Sunset is right around/just before 7 lately

Which beach?

Santa Monica, gonna take the E Line to the Pier bsky.app/profile/bent...

The train is 👨‍🍳 💋 So glad you did that. Hopefully you didn't have to LAX. That place is a shitshow. If you have the $ fly BURBANK.

Chez Jay - very close to the Pier - is a hoot and an institution1 www.kcrw.com/culture/show...

Yay - have fun!

Welcome to L.A.!

Not even a country boy, I grew up in the largest city in Virginia! It's just not nearly as large as LA bsky.app/profile/berf...

The first time I flew into LA from the mid-Atlantic I was astounded. You fly over city for ~20 minutes before you land. Even the New York airports are nothing like that.

Made *the exact same comment* to a friend when I landed

4700 square miles in LA county, and there are at least 6 relevant counties in So Cal. And almost nothing was there 130 years ago. It’s the best reminder I can imagine of the productivity and persistence of humans.

Los Angeles is like your Aunt Edna's ass: it goes on forever and it's just as frightening. clip.cafe/parenthood-1...

Greater LA: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater...

First time here. Mrs and I flew in to SNA and spent two days in Anaheim (Disney) back in 2022, before driving down to San Diego. Never made it into LA proper bsky.app/profile/esp1...

I guess I'm feeling homesick since I'm still reading your post but did you just say "Just time here"??

25 😆 Just not a normal thing for me to see bsky.app/profile/itsj...

Yep. Population roughly half-mil, also very spread out bsky.app/profile/knif...

The first bird I saw after arrival was... ... ::drumroll:: ... ... a rock pidgeon 😂

Which was also the first bird species I saw in London And the first one I saw in Tokyo Truly a universal bird!

Good friend + mentor who helped me immensely at GitHub is retiring and moving abroad, so primarily dropping in on his farewell party bsky.app/profile/coac...

Santa Monica Pier was nice! Didn't get sunset over the ocean, but sunset over a mountain beside the ocean is close enough

Hoping to see the Tar Pits either tomorrow or Sunday! bsky.app/profile/bigp...

When I was stationed at pendleton I used to fish at the Oceanside Pier. In 2007-2012 you didn't need a license to fish on a pier. Not sure if that's still true or you fish but it might be a cool fyi.

I think that mountain might be Malibu.

But did they have all their toes? That’s the real question. I am sad to say that Atlanta’s pigeons are reduced to stubs.

20 years ago at my first DragonCon I noticed that Atlanta’s pigeons have very weird feet. Too many toes. Not enough toes. Weird growths. Really distressing sign about their environment

I don’t know about too many toes, but mangled feet are common in some cities and absent in others, and I’m really not sure why. There are theories involving prevalence of anti-bird spikes and/or human hair, but nobody seems to have nailed it down.

da da da da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da

That’s about the size of Long Beach

I was about to say, isn't VA Beach just like 6 suburbs in a trench coat?

Hometown love!

This is how you know Olympic sprinters train in SoCak

The Last Bookstore.

The expanse, plus rush hour traffic, means a drive from one end of LA to the other takes about the same time as driving across Virginia

So many great neighborhoods in LA. I have friends that live in Los Feliz, Sherman Oaks, Pasadena (okay a different city, but still great) and Santa Monica (ditto). I really love the different character of all the different areas.

I spent a few weeks there for work a while back. I was mostly too busy to see much. One Saturday I went to the tar pits in the morning, had lunch on Wilshire Blvd, and spent the whole afternoon in the County Art Museum. That was just amazing.

Check out the ivy restaurant nearby!

VA Beach?

I grew up in a town of 900 in rural Illinois and moved to Chicago after college and felt at home instantly.

I am going to walk out from my house to probably the next pier up the coast (about an hour drive from there)

Good luck

Santa Monica (and Venice) beach absolutely live up to their vibe expectations.

2 hours from the beach...4 in traffic

Watching the sun set over the ocean is pretty cool.