CHLA - Out With The Old, In With The New

Children's Hospital is just beginning to transition to their new inpatient tower. One of the first things they did, was place their brand new logo on it.

This first photo is of one of the oldest buildings that they have on their campus and it sports the old logo. All of the other buildings, will change over, too.



As I walk by the complex, I can see staff transitioning to ID Badges with the logo and as a matter of fact, the doors all inform their workers that this is the last week they can have the ID cards changed out. After that, it's new...or nothing.


Personally, I like it a lot...but it reminds me of the Microsoft Windows logo. Anyone else see it?

Onion Rings

I was informed on Saturday evening that there would be a barbecue at my home on Sunday. My son's assignment...make onion rings.

So as my son is wont to do, he starts looking up recipes on the Internet and he finds one he likes. He memorizes the ingredients (I hate that child of mine) and when the time comes, he asks me to assist. OK, that works for me... :-)

He follows the directions and all that, but we weren't sure it was going to work out ok. Well I am proud to say that they did come out tasting like onion rings. Minus that they were a bit heavy, with oil from the frying, I thought they were excellent.




Here is the recipe...from the mind of my son.

1 1/2 cups of flour
1 bottle beer
salt and pepper to taste

Mix the ingredients together, cover and let it sit on the counter for 3 hours. Cut 3 onions into rings and dip them into the batter and then immediately into the hot frying oil. We used a Fry Daddy fryer. Don't put too many in it, or they will stick together. Fry until golden brown on both sides and then remove and lay on a paper towel to drain.

Yum!

Martinsburg, West Virginia

This is Martinsburg, West Virginia.

It is about 5 miles south of the border of Maryland and the furthest we got into the interior of the state. As a matter of fact, it is those same amount of miles, to the site of the Battle of Antietam Creek. Amazingly, we actually spent a half hour away from the river, where the border between the states is. Returning to it, when we reached Harpers Ferry. It was a pretty level valley, if my memory serves.

This first photo was the train station and I really liked the multistory building with the Memorial Day decorating on it.



This building is the Round House, on the North side of the tracks from the station itself. It was built by the B and O Railroad in 1866 and is framed by a cast iron skeleton. I was sorry to see that it is no longer used. 1988 it was closed, as were the other shops in the complex. You can read the history of it, including the burning down of the original roundhouse by Stonewall Jackson, HERE.





Next to the station was a sign explaining the fact that the first worker revolt, by the B and O Railroad workers, happened right here in Martinsburg. According to the sign and story on the roundhouse page above, it was the the first time that workers realized the power of collective action.

The section of land that contains both Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry, is the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and an obviously critical piece of land. How it ended up in West Virginia's hands, is an interesting story.
Due to the Appalachian Mountains that form the land that became West Virginia, there were no large plantations in the area. Thus, the landowners did not have slaves and did not want to secede from the Union. So they decided to become a state, during the Civil War. When the Eastern Panhandle was asked to be added in 1863, most of the voters who would have wanted the land to stay in Virginia, were out fighting in the war and so the vote went toward the non slave state of West Virginia. You can read more about that, HERE.

It was a very cool place to see and I learned a lot, just from that sign on the side of the station.

The C And O Canal Bikeway At Harpers Ferry, WV

My Water Post For Today.

On our trip through the Appalachian Mountains, we crossed over several states, as we wound our way through the area that the Potomac River flows in. One of the states that I had never been to, was West Virginia. We only spent a few hours in it, and the entire time we were within a mile or so of its border with Maryland, but what we saw was stunning. This area is known as being the real jewel in the crown of the state...Harpers Ferry. It is where the Shenandoah River meets up with the Potomac and where 3 states come together...Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.

This is a bikeway and hiking trail that follows some of the old C and O Canal. This bridge is an old rail bridge that is now used to get between the town of Harpers Ferry and the Canal tow path and as you can see, it is quite busy. The Appalachian Trail is right down the road a piece.

The river running under it is just totally brown, from all the flooding going on at the time.

I hope you enjoyed the water by Harpers Ferry Bridge.




By the way, there will be more on West Virginia, another day but here's another view of Harpers Ferry, to give you a taste of the town itself.

Doesn't it still carry the look of the 1700's? Thomas Jefferson said it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. I can definitely see what he was referring to. :-)

The Dreamsters

These are not great shots, but I took a few photos in our control room the other day. We were actually in production on a new kids show called The Dreamsters and I felt like taking a photo or two, of it.

I don't know how it will be, when it hits the air, but the outtakes are making the engineering crew laugh...and may I state for the record that puppeteers are an unusual fraternity of artists, with a warped sense of humor. :-)

This show is done totally green screen. I guess it saves money on sets, but I personally prefer the look of real sets.



Since you really can't see how the set looks from the control room picture, I took a photo of a monitor in our ingest area. I told you some of the engineers were monitoring the outtakes. lol


I have no idea what the future holds, but for now...it's nice to be a bit busy.

Kale Chips

While I was in the Washington, DC Metro area, I mentioned that I got to taste Kale Chips.

My friend who has the daughter who works at Facebook, made them for us. It took all of 20 minutes to make and they weren't too bad. Kind of like burnt popcorn. :-)

The photo is of the kale, as it enters the oven. Amazingly, after 15 or 20 minutes, they really do crunch up. I wouldn't have believed it, if I didn't see it.

If you are interested in trying something healthy, a recipe for them, is HERE. When I make them, instead of seasoned salt, I add a little bit of cayenne pepper, to make them just a bit spicy.

A Photo Of The Pointe - From A Different Location

Well, I should know that things are never totally what they seem, when looking at a website that is used to sell something. All those beautiful sunset photos of The Pointe (our new work home, as of next spring) showed off nothing but beauty and wonderfulness. Well, yesterday I decided to take a detour on the way to work and pass this new place. As you can see, the building is still lovely...but there are power lines all in the area. I never knew that about NBC, or that location.

It's not a huge big deal, but I think when I go wheels down and check this place out from the ground, it will lose some of that "beautiful" luster. It does explain the park that is just to the south of our new location. Parks are usually located in areas that can not be built on, which is so unfair to the young children playing there.
The second most popular usage of this kind of land, is for the growing of nursery plants. We have 2 or 3 "Cut your Own" Christmas tree businesses under our power lines in Santa Clarita, as a matter of fact.

As I say, no biggie, but it sort of brings a little reality, to our new dream home.

The Cat & The Kid

The cat doesn't change. Makenna doesn't like to be held, for the most part.

So it is especially cool when one of us gets her for a few minutes.

This was one of those times. The kid is thrilled. The cat, not so.

I love it. lol


By the way, she had another weigh in last Saturday. Down another 3 oz. That brings it up to a total of 10 oz down. Yay!

At least someone is keeping to her diet...not like she has much of a choice.

A Growing Up Friend

I grew up in a suburban neighborhood on Long Island, New York.

It was a mixed group of people and this woman was one of them. Her family and our family matched equally in age to each other. Quite a feat. She was my sister's age, a mere 13 months younger then me. She claims that I look the same as I did at 18 or so and that she has aged.

Take a look at this photo and tell me if she is right or wrong. To me, I look like I am a woman much further down the road, then the 18 year old I used to be.

It was nice to see her and her two daughters and amazingly, her Mom had come down to visit, too. I usually see her Mom, when I am on Long Island, but due to a hectic schedule, I did not have time to see her this trip. I was glad that this was rectified.

In a kind of cool thing, one of her daughters works for Facebook.
I couldn't pass this up, so I asked her what she thought of the movie, The Social Network. She said everyone asks her that question and her feeling is that most of it was outright lies. I made the comment that the part that rang the most true to me, was the night he was hacking into the databases in the school. It was his words and bravado and you can't get any closer to the real thing, then that. The rest, the motivations for what he did...could have been anything and according to her, it was almost definitely not because he was turned down by a girl, since he is still in a relationship, from back in those college days.
My growing up friend chimed in at this point that she felt that Jesse Eisenberg played the role like Mark Zuckerberg had Asperger's Syndrome and she may be right about that.

In other things that went on. Kale Chips were made (recipe to follow) and we had dinner at 5 Brothers, an In-N-Out Burger knock off.

It was an interesting time.

Beautiful Downtown Burbank - The New Location For KCET

Yes, I had hoped that we would finally hear where our future will be, because this week is the meeting of our Board of Directors. They will be approving our budget for the next fiscal year and it just felt right that this would be the time and the day to disclose this information to staff.

As Charlie Sheen would say...Winning!

You can read the official release from the LA Times, HERE.

It is called The Pointe and it is right next to the current campus of NBC. The stage where the Tonight Show is taped, will be right across Bob Hope Drive.

According to the All Staff memo, we will have a Commissary and a Gym on site. Pretty cool. :-)

Three Sisters Bridges

My Water Post For Today.

The striking thing about Pittsburgh, was the fact that they have these 3 bridges in the center of the Allegheny River side of Downtown. One is the Roberto Clemente Bridge, one the Andy Warhol Bridge and the third, the Rachel Carson Bridge. They are also known as the Three Sisters Bridges or the 6th, 7th and 9th Street Bridges. I personally found them fascinating. Three identical bridges right next to each other and obviously right next to the bridge that frames them in this photo.

As you can see, the water level is again, pretty high. As we found all around the State. Not too muddy though.

I hope you like this less seen side of Pittsburgh's bridges and the water that flows under them.

A Sunset At The New Window

First off, a very Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there, especially mine. :-)


OK, I bet my saying this is going to jinx the whole thing...but this spring, so far, has been pretty mild.
Hardly ever using the air conditioning, we mostly open the windows and one of the best ones to open is our newest bay window. It just fills the kitchen area with cool air...even when I am cooking. To say the least, it has been money WELL spent.

Last night I was outside watering and as the sun set, I glanced this way and loved how it looked with my new bay window. So I went inside to get my camera and took this photo.
You can tell that I was almost too late, but it still looks very nice. Still not painted yet, but hey, our vacation wiped out a lot of money. So it waits a bit. :-)

Enjoy the look of spring weather. It will be gone soon enough and blast furnace weather will arrive, until fire season takes it's place.

The Smell Of Barbecue In My Life

Many a night this is what I see as the subway is about to come into the station at Sunset/Vermont.

What I can't show you, is the fact that on many of those nights, the station platform suddenly smells like Barbecue. I have absolutely no idea why.

Maybe there is a restaurant on Vermont that makes Barbecue?

Or maybe one of the 2 hospitals has a thing for cooked meat, though somehow I doubt it. :-)

I am not so sure I like it, because I must admit that the last thing you need when you are hungry, is the smell of yummy food. I really have to search out this place...really.

Anonymous...Really?

I got this in a direct mail piece from my employer the other day.

It is a typical direct mail saying that someone has donated a large sum of money contingent on a matching amount coming from our subscriber base. This happens quite often...but this time they decided to highlight the "anonymous" part of the donation, by sending you your own set of glasses and rubber nose cut out.

To say the least, I was shocked, though my boss laughed when she saw it. Maybe I have no sense of humor.

What do you think?

Photos Of The Lot - Master Control

As with almost all the equipment on our lot, this room and what it holds is not going with us to the new building. We still don't know where we are going to be, but this rooms days are numbered, at least for us.

I have to say that the most exciting thing about working for a Broadcast Television Station, is the being allowed to hang out at hub of the station...the Master Control.

We currently have less channels then we had in the past, but still there are lots of signals coming in and going out. Either Broadcast, or Uplink.

I am part of the team that makes it happen and I never tire of visiting.


The question that keeps running through my mind is, I wonder what our new Master Control will look like?