Friday, January 30, 2009

Chasing the Kogi (again!)

Since I've introduced a Few friends to the Kogi BBQ Phenomenon, a few have wanted to "chase the truck" over again and I don't blame them. Last night Wayne wanted to go for another kogi chase so with Jolene in tow we "tried" to get to them in Little Tokyo. The operative word there is tried. Unfortunately, we got there too late and they had cut off the line in order to get to their next stop at the Miracle Mile on Wilshire. There is Wayne and Jolene coming back empty handed.
cut off

So, we hung out for a little bit in the Japanese Village. We were waiting for Celia, who just became a member of some Chinese lawyers association... yeah I don't know. I had to deliver the Hello Kitty loot that she had me pick up for her Wednesday. We decided to wait awhile and get our Kogi on at their next stop. It was a little harder to find parking in that area. There was not a lot of street parking on Wilshire and the streets perpendicular to Wilshire were either residential permits required (south of Wilshire) or taken by the residents of the dozen apartments north of Wilshire. There were a few pay lots and one shuts down at 10pm. And no one really knew which corner the truck was going to end up on. When we got there, there were people at each corner speculating/hoping that the truck will end up where they were standing. Then as the time came, everyone started heading to one corner and sure enough that's where the truck ended up. This was the line in front of us....
Line in front

and the line behind us...
Line behind

Anyway, we finally got our Kogi love and all was once again right in the world.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Hawaiian buffet to Hello Kitty

Berda told me last week that The Loft in Torrance was celebrating their anniversary by offering their All-You-Can-Eat buffet for $4.98 for the month of January (she waited to tell me this!!) so we made a lunch date. For some reason I had it in my head that we were supposed to meet at 11:30am. At 10:45am, she calls to ask if I was ok the way and that she was at the restaurant already. She said that it has been busy due to the special so "you have to be here before 11:30am." I got there right on 11:30 and their parking lot was filled and there was a crowd outside and more inside waiting to me seated.
The Loft
Luckily, Berda had gotten a table when she arrived. The buffet had everything!! There was chicken katsu, hawaiian fried chicken, char shiu, macaroni salad, even chili for your fries and/or rice! All I'm saying is you get a ton of choices for less than 5 bucks!!

Berda had an hour before her doctor appointment so we decided to walk off (yeah right!!) some of our lunch at the Target nearby. We didn't even bother with cart, the only thing on my list was those little paper thingies for cupcakes. Then we turned this corner...
shelves

Full of these tents!
Hello Kitty Tents

Berda insisted that I had to call Celia because (1) it was Hello Kitty
and (2) it was 75% off! So a Twitter and a phone call later this is
what happened!
Overload

Quite honestly, it was all a blur!! I'm still reeling.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sunday afternoon at the Marina

Chilling and noshing at Schooner or Later restaurant at the Los Alamitos Marina with Jolene .

Marina chillin'

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Walk

I've been taking different routes on my walks going to make it "bearable". So far, it has been but something else too. On these walks I've been catching myself thinking, "If I turn here it I can get this over with much faster." Today, that thought wasn't as strong. Sure I started this for many right reasons - get healthier, lose weight, blah, blah, blah.. But there was a big part of me (haha) that resented that I "HAVE" to do it.
Today that voice wasn't as loud. I hope it lasts. Ok here are some pictures.
underpath

antenna

bridge

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Today's walk

Walking around my neighborhood, I see how some people decorate/model their front lawns, walkways and porches. Some are very nice, others are very tasteful. Then I saw this...
lions

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Friday, January 09, 2009

Chasing Kogi

So Celia introduced me to the Kogi BBQ Truck yesterday during the Downtown ArtWalk.
kogi truck

So tonight Jolene was twittering how bored she was... so we went out to chase the truck. We caught up to them at the Brig in Venice. Now Kogi has one more follower!
kogi

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Just another Thursday

Well the Christmas lights and decorations came down today. In putting the stuff in their boxes, I had to figure out where to put them in the garage!
I had spent all summer emptying out the garage of junk (still not done) if anything was going back in, it was going to be organized!
I was going to put all the Christmas decorations in the "attic" of the garage. The problem was that I hadn't gotten to that part of the garage yet.
I wanted to clear just enough space for the Christmas stuff.... Talk about Blast From the Past! Here are a few things I found...

These were Laura's, they've been up in the attic since 1989!
beer collection

I never heard of this beer. Jim told me they had rebus puzzles in the cap, it did!
lucky lager

Laura was such a big Star Wars fan!
star wars tin

I have no idea why there are two of these things. They are pillows in the shape of shields from the Excalibur Hotel in Vegas.
shields

Later that night I went to the Downtown ArtWalk. Dave Bullock was displaying photos taken by the Skid Row Photography Club. There were a lot of fantastic photos! Penelope, Dave's prettier half greeted me at the Raw Materials' door. She told me that she was reading this blog and got a kick out my 52 Weeks of Music project. Penelope made these incredible carmelized lemon bars that I will need to walk off for the next couple of days! Thanks a lot Penelope!
Kathy was also hanging out tonight. We got to playing with our new iPhones and hamming it up a little...

Kathy

Kathy3

After Raw Materials closed for the night and Jim, Celia and Wonton headed home, Kathy and I thought we would check out the Association Bar next to Cole's. Just like Celia said it was a nice bar. The place is nice, cozy and still lively. The party we were next to had one girl so drunk that the place actually cut her off and told her friends that once they finished their drinks that they had to take their friend home (more like out of there).
So, who's up for the next ArtWalk?


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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Today's trot

One of my resolutions this year is to walk more. Last year's was to do three miles everyday on the stationary cycle but I wasn't satisfied with the result (read FAIL) as far as losing the tonnage so...
These were a few things I saw on the trot.























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