Event #3552

Picnic On The Peninsula

Fred Hesse Jr Community Park, 29301 Hawthorne Blvd, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Registered Boxes: All Traditional HH/Cootie/Flea Postal LTC Event Box Traveler Other

Starts	Sat November 7, 2015 12:00pm
Ends	Sat November 7, 2015 3:00pm
Owner	Kelsung
Admins	Kelsung
Signups	35/∞
Location	Fred Hesse Jr Community Park, 29301 Hawthorne Blvd, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA View Map
Add to Calendar	Google calendar ICS file (e.g. Outlook, iCal, etc.)

Description

The Short Story:
Bubbaloo Magoo and Betty Boop3 of New Hampshire will be in the area for a week, so we need to give them a big SoCal welcome. I thought a potluck picnic with a fabulous view, followed by a long afternoon of boxing would do the trick.

The Long Story:
Man, do I miss you guys! I don't really need to explain, but I'm not known for keeping my mouth shut. As I'm sure some have noticed, I've been slowing down for a while now. In recent months I finally came to a stop. Lots of factors have led to this.

First, it was the Doll Hut, a legendary Orange County punk rock venue that has been around for decades. I've done sound there on-and-off for years, but that became a lot more frequent in January, 2014, when it was purchased by a good friend of mine (how far do we go back? He's the godfather of my two children). I'm now entirely in charge of the sound system and engineer's schedule. I already had a day job. Now my nights and weekends are taken as well.

Then over the last nine months, my brother-in-law started actively working on opening a new business, an escape room, which some of you have already heard me discuss. I didn't become directly involved until July when we finally got access to the office space they're leasing and began constructing props and designing puzzles. At that point, those free cracks of time in between responsibilities that I filled with boxing were now gone.

But I have to be honest: boxing was losing the luster for me. I'll never go away. I know that this hobby, in some form, will be with me for life. But most of my finds in the last couple years have been a slow downhill slide in quality coupled with redundancy. Where's George is the biggest culprit, to the extent that I feel no shame in deriding those boxes publicly. Others I'll leave as a blanket generalization of the overall over-saturation of the hobby, with J&J being the one truly bright spot in all the masses of meh. The events I attended were the only things keeping my hopes up.

I think back to all those fantastic Kudos boxes planted in my honor, and I'm still overwhelmed. It showed the potential of the creativity of the people who do this. That brings me to the point. I picked this location because a box brought me here. After countless visits all over this peninsula, it amazed me that I could still be taken to a truly great location I'd never seen before, and I want to be sure you see it, too. I've rambled far too much at this point. Just know that I NEED this. All of you have brought so much enrichment to my life, far beyond a bunch of rubber stamps, and I thank you with all my heart.

Oct 21, 2015: Moving Our Picnic
When I created this event, I figured maybe 8-10 people would signup. We're up to 23! Del Cerro Park just doesn't have the parking or facilities for that large of a group, so I want to move us to nearby Fred Hesse Park. I still want you all to see that view, and I think you can because I believe Lee is planting some boxes there. I'm so looking forward to seeing all the faces of friends old and new.

K

Signups

Total signups:35