Airport Security wasn't bad at all. Not as good as O'Hare, but there's hardly anybody in line, so it's a cake walk. I'm through the line at 5:45am for my 7am flight (United 102). That's a long time to kill. I decide to try and find a bottle of Coke for the trip. Nobody that's open are selling soda. Just water. And it's not cold either. Water is better than nothing. Eventually, after a lot of people watching, it's time to go.

My seat is 31B. Great, a center seat... except no one takes the window! Whoo Hoo! Sweet. It's foggy outside again. Hard to see anything while taxiing. We take off from 25R and we can't see a thing. We pop out on top of the fog/clouds and I never see Los Angeles again. As we head west, the clouds dissipate. We fly right over Las Vegas and you can see and identify everything. We get served a egg-ham-cheese croissant and get The Italian Job as a film (edited, of course). I'm am so friggin' exhausted, but I can't sleep a wink. I instead listen to the movie and Air Traffic Control on Audio Channel 9. We take the Bradford 3 into Chicago and land on 22R at 12:48pm, flying right over the Allstate Arena. Carol was waiting for me in baggage claim, even though I didn't check any bags. (Hey, we needed a place to meet.) Well, I'm back home again. I am happy to be home, but happy to have made the trip. I'm happy to see old family ties and I'm happy to have been able to take a few hours for myself.

I'd do this again in a heartbeat.

I get off the Hollywood Freeway and pass the Hollywood Bowl. There's a show tonight, and it looks like it getting out. A sign says James Brown and Macy Gray, but it's hard to tell by the people leaving. The area doesn't look the same as it was the last time I saw it about 16 years ago. I come up toward Hollywood Boulevard and see the entrance to the new parking garage. My family and Carol & I have stayed at the hotel here, but that was decades ago. The whole corner is just so different now. In fact, I'm lost in a maze of stores and restaurants and levels and plazas. I finally got outside and went across the street to take some pictures of the facility. The area on a Friday night is still not the greatest place to be. I was hoping that it would have gotten, um, "cleaned up" a bit. Still, the amount of people walking down Highland from the Bowl and the amount of people outside make the place hopping.

I grab my pictures and get back in the car. I zig-zag down Highland, Santa Monica and La Cienega to I-10 to get to the Airport. The clubs in West Hollywood look like they were jumpin'.

Anyway, I get to the parking garage at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza at the airport at 12:12 in the morning. The room is really quite nice and again, I'd stay here again. They have high speed internet access through an RJ-45 cable... but it's been too long of a day and I'm really exhausted.

I really pushed it today. I wish I had at least another day. But, I'm not out here for a vacation - I'm out here for my family... I just happened to have taken a few hours here and there for me. I'm finally eating my honey baked ham sandwhich. Yum. It hits the spot...

I've got to get to sleep... I'm going home in a few hours...

I left Montclair/Chino and tried my damnedest to get to Burbank by 5:30. But that's over 25 miles away, and it's a Friday rush hour in Los Angeles. The traffic is horrendous and I decided to override "Wendy" (That's what I called my Hertz Neverlost GPS Navigation system) and found a route that had no traffic. I programmed the wrong end point, though. I'm heading to Universal Studios, but I didn't want the main gate. I needed to go in the back way, and enter at Barnham Blvd. and Lakeside Plaza Drive.

I made it at 6pm and park in a special lot after I clear the security at the gate. I have to walk through a metal detector in the middle of the parking lot. I'm at a studio again, and again I can't take any photos. I hate that. I get to stand around and wait. I don't mind. Really. It's a gorgeous evening. The sun is setting, there's a slight breeze and it feels good just to stand around. I'm still in my suit from the funeral today. I had hoped I had enough time to check into the hotel and change before I came here, but there was no way in hell that was going to work out that way. The girls in front of me in line are eating dinner from In-n-Out Burger. That's when I realize that I didn't eat my honey baked ham sandwich during the drive.

There's a bunch of yellow signs everywhere that say "Paramount" and "Enterprise". I wonder if there's something shooting here today?

Two white shuttle buses pull up that have the Paramount Pictures logos on them. We board the buses and head over to Stage 42 at Universal.

I'm here to be in the audience for NBC's new show Coupling. It's a direct rip-off of the BBC version of Coupling (that's shown here on BBC America), which is actually a rip-off of Friends.

Tonight's episode is called "A Foreign Affair" (but the BBC version was called "The Girl with Two Breasts"... I wonder if they're using the same scripts???)

Allan Murray is the warm-up, and for the first time in my life, I actually get picked on a few times, interviewed by Allan, get a t-shirt, get tickets to the Laugh Factory (where he's performing tomorrow night) and I even get some quiet kudos for doing a good job laughing and reacting. Cool.

We get to watch the pilot episode of the show, since it was just on last night and we may not have seen it (I was eating Jack in the Box watching CSI - sorry). The cast is introduced and we start shooting.

Now, this is were it starts to get difficult.

Each scene is shot. The audience is good, the actors are OK, and the script just feels like it needs work. There's a large huddle that happens in front of me after each scene is shot, where there is hardly any major changes made. The scene is then reshot. Almost every scene that we see during the course of the evening is shot three times. It's really difficult as an audience to even try to laugh naturally after seeing the same thing three times in a row. I feel bad for the cast. It almost feels like the life is being sucked-out of the show. The cast is really pretty good. The show is getting scathing reviews, but it's more about the reheated "translated" scripts that seem to almost not work on American television. The original BBC series is a scream and somehow doesn't "translate" well to American prime-time audiences.

The curtain calls come at around 10:15pm and I'm back at my car by 10:25. It's time to get some sleep. It's been a long day.

I quietly make my way into the church. I'm trying to be as nondescript as possible, but slowly people are starting to recognize me, even though I may not have seen them in quite a while. I meet my cousin Karen who looks exactly the same as I remember her from my childhood. She's the only person that - in my mind's eye - never changed. Weird. Then my cousin Mark the kid I traveled to California with back in the 60's. He doesn't look the same, but I see the boy in the face of the man in front of me. He finally introduces me to his sister Laurie, who I haven't seen in decades. She too doesn't look the same but I see the kid in the lady in front of me. She looks at me and has no recollection of me at all until Mark whispers a few words to her: "Beam me up". The electric smile comes to her face and she gives me a big hug. Laurie had wheeled in Aunt Mary. She's in a wheelchair now, and I can hardly recognize her.

The family slowly gathers. There's a bulletin board full of photos of Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary's life (or, as we all call them here , Babe and May). I notice a box on the table in the vestibule, next to the picture.

That's when I realize that it's Uncle Babe. In the box. The label says he was cremated on th 12th. Uncle Babe is gathered up, along with a US Flag for his military service and we go inside.

Mark has a eulogy prepared, and it's long and complete and I learn more about the uncle that I thought I knew. Then we had a full Catholic funeral mass.

After mass, we gathered all out front again. We all drove a mile or two into Chino to a Marie Callender's that opened early just for us. It was the site of their 50th anniversary not so long ago.

After lunch, we went over to Mary's brother's condo, to socialize, drink, eat, and watch old 8mm film transfered to videotape. Uncle Babe was never without his camera. Laurie had the film transfered, and it now fills two 2-hour videotapes. It was a wonderful, sweet trip down memory lane.

I didn't know there was going to be a dinner to end the day. I had made plans to be in Burbank (again) by 5:30-6:00 tonight. I had over 30 miles to get there in Friday afternoon rush hour traffic.

I didn't want to leave. I wish I didn't set this up, but my time out here is very limited. Laurie made me a sandwich to eat on the way, along with some cookies.

I slowly say my goodbyes. It's been years since I've seen some of these people, and I don't know if I will ever see any of them again. I hope that's not the case, but life takes odd twists and turns. Most of these people live out here and it's not like I visit California very often at all.

It's hard leaving family, even if it's extended family. I have done what I've been sent out here to do.

It's 4:20 and I slowly walk to my car.

More pirate antics this week and it feels good! We've got a "Pirate's Booty" buried in each camp, with information coming only if you win reward challenges. Oh, and if you win a team reward challenge, you get to plunder the other team's camp for one object! Cool! It's too bad that Drake keeps winning and Morgan has nothing of value to pillage! So, after so many failures, Morgan kicks out Ryan Shoulders, the 23-year-old produce clerk from Clarksville, Tennessee, in a 5-2 vote (even though Osten, the most buff male of the Morgan tribe can't take it after just a few days on the island and wants to quit - or get voted off).

More later...

The tour office is not anything like it was back in the 80's, when they only had two tours a day out of a dark, dingy office. Now there's a huge waiting room with costumes and props from ER, Drew Carey, West Wing, Smallville and Gilmore Girls. There's also a little store (but this being Warner Brothers, it looks like stuff that was in the old Warner Brothers Studio Stores).

At 10:30, we are called into a small theater to watch a quick video about the studios and listen to the rules and regulations about the tour. Then one of the tour guides -
Dean Ricca - calls out three names. It's me and 2 ladies from Atlanta. The three of us are going to be on the Deluxe tour! Cool! The small, intimate group should allow us to do some pretty neat things!

One of the major rules - photography is extremely restricted. Movie people are possessive about copyrighted material. Our stuff will be locked-up in our golf cart and we'll only be able to bring them out at specific places. Nuts.

All of the tour groups get into stretched gold carts. Dean has a little gift for us - our own bottle of water for the day. Our first stop is at the Warner Brothers Museum. Its a really nice small museum that has a lot of costumes and props in it. - Like an entire George Clooney area (with costumes from Ocean's Eleven like George's tuxedo, Julia Roberts' gold gown and Brad Pitt's ugly shirt and jacket, his Batman cowl, his costume from The Perfect Storm... hey, did you know they're making Ocean's Twelve?), the Time Machine from The Time Machine (apparently, the thing was pretty dangerous when it was in operation with all of the spinning panels on it. They had to make a 15 foot safety area around it and no one was allowed inside that area otherwise they could get severely injured), the laptops from You've Got Mail, costumes from The Matrix and Christopher Reeve's Superman, a fake Haley Joel Osment and a "David" box from Artificial Intelligence: AI, and the crucifix from The Exorcist (creepy).

The 2nd floor of the museum is all from Harry Potter, like Hagrid's outfit with sling for baby Harry when he delivered him to the Dursley's, boxes and boxes of wands, Dobby the house elf, the set of Harry's room under the stairs, a petrified Hermione when she was in the hospital (spooky!), and Quidditch costumes and the carrying case for the balls and snitch. They had a "working" Sorting Hat that a security guy would place on your head to sort you into the different houses.

We left the golf cart at the museum and the rest of the regular tour people and walked down a street (are these things called "streets"?) to the Eastwood Scoring Stage. This is where scoring is done for productions. (yes, it's named after that Eastwood). It's a gorgeous, wooden stage. Acoustically, it was dead in there - not a single echo or reflection from anything. They were setting up for a recording session. Dean thought it could have been for Matrix Revolutions, even though it's going to be out in just weeks. Did you know that the musicians that play on these soundtracks don't get the sheet music until they sit down to record the piece?

We walked next door to Dubbing rooms 3 & 4. Because it's a working studio, Warner Brothers rents out facilities to anyone. Today, people from Disney were in house to do sound editing on the Saturday morning cartoon The Adventures of Lilo & Stitch. Since we were such a small group, the engineers sat around and talked with us for a while. Then, one of them took us to the "back room" (since the group was small), to show us the equipment used for editing. They're finally starting to edit all digitally, using swappable hard drives. But they still have to keep old analog equipment (including old film audio equipment) because the booming international markets are having studios re-edit existing productions for dubbed versions. They also had an "ISDN Room" which, from a technology perspective isn't that impressive, but from a production value perspective sure is. In the other dubbing room, techs were editing an episode of Third Watch. The ISDN Room allows the editing to be done in Los Angeles while the cast and crew are filming in New York. They use it to view the edits as well as doing ADR work with the actors (ADR is Additional Dialog Recording, or "looping").

We walk back to our golf cart and Dean takes us around the studio property. We can see a lot of construction going on inside a few of the stages. We pass by the ER stage. It's all buttoned-up, but I see a few women walking around in scrubs outside. All of the active stages have tons of trailers outside of them for the actors. They're all from the same company: Star Waggons. Why is it spelled that way? Why, it's because the owner is Lyle Waggoner from the old Carol Burnett Show.

We pull up to Stage 17. Dean has a master key to all of the stages and we go in. It's dark and it takes time to adjust to the light. We walk up some stairs and we're sitting in an audience area for The Drew Carey Show. They're not in production today, but it gives us a chance to sit and talk about a typical weekly sitcom production. The sets are all lined up in a row in front of the audience, with (from right to left) the backyard, Drew's kitchen Drew's living room, Winfred-Louder, and The Warsaw.

We walk next door to Stage 14. Now we're in a hour drama (actually "dramedy") Gilmore Girls. This stage only has all of the new sets that for Yale. Normally, sets are made with paint that looks like wood, or paint that looks like wood flooring, linoleum, or paving. In these sets, it's all real. That's because they want to make sure the look is correct (so that Yale approves!). These are gorgeous sets - hallways, classrooms, dorm rooms, cafeteria (with real pads of butter that seem to be melting...). We get to see how "wild" walls work - the ability to fly a wall out of the way to allow cameras behind to get a different perspective of a set.

Back to the cart and we visit Stage 16 - the largest movie soundstage in the US. We're outside because the doors are open and set construction is going on inside for a new movie with Keanu Reeves called Constantine. The stage is over 75' tall and it has a 25' deep tank in the floor (The Perfect Storm was shot inside here). The stage wasn't always this high. It was a normal studio, but years ago (for reasons I cannot remember exactly) they decided to make it bigger. They had people with hand jacks at every major load-bearing point around the periphery. They had 4 drummers, one in each corner of the building. They started a slow drum beat, and on each beat each person ratcheted their hand jack. When the entire structure moved up 6 inches, they threw in a railroad tie. The kept doing this until it was over 25' off the ground. Then new load bearing walls were built underneath. There was still an inch or two difference between the new walls and the base of the old stage walls, so they brought in huge slabs of ice to put between the two and removed the jacks. As the ice melted, the stage settled on to the new walls!

Back into the cart and we ride all the way across the property. Dean is giddy as he tells us we're going to Transportation since he knows the people there. We walk into a building that is a very large garage and auto/truck repair place for the studio. We walk through a chain link gate and there in front of us is a large group of cars. Dean goes over to one and throws the cover off of it. It's the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard. It's an original and it's in working order. There's another one next to it, but it's being used for parts - the last one available for parts. Next to them are two limos under tarps. The taps have the Presidential Seal on them - yes, they're limos for The West Wing. There's a DC Police car and escort motorcycles as well. Then there's a vehicle under canvas that looks pretty damn big. It's a bit wider than normal but it must be close to 30 feet long. It seems to go up in the back, like wings. Dean pulls the cover off - it's the friggin' Batmobile!!!! This is the last one (from Batman & Robin). It's huge. The tires are custom - the tread is the bat logo. Unfortunately, it's not street legal.

We walk over to the prop department and look at tons of furniture in a 4 story building. Set designers were walking through looking for items and tagging them to use for their own productions. Every once in a while you pass a piece of furniture that is so unique and it seems so familiar and yet you can't figure out what it's from. There's a pair of lamps that were listed as "Tiffany-style" that were used in one of the Batman movies. After they were hung, one of the art people took a good look at them and actually find a real Tiffany mark on them, They're no longer available for rental.

It's already 1pm and it's time for lunch. We jump in the cart and ride over to the Studio Commissary. We have passes for a complimentary lunch, so we head inside. The facility has only been open for 3 weeks. It's a gorgeous facility (as commissaries go), with many "stations" inside. The most popular one is "Paquito Mas" which is a mexican food chain, which is not included in our complimentary lunch. We all go to the Pasta bar and I get some Penne with a Tomato & Garlic sauce. Damn, that was good. I'm impressed. As we're sitting at a table having lunch,
Sherry Stringfield came through the line. She looked great, and looked shorter and thinner in real life than on TV (could be the white coat she always has to wear). After lunch we saw Jon Cryer walking into the Commissary.

Dean has been working the radio. He's trying to get permission from a production company to gain access to a set. We start driving around the lot when the radio crackles to life. We are given clearance. We head across the lot to Stage 23. It looks like just another soundstage... until we turn the corner on the back side. The exterior of the stage is... the side portico to the White House. We're going to see the set for THE WEST WING! Outside are the Star Waggons for the stars. There are 2 Jamaican flags flying over Dulé Hill's trailer, and a flamingo wind whirligig thing over Allison Janney's trailer (remember - her character's Secret Service code name is "Flamingo"). There's also a basketball hoop and a huge deck with chairs and tables for R&R time.

We walk into the "White House". The set is dark. The cast and crew are at another facility shooting scenes inside the Air Force One set. This side entrance is alongside C.J. Cregg's office.. We step into CJ's office. There's no goldfish on the desk, but everything else is there, including briefing notes on the desk as well as "while you were out" phone messages from Josh. Dean points out something we saw at the Gilmore Girls set. All of the windows on the set can pivot. This allows the crew to tilt the windows ever so slightly to make sure the reflections doesn't show a crew or anything off-set. Take a look next time you watch the show - you'll see windows just slightly out of "flush".

We walk into Josh's office. Dean tells us a story of a congressman who visited the set and actually saw his name on the blackboard in Josh's office as voting "Nay" against some bill going through the house. In a twisted piece of reality, the congressman actually erased his name and put it on the "Yea" side, Then he proceeded to write a message on a yellow legal pad to the character Josh telling him why he changed his vote.

We walk through the bullpen, past Donna's office. The entire set all fits together so that you can have those long "pedaconferences" done in all one shot. Wow. We go into the Roosevelt Room. Apparently the real Roosevelt Room doesn't have all these french-style door in it. When real White House staff people visit, they always ask why there's all those people walking around outside the doors. I guess either they never see them or they just don't have the people walking around in the real place. The Mural Room is across the hall. This room doesn't exist in the real White House, but was built for The American President. (Did you know that these are the same sets?) We see how the sets are lit using what look like spheres like paper lanterns. It diffuses the light for effect. Also, the set tops actually have a ceiling of muslin or canvas on top of them - something we haven't seen on any other set.

We go through another entrance and there is Charlie's and Deborah Fiderer's desks. There's a painting on the wall of an American flag done in kids hand prints. Apparently there have been a lot of letters asking where someone could get a copy of it. Turns out it's just something that one of the art people put together with their kids.

So, if we're here, that must mean that if we walk through this door we're in... The Oval Office. Oh, this is friggin' cool. Then the three of us just had to do it.

We each took turns sitting in President Josiah 'Jed' Bartlet's chair. Sitting on the desk in front of the chair was that small book of the US Constitution. Not a great chair but what an interesting view!

We briefly walk through the door "outside" which is where that long outside corridor outside the White House is, usually where President Bartlet goes outside for a cigarette. The backdrop is actually a photo of the exact views from the same places in the White House. The Clinton administration allowed the crew to come and photograph it. In fact, underneath one of the bushes on the backdrop, you can see Socks the cat!

A guard comes over, saying he has to lock up the set. We quickly walk through the rest of the set. We brush by Leo's office door and we look in toward Toby and Will's office but it's pitch dark - it's the only set with a real acoustical tile ceiling. If you look, you always see the ceiling in the shots around those offices. We pass by that "Visitor's Entrance" lobby, with its marble floors (actually paint) and columns (which are movable) nd the Presidential seal in the floor.

Then, it's back out the portico entrance and we leave the set.

Wow.

We drive off to "The Mill" Here's is were, under one roof, everything is built. Lumber shops, metal shops, plaster molding. It's all here in huge shops. Unfortunately, it's getting later in the day and the shops are pretty empty. The Scenic Art department is here, painting backdrops. It's a huge room that has a 35' drop on either side of the room. This allows the backdrops to be raised or lowered to paint - the painters never have to work on a ladder. We go into the basement to the Large Format Digital Printing shop. Here' instead of painting backdrops, here a large format digital printer prints backdrops and signage. this allows the use of digital images such as accurate photographs to be used. The printer looks like it's at least 10'-12' wide. When the piece is larger than that, a special microwave seamer is used to put multiple pieces together. Today, the printer is spitting out large advertising posters for Elf.

Our next stop is actually an appointment. Somebody wanted to meet us. We go to Costuming and meet Costuming Manager Elaine Maser. She's been doing costuming on productions for quite a while. We go into one of the large "Star" fitting rooms. We sit down and talk for at least 30-45 minutes about costuming and color palettes of productions. She even brought some wacky costumes for us to try on and "play dress-up with". I wound up getting into some Camelot thing (that looked more Moroccan than Camelot). Talk about feeling special, this was it. the head of costuming for Warner Brothers wanted to talk to us. This was so special, two other tour guides joined us so they could get the info as well. Wow.

We went downstairs. Here was the costuming "lockers" for all of the shows in production. We peeked into a few of them. They're about the size of a semi trailer, full of costumes, each group clearly listed for each actor. West Wing has three lockers, one of which is just uniforms. I looked into another locker and saw Mathew Perry's wardrobe - could he be coming back to the West Wing? There's laundry areas down her, too.

We then went into the costume rental area. Each aisle is the length of a football field, 3 racks high with ladders. Everything is sorted into categories. If you need ball gowns, suits, maternity wear, men's fedoras - they're all here, all cataloged and inventoried. Rentals are either single week (this allows music video shoots just to rent for about a week of production) or 12-weeks. (They don't rent to employees for Halloween - Dean asked - though that would be wickedly cool). The end wall that we were standing in front of was all womens shoes, sorted by color, then size. The whole wall. This was a really cool stop. I didn't think I'd enjoy it but I really did. Elaine made us feel "special"

It's off to the back lot now. We have our cameras and everything looks like we can shoot what we want. The main town square area is all dressed-up for what looks like a Fall Festival of some sort for the Gilmore Girls. I think the place is called Stars Hallow (sorry, I don't watch the show). I remember the town square from O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Dean knows I'm from chicago, so he's excited as we go to the next exterior set - it's the exterior of County General Hospital for ER. Specifically, the ambulance bay. But we can't get into the actual ambulance bay area - there is a crew in there working on pyrotechnics for a hoot (hmmm... another explosion in the ER?) Good old Doc Magoo's is gone (it burned down last season), replaced by a convenience store. We go around the back side to a street area that is being set for an episode of The Practice (no pictures here). Next to the street exterior is a studio parking lot. If you look closely, there is a box painted across quite a few parking spaces. Looking at the backside of the sets, It turns out that this parking lot gets re-dressed and it's the helipad on top of County General. (Yes, this is where Romano lost his arm.)

It's time to go back to the tour office. Time? 4:45! It's the longest Deluxe tour they've ever run at 6 hours and 15 minutes. We say our goodbye's to Dean and catch another golf cart back to Gate 2.

OK people, listen up. If you are in the Los Angeles area and can carve out about 5 hours of time and can spend about $95, DO THIS TOUR. You will not be sorry.

Now I'm off to my hotel. I've got at least a 30 mile ride ahead of me...

I can't tell you how much of a pleasure it is to have Hertz Number One Gold service, to just jump on a shuttle bus and have a car waiting for you. I love that. I always get a car with the Hertz NeverLost GPS Navigation system (by Magellan). The last trip, we decided to call it "Wendy" (As in NeverLand... gotta be close to NeverLost, right?) Anyway, I always listen to Wendy as she tells me where to go.

I jump on the 405 North at 8:40. It's 22 miles to my destination in Burbank and I am not moving. At all. I'm starting to believe that 22 miles in under 2 hours could be a problem in morning rush hour in LA. As I'm sitting in traffic, I witness a California law that scares the hell out of me. In Illinois, a motorcycle must stay within the lane markers, taking up a space. Out here, motorcycles ride the lane markers in between the lanes. Scared the hell out of me when tow of them passed me when I was standing still.

After a few miles of crawl, I see that there's a car broken down in the left lane of this 5-lane freeway. As soon as I pass, I'm doing over 70mph. Burbank isn't all that far.

I decided to get a 6am flight and get out here just after 8am so that I could have a day to myself. I have an appointment that should take up most of the day and I can't wait to get there. Carol & I were there 16 years ago and I can't wait to see it again.

He died over a week ago. He and his wife Mary moved away from Chicago years ago, first to Brownsville, Texas and then out to California to be near my aunt's family.He's the last of my mom's sibling's to go. My mom has been a bit down about this, as she is now "all alone". I'm not doing anything lately (being unemployed) and my mom - who didn't feel like flying - asked if I would "represent us" at the memorial service. I love traveling, I love flying. So, mom's paying for the trip and here I am somewhere over the midwest eating a Michael Angelo's Egg, Ham & Cheese Panini and watching Bruce Almighty.

Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary (or Babe and May as others call them) hold an unusual spot in my heart. Back in 1967, Aunt Mary took me and her nephew Mark to Los Angeles on a train trip. What a great thing to do, showing a kid America from a Santa Fe El Capitan train. I don't remember why Uncle Frank wasn't with us, but he was with us when we flew to LA in 1969. I only have one picture of him in my old photos - it's him on the pier in Santa Monica.

He was a great guy with kids. A tall man with a deep, booming voice that always drank Pepsi out of a bottle. And here, years later, I find a few more odd parallels with my life - he and Mary never had kids, like Carol & I. He proposed to Mary the first week he met her. So did I with Carol.

You see, I had to go to Los Angeles.

Here it is, the final episode of the season. The first segment is about Alison and Jun in the house alone, and how they're feeling after the final eviction. Then we see the jury amd Robert joined then while they were at CBS (aw, no Jury House for Robert). There's a lot of discussion on how the finalists played. This past weekend, the Jury asked a question of each finalist. (The girls were upset that they couldn't see the Jury during the Q&A.) The questions were tough and pointed. The girls twisted and squirmed in their chairs. The jusry didn't feel some of the answers were good, or even accurate or pertinent at times. Then we see the actual voting process - putting the keys of the winner into the box. After the votes were cast, the jury was sequestered again and shown the complete season of the show. (Prior to this, they never saw any Diary Room footage or any footage of private conversations talking about other people). Then, everyone (Jury and others) came together and confronted each other on their issues in the house as a "round table discussion". All of them are shown live with Julie Chen in her little studio outside the house. They pack up, walk across the bridge and go into the house to meet Jun & Ali, who look extremely nervous about having everyone back in the house. Each of the houseguests reveal their votes - Jun wins 6-1. Jun's boyfriend Bob is waiting for her outside the house, while Alison's parents are waiting for her. Everyone leaves the house. Julie interviews the girls, and they are not surprised that they were not congratulated by the jury after the votes were over. Alison gets a message from Donnie... but it's hard to say if it's positive. Julie and all the houseguests (minus Scott, of course, as he is an un-person to the show) say goodbye from the front of the house. The last shot is of the mime eating cookies and milk on the couch inside the house watching the show on the plasma screen...

And so ends Big Brother 4. Though it appears to be a ratings winner this year, I didn't feel the same about the show. In fact, toward the end, based on how the game was played and who was still left in the house, I was disappointed. Oh well, I guess we'll have Big Brother 5 next July...

Looks like the crew is rehersing the final exits, greetings, and goodbyes outside the Big Brother house. They're using stand-ins for everyone (with cards hanging around their necks with the houseguest name on them). That usually means that there will be one more rehersal with the actual houseguests later today before the live show. Inside the house, Jun & Ali have been going stir crazy that last few days and the tension of finally being able to get out is rising. Also, it sounds like Alison knows that Jun will win tonight. We'll see.

Oh, my God, does this team suck...

I just can't describe the feelings running through me. Disappointment, yes, but also disgust. Jon Garland only went 2-2/3 innings giving up 7 earned runs on 6 hits, one walk, one strikeout. Scott Schoeneweis came in and pitched 3-1/3 with 2 runs but none earned. Why? We had three errors, two on Tony Graffanino (not like him to do that) and Jose Valentin (seems like it wouldn't be a game without him making an error). Cripes. Jon Adkins finished the game with 3 innings of work. By the time the 8th inning came around, it was time to throw in the towel. Manuel put in the youngsters to get some work - Graffanino moved to short (from 2nd), Aaron Rowand moved from center to right, Aaron Miles was in at 2nd, Armando Rios in left, Willie Harris in center, and Jamie Burke at 1st (I thought he was a catcher?) At least Aaron Rowand got a homer after that, but we were just so far gone that it barely made a dent in the score.

So this was our last Season Ticket game of the year. I may have been giddy about getting an invoice for playoff tickets, but there's no way in hell we'll be here in October.

And thoughts already turn to next April... who on the team will still be there next year???

Damn, I'm upset...

(Boxscore)

Last weeks giddiness, excitement and hope have been replaced by misery and despair. The Sox were swept by the Twins and have fallen 3½ game behind them. It's impossible to catch them as they have an extremely easy schedule to finish the season. I fear hope is lost.

We go to "The Cell" anyway, as it's our last weekend games with the boys. The game started well with Frank Thomas's 41st HR of the year and his 93rd career first-inning HR. But that was all we'd come up with for the game. The offense wasn't there, the defense wasn't there, the pitching wasn't there. Esteban Loaiza, for the 3rd time, misses his chance on getting his 20th win and instead gets his 9th loss in 6 innings of work. We went through 4 pitchers in the 7th. The fans were restless and vocal, booing Billy Koch when he came in. Everyone didn't believe what they were seeing.

I'm disgusted and distraught. I fear that it's over. We're now 4½ games out.

Damn.

(Boxscore)

So, after being "shipwrecked" in the Pearl Islands, Nicole Delma, the 24-year-old Massage Therapist from Hermosa Beach, CA was voted-out of the Morgan Tribe.

More later...

We know that Alison won Round One of the HOH competition. We know that Jun won Round Two. We see how the Final 3 are coping with stress during the game (or not). We see how Robert threatens the girls with failure if he is not taken to the Final 2. We are treated to stories from family about how the Final 3 are playing the game The Final Round of the HOH competition is between Jun & Alison and they must guess what their ex's said about them (on tape from the Jury House) on eight questions, and then after a 4-4 tie, on to a tie breaker on how many days did they date their ex's. Alison answers 0, Jun answers 1 Million and Alison wins (Funny! Like they planned it!). We see Erika enter the Jury House (nice place) - in the same clothes she was evicted in. So Alison, in no surprise move, kicked Robert's ass out of the house.

When Chelsea came out from "the back" at the surgical place, she was fine, but I don't think we were ready for the shock of seeing her. The big black sutures against her shaved pink skin were shocking. The incision was in the shape of a "Y", extending from "shoulder to shoulder" and down her chest. We knew that the incision would be large, but this was way beyond our expectations. The real sutures versus the disolvable sutures probably made it look much worse.

She has a shaved patch on the right side of her torso so that has a morphine patch stuck to it. Oh, man... I haven't seen the use of pain patches on a dog before... she must really be in pain...

And sure enough, as Chelsea came out she was quiet. As soon as she saw us, each breath she took had a "squeak" in her voice. She's not comfortable at all. Diane got the instructions on how to treat Chelsea over the next couple of days (no stairs, no playing, warm compresses on the incision, no change in diet, back in 10-14 days to get the sutures out).

We went outside. Diane put Chelsea on the ground so she could have a, um, walk. She walked and peed just fine, but she just looks a little out of it. She's still squeaking. We get back to Diane's SUV. Diane picks-up Chelsea and puts her in the back seat and climbs in. I take the front to drive them home.

Now, dogs - compared to humans - breathe rapidly. She still squeaked with every breath.

For the entire 45 minute trip home.

She really squeaked once when she tried moving around. She also let out the most terrible, sorrowful moan I'd ever heard coming from a dog.

It was a hard drive home.

But, she did make it home. She laid in her bed the entire them I was there. (Diane was kind enough to grill up a burger for each of us and we kicked back and watched some TiVo for a while.) She tried to sleep, but she never fidgeted. She just seemed exhausted. But at least she was quiet. She's probably more comfortable being home.

Hopefully, she'll be just fine.

Imagine the last three houseguests alone in the house. With a mime. For three hours. Lets just say that Ali has issues. Anyway, Robert wins a luxury competition to view a movie in the newly renovated media room (the old Desert bedroom) with a guest. Robert chose Ali. The movie is Runaway Jury (with John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman) which won't be out until next month! And they will be going to the Premiere at the Kodak theater! But for now, they're watching the movie before the public release tonight. While they were in the Desert Room watching the movie, the mime came back (and scared the hell out of Jun who was in the house "alone") and kept Jun company for an hour, while torturing Ali's stuffed animals. He left before the movie ended.

It was really hazy today. It was in the low 80's and breezy. We all had a moment of silence - the quietest the park has been in a while. It was all reverent and poignant. I needed to be here.

Alas, the day should have been better. Esteban Loaiza was trying for his 20th win. Frank Thomas got his 40th homer of the season in the first, but our defense just flew apart in the third when Carl Everett had a throwing error that eventually allowed 2 then a third run to score when we actually had two runners trapped between the bases if someone was paying attention, and we're down 4-1. In the 4th, A.J. Pierzynski grounds to Brian Daubach at first who throws to second to get the lead runner Torii Hunter and Jose Valentin attempts to complete the double play by throwing back to first... only nobody is there. Daubach never went back to the bag and Loaiza was trying to get there... it was Valentin's 16th error of the season. Loaiza was never getting strikes over the outside corner of the plate for left-handed batters. It was frustrating him. In the meantime the Sox could never seem to get back into it. By the 8th, it starts to feel like Manuel is throwing in the towel... fresh off the DL and rehab, he brings in Billy Koch - who actually strikes out 2 and gives up a hit. Really, that's not bad. Manuel also brings in Jamie Burke to catch and Aaron Miles pinch hits. Jose Valentin hits what is barely a homerun in the 9th with 2 out, but we never get back in. It's over. Brad Radke pitched a complete game.

The Magic Number is still 17 - we are tied with the Twins for first. It should have been so much better...

(Boxscore)

Now the two interesting quotes are these: "There is one of the greatest lies ever this season. It is a fantastic, horible lie" (referring to a contestant and of course not Jeff). "There is a huge regret that somebody does that has a big impact...". Sounds like maybe somebody thinks someone should get voted-off and doesn't and comes back to bite them?

A clip is shown of the cast on deck of what looks like a 3-masted schooner. Jeff greets them: "Welcome guys to Survivor: Pearl Islands. The game is on. I know everybody here brought their suitcases and I know you got a lot more luggage downstairs, and it's true, in the past, Survivors have been allowed to go through their luggage and pick out a few essential items. You guys won't have that luxury. You're going into this game with the clothes you have on your back."

Well, we see stories about Robert and the women, the first 3 evicted houseguests (Amanda, Michelle, and David), we see Jee arrive at the Jury House (and Dana, even though she's screwing Justin every night (or so we think) STILL looks pissed-off), and we see Alison use the Power of Veto as she takes herself off of nomination for the third time, automatically putting Erika up as a nomination for eviction. As Erika sits down in the orange chair we see a commercial about applications are now being accepted for Big Brother 5. After the break, we see Alison tearfully evict Erika live to her face. DAMN. I didn't want to see that happen. Eventually, it's time for the final Head of Household competition. It's going to be in three parts (The first is tonight, with the winner going to Part 3. Part 2 is probably tomorrow, with the winner going to part 3. The two people in Part 3 battle to win the final HOH). Anyway, just as last year, this will be an endurance challenge where you must hold onto your key. This time, the remaining houseguests are standing on little houses. Not a big deal... for a little while. Then a snow machine kicks-in over the wall, throwing "snow" (or more likely shaved ice) onto the houseguests. Apparently it's coming down in chunks, some larger than your fist and it hurts. The show ends and we are left to find out the results by watching the live feeds on the internet.
Update: Well, this didn't last long - only about an hour and a half. First out was Jun, followed quickly by Robert. Alison wins the first part of the final HOH challenge.

Can you say sweep? Yes, in what seems to be a rarity, the Sox swept the Indians. It was still scary, though. Danny Wright started the game. I'm not a fan of his. He hasn't impressed me as a starter and I wish that we went down to a 4-man rotation than stay at a 5-man with him in the mix. If he's in, he's only going to last a few innings. Today, he lasted 5 giving up 2 runs on 5 hits, 1 walk, but had 4 strikeouts. We went through 5 other pitchers after that. Scott Schoeneweis wound up with the win when he came in after Scott Sullivan gave up a single, double and a run on a sacrifice fly in the 7th (Kelly Wunsch had the 6th and was flawless. He had more in him and Manuel should have left him in just one more inning.) Frank Thomas smashed a game-winning three-run homer with two outs in the seventh (his 39th).

(Boxscore)

We're back at "The Cell" for an early (12:15pm) game against the Indians. What a gorgeous day for baseball - sunny, winds light and variable, around 70 degrees. This weekend the club is celebrating the team of the 1983 "Winning Ugly" White Sox that won the American League West title. Most of the 1983 team was there to throw out the first pitch (actually 1983 Cy Young winner Lamarr Hoyt threw out the first pitch to Carlton Fisk. Way cool.) The 2003 team wore those ugly 1983 uniforms and some of those people didn't look too good!

We started off strong with 4 runs in the 1st. We eventually gave up 5 runs by the 4th, but eventually got back into it, winning 8-5. Esteban Loaiza had 10 strikeouts and got his 19th win. We had homers by Carl Everett and Paul Konerko. Frank Thomas was 0-for-5 with 3 strikeouts leaving 4 on base. Ouch.

(Boxscore)

It's Day 61 in the Big Brother House and oh, what a twisted game this has been... We saw an entire segment on how Robert lies. We saw a segment from the Jury House where we got TOO MUCH INFORMATION about Justin & Dana - <shudder>. Then we had a live Veto Ceremony where Alison uses the Veto on herself, so Jun puts up Robert in her place, all of which doesn't matter at Jee gets voted-off 2-0. In his goodbye message to Jee, Robert says "I'll do it for the Dream Team". Ugh. We found out that the last night of the show is now September 24. It got moved-up because CBS ordered a few more shows and so far the houseguests don't know that they will be in the house a little longer than they thought. Late this afternoon while I had the live feeds on, I saw aa little goof. The crew didn't go to the "Front of the House" camera (and play that godforsaken them music over and over) during a rehersal for tonight (yes, they actually reherse the live show). They had the camera on in the empty "Desert Room" and the producer was giving instructions to the houseguests over the house P.A. (I didn't get the good parts, but I did get a short piece here as an MP3). I found out that the housegusests, after the eviction, were put into the old Desert Room so the crew could setup the living room for the HOH challenge. So, they do the HOH challenge tonight, which is guessing the answers of questions that were given to the Jury House guests. Erika and Robert tie. The tie breaker question is a math question, with the winner being closest without going over. The question: from the time the exes entered the house until now, how many hours have you been in the house? Erika answers 1440, Robert answers 800. Correct answer: 1434. Erika is over by 6 hours so Robert gets HOH for the week. Crap.