The Grind

I just realized I haven't talked about what I am actually going to do this summer! Well, at Toyota, at least. I am working within the Retail Market Development group. They do everything dealing with dealerships from planning where dealerships should be (Dealer Planning), processing the actual site requests to establish, expand, or relocate a dealership (Site Requests), to planning the actual buildings (Facilities). They also work with the dealers themselves through regional market representatives.

I am working with the Dealer Planning group, though I sit among the Facilities group, which includes their architect vendor people. My group conducts market studies on various areas where they are contemplating changing their dealerships in some way (either relocating, opening a new place, or just data collection to see how a new dealer is doing). They work closely with a mapping vendor, so I will get to use some of their software to analyze things like registration data and projected households.

However, today was my second day in the office and so far it has been fairly slow. Due to the holiday weekend, my boss has been out and returns tomorrow. Also, they are trying to find me a good study to work on that I can delve into and finish in the next 3 months. So I'm sure once I am assigned a study, things will be busy.

I have to admit that I'm a little jealous hearing of the interns who are rushing around, busy with work. I learned over the years that I would much rather be busy than bored. So I'm hoping my work will start to pick up tomorrow. At least they know that I am eager for stuff to do!

Sometimes It's Good to Work for an Auto Company

...like, say, when you get a flat tire! This morning, the guard at the entrance to my building pointed out that my rear left tire was flat, almost to the rim. I was thankful that I had reached work before the situation got really bad instead of being on the busy 405 in morning rush hour! Lucky for me, I work at an auto company, so they have their own service garage right on campus. I drove it over and left it there all day. Another cool thing is they have a "shuttle" that you can call for pick up to take you to the various buildings on campus. The reason I put "shuttle" in quotes is because it is just a Scion with the words "Campus Transport" on the sides. Anyway, it was all very convenient.

Fiesta Hermosa

Today I went to Fiesta Hermosa, a weekend long street fair in Hermosa Beach. Apparently, this occurs on Memorial Day and Labor Day Weekends and they also have a 4th of July street fair. It was your typical street fair, with artisan booths lining the streets and lots of food tents. There was also a small carnival place with kid's rides and a teeny little petting zoo. I went down there with my roommate and her friend, so it was nice to tour around with people who knew the area. There are a ton of cute stores and restaurants down there, so I will have to go back sometime when it is less crowded.

This is the view from one of the streets leading into my neighborhood. It is very hilly.

This is the awesome leather bracelet I bought at the fair. I'm sure I overpaid for it, but I just can't bring myself to bargain!

Videos

Please note: clicking on the links will take you to the videos, not clicking on the photos.

These videos are posted in their own entry because I hadn't figured out how to do it while I was creating the other entries. But from now on, I will be including them in the individual posts where they belong.


Redondo Beach Village:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1314294142928473336




Redondo Beach:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7114887309803143150&hl=en



Bubbles:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4724678087851282550





Waves on Redondo Beach:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2414180030266851522




Laguna Beach (the color on this one got washed out):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1124913618171687301


Point Vicente:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=834179764889138402

Day Tripping -- Laguna Beach, PCH, and Palos Verdes

One of the things I want to do while out here is to take some day trips to various areas around LA. So today I decided to go down to Laguna Beach. One thing I wanted to do the first time I came to LA was to drive down the PCH and stop at all the beach towns on the way to San Diego. Although I made it to San Diego, it took longer than expected, so we didn't get to stop at the beach towns to explore. So today I decided to go back to Laguna Beach and walk around a bit, then meander my way back up the PCH through the other beach towns.

This is the beach area, which was not very big compared to the other beach towns. As you can see, it was pretty crowded. I kind of forgot that it was Memorial Day Weekend. :-) They were having a little town fair, with a few arts and crafts tables and a man on stilts with orange pants and a Venetian-looking mask. There were lots of people playing volleyball and basketball in addition to just playing in the ocean. You can see it was another cloudy day, but the sun broke through at around 3:30.

These are some of the houses on the hills above the town.

One of the fancy cars I saw, but most of them were huge SUVs. What do people in Laguna Beach need a Hummer for?! I found this town to be ultra-trendy, super-expensive, and the people were not very friendly. Overall, not my favorite town so far.

This beautiful church was probably the highlight of the town for me.

Another highlight was this view from a path that wound up a bluff.

I found someone to take a photo of me!

This is Huntington Beach. I took the photo from my car because in order to get out, I would have had to pay $10 for entrance into the state park! But you can see what a wide expanse of beach it is. The bad part is all the oil rigs just offshore. Blech! I drove through Newport Beach just before this, and that was my favorite, although I couldn't find any easy place to pull over and take photos. The houses were beautiful and it had a pretty marina and bay.

Then I drove through the Palos Verdes Peninsula, just south of Redondo Beach. I didn't realize it consisted of 3 neighborhoods: Rancho Palos Verdes, Palos Verdes Estates, and Rolling Hills Estates. I liked the first two the best. They were beautiful, with stunning houses and views. There were schools and shops in here, too. Apparently, the Trump National Golf Club is in here, too, although I did not drive by that.

I loved how the sunlight shone on the water where it was breaking through the clouds.

There was a small park in Rancho Palos Verdes, called Point Vicente. I saw a sign for a whale-watching center and immediately made the turn off! It happened to be at the same place I was heading anyway -- towards a beautiful lighthouse I had seen surrounded by palm trees. Unfortunately, the center was closed and I did not see any whales. But there was a nice walking path and some gorgeous views. I'd like to go back sometime when it is not so cloudy.

My apartment

After much, much searching on the internet and in person, I finally decided on the second place I had originally found. :-) Isn't that always the case? This place is great! I basically have my own little apartment on the lower floor of this house, plus free use of the kitchen and living room upstairs. It includes utilities and a parking space and is fully furnished! It is about a mile inland from Hermosa Beach, but the neighborhood is technically Redondo Beach. My roommate is really cool and this place even comes complete with a cute little puppy!



This is Cooper. He is a Goldendoodle (Golden Retriever-Poodle mix).


When you come in the door, you turn left and see this: the hallway to my apartment. The first door goes into the bedroom, the second door goes to the bathroom, and the last door leads into the living room. The washer and dryer are in a closet on the left wall.





This is my bedroom. It is very purple, but it's great!




This is my bathroom, which as you can see, is green. This whole house is really nicely decorated.
This is my living room. Note the awesome big screen TV. The room even has a door for more privacy, so I can just chill down here without disturbing Kira. P.S. I was watching Madagascar when I took these photos. :-)





My living room opens onto this back patio, which is nicely lit at night.

Okay, so back at the front door, if you turn to the right, you see the stairs.
When you go upstairs, it opens up into this huge living room.



If you turn around at the top of the stairs, you see the dining area and kitchen.
This is a closer view of the kitchen. Kira attached a rope of lights to the bottom of the cabinets next to the floor, so it looks awesome at night.

Swanky Santa Monica

After my orientation at Toyota on Monday, I went directly to a conference for my department in Santa Monica. I was able to stay at the hotel for Monday and Tuesday night. We were at the Loews Santa Monica, a really swanky hotel. It was great! My room was awesome, the service was wonderful, the food was delicious and free, and the views were amazing. As we drove through town, I passed the Sea Shore motel, the first hotel I ever stayed at in LA. It was a great place, but just funny how it compared to where I was headed just down the block.

My hotel room. Note the flat panel TV in the bathroom!

These are views from my hotel room. It faced north, towards Malibu and you could also see the Pier.




The hotel atrium. I went to the top floor to get an unobstructed view of the beach.

The view from the top floor. Look at all the outdoor exercise equipment. There were a good number of people out there using it during the day.