In between rounds of “you post too damn much, stop flooding my streams,” or “do you eat 37 meals a day?” I occasionally hear positive things from my social media followers, such as “you do the coolest things on weekends, I’m so glad I can follow your shenanigans.” Well, thanks! While I often find that I work too much, and spend way too much time sitting on the intarwebs, when I get some free time, I like to explore. But not by myself.

I’ve recently taken to finding new and exciting places around Los Angeles that require little or no money to enjoy (times is tough, people!). So today Lisa and I did a couple fun things.

First we went to the Greystone Mansion & Park. The mansion once belonged to oil tycoon Edward Doheny, a once-prominent figure in Beverly Hills. The house and grounds have long since passed into the hands of the city, and are now available for public enjoyment. Today there was a wedding in the garden and house, so we couldn’t see much, but here are a couple more photos.

After a pleasant picnic in the park, I decided to head downtown to visit the LA Central Library. This library is much like the New York Public Library, or the Seattle Public Library: massive architectural milestones, and incredible book repositories to boot. It was my first time at the library, and I’m guessing it won’t be my last. Fortunately, today was a pretty quiet day at the library, and I was able to browse without crowds. And on weekends they have cheap parking!

Here’s the atrium of the library:

And finally I made a trip into Chinatown, where Lisa and I browsed the strange and wonderful culinary and cultural oddities that make Chinatown unique. How about dried sea dragons?

Then we headed into a mall to grab some boba tea. Unfortunately they were out of boba (for real), so I opted for a vanilla and red bean smoothie. Not bad, not great, way too big.

Total cost:
Greystone Mansion & Park – $0 ($20 if you count the lunch we brought with us)
LA Central Library – $1 for parking
Chinatown – $15 for two smoothies, wasabi peas, kiwifruit jelly candies, and a giant box of oolong tea

Rarely have I ever seen such a diamond in the rough store as Galco’s Soda Pop Shop. Established in 1897, this incredible little place in Highland Park stocks more soda pop than you can shake a stick at. Grab yourself a root beer (or 2, or 20), and then mosey on down to the back of the store where they stock beers from around the world. I’ll be posting some of these as I drink them, but here are a few photos I shot while visiting the store.

When was the last time you listened to a cassette tape? I was thinking to myself that cars don’t come with cassette decks anymore. Most stereo systems don’t either. In fact, if I wanted to listen to a tape in the car, I’d have to plug a Walkman into the aux input – retrofitting a modern system utilizing a method for retrofitting for an even more modern system.

Well, as I am an avid collector of music, you better believe that I never parted ways with my old tapes. I’ve still got a couple of cases full of them. Many are commercially pressed recordings, ranging from Deep Purple to Jimi Hendrix (during that horrible phase where the Hendrix estate lost control of his music and they started “remastering” studio outtakes by overdubbing studio musicians).

But of course, I also have a bunch of mixtapes.

I couldn’t let all this great music go to waste! So I went to Craigslist and found myself a boombox for 20 bucks. Has a CD player, tape deck, and even an aux input (so I can make tapes from my MP3s). Heaven.

Here’s a bizarre gem of a tape I created for my middle school band, 2000 Flushes. We used to make tapes so we could learn the tunes. And since we’d never learn all the tunes on a given tape, I’d throw on a bunch of other stuff. I admit the tracklist here is pretty random, but rest assured these are all good songs on some level. Or maybe that’s just my 14 year old self talking.

The phrase “Fuck this, I’m moving to Lebanon” was some kind of inside joke I had in middle school. I really have no good explanation. The sticker on the outside of the tape remained intact.

And just for posterity, here’s the tracklist:

Side A
The Descendents – I’m The One
Stealers Wheel – Stuck in the Middle With You
Smashing Pumpkins – Disarm
Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby
Phish – Waste
Tool – Stinkfist
Spain – Untitled #1
Rage Against the Machine – People of the Sun
Elastica – Connection
The Jayhawks – Blue
The Jayhawks – I’d Run Away
Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way?

Side B
Ben Folds Five – Julianne
Barenaked Ladies – If I Had $1000000
Blur – Song Number 2
Deee-Lite – Groove is in the Heart
The Offspring – Gone Away
Van Morrison – Wild Night
Jim Croce – Bad Bad Leroy Brown
Toad The Wet Sprocket – Walk on the Ocean (incorrectly labeled)
The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star
Soul Coughing – Super Bon Bon
Goldfinger – Here in My Bedroom
Cake – Rock & Roll Lifestyle
Semisonic – F.N.T.
The Refreshments – Banditos (cuts off)

100 years ago this wouldn’t have happened.  People had homes then.

I’ve recently come to realize, again, that I have no home.  When I was 18 I left for college like most of my generation (this is itself a seismic shift), and after I completed it, I moved elsewhere.  I grew up in Minnesota, and I still call it “home,” but in reality I haven’t been home in over 8 years.

I went to school in Boston.  I spent 7 years there, earning my two degrees from MIT, and then promptly set out for the complete opposite side of the country.  I moved to Los Angeles, somewhat on a whim, and managed to settle down (I’ve got a good job and a decent apartment, though I’m still trying to figure out how to live with my sister).  And my friends are no different.  Even friends who went to school in Minnesota left promptly after graduation, moving to major cities like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.

I should stress that this is not unusual anymore.  The ability to communicate cheaply over long distances (indeed worldwide, and even beyond that) has deteriorated the sense of home, the sense of place.  And I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing.  But my how life has changed since I was a kid.

I’m about to head “home” for the holidays, and reflecting on a year of decisions I’ve made, both good and bad, and places I’ve been, I can say that while I have no home I am often glad to be a citizen of the world.  The people I’ve met, far and wide, have shaped my life in some amazing ways.  And for that I am eternally grateful.

See you in the new year.

My family went to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving.  Apart from the traffic (7 hours to get from LV to LA) and the usual family bickering, it was a pretty fun trip.  Even got to see LOVE.  Here are some photos (all shot with my trusty Blackberry, so excuse the quality).