Thursday, August 13, 2009

There and Almost Back Again

Sorry for the delay. As always I prefer numbering over bulleting.

La Brea Tar Pits.
1-Sciency and fun all at the same time. There was a humongous white board above Pit 91 with fun facts. Here are some: It is a common misconception that Dinosaurs are found in the pits. Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago (sometime in between minute three and four of the third hour of the sixth day of creation) The tar Pits only formed 50,000 or so years ago. They do have tons of cool stuff though. Full Mammoth skeletons, over 150 bison. Thousands of wolves.
1-The tar isn't hot.
1-They find about 2500 full skeletons each year
1-If I may think aloud for a sec, I have a dumb question. Why do only bones come out? Shouldn’t most of the bodies be intact because there’s no oxygen or anything to cause decomp. The bodies are basically in a black sludgy vacuum.

1-The Paleontologists work in the middle of the museum behind glass. The pressure must be intense. I for one would never have been able to consult on bank taxes if snot- nosed kids and Japanese tourists were knocking on the glass in front of me.

1-The LA Jewish community is so much bigger than I thought. Also so much frummer.

1-Biggest pet peeve about LA- The sidewalks are two feet off the ground. Try as I might I couldn’t open the car door without it getting stuck on the sidewalk or grass. This is why nobody in LA carpools. It’s impossible to get out on the passenger side

Shabbos in Hancock Park-

1-Some firsts. I tried my first piece of herring. It was slimy and weird and I felt like I was eating Flipper. Nothing is sacred anymore.

1-Somehow there are enough Yiddish speakers in LA that Rabbis give shabbos drashas in Yiddish.

1-Saturday night I had my first Chimichanga, a fried burrito. This was followed by my first morning of not sleeping and being sick as hell.

Angel Stadium

1-Now this is a nice new classy ballpark. It was one of the first to have the now ubiquitous and mandatory dark green seats. It gives a fan the opportunity to walk completely around the park and chill in the Budweiser Patio in the outfield above the bleachers (which I sat in on Achva west on what can be considered road trip part 0. I think the Indians won. I remember Jim Thome having a huge Homer.) and more efficient terracing of all seat are effectively closer to the field than in parks of yesteryear.

1-There was a 60 ish woman wearing all red angels gear cheering on every play. She even yelled to john lackey after each inning as if he would acknowledge and wave back saying something like "thanks for shouting my name so much and encouraging me. Otherwise I just might not have had the strength to come out to the mound each inning." What made this better was that traditional roles were reversed. Her husband was absolutely disinterested in the game. He had headphones and was reading the newspaper. He also had a page of the paper on his head to block the sun. I don't think he looked at the field for one pitch.

1-Oh and did I mention that our tickets were free? We were very late and were negotiating with the woman behind the ticket window when some guy just taps Ushi on the shoulder and hands us two tickets. No white board required. I try to repay him with a beer or some such inside, but he says he's not drinking today.

Huntington Beach
1- Ran for a while on the beach in the morning. It should go without saying that, it was unbelievably amazing. I tried to cool off with a dip in the ocean. Only the water was zero degrees. Did not expect to freeze on a beach in CA in August. Happily, this also allowed me to fulfill the mandate of this trip by making it a legit coast to coast trip.

1-The garbage trucks here are from the future. They have motorized arms that pick up the cans and dump the garbage into themselves.

1-I was privileged to have front row seats to another spectacular performance last night. I sat on a beach chair and watched the sunset listening to some Arcade Fire, Pearl Jam, and other chillaxingly awesome songs. Sadly no stars came out because of the famous California smog.

So close and yet so far.

Me

1 comment:

NarshBed said...

"1-The Paleontologists work in the middle of the museum behind glass. The pressure must be intense. I for one would never have been able to consult on bank taxes if snot- nosed kids and Japanese tourists were knocking on the glass in front of me."

Would you be able to consult on bank taxes if no kids or Japanese tourists were knocking on the glass in front of you?

What if there were snot-nosed kids but not Japanese tourists?

What if there were kids but they weren't snot-nosed?

What if they were snot-nosed Japanese tourist kids?