Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Status update!

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last entry!

I seem to be doing better than a few other friend's blogs I read though - they haven't posted anything in 5-6 months - come on people! I just keep my blog page open in Firefox as a reminder to write something every now and again.

I'm kinda surprised my blog hasn't exploded like in "Julie & Julia" - hmm, should I state that I am going to bake my way through the ENTIRE Mrs. Fields cookbook to get more followers? Would anyone care? Er, probably not.

Anyhow, hello to all my friends reading this (and the lurkers too!)

What's everyone been up to?

Well, here in LA we've had the city's worst fire. It's on its way to being contained. Lucky for me some water main broke last Friday while I was mid-shower. Running out of water with soap and conditioner in your hair is fun fun!!!

In more happy news, I took a road trip last week to Monterey. Had a BLAST. Monterey is just the cleanest, most charming little town! I had some of the best pizza I've had in my life (veggie slices) with a great small salad to boot! The town may shut down at 10pm but at least there is still amazing pizza for late night travelers like myself.

My hotel was sweeeet - I got a great deal bidding using priceline.com - woot woot! The room was normally $130-180 a night but because I used priceline and it was a Mon/Tues night plan, I got the room for $80 plus tax. It was walking distance to downtown Monterey.

I spent the next day at the Aquarium. Used my first "dual flush" toilet. Loved that the aquarium was so environmentally friendly. It's rated the 3rd best tourist attraction in the U.S. for kids and I can see why - kids didn't scream or yell. I was impressed. I guess between the sea otters and jellyfish and sharks the kids were too mesmerized to cry or complain.

The weather was blissfully perfect. Literally just perfect weather. And the air so fresh! I had forgotten what fresh air smelled like.

I'm pretty sure Monterey is about the most perfect place to live. Of course, it must get pretty cloudy/rainy/cold there in the winter but the days I visited it was just perfect.

The next day I hit Carmel-by-the-sea. Beautiful beach. Shops were quaint, if a bit geared towards 50+ something rich snooty people. Still, the beach was almost devoid of seaweed. I wondered how this could be. Is Carmel so rich that someone goes around scooping up all the seaweed?

I also found a delightful coffee shop that had one of the tastiest apple strudels I've had. Ah. I'm old enough to retire there, right??

Overall, I can't say enough great things about Monterey. The drive to and from up and down PCH is also some of the most breathtaking road I've ever driven. I had to concentrate to prevent myself from driving off a cliff as the sunsets and ocean were so breathtakingly beautiful.

Otherwise, not really much is new.

Seems people in my industry keep getting fired / not hired by the day.

Is there any future in the music business?

I'm beginning to think not.

A lot of people are still employed - but for many, the jobs will not come back.

I knew it was too good to be true - people getting paid to choose music for movies and TV shows.

Oh well.

So what's next?

Teaching would be a good option except I'm pretty sure the state is broke. And public schools pay $20K a year, right?

I wish I could get a job watching reality TV shows. I'm good at that (and no, not the uber-crappy VH1 ones but the good ones like "Top Chef" and "The Amazing Race" and "The Bachelor" :)

So maybe I should just invent a "sham wow" and go from there :)

3 comments:

toddbeau said...

The average salary of teachers in LA Unified last year was actually $63,391. Don't forget about the extracurricular pay plus summers off too!

http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/fiscal/TeacherSalary.asp?tab=0&level=06&ReportNumber=4096&County=19&fyr=0708&District=64733#teachersalaryschedule-annualsalary

jennifery said...

Wow, that's not bad. Problem is you have to teach at LA Unified :)

jennifery said...

I think the starting salary is $36K or something like that.