It isn’t often I get jazzed about a press release’s contents but this event sounds too cool to pass up.  A tradition in some Asian countries is a night market wherein streets become giant markets for the night. That is is exactly what is happening this Saturday night in Pasadena on Oakland Avenue between Union and Colorado.  The event promises to be filled with music, food and merchandise all with an Asian flare to it.  Admission is FREE!

Parking is tough (and expensive and extensively patrolled for scofflaws) in that area.  I strongly suggest that if you are mass transit enabled do so and get yourself onto the Gold Line and take it to the Memorial Station and walk the couple of blocks it takes to get there.

Details: April 14, 2012, 5-11:30PM, Oakland Avenue, Pasadena  MAP HERE. 626 Night Market Web Site.

Full press release after the break. Read the rest of this entry →

Tilted sandstone formation in Red Rock Canyon

Forget your troubles, come on get dizzy. That’s what I did last weekend on a hike from Topanga Canyon area through Red Rock Canyon to the top of Calabasas Peak. The hike was about 4.5 miles, pretty short as the crow flies, but there was a lot of climbing (up to 2,000+ feet) and zig-zagging, plus we took some rock scrambling side trips, so it was challenging. One highlight of the hike was the rocky terrain, consisting of numerous sandstone outcroppings. At times I thought I was in Zion National Park, not the Santa Monica Mountains just minutes from L.A. Many of these rocks are tilted at Titanic angles, and it’s mind-boggling to think that they were once under sea, and how it has taken them millions of years to get to this point. There were even seashell fossils in some of the rocks, as the picture after the jump indicates.

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Screengrab from LA Times.com

Staffwriter Hector Becerra spends all of the front page article in today’s Los Angeles Times and plenty more after the jump building the implication that the Dodgers were the primary reason for the Chavez Ravine disgrace, including this patently disingenuous paragraph:

“But the removal of more than 1,000 mostly Mexican-American families from Chavez Ravine to make way for the stadium is a dark note in LA’s history.”

What a surprisingly reprehensible and negligent generalization that is.

I was relieved when Becerra eventually explained that the public housing debacle by the city’s leadership years before Los Angeles was even a gleam in Walter O’Malley’s eye was the true catalyst for the evictions. And he finally contradicts his previous fallacy by mentioning there were only a few families remaining — not “more than 1,000″ — in 1959.

But it is shameful and irresponsible that Becerra and his editors failed to reference those previous events higher up in the article and instead of qualification opted for false simplification in the form of an inaccurate chronological order to the dreadful sequence of events that destroyed the entire community, not just the handful of brave families who fought eviction to that bitter end.

I shall read any words appearing under Becerra’s byline now with a far more skeptical eye.

Update after the jump.

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Where there's smoke...

Spotted at 10:35 am, there’s a serious plume of black, black smoke just outside my office window near the border of Northridge/Chatsworth. There’s already a ghetto bird police helicopter overhead.

Anyone know what happened?

Update: NBC Los Angeles is on the story.

Update 2: About 20 minutes after the plume first appeared, the fire seems to have been successfully extinguished. Go LAFD!

I’ll admit it: Even after making the 90-minute drive up to Navitat Canopy Adventures in Wrightwood, and even when I was being strapped into the 12 pounds of harness gear, and eeeeeven when I stared down the length of that first zipline while breathing air so clean it hurt my lungs, there was a part of me that was ready to wuss out.

Fact is, I am pretty much terra firma’s bitch — exxxxtra-terrestrial, so to speak, in that my life-long crush on my physical, foot-planted connection to our earth is practically boundless. Suffice it to say the ground and me, we’re close. Really close. As such it is not often but always with trepidation whenever I intentionally leave its embrace –  but certainly not to seek various thrills such as diving into the sky out of a perfectly good airplane, or bungee jumping off a perfectly good bridge. Ziplining though? Hmmmm, now that was something I didn’t immediately have so adamant an adverse reaction to and therefore might be open to consider doing. At least in theory. Some day.

Ready to roll at zipline No. 1. Did Will stay or did he go now?

Which turned out to be March 24 when, despite my doubts about turning that theory into action, I took Navitat up on its gracious invitation and went up into that wild forested yonder in the San Gabriel Mountains about 75-miles northeast of Los Angeles and about 7,000 or so feet above sea level. Upon my arrival I was warmly welcomed by Caley Bowman, Navitat’s marketing manager, and soon after signed the requisite waiver absolving her company of all responsibility should I break a nail or a neck.

Soon after, among an assembled group of five other fellow blogger invitees (Andrea, Christine, Debi, Nicole and Bob), we were all harnessed and helmeted and venturing via 4×4 van up a steep and winding and narrow old logging road to eventually stand before that first zipline, where I wasn’t surprised at all to find that earth-bound part of me still looking for the chicken exit. But did I make like a tree and leave? Did I “bough” out ungracefully? Oh hell no. Me and my inner adrenaline junkie clipped in and went up, up and away for the ziplining rides of my life.

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This is a novel way to get rid of that suspect, as in “is it really pink slime or not” stuff you have in the freezer or fridge that you haven’t already tossed out in disgust.

Today, Wednesday 3/28 bring that suspect package from another store to any Fresh and Easy and swap it out for their ground beef.  You can read all about the swap in the Pasadena Star News, their web or blog or just take it from me that its really happening.

There are a couple of caveats. You are limited to up to 2 lbs of their 80/20 stuff.  IT is only good as long as supplies last…maybe call ahead to verify they are still doing it at your local Fresh & Easy.  They have a handy store locator  HERE.

Snapped with what amounts to a really old and really low-tech motion-sensor triggered webcam that I set up after our Silver Lake house got hit by taggers last October, I was amazed to find the following stills archived from last month of an entirely brazen coyote stopping by at the decidedly uncoyote-like hour of  11 a.m. for any potential bites in the form of our cats, which would have been far more readily available had they not been inside and staying out of what had been a cold and rainy morning that day (click the the thumbnails to enlargify).

Whoa. I mean, it’s not often you see what amounts to our city’s alpha predator (and even rarer in broad daylight), much less capture images of them acting like its their home, not yours.

Pair of Ford Focus at the Petersen Museum.

This promises to be an interesting event this coming Saturday on the steps of City Hall in Pasadena.  The folks at Clean Vehicle Rebate Project and the city of Pasadena are sponsoring the fair and it is free and open to everyone.

The EV Fair will feature a number of vehicles for test drives and on static display. As of now I have confirmed that a Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Toyota Prius Plug-In and CODA will be available for attendees to experience at the event. (Unfortunately Ford dealerships have not quite received the all-electric Focus so the dealers will not be participating. They are, however, working with Ford to provide a Focus EV for the event).   UPDATE 3/29 Ford will have a new Focus EV at the event.   They will also have a number of electric vehicle charging equipment providers at the event displaying products and providing information on home installation). Read the rest of this entry →

We don’t need a guidebook to tell us that some parts of the Los Angeles area are teeming with toys. One such object sits in the Marina del Rey boat harbor, and is now a major feature on the local skyline, even though it floats. It’s the Asahi, a sailboat 184 feet in length, with masts the size of giant redwoods. And it can be yours for a chartered excursion. All you need is a cool $290,000 per week.

More photos after the jump

March 23, 2012, 10AM, LA City Hall Steps, 200 N Spring Street, Los Angeles

China Town dying courtesy Llane.org

Congresswoman Judy Chu and API will be speaking on the steps of City Hall before they meet to discuss the “Formula Retail” motion in front of City Council for a vote tomorrow.  Show up and show your support for Congresswoman Chu who is working to support the preservation of China Town.

“Formula Retail” is a motion to prevent Walmart and other big boxes from coming in and changing the character of Chinatown.  Its about preserving the character of the community and its businesses.  Its about preventing the big boxes from coming in and running the existing shops out of business.

After the jump is a copy of the motion for “Formula Retail”, if after you have read it and believe in its purpose please contact your City Council Person and ask them to vote for it. Read the rest of this entry →

Go ahead, call me a train geek, I won’t deny it. While biking toward downtown along Exposition Boulevard yesterday, I got my camera out just in time to catch a brand spankin’ new Expo Line train on the move eastbound (raced by a hearse of all things). The line is not yet open to the public and there is yet a firm date set as testing of it continues, but this was sure a purty sight to see.

UPDATE (3.23): Streetsblog Los Angeles reports that an April 28 opening date for the Expo Line has been announced!

Urbandaddy recently tipped us off to this fascinating new type of recreation facility: the indoor trampoline park. According to the Sky Zone website, they are planning to leap right into the southland (sorry) with over a half-dozen SoCal locations open or planned, including Covina, Glendale, Anaheim, the San Fernando Valley, and more.

According to the Urbandaddy post, the Gardena location was set for a soft opening this past Saturday. Anyone make it out there?

Proof that I can be two places at once, I bring you two perspectives of yesterday’s Los Angeles Marathon. This first is my obligatory timelapse of the thundering herd at the race’s seventh mile on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, as seen weirdly from a low-res cam literally duct-taped to the eyepiece of a 20X spotting scope:

Next I captured the street-level perspective of the event having gone down  to cheer my neighbor Dean on who was running the race in support of and to raise awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project. When I got down there with my wife Susan I found another neighbor Ralph had brought his drum (and a killer St. Patty’s Day-green dye job to his goatee), so Susan went back and got my drum and together we banged on them as the parade of participants pranced past:

Freddy Douglas, (left) and Graham Hamilton duel over the woman they both love in "The Illusion" at A Noise Within. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

It was way back last September when I looked over the collection of productions planned for the acclaimed repertory company A Noise Within’s first season in its brand new Pasadena home. Of those plays set to be staged, the previously unheard of “The Illusion”  — a comedy written way back in the 17th century by Pierre Corneille and adapted by Tony Kushner — interested me the most, especially when I read it was about an estranged father going on a mystical journey to reunite with the son he’d long abandoned. Not to get all TMI or psychoanalytical but the reason it struck a chord is that I’m a son of an abandoning father whom I’ve never met and thus with that kind of baggage I quickly ordered up tickets to see what Corneille and Kushner might have to say on the subject. Then I waited. Six months. Until last night.

Going in, I had no expectations about the play but with many past experiences sitting before A Noise Within’s stage, I had every expectation the company would do an incredible job, and it most certainly did.

“The Illusion” opens with the father, Pridamant (Nick Ullett), venturing into a cave in search of the sorcerer Alcandre (Deborah Strang) to help reconnect him to the son (Graham Hamilton) he selfishly disavowed 15 years earlier. With the help of her servant Amanuensis (Jeff Doba) Alcandre conjures three episodes from the young man’s life. Pridamant watches with each scene finding the boy in a slightly different world where names change and allegiances shift, but only as the strange tale reaches its conclusion does he learn the ultimate truth.

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If you love old British sports cars and motorcycles this is the show for you.  This show brings in a more than a few classic British cars and cycles in various states of repair and restoration.  There is even a “auto jumble” (swap meet) full of parts and stuff to repair and customize your own car.

Do you have an old British car or cycle you’d love to show?  If so visit them and register to show online here.

This is a FREE event for spectators.

Last year the show went on in the rain, looks like this year promises to be wet early in the day so its hard telling if the “show will go on” or not.  My guess is that it will go on regardless.

Deets: Sunday 3/18/2012 9AM-4PM. Queen’s English,(626) 797-4221,  Woodley Park, Van Nuys CA MAP HERE.