Reunion In Santa Monica

Above, Asya and yours truly today at Cafe Crepe.

For the first time in a year and half I was down at the 3rd Street Promenade shopping area of Santa Monica.

Artist Asya is in town and we decided to meet up in Santa Monica today. Since I will be moving out of Los Angeles next week, this was the only chance we had for a get-together.

The last time we met was in October 2016 at the Odyssey Restaurant in Granada Hills for the portrait unveiling.

We caught up on the things going on in our lives. We had lunch at the Cafe Crepe at the 3rd Street Promenade. I'm not one for crepes, so I had a Caesar salad.

Lost Photos Found

Above, The Beast at Los Banos KOA. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

For months my SD card was rattling around inside of my phone. Somehow, without me knowing it, it popped out of its slot.

The only thing I noticed was that I lost a lot of storage capacity.

Two days ago, I went with Jes when she went to get a new phone. While there, I opened the back of my phone to see whereabouts my SD card goes. As soon as I opened the phone there it was just sitting there.

I took a look to see where it was supposed to go and found it. After sliding it into its slot, almost immediately many photo files popped back up. I thought those photo files were gone due from accidentally deleting them.

Here's some of the "long-lost" photos:

Above, The Beast at Reseda Automotive. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Amoeba Music in Hollywood. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, the Museum of Death in Hollywood. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, inside Amoeba Music in Hollywood. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, yours truly speaking on Godzilla locations in San Francisco. 

Above, The Beast at the Avenal-Coalinga Rest Area. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Superman at Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Tokyo Skytree at dawn. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Above, Dodger Stadium. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

A Pre-Clampout Day Out

Above, The Beast's refrigerator is fully stocked with the necessities. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Denise and I spent the day together in Malibu and Santa Monica.

First, we headed off for lunch at Nobu Malibu, a pretty glitzy Japanese restaurant. We went to unwind and try out their cuisine. While the food was good, the portions were a bit disappointingly small and the prices were sky-high. Denise asked if I would go there again. My response was, "For a special occasion."

Above, at Nobu in Malibu. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Speaking of special occasions, today was special as it was one year ago today that we met. So we celebrated with Japanese food.

After that we headed off to the 3rd Street Prominade in Santa Monica so she could pick up some make-up and some odds & ends.

Following that, we had to battle traffic on the Santa Monica and San Diego Freeways to get back into the San Fernando Valley. She was lucky that she could nod off and nap.

After taking Denise home, I headed back home to get The Beast up on leveling blocks so I could turn on the refrigerator.

As you can see from the top picture, there's plenty of beverages in the refrigerator for the weekend in Tehachapi with Platrix.

It was a pretty enjoyable day.

Lunch By The Sea

Above, part of our lunch with the Pacific Ocean in the background. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Denise Santos and I managed to head over to Pacific Palisades for lunch at Gladstone's 4 Fish (located on Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Blvd.).

There, we had oysters, crab cakes, cerviche, spicy shrimp and other delicacies. We had a nice outside window table which provided a view of Santa Monica Bay and the surrounding beach.

From Gladstone's we headed over to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Denise had never been there before, so I decided to show it to her. While there, we stopped in a Coffee Bean coffee shop for some coffee as we were both "suffering" from food comas from Gladstone's.

In one shop, a life-sized statue of Superman stood in a window (below, right). It was nice to see a Superman that actually looked like Superman, not the abomination that DC Comics is currently passing off.

We passed by the Cineplex Odeon where, eleven years ago, several of us Godzilla fans attended the last American Film Market screening of Godzilla x Mothra x MechaGodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (courtesy of Toho Co., Ltd.). The theater looked a little run down to me. It is hard to believe that it has been eleven years since we last gathered in Santa Monica for an American Film Market screening.

While we were walking around, a nut-job was screaming and cussing at the top of his lungs, annoying people. I supposed it is to be expected, after all, we were in Santa Monica.Another stop was at Brookstone's where we checked out the latest gadgetry they had to offer. Denise tried out a massage lounge chair while I browsed around the store.

We were thinking about going to a movie when we got back to the Valley, but it was cutting too close (time-wise) as Denise had her evening baseball league game to play in.

We headed back to the Valley via Topanga Canyon (known to us as "the scenic route") as the San Diego Freeway (I-405) would be a mess with rush-hour traffic.

Above, Denise in the massage chair at Brookstone's. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

All in all, it was a pleasant excursion for a few hours.