I was on the road at 6:45 this morning, first to pick up my buddie Donnie up in Oceanside, then continuing on to the original Gracie Academy in Torrance, CA. Torrance is south L.A. county, and it wouldn’t be a trip to L.A. without a traffic jam, but more on that later. It was smooth sailing on the way up there so we had plenty of time to pickup part of the order I had placed on Monday, get ready for class, and tour the jiu–jitsu museum. The memorabilia they have in their museum was impressive to say the least. Original sketches of the UFC octagon (created by Rorion Gracie), Renzo Gracie’s signed gloves from Pride 17 in Japan, and best of all, the Gi (Kimono) worn by Helio Gracie in the super famous match with Masahiko Kimura in 1951. My new Gracie t–shirt is a vintage styled ad for that match so seeing the actual Gi he wore was awesome. The grappling dummy I ordered won’t be ready for at least a month so we’ll be going back up there sometime in the fall to complete my order.
Class was a lot of fun, mostly because it was taught by Ralek Gracie and a few other guys we recognize from all the youtube videos. Getting to meet all these people in person was really cool, especially since everyone we met couldn’t have been nicer. Ralek stuck around to take a picture with us after class, and we even got to meet his brother Rener Gracie, one of the school’s head instructors, on the way out. I now have two 5’x10’x2″ grappling mats to practice on at home, so hopefully this means I can show Jessica a few techniques.
The plan when leaving was to drop Donnie off in Oceanside and be home in La Mesa by 2:15 at the latest. Going up there took less than two hours, so I assumed giving myself 2.5 hours to get home would be more than enough, but of course we were in L.A., so that means we were due for a traffic jam. This one turned out to be one of the worst I’ve ever endured. It took us 2 hours to go about 30 miles on the 405 where it merges with the 5 south, which meant Jessica had to take Ava to work with her and I had to meet them in La Jolla after dropping Donnie off. While texting back and forth with Jessica about the traffic she told me that her Grandma Sherry had a heart attack today. She and Larry were already at the hospital when it happened because of some symptoms she was feeling this morning, so she was cared for immediately, and is doing better now I’m told. Jessica didn’t have time to tell me the whole story because she had to get ready for work so this is all I know at this point. Our thoughts are certainly with her and wish her the very best.
To cap off this busy day I purchased a Mac Pro desktop computer. I found a used one on Amazon with good starting specifications, then purchased a few upgrades and ended up with a very impressive system for considerably less money than buying a new iMac (with poorer specs) would cost. With Jessica studying design and spending more time on the computer, our single laptop was no longer cutting it. We’ve been talking about getting another computer for a while so I’m glad we finally pulled the trigger and got a good deal while doing so.
Since today was so busy, I’m looking forward to not leaving the house all day tomorrow. Hopefully we can get a positive update on Sherry’s status. I’m done with school until next Sunday so I’m ready for a little down time. Next weekend all of our Vegas friends are coming out for a couple days so that should be super fun, then we’ll be heading to Vegas a couple weeks later for Shawn and Kim’s wedding. Joel and Melanie will be coming out to visit around the end of September, then we’re going back to Vegas in late October for Devin and Eve’s wedding. By the time that’s over Ava’s first birthday will be just around the corner! It’s all happening so fast.
Our happy little girl
Donnie and I after class with Ralek Gracie