daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
I picked up Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang from my local library today. I’m so excited to read this! And it’s the first physical book that I’ve borrowed from the library since the COVID-19 pandemic started. So that’s kind of weird and special.
We took Lani for a walk this evening, and I ran ahead to try and get some action photos of her approaching me as Mariko held the leash. That photo sequence didn’t turn out as I intended, but I thought this photo was fun. 😆
I hope you had a good day!
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Well, today we returned home from our week and a half of travel in California. We were sad to leave my parents, but we had such a fun trip!
FYI, I’ll be filling in my daily posts from the trip over the next few days, so they will be out of chronological order for a week or so as I publish them alongside the current daily posts.
Today’s photos were taken with my iPhone 12 Mini, which I used quite a lot during this trip. The photos that produces look really nice when viewed on the small screen, but when I edit them in Lightroom, you can quickly see the limitations of the small sensor/lens combination. Still, it’s fast and convenient. Definitely usable!
Today we visited Brouwerij West in San Pedro to enjoy some cold beer under the warm sun with my brother and sister-in-law and their good friend. The food trucks at the brewery were really good too! We enjoyed a huge portion of Rendang from the Malaysian food truck and traditional BBQ brisket and ribs from the bbq trailer. Mmmmmm… I’m kicking myself because I didn’t take any photos.
After that, we went back to Torrance to relax a bit before picking up my auntie and bringing her to the house for a dinner of Coco Ichibanya Japanese curry, followed by several games of mahjong. I also failed to take any photos the rest of any of this! 😮
But it was a fun day, and wonderful to see my auntie who is in her late 80s. She’s still pretty sharp at mahjong, and loves good food. ❤
Today’s running destination was Torrance High School, where I attended from 1982-1986. It’s still pretty much unchanged from when I went there, except now there’s a fence encircling the campus. It’s really sad that we live in a society where gun violence is so pervasive that we have to do this. The 80s seem like such an innocent time, when we just had to worry about nuclear war. I’ll never forget the worry I felt as I waited with other parents outside my son’s school while the police swept the area for a gunman… I hate guns.
Anyways, while I was running through the main student parking lot at THS, I saw the band and color guard truck. It looked so tiny! I live in Texas now, where high school marching band is a BIG deal and the band trucks are sized accordingly: 18-wheelers, with professional full-blown graphics. It’s pretty amazing and I am still in awe of the band programs here. Seeing the small THS truck was a huge contrast, but I’m glad that at least they offer band and color guard.
Later that day, we took a drive up to Palos Verdes to check out the views and enjoy the beautiful weather. Lovely!
I hope you had a good day!
