Category Archives: Los Angeles

January 7, 2016 · 23:16

Maserati Mystery

It’s Los Angeles, in a not too shabby part of the San Fernando Valley. Where are all of the Maseratis coming from all of a sudden?

Take a drive down Ventura Boulevard through the west San Fernando Valley. Let’s say, to work and back, about ten minutes each way. What luxury cars do you see cruising out among the Fords, Chevys, Toyotas, delivery vans, mom-mobile minivans (which is what I drive)? Sure, plenty of Lexus and Infinity, lots of Cadillac Escalades, and more BMWs and Mercedes Benz than you can shake a stick at.

These days even the Teslas aren’t that uncommon. It used to be a rare sight, but hell, these days we’ve even got one down the block in our neighborhood.

But the ultra exotic European luxury cars? The Ferraris? The Bentleys? The Rolls Royces? The Maseratis? Not so much. Still something you see every now and then, maybe once or twice a month if you keep your eyes open.

Oh, sure, drive down to Beverly Hills or the USC campus and you won’t be able to swing a dead cat without hitting one. But in The Valley? Still a rarity.

Until this week. Monday I saw two, not one, two Maserati Ghiblis. I know it wasn’t the same one twice because I saw them at the same time, one driving on my left, one on my right.

Then on Tuesday I saw five while driving to work. No, you didn’t read that incorrectly, five. Two were white, seen at different places within a few minutes, but close enough to where I had seen the two on Monday that I suspect they were the same ones. I mean, if they weren’t, what were the odds?

But then I saw the grey/silver one and the black one and a third white one that almost certainly could not have been one of the two earlier white ones. Trust me, if you pay attention to cars, that was eye catching.

Today I saw one of the white ones (I’m assuming it’s one of the ones I’ve been seeing) in the parking garage at work. That explains things, since if there’s one there I might see it nearby on the streets regularly. But that doesn’t explain the other four lurking about in the area.

Maybe the one in the garage is in heat and nesting while the other four are tracking it by petrochemical pheromones in order to mate with it! It’s not a theory that makes any less sense than the others that I’ve come up with.

The Mystery of the Mating Maserati. (I hear that’s where Cooper Minis come from.)

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Filed under Los Angeles

December 13, 2015 · 20:49

Is Star Wars VII Here Yet?

So, yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing the film. But I really want it to be here soon so that we can put abominations like this behind us:

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Gotta admit, when I saw it floating there over the checkout lines at the grocery store there, it made me snort.

What it got me fantasizing about though was getting about forty of them, putting a mannequin into a Darth Vader costume, strapping it into a lawn chair, and using the dozens of storm troopers for their lift. Launch that sucker over Los Angeles and see what kind of news coverage you get! (Okay, you’ll also see what kind of jail time you get, since I’m sure it violates dozens of FAA regulations, but still…)

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Filed under Entertainment, Farce, Los Angeles

December 11, 2015 · 21:15

Parking Lot In Sunlight

A few days ago I showed night pictures from the parking lot of the office building where I’ve just started working. I noted that it was across the freeway from the big Kaiser Permanente hospital. I also showed how the parking lot lights were like poster children for light pollution.

Today I was out there during the day, so it seemed natural to take more pictures to share.

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At night, the big, illuminated sign on the KP hospital stands out like a beacon. During the day, the eucalyptus trees dominate the scene. If you didn’t know there was a big hospital over there, you probably wouldn’t notice it from this angle.

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Trust me, it’s there.

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What will really screw up your night vision is that freakishly bright thing in the sky up there now!

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Filed under Los Angeles, Paul, Photography

November 21, 2015 · 21:15

Lousy Data (Again) & SigAlert (On The) 101

I ranted a while back about how we’re getting more and more dependent on apps and other information services with the assumption that we’re getting accurate data, when in fact that may not be true and you’ll find out when your GPS tells you to drive off the cliff in Monterey when you think it’s finding an address in San Francisco.

In that particular case I was showing how weather data from numerous apps (advertised as highly reliable and something you can’t live without) actually was blatantly inaccurate. To wit, multiple apps showing no rain within twenty or thirty miles while in fact it’s raining cats and dogs outside.

I had often seen a similar problem with another app and data set, but didn’t have the documentation I needed to write about it. Today, unfortunately, I got a really extreme example of that data issue.

To get from our house in the west San Fernando Valley out to the CAF hangar in Camarillo, the fastest, most direct, and most obvious route is out the 101 Freeway through Agoura and Thousand Oaks. If that route is blocked and you know it, you can go up to the 118 Freeway through Simi Valley, or you can swing down to the coast and go up the scenic but slow Pacific Coast Highway. If it’s blocked and you’re already in it or drive into it blindly, you are screwed. Maybe, maybe you can bail off onto the surface streets at some points, but at others you’re just up the creek.

I was headed out this morning, just coming through the canyons out of Calabasas, getting out into the flats leading into Agoura, when we came to a dead halt very quickly. There’s no hope of getting off the freeway to look for an alternative at that point. All four lanes stop, and stay stopped. It was somewhere between 8:25 and 8:30.

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Zero miles per hour, lots of cars all around. And yes, my fifteen year old van does have 187,000+ miles on it.

After a couple of minutes, I realized that: a) I was stuck and up that proverbial creek, and; b) this would be a good chance to test my longstanding gripe about the timeliness and accuracy of the SigAlert data.

File Nov 21, 16 15 11

Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

For those not from California, a “SigAlert” is an unplanned blockage of one or more freeway lanes for thirty minutes or longer. It started way back in 1955 and is named for a local radio guy, Loyd Sigmon. Sigmon came up with the idea of an alert system in which traffic emergency information would be delivered to all radio and television outlets immediately. The technology has developed quite a bit over the years, naturally, but the term stuck.

Fine, I was stuck in a SigAlert, that was obvious pretty quickly. But as of 8:34, showing data from 8:31, the app shows everything green, wide open traffic, despite seeing this outside my windshield for almost ten minutes.

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Oh, there goes a fire truck. We had already had two or three police cars go by at this point. There was another one right behind this one. Then one of the big hook-and-ladders went by down the center divider. Then the ambulances started going by.

That’s never a good sign.

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Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

It’s now almost fifteen minutes since we stopped, and the SigAlert app is still showing all green, “maximum freeway speed” (a semi-official euphemism for “everyone’s doing 70 to 75 in a 65 mph zone”), no problems!

But now I notice the icon for a freeway camera up ahead. What does it show?

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Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

Well, THERE‘s your problem! That’s looking right back at us, I’m stuck in the traffic on the left side coming at the camera, just in that first curve you see. You can see the traffic on the opposite side backing up quickly from “lookie-loos,” or “spectator slowing” if you want to be official.

The camera images seem to update every ten to fifteen seconds if you keep refreshing the image, and it looks like the data is much, much more current. It may or may not be actually live, but the map is obvious nonsense.

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Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

Finally at 8:46, using data from 8:43, over fifteen minutes late, the app starts to show some slowing in the area. No sign that there’s an incident or accident, and no details on what might be going on.

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Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

Even though there’s no red diamond icon on the map yet, if you go hunting for details there is a partially correct description of the problem. The accident happened more like 8:21, not 8:41, it wasn’t just the fast lane blocked but all four lanes, and traffic wasn’t just backed up at the site, it was gridlocked for more than five miles at this point.

But, hey, it’s a start?

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Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

Someone at CalTrans (which operates the remote cameras) obviously is aware of the problem since they’ve zoomed in on it. Yep, we’re screwed.

You’ll also notice that there’s significantly less traffic on the opposite side of the freeway as well. They were in the process of closing down the four lanes south/east bound with just the last handful of cars getting through in that direction.

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Meanwhile, back in the gridlock, it’s been over twenty minutes and no one’s hoping that they’ll clear the lanes and getting us out of here quickly. Engines are off, folks are wandering along the center divider, climbing up onto the embankments on the right side of the freeway to see what’s going on, and so on. A barefoot, shirtless guy was cruising between the lanes of cars on his skateboard.

Ah, California!

There had been a brief movement when a handful of freakin’ idiots drove off onto the right shoulder thinking they could drive by the whole mess that way, or get off at the offramp. But the offramp was also blocked by the accident, so all they did is block the shoulder so that the tow trucks, fire trucks, police, and ambulances trying to use the shoulder to get to the accident got gridlocked in the backup as well.

Well played, morons!

You’ll also note that by this time, in the picture shown, the lanes heading the opposite way were not completely empty. This was because they were bringing in a LifeFlight helicopter to evacuate some of the accident casualties. Being out at Camarillo Airport all the time, where the Ventura County helicopters are based near our hangars, I see these helicopters taking off and landing all the time. (Not that I’m jaded, it’s still cool to watch every time!) I’m guessing for about 99% of those stuck in traffic, it was a rare and unusual sight.

Thousands of cell phones were recording the helicopter! People standing on top of their cars, standing up through sun roofs, standing on the door frames… Aside from the fact that we were stuck and missing meetings and birthdays and weddings and late for work and getting home from work and a thousand other problems and inconveniences, it was pretty neat!

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Behind me didn’t look any better than in front of me.

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Image: SigAlert app for iPhone

Over forty minutes after the accident, the SigAlert app still isn’t accurate. The red, severe congestion area was at least twice that long according to the traffic reports on the radio, and “downstream” of the accident there wasn’t any traffic at all – every single lane was still blocked!

File Nov 21, 16 38 12 smallSkateboarding Guy came by again. Large groups of people were congregating in the center divider, I’m guessing because they could see the accident better, trying to get a clue about when they were going to open up the lanes again.

A CHP motorcycle cop rolled by, yelling at everyone to get back in their cars, really PO’d at people who didn’t hustle when he said to, yelling that it was for our safety. Really? Keeping us safe from what? We hadn’t moved in over an hour! The only danger was Skateboarding Guy.

Shown above is Golfing Guy. From what he’s wearing I’m thinking he was late for a tee time. About every five minutes he got out and took a few practice swings in between the cars. Meanwhile, after the helicopter took off, the opposing lanes opened up. It was a bit disturbing how many of them were honking at us and taunting because they could go and we were still stuck. Bastards!

At 9:39, about 1:15 after we first got stopped, all lanes opened up. Everyone sprinted for their cars and got the engines going, except for the old pickup truck in the lane next to me. As I drove off, its starter was grinding away and finally the folks stuck behind him had found their limit.

Lessons learned? Just as you can’t accurately rely on most weather apps to give you up to the minute, geographically accurate and timely information, it looks like you can’t count on the SigAlert app either. At all. The only part that worked was the freeway cameras, but you don’t check those unless you’re stuck already, and the accident may occur someplace where there aren’t any cameras.

And always carry a good book in the car. Just in case.

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Filed under Distracted Driving, Los Angeles, Photography, Video

November 15, 2015 · 18:30

Adventures At Our Local Market

We’ve having tacos tonight and found out late that we didn’t have grated cheese. I set off to our local, neighborhood market.

It’s an odd place. Way back when we moved in it was an Alpha Beta, part of a long-gone but very large chain in the Southern California market. At some point (google it) Alpha Beta got bought by Ralphs (which has now in turn been bought by Kroger nationally, but is still Ralphs here in SoCal). Our store was converted and we referred to it as the “RalpahaBeta” store.

Being an older and smaller store, located off at the corner of a couple of tertiary cross streets, I think its fate was obvious when the merger took place. Nevertheless, it stayed open for five years or so, until Ralphs built a new, fancy, shiny, huge megamarket about three miles away in a major shopping center. The the RalphaBeta was shuttered.

If I remember correctly, a year or so later someone leased the property and tried to make a go of it as an independent supermarket and only lasted a short while, maybe two years. Then it went under and the property was vacant again.

It became yet another independent market sometime later, and these guys have made a go of it for probably close to ten years now. In the early days we were always wondering how they kept the doors open, since you never saw anyone doing their weekly shopping there, and only a few people going in to pick up the odd item (we forgot cheese!) when it was simply quick and nearby.

These days they’re still there, and they still don’t have much of a regular clientele, but we’ve got a pretty good idea how they’re making ends meet. The place is used for location shoots for television, movies, and commercials. I can give you a whole list of things that it can be spotted in – right now there’s a MasterCard ad with a family of circus gymnasts that has a scene shot there.

So, there’s your background. I’m there just after dark, getting cheese for tacos. I go to pay and I’m third in line. No biggie.

And we wait. And wait. And wait. And I start paying attention, wondering what’s going on.

At the front of the line is a guy who has a huge wad of bills, probably at least seventy to eighty. I have no idea what denominations they are, but he’s counting them. Everyone is waiting around looking at him. And waiting.

Then he starts counting them again. Slowly. And no one is saying a word.

Did he just get cash back on a purchase and wants to verify it’s correct? Maybe, but that’s a lot of bills. I’ve got nothing for other explanations.

Then I notice the young couple who are second in line. Maybe in their early twenties, leaning against the candy racks, watching this guy count his bills. (No one’s saying anything.) I notice that the guy’s not wearing any shoes or socks. In fact, he’s wearing some weird pants that only go down to just below his knees. He’s wearing a leather jacket, open, but he’s not wearing a shirt underneath. Given the weather (it’s chilly, down around 50° already and dropping) it seems an unusual fashion choice. Overall I guess it’s a look that goes with the piercings and the haircut that has one side shaved with long hair on top and the other side, all combed over to that shoulder.

Then I look at the woman he’s with. I had at first thought she was wearing a green coat of some kind, but on closer examination it’s a lime green, terrycloth bath robe. She’s got shoes and some kind of pants on (flannel pajama bottoms?) but it’s suddenly not clear if she’s wearing anything else under that bath robe. At this point, discretion seemed to dictate finding someplace else to look.

So I went back to watching the guy at the front of the line counting his money, now on at least the third pass.

I’ve got a couple of people behind me in line now, and they also have picked up on the fact that no one is saying anything and it’s getting more bizarre by the second. They’re not going to be the first ones to say anything!

Paying attention to counting-money guy, I notice that what he’s got on the counter, presumably what he’s buying, is four paper bags full of paper towels. Every bag has rolls of paper towels sticking out, so at least twenty-four rolls. Nothing else visible. And he’s still counting his money.

Resolution finally arrives as another store worker shows up and says, “I’ll take the next person in line at the next register.” To her credit, the young lady on duty on the first register takes charge. She grabs the milk off the belt, hands it in back of her to the second register, orders the oddly dressed (or undressed) couple past money-counting dude and over there. She directs the two people in line behind me to go get in that line.

This seems to get money-counting dude off the dime. He puts down two twenties, the lady at the register points at the display that shows it’s $42 and change. Money-counting dude starts counting his money again.

She pretty quickly says, “Okay, those top three singles will work!” and grabs. She gives him his change and starts ringing my cheese up.

Money-counting guy hasn’t moved. In one hand he’s still holding the humongous stack of bills, but using the other hand he’s starting to take the paper towels out of the paper bags and rearrange them. It seems there might be boxes of tissues underneath, but I don’t see any sense to the shuffling since all of the paper towel rolls seem identical to me.

Whatever.

The young lady asks if I need a bag, I pull one out of my pocket (reusable bags are pretty much mandatory in LA County these days), she gives me a look and says, “Oh, thank you!” I pay, she gives me my change. Money-counting guy is still standing there, blocking my way as he shuffles identical rolls of paper towels around, so I squeeze out the back way and around and out toward the car.

This all took maybe ten minutes and I found it all highly amusing, if slightly bizarre. On the way home it occurred to me that this (and I’ve had other equally odd experiences at this store) is probably our local equivalent of being in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village in New York.

Los Angeles has its own concentrations of unique individuals in North Hollywood, Venice, and pretty much all of Santa Monica, but up here in the middle-class suburbs of wall-to-wall houses and shopping malls, the crowd I was with tonight was definitely way out at the far end of the bell curve on the weirdness scale.

You’ve gotta love it, and I do. I guess that’s why I keep going there for my quick cheese fixes.

And now, it’s time for tacos!

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Filed under Farce, Los Angeles

November 8, 2015 · 21:14

Los Angeles At Night

We had a lovely dinner with The Long-Suffering Wife’s cousins, aunts, nephews, and various spouses. We were at her aunt’s place right next to Beverly Hills, and the view there is always stunning. At night, it shines like a field of jewels.

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To the southwest, the illuminated tower on the right is the Latter Day Saints’ Los Angeles Temple on Santa Monica Boulevard. Far off in the distance, the lights on the horizon are Long Beach and the Pacific Palisades.

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To the southeast, the skyscrapers of downtown LA are straight ahead. The large street is Wilshire Boulevard, with the dark areas on both sides being the Los Angeles Country Club.

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Looking due east, the Hollywood Hills come into view. With a better camera (this is just from my cell phone) and a telephoto lens, the Hollywood sign is over there someplace.

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Due south are the skyscrapers of Century City and the Fox Studios.

It’s a wonderful view – for a propeller head like me, the coolest part is watching the jets line up as sail by, straight over downtown as they cruise into LAX off to the coast on the far right.

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Ronnie

October 23, 2015 · 23:02

Good To Know! (October 23rd)

Unlike the other 5,347,106 households in the Los Angeles/Riverside/Orange/Ventura County  metropolitan area, we have taken at least some minimal earthquake preparedness steps.

Some of it’s common sense – don’t hang a big and heavy mirror or painting on the wall over your bed, for example. We have flashlights next to our beds, just in case. (The 1994 Northridge earthquake hit at 04:30:55.) And we have a series of backpacks, or “bug-out bags,” lined up in the front hallway.

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The bug-out bags (five of them, one for each of us if we’re all home and one for the pets – that’s my way-too-little-used flightbag on top) each has water, flashlights, whistles, dust masks, granola bars, a little cash, candy, tools, a first aid kit, gloves, and so on. Every year or so I go through and pull out the old perishable items (candy, granola bars) and replenish them with new. (This is an excellent excuse to eat the “old” candy – although my kids will testify that there is no such thing as “old” candy to me.) In the past, we’ve also swapped out the collection of liter water bottles in each, because they have an expiration date on them.

Today I finally stopped to wonder if it’s actually necessary to change out the bottled water. I mean, it’s just water, right? Does the water pick up chemicals leeched from the plastic bottles? Does it start off with almost insignificant amounts of bacteria or contamination but over the course of years and years it gets worse and worse until finally toxic? Or has the bottled water industry found yet another way to get us to toss out a perfectly good product and replace it with something identical?

This is why they invented Google.

Short version – it’s just water and it never expires. After an extended period it might possibly have a slightly different taste and odor (unlikely), but it will still be perfectly healthy so long as the container hasn’t been opened.

So when The Big One hits and we’re sitting in the rubble with all of our worldly possessions burning and collapsing around us, the ever-so-tiny-bit-“off” water will be the least of our troubles. If it’s really that big of a deal, eat some M&Ms to get the taste out of your mouth, then double check your priorities. Someone (maybe me!) might need to get dug out of the burning rubble.

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Filed under Disasters, Family, Los Angeles

October 19, 2015 · 23:09

On The Need For Accurate & Timely Data

With most of us carrying pocket-sized supercomputers (which also happen to have GPS, cameras, and phones built in) we’re all getting good at just popping open an app when we need to know something. Yeah, we all hear cautionary tales from time to time reminding us to take anything on the internet with a grain of salt. But how many of us understand the accuracy and quality of the data being given to us on our dedicated apps?

That became crystal clear today.

There were widely scattered showers in the area, the tail end of something out over the Four Corners area. We never got a drop in our neighborhood. However, a few days ago there were some disastrous mud slides which resulted in key highways still being closed five days later, dozens and hundreds of cars and trucks trapped and destroyed. This may well be a “warning shot” given the record El Niño which is developing in the Pacific Ocean and the region being at the tail end of a historic, four-year drought.

About 16:15 I was out with Jessie. There were some very pretty, threatening clouds overhead, but off to the east, toward downtown Los Angeles, a couple of HUGE thunderheads could be seen.

2015-10-19-1628 Flood Advisory

At 16:30, this popped up on The Weather Channel website. Notice the phrasing – “At 426 PM PDT…Doppler radar and automated rain gauges indicated heavy rain which will cause urban and small stream flooding,” and “…locations…include Long Beach, Downtown Los Angeles…Boyle Heights.”

Nothing saying this rain might be coming or that flooding was possible. The rain was happening now, observed on radar and other equipment, and flooding will happen in a specific set of places.

So I hit the icon on that Weather Channel website to look at the local radar and see where those big storms were. Were they moving my way? Should I have cleaned out those gutters yesterday instead of putting it off?

2015-10-19-1630 Weather Channel Website Radar

Wait – this radar picture was supposed to be from 16:28, when the alert at 16:26 said those big storms were over downtown LA and those other cities. Where are those storms on this map? (Yes, I double checked the settings to make sure the radar layer was enabled. Plus, if you zoomed out to see all the way from San Francisco to Albuquerque, you could clearly see storms out over the Colorado River into Arizona and Nevada.)

2015-10-19-1705 CBS2 Local Flooding

At 17:00 we turned on the television to watch the baseball game but instead saw this “BREAKING NEWS!” A helicopter over Boyle Heights (remember Boyle Heights? the NWS said there might be urban flooding in Boyle Heights) is showing water a couple of feet deep running through the streets and into yards.

It would sure appear that those big storms really, really were in the area. So why don’t they show up on the radar map that’s supposed to be a key tool for me to use to stay informed and prepared?

Okay, maybe it’s just the Weather Channel website that’s wonky. Let’s check their iPhone app.

2015-10-19-1705 Weather Channel App Radar

Nope. Not a single drop of rain shown on the radar map for the Weather Channel app, despite the “BREAKING NEWS!” from the Downtown LA area. (Good thing they let me know that I could get “surprisingly accurate horoscopes” through their site. Couldn’t be any worse than the data coming off of their radar maps.)

With the Weather Channel’s data now suspect, let’s look for another source. In a major media market like Los Angeles, every single television station has their own news, weather, traffic, and sports app. Every station will tell you theirs is the best, the most accurate, the fastest with breaking news, and so on. Some stations even have their own Doppler radar setups so they don’t have to rely on the National Weather Service – they would like you to believe this makes them faster, better, and able to give you instantaneous data for your neighborhood, not just the whole region on average. (Honest, the “in your neighborhood” advertising bit is universal here.)

2015-10-19-1705 NBC4 App Radar

Um…not so much. Channel KNBC’s map shows the alert for the flash flood warning, but shows no rain in the area as of 17:05. Good to know about “Grimm” coming back. Maybe some wereduck from the show could talk to the psychic on the Weather Channel’s site and find the missing radar data.

2015-10-19-1711 ABC7 App Radar

Channel 7 KABC’s map also shows nothing as of 17:11. This is “surprising” given their investment in the “MEGA Doppler 7000” system, don’t you think? (This is my “surprised” face!)

Channel 2 KCBS’s has three different apps loaded on my phone, but I couldn’t get any of them to run or load. Not a good sign.

2015-10-19-1707 CBS2 Broadcast Radar

But they’re still covering the “BREAKING NEWS!” in their 17:00 news broadcast. A quick check shows that at least their broadcast radar is showing something more closely related to reality.

2015-10-19-1705 Aviation Weather App Radar

Being a pilot, I know of other resources that the average person might not be aware of. This is from an app called Hi-Def Radar. The 17:05 radar map here actually shows something that looks like it might be accurate. Good to know if you’re flying!

What if this had been an actual emergency? What if I lived somewhere where those nasty, dark, green blobs weren’t thirty miles away but were instead two miles out and heading straight toward me? The local televisions stations and even the (formerly) legendary Weather Channel might be serving up a lot more marketing hoopla than they are actual cold, hard data.

What about Twitter? It’s not just for following gossip and celebrities, or even space programs, scientists, and authors. I follow a couple of earthquake monitoring bots since they give me almost instantaneous notice of any and all shakers in the area. I also follow the local National Weather Service for days like today.

Oh, my! Look at that! Accurate and timely data, straight from the horses’s mouth (such as it is). I think we have a winner!

Here’s my point – don’t assume that you’re getting accurate and timely data just because it’s coming from an app or website from a big name media-related site!

If you get data though an app, whether it be weather data, driving instructions, turn-by-turn directions, stock and financial data, or anything else, it’s YOUR responsibility to have a good idea about the quality of the data you’re getting. If it’s something where you’re betting your ass on the accuracy of the data, you need to double check your sources in advance so that when you need data instantaneously, you know which sources you can trust and which are less reliable.

I have other examples which I’ll get a chance to document sooner or later, but this is an excellent case study that popped up today. Your mileage may vary, but if you’re in Los Angeles, today’s example shows the weather and radar data on the apps from the Weather Channel and the local television stations are highly questionable. If you want immediate and accurate information about weather hazards (maybe you were one of the hundreds of folks caught in a mudslide last week?) you should be getting your data and radar maps directly from the National Weather Service.

I don’t care if Dallas Rains has a Doppler 7000. His station’s app is useless.

(Yes, there really is a prominent weather guy in LA television named Dallas Rains. Couldn’t make that up.)

 

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Filed under Computers, Los Angeles, Weather

October 17, 2015 · 20:23

Praying Mantis 

You don’t see one of these in this part of the world very often.

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In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing one around in the 40+ years I’ve lived in Southern California.

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I saw them when I was a kid in other parts of the country. In those days I also spent a lot more time in far less metropolitan settings, out in the woods.

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Here, hanging out on a pillar outside the local post office? Totally unexpected!

Also, taking pictures of a huge bug at the entrance to the post office? A fantastic way to get my fellow citizens to give us a wide berth and look at us with horror. Was it the bug, or me being fascinated by the bug? We’ll never know!

BTW, yesterday’s picture of the giant, blue, bear statue? You can find it outside the main entrance to the Convention Center in Denver, Colorado!

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Filed under Critters, Los Angeles, Photography

October 11, 2015 · 17:56

When To Walk Out

We have a Sunday morning routine where we go out to breakfast before grocery shopping. Over many years we’ve gone through a few favorite restaurants, but for the past year or two it’s been a deli in the same shopping center as a mid-sized grocery store.

The grocery store is not the best we’ve ever been to (smaller store, smaller selection) but their service is generally pretty good. The bigger stores with the bigger selection seem to also all have lousy service, so it’s a trade off. (There do exist stores with good selection and good service, but they’re much further away from home and tend to be more expensive… More trade offs!)

The deli is not the best we’ve ever been to but their food is decent and usually we’re okay with them.

Not today.

We were in a bit of a hurry – the football game with my beloved KC Chiefs was starting in an hour, but we figured we had plenty of time. (If only we had known how badly the Chiefs were going to choke yet again, but that’s a story for another day.) More importantly, we were really hungry.

As usual we went in, were seated, and the bus boy (is there a better term than that these days?) got water for us. The place was less than half full and there were two waitresses. We started reading our newspaper, waiting for someone to take our order.

No one ever came by.

How long does one wait in this circumstance, particularly when you’re a “regular”? It wasn’t like we were off in a corner, we were right in the middle. We tried to catch someone’s attention, but got nowhere.

It’s not like the waitresses were overly busy. They both were chatting, schmoozing, joking around, having a good time socializing with both the other customers and the other employees.

It would be one thing if they had been busy. I’ve sat for far longer in places that were being slammed while being shorthanded. (Go to any large convention, science fiction or otherwise.) In college I worked in the food service industry for a while, I know how hard it can be.

But when we’ve simply been forgotten, or ignored? Hello?

Perhaps we should have been more aggressive about getting someone’s attention. Perhaps.

Instead, after about fifteen minutes, we just got up and walked out to go get our groceries. The owner/hostess at the door was wondering what was going on but I wasn’t in the mood to engage. The Long-Suffering Wife told her that we were leaving because no one had ever come and taken our order.

So here are the questions for the group mind – in such a circumstance, do you raise your voice, let someone know that you’re pissed (and hungry), set off a signal flare, or do you walk? And if you walk, how long do you wait before heading out?

Now we need to find a new place to eat next Sunday morning.

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