★ Another Los Angeles Trip is Behind Me

It’s pretty clear that I find myself traveling more and usually I’m putting less emphasis or excitement on these little trips. It’s exciting and fun to travel but the past year has kind of numbed me to preparing or being too excited about a new adventure like this. Prior to October 2008 (just over a year ago) I had never been to many cities in the US outside of where IDG held Macworld Expo which was NYC, Boston and San Francisco. I wasn’t “well traveled” but it didn’t really mean I was less adventurous, just didn’t have a reason to visit these places.

In the past 15 months, I’ve traveled up and down the west coast twice from Seattle to San Diego, been to Las Vegas 4 times, Reno and Lake Tahoe twice and Austin, Chicago and many more US cities. It’s been quite an adventurous year for me. On Sunday morning, my friends JM and Jonathan emailed me with an invitation to join them in LA for some meetings. I emailed my boss to make sure I could take the time off and at noon on Monday I had my day bag and was on a plane to LA. Just over 30 hours later, I was sitting in LAX boarding a 5:30PM flight back to San Francisco. Yes, this is what travel has become. I admit that just last  year I was a bit too caught up with travel so much that I wouldn’t go anywhere because I thought it was so much work and planning. Now we buy tickets on Sunday and hop on a plane. It’s nice to have this emotional freedom to not feel a lot of planning is really needed when you’re flying solo and only going somewhere for a day. Still, this trip to LA was special because I met some amazing people and splurged a bit and thanks to my friends, it was a low cost trip with a very high value.

I’ve enjoyed letting my photos tell the story lately. It’s more fun to capture moments and caption them on the site instead of being long-winded where you won’t read it anyway.

All Aboard southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines flight from SFO to LAX (Photo: Jean Marie Reed)
Poolside - The Standard Hotel Hollywood
The Standard Hotel - West Hollywood, CA (View of LA)
Poolside - The Standard Hotel Hollywood
The Standard Hotel - West Hollywood, CA
Me & Jonathan - Hollywood, CA
Jonathan and I @ http://joespizza.com (Photo by Jean Marie Reed)
Carneys Express - Hollywood, CA
Carney's StreetCar Diner - West Hollywood, CA
Chateau Marmont Restaurant - Hollywood
Chateau Marmont Dinner Menu
Me :) - Hollywood, CA
Sitting in the Chateau Marmont Lounge
Chateau Marmont Restaurant - Hollywood
Getting Work Done at the Chateau Marmont
Epic Clouds - Chateau Marmont Hollywood
Los Angeles Clouds (12-28-09) Hollywood
iPhone While Drinking a French '75 Cocktail
Foreground: iPhone 3GS. Background: Chateau Marmont Lounge w/ French '75 Cocktail
Me :) - Hollywood, CA
Me. Lighting brought to you by an antique lamp. Photo by Jean Marie Reed
The Standard Hotel - Hollywood
The Standard Hotel - West Hollywood, CA
Standard Hotel - Hollywood, CA
Art Deco Chairs - The Standard Hotel. Photo by Jonathan Richina
Standard Hotel - Hollywood, CA
The Standard Hotel, Art Deco Lamps, Shag Carpet on the ceiling (semi-optical illusion)
Beverly Hills Hotel
The Beverly Hills Hotel - Photo snapped at 35 miles per hour.
The Skyscrapers of Century City
Avenue of The Stars - Century City, CA

It was an exciting trip spent with friends and we had some meetings that might have opened up a few new opportunities for me. Either way, I enjoyed some amazing food and drinks and got to explore another part of LA that was completely new to me. Thanks for reading. The entire photoset is below and you can view the photos in full screen mode.

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