!!!

 

The new uniform

And I was much more excited than this picture suggests but it's what I had to work with.

I just have to put this into perspective for you.

I went like this....
1. I was running out of money, big time.
2. I was calling Paramount constantly to find more work - it wasn't happening.
3. I was ready to drive my car off the Santa Monica Pier and let the damn thing drown.
4. My car broke down on the road before I ever made it to the pier - nothing out of the ordinary.
5. I chatted it up with the security crew at the Club while waiting for the tow truck, I mentioned that I used to bar tend at a club in MN, they gave me a resume - sort of a 'poor kid's life is in the toilet' type gesture.
6. I got a call two days later, THE MOMENT I hit "SEND" on my last blog post. "We heard you were interested in bar-tending....." 
7. I went in for an interview the next day
--Now this is important--
They informed me that a position had quite seriously JUST OPENED UP - as one of the older bartenders, and I'm not kidding you, Just passed away two days before 
--OK? still with me?--
8.Then they told me that they were interested in my resume because:
"There was only 1 club that outperformed us last year, and that was Town and Country Club in Minnesota, the club you used to work at, we could use a guy like you..." 
Pretty Crazy, OH! AND! 
9. My Car got hauled to the shop for the umpteenth time BUT this time they actually discovered an electrical short in the wiring, fixed it, and now my car, AND SPEEDOMETER, have been working fine! 

So yeah... Praise God! 

He and I have been having some pretty serious discussions as of late.

One of the more heated ones was while I was pushing my car up the street:

"(heavy breathing) OK God!! Here you go!! If you really want me to...
(turn to wave-off obnoxious driver) GO AROUND A**HOLE!! 
... If you really want me here, I need something big here, please please PLEASE..."


Now I'm not one to really believe that Everything Happens For a Reason...
But I do think that the reason I got the job was because I was able to take a crap situation and find a way to laugh about it with the security crew of a country club, instead of fuming in my car by myself. I don't think I would have been able to do this if I hadn't been in a mind-frame to just think "Screw it, there are bigger things..."
And I really don't think I would have had that mind frame if I hadn't invited God into the situation...

So again, Thank you God!
It shouldn't have taken me this long to express this considering I don't hesitate to tell everyone how terrible my situation is much of the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Well I must say things are getting a bit bizarre here in LA, what with Christmas just around the bend.

I've never really conceptualized what Christmas would be like in a place with no snow but it's starting to feel pretty staged.
It depresses me a little to see people putting up Christmas lights and FAKE SNOW while wearing Flip Flops and shorts....
Witnessing things like this tends to make me feel pretty snobbish:
"Look at this idiot, there's no way he'd last ten seconds putting lights up in Minnesota"
I've also caught myself scoffing at anyone wearing any sort of winter jacket - despite my own dwindled resilience.
It just seems like LA is Celebrating a Minnesotan Holliday.

The nonsense all started last month when they Assembled a Real
Christmas tree at a shopping center near my apartment . Like a giant 3D puzzle,
 they reattached every branch into its designated hole, let the scoffing begin. 

The Final Product...Ok it looks pretty good...

A couple weeks ago, we went to The Grove - the fancy schmansy outdoor shopping area near my apartment so we could watch them light the tree.
The event was to be televised, complete with musical guests like Gavin Degraw, Colbie Callait, and other hot new performers from various hot new Talent Shows and all that.

 Everything was beautiful, but the event was awful.
The producers kept stopping the performances and interviews and resetting for extra takes.
Then they demanded that everyone in the audience applaud so that the camera could capture "all the fun we were having" while waiting over 4 hours for the damn tree to light.
It sucked, we felt like we were being used, kids started crying and people started chanting "Light the TREE!!" but they just cranked up music over the speakers to drown us out.

Then all of the sudden, it started to "snow".

While the sight was beautiful, we soon realized that the "snow" was actually just some kind of chemical soap that tasted like poison and caused several people to leave the event in a cussing fury.

It was actually pretty hilarious. 

We decided to leave after waiting about 4 hours (along with most of the crowd) but were able to catch the fireworks show from my apartment building

These Seats were much better

We decided to head back to the Grove a few nights later and were able to see the final product...

_________________________________________

Well, in case you were wondering...

What has Darth Vader been up to lately??

Apparently hanging around Rite Aid, getting his Flu shot.

He did find time to Stop by Chick-Fil-A before heading back to the Death Star.

____________________________________________
Steph found a store entirely devoted to Harry Potter recently (of course she did) and lived out her dream of being selected to Gryffindor House while a room full of adults dressed in Hogwarts attire congratulated her.

____________________________________________

I found this book at Target and thought it was awesome.

It would appear that Dr. Jekyll is a tad constipated.

_________________________________________________________
Some people ask us how we've managed to stay grounded while living in LA and avoid succumbing to ridiculous fashion cliche's or becoming pseudo intellects or even "Hipsters"

By cuddling up with an old Steinbeck novel and listening
 to a  second hand vinyl  while  sipping some fair trade
chai and working on our exaggerated mustaches of course.

However,
always on the lookout for new trends, some of LA's citizens find ways to embrace nearly every trend in one confounding statement.
Like this guy...

Fashion Genius? Perhaps.
Ruining my favorite Sub Shop? Yes.

_________________________________________

Okay okay, dragging on.

The last fun thing we did recently was go to Universal Studios.

Yes! The Globe!

Steph snagged a photo with the Apollo 13 crew.

We were lucky enough to catch a throw-back Gloria Estefan music video in the food court.

Saw the "Waterworld" Stunt show: far better than the movie I assure you.

And my personal favorite.
 We got to see some memorabilia from one of my favorite shows,
Friday Night Lights.
 These pads of course belong to Dillon Texas' own Tim Riggins.
"Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose"

Ok cool, that's it.

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, lots of love to my family and friends, and you too I guess.

You wanna talk about car problems?

"Because I got a '98 Civic that's harder to turn over than ME on Laguna Beach!"

(Beverly Hills Ninja anyone?)

Yo yo yo,

It's been a little while since my last update but I wanted to wait until I had something positive to say about my situation....

But that hasn't panned out so what-the-hell.

Here goes.

It all started a couple weeks ago when I wanted to surprise Steph by showing up at her place and take her out for breakfast

(Note: As to who would be paying for breakfast was undetermined)  

So I'm cruising down Wilshire Blvd on a beautiful 80-degree sunny day in Los Angeles, past the La Brea Tar-Pits and Rodeo Drive and then Beverly Hills and I'm thinking to myself:

"You know, I might actually be getting used to this whole LA thing."  

Then Judas (my Honda Civic) starts giving me gruff like it wants to turn off. 

Literally just die in my arms while I'm going 30+ MPH 

(Of course I'll never know exactly how fast I was going because Judas killed my speedometer six months ago.) 

My initial reaction was to pretend like nothing was happeneing, I'm hallucinating. 

There is absolutely no Frickin' way that MY CAR would try to DIE ON ME after I had just replaced the alternator for the 2nd TIME in THREE WEEKS...

The Dashboard lights pulsed a couple times, breathed their final breaths, made some Star Wars "engine turbine shutdown" sounds and then....nothing. 

I was still going 30 MPH of course.

In a coffin-on-wheels. 

I coasted through an intersection (Thank God for that Green Light) and tried to pull over to the side of the road amidst the LA traffic. 

Judas...

Everything was planned perfectly, he was trying to kill me. 

I came to this realization when I discovered exactly where I was now stopped. 

You see, my car decided to die on one of the busiest roads in LA at a spot right between a golf course.

No Shoulder, No bike lane, No where to pull over. 

And the nearest side street was (and I Google Mapped this) 1/3 mile  ( or 5 football fields) Up-Hill into the World renown Los Angeles Country Club.

Walk of Doom

It was one of those moments where I might've just walked away from the scene had that been a possibility, but with traffic swerving and honking and driving up-my-ass. 

I had to push. 

I'm having too much fun with Google Maps

Now I've pushed a dead car before, but I had assistance, this was a whole different ball game. 

I not only had to push the damn thing, but steer and work the parking break when my legs collapsed every 30 steps, not to mention wave to oncoming traffic to "Go around" or provide a more expletive hand jesture should it become necesarry. 

Talk about multitasking. 

The Swass was inevitable. 

I had dirt all over my shirt, arms, and face from wiping away sweat after laying my hands on the car. 

I was a real mess. 

I took another quick break and called Steph to ruin her day by having her come get me. 

A couple of Good Samaritan's came at the last second and helped me push the car the final 30 yards into the Main Entrance of the Golf Course.

They gave each other a high-five, a hard days work, and then were gone.

Great Timing Guys.

I found myself in the front drive of the beautiful LA country club.

The Security guys were awesome, they carted out some water and set up traffic cones.

I got into a conversation with the head-of-security who spent his time trying to recruit me into the LAPD, he was an old officer who now runs the security at the course. 

Alan, good guy.

The other guy, Juan, ran and grabbed me a bartending application after I told him that I used to work at a country club. 

So who knows?? Maybe this whole crazy day has a silver lining.

Steph soon arrived and was psyched to see me.

She rescued me in her pajamas = dedication.

"Not this again"

Lucky me, I still had the number of the towing service I had to use just weeks before to come get me, they came and took this....

 

Back to here....

And that was over a week ago.

Nazo, my mechanic who I am rapidly losing patience with, has been beside himself with this thing.

He again replaced the alternator, (as if the 3rd time is the charm).

Then he drove it around and it broke down on him! 

HA! Now all of the sudden its a wiring issue. 

I have not seen my car in a while.

I would be more pissed but he has been been doing this all for free (or so he tells me). 

The other day he called me and said that he was going to try to install some sort of "direct wire" nonsense, it sounds dangerous and probably illegal.

So I said fine, It's just got to get me to a dealership so I can trade that Mo-Fo in and get another crap vehicle. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day after that fiasco, Steph and I went back to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and watched Poltergeist with some friends. 

We made sure to get in line extra early so we had some primo spots. 

We ended up sitting right near the front of the lawn, sipping Two-Buck-Chuck and eating snacks.

Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall/Veronica Mars) and her crew sat right behind us. 

Totally rad. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Next Day Steph and I drove Up to Big Basin Redwood National Forrest in Northern CAL. She had some vacation time and we were looking for:

A. an Adventure

B. Any chance to get out of LA

This was one of the Best Places I have ever been. I'll let the pictures explain.

Setting up our 6 person tent (Thanks Giblins)

 These trees can grow well above 300 ft and live over Two Thousand Years old.

 Redwoods are like mutant trees.

They have natural bug fighting qualites in their bark and are also extremely flame retardant.

When fires do occur, they burn through the inside of the trees, leaving then husked out, some go all the way to the top.

Steph: Height 5'4''... and that's the only statistic she will allow

Day 2 we took a 12-mile hike around the forest.

Saw some excellent waterfalls. 

refueling

 Does this forest look familiar?

It should, The Return of the Jedi was filmed here.

Yes.

This is the Ewok Forest.

Just imagine an AT-ST walking around out there

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

We made an entire day out of the drive back to LA.

We stopped in Monterey and checked out Cannery Row and The old Fisherman's Wharf.

The wharf was amazing, it was at one point the largest fishing wharf in the world and is famous for it's seafood restaurants and Elephant Seals that swim in the bays.

Elephant seal barking away

This Pelican was definitely unsure about me

The Wharf

 Now what's an ocean town without a place called "Lovers Point".

Well this place had one, so we checked it out.

It was this rocky area filled with crazy little squirrel/gophers.

A very wise looking Squirrel-Gopher

Our next stop was through the famous "17-mile-drive" along Pebble Beach.

This super secret spot is home to some of the world's most famous Golf Courses and one of the most famous tree's in all of nature. (See Below)

"The Lone Cypress"
A pretty big deal according to photographers

Next we stopped off in the artsy ocean city of Carmel-by-the-Sea and found a little hole in wall Pub called The Hog's Breath Inn.

Hog's Head Pale Ale, Yum

This restaurant had some great burgers and beer. 

Oh, and It's owned by Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood Merch all over the place

I had the famous "Dirty Harry" Burger, Steph had some delish Fish 'N Chips. 

Next time you're in Carmel, check it out.

Yes THAT Eastwood.

After The Hogs Breath, we strolled around Carmel, thanks to the detailed tour guide provided by Steph's dad Randy, who not only suggested places to visit but gave us the detailed history of just about every building we encountered. It was awesome.

We ran down to the bakery and I asked for a football cookie before I realized that they were dog treats.

So tempting

So I settled on a Ghost Cookie instead...

The artistry was a joke compared to the dog cookies

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in LA.....

My Twin Roommates Matt and Jeff Giblin celebrated their birthday in high-style as they threw their annual "Twin Party"

All guests were encouraged to find a Twin and dress as such.

Naturally Steph and I went as the Minnesota Twins (Cute!)

Mario Matt and Luigi Jeff

Then the mustache went around the room

"D'ya have a good Sarsaparilla?"

"A Wiser Fella than Myself once said, 'sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar, well, he eats you'"