First, I should say that I was misquoting the old saying by saying nobody walks in L.A. The expression is more properly expressed as nobodies walk in L.A. So that makes me a nobody. That was sent in thanks to an astute reader in Saigon, who is probably dead now, since I also gave him some advice on how to ground his 20,000 volt transformer to his water pipe. By the way, never ground anything to a water pipe. It's totally dangerous and illegal.

Second, I would like to thank my brother for giving the opportunity to improve, as he read the last fifteen or so entries in one shot and called to tell me me there in all there was only one sentence he came across in any of it worth reading. Now I have a new standard to shoot for, where I am hoping to raise the bar to having one sentence every five entries at least in the fair to middling range.

Nothing worthwhile is easy, and it sure wasn't easy to make a fire last night at the ol swim club to grill my food, but it was, without question, worthwhile to get the barbeque going. Luckily there was a garbage can full of wood shavings in the wood shop, and when I combined those with my Whole Foods special sustainable wood briquettes, I was able to get it going. And of course, when I say I was at the swim club, I am referring to the Dolphin Club, which is my ancient boat club, or my boat club which is ancient. Almost all the members at the club are are in their sixties or seventies and walk around in bathing suits. So last night, even though it was dark out, I was grilling up a storm on the dock, and every now and then one of the members would come up out of the water, having completed a swim in the bay. Which by the way, I would never do, because I would drown, and because swimming in the dark would give me a heart attack.

One guy came up all shaken, because he had been about 3/4 of a mile out when a seal bumped him. Which is not unheard of, but this seal was agressive and kept pushing him, kind of harassing him, circling his legs and pushing him for about ten minutes. Which is a long time when you are in the dark water far from shore. Seals, generally speaking, don't hurt people, though they can, and once in a while one takes a bite out of somebody.

The grill menu, in case you were curious, was grilled pineapple and jerk chicken. And Adam had a Porterhouse steak, about ten inches wide. Because it was from Whole Foods the whole thing was about seventy bucks for the raw ingredients, but it was still worth it.