interesting trolley people

today turned out to be the day all the "crazies" decided to visit the trolley.

• first, there was the lady with the duct tape. yes, duct tape. she carried nothing else, but that. she was at the fenton parkway station, which is where i get picked up every morning. she was hanging around the ticket booth, pushing buttons, making the machine go crazy. i'm assuming she wanted to break it so she could duct tape it up and fix it. as soon as she saw me approaching the ticket machine, she walked across the tracks to a few benches. i got my ticket and sat on the opposite side of the tracks from her (which side of the tracks you are depends on where you're going (into downtown v. more residential areas) ) because i needed to go downtown. she sat on the benches and began duct taping her legs - her jeans specifically - which had no apparent tears or rips. i'll assume she was accessorizing.
• then there's the random screaming guy. there are a couple of these downtown - i've seen one lady who randomly yells obscenities while she walks down the sidewalk. this guy looked somewhat more "normal" than the crazy lady. except, he was just walking down the sidewalk and started jumping up and down, screaming and yelling so loud that his face was fire engine red. then he stopped yelling, and continued walking down the street like nothing at all had just happened. this happened three times while i was waiting for the trolley to pick me up. he then crossed the tracks when he saw a guy pull out a cigarette and asked him for one. either the guy was deaf, or he pretended to be. so the crazy, screaming guy walked back across the tracks, looking for someone who could pass him a stick of nicotine. i became really nervous when he started to stare directly at me and walk toward me. luckily, he made a sharp turn and headed back to his post where he then had another crazy screaming fit.
• these next couples didn't scream like crazy people or bring duct tape (or a shovel like a woman mentioned before). it's the mere fact that they were couples. there was a guy (about 14 years old) and a girl (that was about 17 years old) and they were all over each other. it was disturbing. i attempted not to look to my right so i wouldn't be forced to look at this couple. so i looked to my left. and there was another couple (they were older...somewhere in their 20s) - the girl was dressed pretty scandalously and they completely disregarded the fact that they were in public and watching them was gross. so there i was - not able to look to the right, the left, or really straight ahead. i could either watch two couples make out or stare at the crazy screaming guy. no bueno. better just to stare at the ground.

this is changing subjects a bit, but it's just an update about our weekend. overall, the weekend was pretty low-key. it started out friday night with dustyn meeting up with me and two of my co-workers (kelley and nicole) at the Ivy, which is a hotel with a rooftop bar and pool. i wouldn't have gone with them, but it was the next part that was intriguing to me. around 7:00, we walked across the street to see the loft of this millionaire. one of our co-workers (eric) invited us to the open house for this loft he designed before he started working for gensler. i've never really been to an open house kind of thing before and i thought dustyn would enjoy it - instead of us just being lazy at home - so we agreed to go. it was a lot of fun and a super cool space. essentially, this millionaire bought two condos and tore down the wall that separated them. they completely changed the place(s). everything technological that you can imagine was in this space. the bathroom doors were clear glass, but there was a switch that could "frost" the glass to make it opaque so no one could see in. *awesome* the bathroom mirrors had lcd tvs behind the mirror so he could get ready and watch tv at the same time. it was really cool to be able to go, even if just for a little while, to support a fellow employee, who happens to be just a year or two older than i am. what an opportunity he had to work with this guy.

before we left the ivy, kelley had to leave (she didn't go to eric's open house thing). she gave all of us hugs and she did the whole kiss on the cheek thing when she hugged everyone. dustyn told me later that night..."you know what i thought was really sweet?" i asked him what and he said, "when kelley hugged us and kissed us on the cheek. it made me feel special." we just assumed it was a california thing; i've seen other people do this when they say hello/goodbye here. this morning, i told kelley about our little conversation and she said, "oh, i thought that was a texas thing." how funny...us texans aren't that "sophisticated". anyway, she said that dustyn's comment made her day. :)

saturday, we slept in and decided to run some errands when we got up. dustyn has been wanting to clean/vaccum/wax our car, but he didn't have a good place to hook up the shop vac. so, we headed to the mall. this sounds peculiar to you i'm sure. but, at the malls here, they have parking garages and all of them have "Auto Spas" in them where you can leave your car and have it detailed while you shop. we decided we would do this while we went to see a movie.

i told dustyn i was tired of seeing boy movies, so i asked him to go see mama mia with me. unfortunately, there were only five showings on saturday and although we were there 30 minutes before showtime, they were sold out. sadness. instead, we went to see hancock. it turned out to be a good, funny will smith movie. i enjoyed it a lot and i really didn't expect to. the guys did an amazing job on our car and his comment was "texas has lot of dust". our license plates are still the texas ones. we just laughed and told him that driving through the desert was pretty horrible (aka: arizona and west texas).

the rest of the day was pretty uneventful; we rented a movie from blockbuster and ended up watching it that night. it wasn't all that glamorous. i can't even remember the name of it.

one thing i have been meaning to mention is that the other day (before i started my job) we saw parachuters practicing for the chargers games at qualcomm stadium across the street. they were jumping out of the plane and had american flags attached to their legs. they glided easily into the stadium. i wonder what the actual show will be like on game day. i'll try to prepare to take pictures. :)

sunday, we went back to kaleo church. dustyn and i both really wanted to try it again. i know this is lame and absolutely no excuse for not trying out a church (especially since it's applicable to our church back in austin) - but we had contemplated trying out the baptist church, but their website is so un-informative and really lacking. i think we might try it out at some point because we are aware that you're not "supposed to judge a book by it's cover", but i think we were both wanting to hear a really good message and felt confident that david at kaleo would deliver a really good one. man, were we right. i can't even begin to describe how WELL he puts his messages together and how wowed i am. i know it's not about the "wow" factor, but it's not like "wow, he's amazing"...it's about "wow, God's incredible".

we have found a place here that has the BEST shakes we've ever had. it's called ruby's. their burgers are probably my favorite here in CA. but my goooodness. their shakes are sensational. despite how full you are when you finish your meal, you can't help but crave a shake. go figure that the chocolate they use is hershey's. ;)

this is just a tidbit of information for you to prepare for. i'm going to making my blog private. there are a lot of things that i sometimes wish i could talk about on here, but i don't feel comfortable. i want to tell you things about my job, but there's always the possibility that if i said something in an open blog, i could lose my job. if i send you an email inviting you to read the private blog, be sure you don't delete it. if you're interested, and i'm unaware that you're reading my blog (because you're silly and you don't post comments) you should let me know.