Sunday August 15 and Monday August 16th, 2010

I flew out with Rich on Sunday evening to meet up with Chris and his business partner Cari for the semi-annual Magic Show…the huge fashion and shoe convention that takes up the entire Las Vegas Convention Center and the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Rich and I were mostly just tagging along and had a day at the pool planned for Monday but I did have some other business to attend to, so it made sense. I had every intention of driving there so that I could visit family in Bullhead City AZ afterwards, and also so that I could get myself to yoga  but at the last minute on Sunday I decided that I really just couldn’t do it. I HATE HATE HATE long road trips. I even went so far as to get satellite radio installed in my car on Sunday am, but realized that I had a freebie ticket on SWA expiring in September, so I was golden! We arrived around 9pm and Payless car rental was… out of cars. So despite my reservation they had no car ready til the morning. So annoying. Anyways, this is the waiting area outside the car pick up area that we had to chill out in until we could catch a ride to Luxor. Classy. (Please note my “Shut Your Whore Mouth” tshirt in black.)

First thing in the AM they were still dicking around with the car and the driver and whatnot so I just took a cab to the rental car center so Rich and I could make it to 11am yoga on time! Rich lost a stupid bet on the plane and now had to take the class with me. haha! He did awesome and was kicking ass in several of the poses that I cannot for the life of me master. Little brat. The instructor was awesome and so energetic and really kept Rich enthused. It really makes a difference if the teacher has some positive energy and a bit of a sense of humor. (His name was John and it was the WestSide studio in Summerlin in case you care. Awesome instructor!) After yoga we got ready to head to the pool, but not before I noticed a Redi-Whip can on a room service cart outside of our neighbor’s room. Hehehe. You know what that means!? Whippets! Yes I put an item from someone else’s meal in my mouth. It was totally worth it. (I think it was not open, but I would have done it either way. But yeah, I am 99% sure it was a brand new unopened can.)

It was a breezy 105 degrees out today.

Hours later and many buckets of beer later the sun began to set and our afternoon was winding down.

We switched to cocktails

And began our ridiculous photoshoot underwater. These are shot under the water up into the sky. It looks like I have a mini little top hat on my head. hahaha

And now I look like I have the head of a midget.

We went back to the rooms to take naps before Chris came back from setting up the convention. We had a reservation at Bartolotta’s, but sadly, I was unable to nap and I was pretty buzzed at dinner. It sucks because I freaking love this place.

No idea what is so damn funny. Perhaps my hair! Oh yes, I am trying out for Lion King.

I will try to remember as much as possible about dinner. Pardon my barbaric descriptions of the food we ate. If you remember this is the place where the guy flies his fish in fresh from the Mediterranean every single day. Chris and I took his class last fall and he explained that he literally has the fisherman photograph the fish coming out of the water and sends a text with a photo asking if he would like it or not. Then Paul tracks the fish all the way across the world til it arrives in his establishment in time for dinner. Pretty amazing stuff.

Chris and I did the tasting menu … Rich doesn’t eat fish but was brave enough to try the octopus and loved it. I don’t even like octopus at all and it was out of this world. Moving from top left to right were tiny baby soft shelled crabs that I could have eaten all  night like popcorn. Really tasty…most people are not brave enough to eat soft shelled crab like that, but honestly…give it a shot. For me. Moving down and right, I have no idea what that was. Salad obviously, but I don’t recall. And on the bottom left I assume that is Dungeness crab…I don’t really remember, all I know is that I sliced my knuckle open trying to eat the damn thing.

Umm white fish. I guess?

Aha! Scallops…I remember those because I don’t usually like them and they were good. I believe those are mushrooms underneath.

Risotto with sausage. I think it was a bit bland. Boy, I hope Chris reads this and and chime in with some real comments and an actual review of the food. I suck.

I remember really liking this dish, too. Huge chunks of lobster and a yummy light red sauce with pasta.

But the LTP award went to the sauce that the octopus was served with. It was the same dish he made for us at the  event in Nov of 2009. A reason to visit his restaurant. I swear to you.

Tuscan snapper was our main course and they come to the table and filet it right there for you.

Rich had veal.

I had Rich’s leftovers.

And then we all got in a fight over dessert because Rich is like Christian where he orders for himself only. Chris and I are “sharers” and become infuriated with people do not share a bite or two of their dessert. It is, in my opinion, totally rude. My panna cotta was not as creamy as I like it, the chocolate thing on the right I don’t really remember what else was in it and Rich had the trio of sorbet and was being stingy and jerky about it…the clearish sorbet in the middle was amazing, but I didn’t get very much. Hey Rich, what flavor was it? Or were you too drunk to remember dinner also? Chris was less than thrilled with us, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed early. Dad was mad at us.

Saturday August 14, 2010

I got a new tshirt in the mail from a Mommy blogger named Aunt Becky. Her site is pretty awesome. I follow her on Twitter and saw that she was selling these funny shirts so I bought one in fuschia and black.

Danny was in town so we called Shipyard Jeff up and went to eat downtown at my favorite sushi bar Taka. It bums me out that they use that fake crab shit in their rolls, but the uni and the toro are the best in town and the Special Battera roll is out of this world so I continue to go there.

I told myself that I was not going to go out at all this weekend but somehow we ended up at Quality Social doing shot after shot of Jameson chased with homemade pickle brine. Danny had read about it on my blog and since he loves Jameson, we decided to go in for “just one.” We stood in line for about 10 or 15 minutes (despite my attempt at getting in by name dropping lol. Congrats to my friends who own it!) when finally someone grabbed us along with a group of other people and led us into a doorway around the corner and in through the back storage closet. It was so weird!

Nice face, Jeff.

I have said this before, I don’t even like brown liquor (except Captain Morgan rum) but the pickle juice just neutralizes and cancels out any of the ickyness of the Jameson. You slam the shot of Jameson and then immediately you slam the decliously salty pickle juice. It is heaven on earth.

Jeff did not like it all but Danny and I had about 4 shots in 15 minutes.

The moral of the story is when you slam 4 shots of Jameson in that short of time, you black out. I don’t remember stopping off at the Chee Chee and I don’t remember eating that sandwich that was in my fridge. I thought the ghost that kept eating the tangerines and leaving the peels in my sink was back.

I have mixed feelings about this video. On the one hand it’s fucking hilarious, but on the other hand, is it really appropriate? Good thing I will never have kids so I won’t be faced with decisions like this. lol

Here’s the thing…this blog is time consuming and I haven’t seen a whole lot of growth in my stats so I am going to adapt the old “Quality over Quantity” motto. I think people don’t always want to read it because it can be overwhelming at times. I had a friend tell me that he liked the “Pre Blogging Laura” better and that I was too arrogant in my writings. (HA! from one of the most arrogant guys I know.) He stopped reading my blog for some reason which I am unclear but I think he just got bored hearing about yoga and food all the time. I do love the creative outlet that it provides me and I have so many things still to learn in life and I will share them with you when I feel inspired. But let’s face it, Laurapalooza is pretty much winding down and I need to get my ass back to work. I am certainly not bored with my new life, but reality is setting in now that I have reached the final stages of my decompression. I said I would give it 6 months to clear my head and it’s been about that long. Damn time flies fast.

 The posts will be less frequent so if you are one of the loyal readers (I thank you!) who checks in every day, you might want to consider subscribing and then you will get an email notification when I make a post. Theres a thingy on the bottom right of this page that says SUBSCRIBE so please click on it and enter your email address. That will also prevent Joe and Rich from texting me and asking where my updates are. lol

All of that being said…. I did 2 yoga classes on Wednesday in an attempt to make up 2 of the missed days on my 30 day challenge. It was not that bad until I tried to get out of bed on Thursday am at 5:45 to go again and my body was simply not moving. It’s Friday as I write this and I have gone already today and am going this afternoon. At the end of this afternoon it will be my 17th class. I will have completed the 30 days on August 28th. I haven’t lost any pounds but am tightening up all around and have been able to purchase MEDIUM bottoms at Old Navy. (Granted their sizes are so whack because what they call an XS is really a small in most places. Who cares, I will take it!) The super duper good news of the day is that I went to see the cardiologist and I am healthy as can be. My blood pressure went from 156/95 to 131/86 in less than 2 months. He asked if I wanted a refill on my meds and I was like “Yo Doc! I am not on meds, that’s the whole reason I came in here to see you was because I didn’t want to go on them and I wanted to see how close I was to having to actually do that. I have been doing hot Bikram yoga 4 days a week since June.” He looked at me stunned and said “You did this on your own in 2 months without medication? Well, there ya go. I can’t beat that.”  I did mention that I quit my job and he laughed and said to come back in a few months once I started working again. As far as diet goes: the kidney, thyroid, triglyceride and cholesterol tests all came back “good” and “normal” and he said I didn’t have to change my diet at all.

THERE IS A GOD.

I had received a text from my friend Rozy earlier in the day asking if I would go support her down at Side Bar because she was supposed to be guest bartending and needed to show that she could pull people in. I was planning on staying for just a drink or two and maybe running into some cute boys.  As it turns out, the whole thing was a misunderstanding. I think they told several potential bartenders (hot female ones I might add) to come down, but it appeared to be that no one was doing any guest bartending at all. They were probably just trying to fill the place. She had rallied a few other people and I have to admit I was taken aback by this one guy right away. He was a good looking, tall, intelligent, sarcastic, witty guy who happens to live a block away from me. We got to talking when Rozy ran off to see what was up and it was going swimmingly. I was convinced that this was a blind date sent from heaven that I was not even aware that had been set up. I ditched out to the bathroom to take some notes in my Blackberry so I can add him to my blind date chronicles (to be published at a later date) and when I returned from the bathroom things went a little haywire. This is a 33 year old guy who seemed to have his shit together…until he gets a little booze in his sytem. It was so weird, he started acting very strange and was getting physical with me. Now, let’s not kid ourselves, we know that I am curious about the rough stuff, but I definitely don’t want to be put in a headlock until I have known you at least a week. Sheesh. Rozy admitted that she didn’t know him that well and that she had just run into him earlier in the day and invited him…I think he is just a bit socially awkward around women. At first I was up for the challenge but when I woke up the next morning I realized that I don’t have the time and energy in my life to be “training” someone how to behave. If I run into him downtown and he’s sober I will definitely let him buy me a drink. But other than that… it’s going to be a great entry for my series of horrific blind dates (even though it wasn’t a blind date and we didn’t know we would be meeting each other it’s still worthy of an entry. Trust me.) I took a photo of the three of us and he looks really cute in it, but I decided not to post it. I wouldn’t want him to find out about this and have his feelings be hurt. Plus he knows what building I live in.

Monday August 9, 2010

I stayed a few extra days in Fort Lauderdale to hang out with Howard and we had big plans to hit the spa on Monday. That unfortunately did not happen…Howard was too busy at his office and after our late lunch it was too late to do anything so we just went and hung out at his house and ate dinner.

A few highlights of the day… nasty bacon flavored vodka called Bakon! (I am waiting on a video of me drinking a shot and nearly puking)

For lunch we went to Alibi and I have to admit that I was a little nervous about eating lunch in the bar we came to the other night. I was really trying to avoid eating bar type food, but was pleasantly surprised to inhale these “ahi nachos.” Several of my favorite things from a Japanese restaurant: ahi, sweet eel sauce, seaweed salad, crispy chips and topped with a cream sauce. Deeeeeelish. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t judge a bar’s menu from the outside or from the shots you did there the other night.

I finally got Tyson to sit still for a few pictures, but like I always say…little dogs are afraid of things for very good reason. They are so squashable so easy.

Here Tyson and Archie are singing their hearts out for you all.

ahaahahhah so damn cute

Archie is also a little timid…he was rescued from 3 abusive homes before finding his place at Howard and John’s.

Total sweetheart though

And Tyson grooms and licks Archie til he’s squeaky clean. Best buds.

I am retarded for not getting any photos of me and Howard together. I suck.

Saturday August 7, 2010

Yoga this morning? Not so much. So let’s begin our day at noon and sit poolside and grab some expensive food that tastes average.

We didn’t know what this woman’s tattoo was all about so when we ran into her later we asked her. Apparently they are writers. With problems. Like Hemingway. I can’t remember any of the other ones. In fact, she didn’t even remember who was on her back when I pointed at a spot. She would ask her friend…”Who is she pointing at?” Ummm….if I got a bunch of faces tatted on my back you damn well know that I am going to know exactly who is where.

Little Lupe and her bf Evan Seinfeld. She’s cute, and now that she has a boob job she doesn’t look like a 12 year old anymore.

Our amazing waitress WENDY! Wendy is responsible for getting us tanked in the pool because she would not stop bringing us pitchers of strawberry mojitos. That bitch.

Tommy 5tone and Brandon Lewis were so cooperative when I asked them for a romantic photo shoot under the waterfall.

It’s not that romantic when you have gallons of water beating onto your face and into your eyes though.

It started to get pretty windy but we were not about to end our awesome day. Surprisingly I got a lot of business done in the pool! It’s hard to exchange business cards when you are swimming…I might just make a set of rubber business cards for situations just like this. Watch til the end of this video. I really had no idea! ew

 Tommy kept smoking in the pool near me and you all know how I feel about cigarette smoke. Watch this funny video if you have 2 minutes to spare right now. It’s worth it.

We finally got out of the pool when the thunder and lightning came. The storm provided me with some cool cloud shots though.

We were prunes!

I was so tan I was beginning to look like Magda from “Something About Mary”…

…now that I see this picture of her tongue kissing the dog, I really am her. oh gawd.

At dinner, of course, with underwear on his head.

And shocking…the sushi bar inside the Westin had an amazing dynamite roll! LTP award for the creamy sauce and the huge real lobster bites on top.

We went up to a party in one of the big suites in the hotel and then back to Johnny’s to watch some more boys dance half naked on stage. When I got back to the room at god knows what hour I attempted a photo like the one of the moon from July 3rd of this cruise ship. This is the view from the hotel room as I saw it.

Zoomed in with photoshop…not as clear as the moon photo. BUT you can almost see the people losing their money in the mini casino. Or getting sick on board from the buffet.

And the awesome view of the pools below. I wanted to go swimming in the ocean at night while I was here. In fact I say that every year. **sigh** Not the way to live. If you want to do something…get off your ass and do it. I regret this.

Friday August 7, 2010

Yes, I am alive. I have totally dropped the ball on the daily updates and for that I apologize. When the sun is shining and the beach is right in front of your hotel…the last thing on your mind is sitting in your hotel room editing pictures and posting them on the interwebs for the 7 people that actually read this blog. So, here I am a few days late…. sioux me.

Every year for this tradeshow several hundred adult webmasters, performers, producers, directors, magazine publishers, billing companies, sex toy manufacturers and nerds who live in their mother’s basements (who build giant networks of sites that drive traffic to the big companies) descend upon the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, Florida. It’s usually right in the middle of hurricaine season, totally expensive and the food in the hotel sucks. You must have a badge to enter the building and you get stopped at every door. It’s rather annoying, but it’s an attempt to prevent the cheapskates from coming in for the parties and networking without paying the sponsoring companies a dime. It’s quite a racket that AVN has going on…but the place is stunning, so we all do it year after year and suck it up. I have been to this show probably 6 times and the one that I will never forget is the guy who threw his patio furniture off his 17th floor balcony onto the storm windows and into the lobby. Luckily no one was hurt, but he broke 5 windows at $5000 a pop! He obviously got arrested and had to pay the fees before they would return any of his belongings. I think (I hope for his sake) that he owned his own company at that point…but seriously, how do you submit a receipt to your accountant for that one? ummm marketing expense? Everyone sure who knew he was after that night, though.

The circle in the middle pool is perfect for mooning the other people in the bottom pool

The beaches of South Florida really are spectacular. If they could just ease up on the humidity a little.

After an hour or so at the beach I went into the John Stagliano seminar to hear about his obscenity case (that he won after 2 years!)  brought by the United States of America. I was shocked that more people were not in attendance to hear the man himself, along with his amazing legal team speak freely about their victory in the first case that the adult entertainment industry has had in 30 years. Like…shocked. I was all ears and completely fascinated to hear the details of the case. This is a man who has been in the industry as a performer, director, producer, pioneer since the mid 70s. I won’t get into all of his accomplishments, but in a nutshell he was accused of distributing obscene material and fought it and won. Huge huge huge victory for our First Amendment rights.

His lawyers spoke about their roles and duties in the case…essentially the jurors all decided that the videos in question were not in good taste but they ultimately realized that freedom was more important. There were several issues with the prosecution’s actions…namely the trailer that they wanted to show the jury didn’t play. There was a technical problem with the audio/visual equipment! Lol!! The judge was pretty much like “Umm, you have had 2 years to get this DVD to play so you are a bunch of idiots” and he dismissed it. I guess it’s tough to get the jury to agree with you when you can’t show them the evidence, right? Haha! Ok, so do you wanna know what they thought was obscene? The video in question showed girls squirting milk out of their butts. Tasteless? Yeah maybe a little, but so are those nasty abortion posters you see outside of Planned Parenthood. One day in the middle of lunch one of the lawyers decided to walk over to the William Blackstone statue outside of the courthouse and say a little prayer. It worked because magically everything started working in their favor. Does John Stagliano get his legal fees back? Nope. So by all means, buy Evil Angel porn. Help the guy out for helping our freedom. I actually have seen a bunch of his movies for research purposes (I can legitimately say that ya know) and there are 3 that I love…The Fashionistas, Fashionistas Safado, and Fashionistas Safado Berlin. I literally purchased these 3 videos with my own money. High production value, hot rough sex, (average acting, but let’s be real for a minute, ok) and some of the best performers in the business. Sasha Grey got her very first role here and look, now she’s on fucking Entourage this season! I only regret that I never got to see the show while it was running in Las Vegas.

(Side note about Sasha Grey…I have known her since she first got into the business when she was barely 18 years old…I clearly remember her agent coming to me at a tradeshow showing me on his Blackberry the email she had written to him about wanting to get into the business. It was an intellectual, poetic and beautifully written piece by someone who was and is much more mature about her sexuality that most of the people that I know in their 20s and 30s. If you have seen her doing interviews or if you saw her in The Girlfriend Experience, that is truly her personality. She’s quiet, deliberate, mild mannered, intelligent, mellow (yeah she looks like she’s on heroin half the time, but that’s just her eyes)…but if you are watching Entourage…that is acting! She is not even that bubbly in real life. Anyways, at age 22 she should be an inspiration to all women in the adult entertainment industry. She is a rare case, but a bigger mainstream crossover star than Jenna Jameson ever was. Hats off to Sasha Grey!)

Since the hotel was closed to the public there was a camera crew and anchor with body paint doing interviews for Naked News! The guy in the photo is another guy named KB that I have known for years who I spoke to a few months ago about how burned out we were from the chaos of the industry and how awesome it would be to be able to walk away from it and get an amazing mainstream gig. Here we both are at the show, of course. lol. It’s too easy. And fun.

Tommy and his assistant Justin who I love because he laughs at all of my jokes.

I would love to know what they are looking for. A bag of coke? Someone drop a cherry out of their Shirley Temple? A contact lens? A lizard?

Looking south from the 33rd floor of the south tower

I thought this photo was cool… not usually the way you see the Florida coastline.

A suite party with some free snacks and wine!

I love Vanilla DeVille…we have known each other from these events for going on 5 or 6 years now…She’s great fun. Apparently last year I started a food fight with her on the last night of the show. We had been drinking all day and suddenly I just chucked a whole bowl of nuts at her. oopsie daisies. I did not remember that at all. ha.

We headed back to Ft Lauderdale to a nasty dirty creepy gay strip club called Johnny’s because Howard had some boys dancing there this weekend and we needed to show our support.

I was able to sneak a few shots of the drag queen show before the owner of the club caught me and told me to put my camera away.

Then we mosied to another gay bar called The Boardwalk where everyone took a turn at using my very expensive Nikon.

I was trying to teach the principles of photography and lighting to someone, I forget who, and was posing near the TV monitor so he could see that the light shining on my face was easier to shoot. Annnnd that’s why I am not a model. awkward. Is that me trying to be coy and sexy? eww. Or am I pretending to listen to someones annoying story?

Ok now for the breathtaking part of the evening. Last year at this show I was flirting with this bartender and could barely understand him because he’s got a very thick Brazilian accent. (He is straight.) He was trying to tell me his name and I couldn’t understand him so I pushed a napkin and a pen across the bar to him so he could write it down. He was nice enough to add his phone # but I CHICKENED OUT AND NEVER CALLED HIM ALL WEEKEND. What a dork! He is so freaking hot. So this year, I walk in, see him again, pull out the photos I have on my blackberry from exactly one year ago, show him and hand him my business card. We giggled. I got free drinks all night. (**crosses fingers** maybe I will add a 954 to my list this weekend.) I still don’t know his name.

Back at the hotel fairly early. 3am. Yoga is going to be a total bitch in the morning. But fuck, I can’t be missing 2 days already on this 30 day challenge. grrrrrr.

Wednesday August 4, 2010

I took the red eye out of San Diego and landed in Ft Lauderdale at 9am. I decided to come here for an annual adult industry internet tradeshow just to see what possible business opportunities might be lurking. There are a lot of folks in the industry (outside of the people in production in LA) that don’t even know that I left my job. Ya never know! Someone may present a project or a business idea to me that makes sense and there might even be business to be had outside of adult. It’s no secret that there is a lot of money in porn and the people that run it are generally pretty brilliant business men and women…with their hands in a lot of other stuff.

First stop was Howard’s office to say hi and to drop Tommy off so he could go to the Suite 703 shoot. He’s still running the show over there…I could have gone to set with him, but the pool sounded much better.

Meet Tyson the long haired Chihuahua who does not like the lens…

And Archie, the 14 year old Greyhound. I am going to be staying at Howard’s house for a couple of nights after the show so I hope to get a lot more footage of both of these little sweethearts.

I spent my day at the pool and the beach and guess what? For the first time since the early 90s I wore a bikini! I probably shouldn’t have (lol!) but I had the confidence to do it anyways. You can imagine the sunburn (yes I had 30 spf on) I have on my stomach and lower back since those parts have not seen the light of day since I was 22. I completely fell asleep in the sun and woke myself up snoring. It was the perfect afternoon.

I am assuming the roped off areas are for the sea turtle nesting. There are signs on a lot of the streets here that say the street lights are dimmed or off at night because of the nesting. I would love to come out here and check it out and catch a glimpse of this!

I am trying to do the Bikram 30 day challenge right now (30 classes in 30 days) and today was day #8 in a row. I attempted to go to the 4:30 class here but got lost and missed it. I don’t know if you have every tried to drive in Ft Lauderdale but it is super confusing. You’ve got “avenues” and “streets” and they are all numbers. But then you have SW, SE, NW and NE sometimes. And then there are “courts”, “ways” and “terraces” in the mix. So at any given time you might be on SW 4th St but then right after that you see NW 4th Ct so it’s no wonder I had no idea where the fuck I was going. And I am normally really good with directions! So frustrating. So now I have to double up and do 2 classes in one day. Ugh. BUT….While I was driving around (and texting and Tweeting) I discovered that Prop 8 had been overturned. After months and months the judge found it unconstitutional. I literally started crying in the car. It’s such good news for my gay friends in CA that want to get married! I guess I can change my profile picture on Twitter and Facebook now…I will have to come up with something clever to do.

For dinner Howard brought us to a sushi buffet called Kyojin (I know what you are thinking, but you know for as snobby as I am about food, I love sushi buffets! lol) After dinner we went to a gay club called Boardwalk which has a full bar and half naked boys dancing on stages all around. It’s hard to say but I think about half of them are straight guys with amazing bodies who are just trying to make a buck. I have been here before and had the dancers straight up touch me and try to hit on me. Tonight they were sucking at “dancing” and looked like corpses up there. Hey guys, this is not tryouts for “Weekend at Bernies” …let’s pick up the pace a little.

You can see my lovely sunburn in this photo with the super cute Bobby Clark.

Tommy and a brand new gay porn (soon to be super) star named Hunter Texxx.

Howard and Tommy

We also hit a place called The Alibi for a quick drink and then retired for the night…More fun to be had tomorrow so I better rest up

Monday August 2, 2010

Noel called and asked if I would meet her and Moe at the dog park in OB this afternoon to take some pictures of their little Cocker Spaniel named Grizzly. He has been diagnosed with lung cancer and they honestly don’t know how long he has to live. The vet didn’t really give them a time…but also recommended that they get him on steroids to help ease the pain. The same thing happened with Sierra…she had cancer and the steroids were to help out with discomfort and she ended up living another year! Grizzly (or Grizzie or just Griz) is doing great on the ‘roids! You would never even know that he was sick…he’s running around playing and frolicking…but the steroids make him super hungry and thirsty. I remember Sierra was such a bitch on ‘roids… if another dog even went near her while she was eating it was war. Anyways, I got a bunch of great shots of him and their other dog, a Golden Retriever named Staley. (named after Layne Staley of Alice in Chains)

I love this one while he is rolling around on the grass.

And another curious Chocolate Lab.

Check out this guy…he’s like that douche bag at the bar who likes to jump around behind group shots and ruin them.

I realized that I didn’t actually get a shot of Noel with Grizzy alone so I did a crappy photoshop job of cutting Moe out of this one. lol

It’s nearly impossible to get both dogs and both humans looking at the camera at the same time. I forgot how challenging pet photography can be.

After dog park we grabbed some delicious pizza at Newport Pizza and then I met up with Alex and Bob at the Hard Rock Hotel for Ian’s 30th birthday party. What a playah!

Alex was dogsitting this grumpy little Boston Terrier named Riley. Apparently Riley likes to hump this pink monkey and then he goes and licks the spot that he humped. Ahahahaha! Everything was going fine and then he started growling at me when I went to get out of Alex’s car. It’s funny how I love to think that I am like Dr Doolittle with animals and I get soooo offended when one doesn’t like me. It like legitimately bums me out. lol

I would have stayed but it was a bunch of young drunk girls and the marine layer was freaking freezing so I opted to go home after a little bit. I also have a ton of shit to do before I leave for Fort Lauderdale tomorrow!

Sunday August 1, 2010

My friend Sara (the one from CT who I used to live with who lives here now) and her friend named Markus started a wine blog called The Sarkus. (Yeah, like the circus but with Sara and Markus’s names. Some people are struggling getting this. lol) Tonight they launched the blog with a wine tasting at the Tango Wine Company in Little Italy. I competely flailed and ran out the door without a camera tonight (GASP!) so all I have is these crappy pix from the blackberry.

Tay, Jedda and “D” (incidentally Jess’s daughter now calls every friend of hers that she meets “D” haha!)

At first when you look at this promo photo you think he has a miniature bear in his hand, right? No that’s his Pomeranian. On an image like this one might see at the bottom “No animals were hurt in the making of this photograph.” But guess what? He accidentally dropped the dog (DESPITE having done this trick with him numerous times!) and the poor little doggie’s leg broke! It’s a sad story, but the dog is ok so it’s ok to laugh at it. I can’t believe it. Sara didn’t tell me this, the wine server did. lol

Anyways, wine lovers: check the site out and check back often for news, info, updates and all kinds of fun stuff in the world of wine.