I decided to throw caution to the wind on the evening of Thursday, February 8, and meet up with my friend Jason Heaton to participate in the tournament of champions trivia contest at MacGillicutty’s in Kettering – despite the ridiculously early flight I had to catch the next morning…and the fact that I was not completely packed (and I had just been to trivia at Cadillac Jack’s the night before). The net result of this is that I only got at most three hours of sleep before I had to get up at 3am and do my last minute packing.
Dad picked me up at about 4:30am on that Friday morning and drove me to the Dayton airport. My flight was at 6:00am. I speedily was whisked through bag check-in and security and almost immediately was able to board my plane. From the time I stepped out of the car, discarded my winter coat, and arrived at my terminal, only 15 minutes had passed – an impressive record for the airport.
My first flight was short, thankfully, as I was wedged between the window and a very large, sweaty man. I had an hour layover in St. Louis – and then boarded the second, and longest, leg of the flight – to LAX in Los Angeles. This airport was extremely painless as well; the baggage claim was very close to my terminal – and my bag came tumbling out right away. I stepped out onto the sidewalk and within minutes Jimmy was there to pick me up. By 10:00am, I had travelled from 0 degrees to 65.
We had plans to meet our friend David for lunch but had a couple of hours to kill, so after stopping by Jimmy’s office and switching cars to Jimmy’s brand new 2007 Saturn convertible, we decided to head up to Santa Monica and check out Stan Laurel’s former apartment – the Oceana. The oceanside drive was relaxing in his cool, new car. Much to our surprise, when we arrived we found that the Oceana was under severe reconstruction, Stan’s room having been completely gutted. Jimmy snapped the photo below of me outside of it.
Then we drove up the road a few miles to see another one of Stan’s former homes. I had never seen this one before that I could recall, but had seen photos of it printed in Bob’s location issue of “Pratfall” magazine. The house looked virtually the same, except for the fact that the formerly grassy front yard had now been landscaped with bricks and foliage.
Next it was on to a winding trip into the mountains along Mulholland Drive. Those that know me are aware that I am obsessed with the film of the same name. Naturally, I had to jump out of the car and get a photo snapped under a Mulholland street sign (seen at top). Some day I’ll actually make it to ‘Winkie’s’, another location used in the film, but, alas, it didn’t happen this week.
Next: a tour of the Disney studios (wow!)…
Bypass the trip and continue with 2007…
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