Tagged: California

Happy New Year

Apple Watch had a festive animation for the new year.

Apple Watch had a festive animation for the new year.

Happy new year, everyone!

I spent the last week of 2017 and the first couple of weeks of 2018 in Southern California, extending going “home for the holidays” into a twenty-six day vacation. There’s a lot of reasons why I stayed out there as long as I did, but most of them are related to weather and my schedule.

First, New York can be a pretty sad place in January. It’s cold, and there aren’t a lot of social activities happening during this time of year. Consequently, people are pretty anti-social this time of year. People stay at home to cook at home, doing a dry-January thing, or are just bundling up at home because, like I said, it gets really cold this time of year. I’m not missing much being away from New York this time of year.

Second, the extended holiday vacation allows me to visit new places throughout the ever-changing Southland. Like most other places, Los Angeles shuts down during the holidays. I would often fly back to New York in early January and miss out on a lot activities in Los Angeles because a lot of interesting things happen again in mid-January. Staying out there later allows me to do these things in a strange land. And, of course, it’s noticeably warmer in Southern California than it is “back east.”

Third, I don’t plan a summer getaway like most everyone. As popular as it is to complain about the heat and humidity of New York summers, I actually really like New York during the summertime. Regular readers know that a lot of my favorite activities —specifically cycling and softball—happen during the summer, and the fair-weather New Yorkers depart for the shore until Labor Day weekend. That makes the city a kind of playground for those of us who remain, and when the douche-set returns in September, I don’t mind getting away then. As a friend once quipped, “September is the new August.”

Lastly, my schedule this time of year gives me some degree of freedom. I taught an online winter class at Queens College this semester, which I was able to run from my parents’ home and a couple of area coffee shops. I did have to come back for my first in-person class at Pratt, which started on Wednesday, January 17. Consequently, I didn’t fly back until the day before, on Tuesday.

I had reserved four tickets to the Broad Museum, but only my mom could make it so we gave these two Dutch tourists our spare tickets. They looked hot and tired, and I wanted to assure the Dutch that Americans are nice, despite our president.

There were many highlights on this trip. I did a lot of cycling, and I drank some beers, both of which I will cover in a separate post. I saw some family members. I visited the new Broad Museum in downtown Los Angeles, whose location across the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art, strikes me as a middle-finger from Broad to the museum he cofounded in the 1980s. I shopped a fountain pen store in Monrovia, California, run by a gentle yet passionate expert in pens and inks. I visited the Wende Museum of Cold War objets in Culver City. I dragged my mom and dad out to the same movie theater, where a generation ago, I would have been embarrassed at being spotted with either my mom or dad. As I’ve said before, young people are stupid. My dad and I teamed up to take and print my own passport photos; it’s harder than you think.

But now, I’m back in New York. Aside from jumping back into work, I finally got around to doing that MoviePass thing and started going to more movies. That’s been great because, as I said earlier, everyone is anti-social, and something I can do on my own.

Getting Off My Butt, On the Saddle

My extended stay in Southern California comes to an end this week, as I return to New York late Thursday just in time to teach a Friday morning, film history class at Pratt. In terms of my own physical activity, it couldn’t come at a better time, as my Apple Watch is keen to remind me.

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Ironically, I am significantly less active in the mild climes of Southern California than in the less hospitable December weather of New York.

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Much of this is because I have been staying in the suburbs, and it’s been hard getting in any casual exercise, such as bike commuting or walking around the neighborhood. But it was unseasonably warm in New York this December… to the point where it was as warm on Christmas Eve as on Independence Day in 2015.

One way to mitigate my lack of daily physical activity is to plan and take some long-distance rides. This month, I rode two.

Whose Fault is it Anyway?

Back in the days before Obamacare and mandatory health insurance coverage, underemployed “young invincibles” justified buying a health policy, which many of them would likely rarely use, to insure against an unforeseen catastrophe such as getting hit by a car. The prospect of mounting hospital bills, caused by such a calamity, alarmed a lot of people into getting covered.

But having been hit by a car while riding my bike, I can tell you that your personal health coverage does not normally cover you should you be hit by a car.1 The primary responsibility falls on an auto insurance carrier. If you get hit by a car while walking or riding a bicycle, the driver’s auto insurance is supposed to cover your bills and lost wages. At least that’s the case in a no-fault state like New York.

Here I am in California and, on TV, I see a spot for the state-run insurance exchange, Covered California.

The ad consists of a single shot, craning to follow an ambulance rushing to the scene of a injured bicyclist. On the right, there is an automobile that presumably collided with the bicycle and caused the rider to fall to the ground. The voiceover announces, “it’s more than just health care, it’s life care.”

But unless this was something changed in the Affordable Care Act since I was hit by car in 2006 and 2008 or something is different in California, I’m pretty certain that most health insurance policies would not cover the bicyclist, unless something is amiss with the driver’s auto insurance.

Or maybe it does now… Thanks, Obama.


  1. Your health insurance will cover you should the driver flee the scene, but you’ll have to file paperwork proving that. 

Brewers, Growlers and Scofflaws

I’ve been in California a whole week now, and in addition to spreading holiday cheer with my family, I’ve continued my tour of local breweries where I order a flight.

Earlier this week, my mom and I headed to Little Tokyo near downtown Los Angeles. Over the years, I really got to know that neighborhood over the years, and Little Tokyo became my favorite neighborhood in LA. It’s centrally located with a good deal of public transit, including nearby Union Station. There’s some really good food in the area, and there’s a burgeoning nightlife scene, albeit an increasingly trendy one. And, of course, there’s also a brewery tap room at Angel City.

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I tried to visit Angel City Brewing some years ago with a New York transplant friend, but it was closed at the time. Sarah and I went last year, and I finally managed to get a couple of pints last New Year’s Day, including an unusually light-colored stout.

Angel City Stout

After running a few errands with my mom near Little Tokyo, we headed to the brewery where I bought a flight to sample their offerings and to fill a half-gallon growler I bought at the brewery.

Angel City Brewing

She also kicked my butt at Jenga. Twice.

Angel City Brewing

After Christmas, it was time to venture on the town, lest I go completely stir crazy. Fortunately, the Antelope Valley actually has more than one local brewery. In addition to Bravery Brewing off Avenue L in Lancaster, there’s also Kinetic Brewing, full-fledged brew-pub on Lancaster Boulevard. As is my style, I ordered a flight of seven of their beers. At $10, it was an absolute steal.

Kinetic Brewing

When it came to time to leave, I took out my Angel City half-gallon growler and asked that they fill it. They refused because the growler came from another brewery. The only way they would let me buy beer to-go was if I bought a new glass growler from them. Perhaps emboldened by a few of their beers, I took to Twitter.

Nothing significant came of it, but I wondered why they refused to fill a growler from another brewery.

Was it a business decision? If so, it’s really short-sighted. Sure, they’re giving up a dollar or two on selling a new growler, but I’m offering them money to spill some beer into a glass receptacle. What difference does it make who put their trademark on it? Or…

Was it a regulatory issue? Is it not legal in California to fill a growler from another brewery?

It turns out, that it is the latter.

In California, a glass growler is subject to the same labelling requirements governing other containers, such as cans, bottles and kegs. The list of requirements is quite long, but the most relevant requirements for each label are…

  • the name and location of the manufacturer (city and state) and bottler (if different).
  • the name of the beer in the container.
  • the alcohol content, if 5.7% abv or greater. It is optional if below.
  • the net contents of the container.

As a workaround, any brewery is free to place their own sticker on a bottle, but the letter of the law is quite strict about doing so:

Any and all information pertaining to another beer manufacturer other than the licensee filling/selling the container must be obscured. All text and logos from a previous brewery must be obscured.

The California Craft Brewers Association, which published a Growler Clarification document for its members, also offers them a list of best practices in marketing growlers to their thirsty customers. As far as meeting the labelling requirements, they recommend brewers use a label that hangs from the neck of the bottle, instead of printing onto the glass bottles.

The California Craft Brewers Association recommends these hanging neck labels for growlers

As a loyal craft beer drinker, I hope that, in time, brewers throughout the state adopt this particular labelling technique. It is presumably cheaper than printing your own bottle, and it will make it easier for everyone to enjoy their products without resorting to acting like scofflaws.