What is that you say? Well, three of my friends (Larry, John Mc, and Mike D) have taken a few of these trips. They travel to a region of the country and see pro baseball games at a few different stadiums. They’ve asked me about going before and I didn’t go, but this time I decided, for various reasons, to go. For one thing, the trip was to Southern California so it wasn’t that far. In fact, we drove and made it a road trip.

Friday May 4

John got the rental car and picked up Mike and me, then we started south and picked up Larry in nearby Elk Grove. We had breakfast at an unremarkable place and then got on the road. Partway there we stopped at Anita’s Mexican Grill for lunch. As you may know, I’m a long-time vegetarian getting closer and closer to vegan. But the owner was understanding and made mine vegan and tasty. After lunch Mike took us to a nearby See’s Candies and bought us each a couple candies while explaining his one-time project to try and catalog all the different flavors. Hmmm. Then we took the rest of the l-o-n-g drive to San Diego. We got there in the evening and checked in to our hotel, The Westin. The nicer hotels charge extra for parking ($32) and extra for Internet, but the cheaper hotels give you those things free. The rest of the trip we took cheaper hotels and even some free accommodations. But once checked in, we walked a little and went to the Yard House, a pub with food, a had a beer and some snacks. It was really loud in there but it was a decent place with a huge number of beers on tap. They even had a “Gardein” section on their menu (that’s a brand of faux meat high in protein). After that it was getting late so we headed back to our rooms for the night.

Saturday May 5

We took a nice walk, maybe a mile or a little less, and had a great breakfast at The Mission. I had coffee and a fairly spicy dish with soy chorizo, potatoes, salsa, jalapenos, and a couple other things. Then we walked back to the hotel and checked out. We spent a good portion of the day driving to nearby La Jolla and Ocean Beach, finding a nice stop to admire the ocean and climb down some stairs to a cave at the waters edge. And later, after some searching, we found some ice cream that Mike wanted. We saw a bunch of the towns and some of the ocean and then headed back for the first baseball game of the baseball trip. We saw the San Diego Padres vs the Florida Marlins and it was a fun game. The three friends know more about baseball than I can even comprehend and I know only a little so it all evened out, sorta kinda. After the game we drove a bit and then got a hotel (Best Western) in Placencia.

Sunday May 6

We had the free breakfast at the hotel, which was slim pickins for a vegan-leaning guy but I found a little bit to eat. Today was the second baseball game and it was a day game, so we headed over there early to have time for the drive and to see the pre-game batting practice. It was the Los Angeles Angels vs the Toronto Blue Jays and it was another good game. Before the game, Mike’s sister, her husband, and the four of us got a “stern warning” from the security for having a beer in the parking lot. Well, it wasn’t that stern but it was a surprise. That will be in the pictures. We saw the Angels’ big star hit his first home run of the season and there was much rejoicing. After the game we wanted a beer and the other three guys chose Hooters. I told them the whole time that it exploited women and the I would never take my granddaughters there (There were young kids at the next table). I think it might have proved my point when one of us asked the buxom blonde waitress what she drank, and she said “you know, like, mixed drinks. Like, with alcohol.” Uh, yeah. After that we drove to Mike’s sisters house in Claremont where we were going to stay that night. We went to a nice Thai restaurant with her and her husband and then came back to the house, talked a bit, and called it a night.

Monday May 7

We walked a few blocks or so to a breakfast restaurant with a noticeable lack of vegan options, Oh well, hash browns and sourdough toast are pretty good. The we stopped in a nearby record store. Now we were in familiar territory as I am, of course, Obsessed With Music. They had more bootleg music at severly cheap prices than I had seen in one store. I bought four items (Beatles, Prince, Lennon, and XTC) but could easily have bought twenty if not for my enormous will power.  Haha. After that, we drove a bit and met Mike’s friend to get the tickets for the next day’s game. No game today. We ended up in Westwood and had lunch at one of the Native Foods all-vegan restaurants. Seriously, vegan or not, this stuff is so good. I’ve eaten their food, from different locations, maybe 8-10 times and liked it every time. The rest of the boys seemed to like it too, luckily. Then we spent some time looking around the Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach areas, very walkable and a nice beach area. We had more ice cream too. After a while we met up with another friend of Mike’s and had dinner with him at a nearby sports bar. This place had more TVs per square inch than I thought possible, and they would tune the ones by your table to any game(s) you wanted. The food was limited, with a token gardenburger the only real option. Mike’s friend offered us his brother’s vacant house for the night, up in the expensive Hollywood Hills, and we took him up on it. The view was an awesome panorama overlooking the city and overlooking Griffith Park in the back. Way cool. And since one of us wanted a drink, we stopped for a bottle of Captain Morgan and a smidgeon of coke. We talked into the early hours.

Tuesday May 8

We left the house in the hills and went to a nearby It’s A Grind for coffee. Then we headed down to Long Beach to spend a little while with Mike’s son, Ian. We had lunch with him. I had a sandwich from a ma and pa market and they had pizza. He played us a bit of his roommate’s “pirate music” band. After leaving Long Beach, we tour Larry’s old hood, East LA, briefly, then stopped at Olvera St, to see the hispanic street booths and for a margarita and some chips. Then it was time for the third baseball game. It was the San Francisco Giants vs their arch-rivals The LA Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. The Giants won and it was another good game. Afterwards we drove a little to Ventura, with a quick emergency Taco Bell stop (you gotta eat). We checked into the Comfort Inn (nice place) and that was the day.

Wednesday May 9

Time to head back home, so we checked out and drove a little, to a breakfast at Esau’s Cafe in Santa Barbara that was really good. Then more driving. And more. We took a pit stop at the Madonna Inn and then after a while we ended up at The Giant Artichoke. Than on to Santa Cruz where we dropped off Larry. The three of us headed on, stopping in Tracy at a taqueria for dinner and then on to home. It was a fun trip!

Find a typo? Have a comment? Let me know, leave me a comment below…

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Last week we went to see singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson at the Fillmore in San Francisco. The venue is famous, from the 60s until now, but it’s not really the best place to see a show. It’s basically a general admission open area except for a bar on the side and a very few balcony seats that fill up really fast. I’d rather have a seat, but they don’t do it that way. This show was pretty civilized, though, no mosh pit or anything. Everyone was pretty cool and having a great time.

My review of the show and some pictures too after the “continue reading…”

The opening act was Harper Blynn, a new york three-piece with a driving but melodic sound reminiscent of Ra Ra Riot, also from that city. They were good. Then after a longer-than-I-expected break came Ingrid and her top-notch band. She is supporting her latest (fourth) album and played almost all of it. She starting veering more into pop-rock on her third album but this one takes it quite a bit further. I don’t think that is her main strength but she does it pretty well. In the process, though, some of her quirkiness and charm gets buried in the glossy and produced arrangements. She did some older material too, of course, but not as much as I would have liked. The was no Die Alone or The Hat or Be OK or lots of other quirky charmers from the first couple albums. But all that aside, the show was still really entertaining and Ingrid is a charismatic performer and a singing and writing talent with a really good band. She even played a song never on an album, about San Francisco, that was a treat to hear too. She is still well worth the price of admission, but there’s a part of me that wants the folk-pop artist back. However, time marches on and I still think she is great and will no doubt buy the next album too whenever it comes out.

Oh, and I’d gladly go see her show again. This was my third time seeing her and I have always felt I got more than my money’s worth. If you don’t know her, then go and buy her CD “Boys and Girls”, then “Be OK” and “Everybody”, then her latest “Human Again”.

Are you an Ingrid fan? Were you there? Leave me a comment!

Shop for Ingrid Michaelson music

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OK, so maybe I am. You know what they say, once Obsessed With Music, always OWM. This year, I didn’t spend a fortune but I did find a bunch of nice items, some of which were released special for Record Store Day. Some were bought for Petra too.

Check out this list of what I got, and then leave me a comment below telling me what you think…

7″ VINYL

Florence And The Machine “Shake It Out”

Garbage “Blood For Poppies” (white vinyl)

The Kills “The Last Goodbye” (one-sided free cardboard record)

Regina Spektor “Sings Two Bulat Okudzhava songs in Russian” (white vinyl)

10″ VINYL

Bruno Mars “The Grenade Sessions”

HEART-SHAPED RED VINYL

Neon Trees “Everybody Talks”

CDs

Eric Hutchinson “Moving Up Living Down”

The Decemberists “We All Raise Our Voices To The Air”

Neon Trees “Picture Show”

The Beatles “Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 2 (1964-1965)

Jason Mraz “Love Is A Four Letter Word”

The Shins “Port Of Morrow”

Record Store Day free sampler

New West Record World Cafe free sampler

MISCELLANEOUS FREE STUFF

An IRS T-shirt

A RSD hand fan

An action figure, not sure why

A button that I can’t figure out what it says

A space helmet keychain, not sure why

Two Record Store Day 2012 canvas bags

What a haul, eh? I hope you celebrated Record Store Day too! If so tell me all about it!

Record Store Day official web site

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The pictures are here, check them out and feel free to leave a comment below.

Photo page

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I love records. I love music. And I love Record Store Day. It’s a celebration of the coolest places on the planet, namely record stores. So, on Saturday April 21st, go and shop and buy something from your local indie store! And there are lots of special releases just for this day, check out this list.

About this special day, from the official web site:

The original idea for Record Store Day was conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

Record Store Day web site

Sacramento area record stores

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First, to see the collage on the right at a bigger size, just click on it! I downloaded a free “collage” app for my phone and used it to group a few of the trip pictures that I took with the phone’s camera. Very cool and free too. I love technology (usually).

Second, click here to see the trip pictures. Take a look and then leave me a comment!

Thanks!

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The hotel was really nice, including cookies in the room at bedtime, a fireplace in the room, large-screen TV, nice big tub, balcony, cushy bed, and more.But on the way there we stopped in Petaluma for a vegan lunch at The Sunflower Center that was pretty good even though it was in an office building. You never know, do you? Then, after checking in at the hotel, we headed to one of the wineries that we had passes for, Kendall Jackson. The wines were very good and the woman at the tasting bar was interesting and friendly. We had some time left before dinner so we stopped in at The Last Record Store. We found a few things in their “3 for $10″ bin. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. This is a fancy and expensive place so we even dressed up a little.

The restaurant, John Ash & Co, was mostly foie gras, duck, beef, and lots of upscale meat stuff that we would never eat ever. We asked about vegan and vegetarian options and they promised the chef could whip up something vegan for us, so we took them up on that. And I have to say it was delicious! The dinner with wine came to just over $101, and remember we had a gift certificate for $100. You can do that math but that is sweet! There was tax and tip but we got a delicious gourmet meal for next to nothing.

The next morning I picked at the breakfast a little but mainly there was hardly anything for us, so we went to a nearby Sebastopol restaurant instead, one with pages of vegetarian and vegan options in abundance called Slice of Life. It was delicious. Then we went up to Healdsburg to the Ferrari-Carano winery and sampled some there. We both liked the Pinot Noir and picked up a couple bottles to take home. Then we went to the central area of Healdsburg. It started to rain  but we still made it to the third winery that we had passes to, the Seasons of the Vineyard. We sampled there, but did not buy. Then we walked to a nearby health food restaurant and bought some vegan chocolate and a couple other items. And then down the street to Flying Goat Coffee, where we had a refreshing beverage and kicked back for a while.

Time to head back home, we started out and stopped in a nearby town on the way back, at a record store there. We found a bunch of stuff, including some bootleg CDs that we had never seen by Prince, Elvis Costello, and Tom Waits. We left when the store closed and continued the journey back. But we had one more stop top make, in Vacaville, because we had found out about a pizza place there that offered options for vegan pizza. And we were hankering for some pizza! We went to Amici’s and got a large pizza and ate most of it. The rest came home. They subbed vegan “cheese” for real cheese and it was very good.  Apparently this is a bay area small chain, and we really liked it. We’ll be back there, since it’s only 45 minutes from our house ! Woo-hoo!

Then we were back at home. It was just an overnight trip but we made the most of it. And much of it was free, so overall it was a cheap getaway but a lot of fun. I’ll get some pictures posted soon…

In the meantime, feel free to leave me a comment, ask me a question, of tell me a joke below…

This song keeps running through my head. Life has held many changes lately. They say it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it that matters. Do you think that is true? Anyway, here’s the fantastic David Bowie. Check it out!

You could always leave a comment below…????

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