Category: General

Stormy Weather

Breaking Waves in San Pedro
Breaking Waves in San Pedro

Yes, yes, the rains have arrived – finally! That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the rains came on the wings of some quite remarkable storms; we’re just through the second wave of winds with gusts of over 72 miles per hour and two more storm waves are expected until Friday of this week.

Down at the coast jetties and piers are closed, a sensible precaution in the face of 15-foot waves. There was some flooding of streets, an urban and small stream flood advisory plus a coastal flood watch is out.

The most damage is expected from mudslides in the areas which burned down last summer. Hopefully it won’t come to that…

That's How The West Was Won

They used trains and built train stations. One of them is the Santa Fe Depot in San Bernardino.

Station Streetside
Station Streetside

This building, which replaced an earlier structure, was officially opened in 1918.

Station Trackside
Station Trackside

At that time this was the largest and finest train station west of the Mississippi. As the former station building had burned down, the new structure was build to withstand fires, using mostly bricks and glazed tiles for the roof and interior decoration.

Glazed tiles and stucco
Glazed tiles and stucco

The Santa Fe Depot was extremely busy until the 1950s, when the general decline of rail travel began all over the United States. With the decline in travel came the decline of the building. This changed in 1992, when efforts to restore the historic building where started. Restoration began in 2002; a few years and $ 15 Mio. later the station was reopened in 2008.

Restored and still in use
Restored and still in use

Today the Santa Fe Depot is serviced by Amtrak (once a day) and by three Metrolink lines. The building also houses a small museum (open on Saturdays) and office space is for lease. Just imagine – sitting in an office where one is reminded every day of the long and amazing history of train travel in the West.

Just for good measure I’ll throw in another of my favorite winter motif.

SoCal Winter - Palms and Snow
SoCal Winter - Palms and Snow

Winter

That’s the beauty of Southern California: every kind of outdoor activity is just a short drive away.

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This photo was taken in Griffith Park, where we hiked with plenty of water and in short sleeves. With it being officially Winter, no shorts (but that is just us – other hikers just went by temperatures and not by date when choosing their outfits consisting of shorts and tank tops).

If we were of the skiing type, we could have been up there on the slopes in Big Bear two hours later.

Our region really caters to every taste.

Winding Down

The last day of the year – the last day of the decade even…

So much happened. In 2000 I had no idea that 10 years later I would celebrate this day today in Southern California, under a blue sky, enjoying the sun, feeling calmly confident that all will be well.

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Here’s to the next 10 years! I raise my glass to the world.

We're Back

Two weeks ago there was a complete and utter failure at 1&1 Web Hosting.  We don’t know what happened, and we don’t know how many sites were destroyed.  We can’t even get anyone at 1&1 to admit that “mistakes were made.”  Here’s how I imagine that they fixed the problem:

Did a German Server Administrator trip?
Did a German Server Administrator trip?

At any rate…we are back (no thanks to 1&1), and let’s hope we can stay.  A little freshening up seemed in order.  Something more “make out-of-staters jealous of Californians.”  Enjoy!

A Moment In History

20 years ago today, Günter Schabowski, then a member of the SED Politbüro of the German Democratic Republic, gave his now famous press conference about the lifted visiting rules for travels from East to West Germany. When asked by a journalist when the new rules would apply, he said: “Immediately.” This was not quite correct, free travel was planned to begin the next day, but the outcome was that two hours later thousands and thousands of people were swarming to the Berlin Wall, demanding to be let through. The border guards were overwhelmed, opened access points and that was it – the Wall was open, the downfall of the DDR regime began, the Cold War ended and divided Germany started the journey towards reunification.

When writing this it sounds so cut and dried; but, way back then, this moment in history could not have left many Germans unmoved.

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A few weeks ago the “Wende Museum” in Los Angeles had installed some original segments of The Wall along Wilshire; last night an additional “Wall of Art” was torn down at the site at midnight in memory of the historic events 20 years ago.

When I went so see the “Wall” in front of the Variety Building, children were playing around the wall segments. They were only interested in the colorful display – and yes, I thought, you are too young to be burdened with thoughts of war and politics. Keep on playing, enjoy the carefree time and leave “the rest” for the time being to the adults.

Alive And Well – The Supper Club

It only took about a year of gentle coaxing by a dear former colleague until we finally stepped through this door

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to find out that behind it there hides a real honest-to-God supper club with an amazing offer in Jazz music.

Our introduction to Jax was made all the more pleasurable by Mike Gurley and the Night Caps. If you want to swoon to music a bit strangely called “cocktail music”, go there. It is well worth the time; those musical cocktails are tasty with a distinct modern edge.

How good is this place? Well, we stayed until midnight. That should say it all and is our stamp of approval.

Training Camp

Since yesterday all signs point towards the most important event of the season – the first day of rain. Temperatures dropped a bit, the (nearly) eternally blue sky has taken on a grayish hue and we are waiting… waiting…

Not to be caught unawares by this change we decided to accustom ourselves to the sound of splattering water drops – in short, we went into rain training camp and settled down with some coffee at the Shea Terrace at Loyola Marymount University.

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Enjoying the sights and sounds of the water sculpture was made twice as sweet by the knowledge that LMU was selected as the 2008 Recycled Water Institutional Customer of the Year by the California WaterReuse Association. Water is “liquid gold” in drought-ridden California; those people at LMU are well aware of it by using sophisticated water-saving techniques and using reclaimed water for all their fountains on campus and for landscape watering.

So we got used again to the sound of falling water. Now the “real” stuff should make it’s first appearance.