Home for Thanksgiving

Well kids, it's been a while. I have pretty good excuses for not blogging, however. One being that I was in foreign lands. You can read about all of that here. Beyond that, I have had very few overnights as I typically prefer either locals or redeyes. In fact, for the upcoming month of December, I will be home every night except a red-eye to San Antonio. I recently returned from another trip to Guanajuato in Mexico, but my grand plans to further explore the surrounding areas failed abysmally. Apparently I have never been in town on a Saturday and everything was packed. No food, no mummy museum, no room to walk. Other crew members took a cab to Leon to buy shoes on the cheap, but their journey took 5x longer than it should have due to a soccer match and a balloon festival taking place in the city. So that's that. After this trip, I had a couple of locals to not so far off places like Denver and Phoenix and then found myself home for Thanksgiving despite not even asking for it off. Tis the game we play.

With just three days off, I didn't really have time to go away, so I elected to stay put and relax. I convinced my parents to fly to Hawaii via Austin, where I could physically fly them to LAX for their connecting flight to Lihue. It would be the first time they had been passengers with me behind the controls since I took them on a trip to Santa Barbara in a small Piper Cherokee. Without much drama, they were able to fly standby on all of their flights and found themselves back in LA for Thanksgiving after galavanting with the menehunes and eating poi.

Whereas the rest of the country seemed to be averaging highs in the 20s and 30s, Los Angeles was hitting 85 every day with ease. We took advantage by trying to be outside whether that was walking along the beach at sunset or standing in line at Randy's for some donuts.

As none of us are terribly keen on actual turkey, I prepared a beef brisket as our main course. I made croque madames on San Francisco sourdough bread for lunch. It was certainly not a traditional thanksgiving, though we did have some pumpkin pie because it was on sale at Ralph's for $3.99.

While waiting for the slow-cooker to do its work on the brisket, I took the folks to Venice beach so that they can be thankful for not living in Venice beach. One would have had no idea it was Thanksgiving. It was packed and all the stores were open.

I suggested we rent metrobikes and go down the bike path. With a little nudging, they were convinced. We rode to the Santa Monica pier and back. All in all, not a bad Thanksgiving. I go to many places and write about all of my adventures, but sometimes it's nice to just appreciate what I have in my own backyard. Mmmmm donuts.

I'm in Hollywood

As if by miracle, some innocent starry-eyed FO picked up two of my standups to Eugene, Oregon. So instead of deicing the wings and tail at 530am, I found myself sound asleep, attempting to make up for my sleep deficit for the three days prior. I now had nearly five days off in a row, which gave me a chance to finally attempt to get back in shape. Over the last year, Runyon Canyon had been shut down while it underwent some renovations. It used to be a dirt path with ruts and potholes filled with sandbags and dog poop.


These days, Nicole and I don't find many reasons to go to Hollywood since the traffic and parking situation is not terribly hospitable to us. And as a Californian, I am obligated to detail my route to get there. We took Westchester Pkwy to La Tijera to La Cienega and then cut over on Rodeo to La Brea and circled around Hollywood and Franklin until we eventually found a parking spot. We set out on a newly paved Runyon trail. Unfortunately, the dog poop was still there as well as the usual clientele of dog walkers in yoga pants.



Having experienced one of the coldest and wettest winters since I moved to LA, it was nice to have a sunny day with temps around 70 degrees. The rain had turned the side of the hills from brown to green. After our hiking adventures, we ate outside at Chick-fil-a and began our 45 minute drive back to good ol' Playa del Rey. Enroute, we spied a little street art on the side of La Brea. What does it mean? I guess they found Waldo, and he's been up to no good. Anyway, I post it here for my dear father who is a fan of kitsch street art. Then we just took Venice to Culver to Pershing and came back home.

Marina del Reeeeey

After being assigned a four day trip, which was abruptly cut to two thanks to the original pilot returning to pick up the remainder, I was able to at least snag this photo of Crater Lake while enroute from LAX to Vancouver. A nearby American Airlines pilot came over the radio and queried, "Seattle Center, what's this lake below us that looks like a crater?" "Uh, that'd be Crater Lake, American 256." Back in LA, the June gloom has finally begun to disperse with higher temperatures and more sun. I spent most of my day today outside, particularly around Marina del Rey.

We took the Waterbus, which Nicole used to actually work for a few summers back. It's a seasonal water taxi that goes around the Marina for the modest sum of $1. We had a gift card to the Cheesecake Factory, which is close to one of the waterbus stops, so it seemed like a fine way to spend the evening. I am not sure how the Cheesecake Factory popularity is in other areas, but the one in the marina is always packed. There was a line out the door, but fortunately it was just the two of us, and we were in within 20 minutes. Evidently there are more proposals at the cheesecake factory in the marina than anywhere else in LA.

Spoiler Alert! I'm not engaged, but I did get a delightful white chocolate macadamia nut brownie cheesecake. After our adventures at the cheesecake factory, we took the waterbus back to Fisherman's Village, a small shopping area with restaurants made to look like a quaint fishing village in New England. Along the way we passed a massive yacht (complete with helicopter and landing pad). I am not sure who could ever own such a yacht (or what their profession might be), but such opulence and luxury is rarely seen by my eyes -- even in Marina del Rey.

Evading June Gloom

It has indeed been a few weeks since my last post, but there is good reason for this. No, I have not quit my job. Rather, I have been enjoying the fruits of my labor. I was able to take a week long trip to Japan, which I wrote about on my other blog. If you care to check that out, clicky here...
My airline has strung together nearly 20 consecutive days of no cancellations, which is unheard of for an airline of its size. Due to this impressive streak, a lot of my flights as of late have consisted of just one or two legs or have been ferry flights (no passengers). This past week I flew from LAX to Santa Barbara, went to a hotel for 7 hours during the day, then flew to San Francisco to stay overnight, and hitched a ride home the following day. If I hadn't felt like I needed sleep recovery from a 4am wakeup call, I would have taken BART into the city for a more interesting blog post, but yaaaaaaaawn. A few days ago, I flew from San Diego to LAX and then to Sacramento, only to deadhead back to LA. This allowed me to snap the picture you see here.

As I live on the coast, we have experienced the infamous "June Gloom," the unfortunate sequel to "May Grey." Sometimes this marine layer breaks up after 10 or 11am, but the farther inland one goes, the better probability one has of avoiding it altogether. With the day off, Nicole and I decided to take the metro to downtown LA. What? LA has a metro? Yes. And people actually ride it too! We got off at Union Station and walked a couple blocks to Philippe's, the self-proclaimed home of the french dip sandwich. There is another place to the south, called Cole's that also claims to be the origin of the french-dip sandwich, but it is not as good. There. I said it.

From there, we took a stroll to the south where we stopped off in Little Tokyo as an appropriate followup to our Japan trip. We went into a few shops including an outlet store where I purchased an onigiri mold for rice. Onigiri are the rice balls that contain some sort fish or meat inside. As was our case in Japan where we could not read any of the packaging, it was like a surprise every time. Now I have the tools to make my own onigiri and can enjoy further surprising Nicole. "Oh! Is this chicken katsu? Beef brisket?Chocolate chips?!"

After making a few brief stops at places like the Disney Concert Hall to relax in air-conditioned comfort, we headed back out into the hot sun. We eventually reached the public library, where I saw a poster for an exhibit on Nazi propaganda and thought it looked interesting. Also, it was free, so I figured we couldn't go wrong. It was small, but well organized. It attempted to explain Hitler's rise to power through the use of propaganda and anti-semitism. And though many Germans did not buy into the whole "It's the Jews fault" garbage, they mostly ignored it since they were so eager for someone with different ideas. It's an idea that I am afraid has resonated with some Americans in this current election cycle. Also, I enjoyed the architecture of the library as you see here. I would not have expected this from inside a library, and it lent itself perfectly to my new wide-angle lens I purchased in Japan. We set out once more into the sun. We were thirsty and grabbed a beer on the top of the Standard Hotel, where we relaxed and looked at the LA skyline before hopping on the metro back home. Not a bad day off.

Ca$h Money Outing in Palo$ Verde$

My reserve schedule this month is not that great. The longest period of time I have off is this weekend with four consecutive days off. And keep in mind, I am still commuting from LA to Houston which cuts into one of the days. I landed Friday evening in not-so-sunny California where it had uncharacteristically been raining. It was grey all day Saturday and one of the local weather forecasters, named Dallas Raines (naturally), was predicting rain and overcast skies throughout the weekend. We were a bit surprised on Sunday to see sunny skies throughout the area. We decided to head out and explore a little bit. We drove south to Palos Verdes, a peninsula situated between Redondo Beach and Long Beach that is home to numerous hiking trails, the Trump golf course, and the houses of lots of people with a lot of money. We didn't have any particular destination in mind, so we just headed down some random roads and pulled over when we thought something looked interesting. It was the perfect time to test out my new camera.

I put in my bid for the May schedule this morning and it looks like I will have a pretty good chance of getting some good blocks of days off and be able to do some traveling next month. Nicole was excited about this because she will also have some time off. We prepared ourselves accordingly by playing with our cameras. Like an overprotective mother, I had to keep telling Nicole to be careful of the sheer cliffs a few feet away from her. In spite of this, there were some surfers who somehow found their way down the cliffs to the water.

After driving down the road a bit more, we pulled over at San Vicente. I had seen this lighthouse probably a hundred times from the air when I was doing flight training from the nearby Torrance airport. Despite that, I had never actually seen it from the ground. We were not the only photographers at this site. There were about a dozen photographers with massive telephoto zoom lenses pointed at the side of the cliffs. I don't know if they were bird watchers or what their story was, but I do know that they had spent a lot of money on their equipment.

We completed our outing by grabbing some lunch at a small café. There was a blonde-haired youth dressed like a skater wandering the parking lot aimlessly and giving us the stink-eye. One cannot trust the affluent offspring of Palos Verdes yuppies. They have been raised on celery water from Whole Foods and vegan cookies. No wonder he looked so angry. He must have just discovered that his whole life has been a lie and that there is, in fact, nothing organic or GMO-free about vegan cookies. A sad day, indeed.

Completing Week One in MSP

For my final day in Minneapolis, I drove to a place called Minnehaha Park. It claimed to have a waterfall, so I was intrigued. It was a bit blustery and overcast -- not really ideal weather to be going for a stroll, but at 49 degrees, it is important to have perspective and remember that this area of the country has the potential to be much, much colder. After a short walk, I found the falls and wandered along the river bank for a mile or so. By now pretty much everything is dead. Only a few rogue leaves cling to the trees. 

Later in the day it began to rain. This did not stop for about 20 hours. Imagine now that the temperature was 10-15º colder. It was estimated that it would have resulted in 2 1/2 FEET of snow. That doesn't sound appealing at all. I departed this land of 10,000 lakes and (I can't believe I'm saying this) unseasonably high temperatures to return to much nicer weather back in Los Angeles. It was about 80 degrees my first day back.

For a while now, Nicole has wanted to stay in this quaint looking place down the street called the Inn at Playa del Rey. It's essentially a bed-and-breakfast overlooking the Ballona Creek Wetlands -- a view that momentarily makes you forget that this is all in Los Angeles. As a treat to ourselves, we made the arduous 1 mile trip down the street to the Inn. I was happy with our decision when we found chocolate chip cookies waiting for us in the room. In fact, there was a lot of free food. Wine, cheese, and other appetizers at 5:00pm. All free. For dinner we walked down the street to Mo's Place, a dive bar that Nicole surprisingly enjoys. It is, in fact, the inspiration for Moe's Tavern in the Simpsons. 

We spent the rest of the evening playing the board game LIFE, and drinking wine. Nicole was not completely satisfied to have retired as a police officer/computer programmer with no children. I, on the other hand, with my veterinarian expertise and law degree found that my two twin daughters were a burden to my bank account from the moment they entered my life. And why the hell was I buying sailboats and going to art auctions? This is not responsible behavior.

Breakfast at the Inn consisted of fresh-baked muffins, blueberry bread, and cheese soufflé. All for free. I like free food. It was a very relaxing getaway . . . even if it was only a few blocks away from our apartment.

Manhattan & Hermosa

The stressful ordeal of yesterday's driving made me appreciate my limited time (a whopping 24 hours) in Los Angeles that much more. Compared to Fresno, LA is like some kind of utopian paradise where people break into synchronized song and dance...almost. Being an outdoor kid, I had an itch to get out and enjoy the sunshine. This is why I can't sit in crew lounges at airports. There are no windows to allow any natural light to enter. It's just sad -- especially in Fresno, where a lonely bookcase of old VHS tapes waits patiently for some brave soul to put Spice World in the VCR.

Nicole and I decided to go skating on the Manhattan Beach boardwalk. It was very relaxing to glide along the path with the ocean on one side and multi-million dollar homes on the other.

We made our way into Hermosa Beach where we skated passed a volleyball tournament and a triathlon finish line. Eventually we arrived at the Hermosa Beach Pier where . . .


OH MY GOD!  HOW DID THIS SNEAK UP ON US! IT'S COMING RIGHT AT US! RUN! NO...we have time. Just walk away slowly.

The blimp made a slow getaway toward Palos Verdes to the south. In case you're in the mood for a little Good-Year blimp trivia, this is the Spirit of Innovation, a blimp that used to be based in Akron, Ohio, but came out to Los Angeles to replace the Spirit of America, which was recently deflated. This is a temporary visitor until newer, much larger zeppelin-like Good-Year blimps will replace the fleet. 

Aren't you glad you know more about the blimp now? It is an intriguing career option, but extremely competitive. Can you imagine being on that flight from Ohio to LA, though? In the blimp? At 30mph? And you thought your commute was bad.

Hollywood Nights

Although Los Angeles is my home base and I don't technically travel to get there, I felt it was unfair to leave it out because much can be learned. After all, movies and reality tv perpetuate numerous myths about this town such as 1) LA is hot year round. 2) Celebrity sightings happen all the time, and most importantly 3) Hollywood is a nice place.

If you have never had the chance to visit Hollywood in your lifetime, you are not missing much. However, if you enjoy watching stray cats fight each other or witness coked out hookers yelling at parked cars, it might be a place to check out. When I moved from Hollywood to Long Beach, my car insurance sent me a check for almost $300 just for getting out. Two weeks later, a serial arsonist torched half of my old neighborhood.

In spite of Hollywood eroding into a place of scum and villainy, it still plays host to numerous movie premiers, the oscars, concerts, and all kinds of entertainment events. Nicole has long had an unexplained interest in Mt Everest and those that climb it. Accordingly, she had been anticipating the release of Everest which was premiering in Hollywood at the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater. Prior to the movie, we ate outside in neighboring Los Feliz at an Italian restaurant called Lil Dom's where Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame is often seen eating. Nicole, not so coincidentally, admires the "work" of Jon Hamm.

Nicole had spaghetti and meatballs, but no hamm. Walking to the Chinese Theater itself is somewhat difficult due to throngs of tourists, all looking down at the ground at the hand and footprints in the concrete. After tossing them out of the way, we finally found ourselves inside the theater. It was large, but not really what I was expecting. Here and there was a jade carving of Confucius or something that people in the 1920's thought was very Chinese looking. I was actually expecting something much more Chinesey.

Oh well. At least we can say we finally went inside. It seems that no matter what time of year, there are always huge amounts of tourists outside the Chinese theater. I don't get it. After you've seen one frumpy middle-aged man dressed up as Optimus Prime, you've seen them all. One time I saw a man dressed up as Barney walking down the street pop his head off to smoke a cigarette. On another instance, late at night, I witnessed Spiderman and Superman enjoying a cup of coffee outside a café. Ah, Hollywood. Such glitz and glamor.