| Reckless Eyeballin', LA StyleFrom the valet at Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles.
"Reckless eyeballin'... Das when you's a pimp and your girl be checking out some other pimp..."
In other words, sightseeing with consequences. Because I ain't no pimp.
But I was doing the sightseeing in LA, the old hood. Brought back a lot of memories and made me realize that I, like the 1998 Honda Accord a friend just bought, am a little older than I realize. Spending some time in LA with my cousin and reminiscing about the "back in the day when I was young I'm not a kid anymore" days was little somber, but had its upside.
Before I forget, yeah, I did eat my chicken and waffles. See?
The LA portion of the KC trip started off with us screaming into LAX to find a nice SUV waiting for us. Touched in at one of my favorite fast food chain joints in LA, El Pollo Loco for some crazy chicken, then set up camp in El Seg just under the runway on Se-PUL-ve-da.
Funny, I could see the Oracle headquarters from my window.
CTom and I were in SoCal to site visit with Long Beach Transit and take a look at some intermodal transit connections in the area. After some Mongolian BBQ Manhattan Beach style, we called it a night in anticipation of the next day at work visiting the LBT.
I woke up early Thursday to find this headline screaming at me in the Honolulu Advertiser:
Electronic signs will show bus updates
Whaa? We hadn't visited the agency yet to learn anything, but good to know the pressure was on to make things work. Anyway, we saw a lot of cool things in Long Beach. As an aside, the beach seems more WIDE than LONG, but oh well, perspective, I guess.
The Long Beach Transit Mall is a bus/rail only street in Downtown Long Beach that is seeing some serious revitalization. Condos look promising, business is booming, and more importantly, people are all over the place.
They have kiosks that contain next bus arrival and departure boards.
Here's a closer view of the screen inside.
There's even a bike station where you can park and secure your bike and even get it tuned up while you work.
Some of the stop features are cool, using sail material for cover.
And here are the touted next bus signs.
We treated lunch at this great brewery that puts beer in everything and talked shop with the folks from LB. After that, we packed up and headed back to LA. I got to buy my roadside immigrant fruit like I used to buy oranges from this guy on the National onramp to the 10 Freeway. Except this time, I ended up buying cherries on Cherry Avenue. Cool, ah?
We had dinner that night with CTom's dad at this Korean Tofu House. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to... had the shrimp and scallops with clam tofu soup. Very filling. Also got to check out the family restaurant in WestCo. Cool... I always wanted to meet people that ran a restaurant.
Spent Friday on a SoCal transit tour. It was quite the journey... 69.7 miles on public transportation around the Southland.
Started off at our hotel in El Seg, walking to the Metro Green Line.
Got off on the Harbor Transitway, a dedicated freeway overpass for transit buses only.
Took Metro Line 445 past USC to Downtown LA and Union Station, where we indulged at Philippe's, the other birthplace of the French Dip. Went nuts and ordered the Roast Beef French Dip with swiss cheese, potato salad, Manhattan clam chowder, lemonade, and a sweet pickle.
Then it was back to transit. Union Station, Metro Red Line to North Hollywood via Universal City. The coolest thing: there was a video animation set up to chase the trains approaching Universal City such that it looked like the animated image was stationary in each window of the subway car. Think the subway car in "Speed." I know the image chased the train because we were at the front of the car and an extra window would pop up once in a while as the speed of the train changed. They were advertising Wall-E, the new Pixar movie. Very cool. Unfortunately, due to restrictions on photography in the Metro, I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures. But I did consider momentarily riding back a station to see it again.
We ended up in North Hollywood, destined for the Metro Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which wasn't as orange as I expected.
Ctom got it right... these "buses" look like caterpillars inching along... slowly. This rapid system is not so rapid.
Got deep into the San Fernando Valley, then took Metro Rapid 761 to Westwood over the scenic Sepulveda Pass and through UCLA.
Stopped at a CVS (yes, they're all over the West Coast now) to get some liquid refreshment and release some liquid waste, then boarded Culver CityBus Line 6 to LAX.
Argh. We had to go literally the last third of a mile, but since we couldn't walk under the LAX runway, we were forced to transfer to Metro Line 232 to go that last short bit.
Got off where we started, exhausted. 6 hours and almost 70 miles later.
Slept well that night, then got up early on Saturday to move over to my cousin's place in the OP area of SaMo (Ocean Park, Santa Monica for the uninitiated).
After renting this monster crew cab Silverado at the Chevy Aveo rate, I headed off to remember memories of the days gone by at SC.
SC Flowers in Bloom
I enjoyed seeing the buildings, the old with the new. Like the new Galen Center.
The peeing fountain on Trousdale.
Along with its neighbor, the middle-finger fountain.
Waite Phillips Hall
Doheny Library
Trousdale Parkway, where I got a ticket for riding my bike during restricted hours once.
Bovard Auditorium, home of the 900-person Biology class.
And my favorite, Tommy Trojan.
Von Kleinsmid Center, better known as VKC, where the School of Planning used to be.
Now it has it's own brand-spanking new home in Ralph and Goldy Lewis Hall smack dab in the center of campus.
Pardee time!
Time to party in Pardee Tower.
Time to study in Leavey Library (it opened my senior year).
And of course, I had to check out my old pads. Century 234, now under massive renovation.
And my Ellendale loft.
We indulged in a "Buck-Fitty" sub that night for dinner... unreal. The price was now $7 for the combo with fries. Same cook, I think, though. And this time, I had Bulgogee instead of the regular kebab sand. Fries were greasy, but not as good as I remembered.
The next morning, I cruised out to Malibu, past PU (Pepperdine University, that is). There was a moment when I, in my monstrous pickup, was surrounded by Priuses. Eerie how these Malibuans have become so green.
Had last meal with Cousin at Fu-Rai-Bo on Sawtelle, and noticed that Mexicans can cook some damn good Japanese food. MSG always helps. It's the essence of flavor.
The next morning, I trekked over to the San Gabriel Valley to meet CTom again and head out to the Palm Desert. Did some outlet shopping and saw the windmills of power out there.
It was hot. Like Africa hot.
We stayed at the Fantasy Springs Resort and Casino of the Cahuilla Tribe. View from my window.
They took a lot of money from me. It was whirlwind. We were in, we were out, you didn't see us. Had a relaxing dinner, Olive Garden style. By that time, I think I was just too tired to eat my Chianti-braised shortribs on wild mushroom risotto after the soup and breadsticks and the three-choice appetizer of stuffed mushrooms, calamari, and mozzarella sticks. Argh.
Gambled the night away, lost a lot on blackjack, then got ready to drive back to LA.
Picked up my bag at Cousin's place, left him a little bowling skills challenge ala Unbeatable Bansuke.
Got to LAX, where it was pretty not so LAX... returned the rental car, paid $4.59/gallon gas, and checked in and got through security. Dying for my first class ride home. Seat 1-A. Where I could put my feet up...
...and enjoy a Mai Tai while the rest of the cattle boarded.
Or two...
In the end, I had four umbrellas to my name before we took off. That's real glass, baby!
Dinner was kind of disappointing. Seafood ravioli.
After I ate, I enjoyed the view of the vast Pacific and hoped we didn't plummet headlong into the raging surf below. Crap, people actually sail to Hawaii?
Then, a nice surprise that I didn't have since A-L-O-H-A, ruined my 3-day holiday... Hot cookies!
Soon, the sights became familiar...
Look, Ocean Pointe!
And then we were home. Phew, it was a long trip.
I ate a lot, learned a lot, and was super glad to be back. Even though I would go home to wash my clothes and leave for SFO the next day. More on that in the next installment!
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