Boy, was California much needed. It doesn’t even really feel like we went since I’m back working 9-5 all week. Three days just isn’t enough time away from work. But then again, no amount of time is.
Our trip started with an hour-long delay on the I-10 West. We traveled about 3 miles in that time. Matter of fact, the delay was caused by probably one of the nastiest accidents I’ve passed by. You could see the smoke about 50 miles away.
None of us were exactly clear what happened, but whatever happened involved a small car and a semi truck.The semi truck isn’t much anymore. Neither is the small car.Needless to say that was somewhat of a shock and the hour delay didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. Five hours later, we arrived in LA. Downey had booked us a room at the Miyako Inn in downtown LA… more specifically, the Japanese area.The drivers there were terrible.We checked in and then headed over to Santa Monica for dinner, a little shopping :-|, and some local street entertainment.We took a walk along the pier for some cool, ocean breezes… far different from the hot, dusty gusts of Arizona. And yes, that is the actual height difference between Linh and me.And this is Ryan and Becky if you didn’t know that the four of us went together.Saturday morning, we woke up to a Scooby Doo marathon on the Cartoon Network and someone making fun of the show. “Wow. I thought today would be a great day to go boating but look at all this ominous fog!” I’m pretty sure Scooby is high most of the time, too. But don’t get me wrong, it’s one of my favorite cartoons from childhood! We showered and headed into Beverly Hills for…. yet more shopping :-(.The evening was our main event… at least the reason I even planned a trip to Cali in the first place: the latest performance of Eric Whitacre’s opera electronica Paradise Lost. I had seen a workshop performance of it back in the summer of 2004 and it definitely has come along way. Whitacre, for the record, is as genius as they come, but for some reason I felt less “moved” by this performance than three years ago. For one, he ended up cutting one of the more beautiful songs that his wife (who’s kind of hot by the way) sang in the workshop performance. I think that song opened the opera back in 2004 only to be replaced by something that was only kind of exciting (with tons of choreographed fighting) but less musical. I remember sitting in the audience in 2004 as she started singing, lights flood out into the audience blinding us temporarily, getting a little emotional. I didn’t feel that at all this time. I’m also still on the fence about Eric as a lyricist… I’m pretty sure he should stick to just the music.

But maybe I’m being too critical. Whitacre’s latest performance does do so many things right. In fact, the anime which is new to these performances was surprisingly incorporated very tastefully and helped the audience understand the back story very well. The live taiko drummers also were an incredibly smart choice as they (aside from being just plain cool in the first place) really helped energize the staged fight scenes which would have just looked just dumb. The cast was amazing (and amazingly good-looking). Cleavage in an opera? I like cleavage. Therefore, I like opera. Good thinking guys.
Sunday morning before we were to head home, we got lunch at Huntington Beach. I think it’s pretty obvious none of us wanted to go home.
We even ended up taking about an hour or two delay at the Cabazon Outlets in the middle of f*cking nowhere to do yet, yes, some more luxury, name brand shopping. >: - O

I officially declare that place Hell on Earth.