#80. City of Angels (Friday, March 29, 2024)

What was your best day…of traveling to a faraway place with your friends?

First, a word on Kai Ho.

Kai was a research director in the currency department of my institution. I first met him on my interview day back in 2014 where we struck up a nice rapport¹, and since then he’d been kind of an unofficial mentor and close friend to me. He was super laid-back but also extremely serious about research and well-connected – meaning he always knew what was up (even about me, sometimes before even I knew). So, any time he’d dole out a casual piece of wisdom at our Friday research Happy Hours (#120, for which he was an original organizer and regular attendee), I listened carefully.

Every year, Kai and his frequent collaborator Ryan Petrovitch (whom everyone who knew him “well enough” called Gary², for unknown reasons), sometimes with a few other researchers, take a trip down to a different U.S. city in late March for combination of March Madness and opening week baseball. This year, the first time I could commit to join them, it was Los Angeles.

The trip gets off to a brilliant start on Wednesday afternoon³ when Kai and I meet at the airport gate, and he generously swipes me in as his plus-one to the Air Canada Lounge⁴. It’s my first time ever at an airport lounge, and it is awesome. Good-quality hot food, drinks, and spacious seating surrounded by glass windows facing the tarmac.

The lounge at the Toronto airport is even bigger and better. Gary is already there (flew in from Thunder Bay, where he’s a professor at Lakehead), and we have several drinks and a pasta buffet dinner as we wait the four hours for our flight to LAX. It’s then that I realize exactly why airport lounge access is so valuable: it sets the perfect tone for your vacation, before your vacation has even begun.

We’re staying at an Airbnb in City Terrace, which is in this very hilly section of East LA. So, our Uber has to wind its way up and down a series of small, sharply sloped roads an hour before midnight to reach our destination. Once again, too cool.

On Thursday, after a morning drinking and eating fish tacos at Santa Monica Pier, it’s the two Sweet Sixteen matches at Crypto.com Arena⁵. As a hardcore March Madness fanatic (#104), seeing these edge-of-your-seat single-elimination games for the first time in person gets me pumped in the lead-up and throughout. Clemson upsets Arizona, and Alabama upsets North Carolina in an all-time classic (followed by stirring chants of “Roll Tide!” by the sizable Alabama fanbase as we stream out into the LA night).

Friday, we rent a car and take a grand tour of the northern LA suburbs. Pasadena with the Rose Bowl Stadium and Caltech⁶, then lunch at In-N-Out Burger (which is indeed as awesome as Californians say it is). We drive west to the Universal Studios Theme Park, the picturesque hilltop campus of Pepperdine University⁷, and finally the golden beaches of Malibu. All while classic ’90s and ’00s rap hits⁸ blare out from the stereo and the all-knowing Kai shares some fresh researcher gossip and some lesser-known secrets from years gone by.

As dusk falls, we arrive at Chavez Ravine to see the Dodgers (and the much-hyped Shohei Ohtani⁹, #112) play their second home game of the season. The customary twenty-minute walk from the large, isolated parking lot (facing a giant cliff) only adds to the atmosphere. After the Dodgers dispatch the Cardinals, we head down to field level for a drone light show¹⁰, then drive down Hollywood Boulevard to The Abbey – a massive multi-room bar and nightclub where the party, in typical LA style, goes late.

Saturday, after we get Dim Sum in Altadena, I do my own LA sightseeing – La Brea Tar Pits, Academy Museum, and Paramount Pictures Studio tour¹¹ – before meeting them back in downtown to watch Alabama win and cut down the nets for their first ever Final Four trip. One final big dinner in Koreatown, then I’m off to East Hollywood for another night of clubbing (Kai and Gary have an early flight the next day).¹² ¹³

First broad takeaway from the trip: Kai had the exact same affinity/obsession as I did of repeating nonsensical-sounding phrases (with an obscure backstory only a select few were privy to) over and over and over and over. There was one phrase in particular he must’ve uttered at least a hundred times between the drives, the beers, and the sports matches.¹⁴

Second, more serious takeaway. This was my first extended trip with friends, let alone friends who were much more senior than me. So, the fact that I got along so perfectly with Kai and Gary across all four days – even amid all the complexities and unexpected situations that come with traveling to a city three thousand miles away – I took as an important sign of my own maturity. Which meant as much to me as any individual experience from the City of Angels itself.

He wasn’t the one interviewing me, though our conversation did make my interview a lot less nerve-wracking than it would’ve otherwise been.
At least that’s what Kai told me. As with many things, he preferred to leave the rest a mystery without explaining further.
After a half-day at work for both of us.
While we discuss the state of our March Madness brackets. Mine is totally busted because I chose Auburn, who lost in the first round to Yale, to go all the way.
Where the Lakers and Clippers (at the time) basketball teams play, as well as the Kings hockey team.
We’re denied entry to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, since tours have to be booked three months in advance.
Where the security guards do let us in…after they ask if we’re looking to attend the school (I’m 33, Kai and Gary are around 50).
“Fantastic Voyage” by Coolio is the one that stands out, and we loop through it several times.
Who just a few days earlier was accused of betting on baseball, with the potential penalty of a lifetime ban from the league, in the bizarre case where his interpreter eventually took the fall for $17 million in gambling losses tied to his account.
Which features, among other sights, a set of drone lights coordinated to look like Ohtani hitting a home run.
Quite interesting. Beyond visiting all the soundstages and hearing the stories of classic movies filmed there, there was this replica New York City plus this giant basin with a giant screen which used to be used for filming water scenes but since the advent of CGI has been converted into a parking lot.
Also, that night and the night before saw a very un-California-like level of rain. It was pouring. My Uber on the way back literally hydroplaned on the freeway, and the driver lost control for a good three seconds before stabilizing. I saw my life flash before my eyes in that moment.
I booked the late flight on Sunday, so during the day I rush my way through Griffith Park (and the Observatory), the touristy center of Hollywood (with Dolby Theater where the Oscars are held), and a few notable downtown locales (The Last Bookstore, Grand Central Market, and Angel’s Flight) before taking a shuttle from Union Station to the airport.
Obviously, I loved every second of it. Gary must’ve been at the same stage as my brother, in terms of accepting it as an endearing (and not at all super-annoying) quirk of their close friend.