There comes a point in each of our lives where we can start checking off major milestones and accomplishments. When that happens, say when people either obtain a position they’ve been jockeying to hold for many years, or they reach a level of personal wealth or perhaps even just an anniversary to commemorate a milestone, we often tend to reward ourselves with the fruits of our labor. Many people opt for vacations, expensive wine or other status symbols, but some people opt to commemorate their achievements with a piece of custom jewelry.

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MADE IN CALIFORNIA: The California-Born Burger Joints, Diners, Fast Food &

Restaurants that Changed America

By George Geary

Forward by Chris Nichols, senior editor at Los Angeles magazine

Prospect Park Books/An Imprint of Turner Publishing

August 2021/Hardcover/$40.00

ISBN: 978-1-945551-91-8 / Ebook ISBN: 9781945551925

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Studies underscore mechanisms that evoke happiness. When you get down to it, in engineering terms, you are like a thermostat, a “bio-energetic cybernetic feedback unit.” Your reactions excite your inner alchemist to cascade hormones and biochemistry throughout your system.

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I think about my father every now and again. I will hear one of his favorite songs in an elevator or see something that would have made my dad laugh and I smile. He died 10 years ago of emphysema – from smoking. Here, alone, treading water at night in the dark off the California coast, waiting for the dive boat to pick me up, makes me think about a lot of very odd things. The dive boat is late and I bob up and down offshore watching the lights of Redondo Beach appear as I crest a wave and then disappear as I drop into a trough. In the solitude I think of sharks, drowning, and my dad. I try and focus on my dad.

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See’s Candies and Rombauer Vineyards – what’s a more iconic pairing than a delicious California chocolate and wine? To celebrate National Wine Day, the two California companies came together to share delicious pairings

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October is the month when the autumn echoes the cornucopia of the harvest, fall foliage in rust and umber, “Indian Summer”, Halloween tricks and treats, romantic night skies. A prelude to “holiday” season with Thanksgiving and Christmas on the horizon.

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Signature Estate & Investment Advisors, LLC® (SEIA) is a leading, independent Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) with an office nearby in Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village. The firm offers wealth management and financial planning services to affluent individuals, families, and business owners, and the company is proud to have been recognized by many well-respected financial publications including Barron’s, Financial Times, RIA Channel, and LA Business Journal.

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One would think that surfers, in general, are independent souls, open to trying new things and not reflex followers of the crowd. Actually there is a strong surfer culture that engenders conformity. There are even unwritten rules that we follow. For example, you don’t drop in on a surfer who is cutting across a wave. You just don’t cut off another surfer. There is also conformity in regards to cloths, personal style, and even the way we talk, “Dude”.

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Sitting in a closet in my home is a shoebox full of membership directories from the past. I recently inherited this shoebox and a “President's box” when I became Co-President of the New Neighbors Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula. The lid on the shoebox says: Welcome Wagon Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula 1964-1989, Wagoneers Club of Palos Verdes 1970-1993, and New Neighbors Club of Palos Verdes Peninsula 1989-2020.

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County and state fairs are very American. You will not find a county fair in Europe, Australia, or Asia, but you will find one in almost every state of the U.S. and many counties. Europe took on the World by creating exhibitions that invited the World while the U.S. stayed local.

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My sister will tell you that I’m always late, but that’s not true. I’m a stickler for time and I do my darndest to be on time in every aspect of my life whenever humanly possible. Yes, on rare occasions, I’ve run almost 15 minutes late to a family gathering when I had to juggle preparing the food, getting dressed, loading the car and the family and our dog, and then picking up my mother in Beverly Hills for the 45-minute drive out to my sisters in Calabasas, but the majority of the time you can count on me to be prompt with bells on!

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