Mini Vacation!

Jenise and I took a quick trip to LA this weekend. We spent our first evening visiting friends. They just had a baby boy two weeks ago which made it extra fun.

The main thing on our agenda for our full day there was to see a soccer game but that wasn’t until the evening. In the morning we went to Hollywood Boulevard to check out the Kodak Theater, Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Stars names in the ground aren't particularly exciting to me but I was curious to see which stars drew the most attention. On the Walk of Fame, it seemed to be Bruce Lee. At Grauman's, the stars of the Harry Potter films were easily the main attraction.

Next we went to Venice Beach and walked the boardwalk. There was a bunch of "interesting" characters there. We saw at least 10 fortune tellers, a "bushman" posing with tourists as if he were attacking them with his spear, and, of course, the musclebound dudes lifting weights on the beach. I also saw Paddle Tennis for the first time. I really want to try it--it's like tennis but with the tempo of racquetball.

After playing on the beach for awhile, we were off to Home Depot Center to watch the LA Galaxy play my team, the Houston Dynamo. (Why is that my team? They were formerly the San Jose Earthquakes which was my local team. Next year I’m going to have to balance my allegiance as the San Jose Earthquakes rejoin the MLS.) The Home Depot Center is a pretty sweet place to watch soccer. Even with a smallish crowd, the atmosphere was really good. Too bad their team is terrible. (Their general manager, Alexi Lalas, traded away all their decent young talent to acquire players who "could withstand the pressure" of playing with Beckham.) The pic below gives a good look at the HDC.


The game was pretty exciting. As you probably know, Beckham is out the rest of the season due to injury but it was US international Brian Ching's first game back for the Dynamo after an injury. Once he came on, slightly before halftime, they were running circles around the Galaxy. In the end, the score was 3-1 for Houston.