Smallwheels

Tomorrow is Ciclavia in Los Angeles. It is a Sunday when the city closes several roads to automobile traffic and allows cyclists, pedestrians, and scooter riders to roam the roads unmolested by motor vehicles.

CicLAvia

Ekdog

Cool! Will you be attending? Didn't know you were living in Tinseltown.

Artkansas 

I hope you are enjoying it.

Smallwheels

Due to other things on my plate I had to pass. I really wanted to go. The radio station I listen to was mostly concerned with the traffic problem it caused. It got only a couple of sentences on the news after it was over. Nothing was mentioned about it the day before it happened.

I arrived near the end of last month. The beautiful weather I was expecting was here for a week. Then above average heat visited for a couple of weeks. One day the high temperature was 107 degrees. The saying, "It's a dry heat" only goes so far. Fortunately the nights get much cooler. By midnight on such days the temperature drops to 80.

Where I was working in Butte Montana there had already been one night with a low temperature of 29 degrees. It was an early cold spell. No regrets about leaving the cold north. By the end of October it will be snowing. Already the evening lows are in the mid 20s.

There have been some disappointments. When I lived here in 1998 there were numerous musical instrument stores. Most of them were small shops catering to specific types of guitars and equipment. I loved that part of town because it had everything I could possibly want related to music.

Now there are four music stores. Guitar Center; Sam Ash, Mesa Boogie, and a wind instrument store. The area of town looks rundown. Sam Ash has moved twice . Originally it was in a big beautiful shopping center with free parking. The store was huge and clean. They sold all types of instruments. I bought a clarinet there. It moved to a smaller place across from Guitar Center. Then it moved again farther down the street. It is now in a cramped dirty space and there are mostly guitar items with some amplification equipment. I just don't want to return there even though there is a beautiful lady sales person.

Mesa Boogie is a guitar amplifier company. They are mostly the same but the store is older and dirtier.

Guitar Center just has lost its vibe. In the late 90s and early 00s it was a cool place. It needs to be repainted on the outside and inside just like Sam Ash. Guitar Center is cleaner. When I went inside I was the only customer in the morning. They had many guitars but not too many brands. The guitar I wanted wasn't in stock and there are no plans to order one for stock. I don't buy guitars sight unseen or unplayed.

They are the biggest online guitar retailer in the USA as far as I know. Things change.

My first celebrity citing was this morning at a grocery store. It was Ron Perlman Ron Perlman - IMDb

Can of Bush's beans in Montana $1.39. In Hollywood at the cheapest grocery store- $2.48. Not everything costs that much more but many things I use do.

Artkansas 

For Guitars, visit McCabe's in Santa Monica on Pico. That's where I bought my guitar.

Smallwheels

Thank you Artkansas. I'll check them out.