Hi there!  The gang and I went down to Culver City for Nik’s eyeball check.  Things are looking okay with that.  Keep giving drops and hoping that the lens will drop into the bottom of his eye and maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to see better.  Right now, he’s working on about 2% vision with one dead eye and one full, inoperable cataract-ed lens in the other.  Not that it’s slowing him down or impacting his manic zest for life any.  He’s still running 60 mph chasing his ball using his hearing and sense of smell — and with my assistance (lefts and rights).

Friday night after work, I got a little bit of neon shooting in.  This one’s just west of downtown Los Angeles.  I think it’s still unknown what this sign originally advertised for.  And I was surprised to see it lit:

 

 

I haven’t been to L.A.’s Chinatown in ages:

 

 

On to this morning — from Redondo Beach.  I don’t know how old this sign really is.  Certainly, the paint job appears to be non-vintage — but still…. fun sign:

 

 

Still Redondo Beach.  Next to Joe Oliveri Hair Design.  This head is BIG.  The “hair” is fake (not real living greenery):

 

 

The Golden Donut in Torrance… now a Mexican Food restaurant.  Long live the sign!

 

 

Also in Torrance — the Carson Plaza shopping center:

 

 

In Wilmington — Lucky Star Chinese.  I have no idea what this building housed originally.  It doesn’t match up with any of the A-frame restaurant chains that I’m familiar with:

 

 

From San Pedro.  According to the counter guys, this was originally the Hamburger Hut — established in 1936.   And you can see some ghosting on this sign and holes for the neon that might match that name.  But I’m suspicious that this was a hot dog place with the Dachshund featured so prominently.  A San Pedro on-line source does show a Hamburger Hut at this address in the 1950s — so maybe the guys are right about that.  This sign is more typical of the 1950s than 1930s.

 

 

Also San Pedro:

 

 

Exhausted by mid-afternoon — thank god!   It was a VERY noisy morning (mucho barking).  An over-the-shoulder, at a red light shot of the new kid (Griz) and Grem.

 

 

Last one from San Pedro:

 

 

Moving on to Long Beach:

 

 

The Walter Pyramid at Cal State University Long Beach — built in 1994.  This one would probably shoot better on a cloudy day.  But it’s very mirage-like that blue on blue:

 

 

Still Long Beach — on the former Owl Drug building (now Olives Gourmet Grocer):

 

 

A couple more shots from Long Beach:

 

 

At day’s end, the dogs were treated to the huge, LEGAL dog beach in Huntington Beach.  After that, too late to shoot anything else.  But I thought you might like the sunset silhouette of the Naked Surfer statue:

 

More Orange County tomorrow — but I’ll have to cut off in the afternoon since I’ve got to work on Monday morning.  I’ll probably make you wait for the blog post and photos until Tuesday or Wednesday.  Stay tuned…