A new sign turned up at the hospital next door to our workplace.
It was the first time I heard about this.
It ends up that they propose to place this new development right next to the chapel I have gone to, so many times. A beautiful and serene space.
Time marches on, but I hope if they get approval, they will be mindful of the serenity needed for the chapel.
You can see the proposed plans HERE.
I MENTIONED the tallest building in Los Angeles, a month ago.
This is the Wilshire Grand Hotel, that fronts 6th Street and The Harbor Freeway (photograph was taken from The Harbor Freeway).
I was in that hotel, back in the early 80's.
They tore the hotel down and built the tallest building in LA, by putting a huge 294 foot spire at the top.
I call cheating, but hey, I have no say in this battle.
It is quite a beautiful building and maybe after I retire, my Husband and I will visit it.
I was leaving work at 6PM the other evening and as I was walking down Bob Hope Drive, I saw that there were clouds hovering over the Hollywood Hills and Mount Lee.
I thought it was an unusual sight to see and I enjoyed watching the clouds move around the mountain.
As I have probably told you, Mount Lee is flat where the radio tower is, because someone graded the top, to build a home up there.
Thankfully, they did not end up building the house and the tower was added, instead.
We just rented another area of the 4th Floor, you can see my original post about it, HERE.
The 4th Floor is where Outlook Amusements (AKA: The Psychic Network) lives.
So now the people who just arrived on the 4th Floor in February, will be moving to a larger space and rumor has it, my area will be going down to be with them, in their old space. Great...not.
We will see what happens in that regard, but for now, the upgraded signage looks much nicer than the little printed notes on paper.
Since we are strictly a sublet, we can't make a permanent change.
I think this helps though.
One of the employees of PBS SoCal lives in the Valley and so she moved up to our offices in Burbank, when given the chance.
She and I both ended up wearing the PBS Nerd shirt, that we got at the Retreat on Friday and we were both so excited to see another employee wearing one, that we had another person take a photo of us.
Maribel is the same age as my Son, so she means a lot to me. We share PBS Shows from the 90's, with shows like Bill Nye, Kratt's Creatures, etc. Not like I grew up with them, but I watched them with my Son when he was young.
Made my day just a little brighter.
It has been a bad month for both my Husband and my Family.
We both lost a first cousin within days of each other.
Being mine was 3,000 miles away from here, I sent flowers over to mine.
My Husband's cousin was held here in LA.
So we went to the memorial service on Sunday.
I don't want to get into too much detail of who he was and what he did in service to our Country.
Let it just be said that both he and my Husband served during the Vietnam War Era.
We also had our first wedding at his house, which to this day, I consider quite a nice thing that he and his wife did for us.
Later in the day, we were told to light a candle in memory of my Husband's Grandfather.
It is a nice service that the cemetery provides, telling us exactly what night to light it.
So technically, we recited the Kaddish (Prayer you say for the dead), twice in one day.
One for his cousin and one for his grandfather.
Usually it is heard once a year at High Holy Day Service.
Other than that, may we have no reason to say it again, this year.
My Water Post For Today.
I went over to St. Joseph's Hospital on March 19th.
I wondered if there were ducks in their pond and so I walked over to it.
No baby ducks, but lots of koi fish in the pond.
I hope you enjoy your last view of it (I doubt I will get over there again, before my December 20th retirement).
Being I am part of an organization in the midst of combining 2 TV Stations (with their assorted sub channels) and Link TV (which airs on Direct TV and Dish), there are lots of things going on in the way of integration.
So the powers that are in charge of us, decided to have an off-site retreat at the California ScienCenter.
Friday was a beautiful day, and we were glad that the rain we had on Thursday, had ended.
We were told that our session would happen at the old Air and Space Museum part of the complex. It combines old and new architecture and worked out well for what we had going on.
All the different activities involved bringing us to the realization that in order to succeed, we need to combine forces and that with us all pulling together, we will succeed at whatever we need to do.
Maybe I am looking at it from my viewpoint, but I saw LOTS of people I work with, doing whatever they had to, to make the day work.
We are a lean bunch, but we have been put through the ringer, in regard to the past 7 years in the waste land. We make anything happen.
The people at PBS SoCal are (for the most part) much younger, but seem to have no less dedication.
I see the future looking quite bright for this new Public Media Group of Southern California.
A few of the bigger activities we went through together:
We had a 6 groups of people who were each given a card. No talking and no seeing your card. In the fastest time possible, you had to get in a row, from lowest card to the highest card. If you had the same card, you had to make a column and make sure the columns were straight. You got deducted, if they were messy. We went from almost a minute to just under 30 seconds in 3 rounds. We were pretty proud of ourselves...but, oh no, the group next to us went from very high to about 6 seconds less than us. ACK! Then they took our 2 groups and combined them and our two leaders tried to get across how we did what we did. Well, we tried it the other groups way and didn't do bad, but on the second round, we did it our way and all found out that having a partner who immediately tells you what your card is, is the way to go. We ended up being the totally fastest of the new groups. Proud, oh yeah! :-)
The other big activity was going off in groups to six sites within the ScienCenter area and finding things and solving riddles. No timing involved, except to be back an hour later for the final challenge. We ended up opening a locked box and it had water bottles with all three Stations on the side of the bottle. Very cool way to end that activity.
On the way out, we each got this PBS Nerd shirt with PBS SoCal on one sleeve and KCET on the other. Signifying that we are now almost combined.
I love when the time change happens and the sunset moves to a time when you are able to see it.
This sunset was shortly after the time change and we got to experience it, as we came home from dinner.
No more sunsets at 5PM.
Always worth seeing the end of the day, at a decent hour, rather than when you are still working.
Enjoy.
I ordered this book from the Library a few months ago and finally ended up getting to the top of the list.
Becoming Michelle Obama is quite a riveting book about the high points of her life.
Her early years, Elementary School, Junior High, High School. Each one shows what Michelle went through to get to the next level in her life.
Her acceptance at Princeton, was not assured, but she ended up following her older brother and got through her undergraduate years there.
That seems to be the place that most affected her life.
Though she later went on to Harvard Law school, that was treated almost as an afterthought. The bottom line is, she became a lawyer.
At her first law firm (in Chicago), she met an Intern, Barack Obama, who ended up changing her life.
Her life, her struggles to have children, her father's early death from MS and of course, her becoming First Lady of the United States all are explored in great detail.
It was not an easy book to read, at times, but it told the story of her life, honestly and truthfully.
Worth the time I spent reading it.
More power to this important woman.
Happy 2nd day of Spring!
The hills around Santa Clarita are emerald green right now.
All that rain brought us beautiful growth and hopefully lots of poppies.
This photo was taken at Pico Canyon Road, with the mountain called Pico, in the background (above a white car).
If you drive that way, you will find the first producing oil well in the Western United States, Pico #4 up in the hills.
It is not the most colorful of the photos I have taken, but it has great history.
I have shown this wall of monitors before.
Since we have become more and more combined with PBS SoCal(KOCE) the employees who work with us, want to see their channels, too.
So we compromised and now have PBS SoCal 1 and 2 and KCET, Link TV and KCETLink.
I have been to 2 program schedule release meetings and have learned more about PBS SoCal 2 and how it operates.
Our secondary channel is mostly a combination of what airs on KCET, what airs on Link TV and many cooking, lifestyle and public affairs programs.
PBS SoCal 2 is the prime shows of PBS, on a several day delay. They will have science day, performance day, antiques day, etc. So that viewers can catch what they may have missed earlier in the week.
BTW, you can't tell from this photo, but History Detectives was airing on KCET as I took this photo. We have an afternoon PBS block, with shows that have rights that go on for years and years. Great shows and great to see them again.
Google celebrated St. Patrick's Day with several Celtic images.
One of them is found on Glasgow Scotland's Coat of Arms.
It comes from a ancient poem and as soon as I saw it, I remembered learning about it on the show, Shetland.
There's the tree that never grew,
There's the bird that never flew,
There's the fish that never swam,
There's the bell that never rang.
The Tree That Never Grew
The tree in the coat of arms is a now sturdy oak tree, but it started out as a branch of a hazel tree. The legend says that St Mungo was in charge of a holy fire in St Serf's Monastery and fell asleep. Some boys who were envious of his favoured position with St Serf put out the fire. But St Mungo broke off some frozen branches from a hazel tree and, by praying over them, caused them to burst into flames.
The Bird That Never Flew
This commemorates a wild robin which was tamed by St Serf and which was accidentally killed. St Mungo was blamed for the death but he is said to have taken the dead bird, prayed over it and it was restored to life.
The Fish That Never Swam
The coat of arms always shows the fish with a ring held in its mouth. This is because a King of Strathclyde had given his wife a ring as a present. But the Queen gave it to a knight who promptly lost it. Some versions of the story say that the King took the ring while the knight was asleep and threw it in the river. The King then demanded to see the ring - threatening death to the Queen if she could not do so. The knight confessed to St Mungo who sent a monk to catch a fish in the river Clyde. When this was brought back (presumably catching salmon in the Clyde in those days was a lot easier then!) St Mungo cut open the fish and found the ring. When the Bishop of Glasgow was designing his own seal around 1271, he used the illustration of a salmon with a ring in its mouth and this has come down to us in today's coat of arms.
The Bell That Never Rang
Steeple of Tron church In 1450, John Stewart, the first Lord Provost of Glasgow, left an endowment so that a "St Mungo's Bell" could be made and tolled throughout the city so that the citizens would pray for his soul. The bell was still ringing out in 1578, as there is an entry in the City Treasurer's accounts two shillings (10p) "for one tong to St Mungowis Bell." A new bell was purchased by the magistrates in 1641 and that bell is on display in the People's Palace museum near Glasgow Green.
I find this all fascinating and am glad that Google brought it back to my attention.
My Water Post For Today.
Once a year the Chicago River turns green and this year, St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday, so I could show it off in my Monday water post.
My Husband (who was born in Chicago), gets a real kick out of it.
From what I understand, it does not harm the environment, since it is vegetable based...but whatever.
It changes the city's entire look, for one day a year and I salute it today.
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.
My friend, Nikol, reached her milestone 40th birthday on Friday. She actually performed a toast for my cat, Makenna, during lunch.
I was impressed with that. I am sure Makenna didn't care, but we did it anyway.
So for her 40th, I got her a sheep I had been looking at, at Vons. It was so soft and cuddly and worthy of some love.
I know she likes lambs, but this one felt right for her.
BTW, this is Trast's Mom, who thankfully knows where he is and communicates with him regularly.
After several years of turmoil, her children seem to be doing better. Hopefully that continues.
Happy Birthday Nikol and many more.
First off, today is the day after Makenna's 10th Birthday. Or at least the day we celebrate her birthday. Thus, the kitty goes off to the vet today. Wish her luck.
On to today's subject: Painted Lady Butterflies.
They have been migrating through Southern California for the past week or so.
You see them everywhere!
My walk to the Disney Lot is filled with butterfly encounters and I worry about them getting struck by cars, trucks and buses in the street.
So far, they seem to dodge everything like the pros they are.
They are traveling from Northern Mexico, up to their breeding grounds in Oregon and Washington.
All I can say is WOW!
Many years ago (in the early 90's), we had people from Belize who cooked in our Commissary.
Ruth and Hubert owned a restaurant in the Mid Wilshire area and in addition, they cooked for us.
There were all sorts of meals that they served, but the one that got everyone to queue up in a line outside, was their Red Beans and Rice on Fridays.
I still remember it, all these decades later.
Great food and great camaraderie.
If you ever feel like trying something authentic, try this recipe out.
You will be glad you did.
I assume the original article is from KCET Confidential.
I know you can hardly see anything in this photo, but the little green things that look like wispy weeds, are the start of my California Poppies.
I only planted them 2 weeks ago, because I was trying to time them toward the end of the rain that we have been having for the past month and a half (or so).
So we will water them, they will get sun and we will hope they will bloom in a few weeks.
This is the front of the house, by the fake brick wall, that the builder put in.
Send prayers their way. :-)
My Magic "Son" spent the better part of 6 weeks in Ohio, shooting the director's vanity project movie.
He got home and next thing he did was immediately fly to Texas, for another movie.
You can tell it is pilot season because he is busy, busy, busy.
It was nice to get to see him (and get our money from him).
We had lots of catching up to do.
Happy Birthday Sis!
Here's a little present, from me to not only you, but all of my blog readers.
I promised to post a link to the videos I took, back in September, but life got in the way. Remember that shortly after the concert, we flew to visit our Son. Then he came out and then Thanksgiving came and went and Christmas and My Birthday and taxes and yeah. Busy year.
Since I just uploaded Gordon Lightfoot and found out how fast it is now days, I went back to my other videos and uploaded them.
Justin Hayward was pretty darn awesome that evening and I am glad I managed to capture a few videos.
Enjoy.
The photo was taken by Sid McIntosh.
My Water Post For Today.
No matter how many times I have visited Fire Island, I have never been there at sunrise.
It is a beautiful area of Long Island and worthy of a trip to the south shore, to see it.
From the angle of the photo, it looks like this was taken from maybe West Fire Island, or Captree itself.
No matter what, it is a beautiful photo.
I hope you enjoy.
The man is 4 years older than my Husband...let that sink in for a moment.
Gordon Lightfoot decided to celebrate the fact that he turned 80 years old in November, with an 80 Years Strong Tour, which the LA Times wrote about in Saturday's paper.
I was not aware that he had serious medical problems in the early 2000's, but in a lot of ways, he looks it.
In good news for us, we had great seats, right in the center stage area and our view was great.
In regard to The Canyon Santa Clarita, it is a small venue and so everyone has a great view.
I did not know about half the songs, but those I knew were welcome by me and by the audience. His voice was not strong, but he stood the entire 90 minutes and played guitar at the same time and I give him props for doing that. His other guitarist (a much younger man) sat the entire set.
I did one video and of course that was Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. How could I resist. You can see it HERE.
Unfortunately I can't give you our setlist, but here is the one from San Jose. It had 2 sets, which we did not, but it gives you a hint of what was played. All "X" marks mean I remember hearing that song.
Set 1:
Waiting for You
Cotton Jenny
Too Many Clues in This Room
Never Too Close
Don Quixote
I'd Rather Press On
A Painter Passing Through
Beautiful
Much to My Surprise
Cold on the Shoulder
The Watchman's Gone
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald X
Set 2:
Carefree Highway X
Did She Mention My Name X
Ribbon of Darkness X
Sundown X
Spanish Moss
Shadows
Let It Ride
If You Could Read My Mind X
Restless
Baby Step Back
Early Morning Rain X
Encore:
Rainy Day People
My cat, Makenna, loves her carrot catnip toy.
The mornings are usually when she is in the mood to play with it.
She wants Mommy to stay and play with her and (of course) I can't.
I kind of like the color of the carrot, better than her banana. A little difference and a more realistic look to it.
It was my work partner's birthday on Tuesday and since the other traffic person from our new combined KOCE/KCET organization was in town and had never been to Bob's Big Boy, we decided to celebrate his birthday there.
Nicole and I go way back, to a 2010 TechCon session that we put on together. In other words, we are good friends.
Since we are such good friends, I wanted to send a photo of us, to the TechCon person who organizes the event.
So my work partner nicely took a few photos and I thought it came out pretty decent.
Even though it was drizzling at the time, you really can't tell.
It has been quite a traffic career and Nicole is one of the ones who has made it special.
Shortly after I got home from work on Tuesday evening, the sky lit up and the sounds of thunder started.
I immediately decided that it was better that I delay going to shower and instead shut off the computer and read.
As I was sitting there, another cell must have moved in and the cat, who was sleeping on the rocking chair in our den, came walking out.
She usually just lays on the ottoman, but the thunder bothered her so much, that she kept starring at us and refused to settle down.
This is truly a West Coast cat. Makenna almost never hears thunder.
Thankfully, it passed fairly quickly.
It's been a wild winter this year and I would be happy if the rain calmed down a bit, now that spring is almost here.
As a person who now works for a PBS Station, I got a laugh out of last weeks Saturday Night Live skit.
Keenan Thompson hosted a show called Cinema Classics and it opened with a PBS Logo.
The actors recreated a scene from the movie To Have and Have Not. With the famous line about "You know how to whistle Steve? You put your lips together and blow"
If you want to watch it, it lives HERE.
It's a crappy photo off my TV, but you get the idea...
The Thunderbirds came to celebrate the premiere of Captain Marvel, which was happening on Monday evening at 5:30PM at the El Capitan Theatre.
Being they were going to do a fly by in Hollywood, I was sure that I would be able to see them, similar to when the space shuttle Endeavour came by.
I could see on the TV that they were passing Mt. Lee, but they were too low for us.
A real shame.
My Husband told me that they came right over our backyard, on the test flight at 12:30PM.
My Water Post For Today.
Montréal, Quebec is where my mind went today.
We are starting to get ready for our Son to come out and visit us (he purchased tickets on Sunday) and when that happens, I think of the last trip we went on with him.
The St. Lawrence River was beautiful and the sky was blue, with wispy clouds.
It brings back memories of a nice 2 day trip in a different Country, that we shared with our Son.
I hope you enjoy.
Chances are that you have seen the story of the hillside sliding in Canyon Country.
It has been more than a week since the hillside above the Tressles Development in Canyon Country, began to fall.
Many years ago my Husband and I lived in a Mobile Home, right across the street from the American Beauty Development (which is at the top of said hill) and we watched them build it.
As a matter of fact, we toured the models and almost bought a house in that area, by Terri Drive.
So to say we thought we knew that area of town, is an understatement.
This past week, our local news organization, SCVTV, have been posting articles about slides (the first one) about that very area. Note, I have no knowledge of those slides, but the photos are proof that they happened.
On Friday they posted an incredible series of articles about a development right across the street from Friendly Valley, a Retirement Community.
I had some very hazy knowledge that something soil related, happened in that area. But I did not know anything about the extent of the land movement of this 1969 development called The Princess Homes.
Well, after spending about 2 hours of my life reading article after article about the incredible amount of slippage that occurred as they were building the tract, I went to Google Maps and checked out the area. There is a huge empty area in the middle of the development with empty spaces up at the top, where houses used to be and the same thing on the side of the hill and on the bottom. In other words, to save the entire development, they had to bulldoze something like 6 or 8 houses around that landslide. It is all there for you to see, 50 years later.
From what I also read, the same thing that caused Vasquez Rocks to form, is part of that land. It is unstable and even worse than my own area, which does have notices on some houses in older areas between my area and Saugus High off of Bouquet. I guess from what I read ancillary to the article itself, is that one of the older developments in the hills not far from us, also had a potential landslide that at a point in time threatened houses down below them.
Now that I know way too much about the land I live on, I hope that my grading was done better. :-)
Photo is of the American Beauty homes on Terri Drive (bottom of photo) and the Tressles (brand new) homes toward the top of the photo. In the middle is the landslide that has been covered with tarps and sandbags, to try to keep further land from slipping down. The train tracks are over on the right and then Soledad Canyon Road, a bit further right, just out of the photo.
We have been airing Shetland again and just came around to the pilot episode.
The characters are all young and the highlight is the fire festival, Up Helly Aa (which I have mentioned before).
I have liked a Facebook page called Promote Shetland and found out that they not only have the festival in Lerwick (the largest town on the Shetland Islands), but 11 of the little towns follow along later in the winter. So there are a lot of festivals going on right now. It is the residents way of making it through the worst part of winter.
This photo was taken from that first season episode and highlighted the 2012 Up Helly Aa Festival.
Now days they shoot with drones, so I saw some spectacular footage of this year's 2019 festival.
All the streetlights are turned off that evening, to bring an even more impressive feel to the torches and then the burning of the Viking Boat.
I find this whole thing totally fascinating.
I left work on Thursday and had a helicopter flying over my head, to land at Providence St. Joseph's Hospital.
As I walked I came upon not one, but 5 remote trucks for most of the news channels in the L.A. area. Channel 5, Channel 4, Channel 2...etc.
At the end of the line was an engineer beginning to set up a tripod. He stopped me to ask about my Oswego Jacket.
So I asked what the deal was inside.
He had no idea about what the helicopter was all about, but he was there because Luke Perry had been hospitalized.
I felt really bad to hear that.
I don't usually deal with nightly news, but today I sort of did.
