It is not a good photo and it only lasted for a few minutes – but it was the first rain!!!!
Thanks!
Month: October 2008
Still No Rain
With eight scorchers over 90 degrees this month, Los Angeles has been in the midst of the second-hottest October since 1877, according to climate records.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-october28-2008oct28,0,4826642.story)
Yes, the outlook is bleak. Drought conditions are becoming more obvious.
On a hike in Griffith Park this enormous tumbleweed with a length of nearly four foot was a sharp reminder about weather conditions and the change in vegetation. Tumbleweed in the city? We are talking Los Angeles here, not a ghost town in the Mojave Desert.
After nearly eight months without rain it is time for some clouds to roll in.
Please!
Listen Up!
You got something wrong here:
Suitcases are for people to pack stuff in.
They are not meant for cats to travel in.
Sorry, ladies.
Ouch!
Poor mountain lions.
Poor rattlesnakes.
They do not deserve this.
And The Winner Is…
Filming goes on in Los Angeles every day, not only in studios and on back lots, but everywhere in the city. It is part of life around here. Sometimes one feels a bit annoyed when whole streets are blocked off and one has to take a detour; but then again, the film industry is one of the major employers in town and many, many people live with and from it – not only the stars which tourists hope to see when they do their Hollywood/Universal City/Santa Monica trip to Los Angeles.
Anyway, filming is going on everywhere. Even in front yards. Often these small set-ups are students from USC, one of the most prestigious film schools in the country. This bunch here are senior students filming “The Blue Heron,” a 10 minute short.
Maybe in a few years one of them will get up at the Oscar ceremonies when the well-known sentence rings out: “And the winner is…”
Good luck!
That's For Real, Man!
5 AM Saturday morning, off to Big Bear. Even though I do not mind waking up early to putter around the house, have some coffee, read the news on the computer – to actually get ready and leave the house at this hour is different. Let’s put it like that – I am not bright and chirpy and at the height of my mental faculties that early.
So it took a while to become aware of my surroundings while winding up the road towards the top. I did notice that some houses were already decorated for Halloween. Well, I though, up here in the mountains they certainly do thing differently – fake snow as decoration – but then, why not.
As I said before, my mind is a bit sluggish at that early hour. Fake snow… fake snow… Oh my God, that snow is not fake! That is not for decoration, that stuff is real!
And indeed, it was all for real. The night before temperatures had dropped to 18°F ( – 2°C) up in the mountains and it had snowed for the first time. On October 11th; even for those folks up there that was a bit too cold a bit too early.
Though it did look pretty, especially on the slopes, it was really, really cold, even after the sun came out.
All day long temperatures rose just slightly above freezing. But then again, when winding down the mountain on the way back the next day, the lovely warmth of the lowlands was appreciated even more than usual.
Small Is Beautiful
This is the second Smart I have seen in our neighborhood within one week. Two minutes later a Mini Cooper passed by.
The next 2 1/2 hours I spent counting Mini Coopers. The total came to 10.
This ties in with what I have noticed for months now: parking lots, especially at supermarkets, used to be filled with big bad cars – Explorers, Tahoes, Hummers, trucks large enough to transport whole households from one coasts to the other. Oftentimes I also saw the drivers of those big boats – women, obviously very pleased with the fact that they did not have to squish their three bags of groceries into a tiny car. I, on the other hand, was very often not pleased with the fact that said ladies, after having climbed on board, did seem to have some difficulties to navigate their whopping huge heaps of metal off the parking lot.
Today the big boats are gone. Where are they? Have they all been shipped off to some secret island, where they stand under a palm tree, dreaming of those days when gas was cheap and they could proudly display themselves on parking lots in between runs to the school two blocks away to drop off Junior or the little Princess?
I bet they would love to run over anybody who dares to proclaim “small is beautiful.”
Forever Strong
So the first American movie about rugby opened in selected cinemas on September 26th and of course we went to see it. Normally sport movies are not my thing – I’d rather work or do other things than sit and stare at a screen watching some actors pretending to be athletes; but once again, with this being the first US film featuring rugby – so, yes, that was a must.
First things first: the movie was not as bad as expected. It certainly is not a highlight in the history of cinema, just a pleasant run-of-the-mill story about sport being a way of redemption for some troubled young man.
But – and this is what made the film enjoyable, leaving the slightly cookie cutter-story aside – the rugby scene were marvelous (as they should be, especially as real All-American rugby players were involved). Yes, I know, editing and sound mix and whatnot do play their part; still, these scenes were so great, I could watch the film all over again.
Really – even though I do not like sport movies.