Hobbit BTS, My Jeep & A Surprise Dinner

Today was all about The Hobbit and packing. Got up early and was still in my Hobbit mood after watching the extended edition of The Unexpected Journey yesterday. Now if you know Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson, you know he does these amazing behind the scene documentaries that are hours and hour long. Well the one for this Hobbit movie is over 9 hours of extra behind the scenes footage. So while I was packing today I watched about five hours of it.

I think I was just as excited to see these behind the scenes as I was to see the extended edition as I was to see the actual original theatrical release. Jackson is right up there with Spielberg and Lucas in my eyes. He's created these amazing masterpieces but what makes him different from the other two directors is that he shares his experience with the world. He explains everything, from his choices of cameras, to scouting for location, casting, prep time, post time and premiere. If you don't like a choice he made creatively in the film. You can normally get an explanation as to why they made that choice in the amazing commentaries that he does for each of his movies. I've always loved the behind the scenes docs and Jackson's Lord of the Rings and now The Hobbit have the best I've ever seen produced.

While I was watching the BTS and packing several inspectors came by the house as part of the escrow deal. First was the well inspector. He actually came twice and will be back a few more times as they are testing the well pumps and water being pumped. Also a termite guy stopped by and looked around my house for termite damage. I'll be getting their reports in a few days.

When the termite guy was leaving he drove down my driveway but then stopped and backed up. He got out of his car and came to my front door and knocked. I opened the door and he asked if I was thinking of selling my Jeep. I don't know why he thought it was up for sale. I mean it's just sitting over in a corner of my property. So when he asked me I was surprised. I told him yes I actually was thinking of selling it. I explained what problems it had when I stopped driving it and that it's currently not starting, even with a jump. He asked how much I want for it and I really just want to get rid of it so I said $1000, it's actually worth about $4000 even in the condition it's in but I think it would be hard to find  someone who would purchase a non-operational car for $4000. He seemed interested and said he would get back to me. He left once again and once again turned around and came back. This time he was sitting in his car in front of my house on his phone. A few minutes later he came back to my door and asked when I needed to be out of the house. I told him mid December and he said great, I'll take the Jeep but it's going to take me a week or two to get the $1000. He said he'll give me a deposit this weekend as good faith gesture. So it looks like I sold my Jeep without even advertising :)

During the evening I headed out to Pasadena to celebrate my buddy Josh's birthday. For the past few weeks Nicole (Josh's ex/current/I don't know girlfriend) and I have been gathering money from his friends for an Xbox One for his birthday. Tonight we were giving him what we had gathered. We didn't get enough for the Xbox but what we got will be a good start and hopefully with some Christmas money he'll have enough to make the purchase. Anyways we went to his favorite Asian food restaurant called Pei Wei. Me being there was a surprise, we both arrived about the same time and they actually parked one spot away from me but luckily there was an SUV in between us so he didn't see me. He was really surprised and happy when when I came up behind him. We ate and had a nice time. We then gave him the gifts. Nicole took her portion of the money and actually got single dollars bills and taped them together end by end so when he started pulling them out of the box it kept going and going and going.. it was pretty funny. Me on the other hand just had a card signed by all those who contributed and then the cash inside the card. It was a fun evening.