I flew with Rainbow Air also out of Long Beach. UKFT now share the same building. Long Beach is a great place to fly and the JAR PPL(A) you will get with UKFT is certainly as goos as you will get anywhere else. California is a great place to fly. It is busy and offers a great variety of flying. The evening and morning fog can be a problem if you are wanting only VFR flying. The Marine Layer as they call it is more persistant in winter, but don't let that put you off.
If you are not flying - California is still the place to be!