It’s my day off and I didn’t have anything planned so I decided to take a trip to Cupertino, CA to visit the Apple Campus. There are a few spots of the campus that are open to the public including a few restaurants nearby and the Apple Company Store (a gift shop with Apple branded goodies).

The campus isn’t as big as you would think, although I’m sure that the buildings surrounding the main campus are also Apple owned as well. Rumor has it that Steve Jobs was back at work today, too, now having recovered from a liver transplant in Tennessee. Though, of course, my visit to Apple was uneventful and I didn’t see anyone walking around in a black turtleneck and jeans.

Proof that I'll buy anything if it has an Apple logo on it.

While I was at Comic-Con  I ran into the hosts from the Totally Rad Show, the extremely popular Revision 3 popular culture video podcast. Jeff, Alex, and Dan were really great guys to meet in person! Check out their show over at Revision3.com/TRS

While we were out in Los Angeles this summer, my sister managed to score tickets to the Dodgers vs. Braves game. Dodger stadium was great! I even ran into a few celebrities while I was waiting in line for pizza. (Paul McCrane from ER & 24 was standing behind me while I ordered!) The Braves won that night.

View from Griffith Observatory, originally uploaded by Graham Hancock.

Went to the Griffith Observatory this evening to catch the sunset and see the city lights at night. Amazing views. You can view the rest of the photos I took by clicking on the one above.

I can hardly believe that it’s already July 1st. Effectively, I only have about 3 more weeks out here before I have to start gathering my things and make the three-day drive back home.

They first announced him as “Awkward Al,” jokingly, and I didn’t get it at first, but when I saw a lanky guy jump on stage with an accordion I made a b-line for the stage, it was Wierd Al!

After the concert was over Mr. Yankovic was very nice and patient with everyone, he took pictures, signed autographs and met with the throng of fans off the side of the stage who were excited to see him there.

Anyways, I always hate bugging celebrities for pictures because it’s usually an empty gesture — “Hey, can I have a picture with you, because my friends will be SO jealous!” Most celebrites know exactly where these pics are going: Facebook, MySpace, etc.

I figured I’d make an exception for Weird Al, though. I’ve been a fan for ages. He was very nice and patient with everyone. What a great guy!

We left Flagstaff around noon. We had to stop for more fuel before getting completely out of town, so I stopped and filled up my X-terra with some $3.99-a-gallon gas, which as you will read later was just the beginning of my fuel-price woes for this leg of the trip.

This travel day was easily the most uneventful of the three. It was basically the same drive as the day before except this time we were really, truly, in the middle of nowhere, and my cell phone reception confirmed this.

We drove through Albuquerque, which is a city that has always been sort of a childhood dream of mine to visit — partly due to that awesome ‘Wierd Al’ song. But interestingly enough, as ‘Al,’ has so eloquently put forward in his music: There isn’t much to see or do in Albuquerque, so we moved on.

Now this is where it gets almost disturbingly boring. It was another 300 miles or so through nothing but desert. Eventually we crossed over into California, which was justifiably awesome, but only for a moment–we were still about 200 miles away from L.A.

We eventually stopped in Barstow, CA to fill up once again and say goodbye to our old friend, Interstate 40 West. I was running on fumes so I stopped at the nearest gas station I could find and was greeted with an apocalyptic sight: $4.47 gal. No, I’m not naive enough to think that gas wasn’t going to be grossly overpriced in California. I was anticipating to pay quite a bit, but that didn’t soften the blow.

It was only after getting back on the road that I realized I’d been had. The gas stations at the next exit were touting their “$3.98″ gas. Now, how in the name of all that is holy and just, is it that two reputable gas stations separated by the meager distance of less than one mile could have almost a $0.50 difference in their price for gas? I have your proof of price gouging right here, America!

I gathered what was left of my self-confidence and moved forward with the trip. We were less than an hour from Los Angeles! This is when the driving began to finally get interesting. About an hour outside of LA, Interstate 15 South turns into a six-lane super highway that winds its way through a series of mountains all the way into the hills of Los Angeles. It was basically a crash course in getting used to the way folks drive out here.

We made it to our final hotel and checked in, and it was only about 5:00pm. We were staying in Pasadena which is a small suburb about 28 miles northeast of Los Angeles. My sister, Carrie and I both drove into town to find something to do during our first night in Los Angeles, and — you guessed it — we both found movies to go see.

Welcome to Los Angeles, eh?

That was today’s trip.

The longest leg of our trip is finally behind us. We’re currently in Flagstaff, Arizona, ready to get some much needed sleep after today’s marathon driving session. We drove through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona today. That is hands-down the longest distance I’ve ever driven in a single session.

I saw lots of stuff on the road that I’ve never seen in person before: A huge wind farm in Oklahoma, the ‘Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere’ in Texas, and an RV fully engulfed in flames in New Mexico. (Everyone was okay.)

All of those things were a welcome reprieve from what was basically a mind-numbing drag across America’s heartland and into the desert. There were a few touristy things like the Arizona ‘Meteor Crater’ that I wish we would have had time to stop and look at, but I’ll jot those down and remember to check them out on the way back.

Tomorrow’s trip is only about 5-6 hours. We’re taking the opportunity tomorrow morning to sleep in a bit. We’re staying one more night in a hotel in Pasadena, CA (Which is basically Los Angeles), but I’m keeping in mind that if we wait too long, we’ll arrive in Pasadena around rush hour and that’s no good. So we’ll probably leave at around 10:30-11:00 a.m. in the morning and try to be in Pasadena before 5:00.

Thanks again for following our travels! Keep checking out my twitter for updates as we finish our trip tomorrow. California here we come!

Our route, again, was simple. We drove up Highway 78 to Memphis to jump onto I-40 West. And that’s it! I-40 is going to be our friend for the next two days. It leads all the way out to Los Angeles.

Conditions were perfect and traffic wasn’t bad. I’m told I-40 is notorious for being heavily travelled by the big-rigs heading out west to pick up/deliver goods. There were only two times when traffic slowed to a halt and both were traffic accidents that occurred in the oncoming set of lanes. I found it interesting that voyeurism was to blame for our lane’s congestion on both occasions — folks slowing down to see what had happened.  I think that says something profound about human nature, but I’ll spare you all the lengthy philosophic debate.

We’re off to Flagstaff, Arizona tomorrow morning! A much longer drive than today– about twelve hours! Thanks for the comments and e-mails everyone. I’ll be twittering our status throughout the day over at Twitter.com/GrahamHancock

Not this time.

My twin sister hinted a few weeks ago that she wanted out of here, and that she wanted a job for the summer in Los Angeles, California. I’ve been out to L.A. multiple times so she asked me if I knew where to start.

I knew a hasty decision to move out west wouldn’t fly with my parents at all, but to my surprise they weren’t against it. They weren’t against it if and only if I went with her.

So comes down to this: We’re probably leaving on Friday to drive to Los Angeles. A three day long drive. We’ll probably get there Sunday night, and on Monday morning we’re going apartment hunting. This amounts to spending the two remaining months of my summer in a city that I can see myself living in once I’m out of college. I see it as a head start, and quite possibly a sobering real world experience to boot.

I’ve worked out that I’ll have to fly home on two occasions: A wedding that I’m an ushering in June and a week-long camp in late July that I’ve been hired out for as Technical Director.

I’m anxiously and cautiously looking forward to this. Though it is one of the crazier and more uncertain things I’ve ever done.

I’ll let you all know how it goes.

For our last two days at Macworld, Adams and I perused the show floor looking for interesting things to blog about, I also put up a quick little montage video of our time in line as well as some of the highlights of the show floor over at PopFi.com. The highlights for me came on my last day at Macworld. I finally met the man who inspired me to start up my own podcasts. Mr. Podcasting himself: Leo Laporte. (Blog) I have been a fan of Leo since his ZDNet and TechTV days, and I can tell you this much, he is the nicest person you’ll ever meet. We chatted a bit about podcasting and I snapped a photo with him.

I also met up with the guys from Libsyn, a podcasting bandwidth provider whom we use for all of our podcasts. They were great to meet with as well, and I think we’re going to be working closely together on some exciting stuff for our podcasts in the future.Thats all for now folks, if you want to see more of my pictures head over to my Flickr!

By the time Adams and I had arrived at the line it was just turning 4:00am, and the line was already 250 people strong. Eeek!We took our place in queue and started the long process of waiting. We heard reports the day before that they were going to let us into the building at 7:00am to wait inside until it was time to file into to auditorium.

So we waited, and waited, and waited… I grabbed some video of the line, and we waited some more. Media from all over were flocking to the line to interview people, and eventually 3 hours passed and we were finally let into the building and we got our first glimpse of the exhibit hall floor because that’s where they were holding us. Two more hours to go!

We made ourselves familiar with the folks around us, the atmosphere was great – everyone was talking and speculating about what was going to be announced. I liked that.

Eventually the time drew near, it was 8:45am, and the line hadn’t moved an inch. What was going on? 8:50, 8:55, were we going to get in?! 9:07, and the doors finally opened! The line snaked towards the door and we’re let onto the escalators. The presentation was on the third floor of Moscone West. We finally made it to the top and we rushed in to find good seats, the auditorium was already half full! We found some great seats on the left side just underneath one of the big screens in the room. We could see the stage just fine, and just as we were sitting down– the lights dimmed and Steve Jobs took the stage. Mission Accomplished! My first Macworld Keynote had just begun!

Registration went quickly, we got our badges and they handed me a bag full of Macworld goodies: A macworld notebook, some Microsoft Office 2008 M&M’s and various other things.

After registration I left Adams with my bag and I took out the Video camera to get some preliminary footage of the Moscone building, the line, and the gathering areas on the second floor.

Not much else is on the agenda today other than hitting a few parties, and prepping for all the coverage of the Exhibit all floor that begins tomorrow. Adams and I are registered in the users conference, but we’re told the schedules for the conferences aren’t made available until tomorrow after the keynote.

There are Apple ads everywhere, also there are peculiar banners hanging all around that say, “2008, There’s something in the air.” That makes me wonder what Steve has up his sleeve for the keynote Tuesday morning.

Tomorrow morning Adams and I are headed to the Moscone center around 7am to grab our badges and begin perusing the exhibit hall floor. There are also several parties going late in the evening. I’m planning to make an appearance at the Ars Technica/Gizmodo party just to check it out.

• If you want to see what I’m up to during the day, check out my twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/grahamhancock.
• I will also be posting pictures to my Flickr feed. You can access those pictures at http://macworld.grahamhancock.net.