Adrift in January

It’s 2012 and I have found myself in the weird position of being alone for the month of January!  What’s that, you say?  What do I mean?  Well, Larry is in NYC now and will be staying there through mid-February.  The first reason is that he went back early this month to be there for when his sister gave birth.  Happily, everything went well and Larry is now an uncle to a cute little girl named Stacy.  Welcome Stacy to your very happy family!  Also, his Strategy Farm bosses got a slew of new work and they asked him to come back for it and help.  Turns out there will be at least a month of work and so there he stays.  It’s good because the opportunities out here in LA have been very scarce, so I’m glad he can get his hands dirty and make some money again.  He can also build up his resume some more.  It does suck though to be chilling out alone.  Thank god I like video games so damn much.  And books.

Speaking of which, wow, I am reading two books right now that are incredible.  The first is Stephen King’ latest titled 11/22/63, a time-travel story that centers around the Kennedy Assassination and the conceit of “what if you could go back in time and stop Lee Harvey Oswald?”  I’m about 200 pages in and that part hasn’t even started yet.  The main character decides to test-drive the time travel rules he’s bound to by intercepting a tragedy that occurred to a friend of his back in 1958.  Of course, things don’t always work out the way you or he hopes, but in the course of the story, he runs into a few of the kids from Derry….DERRY, the city from Stephen King’s novel IT, which I coincidentally just read.  I love Stephen King.  The other book I’m reading is George R. R. Martin’s second in the Song of Fire & Ice saga, A Clash of Kings.  These books of his are so compelling and I’m utterly hooked.  I’ve been watching the HBO series via On Demand the last few nights and the producers did a masterful job bringing the first book, Game of Thrones, to life.  There’s a quote from within the book I can’t wait to see in the series, as it’s delivered from a very scheming, conniving, and powerful character to a virtuous, and ultimately foolish, opponent, concerning the way politics works/worked:  “In the game of thrones, you win or you die.”  The speaker is NOT fucking around when it’s being said.  And I bet Newt Gingrich would be happy enough to say these words to Mitt Romney.  🙂

So while I read, watch TV, and play videogames this January, I figure I should update and blog again.  When last I dropped in, it was right before I headed back to New York City for a week so that I could work and be with Larry while he visited with his sister a few weeks before giving birth.  It was wonderful going back and getting to see the tree at Rockefeller, all my team and coworkers/friends at 30 Rock and the CNBC facility at Englewood Cliffs.  I realized I miss being there a little bit, but only a little bit.  Santa Monica life is charmed.  Then for Christmas through New Year’s, we were back in LA and celebrated the holidays with Mom & Harv as well as my stister, Stacie and her family.  New Year’s was fun spending it with Wendy & Jay, and then before we knew it, it’s 2012 and back to work like nothing was amiss.

2012.  Yikes.  I read one of those books about the many different theories of what will kill us or cause the Earth’s destruction at the end of this year.  Massive solar flares.  Interstellar collisions.  Polar shifts.  Volcanic activity.  Our own tendency to self-destruct.  And hell, I’ve seen the AWESOME movie.  Yes, I said awesome.  Looks like Larry & I will have a front-row seat to California, and specifically Santa Monica & Venice, falling right into the ocean.  Totally sucks.  But if you’re going to either suffer in a post-apocalyptic world or go out early…what would you rather do?  Nuclear winter is totally overrated.

I hate when I don’t post for a while.  I feel the need to just word-vomit all over the screen.  How about I end for now, but make a pact with myself to keep at it again. I was doing good and I still haven’t lost the feeling.  I am going to look up different good and interesting blogging assignments/topics to keep myself entertained, as I really do like writing.  I swear.   Oh, and do go visit my Picasaweb site to see a slew of pictures I’ve taken in the meantime.  Here are a few to tide you over….

Larry’s Office of Clocks Project:

 Thanksgiving 2011 in Duarte:

A 5K through the Universal Studios Backlot:

Back in NYC (in the last pic, you can see how big the Freedom Tower has grown:

Back at 30 Rock:

At 30 Rock for the Company Holiday Party on the SNL Stage, Studio 8H:

Christmas with the Folks: