What I did for my summer vacation

Summer is almost over and while other seminarians spent it inside fulfilling their CPE requirements I was vacationing in Los Angeles.

Well, it wasn't all vacationing, I am from the Diocese of Los Angeles so I visited with some people from my commission on ministry, and I stopped by the Cathedral Center to chat with Randy Kimmler, the Diocesan Missioner for Vocations. I also preached at Saint Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood.

I went to see the taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. This was an interesting experience. I love Craig Ferguson, there is something so honest about him. other talk show hosts seem so patronizing, so boring. Anyway, it was worth seeing it live if only for the experience of it, but it is better to watch the show at home. He plays to the camera, as he should, which means the studio audience is kinda left out. It is interesting to get a behind the scenes look at it all though.

I stayed in Culver City, drove a brand new Prius, walked around in 70 degree weather while the rest of the country sweltered in the heat. It was great. I saw my friends and I remembered how great they are. People always give Los Angeles a bad rap, but I have met some pretty amazing people there. Sure, there is a vapid and superficial element, but once you figure out what that looks like it's easy to avoid. And what you discover is that there are some really smashing people out there.

Anyway,I stayed with some of those awesome people I was talking about. We went to the Santa Monica pier, we ate chocolate and went to parks. It was all very nice.

I also went to The Iliad, my favorite used bookstore. I love used bookstores, especially big sprawling ones. You can just feel the history of all those used books, it's palpable really...
I also ate Mexican food, it was fantastic.

One of the things that I never got to do when I was living in Los Angeles was go to the Griffith Observatory. I always wanted to go, I just never got around to it. I got there this time. It was interesting, I bought a compass. I love compasses. Not the kind used to draw circles but the kind that detects the earth's magnetic field and tells us which way is up. They're neat.
I also looked through a telescope at the moon. I would like to go again sometime and see some space movies.

I also went to DISNEYLAND! It was so much fun. We also went to California Adventure and that was fun too. I made a peculiar little video about our trip. It doesn't have everything we did because I think my friends were getting a little annoyed at all of my filming. So I didn't get footage of our awesome time in Tron land in which there was a big techno dance floor and an arcade filled with games from the 1980s.



One of the last things I did was visit a friend in Marina Del Rey where he lives on his boat. The marina was beautiful and so were the people. Did I mention how cool I think my friends are?

Right, so here are some odds and ends photos from my trip.



And then there's the Disneyland video, of course. Both of them are accompanied by some awesome royalty free music.

Enjoy, you lovely people you.