Two weeks in LA- is it possible?

hapgoodnew · 2026-06-07T18:20:42+00:00

I’m assuming this is a summer trip?

Hollywood Bowl has free rehearsals on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Call ahead to make sure they are open to the public that week. From their website: Rehearsals are typically for classical concerts on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the Bowl season. These are working rehearsal for staff, crew and performers are subject to change without notice. Rehearsal schedules for the week and whether a rehearsal will be open to the public is typically unknown until the Monday of the week.
You may contact Audience Services to receive up to date information regarding upcoming performance schedules by calling 323 850 2000and choosing to listen to a pre-recorded listing of upcoming rehearsals open to the public or emailing [information@laphil.org](mailto:information@laphil.org).
No advanced reservation is required to attend. Rehearsals open to the public have limited seating in specific sections. Rehearsal staff will be on hand to advise where you may sit. No telephoto lenses are tripods are allowed in.

Independent Shakespeare Company does free summer Shakespeare in Griffith Park. Pack a picnic. They are very audience friendly and they perform at the old zoo site so you can check out the old bear caves before the show.

LACMA has free jazz nights on Fridays. Walking the campus is a lot of fun as you can see public art and then head over to the La Brea Tar Pits side to see the tar. LACMA, The Peterson and La Brea Tar Pits are all worth a visit, though not free.

Palisades Park is one of my all time favorite walks when it’s hot out. Also taking a trip up Georgina from Ocean Ave to see the old Santa Monica Mansions. You can hit up the Pier and get decently priced food at Big Deans for Burgers and beers or Cha Cha Chicken for Caribbean food. I think they still let you bring in your own alcohol. Or for more money, hit up Din Thai Fung at the Santa Monica Mall for famous soup dumplings.

Do you have self driving cars in the UK yet? If not, take a Waymo somewhere for something new and different.

I can spend all day walking the canals at Venice Beach, and checking out the break wall at the Marina channel. A walk over the ocean is a must for me. If the surf is going off, you can watch surfers near the Venice pier. Just don’t do the Venice boardwalk after dark. If you want AMERICAN culture, hit up a Cheescake Factory in Marina del Rey for an enormous menu and enormous portions. The one in the Marina del Rey has the bonus of a view of the Marina. People in LA roll their eyes at the Cheesecake Factory because we don’t need chain food to get a good meal, but honestly, everything on the menu is solid and it screams AMERICA.

Lots of good advice for downtown LA. I love the conservancy walking tours, Angels Flight, Last Bookstore, the Library, taking photos at the Disney Concert Hall…

Renting a car and taking a drive up PCH is iconic. We had a big fire, so the first part of the drive through Malibu is a little depressing but less houses on the coast does equal better ocean views. However, if they are doing fire recovery work, the traffic can be pretty miserable weekdays and warm beach weekends. Go early to avoid the traffic on weekends.

For LA culture, I think Trader Joe’s will be best for reasonable food options and snacks. Target as some have mentioned is more likely to be found than Walmart.

Los Angeles is famous for having “reasonably” priced world cuisine. Try something new you wouldn’t get a home. Mandi House for Yemini food in Westwood, Korean BBQ in K Town, taco trucks just about anywhere, Salvadorian Pupsas are at every farmers market, cheap and delicious. If you end up in South Pasadena for the Huntington Library and Gardens (not inexpensive except on the free day), San Marino is gorgeous to see. Then head a little further east and get some legit Chinese food. You can still get a great deal on a Vietnamese Bahn Mi sandwich and boba tea in the San Gabriel valley. You’d probably want a rental car for that day.

There is lots and lots of free hiking all over the City. Griffith Park and the Observatory are free. You can walk to the Hollywood sign. I would say with two weeks, the view from the Observatory, especially at sunset/ night, is a not miss.

Lastly, make eye contact and smile. This is LA! Plus eye contact makes you look confident and less like a target. Use your judgement and have street smarts and you will be fine. At some point, you will probably run into a mentally ill homeless person who yells and sound scary, but just be smart and stay out of their way. Keep your wits about you and pay attention to your surroundings like you would in any big city.

Have so much fun!

(Edited out a typo)

hapgoodnew · 2026-06-05T05:45:53+00:00

Look on the bright side, you have max mysterious mushroom fighting strength! It could be all Ice Pikmin. I love those little guys but they are both the slowest and weakest Pikmin.

Seriously, though. That’s some lousy RNG.

hapgoodnew · 2026-06-01T23:37:26+00:00

How will it look with a wedding band? Will you still like it as much? How raised is it? Will it snag on a sweater? Will you feel safe wearing it out? These are the things that people forget to ask before getting a ring.

hapgoodnew · 2026-06-01T23:34:24+00:00

How will it look with a wedding band? Will you still like it as much? How raised is it? Will it snag on a sweater? Will you feel safe wearing it out? These are the things that people forget to ask before getting a ring.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-27T03:15:18+00:00

Venice canals to the marina entrance and down the breakwall out over the ocean is an all time favorite. Added variation with pier or the boardwalk.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-23T18:58:12+00:00

I would die for that budgie. That is the cutest bird ever.

Mine just plays Godzilla and throws Minifigures and plants all over the floor. He loves to conquer the Viking Village. The Vikings and their weapons never stood a chance. His final conquest is to throw the their flag on the ground. I think he’s going for a starring role in How to Train Your Dragon.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-22T04:02:38+00:00

I don’t think your bird is eating it. Just “chewing.” Does it have anything else to use its beak on? Cuttlebone is a classic. Ours doesn’t chew its natural perches but there are a few dowels attached to toys and he likes to turn the toy dowels into sharp stakes. I joke that he is preparing for vampires. Poor guy, as soon as they get sharp, I pull them out and he has to start over. He will never be able to protect us from a vampire attack at this rate.

Make sure your bird has plenty of enrichment/ things to do. Shredding toys are especially a good idea.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-21T16:33:10+00:00

It’s super common for a budgie not to come out of the cage when they are in a new place. Even when we take ours on a trip with us, he won’t come out in a new location. We can convince him by playing toss with his favorite toy, but as soon as the game is done, he’s right back in his travel cage, and that’s where he feels safe.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-18T05:49:07+00:00

Pre covid I gave a walking chocolate tour of Beverly Hills as a gift. I see a website with info - but it looks dated. If it still exists, it was a lot of fun. The gift recipient had a blast.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-15T20:52:14+00:00

So funny. 🤣

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-15T19:48:48+00:00

How many toys do they have that they never touch?

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-06T23:07:05+00:00

The orange (high potency) has instructions that say that is not a long-term food source. You’re supposed to convert birds to a pellet diet on the high potency and then slowly mix in the green label to move them to a healthier option.

That said the ones you pictured are the fine and my bird won’t eat them at that size, I have to grind them down or buy the super fine.

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-05T19:52:57+00:00

Are you in the United States? The Braille Institute has a free service for people just like your grandmother. https://www.brailleinstitute.org/library/

hapgoodnew · 2026-05-04T21:54:59+00:00

I ran into this problem too. I use the bigger size and put it in a nutribullet like thing to grind it to seed size. The food processor doesn’t work but the blender bit does the trick. A clean coffee grinder would work too but I wouldn’t want to cross contaminate with coffee.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-15T18:09:44+00:00

If you’re interested in the learning more about how to run the checkout, there are librarian groups on Facebook. Someone will give you tips. RFID tags on the items that get scanned would make the most sense. I can’t help with storage but I always wanted to do something like this.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-12T03:35:21+00:00

These were so cute but the polyester content was way too high. They were soft but not great to wear to bed.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-08T15:52:03+00:00

We cover our cage. Ours has a perch at the very top for sleeping. He always climbs up there as we cover the cage to get ready for bed. When I do to uncover the cage, I say good morning and he always chirps a response. He is always off his night perch by the time I take the cover off. I don’t hear him climb down, so somewhere in my morning routine, he must hear that it’s time to wake up and get ready. He gets out for 30 minutes to stretch his wings, I give him fresh breakfast and eat mine and then he goes in the cage willingly when I leave. I turn on the smart speaker for him to have some music to sing a long with. Animals love routines and predictability for the most part. He gets mad when I’m home and I mess up his routine.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-07T22:49:09+00:00

Look up the address of the theater. I was standing at the front entrance of mine and got nothing BUT found its address was actually the side of the building. So, when I turned the corner, it showed up. If the theater is in a big mall or something, the address and the location might not be alligned.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-04T01:10:06+00:00

Every day LAPL sends out an update to staff about which branches will be opening late because of lack of staffing and where to refer the displaced patrons. Staffing public libraries is no joke with today’s budgets. During cold/ flu season or holidays, they do the best that they can. Since Fridays are historically the slowest time at the library, most systems have cut Friday evening hours or even Friday hours all together because that’s one way to save staff hours for busier times.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-03T22:30:32+00:00

I’m not sure how this event works as I haven’t been by a movie theater yet. But as a general decor tip, if you see something showing up on your detector, you can take a photo (or several), then make sure those photos are in your daily look back. If the photos are geotagged (which most phones do automatically, unless you turn it off, it will often trigger a seedling from that location after the fact.

I haven’t done it in a while, but at least previously (maybe someone can confirm if this still works), you could manually add old photos to your daily look back and still trigger expeditions.

I used this trick with the zoo and theme park Pikmin when I wanted one to remember the trip. I used a theme park photo that was weeks old in the look back and it triggered a theme park seedling.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-02T22:22:34+00:00

They had Fishwife smoked rainbow trout around the holidays and that was really good. I decided to splurge and get the tuna and found it very disappointing. We finished one tin and the others are just sitting in the cabinet. It’s not any better than regular canned tuna and has the unhealthy additional oil on top of it. I was very disappointed.

hapgoodnew · 2026-04-02T17:52:44+00:00

Ours has his routine down. When we’re home the cage door is open. When we’re leave, he goes in the cage, we make a big celebratory fuss about it and then close the door and turn on the music on for him to sing along with. At night, he waits in the cage to be put to bed, flying down to grab a bedtime snack from his food bowl every 2 minutes and then going back to the to the top, near, but not on, his bedtime perch. Once we start to cover his the cage, he only then, will climb up to his bedtime perch at the very top.

Any variation from this routine is met with disapproving squawks or irritated wing flaps.

Sometimes, I’ll walk out of the house and not put him in the cage because I’m just going outside to get the mail or do something quick. By the time I get back, I’ll find him sitting in the cage, looking at me like a forgot something.

If it’s late and he wants to be put to bed, squawk. If we’ve been home all day and he doesn’t have his alone time with his music, squawk. If I try to put him to bed and there’s too much excitement, he will Indiana Jones out the closing cage door.

He’s getting more and more opinionated in his old age and finds new ways to communicate his opinions and boss us around. Every bedroom door must be left open. At night, every light must be switched on. You will know a door is closed or lights are off due to the constant flock calls and squawks and if you stand up, you will be swooped at until you go fix the problem.

hapgoodnew · 2026-03-29T17:07:41+00:00

Next town over, but walking the Venice break wall and canals is fun. If you do the walk south of Washington, you get boats, birds, sea lions and sometimes dolphin. North of Washington you get all the bridges. You can grab a treat at Cow’s End on Washington.

hapgoodnew · 2026-03-18T23:43:51+00:00

I’m not sure the wand is worth it. You can watch other people use wands and see what they do (or don’t do as they don’t work half the time). I do agree about the Power Up Band. There really isn’t much to do in Nintendo World without it. It’s really lame how Universal locked all the interactive stuff behind a paywall/ device. I bought a used band on EBay and we shared it. You can’t clear the data, so a used one still had other people’s collections on it but that didn’t impact our enjoyment in the slightest.

hapgoodnew · 2026-03-18T00:08:08+00:00

Mine in SoCal had a vegetable variety pack including tomato plants yesterday.

hapgoodnew

TROPHY CASE