First, my annual trip to Los Angeles to see friends.
I spent my holiday at the Venice Beach House, a b b not more than 20 yards from the beach. It is a delight, quiet, well-kept, clean with attentive staff and wi-fi in the rooms. I have never been in a better place in LA outside of my in-law's house!
For those of you tracking my health, I am proud to say I hit the beach and/or the nearest 24 Hour Fitness every day I was in LA. Good for me!
Monday during the day, I fulfilled a long-term dream; I drove the entire length of the new Exposition Line, a streetcar line under construction in Los Angeles that will eventually go from USC to Santa Monica. Phase One will take the line to the Westside Pavilion. There is some argument about the alignment for phase 2. A bunch of Nimby's in a nice neighborhood want to prevent the streetcar from running through a beautiful and undisturbed right of way, abandoned decades ago, where the line ran decades before the homeowners who are now fouling up the gears of progress.
By the way, Google Maps, God bless them, shows abandoned streetcar right of ways as railroad tracks on their maps. This substantially helped me on my tour.
Alas, the Santa Monica end of the right of way is frequently broken up by buildings and parking lots. That is a shame, and it's going to be expensive to recreate what LA once had. Probably, the alignment will have to be fiddled. If only America's love affair with the car had not destroyed the rail transit system.
That night, dinner with N and C, old family friends from Berkeley who now live in Manhattan Beach. Their daughter, A, was born two days before our daughter Rae, in the same hospital. We ate at a delightful place called Melange; I had sturgeon. I love sturgeon. Don't bother telling me it is a bottom feeder. I still like it (besides, Columbia River sturgeon are farmed...)
Tuesday was lunch and a hike with JP, an old friend of mine from the Byte.com days. Our politics differ widely, but we enjoy each other's company and I look forward to spending a few hours with him each summer. Dinner with CW, the founder and head of a Internet comedy site in which I participate. Always fun to see him; we had a good Mexican meal in Venice.
Wednesday was a four-mile hike from Palos Verdes to Redondo Beach with JS, another friend of long standing. After the hike, we ate, as always, at the Redondo Beach Brewing Company. Again, the conversation is worth a million dollars. It's the shortest 90-minute walk I take each year.
Finally Thursday, Neal Vitale and I saw Paper Heart (and I must say, I agree with his tepid/negative review) then had dinner at The Tasting Kitchen (reviewed here by someone else). As always at dinner with Neal, it was amazing. Then off to the airport.
Friday, Vicki and I took off for Portland, where we stayed, again, in a turn-of-the-20th century Craftsman house on the Willamette River near John's Landing while visiting my parents for the weekend. Our girls came too. We enjoyed ourselves and, as always, it was nice to see my parents.
A lot of time away, and now school starts (for teachers) in a week. Well, that's the calendar for you--it just keeps rolling along.