{"id":7329,"date":"2004-10-01T13:23:41","date_gmt":"2004-10-01T18:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/?p=7329"},"modified":"2011-09-11T13:24:32","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T18:24:32","slug":"7329","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/blog\/2004\/10\/01\/7329\/","title":{"rendered":"Only a nobody walks in LA&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ok, so I finally make it to LA after a lovely 2 day waltz with Hurricane Jeanne in Miami. While it was nice to see some of our former dock buddies at Dinner Key, I was glad to finally be able to leave. I was ready to attend to the matter at hand in LA, getting La Dolce Vita ready for sale. Over the past few days, I&#8217;ve worked to get LDV back to ship shape, while finding time to walk my nephew and niece to school, and get reaquainted with them. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also had some time to assess how I&#8217;m feeling about being back in LA 7 months after selling the house, cars, and other worldly possessions and leaving it to embark on our Andiamo adventure. I find that I feel like I&#8217;ve been away something more like 10 years rather than 7 months. I&#8217;ve noticed that I&#8217;ve been getting some tingling sensations about my relationship with LA, and here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve come up with:<\/p>\n<p>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul><strong>Things I miss most about LA:<\/strong><\/ul>\n<li>1. <a href=\"http:\/\/indie1031.fm\/main.html\" target=\"blank\">Indie 103.1<\/a> (it&#8217;s official, this is the GREATEST RADIO STATION ON EARTH, and they now broadcast on the net, woo-hoo!)<\/li>\n<li>2. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.todai.com\/\" title=\"\">Todai<\/a> (Hey, the best all you can eat sushi, and much more)<\/li>\n<li>3. <strong>Jamba Juice <\/strong>(used to be my daily lunch fix)<\/li>\n<li>4. <strong>Marina del Rey and the local sailing conditions <\/strong>(still the most consistent I&#8217;ve seen anywhere)<\/li>\n<li>5. <strong>People who are desperately caught up or trying to break into the entertainment biz <\/strong>(great people-watching entertainment)<\/li>\n<li>6. <strong>Roman and Chiara, my niece and nephew<\/strong> (growing up fast!)<\/li>\n<li>7. <strong>Bad local tv news <\/strong>(extremely hilarious, never disappoints!)<\/li>\n<li>8. <strong>Program interruptions for live car chases <\/strong>(though I don&#8217;t think they do it as much as they used to)<\/li>\n<li>9. <strong>Good friends <\/strong>(The few we have made while living here).<\/li>\n<li>10. <strong>Kooky famous people encounters<\/strong>, (always interesting, never dull).<\/li>\n<li>11. <strong>The local real estate market <\/strong>(Tremendously lucrative. But hey, it&#8217;s gotta end sometime).<\/li>\n<li>12. <strong>The wide selection of cuisine<\/strong>, (still the best I&#8217;ve seen anywhere).<\/li>\n<li>13. <strong>Izzy&#8217;s Deli in Santa Monica<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>14. <strong>The diverse and groundbreaking music scene<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>15. <strong>Our house in Playa Del Rey<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>16. <strong>Driving up PCH <\/strong>(on a nice afternoon with the top down, sweet!).<\/li>\n<li>17. <strong>The wonderful mild, dry climate<\/strong>!<\/li>\n<li>18. <strong>The amazing cultural diversity of the place<\/strong>. <\/li>\n<p>And last, but certainly not least, <strong>In N&#8217;Out Burger<\/strong>, the greatest fast-food burger to ever walk the earth. <\/p>\n<ul><strong>Things I don&#8217;t miss about LA:<\/strong><\/ul>\n<li>1. <strong>The smog <\/strong>(I think it&#8217;s gotten worse since we left!)<\/li>\n<li>2. <strong>Self-centered people <\/strong>(Hey, what can you do for ME?).<\/li>\n<li>3. <strong>The traffic <\/strong>(I think that&#8217;s gotten worse too!)<\/li>\n<li>4. <strong>The politics <\/strong>(although Florida, namely Miami politics really take 1st prize. The stuff they get away with there is simply unbelievable.)<\/li>\n<li>5. <strong>The lame attitude of most SoCal sailors<\/strong>. (would it kill ya to take your boat out once in awhile?)<\/li>\n<li>6. <strong>The out of control consumerism\/materialism machine that has taken over every aspect of LA living <\/strong>(I suspect that this problem is rapidly becoming a nationwide one).<\/li>\n<li>7. <strong>The endless strip malls and shopping centers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>8. <strong>The insane homeless problem <\/strong>(it&#8217;s taken over Santa Monica and Venice) .<\/li>\n<li>9. <strong>Gang-bangers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>10. <strong>Already bad traffic being constantly worsened because of movie shoots that are done all around town<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>11. <strong>Pain-in-the-ass Lexus, Beemer and other pricey car drivers <\/strong>(and the inexplicable natural law that states that the more expensive a car you drive, the more belligerent and impatient you are to be with it on the road).<\/li>\n<li>12. <strong>The impatience of most LA people <\/strong>(hey, I know I used to be one of them!)<\/li>\n<li>13. <strong>The overall aroma of envy, greed and arrogance that permeates this town<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>14. <strong>Working hard the way we did for most of the time we lived here <\/strong>(even though it paid off).<\/li>\n<li>15. <strong>The lack of smiling, generally happy people<\/strong>. (It didn&#8217;t take long for me to realize that most of the locals on Isla Mujeres were always walking around with a smile or a grin on their faces, even when walking alone. Most of these people don&#8217;t make more than ten bucks for a very long workday, yet they are generally happy. Yesterday while having my Jamba Juice, I took a rather long time observing people walking down a major street by Marina Del Rey. Interestingly enough, I only saw one person smiling out of more than a hundred who walked by. Strange, huh?) <\/li>\n<li>17. <strong>Fry&#8217;s Electronics<\/strong> (by far the most evil, and horribly managed retail establishments on the planet. As much as I hated going there, I had no choice but to do so many times when I was in the computer business. They were the only stores who had the stuff I needed. Alas, the scars will heal over time.)<\/li>\n<p>\nAfter writing this, I now find myself itching even more to get back to Mahi and the catz on Andiamo. I simply can&#8217;t wait, that&#8217;s &#8220;home&#8221; to me now.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ok, so I finally make it to LA after a lovely 2 day waltz with Hurricane Jeanne in Miami. While it was nice to see some of our former dock buddies at Dinner Key, I was glad to finally be able to leave. I was ready to attend to the matter at hand in LA, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7331,"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7329\/revisions\/7331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theandiamo.com\/logwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}