And so it begins - the Christmas movie marathon

My mom has a little addiction. It really only kicks in for about a month every year, but like any addiction it causes tension between the members of my family. When she is indulging in her little habit, we can hardly stand to stay in the same room.

My mom is addicted to Christmas movies.

I can't say when it first started, but I guess there were signs all along. We always watched more than our fair share of Christmas movies in our house - one of my mom's favorites is "Miracle on 34th Street." She likes the original and the remake. So most years we would watch a few Christmas movies each season and the classic Christmas cartoons such as "Frosty the Snowman" that air most years.

Things really escalated one year when she discovered the wishlist feature on Tivo. With the feature, you can program in a keyword and Tivo will automatically record any movie or TV show that has that word in the description or the title. I used it with keywords such as U2 or Joseph Fiennes, one of my favorite actors. But my mom one holiday season programmed in Christmas and hundreds of movies and shows popped up over the month.

For anyone who doesn't know, Christmas movies become a staple in the month of December on Lifetime and the Hallmark channel. And the Christmas movies start in force the day after Thanksgiving. So far this weekend my has watched "Secret Santa" starring Jennie Garth about a journalist who shows up in a small town to find out who has been giving out miraculous gifts anonymously and "Comfort and Joy" starring Nancy McKeon (Jo from "Fact of Life") in what is sort of a rip off of "The Family Man." The main character is a career woman who wakes up from a car accident with no career and a ready-built family. She also has a few more movies set to tape including "A Dog Named Christmas" and "The 12 Men of Christmas"

The worst Christmas movies are the ones that have sequels. There is one batch of movies that stars Kathy Ireland as the daughter of Santa Claus who comes to earth to make one nasty family believe in Christmas again. Most of the movies are usually super cheesy and not very well acted or written. But my mom gets a kick out of them so in the holiday spirit we indulge her addiction a little every year.

The Thanksgiving feast

Dry brine roasted turkey seasonsed with thyme, rosemary, parsley and lemon zest.

Homemade cranberry sauce.

Best ever string bean casserole - recipe courtesy of Alton Brown.

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes.

Roasted garlic for the mashed potatoes.

Our Thanksgiving feast included a few other things at my aunt's house, but these were my family's contributions to the meal - or extras we cooked for leftovers at our own house. The dry brine turkey turned out moist and flavorful - but the salt measurements did throw me off when we started the brine process on Monday so the meat was a little on the salty side. We also released that roasting garlic on the bottom rack in the oven when the turkey is on the top rack can cause it to cook a little unevenly. Luckily the turkey I cooked was just to have some meat for sandwiches and it worked out fine. We will probably experiment with the dry brine again soon so we can perfect it for next Thanksgiving.

For now, I am enjoying a breakfast of leftover string bean casserole and a turkey sandwich topped with homemade cranberry sauce.

Day three - Thanksgiving prep

Day three of Thanksgiving preparation didn't get off to the best start. Somehow my mom missed the part about the dressing needing to go into the oven and she popped in a Gizdich apple pie - that required nearly two hours of baking time. So that tied up the oven until 8:30 p.m. Then I went to pull out the Italian sausage for the dressing - and it was frozen. So my dad offered to drive out to the store to pick up some so we didn't have to deal with defrosting it. We can always thaw out the frozen one another day for baked ziti.

Then we realized that the casserole dish we planned to use for the dressing leaves us without something for the green bean casserole I am making (from scratch) tomorrow morning. So that led to a search for another baking dish. We found one under a cabinet that had a paycheck stub and a box of pepto bismol inside...so guess we haven't used it in a while.

So after nearly an hour of browning sausage, sauteing vegetables and chopping fresh herbs, the dressing went into the oven. Cooking it tonight will free up the oven for the green bean casserole and, of course, the turkey.

We still have pies in the oven - not homemade but again from Gizdich. At this point, I don't think we are going to get to all the other items we expected to prep tonight - the cranberry sauce and the roasted garlic for the roasted garlic mashed potatoes. I'll just plan to get up early tomorrow and get started. Deadline is 2 p.m. to have everything done since that is around when dinner is traditionally served at my aunt's house. It might be a little like one of those cooking challenges tomorrow morning as we race to prep everything on time.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

Dry Lake Dressing comes out of the oven crispy on top

Day two - Thanksgiving prep and a little reminiscing

So day two of my Thanksgiving prep is pretty simple. Really all I have to do is check on the turkey and "massage" it through the plastic bag.

I also need to check on the progress of my sourdough bread for the stuffing. The recipe calls for stale sourdough bread and though the bread I bought has been sitting in an open bag for two days, as of this morning it was still pretty soft. Today might be the day to pull it out of the bag to speed up the process.

For anyone who is a little bit OCD like me, this is the time where I start to panic a little bit about how difficult the recipes I've chosen to make might actually be. Will the green bean casserole take more time to prepare than I've set aside on Thursday morning? Will the stuffing dry out too much if I cook it Wednesday night? And what if I used too much salt to dry brine my turkey. Russ Parsons said to use only a tablespoon per five pounds, but Martha Stewart said to use 2/3 c. for a 22 lb. turkey for the dry brine. I'm really bad at math and measuring so maybe I calculated wrong and the turkey will turn out too salty.

But really I guess the meal is secondary to spending time with the people I care about. I have only been away from home for one Thanksgiving. I went to college and graduate school a five-hour drive from home and had benevolent professors who who always gave us Wednesday off. And I have always been fortunate for find employment close to home that offers paid holidays.

The one Thanksgiving I spent away from home was when I studied abroad in Ireland when I was 20 and though I was a long way from California, I had a makeshift family with whom to celebrate. The Irish guys I know made a little bit of fun of us Americans that year since we all had to throw a Thanksgiving feast far from home. Actually, a couple days ago I was chatting with one of my Irish friends and mentioned Thanksgiving was coming up and he said, "Oh yeah, that's a big deal for you guys."


One of the perks included in the program I selected in Ireland (which was run through Butler University) included a turkey for Thanksgiving. Not per student, but per site. So the dozen or so of us at the University of Ulster at Coleraine coordinated a meal for ourselves and our newly found Irish friends. For some of the natives I knew it was their first Thanksgiving. For many, it may have been the only one. All the Americans picked a traditional dish to bring to the meal and the Irish guys, well, they offered to provide the beer, wine and spirits.


I brought the mashed potatoes and I remember searching all over the Teske's grocery store for a can of cranberry sauce. My mom even offered to send a few cans express mail, but eventually I found a tiny jar of Ocean Spray whole berry sauce on a shelf. It turns out the Brits save cranberry sauce for Christmas. But ever since then, I am been a big fan of whole berry cranberry sauce.

One friend made stuffing with raisins and the idea of something sweet in the mix surprised me since my family's version is savory. Another made candied yams, which I'd never had before, either. And there was a dish of Southern greens cooked with bacon and butter.


But more than the food, I remember the feeling of sharing a tradition with friends. The things I remember are the bear hug from a boy who was more than a foot taller than me, who said he didn't want me to miss my family. And another asking everyone if they included mushrooms in their dishes because he was allergic.

There was something about the meal that made everyone feel a little bit at home even though half of us were thousands of miles from it.

Day one - Thanksgiving prep

So Thanksgiving might not be until Thursday, but when you try out a new recipe every year like I do for the main course the preparation has to start early.

Every year since I started working at the Weekend Pinnacle I've tried a new turkey-cooking method. One year I followed the example of a coworker who smokes his turkey with rosemary. The low-and-slow method left the turkey moist while the rosemary gave it plenty of flavor inside and out. That was also the year I learned about aromatics - basically herbs, celery and onions that can be stuffed into the cavity of a turkey in lieu of stuffing to offer up some more flavor.

The next year I tried a brine I saw on Alton Brown's show. A brine is basically a mix of salt and seasonings, usually in a chicken broth and ice bath. The turkey sits for up to 12 hours in the wet mixture before roasting it as desired. It was the moistest turkey I'd ever had and the most flavorful. The basic principle of a brine is osmosis - the salt helps draw the other flavors into the turky so whatever flavors are in the brine - honey, pepper, rosemary - ends up inside the meat, all the way down to the bone.

This year I was all set to put together a wet brine and roast a turkey when I happened across an L.A. Times article by Russ Parsons, a food columnist. He wrote about how he discovered the dry-brine method works just as well as wet brine without all the hassle of keeping a turkey in a water bath for days. So I was intrigued enough to try out a new method this year. Hence the prep work on Monday for a Thursday meal.

Dry-brining a turkey basically means rubbing it down with salt and letting it sit in a ziplock bag for three days. According to Parsons the turkey can absorb whatever flavors are mixed in with the salt, such as herbs or lemon zest. For our turkey, we created a salt mix that included fresh rosemary, thyme, dry poultry seasonings and fresh lemon zest. The mix only smelled just like Thanksgiving as it was sprinkled onto the turkey. The hardest part of the method so far was trying to get a frozen turkey into a large ziplock bag - for some reason, the rock salt messed with the zipper so it wouldn't seal. Our solution was just to double bag it. The turkey is back in the freeze to absorb lots of flavor before its time to cook.

Check in for more updates on the Thanksgiving feast later this week.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

A still frozen turkey is sprinkled with salt and herbs before being put in a plastic bag as part of the dry-brine method.

I don't think I can dance - but these guys can

I missed "So You Think You Can Dance" when it aired this week, but I had a good reason. I saw the season 5 tour in San Jose. The first year the producers of the Fox dance competition show sold tickets for a tour, I was a little skeptical, but even in a down economy HP Pavilion was sold out Wednesday night.

Though I've been watching season 4, 5 and 6 in HD, there is something about seeing the dancers live that can't compare to TV. One of the things that drives me crazy about the show is that as TV viewers, we don't get to see the dances straight - the cameras are constantly switching views. And we have to deal with Mary Murphy screaming all the time about the people she likes.

The live dance performances were great, and a reminder of how lacking some of this year's contestants are - sorry, but tap dancers are cool to watch but their dance skills don't carry over to other styles.

I might have mentioned it before, but I am a person without any rhythm. I can hardly clap on beat, let alone dance, and that's probably why I was so amazed by the performances on "So You Think You Can Dance" the first time I saw it. I started watching halfway through season 2. I was wowed by the moves of Benji Schwimmer, Heidi Groskreutz, Doynelle Jones and Travis Wall. Benji won the title of "America's Favorite Dancer" that year, and I was hooked.

At the show on Wednesday, my favorite dance was a Wade Robson piece to Roisin Murphy's "Ruby Blue." Dancers Janette Manrara and Brandon Bryant performed the jewel-heist themed piece to perfection. Actually, most of the performances were good since for the tour the producers pick the best dances from the whole season.

The only thing I found less than entertaining were the cheesy intros that the dancers were forced to do. All 12 of the dancers took turns introducing their colleagues - decked out in "So You Think You Can Dance" clothing that was also available for sale at the souvenir booths. These guys on the tour are dancers, not actors, and it's clear in their delivery of their lines. The only piece that I found at all entertaining was a sales pitch by Kupono Aweau for some new "So You Think You Can Dance" workout videos. For some reason, a skinny Hawaiian boy running around in short shorts was hilarious.

When I was watching last week's episodes yesterday I was thinking about which dancers this year I would most want to see on tour - generally the top 10 or 12 go along for the tour. I don't really have a favorite for season six yet, but I do know which dancers I could do without. But there is only one more week before the top 10 is decided on so I'll know soon whether I want to get tickets for the next tour or not.

3-D movies offer hits and misses

For me, a really good movie is one that makes me forget I am watching a movie at all. If I get engrossed in a movie, lose track of time, laugh or cry or forget that it is actors on the screen, that's usually a good sign.

This is one of the biggest downfalls for me of the 3-D movement in movies right now. I have no problem watching a 3-D movie for 12 minutes on a ride at Disneyland, but it's a lot harder to sit through a two-hour movie with the heavy Dolby Digital 3-D glasses pressing down on the bridge of my nose.

I've seen a few movies in 3-D since this whole trend started about two years ago. One of the best was a U2 concert in Imax, though I will admit I probably loved it because I am such a huge fan of the band. It was almost better than seeing the Edge in concert since there he was towering over me from the screen instead of me watching from 68 rows up in a football stadium.

Other 3-D movies haven't been as successful. Many of them are made so that viewers become hyper aware that they are watching a movie. In "Journey to the Center of the Earth" there were just so many gimmicks that were thrown in just to take advantage of the 3-D aspect of it that had nothing to do with the plot or storyline. It irritated me when the filmmakers through in a scene with marbles just so they could bounce out at viewers.

The most successful movies have been the ones that tell the story without paying much attention to the 3-D effects. That was the case with Disney's "Up" and the movie "Coraline," two animated films where the 3-D enhanced the story. It could just be that since they are animated the movement fits more smoothly into the storyline. And "Up" and "Coraline" both had storylines that drew me in.

Disney's latest movie, "A Christmas Carol" was a mixed bag. It was a classic retelling of the Charles Dickens story so the only thing new that was really brought forth were the 3-D effects. It looked pretty stunning with some of the scenes that fly over the Victorian-era London buildings feeling a little like those 3-D movie rides at Disneyland. But again, it seemed like some of the scenes were made with the 3-D in mind. And it was a little disconcerting to see an animated version of Colin Firth and Jim Carrey. See more about "A Christmas Carol" and other adaptations of Dickens' classic in the Weekend Pinnacle on Friday.

It will be interesting to see the next big 3-D movie, the much anticipated "Avatar" from James Cameron. The movie uses new 3-D technology that Cameron invented that allows the regular and 3-D version of the film to be recorded simultaneously in the same camera. Though I am not a big fan of Cameron's work - I am the only person I know who hates "Titanic" - it will be interesting to see if he pulls off the very expensive movie.

Mustang power

I am not one to watch football, and I have never been full of spirit for my old high school. But I have to admit I certainly got into the game last Friday between the Gilroy Mustangs and the Hollister HayBalers. The rivalry goes back 53 years to the very first Prune Bowl, as the annual game has been dubbed.

Trust me when I say people take the rivalry seriously. Working in Hollister, I often get razzed by San Benito High School graduates for being a Gilroy high grad. In fact, I picked out several of my coworkers on the other side of the field, and I am sure I was the only one sitting on the visitors' side of the stadium.

This year was the last Prune Bowl since a new high school opened in Gilroy this year and there will be some new rivalry created between the two schools. It will probably be dubbed the Garlic Bowl. So there was a lot on the line this year.

The trophy has been in Gilroy for two years, but the team hasn't had the best run this season. There was a new batch of coaches, the star quarterback graduated last year and some seniors quit the team mid-season, from what I hear. With only a couple wins under their belt, Gilroy's players went up against the Balers, who had lost just one game all season.


We arrived at Andy Hardin Stadium just after 6 p.m. after parking in a secret lot that only locals know about, and we found a front row seat in the bleachers. The JV game was half over and the Mustangs lost by a few points. But as anyone knows, only the varsity game counts. The varsity Mustangs came out strong and scored quickly. The game kept the crowd on the edge of their seats as the teams took turns in the lead.

The weather was cold, as it always is in Hollister, and we were still unprepared for the chill even with a handful of blankets and hoodie sweatshirts. But it was a good enough game that we were willing to sit through it to the end even as our cheeks turned bright red from the cold and our teeth chattered.


I still can't say I understand the game, but there were some plays that even I knew were awesome as one of the Mustangs intercepted the ball and ran all the way down the field for a touchdown. The crowd collectively stood up and cheered, "Go, Go, Go." And it was as though the players could hear us. It was the first game all season that the cheerleaders actually seemed to get into, leading the audience in chants. It was the only time in my life where I could kinda understand the reason so many people get so into football.


In the last quarter, the Mustangs were still down a few points. Minutes from the end of the game, they scored the final touchdown and kick, taking the lead. The Mustangs won 35 to 30 and secured possession of the VFW trophy for perpetuity. It was a good game and it was exciting to watch my home town win. But I guess I feel a little bad for the Balers, who I know really wanted the win, too.

But don't think this has made me into a football. The last three years have been enough to last me for at least a decade.

Bad dubbing can ruin a beautiful movie

I'v been a fan of foreign films for a long time. When I was a high schooler, I would check out the few shelves of overseas movies at National Video on a regular basis. It was there I discovered "Wings of Desire" and "Faraway, so close," two German films about angels who chose to become human - the latter a sequel of sorts to the first. I rented "Farewell, My Concubine," a Chinese film about two young boys who grow up in the world of Chinese opera and war. My friends and I ogled over Vincent Perez, the beautiful actor in the French films "Indochine" and "Queen Margot."

Most of these films I watched alone in my room since my parents were not fans of anything with subtitles - and had they known the mature content of some of the films, I probably wouldn't have been watching them at all. But I've always had a weak spot for a good foreign film. There is something so different about them from most American-made movies that is hard to describe - there is less talking and more emoting.

That is certainly the case with the French film "I've Love You So Long." I rented this a few weeks ago when there wasn't much else out on DVD or in the theaters. I was looking for a couple of good comedies, but settled instead for a movie about a woman out of prison after 15 years who tries to regain her life.

It had been on my must-see list for a while, but due to the somber tone I had to be in the right mood. So we rented it, got it home, and that's when I remembered it was a foreign film. The DVD cover doesn't really give it away, but the subtitles certainly did and my mom requested watching the dubbed version. The great thing about the dubbed version is that Kristen Scott Thomas (who plays Juliette Fontaine) does the voice in both versions. The bad thing is everyone else in the movie sounds like a Japanese anime character in the English dubbing. There is little actual voice acting going on, and it sounds mostly like the characters were just reading from a script.

It made it really hard to get into the movie, even though it was superbly written. The movie follows Juliette who is just out of prison after serving 15 years for murder. Her sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) invites Juliette to stay with her, and Juliette slowly starts to put the pieces of her life back together. There are long pauses in the movie where Thomas lights up a cigarette and says little. It allows the facts about her to come out slowly in the movie, and little by little the reader learns pieces about her life that seem incongruous with her being a murderer, especially once we learn who the victim was.

Unfortunately, the ever cheery voice given to Lea does little to show the younger sister's torn feelings about accepting someone guilty of murder into her home. The movie is worth a watch but to do it justice, please just read the subtitles and skip the English-dubbed version.

'Dexter' keeps delivering a good twist

Oh, you sly "Dexter" writers, you really threw me for a loop this season. Last night I caught up on the last two episodes of the Showtime series about a serial killer. And boy, was the episode from Oct. 25 a shocker. For anyone who watches the show, I won't disclose what was so unexpected but I will say John Lithgow's Arthur Miller has much more depth than many viewers were expecting. I knew there had to be a twist since it was too early in the season for Dexter to catch the Trinity killer, but the thing that keeps Dexter from his kill is a surprise to be sure.

One of the reasons I enjoy Dexter so much, besides the way Michael C. Hall somehow manages to make me root for a man who can't keep from killing people, is that the writers are very good at keeping viewers in suspense. They don't use so much foreshadowing that they give all the action away before it happens.

I can't remember the last time I hadn't figured out the bad guy or the coming twist in "Law and Order: SVU," which is so formulaic - and often based on real-life happenings - that it is easy to see what is coming. And when it comes to movies, perhaps the last one that really caught me off guard was the 2001 film "The Others" with Nicole Kidman.

While I absolutely can't take the horror genre, I do like a little bit of suspense, and "Dexter" certainly offers that up season after season.

Rose Bowl a nightmare of a venue

So last Sunday at this time, I was nearly to Pasadena in anticipation of the U2 concert at the Rose Bowl. I have never before traveled to a concert that required me to drive five hours one way and rent a room for the night. In fact, I am really not much of a concert person - except for when it comes to U2.

The boys from Ireland really played a little bit of a trick on all of us from the Bay Area. Tickets went on sale for the North American tour last spring and there were no tour dates in Northern California. The closest options where the Rose Bowl in Pasadena or Vegas. Most of the die-hard fans I know opted for one or the other. I chose the Rose Bowl because I figured it would require one day off work and one room in a hotel - saving time and money.

Like I mentioned last week, I did not really think about the Rose Bowl as the venue, or the logistical issues created by it. Partly this is because I've never been to a real football stadium, and partly because I was blinded by a need to see U2 live, no matter what the challenges. If only I had known that the Monday I'd arrive back at home from the concert that an e-mail would be waiting for me from U2.com to announce an additional leg of the tour in North America next spring - with a concert scheduled at Oakland Coliseum.

Of course, the tour promoters obviously did this on purpose to get people to go to the Rose Bowl for a concert that broke attendance records for both the band and the venue, and was broadcast live on YouTube, and was filmed for a concert DVD.

If I'd known about the Oakland show, I certainly wouldn't have gone to the Rose Bowl. The experience was an interesting one to say the least. The concert was great and it was pretty amazing to see close to 100,000 U2 fans all in the same place. A U2 concert is kinda like a grab bag, too, since you never know who the opening act is going to be almost until the concert begins. I didn't know Black-Eyed Peas were opening until we were waiting in line to get into the stadium a couple hours before the concert was set to start and the announcement come over the loudspeakers. Through the years I've seen a few opening acts at U2 concerts. I've seen Kings of Leon and Damian Marley, whose performances I didn't really enjoy. But I've also seemed No Doubt and now the Peas, who both put on great opening shows.

Everything inside the stadium was great but it was everything outside that was a nightmare. We got down to Pasadena around noon, checked into our hotel and with my sister's g-phone got directions to the shuttle stop for which we had purchased tickets. The shuttle was 1.1 miles from the hotel so we opted to leave the car behind and walk to Old Town Pasadena for lunch before heading to the shuttle. Though it was late October, temperatures in Pasadena were about 89 degrees, and every restaurant had long waits. We ended up at an Italian restaurant I'd tried before with a 30 minute wait for a table. By the time lunch was over we headed to the shuttle stop. There were signs from the shuttle station saying the Rose Bowl was a 1.5 mile walk away, but we had our tickets secured so we lined up for the bus.

The shuttles from two locations in Pasadena started running at noon and continued to run throughout the evening. We had no wait when we boarded the shuttle around 3 p.m., though I wondered what things would be like after the concert when everyone was trying to board at the same time.

The bus dropped us off near the stadium and we headed over to the Picnic in the Park, which had been described in e-mails from the Rose Bowl as a place to hang out before the concert, get food from local vendors and see live entertainment. By the time we arrived, the area was pretty packed and if there was entertainment lined up, we couldn't find it. It was hot, dusty and crowded. We stood in line for bottled water and lemonade. The only highlight at picnic in the park was that El Cholo was one of the food vendors. El Cholo is one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles from when I was in graduate school down there. It was just a 20 minute drive from my apartment and had the cheapest valet in the city. The warm tortilla chips, the green corn tamales and the cheese enchiladas are amazingly good. Since we were still full from lunch, we opted for a couple of green corn tamales to share. The tamales are only made seasonally in the fall and the masa is a creamy sweet mix that is stuffed with cheddar cheese and mild green chilies. It was the only good thing about Picnic in the Park.

So after we had rehydrated a bit and snacked, we decided to find our gate and get in line. We were pretty close to the front of the line and gates were supposed to open at 5 p.m. But as with most large events, the gates opened half an hour late, and as the wait went on, more and more people pushed and crowded in front of us. We grumbled a bit about it, but mostly let it go since we had assigned seats unlike all those general admission fans who were pushing to get to the front of the standing-room-only crowd.

The concert itself was pretty great, even though U2 skipped my favorite oldie "I Will Follow." They sang a lot of stuff from the latest album, and it was clear that most of the people seated around me didn't know many the newer songs. I think I was the only one around me who knew the lyrics to "No Line On The Horizon" and "Magnificent." But the group did play some older, more obscure songs such as "In A Little While" and "Ultraviolet." They also sang a song from my favorite album "Unforgettable Fire" so I was content.

After close to two and a half hours, the band was done and it was time to leave the stadium. We opted to wait until the stadium cleared out a bit before walking down the steep steps (we were in row 68 of 75 rows) since my mom and I both have fears of heights/falling that can be triggered in big stadiums. Probably the lowlight of the night was when we were sitting and waiting for the crowd to clear a bit and the woman behind us started saying that her friend (who had been smoking marijuana and drinking beer all night) wasn't feeling very well. Soon she was puking into a beer cup and we decided to get a move on.

Outside the stadium we looked for the shuttle bus line, and things were kind of in chaos. We could see the two lines for the two different shuttles, but there seemed to be no end in sight as security guards blocked every seeming entrance to the line. We walked and searched, and walked and searched for the end of the line for at least 20 minutes before we gave up. We knew there was a way to get back downtown since we had seen the sign that said the walk was 1.5 miles from the shuttle stop. But my sister's phone was dead so we had no directions to get back. We asked a security guard who gave us directions, but then noticed no one else was walking the same way. Then we asked a police officer and he gave us the exact opposite directions of the security guard.

But soon enough, we found a crowd and started the 1.5 mile - largely uphill - to the station. Along the way we walked past cars that were close to a standstill - and even saw the passengers of two cars get out of their vehicle to fight about something (a bit of ironic considering Bono's strong message about world peace). It would have been a fine walk had we not been standing/walking for the greater part of 10 hours and had we not been up at 5 a.m. for the drive to Los Angeles. But somehow, at a snail's pace, we managed to make it to the shuttle station. I even felt sympathy for some of the other concert goers who were walking in heels, and those who stayed behind to wait in line for a shuttle that surely would deliver them home later than us.

Along the route back, there were signs telling us how much further we had to go. The first half mile seemed impossibly slow, but then as the terrain flattened out, we picked up a little speed. When we got to the shuttle station, we knew we still had a mile to go to get to our hotel and we considered stopping for water at one of the open bars or an ice cream shop that was open late. But we feared if we stopped, we would lose our momentum so we kept trudging along. We made it back to the room by 2 a.m. and all opted to take a shower to get rid of the sweat and dirt from the day.

We were up by 8 a.m. for an expensive room service breakfast since no one felt like going out to eat since we just wanted to hit the road for home. We got home by 2:30 p.m. on Monday, and I logged onto the computer to check my e-mail and work on some assignments for the office.

And there, of course, was the e-mail announcing the Oakland show. I was irritated for a while, thinking of how I could have avoided the logistical nightmare of the last two days. But then I got over it and made sure I had secured a presale ticket for the June show. After all, I haven't missed a Bay Area U2 concert since my first show in 1997 - Popmart at the Oakland Coliseum.