Another thing we got to see in L.A. was Beverly Hills. I thought the homes would be bigger and more spaced apart, but I was wrong.
Also got to see the front of the house where they filmed the front exterior to the old Brady Bunch TV series.
We got to see the Grauman Chinese Theater and went to see Redbelt in a genuine THX theater. Unfortunately, Houston has none that I know of. The sound in a THX theater is incredible, and most other chains, looking at the bottom line install a bunch of woofers to blow you out of your seat during intense parts, but THX has a lot more of the discrete sound and separation that is amazing.
We saw Hollywood & Vine, and ate at Aroma's for a tasty lunch. However, the conversation of neighboring tables sent my eyes a rolling. I suppose there was someone quasi famous sitting next to us, but I am so clueless nowadays with who is on the inside or outside of the movie business that I heard one effete snob opine, "When Obama is elected . . ." I wanted to stand up and puke at his audacity. Of course he was wearing his Foster Grant's with his mobile out taking a call about every 8 minutes or so. It was amusing and disgusting to me. Those people are so out of touch with the rest of the world.
Now, don't get me wrong. Obama might indeed be elected, that is not the issue, it was his "moral certainty" tone in which he expressed it.
Contrast that scenario with another one I had in San Diego a couple of days later. I attended a National Boy Scout meeting for the muckety mucks of the movement. I was attending a lunch at the Hyatt Regency there and in walks this guy, thinner and taller than me, and asks if a particular seat next to me was taken (I had wrestled with sitting next to a federal judge, but fought that temptation and sat at another table). I said, "No, come join us."
Well we got into a conversation and he wanted to know what I did with the Boy Scouts, and I humbly replied that I was on the Board of Directors for the Sam Houston Area Council.
I asked where did he live, and found out it was in San Antonio. So I posited that perhaps he was on the local council's board?
Well, as a matter of fact , no . . . he was on the National Council.
The National Council? Are you kidding me? How did you rate that?
Well, he said he was on a plane ride and happened to be seated next to the former president of the Boy Scouts. The got into a conversation, and lo and behold, much to his surprise, the President called him a couple of weeks later and invited him to come join the national board. And he mentioned AT&T a couple of times.
I said, "Wow . . . that's quite a deal. You keep saying AT&T . . . do you work for them?
Well, as a matter of fact he did.
I asked him what he did.
He said that he was the chairman of the board.
I said, "You are the chairman of the Board of AT & T?" hardly believing my ears.
And replied that he was the very man.
I found out the next day that he was heading up the national celebration of the BSA for the year of 2010. I sought him out that day as well, and congratulated him on incredible service he was giving to the Boy Scouts. Now to me there is all the difference in the world between the humility of Randall Stephenson and the sycophants that populate so much of the Burbank/Hollywood area.