2007 marked one of the best Blue Whale seasons in southern California. (This was in stark contrast to last year, which was certainly disappointing, with whale watching boats out of Santa Barbara failing to see Blue Whales for days on end.) 3-5 Blue Whales are still being spotted in the area, including off of Pt. Vicente and Portuguese Bend this week.

Other species spotted this week include 3 Fin Whales (observed lunge feeding), Pacific White Sided Dolphins, Risso’s Dolphins, Bottlenose Dolphins (with calves) & Common Dolphins.

Weather for on-shore observation will be good today (and probably pretty cool with the huge waves) but dodgy later this week with the coming rain. However, naturalists have observed that Gray Whales often come closer to shore after the first rains of the year (the influx of fresh water may be useful for removing parasites). So look sharp if you’re close to the shore later this weekend.

See daily updates from the Gray Whale Census here.

The interior of her car reached 180 degrees! (If that’s not enough to convince you to not leave your pets in your car, I don’t know what is.)

Though the cookies don’t get golden brown, she can attest that they do get fully cooked.

So, if you lament that your car at work isn’t covered during the day, maybe you’ll feel better coming back to it knowing there’s a baking sheet filled with gooey cookies.

(Too complicated but wanna make something in your car? How about sun tea in a nalgene bottle?)

But as soon as the word escaped my mouth, the earthquake was over.

Anyone else feel it?

UPDATE: Wow, much bigger than I expected. There’ll be coverage on this. 4.7 in Lake Elsinore.

There was a small power outage around 4PM tonight in Silverlake. Probably a dozen houses are included in the rampant darkness and oppressive stillness in the air.

DWP hasn’t budged much, it took about 4 hours for them to actually respond that it was a verified problem. Since then they said that they’d dispatched a crew, but we’ve seen no crew crawling around in the back yards of those affected.

I miss my electricity and if they give it back to me, I promise I won’t use much. (I admit that I did actually turn on the air conditioner this afternoon for the first time ever while it was still light out.)

UPDATE: As of this morning a crew still hasn’t been dispatched. There are about 20,000 people in LA County without power in many different areas. They have to prioritize and this little pocket of 20 houses isn’t that high on their list. This is the second time this year we’ve been without power for more than 12 hours.

UPDATED UPDATE: At around 10 AM we returned from breakfast at Astro to find our street filled to the brim with four DWP trucks (two with bucket cranes!). Of course all the vehicles are useless as the transformer that needs to be replaced is on a pole in our second-neighbor-over’s back yard … down a very steep hill.

Two hours since then … the crew has been up on the pole but has yet to remove the old transformer. But they’re here! They’re here! (I’m going to take them popsicles later!)

UPDATED UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Power was back on by 2PM. Fans a whirring, the ambient temp in my house at 10PM was still 90 degrees. So much for the belief that electricity makes things better.

Starting in October, SoCal will lose its local Wonder … and 1,300 jobs will go with it. Is it the low carb lifestyle, a company no longer in step with its customers or just poor management?

Don’t worry, your Hostess and Dolly Madison snack cakes are safe.

Photo from bookish in north park (of the San Diego factory) courtesy of an ever so kind CC license

Allow extra time to get to and from the airport and of course avoid the airport area if at all possible (there’s likely to be a lot of overflow traffic on the 405 and surrounding surface streets).

All eastbound lanes between Sepulveda and La Cienega boulevards will be closed from 3 a.m. to midnight the two Saturdays and Sundays to allow shooting of the action film “John Hancock,” according to LAX officials. In addition, the westbound portion of the freeway between Sepulveda and the 405 Freeway will be closed intermittently between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. both days of the weekends.

Anyone know anything about the film? I couldn’t find it in IMDB.

UPDATE: It’s simply called Hancock on IMDB. (Thanks Don!)

There are some changes this year. First, the venue has moved slightly. It will now straddle Santa Monica Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. (the true Sunset Junction) which means that it doesn’t go as far east on Sunset. Moving down the street a bit may help ease some of the traffic congestion and allow more businesses to remain open to regular customers (instead of those that must pay the mandatory entrance fee of $15).

(those little flags on the map don’t mean anything, it was just an easy way to generate a map with the endpoints of the fair.)

The entrance fee has gone up this year to $15 at the gate ($12 if your order in advance).

See full map here.

The lineup of musical acts include:

Saturday: Crosby Tyler, Renee Dawson, Ritmo Flamenco, DJ Sloe Poke, Division Day, Bobby Matos, The Lions, The Pity Party, Raks Majnoun, Breakestra, The Parson Red Heads, Renaissance, Sy Smith, Culver City Dub Collective, The Emotions, Medusa, The Broken West, Deniece Williams, Jesse de la Pena, Sea Wolf, Morris Day & The Time, Autolux, Blonde Redhead, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals.

Sunday: Cuahtemoc, Tawny Ellis, Mesmera, Eric Coleman, Eskimohunter, Vilma Diaz, Balfete, The Movies, Thelma Jones, Conjunto Jardin, The Airbone Toxic Event, Millie Jackson, Rocky Dawuni, The Aggrolites, The O’Jays, Cheb i Sabbah, The Bronx, Hot Hot Heat, Buzzcocks, She Wants Revenge.

(Please check the schedule as these are likely subject to change.)

According to a “suggest a story” contribution (which I’m not able to verify … leave some contact info folks!) the LAPD, Sunset Junction organizers, Silverlake Neighborhood Council Silver Lake Improvement Association and Sunset Junction Neighborhood Alliance have gotten together to discuss the issues of the festival. Further, there will be the opportunity for the public to attend a “post mortem” meeting in September to air new or unaddressed grievances about the festival.

The Festival is a bit more proactive this year about informing attendees about parking options (LACC with a shuttle) and the public transportation, but still hasn’t made any mention on their website about parking respectfully in the neighborhoods (or anything to dissuade folks from that). See those suggestions on their site

See last year’s bitching about the festival: Open Issues & New Info. You may now commence the bitching in this thread … or of course celebrate your excitement about this year’s festival.

Wow … I wonder if anyone has ever seen something like that happen here in Los Angeles? (Read the 112 posts tagged biking in la here at blogging.la)

(Thumbnail image swiped from LATimes by Robert Durell – July 27, 2007)

Okay, the video is a little choppy, but photos just don’t begin to show the scale of these 80 foot creatures.

Blue Whales are being spotted up and down the southern coast of California right now, there are boats that go out from Dana Point and even San Diego. But of course I’m fond of the Condor Express voyages because it’s such a nice boat (wide and stable as well as being fast).

Here’s a set I found of another SoCal person who went out on Sunday from SB and saw blue whales.

WHEN: Saturday, August 11, 2007, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

WHERE: Santa Barbara Harbor on the Condor Express. Cost: $90 ($80 for ACS members)

CONTACT: Diane Alps, (310) 548-0966

We’ll board the 75-foot Condor Express in Santa Barbara Harbor for a full day excursion, heading out toward Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Islands, 20 miles offshore.

Explore the Santa Barbara Channel, one of the most prolific whale watching locations in the world. Discover the endangered blue whales as they gorge themselves on schools of krill. Experienced naturalists will be aboard to narrate the trip and answer questions. The 75-foot, jet-powered Condor Express departs from SEA Landing in Santa Barbara.

Other marine life we regularly see in the Channel are humpback whales, minke whales, common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, Dall’s porpoise, Pacific white-sided dolphins, Risso’s dolphins, northern right whale dolphins, elephant seals and California sea lions. Of course we also see many species of marine birds such as shearwaters, storm petrels and gulls.

I’ve stared at them a lot, they’ve been along most of my commutes for the past 15 years, so you can imagine how much time I’ve spent at intersections during red lights just staring at the sign.

But I’ve never been in one.

It’s the sign … it completely confuses me. What is it? It’s a chuckwagon … but the guy on the wagon isn’t old “Cookie”, he looks like a sterotypical Italian chef, kind of like Luigi Risotto from The Simpsons: bald-headed, tall-white-hat-wearing, mustachioed, scarfed and pot-bellied.

But wait, Luigi Risotto is selling pizza … Pioneer Pete is selling … um, well, fried chicken and hot dogs and fish & chips and taquitos and pastrami and who knows what else. (Fast food places that advertise pastrami have always confused me, I understand that it’s LA’s lack of delis that forces pastrami into fast food joints.)

Pioneer Chicken outlets are all but gone. Only five remain in the Los Angeles area where there were once over 80. A switch by the franchisees to Popeye’s gobbled up most locations, except for five that still hobble along untouched by time, fads and rational motifs (two on Sunset). The original is just off Sunset in Echo Park next to the old Pioneer Market (now a Walgreen’s).

I’ve prowled around on Chowhound and found a few threads about the actual food that they serve. It sounds pretty good (and looks pretty good from this commerical I found on YouTube). Maybe I need to stop being such a baby and just go in and try it.

Anyone want to testify to their fried chicken brilliance or congratulate me for being Pioneer Chicken clean?