The whole event was pretty uneventful. Once we felt the building shake we stood in the doorways. They then evacuated us in a nice orderly manner (not hard to do since Californians are use to this sort of thing). Then told us we could go back into the building in about an hour once they had cleared the building. Nice, easy and quick.

Here’s some information on the quake itself - 5.4 So. Cal. Earthquake.

The trip was part vacation, part adventure. One of the performance groups that my wife dances with was invited to dance at various cities all over the country by the Everest Nepal Cultural Group.

Some of the places we ended up going included:

• Kathmandu
• Patan
• Narayangarh
• Palpa
• Pokhara

We will be working on getting pictures posted as we go through them, but it might take some time.

For now, here’s a picture of Mount Everest we took from the flight into Kathmandu.

IMG_0093, originally uploaded by gourmetdancer.

A few weekends ago Dancer and I had brunch down in Laguna Beach with some of my family - the view was gorgeous. We ate at a really cool restaurant called, “Las Brisas.”

We both enjoyed the show very much. I’m always worried that I’ll get bored, but they did an awesome job of keeping the story moving along. Since it was a ballet the set is pretty open, but they were able to make it work well.

After the show we were both pretty hungry but neither of us wanted to do anything fancy. We decided to head to one of our favorite pizza joints, Piecora’s. Dressed in full formalwear, we finished out our evening with some pizza and some tasty beer.

Here’s a Sneak Peak into some of what’s going on.

** UPDATE **

In an effort to make my life a little less crazy, I decided an apartment was a better idea than living in a hotel. A nice bonus is that I don’t have to pack my bag every week.

The new place is really nice and right on the beach in a city called, Redondo Beach.

View Larger Map

The place is pretty bare right now and I’m still working on getting cable (as well as internet) so I can bring my Xbox down. I also had my car shipped down so it would be more like home. Since the Audi was our only car we bought a Prius to fix that problem.

The biggest difference I’ve noticed about my new commute is the amount of time I spend doing it. Door-to-door takes me about 12 hours a week currently. This includes waiting time at the airport and 2 flights. Once I start my next project I’ll have a direct flight which will cut down on travel time. My old commute (not including the short lived Seattle to Bellevue one) probably took about 15 hours a week on average (2.5 hours each way, 3 days a week - door-to-door).

It now seems that I am actually spending less time commuting now than I was in the past. Granted there are other major differences related to the working in another state like residency, taxes, being away from home, etc but that’s a different thing altogether.

How does your commute fair?

We then decided we needed a more permanent residence so we purchased our first home. Although it means we have to do the whole move thing again it also means that we won’t have to do again for a while.

The overall process of buying the place wasn’t too bad. The hardest part was figuring out how sign everything when I work about 1000 miles from where I live. Our realtor and mortgage people were awesome. We couldn’t have done it without them. Once we get all settled we will definitely have to throw a party!

We started the New Year off with a bang - well, more of a pop as the main breaker in the electrical room blew - but it was exciting none-the-less. As PhilNick noted, “not as crisp and clean as I would have liked,” 2006 had its moments. Most of them good, others not so good.

Here are some of the Chart Toppers of ‘06:

Dancer and I got married in Santa Rosa, CA.

We visited the BVI (British Virgin Islands).

We made the big move to the city of Seattle, WA.

We decided to get some kittens (aka - aliens).

I (Gourmet) started a new job the has me flying all over California.

We partied in Beverly Hills like it was 1999.

We tried to install a pool in our living room (aka - our apartment flooded).

We made the second big move - up 2 floors (the pool thing didn’t work out so well).

All and all things were good. Hopefully ‘07 will be a bit smoother though. We are hoping to do some traveling outside of my weekly commutes to Cali as well as work on our hobbies (cooking and dancing) a bit more.

Update:

We have posted the pictures of our adventure out on our photo site.

Last weekend Dancer and I attended the annual company holiday party. Even though I’ve only been working there for a few weeks, I was still invited. Now normally that would be a given, but this year’s party was in Beverly Hills at the Beverly Hills Hotel. All we had to get ourselves down there, which was easy. The rest was taken care of.

The whole trip only lasted a day (flew in Saturday, flew out Sunday), but it was a blast none-the-less. We got to check out all sorts of shops on Rodeo Drive, listen to who saw which celebrities at the hotel and met all sorts of really cool people.