I went with Bob to the west coast last week. He called on printers in Reno, Lake Tahoe, and Torrence. There's no easy way to get to Reno so we flew from Fort Wayne to Detroit to Los Angeles and up to Reno. The very wonderful Bob let me sit in his first class seat from Detroit to L.A. and again on the return flight home. We actually stayed in Truckee and on Wednesday afternoon went up to Donner Pass and visited the Emigrant Trail Museum. I've always had an interest in the Donner Party. There's is a sad and "distasteful" episode in the saga of the westward movement of the nineteenth century. Here's Bob at the Pioneer Monument and behind me is Donner Pass. The moral of this story is - stay on the path and never ever take the shortcut or you might end up having to eat boiled oxen hides or worse. Also, I should report that I won $15.75 in the slot machine at the Reno airport. I think a good idea might be to put gaming machines in all the airports. Do you realize how much more palatable the wait is when you're gambling and winning money? No more disgruntled passengers slouched and scowling in their seats because of delays. And Michael, Bob says you should just stay out of Dulles airport. Go through Baltimore or Reagan. Or is it some government deal that you have to go through Dulles?




Back in L.A., we went to the taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, which was a little different from the two other shows I've been to - Oprah and David Letterman. The studio audience is small - 1o8 people. The opening monologue and puppet hi jinx we watched that afternoon actually aired later that night, but the first thing we were treated to was Reba McEntire, who did two numbers, however, she won't be on the show until the 22nd. So, it was kind of choppy, but fun. The warm up guy, Chuck the mediocre comedian, threw miniature candy bars at us. I have no pictures because we weren't allowed to take anything into the studio except identification. Here's Bob at Muscle Beach, where we only watched some guys working out, while eating corndogs. We also stayed at the Beverly Hilton one night (Hilton points). It even had a TV in the bathroom, and it was decorated for Christmas because they were filming a movie called "Christmas in Beverly Hills" there. On Friday night we ate at Bob's favorite restaurant Tony's on the pier at Redondo Beach. We returned home on Saturday and were welcomed back by Rob's news that the dog had severe diarrhea and exploded all over the new carpet downstairs. It was amusing to listen to Rob dramatize the horrific event. I'm positive it was his first messy poo clean up. He had given her more Mighty Dog than she's used to eating. Also, I know she gets upset when we're gone.











Recipe of the Week: There wasn't any cooking this week, only a lot of eating. I did purchase Julia Child's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and plan to try my hand at some of these recipes. I've shied away from Julia in the past, thinking her recipes would be too difficult for me. Now I think I'm up to it. Hey, I might just start at the beginning and cook my way through the whole book - yeah, and they might want to make a movie out of me doing this "Big Lou and Julia."

This Jack Handey quote of the week is dedicated to Serena and her hissy fit meltdown at the U.S. Open last night. Only in Serena's case we're talking about tennis rackets and not lemons. Serena, tsk.tsk.

"If life deals you lemons, why not just go kill someone with the lemons (maybe by shoving them down his throat)." Jack Handey