I promise that I am going to write up a post or two about this entire past weekend and some pictures up with background stories and the whole nine yards! I meant to do it yesterday but I had a combined total of 8 hours of sleep between Saturday and Sunday night and I was just dead on my feet yesterday. Seriously. We had no patients scheduled at work yesterday so I only turned one light on in the back room and sat in the dark all day because I was so exhausted that my eyes hurt. I went to bed at 9:45pm last night though and slept til 7:15am this morning so I feel much, much better despite having no voice.
ABC has this promo contest for the end of LOST and Clif decided to enter it using interviews and footage he shot this weekend and from LOST episodes. Here’s how it came out. It’s really awesome:
Friday, Friday, Friday. I woke up on Friday, January 29 (our 2.5 yr anniversary!) at 6am. Why? Well other than my body thinking it was 11am, Clif’s phone kept making blooping noises because it was 1) Charged up and 2) getting text messages. Then at around 6:30am, his phone rang. He answered it and it was his father and he had a full out conversation with him at 6:30am. Honestly, I know that Jay got annoyed by it and talked about it on the Jay & Jack Show but it wasn’t that bad for me. I didn’t want to waste any of the day sleeping in.
I made Jay get up around 7:15am and we ended up going for a walk on the beach. We walked down one way on the beach and then back along the street. On the way back, I saw the hotel that my family had stayed in the first time we went to Hawaii, back when I was 15 or 16, the Moana Surfrider. Oh yeah and we also came across some pretty awesome leis in an ABC store…
Walking on the beach
The hotel that my family stayed at 10 years ago
My kind of lei…
So upon returning to the hotel, it was around 8:15am and we decided to go in the totally super awesome pool at the hotel. Around 8:30am, we saw Clif on the balcony of our hotel room and waved to him. I guess he was shouting down to us a little too loudly because that’s when Jack woke up and went onto the balcony to investigate. Here’s the picture Clif took while he was yelling down to us in the pool. You can barely see us, but we’re in there lol.
So we went back upstairs around 9:15am. In the interest of people want to actually continue reading this, I’ll speed it up a little bit. We gathered Clif and went into Jack & Cyndi’s room, where I did my whole “omg-I’m-so-excited-yaayyyy!” speale and everyone who doesn’t like to have fun in life looked like they wanted to kill me. Soon after, we all showered and got ready. Jack, Jay, Clif & I had not eaten breakfast yet. Jay, Clif & I decided to walk down to a local Jack in the Box and get something light to hold us over.
We had plans with Beth to give us an unofficial “Lost Tour”. We had to meet her on the set at noon. The set was on the North Shore, which was literally the furthest point from where our hotel was. It would take an hour to get there, so we left around 11am. I only had one of those Breakfast Jack thingys in my stomach. We figured that we’d get lunch on the North Shore with Beth after she finished showing us some famous filming locations. So we met up with Michael Purcell of Global Cash Card and hopped into a little rental car.
Well [pause]. Since Jay didn’t know where he was going and was relying on the GPS on Clif’s iPhone to get us to the meeting point, it took us well over an hour to get there. We saw the Grass Skirt Productions signs and turned into the lot. The guys doing security asked us if we were here for Lost and we told them yes and got in with no problem. We see dudes walking around in Others garb. Beth walks over to the car and Cyndi & Jack ask her if they can use the restroom. Michael’s face lights up and he follows them. This entire time, Clif is lecturing Jay & myself about the proper etiquette for being on the set of a TV show. You know, I may be loud and annoying in my every day life but I know how to be on best behavior when I want to be. I start nagging the hell out of Jay for us to catch up to them because I did have to pee pretty badly and I didn’t want to be stuck with professor-dad Clif over there. Jay doesn’t want to “get in trouble” so he resists until Beth waves us over.
We walk around what I think was the costume trailer and come across another set of trailers. My eyesight makes a total beeline to none other than Josh Holloway! Internal monologue: “Uh whaaatttt?!” In an attempt to try not to stare, I turn to face Jack. He mutters to me, “He’s talking to Matthew Fox!” Internal monologue: “flkajdflaudfahfOMFGokdafhia. Be cool. Go pee.” Then I remember my full bladder and natural instinct kicks in and I ask where the bathroom was. I think at this point, it was either Jack or Cyndi who quietly exclaim, “I just walked past Evangeline Lilly!” I nod and walk towards where Beth is motioning the bathroom is.
As I walk by Beth, I see she’s talking to Evangeline Lilly in her trailer but this time, I’m on a mission. I did my business (#1, don’t get any ideas) in Jorge’s trailer and return to the group. At this point, Evangeline Lilly is now outside talking to Josh Holloway and Matthew Fox. I must say that she really is quite a beautiful woman. Oh hell, everyone on that show is attractive.
End of fangirl geek-out paragraph. Start of just plan geek-out section.
So we set off with Beth (and since we all keep talking about Beth but never actually saying who she is, I should probably just clear up that Beth is Jorge Garcia’s lovely girlfriend). Since it took so long to get to the North Shore and we had to leave by a certain time to get back for the ABC press mixer, we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked for the tour. But we made the best of it!
We hit up the camp that serves as the set for New Otherton:
And saw Benjamin Linus’s house:
And the beach where the filmed the pilot, Aljira 316 crash, etc:
Moving along from there, we went to the site where they keep the wreckage from Oceanic 815 and the little plane that Yemi’s body was on:
Oh and did I mention that Jay & I found pieces of the plane that had blown outside the fence? HA! 5 years ago when I stood in the middle of the DVD section of Wal-Mart trying to decide whether or not to buy Season 1 of Lost, I definitely never would have imaged that I’d be actually holding a broken piece of that set in my hand someday…
Next up, we made a quick stop at the set where young Mr. Eko’s flashback took place - the one where the kids were playing soccer.
On the way back to dropping Beth off on set, we stopped at the tree where Kate buried the NKOTB lunchbox. I wished we could’ve gotten closer to it because I wanted to climb it lol.
We dropped Beth back off - and no, there weren’t any more sightings because the actors were all off filming - and then began the long drive back to Waikiki. Clif got us a little bit lost and of course then his phone died BUT we managed to get back based on pure awesomeness and a good sense of direction.
Well, I think I’ve lived up to this blog’s name and rambled on long enough. Next up: Friday evening (well, what I can remember from it…).
P.S. Beth has a children’s book coming out in the spring. You can find it on Amazon.com by clicking here.
I have a gazillion pictures and some really great stories from this past weekend in Hawaii but it’s taking me a little time to get them all up/written. So to hold you over in the meantime (and you’ve probably seen this already but whatever, Clif kept us up til 1am working on it and both Jay & I happen to think that this is pretty bad ass), here’s the trailer for all the coverage that was done by Team nuDia from the weekend.
Sadly, the weekend is over but at this time next week, Sara & TJ will be married! Woo-hoo. We’ll be heading back to NY next Fri morning - Monday morning. Wedding is at Marist College on September 5.
Yesterday, I spend a decent amount of the day in the pool with Jay because it was a gazillion degrees and sunny outside (I’m not complaining, I love it). Afterwards, we went out to dinner with Clif at Champps at the Southpoint Mall in Durham. We walked around the mall a little afterwards, since we went to dinner at literally 4:45pm - whatever we were hungry.
While at the mall, we went into Spencer’s and saw what we’re calling our new ChuckCastt-shirts:
You know, just to show support for Subway, the sponsors of Chuck. It’s one of those buy-but-never-wear-out-of-the-house-shirts. Or is it?
So Friday night, Jay got called into work at the very last minute. We were already on our way to dinner so I just kinda went right along with him and we ended up playing the game Sorry! for quite some time. Now I’m sorta obsessed with it. I need a life but games of chance like that are the best because they’re the only games I can beat Jay at. Clif’s been suckered into our weekend-long Sorry! tournament. It’s seriously been sorta…disturbing…how much time we’ve spent playing that game this weekend and how into it we get.
And finally, I had a headache today so I slept for a while during the day then we finished up the weekend with some Hibachi food to celebrate Jay’s sister Heather’s birthday. <3 hibachi.
I had this whole thing planned where I was going to post up pictures in the correct order from each day of San Diego Comic Con 2009 (4 of us even filmed a teaser for it in the airport leaving San Diego haha) but in honor of Jay and my’s 2-year anniversary celebration, I’m gratuitously sharing a picture taken by the fabulous Cesar of us from Comic Con and then generously giving you the gift of laughter at Clif’s expense. Enjoy. Happy 7/29!
This is real. We filmed it and he had no idea until we showed him later Sunday night.
As usual, I’m running late, so I’ll make this quick. I’m working on sorting thru a crapload of pictures from yesterday for YuBlog.org (Nudia.tv’s community blog site) but I’ve literally sorted through hundreds of awesome ones from people who’ve contributed, so it’s just taking a wee bit longer than it did yesterday. We are heading to the convention center in 5 minutes to get some Exhibit Hall time in before Jay and Jack’s live podcast at 12PST in the Sails Pavilion. I’m finishing this during the live Lost Podcast. The actual Con pics will be on YuBlog.org soon enough but I wanted to get some personal pics from our time in San Diego up here first.
So yesterday was Day 1 of San Diego Comic Con 2009 aka Preview Night. Woot. After Jay & I picked up our rental car (an oh-so-hot PT Cruiser), we made a much anticipated stop at In N Out Burger in Mission Valley. There, we (me, Jay, Jana & Clif) met up with Ryan & Jen Ozawa from the Transmission podcast and Alirio “I Have Free Health Care in Canada” of PauseCast.
We got our badges at about 2pm and then sat around the Convention Center outside Ballroom 20 for 4 hours until the doors opened for the Exhibit Hall at 6pm. I wanted to get a Benjamin Linus Bobble Head doll but by the time I got over there after my stop at the Diamond Toys booth to pick up Stay Puft Marshmellow Man limited edition banks for Jay, Derek, and Kim, the line was too long and I wanted to go up and see the previews for V (looks awesome) and The Vampire Diaries (craptastic-minus-the-tastic-until-Boone-gets-on-45-mins-into-it). Afterwards, we hit up some local bar for food/drinks with friends like Chris in Boston & friends, Adam of the Randy Rando Randonopolis podcast, Desiree in Pensicola, Alirio and Michael the Friendly Communist. Good times, good times.
Video and pictures below:
Criffy-Crif!
Ryan & Jen at In N Out
Jack, Clif, me, and Jay with Jay & Jack listener UKJay aka @jhewlett
Some random boys causing trouble.
Jen, JOpinionated, me, Jay, Jack, Clif, Alirio, Adam
Jay, Stuart, & Adam going to see the “V” screening
It’s 12:03am right now and we just got to our hotel. After a few slight mishaps (the man in pajamas who checked us in at our motel charged my credit card on our first night without asking me first and it wasn’t the card I wanted it to go on, which sucks for me but whatev, I’ll deal with it when I get home), we finally got situated. We did a crapload of stuff today, but I’ll explain all of that tomorrow. For now, here’s the really terrible video I pieced together of a bunch of stuff I recorded with my camera while we were traveling to San Diego Comic Con last night. Definitely more pictures and a video of all of us at In N Out tomorrow morning!
P.S. I look really tired in this video and that’s because, well, I was exhausted. Hence why I’m sleeping now instead of posting more blog stuff; because I haven’t caught up on my sleep from before this video was done/we left Raleigh. And away we go:
Okay, so let me start by saying that I do have a video we made during our travels to San Diego last night, but the Internet where we are right now is stolen borrowed and therefore, not strong enough for me to upload it yet. I’ll get it up though (that’s what she said). In the meantime, please accept this small token of entertainment. Southwest Airlines goes 3 seats across and since there were 4 of us traveling (Jay, myself, Jana, and Clif), Clif ended up sitting in the aisle seat for the row across from us. So we spent some time on the flight adding fun things to different pictures of Clif in a Perez Hilton-style. Jay saved some to us computer but I can only find one of them, but it’s funny enough. It’s from last year’s Comic Con:
Oh yeah and I got pulled aside while boarding the plane yesterday so they could test my BRAND NEW bottle of water (bought AFTER security within the airport terminal) for alcohol or whatever. Yeah. Hilarious, right? Meh.
