Various Things

Work has kept me busy lately. I mean, it's a case of "I don't want to watch TV when I come home" busy. So not only am I behind on blogging, my tivo is backed up like a man who just ate a 5-pound brick of cheese. So, here's a few things I've been doing with photo evidence:

Last weekend, Heather's mom was in town, and we hit the Getty on Saturday. There's a great exhibit at the Getty that ends tomorrow (Feb. 25th) called "Where We Live: Photographs of America From the Berman Collection." If for some reason, you're trying to figure out what to do this weekend, I do recommend it.

We also took a trip to the newly renovated Griffith Observatory, which I had been dying to see. The Observatory had been closed since 2002 and finally opened at the end of last year. They did a great job expanding without ruining what made it so great.

Basically, they've built two new basement levels with all new exhibits, as well as renovated every exhibit that used to exist there. It's an impressive expansion, and the exterior has been restored to what, I'm guessing, it used to look like when it was first built.

Some photos:

The new exhibits below ground:
It was also a perfectly clear night, so I was able to get some shots of downtown:
The only real negative is that you can no longer drive and park at the Observatory. You have to reserve a ticket and take a shuttle up to it. The shuttle itself was fine, and there's a nice little video with Mayor Villaraigosa bragging about the changes, but it felt like an extra step in the process that wasn't necessary.

In other livefromrodneydrive news, I ordered a brand new Macbook nearly two weeks ago. I thought I would've had it with in a couple of days, but it ended up taking a week and a half to get to me, and because of my schedule, I didn't get to open it until two days after I got it. It was like getting a present for Christmas and not being allowed to open it until New Year's Day. Finally, I opened it last night. (The following photos are dedicated to the Dope Daddy, who loves seeing new Macbooks)


Even the styrofoam inside is beautifully designed:

So tiny...
It looked like transferring files was going to be easy, but for some reason, my old ibook was freezing in the midst of my transfer. So for most of last night and this morning, I've been going through my backup hard drive and putting all my stuff onto my new toy. And so far, I love it.

And look, there's a familiar site on it...
Now if only my itunes would stop quitting on me when I open it, everything would be perfect.