toilet seat museum – The Adventures of Mike and Cindy

In the middle of May, I flew to Dallas, Texas for the weekend so Corrianne and I could see the Zac Brown Band. After I returned home, Cindy, Sylvia and I saw OMD at the Greek Theater. Then Cindy and I drove to Orange County to see Dan Burdick sing with the Millennial Choir and Orchestra (MCO). While Dan was still in town, we continued our quest to find a plane that crashed near Fort Tejon in 1932. Lastly, in the first weekend in June, Cindy and I saw the band Tears for Fears at the Forum in Inglewood, CA.

Dallas, Texas

For Corrianne’s birthday, I bought her and I tickets to see one of our favorite bands, the Zac Brown Band, in Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. We have seen this band four times, three times at the Hollywood Bowl, and once in Irvine, CA. They have put on an outstanding show each time and we were very excited about this show as well. If you want more information about the band, there is a link at the end of this post.

I flew into Austin and Corrianne picked me up at the airport. This is how she greeted me.

If you don’t get the joke, when I was a working stiff I had a rather large bushy mustache and no goatee. With my glasses, I looked a lot like Wilford Brimley. Or the Lorax. I was often called one or the other. So we started the visit with a good laugh.

We stopped for lunch at a little shack called “Texas Traditional BBQ.” I had the briquet and sausage with green beans and potato salad. It was outstanding.

The décor was also quite interesting.

With full bellies we drove on to our hotel in Frisco. We checked in and were assigned this room.

I have triskaidekaphobia, or the fear of the number 13. I really wanted to ask for a different room, but I justified staying by thinking of the room as number 31-3. It worked, but I hope to never have to do that again. We finished the day with a dinner at a Hawaiian BBQ place and got some sleep.

The morning of the concert, we went to the Truckyard, a beer garden, food truck, interesting event kind of place. See for yourself.

There was some interesting art there.

And this was the topper. The Truckyard is the home of the “Barney Smith Toilet Seat Art Museum.” What is that? It is a museum dedicated to the art of one Barney Smith. It must be seen to be believed. He made art and his canvas was toilet seats. Here is Mr. Smith and the entrance to the museum.

Notice the entrance pillars are made of toilets.

And without further ado, here is some of the art, all on toilet seats.

As odd as the display was, it is also a must see if you are in the north Dallas area. If you want more information about either the Truckyard or the Toilet Seat Museum, there are links at the end of this post.

Our next stop was in downtown Denton, to visit Atomic Candy.

We bought some candy and headed back to our hotel to freshen up for the concert. The concert was at Toyota Stadium, an outdoor venue. It was also across the street for our hotel. We walked to dinner and then headed over to the stadium. The Soccer Hall of Fame is located at the south end of the stadium.

We were early and got a chance to check out the stadium and stage.

The weather for the evening was a big question mark. It was in the mid 90’s during the day and there were supposed to be thunderstorms that night. Luckily for us, the thunderstorms ended up passing us a few miles to the south. Also luckily for us, we dressed to be comfortable in potential rain and cooler temperatures. Most other people there were dressed for very warm weather. So when we went to go get our concert t-shirts, a must have, the lines were halfway around the stadium with people buying all of the sweat shirts. We passed on our preshow shirts. The show itself was amazing!

We can’t wait for the next one. On our way out, we noticed there was no line at the t-shirt stand, so we ended up getting our shirts after all. We walked back across the street to our hotel and got a great night’s sleep.

The next day we drove back to Austin for my flight home. My flight left in the evening, so we had some time to do some sightseeing in Austin. Our first stop, was for lunch at DeSano Pizzeria Napoletana on the outskirts of Austin. Before I tell you my opinion about this place, I need to first explain how I feel about pizza. I really love pizza. Unfortunately, most pizza places are average, with some places in the good to very good category. It is rare I will consider a place outstanding. There is one outstanding place in Santa Clarita, Chi-Chi’s Pizza. DeSano Pizzeria Napoletana falls into the outstanding category. It is a simple place with wood burning brick oven style pizza ovens. This is part of a small chain of pizza restaurants, so I can only vouch for this specific place. If you want some great pizza, there is a link at the end of this blog.

Our next stop was to visit the Texas State Capitol building. There is a peace officers memorial on the grounds, so of course we paid our respects.

Here are a few pictures of the outside.

And like any capitol building, the inside was quite impressive.

Here is looking up into the rotunda.

And here is looking down from an upper level.

After an amazing visit, we headed off to a completely different experience that was in the heart of the weird part of downtown.

That’s right, we went to the Museum of the Weird. And it lived up to the hype. It was a interesting collection of movie props, oddities, and other assorted items ala PT Barnum. Have a look for yourself.

And some more.

And the rest of the museum.

As you can tell from the number of pictures, we really enjoyed this visit. If you want more information about the Museum of the Weird, see the link at the end of this blog. Our next stop was to walk to a local brewery, Central District Brewing. I had my usual dark beer, and it was delicious.

Our last stop was for some chips, dip, and beer at Better Half Coffee and Cocktails. This was an interesting place with most of its seating outdoors, which was not well thought out in a hot humid environment. Luckily, wit was only average on the heat and humidity. I tried a lighter beer and regretted not getting my usual dark fare.

With that, we called it a day and Corrianne dropped me off at the airport. I made it home safely with no incidents.

OMD Concert at the Greek Theatre

After being home for four days, it was time for Cindy, Sylvia and I to go see Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (OMD) at the Greek Theatre. The Greek Theatre is an outdoor theatre in the hills of Griffith Park and is a bit of a landmark.

Here we are waiting for the concert to start.

And here are a few shots from the show.

The first time we saw OMD, they were really good. This time they were outstanding. I highly recommend seeing this band if you enjoy 80’s bands. They put on an amazing show.

Garden Grove, CA

One of my dear friends, Dan Burdick, joined the Millennial Choir and Orchestra (MCO) in Texas. The MCO is active in California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, and Idaho. The children’s choirs welcome children of all ages. To join the adult choir and orchestra, one must pass an audition. Dan passed that auditioned this year and is a member of the Texas Adult Choir. They were putting on one of their huge concerts at the Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, which was formally called the Crystal Cathedral. Here are a few pictures of the cathedral.

And here is the inside and Dan as well.

The show was pretty darn good and worth the three hours of round trip driving. For more information about the MCO, check out the link at the end of this blog.

Search for the 1932 Plane Wreckage

This is clearly going to need an explanation. Last year, Mike, a very good friend of Dan and I, wanted to find the wreckage of a plane that crashed near Fort Tejon in 1932. The plane crashed on a remote mountainside, killing all eight people on board. It took just over a week for rescuers to find the wreckage. So what is our interest in finding this 90 years later? One of the people killed on the plane was the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Chief of Detectives. It was believed his special “jewel” encrusted badge had been lost in the crash and never recovered. We had a lot of information about the sight, including pictures, but not an exact location. So last year, we made two trips to the area, hiked several mountainsides, lost an inexpensive drone, damaged a more expensive drone, and basically eliminated all of the places we thought the crash might be at. Several months after that, Mike learned the “jewel badge” had actually been lost at a USC football game the year before the crash. So our search was basically over, even though it was still a personal thing for us to still try and find the sight. At the beginning of this year, Dan ended up contacting a friend of a friend who lives in Utah and is a serious plane crash researcher. He knew of the 1932 crash and gave us a new location to search. Prior to actually going back up, Dan and I did a lot of computer and Google Earth research on the new site. It looked promising enough to try one more time. Since Dan was in California for the concert, we decided to do the search while he was here.

So this last search party consisted of Dan, his youngest adult daughter, Mike, and I.

And that was the three amigos, or three stooges, your call. We drove up as close as we could to the sight, but we were still at least a mile hike away through dense brush and up steep hillsides.

Even though it was in the mid 80’s out, I wore long pants and long sleeve shirts to protect myself from the thick brush, ticks, and other assorted hazards. Plus, we were really worried about rattle snakes as this was the perfect temperature and habitat for them. That was our specific worry until we saw this.

It was bear scat with bones and fur in it and it was pretty fresh. It turns out we had accidentally walked through what was clearly a bear den. Luckily, we did not encounter a bear. Or any rattle snakes. Here we are climbing the hills.

Once at the top, we were pretty sure we found the area where the search crews camped while doing the initial recovery. Here is the area and me using my metal detector there.

We are 99% sure we found the area where the plane went down, but did not find any proof positive. We are so sure of the site, we will be returning again looking for the proof.

The next day, Dan had to fly back to Texas. Prior to his flight, we went to a local arcade and tried our hand at axe throwing.

It was a lot harder than it looked, but we had a really good time. To give an example of how bad we were, if a wild animal charged us and the only way to save our loves was to take the animal out with a thrown axe, our only hope would be to run away when the animal laughed at us for our bad throws.

Tears for Fears at the Forum

The final event covered in this blog is Cindy and my trip to the forum in Inglewood to see the 80’s band Tears for Fears. Typically when we are going to see a show at the forum, we stay at a Holiday Inn near the airport and take an Uber to and from the show. This show was no different. On the way to our hotel, we stopped at a hole in the wall deli in Van Nuys, DeFranco’s Subs, for lunch. The sandwiches were pretty darned good.

We got checked into our hotel and walked to a near by Sizzler for dinner. From there, it was off to the show.

The opening band was Garbage. I don’t mean they were bad, their name was Garbage and they were pretty good.

Here we are getting ready for the main act.

Tears for Fears put on an amazing show. I would definitely see them again. Take a look.

The next day on the way home, we stopped at Tito’s Tacos in Culver City for lunch. Neither one of us had ever eaten there before. The tacos were pretty good and are worth the stop.