Hanging with Rico

My buddy Rico is in town today. I consider Rico the "father" of podcasting as it was his podcast Treks in Scifi that was one of my first podcasts that I ever listen to as well as participated in. He allowed my friend Jen and I to do a mini podcast that he released in his feed called The Ready Room. It's been many, many years since then and I'd say 10 or so other listeners/Treks in Scifi fans ventured out and became podcasters in their own rights, including me, it's like we are all his offspring.

In all those years Rico and I have never met face to face so when this opportunity came up I jumped at it. He's staying in Ontario which is about a hour drive or me and my back is still not great and my cough is getting worse but I wasn't going to pass this up. We planned to have breakfast and hang out for a few hours before his flight in the afternoon.

When I got there I was informed that his flight was cancelled and rescheduled for tomorrow morning. So I seized this opportunity and wanted to show him around LA. We had some breakfast at a local Dennys before heading back to LA (an hour drive). Our first stop was Vasquez Rocks. Rico is a HUGE Star Trek fan, especially of the original series so this was a must see for him. 

Though my back was not the best I still managed to climb a bit with my buddy Rico. We hung out and took pictures for about a half hour. They were filming something there as well, it was a small crew. Before we left both Rico and I took a photo of a scene from the classic episode of TOS with the Gorn standoff. Rico later photoshopped a Gorn in the photo.. they turned out awesome.

Left is Me vs Gorn, Middle is Original Kirk vs Gorn, Right is Rico vs Gorn

After Vasquez Rocks we headed to the Science center to check out the Space Shuttle Endeavour. What's funny is I was here at the beginning of the week with Lisa and Lydia, but when you walk in and see Endeavour for the first time it's still breath taking and it's always fun to bring new people and see them have the same exact reaction of awe.

When then headed to Hollywood to check out Hollywood and Highland as well as the Chinese theater.

We then headed over to Universal Citywalk where we ate some lunch/dinner at Bubba Gump. This is the first time that I've ever gone to a Bubba Gump restaurant. As expected they have a lot of versions of shrimp.

Afterwards I drove him back to his hotel in Ontario and then made my way back home. It was a great day, totally unexpected day but alot of fun. Rico is as awesome as I expected him to be... hopefully will be able to hangout the next time he's in town.