I love road trips. And I've never been shy about traveling alone. I throw on my sunglasses, open up the sunroof, stick in a book on CD, and voila . . . I'm set to get out of dodge. And this particular trip to Los Angeles was no exception. I drove the entire 582 miles in one day without any problems or complaints.
I arrived Saturday night. Erin and Kristine arrived Sunday afternoon. And bright and early Monday morning we got to work. We were there to oversee the printing of the 2011-2012 Idea Book & Catalog at The Color Graphics facility. It's located right along the Los Angeles "River" (and next to the El Pato tomato sauce plant). This project requires massive amounts of paper and it took 30+ semi trucks to get it all there. It comes on huge rolls; each one weighs in at a whopping 2,800 lbs. And if you were to unroll all of it, it would cover 520 miles. We print on web offset presses (you can see the paper running up, down, around, and all through the mechanics in the pic below). It took the better part of 3-1/2 weeks, with the presses running nonstop, for the entire project to be completed. And then it was collated, trimmed, bound, and shipped. It was fun to be there for the first part of the process but it made for some really long days, and even longer nights.
One afternoon we had a few free hours so we left the printing plant and headed downtown to walk around a bit. Erin had done some research and found that there was an exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art called "Urban Light" that sounded right up our alley. And she right! It was a installation of two-hundred and two restored cast iron street lamps that once lit the streets of Los Angeles. The artist, Chris Burden, painted them all the same neutral gray in order to draw the eye to all the different varieties of cast iron decoration. It was an incredible sight to explore.
After finishing up with work I decided to stay in Los Angeles for a few additional days. I'd always wanted to go to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library so I took an afternoon and headed up to Simi Valley. I spent quite a few hours there. It was that incredible. The displays of historical information and memorabilia was vast, including a large piece of the Berlin Wall. Reagan was also buried there. His "headstone" read, "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life."
I also got a chance to hang out with my good friend Lisa. I like to call her Jack. We met quite a few years ago while living at the same apartment complex at BYU and we dream of one day driving a demolition derby car together called MexiTrash. She's awesome. Now she lives in California and it was great to spend some time with her while I was in town. I'd never seen the sights in Hollywood so we went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds. It was a riot.
We ended the day hanging out at her apartment with some Pinkberry and a gem of a disaster movie: Volcano. Bad script. Bad acting. Bad special effects. All qualities that made it oh so good!
After a couple of days, I headed out of Los Angeles and down to the beach. I stayed for four days at The Beachcomber Hotel and enjoyed a fantastic view of the San Clemente pier from my room. Seriously, if I could have, I would have stayed there forever. Dang that whole need to hold down a job and support myself; really gotta find a man to do that for me. But it was 4 days of some much needed relaxation. I sat in the sun, read some books, ate some fish, and tried my hardest NOT to pay attention to the work emails filling the inbox on my phone. (I was only 75% successful on that last endeavor. But I blame Jordan for that, haha!)
In all, I was gone for two weeks. Two glorious weeks. Can't wait to do it next year. :)
I arrived Saturday night. Erin and Kristine arrived Sunday afternoon. And bright and early Monday morning we got to work. We were there to oversee the printing of the 2011-2012 Idea Book & Catalog at The Color Graphics facility. It's located right along the Los Angeles "River" (and next to the El Pato tomato sauce plant). This project requires massive amounts of paper and it took 30+ semi trucks to get it all there. It comes on huge rolls; each one weighs in at a whopping 2,800 lbs. And if you were to unroll all of it, it would cover 520 miles. We print on web offset presses (you can see the paper running up, down, around, and all through the mechanics in the pic below). It took the better part of 3-1/2 weeks, with the presses running nonstop, for the entire project to be completed. And then it was collated, trimmed, bound, and shipped. It was fun to be there for the first part of the process but it made for some really long days, and even longer nights.
One afternoon we had a few free hours so we left the printing plant and headed downtown to walk around a bit. Erin had done some research and found that there was an exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art called "Urban Light" that sounded right up our alley. And she right! It was a installation of two-hundred and two restored cast iron street lamps that once lit the streets of Los Angeles. The artist, Chris Burden, painted them all the same neutral gray in order to draw the eye to all the different varieties of cast iron decoration. It was an incredible sight to explore.
After finishing up with work I decided to stay in Los Angeles for a few additional days. I'd always wanted to go to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library so I took an afternoon and headed up to Simi Valley. I spent quite a few hours there. It was that incredible. The displays of historical information and memorabilia was vast, including a large piece of the Berlin Wall. Reagan was also buried there. His "headstone" read, "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life."
I also got a chance to hang out with my good friend Lisa. I like to call her Jack. We met quite a few years ago while living at the same apartment complex at BYU and we dream of one day driving a demolition derby car together called MexiTrash. She's awesome. Now she lives in California and it was great to spend some time with her while I was in town. I'd never seen the sights in Hollywood so we went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds. It was a riot.
We ended the day hanging out at her apartment with some Pinkberry and a gem of a disaster movie: Volcano. Bad script. Bad acting. Bad special effects. All qualities that made it oh so good!
After a couple of days, I headed out of Los Angeles and down to the beach. I stayed for four days at The Beachcomber Hotel and enjoyed a fantastic view of the San Clemente pier from my room. Seriously, if I could have, I would have stayed there forever. Dang that whole need to hold down a job and support myself; really gotta find a man to do that for me. But it was 4 days of some much needed relaxation. I sat in the sun, read some books, ate some fish, and tried my hardest NOT to pay attention to the work emails filling the inbox on my phone. (I was only 75% successful on that last endeavor. But I blame Jordan for that, haha!)
In all, I was gone for two weeks. Two glorious weeks. Can't wait to do it next year. :)
3 comments:
How very fun!!! Glad you had such a great time!
Ah, nostalgia. Can't wait to see that catty!
woohoo!
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