Day at Bartlett Lake

I got a Groupon for an all day Pontoon boat rental. I got some friends to come along and we had a great day out at the lake.

 Susan and Darla.

 Cindy

 Me driving the boat.

Lynnora and Erica.

 Penny is cold

Nice desert scenery.

Erica is good at lounging.

Penny is still cold.

The dam.

Great picnic lunch.

Susan warming up.

Erica, lounging again.

Me

The group.

Duff Goldman's Cakemix Studio

This is what I was most excited about for our trip. Duff Goldman from the Ace of Cake's on the Food Network had opened this Cakemix studio in West Hollywood. It's kind of like a paint on pottery place. You go in and your cake is ready for you with a crumb coat.

You decide what you what to do with it, or if you are like us, we made it up as we went. They put the initial frosting on it, so it's all pretty. You can do fondant or buttercream. Then you embellish it with additional fondant, butter cream and special goodies from the toppings bar. It is a really fun concept. I wish they had one here in Phoenix.

Cindy was trying to get some ideas, looking at some other people had done.

Toppings bar.

Here they are covering my cake for me, so it will be all pretty.

Cindy choose to swirl two colors.

 They give you a little instruction, but it's mostly up to you.

And they give you a box to take it home! It was a fun thing.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

I had read that Grauman's Chinese Theatre was a great place to see a movie. We decided to give it a try. It was pricey, 19$, but it was a very ornate and fun place. The screen was huge, 900 seats and quite the sound system. It was a fun thing to do. In the lobby they had costumes from the movie we were seeing, as well as some historical displays.

Dead Celebrities

 

 On another trip to LA, Cindy and I went to the Hollywood Forever Cemetary. It was quite interesting. This time, I read about the Pierce Brothers Westwood Cemetary. There were supposed to be quite a lot of celebrities there. I am not sure why I find this interesting , but I do. Especially since, it is unlikely that I would recognize a living celebrity. I am not very celebrity conscious. Maybe it's because this makes them very much like the rest of us. We all die and end up somewhere like this.
At any rate, if we weren't following the GPS on my phone, we would never of found this place. It isn't visible from the road and is hidden in amond several sky scrapers.
We only found a portion of the many famous people that are buried here. I was googling how much it cost to be buried here. It is a small place and all the plots are apparently sold. You can only buy one resale.
They are about 45,000 for a single plot. about 22,000 for a niche for an urn.
We did not see Frank Zappa, Roy Orbison, Darryl Zanuck, Natalie Wood. Hugh Hefner has a plot for when he is ready for it.

Poor Farrah died the same day as Michael Jackson.

Some had funny things on their tombstones. Rodney Dangerfields says, there goes the neighborhood.

Someone left flowers on several of the graves.

Archie Bunker

Apparently many people kiss Marilyn's crypt. The stone is permanetly discolored from lipstick.

Love Capote's writing.

 

Don Knotts had a very fun tombstone.

Paramount Studios Tour

A couple of years ago, Cindy and I went on a tour of the Warner Brothers Studio. This trip, we toured Paramount studios. It was interesting, but I think I enjoyed the Warner brothers tour more.

The studio is really just a working space. Anyone can come in and for the right price, use the area for filming movies or tv shows. Glee is being filmed there. They seemed to be the hottest topic on the lot.

Paramount is the last working studio left in in Hollywood.

 All the sound stages have plaques on them that say what movies or shows were filed there.

 They took us on the set of where Dr. Phil was filmed.

 This was part of their New York street area.

 When you rent the area, knobs are extra. You can see where many different types of knobs have been installed and used.

 One of the more interesting areas was a part of the parking lot near the old water tower in the front. They flood it and use it for making big water scenes. They have a wave generator and can even make it look like someone is surfing. The parting of the red sea in the ten commandements was shot here.