Four-teen months after my adventure driving to California, I returned for a nine-day visit. I quit my job at Best Buy after being hired at IBM and gave myself a 3-week vacation. Armed with my income-tax return and my new digital camera, I caught a flight to LAX. I took over 140 pictures while I was there. I took that camera EVERYWHERE I went (I'm not kidding). This is a pretty big sample of that collection and they are all in order. By this time Alan had moved out of his parent's house and moved into an apartment with 4 other people in West Covina.
It looked a lot better from the air than this picture shows, but that is Meteor Crater Arizona! I thought it was so cool that I saw it like this! A year earlier from the ground, and then a year later from the air on my return visit. The original image wasn't that clear so I enhanced the contrast and sharpened it a little in an attempt to improve the quality.
My digital camera always made a great conversation piece.. 'The Guys' wanted me to take a picture of them, so I did. These guys are 3 of Alan's 4 roommates. From left to right: Ed, Steve, and Andre. Things have changed since this was taken, however. Ed moved back home outta state and I think went into the military. Steve got married (lucky bastard). Andre is still around, though. Great bunch of guys.
Well I guess I had to have my token sunset shot for the trip. Alan and me were on our way to Redlands to get the rest of his stuff from his old apartment.
Before we left Redlands we stopped at this little amusement park place. This is the entrance to the arcade building. It had a big video arcade in it and lots of stuff for the kiddies. California is...just...different, man. They have some wild stuff out there.. like this building, for starters! That's Alan on the left there sitting on the, uhhh, paw of the sphinx. This camera doesn't do well at all in low light. I had to brighten the image some so you can see Alan.
This one is a little over exposed so I look like a sheet. This is me on the wall of Alan's backyard talking on the phone.
This was my sleeping quarters for the duration of my 9-day stay (the livingroom). It was actually pretty comfortable. The only problem was there were 4 other people in the place who had lives of their own and made noise in the morning. This includes Rolf, who loved his morning espressos(!).
I saw this and it made me think of my mother and her gardening exploits. I clicked this one while we were transferring from the Azusa Ave. bus to 'the 10' (I10) bus enroute to the movie theater. An odd looking plant -- it's like an Aloe and flower plant rolled into one. Well...this ones for you, mom...
Another word you could use to describe California is BIG. They love doing EVERYTHING out there BIG. This is the Edwards 18 movie theater. Eight-teen freakin' theaters in there, man! And all of the theaters have stadium seating, large screens, and kick-ass sound systems. That's me on the right, leaning on the pillar.
Another shot of the theater. I wanted to show how pretty the place is. It's all part of a shopping center (on the right). I've never seen any place do trees they way they do 'em out there in CA. It seems like almost every other shopping center or office complex is all done up. I wonder how pretty downtown Washington DC would look like if it was in California???