barry burton
What I Did On Summer Vacation
For the 4th of July weekend, Brett and I journeyed to LA. We visited Geoff and pregnant Kat, who is very cute in her current condition. :) Their apartment was really good for being in overpriced LA. The complex had a few too many doors, though. It got confusing, like a maze. We also went to Ben’s wedding (well I went to it, and Brett was in it). And I got to visit Barret. How did so many people end up in LA? All I know is that I just want to surf.
Friday we, along with Geoff, bummed around Venice Beach, ate lunch at In-N-Out, did a little shopping in downtown Santa Monica, and ate dinner at a contemporary Thai place with Kat. Venice Beach was a little quiet, I think because it was a weekday, but street performers and masses of people were still present, pretty much exactly like it is portrayed in movies. This day resulted in a Chaco tan on my feet and a burned nose.
On Saturday Geoff and I drove up to Malibu to see his office, then down to Huntington Beach to look around and make a return at the American Apparel store there. Huntington was more Seaside than Seaside. A boundless supply of rich fake-pretty people. For dinner we met Kat and her family at Gladstone’s in Long Beach. While Geoff and I were waiting for the others (with cameras drawn, of course) this old guy starts harassing us about taking a picture of the restaurant at sunset. We give him the cold shoulder, thinking him to be an annoying tourist (which he looked like, with camcorder in hand) but he finally reveals that he is the owner, so Geoff talks to him for a bit. He offers a free meal if he likes the photograph. We were never quite sure if he was serious.
Ben and Christine’s wedding was on Sunday. That morning Brett and I help set up the reception at a park in Yorba Linda. It was ridiculously hot. I sweated alot. The wedding was in a little community church down the road. The ceremony was small but pretty and featured many red highlights, even on the bridal gown (uncoventional, but it worked well). There was a long pause between the ceremony and the reception because the wedding photographs were done then, so I got bored and took lots of pictures of random things including myself. The reception didn’t start until 6, so it was much cooler by then. It had somewhat of a film theme (Ben is a video guy), in addition to the continuation of the red.
On Monday I drove to Pasadena, where I met Barret at his house. We went to this field, that was in many respects exactly like the intramural fields in Auburn, only this was across the street from the Rose Bowl. He illustrated the art of flying RC planes, at which he seemed good. There were actually a few other guys out at the same field flying too. Apparently there is some sort of informal club of RC flying people at Cal Tech. They all knew each other (and what channel each flew on, which is apparently very important). After this, Barret and I drove over to Malibu and ended up stopping at Zuma beach, which was totally packed. People covered the beach and dotted the surf. The sand was really hot (like seriously burning your feet hot) but the water was really cold (like have to keep moving, blue fingernails, whole body shivering cold). The water also offered real waves. I saw no surfers, but plenty of boogie boarders were among those in the sea. The waves actually had enough oomph to successfully body surf them, which I did all afternoon. While it was much fun, at the end of it, I discovered my formerly pale body to have attained a fairly uniform bright red coloration. I say fairly because my shoulders were redder than anything else. (Severely burned shoulders makes for traveling fun, especially since I usually carry bags with a strap over my shoulder). On the bright side, I did have amazing surfer hair for the rest of day.
Tuesday was my crash course in Filipino culture. Geoff, Kat, and I spent the day with her family. Lunch at a Filipino restaurant, hanging out at her parent’s house for the afternoon, and home cooked Filipino food for dinner. It was great learning all of the new foods and customs and social assumptions. It makes the whole concept of normal seem a bit funny — we take it to be so absolute, when in actuality, it is so relative. I even tried to pick up a bit of Tagalog, but ehhh, no luck there. :) Kat’s mom and dad and sister were all super hospitable and nice and a lot of fun. Also, it was Geoff’s birthday, so they had a cake for him. Driving back to Geoff and Kat’s apartment was amazing. I guess LA is mostly in this giant valley and the freeway is raised up a little, so I could kinda see fairly far off into the distance all around. Being the night of the fourth, as we were driving, fireworks were shooting up all around us. Nearby and far away, all over the valley, fireworks just randomly popping up. Pretty.
