The Pet Cemetery

While we were vacationing in Avalon, on the hike up to Mount Ada, this was on the walk up, The Catalina Pet Cemetery.

We had to stop in and take a look around. There was quite a variety, from the basic and humble memorial to the grand gesture.

One dog had a full on statue, and a marble plaque.

There were a couple of logs with seats cut into them.

A large monolith of driftwood.

A duck (or maybe a turkey? Looks more duck, but with the tail of a turkey to me) statue.

And a tiny replica of the Casino.

The Latest in Fashion

Not sure, I think I've made mention, but I managed to pack on a few pounds during the stupid times. I've bought several new pairs of pants and shorts to accommodate myself, and recently I've been on a T-shirt buying spree!!!

First up is a nice Counting Crows shirt I found. I've been a longtime fan, and probably would have gotten a shirt already, but I really haven't cared much for most of their designs!!! The Love Trap one is actually the one I liked best of their official merchandise, but I wasn't prepared to pay that much for such a simple design. This one I found from a 3rd party, and I like it!!! The colors and font work good together. It has 3 east coast locations and dates, must have been a thing.

Next up is one of the two Sky shirts I picked up shortly after the Sky itself. I like the simplicity and style, and I'm lacking in yellow shirts, so, cool!!! Photos added the (rather appropriate) Sci-Fi warp speed effect, so naturally that's the picture I used!!!

The next one is another music group related shirt, this time it's The Gaslight Anthem!!! I like the design, it's for American Slang, and down in the lower black portion it has the track listing. Unfortunately, while it was readable on the 'web image, on the actual shirt it's not at all legible. Oh well, still a cool design. Other downside, the transfer is one of those where it doesn't really breathe, so it's not great in warmer weather. It actually arrived the day before we went to the show, but I didn't wear it.

Next up, speaking of having an under representation of a particular color, I did a search for purple just because I don't have any that fit very well, and found this one!!! If you didn't know, it's Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy related. Don't know if I ever even mentioned, much less posted, but years ago I got another HG2G shirt, even more subtle. It pictured the bowl of petunias and sperm whale, and had in Dr. Seuss style font, “Oh no, not again!!! By Dr. Adams” I'd have to explain to the uninitiated that the quote/title was from the bowl of petunias!!! (Also, that was another of my few yellow shirts)

This shirt was featured in my most recent birthday post.

And here's another Sky shirt!!! I'm pretty sure it was advertised as a Sky Redline shirt. This one went into hiding for the longest time!!! (I've really got to clean out my closet!!!)

Next is An Appeal to Heaven flag shirt. For a while I had a Gadsden flag sticker on the back window of Scruffy, and it got sun baked and worn, so I replaced it with An Appeal to Heaven flag sticker, and at the same time I picked up this shirt. I love the message, but I'd actually never heard of it until Samuel Alito had a made up “controversy” involving it, and a bunch of the usual yellow journalists made it a thing!!!

Another thing I don't know if I ever mentioned, but trees have been falling over in the canyon across from our house for years. Last year the one at the edge of the basketball court fell and took out a good portion of the fence around it. Just a few weeks ago, a couple more fell, and it really opened up the view!!! I find the falling trees concerning, but the city and the parks department don't seem to share my concern. I took this picture with the fallen trees as the background.

This shirt was also featured in a previous post, in fact was the one I wore to The Gaslight Anthem concert, but the one picture I used, I was mostly getting the “Greek Theater” artwork, and the shirt graphic is cropped out.

And to round things out, another Counting Crows shirt, this time for Bobby and the Rat-Kings!!! One of my favorite songs by the Counting Crows!!!

The Same Late Season Vacation Where Everything Was Different

Here it is, the typical late season vacation to Catalina again, only different!!!

The first thing that changed, we took the younger's friend. He's a good guy, calls me his father figure, and I call him my surrogate son.

The next, and probably the most significant thing we changed, instead of getting a hotel room, we rented one of the many houses in Avalon!!! There's a lot of them available to rent, but a lot of them are a ways back from Crescent Street, along the front of Avalon.

This one was on the lower end of the price range (but still a little more than the hotel would have been... and without the room credit towards some of the local places, of course) and it was just a little ways from Crescent Street, right down the first street as you come into town.

Almost all the places over there are older construction, and skinny and close together. That was the case with this one. It has a good sized front living room, a skinny kitchen including stairs up to the upper loft room, then a decent sized master bedroom.

Dang, that glare off the bald dome!!!

It has air conditioning (actually several wall mount units and a couple of portable units) but the weather there was perfect, and we didn't need to use any of them.

Upstairs there's a couple of beds and a little bathroom with a shower that is encroached upon by the slant of the roof, a little sitting area, and a tiny but pretty cool little balcony.

Since there was a little kitchen, I brought some bagels and cream cheese so we could have some breakfast or snack chow without having to go out. When we got there and found there was a coffee maker and several filters, we headed over to the store and picked up coffee and creamer, and several other things.

It's a nice place, though far from perfect. 100% would stay there again!!!

There's a washer and dryer on the side of the house (bonus, there was detergent there already!!!), and a shed full of all kinds of beach toys and floats. We were in the ocean swimming 3 of the 4 days, but didn't ever use any of the stuff in the shed.

Here's another thing that was changed, they painted the 1953 Flxable Buses!!! I liked the old style, but this looks good, too, and matches the Catalina Island Company colors. I had wanted to take the Inland Tour again, but apparently they only run that tour when the cruise ships that port in Avalon tell them to or something. Not sure if that's only during the off season.

Here's another thing that was different, surrogate son made dinner one night!!! He's had some chef training, and it came out great!!! Of course, everything over there is more expensive on account of everything having to be shipped over (and there's only one full grocery store, which is the perennially more expensive Vons) but it still came out at a fraction of what we'd been spending most other nights!!!

We did a lot of playing games. For something else different on the games, my boy brought over his Binding of Isaac game, and we played it several times.

There were several games in the closet including Battleship and a weird Cityville version of Monopoly. Didn't get to Battleship, but broke out the Monopoly one night. The end game for this version is to have 4 properties with skyscrapers on them. You can add buildings without having the full set, but you can't complete a skyscraper without the full set, so there's your challenge. I got the equivalent of Boardwalk and Park Place, and was on my way to getting enough capital to build out one of my other properties. Got a couple of hits from the others landing on them (which is how I was able to complete another set of properties).

Didn't quite get the capital together, and ended up losing the game!!! Congratulations to son #3. I had fun, though. Don't 100% remember, but I think I may have not won a single game!!!

We hiked up the left side of Avalon this time instead of the right side, where the Catalina Chimes Tower is. It was a little early in the day (but not that early, I'm on vacation, dammit!!!) maybe around 1:00 PM or so, and it was still a little cloudy out.

As we ascended up the gradual rise, and easy hike, we got further into the clouds, and they were streaming through the gaps in the mountains!!! It was pretty cool!!!

Here's what my goal was for heading up this side this time, it's where Mount Ada is located. It was the home of William Wrigley Jr. and his wife Ada, and has since been converted into one of the most expensive hotels on Catalina. In the pictures I've seen it looks like a nice place, but not nice enough to justify the price, and being separated from most anything else you'd want to do on Catalina!!! A cursory search doesn't show it has an included golf cart or hotel shuttle, but for the price I would think it would.

The one thing I hadn't considered, for such a nice place it naturally is behind closed gates to keep the riff raff such as myself away!!! Nice looking gate...

A slightly related reason I'd wanted to hike up there, there's a couple of Pokemon Go gyms up there. When we vacationed there during the Stupid Times and they had expanded the distance to reach gyms, we put a couple 'Mon in one of gyms up there, and they stayed for weeks on end!!! The Pokemon in the gyms had been there a while, but when we got up there, we had no internet connection. (When we were back in downtown Avalon that afternoon, we still had no internet, it often seems very flaky over there).

Nice hike up there, though!!! We went a little further, and there was a similarly gated driveway. There was an overlook point that we explored a little with interesting semi constructed areas, and a nasty looking reservoir. On the way back, I got this shot of the place we stayed, Green Palace Junior, from the back!!! The master bedroom has nothing directly over it, but you can still hear when someone is moving around upstairs, and you can see how the little sitting room area upstairs is the only part that's square to the house.

The clouds had mostly cleared by the time we were heading down, giving a nice before and after of Avalon and the harbor.

The first night we were there, my wife was wanting Italian for dinner. The previous go-to would have been Antonio's on the waterfront, but the last time we had been there it looked like the menu had been gutted and the hours were shortened. It's since been changed to a place called Pier 24 and re opened, and it seems like the menu is back to being fairly robust (but not as much Italian-themed) and the hours restored. So there's another “new” place we went to. The sun had already set, so it was on the cool side outdoors, so we didn't get in on the outdoor seating ambiance.

We also hit some of our previous favorites, the classic Buffalo Nickel and Jack's Country Kitchen.

To round out the week, and for the final something different to round out this post, the last night we went to the Mexican place that's on the first part of the street we were staying on, Mi Casita (visible in the 2 pictures from the balcony shooting towards the beach). Good food, and it was much more enjoyable after the table of drunks left!!! They had a dessert menu, and my wife was wanting to get something from it, but it was close to closing and they only had flan left as an option, as they had shut down the ice cream machine. After we left, my son and I went to Von's for the final time and picked up a 4-pack of Reese's ice cream sandwiches, which were great, and fed all of us for less than a single dessert would have cost at Mi Casita!!!

And here's what I consider to be my prize winner photo from the trip!!!

Snowball Effect

I had mentioned at the end of my water heater post that I would likely be installing a new faucet in the bathroom. I did.

After I had installed the water heater I was talking to my friend who had recently bought the house mentioned in the Halloween post from last year. It's an old house, and the plumbing hasn't been updated. He mentioned how often one repair project will snowball into having to do something else, or more than you had intended.

We had a very basic single handle faucet that I'd put in years ago, and I know I'd replaced the cartridge one time. It had corroded around the base to where it had a couple low level holes on the base, so there was really no excuse to keep it. We spent quite a while looking at different styles, and finally settled on another single handle unit with a higher spout. It's installable with a 3-hole sink, or a single hole sink. With the 3-hole, as we have, it gets an oval plate that covers the other 2 holes. It was in stock, and as a bonus, it comes with a new, pop up drain (handy, since the old one had the pull stopper style).

The faucet installation was incredibly easy, and I was thrilled with how it came out!!! The new drain, though...

First of all, the old one was a pain to get out. You have to unscrew it from the chrome flange in the sink, and naturally it didn't want to come. Ended up bending the edge of it up, and got it's number. Hard part is over, right??? Went to put the new one in, and the threaded portion goes through with not much trouble, but it wouldn't go all the way down, stopping a couple of inches short. I tried to force the issue, but it wasn't working. I saw how it was looking chewed up at the end of the threads, and noticed it looked a little larger. Pulled out my calipers, and sure enough, the shank past the threads is an even 0.100” larger!!! What the hell??? I got the box and receipt together and took it back to the store to see if anything can be done. I had a feeling all of them are going to be like that. Of course, I wasn't taking the faucet part back, it's fine. The guy who helped me was great, since the kit wasn't complete, he said I could buy another, swap the drain and then return the whole thing. Of course, I was going to just check it before I got into all that, and as suspected, they have the same thing. Looked at the stand alone drains, and all pop ups have the same design, as did the pull rod type. They had ones with a grate that had the same size all the way up, but no. I took my new old box and drain and walked right out.

I considered buying a whole new sink bowl (maybe one with a single hole!!! And ours is a little worn looking, not terrible though) but I'm already way further into this than I wanted. I headed home, pulled out my little die grinder and went to work on the drain hole. It scattered brown dust everywhere, and stank, but I eventually got it hogged out enough for the wider portion, and after a little clean up, it went together without any more hitches.

Glad to be done with that!!!

How I Spent My Birthday

I've mentioned before, back when I started at my job they used to give you your birthday off, or a day near it. It was only a few years in that they did away with that, but gave us an extra day off. I've kept the tradition!!!

One of my favorite things to do, that I don't actually do very often, is to go to the beach. My younger as well enjoys it, and recently he's gone with some of his friends.

Here's a place that I've known of for just about most of my life, the beaches of Alamitos Bay in Long Beach. My dad would take his boats down there and launch them near Marine Stadium for whatever excursion we embarked upon, and I had an Aqua Cat catamaran that we would put in the back of my parents' station wagon or truck, disassembled, and set up on the shore of the beaches nearest the isthmus between it and the beach of Long Beach harbor. Also had been to Mother's Beach, just down from Marine Stadium, a few times.

I generally prefer an actual ocean facing beach with surf. This area is blocked by the breakwater of Long Beach harbor, and is even further back than that, so there's nearly no surf. The area his friend likes is called Horny Corner. I've heard that it was originally Hornay Corner, after Belmont Shores developer Thomas Hornay. Who knows, but you know a name like that is going to stick!!!

Another thing I'm not a fan of is the parking situation in the area. Belmont Shores is notoriously bad for parking, but on a weekday we were able to find street parking with no problem. We set up on the beach, then mostly soaked in the water for most of the time we were there!!! When we were getting ready to depart, we discussed how we were going to do it. The boy was thinking he could stay with the stuff, and we could take turns going to the showers a short way down and changing in the restrooms. I said we could just take the whole bag and both change, then get our beach chairs on the way back. We changed, then headed back on the sidewalk to keep from sanding up our shoes, made it most of the way back to the car, and remembered we'd forgotten to get the chairs!!! For the record, I saw nothing that made me especially horny at Horny Corner.

Afterwards we got some lunch at Taco Bell, where I had just heard they have a $7 Luxe Cravings box with a chalupa, double decker taco supreme, and 7-layer beefy burrito, plus chips and cheese and a drink. A lot of food for a little money!!!

In addition to all that, a few days previous we got together for a celebration at my mom's house. My sister's birthday and mine are only a couple weeks apart, so we nearly always anymore observe them both on the same day. Sometimes barbecue, sometimes out to eat, this time pizzas and sides, as well as some soak time in her pool. I had mentioned German Black Forest cake, and my wife found a recipe for Black Forest brownies!!! They were a big hit!!!

Positive Charge

It's been a long while since I had been to a concert, but I took care of that last week!!! The last time I'd been, it was Brian Fallon, the frontman for The Gaslight Anthem, who had been on hiatus for a while. Well, they got back together and put out an album at the beginning of the year, and have been touring in support of it!!!

It was at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park, probably one of the closest venues to my house. I like it, especially in the evening in the warm months. The parking, not so much for the most part. I had a few times when I've gotten tickets from my work, and they have included a parking pass, which makes it better, but otherwise they stack park you on the grass. I took the younger, it was the first concert he's been to.

I figured there would be an opening act, but I didn't look into it any. Turns out there were two!!! First up was Dirty Nil, from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, a factoid they mentioned a few times. It was a trio, and they sounded pretty good, nice rocking tunes, and they looked the part. Truth be told, both opening acts sounded better than a LOT of the stuff they play on the radio these days!!!

Second was Joyce Manor. Didn't mention, I got tickets on the side terrace, in the second row from the front, directly opposite where I was when I saw Counting Crows there. The old lady who was ushering that area said they are great seats, in her opinion better than the opposite side!!! Anyway, those seats have 4 seats in the row. We had the row to ourselves for Dirty Nil, but a couple showed up for Joyce Manor. The girl, Mary, had heard of them before and knew a lot of the songs. Mary was the kind of person you want around when you're at a concert!!! Joyce Manor sounds very punk, the singer mentioned they had gotten rid of all their CD's except The Offspring and another group in their teens (but kept a cassette of another group) but they didn't sound very Offspring, actually reminded me a bit of Rancid. One of their songs was called “Catalina Fight Song”, and you know I like Catalina!!!

Before The Gaslight Anthem came out, they brought down the lights, and started playing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” over the PA, then pulled that down and went right into “45”. When it would get to the part of the chorus where it goes “Whoah-Oh-Oh”, they brought up the lights on the audience, who would sing along and pump their fists. Good start!!!

After that they went into “Handwritten”, then “The Patient Ferris Wheel” (which, as it turns out, was the first that the boy recognized!!! Thought he knew 'em better than that!!!)

Following those, they broke out a couple from their latest album, “Little Fires” and “Weatherman”, then back to some classic stuff for the next three, then, “since we're in L.A.”, they covered the Chili Peppers' “Soul to Squeeze”, a pretty close to the album version.

I took the close up of Brian Fallon to get a picture of the bass drum head, I have no idea who that's supposed to be a picture of!!!

The complete setlist was as follows:

1. 45

2. Handwritten

3. The Patient Ferris Wheel

4. Little fires

5. Weatherman

6. Film Noir

7. Bring it On

8. Here's Looking at You, Kid

9. Soul to Squeeze (Red Hot Chili Peppers Cover)

10. Positive Charge

11. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

12. Miles Davis and the Cool

13. Keepsake

14. American Slang

15. Mulholland Drive

16. Autumn

17. Michigan 1975

18. Mae

19. Great Expectations

20. The 59 Sound 

I thought it was a great show, just about all you could hope for!!! The boy enjoyed it as well. Sure, there's always a few songs you wish they had included (for the record, both times I've seen Brian Fallon now, the cover songs he's done haven't been ones that I particularly care for!!!) but they played a lot of my highly ranked songs, and some of the good ones off the new album (could have also gone for the title track of the new album, “History Books”)!!!

An interesting post script, the time noted above where I saw Counting Crows there, I had one of Janices' famous starter issues. Nothing like that while we were there this time, but the very next evening Kutcher had a no start issue, like the battery was almost completely dead. Put it on the boost function of a large charger, and nothing. Ran said large charger for about 15 minutes, and boosted it again, and still nothing. Called for roadside assistance, and the guy came out with a portable booster, and that fired it right up... but it died the moment he took it off. Boosted it again, and it fired right up, and as long as I had it revved up some, it worked, but as soon as I let off, it died again. The guy concurred that it sounded like the battery had a sudden failure, likely a dead cell. I've still got most of a year of warranty on it, but this was also right at the time that all the AutoZones are closing for the night. I let it go, and the next afternoon after work (this was the last week of our once-a-month in office for 3 days, starting is September it'll be every week in office for 3 days... I wasn't going to be out late, then have to get up at 4 AM to go in, so I took that day off, leaving only 1 day I had to go in for the win!!!) I yanked the battery out and took it to the AutoZone. The guy checks it, and it shows 100% charged and good battery. Huh, maybe it had something to do with that crusty looking positive terminal, which didn't want to even come undone when it was on the battery, and looked like it was developing a crack near the bolt when I got it twisted off!!! Bought a couple new terminals, wire brushed the heck out of the contacts and wires, and all was good!!!

I need a spark, I need a positive charge indeed!!!

Kutcher Swallows a Water Heater

Welcome to the season of blogging very much!!!

On Monday afternoon my wife was doing the dishes, and she says, “Why isn't the water warming up??” Huh. I've heard this kind of thing before...

Down to the basement I go, and sure enough, it's wet on the floor around the water heater. Not a lot, I've seen worse, but bad enough to put out the pilot light. I tried re firing it, and it came on for a moment, but wouldn't stay going. Back upstairs, I dig through my warranty file, thinking it was a while ago, but not that long. Thought I had a 10 year warranty, but that was wishful thinking, it was only 6. Now, when did I buy it??? Here's where there's a practical application for blogging!!!

When I first did the math in my head, I'd thought it was just about 7 months out of warranty, but it's actually 2 years and 7 months. Shopped around that night and ordered the same brand, but with a 12 year warranty. Not making that mistake again!!! Or rather, I'm paying the extra $300 to get one with twice the warranty. I'd also broke loose the water inlet and outlet pipes, and ran a hose out to the street and started it draining.

I don't think I've made mention recently, but I'm back on the weekend shift for a little more than a year now. When I'd started doing this shift, it was 4 hours on Saturdays, and Tuesday through Friday for 9 hours a day. Once again, they bump your pay some for doing the weekend shift, but in my current role, it's a good amount more than when I was filling. Found out after I'd started, when the company has a paid holiday and it falls on a day you have as your day off... they give you your day off. No extra, no you get to take a different day off. I voiced my view on it and was told, “Oh, it all evens out!” SO, for Memorial Day, Labor Day, and both Christmas and New Years I got boned. When the time came around this year, I had a couple of requests. First, can I get a different day off, either Tuesday or Wednesday, and is it possible to start my Saturday shift later. I had been starting on Saturday afternoons at 3:00, and it put a time crimp in the afternoons sometimes, I asked to start later, up to 6:00 PM, and they came through with starting at 5:00, and so far (2 weekends thus far) I've liked it fine. And, long story short, now I have Tuesdays off!!!

The younger and I got in the wife's Matrix and headed over to pick up the new water heater. Took a bunch of rope, being unsure how it would fit. Slid the front seats all the way forward, and it slid right in , and the hatch closed without issue!!! If Scruffy can do it, then so can the Kutch!!! (None of us ever call it Kutcher, it's always the Toyota or the Matrix) Will It Fit: Matrix Edition part II!!! Driving back was a challenge, though, I was so far forward I couldn't really move my right foot over to the brake, so I was 2-footing it!!!

The younger and I were able to move it around fairly easily, the hardest part was the 4 steps from the street to the foot of the house. The box had instructions to cut along a dotted line around an inch up from the bottom, so that's what I did, and from there was able to roll it on the edge of the base pretty easy. The removal of the old one was easier this time, too, it seemed to have drained most every drop by having the hose attached to the drain all night. None of the fittings fought me, and about the hardest thing was locating a roll of Teflon pipe sealing tape!!! I know I had more that I'd bought from my work, but I found a roll that may have come with our house, so over 25 years old, but it worked just fine!!!

When I had gotten up on Tuesday (actually before I got out of bed) I had the thought that I should take the aerators off the kitchen and bathroom sinks, since having the water off gets a bunch of air in the lines, and it seems to knock a lot of crud loose when it comes back on. Didn't do it, and the bathroom one ended up nearly plugged. It didn't come off easy, but I flowed good once I got it off and cleaned out... but it kind of ovaled from the removal, and it seems like it's leaking down the inside now. Might be able to get it fixed up, but I'll probably be installing a new faucet soon.