A Potential Apocalypse is Coming...

Sorry for the overdue absence in posts. I was actually in the middle of drafting a post about our current apartment and the trials and tribulations of getting settled into our new apartment and then last week happened.

Last week, a 93 year old 30" water main pipe off of Sunset Blvd ruptured and punctured a huge hole in the pavement and poured out between 8-10 million gallons of water... (for the record, we're in a serious drought for, I think, the 3rd year... I can't stress how not good this was in that respect) straight onto UCLA's campus. Here's the official report. So, the big problem was that the break was uphill and campus was downhill and all the water flowed into Drake Stadium, the athletic fields, Pauley Pavilion (where the basketball court is housed), into the athletics building, parts of some neighboring buildings, and worst of all, into the underground parking structures 4 & 7.

The big take aways from the water main break are:

1. Anyone parked in lots 4 or 7 essentially had to leave their vehicles in the lots unless they managed to get them out before the water rose too high.
2. Anyone parked in lots 4 or 7 on the lower level most likely lost their vehicle to water intrusion as water levels reached over 5 feet high on the bottom levels of the structures.
3. Almost 1000 vehicles were in lots 4 & 7.
4. Pauley Pavilion had 8-10" of water on the basketball court.

So, this happened last week. The weekend before (July 26/27), Venice Beach had a rare lightning storm that left 1 dead. What is happening in Los Angeles?! I joked with Cameron before we moved out here that moving to LA may be a bad idea because any time there's the end of the world coming in movies, they are always set in LA or NYC... maybe I jinxed us. So, hence, the title of this post.

There have been no more thunderstorms, and UCLA has been moving towards getting vehicles released and cleaning up the campus. My work is rather fluid, so when staffing issues arise, I'm fairly mobile. Since Thursday I've been helping out with the flooding relief efforts, which has only now started to die down. That means people are getting their cars back, which is the best news! Thank goodness my parking permit was changed at the beginning of the summer to a completely different structure closer to my office. I used to park in Lot 4 as a student and sometimes it was on the lower level. I drive a Mini Cooper, so it's fair to say my car probably would have floated away if it was on the bottom level, so I'm very grateful to have dodged that bullet!

On a happier note, here is Gambit with his new ball a friend gave me (I was actually visiting her when the lightning strike happened, very, very far away from the coast). This was actually her dog's, but the wrong size was purchased so her pooch was actually afraid of the ball. But it suits Gambit just fine! Good thing we live on the first floor because that thing is LOUD when we toss it around the apartment for him to chase. (That's right, we have space to through things for the doggie!)

California Adventure

One of my high school buddies came down to LA over President's Day weekend. It was a nice reprieve from school to do fun things for the weekend. Chris had never been to LA before and he came on a pretty nice weekend weather wise- mid 70s and sunny. We poked around Venice Beach and Santa Monica the first day and went to California Adventure at Disney Land the second.

The last time I went to California Adventure was in 2011, and now that I've been to both Disney Land and California Adventure recently, I have to say that California Adventure is by far my favorite of the two. California Adventure is more of a "traditional" theme park in that there are more thrill rides and less "story" rides like you'd get at Disney Land. The fun part of California Adventure is that all the areas are themed around real places in California- they even have buildings named after places that you can see in real life! I could have sworn they used to have a small Golden Gate Bridge and the letters of California outside of the park (well, I know they had the letters because there's a picture of me in one from 2009), but I didn't see them this time around. My friend is a big Disney park fan; he originally asked to go to Disney Land, but I suggested California Adventure since he was going to Disney World in a few months with his class (he's an English teacher) and California Adventure can only be found in Anaheim!

I really enjoyed myself and I think Chris did as well too. I did snag the Monster's Inc Sully zip up hoodie that I had passed on last time we went to Disney Land (and I regretted) and some other fun things since no one was there to judge :]

I love Chris' funny faces when he knows where the camera is on the rides!

Look who I saw!

I absolutely loved Cars Land. It was incredibly well done and looked like you had stepped into the movie!

One of my favorite rides!

Beginning of World of Color. Never disappoints!

Venice Beach

Now, I am pretty sure what sold Cameron on moving to Los Angeles is Venice Beach (though I've never asked, so this is an educated guess). It's a hop, skip, and a jump away from Santa Monica (my favorite area), but has a more artsy and quirky vibe than Santa Monica. We took Will to Venice on the last night he was staying in LA with us, and walked on the boardwalk and had dinner and drinks there.

Venice definitely has quite a few characters you can find there. The boardwalk has a lot of tourist shops, but also a bunch of street vendors who sell whatever they can to the tourists (or locals) walking on the boardwalk. In March, Cameron and I stumbled on the skate park that was mesmerizing to watch. Some of those kids have way more foot-eye coordination than I can ever dream of. We didn't stop this time at the skate park, but just walked around at probably the perfect time of day and had dinner right on the boardwalk.

I saw this last time, but failed to take a picture of it, but made sure to get one this time. Someone made TRANSFORMERS.

Here's the sunset at Venice. So pretty!

 Photo cred to Will on the last one!