Roland Allen

I spent most of the weekend in LA and decided to stay in Manhattan Beach last night, which is my favorite place up here. But, there was an "incident" yesterday that has fouled the place:Sewage Spill closes Manhattan Beach.

The news media were out if full force this morning, like vultures waiting for first light to swoop in on the kill. Besides a half dozen or so news trucks, there were also news helicopters overhead.

On another note, Wheaton College and Westmont College duke it out on which of C. S. Lewis' wardrobes was inspiration for Narnia, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education:

When C.S. Lewis described a wardrobe that served as the Pevensie children's magical portal to Narnia, he had no shortage of models to choose from. His childhood home in Belfast would have had several, since closets were a rarity in that day.

At least two of Lewis's wardrobes still exist, and both are owned by colleges in the United States. One is at Wheaton College, in Illinois, and the other at Westmont College, in California. Over the years, the colleges have politely disagreed about which armoire inspired Lewis.

Last month The Chronicles of Narnia hit the big screen, and — thanks to the news media — the "war of the wardrobes" was on.

Continue reading "Short Takes" »

Posted by Roland at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's 84 degrees in San Juan Capistrano right now. We had winter on Sunday and Monday.

I'm headed to the beach.

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I posted a photo of The Oasis Hotel earlier in the week.

The Oasis Hotel stands abandoned at the heart of old Palm Springs, California. It was the only hotel project that Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr. took on. The boutique hotel had only twenty rooms to rent. One room next to the hotel's tower was favored by Loretta Lynn, the Country Music Hall-of-Fame singer and that's why the tower is called by her name.

I discovered The Oasis Hotel last week while visiting Palm Springs for the New Year's holiday. The hotel is being redeveloped into an upscale restaurant. I see The Oasis as representative of Palm Springs at this point in its history.

About five years ago a colleague who owned a home in Palm Springs included me on the invitation list for a New Year's party. By coincidence, Kirk and Mari, my very good friends from Seattle were bringing their kids to Palm Springs at the same time, so I had good reason to drive over for a couple of days. I was working at Stanford University at the time and was in Los Angeles to visit my family for Christmas.

I admit that I hadn't expected to care for Palm Springs, but I really enjoyed the visit. I’m a guy who always carries a camera, loves the out of doors, and gets along well with sunny and moderate winter weather. I was impressed by the stunning natural beauty of the San Jacinto Mountains that tower above the city to the west. Smaller mountains run along the eastern edge of the valley. The air is clear and dry and the lighting is always changing as the sun moves across the valley. With mountains to the east and to the west forming a canyon for the desert cities, the light moves with the sun, reflecting off the mountains.

I've always entered Palm Springs from the northwest, exiting east Interstate 10 onto south Highway 111, right at what I call the "Windmill Farms.” If you've not seen it, there are acres upon acres of giant windmills that were put up by the Department of Energy as an experiment in harnessing wind to produce electricity. There are neat rows of windmills along the interstate highway approaching Highway 111. But most of the windmills are in the flats along Highway 111 traversing north up into the mountains. I am awed by the orderly procession of windmills and find the scene dramatic.

Palm Springs fell into disuse in the late 1960's and the following two decades as Southern Californians became concerned with social issues and were less impressed by the glamour of Hollywood and personal excess. The result was that real estate was cheap, plentiful and easy to come by. In the early 1990's as San Francisco Gays started to reach their 60's and home prices in The City skyrocketed, some began to purchase retirement homes in Palm Springs. Many of the new residents came with pockets full of cash from the equity gained in the Bay Area housing market which was invested in refurbishing mid century homes near downtown Palm Springs.

It seems that the "Gay-factor" is reviving and reenergizing Palm Spring. The city has been rediscovered as a high-end Southern California destination. Seeing what I consider to be the tradition Palm Springs residents - leathered 70 and 80-year-old Jewish retirees from Los Angeles - socially merge with retiring San Francisco Gays is an interesting social and visual mix. Palm Springs appears to eagerly embrace its new Gay residents – and their cash. Rainbow flags hang from resort hotel awnings, and bars and restaurants throughout the city. Young Boomer families from Orange County maintain second homes and condos in the area, but typically in the newer cities of Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert.

Over the five years that I've visited Palm Springs I've only gone in the winter months around Thanksgiving and New Year's. The days are short but temperatures have usually moved up into the mid 70's with evening lows dropping to about 55. Although Los Angeles is only 100 miles away, Palm Springs is more temperate in the winter and gets far less rain. I respond to good weather and to opportunities to go hiking, and I find both in Palm Springs. Hiking trails abound along Indian Canyon and in the San Jacinto Mountains.

The desert cities are growing at a rapid pace and are quickly becoming crowded and the traffic is increasing. Some of the developing neighborhoods look like Los Angeles suburbs, unfortunately. And I'm afraid that the appeal of visiting Palm Springs may fade over the next three or four years. To be honest, getting there by car is frustrating because the drive goes through the so-called "Inland Empire" which is a nest of terrible traffic and a string of overstuffed small cities with large unattractive shopping centers that run along the web of freeways. The freeways are always under construction, a few steps behind the rapidly expanding population.

I grew up in the Deep South along the Gulf Coast and had little concept of "the desert" except for a couple of camping trips to Joshua Tree and Anza-Borrego. I had never thought of the desert as a vacation destination outside of a place for experiencing the rugged out-of-doors. But I've come to enjoy spending a few relaxing days in the desert.

As Palm Springs becomes "Los Angelesized" I may have to find another getaway place. Ojai, which is near Santa Barbara comes to mind as still attractive and may top the list ahead of Palm Springs.

Posted by Roland at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I took a brief video of the San Jacinto Mountains on my cell phone this morning.

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It's time to share another recipe.

I've mentioned before that our family is lucky that my uncle and aunt’s mid-century classic Los Angeles home in the hills above the Marina southwest of the city came with an amazing California-style formal garden.

There are lemons, oranges, grapefruit, limes and peaches, and in the center of the garden is a giant avocado tree.

My uncle and aunt have lived in this house since the 1960’s and typically, there were always avocados on the tree. However, the tree went dormant for a few months after producing a crop of small avocados following the heavy rains that hit Southern California last winter. This year’s crop of avocados were slow in coming and took months to mature, but are now abundant. The tree is absolutely packed and avocados are beginning to fall from the tree. Usually I bring 5 or 6 avocados home with me after my Saturday visit to LA.

This is also the season for leftovers.

Yesterday I assembled a chicken and avocado salad that is quite tasty. It was a freestyle creation, but here are the basics:

• Cube leftover chicken and put it in a bowl.
• Next, lightly coat the chicken with olive oil, so that the spices to come can stick to it.
• For the spices I used salt and pepper. I’m a heavy pepper user, by the way, and I grind fresh pepper. Then I generously added dry tarragon and very generously added dry cilantro.
• The amount of the next fresh ingredients depends on the amount of salad you’re making, but, add chopped celery, onion and garlic. (Since I went to university in New Orleans, the phrase “too much garlic” is meaningless.)
• Add safflower mayonnaise to this and mix. Use the mayonnaise to your taste.
• After everything is thoroughly mixed add a generous amount of freshly chopped avocado and mix gently.

This can be served very simply as a topping to crackers or flatbread, or on top of an assortment of fresh greens, and it can be used to make sandwiches. The crackers and flatbread option is nice with a dry white wine.

Posted by Roland at 05:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Now and then I come across Leland Stanford statements that should shock me, but, I got used to reading his speeches during my time at the University.

PBS is showing a special on the building of the continental railroad in the US. The railroad started in California and ran east. Leland Stanford was a primary founder of the railroad and made his fortune in building the railroad, which, by the way, employed large numbers of Chinese workers.

This statement was in his inaugural address as Governor of California, a post he held for about a year before going to Washington as a Senator.

While the settlement of our State is of the first importance, the character of those who shall become settlers is worthy of scarcely less consideration. To my mind it is clear, that the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged, by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population. Large numbers of this class are already here; and, unless we do something early to check their immigration, the question, which of the two tides of immigration, meeting upon the shores of the Pacific, shall be turned back, will be forced upon our consideration, when far more difficult than now of disposal. There can be no doubt but that the presence of numbers among us of a degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race, and, to a certain extent, repel desirable immigration. It will afford me great pleasure to concur with the Legislature in any constitutional action, having for its object the repression of the immigration of the Asiatic races.

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It's a foggy night in Manhattan Beach.

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I love being a "morning person." There are definite advantages. I took photos at Mission Santa Barbara just as the mission bells were ringing the morning Angeles at 6:00 AM.

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I had a meeting at Cate School today. Cate is a boarding school perched on a hilltop just south of Santa Barbara.

I drove a favorite mountain road back to town that went through Summerland and Montecito. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and Convent is one of the most beautiful collection of adobe structures I've seen - including those in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Photos of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Montecito, California.

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I'm staying on East Beach in Santa Barbara.

UPDATE: I just got back from having dinner in the bar at Bistro Eleven Eleven, which is just across the street. The bar tender said that a couple of bandmembers from Wilco are "stopping by" to play on Tuesday night.

Posted by Roland at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I finally pulled off the freeway and took a photo of this famous Los Angeles landmark - Randy's Donuts.

Randy's is in Inglewood, very close to Los Angeles International airport.

Here is a story on the Big Donuts that are still standing.

Posted by Roland at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brian is added to the SMES blogroll. He's a bulwark emo-kid who has soft edges. And he is possessed of no shortage of losely filtered opinions.

Speaking of "emo" I'm feeling somethings myself because I just dropped my sister off at John Wayne airport. She's on her way back to Mobile, which is where she lives. It was nice to have her in SoCal for the past six weeks. I think that she'll come back to visit this spring.

There was an article in USAToday about Palm Springs. It talked about how "hip" PS has become. That gave me a "whew" because I had felt so old-fashioned whenever I talked about enjoying Palm Springs. The photo link shows pictures of the "Elvis House" which is a couple of doors down from my friend's house in Palm Springs, and which I've posted photos of on my Smugmug site.

In other news, St. Margaret's football team lost in the state playoffs semi-final game last night. It had been a good run - a truly magical season for the Tartans.

Posted by Roland at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

St. Margaret's won last night's football game 28-14 over Villanova Prep of Ojai. Both teams entered the field undefeated. The game was sloppy and we didn't take the lead until third quarter. "Weather" was a big topic because it was cold and windy, so much so that I went to my car for fourth quarter, pulled it up to the fence next to the field and watched from there. Few of us Orange County folks were fully prepared for the biting wind.

I'm still in Ventura. It's a nice morning here. It's clear out to the islands. I'l pack up and leave soon. The traffic going south into Los Angeles should pick up pretty early so I plan to get ahead ot it.

I plan to produce another podcast this afternoon when I get home.

Posted by Roland at 07:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's Saturday, which means that I drove to Los Angeles to see my family.

It was unusally clear: in terms of traffic and the air. There wasn't any traffic going to Los Angeles this morning. Nor did I have any this afternoon when I drove from LA up to Ventura. I took the coast route from Santa Monica, through Malibu, up to Point Hueneme and inland to Oxnard and on to Ventura.

I had to stop to take photos of downtown Los Angeles when I saw how clear it was as I drove down the hill from my uncle and aunt's house.

Weird - with good air quality and ok traffic flow, Los Angeles seemed "livable" today.

Farm Workers were in the strawberry fields at Port Hueneme. The fields are adjacent to the Naval Air Station at Point Magu.

I'm staying the night in Ventura because I'm up to see our football team play. We're in a state playoff game in Ojai, which is about 15 miles inland from here.

I've never spent time in Ventura. I've discovered a boehmian beach community that is very different from Santa Barbara, which is the town that I know best along this coast.

The Channel Islands are off the coast and run most of Southern California. This photo shows a view of Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands off of Ventura.

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There was a shop in my neighborhood when I lived in Marin County that specialized in "mid-century" pieces. I'd never considered such a specialty.

Palm Springs is known for its "Mid-Century" architecture, like the houses in these photos, which are in Palm Springs proper, on the north end of town. The designs have a "clean" look to them. And the style works better with small structures, like these houses, than it does with large buildings on some university campuses and pulbic municipal settings that were built in the 50's and 60's.

However, as I walk around, I expect to see The Jetsons orbiting the neighborhood.

Locals call this "The Elvis House" because Elvis honeymooned here:

By the way, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. It's a glorious morning in Palm Springs.

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I pass by three airports (Orange County/John Wayne, Long Beach, LAX) and one BlimpPort when I drive to and from Los Angeles to visit my family.

I made the trip this afternoon and I saw that The Spirit of America, Goodyear's California based blimp, was coming in for a landing. I ventured off the freeway, found a not exactly legal spot to pull over, took photos and made a movie of the landing. (It's a Quicktime movie.)
(second version of the movie - a bit longer. The first is .mp4, this one is .mov)

There is a lot of wind and freeway noise in the video. It has been very windy over the past week. And, the BlimpPort is located in Carson, CA - on the southwest edge of Los Angeles, on the side of the San Diego Freeway (I-405) as it converges with the San Pedro Freeway (I-110). I took this video at about 4:30 in the afternoon, just as the sun was setting.

Notice the guide ropes hanging from the nose of the airship. If you get to the end of the movie, you'll see that it takes a pretty large crew to secure the vessel once it lands.

It's not uncommon to see activity at the BlimpPort. I'm glad that I finally made the stop to watch it up close.

This second photo provides perspective of how large the airship is, compared to how tiny the crew members appear next to it.

For More Information on the Goodyear Airships

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The Santa Ana Winds have been blowing for most of this week and they've kept it very clear, for the most part.

I was out this morning and on one side of the street I took photos of a Bird-of-Paradise bush. It was pretty much unkempt, and had other things growing in it, including Morning Glories and Ivy. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.

On the other side of the street, looking over Capistrano Beach and Dana Point from the Palisades, the view of Santa Catalina Island was obscured by a heavy smog layer. Someone pointed out to me that it's probably smoke from the wildfires up in Ventura County - which is about 120 or so miles north of where I live in South Orange County.

The glory of creation is sometimes marred.

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As usual, I spent time with my family in Los Angeles today.

I ventured "off the beaten path" because I wanted to see some of the urban of Los Angeles. I have to admit that I'm not as comfortable in LA's urban core as I am in some other cities - I just don't know it.

I have posted to my very modest LA photojournal that has photos of bits and pieces of Los Angeles.

You can click on any of these photos for a larger image.

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Last year I posted this photo of grapefruit on my frien's' tree in Palm Springs. The tree produced THE best grapefruit.

I just got an email from my friend that included a photo of workers removing the now fallen tree.

I'm going to Palm Springs next week for Thanksgiving.

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Breeding ground / Santa Barbara County incubates the next generation of winemakers

Part of the charm of the Santa Barbara County wine scene is its unique camaraderie, and the way so many wines are made so personally, rather than industrially. Small-production winemakers work together, drink together and dream together.

And I'm partial to wine: dry, full-bodied.

My "first job" was at Westmont College in Santa Barbara and I've made regular visits ever since. I love waking up in Santa Barbara.

And I love Santa Barbara wines. But I've never seen Sideways.

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Andrea shared billing with Chris! Clearly she is feeling the bond with B-sahn.
Wow - Chris sounds like himself on UCLAradio.com!

They're looking for local and unsigned artists to play on the show. It sounds particularly unorganized, amateur, "Indie" and casual - and definitely "open mic!"

Posted by Roland at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We’re such “weather wimps” in California. And, yes, I am one of them.

It rained the past 2-1/2 days and my world was rocked.

Actually, last Sunday’s night lightning storm literally rocked my world because I’ve rarely been in a thunderstorm that was as intense.

Although I've lived in places with "seasons" I've come to like 70 degrees, dry and sunny.

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We had a fairly substantial earthqake this afternoon.

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It's so hot that I made a virtual trip to the beach: San Clemente Beach Live Cam.

It's crowded down there.

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Drake and I drove up I-5 to San Francisco today. We left The OC around 10:30 and pulled into The City around 6, just as planned. The drive was uneventful and pleasant.

I hadn't driven I-5 in a long time. Usually, when I lived up here, I'd drive the 101 to Los Angeles, because I always stopped in Santa Barbara.

Taking the I-5 is efficient and California's agricultural Central Valley has a unique beauty and openness.

As soon as we got here we quickly checked into our hotel, which is right at Fisherman's Wharf, and went up the street (Columbus Avenue) into North Beach. We met up with my friend Douglas, the famous web designer and CSS Master, and his girlfriend, for dinner at L'Osteria del Forno, a truly wonderful find. Doug says that it's his current favorite restaurant in San Francisco.

Of course I have photos. I've not posted them because I forgot to bring my card reader with me.

Photos will go up tomorrow once I pick up a card reader.

Posted by Roland at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't posted details about the summer. It's been a strange one.

1. The weather was cold and foggy at the start. It took a while to warm up.
   
2. Once it got warm and clear, there was close to shore Red Tide, which turned the ocean to an ugly rust color. It wasn't anything I wanted to swallow.
   
3. When the Red Tide had mostly gone away earlier this week, the water temperature got up to 73 degrees. HOWEVER, with the warm water came stinging Jellyfish and Stingray.
   
4. Now that the Jellyfish and Stingray are moving out, the current has shifted and the water temperature has dropped back to 66 degrees!
   
5. Driving to the beach today was frustrating because of the insane traffic, AND the equally insane HUMIDITY - the "H" word.
   
6. These maladies have seriously impacted my surfing.
   
7. And now summer is almost over! They've got "Back to School" ads on television!

But, truth be told, I expect summer in Orange County to be nicer than the one we've had this year.

I took a three-hour hike on the beach on Thursday and didn't think to use sun screen. I was reminded that people with my "naturally golden hue" can and do sun-burn in intense sun. I'm burnt in weird places: knuckles, toes, behind my left ankle, on my right shin and the usual forehead and shoulders.

Alas, what a life.

I am going to New England on Monday. Look for posts from Boston and Maine.

Posted by Roland at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night I had dinner at Restaurant Habana, a Cuban restaurant in Costa Mesa. The restaurant is located in a counter-culture "mall" called The Lab. Locals, however, call it the Anti-Mall because it is a collection of eclectic shops and galleries and is not your usual Orange County, California strip mall. It draws the funky "art-crowd" usually expected in Venice Beach or found in the San Francisco area, around Berkeley or the Marin County town of Bolinas.

Take for example the mall's public art, like this smashed car on the side of a Sushi restaurant:

[link to another view]

Or, this fountain, which is made of 55 gallon oil drums. [click photo for larger view]

The mall hosts outdoor open mic poetry slams. And it's important not to overlook the location. The Anti-Mall is on the north side of John Wayne Airport and near Orange County's largest shopping mall, South Coast Plaza, which I've heard referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah Plaza because of its opulence.

Regardless of your take on eclecticism, Restaurant Habana is a wonderful find. Inside is a bar with seating for about a dozen and the main restaurants seats maybe 40 to 50 people. And there is an outside area that held a private event last evening.

Habana's staff is attentive, friendly, informed and unobtrusive. The decor is rich and is lit with "trees" of votive candles, not unlike what you would expect in a village church in Cuba, if it were on a movie set.

The main event at Habana is the food.

Each of the 14 or so menu items grabs your attention; and, since you can only have one, calls you back to Habana for a revisit to try something new.

Posted by Roland at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"
-- Mark Twain

Yet, just a few miles north of The City across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, it's a sunny and comfortable 75 degrees.

Here's a photo of 19 Broadway, which is where Saving Dusk will be playing next month.

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I flew up to San Jose yesterday afternoon. I wanted to pay a visit to colleagues at some of the colleges around San Francisco. And, at the same time, visit friends up here. It happens that most of the friends I want to visit are also colleagues at colleges. Case in point, last night, some Stanford colleagues/friends had a social event that I was invited to.

It's also good to be up here because it has been so hot in Orange County. It was also very hot up here yesterday, although I knew that the beaches up here wouldn't be as hot as in Orange County because they're protected from the heat by a mountain. I had made plans to hang out with my friend, Ryan, when I arrived yesterday afternoon.

Ryan is a long time good friend who lives on the Peninsula, just south of Stanford. He was a student at MIT when I worked there, and he went to Stanford for grad school. Now he's a noted rising star in the bio-tech engineering industry here in the Silicon Valley. His office, by the way, is next to Google's Googleplex.

Both Ryan and I enjoy hiking, and I was known for taking everyone hiking when I lived up here. It was too hot to head to the hills, so we decided to find a beach hike around Half Moon Bay. Clearly, everyone else on the San Francisco Bay side of the Peninsula had the same idea. The traffic heading over to Half Moon Bay was the worse I've seen it.

Photos: South of Half Moon Bay driving down Highway 1.

Ryan and I drove over the mountain to the coast yesterday. It was about 98 degrees on the Bay side of the Peninsula in Mountain View and Palo Alto. Yet is was 60 across the mountain on the Ocean side.

We drove south along the coast from Half Moon Bay towards Santa Cruz. The fog was coming in THICK - as you can see from the photos. And, although it was 60 degrees and sheet-white with fog, ALL of the public access sandy beaches were THICK wth people laying out, who were trying to cool down from the heat on the Bay side of the Peninsula.

It was nice being over there. I enjoyed seeing how green and wildflower filled the hills remain because of the fog. And, a rocky coast is interesting.

The waves and fog were coming in with intent, as Ryan said. I tried to capture some of this on video because it is so different from the beaches in Southern California.

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California and the people who live here fascinate me. I didn't even see the woman who was driving the Range Rover that was in front of me this afternoon. Still, she managed to get my attention. I suspect that she knew that already.

I wonder how this license tag made it through the scrutiny of the department of motor vehicles censors.

I could also call this post, As Seen In California.

My apologies to sensitive readers, but I am a cultural observer. I report it as I see it.

View Larger Image

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I came across St. Clement's By-the-Sea Episcopal Church while driving around San Clemente last night.

It looked great at dusk.

(View Larger Image)

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I've never hidden my love for the beauty of living in California. That's one reason I always carry a camera with me.

I took a liesurely road bicycle ride this afternoon and I didn't mind making frequent stops along the way to enjoy the view and to take photos.

I even took video clips. Here's a short video of this afternoon's bicycle ride that I pieced together.

I like this particular ride because it's an old highway that is no longer in use by cars. It has been coverted into a bicycle route. And, it's along the Ocean.

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Bob and Tammy are friends of mine and teachers at St. Margaret's who will be taking a leave next year so that they can go to Hungary.

Bob and Tammy first met in Europe when both of them were on the international staff for a group called YoungLife. Bob, who teaches chemistry at St. Margaret's, is trained in Classics and Theology. He will work in a church outside of Budapest. Tammy, who has worked in agriculture, and also has a degree in Theology, teaches in the religion department and directs our school's community service program. Their daughters will enroll in a local Hungarian school so that they can learn the language and the culture. It's been fun seeing the details of their plan come together over the course of this past year.

I was invited to a dinner on Monarch Beach last night to say "goodbye" to Bob and Tammy and their family. It was a lovely evening with four families associated with St. Margaret's and me.

Dophins put on quite a show for the first hour or so that we were on the beach. They were surfing close into shore right in front of us.

I made a short video of our group enjoying Monarch Beach.

You can see Johnny kicking up sand as he and Kate volley.

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We are having quite a few earthquakes these days. A series of about 6 quakes rocked us just before 2:00 this afternoon - one was very close in neighboring Newport Beach. The others were about 90 miles northeast of here in Yucaipa.

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View larger image

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This morning's earthquake was actually magnitude 5.6, which is pretty significant.

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We just had a "rolling" earthquake. It shook then it took one last "shake."

I haven't felt one of those for a while.

A microearthquake occurred at 8:46:00 AM (PDT) on Sunday, June 12, 2005.
The magnitude 2.7 event occurred 12 km (7 miles) ESE of Anza, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 7 km ( 4 miles).

Here's the "official" USGS information on what they call a microearthquake.

Anza is probably 70 miles east of here in the desert. My adaptations to the USGS map shows approximately where I live (rma in blue) and the relationship to Los Angeles and San Diego.

Posted by Roland at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I hadn't intended to go for such a long bike ride this afternoon.

However, the ride got even more interesting and the scenery more beautiful, the further I rode.

I hitched my bike on the back on my car this morning and took it along with me to work. I wanted to try a new ride because the ride I take from home is getting pretty regular.

I'm glad that I did. It was so much fun. I parked in San Clemente at Christianitas - which is the same exit as Trestles Beach.

The ride runs on an on old road that runs alongside Interstate 5 as it goes through Camp Pendleton along the Pacific Ocean towards San Diego. (Camp Pendleton is a very large Marine base. According to their website, this section of coastline is the longest stretch of undeveloped coast in Southern California.)

The bike trail is on an old road that is only used by cars for about two miles. The rest is through San Onofre State Beach Park - which has camping on the side of the road, and through Camp Pendleton.

I've posted photos of the ride on my Smugmug site. However, here are few to give you a taste of what I saw, including a Road Runner.

I also saw Marmots and Rabbits. In fact, at one point I had to totally focus on avoiding Rabbits because there were so many crossing the trail!

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Today is my Grandmother's 96th birthday. I left San Juan Capistrano around 1 to drive up to Los Angeles so that I could spend the afternoon with my Grandmother. She was sitting in the garden receiving visitors when I arrived. It was great.

Her birthday party is tomorrow afternoon in Los Angeles.

I'm spending the weekend in Manhattan Beach. (If you've been a reader of this weblog for any time, you've picked up on my frequent references to Manhattan Beach, which is very close to where my family lives in L.A.) Greg and Ryan, my good friends, came up and we went to Manhattan Beach Brewing Company for dinner.

I'll post more about my Grandmother's birthday party after it happens. However, I came upon a sight that I must have missed for years: While driving through the beach community of Playa del Rey on my way to Manhattan Beach this afternoon, I noticed the weather rock along the side of the road. To understand the final statmement you must understand that this rock and sign is in front of a home along the roadside at a traffic signal. It's possible to "miss the light" while reading (and making sense) of this sign.

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Since I'll be teaching a Philosophy class next year, I decided to start reading up on the subject and looking for appropriate texts.

I went to my local Borders tonight to browse the Philosophy section.

The experience was discouraging - not necessarily because of the selection of books. But, the location of Philosophy was between the much larger Erotica and the exceptionally obese Self-Help sections of the bookstore.

In fact, Self-Help had over three times the shelf space of Philosophy.

Oh well.

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Considering that this turned into a challenging week, and that I was awakened by multiple rain squalls last night and this morning, this afternoon and early evening have turned out nicely.

Of course, a long walk on the beach has helped to settle the soul.

The evening colors tonight in Orange County are spectacular.

I’m grateful and refreshed.

Posted by Roland at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Fortunately, I came across Adventures in Wild California on PBS this afternoon. I saw this movie with my friend Doug at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco when it came out in 2000.

It's a fascinating film. I'm glad that it's getting wider distribution.

ADVENTURES IN WILD CALIFORNIA is a virtual expedition that sends audiences careening down an icy, steep mountain face with snowboarders; twirling on thermals above the clouds with skysurfers; swimming through the oceans with otters and their surrogate human mother; excavating the very heart of a thirty-story tall Giant Sequoia with botanists and emerging from under the spray of one of California's biggest, surfable waves. The heart-pounding imagery recreates an experience of California's furthest edges few will ever know first-hand.

Posted by Roland at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm driving down from Los Angeles along the 405. It's typical for traffic to build up leaving Long Beach, at the north entry to Orange County at Seal Beach.

And, as usual, it was pretty loud inside my car - I was listening to Fall Out Boy. All of sudden, a big Lincoln scoots into the gap in front of me, and the cell-phone using driver waves at me.

Of course, the righteous road rage begins to rise in me and I contemplate moving into the gap to the right to catch up and communicate a bit of righteous rage when I recognize the car in front of me as my good friend, Ryan. He was on his cell phone calling me to invite me to lunch. He said that he had tried to get my attention for about five minutes before making the swoop in front of me to get my attention.

I'm glad that we ran into each other and that we were able to go to lunch. It was a good time.

Ryan lives in Huntington Beach which offers a less expensive Orange County life than I have in South County. As an example, driving back towards the freeway from Ryan's, I crossed three lanes of traffic to get to a gas station that was selling gas for $2.56. That's cheap down here in The OC and I felt grateful to pay $2.56 for gasoline; more over, it was a brand that I recognized!

What a life we live being Californians!

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I went to the beach after work today.

The sun slowly descended out of the clouds and made its way into the ocean - to rest until another day.

Very cool.

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I took today off from work and came up to Santa Barbara. The change of scenery is great. I had lunch with my friend, Bryan, who lives here. He said that I seemed "mellow" - I think he meant "You seem out of it." However, I'm just so relaxed in Santa Barbara. It's great.

Surfers are out in force because an Alaskan storm is producing large surf swells along the coast, especially for west-facing beaches. Santa Barbara is a Riviera, which means that the beaches face south - which also means that they have full sun all day without shadows. The surf swells aren't as big in town, but it's great to see the surfers.

I drove past Rincon Beach on my way in to town this morning. The waves were much larger there.

I've posted photos from today in Santa Barbara, taken from Sunset Park just above Ledbetter Beach.

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This is a cleverly designed fountain across from the San Diego Convention Center. The fountain resembles a stand of palm trees with water fronds.



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It started to rain mid day yesterday and picked up just before sunset. As far as I know it rained all night. It's going to be a tough drive into Los Angeles later this morning.

However, I did drive up into the mountains yesterday afternoon, despite the rain, and caught the rain at just a spinkle. I was able to get a few photos of wildflowers and the lush growth in the desert mountains.

These photos were taken at about 2500 feet elevation on the east side of the San Bernardino mountains above the town of Palm Desert.

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The rain has stopped and the sun is out this morning in Palm Springs. I took a drive around town to take a few pictures:

The windmills greet you when you come into Palm Springs from the north.



My friend's house has a tree in the back yard with the best grapefruit!

Locals tell me that this has been the rainiest winter in 40 years. The desert is very green.

I may drive out into the wilderness part of the desert later today. I suspect that there are more wildflowers out there.

Posted by Roland at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I know that people who live in any other part of California than Los Angeles complain about L.A. I admit that I felt a certain sense of superiority when I lived in Santa Barbara, and again in Marin County, and now in Orange County.

I love living close to my family and I thoroughly enjoy visiting them in L.A., but I hate the traffic. It sucks.

I drove up to LA this morning to visit my grandmother. I drove from there out to Palm Springs. The drive is less than 100 miles from my uncle and aunt's house to Palm Springs. However, because of traffic, that was made even more difficult by rain, the drive took almost 4 hours.

Think about the progress I made on some of the nation's most advanced freeways those four hours.

This is a tough rant because traffic is bad in each of the major areas of the state - including the San Francisco Bay area, Orange County and all of San Diego County - and the vast sprawl that makes up Los Angeles.

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This morning in The OC, Silver Lined Clouds above San Juan Capistrano.

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Although it's been fairly warm the past two weeks, there is snow on the distant mountains.

This photo of Mount San Antonio, which is in the San Bernardino National Forest east of the Los Angeles basin, was taken from a hilltop in Newport Beach.

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The winter storms have damaged a lot of Southern California. Besides the hillslides and road washouts, there's a lot of beach damage.

One area of Laguna Beach is covered with giant squid that died at sea and have washed ashore.

I went for a hike this morning at Trestles Beach, which I've written about before. It's a fairly isolated beach because access requires a good bit of walking.

However, it's a very popular surfing spot that has its own culture. The beach and the ocean were crowded today with surfers.

A lot of stuff has washed ashore with the storms and the giant waves.
Trestles is named because of the train trestle that's there. The AMTRAK passed by just as I was leaving the beach this morning.

I overheard a group of surfers talking as they were leaving the beach. One informed his friends,

It's legal to drink on the beach on the San Diego County side of the line.

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I hadn't thought much about how radically different Northern California/The San Francsico Bay Area is from Southern California. The differences are very clear in Marin County, where I use to live.

I drove over Mount Tamalpais this morning from Fairfax to Bolinas, which is on the west side of the mountain on the ocean. Bolinas begins a series of "hippie enclave villages" - that run along the coast towards Point Reyes National Seashore. Bolinas is famous because the residents prefer not to have visitors, so they take down the sign that the state highway department puts up marking the town limits. To find Bolinas, you have to know where you're going.

My family has known Bolinas for a long time because a close family friend of ours from Alabama settled here after she finished college, married a Berkeley professor and has never left.

I like a lot of things about the life in Marin. The east side of Mount Tamalpais, where I lived in the Town of San Anselmo, is known for quaint "boutique" towns like the one I lived in. They have names like Mill Valley, Tiburon, Sausalito, and the most exclusive of all, which is where I worked when I lived up here: Ross. This part of Marin is the very definition and heart and soul of what David Brooks called BoBos in Paradise.

The west side of Mount Tamalpais has towns, along with Bolinas, named Stinson Beach, Dog Town (with a population of 30) and Olema. These are free spirited communities.

I'm drawn to the richness of humanity and expansive diversity. So much so, that a number of my friends and colleagues, who are also people of faith, are chagrined. However, I don't apologize for my way of thinking.

At the same time, as a Christian, I aware of and think about connectedness to God, meaning, purpose and the humbleness of being created. I mean, there's a largeness to life that goes beyond individualism.

These are big thoughts that I'm not adequately addressing as I write this. Perhaps I'll have more to say on this in subsequent posts.

Posted by Roland at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Most of today was sunny, but we just had a downpour to the west. The east side of San Juan Capistrano was sunny. The result was a double rainbow. The top one was too faint to pick up with my camera.

The rainbows were short lived. Both fadded as the rain stopped. But, this photo shows the meeting of the sunshine and the rain clouds.

Posted by Roland at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's very wet in California. In Southern California we're getting rain, sleet, snow, mudslides, rockslides and flooding. About 4 inches of rain has fallen in the past 48 hours.

And it's still raining.

There have been house slides in the Los Angeles area as well.

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So I drove out to Palm Springs yesterday. Without traffic - which is a useless phrase in Southern California - it should take about 90 minutes to drive out from South Orange County.

I take a toll road from South Orange County that plunks me in the heart of Riverside County - where the traffic is horrid. The drive was particularly rough yesterday because of "holiday" traffic and the fact that this week's winter storm dumped a lot of snow in the mountains east of Los Angeles, which draws folks who want to ski and snowboard.

However, Palm Springs is restful. I'm staying with friends from the San Francisco Bay area who have a house down here. I've come enough to have gotten to know their friends down here. The Boston Terriers in the opening photo are at the house of friends of my friends.

For those who haven't been here: What is Palm Springs like? Well, it was a get-away place for Hollywood folks in the 40's and 50's. It's about 100 miles east of Los Angeles in the dessert. (For fans of U2 - it's about 35 minutes from Joshua Tree National Park.)

While the area has been discovered and is a now a boom town, the old part is a collection of "mid century" single-level homes.

The mountains that border Palm Springs are dramatic.

With the "boom" has come an influx of new designs, such as the home below. And there are expanding towns around Palm Springs.

My friend's house is one of the classic mid century homes. It's a 1/2 block from a larger and more elaborate place (below) that is reported to be the house that Elvis used for his honeymoon.

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You might have heard about the winter storm that has hit Southern California the past couple of days.

For us that means a lot of rain and very high winds.

This will give you a sense of conditions at the San Clemente Pier this afternoon.

Although the rain had stopped and the winds had died down, the sea was really rough.


We had it all with this past storm. It didn't hit Orange County until the middle of the night - actually, very early this morning. But it stormed.

My friend Greg and I met for lunch in Irvine at noon. It was raining very hard at that time in South County, where I live, but it was clear in North County, where Greg lives in Hungtington Beach.

I went to T Street Beach in San Clemente about 3:30 and took the photos in this post.

The sea gulls were out in force. I guess that they were looking for sea life that the big waves were washing shore.

One surfer tried to go out around the San Clemete pier, but he was called back in by the lifeguards. It's not very smart trying to go out in seas that rough. Also, the bacteria level is at its highest after a rain.

Posted by Roland at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's Sunday morning, the day after Christmas.

This has been a most enjoyable Christmas break, and there's still one more week left in it!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, now that I live in Southern California near my close relatives, it's so nice not traveling during major holidays. That fact alone made Thanksgiving and this Christmas particularly nice for me. I understand the disappointment felt by the thousands and thousands of people who have been stranded in the midwest or who've had their luggage lost by airlines. I've been there.

That being said, this has been a particularly restful holiday and I've thoroughly enjoyed time with my family.

This time last year I flew out for Christmas from Washington DC. I spent a night in Newport Coast with friends who were the first to alert me that the job I currently have would open up. Within a month the job had been announced, I applied, had come out for an interview, and had signed a contract - all before the end of January. That was a blessing, particularly because I wanted to live and work close to my family, especially my grandmother. I've been hear for six months and it's been all that I'd hoped for, and more.

I've also enjoyed discovering new beaches to explore. Trestles is such a find because it's not crowded. Since it has limited access, I suspect that it'll never be as crowded as the in town beaches.

Posted by Roland at 05:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

So, I sent a few friends the Christmas Day forecast for Orange County, California:

Christmas in The OC: Mostly sunny. Highs 68 to 75. Light winds.

My buddy, David, who is visiting his family in Minnesota wrote back:
Christmas in the Twin Cities: -10 at night to 5 above during the day. Frostbite warnings. Light flurries.

I took these photos yesterday afternoon in Manhattan Beach, which is just south of Los Angeles International Airport and about 10 minutes from where my family lives in Los Angeles.

It's a beautiful Christmas weekend here. In the first photo you can see Catalina Island which lies 26 miles offshore of Long Beach/Orange County.

I talked to the surfer in the picture below. He was at the Manhattan Beach pier. While winter surfing is common, winter "trunk" surfing isn't. Most people have full winter gear that includes a winter wetsuit, gloves, booties and often a head covering.

But, not too worry, we expect a return of winter weather tomorrow through Wednesday. That means rain and much cooler temperatures for us.

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(Notice the hundreds and hundreds of sea gulls at the far side of the rocks at the surfline.)

Trestles really is Southern California surf culture.

While it's claimed by Orange County, the train trestles and surf spot are really in San Diego County.

I went to T Street, my usual beach in San Clemente, and took a long hike south towards San Onofre. There were tons of surfers out this morning.

I was out about three hours. It was a great time. I had never been to Trestles, even though I had heard of it as a great surf spot. It's a beautiful spot.

The beach is rocky and the water clears up from the usual Orange County muddy surf. And there are hundreds and hundreds of sea gulls and other birds.

I was surprised to see a number of lobster tail shells washed up on the beach.

The lagoon at the train overpass is really cool and filled with birds.

Besides the nice beach and great scenery, I was surprised by blooming wildflowers! There were yellow, purple and red wildflowers.

I wrote earlier that heavy winter rains, which we had, usually bring on wildflowers in the spring.

Today is the first full day of winter, but wildflowers are blooming in Southern California and I like that.





Something else happend today that was very cool.

I called my friends Bob and Tammy after I left the beach. Bob asked if I had been to the beach because he saw my car down there. I had talked so much about T Street that he and Tammy came down this morning to check it out. That's very cool.

Posted by Roland at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Surfin' Donuts

I feel similar to Thanksgiving. It's great that I don't have to travel to spend Christmas with my family. Since I'm now in Southern California and only an hour south of Los Angeles where my close relatives live, I can actually enjoy my Christmas break.

I started this morning out in San Clemente. I got coffee at a donut shop on El Camino, right at downtown. They have great coffee and always have surf videos playing on a tv monitor. it's a casual "classic donut" house in most ways, except that it really does have a wide variety of really good coffee that is hot and fresh.

Waiting for a wave at T Street, San Clemente

That being said, I usually listen to NPR in the morning and will catch the Los Angeles traffic report. I feel worlds apart from the hectic life of commuting that millions of people deal with in metro Los Angeles. I had my share of horrid commuting when I lived in Washington DC and I hope that I won't have to live like that again.

If you've been reading this blog for any lenght of time, you konw that "T Street" in San Clemente is my favorite beach in Orange County.
San Clemente is still a classic beach village. But it use to be a sleepy little beach town. Now it's an expensive "boutique" beach village.

I know that a lot people need cold and snow to "feel" like Christmas. I'm ok with 70 plus degrees and clear blue skies. My friend David flew out to Chicago to be with his family. He said that they had round one of their family Christmas in Wheaton yesterday. But, to be really cold, they're driving up to Minnesota for round two of the family Christmas. And Ryan is going to Indiana where the snow is already pretty deep.

Well, I'll keep the updates coming this week.

Dana Point Harbor

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So, this is the view from my room at the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey, where I'm staying this week. It's really cool that I can see the hills that my relatives live in not far from here.

The schedule is packed. I'll update later tonight.

Good news: It's not raining!

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Some of my friends and I played beach volleyball yesterday afternoon following church. David (left-rear) called us together and gathered some other folks to play, including a couple of Au Pairs we met two weeks ago playing pick up at the same beach, and some of their friends.

As you can see, we've recovered quite nicely from last night's "Winter Storm."

I'm in the middle of the top photo and just making a serve below. Notice Palos Verdes Peninsula in the far background. It was a very clear day in Southern California.

Above, Greg is poised for attack. And below, Ryan serves.

Posted by Roland at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's true that "winter storm" has a different meaning here in Orange County than it does in Washington DC. We had another winter storm last night, similar to Saturday a week ago. But this one didn't dump snow on the western slopes of the mountain ranges east of the Los Angeles Basin.

I drove up Ortega Highway (California 73), just above San Juan Capistrano, in hopes of getting the snow shots that I missed taking last week. I didn't see snow, but I did get this nice view of the Saddleback Mountain peaks, Santiago and Modjeska, in the far distance, which tower 5700 feet above Orange County.

Posted by Roland at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'll drive up to meet my family in Los Angeles later today. My cousin, Kyndall, and his wife are hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner this year. I just got back from having coffee and taking a walk on North Beach in San Clemente.

Hopefully you're able to watch this short clip of Thanksgiving morning surfers at North Beach, San Clemente.

Notably, Joel's put up a mindful Thanksgiving post.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Psalm 100

A Psalm for giving thanks.

1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

2 Serve the LORD with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the LORD, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

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Since I'm showing local photos today, I'll share one more that I took this morning when I went out for coffee downtown. The Great Church of Mission San Juan Capistrano only stood intact for 6 years before it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1812. This is, by the way, the oldest building in the state of California.

Posted by Roland at 11:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Cleveland National Forest is in the distance. I drove through those mountains last week to get to Palm Springs.


These are the hills behind where I live. Last week's rains left things greener. Hopefully we'll have more rain this winter so that the wildflowers will come out this spring.

Posted by Roland at 06:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Live views of San Clemente Beach.

A colleague shared this link with me. This is where I spend most of my beach time.

Posted by Roland at 01:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Wow - it rained pretty much all night!

I spent the weekend in Palm Springs. There was rain in the desert Sunday morning.

The forecast calls for rain until Thursday morning! That much rain should turn the hills green next week. That will be awesome! Hopefully it'll also cause my allergies to settle down!

Posted by Roland at 04:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It rained.

That may not be news where you live, but it is in California.

There was a spectacular thunder and lightening display between 2:30 and 3:30 this morning. Then, rain fell for a couple of minutes around 5.

Rain is unusual in California. And, thunderstorms are virtually unheard of. I recall one in 2001 when I was at Stanford. In fact, just before it happened, my neighbor said: "The sky looks like a thunderstorm is coming. But that doesn't happen in California." And it did.

Posted by Roland at 06:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a great story in today's Orange County Register about a surfer who was scooped up on the snout of whale in San Clemente.

San Clemente is one of the places I go body boarding.

Thursday, September 30, 2004
Whale is more than a tale
Spyros Vamvas gets an unexpected lift riding the waves off San Clemente: from a California gray whale.

By FRED SWEGLES
The Orange County Register

SAN CLEMENTE: First, there was a noise. The water beneath him began to swirl.

Then something lifted surfer Spyros Vamvas out of the water.

"I was on the back of a whale," said Vamvas, a 60-year-old San Clemente therapist who has been surfing these waters since he was 12. "It lifted me up, almost gently, and then it lowered me down. And I never changed position on my board."

And this is no fish story; there were witnesses Monday morning at Lasuen Beach.

"We were all screaming, 'Oh, my God!'" Mona Ferner said.

"This is once in a lifetime," said her sister, Wendy Yoder.

Yoder and Ferner were playing volleyball when they noticed a California gray whale heading south in shallow water.

"A pretty odd deal," said Tom Kibblewhite, a San Clemente hotel worker who enjoys walking the beach on his days off. "I've seen some odd things down here at the beach, but not like that."

Three San Clemente lifeguards were watching the whale.

"It scared quite a few surfers out of the water," Marine Safety Capt. Bill Humphreys said.

Vamvas was the only surfer left in the surf line as the whale approached, neither party evidently realizing that the other was there. Vamvas was sitting on his board, looking out to sea in search of a wave to ride.

Instead, he found himself riding something else.

"All of a sudden, I just felt, wow, this huge noise and bump," he said, "and it lifted my board up. I'm looking down, and there's just swirling water, and I see barnacles on the back of the whale. I'm used to dolphins. This was different. It was huge."

Vamvas had no idea how big the whale was. Others' guesses varied from 15 to 30 feet.

One thing everyone agreed on was that once the whale set Vamvas and his surfboard back down onto the water, it turned and made a beeline for the horizon.

"As fast as I've ever seen a marine mammal go," Humphreys said. "It looked like the whale was obviously spooked."

Vamvas said that his 6-foot, 10-inch surfboard didn't suffer a scratch, and he is fine except for the middle finger of his left hand, which got pinched between the whale and his surfboard.

If the whale encounter seems like a fluke, it came as no surprise to Mike Bursk, a marine biologist who skippers the R/V Explorer on daily educational excursions out of the Ocean Institute in Dana Point.

Bursk said this is probably the same juvenile gray whale he saw during a surprise encounter last week in Dana Point Harbor.

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Biola University was featured in a New York Times Magazine article.

Here's an excerpt from the article.

Like a lot of Christian colleges in the United States, Biola has in recent years made serious efforts to compete academically with secular and more mainstream religiously affiliated colleges. That hasn't meant a reduced emphasis on religious teachings. If anything, the school has intensified its commitment to cultivating devout Christians. But it does mean that the school has expanded its curriculum in areas of study like psychology, bioethics and popular culture, and that it is encouraging a new level of engagement with the secular world. Detweiler, a screenwriter who is something of a maverick on campus and in the evangelical Christian community, is on the front lines of that effort at Biola.

Read the complete The New York Times Magazine’s article (PDF).

The University has posted a page describing the project.

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I have a meeting in downtown San Diego tomorrow morning. I drove down this afternoon and am staying overnight in Old Town. It's been years since I've been down here.

Old Town describes itself as "The Birthplace of California."

They've restored a 19th century cemetary and identified about 20 graves. The grave identifiers tell a story.

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It's H-O-T!

I wore a sweatshirt and a jacket when I went out Friday night. There really was a "touch of Fall" in the air. And it remained cool on Saturday.

But yesterday, the heat came on like a furnace. Even at the beaches temperatures are flirting with the 100 degrees mark.

Posted by Roland at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody's talking about "the end of summer." Hummm... Let me think about that for a minute.

The end of summer feels different now that I'm living in Southern California. As I was telling by friend, Darren, today - who is thinking about buying a new bicycle - we're coming into a great season in Southern California. I know that it won't snow this winter. And, winter here will have a different meaning this year.

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Today was an awesome day. Darren, Robby and I spent the afternoon body boarding at Salt Creek Beach - just south of Laguna Beach. We had a blast.

Darren and I had spent the morning going to garage sales - since 7:30 - hoping to find dining room chairs for his house. We didn't have a lot of luck. But it was cool to hang out. Later on we went to a tent sale at a sporting goods store that specializes is surf stuff. Then we went to a bike shop to look at road bikes because Darren is considering training for a Triathlon.

Robby was with his friend Saturday morning and helped her to get on a flight, since she was flying standby. They started at Los Angeles International, but ended up in Orange County. She got a flight out of John Wayne Airport, which was cool because it's down here in South Orange County.

Darren took off early because he was going to a birthday gig with friends of his from church. They were going up to Hollywood to dinner and to a club � and looking for movie stars. People do that sort of thing when they go to Hollywood.

Robby and I came back to my house. We went out to buy some surfing accessories and to get Robby his first pair of �flip flops� � which is very cool and about time, since he's been a California for five years now. And we made dinner at my house.

Besides having a great day with friends and going body boarding, it was good being with those particular friends. Robby and I have been friends since MIT. He was one of the first students I met when I got there in 1993. It�s cool that we�ve remained in touch and close friends all of these years.

Darren and I met in San Francisco when he worked for a startup with a number of people I was friends with. I don't remember him from MIT, but we were part of a book club in The City for a couple of years. It was a great book club, by the way. Darren lives in Orange County. It�s been awesome having a good friend here in The OC.

I have a �guest� body board. Let me know if you�re ever in the area.

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I'm in Ojai, which is a wonderful desert "village" not very far from Santa Barbara.

I've been asked to speak at the Summer Science Program's closing event tonight.

The drive up here was terrible. It took about 4 hours. It should have been closer to 2-1/2. The drive required going through Los Angeles, from north to south, along the western edge. I thought that getting into Los Angeles just after noon would be early enough. But I was wrong.

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I spent this past weekend in San Franciso. I spent most of the time with my friend Doug, which was very cool. As people do in San Francisco, we spent most of the weekend in coffeeshops. I like that about San Francisco. People are always out.

I also got to see Sherrett and Matt - a couple of MIT buddies, who were also part of the book club in San Francisco that had a good run for a couple of years.

And I saw a friend from the Peninsula, another Matt, who has been involved in education, as I am.

Doug and I went to see Bourne Supremacy yesterday afternoon with AJ and Shridan, two of his very good friends. They're a particularly cool couple who are recently married.

But now I'm back in Orange County. It's the first work day of August, which hints that summer will soon be over. But no worries here. I'm excited about having the kids on campus and luanching the school year.

Also, I know that I'll be wintering in South Orange County this year. (He said with a sly, but satisfied, smile on his face.)

Posted by Roland at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Union Square and San Francisco's Famous The St. Francis Hotel

I left my office, drove to the airport, parked, checked in for my flight, went through security and was at the gate in about 40 minutes total time. There was even a couple of traffic jams on the way up. I was at my gate two very boring hours early! I had brought a couple of dvds to watch at the gate, because I knew that I'd be some what early. I wanted to get up the freeway before the traffic in Irvine got too brutal. Odd thing about John Wayne Airport is that there are NO electrical outlets! That's not totally true, but there aren't any outlets in the passenger seating areas. There are a scant few along the walkway wall. Those were all claimed by a few people who didn't mind sitting in the walkway! Yike. And this is high tech California. Clearly that wasn't thought through.

The flight went fine. It loaded early and we were "wheels up" before the scheduled departure time. Wheels down at SFO was 14 minutes early. Douglas met me at the airport. We had dinner downtown. San Francisco has wonderful restaurants! It was nice to be in that setting again.

This morning I went for coffee in Union Square. (Those are the photos above.) It's classic San Francisco summer weather: damp, cloudy and cold. You can see it in the photos.

Tomorrow is the San Franciso marathon which will end in Union Square.

There was an interesting article on "Mega Churches" in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle.

The big churches up here aren't as large as the ones in Orange County, which have been troubling to me. Recently, I noticed that one of the big churches in San Juan Capistrano dropped the denomination designator from its name. (There's the dirt and mildew from the name still left on the exterior wall.) I found that curious. This article speaks to the separation from denominations in these new-style huge churches.

I think that the lack of substance that I sense in these types of churches in Orange County have been troubling to me.

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Once again, I'm legally a Californian.

I registered to vote online, prior to moving here. But today, I got my driver's license and registered my car. Getting the driver's license went more smoothly than I had expected. Fortunately, the license I had when I left California two years ago, was still valid - even though I had turned it in when I moved to Washington, DC and Maryland and got a Maryland license. So, the California Department of Motor Vehicles will simply re-issue my old license. I'll get the same number as I had before, and I didn't have to take a written exam. I also passed the eye exam - which I didn't do in Maryland. (Maryland uses much smaller letters to recognize.) So I don't have restrictions on my license. (Don't worry - I do wear glasses when I drive at night. Voluntarily.)

It was tougher going through the process this time. I had to bring my passport to even begin the process of getting a license. That's a change since September 11.

Getting the tags for my car was the same old hassle: going to get a smog test - and then paying the huge California registration fee - which was double that of Maryland for half the registration period. (Maryland's vehicle registration is valid for two full years.)

Whatever, it's good to have California tags on my car.

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Starting at "6:00" going clockwise, you have: Roland, Ryan, Tom, Darren and Robby.

I've posted details from this past weekend on Blogger.

But, briefly, four of my friends were over on Saturday. We went hiking along the beach in La Jolla, which is in North County San Diego.

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So, what have I been up to? It's been almost a month since I left Washington, DC.

I'm settling nicely into my new life. My apartment is very comfortable. And, although modest, I'm working on getting my office together.

(View larger image)

The Upper School at St. Margaret's was an office building that was converted into a school. The building was purchased when the school was smaller. The school has grown and the building hasn't. It looks well lived in - by kids. The building reflects "California" in that the division between inside and outside is blurred.

This is the view from my desk out the double doors at the rear of my office. (In the distance you can see one of the hills that surrounds San Juan Capistrano. Although we're a scant three-miles from the beach, there are a lot of hills for hiking and mountain biking. I can see a trail on the hill in the distance. There's a faculty mountain biking ride Thursday afternoons during the school year.)

In some ways this is the most modest office I've ever had; but it's also the only office I've had that came with an outside space.

I sat outside around the table to read yesterday afternoon. That's a huge difference from my spacious office at Sidwell Friends School. While my Sidwell office was huge and well-appointed, it was an interior office with windows that looked out onto a student hallway. I never knew what was going on outside - I didn't have fresh air or natural light for the two years that I worked there!

The physical space isn't the only difference between the two schools. While I loved the faculty at Sidwell Friends School, and I miss them tremendously, I life the fresh feeling of my new colleagues. Although it's summer time, many of the faculty are making the effort to come by the school to meet me.

I'll have more updates to share with you soon. I'm going to a pool party/cookout tonight with a family to celebrate their daughter's birthday. That wouldn't have happened at Sidwell. There is a "class-ism" to Washington DC that I found distasteful. That's a part of the last two years that I will not miss and will happily forget.

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"Welcome" sign at entrance to local hiking trail.

But, Randy shared a story about swimming in Florida.

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So, my fear of Mountain Lions is well-founded.

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Today was my first day back in California as a Californian. I started my move-in today, and it's gone great.

I started the day on the pier at Newport Beach. I loved seeing so many people out - especially the surfers. Most of them are out there before work - they're guys in their 40's and 50's.

Later I went to Laguna Beach, which is my favorite town in Orange County.

As mentioned, I started moving in today. Everything that I had shipped out from Washington was delivered this morning. I got that stuff put away by 3, which is when the cable guy came to install my cable internet and telephone.

My furniture will arrive tomorrow afternoon.

I also had my car trucked out. It should arrive early next week.

I'm grateful that things are coming together nicely with the move-in. I'm staying in a hotel near Newport Beach until I get things settled.

Danny, a friend in DC, works for Marriott Hotel's real estate group and has hooked me up nicely. Danny's flying in for Owen's wedding (below) and has gotten a complimentary room at the Ritz-Carlton at Marina del Rey, where we'll spend Friday night. Marina del Rey is just north of LAX airport, near Santa Monica. It's an easy 10 minute drive to where my grandmother lives with my uncle and aunt in Los Angeles. Since the wedding isn't until the late afternoon, I'll spend a good deal of Saturday with my family.

A number of my friends from Washington DC are in town this weekend. We're going to Owen's wedding on Saturday, in Ojai, which is a wonderful desert town about 25 miles southeast of Santa Barbara.

I'll spend the balance of the weekend with friends in Santa Barbara.

It's good that I have the next three weeks off before starting my new job. I plan to take my bicycle to a shop tomorrow to get it put together. I can't wait to get on my road bike!

These guys were out early - before 6:00. There were clumps of surfers north of Newport Pier.

I enjoyed seeing a longboarder.
This is a different "visual" than what I'd see every morning starting my day in Washington.

This is the beach at Laguna Beach, just south of downtown.

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Memorial Day Morning, Manhattan Beach, CA

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Surfing at Sunset in San Clemente, CA. (Far South Orange County.)

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Senor Pedro's is in Old San Juan Capistrano, directly across the street from the Mission. I had dinner there last night. The fish tacos were among the best I've ever had.

I spent this morning at St. Margaret's and I got to meet with the entire junior class, which was very cool.

It's been a good day - very relaxing. I had lunch in Laguna Beach, in honor of my buddy, Darrin in Wheaton, IL whose birthday is today.

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Darren sent this link from the Orange Country Register:

Latino Kids.

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Santa Monica Pier

This will be a quick post, but I wanted to share some photos from last night in Santa Monica. My sister and I met up with Ryan and Dave. Ryan and Dave went to the same high school in Carl Junction, Missouri and both came to MIT.

I read Dave's application to the university, ushered it through the admissions process and signed off on his admissions to MIT. Ryan and I met at MIT, but didn't really know each other, although we knew many of the same people at the Institute. Ryan went to Stanford for grad school and has remained on the Peninsula. We became great friends in the Bay Area, particularly when I was at Stanford.

My sister, Harriet, has been in California for the past four weeks. She'll return to Mobile next week.

I had to include some photos of "colorful California."

The One Man Band is one of a couple of such shows we saw on Santa Monica Pier.

The artist was on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade. It was a pretty mellow night on the Promenade last night.

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I made an important "find" this morning. Metro Java Cafe is in the Village of San Juan Capistrano, a few blocks from the Mission. It's a nice setting, with good coffee and free wi-fi.

And, I thought that this was pretty cool. These are surf fishermen in Laguna Beach.

Today is totally a "vacation" day. I'm spending it with a couple of MIT buddies. Darren and I are meeting for lunch in Huntington Beach. Afterwards, I'll spend time with my family. Then, later on, I'll meet Ryan, who is down from the Bay Area taking a break from work. I think that he'll have some other people with him and we'll have dinner in Santa Monica.

I'll fly back to DC tomorrow afternoon.

Posted by Roland at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I've spent the day at St. Margaret's. Although I'm on vacation, I wanted to spend a day with my new colleagues. I'm speaking to the parents and students at a reception tonight at 7. Here are a few photos I took today. The one of moi is in the village of San Juan Capistrano, after lunch with some of my new colleagues. (Sorry about the silly grin. I don't know what I was thinking.)

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I drove down Coast Highway from Oxnard to Santa Monica on my return from Santa Barbara this morning. Oxnard is known for its strawberries. I stopped to pick up a flat for my grandmother. The best place to exit Highway 101 is Rice Avenue in Oxnard. If you head towards Coast Highway, you'll see a couple of strawberry stands alongside the highway.

Driving down Coast Highway takes you through Malibu. A lot of surfers were out this morning. I often wonder if anyone works in Southern California because there are so many people out during the day!

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I woke up in Santa Barbara this morning. I took a walk in the Harbor, along the breakwater. In my world, waking up in Santa Barbara tops the list. To give you perspective, waking up in Florence (Firenze) would be a very close second.

I drove up here yesterday afternoon to have dinner with Bryan, the one Westmont friend I�ve stayed in closest contact with over the years. Bryan and I enjoy the same things: hiking, mountain biking and reading. Bryan, like many of his friends, found a job up here just to be in Santa Barbara. He�s worked as a carpenter and electrician, and is now doing what he�s always wanted to do: athletic training. He works with a physical therapy group set up by other Westmont grads. Bryan also is working with Westmont athletic teams. Phil, his brother, set up a window washing business to support his Santa Barbara lifestyle.

I got up to Santa Barbara around 5:00. Bryan and I went downtown to do some wine shopping. (If you need a reference, let me know, and I�ll tell you where I shop for wine in Santa Barbara.) Walking lower State Street is a great place to people watch, by the way. We talked about movies, books, church stuff, our families, the Santa Cruz mountain bike Bryan plans to buy, tech gadgets, and my move � tons of stuff. When we talked about The Passion Bryan asked me how I felt as I watched the movie. Bryan and I have always talked honestly. I told him something that I hadn�t thought about: actually, I felt very little watching The Passion. The feelings I had were more about being with a small group of people from my church who I enjoyed. (That�s significant, as well, and actually, I posted on that part of the experience after seeing the movie.) I told Bryan that I think that I�d shut down emotive parts of my life the past few years because of a series of things:

• The emotionally distant experience that working at Stanford was, and doubts about the decision-making that I went through when I chose to go there to work. (I often question the wisdom of my choice to go to Stanford.)
  
• Not enjoying Washington any more than Stanford.
  
• My brother�s illness and death.
  
• Keeping Washington at arm�s length, emotionally. I didn�t engage the experience.
  

Bryan and I went to dinner on State Street. He called John, a Westmont classmate of his who I had known really well back in Westmont days. John works with Bryan in the same Physical Therapy clinic. It was great to see John. Actually, it was awesome. I had gotten to know John and his entire family when he was at Westmont. In fact, we had Westmont admissions receptions in Sacramento at his parent�s home. John�s married with two kids. He and his family recently moved to Santa Barbara from Orange County. We hadn�t seen each other in over ten years, but quickly picked up. John had a close group of buddies at Westmont. He�s kept in touch with most of them over the years and can easily report the details of their lives. John�s one of those rare people whose heart and honesty are �out there� in a way that is engaging, humbling and disarming. You can�t help but feel �special� when you�re around John. It�s natural for him to look people in the eye and care for them. I can�t wait until I can meet his wife and kids when I get back up to Santa Barbara this summer.

We had a great evening. When I left, I thought, �Wow. What a blessing to have made such great friends over the years.�

I�m writing about this because the theme of this particular trip has been, so far, re-connecting on the personal level. But, I think, even deeper. It�s connections on a spiritual level as well. It�s as if I feel the freedom to look into and bring out areas of my life that I�d �protected� the past few years. It�s good being around people who know those areas and who can share those connections.

Posted by Roland at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Let me tell you about yesterday, which was Sunday.

I started the day with breakfast in Manhattan Beach. Then I drove down to Irvine to meet Darren. He's been going to Mariners Church for about fifteen months. It's a big operation. Services begin on Saturday night and there are two Sunday morning services that are simulcast from the main sanctuary into a tent structure. Darren and I went to the tent.

Entering the tent is like entering a dance club. It's lit with colored lights - so it's dark. The dark didn't bother me. Actually, I appreciated the sense of quiet that it created. That's unlike the usual brightly lit "buzz" of most Protestant churches. Even though the sermon is via video link, the rest of the service in the tent is live - and VERY loud.

I'm glad that Darren has found Mariners. While I didn't think that an Orange County "Mega Church" would be a natural choice for him, the church has offered opportunities that have served him well. I met a core of his closer friends. It's clear that they care for one another and are current on the details of each other's lives. And he's involved with the high school youth group. The way I see it, the church gives folks a place to be in the fast paced an often anonymity of Southern California.

Actually, on this trip, I've been particularly aware of the traffic and crowds of Southern California. I've been coming here for years but things have changed. When I met Robby in Santa Monica yesterday, I asked myself "What am I getting in to moving into this crowded mess!" But, I'm glad that I'll be coming out here. I'll have to be thoughtful about where I live so that I won't have to commute in the traffic.

After church, I drove up to Santa Monica to hang out with Robby. Robby's one of the first people I met when I got to MIT in 1993. He's been a great friend and I'm glad that we've stayed in touch all these years.

I'm going to spend today doing stuff with my sister. She enjoyed our excursion last Saturday. It'll be fun to spend today together. I'm going back up to Santa Barbara later this afternoon to have an early dinner with some Westmont friends.

Here's a summary: One day, in my second year at MIT, a student appeared at the door of my office. Even though someone was meeting with me, he stood at the door and blurted out: "Someone told me that you could talk to me about God." I can't remember who I was in my office. For some reason I think that it was a perspective student visiting the university. I arranged to meet the student who had come to my door later that afternoon.

When I met with the student, he told me what had been going on in his life: He was an immigrant to the US, the first in his family to attend college, and was in his third year as an undergraduate at MIT. However, he was in trouble at the university. He had gained access to places and materials that he shouldn't have been by coming by a master key. He misused his access, got caught and was going through disciplinary action. He was devastated and he felt that his life was a disaster; hence, he was looking for a place to turn. He chose God. Another student in his residence hall had him come talk to me.

To advance the story: the student was expelled, but he kept his housing for the rest the semester since it was paid for. (I don't understand this piece of it, but he was in the dorms.) While he as waiting to figure out his next step, he got involved in a church. So, for a time, God dulled the pain in his life. But that didn't last long. He continued to make poor choices. Choices, I'm now convinced, that were attempts to find something to take away the pain that he lived with.

He was able to transfer to another university, and he graduated from college. I don't know what happened from there, but I thought about him this morning. I guess that blogging allows you to write about random things that might be loosely connected.

Posted by Roland at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kerrwood Gardens, Westmont College, Santa Barbara

Yesterday was the first day of spring. I spent the entire day with my sister, who is also visitng Southern California. We decided to drive up to Santa Barbara for lunch.

Southern California is having "June Gloom" early. That's the marine layer of haze that blocks the sun most of the day. It's caused by the cold air above the ocean being sucked onshore by warm inland air. (San Francisco is the best example of that in the summer when the city is cold, damp and foggy in the middle of summer, when it's clear and in the high 90's in nearby Marin County that is protected from the fog by Mount Tamalpais.)

I was disappointed that my sister wasn't able to see Santa Barbara in all it's sunlit glory. However, when we drove up into the hills above Santa Barbara, in Montecito, where Westmont College is located, it was brilliantly sunny, as you can see from these photos of the formal gardens behind the administration building (the photo to the left is the back of Westmont's administration building: Kerrwood Hall), which is where my office was when I worked at Westont.

Montecito is difficult to describe because it's beauty is not only stunning, it's also unusal for an American city. It should be on the South of France or the Dalmatian Coast. As we drove down Coast Village Road, my sister kept commenting that she had never seen anything like this. The first building that greets you at the foot of Coast Village Road is the Montecito Inn, a hotel built by Charlie Chaplain.

If you've read my past weblogs, you've heard a lot about Santa Barbara. A number of my Westmont friends still live in Santa Barbara. I thoroughly enjoy visits to Santa Barbara. I'm excited that Santa Barbara will be "within reach" when I move back to Southern California in June.

We had lunch in the Santa Barbara Harbor at Brophy Brothers, a real favorite with locals, especially after sailboat races. Brophy Bros is a "local's calm bar" in Santa Barbara. It's loud and crowded. If you go there, order a bowl of the clam chowder and a beer. If you go near dusk during the week, you'll see the sea urchin harvesters returning from their day's haul.

Today I have plans to meet MIT friends: Darren and Robby. Darren lives in Orange County, and Robby lives near Pasadena. I'm going to church with Darren at Mariner's in Newport Coast, and Robby and I are meeting later on in Santa Monica.

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