Well, the LA area is on my list of places I need to go visit people in (one of the said people I need to visit is Alex Groce -- you should let him know you'll be around there at Worldcon, he lives in Pasadena these days) so it's really not out of the question -- also it's an easy weekend trip for me unlike a lot of other places that require long flights and timezone changes.

I've never been to Catalina, though I get the feeling it's not really my sort of place -- I'm not much of a beach person, as was obvious in Key West :)