A few more shots from last week from Ogii. Me climbing up potato chip rock.
Sitting on it.
Getting pictures with the fog in the background.
We like whites.
We don't like reds.
On the cable car.
Me with the balloons.
Us in the air.
It seems like all of the Helen Grace stores are closed now, so I thought I wouldn't be able to get these any more. However, some kids selling them walked by while we were waiting outside a restaurant, so I bought six of them.
Gotta love the government. Let's increase the price of post card stamps by 1 cent, but we'll only give a few sheets of the new 35-cent stamps to the post offices. Gah. So I got 50 1-cent stamps to go along with the last 50 34-cent stamps I have and then 70 new 35-cent stamps, but I practically had to beg for them. You'd think they were the last 10 vials of antibiotic against the plague or something. And the new ones are ugly, modern pictures of various birds; I miss the cute hummingbirds on the old ones.
So true.
Varoom.
Pulling up to fill gas and a guy standing by the door of the gas station said, "Other side." Some of the pumps weren't working, so I thought he meant this pump wasn't, but it looked fine. So I looked at him quizzically and said, "The gas is on the other side." There was another gas station across the street, so maybe this entire station wasn't working, or maybe he was some crazy guy boycotting this station for whatever reason? So I looked at him quizzically again and he said, "The gas tank is on the other side of the car." Ah, OK. So I yelled back that that's the electrical plug and the gas tank really is on this side.
I share this room with an ophthalmologist. He seems like like to tear the alochol pad wrappers in half but then not use them all. My OCD doesn't like that because then when they're back in the box they move all around instead of sitting snugly.
It's hot outside.
The dumb washer will sit on 1 minute for quite a few minutes some times.
We moved Ogii's big glass table inside and put the couch and a small table on the patio instead so there's a little more room out there.
A dispenser with both Coke and Pepsi at Target. I've seen these at little gas stations that didn't really care about the vendors yelling at them, but never at a large chain before.
Slate used to be a great website with quality writing. Now it's gone the way of clickbait titles and the same article linked to multiple times on the front page.
A patient was reading this book when I walked into the exam room, so I asked him about it. He said it was his favorite book, but since he'd read it multiple times, I could have it. That's nice of him, but it seems like he really does like this one; he's even taped up the side. So I'll read it and then mail it to him or give it back during his next appointment.
Sunset over downtown.
I bought a new shaver with the little bar cutter in the middle because otherwise if it's only the foils it tends to miss some hairs by my jaw.
However, this one doesn't have a light that turns on when the batteries are about to run out, and it doesn't slowly get weaker, it dies instantly. Not a big deal if I'm at home, but it's a huge pain if I'm on a trip because I wouldn't noramlly haul the charger with me. So now I have to try to remember to charge it each week or something.
If the car behind me had stopped a little closer to the center the bus could get by. Drivers in LA tend to not think about things like that much.
Dr. Sage gave me this book; nice.
The put in new floors and painted the windows at this office. It's much brighter now.
Sophia helped us buy some new poker table tops. These don't have all the fuzz that the felt ones do, so hopefully they'll work better.
Our internet doesn't reach to the pool, so I bought a wifi extender.
It's working.
The main wifi is around 40 Mbps.
And the extension is about third of the speed of the regular wifi. However, that's still fast enough to do pretty much everything I need to.
Now I can be on the internet by the pool.
We went to Pasadena for poker on Thursday night. Katelyn mentioned a rib food truck that was supposedly really good, so we looked it up online and headed for it.
However, it wasn't there. On their Twitter page they mentioned their current location, though, and thankfully it was only a few minutes away.
They were just opening as we arrived, so they didn't even have their menus out yet, but we found one online.
Waiting in line.
Lots of gas to run everything.
This was a fun hand. Ogii went all in with a medium-sized stack, then Aelred went all-in behind her. I had JJ, which is usually pretty good, and I might be ahead of Ogii, but I doubt Aelred is reshoving with any pair lower than jacks. She might do it with AK or AQ, though, and then I might be ahead. So I called. Ogii and had jacks and Aelred has AK. Aelred hit her A to knock Ogii out and take a big chunk out of my stack. The very next hand someone else knocked Aelread out. I was doing well and we were at the bubble when I went all-in with AQ and someone, after a lot of thinking, decided to call with 55. I didn't hit anything and was knocked out as the last player to not make any money. A fun tournament, though, and I think we both played well.
That looks yummy.
I bought some travel duct tape to put in the hiking backpack.
You can buy lotto tickets at the gas pump? I guess, since you can buy them at kiosks.
Getting ready for the 4th of July by baking red, white, and blue mini muffins and watching Independence Day.
The first batch burned because while Ogii set the oven for 350 it for some reason went up to 450 according to the thermometer inside the oven. Weird. Thankfully the rest came out fine.
Oops, put a little too much batter in that one.
A couple of hummingbirds at sunset.
One landing.
A video of them.
We got up at 3am on Saturday to hopefully get a fire pit at the beach. The cops had blocked off this road for some reason.
The US Bank tower was red, white, and blue.
There was already a line of cars waiting to park at the beach when we got there, but we were pretty close to the front. They opened at 5am.
Normally parking at Huntington Beach is $15. It seems against the holiday of freedom to charge more.
We got a firepit, a picnic table, and a volleyball court: success. Actually John got the picnic table with a pit and we got a separate pit, so we left ours for someone else and went to his.
It's sounded like some liquid has been rolling around in the back of the car the past few months but I could never find anything. Today when we were pulling out the extra volleyballs from the corner of the trunk we found a bottle of rum.
Donuts.
Danny testing one of the donuts.
It was pretty overcast in the morning and it took a while for other people to show up, so a few of us just hung around and chatted.
Ogii was a bit cold.
The two of us in red, white, and blue.
Now it's getting warmer; we can ditch the shirts.
Chopping up wood for the firepit.
Someone brought ladderball, which was a ton of fun. You throw roped balls at the ladder and get three points for getting them to hang on the top rung, two for the middle, and one for the bottom.
And cornhole.
A round of Jell-O shots.
Time for volleyball.
Ooh, I even got off the ground a bit for this serve.
Another guy in full 4th of July colors.
Coming up for a block.
A diving hit.
Another hit and block.
Backwards.
Going up.
The bathrooms are out of toilet paper and it's not even noon yet; it's packed here. The line for the bathrooms was pretty long the entire day, too.
Lots of food and drink.
Some more ladder ball.
Does the one hanging on the other one instead of the rung count?
Frisbee.
Run for it.
Some veggies over the fire.
Back to volleyball.
Going low.
Ogii serving.
Big leap.
There's starting to be a good group of people now.
Grilling.
Good shot.
More people at volleyball.
Ogii hitting.
Kicking.
A guitar.
More food on the fire.
Chatting.
Chicken.
Talking around the fire.
KanJam, where you throw a frisbee into a can.
Some planes in formation.
Soccer.
Kicking up lots of sand.
Goal!
And back to volleyball for a bit.
Gotta get in a few more games before sunset.
The sun is almost down.
Everyone around the fire.
Ogii wrapped up in a blanket.
With a S'more.
Me eating one.
We took off before the fireworks started because we didn't want to deal with the mess of traffic. Since we had brought two folding tables, it took a while to clear everything left off of those and put them onto the picnic table, but it wasn't too bad.
Plus, we got to see tons of fireworks all around us on the drive home.
I bought a plant for the office. However, when I replanted it, its roots were all really jammed together at the bottom, so I had to go back and get a larger pot for it.
We've thought about renting out the den, but there is so much competition on AirBnB that we'd make almost nothing. You could get a guest house near an amazing place like this for the same amount we'd want to rent the room for.
This dumb "shake to send feedback" alert pops up at times when you're driving and you go over a bump. No, go away.
Dinner at a Mongolian restaurant that opened nearby.