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Weekend with Jack and Erin

Donna and I recently took a long weekend to visit our son Jack and his wife Erin in southern California. Some takeaways:

Jack’s and Erin’s friends are awesome. One night we hung out and then went bar-hopping with Jon, Luis, Eric, Jaqueline, Amy, Ian. What smart, interesting and good people they are. We talked about the future of social media, politics, travel, family. It’s heartening to know that Jack has surrounded himself with such quality people.

Klondike and Sundae, on the other hand, are stupid. When we first arrived, the American Eskimos greeted us as if we were ill-intentioned intruders, the little white fluffballs trying to be intimidating. After a few minutes we would convince them that we were benign and they would calm down and befriend and be-cuddle us, until we left the room for five minutes and returned, at which point their little dog brains forgot they had met us and barked and snarled at us all over again. This went on for the first couple days until either they realized we weren’t enemies or just stopped caring about what we were up to and resumed their typical behavior of Sundae tormenting the gentle and kind Klondike.


Their neighborhood is beautiful. We spent early mornings strolling through their beautiful neighborhood. Even in early February flowers and flowering bushes were blooming, though not as abundantly as when we’ve visited in spring. Houses are very close together; walls and tall hedges provide privacy, and often houses wrap around inner gardens, pools or patios. Many yards have citrus trees, which were heavy with ripe fruit – oranges, lemons, limes. Even some non-YouTube celebrities live there.

Electronic gadgetry is cool. Jack showed us his studio, bristling with electronic gadgets, large video monitors and a powerful, custom-made computer to run it all. He gave us a little demonstration of how he operates the equipment while doing live shows on Twitch. I don’t know how he does it. We also played ridiculously fun virtual reality video games (Jack is insanely good at destroying cubes flying at him at impossible speeds; me, not so much).

The Warner Bros. Studios tour is fantastic. The four of us took a three-hour tour (which I can’t say without thinking of Gilligan’s Island) of the lots, sound stages, prop and wardrobe warehouses, and exhibits of the studio founded by brothers Sam, Jack, Harry and Albert Warner. It was fascinating to see how they shoot sitcoms vs. talk shows; see the sound stages and backlots where hundreds of iconic movies and TV shows have been shot; and get up close to all the Batman cars and motorcycles, Harry Potter stuff, and clothes worn by actors (James Dean and Natalie Wood were tiny little people). A link to the Wikipedia article of the studio is here.

 East Coast oysters are better than western bivalves. Another night Jack and Erin treated us to an amazing dinner at Water Grill, an oceanfront restaurant in Santa Monica. We have been there a few times and always have a great time talking and laughing while eating and drinking fine food and wine. Jack and Donna don’t eat oysters, so Erin and I have a tradition of splitting a dozen when we are together. East Coast oysters are more flavorful and have better texture. Okay, California wines are way better than ours, however. 

 Here are a few more photos:







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