Category Archives: 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.)

 

Leave a comment

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.

File Oct 17, 19 51 35 small

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

File Oct 17, 19 53 15 small

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.

File Oct 17, 19 53 50 small

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!

Leave a comment

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.

1 Comment

Filed under KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Paul

October 9, 2015 · 23:32

Where Did The Day Go?

I hate the feeling at 23:18 at night when you know that you were busy all day, and you can remember doing that, that, and that, and going there, and taking care of that errand, and picking up those, and spending hours and hours working on this ’cause you promised it for tomorrow — but you feel like, “Did I get anything done today?!”

When in doubt, take a few minutes to flip through some pictures and find one to share. Like this one.

Not taken today, of course. Today we’re setting high temperature records again all throughout the region and there’s not a cloud in the sky. Except for the occasional “pyrocumulus” clouds rising over the brush fires.

I hate the feeling at 23:31 at night when you’ve at least gotten something to post on the website today, but you’ve still got a dozen things to get off your desk before you can go to bed and you have to get up “early for a Saturday” tomorrow to get out to the hangar with that thing you worked on all day…

2 Comments

Filed under Flying, Los Angeles, Photography, Weather

October 3, 2015 · 22:46

Is It Moral? A Pop Quiz For October 3rd

I observed something today germane to pretty much nothing in the big scheme of things, but it did get me to wondering, so I figured I would throw it out there and see if anyone else had a comment.

The Post Office. A woman pulls into one of the handicapped parking spaces right in front of the door. She immediately hangs her handicapped parking placard on the rear-view mirror. No problem.

But she never gets out of the car. Her twenty-something passenger (assumed to be a daughter, maybe) gets out of the passenger side and runs into the post office to stand in line for whatever business there is.

The driver appears to be in her sixties, if not older. From what I can see she appears frail. The passenger looks like she runs marathons.

There are a number of assumptions here, I’ll admit right up front. Above all, I’m assuming that the handicapped placard is for the driver and that the passenger is perfectly healthy.

Given that, is it moral for this lady to park in the handicapped space when she’s not going to be the one getting out of the car?

I’m sure it’s legal. She has a placard. I’m assuming that she has it for a reason and she’s not one of the people (there are a LOT of them in Los Angeles) who has a fake placard or got a real one by buying it.

But the prime rationale for the existence of handicapped parking spaces is to make it easier for those with physical limitations to get into the building without having to walk a longer distance across the parking lot. Forget all of the legal and bureaucratic nonsense. They exist because society wants to help “even the playing field” for those with physical handicaps.

Considering why these parking spaces exist, plus the fact that in this case the person who actually was getting out of the car and going into the building was not the handicapped person, was parking here moral?

Your comments and observations are eagerly awaited. (Show your work.)

1 Comment

Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Los Angeles

September 23, 2015 · 22:45

Panorama: Woodland Hills, CA

I’ve lived in the west San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles for thirty years now – that sort of amazes me.

It’s not a bad area, as cities go. We’ve had good schools for the kids, decent parks, a low crime rate, and so on. We’ve been lucky to live here (and buy a house here) at a time when the property values increased significantly, although they dropped about 45% in the 2007 “Great Recession.” (They’re now getting back close to where they were.) All in all, a pretty nice place.

But in the end, it is a city. While I’ve lived in one for most of my life, and I enjoy visiting other cities, when I come home from visiting friends or family in a smaller city (Durham, Fort Wayne, Burlington) or town (Springfield, Barre, Blacksburg) I always wonder why I’m not leaving here to go home there instead of the other way around.

Regardless, here’s a pretty good view of the area, taken from our room near the top floor of the local Marriott. We were there for a convention, the weather was clear, and while I get much better “bird’s eye” views when I’m flying overhead, I’m usually a little bit too busy flying the plane to take a lot of pictures. (That’s a good thing!)

2004_08_07_Woodland_Hills(As always, click on the image to view the full-sized file.)

This panorama comes from ten images of 2592 x 1944 pixels (5 megapixels each) combined into an image of 15,655 x 1883 pixels (29.4 megapixels).

This view is pretty much due west, looking at the hills that form the west end of the San Fernando Valley and separate it from Simi Valley to the northwest and Canejo Valley to the southwest.

At the far left you can see a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains. On the other side of those you’ll find Malibu and the beaches at the northern end of Los Angeles County.

Hidden by the small hill in the foreground left is the pass where the Ventura Freeway (US 101) leaves the SFV and goes down into Calabasas and Agoura.

Along the top of the ridge running left to right in the center of the picture is the county line separating Los Angeles County from Ventura County. Almost everything on the LA side is houses, while in this area, almost everything on the Ventura side is open, wild parkland. It’s great for the critters and a nice place to go hiking, biking, and so on. It’s no so great every fifteen or twenty years when it all bursts into flames and we get a wall of brush fires from Simi through Calabasas and marching all the way to sea in Malibu.

Off the the right, sort of right above the Wells Fargo Bank building, is the Santa Suzanna Pass that goes from the San Fernando Valley to Simi Valley. The 118 Freeway runs through there.

That’s what can make it somewhat tricky getting from where I live out to the CAF hangar in Camarillo, which is about thirty miles out on the Ventura Freeway. Between the Ventura Freeway on the south and the Simi Valley Freeway on the north, there aren’t really any other routes west through those hills. (OK, I know one, but it’s basically a one-and-a-half lane death trap that would no doubt be a blast on a motorcycle or with a new convertible and a ton of insurance, but I wouldn’t use it to commute.)

If one of those two freeways gets clobbered by a big accident, there are very limited options. If you know of a problem on one you can take the other, but a 100,000 of your new closest friends will be joining you. If you don’t know about the problem until you get caught in the backup, you can get stuck for an hour, two hours, three hours…

The other driving option if both freeways are clobbered is to use Topanga Canyon to cut south over the mountains to the ocean, then take Pacific Coast Highway north to Point Mugu and Camarillo. This is also on twisty, two and three lane “highways,” which were state of the art in the 1940’s, but not so much now. Still, if there isn’t any traffic and you just want to kill the extra time to have a fun drive, it’s great. When it’s the last driving option available and all of those aforementioned close, personal friends are joining you, then not so much.

Of course, if I had my own plane and was current, the better option in such a mess would be to drive the opposite direction entirely to Van Nuys or Whiteman, then fly to Camarillo. Much faster, much more fun. I highly recommend it!

Leave a comment

Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography

August 19, 2015 · 22:42

Good Meetings

I had a series of follow-up meetings today in downtown Los Angeles. I talked about many interesting things with many interesting people. I feel good following those meetings. Let’s hope it was a good day for the (figurative) hunting of 400-pound elephants.

And, hey, more pictures of downtown Los Angeles!

File Aug 19, 22 26 24

File Aug 19, 22 27 06

File Aug 19, 22 27 36

File Aug 19, 22 28 08

Keep those karma points coming, I need all the help I can get.

I swear, I’ll stop beating around the bush and tell you what this was all about. Real soon now. I hope it’s on a day of celebration. Real soon now.

Leave a comment

Filed under Job Hunt, Los Angeles, Paul, Photography

August 12, 2015 · 22:28

Good Meeting

I had what I thought was a very good meeting this afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. We talked about some interesting things. I’m hoping that those I met with thought that it went well also. Perhaps there might be another meeting in a couple of weeks.

That would be a very good thing. It’s time for the 400-pound elephant in the room to find residence elsewhere.

Also, it has occurred to me that I have many more pictures of downtown Prague and London and Boston and Shanghai and Kyoto and Washington and Seoul and Southampton and Brussels and Seattle and Cabo San Lucas (and on and on and on…) than I have of downtown Los Angeles. I’ve only visited those places for a few days, I’ve lived here for over forty years. Among other benefits, a side effect of a positive outcome to today’s meeting would no doubt offer many, many opportunities to rectify that situation.

If anyone has any karma points to loan to me, they would be welcome at this point.

File Aug 12, 22 10 55

Here’s one quick photo I grabbed this afternoon before my meeting. Gotta love those old art deco buildings!

1 Comment

Filed under Job Hunt, Los Angeles, Photography

July 4, 2015 · 16:52

Fourth Of July Adventure!

I hope you and yours are having a fun (and safe) Fourth of July if you’re in the United States – if not, Happy Saturday!

I’m at the Dodgers game with The Younger Daughter, looking forward to baseball, hot dogs, and fireworks. At the moment the big question is, “Who starts a Fourth of July fireworks game at 4:15??!” We shall see.

But in the search for adventure beyond the norm, we decided to see if we could get to Dodger Stadium using public transportation. Yes, LA does have public transit!

   

In theory we could have caught a bus a block from home and then switched to the Orange Line bus to get to the North Hollywood station, which is the closest subway station to our house. This would have taken an hour or more.

In practice, we drove to the North Hollywood station in twenty minutes. (In rush hour, it would have been well over an hour.)

 

The North Hollywood station is at the end of the Red Line subway. A train was just pulling in. We rode with many Dodger fans.

Mind you, this was not like riding the train to a Yankees or Cardinals or Nationals game, where 95% of the passengers are going to the game. For us it was maybe 10%. But that’s 10% in the land of the automobile and freeway obsessed. It’s progress.

We got off where the Red Line ends at Union Station. From there the Dodgers and LA Metro have a free bus shuttle up to Dodger Stadium.

 

So it’s actually a piece ofcake to get here using public transit. The bus makes a stop outside of center field and also at the top of the stadium behind home plate. 

Downtown Los Angeles looks like a postcard today.
 

The stadium is ready and has been upgraded a little bit each year, but as always with Dodgers fans, it’s a late arriving crowd. (A 4:15 game? Really?)
 

The big flag is out, it’s time to play ball! Let’s hope it’s as easy getting home tonight as it was getting here! (If not, maybe we’ll try Uber or Lyftfor the first time.)

Enjoy your holiday!

Leave a comment

Filed under Fireworks, Los Angeles, Photography, Sports

May 7, 2015 · 22:20

Tiny Drops

It almost NEVER rains in SoCal after March or early April. Yet tonight while letting the dog-beast enjoy her evening constitutional, there were little tiny drops.

IMG_9001

Reflected in the back window of the Volvo…

IMG_9002

…and off of the roof. (The car’s red, the sky wasn’t.)

Make no mistake, the drought’s bad, getting worse fast, and has excellent potential to be a real world-class disaster. But over and above that, our weather is just getting…statistically unlikely, on a regular basis. Or just odd.

Later this evening we got actual, honest to god rain. Not much, probably only 0.10″ or so, but radar shows some widely scattered showers that are pretty heavy. And it’s a cold system, so our high is only going to be about 58°F tomorrow with the snow level in the mountains down below 5,000 feet.

In May??! In Southern California??!!

Little tiny drops might be great big signs and portents of changes that are already in motion.

Leave a comment

Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Weather