volts is volts?

With all the electronic junk piling up around us why are they not all designed to take the same voltage? Of all the idiot things....

mrs. a-go-go and I have resisted being too cluttered with gadgets for years. We spent years being heckled for not owning a cell phone, and now that we have one it is never on unless we are on the road. For the Big Trip we will be more gadget laden than usual. For the sake of mrs. a-go-go's photography we will likely have two digital cameras, and a laptop. Add a cell phone and an ipod for our connectivity and listening pleasure, and you have a gaggle of junk each with its own idiosyncratic battery charging needs. My struggle with those needs has become epic. Electronic stuff typically comes with AC adapters so we'll take advantage of any AC plug that comes our way but those will be few and far between during some stretches of our trip. That leaves me with the trick of adapting all this junk to the 12 volt DC in the car. Thus I beg the question, why are electronics not converging on using 12 volt DC? What is up, you nincompoop electronic engineers? I'm sure there is some very sensible gobbldey gook, way over my head answer yelled at me in all-caps, but really... why the hell not 12 volt DC? The power in your car is 12 volt DC. The power in the armrest on the plane (so I've heard. I've never been on a plane anywhere but in sardine can coach class) is 12 volt DC. Residential and RV solar panel systems all seem to be geared toward 12 volt DC (sometimes 24, but at least that's an even multiple).

OK, rant over. It's probably no where as simple as I imagine it all to be. My knowledge of electronics is marginal, but if we are going to be dependent on solar panels and wind turbines on the roof in the near future maybe we could get all the gadgets on the same voltage. I really hate having to waste so much power on heating up all those little transformers, inverters, and rectifiers.

the map is filling up

funny though...we seem to know a lot of people in the midwest and on the east coast...lookie all that emptiness between california & oklahoma!

another step forward (in the chorus line)

so...yesterday we a-go-gos celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. traditionally speaking, we usually jump off the fountain where we wed and then get a big boy combo at Bob's but this year, we were feeling a little different. that and the fact that i was having a cranky hair morning and them gray skies outside were not helping in jumping inspiration.

besides, we had other plans...an afternoon appointment to meet the CMO of the nifty creative agency that may or may not be able to put a Kia Soul within our reach. so instead of hitting up the fountain we hightailed over to the San Fernando Valley for a Dagla's lunch (dear Dagla's, we am so going to miss you).
after stuffing ourselves silly on the best darn french fries in the land, we hopped on the 405 and traveled to El Segundo. well, that was after we stopped in at my brother's work to find he wasn't there (of course). and, since we were there, we picked up an assortment of these for the road trip and i splurged on what may be the very best iced latte i have ever downed.
traffic wasn't bad at all which is odd for the 405 and we made it to El Segundo in no time at all. after a brief surreal moment when we hopped into an elevator and found it wouldn't work for us, we managed to hitch a ride up to the seventh floor. the doors opened up and we were greeted by a hipster hall and funky purple lights. we cautiously moved forward and were rewarded by a people-sized cardboard stand-up sock monkey! people-sized! sock monkey! if we believed in signs, this would be one, right? the man of the hour arrived and encouraged me to go ahead and snap a shot of the monkey. i wanted to take it home but i guess that would be pushing it.
after a tour of the nifty studio space we sat down and chatted a little about our plans and such. it was kinda like a date. you know, finding out more about each other. after an hour or so we were on our way with homework. all we need to do now is write up our proposal in a more concrete kind of way and send it in. and if you feel you could help out by writing a testimonial or something, please let us know as soon as possible. we have another person to impress and impart on and we could use all the help we can get.

the countdown is on and we leave may 1st Kia Soul or not, the trip is going to happen but it will be quite different depending on the car we drive. and like i wrote on my facebook page i have all sorts of songs stuck in my head. songs about the Soul and us and our trip. from Vermillion Lies to Frankie Lymon and now A Chorus Line...I hope we get it! and yes...we did make it to the fountain and of course, we jumped!

testing, testing....

To prepare for our little meeting with the folks who handle Kia's marketing on Tuesday we decided to go have a Soul test drive to compare the base model and the Soul+. The picture here is something mrs. a-go-go spotted on our test drive route, in case yer wonderin' what it has to do with this post. Anyhow, we have been asked to nail down exactly what Soul we would most want and with what features so that they can determine what kind of deal they can offer. After our comparison test drive we like the Soul+. There are two things that sealed the choice. First, the base model does not offer cruse control. That is something we can live with out but for the trip we are planning it will be a big help. Being able to relax and stretch that right foot on long stretches of lonely road is a big +. Second, after a peek under the hood we found that the base model's smaller engine does not have the magic exhaust manifold on the engine. The Soul+ as I mentioned in an earlier post from our first visit with the car, has an excellent space for engine cooking on top of the exhaust manifold with lots of head room for small backpacking pots. So, if a base model is all we can get into, we'll take it fer sure, but a Soul+ will make life sweet. Again, we'll see what comes of all this on Tuesday, and with a little luck and your crossed fingers we'll be on our way with Soul.

meetin' time

Sorry I haven't managed any posts lately. My job kept me ridiculously busy and I was fighting a cold all week. None the less, we have some positive news. The folks who handle Kia's marketing are interested in us enough to want a meeting. They want us to spell out the particulars of the Kia Soul we would like to get our hands on and they think they can offer us a deal. That means the car would not come as a gift. From the start I suspected that getting a free car would be unlikely. To make it work with our budget we need to spend $9,000 or less on the vehicle, so we'll see what they can do for us. If we cough up that much for the vehicle it will cut the potential length of our trip a bit, but I think we can still manage at least a 10 week odyssey. I am still hopeful we'll get into a Soul but I am ready to fall back on ol' Rodney, our 1999 Toyota Rav4. He's got alot of miles but I think he can make the trip if we sink about $2,000 into some long term maintenance items. Our meeting is on Tuesday this week, so keep your fingers crossed for us.

trying to cram it all in

it was my birthday yesterday and when asked what i wanted to do, i simply couldn't decide. we're leaving in two months. two months! and we're not just leaving on our trip, we're leaving los angeles. like mr. a-go-go said, l.a. has got some good eats and fun places to visit.

is it sad to admit that celebrations are all about food? and when you have such great choices around you, how do you choose? i feel like i need to cram them all in before we leave. you know, not just go once but go two or three times. so when i was asked i had to think. and think. and think.

would we hit the valley and get french fries at Dagla's?

or should we roam around India Sweets & Spices and get cheap veggie curries?

and i know we just had banh mi but stacey had never had banh mi and i really do love that chocolate dipped strawberry at Fosselman's.

oh wait, what about Blue Hen? they have such delicious food. organic, locally grown and all that jazz plus their turmeric fries are pretty tasty.

which made me think of pho but mr. a-go-go wouldn't be accompanying me and i feel bad getting pho without him.

switching back to sandwiches i thought maybe we should go to Porto's for cheese rolls and cubanos. Porto's also makes excellent coffee but it is so close i think i'll pick something up there next week. potato balls anyone?

i just couldn't decide so i opted to play outside of the city. sort of. instead of Dagla's or Blue hen or Ba Le, i decided we should go thrift shopping in Covina. at the magic thrift. where i scored a technicolor afghan, a handful of doilies and a bag of porcelain bunny heads (thank you stacey!).

and for lunch, since we were driving through Pasadena and i had a craving for pie, we parked ourselves at Pie 'N Burger and enjoyed a classic that rivals In N' Out any day. oh soooo good.

for dinner it was thai food ordered from a local place not a favorite but worked out fine (note to local place, you need to update your prices on your website). when you're happy with thai iced tea, sate and kang ka ree it's pretty easy to find adequate thai.

seriously l.a., i am going to miss your culinary options. big time. oh and i just remembered, why didn't i think of macarons? i've always wanted to try Paulette. phew! it's a good thing they do mail order.

ba le banh mi

Yesterday we made a food trip that we have made many times in the last year, and after we do the Big Trip we will likely make this food trip again any time we get the chance. After running some errands we stopped at Ba Le, a Vietnamese sandwich shop in Alhambra. Our order: two of our favorite mouth watering barbecue pork bahn mi sandwiches on slightly-crunchy-outside soft-and-chewy inside french rolls. Yes, it's another Vietnamese delight that we will miss in LA. There are quite a few places around LA selling their version of these tasty sandwiches born of French colonialism in Vietnam. The sandwich isn't a brand new thing but it was just this year that we first tried out our favorite place. Since then we've stopped in when ever the craving strikes, and sometimes that's nearly every weekend. Ba Le's bread rolls are a delight and we like their barbecue and sweet pickled vegetable filling. We always order them with the hot peppers but pick most of them out before the first bite. I'm too much of a softy for all that heat, it just kills the other flavors, but I like to rub the bread with one of the peppers to give it all a zing.

After the yum sandwiches we had to visit Fosselman's Ice Cream, also in Alhambra. If you live in Los Angeles or are just visiting and you're an ice cream nut, Fosselman's has got to be on your list. We will dearly miss their toasted almond, blueberry, chocolate dipped strawberry, lychee, green tea, horchata, flavors and so many others. They make all their ice cream on the premises, in fact if you stop by in the morning to pick up an ice cream pie for a party they will have the back of the shop open and you can see into where the big freezer/mixers are working. Fosselman's goes way back and started as a delivery dairy in the Pasadena area in 1924. On yesterday's visit while we sat and dug into the three scoops that mrs. a-go-go and I were sharing, I took note of what a true Los Angeles kind of place Fosselman's is. Ice cream has near absolute universal appeal and Los Angeles surrounds Alhambra with a polyglot population like few others. It was a busy day and in the thirty minutes we spent soaking up our ice cream, the shop was visited by two generations of a family from the Indian sub-continent, three generations of a family from Vietnam, Philipinos, Latinos, African-Americans, not to mention us northern Europeans. They had pistachio on a cone, coffee-and-chocolate-cookies in a sundae, strawberry piled in a waffle cone, a four-year-old worked at catching the drips of mint-chip on his sugar cone, dulce-de-leche in a cup, and every other facet of delicious you can come up with.

Oh man... I think we're going to have to go for another visit today too. Fosselman's... I'm gonna miss you.