We have had a few warm calm days and nights in Southern California. One would not imagine that it’s winter …

I have been on a Starbucks coffee drinking schedule again. For a while I just did not need to drink coffee again. When I returned to my habit, the large coffee size seemed humongous. My hand would buckle under its weight and I would imagine sipping it throughout the day … fast forward a few weeks later … Now that same large coffee seems a tad small. I find myself looking behind the counter to see if they gave me the correct size. Sure thing, it is the largest coffee size available. Oh! I hope that it does not continue decreasing … spoken like a true addict

More and more airlines these days require you to print your own boarding pass. And no, it’s not for our convenience but for the purpose of the airline saving some money. Since they have pushed that step of the boarding process onto the traveler here is a suggestion to make it easier, read less costly, for that same traveler.

Please create the boarding pass with minimum writing and no ads, fancy graphics or color at all. Just print the minimum information. Some airlines, like Virgin America print these huge red squares on their boarding passes requiring us to use up an ink cartridge to print two passes. Where is the environmental sense in this anyways. They are not the only culprits. Some companies make you print four pages for one simple boarding pass. I know for a fact that such technology exists to place multiple images on one piece of paper.

Why waste ink, paper and the traveler’s hard earned cash. Make it a bare bones printout … or even better let those that want it store the boarding pass info on their phone. No harm there … So there’s my million dollar suggestion …

It was a Friday before the weekend, afternoon and we arrived to JFK all ready to spend a nice weekend in New York State. All we had to do was pick up our car at the rental area and be on our way. This included a ride in the elevator to the Airtrain. Well, that was not so easy. Many others had the same idea. Lines were enormous at each elevator, and the elevators were so tiny two passengers with carts/strollers could fit for the ride. Since all levels were busy it would take the elevator 10 minutes to return. Awful!!!!!!!!!!!! It took us over one and a half hours to get to the rental area … We had a baby with us and cart with bags and were not able to use the escalators. One piece of advice. Try to stay away from the elevators at JFK if you can at all! BTW, JetBlue was the airline.

I got a few treats from Natas Pastries last week. Yum. They call themselves L.A.’s Portuguese Bakery. Cool. I really liked their specialty dessert, Nata, a flaky outer shell with creamy inside (custardy). Light and tasty. The only problem was that I could eat very many of these. Their light flavor and consistency makes it feel like you have had none, when actually you have already eaten five.

Here is their info:

Natas Pastries
13317 Ventura Blvd. #D
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
nataspastries.com

I don’t stop by Le Pain Du Jour often because it is just out of the way for me. I was fortunate to be in the area early last week. It was around seven in the morning and the store was full of goodies. I loaded up on croissants, chocolate croissants and chocolate croissants with coconut … yum yum yum .. Love this place. Soooo good. We had a croissant left over until the next day and it warmed up perfectly inside the toaster oven. Delicious. I am sure there will be more and more of my takes, so to speak, on this bakery ….

Le Pain Du Jour Inc
828 Pico Blvd Ste 2
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 399-4870

One thing we could not figure out while vacationing in East Hampton was where the good local coffee shops were. We saw Starbucks in several places. Ok, that’s that. We were hoping to find some cool local rustic, or perhaps modern coffee shops that serve awesome coffee. We asked around; wherever we ate, at the supermarket, in local shops, etc., but no one knew of any good local places. They just knew of Starbucks. This was not just the case in East Hampton but also all of the other small Hampton towns. I am either sensing a good business opportunity here or they are keeping their good coffee shops really really well hidden. IDK.

Regarding our Garmin GPS Nuvi 260w : It gets confused every time there is a roundabout. If you are entering or leaving a highway and the on/offramp circles around , the unit will get confused and lose its focus. It will start talking about recalculations etc. At that point I do not need recalculations but concise directions.

Another thing that is annoying is when there are several quick turns. It gets totally confused. This is most obvious when you are on a highway and need to move over several lanes to change roads, then change them again. It starts spelling incorrect information.

Overall it is great. One just needs to know these quirks. It is important to know your general directions and not rely solely on your GPS. You’ll get confused in cases mentioned above.

After having spent a week in East Hampton we were hooked on the Citarella Markets. Their products are top notch. The produce, baked goods, prepared foods and the like tasted great and most of the stuff had no artificial and chemically related ingredients. It was a bit pricey but oh so good. If you find yourself in this part of Long Island check it out, if just to stroll through the aisles and check out their offerings. They have several stores in the region.

Citarella
2 Pantigo Rd
East Hampton, NY 11937-2604
(212) 874-0383
http://www.citarella.com

Most airlines allow only up to 50lbs for your first bag. In our case that always involves weighing the luggage at home, reorganizing, weighing again, taking things out, loading more in your carry-on and similar. If you go over that limit the fines are huge.

The 70lbs weight limit that Virgin America saves us time because we can never pack over 70lbs in just one suitcase. This makes our packing much less stressful. So thank you the people of this airline.

The $15 per bag charges are still there but that seems to be a usual thing these days. How quickly everyone has adapted to this … hmmm

One really has to watch out for this stretch of road on Long Island. The 27, or the Sunrise Highway has a most peculiar speed limit (or range posted) when driving West near Oakville. The maximum speed sign states 45mph and right below it is the minimum speed of 40mph. I hope that this is an honest mistake and not a speed trap. Everyone was driving around 60mph in this zone as all other signs around for the 27 had 55mph as the speed limit. Interesting nevertheless.

Another surreal day in Los Angeles. Huge stacks of smoke could be seen above the nearby mountains. The smoke rose for miles into the air above the city. Many compared the sight to pictures of nuclear explosions. It did have that appearance and that was a bit creepy. I was going to take some photos, but many others beat me to it. Check out LA Times for user photos of this dangerous fire.

It was a bit weird. I smelled a musty odor in the house I was visiting but then noticed that it was everywhere. Entire regions of the South Bay had this smell. When I would drive into the overcast/foggy area I would immediately smell it. Kind of weird. I heard some say that it could be a pollen with a specific scent that gets released in the damp air. We might never know.

It must be a current fad. I think that they started out in bars, then moved to chain restaurants, fast food establishments, and now in grocery stores. Today, I observed as one after another, people kept placing mini burgers along with mini buns into their shopping carts. I thought that they were just more work for the preparer. Kinda funny.

These are the most tasty donuts. Light and airy and sweet. They are made from choux pastry just like cream puffs. Perhaps that is why I love them so. When you are in the mood for a cruller click on this link. It’s the Google Image search result for cruller donut. My mouth is watering already.