meeko off main

While the local kids are heading to Grand Avenue Festival on Sunday, I'll be up north to SF for the day.


Sutro Bath ruins looking toward Cliff House

Besides hoping to get some serious walking in and around town, I also plan to have breakfast at one of my favorite places in Berkeley (where I lived before moving to SoCal) and then while SeanYoda is at work, I'll be meeting up with friends and possibly attending the Folsom Street Fair. This will be my first opportunity in many years, so it should be interesting. I'll be sure to take many pix of wherever I end up. ;) However, I may have to change my "family friendly" rating on flickr if I get all those shots my dear friend Eureka Poz is wanting. *grin*

Have a great weekend everyone no matter how you spend it. ;)

a few photos from my May 2005 wanderings including Cable Car Museum & Sutro Ruins/ Ocean Beach HERE

Warung Cafe @ Grand Ave Fest

Passing by the ever-popular Warung Cafe on 4th Street, one may want to take note of the sign posted below:


As the sign says, the Asian-Fusion tapas cafe will be closed Sunday the 28th of September for the Grand Avenue Festival. They will instead have a booth where you can purchase some of their menu items. You were planning to go to the Grand Avenue Festival anyway, right?

The Grand Avenue Festival is in its 5th year. The street fair runs from 11-5pm and you'll be able to enjoy all sorts of music and food. It's billed as something for locals and tourists alike.

For downtown neighbors foregoing the fest, you can still enjoy Warung during its regular hours as well Monday the 29th when they re-open as usual. The Asian Pork Ribs come highly recommended, as do the Woked Mongolian Beef. Honestly there's very little on their menu you wouldn't want to try. It's all very good, as is the service.



Warung Cafe
118 West 4th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90113
http://www.warungcafela.com/

for more info on this year's Grand Ave fest:
http://www.grandavenuefestival.com/

"Art for Obama"

For those not subscribing to the 'new downtown' yahoo group, Bert Green posted a reminder about a political fund-raiser for Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The fundraiser, "Art for Obama" takes place at two galleries Tuesday, September 23, 2008 from 6-9pm & is $20 per person admittance. You'll want to go to:

Bert Green Fine Art:
102 West 5th St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA):
107 West 5th St
Los Angeles, CA 90013

According to the mailer, 10% of all art purchases will also be donated to the Obama Campaign. Also Bert Green states:

"An original oil portrait of Barack Obama and a special giclee print will be available at Bert Green Fine Art. Art for Obama is a series of fund raising events founded by Bruce McBarnette to benefit the Obama campaign. For info visit:
http://mcbarnette.com/charity "

A pretty cool sounding event, and if you are looking to add something to your art collection and support Obama, Tuesday night is a good night as any to do it. ;)

City Mourns Fallen Officer Spree Desha

Thursday morning around 830am a honor guard of LAPD officers escorted the body of LAPD Officer III Spree Desha from LAPD's Parker Center to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels..


Spree Desha procession flickr set

Over a Year Later, LAPD "May Day" discipline

According to the LAPD blog, an outline of disciplinary measures has been brought forward from the egregious melee that occurred in MacArthur Park May 1st of 2007. During what had been previously deemed a peacable rally for immigration rights & reform,a handful of ne'er do wells made it bad for those in attendance, and some handful of LAPD made it incredibly worse for all.

From LAPD's blog:

Chief of Police to Mete Out Discipline

"The personnel complaint investigation alone represented over 12,000 hours of work and was the most exhaustive investigation in Department history. Many sworn and civilian personnel of all ranks completed witness and complainant interviews, a detailed analysis of video tape and still photography, and numerous updates and comprehensive reports.

Twenty-nine named officers were charged with one or more acts or omissions, for a combined total of 80 allegations. The Chief of Police sustained 31 allegations against 15 officers. Among the officers disciplined, three will also receive a reduction in paygrade and four will be transferred from Metropolitan Division."

Read the entire article as linked above. Better late than never, right? Hopefully this will do something to repair the damage that a few have wrought upon the reputation of the LAPD. Let those that do the job right get back to "serving & protecting" IMHO..

The Nickel dinner post art-walk review

Last Thursday The Nickel had a limited dinner menu set up special for art walk night. Eventually they'll be open for dinner regular, but until then you have to seize opportunities like last Thursday night when you can. Their hamburgers, selected sandwiches & salads and dessert were available from about 6-10pm that night. The bacon cheeseburger was excellent (as is the pulled pork sandwich) juicy and filling, and with the onion rings ($1 extra) made for a good side dish.

As for desserts:

There was a yummy, but limited selection of The Nickel's desserts available at the Nickel on Art Walk night. Too many to choose from, but I'm looking forward to eventually trying them all. ;)

I took very few pix at all, but the rest of my set is here:
Art Walk 09/08

MORE ART!

Yes, there is art tonight at the Continental Gallery!


Running into neighbors can be fun & informative. I only found out around 9am this morning that there will be a showing in the Continental Gallery of work from the private collection of Gilmore Associates.

Previously the space was used by various installations from Dale Youngman and before that the LA ART Girls, Phantom Galleries, and EVFA (Edgar Varella Fine Arts). Eventually a restaurant is rumored to be going into the space, but for Art Walk what better use of empty space than to fill it with art?

Thanks Erik for the tip! ;P The Continental Gallery is of course located on the ground floor of the Continental Building.

Continental Building
408 S Spring Street
(Gallery is corner of 4th & Spring near Rocket Pizza & Warung)

American Apparel Expansion in LA

KPCC/NPR is reporting this morning that American Apparel has hired some 2500 workers to fulfill their growing business needs. They also stated that yesterday (Tuesday) Mayor Villaraigosa toured the facilities and praised them for keeping jobs here in LA. They played a soundbite from the mayor as well.While I couldn't find a link to the streaming audio, you can read the small related piece here:

KPCC "LA Mayor Villarigosa Praises LA-Based Clothing Manufacturer"

Suffice to say it was a good piece and I hope that other businesses are listening to this example.

Recently other bloggers had posted about American Apparel's expansion to the Eastern edges of the Arts District. American Apparel is a very vocal company which I recall May First they rallied their employees and were a huge presence for immigration reform. Most everyone in LA should be familiar with their "Legalize LA" campaign. It's not empty words. American Apparel seems to take good care of its employees with benefits and a decent wage.


Employees from American Apparel at the MayDay Rally on Broadway May 1st, 2008.

Another article I *did* find was regarding getting reliable & easy transportation for its employees:

American Apparel can't get a bus to match its needs By Steve Hymon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 9, 2008

"..This being Los Angeles -- City of Traffic and Angels -- there is no direct bus service to Union Station. Thus the reason for my visit.

Employees who want to reach Union Station by mass transit have to take a circuitous route that involves walking a few blocks to a bus that travels west into the heart of downtown, where they transfer to the subway. It's a journey that takes 31 minutes, not counting the initial walk to the bus, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority trip planner.

That's 31 minutes to travel 1.6 miles as the crow flies, which I compute to be 3.2 miles per hour. That's not slow. That's Stone Age."

You should definitely read the entire article. They are working w/ MTA. Currently DASH doesn't get quite close enough and in a city where the newest DASH route only got started last week, it seems it might be some more time before the next one.

Yes there was a Bike Meander!

Yes, there was a bike meander Sunday. I was almost late getting there, too!

LAFD just off 4th Street.

I didn't take many pix though.. but I did run into the LAFD out training a couple times, and just as I was riding up 2nd Street toward Main, there was a little bit of LAPD action happening.. but I didn't stick around to see what it was. I only took a handful of photos and here's a few of the ones I liked best:






more LAFD training while meandering...


lines and angles



and last but not least:

little bit of LAPD action on my way back to Old Bank District ;) My best guess was that they were responding to an alarm or something.. (although I didn't hear one) they were just checking out the location when I pedaled on by). I'm nosy but not that nosy you know?


I don't get to the meander regular but it's Sundays, 10am in front of the Toy Lofts (on Industrial), and they usually head out by 1015am.. This time there was 2 of us.. but usually there's about 5 or 6. I don't know what was keeping folks at home, the weather or what? It was nice.. and not too hot either! I wish every day was Sunday sometimes. ;) More meandering, as long as I can get myself awake in time.

Cheap & Easy

When you're craving something sweet for dessert and you're not exactly packing a thick wallet; there's at least one thing you can get for about $5 or less around downtown.. or in this case, Burbank.

Ice cream!

Not to be confused with those jacked up faux yo places.. I'm not talking frozen yogurt or tofutti or Italian gelato.. nope! Ice cream. Good old fashioned ice cream.. melt all over your hand before you can finish it ice cream.. (ok it didn't melt all over my hand but it was warm and the ice cream melts.. I'm being taking creative license).

Californians know about Fosters Freeze Those of us who grew up in the Midwest could possibly try and compare them to something like Dairy Queen, but it's not the same really. Fosters Freeze was founded in Inglewood in 1946 by George Foster, and the chain has since grown all over the state. There's one on University Avenue in Berkeley, CA I used to go to a couple times when living there.



The Burbank location, while still having one of the original 'old fashion' signs is something like store #26, but has very similar architecture to the original locations.


for about $4.50-$5.00 you can get 2 medium ice cream cones at Fosters Freeze.. and yeah they're open pretty late on a Friday night..


2 medium chocolate dipped vanilla cones. Perfect!

Weeneez again

It's Saturday so of course it's breakfast at Weeneez! A prior attempt on Labor Day was fruitless, but today was perfect! Got there around Noon today, and ordered the made to order omelete.. (your choice of 3 items listed) and I chose cheddar, spinach and mushrooms..



I got a side order of applewood bacon and it also came with tost or English Muffin. SeanYoda was with me and ordered the Eggs Bennedict.


While there, a USC student, Brian, was there talking to Julie.. and as we found out later, he was working on a project for school. Originally there to shoot some pick up shots for his film, he asked if we'd liked to be interviewed for his class assignment. I volunteered Sean. ;)

So while he was being interviewed I got a couple shots myself. ;)

September Skid Row Watch Walk

I haven't posted this week, it's been pretty slow. I *did* attend the Skid Row Watch walk this month (I missed last month!) and got a few photos.


Estella Lopez thanks everyone for attending the walk & discusses some of the good that is accomplished by coming out & walking the community.


The skid row watch walk is a community outreach effort to both familiarize the community with the issues that Central City East (our Historic Core & Old Bank District adjacent neighbor) deals with every day, and an outreach opportunity to get folks off the street and into shelters or seek medical attention.

Other blogs do a MUCH better job covering the skid row day to day issues, so I won't get into all that is CCE and the daily plight and issues at hand. If you are interested and want to go on the next walk, it's the first Wednesday of every month at about 6pm and leaves from the Midnight Mission at 6th & San Julien no later than 615pm.

It's led by CCEA's Estella Lopez and usually includes several community outreach focused folks from the LAPD like Cpt Jodi Wakefield and others, as well the CCE BID & Public Safety, stakeholders in the business and residential community (that's people like you & me).


LAPD Cpt Jodi Wakefield, Central Division, is one of several committed to helping the community she serves.