California

Ojai

May 29th, 2010 by alephnaught

Ojai

Aviva has mostly gotten over her surgery, so since this is a holiday weekend, we decided to drive to Ojai. Ojai is a town about one hour west of us down the 101. There are a number of resorts and spas there – we just decided to walk around and shop a little. One of […]

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…

Weekend in Palm Desert

March 1st, 2010 by alephnaught

Weekend in Palm Desert

Lily doesn’t like dogs. They’re dirty, she says – they smell and they’re dangerous. After this weekend, Aviva’s mom changed her mind a little bit. She agreed we could bring our new puppy Iggy to her house as long as we brought his “cage,” a metal and plastic fence that can be shaped in many […]

Pasadena

January 24th, 2010 by alephnaught

Pasadena

Yesterday, we decided to take a trip out to Pasadena with our new puppy Iggy. As usual, we got a late start… 🙂 Our first stop was the Armory Center for the Arts, which was formerly an armory (seems like its very popular to turn armories into art galleries); the photo show was interesting: Jeff […]

The Griffith Observatory (and dinner in Los Feliz)

January 15th, 2010 by alephnaught

The Griffith Observatory (and dinner in Los Feliz)

We decided to check out the Griffith Observatory, which stands on one of the higher hills in Los Angeles; Aviva’s brother Howard took his family up there and said the views were amazing. We stopped at Wacko on the way – its a cool store for books and odd gifts; I kid you not, there’s […]

Malibu Hindu Temple and metal animals at Oasis Imports

January 4th, 2010 by alephnaught

Malibu Hindu Temple and metal animals at Oasis Imports

We decided to go for a drive yesterday; Aviva had rediscovered the Malibu Hindu Temple and we both wanted to check it out. So we bundled all three of us, including Iggy, into the car and drove to Malibu. The temple is quite impressive as you can tell from the pictures below. Best of all, […]