Ok, so last month I wrote about how we went to see the Gamble House. I really didn’t talk about our visit to Little Toyko. It was fun, but it wasn’t really eventful. Or at least that is what I thought…
Ok, first I will fill you in with the boring stuff. Little Tokyo is a favorite haunt of mine. Located in the center of LA it is a mecca for every Japanophile in California, that would include myself (John). I visited Japan once when I was in high school and I have studied it ever since. Unfortunately, I don’t have money to go back there, but luckily in California we have Little Toyko. Any Japanese thing you want is there. My favorite noodle house there is a place called Daikokuya.
It’s a small place, but it has these interesting old Japanese ads there. The wait can be long at times, but the food is good and the price is right. The headliner is ramen, and it is the best you can get int he states. You have to understand that this isn’t like the ramen you buy in the supermarket, it is very different. My mom likes Japanese food, but unfortunately she found out she doesn’t ramen, so I have to say it is not for everyone.
Anyhow, that is the boring part. I really like Little Tokyo, but I wasn’t going to just blog about ramen. Have you ever had one of those moments you didn’t realize it was a big deal, but then afterwards you were like “Oh, that was a big deal.” I have been trying to improve my home movies. I can’t say that I will ever be good, but I want my videos to be at least a little more interesting. So while I walking through Little Tokyo I was taking what is known as “B roll.” Basically “B Roll” is just filler film that you can use later when bridging a gap in your film. Here is what I shot:
Nothing really exceptional, just a little stroll through Little Tokyo, a quick pan of a few shops, a street performer in the background. Or so I thought until I saw this: (go to 33:38)
Yep, that was my brush with greatness. I met Arthur Nakane and I didn’t even know it. I should of know he was famous, my son really liked him. In fact AJ liked him so much we listened to three of his songs. I wish I would of filmed more of him. Had I known I was watching someone who would go onto America’s Got Talent I certainly would have. The guy is entertaining, but the competition is stiff so I don’t think he is going to win, but if this guy does go on to win the competition, we will be able to say “we saw him before he got famous.” I wish I would have gotten an autograph.
Click on a picture to enlarge.
Today was the Crestline Jamboree Days here in Crestline. The Chamber of Commerce puts it on every year. Usually, it consists of a parade, fair, and fireworks, but this year there was no money for fireworks. Lucky for us the parade starts right in front of our house.
The parade is fun it has lots of different types of entries: <
AJ got a couple of pictures with the local celebrity:
AJ’s favorite part of the parade was the candy. He definitely got a lot of it:
After the parade they have a little fair: For three dollars I got a Cream Cheese Wonton, Chop Suey, and some Teriyaki Chicken. For those of you who say that I wasn’t very American I would remind you that all of those things were invented in the United States (really Google it). The celebrations here in Crestline are very small town, but it was really fun. Here is a little video I made of our festivities:
About a year ago I described my encounter with my cousin who lives in this alternative universe. In this alternative universe people walk in beautiful settings and campout under the stars.
<— A view towards Lake Silverwood from about 3 miles up the trail.
A view towards the 15 and a place called Horse Thief Canyon:
That is the good part of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). The PCT has always been a mesmerizing thing for me. Living so close to the PCT in Crestline it is almost in my backyard. Recently my Scouts decided that they wanted to get their hiking merit badge. To do this they have to hike one 20 mile and 5 10 mile hikes. I wanted to help them with this so I planned what I thought would be a 10 mile hike.
Me at the Cleghorn road:
A simple plan really, camp overnight at Lake Silverwood and then hike a one-way hike to the McDonald’s 10 miles away. Unfortunately, I made two major mistakes. First mistake was that I used Google Earth to map the route. It lied, it calculated it out a little over 10 miles. After redoing the calculation after the hike it turned out our whole route was actually 14 miles. I did not do this entire 14 miles because at about 9 miles I realized my second mistake. That of not getting a topographical map. I had a good map, it showed all the required landmarks well, it just didn’t show the altitude change. If it had, it would of told me that out of those 14 miles, only three of them were downhill. The rest had various levels of incline. After seeing the third (and last peak) I knew I knew I wasn’t going to make it. My ankle was swollen, my knees were sore and I only had a quarter of a bottle of water left. It was time to evacuate. Lucky for me this trail has a lot of “off-ramps.” When I did realize I couldn’t make it, I doubled back and went onto Cleghorn Road. Since I didn’t know how my ankle was doing I tried to hitch a ride back to the 138. I didn’t get a ride, but two people did give me water. It was slow go, but I did make it to the 138.
This is where I ended up:
A AWD staging ground.
It wasn’t all bad. First of all my Scouts along with the Scout Master made it to the end of the trail. The wild life was pretty impressive. I saw lots of flowers and beautiful little streams. I can’t even count the number of lizards that I saw (lots of different types).We also saw a black bear cub, luckily we never found his mother. It was good hike, no one got hurt, and we met the requirements for the merit badge. Crazy thing is some of my Scouts decided to go on later and do another 6 miles so they could do their 20 miler, I wish I had that energy.
Here is a map of what I walked(the red is what I did, the green is the trail, the goal was to get to that big yellow line called the 15):
On Monday June 14th, we went to Disneyland for the last time on our Disney Premium passes. I have been a Disney passholder since 1999. Back then you could get a annual pass for $99 dollars. There was only one pass and it was good all year long. Over the years Disney passes have steadily gone up in price and now it cost $419 for a Premium pass (the pass that lets you in year round).
Sorry for this long trip report, but it was our last time for at least a year. If you want to see more of picture click on it to expand it.
AJ will turn 3 this year and so he will now have to have a ticket to go to Disneyland. So if we got three passes that would cost us $1257. We could afford that if we wanted to, but then we would have no budget to do anything else. There are lesser passes like the So-Cal Pass, but I work during the week so that doesn’t really work for me. Plus, there are too many other fun and interesting things to do here in California than just Disneyland. We plan on going to Disneyland once a year from now on. We will pick a day when we know the crowds will be down and then do what we call a “commando” day.
Anyhow, since it was our last day at Disneyland, we decided to do it the right way. This meant doing as much as we could with what we had. What we have is a two year old, so we knew we couldn’t do everything, but we knew we could do a lot.
The first thing we did was to go to Disney’s California Adventure (DCA). We were there right as it opened and immediately got in line for the World of Color fastpass line. The line was very long. The fast pass machine was at the Grizzly River Rapids, but it switch backed through out all of Condor Flats and by the time we got in the line we were in front of Soaring over California. Anyhow, since we were in front of Soarin of California, I got us a fastpass for that attraction. We only got one because we knew that we could turn it into two with a baby swap (it’s a front of the line pass you ask for when one of your party is not tall enough to go on a particular ride). I went back in line to wait and Denise and AJ went on King Triton’s carousel. By the time they were done with their carousel ride I had gotten our World of Color fastpasses and the Soarin Over California fastpass was ready to go.
On the way to Soarin Over California we got a family picture with Goofy. Denise then went on Soarin and I got a baby swap ticket. TIP: Baby swap tickets don’t have times on it so I put it in my pocket and saved it for later. While Denise was on Soarin Over California AJ and I got a picture with the Mater and Lighting McQueen cars. We also went over to the Animation Academy. We then went as a family to see Playhouse Disney Live. AJ thought it was interesting, it was fun for him because he likes to wiggle. After Playhouse Disney Denise and AJ went over to Disneyland and I went on Soarin Over California. While I was on the ride Denise and AJ got a fastpass to Space Mountain got a spot at the Pizza Port for lunch. After my trip on Soarin Over California I went to Disneyland and went on a horse drawn trolley ride up Main Street. I also went into Adventureland and got a fastpass for Indian Jones. I then met up with AJ and Denise at the Pizza Port. After lunch we went to see Captain EO.
After the show, we took the train over to New Orleans Square. TIP: Because it is hidden behind the Autopia attraction, the Tommorowland train station is generally the least crowded of the four stops (the most crowded station is always New Orleans station). After checking out the Grand Canyon (present and past), we visted the Tiki Room and then took a spin on Pirates of the Carribean. TIP: If you want a Dole Whip go see the Tiki Room and buy it from the Tiki Room side, you will get a cool treat for half the wait time. At this point we perused some of the more interesting shops of New Orleans Square (most Disneyland shops sell the same stuff but New Orleans Square does have some variety). At this point we parted ways again and I went to see Indiana Jones. Denise and AJ went on Sleeping Beauty’s carousel (the carousel was the only ride AJ specifically asked for, so we felft we should oblidge) and Goofy’s Bounce house in Toon Town.
I met them back at Goofy’s Bounce house and then we went on to see Mickey at his house (and took the obligatory picture). TIP: Mickey Mouse can be hard to find sometimes in the park, but as long as Toon Town is open, you can find him in his house (that mouse is really quick on those costume changes!). After visiting Mickey we were getting tired so we took the Monorail to Downtown Disney. We looked at the mall shops for a few minutes and then went to rest in the Grand Californian. TIP: In order to avoid crowds late afternoon is generally a quiter time to visit the Downtown Disney mall area.Even if you are not staying at the Grand Californian it can be a great place to rest, especially if you are visiting DCA.
We went to this little cafeteria place inside the Grand Californian called Whitewater Snacks for dinner. It isn’t anything special, but we like it because it is close to DCA. It is also close to the Grand Californian entrance into DCA but because the park was so crowded, they were only letting hotel guests use the side entrance. After walking back around we went through the Blue Sky Cellar. This is not really an attraction, it is more of a showcase of things Disney Imagineers are working on for the future. We were excited to see the ride vehicles for the Little Mermaid and the new Luigi Bumper Tires. Soon it was time for us to go see the World of Color show.
While we were waiting for the show to start AJ was a crack up. He quickly noticed everyone using their iphones taking pictures. He grabbed my itouch and took his own “pictures.” He was having so much fun that we didn’t have the heart to tell him an itouch doesn’t take pictures.
There was a little pre-show before the main show:
The show itself was awesome. The music, the water jets, and the special effects make it a spectacular show. It was amazing to see how high some of those jets went. I wasn’t going to sit there and film the whole show, but here are some teasers (in HD):
After the show we took the side exit back through the Grand Californian. We wanted to take the Monorail back into Disneyland since we still had a fastpass for Space Mountain. Unfortunately, it was down, we asked what was wrong and they said it was “technical dificulty.” Not uncommon, so we walked up to the front entrance of Disneyland. It was very crowded, but I still didn’t think much of it, I thought with DCA closing it was just because everyone was going now into Disneyland, plus the fireworks show had just ended and that makes Main Street very crowded. AJ by this time was asleep in his stroller so Denise decided she wanted to go window shopping. I still wanted to go on Space Mountain so I fought my way through the crowds to Tomorrowland. TIP: If Main Street is really busy go through the shops on the sides, they all connect in the back and are usually not as crowded. When I got to Tomorrowland I could tell something was wrong. None of the rides were operating. After asking a few other guests what was going on I found out that there had just been an earthquake. Anyhow, after a quick reset and test, we were allowed to go on Space Mountain. I was really glad I had a fastpass. After Space Mountain we made the slow walk to the trams and then up to the Mickey and Friends parking lot. TIP: At night the trams see if the trams are running on both sides. If so, go to the right (so that you are right next to the wall of Disneyland), it is always a shorter wait.
I saw a very interesting lecture on the idea of happiness. The lecture had a bunch of interesting ideas. Especially the idea of the experiencing and remembering self. Also interesting was the idea that while millions will probably not make you happy, you need at least 60k to be “happy.” I am not sure if that is true or not. I do know I once heard a quote that went along the lines of “a penny over budget equals misery and a penny under budget equals hapiness.” Anyhow, I will say that hapiness is really a vague concept. What equals hapiness to you, isn’t the same to me. Last Saturday I took my mom to my favorite noodle shop: Daikokuya. To me this represents the best ramen noodles in California and I feel happy when I have noodles there. My mom on the other hand didn’t like it at all. I doubt it made her very happy. The other thing I thought was interesting is that it said those moving to California only think that they are happy and that they are not really happy.
On Saturday, June 12th, we visited the Gamble house in Pasadena. Denise is subscribed to this site called Groupon. Basically it is a site in which you pre-pay your tickets in order to get a discount. Denise really likes the Arts and Crafts movement in architecture (I am more of Queen Anne Victorian person myself).
In our many jaunts into Los Angeles we often pass the Gamble house. Denise has always said that she wanted to go and visit it. So when she saw a two for one deal on Groupon, it was a no brainer that we would go there. The tickets on the web were $12 a person for a reserved ticket, but if you go the day you want your tour you can get a standby ticket for $7. The tour is about 45 mins and it takes you throughout the house. No pictures are allowed in the house, but even so, it would be hard because it was a very dark house. The thing that struck me the most was how low the lighting was in that house. According to the tour guide, electric lights were still new when the house was built and the Gambles were afraid of the effects of too much electric lighting. The other thing that stands out in the house is the wood. I guess being Arts and Crafts style you have to expect a lot of wood, but in this house it gives it a very dominant masculine feel to it. As such, I think the Gamble house is a great house to visit, but I don’t think I would want to live there. I prefer a more relaxed architectural style to my abode (I like to think of our house as post-modern tornado). After visiting the Gamble house and learning about Greene and Greene (the architects) AJ had fun chasing squirells on the hill and I had fun taking pictures of the pond.
On Friday the California leg of the AMGEN Bike race went through Crestline. I (John) had to go to work, but it seemed like the rest of Crestline got to see it. Denise and AJ went to Top Town to see it go by, it was a lot of waiting but the pace car did arrive:
Then came the racers:
There were some racers from far off places:
After the racers came the colorful support cars:
BTW, if you need a person to cheer you on AJ is a good cheerleader (we rent him out in exchange for free babysitting):
UPDATE: Thanks for coming I made a $140.
My junk is your treasure. I haven’t done a yard sale in a long time. I have a bunch of spare electronics to sell, baby clothes and toys, yard tools, fishing equipment (fresh water and deep sea), books, bolling ball, and anything else my wife can smuggle out the door. Anyhow, if you have the time and a few spare dollars some of my stuff can be yours. Hope to see you there. 7am-4pm. No early birders please.
This year was AJ’s first Father and Son’s Outing trip for AJ. I have to say that I didn’t really want to go. I had just gotten off another long week at work and the thought of going camping again wasn’t high on my priority. With a not so gentle nudge from Denise, I packed up and headed out to my 3rd campout within the last 30 days (my Scout team is making up for all those winter weekends, but that is a different story).
For our campout we went to the church parking lot (benefit I guess of going to church in the forest). AJ was definately the youngest boy there, but this was not AJ’s first campout. AJ is only two, but he is ok with sleeping in a tent and he loves to run around. That is mostly what he did on this campout. Wherever all the other kids went, that is where AJ went:
Overall, it was a fun time, and Denise got a bonus morning of doing nothing on a Sat. morning.
For those not in the know today was my birthday. Having done most of my celebrating on Saturday, I can’t say that today was not devoid of anything exhilarating. First of all, I had to work. Second, of all I was by myself. There are people who do ok by themselves, but I am not one of them. I wouldn’t say I make horrible decisions by myself, but I sometimes need to realize that some of my ideas are not that great.
Anyhow, at work today everyone was talking about KFC’s double down. Everyone was calling it a “heart attack” sandwich, but it doesn’t have any bread (unless you count the breading part). So can you still call it a sandwich if it doesn’t have any bread? So of course with my excellent single decision making skills I decided I was going to buy one after work.
After having one I have to say that my first impression is it doesn’t live up to the hype. I ordered the regular double down, but I took out the bacon (I really don’t like fast food bacon). Without the bacon it came down to two small breaded and fried breasts, two pieces of cheese, and special sauce. The combo came with one side (I got corn on the cob) and a regular soda (I got pink lemonade). Really two pieces of chicken is not that much. Tell me the last time you only ate one piece of KFC chicken at a time? Just for comparison sake I looked at some other fast food items I have tried:
Wendy’s Crispy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich : 460 Calories KFC Double-Down: 540 calories
McDonald’s Big Mac: 540 calories
Hardee’s 1/4 lb Little Thickburger: 570 calories
Burger King Angus Burger: 640 calories (I was paid to eat two of these)
Burger King Whopper: 670 calories
In and Out Double Double: 670 calories
Carl’s Jr. Six Dollar Burger: 890 calories
Ruby Tuesday’s Colossal Burger: 2000 calories (actually, I have never tried this, and it isn’t a fast food place, but the fact that it is on the menu is crazy)
Anyhow, my point is the KFC Double-Down is not the great heart attack it has been reported to be. It actually was ok, but I think I like my chicken without cheese so I probably will not be ordering it again. Oh, that is another thing; the combo was like $7.50 with tax, which is a little much for fast food for me. The two piece chicken meal is $5; I think I will stick to that in the future.
