Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

Grandchildren

I have three grandchildren, two of them live in the same city we do and a third one lives in San Francisco. The San Franciscan barely knows how to swim, while the other two are already well on their way to being good swimmers. Since they are already out of school for the summer, I thought I'll go ahead and have our grandchild from San Francisco spend a few weeks with us and have him enrolled at a swimming school. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately (not to my wallet though), the swimming classes within a convenient distance from our place were all filled up already, so we (my wife and I) decided to hire a private swimming instructor to teach him how to swim at our community pool.

The arrangement worked wonder for him. The one-on-one instruction was all he needed and within 8 consecutive sessions of 30 minutes duration, he was able to swim freestyle, backstroke and butterfly for six laps with a little rest in between!

At the end of the school year, my granddaughter earned a 4.0 gpa. She was also an elected member of their student council during the year. Her parents rewarded her for her accomplishments with a cell phone and my wife and I decided to take her out to dinner at a restaurant of her choice. We wanted to give a message to the two boys that they need to play less and attend to their school works more LOL.

We have been to this restaurant before but she and the boys always get a kick out of watching the cook perform his cooking wizardly in the process of preparing our food.

It is not uncommon in California to see a Mexican cook in a Japanese restaurant, but if you are after authentic Japanese cuisine, it is best to settle for a Japanese cook, preferably one trained in Japan LOL.

My other grandchild loves sport and he enjoys playing baseball, soccer, touch football and basketball. Sometimes I worry about him getting hurt because playmates of his age are bigger and taller than him. However, the supervising adults always emphasize sportsmanship, clean play and routinely downgrade the importance of winning as the ultimate goal in team competition.

When a player gets hurt, the game is temporarily stopped and the players of both teams in the field sit or hunker down until the play resumes.

Winning and losing teams high five each other after the conclusion of the game.

The parents and fans traditionally welcome their players with a human triumphal arch, win or lose. This is so different during my time in Pinas. Most of the time, the team sport we participated in was only basketball - our uniforms were ragtag or shirt on and off to differentiate team members. The emphasis was on winning by whatever means and rough plays were not only condoned but encouraged. Maybe I am just talking about my experiences and what I observed during my time. I hope things have changed from "who won, to how the game was played and enjoyed by every participants."

Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, Huntington Beach

Bolsa Chica ecological reserve represents a victory of the environmentalists over the relentless effort of the developers to turn this area into a housing and business complex. A lot of work is still needed to be done in this reserve but it is coming along fine. The day I visited, the migratory birds were probably still on their way in or they already packed their bags and left for their seasonal destinations LOL. It was also low tide, so I did not see any fishermen trying their luck in areas where fishing is permitted. I saw a few bird watchers armed with binoculars and cameras fitted with powerful telephoto lenses but I did not see any subject of interest for them to photograph, at least while I was there.

This is one of the two entrances to the reserve.

A couple of bird watchers with their camera mounted on a tripod ready for any action

Just beyond the wooden bridge, there used to be a lot of active oil wells but they have all been plugged off and abandoned except for a few. The oil deposit underneath (Huntington Beach oil field) is almost depleted now but with modern technology they are still able to wash off the oil clinging to the oil sands and extract them.

Redondo Beach, California

Redondo Beach is a 10 minutes drive from our old neighborhood. I used to fish at its pier, in the jetties or board the fishing boats that take you out in the ocean for a day of fishing. Since we moved to Orange county in the early 70's, I seldom visit the place (although it is only about 35 miles away) unless I have some out of town visitors who have a weakness for fresh seafood and salty air.

This is the new pier that replaced the old one that was heavily damaged during an unusually heavy storm that visited Southern California years ago.

A bigger and more comfortable place to cast your line for bonitos

Nice restos and entertainment venues at the pier

Boats readily available to take you for a short cruise

None of these is mine....unfortunately LOL

Crabs, shellfish and assorted fishes you can buy and have them cook for you

We used to catch these kind of crabs at the jetties in Cabrillo beach but that is history now.

Bring a combo of bagoong, vinegar and garlic if you are not too crazy about melted butter and lemon to dip your steamed crabs.

Oysters and other shellfishes are also available for steaming or eaten raw. I love raw oysters on the half shell with a squeeze of lemon, a dash of tabasco and a cold beer.

They even have a gondola to take you and your significant other for a "romantic cruise" while you enjoy your champagne or wine. The gondolero will sing like in Venice to annoy you if he thinks you are a lousy tipper LOL.

That's one of the fishing boat now loading to take fishermen out to sea to try their luck

The day I visited was not an ideal day for the beach and for photography. The sky was heavily overcast and there was a slight drizzle...very unusual for sunny Southern California.

Samot-samot, May 2009

On our way home from Irvine, my wife and I decided to have lunch at a Korean resto a friend of ours was glowing about. While we were looking for it, I saw a Japanese resto with an interesting name so I told my wife let's try this one instead. I had sashimi and beef teriyaki. The tuna was so fresh that if it were any fresher it will still be swimming in the sea. Everything there was fine except for the name of the restaurant....Taiko LOL.

My wife and I attended the wedding of an old friend's son last Saturday. The bride is a Vietnamese he met at a medical school back east where they were both students. My friend's son wants to go to Philippines or a third world country and work as a doctor for the needy for a few years but the father of the bride wants his daughter to take-over his practice (he is a pediatrician) here. I'm sure they'll work out their divergent goals to their mutual satisfaction. Here's wishing the bride and groom a happy and enduring marriage!

I parked my pick-up on a busy major street and took a walk for a couple of hours inside a park. I had my bike inside the cab but I decided to just go ahead and walk instead of bike so I can take advantage of the shades complement of the trees. When I returned after two hours of walking, I was astounded to find that somebody stole the tailgate of my pick-up! Can you believe that!!! What is more unbelievable is the s.o.b. did not take my bike, the gps and stereo or just drive off with my vehicle! A replacement tailgate will set me back $550 plus the cost of a paint job so this may be as good a time as any to replace the old clunker, afterall it is already 12 years old. I will certainly miss it..... I may just hang on to it just to debunk one of the geometric theorems I learned in high school that the "whole is greater than any of its part" or words to that effect. In the case of my pick-up, the part is more expensive than the whole LOL.

Long Beach, California

Last Monday I went to Long Beach to see an old office buddy who is worried that he might be let go earlier than he planned to leave because of the state of the nation's economy. Over lunch, I told him about the benefits of retiring early and I cited myself as an example. I don't think I really convinced him LOL. The guy is a natural born workaholic, what can I say.

On my way back home, I decided to take a few pictures at Shoreline Village and its vicinity since one of my two regular blog visitors indicated an interest in the area LOL.

I took this picture of Pine Street an hour or so past noon on what is a working day and you can hardly see cars and pedestrians populating the street. Beyond the building in the background, on both sides of Pine, are fine restaurants; except for a few, most of them are empty of diners. I cannot really figure out why this upscale section of Long Beach is not drawing as much visitors as comparable places in other cities in the US.

This is a section of the beach along Ocean Blvd. If you double click to enlarge the pic, you can clearly see a band of concrete pathway parallel to the beach. That's a strip along the sand for cyclists, joggers and walkers that extend all the way to Belmont Shore from, as far back as, the Los Angeles River bicycle lane.

Shown offshore is one of four man-made islands of Thums Oil. These islands were created to serve as drilling platforms and homes to oil wells whose bottom locations are mostly miles inland.

A section of the Long Beach marina

Shoreline Village as viewed from the lighthouse.

A floating resto with the lighthouse in the background

The non-functioning lighthouse

The whale watch boat having a really slow day - the boat was set to sail in half an hour and there was no one on board yet!

The Queen Mary from a distance

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers on Earth and in Heaven!

To everyone who still have their mothers on earth: Spend as much time as you can with your Inay, and even if she knows it, tell her at every opportunity that you love her. You only have one and she is irreplaceable.

My beloved Inay (left) and her elder sister when they were in their teens.