On May 21, Michele and I participated in the Big Parade III – a fun walk through the streets, stairways, and walkways of Los Angeles. Although the parade lasted two days, Saturday and Sunday, we only did Saturday’s walk.

We met early in the morning (8:00 AM!) at Angel’s Flight in downtown Los Angeles with a crowd of around 150 people. The organizer of the parade, Dan Koeppel, led us around some interesting stairways in walkways around the skyscrapers before heading towards Olvera Street. Here we got to hear some history from a sixth generation marketplace vendor and toured Avila Adobe, the oldest house in Los Angeles.

From their we made our way to Union Station and then up through Chinatown. After Chinatown, a very interesting part of our walk started – we travelled along a trail that was right in the middle of the Pasadena Freeway. There is a little known pathway that is right beside the Southbound lanes of the highway. This is probably a route that I would not want to take without a large group though – it was fairly isolated and a little sketchy.

We left the freeway path and started along the LA River, where we had lunch in a pocket park. We left the river and then climbed up into the hills of Echo Park. Here the mist grueling part of the walk began. We twisted and turned our way through Echo Park, hitting lots of stairways along the way. Dan planned a great route that didn’t repeat any portions and managed to go up most of the major stairways in the area – the longest one was the Baxter Stairway with 237 steps up.

After that we walked some more stairways in Sliverlake, saw the old Victorian mansions along Carroll Avenue and ended up at the bottom of the Music Box staircase in Silverlake.

This was only day one of the walk. Sunday’s walk went from Silverlake to the Hollywood Sign, but we did not participate. Saturday was a great day and we are looking forward to it again next year. In the meantime I’ve started exploring some of the stairways in Hollywood.

Here is a great event going on in LA July 25 – The Brew Haw Haw Cystic Fibrosis Beer Festival.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it, but it looks like fun and it’s for a great cause too!

On July 25, 2009, the Los Angeles office of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation will host the second annual “Brew Haw Haw” on the Pine Meadows Lawn of the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, from 3pm-7pm.

This ultimate outdoor festival will include live music, food stations, lively auctions – and, of course, beer tasting. Here is your opportunity to Sample Great Brews poured by the region’s best microbreweries, and Savor Great Cuisine from Los Angeles’ most popular restaurants, all while supporting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as we work to raise funds for a cure.

Participants include Anheuser-Busch, BJ’s Brewery, Boston Beer Company, Coronado Brewery, Firestone Walker Brewery, Mad River Brewing Co., Oskar Blues Brewery, Port Brewing Co.,Pyramid Brewery, Sierra Nevada, Stone Brewing Co., Woodchuck Cider, Wyder’s Cider, Paramount Farms, Stonefire Grill, “We Bring it to You” Catering, Honest Tea, POM Wonderful and State of Mind Water, just to name a few.

All of the proceeds of this event will be used to fund the life-saving work of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Some of you may know our good friend Erin. Erin recently got laid-off, and has taken the opportunity to go traveling around Europe. She is also going to be blogging about her travels.

Those of you who know know she gets up to all kinds of hi jinks and she is funny and a good writer, so go follow her exploits at TheLOP.net

Last Monday and Tuesday we decided to make a trip to Big Bear Lake to go skiing at Snow Summit.  We have a trip to Whistler coming up, so we wanted to get some skiing in before then.

We started out on Monday morning a little after 9:00am.  We made it to Big Bear Lake at about 11:20am. Just over two hours isn’t too bad to get to some good skiing.  We decided to have lunch at Blondie Grill and Bar. They had a suprisingly good vegetarian selection.  I had a Cick N Veggie Wrap and M had a Soy Chicken Parm. My wrap was not too bad. M was suprised that her’s cam with spaghetti, but she ended up deciding that it was a good thing.  

After lunch we checked into our hotel, the Northwoods Resort. Although it was only about noon, we were able to check into out room. That was good because it allowed us to change into our ski clothes. The weather was very warm, so I just wore jeans, a t-shirt and a light fleece.

We started towards the mountain when we realized that it would probably be better to rent our skis in the Village instead of going to the base of the slope to rent. We made the right decision. We stopped at a place called Bellows and the rentals were much cheaper, skis we $12 for the first half-day and $14 for the next day. The place was empty and we got our skis quickly. The only downside was that they didn’t have any high-performance skis. Next time we’ll have to try to find a place that carries them.

We were on the slopes by about 1:00pm. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny. We took a couple of runs on the bunny slope to warm up and then starting skiing on Summit Run. A nice easy green one. We skied that until Michele got tired around 3:30. I then went for another three runs on some black diamonds until the lifts closed at 4:00p.

After skiing we headed back to the hotel and freshened up for dinner. The good thing about Northwoods is that it is right in the Village. We walked up and down the main street to look for a good place for dinner. The Himalayan Restaurant looked good, but we decided on Peppercorn Grille instead. It turned out to be a good choice. We had some salad for starters and I had Cannelloni and M had Lasagna. Both were good. For desert we had a pumpkin cheesecake. The service was good, but a little slow because they were so busy.

The next day we slept in a little and had breakfast at the hotel. We had some half-decent omelettes. We didn’t hit the slopes until about 11. We skied mostly chair 9 where M got comfortable with the intermediate runs. We had veggie burgers for lunch at the bottom lodge. I skied a bunch more black diamonds after M had had enough around 3.

It was a very enjoyable trip and we really liked doing the overnight stay, instead of rushing to get as much skiing in as possible in a single day with a bunch of driving.

Last week my brother and his wife were in town and we decided to take a trip up to Paso Robles to do some wine tasting.

We decided to take the scenic route there, going up PCH through Pacific Palisades and Malibu. We stopped in Santa Barbara for lunch. We parked on Stearn’s Wharf and ate at the Harbor Restaurant. I had Ahi Tuna Melt which were OK, but not really what we expected – they were not open faced. M had Mussels in Green Curry Broth, which she enjoyed. We had Hinano Beer, which is from Fiji. The waitress told us it was a Medium to Dark beer, but it turned out to be very light. It wasn’t bad, but I would probably not order it again.

After lunch we walked down the pier and along the beach for a little bit – before heading out again. We again chose the scenic route and took 154 towards Los Olivos. We decided to stop at a Vineyard and randomly ended up at Rusack Vineyards. We tried a wine flight and we all liked the Sangiovese, so we each bought a bottle.

After the wine tasting we headed back up 101 to Paso Robles and easily found our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites Paso Robles. The hotel was nice, nothing special, but clean and comfortable. We were in the “new” building across the parking lot from the lobby. We made reservations for dinner at Artisan and opened up one of the bottles that we had bought earlier.

About 20 minutes before dinner we headed to the lobby of the hotel to get them to call us a cab. They warned us that the cab company stopped running at 9:00pm so we could be out of luck on the way home. The cab that showed up was North County Taxi. The fare was only $5.00 to the restaurant.

We got to Artisan at 7:00 and it was fairly busy – there were only 2 open tables, so we were glad we had made reservations. We weren’t expecting it to be so busy on a Wednesday. The food was very good all round. I had a crab cake for appetizer and pumpkin ravioli. M had a Gouda fondue for appetizer and the ravioli as well. I had the trio of creme brulees and M had the Chocolate Pave and Peanut Butter Ice Cream. I would definitely go back there if I was ever in Paso Robles for dinner again. We asked our waitress for a taxi and the same cab driver showed up again.

The next morning we woke up, had some free breakfast at the hotel and hit the wineries. Our first stop was Vina Robles where we had Cuvée Collection Tasting Paired with Artisan Cheeses. The cheeses were great. The Winery was new and very impressive looking. We asked about sparkling wines in the area so she suggested we try Robert Hall which was across the street. We went there, but unfortunately they no longer made the sparkling wine so we moved on.

Our next stop was Falcon Nest Winery. This was a much smaller winery compared to the last two we visited. The owner, Francesco, was pouring the wines in the tasting rooms and telling stories. We had a great time listening to him tell us about his adventures in the hotel and restaurant industries all over the world. We also had some good wines. We were the only ones there the whole time. I guess they don’t get much business on a rainy Thursday in January. After the regular four tastings (one which he poured twice by mistake), he also started giving us various “blends” by simply pouring wine from two different bottles. We ended up buying a Syrah and a Zinfandel from there. They also had lunch there that might be good for next time we are in the area.

Francesco recommended we go see his neighbor, Tom, at Rio Seco. When we got there we asked for just tastings of his red wine, but he insisted we try one white wine he was proud of, the Vio Rio – a Viognier and Orange Muscat blend. We were glad we tried this one, it was very good and we ended up buying 2 bottles. We didn’t like the reds there very much. Tom was an ex-baseball scout, and used to work for the Blue Jays so we talked about baseball and Toronto. There were also two very cute and friendly dogs there who greeted everyone when they heard a car pull up.

Next we headed to Cass Winery, where we knew that lunch was available. For lunch we had crab cakes and split a demi loaf. There was also a wine pairing, but I think our taste buds were shot by that time and we couldn’t really tell if the wine was good. We wanted dessert, but the regular chef was in Las Vegas, so they didn’t have any.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel where my brother and I went to the hot tub and had a few beers while the girls napped. That evening we decided to go to a place called Level 4 for dinner. Once again, we went to the lobby to get a taxi and the same cabbie from the night before showed up. We decided to go downtown a little earlier and see if we could find a place to have a drink before dinner. After wandering around a little bit, we couldn’t really see anything interesting.

We got to Level 4 a little early, so we had a drink at the bar. I had some Firestone DB on tap and everyone else had Algonquins. (Algonquins are 1 1/2 ounces rye whiskey, 3/4 ounce French vermouth and 3/4 ounce pineapple juice – everyone agreed that the drink were better after doubling the amount of pineapple juice.)

We were seated in the dining room which was empty except for one other table. For some reason the hostess decided to seat us right beside the other table. All four of us split an artisan cheese plate and champagne to start. The cheese was OK. For dinner I had garlic fries to start and then halibut on crispy rice. I really enjoyed everything. M had tempura shrimp, which was very good, a Caesar salad and a twice baked potato, which were OK.

As we were getting ready to pay the check the hostess came over and said someone was on the phone asking if we wanted to be picked up. It was our regular cab driver making sure we could get back to the hotel before her shift was over. That was very nice.

The next morning we checked out and drove through the rain and fog to Hearst Castle. We took Tour 2: The Casa Grande Tour. It went through many of the bedrooms, two libraries, the kitchen and the indoor pool. The castle was spectacular and the tour was pretty interesting. We were lucky that we had picked a tour that was mostly inside because it was raining most of the time.

After Hearst Castle drove a few miles up Highway One to go to the Elephant Seal viewing area. January was a great time to go because it is birthing season and there were lots of pups and their mothers on the beach. The pups were very noisy, trying to get attention from their mothers.

We headed back south and stopped in Cambria for lunch. We went to Robin’s Restaurant, which turned out to be a good choice. I had halibut tacos and M had salmon bisque and an avocado sandwich. We had carrot cake for desert. It was all good. After that we headed back to the 101 for the trip back to L.A.

It’s a very sad day for us in Los Angeles. Our favorite radio station, Indie 103.1, is going off the air. Right now they are still playing music (Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Clash, X, Sid Vicious, Black Flag) with the following message between each song:

This is an important message for the Indie 103.1 Radio Audience -

Indie 103.1 will cease broadcasting over this frequency effective immediately. Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option — to play the corporate radio game.

We have decided not to play that game any longer. Rather than changing the sound, spirit, and soul of what has made Indie 103.1 great Indie 103.1 will bid farewell to the terrestrial airwaves and take an alternative course.

This could only be done on the Internet, a place where rules do not apply and where new music thrives; be it grunge, punk, or alternative – simply put, only the best music.

For those of you with a computer at home or at work, log on to www.indie1031.com and listen to the new Indie 103.1 – which is really the old Indie 103.1, not the version of Indie 103.1 we are removing from the broadcast airwaves.

We thank our listeners and advertisers for their support of the greatest radio station ever conceived, and look forward to continuing to deliver the famed Indie 103.1 music and spirit over the Internet to passionate music listeners around the world.

Indie was a truly great radio station that played the music we liked. They had DJ’s that played music that they wanted to. Some of the more famous people they had on the air were Steve Jones, Dave Navarro, the Crystal Method, Rob Zombie and Henry Rollins.

I was just thinking the other day that Indie was my favorite radio station of all time. I really liked CFNY in Toronto back in the 80′s, but Indie was even better than that. They rarely played a song that I didn’t like.

I will miss it.

I love this blog. Unnecessary quotation marks are a constant source of amusement for me.

Last month I made a trip to Dubai in United Arab Emirates and Doha in Qatar. This was my first trip to the Middle East so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

We went to Doha to watch a MotoGP race, so we didn’t really see much of the city, so I will only comment on Dubai here. The MotoGP race deserves a posting on its own.

The pace of development in Dubai is overwhelming. There are cranes and road construction absolutely everywhere. I used to think the Las Vegas strip was growing quickly, but this is on a completely different scale. The population in 1969 was 60,000. Now it is 1.8 million. Not only is there a lot of construction going on, the scale of the building is amazing. We saw Burj Dubai, the worlds tallest building, under construction. There are also huge malls going in. One condo building was saw advertised had 120 floors. It’s hard to tell in the picture below, but Burj Dubai is surrounded by a lot of other building under constructions. It’s like they just decide to build a new city and put it up in a few years.

Dubai is very cosmopolitan. 80% of the population of Dubai is from outside of the UAE. This makes English the common language for everyone. Almost everyone we met spoke very good English (there was one cabbie who seemed to have a little trouble understanding us) and all the signs that we saw were in English only or English and Arabic. Any tourist who speaks in English will have no problem getting around.

All the new development and the prominent English actually made things a little less interesting from a traveling point of view than I imagined. It is very hard to find any type of culture in Dubai. Walking through the Mall of the Emirates (currently the biggest mall outside of North America until the next mall is finished in Dubai) was like walking through a mall in any suburb in the US or Canada.

That being said there were some interesting things I hadn’t experienced before. All the loudspeakers blaring prayers from the mosques five times a day was different. We also went to check out the Souks (markets) in the older part of town (but really not that old, we have older building in L.A. and that’s not saying much). To get to the Souks we used a Dhow (ferry boat, see picture below) to cross Dubai Creek – that was a pretty interesting experience.

Overall I had a great time, but I don’t know if I would hurry back unless I had a specific reason to do so, like maybe MotoGP again next year

Ever wanted to know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino?

Check out this great illustrated guide.

I have to agree with Jason Calacanis’ observations about Pinkberry. They are getting closer and closer. For those of you who don’t know, Pinkberry is a natural frozen yogurt shop that is all the rage in L.A. right now.

Our closest Pinkberries is on Melrose, probably about a mile away. Recently another yogurt shop, very similar to PinkBerry, Cantaloop, opened up about a quarter of a mile from our place. Now they are building a new Pinkberry a few hundred feet down the street from our place. I expect one in our lobby early next year.

We have been to both PinkBerry and Cantaloop a few times, and have enjoyed it. And we like to think they are fairly guilt-free too (not that I’ve dared to look at the nutritional information yet, we’ll just take for granted that it’s healthy). Now that one is opening so close, I’m sure we’ll be having more fro-yo in the future.

It looks like there is definitely a new frozen yogurt invasion going on. Can’t anyone remember what happened to all those TCBYs that opened up in the nineties?