Last PBC Video

Well, at least the last one for a while. I had recorded all of the 23 PBC videos during the first half of December by splitting up each ride into multiple videos. I was trying to record enough segments to make it through the trip but as the date for leaving approached, I decided not to be so obsessed about making enough. In the process, I did learn something new about YouTube. You can upload videos and schedule their "release" and the date shown on the video is the release date not the upload date. To do this, you need to enable "Monetization" in case it isn't set. Once I did this, Google set the flag to monetize all of my videos. I then needed to un-monetize all of the videos except two. The two that don't have any music. I haven't read the fine print on the Google Royalty Free audio files but I suspect that they are for non-monetized videos.

You will now be able to select "Scheduled" as one of the options in addition to "Public" and "Private" when uploading a video. You can then select a date and time for your video to be released on the unsuspecting public. This feature allowed me to upload all of the videos before the trip. Actually, I used the wi-fi in the Anchorage airport to upload the last couple of videos. The "Share" button isn't active until it's been released. At that point, I just needed to log into the PBC site and put in a link to submit the video. Easy to do when just using the cellular network but expensive to do while on the ship.

After getting back home in the beginning of January, I leave for Barrow after only one day at home. So here is PBC video #23. The next video won't be recorded until sometime around mid-January.

Saturday evening update - We went out to dinner at Max's Restaurant in Glendale for Filipino food. It was an incredible dinner with way too much food. It was an opportunity to meet Bridget's oldest son's girlfriend's family. Quite an interesting family history. And for treating us to an incredible dinner.

Here are a couple of pictures of the desserts. The first is halo-halo. A blend of tropical fruit preserves, beans, and milk in shaved ice. Topped with a scoop of purple yam ice cream and rice flakes.

The second is Buko Pandan. Young coconut mixed with pandan leaf (screwpine) gelatin and tapioca in a fluffy cream sauce, with coconut ice cream and rice flakes. Both desserts are unlike anything I've had before and very tasty.

The specialty of the restaurant was fried chicken. And each "piece" of chicken was half of a chicken. They also had Filipino spaghetti which resembled Japanese spaghetti. I'e. pasta with a sauce of ketchup and topped with hot dogs. The difference here is that the ketchup had bananas as one of the primary ingredients.

After dinner, we walked through the Glendale Galleria shopping mall into the Americana shopping mall. One of the oddities was the cupcake atm. Essentially, a cupcake vending machine delivering designer cupcakes packaged one to a box for about $5 each.

Here is the "Cupcake ATM" but as you can see in the lower section, there wasn't much inventory there. But then again, the shop was still open for business. The malls were really crowded with boxing day sales and it was a zoo.

This is the Americana Mall at about 10pm. Stores were still open and doing a booming business. It seemed strange to see all the people dressed for cold weather (stocking hats, gloves, scarfs, down jackets, etc.) even though the temperature was in the low 60s.

We then headed back to Culver City back to where we are staying this time around. A wonderful home of a friend of my cousin. Since she is out of town, she made her home available to them for any visiting relatives. Thank you Carolyn even though we've never met you!