Guess Who's Employed!?!

The last few weeks since my last post have been a bit hectic, mostly because I GOT A FULL TIME GIG AT UCLA. Do I seem excited? Because excited is an understatement. Since I last wrote, I was interviewing for two jobs at UCLA and seeing how both would pan out. It panned out well, I would say.

I officially accepted the offer last Friday, and Cameron and I celebrated being able to afford rent my getting a job over the weekend down at the pier at Redondo Beach at The Shrimp Lover. The position is at UCLA's Dean of Students' office and I already know several of the staff from my internship in the Vice Chancellor's office, which is an added bonus. I officially start Sept. 15 (right after we get back from Portland for my BFF's wedding).

Gambit: Before I got a job

Gambit: After I got a job

Our view at dinner! 

The Before Shot.

The Carnage! 

After dinner, we walked around on the pier...Look what we saw!

Getting Adjusted

About a month and a half ago, we moved into our new place. We found our new apartment on a rental site (you have to pay a premium and you gain access to all their listings. Landlords have to post their rentals.) It's a lot easier to navigate than Craigslist and short of just driving around neighborhoods, it helps give an idea of what's in an area (and then you can check it out and potentially find a place not listed). For us, since we have le grande pooch, this was a fairly easy way of finding a rental that would allow Gamby, was in our price range, showed photos, and also in the area we were interested in. Granted, I still had to make several phone calls in which number two question after "Is X still available?" was "What is your pet policy?"

Our new place is only a handful of miles away from our old place (4ish miles according to Google Maps)--and is located in Koreatown. It's so much larger than our old place- so much larger. Unlike our old place, our new apartment is 1 bedroom in a small building (only 8 units total) and has gated entry and parking! It feels more like a 1 story 1 bedroom townhouse than an apartment; at least that's how Cameron and I have been describing it. It has a front and back entrance and is large enough, we think, to be described as such. For instance, we have a formal dining room AND a laundry room (so grown up!). It's in a much more residential area-- it's a heavily populated area, but it's mostly family homes and apartments (Cameron said he felt like he was in a sardine can). Talk about a change of pace from Hollywood! We only really grapple with local traffic (so much more preferable than tourist or movie premiere traffic). Cameron's commute is way better (13ish miles for him = 30 minute commute regardless of time etc) than mine (9ish miles = 30 minutes in the AM and an hour in the PM).

Now, onto the "getting adjusted" part of this post. So, in the weeks we've been in our new apartment, we've had maintenance come to apartment practically every week- sometimes twice! It's nothing alarming, but rather just getting the kinks worked out. My co-workers suggested I blog about our breaking in stage since I always seem to have a new story about what's going on with our apartment.

Week 1: Request for shower light replacement, shower drain clogged, bathtub drip, shower faucet repair
Week 2: AC replacement
Week 3: Plastic removed from back door glass (later that week) water leak at washer hook ups
Week 4: Bathroom sink leak (that weekend) bathroom sink water backed up
Week 5: (pending) replacement burner caps for stove

Part of the reason for the high amount of requests, especially plumbing is we can't use Dran-o or any type of liquid plumbing due to our pipes being old and of a certain type. Having to ask for so many repair requests has made me very appreciative of our management company as our apartment manager is friendly and easy to get a hold of as are the people they contract for work. I just feel bad being "those tenants" that have a bajillion requests and has only been there for a month. But the more we're here, the less and less we've needed to contact them (for obvious reasons).

Another trial we have been facing is getting packages delivered to us. It seems that only USPS has a key to get into the building and so FedEx and UPS can't enter our building unless we're home. And they usually deliver in late morning/early afternoon and we're never home at those times. We can go the warehouse and pick up the packages, no problem. It just takes a hour out of our evening as we battle downtown traffic.

HOWEVER. This one time, a certain delivery company just left it, and I quote, "by the driveway in the bushes." What. By the time I got home said package was gone because it was pretty much on the sidewalk in a busy Los Angeles neighborhood for over five hours, and last I checked, bushes don't exactly have security systems. The delivery company was absolutely no help because the package didn't require a signature so it was the driver's discretion to leave it where he/she may... Luckily, the company I ordered from was willing to resend the package with a signature request so we can at least get it from the warehouse. Needless to say, there's now a note by our doorbell asking for packages not to be left on the doorstep.

One day we'll be all settled in. One day.

And, of course, some obligatory (but awful sad looking) photos of Gambit. I think he was pretty bummed about not getting his PetBox (which was the aforementioned lost/stolen package).

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!)

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

In my last post I mentioned that Cameron and I were going to a Dodger's game with a few of my friends from my program. The big draw of the game was the Hello Kitty thermos give-away! I was pretty stoked, Cameron could have cared less. Welp, the only one of us to get a Hello Kitty thermos was my friend's fiance, and that was because he got there super early. Apparently due to "unforeseen circumstances," they had a limited supply of thermoses (they were supposed to have 40k to give you an idea). So, we'll need to get back to claim our thermoses. Just gives me an excuse to see another Dodger's game.

I actually didn't take this photo- my friend did, but here's what we got instead of the Hello Kitty thermos :[

For those actually interested in the game and not the Hello Kitty giveaway :D we played the San Diego Padres and won the game 2:1. We had nosebleed seats, and let me tell you, I've never really had a big fear of heights, but sitting where we were made me a little nervous (ok, a lot) and I had a few moments of vertigo from being that high. The game was a lot of fun, and come to find out, the Dodgers have a lot of themed games. The one I'm SUPER excited about (even still, this is an understatement) is the Star Wars game in August, where, I believe, there is a fireworks show set to the soundtrack of the movies. All my nerdiness is so pumped for this. Again, I think Cam is just coming along for the ride.

So high up!

I wasn't planning on getting anything at the game except the giveaway since it was included in the price of our ticket, but my friend who is also a Hello Kitty fan mentioned that there was a Dodger's ball cap that also had Hello Kitty ears and bow. SOLD. There were some other regular Dodger's gear that we both were eyeing: this jersey for me and this baseball tee for him, but everything there was outrageously overpriced in my opinion so maybe later.

My souvenir for the game :D

Summer just isn't summer without a few ball games every now and then! Til next time! 

So....news?

Howdy, everyone.

So, the point of this post is really to reassure you all that I haven't forgotten about this blog and I definitely want to share some photos once we're all unpacked... we're going on 3 weeks now. Moving is the worst!

Unfortunately, I don't really have any exciting news to share, other than a few weeks ago before we moved from Hollywood, we saw two movies at the TCL Chinese Theater and Disney's El Capitan theater. We did take some photos, but they all came out blurry... It was pretty neat to sit in an old school theater, especially the Chinese Theater where a TON of premieres have been held. Not gonna lie, not going to miss that premiere traffic at all.

Our 4th of July was relatively low-key. We spent the evening with some friends down in Santa Ana and watched fireworks. Fireworks are illegal in Los Angeles County, but not in other counties (Santa Ana is in Orange County). Man, do they take it a bit far. You, like anywhere else, can purchase illegal fireworks, and here they go all the way. Many houses in my friend's neighborhood were shooting off the type you see at ball games or Disneyland. So, cool for us not having to go anywhere and the drive back was neat seeing all the different shows across the city. Gambit, however, is NOT a fan of fireworks. He did ok, but he was definitely startled most of the night.

We are going to a Dodger's game tonight- it's a Hello Kitty giveaway game, so a few of my friends from my program and their significant others are coming along. Cameron is thrilled about the Hello Kitty giveaway- not. Haha, but he's a good sport and is willing to come along :] Hopefully, this won't be our last MLB game of the summer- though ticket prices are wayyyyyyy more than the Greensboro Grasshoppers. $10 for premium seats are so not an option here.

Gambit has acclimated well to the new place- it's so much bigger than our last and he has plenty of places to sleep. In fact, often when we come home we have to call him rather than him immediately greeting us at the door. We're also pretty sure he spends most of our time in our bedroom (more specifically sleeping on the bed) since it's the only room that has AC and the sheets are usually balled up in one corner by the time I come home.

We also need to find a new groomer in town that won't cost us an arm and a leg. We had been going to Petsmart, but we've had some not-so-great experiences the last few times and their prices have become comparable to other pet groomers. Also, I'm fairly certain he got his ear infection from his last grooming session so there's really no incentive to keep going back. Now, the trials of finding a new place to get our dog washed when he gets a little stinky. It's a good thing we only do this every 2-3 months! It's expensive when you have the dog the size of a pony.

Hopefully, we'll be doing something newsworthy in the next little bit, like finally unpacking, haha.

I've Gradu-a-mated!

These past few weeks have been a whirlwind. We've gotten the new keys to our shiny new apartment (we're moving this weekend, so updates soon!), my folks came to visit, I finished my classes, and I graduated this past Saturday!!

Officially, Cameron and I have been in Los Angeles for 11 months and 8 days. How bizarre is it that I've already graduated in such a short time?! Graduating this time was definitely the most fun for me. It was outdoors at one of my favorite spots on campus, sunny with a nice breeze, and all of my cohort-mates were there to celebrate as well. Most of my group had decorated our caps, and it was apparent that our program was the most outgoing of all the programs in our department (we had the most decorated caps, we brought snacks for the ceremony, and when the ceremony closed, we finished it off with a rousing 8-Clap. Linked is my favorite video, and here are directions if you are itching to learn the 8-Clap.)

One of the traditions I like here (meaning SoCal) is that leis are given out as a part of the graduation hooplah. My supervisors in the Vice Chancellor, Student Affairs office gave me a kukui nut lei with UCLA colored ribbons on it. So cute! Many of my cohort had the traditional orchid lei- you don't see these on the East Coast!

I can't believe it's already over!

Best source of support I had all year-- this guy! 

The epitome of my artsiness- my graduation cap! A few girls in my cohort and I had a graduation cap decorating party; lots of fun and laughter. 

Here's the biggest difference between a Bachelors and a Masters gown- the hood. The light blue signifies the department, in this case, Education (my English one is white), and the lining reflects the school's colors. 

LA Wine Fest

Over the past few weeks, I've been struggling with what to post on the blog. Between Cameron starting his new job two(ish) months ago, and my finishing up my program (I passed my exams, woo hoo!), we honestly haven't been doing anything noteworthy. Seriously, not much has been going on. Well, I can recap a few mentionables before I get to the LA Wine Fest.

1. The weekend before Memorial Day Weekend, a few girls and I went to Las Vegas for a night. It was a pretty relaxed trip with my highlights being a quick trip to a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit at the Venetian, playing a Star Wars slots machine (first time at a slot machine!) and being in bed before 1am.

2. I dropped my phone down the elevator shaft at my apartment about three weeks ago. A super handy neighbor retrieved it for me. But talk about dumb luck, right?

That's really been about it in news from of our lives. However! This past weekend, Cameron and I went to the LA Wine Fest with a friend of mine from the cohort and her fiancee. It was fun to sample different wines and beers (and snacks) and enjoy some time out in the sun. The gentlemen wanted "optimum tasting time," so we stayed from about 2:45-6pm (the Wine Fest started at 2pm). There were food trucks (so I was very happy) and different craft booths as well. I snagged a bunch of photos a local artist took around LA. I've got a project in mind for them, but more on that later :]

In case you've forgotten what we look like, here's some recent shots!