Los Angeles

Photos from Santa Monica Pier

July 28th, 2010 by alephnaught

Photos from Santa Monica Pier

The IT group I work in took an afternoon off at Santa Monica Pier, which is a shopping and amusement park out over the Pacific off the Santa Monica beach. I won a small plush fish for Aviva and otherwise talked and took pictures….

Birthday dinner – Firenze Osteria

July 3rd, 2010 by alephnaught

Birthday dinner – Firenze Osteria

We’ve eaten at quite a few Osteria in Italy – those eateries are typically high quality but offer a more limited menu than restaurants; we’ve usually had great success eating at osterias. And Firenze Osteria is no exception! Here is the description from their flyer: A stone’s throw from Universal Studios, Firenze Osteria is setting […]

Metldown, Farmer’s Market and Venice Beach + @thegeo & @sinburned & @judemanchu

June 6th, 2010 by alephnaught

Metldown, Farmer’s Market and Venice Beach + @thegeo & @sinburned & @judemanchu

Today is Nathan’s last day on this visit; he had arranged for us to meet up with @sinburned and @judemanchu at Meltdown, a famous comic book store in LA (in west Hollywood). We shopped and talked, and then headed over to the Farmer’s Market for lunch; we all ended up eating from the Singapore’s Banana […]

Little Tokyo

June 5th, 2010 by alephnaught

Little Tokyo

Today I took Nathan down to Little Tokyo so he could shop the anime shops and spend some time with an on-line friend of his that tests games for a living. I took two videos with my iPhone – the first of a cool sculpture I found in the entry way of a building: And […]

Lip Service

June 3rd, 2010 by alephnaught

Lip Service

Nathan wanted to check out a clothing store that specializes in custom and steampunk clothing called Lip Service. It took over an hour to drive there, but it was worth it – they make the clothes there, and they have some really great designs!

Aviva’s birthday!

May 13th, 2010 by alephnaught

Aviva’s birthday!

We decided to go out for dinner; Aviva wanted to try a seafood restaurant in Calabasas called Kings. The food was very good; the decor was similar to family-style seafood places in Chicago, but the food was much better. Aviva had king crab legs and I had a steelhead filet with a dry rub – […]

Pictures from Earth Day in Santa Monica and shopping in Venice, CA

May 1st, 2010 by alephnaught

Pictures from Earth Day in Santa Monica and shopping in Venice, CA

Many pictures taken during the Earth Day celebration on the Promenade in Santa Monica and a trip shopping in Venice, CA.

Universal City

April 20th, 2010 by alephnaught

Universal City

I noticed via TripIt that a former colleague from LaSalle Bank was coming to town for a week on business, so we arranged to have dinner. We ate at Karl Strauss Brewery – the beer was wonderful and the food was also quite good; I had their mac and cheese with meats – extremem comfort […]

Pictures from West Hollywood and Lookout Mountain

April 11th, 2010 by alephnaught

Pictures from West Hollywood and Lookout Mountain

We decided to play hookie on Saturday afternoon and shopped around West Hollywood. On the way home we saw Lookout Mountain, which was a big hippie spot in the ’60s and has some great lookouts, so we drove up it part way; we got to a narrow section and had to back out to let […]

Wherein we take the in-laws to Chinatown (and a few other pictures too)

March 16th, 2010 by alephnaught

Wherein we take the in-laws to Chinatown (and a few other pictures too)

Aviva’s mom Lil and one of her brothers, Brian, came to visit us. I took a day off and we decided to go to Chinatown. In addition to pictures we took in Chinatown, there are a couple shots from a shopping trip at a garden supply shop and Aviva meeting the monster…