Again, I've waited too long to blog.  I know I won't remember everything, but I'll do what I can.  Friday, Jamie had the day off, and so did Tony.  So, we met up with them to go out to the Greatland Target in Burbank.  We ended up going to the Olive Garden first, because Tony & Martel hadn't eaten.  I can safely say that this was the nicest Olive Garden I've ever been to.  As Jamie and I had already eaten lunch, we just had a glass of Chiraz and breadsticks.  One thing that wasn't as good about this OG compared to the Waco OG was that neither Andrew nor Jason were there supplying us with beacoup mints on the sly.  Anyway, we hit Target, Michael's, Best Buy, and Aaron Brothers, where Jamie picked up a little something to get started on Jeff's commissioned work for his apartment.  One side note, as we were enjoying a little Starbucks outdoors, we noticed the thin layer of ash that was across our table, a reminder of the many fires blazing in the Southland.

Later that evening, we headed over to their apartment.  We ordered pizza and watched the second episode of Tony's show on DVD.  This time it was a rough cut, without Ron Howard doing the narration.  It was still good, but it was interesting to see a professional show before it's completely polished.  I fixed up Martel's laptop that was suffering from both Klez and Sobig.  I got rid of that stuff, and the computer's running much better.  However, I still can't open Task Manager, which meanse that there's still some kind of problem.  Anyone with ideas on how to fix this, please let me know.

Saturday, Jamie worked, and so did I.  But Saturday night, while Jamie was still at work, I went to meet one of my clients at The Palm for a dinner sponsored by Microsoft.  The group there were mostly deans and professors, as well as Microsoft Academic Development Evangelists.  It looks like Microsoft is finally working on getting involved at the curriculum level in universities, rather than just marketing their products to universities.  My client was in town for some pre-PDC meetings, but she was going to be in Europe during the actual PDC, so she gave me her pass.  I haven't gone to any of the sessions yet, because Jamie and I are about to go meet Tony on set for lunch.  However, I did get the initial bag of goodies last night.  It has some sample software and magazines and blah blah blah.  The crown jewel of the bag, however, is a full-fledged copy of Office 2003 Professional Edition.  Score.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Jamie's parents came into town on Sunday morning.  They went to Pacific Crossroads with us that morning for church.  At church, the pastor spotted somebody sleeping in the congregation, and he basically started yelling at them.  He started talking about how "that's not worship" and that people should be listening to him "as if it were God standing up here."  That pissed me off quite a bit.  I hope he knows that person enough to know how his tirade will affect him.  I hope that wasn't that person's first time to be back in church in years.  To make matters worse, shortly after the pastor continued his sermon, he quoted the passage from Matthew 18 about "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you."  It's one thing for a pastor to struggle with practicing what he preaches as he lives his daily lilfe.  Nobody's perfect.  It's another thing entirely for a pastor to not practice what he preaches while actually preaching it.  The man often preaches about how we should be firmly committed to a local body and submit to its authority.  I agree.  However, after many weeks of hearing him preach, I don't know that I could submit myself to his authority.

Anywho, after church, Clinton, Tony & Martel joined us for lunch at Baja Fresh.  Then, we took Don & Connie to The Grove to show Don where Jamie works.  Then, we introduced them to the ArcLight by seeing Veronica Guerin.  Wow, that movie was intense, but really good.  It's amazing how much one person can affect a country when the country is as small as Ireland.  After the movie, we went to Grace, a trendy restaurant over on Beverly, where Connie saw Jeff Goldblum and some other celebrity whose name no one could remember.  Needless to say, a good time was had by all, and it was nice to have Don & Connie come hang out with us in our element.