Back from la-la-land.

I'm back home after spending the weekend in Los Angeles. While I was there, I visited Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Saturday night, I decided at the last minute to go to a comedy club. I went to the Hollywood Improv located on Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood.

Here's their Web site: http://www.improv2.com/hollywood.html

They had four warm-up stand-ups and one headlining stand-up. The four warm-ups were mediocre at best, although there were a few laughs. The feature stand-up was a comic who goes by the name of Rich Vos. I don't know anything about him, except that he's from New Jersey. He was the one that got the most laughs but most of his jokes were all about his racial hangups with every ethnic group in the world. Among the people in the audience that became the butt of his jokes was a patron from Finland. The comic tore Finland apart as if it were a country "no one's ever heard of or not known for anyone or anything famous" (never mind that cellphone maker Nokia is based in Finland). I won't go into his routine except to say that he'll never win any awards for harmony or brining people together! I was smart enough to sit way in the back and out of sight of the comic. I learned my lesson many years ago when I sat in the front at a comedy club in New York and this stand-up from Houston, Texas made me the butt of his jokes! I don't understand why people sit up front unless they enjoy being made fun of in front of an entire audience!

Finally, on the drive back to Phoenix, I decided to make a detour to The Joshua Tree Park at Twentynine Palms. Here's a link:

http://www.nps.gov/jotr

I took plenty of shots on my new camcorder and took lots of still shots as well. The Joshua Tree is a very huge park. Off the I-10 highway, it took me 30 minutes to drive to Twentynine Palms and once I was finished, another hour to drive out of the park and back on the I-10. I had a really good time.

Overall, I had a good weekend. I didn't get stuck in too many traffic jams, although many Angelenos weren't so lucky! On both my drive to L.A. and back to Phoenix, I saw the highway going the opposite direction always to be jammed and hardly moving! The traffic there lasted for miles! I remember when arriving at the hotel, I put on the local news and they had these live shots of the congested freeways.