I`m just about recovering from the past week. For the past 2 weeks my best mate Chris and his girlfriend have been over visiting from the UK and our feet have barely touched the ground — literally.

The first Thursday saw me take in my first ever Major League Soccer match. The Los Angeles derby between Chivas USA and The LA Galaxy featuring a certain David Beckham at the LA Home Depot stadium:

I`ll spare you the details on that, other than to say that the game finished 2-2 and that I`m fairly sure even I could get a game for either side. Yes - they were both THAT good.

The next day, or Friday as its sometimes called, saw me fly over to Vegas from San Diego to catch up with the guys who had left the day earlier to take in a tour of the Grand Canyon. Friday was good, we checked into our King suite at the MGM Grand and then headed down to the Grand Buffet - 30 bucks all you can eat, every type of food known to man kind - and a few things unknown as well.

Saturday was spent wandering the strip waiting for the evening and our night time helicopter tour of the strip. The good thing is that you can help yourself to champagne while you wait for the helicopter to get ready. Between the 4 of us we got through 3 bottles of champagne in 15 minutes. Not bad.

Then the tour.

For 80 dollars each including tax yoou could not ask for more. The views were amazing and I`d strongly recommend it for anyone going to Vegas.

I cant remember much after the helicopter tour, apart from a vague poorly lit memory of Chris and I smoking cigars and trying to do a monopoly board pub crawl along the Vegas Strip.

Sunday started with the hangover from hell. Fortunately Vegas is prepared for such things and has the perfect hangover cure: The Oxygen bar

After breathing scented oxygen and being massaged for half an hour we were ready to go…… to The Stratosphere and a ride on the Big Shot. I have never been so scared in my life. This is a roller coaster that shoots you right up in the air which is already on top of the tallest building in Western America.

They actually have 3 rides on top of the Stratosphere. The Big Shot, Insanity, and quite possibly the only ride in the world which I was too scared to even consider attempting, X-Scream.

This is a roller coaster that literally drops you off the side of the top of the building with nothing to hold you in apart from a bar over your waist. I was a little slow off the mark taking the picture, but this is the ride as viewed from the observation deck below a couple of seconds after the ride had been pulled back up a few feet to take them back.

After a couple of days ‘relaxing’ (read drinking) back in Fullerton we were all ready to go again. This time back for my 3rd attempt at 6 Flags Magic Mountain in a year. This time there was unfinished business. The past 2 occasions I`d been there had been advertising boards everywhere promoting their latest ride which would open this summer: X2.

This ride is called a 4th dimension ride and puts you under 4gs of pressure and throws you down angles of just under 90 degrees.

And this is what is looked like from my perspective. Just for the record the muffled screams you can hear throughout are coming from yours truly, and they sound that way because I was physically unable of making any other noise.

Enjoy my torture:

Now I`m back here in Fullerton, just wondering what I`ll do next…..

A few months ago I celebrated my first year of being in California and put together a video of all the most memorable things that have happened in that time. Just today I uploaded the video to youtube for you all to see:

Enjoy:

Youtube video here

I`ll have to start work on year 2 pretty soon.

So I survived my first Earthquake.

In case you have not heard, Southern California was rocked by and earthquake last Tuesday.

A reasonable sized one too it was measuring 5.4 on the richter scale, having been down graded from the original report of 5.8.

Although most media reports that the earthquake happened in down town Los Angles, the epicenter was actually about 7 miles east of where I work which is about 30 miles south east of LA.

The experience itself was quite odd. I was sat at my desk when it all started, around 11:45am,. First is just felt as though a big lorry was going past the building, but then the movement got bigger and bigger. After a few seconds the whole building was moving from side to side by a good foot or 2 and this lasted for about 10 seconds.

I really didn’t have a clue what to do either. I couldn’t remember whether to keep indoors or get outdoors, follow the example of my colleague next to me who just grabbed onto the desk and looked terrified, or just stand on my chair and pretend it was a roller coaster.

The ground continued to ‘wobble’ for about a minute after the main shock, like being on a boat. Very odd feeling indeed.

I did think that my apartment would be in a mess, but I escaped unsacthed save for a few things being thrown on the floor, kitchen cabinets being flung open and having all my pictures and mirrors hanging from funny angles:

I was listening to the radio the day after and it seems as though that the earthquake we had on Tuesday released about 1/1000th of the energy that is needed to relieve pressure on the fault lines running through California. They say its 99 percent certain that the ‘big one’ will strike at some time in the next 30 years.

I`ll make sure I know what to do when that one strikes.