California, here I come...

We went to visit the prodigal son over the Fourth of July holiday for our vacation. Seven glorious, fun-filled days of sight seeing, fishing and generally pissing each other off. Just kidding there, Dustin, although I have been told (I won't say by whom, OK by Sandy) that my mood tends to lean toward the crabby side, especially when industrial strength jet lag kicks in. We started our first hour in LA by playing a unique new game that could only be created by the LaForces. It's called "Hide and Seek with Cars. Here's how you play, someone who is a stranger in town rents a car at the airport, and agrees, in advance, to have a close relative, wait outside the rental lot (A minimum number of rental cars in the lot is required, I would go with 4 million) to "assist" transit to your lodging, wait at an undisclosed exit outside the lot, and then spend the majority of your vacation trying to locate that relative. Each car has a cell phone for giving "clues" as to the location of the other. The object is to totally mislead the "it" car, the one in the lot with strangers to the city, until such time as the attendants at the lot wonder if the strangers are participating in some kind of deranged NASCAR race. Or are completely pickled. The relative provides clues to his location with hints like "I am by the exit on Maple Street." This is particularly helpful when the "it" car's driver has roughly 8 thousand streets to determine which is Maple. Points are determined by how long it takes the "it" car's driver to finally get out of the lot and located the relative. Bonus points are awarded when the "it" car's driver has a spouse taking the directions from the relative, and passing them on to the driver. Bonus, bonus points are awarded when the spouse has the navigational skills God gave gravel. "Go to the last row and turn right or left!" Gee, Sandy, thanks a pantload. The winner of the game is determined by which car's occupants survive the ensuing gun battle. I'm applying for a patent tomorrow.

After locating Dustin's car, he then led the way to his apartment on Culver Blvd. in West LA. To be fair to Dustin, he did warn us that his apartment might be a "tad" on the warm side as LA tends to be a little "hot" during the day and he has a second floor apartment that has the ventilation characteristics of an attic. Saying the apartment was a "tad warm" was like saying George Bush is a "tad stupid." I walked in and literally felt like the heat got up and kicked the crap out of me. Kind of how Sonny Corleone "persuaded" Carlo in "The Godfather." I swear there were dishes on the counter that had melted and become part of the fixtures. Our first souvenier purchase was obviously an air conditioner. Of course, not just any old AC would work, we had to get a special kind made for apartment windows that opened sideways. As you can imagine this greatly reduced the price at the local Home Depot. And if you believe that, I have some high and dry land in the Gulf of Mexico to sell you. I am kidding Dustin now, actually we were thrilled to buy that for Dustin. MY GOD, we were thrilled!

I didn't give much for the chances of having a great time after these initial incidents, but really, after that things were great. Dustin is a great host, I think mostly because he likes LA so much. We went to the beaches and met with some of his friends from Optimus, motto "If they ever do away with the tax break for client entertainment we're screwed!" We visited the West Coast division of Optimus and were literally amazed at the wonderful things coworkers and bosses said about our little Dusty.

We did many of the sight seeing "musts". We went to Hollywood and walked around there for awhile, did Venice beach and saw all the wackos that hang out or skate around there. We also took a walk around the Venice canals, which is a little known area but, actually has canals running between the houses much like the Italian city of the same name. The high point of this little side trip, other than the beauty of the area, was that it turned out that this are was hosting the annual duck convention. There were thousands of ducks of all different kinds, white, brown, but the most noticeable absent species was the fabled "lame" duck. George was nowhere to be found (My God, has it come to this? Incredibly bad puns? You betcha). Anyway, I have never seen so many ducks in one location. I don't know why, but several ducks seemed to be eyeing me for handouts. Could there be an agreement with the mammals?

We took a side trip down to San Diego, motto "Doesn't every city charge $20 for a taco?" Which is a beautiful city, but a "tad" expensive. We earned two free nights in a hotel in the "Olde Towne" district, which is an historical area of kept up missions, blacksmith shops and souvenier stands. In homage to our little Roller Derby queen, we went to a restaurant called the "Cafe Coyote". The food actually was excellent, with hand made tortillas and we even got a table on the patio across from Joe Morgan who must have been in town to broadcast a Padres game. For the other announcers' sakes, I hope he avoided the refried beans. We earned our hotel stay by agreeing to sit through a 2 hour timeshare pitch. This was not pretty. But I think we survived it and had a great time afterward when Dustin came down from LA and joined us.

On the way back to LA from San Diego, we stopped at Sandy's cousin's place in a pretty suburb of LA, whose name escapes me, like most things, but I do remember it had a Spanish ring to it. Sandy's cousin, Betty Lou, is a real character and well over 4 feet tall. She has two great boys, Jeremy and Joshua, they treated us to a wonderful homemade dinner of grilled steaks and luscious desserts. She has a couple of adorable long haired dachsunds that for some reason hung around me the whole time I was eating. Can't figure out why.

On our last night we had dinner in Malibu at a place called Gladstones, which I highly recommend as the seafood was great. Some of the best clam chowder I have ever had and a terrific view of the ocean.

Well, gotta get going. I'm meeting someone at the airport Hertz lot and I don't think my cell phone is fully charged.

Love,
Dad