Un-patriotic 4th of July Week-end

We're heading south of the border for the 4th of July week-end but not after attending a birthday bash of our grand dame friend E. Anticipating hordes of fellow unpatriotic US citizens and immigrants looking for a cheap get-away, we plan to start early to have enough time to park our car in San Diego, take the trolley, cross the border on foot from San Ysidro and hail a cab to our car rental in Tijuana.

This year, we decided to drive further to Ensenada to check out this popular destination in Baja California next to Rosarito Beach where we enjoyed a holiday week-end years ago.

Besides, we've already done the get-early-to-the-beach-park-routine to watch the fireworks, not to mention the unsafe and headache inducing drive home. To this day, I still cringe when I recall the horrible traffic and accidents brought about by the scramble of getting home from the fireworks site.

Snapshots of Los Angeles

We've perfected the drive tour of Los Angeles thru hits and misses; thanks to feedback from our tourists. Here are pictures from last week-end. First stop was a picnic at Cloverfield Park in Santa Monica. Then we made a shortcut to Venice Beach, passing thru Santa Monica Pier before heading to Beverly Hills via Century City, Westwood and stopping at Rodeo Drive. We then got onto the 405 Freeway to the Paul Getty Museum. The next day, we started with a visit to Our Lady of Angels Cathedral and walked to the performing arts center and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The view of downtown's skyscrapers going down on Bunker Hill on Grand Avenue was unbeatable. We drove further to downtown's fashion district past the industries ending at Union Station and Olvera Street. Next stop was Hollywood and Highland visiting the Chinese Theater then we headed for dinner in Glendale via Los Feliz and Griffith Park.

Time Management

Routinely, I broadcast to my address book a blog update or a new photo album. When I get return mails from ISP providers saying my IP address is abusive or something to that effect, I immediately feel guilty like a suspect spammer.

To you who still read our event posts and look at our pictures, I am thrilled to get a line from you and look forward to our exchange of travel tips and suggestions.

To you who are tired looking at same faces by now, the delete button is there for that purpose. And, I won't feel offended if you politely tell me to get you off my address book.

To you who regularly come visit us and endure hours of dvd's of our travels and events that we excitedly insist on you to watch in exchange for a free meal at our house, I understand perfectly should you delete the routine emails.

There will always be new ones to watch as we persistently do "bolakbol" (thanks B for the Tagalog term which means gallivanting around). Also, I plan to soon digitize our old photographs so we can just pop them in the dvd player to reminisce the good ol' days. Heck, if this won't lure you out to come visit us, nothing will ever will.

Kidding aside, we have many justifications to our seemingly all-travel and event-packed years.

First, hubby travels for work and it's cheaper for me to tag along than be home alone as I tend to shop more and redecorate the house more.

Second, we need to stay away from our kitchen especially on long week-ends. As you can see, hubby has honed his cooking skills thru the years to the point that our widening waists are bursting to the seams.

Third, after 13 blissful years of togetherness and counting, we found a way to effectively prevent us from creating a mountain out of a molehill fight. How? Just hop in the car and drive away to a new corner of the world and strike up a much more interesting discourse.

And last but not least reason is that we're doing time management - to maximize life quantitatively and qualitatively while we still can. Check out what's out there that we haven't seen or experienced.

So there it is, our life in a nutshell.

To all, many happy trails!!!

Playboy Jazz Fest at the Hollywood Bowl

I'm all jazzed up from last week-end's Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. One of the many perks at Hubby's work is that we go to vendor-sponsored events in style; garden seats, non-stop drinks, and sumptuous delicacies from the hospitality tent at the Rooftop Grill.

Performances started at 2:30 p.m. with a grand finale at past 11:00 p.m. Among the many featured artists are our favorites; one of them Hubby was happy to announce he shook hands with at the john - Boney James, Ramsey Lewis Trio, Joshua Redman Elastic Band, KEB’ MO’, Norman Brown’s Summer Storm starring Peabody Bryson, Brenda Russell, and Everett Harp, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra Legacy: A Celebration featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Jon Faddis, Israel “Cachao Lopez Y Su Orquesta, Joey DeFrancesco/Kenny Burrell Quartet-In a tribute to Jimmy Smith, Stix Hooper & ViewPoint, Jazz Tap Ensemble and Caravan Project, and L.A. Multi-School Jazz Band directed by Reggie Andrews.

As usual, we have a lot of photos to share. Click on THIS to view the slides. If you have a keen eye, we caught Jamie Foxx at the Pool Circle dancing. Also sighted were Christina Aguilera, Andy Garcia (who played with a Latin band) and George Carlin. Of course, the quintessential playboy Hugh Hefner was also spotted partying with his bunny entourage.

As an added bonus, we had a VIP parking pass sparing us from the hassle of parking away from the venue and hopping onto a shuttle. Traffic cops waved us in as we whizzed by cars on que. From our house, it took us only 20 minutes to get there.

For all you jazz fans out there, this yearly festival at the Hollywood Bowl is a must see!!!