I just got back yesterday from my trip to California, and I had an absolute blast. Just in case you were wondering, I was there visiting my best friend who moved out there in March. So I figured I would tell you guys all about it. FYI- if you don't have much time on the computer, but still want to read this, you might want to print it out- it's going to be pretty long (just my prediction). So, let's get started:
Thursday, May 29, 2008-
The night before I had gathered everything up, printed my boarding passes, and I was ready to go. So I woke up at 4:30 AM, grabbed my bags, fixed a quick breakfast of a nuked egg and some Mountain Dew, and took off. Luckily, I didn't forget anything or something stupid like that.
We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so I checked in one of my bags (the other was carry-on), got a little stamp thing for my boarding pass, and headed to the gate. I got through security fine (whew!), boarded the plane, and we took off.
It was about an hour and fifteen minute flight to Denver, where my connection was. If you haven't been there, Denver International is a freakin awesome airport. It's huge, and has all kinds of shops and things to eat... and moving sidewalks!
After I got on the plane, I made the two and a half hour flight to San Jose, and got off the plane. I checked in with my parents real quick, and called my friend (his name is Matthew) to see where he was at in the airport. Well, for some reason they were running late, which you'll see is a bit of a habit of theirs later in the story, and they were still an hour away from the airport.
So while I waited I grabbed a bagel from a small shop and decide to wait. I was debating whether or not to show some people magic, but I decided against it and just waited until my friend picked up. From there it was about an hour and a half drive to Modesto, California.
After we got there, I said hi to Matthew's family (that wasn't still in school), checked my E-Mail and the forums real quick, and we watched a couple episodes of The Office that he had recorded. After a while we got bored, because we hadn't had anything fun planned that day, so we decided to go play tennis.
His Mom packed us up in the van, took us to Target to get some tennis balls, then we headed over to some courts and played. That was fun, but it was hotter than Hades out there. So we played one game (unfortunately, Matthew won), then headed over to Burger King to grab something to eat.
Obviously, later in the night, we were bored, so Matthew thought it would be fun to go Ding Dong Ditch somebody. I had never thought this was very fun, and thought it was a little immature for our age, but I agreed. Well, little did I know that this little outing was extremely fun and exciting, but I'll probably never do it again.
We went to this house where a guy had just walked through his house and shut the garage door, and my friend rang the door bell. We ran and hid behind a car down the street, waiting for him. After about a minute and a half, he didn't come out, so we started walking down the sidewalk. Well, I turn around, and he's walking out of the house, so we run to the next car we see.
We're sitting there, and I slowly peek my head around the side of the car to see where he's at. He had crossed the street, and was heading down the sidewalk in our direction. Well, my friend poked his whole head around the car, and the guy saw us.
I kept telling Matthew that we had to run, but he kept saying, "No, he didn't see us!" Then as he got closer, Matthew realized it was time to go, and we took off. I about died of a heart attack when I heard him running behind us. So we ran around the corner, and in this neighborhood, they have those "group mailboxes", where each house has its own slot", and these were in front of some bushes, which were in turn in front of a fence.
So I flew around the corner (my adrenaline was pumping pretty darn fast at this point), and dove behind the mailboxes, instantly quieting any noise around me. I was standing up, and was pretty visible, so I thanked the Lord Almighty when the guy continued to run past me. About 30 seconds later, he walked past the mailboxes, huffing and puffing, but without my friend.
So I waited about two minutes to make sure he was gone, then hopped out and sprinted to my friend's house. Luckily, we met there at the same time, and ran into his backyard to this place on the side of his house where it was enclosed by a fence, had a sandbox. Well, I'm sure it was just a cat or something, but something was walking slowly through the back yard, and it sounded like a person going slowly to try to be sneaky, so we hopped the fence and ran inside.
So, as exciting and as much fun as that was, I'll never do it again; I've learned my lesson the hard way. Later that night we stayed up and watched Juno on PPV. I was extremely disappointed with the movie, and although it had funny parts, I didn't think it was nearly as funny on the whole as some people made it out to be. After that we went to sleep, and woke up about 10 the next morning...
Friday, May 30th, 2008-
That morning, we were extremely bored, so Matthew called his future-Step Dad, Larry, to come and get us to take us somewhere cool. We went to Costco with him, and after trying all the awesome free samples there, I bet you can't believe what I got- 24 decks of cards, at an extremely low price of $1.0875 per deck. So that was pretty awesome... too bad I don't have a membership (I used Larry's).
After that, we decided to go give the Mall a whirl and see what it was like. They had some pretty cool stores there, but not very many we don't have here in Missouri (which was kind of surprising to me). After buying some over-expensive candy at a candy shop, and seeing all the stores we wanted to see, we called Matthew's Mom to see if she could come get us. She said in a half an hour, so we waited for 30 minutes, and called her back...
She said that she couldn't come and get us, and I guess just forgot to call us and tell us that, and Larry would be there in an hour after he was done with a patient (he has his own dentist office). So we sat down at a table in the cafeteria, ate some candy, and played cards while we waited.
Finally, Larry came and got us, and we pretty much immediately went to the movie theatre to see Ironman. We were going to go see the strangers, but I guess there's some strange law in California that won't let minors go to an R-rated film without a parent or guardian actually watching it with them. Here in Missouri, you just have to a parent/guardian buy the tickets for you.
Ironman was pretty darn awesome, but the real excitement came afterwards. I've already posted a bulletin on MySpace telling this story, so I'll just copy and paste it:
Thursday, May 29, 2008-
The night before I had gathered everything up, printed my boarding passes, and I was ready to go. So I woke up at 4:30 AM, grabbed my bags, fixed a quick breakfast of a nuked egg and some Mountain Dew, and took off. Luckily, I didn't forget anything or something stupid like that.
We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so I checked in one of my bags (the other was carry-on), got a little stamp thing for my boarding pass, and headed to the gate. I got through security fine (whew!), boarded the plane, and we took off.
It was about an hour and fifteen minute flight to Denver, where my connection was. If you haven't been there, Denver International is a freakin awesome airport. It's huge, and has all kinds of shops and things to eat... and moving sidewalks!
After I got on the plane, I made the two and a half hour flight to San Jose, and got off the plane. I checked in with my parents real quick, and called my friend (his name is Matthew) to see where he was at in the airport. Well, for some reason they were running late, which you'll see is a bit of a habit of theirs later in the story, and they were still an hour away from the airport.
So while I waited I grabbed a bagel from a small shop and decide to wait. I was debating whether or not to show some people magic, but I decided against it and just waited until my friend picked up. From there it was about an hour and a half drive to Modesto, California.
After we got there, I said hi to Matthew's family (that wasn't still in school), checked my E-Mail and the forums real quick, and we watched a couple episodes of The Office that he had recorded. After a while we got bored, because we hadn't had anything fun planned that day, so we decided to go play tennis.
His Mom packed us up in the van, took us to Target to get some tennis balls, then we headed over to some courts and played. That was fun, but it was hotter than Hades out there. So we played one game (unfortunately, Matthew won), then headed over to Burger King to grab something to eat.
Obviously, later in the night, we were bored, so Matthew thought it would be fun to go Ding Dong Ditch somebody. I had never thought this was very fun, and thought it was a little immature for our age, but I agreed. Well, little did I know that this little outing was extremely fun and exciting, but I'll probably never do it again.
We went to this house where a guy had just walked through his house and shut the garage door, and my friend rang the door bell. We ran and hid behind a car down the street, waiting for him. After about a minute and a half, he didn't come out, so we started walking down the sidewalk. Well, I turn around, and he's walking out of the house, so we run to the next car we see.
We're sitting there, and I slowly peek my head around the side of the car to see where he's at. He had crossed the street, and was heading down the sidewalk in our direction. Well, my friend poked his whole head around the car, and the guy saw us.
I kept telling Matthew that we had to run, but he kept saying, "No, he didn't see us!" Then as he got closer, Matthew realized it was time to go, and we took off. I about died of a heart attack when I heard him running behind us. So we ran around the corner, and in this neighborhood, they have those "group mailboxes", where each house has its own slot", and these were in front of some bushes, which were in turn in front of a fence.
So I flew around the corner (my adrenaline was pumping pretty darn fast at this point), and dove behind the mailboxes, instantly quieting any noise around me. I was standing up, and was pretty visible, so I thanked the Lord Almighty when the guy continued to run past me. About 30 seconds later, he walked past the mailboxes, huffing and puffing, but without my friend.
So I waited about two minutes to make sure he was gone, then hopped out and sprinted to my friend's house. Luckily, we met there at the same time, and ran into his backyard to this place on the side of his house where it was enclosed by a fence, had a sandbox. Well, I'm sure it was just a cat or something, but something was walking slowly through the back yard, and it sounded like a person going slowly to try to be sneaky, so we hopped the fence and ran inside.
So, as exciting and as much fun as that was, I'll never do it again; I've learned my lesson the hard way. Later that night we stayed up and watched Juno on PPV. I was extremely disappointed with the movie, and although it had funny parts, I didn't think it was nearly as funny on the whole as some people made it out to be. After that we went to sleep, and woke up about 10 the next morning...
Friday, May 30th, 2008-
That morning, we were extremely bored, so Matthew called his future-Step Dad, Larry, to come and get us to take us somewhere cool. We went to Costco with him, and after trying all the awesome free samples there, I bet you can't believe what I got- 24 decks of cards, at an extremely low price of $1.0875 per deck. So that was pretty awesome... too bad I don't have a membership (I used Larry's).
After that, we decided to go give the Mall a whirl and see what it was like. They had some pretty cool stores there, but not very many we don't have here in Missouri (which was kind of surprising to me). After buying some over-expensive candy at a candy shop, and seeing all the stores we wanted to see, we called Matthew's Mom to see if she could come get us. She said in a half an hour, so we waited for 30 minutes, and called her back...
She said that she couldn't come and get us, and I guess just forgot to call us and tell us that, and Larry would be there in an hour after he was done with a patient (he has his own dentist office). So we sat down at a table in the cafeteria, ate some candy, and played cards while we waited.
Finally, Larry came and got us, and we pretty much immediately went to the movie theatre to see Ironman. We were going to go see the strangers, but I guess there's some strange law in California that won't let minors go to an R-rated film without a parent or guardian actually watching it with them. Here in Missouri, you just have to a parent/guardian buy the tickets for you.
Ironman was pretty darn awesome, but the real excitement came afterwards. I've already posted a bulletin on MySpace telling this story, so I'll just copy and paste it:
But that's another story...
I read the whole thing and enjoyed every bit of it. Did you have to do this writing for a LA project or something? Or do you keep a diary? I really enjoyed reading it! 
I love it to man 
California's pretty awesome, but I don't know if I could live there just because all the kids my age were so weird (Zach!). Nah, but I would love to come to LA and meet some of the awesome magicians there (Zach again!). I would also like to visit the Magic Apple... you make it sound freakin awesome. Especially that part where you have to sort cards.