was MUCH better than we were expecting ( a motel 6 type room). It had a king sized bed which was comfy, a nice tv, a fridge and microwave, a desk, nice spinny chair, and a balcony! Here's a few

pictures of the view outside of the balcony. It was pretty nice (with

the exception of the construction).Also, we were really close to the Nakatomi Plaza building!! (Actually called the Fox Plaza building, it was the skyscraper used in the first Die Hard movie and was called the Nakatomi Plaza building in that film. I took a picture of it, but with my camera phone instead of my digital camera, and now I can not for the life of me figure out how the hell to email the picture to me so I can put it here, although according to the instruction manual I SHOULD 'easily' be able to do it. Go figure. Well, if I ever Do get it sent to myself, I'll post it in the next thingnabob I write.) Sunday night we walked around Beverly Hills which was in walking distance, but everything was closed already (damned super bowl I presume).

So Monday we were supposed to be at class by ten in the morning. The classes were being held in the corporate offices, which were only a fifteen minute walk away, and Becky got directions from one of the teachers. But, she kinda wrote them down a bit wrong. After a half an hour of walking we were pretty sure that we were lost! We called the office to find out how to get there from where we were, and started heading in the right direction again. Well, supposedly the secretary that gave us the instructions flipped and thought it would take us another hour to walk there (we were maybe 5 blocks away) and told the regional director Len (the big wig over here on the west coast) and Lori, the executive from New York! So unbeknownst to us, and without ever having seen us or knowing what we look like, or even getting our cell phone numbers, Len and Lori take off in Len's car to try to find two lost humans in the middle of L.A! The secretary also must have called our theatre, because one of the managers called us and was flipping out wondering what we were doing and where we were and did we know the regional director and executive from New York were trying to blindly find us!!?? Luckily this was one of the cool managers from the theatre and took it pretty good and proceeded to make fun of us. (speaking of which, later today is my first day back at work since the trip, and I'm pretty damn sure I'm not going to hear the last of this one for quite a while.) As we're walking along the road, which is full of construction, we hear screaming and hollering behind us. We turn around, and about one or two blocks up we see some crazy guy flailing his arms around. He's standing next to a 'slow' sign, so we assume he's a road crew worker man yelling at vehicles. A few minutes later, a car pulls up right alongside us and a crazy woman sticks her head out and asks if we're Matt and Becky! Lo and behold, they found us!! Luckily, both Len and Lori turned out to be very cool people and took the whole situation as humorous. It also turns out that it was Len screaming at us from the 'slow' sign, and that was the third time they'd passed us! They said they were pretty sure it was us, because they were looking for a guy and a girl in business attire looking lost. I guess we were more obvious than we thought! I still think it's crazy how they just went out looking for two strangers in the first place!

So anyways, the classes were boring as hell, except for occasionally Monday and Tuesday (actually, quite a bit more often than occasionally) when Len and Lori came in to class. They'd always interrupt and give their own thoughts and opinions and ask us fun questions we'd always debate (such as is it ok for Tammy, who was hired as Tom, to wear her breasts to work? Ah, were these ever fun discussions! And surprisingly both the two top heads were fine with this!). But other than that, the classes were sooooo boring. Ok, when you first start working at the movie theatre, you take several 'orientation' classes. Well, all this was was a review of those classes, and not much more. Sure, we need to know the material if we're going to teach it, but I thought it would have been much more beneficial if we were to spend the first day reviewing it (instead of all four) and the next days applying it and learning different ways to teach. ( I don't know how many teachers I've had in college who knew exactly what they were doing but couldn't teach to save their lives). And another thing, the people in this class training to be Corporate Trainers are 'supposed' to be the best supervisors of each theatre in the area. Well, if the rest of the class other than Becky, one other guy, and I were the best of their respective theatres, this company is screwed! My god, they were a bunch of idiots! Joey (my theatres managing director) actually told Becky and I that Len and Lori thought highly of us, that we made a great impression, and they felt we were the best in the class. Well, that's good and all, but it really isn't surprising considering the caliber of stupidity radiating off the others in class.

Wednesday, our last night their, we went out to West Hollywood where some clubs are. She'd been their before, so she picked a place called Rage. Which apparently is usually a pretty cool club.

Unfortunately (for me anyhow) Wednesdays are Latin night. I'm usually not attracted to Latinos (lucky for Becky though, she is!), and I'm definitely not into Latin music. But for about 20 minutes there was a fairly entertaining dance/lipsync off between two dragqueens. One of them was terrible looking, and sadly the other was the best looking guy at the place! (Well, other than I of course, ha ha ha!)

And that about sums up my trip to L.A. Now whenever there's a new theatre opening there is a chance I'll be sent there, and these trips usually last three weeks. I know a new theater opens sometime in March, and another in April. One of them is in Seattle, and the other somewhere in New Jersey I think. Not sure If I'll be sent to either one, but I'm sure there is a good chance I'll be going to at least one, if not both of them. Anyways, looking up I've written quite a bit, and don't have too much else to say, so so long and thanks for all the fish.