OakMonster's Den

Hi there.

I haven’t been home in the evening since Monday. And the trend is not stopping.  Sorry for the pauses in posting.

Monday night I was at Face2Face: Elton John and Billy Joel concert.  I treated James, my fellow piano man, to this as his belated birthday and early Christmas presents.  We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.  Billy Joel rocked my socks off and Elton John wowed me silly.  I got a few horrible cell phone video clips I’ll post later.

Yesterday, our former colleague Erin returned to the office to temp for a week while she’s on break from school.  I talked her into joining me for dinner with my social media friend Jeff (@jeff419) at Shiki (Dear GOD the sashimi plates were HUGE!), and then to learn about social media and branding at the Social Media Club LA event.  We had a great time with Jeff and at the SMCLA.  Much fun to watch the debate between the traditional branding ideas and the new social media way of thinking.

Seriously, I thought we were going to have a full out cage match out there at some point with between Rob Frankel (@brandingexpert) the Branding Expert and Babette Pepaj of BakeSpace (@bakespace).  Good points from both side though.  Read all about #smcla here.

Tonight, I have yoga.

Tomorrow, Brandon and I had something to do.

Friday, it’s Tweet Up Long Beach at Roscoe’s.  (At least the whole day is being taken off for various medical appointment.)

Saturday, more appointment and a birthday party.

Yeah. I’m busy.

#1

first day in COW SCHOOL Found on Flickr by Wild*Dreams.

We were watching a National Geographic documentary Stone Henge Decoded. There was a scene when the archeology team starts to dig around the outside of the Durrington Walls.   There was a shot of all these cows gathered by the fence, seemingly to gawk at the humans.  Kind of like this.

“How cute!”  Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

“Look at all them lookymoos!”

***

#2

Iguanas...

Southern California finally returns to its natural state of sunny and warm this weekend.

“I’m sooo glad we can be out and about without a sweatshirt or jacket,” I told Brandon.

“Do we need to put you out on a rock or something?” he asked.

“Yep. Just like the guacam…uh…that’s not it.  What’s it called?  Galapagos?”

“You mean, iguanas?”

“Iguana! That’s it!”

“Did you almost say “guacamole” instead of “iguana”?”

“…er…yeah…”

…not guacamole

***

#3

Brandon is currently reading a book about a skinwalker, her vampire friend, and a pack of werewolves she calls family.

“If I have to pick between being a vampire or a werewolf, what would you pick?” I asked.

“Human,” he said.

“I’m going to be a werewolf because then I can have a tail! Oooh, a big werewoofy tail I can wag!’

He looked away from the Kindle. “Did you just say wereWOOF?”

“No, I said ‘wereWOOF‘.”  Really, I was saying “wereWOLF” but being sleepy got my Thai accent acting up.  I did say wereWOOF.

He laughed.  “I think you’d be cuter as a werebeagle.”

“Ooooh. Cute and lethal!  I like that.”

“Or a were(chi)huahua.”

I started giggling.  “Werewawa?”

He started giggling too. “Or a were0ala.”  (Werekoala.)

We both got the giggle fit at this point.

He said, “Or a weretypus!”

“Were-ta-what?”

More giggles.

platypus (regular, not were)

St. Patty’s was a hit both at work and at home.  A great turn out at the office with everything from cookies to green deviled eggs.  9 people showed up at my doors for the Guinness Stew and a little bit of drinking.  The old gang hung out well with my new friends from Tweet Up, Annette @dananner and Wyatt @phraktyl.

A lesson we learned?  Don’t ever give Phraklet, Phraktyl’s son, a Mountain Dew. Ever. Again.  LOL.

I didn’t drink all that much at St. Patty’s.  Just an Irish Car Bomb I did with Annette and Wyatt and a couple more sips of Limoncello with Lee.  Everyone respectfully headed out at 10 p.m. sharp and since we were cleaning up as we go, we went to bed soon after that.

So, when I rolled out of bed at 5 a.m. the next day, it wasn’t that painful.  However, the Car Bomb and Limoncello still lingered in my system when I got to the meeting.  At 10 a.m., the hangover hit and I was dying for something nice and greasy for lunch.

I found that in the fresh cut fries at Rowdy Red in Downtown LA.  The black & blue burger was pale compared to that.  And it was that the lovely greasiness held me over for the next couple of hours before heading home.

As it turned out, the OC Register tweet led me to an article about President Obama’s arrival in Long Beach and how it might affect traffic that afternoon.  So I left work at 2 p.m. as to avoid any kind of traffic mayhem down there at 3 p.m.

By the time I settled in at home and got to open the windows, it was a few minutes before 3.  I spotted an airliner flying over Seal Beach.  How odd, I thought, I’ve never seen a jet going…WAIT A SECOND!

I ran and grab Brandon’s camera with super zoom lense.  It was really hard to focus past the screen, but I did caught a full glimpse of the Air Force One coming in to land.

Wow.  WOW!

Once AF1 was out of sight, I turned on the TV to confirm that it was what I just saw.  A few minutes later,  footage of the plane “parking” on TV.  Then the President stepping off…and whisked away into…Marine One.

Marine One?!?  Not a motorcade?!?

LOL.  I’m sure my boss is happy about that news.

Finally, I got to my nap.  A couple of hours I woke up to greet Brandon and headed out to yoga.

Good gosh. It’s been a crazy couple of days.

P.S. I’m going to start tagging the blog now.  Just FYI.

It’s over. My big event is all done.  Hellooooo, normal life! Kind of.

I have next week to get content to our web people and we need to launch that puppy at the end of next month.

But today, I will wrap up other things and will lunch at Drago Centro.

Yep. Treating myself to a Dine LA menu as a celebration of having managed a sold-out event and having been with the Office for 4 years.

I’ve also been blogging a little prolifically at the food blog since I started to remember to pick up my camera when I was done cooking.  It’s really interesting to try to take picture of food and making it look yummy.  Food photography is not as easy as you think!

And tomorrow, Olaina and I are going to burrow ourselves in movie theater seats ALL day.  The joy of the Oscars showcase at AMC!  Darn Ben Button, the only reason why we might not be out of the theatre until 1 a.m.   The last movie, Frost/Nixon, doesn’t go on until 9:45, yo!  Nonetheless, THIS is the movie lover heaven.

My friend Greg and his lovely girlfriend will also join us.  They’re skipping out on The Reader and we’ll skip out on Slumdog Millionaire.  Even Irena and Danny who joined me last year are trying to move their previous engagement so they could go to one in their neck of the wood in MA.

Sunday, I’m planning on hanging out with my baby all day. The man put up with me all week with this work crap…AND saved me when the migraine hit!  Probably going to try hiking somewhere new if the weather permits.

Food. Movie. And Brandon. There you have my Holy Trinity of Love.

 As of 15:45 PST, 3960 people around the world danced to Thriller at 11 a.m. PST.

That includes 114 of us Thrill the World Los Angeles at Hollywood & Highland this morning.

More of Brandon’s fantastic photography here. And the pool is here.

Did you see us on ABC 7 at 4:30 p.m.?  Oh yeah.  I got a full shimmying shot into the camera there.  Haha!

Also on KTLA 5 for a blip, however I don’t know where that lady got her 10,000 number from. It’s not even in the press release!

And here’s the brainchild of Mahdroo and Ines with the help of Kaleo Futuristo–the Thrill the World celebration song!

I was an incredible experience, y’all.  Ordinary people pulled together.  Most are not dancers but just joined in for the hell of it.  And here we are.

As the impromptu “publicist” of the group, I think I did okay.  I didn’t get us all the press we could, but we did pretty good for the first time out.

Marketing and publicizing (is that a word?) are similar yet totally different.  But I’ve learned a LOT.

For sure, I’ve learned that one can’t really dance and run the show at the same time.  LOL.  Maybe next year we’ll get a better group of Zombie Groupies to help out so we won’t have to run around so much on our own.

Mahdroo. You da man!  Amanda. The goddess!  And Ines, you little Torontoan dynamo we couldn’t have done all of this without!

And all the helpers too…I can’t possibly thank them all but I’ll do my best here.

Babette.  Baby!  My friend Lee.  Queen of All Waivers!  Jennifer and Randy with the Fresh & Easy pick up!  Oh yes, thank you F&E for your donation of water and granola bars for our hungry zombies!  Dawn the production manager. Girly you rule!  Angel, Adam Sevani’s agent, darling, you gave us the best Michael Jackson we could ask for.

And of course, my hubby who illegally parked at the loading zone so he didn’t miss out on the first dance, then took great pictures of the whole thing, helped with packing up, and bought me slushy lemonade afterward.  Kiss!

Nhien showed up as well as my long lost dot come friend Christine and her brand spanking new baby Owen.  OMG indeed.

After this? A bath. USC Football. And a nice long uninterrupted sleep.

Oh, and building the temp site for ThrilltheWorldLosAngeles.com so we can host video tomorrow.

Must go to sleep. But before that…

Check out Mahdroo in the LA Times!  Wish I could embed the video but WordPress acts weird somtimes.

See y’all in the morning!

Dear The Good Citizens of Santa Monica:

Not only your Virginia Park has the best and cleanest restrooms in all the parks I’ve ever visited, your people are the most honest, kindest of the bunch.

Thank you, Nice Person, for returning my wallet to the police sub-station.  With all the stuff I put in my purse today for the Thrill the World LA meeting, I barely noticed that my wallet had fallen out as I pulled out my phone when I exit the car.

Thank you Officer Reyes for calling me right away, and not scolding me for being that dumbass who didn’t even realize she dropped her wallet.

Good karma is yours, my friends.

Yours in All In The Universe That Is Good And Holy,

OakMonster

On top of the Big Gala, I have taken on the role of the publicity machine for Thrill the World Los Angeles on my off hours.

I’m doing pretty well, considering the first year of TTWLA and my involvement with the crew.  A good distraction from the Big Gala coming up.

Instead of Big Gala nightmares, I have TTW anxiety.  A good preparation for the real thing, I guess.

Ines, the creator of Thrill the World, is coming into town tomorrow and I’ll get to meet her as well as Amanda and Mahdroo to powwow on the rest of the plans.  A few more days to go now.

Here’s the trail I’ve blazed so far (and being constantly added).

• Torrance Daily Breeze proclaims “Zombies invade Manhattan Beach.”
• Wall Street Journal “Best of the Web” October 13 – See the Daily Breeze’s headline toward the end.
• LA Times’ The Guide calls us “massive display of organized goofery”.
• Mahdroo talks to Kevin & Bean on KROQ October 22 at 7:30 a.m.  (Clips coming soon!)
• NBC Los Angeles got us on their around town section.
• Geoff Boucher of LA Times’ Hero Complex blog got us in for “Halloween, FanboyStyle.“

The Torrance Daily Breeze was there yesterday, featuring its very own resident and half of Thrill the World leader, Amanda.

But look closely at Picture #1 and #4.  You see somebody familiar?

Of course, after the practice, I got home and had to try on my make up. You like?

So, mark your calendar for Saturday, October 25 at Hollywood & Highland Center.  The dance will start at 11 a.m. sharp and lasts only 5 minutes so I’d suggest that you guys be there no later than 10:45 to catch all the action.

You know you’re in Southern California when your breakfast is leftover lamb biryani and goat curry, your lunch is chopped salad and roasted tomato soup, and your dinner is pork belly over piles of kimchi at a Korean barbecue.

Add some good friends into the mix, and what you have is one great Sunday.

Well, except for the fact that Brandon is not here and the kimchi heartburn is creeping up.

I had a lunch date with Nora at South Coast Plaza today to get all the news from her recent trip to Australia and New Zealand, and to view her company’s entry to Canstruction OC 2008.   Nora’s firm takes part in this national competition for construction and design firms to design and build sculptures, if you would, out of canned goods to be donated to local food banks.

RBF’s is the bridge across the Grand Canyon by Hoover Dam.  Pretty impressive, actually.  Click on these to visit my Flickr album with other pictures of the ones that I like.

My favorite has to be Disney’s Wall*E set (on the left) completed with some hidden Mickeys–as in Mickey Mouse coffee or chocolate–all over.  Unfortunately for Fluor, they attempted the same theme (on the right)…and didn’t do so well.

After the afternoon in the mall, I joined James and Aurora for dinner at the Wako Honey Pig Korean Barbecue.  Aurora’s sister came to babysit so we all could go enjoy Aurora’s birthday dinner.

Hmmm…black pork belly.  Whatever the black means.  The belly.  The kimchi.  The fried rice.  And everything in between.

While in there, I missed Brandon’s call to say good night.  Whoops.