Week 2

I am closing in on two weeks here in L.A. and it has yet to disappoint! This past weekend I met up with one of dad's friends, Mark May. Mark was in New York a couple months ago and came up to dad and Julie's for dinner one night. During the course of dinner it came out that I was about to make the move to L.A. (where Mark lives) and he said that if I like kids (yes) and I like reading (yes) I should look into this group he was involved in called 'Reading to Kids' (clever name). Reading to Kids is a grassroots organization dedicated to inspiring children with a love of reading. To this end, Reading to Kids gathers children and volunteers at seven Los Angeles elementary schools on the second Saturday of every month for reading clubs. So this past Saturday I showed up at Los Angeles Elementary (again, clever name) and got paired with another volunteer and we took turns reading 'Trouble According to Humphrey' aloud to our kids! Afterwards, the volunteers from all the different schools met at a local restaurant for lunch. I met up with Mark at the restaurant (he was volunteering at a different school than me that morning) and he introduced me to a couple other volunteers, including a fellow Gator who told me about the local Gator sports bar! On my way back to the apartment I decided to take advantage of being so close to actual downtown L.A. (this place is huge) and drive around a bit. While driving I stumbled upon the annual Los Angeles Chinese Golden Dragon Parade celebrating the start of the Chinese New Year, it was too nice of a day not to stop - plus I needed to fill my parade quota after missing Gasparilla this year - so I got myself a beer, found a spot in the sun and watched as the Grand Marshall, Mickey Mouse, rode by (it is the year of the Rat), followed closely by dragons, fireworks, high-school bands, giant anime mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the "Miss Los Angeles Chinatown Queen and Court' - I got a picture of this for you Laura ;) It was about 85 degrees and I kept seeing people walk by in those traditional chinese straw hats (you know what I am talking about, they come to a point at the top of your head) and I decided that I needed one, not only to get me in the mood of the parade, but to protect me from the sun, functional yet fashionable...











On Sunday, I took care of furniture need # 1: bed, check. Kayla helped me lash it to the top of the Pathfinder but we did a pretty pitiful job, good thing we only had to move it a couple blocks:
Our apartment is still pretty empty, Kayla's dad is currently in transit with a U-Haul full of furniture for us from her grandmother's house and he should be arriving sometime Tuesday night. My top priority this week is a desk since my room currently looks like the mobile command center for the delta task force: