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Tag: los angeles

how’s LA

Los Angeles Palm Tree
I get asked quite often from my friends and family who don’t live in Los Angeles how I like it. I’ll hear one of the following or more:

  • How’s LA?
  • How do you like living there?
  • What’s it like there?
  • What do you think of LA?
  • Do you really enjoy living there?

Simply giving my broad opinions about this place doesn’t quite do it justice for how I feel. It’s hard to explain such a huge place in just a few sentences. And having lived here for over three years now, I think I have a much better opinion to give about what it’s like to live here.

So let’s put these questions to rest. Here are my Woos and Boos about the largest city on the left coast.

  • woo – It’s a huge metropolitan city. You can find anything and everything you can find anywhere else. There’s always something to go do or see or experience.
  • boo – It’s a huge metropolitan city. It’s too populated and has no stop in sight. There’s TOO much to do and see, so you can get lost in the mix.
  • woo – Want to get away? LA is neighbored by San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
  • boo – Trying to get away is a nightmare, especially on holidays. Traffic is as bad as you hear about. Driving down the 405 during peak hours is a complete nightmare most of the time. There are few shortcuts to travel worth the time it takes to drive them. You either go on the freeway or just stay home.
  • woo – Has some limited but beautiful architecture. You can find a diamond in the rough by driving down just about any street in LA.
  • boo – Real estate prices are a complete joke. They might not be as high as NYC, but they’re certainly higher than most of the country. To purchase a house, you need to be in the very high middle class or just plain rich.
  • woo – There are some amazing, creative and talented people who live here. It’s a melting pot of the states, bringing together people from all over the country and world.
  • boo – Superficiality rules. So many people are here just for the industry, trying to make it and become the next “it”. It can be difficult to make meaningful relationships with anyone.
  • woo – You’re miles away from almost all terrains: sun-kissed beaches, snow-capped mountain ranges, hot and desolate deserts, thick and thin forests.
  • boo – So many of these terrains are scarred with human interaction or pollution. Smog is a huge problem and doesn’t seem to be getting any better. The heat of summer can last 6-8 months out of the year.
  • woo – Hollywood. Celebrities. World famous clubs.
  • boo – Hollywood. Celebrities. World famous clubs. They’re overrated.

This city is a mixed bag. But right now, it’s MY mixed bag.

One year anniversary

I’ve been in Los Angeles for exactly a year today…

home sweet LA

Finally, a 40 hour week! I worked way too much last week but at least my next paycheck is going to rock my world.

I think LA is growing on me. I don’t plan on being here forever, however I hope I can make my stay as pleasant as possible. Finding jobs in the business is still a very slow process and requires a lot of waiting and calling. But, I do have some feelers out there working for me. It’s interesting, though, how much control I am given over my career. I feel like I’m working myself much harder than I ever have in trying to make work happen. Even for that, still, my job prospects just aren’t there. It’s not that I lack talent either, it’s just that I haven’t met the right person or people.

This holiday season is mostly going to be spent in Texas and Colorado. I’m looking forward to both and can’t wait for Thanksgiving to arrive. The negative factor in this is that I’ll only be home for less than 2 weeks in December! That’s definitely not good for jobs and finding work. However, I know that next year is going to start completely different for me. I will pretty much have nothing but time assuming I haven’t found any jobs this year.

So, even though I struggle in a few areas while I live here, I feel that my time to be here in LA is not done yet. I do want to find time to travel and see the state since I’m here (anyone, anyone?), but I do need to make sure that I’m seriously working on helping out my future. I hate having to work so hard at and being so serious about finding work because I love relaxing. However, I know that this isn’t done in vain and things will eventually turn around. The economy is on the upwards, jobs are being created, and people are getting hired.

LA!

Yup, I’m here! I made it here on Monday evening around 6pm PST. I could have been here earlier but…

I was eatin’ the road up on Monday. Arizona, most of I-10 through the state, is 75MPH. So I was just coasting. Ya hit California and not only is it slower but there’s not too much of which to see. I guess, however, that you’re driving between two mountain/hill ranges so it’s not horrible I guess.

I made it the Palm Springs area around 3pm. Basically, you reach a very high point and you start coming down for about 20 minutes to the valley which makes up Palm Springs. Ahead in the distance, I saw a bunch of clouds and the closer I got to LA the darker they got. D’oh!

After driving through Palm Springs and past the famous windmills (of which you see every time you visit this website . . . look up at the top of the page), there was some sprinkling. Then it was sprinkling harder. Then the traffic slowed down. Then it was drizzling. Then the traffic was fizzling. And so on.

It rained a few time, scattered showers and clouds most of the drive in. The traffic was just about as scattered as the weather. That’s LA traffic for ya.

So it took me about 2 hours to get about 40 miles. Maybe a little more but I wasn’t really counting either.

I am now here at my new home! First things up were my TV and computer (how obvious can I be?). I’ve spent the past two days shopping for a few things and applying for my first job here, which is officially gonna be at a certain theme park which isn’t Disneyland. I’ll be on the stage crew unless that changes in the near future.

In the next week or so, I’m gonna accompany my roomie to his place of work at the tv studio as well as make a few visits to some studios in the Hollywood area. This will hopefully return some positive results in the near future because I don’t wanna be a stage crew for all that long if possible. However, I’m not gonna give up a sure thing unless I find another sure thing, of course referring to a job.

There’s so much that I could include but don’t know what to put right now. I think I’ll leave it at this for now. I might post some photos in the near future if I can make time. Many, many more stories to come in the future and hopefully my new layout though it’s gonna take a while since I can’t dedicate too much time to it right now.

Later!

3 replies

change of pace

I have lived in Texas for approximately 22.5 years of my life. I lived in Colorado for 2 years of my life. Now, starting next week, I shall begin my life in Los Angeles, California!

I found out last night, after two sleepless, anxious nights that LA is my next destination. I am taking the week to say my goodbyes, or rather see ya soons, and then it’s off to the relatively unfamiliar place called la-la land.

Needless to say, I am excited! Better yet, I am apprehensively excited! This is the biggest change for me that I’ve ever been through. Hopefully, this will be the land of opportunity for me; it will be the best of what I make it. I have long term goals which I shall be pursuing with the help of my new roommate. He is a semi-famous guy who works in the music and television industry, and through his networking and my ambitious desire for accomplishment, I shall go out there determined to make my mark on that world.

The timing of this new adventure is absolutely impeccable! My last 8 months since graduating college have been sometimes difficult and depressing to me. The cycles were up and down and it was very tiresome. But my luck is now changed. This move is for the better, and I’m so ready for this new change of pace.

I know that an overall goal of mine is to make a mark in the world, to leave something behind wherever I go that shall help someone else to move forward.

I hope anyone who reads this and knows me will feel free to visit! I can’t promise a room for anyone right now because I still haven’t even gotten there yet. But, I will be there and ready for company at all times! It’s just strange to think that I won’t be in Texas for too much longer. It’s even more strange to know that I have no idea when I’ll be back here for a long period of time. I leave behind a lot of friends and family in the state. However, I know y’all are well taken care of. It’s now time for me to care for myself the best I know how!

In the near future (hopefully) I will update this website to include more features and a better layout. I have a lot of work to do on my website but not too much time in which I can do it right now. So come back soon for some more fun and lots of great California stories!!

5 replies

My First CD

I recorded the band last night. It went well. In fact, I got praise from Les. As I wrote a while ago, he won a grammy. So the fact that he praised me is definitely a good thing. It’s now a HUGE matter of licensing the songs for use, paying, producing, mixing, mastering, copying, stamping, and delivering. It also looks like we can produce no less than 1000 for financial and political reasons.

So my impressions of last night? The first two songs had feedback. Not a good way to start the recording. Maybe I can fix it and make it sound cool. That’ll be a nice challenge I don’t need. The rest of the songs went very well. Some weren’t as strong as I’d like but it’s no big deal. Everyone shined at one time or another performance-wise. Not knowing whether there would be enough room to re-record songs, we limited the number of songs to 14. There turned out to be enough room for at least another hour of music. So they re-performed the first song and I let them perform 3 more songs beyond that. We’ll see how all these tunes turn out.

I’m not very confident that the CD will actually get made right now because I’m positive they don’t want to spend the money. My biggest chance is to have as much information as I can about how much everything will cost; present a break even cost to the director and project how much of a profit we could make at different prices to sell the CDs. It definitely has potential if we can market it well enough and sell at least 500. I think it’s definitely doable but will take a lot of work.

In other news, I have 3 tests and 1 project to complete before spring break… and Oh crap, the Saturday following this one I’m going to Los Angeles for the week! Wow, time is just passing me by. I’ll be there visiting with an engineer, composer, and hopefully a few studios and such. Something I just thought about is the fact that I’ll be there when the Oscars are taking place!! Maybe I’ll go clubbing and meet some celebrities or something. That’s pretty cool to think about.

Oh yeah, speaking of all these trips and CDs and money issues, does anyone wanna pass some donations my way?! :D