Life in the big city

Here we are back in Solvang with Josh and Sam. Not much happening, just relaxing. I upgraded the memory in an old iMac Josh acquired then upgraded the OS to El Capitan, the highest it can go. For a machine 12 years old, it runs surprisingly well. Ros has been helping out in the garden with Josh and Sam. As you may know, I'd rather have a tick on my eyeball than garden, I just caught up on reading, something I rarely get to do in my busy life back home.

21 floors straight down

Life in a big city like Los Angeles is different to Perth back home. Luke and Khristina live on the 26th floor of their apartment building, but actually it is really the 21st floor. How come you ask? Well for starters, buildings in LA don't have a ground floor as we would call it, they call the ground floor the first floor. The first floor in this particular building is called the ground floor, even though it is the first floor. Confused yet? That's because there is no first floor in the elevator. In deference to other visitors, this building has actually labelled the first floor as ground floor. It then jumps to the 2nd floor. So that accounts for one floor missing, what about the other four? Well there is no 13th floor, which is commonly omitted because of triskadekaphobia, which is Latin for "fear of the number 13". But the 4th, 14th and 24th floors are also missing. Why you ask? Because in certain Asian languages, the number 4 sounds like the word for death, so they are omitted as well.

Nighttime view of LA

The view from the apartment at night is phenomenal, with floor to ceiling windows giving a view like this. A million dollar view if you ask me.

The Grace Building, which is what Luke and Khristina's building is called, is like most high-rises downtown, a secure building. You can't get in without a security dongle to open the front door, you can't go up the elevator without the dongle, and even the apartment has no keyhole, the dongle unlocks the door. The garage doors scan your car for a parking permit and open automatically when you drive up to it, going in and going out. You can't even get to other floors with the dongle, except for the communal 6th floor and the parking garage on the 2nd floor. Not sure if you make friends on another floor how you would get down to visit them or vice versa. (Edit: Khristina informs me that the other floors are accessible with the dongle).

Homeless camp

Another thing that is visible in a big city like Los Angeles is homelessness. I know we have that problem in Perth, but it is not as visible as it is here due to the larger population. Sights like this one are common around L.A., some whole streets are lined with camps like these. This homeless person has camped out opposite the Grace Building. It's more of a problem here as unemployment benefits are not the same as back in Australia. It's a lot harder to apply for it here, and a lot of homeless people have little to no education, have mental issues or PTSD and are simply incapable of navigating the minefield to gain access to benefits. We also see lots of beggars, many of them handicapped in some way, and often hanging around busy intersections holding up cardboard signs describing their plight. It's heartbreaking to see and even more heartbreaking to realise there is no easy solution to this problem. The next day I saw two police officers moving this black gentleman on. He started to pack up while they were watching him, but when they finally left, he just climbed back into his makeshift shelter and went to sleep.

Driving in L.A. is an experience compared to Perth. We have nothing to compare to the big interstate highways. Our freeways pale in comparison to them. I've mentioned before that some may be 8 lanes wide at some points, especially where two interstates intersect. Exits are not always on the right hand side (remember cars drive on the right hand side over here). When we are returning to Luke & Khristina's place from Luke's work, we have to take the middle lane to exit to downtown, and there are three lanes to the left and three lanes to the right of the middle lane!

Speed limits, as I have mentioned before, are only a suggestion. I have found myself doing 10 to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit on the interstates. If you don't do this, you risk being rear-ended by other traffic that is going that fast - and remember 15 mph is 25 kph. Do that in Perth and you risk a large fine or worse, getting your car impounded. Just as quickly though, you can stop dead on the interstates, especially during peak hour.

One thing I do like here about driving is the "turn right on red" rule, which I wish they would implement back home (only it would be "turn left on red" there). If you are turning right at a red light and it is clear and safe to do so, you may proceed through the red light. In fact, if you don't, you will be quickly reminded of the rule by the horn of the car behind you! It really does help the flow of traffic and I can remember many instances back home waiting to turn left at a red light with no traffic that would impede such a turn. Sigh!

Another peculiarity is the 4-way stop. Unlike WA where one road will have right of way and the intersecting road will have stop signs, in L.A. (and the rest of the U.S. I imagine), some uncontrolled intersections have stop signs on all four roads. Which car goes first, you ask? Who ever gets to the intersection first. If two vehicles arrive at the intersection simultaneously, the car on the left has to yield to the car on the right (that's another thing that's different over here, you don't "give way", you "yield"). What happens if four vehicles arrive simultaneously at such an intersection? I honestly don't know and I have yet to see it happen, thank goodness.

Roundabouts are rare. I have only seen them in two places, one at Ikea the other day, and in Michelle's gated community, Park La Brea. Luke tells me Americans do not understand roundabouts at all, which is why they are so rare, probably. Because they drive on the right here, you go around the roundabout anticlockwise. Takes some getting used to, I can tell you.

Sirens and traffic

For anyone who has never been to Los Angeles, living in the heart of big American city is certainly an experience. In the last 24 hours since we've been back from Solvang (which was blissfully quiet) I reckon we've heard sirens at least every 20 minutes throughout the whole day. A little less frequently at night, but still there nevertheless. Even one fire tender roared past me whilst I was driving today. In Perth, you're lucky to hear one a day and almost never encounter one while driving.

Talking about driving, the traffic here in L.A. has to be seen to be believed. We collected Augie from school today, it was nearly a two hour round trip for a 6.5 mile journey! The freeways clog up every morning and evening, so it is best only to use them in the middle of the day or late at night. However, the L.A. motorists are very obliging and let you in to their lane if you indicate, and nearly every road is much wider than back in WA and have this extra lane in the middle which you only use when turning left. Consequently the main lanes are never blocked by turning traffic, allowing traffic to keep flowing. Well that's the theory anyway, it can still back up for blocks at a time.

1901 Toledo

Anyway, yesterday Josh suggested we visit the Nethercutt Motor Museum near Luke's work place, so we went there yesterday afternoon. Well what a collection of old cars, all of them in absolute pristine condition. Ranging from this 1901 Toledo on the right. up to 1980's Rolls Royce's and everything in between. Mr Nethercutt started out by buying these old cars, and eventually his fame spread and many older owners of these sort of cars donated them to him because they knew they would be looked after.

Steering wheel controls

All the old vehicles of yesteryear have these steering wheel controls, one for the throttle and one for the spark advance. As the car and engine went faster the spark to ignite the fuel had to be "advanced" so the fuel had time to burn during the power stroke. It was a bit of a hit and miss affair to get the right settings so the engine didn't overheat or labour too much on hill climbs. And every car was different in how these controls were positioned on the steering wheel and how they were set.

Instrument panel

No standardisation in those days, if you got a new model car, you had to learn how to drive it all over again. Today's computerised automatic cars would have appeared magical to those early drivers. Nor were the instrument panels any better, often placed below the dashboard in the centre column so you had to take your eyes off the road to look at them. Looking at the complexity of the one on the right here, you can see why mostly men drove them in those days.

Mirror on tyre

Nowadays, anybody can get into any car and drive it straightaway due to the standardisation of controls and gauges. Even mirrors were attached differently - here we see a common way was to strap it to the spare tyre which was usually positioned just in front of the driver's door. But I also saw cars where the spare tyre was next to the driver's door making it impossible to open it and forcing the the poor driver to enter via the passenger door and slide over to the driver's side.

1930's caravan

You could also hitch up a 1930's caravan and tour the country. Caravan design has certainly changed since then.

De Lorean

Anybody who's a fan of the Back to the Future trilogy will no doubt recognise this car as the time machine used to catapult Marty McFly backwards and forwards in time. The car is finished in brushed stainless steel.

Unfortunately Mr De Lorean's design did not appeal to the greater motoring public and he quickly went bankrupt.

Edison jukebox

This museum doesn't only house cars though, here is something I have never seen and did not even know existed - an Edison phonograph jukebox using the original wax cylinders before flat records came into existence! Not sure how many plays each cylinder would produce as they were fairly soft.

Gas pump

My father's generation would recognise this early device - a gas (petrol) pump. The attendant would use the lever on the left side to pump the amount of fuel you requested up into the glass container at the top, then it would be gravity-fed into your tank. A labourious  and time consuming task compared to today's electric pumps, but electricity wasn't everywhere when these old pumps were around, so I guess they worked OK.

Futuristic design

Then there were car designers who tried to imagine what cars would look like in the future and here is one example of such a design, complete with central tail fin. I guess we've still got a little ways to go yet until we have these sort of designs.


After the museum closed at 4.30 pm, we joined Joshua in going to Ikea for one of their famous and cheap meals. I tried their tasty meatballs and sauce with green veggies and mashed potato, polished off with a hazelnut chocolate dessert. And it certainly was cheaper, about $US11.50 per person, far cheaper than some of the other eateries we have frequented. Josh also stocked up on food there as you can buy all the restaurant items frozen for consumption at home. With his busy lifestyle and long drives to and from L.A., these meals can be quickly knocked up when one is tired and hungry.

Not much happening

Hi good folk, just taking it easy at the moment. We spent the remaining two days in Solvang helping around the garden. While Ros and Sam worked on the vegetable garden, Josh and I went over the reticulation system to get it ready for the hot, dry summer to come. There are no less than three reticulation controllers on the property, each with 6 stations, so yours truly wore out the path between the controllers to run them while Josh found problems and fixed them. The third controller down in the paddock area did not appear to do anything so we left that for another day.

Lunch on gazebo

We had lunch on the gazebo on Sunday as it was a beautiful day. Whilst we were sitting there enjoying the view, we could here this constant "clicking" noise. At first we couldn't work out what was making it, but finally I managed to capture a picture of what was making the sound.

Clicking bird

Here is the culprit, this beautiful little black-faced bird sitting in the nearby tree, clacking his bill together repeatedly. I call this my "Dances with Wolves" shot as one of the Indian characters in the movie was called Kicking Bird.

We guessed that the noise was some sort of mating call, because before long another bird joined him nearby.

Clicking bird's mate?

Here she is on the fence next to the tree he was in.

We've also had a few hummingbirds around but I haven't been quick enough to capture these fleeting, very fast birds.

Voodoo fuchsia

We bought Sam a lovely hanging basket full of fuchsias, which the store owner informed us was called a Voodoo Fuchsia. Not sure how the name originated, but it is beautiful just the same.

Japanese Maple

There's also a lovely Japanese maple tree next to the front door and I did some experimenting with
my camera's macro setting to get this close-up picture of the leaves in their glorious red spring colours.

On Monday morning we got up early as Josh had to drive down to L.A. for work, so we joined him for the drive back to Luke and Khristina's place.

We took it easy that day, did some washing, had naps to catch up on sleep then went out for tea with Joshua after he had finished work. He took us to a genuine Southern style restaurant where we had corn bread, I had a Pimento cheeseburger and Ros and Josh shared a whole southern-fried hen with spicy carrots and fried asparagus. I learnt later that night that southern fried food does NOT agree with my stomach and spent half the night sitting up, finally getting to sleep at about 4.30 am. The trouble with Luke and Khristina's apartment is their blinds are not the block out type, so as soon as the sun rises, the bedroom is blasted with light. It's fortunate that we are on Summer time here, so the sun doesn't rise till 5.30 am. Anyway, I'll be having an afternoon nap to catch up on some sleep before Luke and Khristina return from New Orleans tonight

Solvang

Hello good people, yesterday (Thursday) we farewelled Luke and Khristina as they flew off to New Orleans for a 5 day holiday. We just did some washing and basically relaxed, as you are meant to do on holidays. At 4pm, I had to drive Luke's work van back to office as the other employees would need it for transporting various organs and keyboards. This was an experience during peak hour - a 30 minute drive normally took nearly an hour!

View from back yard

Joshua met us there (he works there a few days a week) and drove us up to Solvang to see the new house he and Sam have bought. We stopped in Ventura for a meal at a Thai restaurant and took enough home with us for lunch the following day. We arrived at Solvang around 9pm, had a tour then hit the sack as we were very tired from all the driving.

Woke up this morning to some wonderful vistas - this is the view from the backyard with the mountains in the distance. The picture does not do the view justice, you'll have to come over here yourselves.

Gazebo

They also have this gazebo that overlooks the scenery and the paddocks at the bottom of their property. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can see the vase of flowers that was knocked over in the wind and shattered. I did not notice this whilst taking the picture, only discovered it later and managed to cut my finger picking up all the shards. Down below you can see numerous ground squirrels darting through the grass. Unlike their tree-dwelling cousins, they dig underground warrens and live there.

This is the view from the back of the house, our bedroom is the last set of windows on the

Rear of house

left. Floor to ceiling windows give us a grand vista to awaken to every morning. This morning we flung open the curtains to see the view only to confronted with fog obscuring just about everything. It lifted a few hours later to give us the view above.

I gave Josh a hand setting up his wireless network in the house which took us a few hours of patient work, but every part of the house now can access the wireless network.

"Shed" and Ros

Later we drove into Solvang to purchase some garden supplies for the house and Ros and Josh have been busy in the garden all afternoon.

The house has a shed (really a granny flat) that is built in the same style as the house. Josh is going to set it up as a workshop to work on some of Luke's keyboards so he can avoid commuting down to LA several times a week.

Kitchen

Here's a view of the kitchen. So far, Sam says, she's only used the stove to boil water.

Lounge room

And here's a view of the lounge room. Note the wood panelled ceiling and the face brick fire place.

Tonight Josh and Sam are taking us out for a meal at a local restaurant. Looking forward to that.

Getty Centre

Today we planned to go down to Malibu to see the wildflowers but the best laid plans of mice and men...
First Ros went with Luke and Augie to meet Michelle (Augie's mother) to arrange his passport renewal. Being a child, his only last two years as they change so much as they grow. I went to Shoes off Broadway up in Hollywood to buy some new runners and casual shoes. Luke dropped Ros off there to meet up with me.

I405 traffic jam

We headed off to Malibu, but Luke texted me and said the download for the old iMac had arrived, so as it was on the way, we stopped at Luke's work and I kicked off the computer upgrade, then we continued on our way. We got onto the I405 freeway but halfway there an accident blocked most of the lanes and the information signs said expect a 90 minute delay. As we were just going past the Getty Centre, we decided to go there instead.

Getty tram

The Getty Centre is a museum and art gallery situated high on a hill overlooking the I405. You park at the bottom ($20 per car - exorbitant I reckon) and catch the tram up the hill.

We came here in 2008 and only managed to see the East building. Today we explored the West building. It contained Impressionist paintings, drawings and sketches by artists from 500 years ago, sculptures, photographs, porcelain treasures, tapestries and elegant furniture. We still only saw a fraction of it before our feet and legs gave out.

We did have lunch there, which was also expensive.

Van Gogh's Irises

One of the paintings I saw was by my favourite artist, Vincent Van Gogh's Irises. I had to take a photo of this priceless painting. After leaving there we returned to Luke's workplace for a rest before going out with Joshua to my favourite restaurant, the Wood Ranch BBQ Restaurant where I had my favourite dish, the smoked Tri-tip beef, cooked to perfection along with an Idaho baked potato and a peanut coleslaw. Then it was home to bed.

Working on my holiday

Luke and one of many organs he's fixed

Today we went to Luke's workplace (CVKeyboards) where he works on musician's keyboards such as Hammond organs, Leslie Speakers, Rhodes pianos and more. Many of the musicians who frequent his business are well known, such as Fleetwood Mac, Maroon 5, Kanye West, Lenny Kravitz and many more. Heres a link to Luke's website if you are interested. Click on the video on the home page to see the vast collection of musical instruments he has in his shop.

Luke put me to work fixing (or attempting to fix) three Apple computers. I managed to upgrade their office Mac to the latest MacOS and fixed a few problems with that. Hector, the Office Manager, was very pleased as it made his job a lot easier. The other two I had varying degrees of success with. I have to earn my keep!

After that, I took my life into my hands and got behind the wheel of Luke's car he's lent us and drove Ros and Augie back to his apartment. Managed it OK thanks to the trusty GPS we brought with us and I didn't turn on the wipers once! (For the uninitiated, the wiper and indicator stalks are reversed in America). We then went clothes shopping at Ross Stores, just a block's walk from the apartment where Ros bought a swimsuit so she can use the jacuzzi down on the 6th floor. The 6th floor is a communal entertaining area with pool, the aforementioned jacuzzi, pool table and two vintage arcade game tables with such games as Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Pac-man and Galaga. Had a great time trying my hand at these blasts from the past.

Keeping warm

After this strenuous activity, Ros needed a nap and when she felt cold and couldn't be bothered to get under the blankets, came up with an innovative way to keep warm. See picture to the right. By the way, readers of my blog, you can click on the pictures to see a larger version.

We didn't see Khristina yesterday, she left early for work and had to commute down to Orange County, which can be a two hour drive in peak traffic. She came home after we went to bed and left this morning before we got up. She is an estimator and designer for a large building company, which keeps her very busy.

We watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones last night, we have been waiting for two years for this show to return and it didn't disappoint.

Being in a high-rise apartment does give a unique view of the rooftops of nearby buildings and last night the one right next to us had an interesting vista unfolding below us. A very amorous couple in varying stages of undress were getting very busy in what could only be described as an "X" rated activity. They probably thought being on the roof of a tall building afforded them some privacy, but with taller buildings surrounding it, this was not to be. No pictures were taken as this is a G-rated blog!

Orange County Teppanyaki

Did not sleep well last night, an alarm of some sort woke me at midnight and I couldn't get back to sleep until around 4 am. Saturday night in downtown LA is noisy, even from the 26th floor behind sound-proof glazing. All night I could hear sirens screaming down the main drag plus a few noisy revelers.

Freeway overpasses

Anyhow, today Khristina drove us all down to Orange County to a teppanyaki restaurant to meet her father Tim, sister Katie and Tim's wife Dianna (not Khristina's mother). We squeezed into her Ford Fusion EV (electric vehicle) and by squeezed in, I mean me, Luke and Augie all in the back seat, shoulder to shoulder. Still it was a pleasant drive on Los Angeles' freeways, especially when we got onto the expressway. To the right, you can see one of the many overpasses that frightens the hell out of me, and I wasn't even driving!

Teppanyaki chef at work

Teppanyaki as you all know, is the Japanese style of cooking the meal in front of you on a large hotplate. The chef here really showed off his skill at cooking swiftly and deftly. I had the teriyaki beef with fried rice which was delicious. We spent a couple of hours here and finally left stuffed to the gills. No need for tea tonight!

Southern Fence Lizard

After that, Khristina took us to the nearby San Juan Capistrano mission, one of the earliest Spanish missions established in California. I found this little guy sunning himself on a rock ledge inside the mission. It's amazing how close he let me get to take this photo.







Here's Luke, Khristina and Augie inside the mission.

Boiling vats

These boiling vats were uncovered in 1935 and were used to boil down animal fats into tallow to be used for candles and other stuff I can't remember.

Blast furnace

They also uncovered these blast furnaces used for smelting iron. If you look closely at the shadow at the upper left, you'll see a terracotta pipe that was used to push air into the center of the furnace to make it hotter. The Spanish introduced the local Indians to the Metal Age, where previously they had only used stone, bone and wood.

Church vestry

We found this church on the mission, it's not the original that was destroyed by an earthquake, but it's still pretty ornate as you can see from the picture of the vestry to the right.

Ros in undercroft

Here's Ros standing in the undercroft. Beautiful old architecture and the building isn't too bad either.

Goodyeat blimp

Finally drove home late afternoon and passed this famous landmark. It's used during peak hours for traffic reports. A good day was had by all, but we were all very tired so it will be early to bed tonight.

Proud Bird

Airbus A321neo

It's my birthday today, so Luke and Augie took Ros and I to Proud Bird Restaurant, which is located right at the end of the main runway of Los Angeles airport (LAX), so consequently I had many examples of this on the right, as well as many jets taking off. This is the A321neo, a direct competitor of Boeing's very popular 737, although the Max 8's are a bit on the nose at the moment.

Proud Bird

Proud Bird also has many old warbirds on display, like this one in the foyer. The food smelt just wonderful, I had a BBQ Beef Sandwich which was to die for. We must visit the Woodranch BBQ Restaurant while we are here to have my favourite smoked Tri-tip beef.

Bell X1

I won't bore you with all the pictures I took of planes, except for this one, the Bell X1 experimental plane, which I expect all of you know that Chuck Yeager flew to break the sound barrier for the first time on 14th October 1947.
A wonderful way to spend my birthday. Tonight we're taking Augie to see the animated movie The Missing Link, although I don't agree with its premise that there exists a missing link between humans and apes and hence that evolution is true.

Los Angeles 2019

After an (almost) uneventful flight, we arrived in Los Angeles on Friday around 5.30 pm PDT (Pacific Daylight Saving Time) which was 4 hours before we left WA! Changing time zones has some peculiar effects. In reality it was 8.30 am Saturday morning WST so it took us 19 hours all up. Flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner across the Pacific was new, the first time we have done this in a twin engine plane. The 787 can happily fly on just one engine, so it is still a very safe flight. We had exit row seats so no clambering over one another to visit the loo or walk around. We both managed to get a few hours sleep on the long haul.

Downtown L.A.

Luke collected us from the airport and drove us downtown to the new apartment he shares with his girlfriend Khristina. The views are spectacular from up here.

We're on the 26th floor of a brand new building so it is only about 30% full. Last night we saw about 10 police cars, two fire tenders and the police helicopter circling the city obviously looking for some offender.


We also have a view towards snow-capped mountains to the north of the city as you can see to your right.

We slept like logs last night and have awakened refreshed this morning. Luke and Khristina are taking us to Proud Bird restaurant/museum near LAX for my birthday. The museum has vintage planes on display that will satisfy the pilot in me.

Luke & Augie

Here's a shot from inside the apartment with Augie fresh out of the shower and wanting to be excitably in the picture, with Luke making coffee in the background.

More photos later on when we get back from Proud Bird.