Sunday, September 24, 2017

The Grouch family visits the fair

the Missus, young daughter, young son, and I visited the Los Angeles county fair on its final weekend the past Saturday.

Unfortunately for the other fair-goers in our group, I checked my company phone just before we were ready to leave to drive to the fair and discovered that a titanic career-ending calamity had occurred the night before (not that I plan to have a career with this company, but still..) which put me firmly in the grouch zone.

I pretty much steamed all the way to the fair but managed to leave it behind when we got there.  When we checked in to buy our tickets, the nice lady somehow spotted the Missus and I to be seniors so we got in for free.  Young daughter used her military ID and the ticket lady was happy to use my retired military ID to get young son in, so none of us had to pay!

We needed to rent a wheel chair for the Missus as she has stress fractures in her foot and isn't supposed to walk.  Thus the point of today's rant and roll.  The fair was mobbed, really mobbed, and about 99% of the people there ware completely oblivious to the Missus in her wheelchair.  Trying to get through the crowd, both outside and in the exhibit buildings was a real effort.  People just didn't see us and would walk in front of us as we were wheeling along, or stop short, or a group of people would block the entire aisle and not register that the wheelchair with the Missus was trying to come through.

All of that grief was balanced though by the few saints who held doors open for us, stepped out of the way, or held back others so we could come through.  God bless them, one and all!  It opened our eyes to what the wheelchair bound must put up with.

The kids rode a few rides, we ate lots of mega-expensive food, young son and the Missus went into the Lorikeet experience where YS was mobbed by the tiny buggers who pecked him over and made it into a love fest.  Birds just seem to like him!

We ended up by seeing the vintage trains and then headed home.  The line waiting to come in at 5:30 in the afternoon had to be a hundred yards long.  The group Chicago was playing on the stage in the evening so perhaps that was the draw.

We've been to the fair before with the children when they were small, and hopefully we'll get to go one more time before we move out of California.


There's nothing like a fair for fun!

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Outlander - the TV series

The Missus is a devotee of the "Outlander" book series.  She has read each and every one and reveled in the kilt and heaving bosom plot lines.  When Starz started showing the video version of the books, she turned up her nose at it when she viewed a preview.  "That is no Jamie" she sniffed about the leading kilt-man.

The other day I realized that the first episode is available on the On-Demand app on our cable system and best of all, it is free so we watched it.

I thought it was all right and the Missus enjoyed it but no Starz channel for us.  Los Angeles County library to the rescue!   They have both season 1 and season 2 on DVD so we now have the first 6 episodes waiting to be watched.

(None of this is going to make any sense to those who don't have a passing familiarity with the story line)

In the show, the husband of Claire in 1945  (Frank) seems to be a decent chap:  loving, drives a cute MG convertible, adores his wife, served in the Army during the war (as did Claire).  His failings?  Well he is a history professor so he loves to research the past and explore old ruins.  If he isn't careful, he'll become an old ruin himself someday.  Claire seems to be hoping for something more exciting in a man.

And, when visiting Scotland what do you know but she is transported through time to 1743 Scotland!  Where she meets men in kilts!  Brawny men with muscles!  And claymores!  And have Scots accents!   And, she is rescued by a young brawny man with muscles who is wearing a kilt and wielding a claymore in her defense.

Pretty much everything husband Frank up in 1947 isn't.   I saw once again that the cut goes between exciting and dependable.    Women say they want dependable but they desire exciting.  

It can be tough being the dependable one.  Hang in there Frank, she'll come back to you eventually.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Walkin' in L.A.

This story actually started a couple of years ago when the Missus won a walking tour of Los Angeles at a silent auction fundraiser for a local repertory theater (now sadly defunct).  We all know that 'no one walks in L.A.', at least according to the song but we and 12 of our friends were eligible for a guided 4 hour walking tour of downtown Los Angeles.

Actually, it was a compact section of downtown, because downtown L.A. is pretty darn big.  What we we were to see were historic buildings, many of them now re-purposed into office buildings and lofts.

The amount of construction and renovation going on in the downtown area was amazing.  Energetic young people are swarming to downtown L.A. and bringing their money with them.  It is great to see the city coming back to life.

We saw many structures but I only photographed a few that I hadn't documented previously.

Our group (9 was all we could round up) met in at Pershing Square on a beautiful Saturday in May with our guide and we set off.



Our intrepid group getting the low-down from our tour guide before we set off

The Subway building, now an office building.  Not the Red Line, but a previous subway that ran trolleys underground into downtown.  This was the terminus in downtown

The guide said that the terminal was mobbed during WW2, the height of its popularity



One of the street level windows in the terminal showing a trolley and passengers

A trolley entering the tunnel outside of downtown L.A.

Here is an excellent write up on the original subway and the interior which we didn't get to see:



We found this Fiat 500 behind the Bradbury building.  Since Young Son is a proud owner of a red Fiat 500 Turbo Sport, we needed his picture with this version.  How anyone could fit in that car is a mystery...


Pretty much the whole day we were downtown this CH54 Skycrane was hard at work lifting things to the top of a building.  It was quite loud and echoed a lot.

The former headquarters of SoCal Edison.  Lots of marble and art, all in a cool, hushed setting

http://wikimapia.org/8654533/One-Bunker-Hill-Southern-California-Edison-Building

A mural of water being brought to the city (I think)

The central library, always a favorite of mine.  I love the quote

Politically incorrect murals involving the founding of California and Los Angeles.  I imagine it won't be long before they are shrouded or taken down all together.  The library and the murals are a treat and should be seen





After our tour ended we headed to Clifton's a fixture in Los Angeles for decades and decades.

Clifton's has to be experienced at least once when living or visiting Los Angeles:



the building has three levels of tables available with the food served on the ground floor.  It was mobbed at lunch time but emptied out by 1 p.m.

The second floor


Amazingly life-life taxidermy on display!




We finished our giant lunch and headed back to Pershing square, foot-sore but happy.  It was a great walking tour and highly recommended.