My last day of work at the Jim Henson Company already felt like a remote memory by my last day in Los Angeles, and, sitting in Headlines diner in Westwood, I bid my adieu to the city the same way I said good-bye to my job-with a plate of food in front me. Two hours later I'd be on a plane to Indianapolis, and the book would be closed on my summer in LA.

Friday, August 7, was my last day working at the Jim Henson Company. As last days go, it was pretty good-my work was already finished, and my boss, Dan Scharf, took me to lunch with two colleagues of his with whom I'd worked pretty extensively over the summer. Sitting and talking over Mexican food, the internship of the past few weeks really didn't come up at first-we talked about their families, working in Hollywood, their times in college, how they found the jobs they did. When, after our food was long gone, the topic of the internship was broached, I didn't have a complete response. 

Of course it was a helpful, engaging two months. Professionally, the job was unlike anything I'd ever done. The work was interesting, and the chance to get so much hands-on experience doing legal work, seeing legal writing, was great. Plus, the entertainment part-getting to read scripts and discuss ideas-was fantastic, and one year ago I don't think I could have imagined I'd be spending a summer doing it. Personally, what can I say? Working for the company whose productions were all over my childhood was just surreal. My co-workers, the fellow interns, the boss, his boss - everyone was friendly, funny, and incredibly kind.

The tricky part now is evaluating the aftermath, and questions like, "Am I any closer to knowing what I want to do?" There is no simple answer to that. My ideas entering this internship were between law and some sort of media or entertainment, so as far as deciding between the two, this job, which combined both of them, might not have given me much direction. But what it did do was crystallize and put into sharper focus what each of those careers offers in terms of the work, the time, and the kind of thinking involved. And in the final analysis, that sort of open-ended information and experience will certainly be more valuable to me than a black-and-white statement of which field I preferred. Walking out of the gate and looking up at Kermit the Frog's statue for the last time was not easy after such an enjoyable, useful summer at such a great place to work.

The second parting was with the city. Now, between New York and LA there aren't too many similarities, and I won't hide the fact that New York's more to my liking. But I will also admit that there's something about constant sunshine, mild temperatures, and beautiful scenery that you can definitely get used to. Would I have gotten more out of the city if I'd had a car this summer? Probably. But with all the time I spent lounging in Westwood, sitting and seeing the bizarre things that happened on the bus, and setting off on those midnight runs to In-N-Out Burger, my LA experience really just wouldn't have been the same.

So good-bye, Westwood, good-bye, Hollywood! Good-bye, palm trees and sandy beaches! Good-bye, homeless people of LA (I'll see your NY rivals soon enough)! Good-bye, Sunset Boulevard. Next time I'll bring a car.

On August 1, 2009, a little part of me reached some sort of higher fulfillment as I sat with 93,136 other spectators in the Rose Bowl to watch FC Barcelona, currently the best soccer team in the world, take on the Los Angeles Galaxy. In one of the only automobile experiences of my summer, I had ridden an hour east of my apartment in Westwood to Pasadena, then hiked what felt like miles across the mammoth Rose Bowl parking lot and the special extensions it had annexed for this event to take my seat with three friends, a digital camera, and a full-field view.

But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.

My next day at work will be my last. Now at the tail-end of my internship and my time in Los Angeles, the Charlie Chaplin Lot in Hollywood, which the Jim Henson Company calls home is mysterious to me no longer. I've picked my way through every ill-lit subterranean file-room, reading Muppet contracts, Fraggle Rock licensing agreements, and unproduced show scripts; I've helped out on the sets of nascent PBS shows; I've even gotten used to eating lunch like 10 feet away from the occasional celebrity that decides to hang around the studio-though I admittedly (and unfailingly) brag about it to friends later. So with what can I engross my esteemed readers? I dare not bore you with work stories ("So, the other day I was reading through this great non-disclosure agreement when..."). So I'm devoting this post to a little discussion of what's going on outside the work gates. And maybe make up for not posting any photos last time.

I mentioned earlier that this studio lot is basically familiar to me by now. The city, on the other hand, remains relatively untapped and unexplored. The issue of transportation (well-documented, to my great chagrin, in earlier posts) in a city the size of LA can cripple the car-less. Besides a few trips to the beach, I've been limited to Westwood, the neighborhood in the immediate vicinity of UCLA. Think of what Morningside Heights is to Columbia-now raise the yuppie factor by about 10, and you're in Westwood. It's a nice college town, very pedestrian-friendly, with lots of restaurants and a couple of fantastic cinemas. The food of choice here is sushi, In-N-Out Burger (check it out if you're ever in California), and California Pizza Kitchen; the median coffeeshop-count in a given two-block radius is six; there are as many hookah bars as regular bars. Just add college students, and there you have it, in a nutshell.

So you can understand why, despite how comfortable the area was, it was a real boon that one of my friends, who had relocated to Anaheim from Indianapolis, got access to a car. Four of us together set out to Pasadena in a silver Honda Accord with tickets to the soccer game of the summer, as FC Barcelona, winners of every major trophy in the past year, matched up against the local LA Galaxy.

The atmosphere at the Rose Bowl was about as flamboyant and festive as a soccer game in the U.S. could possibly get. The wave of blue and maroon definitely made it clear that Barcelona had as many supporters as the hometown team. And this was one sizable gathering of soccer fans: an announcement over the P.A. system at the end of the game stated the astonishing attendance number for the whole stadium to hear: 93,137 fans. More than any soccer game in North America since the 1994 World Cup was hosted in the United States. The second-highest attended soccer game ever in this country. That, and getting to both see a successful David Beckham free kick and catch it on camera (uploaded for the readers' convenience here-and don't worry, you'll find professional-quality shots of it on YouTube as well) amounted to an experience that a lot of people my age have so far only imagined. The final score was 2-1, with Barcelona victorious, but like any good sports story, it was clear that the American team was no whipping boy, and fans for both sides could walk away knowing that they saw a legitimately good game from both their teams.

I'm getting ready now for my last day of work here at the Jim Henson Company. I am less than a week away from leaving Los Angeles. My next (and final?) post will try to take stock and make sense of everything I've seen and done in the past two months, but before I proceeded to that, I was in dire need of an outing, an experience, and a lasting memory of something great and memorable outside work. I've got it now, and luckily for me, some of it's even on camera.

When we last left our heroes, a roaring charcoal fire was slowly devastating a sheet metal cylinder as we watched, standing behind our apartment building in the middle of the night.  Every few minutes, my roommate would grab the coolest-looking edge of the ten-pound metal mass using a piece of cardboard and a wooden pole, angle it against the concrete, and quickly smash it again and again on the ground before putting it right back in the flames.

Living in Los Angeles without a motor is an experience of partial confinement.  The city could be its own country by the sheer number and diversity of its neighborhoods, but, unlike New York, LA is very much a city on wheels.  Access to something with an engine and tires is critical in the absence of an underground rail.  It was in reaction to this that my roommate, Adam Aisen (a Columbia College student here for a research internship at UCLA), bought a 30-year-old German-made moped through Craigslist.  When two days of 15-mph top speeds failed to meet expectations, he decided to clean out the muffler of that ancient machine the best way Google told him how: a cookout.  And with every round of grilling, removing, and smashing, and every ounce of tar and debris that dropped out, the ride got a little bit faster, and the summer got a little bit better.

On the job, I'm settling into a kind of familiarity as I get to know my job, my coworkers, and my fellow interns.  It might sound mundane written, but the "intern lunches" and the joking across the office keep me awake and engaged from the 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. window that I work.  Out of all the interns in my building, by the way, I was surprised to learn that I am in fact the youngest.  And the only male!  Will hilarious hi-jinks ensue?

A few other developments of note with my job here at the Jim Henson Company: I'm starting to add to my general legal workload some creative/productions stuff.  This part is a lot of fun-I'm getting to read potential scripts and provide feedback directly to the people with the authority to make it happen.  So far it's been going well, and (ideally) looking to improve over the next month.

Now then, I'm off to see a friend of mine from high school who's relocated to Los Angeles himself.  Without any really adequate or original way to finish this post, I'll just, uh...

6:30 a.m.

About 30 hours ago I was standing in front of a gas grill behind my apartment building in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. "The night air was cool and serene," I might say, if I hadn't been standing there watching my roommate charbroil the muffler of a circa-1975 German-made moped in flames the size of my torso.

Maybe this calls for back story. But first, the basics:

I reached LA on June 12 after a three-week return to my family in Indianapolis after Columbia's semester ended. I would start my first day as a business-legal intern at the Jim Henson Company the following Monday, giving me a weekend to get my stuff in order. (Yes, it's that company. Note: I will almost certainly work in multiple references to beloved childhood characters made by this company in future posts. Just wait.) Now, two weeks post-arrival in Los Angeles, I have the distinct feeling that I may be doing A-OK.  So let's take stock a bit, a whole fortnight in: I have not lost any limbs; I remember my parents' names; I am wearing clean clothes; I have beaten back the lazy urge to get take-out at every meal, gritted my teeth, and bought honest-to-God groceries. Looks like the living situation is clear. So what about work?

Los Angeles without a car can be a daunting place, and I got on the bus with the same delight that I might have giving a hug to a naked measles patient. But the bus was... clean! Uncrowded! Seventy-five cents cheaper than New York's! No complaints here. I've taken it every day back and forth along Sunset Boulevard between my apartment by UCLA and my internship in Hollywood. Which brings me back to work: as a responsible young man, I erred on the side of prudence and decided to go with a jacket and tie to the office. This was met with light ridicule by my jean-clad colleagues. All things considered, though, no hiccups.

(This, by the way, is entrance to the office.)

The job itself is legitimately engaging-the big surprise for a lot of interns is when expectations of gopher work (making copies, getting mail) make way for actual activity and... (...wait for it...) learning. In my case, it really couldn't be better. As a part of my internship I'm already looking at various staples of business law, and at a moderately-sized company like this one, the superiors are always accessible. I work directly with the VP of Business & Legal Affairs, and on my first day I met the President of the company (whose son is a Columbia undergrad himself). I share a space with a couple of other interns, one of whom is, coincidentally, a Class of ‘09 Columbia College grad.

The work aside, the office setting is relaxed, almost playful. The room is decorated with Muppets memorabilia (two beanies of "Muppet Babies"-era Kermit and Gonzo are seated watchfully over my desk, and don't tell me you never watched "Muppet Babies" when you were little). The office has an open-pet policy; every day, at least two or three dogs make their ways through the building. And in this relaxed, frankly cozy atmosphere, we manage to get our stuff done on time and essentially stresslessly.

At "home," things are just as good. Westwood is like a summery, suburban Morningside Heights, a college town that is the only pedestrian-friendly part of LA I've visited so far. And as luck would have it, the Los Angeles Film Festival is going on in the neighborhood right now; on Monday I saw crowds form around grown men in robot costumes as the "Transformers" sequel premiered (and, more significantly, as Megan Fox arrived at the Village Theatre). The next day Public Enemies with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale premiered. The Jonas Brothers, Bon Jovi, and American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert were apparently just hanging around at the lot where my office is located. If anything will be weird to get used to, it'll be the celebrity culture that really envelops so much of the city.

Aaaand... I think I'm pretty much utterly out of space. For those of you wondering what happened to the moped muffler barbecue, it'll just have to wait until the next post! Tune in next time as our intrepid intern hero tackles such piercing questions as "What are the differences between drivers in New York and LA?" "Is the beach really that great anyway?" "Your building has a pool on the roof???" And, "Wait, so why was he roasting the muffler again?"