Tacolicious!

This was one damn good layered taco salad. Ok-it was really just decent, but the standards I judge my cooking by are significantly lowered. It just has to be to level the playing field. But anyway, from start to finish, the recipe claimed that this was a 45 minute meal. It took me nearly 2.5 hours. And that's not including the trip to the grocery store to get all the ingredients (where I proceeded to have a spazz fest in front of the butcher because I didn't know what ground chuck was or what a proper substitute for it was).

My True Calling

So if roughly a million other people come up with the same brilliant ideas as mine, does that idea lose its brilliance and gets relegated to the status of being a good idea? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it still make a noise??

I figured on Mother's Day everyone should be taking their mom out for brunch and a day at the spa or a day shopping. Thus, it would be the perfect day to hit up Disneyland. I've obviously given children way too much credit because Disneyland was PACKED. A thousand moms got hosed. But anyway, this is the picture of Nico and I on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride. My score puts me at Level 5- Ranger First Class!!!! I'm doing my part to save the universe from the evil empire Zurg. We'll forget for a minute the fact that the ride stopped twice which helped my score immensely...
Good to know I'm good at something. Always need a Plan B in case a career in finance isn't in the cards...

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Growing up I used to watch this show. It was touted as the fun way to learn geography. I'm sure this show, along with my elementary and high school education have taught me generally where countries are located.

Through the UCLA extension program, I'm going towards a certificate in International Trade and Commerce. It's definitely not all that and more. One of the courses I'm taking this quarter is titled, 'Doing Business in Europe.' This is taken verbatim from the course syllabus:

DOING BUSINESS IN EUROPE is a 12 week course designed to introduce various participants to approaches, opportunities, and risks of doing business in the markets of the Western and Eastern Europe, primarily Germany, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, Greece, and Turkey. The course focuses primarily on the member nations of the European Union.

I should sue the program for false advertisement. Let me re-hash what I've learned about doing business in Europe after 4 weeks (a quarter of the way through the quarter)

1) The Swedes are the most educated group of people

If you read that line and you didn't know it before you read it, you owe me $181. That's about what 4 weeks of this class has cost me.
I sit in class for 3 hours every Tuesday evening bored out of my mind. I think gouging my own eyes out with an icepick would be a more pleasant experience. Studying for the bar was more interesting. Yes, read that again-studying for the bar was more interesting!

Last night we discussed the roles of various religions and how they effect business policies. Fair enough. However, we had already discussed religion last class. So this class session, we broke into groups of 3-4, had to pick a country, and talk about how the various religions affect business decisions by companies in that particular country. It sounds like a good plan. Until you realize that the class is made up of students (students in the sense that no person has more than a year or two working experience, not student in the sense that we are students taking this course). And I already learned the first class that no one has any experience working in another country or working for a company in that company's global relations/sales department. Basically none of us bring anything to the table. Which is fine. That just means that it cannot be as interactive as the professor had hoped, and as the students, we rely on him for information on doing business in Europe.

So, with none of us having any global working experience, we can't really say how religion shapes the business practice of a company doing business in Europe. Nevertheless, we trudge on. Here's the kicker. The first group picked as their country India. The second group picked Japan. My group picked France. The last group picked Russia. Now tell me when Japan and India were officially recognized as European countries?

Welcome to Chevy Nation

This is the Chevy Cobalt. It is not only a car, but also doubles as a patience tester.

Nico's friend came into town, and had this for a rental car. Its unfair to knock a rental car, because hello-that's why they are rental cars to begin with. But this one was extra special. Extra special as in the-key-won't-come-out-of-the-ignition special.
It was stuck at In-n-Out Burger.

A: Oh shit-the key's stuck
Nico: What???
A: The key won't come out of the ignition
Me: (hee hee)

A: (turns car back on)
(reverses car)
(re-parks car)
(attempts to take key out)
A: It's stuck!
Nico: (reaches over to turn the key)
Oh my god-you're right-it won't come out!
Me: (laying across the back seat dying)

8 rounds of turning the car on and off...
7 reversals and parking in THE SAME SPOT
6 rounds of cursing later...

The key miraculously came out!!

Here's a list of the things we did try to get the key out

1) turned the car off with the A/C off
2) turned the car off with the A/C on
3) turned the car off with the radio on
4) turned the car off with the radio on
5) turned the car off with foot on brake pedal
6) turned the car off with foot off brake pedal
7) turned the car off with handbrake off
8) turned the car off with handbrake on


Next next stop was Griffith Observatory. It was fabulous. It was gorgeous. It was a freaking surprise hike. Cars are not allowed to drive up during the day. People are not allowed to hike up at night. Guess when we showed up. It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't in jeans. If I had my sunglasses on. If I was sporting real sneakers and not Chucks. The view was gorgeous. The view of the smog that is...

Nevertheless it was an awesome workout. I think I'm going to hike up to the Observatory every weekend. I think I'm insane. But, no joke, its a great workout. Imagine my surprise when I woke up Monday morning and didn't have buns of steel.

Back at our apartment came another round of 'the key is stuck! the key is stuck!'
This time it was street parking. So...after...

4 rounds of turning the car on and off
5 rounds of reversing and pulling back into the same spot
5 rounds of cursing
2 fake outs (people thought we were leaving only to watch us lurch back and forth)

...the key was still stuck. The woman whose house we parked in front of was eying us suspiciously (but wouldn't you?). So what did we do? Drove around the block and re-parked at the same spot. The key came out. Good thing the neighbor didn't. I'm not sure exactly how we were going to explain our car problems. It was a riot though. Its been too long since I've laughed so much. All I was doing was laughing. Oh wait-I had one idea; drape a jacket over the steering column and hope nobody looks in thinking, 'I wonder if that jacket is there because the key is stuck...'