This year many of our friends are hitting the big 30 (yours truly included). Liz1 was the most recent addition to the trigenarian club and she made sure to mark the occasion in a spectacular fashion- with a toga party in NYC! Craig and I decided to make the journey back east to celebrate with Liz and had a great time! The party was at Wicked Willy's on Bleecker on Saturday the 13th. Picture SoHo on a normal busy Saturday night with people going to dinner, bars, clubs and then occasionally people in togas making their way through the crowd- pretty hilarious. If you came in costume, which most people did, you had no problem getting in the front door of this hoppin bar/club.



From those who went all out with historically accurate costumes to those who made theirs out of bed sheets it was great to see so many people in togas!





It was a rockin' party complete with Beirut (Liz1 would want me to make sure to tell you that it's not the same as beer pong) at which the Birthday Girl kicked ass!



There was also a game of pin the "beer" on Liz1. When it was my turn Liz1 stepped in front of me and I actually pinned the beer on Liz1...



We all had such a great time! It was great to hang out with people I hadn't seen in awhile like Erik, Amanda, and Mercy as well as meet Liz1's NYC friends! It's funny when you're introduced to someone and you're not sure if you've met them before or you just think you have cause you've seen their picture on MySpace so many times....







Special thanks goes out to Kelly and Kathryn for their mad party planning skills as well as Vera and Bill for going above and beyond with the libations!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZ1!!!!



For more pictures, go to my Picasa Gallery.

-liz2

Today is the 5-year anniversary of Senator Paul Wellstone's tragic and untimely death.

Which means, mainly, that it's an excuse to talk about him, and why he continues to be sorely missed. We need fighters like him today. We have barely anyone who stacks up. The more you get to know (or be reminded of) him and his style of leadership, the more that becomes clear. . .



-jw

You gotta love it when the local media keeps using the word "apocalyptic" to describe the situation in our neck of the woods. . .

Luckily for us, Casa Ogden is nestled safely within the vast and sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, relatively far from the surrounding hills and canyons that are currently covered with dry brush (owing to the driest year ever recorded) more closely resembling tinder than "vegetation." But *cough* we have to breathe, too. Unfortunately these fires were a perfect storm waiting to happen -- the desert winds have mercifully held off for most of the summer and fall, until this past weekend. Those winds are supposed to abate on Wednesday as the ocean breezes kick back in. . . Keep your fingers crossed. It's really bad and it's getting worse.



-jw

Yeah. . . In case you hadn't heard.

In the last year he's also won both an Oscar and an Emmy Award. And in addition to the years he's spent lecturing and travelling the world to campaign for policies to combat man-made climate change, he also co-founded and ran an investment firm specializing in sustainable, environmentally progressive business ventures. And he created an interactive television network -- the first of its kind -- that enables viewers to create their own programming about the issues and topics that they think are important to society. And he wrote a book about how the founders of the U.S.A. intended for our democracy to thrive on informed and vigorous public debate, and how that "marketplace of ideas" has been squelched by tabloid media obsessed with trivial celebrity gossip and choked by religious superstition that allows fear and popular myth to trump science and reason. Earning the affectionate moniker, "The Goracle," he predicted with astonishing accuracy the disastrous outcome of the U.S. invasion of Iraq before it happened. He spoke out against the Iraq War and the Bush Administration's assault on domestic civil liberties as early as '03, before we had the faintest idea what was really going on. But the media back then reported that Al Gore had "gone nuts."

It's also worth noting that, back in the 80s, seeing the potential benefit to the nation, as a Senator he introduced the legislation that made way for the creation of a public Internet. In his spare time, he's on the boards of both Apple and Google.

There's a strong grassroots movement that believes Al is the most qualified person in America to be President, and they recently bought a full-page ad in the New York Times to say so, and to try to drum up more support. But every indication is that he still has no intention to run.

Whaddya say, America? Would you have a beer with him now?

-jw