More on "Where To Live Next Year"

Rental prices are falling in the Los Angeles area. The best deals I've gathered are for the rental of three-bedroom apartments. Three bedroom apartments are generally scarce in the LA area because they require more parking.

(Note: Did you know that LA requires an additional parking space for kitchens that are larger than 100 square feet? But LA doesn't care about the size of a bedroom? So in theory you could build an apartment with 2 bedrooms, and make each bedroom so big that two or three people can share - as is the case in the student ghetto - and only have to provide the requisite 2.25 spaces...)

Ideally I'd move into a three bedroom. It's the right size, not like the 12 months I spent living in a big rowhouse with 6 other strangers in Washington DC (although that was a ton of fun).

Here are some of the deals I've seen online:

Santa Monica: 12th and Wilshire, under $2,400 a month
Nice & spacious 2nd floor floor unit in a 3-story building just North of Wilshire, 12 blocks from the ocean. Large kitchen, freshly painted, new carpet, new stove & dishwasher, very large patio, great closet space, elevator, 2-car parking in subterranean garage, laundry on each floor. 1-year lease. Water & trash paid. Available 6/1/09. Sorry, no pets.


Westwood: $1000 / 3br - Single Family Home-Unfurnished (2134 Greenfield Ave West Los Angeles, CA) 
This sounds too good to be true. It's unclear if it is $1,000 for the whole house or for a bedroom.


West Los Angeles: $1595 by Santa Monica and Sawtelle
Unfurnished, Upper, 3 bedrooms, 2 Baths, Cat OK with deposit, One year minimum lease, New Carpets, 2-car Parking included, laundry on site, quiet neighborhood, stove, UPPER; NEWLY REMODELED; NEW BERBER CARPET; REFRIGERATOR; Vertical Blinds; Parking; Great Location; Convenient to UCLA; Walk to Sawtelle and Santa Monica Blvd. Restaurants and Theaters. Shown by appointment., Paid water & trash, $1,595.00, 1200 deposit, Available Now! Call 310 561-8772 good/bad credit Ok
service deposit

Mid City : Chariton and Cadillac Ave
Upper 3 bedroom 2 bathroom large unit, with beige carpet, vertical blinds, balcony, 1 parking space. Move in special: with good credit and a 1 year lease: first month rent free and lower security deposit to $500.

Yay, a Date Lab that works out!

I'm a fan of the Washington Post Magazine's weekly Date Lab column. There's a write-up in each issue of a blind date arranged by the magazine's staff. At the beginning of the project, one date went so well that the couple got engaged within weeks (but now they are divorced.) Occasionally, I'd read a column that paired up a person I knew. (This just goes to say that DC is a small town.) Sometimes the dates were colossal disasters.

I'm pleased to report that this week's date went really well. Scott and Julie are two thirtysomethings who hit it off with one another during a date at a restaurant in Penn Quarter. They flirted. She missed the last Metro back to Bethesda, so he got in the cab with her to make sure she got back to her car okay. When it turned out she was sick on the day of their second date (there was a second date!), he made her dinner and took care of her. Then, on the next day, he brought her flowers.

Hopefully things work out for the best for Scott and Julie!

For now, the Metro Trip Planner can make do

Dear Metro,

I need to ask for your mercy.

Thanks to a commenter on this blog, I discovered I made a very simple mistake. Instead of indicating that my arrival time was 4PM, I didn't change the default, which was "AM".

Here is the screenshot of the new result:This makes a lot more sense, since the trip planner directed me to take a Big Blue Bus, which is another municipal bus operator in the Los Angeles area.

This next screenshot shows the approximate travel times:

The Big Blue Bus 12 runs every half-hour, which in my opinion means if you miss the bus by a minute, you are stuck waiting for at least 29 more minutes until the next bus appears. 29 minutes + is a long time to wait, especially if you don't know where the bus actually is.

Anyway, I feel like a fool (sort of) but I hope most of you understand that this mistake actually happens.

I'm so sorry, Metro! Please accept my apology. I'm sorry that I got so discouraged by my trip planning experience on your website that I ranted here and drove instead of using my Xootr Scootr.

Sincerely,
Sirinya

Another reason why we need Google Transit

Dear Metro,

As you may or may not know, it was I who co-founded Los Angeles Wants Google Transit, a Facebook group dedicated to organizing transit geeks and my friends who wanted a better trip planner.

One of the reasons we did this is because the existing trip planner is crap.

Today, I went to metro.net to figure out how to use transit to get from my apartment in Westwood to a classmate's apartment in Mar Vista. By eye-balling the location on Google Maps, I guessed that I would take the Culver City Bus 6, which runs along Sepulveda Boulevard. The bus ride would take 25 minutes, plus an additional 15 minutes of Xootr-ing. But that bus route has 20 minute headways, which is annoying. I thought, maybe I overlooked something...

I should know better, but I went to metro.net ayway to enter my itinerary into the site's trip planner. Here are the results:

Wait, WHAT???? Metro.net wants me to take THREE BUSES to travel only 5.7 miles.

And it gets better. Check out this one proposed itinerary:

SERIOUSLY? Metro's trip planner has generated an itinerary that proposes for me to take THREE buses to essentially travel in one big circle, as illustrated by this map:

"A" is my starting point and "B" marks my end point.
This itinerary would take 2.5 hours, which is outrageous!

I know there are people inside your agency who are concerned about acquiescing information to a private sector company. There are also people inside your agency who are concerned about redirecting page views away from metro.net and mta.net.

These people are missing the point, which is that the existing trip planner is poorly developed. The existing trip planner generates itineraries that are inconvenient and discourage infrequent transit users from actually becoming riders.

Anyway, now that I've completed my rant, I now need to go visit the Big Blue Bus website to figure out if I've overlooked any routes that are faster and more convenient. Thanks a lot for your "help", Metro...

Sincerely,
Sirinya

Later: I wound up driving Juancar, and yes, I feel guilty about it.

Out to eat with Sirinya and her girlfriends from elementary school

I am so glad that I made the schlep out to Eagle Rock to try out Cafe Beaujolais yesterday evening. Cafe Beaujolais is 25 miles from Westwood, but the opportunity to see my very best girlfriends from my first elementary school, Laraine and Annalynn, coupled with the opportunity to dine at this adorable French cafe was absolutely worth it.

I don't get to see Laraine and Annalynn very often (in fact, I hadn't seen them since last August), so I would've traveled anywhere to see them. Luckily, I only had to drive to Eagle Rock, which is one of Los Angeles's first suburbs north of downtown.

My last visit to Eagle Rock was back in the summer of 2000, when my dad took me and my sister for an unfortunate trip to the then-dying Eagle Rock Mall. [Now, it has a new Target, a renovated Macy's, and a Seafood City, a Filipino-owned supermarket chain; the latter is appropriate given that Eagoe Rock has a dedicated core of Filipino families.] Since then, Eagle Rock has emerged as destination for hipsters priced out of Silver Lake and Echo Park. At the corner of Eagle Rock Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard, there a number of coffee shops, independently owned restaurants, and amenities situated in 20s-era multi-story buildings. This suit both hipsters and the 2nd generation off-spring of the Filipino families.

Annalynn turned 27 on Tuesday and she decided she wanted to celebrate her birthday at Cafe Beaujolais, which is about five blocks east of Eagle Rock Boulevard on Colorado Boulevard. The restaurant is in a converted bungalow and owned and operated by the most charming French men outside of France. The proprietor greeted me warmly, made fun of me for arriving on my Xootr, and showed me a place where I could store the Xootr safely. (Later, the guys tried out the Xootr. They were very impressed.)

At least 10 of Annalynn's cousins came out for her birthday. And you know what? I was kind of envious! I have just as many cousins as she does. But almost all of them live abroad. Annalynn is friends with her cousins too, which I think makes her incredibly blessed.

Anyway, as for the food: It was delicious, especially the escargots. The proprietors of Cafe Beaujolais were hysterical. I might have to bring Juan back. But I also know that I need to have Juan meet Annalynn and Laraine. These women (and our other friend, Sophia, who was unable to attend) tell stories of embarrassing things I said and did back when I was a kid, and they do it solely out of love. I want Juan to meet people who connect me to that part of my childhood.

A moment with Sirinya: Jon and Kate, just end it already!

If you've gone to the checkout stand at CVS, or cruised through internet news sites, chances are, you have finally heard of Jon and Kate Gosselin. (I was a fan of their show for about three months because the Gosselins were the only Asian American family on TV.) They have their own TLC reality show, "Jon and Kate Plus Eight", which follows them as they raise two sets of multiples - twins and sextuplets - in central Pennsylvania. In the past two weeks, their marriage appears to be falling apart on the pages of the tabloids.

I have too many other things to do (homework, for one), but I am positively hooked on following their story.


Jon has come forth denying claims that he's having an affair with a 23-year-old school teacher. Kate's been accused of sleeping with her body guard. Kate's brother Kevin and his wife Jodi sold Jon and Kate out by selling their story to Star Magazine; they claimed that Jon and Kate's marriage is a sham, that Kate basically sucks, etc.

I'm hooked for many reasons, the first being that anyone who saw the show knew that Kate treated Jon like shit so disrespectfully that he/she was puzzled that they were even still married. Surprise, surprise - maybe even Jon and Kate see that they shouldn't be married to each other too.

The second is, it's fascinating to see how the lives of reality TV stars blends with real life. Quite frankly, Jon and Kate are turning into the Hills/Speidi debacle: clearly snickering at the ridiculousness of Heidi and Spencer was far more interesting than actually watching their show.

Anyway, good grief! Jon, go back to school and get your life back! Kate, stop talking to the press and clean up the mess you've created! And both of you: put your kids in therapy, but ESPECIALLY Mady, who people hate on (she's like eight!), but I swear, she's my favorite. She clearly alternates between performing for the cameras and wishing that they'd all go away. 

Introducing my Xootr

Hi everybody!

Many of you have seen me Xoot up and down the halls of the SPA School as well as throughout the UCLA campus. It's about time I introduce my Xootr to all of you. The Xootr still doesn't have a name. But it's pretty darn awesome. The scooter has low resistance wheels, so if you're on perfectly flat ground, you push once, and it just rolls. My favorite place to Xoot is currently inside the SPA School because of its long, heavily waxed hallways. 

I've gotten yelled at to fold my Xootr by at least three UCLA Fleet and Transit drivers. What they don't realize is that the Xootr is a pain in the butt to fold. There is this so-called "ergo push pin" that you have to pull out when you want to fold the Xootr in half. It's not like the Razor, which just folds. I work in the same department as these drivers, but I doubt they realize I'm the person gushing about the Xootr on the department's blog (www.beagreencommuter.com).

Meanwhile, I'm just hanging out with my Xootr, offering/suggesting to people that they give my Xootr a try, and making a case for Juan to get his own scooter. (If not a Xootr, then perhaps a GoPed, which is an electric scooter on steroids. I've seen one parked at the bike rack in front of the SPA School.)

Matty Higgs tries out my Xootr

See Matty Higgs whiz by on my Xootr
Meanwhile, Juan and I have gone on a joint Xootr ride together (see the entry about the movie "Little Manhattan".). We Xooted from a joint ULI-APA talk at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce to catch the 720 together. It was exhilarating, romantic, and quite possibly one of the stupidest things I could've done expressly because it was pretty scary going downhill and the Xootr isn't exactly known for its brakes.

Nor is the Xootr known as the most stable mode of transportation. You have to be careful on slick pavement and be sure to avoid sidewalk cracks and whatnot, or else you could be like this guy who, in the early days of Xootr ownership, lost control of his Xootr on a sidewalk crack, tripped, chipped his two front teeth, and had to get two root canals and a crown on the broken teeth.


By and large, I have fallen in love with my Xootr. It was worth every single cent.

A moment with Sirinya: Those gosh darn undergrads and their way intense election season

Election season for the undergraduate student government at UCLA came to a dramatic close last night with the election of 4th year student Cinthia Flores and 9 other StudentsFirst! candidates. (That's right - UCLA is so big that there are POLITICAL PARTIES HERE.)

I'm a graduate student, so I only observed with interest since I'd gone to Smith, where the election season is nothing compared to what happened this week at UCLA.

One of the things I find absolutely fascinating about local politics is that the drama plays out on a really personal scale. Something fishy happened over at the Student Welfare Commission, this committee of the undergraduate student government that usually elects its leader through an in-house election. For whatever reason, the USAC constitution doesn't say that the SWC Chair will be elected by fellow committee members. As a result, Bruins United decided to run a candidate who'd never even served on the SWC against the de-facto SWC committee chair.

Quite frankly, it all sounded really bizarre to me and intensely personal. What were they trying to communicate to the student body? I couldn't help but wonder why Myles Hamby - the Bruins United candidate for SWC chair -- even agreed to run against someone who had been chosen internally. It got a significant portion of the student body really riled up. Anyway, that guy lost, but not after getting attacked in the Daily Bruin.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to watching how USAC does next year. I hope they continue to look out for the transportation needs of their fellow students!