LA Day 14

Wednesday I awoke and became quite productive; made some phone calls, drank some coffee and silently rooted on the homeless people wandering the street with their Ralph's grocery carts full of recycleables, pulled from bins in front of houses on London.

I set up some meetings, got some administrators to email well-written and genuine introductions of MATS and how we serve those in ministry.

In the afternoon I ran again; making 5 days in a row. This time to Echo Park, past the umbrella-donned fruit stand, the pot smokers laying on the grass, and the half-naked homeless lady picking scabs off her back, paying no mind to me or I to her.

Runs require showers, but don't require laundry as I currently wear the shirt once dripping in sweat now dry, from that run. Therefore, I showered and met my friends Kyle and Katie for trivia night at Ye Olde Kings Head in Santa Monica, within site of the Pier and the Pacific.

Topics of trivia are always amusing, as the Greater-LA area holds it's collective breath and certainly not their vulgar tongues for the closing of the 405 freeway in mid-July. "Car-mageddon" is what they are calling the closing of, perhaps, the most-busy stretch of interstate in the country for construction the weekend of July 15-17. News outlets, entertainment moguls and even homeless people in Santa Monica are talking about what might be, the end of West Los Angeles.

During the drink round, where one team gets a free round of beers for having the most-quirky and collectively-shocking rebuttle to the topic, the emcee asked: "what could happen in LA that is worse than carmageddon?"

Instantly a wise-guy from the back shouted: "TWO CARMAGEDDONS!"

All the answers were bland, and honestly I don't believe anyone won drinks this go-around.

Thursday, I awoke early, drank coffee and hopped on the 101 to the 10 to the auction in Fontana; desert land, still considered LA-area.

At last I felt back in my element, car auctions, shady dealers and free donuts to whoever is faster than the fat guy banking on the deep-fried dough. Manheim Southern California had free bananas and apples at the door and was insistent to check ID every time you walked through the doors.

I made it to the other two major auctions in the area, soon after, but didn't eat In-N-Out, as I would have liked.

Last night I went back to Culver, dropped Kyle's phone off to him which he left in the car the night prior and watched an episode of Game of Thrones, a new series based on some books by George R. R. Martin, yes two 'Rs'.

Tonight I'm going to try and run or swim, or find the next best thing to fishing in the LA river. Any takers to that idea?