Princess of Queens?

Friday was the highlight of our trip. Monica got to walk on The King of Queens. We spent the day at Sony Studios and got to see what goes on behind the scenes. Since it's her experience, I'll let her blog about it. My two cents -- it was much better than I expected but I have a feeling she has less air time that we would have hoped. We'll see on April 16th.

Paramount Studios

After our Wednesday adventures, we were hoping this trip wasn't jinxed. Thursday turned out fine. Running on limited sleep, we picked up our cousins Sonny and Sheri and drove to Paramount studios for a tour. We won a VIP tour in an auction last year and were excited to finally be able to redeem it. Paramount used to have tours open to the public but after 9/11/01, they discontinued them. Not sure if they've restarted public tours. Either way, it's pretty exclusive; they had to have our names at the security gate so we could get on the lot. There were only 14 people for the 10 AM tour, split into groups of 6 and 8.

The tour started with some info about the history of Paramount and RKO (?) and we saw us a number of historic photos of Paramount artists. We saw all of the Oscars the studio had won. Then we then got to ride around the lot on a golf cart and see various sound stages and were told what shows were shot where. Trivia tidbit -- Cheers and Fraiser were both filmed in stage 25, also the location for The Lucy Show and Bosom Buddies. However, if a show is off the air, there's nothing to see but a plaque.

We drove by a tree that was used in a few episodes of Brady Bunch. One of the guys on our trip was a huge BB fan and had to have his picture taken several times near the tree. He was so excited, you'd have thought Marsha, Cindy, and Jan had walked by.


Next we got to walk on the set of The Insider. Neither of us have ever watched but if you do you'll recognize it in the picture below. We got it just before the kicked us out so Cojo could film a segment. He's even creepier looking in person than he is in that photo if you can believe that.


Then we went in the back entrance (our guide was great) and into the control room for the Insider to see how they put together various segments of the show and watch the download from New York.

We saw Dr. Phil (the man, not the TV show). He's taller in person. But the highlight for me was getting to walk through the stage where Dirt is being filmed. Dirt is new on FX this season, and has some high-end, hip LA offices and homes. It was something to be able to walk through it all. It does kill the illusion of multiple locations scattered across LA to see them all the sets together. Here's Monica on Lucy Spiller's (Courteney Cox) couch. Watch Tuesdays at 10 PM (9 Central) and for every indoor scene, we've been there.

After the tour we grabbed some lunch in the Paramount cafeteria, where once upon a time the stars ate, then went back to our hotel to crash.

Traveling Adventures

The first in a series of posts about our trip to Los Angeles.

While Monica like planes and works for the largest aviation firm in the country, she hates flying, mainly because she's claustrophobic. On the other hand, I generally enjoy flying. I like being away from all your worries for a few hours and being able to read a good book or do a crossword puzzle. Also I find it a bit surreal that in a few hours I can get from to Seattle to someplace warm and sunny or to see family that I think of as so, so far away (or both). However since 9/11 and Robert Reid, flying has changed and we find ourselves on the same page some days. Wednesday's trip to LA was one of those days.

Our flight to LA was scheduled for 6:30. I called United at 4 and confirmed the flight was on time. When we arrived at the airport at 5, we were told the flight was now scheduled for 9 PM and the plane had mechanical problems and was still in San Francisco. When we arrived at the counter, we found they were moving people to the Alaska Air flight which was great. (If ever you're on a flight that's delayed more than an hour and it's not a weather issue affecting all flights, do anything you can to get on another flight. One hour often becomes two which becomes three which becomes a cancelled flight. Since they were already moving people, I knew this flight was going to be cancelled.) Unfortunately, Alaska's flight was at 8:50 PM and they couldn't transfer Monica's first class seat to a first class seat on Alaska, and they weren't very accomodating. Though really their failure was to keep "looking into it" rather than to clearly say that there wasn't a first class seat on ANY plane going from SeaTac to LA that night. After talking with them for at least 30 minutes and my running back and forth to the Alaska counter, I figured out the best we could do was get seats on Alaska and be on the wait list for first class upgrades for $50. After United transfered our ticket over to Alaska, we went to the Alaska desk and got a better seating arrangement in 5 minutes than we had in 45 minutes with United. (8A and 8C, no one in between and on the wait list for first class).

Unfortunately our adventure was just beginning. Because we now had paper tickets, we got selected for extra screening when passing through security. That was annoying but OK aside from someone forgetting she had a bottle of water in her bag. With a couple of hours to kill, we decided to have a sit down dinner an Anthony's. Service was slow; it took forever to take our order and bring my glass of wine. The bread (which was $2) arrived about a minute before our meals. Finally after we had finished and were thinking about dessert, we sat for 15-20 minutes and no one came by, not even to clear my plate. I saw our server a couple of times but apparently, she was too busy for us. Finally, I added up our bill as best I could remember, left cash on the table and walked out.

So we got to our gate and learned there were two no shows for first class; however Monica was third on the wait list. But the flight there was fine and we had plenty of room. There was a bit of delay taxiing to our gate and finally we made it to baggage claim at 11:40. We got our bags and went to catch the shuttle to Enterprise which runs every 5 minutes. After waiting a bit, and seeing other rental car shuttles pass, Monica wondered if Enterprise was still open. Having picked up cars at 2AM, I hadn't thought about this, but I called and found out they closed at 10 PM. Oh shit! It looked like there was a shuttle to our hotel, but it turned out the one that comes by every 10 minutes actually goes to a different Four Points. So finally we grabbed the Avis shuttle -- after confirming they have cars -- and figured we'll just get a car there.

We got a car and got going, but we wound up with a minivan and paying 3 times as much as our rate with Enterprise which is why I didn't rent from Avis in the first place. We loaded the car and got ready to go. But when I turned the key, nothing happened -- no noise, no lights, the car battery is dead. At this point we could only laugh. I went back, got a different car, picked up Monica and the bags and ten minutes later we were at our hotel. Fortunately our room was available though we had two double beds instead of one king; hard to care much about that after this day.

We wound up getting to bed about 2 AM and had to wake up at 7:45 to get to Paramount Studios for the tour the next morning. Off to a great start...

Off to California

Yes, I know the Super Bowl is in Miami.

At an auction last fall, Monica "won" a walk on role on The King of Queens. (I quote "won" because you don't really win an auction; if you get an item it simply means that you bid more than anyone else in the room -- or on the Internet for online auctions -- thought the item was worth.) We're heading to Los Angeles for the weekend so she can make her screen debut. As most of you know, she made her stage debut last spring after similarly winning a walk on role in the local theater's auction gala. But this is National TV so it's an order of magnitude bigger. Since people always ask -- no she won't have a speaking role (SAG rules), she'll just be in the background of a scene or two. From what I hear we'll be at CBS studios in Culver City all day (10-9) on Friday for rehearsal and filming. The studio audience arrives at 5PM and I'm hoping it doesn't take 4 hours to get it right, but we'll see. They do say lots of food and drink are provided. I'm bringing a book all the same. I guess we'll get to see how a TV show comes together. I'd be more excited if it were a show we watched regularly, but Monica is pretty psyched.

We don't know exactly when the show will air. Currently KoQ is scheduled to return to the air on April 9 and we think this is the second episode once they're back from hiatus. But it could be the first or CBS could change their mind. Watch CBS.com and here for updates.

From another auction, we also have a VIP tour of Paramount studios planned for Thursday morning.

More on Monday.

Da Bears!!!

Woo hoo! We're going to the Super Bowl.

In my last post I noted that the teams were close and those backing the loser might not concede the other team was better even after the game. Well, scratch that. The Bears killed 'em. It was 39-14 and not even that close. Strange as it is to say, in a game where the Saints had almost 400 yards of offense, the Bears defense dominated. Then again 166 of those yards were in the space of five minutes where the Saints had the Bears number. After the Saints nearly took the lead with a field goal, in their final six drives, they totaled 49 yards. It will be interesting to hear what those pundits have to say now.

I think my analysis of the Saints was on the money -- "Those that favor the Saints overlook some of their weaknesses, like being 10-6 against weak competition, a negative turnover ratio and having to play on the road". The Saints had four turnovers plus a safety and the crowd, if not the weather, was a factor. As well an early luck break -- the fumbled kickoff where the Saints return man appeared to be down -- played a role.

Miami here we come.

Bears-Saints and small sample size

There's a basic principle in statistics known as small sample size error. It means if you don't have enough data, your can't draw conclusions that are accurate. If you ask five people who they're voting for in an upcoming election and four pick the same candidate, you really can't conclude anything much less that "80% of voters support Smith".

An individual sporting event and thus single elimination tournaments like the NFL playoffs suffer from the same fate, which is why you rarely see the best team win the NCAA basketball championship. Over the course of the 16-game season, it's pretty easy to conclude that the Bears are better than the Dolphins and the Saints are better than the Redskins. But when they met on the field, the teams that will be playing on Sunday both lost.

I already wrote my thoughts on the game. I think the Bears have a 60-65% chance of winning. The national view is pretty interesting. On ESPN, all eight of their experts picked the Saints to win though their computer picked the Bears. In their unscientific poll, about 61% of the voters have picked the Saints (though of course that's popularity as much ability). When people have to put their money where their mouth is though, the Bears are still 2 1/2 point favorites.

The truth (as much as one can divine truth from subjective data) is that the teams are close. Those that favor the Saints overlook some of their weaknesses, like being 10-6 against weak competition, a negative turnover ratio and having to play on the road, while playing up the Bears weaknesses like Grossman's wide variance and the Bears defense having fallen off the past few weeks. I think there's also the destiny and "great story" card in play here. It's just the opposite for those who favor the Bears.

Come Sunday, one team will win and one will go home. But, and here's the interesting part, because it's just one game, the people who picked the losing team weren't necessarily wrong in their analysis. It's possible the game is a blowout and the backers of the team that loses really say "oops, we were wrong". But the likely outcome is a close game where the "fans" of the winners say "I told you so" and the losers claim the better team didn't win or got unlucky. (While as fans we hate to admit it, luck plays a huge role in the outcome of a game -- we're a couple of "lucky" breaks away from this game being the Cowboys and Eagles; the total margin of victory in the four NFC games so far is 10 points.) And really we have no way of knowing if team X won because they were better or if this time was the 30-40% of the time the lesser team won. While the outcome will determine the NFC Champion, I don't think it will change many people's minds on the two teams involved.

It's Been One Week

... since the big snow and there's still plenty left on the ground. Despite forecasts that "tomorrow" would be high 30s and sunny, it hasn't happened. We even got a little more snow on Saturday and about half an inch yesterday. I think Seattle got hit harder than we did this time.

Monday was the first day since the snow that the temperature got above freezing but it was overcast, and once the sun set the temperatures dropped below again. Yesterday the high was only 32. Today is really the first good melting day. It was 33 when I woke up and got as high as 39 (!) and is still 34 as I write. I found out that one of our friends nearby has a weather station in his yard so I'm able to get very accurate historical data for our house.

Our driveway which gets sun is down to a thin layer and the trees are all snowfree. Where I shoveled the deck, it's actually dry. But the shady parts of the deck still have a couple inches of snow and our "grass" is all white. The forecast is more snow tomorrow though Friday is supposed to be rainy and should wash away what's left. In 14 years here I've never seen snow stick around this long.

Thankfully, the roads are all fine though it's a bit dicey between our cul-de-sac and the main road.

Duke and Duchess

Oops, just realized I wrote this up, but never posted it.
These are our latest foster dogs from Seattle Beagle Rescue. They're eight-year old brother and sister and came to us via Eastern Washington. Duke is the one in the back. We were planning to foster them for just a week until an adoption event. But when the Chanukah storm hit and the whole Eastside lost power, the event was cancelled. The dogs were transferred to Beagle Rescue, and here we are. They are the sweetest and cutest Beagles we've had in quite some time. Unlike Monica, I don't say that about every dog.

You can read more about them on PetFinder or find out how to adopt them.

Go Bears!

Bears win, Bears win!

While many people in the Seattle area are bummed about the end of the Seahawks season, you can tell we're not. I thought the game would be a blowout -- and had Tillman made that early interception it might have been -- but the Seahawks played pretty well and sent the game to overtime. There the Seahawks achilles heel -- poor pass defense -- did them in once again.

Bring on the 'aints.

A funny story about the ending of the game. Monica ordered pizza for lunch which arrived just before overtime, so I paused the game on TiVo and was watching the game delayed by about a minute. As the Bears lined up to kick the field goal, I got concerned because the phone wasn't ringing (my dad wasn't calling after the win). Finally as they got ready to snap the ball, the phone rang and we knew the kick was good even before the snap.

Let it stop, let it stop, let it stop

There's a reason the famous lyric is since we've no place to go, let it snow...

If you have places to go, snow isn't any fun. And it's an order of magnitude worse here where we simply aren't used to it and don't know how to deal with it. It snowed in Seattle Wednesday night starting about 4:30. On the plateau, we got seven inches. Monica left work in Everett at 4:20 and by 7:20 she had only made it to Redmond -- 30 miles, all highway and usually an hour in traffic. And that was the fast part. Of course, this incident didn't help. She never made it home and wound up turning around and heading back to Bellevue (8 miles, 15 minutes) and spending the night at a friend's house.

Right now everything is still covered in snow, though it's melted down to a couple of inches in the sunny area and three or four in the shade. It was supposed to be mid 30s and sunny today but was overcast and never got above freezing and we actually got some more flurries. Tommorow is supposed to be 35; we can only hope, though I'll be inside watching football either way.

Welcome to our Blog

After years of resisting I got inspired to create a blog. In theory this is a blog for both Monica and me (and Hunny Bear and Jasmine too, though lacking an opposable thumb I don't think either will be blogging much), though I expect I'll create at least 95% of the content.

My goal is to create semi-regular posts to share with friends and family what's happening in our lives or just what we're thinking about. As well, finding the photos from Monica's stage debut for our holiday letter made it clear that I really need a good place to upload an occassional photo or two.

I expect I'll talk mainly about sports, poker, vacations, and dogs (really, just wait) but it could be anything that's topical, like the weather (!).