DREAMIN' MEETS REALITY (SORT OF)

After honeymoon of first week wore off, we realized that life in Malibu (work, school, ...) a lot like life in BG except without our friends. Settled in by the third week to routine. Continue to see/do many things ... Reagan Presidential Library/Museum, USC-Ohio State (pre) game, Disneyland, San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park, body boarding at beach, Warner Brothers studio, celebrity sightings at grocery and other places (Dustin Hoffman, Willem Dafoe, , Sam Elliott, Randy Quaid, LaFonda (from Napoleon Dynamite), Ali Larter, Kristen Chenoweth (if you don't know some of these, you're either too old, like me, or too young) ... Missing friends in BG but looking forward to Yosemite trip in October, Getty Museum, and other stuff down the road.


ROOM WITH A VIEW -- well, there may be drawbacks to Malibu, but the view isn't one of them. The photos below look out from the graduate school campus about 800 ft. above sea level and just about 200 yards from our townhouse. Without a wide-angle lens, the it's hard to do justice to the view. These photos are side-by-side.




















ZUMA BEACH (west Malibu)
Here we are posing in our new (half) wetsuits.
The water is 64 degrees!











In the half dozen trips to the beach for body boarding, these were the biggest waves so far. Regular "overhead" size -- this one was a "medium" for the day.













WHAT'S UP DOC?
"VIP Tour" of Warner Brothers Studio.
(Below) Merritt and Dana in
"Central Perk" set from Friends.


















USC v. OHIO STATE
Our pregame "tailgating party" on USC campus.
We didn't "score" any tickets, so we settled
for the USC band's warm-up/rally. Great stuff!
I would show you Julia getting her groove
on to the band's version of "Tusk", but the girls won't let me!



















MISCELLANEOUS STUFF
Running with a View
Running is still running, but the
view from the track after we're
finished isn't too shabby.














"Heroes" Memorial to 9/11 victims on the graduate campus.














Mer & Dana with Scoobie at
Warner Brothers.













Mer in a Hollywood frame of mind.














Universal Studios Citywalk
Saw Dark Knight on the IMAX screen.