Best "Whoah, I Have Some Catching Up to Do"

This is what happened on Friday, last week. It was a big day of excitement and adventure.

For lunch Grandma and I ate at Twohey's (our family's traditional dining destination) with our travel companions, Aunt Louise and Uncle Bob.



I had a chili dip, onion rings, a bittersweet hotfudge sundae, and the curried clam chowder.



Broek had been invited by her friend Kirsten to get dinner with some folks at the Dresden, so she invited me to come along. And it turns out that Rebecca Gholdston was in LA for the weekend, too. This was great news. So I invited her to meet up with us. And she invited her friend Quinn. Who invited her friend Julie. Oddly enough, they had no trouble seating us at the restaurant.



Here Rebecca is saying: "Start photodocumentation . . . NOW!"



See, look how easily we were all seated!







For a place that opened in the 50's and is still decorated the same as back then, the Dresden is really well kept-up and full of fascinating features.



Here's a feature. Say you're sitting in the restaurant and some creepy guy starts checking you out, right?



Just reach into the couch . . .



And BAM! The arm rest will stop him cold!



The paintings of fruit are also worthy of note.



After dinner we hung out a bit and engaged some collar poppin'



All right. Here come some words without pictures. But trust me, they are worth reading.

Now, during dinner much was made of the fact that the Dresden was featured in the movie Swingers. It pretty much came up over and over again. But get this: as we were finishing our dinner, who should walk in but Vince Vaughn, one of the two main stars of Swingers. This, of course, caused much buzz in the medium crowded restaurant. After we paid the check and popped our collars I went into the bathroom and came out to find most of the girls standing by Vince's table, chattin' with him. I approached the group and Vince turned from the pretty babies to me and extended his hand. This is pretty much our conversation:

Vince: Hey, I'm Vince.
Me: Hey, I'm Brigham.
Vince: Brent, nice to meet you. (it should be noted that Vince was fairly drunk [this was helping with the friendliness] and wearing a heavy down parka)
Me: Lake Forest. (You see, I said "Lake Forest" in a real cool way 'cuz I knew that's where he grew up and I'm from a Chicago suburb too, so I figured we could talk about that)
Vince: (giving me the fist tap) True that. (Vince leans back and unzips his coat to reveal he's wearing a Lake Forest High School sweat shirt)

At this point Vince goes back to talking to the girls about their being from BYU and asking them if they liked being Mormons and telling them how he "made two pictures" in Utah. Then he turns back to me:

Vince: So, you from Lake Forest?
Me: No, Oak Park.
Vince: Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I grew up in Lake Forest.
Me: That's what I hear.

We all chatted some more, and when asked if he'd like to take a picture with us, he very politely declined, as he wanted to "keep it laid back."

Back to pictures.

The sidewalks of Los Angeles speak so many truths.



After dinner we drove down Sunset Strip. I beat a Lamborghini Murcielago in a race. A race it might not have known about. Just before calling it a night we swung by the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax.



It's where the Notorious B.I.G. was killed back on March 9, 1997. I did my best to pay my respects, but I never know how to pose in these sorts of photos. I probably shouldn't be using my "Who Shot 'Ya?" face.



And that's some stuff that happened on Friday. In real life, it is Wednesday night now and I'm in Utah.