My lungs are finally starting to clear from the fire smoke.  Today was a picture perfect day in Santa Barbara.  We started the morning by taking Patrick to the State Street Halloween Parade.  The costumes were great and the kids were adorable.  After that we had brunch, and then enjoyed a lazy afternoon until we retired to Tom & Cathy’s for good food, with good friends.  All in all a delightful Halloween weekend.  Lots of pictures to share…these are my favorites, and the rest are in the slideshow below.  Boo!

Patrick & friend

Shrek

Patrick, Cathy & Snoopy

Superman, meet…

Spiderman!

Scooby, Velma & Shaggy

Peter Pan

Alice in Wonderland

Dragonslayer

Eva calling Cathy on a land line

The ocean, from Bassam’s living room

There’s still residual smoke from the fires, so the sunset was awesome.

Chariot of Fire

Is he not the cutest?

Bassam being gangsta

Getting tired

This isn’t what it looks like!  I don’t drink!!  I actually fell off the balcony though.  LOL  We were talking politics, and I was getting animated, and it was dark, and…  Honestly though…I was stone cold sober!!  (And no, that’s not a pun!)  I’m just a dork.

This is where I fell from.  My butt is still sore!

The best of the rest!

I drove up to Santa Barbara tonight for a Halloween party at Bassam’s.  I wanted to post a few photos before I went to bed.

In case you can’t tell, I’m dressed as Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter and that’s a stingray stuck to my heart.  Eva is dressed as a pretty messed up mermaid…with shells and seaweed stuck in her hair.   Had she not been drunk, she could have saved me from that stingray!  Hope everyone’s having a great weekend. 

OK, it’s not the best costume, but it was simple and last minute.

Bassam flew in from Jordan on Thursday and spent the night at the Hotel Careyfornia.  Friday morning we headed 90 miles north to Santa Barbara to meet up with Eva & eventually Tom & Cathy who were in Portland visiting Marcelo & Emily the first few days.  The heat in California this weekend broke all records.  We mostly hung out at the water and went to a few movies and had many good meals.  (My diet starts….tomorrow, LOL)  We spent Labor Day lounging around.  Tom & Cathy flew in that afternoon with baby Patrick (how he’s grown) and immediately moved into their new, completely furnished house.  We got some sausage and salmon at Trader Joes and had a BBQ topped off with a flourless chocolate birthday cake.  The perfect end to a perfect weekend.  Here are all the pictures, and below the slide show I’ve included some of my favorites from the weekend.

 

I haven’t written here in nearly a week.  I needed a bit of a break, and I’ve been really busy with work.  The holiday weekend started at 5:00 today for me though, when I went to pick up Bassam from the airport.  He’s been in Amman, Jordan, London & New York the past few weeks, and tomorrow I’m taking the day off, and we’re driving to Santa Barbara and spending the weekend with Eva.  I’m looking forward to our mini GLY reunion.

Today was a picture perfect day in L.A.  I snapped this photo at the end of my street while walking home from lunch this afternoon.

On the way home from the airport tonight, we saw this obnoxious Hollywood wombat, driving with her foot out the window, while smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone!  Are you fu**ing kidding me!!??  She barely noticed my flash going off as I took the picture and gave her the most disgusted look I could muster.  This girl symbolizes nearly everything I hate in life!  And yes, I know I’m being sexist, but let’s face it, would you ever see a man doing this?  I thought not.

Tonight, we ate at the Newsroom Cafe.  There was a cute little dog tied up outside the whole time we were there.  Dinner was great, and the conversation even better.  Later, back at home, I played with Bassam’s iPhone a lot.

Paging Al Bundy, Al Bundy to Electronics

Ever hear of the sun Carey? Ugh

I must admit, the interface is really cool.  I love what it can do with pictures.  I’ll be damned if I ever go back to AT&T though.  So I’m just going to have to wait.  The camera on the iPhone isn’t really that great.  I actually think my phone takes better photos.  Here are a few I took with my phone the other day at Amos’ new apartment in Century City:

And you may remember these camera phone pictures from a few weeks ago:

So who needs an iPhone anyway!?  Unless it really does all this:

Since my entry yesterday has stirred some controversy, I’ll try to keep it a bit lighter today.  

Bassam and I were supposed to have dinner tonight, but he canceled!  How dare he.  Just because he flew here all the way from Jordan for this stupid conference, he felt he had to “shmooze” with the conference attendees, before leaving tomorrow.  I knew the real reason though!  He just wanted to spend more time with his new iPhone.  You know what?  I don’t care!  The only reason I wanted to see him anyway was to see his damn iPhone, so it’s mutual.   

Now that he’s blown me off, this is what I plan on doing to his precious iPhone the next time I see him.  (Kids don’t try this at home!)

Video of the Day (thanks to Jin for the inspiration!)

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
“Today, Chinese officials recalled one million tons of lead because it may contain toys.” – Jay Leno

UPDATE – Sunday Night/Monday Morning:

The hike up to the Hollywood Sign was a long one.  The dogs got pooped about halfway up.  The event wasn’t very well organized, there were no signs marking the correct path, so a bunch of us inadvertently took the long path instead of the shorter one.  It was great though, and we had a lot of fun.  After the hike, I went home and cleaned the house because Bassam and Mariana were driving down from Santa Barbara.  I made reservations at Yamashiro and invited Amos to go with us.  We had a nice pre-party here at the house, then headed up to the Hollywood Hills for a delicious sushi dinner, with a great view of the city.  After that, I gave them a quick tour of Hollywood then went back to the house, parked the car, and walked up to the Sunset Strip.  We tried to get into the Sky Bar, but apparently Jamie Foxx was there…so we couldn’t get in (he must not have known it was me :)  Mariana was appalled!  Welcome to LA, LOL.  We hung out at The Grafton for a while.  I asked for a “bottle” of water and this is what I got:

LOL, it was glass and probably cost $15 (Bassam paid :)

After a while, Amos and I were tired, so walked back to my place. Bassam and Mariana stayed on the strip.  Amos went home and I realized how tired I was from the hike.  I hadn’t had a workout like that in quite some time.  I’m glad I’m dog-sitting this week.  It will give me a chance to exercise more.

Anyway, here are some photos from the day.  It’s 1:00 PM on Sunday now, and Bassam and Mariana are STILL sleeping.  (I was up at 7:30 to walk the dogs.)  It’s a beautiful day here, so I’m sitting out on the patio typing this: 

The picture above is actually from last year, but since Bassam & Mariana are still sleeping there’s no one take one of me now, and I don’t feel like setting up the tripod.  See the tree in the background?  It’s an avocado tree, and a few weeks ago they had to cut it down, because it had some tree disease.    I don’t even like avocados, but I loved that tree!  It had so much character.  When the avocados were in season, people would come early in the morning to pick them up.  Now that the tree is gone, I look out of my office window, and there’s nothing but a mound of dirt.  We’re supposedly having a homeowner’s meeting on Tuesday to decide what to plant there, but that tree was definitely one of a kind. 

At any rate, here are some pictures from the hike and the rest of the weekend.  Hope you all had a good weekend! –Carey

I love this photo of them, notice part of the Hollywood sign on the top.

I think they were over the hike at this point!

Resting after a drink

This is inside the Mondrian Hotel next to my house

Jamie Foxx’s Lamborghini parked outside the Sky Bar.

Downtown LA from outside Yamashiro

A toast to good friends

Garbo and Ruby enjoyed the pre-party

Mariana playing with the dogs at 3 AM

Supermodel

The service at the Hotel Careyfornia is impeccable!

Mariana had a friend from England visiting.

This is my neighbor’s dog Sophie

Jessica & Sophie

I had to pick Tyson up from the airport tonight, and while I was waiting for him I was parked in the Cell Phone Parking Lot at LAX, where landing planes fly directly overhead.  This is an interesting shot of one.  The dogs were fascinated every time one went over us.  I had the moon roof open and they kept looking up and tilting their heads.  It was cute.

Tyson & Ruby (the first dog to ever solve the Rubik’s Cube)

Too pooped to pup…what a weekend they had.  They’re used to going to bed at nine at their house.  They’re always up until 3 or 4 with me!

Time for me to go to bed too.  It’s been quite a weekend!  Night all!

Brokeback Mutton

“I wish I knew how to quit ewe”

Just up the road from Brokeback Mountain, closeted away in their own private Idaho, the gay sheep were getting it on.

Well, it wasn’t exactly private. They were doing it in front of scientists at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station near the Idaho-Montana-Wyoming border. The scientists arranged the trysts. It’s called “sexual partner preference testing.”  Read More…

Bassam relaxing in West Hollywood


Today was a perfect day. 75 and sunny


A relaxing lunch at Basix
I had my usual Chinese Chicken Salad and Bassam had a burger.


Local Flavor, LOL. Love the hat and red sunglasses, not to mention the flames.

---

Hard Wired Attraction

Pas de Deux of Sexuality Is Written in the Genes

By NICHOLAS WADE
New York Times 

Published: April 10, 2007

When it comes to the matter of desire, evolution leaves little to chance. Human sexual behavior is not a free-form performance, biologists are finding, but is guided at every turn by genetic programs.

Desire between the sexes is not a matter of choice. Straight men, it seems, have neural circuits that prompt them to seek out women; gay men have those prompting them to seek other men. Women’s brains may be organized to select men who seem likely to provide for them and their children. The deal is sealed with other neural programs that induce a burst of romantic love, followed by long-term attachment.

So much fuss, so intricate a dance, all to achieve success on the simple scale that is all evolution cares about, that of raising the greatest number of children to adulthood. Desire may seem the core of human sexual behavior, but it is just the central act in a long drama whose script is written quite substantially in the genes.  Read more…