Zack and AJ's blog entry

Today's blog is guest authored by AJ and Zach!

On Sunday we ate bagels for breakfast.  After bagels, we went to the Long Beach Aquarium.  We waited on line and we played at the fountain.  We started the "wave".

Here is the main hall of the aquarium.  Obviously, there is a huge whale in the middle of it.  On the other side of the whale there was a calf.

Underneath the whale there was a polar bear mascot.

 We watched a show about the rising waters.

 Here is us touching ocean life.  There were starfish, shrimp and sea anemone. 

Here's Zach touching bamboo sharks and a stingray.  We could not touch the fish because they were just there to clean the tank and their scales were too fragile.  The sharks felt like leather.   It was not that scary.

 Here is a big shark tank filled with various species of sharks and two stingrays.  At the time, they were being fed.  The feeder at the far left was telling us about the creatures in the tank as she fed them.

Here is a random guy getting bit by a lorikeet.  He was trying to pick it up but it didn't want to be bothered.

 There was a big net aviary filled with lorikeets that people could walk into.

(The boys didn't want to mention the sea otters, the movies they saw, lunch, the gift shop, the tanks of sea creatures or the educational exhibits.)

On the way back from the aquarium, we saw a Goodyear blimp tethered in a field by the highway.

After the aquarium we went the dog park.  The dog park was underneath power lines and a power tower.  It was fenced in so the dogs couldn't get away.  There were a lot of dogs at the dog park.  There were various breeds.  When we were in the little dog park we sat on a bench and Yorkies were swarming under the bench and us.  We met a lot of the big dogs while Lou and Kipley stayed in the little dog park.  We played fetch with a lot of the big dogs.

And at the end we were sad to leave because we had so much fun with the dogs.

After the dog park we had Thai takeout.

On Monday we went to the LA Zoo.  It was really hot when we went.  According to a thermometer it was 84 degrees Fahrenheit.  We saw lottsa animals including a lioness, deer-like animals, apes, jaguars, river otters, giant otters, komodo dragons, giraffes, elephants, tortoises, flamingos, meerkats, prairie dogs, ocelots, warty hogs, seals, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas and an alligator.

The zoo was divided up into continents, Africa, Australia, South America, Asia.

A giant otter eating a fish

The flamingos were in the rear of the exhibit and all of the sudden they started running out to the front. We think it was because they were being fed.

The next day we went to the dog beach.  Kipley was afraid to go into the water.  There were many shapes and sizes of dogs.  There was one Labrador retriever that was jumping in and out of the water to get a tennis ball.  He lost the tennis ball because he was scared of the big wave coming in.  There was lots of seaweed. 

We were in the water water for a majority of the time.  The water was warmer then Venice Beach.  The waves did not get that high until the end. 

Today we went to see Mr. Poppers Penguins.  The movie was so funny.  The funniest character was obviously Jim Carrey's character.  After Mr. Poppers Penguins we went to Game Stop where we bought Call of Duty Black Ops and Mixed Martial Arts.

Venice Beach

Yesterday morning the four of us drove up to Venice Beach and had breakfast on the strand.  It was a bit cool in the shade, but we got to watch everybody walking by.  The kids observed:

• Almost everybody has a bike or skateboard
• There's a lot of dogs
• Some people appear a bit crazy.

The weekend booths were setting up, and one just seemed to have middle aged men acting crazy.  Clowns without the costumes.  It was entertaining, but later, as we walked around, on two occasions one of them approached Lou and said something non-nonsensical.  During breakfast one of the guitarists started playing.  In the picture below, the guy just off Zack's left shoulder was the most weirdly active.

Breakfast

Lou and the kids walking on the beach while I stayed on the strand.

We walked on the strand for about 30 minutes, checking out the sites (Zack: "What's 'hand blown glass?'")  It wasn't crowded yet.  It started getting a bit warmer, so we went back to the car to get our stuff and headed to the beach.  Zach went right out and AJ sat with Lou for awhile.  Here's Zack gettin wet:

Lou and AJ (to the right of the pink tent)

I think that's Zack out by the breakers just right of center

Yep - that's him standing up out there

 We hung out on the beach for about 2 hours.  Once AJ went in, they stayed in the water the entire time.  At the end we found a beach shower and had the kids clean off, then took a quick walk back up the strand to look for performers.  We found 4 guys doing somersaults and big jumps on the strand.  They had a funny shtick about how they were criminals who could be out robbing your houses, but they were entertaining you instead.  They did lot's of aerials and leaps over each other.

The crowed "Wow"ed!

 Their finale was to line up 10 people (including "One Tall WHITE Guy") from the audience, then jump over all 10.  

Lining up the people to be jumped.  The tall kid on the left and the the two on the right are part of the act.

Lou caught a picture of the guy in mid-air doing a flip.  He ran up from the left and jumped over the crowd.  The guy on the end is part of the group and had to duck pretty low to avoid a hard collision - which he did.

From there we saw a crowd out near the beach so walked over to see what was up.  There was a small skateboard park and a local shoe company had sponsored a skating competition for handicapped skaters.

We watched for about 30 minutes, then headed back home, sunburned and a bit tired.

For dinner we went to the Big Wok.  It was crowded!  The kids were familiar with the concept (large buffet of uncooked food - choose your ingredients and have them fry it up).  We headed home tired.

Visitors!

Lou's nephews, Zack (11) and AJ (12) flew from New Jersey to LAX last night.  They arrived after 7:00, hungry and somewhat excited.  We didn't learn too much about the actual flight until we asked specific questions ("We saw the Rockies", "They didn't offer us any food", "They didn't offer us any drinks", "We sat together").

They asked us a few questions about LA, but as we drove home, they mostly riffed off each other as they focused on some subject and exaggerated it to a greater and greater degree.  Lou tried to jump in once in awhile, but she only slowed them down.

We stopped at LA's famous In-N-Out Burger for a "quick" meal.  They weren't too impressed.  (Me: "How was the burger?"  Them - in unison and with no feeling: "Good").

We got home about 8:30.  Lou gave them a quick tour of the house and offered one of 2 bedrooms for them to sleep in.  At 10:00 we forced them to bed, and settled in ourselves.  Lou went to check on them about 10 minutes later.  The door was closed, but the lights were on so she quietly asked how they were doing.  When they didn't answer she opened the door and found them sound asleep.

At 7:00 this morning, Zack knocked on our door and asked: "Are you awake"?

Hermosa Beach Comedy and Magic Club

For Fathers Day (June 18) Lou took me to the Hermosa Beach Comedy and Magic Club where Jay Leno performs most Sundays.  Lou called a few weeks ahead of time and tickets were still available.  We got to the show early because parking can be difficult.  We pulled into the lot, and they checked our name.  I noticed we were listed under the VIP section.  As in, the section for normal people below the VIPs.  Ba-da-bump!

Except for the VIPs, it's first come, first seated.  We were escorted up to a small table right at the stage. 

You can kind-of see, we're about 8 feet from the stool and mic.

The menu

We had a leisurely dinner, which wasn't bad, then spent about an hour reading Jay's wiki site and looking at his collection of cars and aircraft as the house filled up.

I didn't catch the name of the first comic.  He seemed like an established comic who knew Leno fairly well.  He went through his act, then did the standard thing of interacting with a few audience members, asking questions, making jokes and teasing the target.  The table behind us held three people, one of whom was visiting from Australia.  The comic tried to do an Aussie accent, but the woman said he was doing British, not Australian.  They interacted for awhile as we all learned what she did for a living, where she lived, what she was doing in the US, etc.

He introduced the second guy, Jim Brogan.  Jim was pretty funny, but quickly shifted into the same shtick of talking to the audience members.  He too was pretty witty, and we had a good laugh.  The host of the Australian woman drew Jim's attention to her, and Jim started asking the standard questions.  After a few of the same questions and answers we heard before, the audience started answering for her.  It took a few moments for the comic to figure out that we'd already heard all about her.  Near the end of his routine I started thinking this guy doesn't really tell jokes, he just interacts with audience members.  When he was wrapping up, he made a joke about getting offstage before we noticed he didn't have a routine.

The original comic came back and introduced Jay.  Leno's routine had three phases.  First he does a routine of rapid fire, well practiced jokes.  They were on all kinds of topics, and some of them appeared a bit dated.  For a short period, he did the same audience interaction thing.  The entire audience groaned when he got to the Aussie.  At the end, he brings out his glasses (making jokes about the glass case held together by a rubber band), and old hand tape-recorder (I think he said it was 17 years old), and a bunch of note cards. 

He explained that he likes to run through some of the jokes planned for the next week on the Tonight Show.  Over the next 10 or 15 minutes he read about 40 jokes off the cards.  Sometimes he stumbled a bit.  Sometimes he made editorial comments about a joke ("going to have to work on that one").  Some went over well, others not as well.  He wrapped up by inviting all of us to watch the show this week where we might hear some of the jokes told again.  He listed one or two of the planned guests, and that was the end.

A nice evening!  Thanks Lou!

Hummingbird Update

Our neighbors Akibo and Machiko pointed out the hummingbird nest on the side of our house.  They drive by it to get to their garage and noticed it too.  While there used to be 2 chicks in the nest, only 1 seems to be left.  Apparently it can't fly yet because it let me get pretty close:

Automobile Driving Museum

 On Sunday June 12, we ate at Scottys on the Strand at Hermosa Beach, then walked out the pier again.  Scottys was a standard beach resort kind of place.  A little loud, but right on the Strand.

June gloom is in full swing, particularly in the mornings (as you can see from the pics below).  We walked to the end of the pier, watched the surfers and fishermen.

 
The pier has a Surfers Walk of Fame. This picture is one of about 20 along the edges of the pier above the water.

We also found a smaller (smaller then Memorial Day's) art festival around the Hermosa Beach Arts Center.  It was about 40 tents featuring local artists.  They also had music and food.  We walked around for about an hour, and Lou kept her purchases to under $20.  She was very proud of that!

 

These items were covered with flattened bottle caps.  Interesting idea.

Next we went to the Automobile Driving Museum. This was a pretty cool place just a few blocks from my office in a semi-industrial area.  The museum sits on about 2 acres and has about 100 cars on display.  There are some that are quite old and a lot from the pre-war (World War 2) and post-war period, and into the 60s.  They house "Muscle" cars in a separate building.

Many of the cards in the museum are owned by collectors and are on loan.  The docents clearly love and enjoy the cars.  We paid a nominal fee for a tour.  During the tour the docent would let us walk up to, touch and closely inspect the cars.  He pointed out unique features of various cars.  The place also prides themselves on keeping the cars running.  Apparently every car is taken out once in awhile.

The museum has restoration areas that we didn't visit.  It is also set up for functions.  One room had about 6 dinner tables set up with antique cars spread here and there between.

Interesting feature:  The small gray cylinder under the passenger door is a propane container.  Propane was used to light the headlights. 

A Belfast built DeLorean.

Not sure what car this is, but note all the controls on the steering wheel.  In addition, the wooden dash with gauges and a fuel filter is actually right above your feet when you sit in this car.

Ford's famous Edsel

This car was like a station wagon but had a removable roof.  An early 60s advertisement shows somebody carrying a refrigerator in the back of their car.

A Chrysler Airflow.  This car was one of the first designed to be aerodynamic.  Apparently it was ahead of it's time.

After the tour you can sign up for rides.  The place is pretty sparsely populated (I think there were more docents then visitors) and I took rides in a few cars with no waiting.  As we arrived in the ride area they were attempting to start a Model A ford, but couldn't keep it running.

The next car was a Mercury Cougar.  They couldn't get this one start either!

Next, we tried an early 60s Thunderbird.  In this case the driver was also the owner.  Not sure if it's related, but this car started right up with a deep, throaty V8 roar.  As he drove, the owner and I chatted about the car.  The roads around here were empty on Sunday, and he briefly floored it.  It sounded great, but wasn't the best performing car I've ever been in.  This one was in great condition.  We drove for about 5 minutes and returned to the museum.

Next Lou and I got a ride in a 40's car.  I believe it was a Packard.  You can see it parked behind the Cougar a few pictures back.  Again the driver was the owner.  He was clearly proud of the restoration he had done and we talked about features of the car.  This early luxury car was an automatic but didn't have power windows, steering, brakes, etc.  


 It did, however, have an automatic cigarette lighter.  You place the end in a hole in the dashboard and it uses a heating element and vacuum to light the cigarette.  He says it's only been used twice.

That's me on the right.  You can see the Thunderbird through the windshield and my car parked a few cars forward of that.