Yesterday there was a story on the OC Register’s Watchdog blog about how Hoag and CHOC execs are earning more than a million each. There was also Dave’s post about St. Joseph president/CEO Larry Ainsworth explaining why their staff is happy to work there. Then I remembered the bills we received from both St. Joe’s and CHOC earlier this year for approximately $176,000. Was that the price of so-called perfection?

Thankfully, our insurance covered a BIG chunk of those bills. I can’t even imagine having to pay those bills out of our own pockets. But I sometimes still ask myself: was it worth it? Did I and my premature baby get the service they were charging us for? Did we get “perfect,” or as Dave prefers to call it, “competent care”?

Without getting into a possibly heated discussion about problems with insurance companies and our country’s healthcare system, my simple answer to the above question would be: YES. I spent two weeks on bed rest at St. Joe’s where the nurses looked after me around the clock with warmth and patience. (You have to have a lot of patience to deal with a clueless first-time mother-to-be who desperately wants to sneak across the hallway for a shower.) While my son’s two-week stay in the NICU at CHOC was definitely more “competent” than “perfect,” he was one of the luckier ones that had very little complications, and we saw how much care and attention were given to the families who really needed it. There were families who had been there for months with very sick babies, and I guess it’s hard not to become friendly and comfortable with one another when you see each other every single day for so many hours.

Regarding the executive’s salaries, I understand that any company, whether its for- or non-profit, needs good leadership. But, like any other company, its workers are at the heart of the operation. I can only hope that the nurses and staff at these hospitals are getting paid and treated well. After all, happy workers equals production, right? Nothing is ever “perfect,” but I agree with Dave that “competent” seems more appropriate. If we ever have another child and we still live in the area, I would undoubtedly choose to deliver at St. Joe’s again. Obviously, avoiding another stay at CHOC would be preferable, but if need be, I trust their service and judgment.

Do you find the title annoying?

Then dialing the phone is gonna suck for you. Yes, starting today, OC residents must dial 714 for every number they call, even their neighbor across the street. Not so bad for the numbers you can re-program on your speed dial, but crappy for every other number.

May I say, the PUC are the annoying ones?

How that is easier than just introducing a new area code without an overlay is completely beyond me. 

I’ve always wondered why they can’t just assign cell phones and faxes their own area code.  I’m sure it’s been brought up, but I’ve never heard of it being adopted anywhere.

Damn.  See what happens when you don’t go to those PUC community input meetings?

It was touted as a redesign, but I’m going to call it just slightly less cluttered.

The color scheme? Same.

Little boxes for “most commented” and “most recommended” articles? Same, just moved over.

The buttons that take you to the main sections, such as Life and Sports? Same.

Garish ads everywhere? Same.

Pop-under ads? Still there.

There is a new “city by city news” dropdown menu, though, and a traffic map, which is years late in coming.  Er, and some sort of Things to Do box.

But the newest trend seems to be movement.

There is a moving slideshow, moving headline news, and as of this moment, annoying moving ads from both Lending Tree and Classmates.com.

Too much movin’ goin’ on for me. I’m feeling a little dizzy.

The Filling Station Cafe is a quaint little place located at the intersection of Glassell and Maple. They serve great no-frills breakfast, yummy lunches and (from what I hear) amazing pies.

I’m sad to report I’ve only eaten there 3 times. Twice for breakfast and once for lunch. When I was there for breakfast, we sat inside at one of the booths in the front. The cafe has lots of old metal gas station signs and the like. The kitchen is right behind the bar for all to see. That is actually one of my favorite parts about the place. I like sitting there watching all the different food get cooked and smelling the variety of food be prepared. Admittedly, it’s not the cleanest looking kitchen I’ve ever seen, but things like that don’t bother me all that much. It looks like a kitchen that is well used and abused. They also have a great outdoor patio with pretty plants surrounding the area. It’s nice when the weather is nice, however, I found the traffic noise (especially the buses from the train station) to be a bit too much for me.
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I had all these little tasty morsels of news nuggets just lying around my “possible-post” folder and none of them really warranted a full fledged entry all their own. So here’s a little round-up of bloggy items that caught my attention.

LC from OC

It has been “reported” that OC native and former star of Laguna Beach, Lauren Conrad has just had her clothing line dropped from all the Los Angeles Kitson boutiques. Such a shame. It always breaks me up inside when a spoiled celebutant from who never deserved a stupid clothing line to begin with suddenly finds that she is not very successful. Meanwhile, in the real world, people like me are trying to figure out how to afford a home located somewhere near the ass-end of Anaheim. A goal that seems almost unattainable. I guess we’re both failures.

Angels Fatigue

Guess what? People don’t like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Shocking. A snazzy post over at the LA Metroblog outlines the reasons why. If there was ever a topic that was more befitting of an LA/OC crossover blog post the Angels would be it. So this begs the question, if everyone else hates the Angels what does Orange County think? I smell a poll coming on…

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Bat-shit Crazy

We may (or may not) want to be saddled with the Angels in our county but there is no way in hell we ever wanted convicted Manson devotee and psycho killer “Susan Atkins to be freed to spend her last days with her husband in Orange County.” Luckily that isn’t gonna happen as “an 11-0 vote, [by] a state parole board on Tuesday denied a petition”. Let her stay in the 909 because we certainly don’t want her. Yucky poo.

O’Neill

O’Neill clothing recently flung open the doors to the company’s one and only flagship store located at the Anaheim GardenWalk. Oooooh Aaaaaaah.They’re awfully proud of their big fake “wave wall” - apparently they’ve never laid eyes on a Ron Jon? Also, while I loves me some surf wear, I’d rather see the classic Orange County original Pacific Sunwear open a flagship store instead of O’Neill. We’ll just call it local pride.

That’s all there is. Run along now children, there’s nothing more to see here…

Listen, I attended a concert last night and just as the band took the stage, some idiot yelled out “Freebird!”

My fellow Orange Countians, I am sending out a universal call to all the drunken dumbasses out there:

Stop yelling “Freebird!”

You aren’t cool, it isn’t clever, and no one thinks you are funny. 

Or is it just me?

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Gina beat me to the punch on a GardenWalk post. The original title of this post was going to be Yes Virginia, There is a GardenWalk in reference to the naysayers who thought it would never happen. However since Gina’s post was first and a mildly negative review at that, I thought I’d give a counterpoint.

The wife and the sister-in-law and I just happened to stop into the Anaheim GardenWalk last night after dinner. We figured a walk would do us good after eating way too much food at The Mexi-Casa. Besides, we had yet to scope out the interior of Anaheim’s newest (I don’t care what they say it is, it still just a) mall. Actually to put a finer point on it, it’s Anaheim’s second mall, larger and more diverse than Downtown Disney. In fact I am tempted to not even call DTD a mall but more of walking path with stores on either side. In which case the GardenWalk would be Anaheim’s only mall.

It looks to me as if they are still working on putting the “Garden” in the GardenWalk. The walls were all decked out with their special lighted latticework but the green lush coverings won’t fill in for at least a year. In fact. I’d say this place won’t come into it’s own till, say Summer 2009? That sounds about right. Until then you’ll have to squeak by eating at PF Changs, McCormick and Schmicks, CPK, Bubba Gump (the only one in Orange County thank-you-very-much-Gina) and The Cheesecake Factory.

The handful of stores actually available to the public are a mixture of old standards (Chico’s, Hollister & The Body Shop) and boutique fare I had never heard of (G-Spot or Trannylicious or some weird shizz I can’t really recall). There are far more vacancies than tenants at the moment and only time will tell how quickly they can add retailers to their roster in these hard economic times. You certainly won’t be seeing Sharper Image moving in anytime soon. Also not to be overlooked are the three or four bars and night clubs that will be opening before year’s end. Something called Heat Ultra Lounge sounds amusing and Anaheim Councilwoman (and all around nitwit) Lucille Kring’s Uncorked Wine Bar may have some promise as well.

Finally, you have the oddly out of place 24 Hour Fitness, Strike Bowling and The Movie Experience. The later just recently opened eight of it’s fourteen screens with (altogether now) FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE screenings of all IMAX films July 4th thru July 10th. From what I can tell, they do not offer Cast Member discounts. For shame! I’ll be calling their management about that.

Anyway, like a real garden, the GardenWalk is going to need time to grow and fill-in and flourish. If you are a forward thinker you have to see the opportunities this place has for massive retail, lodging and restaurant growth. They are going to be directly adjacent to the mythical third gate. They are going to have timeshare condos, and two (count them two) Disney operated hotels on their property. The city of Anaheim wants to extend the monorail not only to the GardenWalk but to the Stadium as well. Finally, they have earmarked a small piece of land just west of the movie theater for further expansion, which would conveniently link the Resort’s first two gates with the aforementioned third gate. In other words, this place is poised to take off in a huge way.

Without sounding like a PR jerk, I really do think the best is yet to come. It’s certainly going to be a vast improvement over the constantly deteriorating fiasco that is The Block. Have you been to Anaheim’s GardenWalk? What did you think?

If you haven’t already noticed, we have some fabulous new authors joining us here on the Orange County Metroblog.  And high time it was, since for a while it seemed like poor Jon was the only one holding down the fort.

Haven’t yet checked them out?

Maria has the scoop on the screening of a classic 80’s movie.  Chimp not included.

Fejsez tells you how to make your “Carectomy” in Orange County as painless as possible.  You might still need a couple of Advil, though.

Dave fills you in about an Old Towne Orange eatery.  But I still want to call it the Circle, dammit!

With such a great first week from these authors, this looks like it’s gonna be a fun ride!

And, check out our sidebar on the right.  See that little box?  We now have a feed for the LA Metblog, so feel free to click on over if you see something interesting.  I recommend the very cool picture of a dragonfly taken by Will.i.am Campbell, which he has nicknamed Alfalfa. 

So, lots of new things to see and do here.  We hope you enjoy them, and keep your eyes peeled for those OC Metblog Twitters!

After giving birth to our first son nearly six months ago, I am now feeling the desperate urge to get back in shape. Part of the challenge has been figuring out what to do with the little one — call me crazy, but walking the hills in my neighborhood while carrying or pushing a 15lb baby in the middle of summer isn’t exactly making me jump with excitement.

My decision, for now at least, is to find a baby-friendly gym or health club nearby. We have memberships to 24 Hour Fitness through my husband’s work, though I am willing to try another gym if there happens to be any glowing reviews of their facilities AND child care services.

So here’s my question for you dear readers: can any of you recommend a good, clean health club that has safe and friendly child care services? Must be located in Orange or surrounding cities. Staff members that don’t try to shove their training sessions or supplements down your throats are a big, big plus!

In the wake of the recent Starbucks announcement that they will be closing around 600 under performing company operated locations (this does not include locations inside grocery stores or book stores), many Orange County residents may be wondering how they will survive. Where will we go to get our Venti non fat soy 4 pump vanilla half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon?
Luckily for us, in addition to the 1300 Starbucks the that will remain open, there are many local coffee shops that may have been overlooked since Starbucks started popping up on every corner. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Kéan Coffee: Kéan Coffee is the brainchild of Coffeehouse pioneer Martin Diedrich (yes, the Diedrich’s Coffee Diedrich) and his wife Karen. The Diedrich Family has been involved with coffee for many decades and it shows. Not only do they roast their own coffee, in a roaster built by another of the Diedrich clan, but they believe in the whole coffee ritual, and it shows. The popularity of the location is growing. In addition to coffee and tea, one can get a variety of baked goods to go with their beverage. Kéan is becoming a popular location to meet up and chat, stop during a walk, or just grab a cup and go. Another thing that impresses me is the “community values” and environmental awareness Kéan sticks to, even before it became popular to do so.
  -Location and Hours: Kéan Coffee 2043 Westcliff Drive in Newport Beach, is open from 6 AM to 9 PM Sunday through Thursday and 6 AM to 10 PM on Friday and Saturday.

• Alta Coffee Warehouse: Hidden of 31st street in the Cannery district of Newport Beach, Alta coffee is another hidden jewel in orange county. Located in an old warehouse, Alta provides fresh coffee, tea, and food as well as atmosphere. Just inside the door to the right is the shelves of mugs that the “regulars” keep for their daily brew. Adorning the walls is an ever changing collection of art, showcasing a theme or particular artist for the length of the current engagement. Whether it be breakfast, lunch, or dinner, on can get a variety of beverages and atmosphere. Alta also has an tranquil outside patio that K-9’s and their owners can use to enjoy together, or one can keep an eye on their bike while reading the paper, etc… Alta also provides Acoustic, open mike, and folk nighttime entertainment.
  -Location and Hours: Alta Coffee Warehouse & Roasting Co. 506 31st St., Newport Beach, CA, 92659 (949) 675-0233 Mon-Thurs 6am-11pm Fri-Sat 6am-midnight Sun 7am-11pm.

• The Gypsy Den: One of the original tenants of The L.A.B. in Costa Mesa, The Gypsy Den is best described by Zagat’s Restaurant Survey as “If your aging hippie aunt opened her sitting room to strangers, it would resemble these two hangouts in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, offbeat venues complete with early attic decor and arty habitues; the homespun soups, salads and sandwiches have a healthy bent, going way beyond the tofu-bean sprouts archetype.” I could not describe it better. The Gypsy Den has great, healty food, a warm environment, and excellent coffee and tea.
  -Location and Hours: The Gypsy Den Cafe @ the L.A.B. 2930 Bristol St. Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (714) 549-7012 Monday - Thursday 7:30 am to 11 pm Friday 7:30 am to Midnight Saturday 8:00 am to Midnight Sunday 8:00 am to 11 pm

These are just the local shops that I have frequented. I would love to hear your reviews and recommendations for Coffee shops in your neighborhoods. If by some smiting of the powers that be, your local Starbucks is closed down, be strong. Together we will survive the tragedy that Starbucks has handed to us to be caffeinated another day.