Photo taken by Ms. Jen on 08.28.10 with her Nokia N86.

Sat 08.28.10 - Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish has over the course of the last two years an ongoing series of posts called "The View from Your Recession", where readers write in about how 'The Economy' is affecting their lives either directly or indirectly.

Even before the economic downturn in late 2008, California has had budget woes, particularly in the summer when the legislature has been chronically unable to pass a budget before July 1st. The last 4-5 years has featured July and August as a monumental struggle between the legislature and Arnold, of which Arnold has turned off the budgetary taps to get the legislature to talk to each other and resolve their issues. The result has been steep budget cuts year round and a frozen budget in the summer months.

Last summer Bolsa Chica State Beach tried to save money by turning off fresh water in the park, thus no showers, no drinking fountains, etc. The local surfers revolted, as they all pay $125 a year for a parking pass which supposedly supports the state beach, and went to the State Beach commissioner's house and threatened to turn off his water all while they demanded their parking money back. Water got turned back on the next day and has remained on since. It does help that Bolsa Chica State Beach has the greatest revenue and attendance of any state beach or park in California, so the commissioner can make an argument to Sacramento that the surfers are paying for their post-ocean showers with their parking pass fees.

[Disclosure, I have a State Beach parking pass and use the shower to wash my feet off and give the dogs a drink post-dog beach.]

Most years at Southern California beaches the lifeguard towers are only open for business during the summer when the kids are out of school and the tourists are out in force, during the school year most of the lifeguard towers are closed up and the only the ones at nearest the main piers are open. Most of the SoCal beach communities do have full time rescue and lifeguard staff that is augmented by trained young lifeguards in the summer time who staff the towers.

The past few years Huntington Beach has all the towers staffed with lifeguards during the summer months from the HB Pier to the Santa Ana River to the south and to Bolsa Chica State Beach to the north, as well as roving lifeguards on red four wheel all terrain vehicles & red trucks patrolling between towers that are spaced at a greater distance, like towers 28-24 at Dog Beach on the north side of town.

Early this summer, I noticed that the 3 lifeguard towers at Dog Beach had fencing placed around them with signs saying "No Lifeguards This Area", and as the summer progressed the towers were not opened at all not even on the busy weekends like the Fourth of July. Even more surprising is that I have not seen the roving lifeguards in trucks or all terrain vehicles patrolling the areas with no staffed lifeguard towers.

The most active surf, the most amount of rocks, and riptides in North Orange County are right in front of Tower 24 and Tower 26 at the Huntington Cliffs. This is a highly trafficked area with surfers clambering down unofficial paths of the Cliffs to get to the surf, dog owners trying to get themselves and their dogs to the beach, as well as random Angelenos and tourists wanting to experience the beach.

Either the City of Huntington Beach consulted with their lawyers and determined that big signs warning folks of no lifeguards and that folks were taking responsibility for their own lives by swimming was sufficient to repel any lawsuits in the event of child whisked out to sea by riptides or the budget cuts plus decreased tax revenue due to 'The Economy' really has taken a toll on the Huntington Beach lifeguard and rescue budget.

Anyone know what the real story is on the lack of lifeguards at the towers?

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N900.

Sat 08.21.10 - More photos from the Nokia E73 Mode Beach Party, as taken here and there with my Nokia N900. Don't ask my why I had two camera phones running that day...

Let's consider these photos the outtakes.

;o)

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Sun 08.22.10 - Scruffy, Belle and I met up with Donna at the Nokia Beach House and then we all trundled down to Dog Beach for another walk on the beach with all the various dogs in Huntington. It as a lot of fun and Donna met a lovely pug.

What more can one ask for?

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia E73.

Sat 08.21.10 - This afternoon and evening was the very fun Nokia E73 Mode Beach Party with a set of 'challenges' in Sunset Beach as hosted by Nokia and WOMWorld.

Attendees were given the choice to dress up in suits provided by the WOMWorld folk and to be apart of the challenges that also involved a film crew. The film fellows were using Canon 7Ds to record the video of the adventures.

WOMWorld's Donna was our 'boss' and the best parts were going out kayaking in the Huntington Harbor and the volleyball game in front of the Beach Party house, as seen in the photos above.

I enjoyed using the Nokia E73 Mode to take photos, as the camera is 5 megapixels and much improved over the last ESeries device I trialed - the E71. The photos are clear, the color is fairly correct, and the camera was fairly fast. My only complaint with the E73's camera is that in automatic mode it does best focusing at objects about a meter (3 feet) away and is a bit blurry and anything closer as seen in the photos above.

As always it was wonderful to catch up with friends who are also passionate about mobile and make new ones. Big thanks to Nokia, WOMWorld - Donna, Adam, and James, for hosting a lovely party and weekend.

The big question is when will the video come out?

;o)

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Fri 08.20.10 - The nice folk at Nokia and WOMWorld are holding a Nokia E73 Mode Beach Party tomorrow, Saturday, in Sunset Beach. I am quite excited that Donna, Adam, and the other James (not Whatley) are in town organizing the event, as well as being very happy to see Nokia Open Lab alum Mike Maddaloni and Glenn Letham are in town for the party as well as meeting Lenny of Nokia Innovation and Dennis of Wap Review.

This morning Donna and I met up and we took Scruffy and Belle to Dog Beach, which is about 3 miles south of the Beach House. We had a lovely walk and talk.

I joined the group again later in the early evening at the Beach House to have a good hang out time and eat a lovely dinner that Donna made for us! Thanks, Donna!

It was good to have a relaxed time before the party started to catch up and exchange ideas, thoughts, and laughter. I am looking forward to the party tomorrow afternoon.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen at Dog Beach with her Nokia N86.

Sat 08.07.10 - Yes, SoCal is still experiencing June Gloom in August. The weather has been gloomy/foggy in the morning and sunny in the afternoons with temperatures in the low to mid 70s F (19-22C). One would think it was May and not August.

Others are complaining and want a real summer, I love it.

The Equation of why Seal Beach is really Mayberry-by-the-Seal & how next Thursday's Seal Beach Sun's Crime Log will be particularly good & juicy:

3 or 4 raccoons bigger than your average cocker spaniel treed in a eucalyptus in the alley making unholy screams while either fighting or mating or both

+

2 drunk young men walking down the Electric Ave and the 16th St alleys tipping over trashcans all the while trying to get home to one of their grandfather's houses but turning into the neighbor's house instead

+

7-8 cop cars full of SBPD trying to determine if drunk teenagers or if crazy raccoons are the problem (who knew that Seal Beach even had 7-8 cop cars!)

+

1 really big firetruck

+

1 paramedics van

+

a bunch of neighbors and their dogs all out in nightgowns/attire watching the whole spectacle

=

A rockin' Saturday Night in Mayberry by the Sea.

********

The young man actually related to the homeowner on 16th ended up in the cop car and his drunk buddy was left to languish on the Greenbelt. The Raccoons have stopped screaming. Maybe they were agitated by the cop car bright beams being shone into Their Tree.

Who knows why the firetruck and paramedic van even showed up. We will rely on Charles M. Kelley to give us the straight scoop from the Police Log in Thursday's Sun.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

07.20.10 - June gloom, aka the Marine Inversion Layer, returned on Sunday morning after a week of strong sun and heat. Today my favorite local sycamore tree looked particularly green and restful in the late afternoon diffused light due to the cloud cover.

Photo taken this afternoon by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

p.s. The sun decided to show its face to us before 2pm today, old Sol decided to wake up nice and early by breaking through the clouds in the 8:30am time zone for the first time in over a month. Glory glory.

Photos by Ms. Jen taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sat 07.10.10 - Okay, so Old Sol did attempt to shine through the clouds for about 3.5 minutes during the 2pm hour this afternoon. It was a very short lived attempt at parting the heavy post-June Gloom maritime cloud layer that looked dark enough to rain not shine.

The rain came down north of here LA and Ventura. Oh, July, where art thou?

Photos taken by Ms. Jen today with her Nokia N86 camera phone.

Tues 07.06.10 - Two sides to a coin, possible paradoxes, and sisters in arms: fragile | tough, hope | courage, brittle | tears, anger | yearning.

To my two friends who are going through much travail this week, I walk with you in mourning, tears, and anger. I give you a big hug across the country. I wish I could be there.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86 this misty morning about 10:30am looking out from Seal Beach to Esther the Oil Platform.

Mon. 07.05.10 - Rarely does the Southern California's June Gloom last into July. Some years the marine layer of clouds will stubbornly persist in the mornings until the Fourth of July, but most years the Fourth of July dawns sunny and hot, not low, gray, looming clouds with a windy chill as yesterday's weather.

In the course of my living memory, there have only been two summers where the clouds stayed past noon and/or the clouds stayed all summer long, depressing many and causing tourists* to snark about "Sunny California".

The summer of 1983 had clouds that lasted well into July and it did not get good and sunny at the beaches until August. The winter of 1982/1983 was one of our biggest El Nino years in history and the following year was a La Nina year. The summer clouds created by the chillier than normal ocean & hot land foretold of the La Nina to come.

The summer of 1991 had clouds as far inland as Buena Park all summer long, while it was odd to be socked in with clouds 20 miles inland from the ocean in August, that was the year that Mt. Pinatubo blew it's top and created the 2nd biggest eruption in the 20th Century. But the early nineties were also a strong La Nina and California drought era.

In a year of drought, it can be a blessing to the parched hillsides to have clouds and a bit of mist over a hot, drying sun, even if it causes S.A.D. and cranky beach goers.

Scientists announced last month that this past year's El Nino had abated and that the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the Pacific has lower than normal temperatures and they declared 2010 to be a La Nina year. Or shall we also account Eyjafjallajökull's ashes to partially account for this year's extended June Gloom season in SoCal?

My bet to account for the longer than usual June Gloom this year is largely with La Nina with a possible sprinkling of volcano ashes. Regardless, this morning and yesterday morning had low lying clouds bordering on fog and the temperatures were in the 60s F / late teens C and not the 80s F.

Yesterday the sun finally burned the clouds off at 12:43pm and they did not return until after 5pm. Today we had a sprinkling rain most of the morning, the clouds didn't burn off until after 2pm and by 4:30pm the clouds had rolled back in.

Clouds most of the day with a fine misty morning? Who imported in a nice western Irish summer to Los Angeles?

;o)

* Dear tourists, please note that SoCal is at her *TRUE* glory from Jan 15 - March 15th. When your town is knee deep in with snow & cold, SoCal gets a storm or two that blows in, blows out, and leaves crystal clear, sunny days with snowy mountains. Our summer does not really start until July most years, and does not really heat up until August & September. Check Weather.com and book your holidays accordingly. kthnxbai.

Mon 06.21.10 - At the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, today was/is Midsummer, but here in the mid-latitudes (33N), today at 4:28am PDT marks the beginning of the summer season, or the summer solstice.

Now, the specific 33N mid-latitudes that I live in is the greater Los Angeles basin area, of which June 20/21st marks the end of the June Gloom season (May 1st - June 30th) and the start of the Mostly Consistently Sunny Season but before the start of the official Fire Season (Sept 15th - Oct 31st). Thus, Summer in other people's worlds.

Me, I am not so much of a fan of the season known as Summer, and I am even less a fan of the late Fire Season. I like my mostly consistently sunny season to be Dec 21st - March 15th. I like my sun to come with sharp, crisp chilly weather, not sweltering, stagnant hot weather.

I will leave the love of the hot to the folks of the higher northern latitudes who have a real winter and thus summer is a treat or to the folks of the equatorial latitudes for whom summer is year around and any drop below 68F/20C is FREEZING.

So how, some way, I will figure out how to spend Midsummer to late October north of the 55th parallel line next year. Some how, some way.

And to the rest of you, Happy Summer!

Photos of the USS Gridley Open House taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

One of the oddities about living a block away from a U.S. Navy base is that one never gets to go on base, there is a lot of open land, one is not allowed to take photos of anything behind the Navy chain link fence, and Naval ships come and go weekly from the dock in the Anaheim Bay.

Yesterday, Sat 06.19.10, I was driving home from taking Scruffy to Dog Beach, I saw a sign announcing "Open House" at the Seal Beach Blvd entrance to the Anaheim Bay dock area of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. I quickly turned in and asked the nice young lady in camoflague if the open house was for anyone or just for folks who had tickets, she let me know that it as for anyone.

I drove the block home, parked, rounded up my Mom and Magnolia, left Scruffy in the apartment, and off we walked over the Navy Open House. It was fun. I really like touring factories, monuments, dams, and large equipment (like a Navy destroyer).

The best part was having Magnolia along for the tour of the USS Gridley (aka #101), as a 4 year old is really the best person to share one's own childlike joy of such things with. Thanks, to my Mom & Magnolia for being willing to go on the spur of the moment tour of the USS Gridley.

As a side note, I would like to say that all the Navy folk who take shore leave in Seal Beach should wear their uniforms, as all the personnel looked lovely/handsome.

On the Left: 1950s/1960s photo from the Huntington Beach archives, On the Right: 2010 photo taken today by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Sun. 06.13.10 - Yesterday while researching my blog post on the century of oil wells & pumping in Seal Beach & Huntington Beach, California, I found the above left photo of oil wells as seen from the Huntington Beach Pier taken in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Today, I decided to drive down the pier before sunset and try to find the place the photo was taken and take another photo, on the right. The original must have been taken from the mid-pier lifeguard tower due to the angle, and I did not have access to the tower, so I took it from the place the ladies the in the original stood.

I wanted to have the photos show how much HB has appeared to change in the last 50 years, although underneath not as much. There is still oil being pumped in between and around the million dollar ocean view homes.

As I drove out of the parking lot just north of the pier, I decided to take a video, see below, as I drove north up Pacific Coast Highway to narrate both as a visual and verbal history what I know of the land between the Huntington Beach Pier and the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

There is still some visible oil pumping and drilling, but much of it is now hidden or expensive homes have been built over the capped wells. As one drives north on PCH from the HB Pier towards Bolsa Chica the oil rigs, wells, pipes, and tanks along the roadside become more visible to the watchful eye. Then as the road descends into the Bolsa Chica wetlands, the oil wells and pipes become highly visible on three of the four sides of the wetlands.

Please do read yesterday's blog post, On Offshore Oil, if you are wondering what I am talking about.

Photo taken this morning at Dog Beach by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

I have grown up in beach communities in Southern California to a surfing / beach volleyball mad family. Much of my memories & lessons of childhood revolves around sun, sand, a fierce ocean, jellyfish stings, riptides, and tar.

From my earliest memories, nail polish remover was for getting the black sticky tar off one's feet and it wasn't until I was older that I learned about enamel nail polish. As a child, little patches of tar washed up on the beach was objects of play, much like the ocean's version of play dough mashed up with silly putty. Except it only came in one color, black.

The landscape of my childhood is one of oil, oil rigs, oil donkeys/seesaw horsies, offshore oil islands & oil platforms. Southern California was just a string of Spanish missions and land grants running cattle until the discovery of oil and water. The offshore oil seeps and onshore tar pits of Los Angeles are thousands/millions of years old. Onshore and offshore oil made this town. William James Mullholland made sure that there was water for this town in the 1920s.

All my life there has been a give and take, sometimes shove and push, between the needs of the people and their need for oil to run a modern life in a semi-desert and the needs of the land and environment in California. For all of our "Land of the fruits & nuts" or "The Left Coast" or hippie environmental tree hugging, we here in California, and by California, I mean all of us, not just LA, but SF and the Central Valley, etc, we all rely on the wonders of the oil economy for our automobile based lifestyle, for our water to be pumped from the Sierra Nevada mountains, for our modern homes, the plastics that make our computers and devices, and on the list goes.

Yes, here in the western US, we have most of our electricity coming from hydropower and in the deserts of SoCal we are developing big solar farms, as well as big windmill farms in the passes between our mountains. But, a big but...

Both in SoCal and NorCal, we have built our cities on great ports with large docking for oil tankers, we have refineries that convert the oil to gasoline and other products. We build over the land that once contained many oil rigs and oil donkeys pumping oil out for our consumption, now we cleverly hide them with buildings. Or we take the rigs down, place them offshore, angle the drilling to pump into the same area, and then build million dollar homes over the land that has been soaked in oil for the last 100 years. Funny, those patches of land have some the highest rates of cancer in SoCal. Not so funny for the folks who bought the houses and let their children play in the backyards.

Layers of history. Layers of landscape. Layers of industry. Layers of suburbia. Layers of city over desert. Layers of tar washed up on the beaches.

Esther, Emma, Eva, Edith, Elly, Eureka, plus two more between Seal & Huntington Beaches and Catalina Island. I know their names, I am fond of them. Every couple of years one can surf the sand bar near Esther. Eva and Emma are just off of Dog Beach (see photo from this morning at the top). The big noisy diesel powered supply boat pulls out of the Seal Beach pier to run supplies and employees to the all the E's. Sometimes, when you are walking your dog early or late, you see dead tired, oil smeared men in dark work overalls carrying backpacks and hardhats as they walk down the pier to a waiting car on Ocean Ave coming home from a set of shifts on the E's.

I actually love Esther and Eva. I think they are lovely ladies, so gracefully raising from the Pacific Ocean only a mile or less off the coast. I love their bright white girders, their lights at dusk and night, and at 5am when I hear the supply boat take off from the pier, while the gunning of its engines wakes me up, I smile thinking of those men in their overalls going out to one of the ladies to bring up the crushed organic remains of 100s of millions of years old diatoms giving their ancient selves for our smog and melting glaciers.

Coal with enough time & pressure becomes diamonds, diatoms with the same time & pressure become black liquid diamonds.

Romantic pftuffle!

By age 9, I had learned that the lovely buildings on the islands in the Long Beach bay weren't modernist apartments for the terminally hip, but disney-esque facades for the oil rigs, platforms and pumping bound for Terminal Island. To this day, I still wish they were apartments for people and not for long dead diatoms.

If tomorrow Esther or Eva's wellhead blew out, the fix would be simpler than a deeper offshore rig as both of them sit on continental shelf that is less than a hundred feet in depth between the ocean floor and the top of the platform, possibly a bit more in Eva's case. Yes, it would be a tragedy, yes oil booms would be placed at the entrance of the Anaheim Bay and at the entrance of the Bolsa Chica wetlands to protect the precious Seal Beach & Bolsa Chica wetlands, bird & fish hatcheries. But there are already permanent floating booms at the Bolsa Chica wetlands, as they are still pumping oil on 3 of the four sides bordering the fish & bird protected areas. The wild lands have been in terse congress with the oil lands for many many years.

I haven't written about the DeepWater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf Coast yet, as I have been appalled at our collective hubris to think we could drill at depths of over 5,000 ft and horrified at the scale of the environmental disaster. All of my romanticism of the strange mix of industry and oil with the land has completely flattened and atomized by the magnitude of disaster that has been occurring in the Gulf of Mexico for the last 6 weeks.

I am horrified and saddened. Every time I see photos of birds or turtles encased in oil sludge and dying, I cry. I am not sure what else to write as my words are no sop to the enormity of tens of thousands of barrels of oil gushing from a high pressure wound in the ocean floor nearly a mile below the surface.

May this disaster be the catalyst to cause us to break up with our 150 year romance with oil, stop going back for more, and move on to sustainable forms of energy even if they are less sexy and more expensive than oil. Maybe it is time for humanity to return to a collective worship of the sun, the wind, and the waves rather than the vengeful mistress of black, black oil.

****

Follow-up Post: Following the Huntington Beach Oil Trails, a Tale of Two Photos

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Thurs 06.10.10 - Dinner with Thomas and Erika at La Dijonaise Cafe at the old Helms Bakery complex in Culver City. T&E were very patient with me as I snapped many photos trying to get the timing right of the flashing Helms Bakery neon sign.

The sign would rotate between a blank stage, a blue "Bakery", a blank stage, and then the red "Helms". The whole rotation of the four states/stages would take a little over 3 seconds but not a full four. I would wait for the blue stage, count 3 seconds, press the shutter and hope for the N86 snapping during the red stage.

I finally got the photo I wanted after the meal had been cleared away and we were finishing our wine. The meal was lovely.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Tues 05.08.10 - The magnolia tree sapling that got completely ran over and trapped under the runaway Volvo back in late March has now rebounded and is actually blossoming rather than dying as the city workers predicted it would do. It still has Volvo scars, but is thriving.

Go, little magnolia tree, go.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N900.

Thurs 05.27.10 - Compare the above photo with this one taken last week with my Nokia N86 8MP camera phone.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s at Irvine Regional Park.

Updated Wed 05.26.10 - I have been spelling the name of the "Tree Poppies" wrong, it is Matilija poppy. Oops.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Thurs 05.20.10 - Erika and Thomas just got back from three weeks in New Zealand, so Erika and I decided to meet up today to go for a long walk. When I arrived at her house, I suggested that since it was late May and the weather had started to warm up, that we should go to the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino to see if the Rose Garden was in full bloom.

Oh was it ever in full bloom! We came the very right week to see every rose bush in full, over the top, bloom. It was amazing. The afternoon was warm at 84F/29F, clear, and sunny. We walked purposefully around the Rose Garden, all the while sniffing the roses and taking photos.

Luckily, the Huntington was not very crowded. My suggestion is if you live in the LA area, go the Huntington in the next 3-4 days to see the roses at their first bloom peak. It is truly amazing.

And the lotus flowers in the Japanese, Chinese and North Lawn ponds/fountains are also in bloom.

Do go. It is lovely.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Tues 05.18.10 - I know in other places it rains in May and it is not a Big Deal, but here in Southern California our rainy season, really the only times it rains, is strictly defined as late fall through early spring (Nov to March). To get any rain after April 15th and before October 15th is a rarity that only happens every couple of years.

This El Nino year with the jetstream that has left Canada and remained hovered over San Francisco & Los Angeles has meant rain that just keeps coming. Now here in the LA area, we haven't had a ton of rain, not like in 1998 where we had over 30 inches, and while we have only had 2-3 inches over normal, what has been so surprising is just how often the storms have come through.

I don't mind it at all. We may have a terrible fire season in the late summer and through the autumn with all of the new rain inspired growth, but it has been delightful to have almost Seattle like green and mist. I and most of the local plants will enjoy it while we have it.

Tues 05.04.10 - This video would only be funnier if Mr. Kankkunen had driven circles around one the BMW driving clamshell phone talking idiots from my neighborhood.

One of the things that continually baffles me about the wealthy in SoCal is how they can afford the latest & greatest BMW, Mercedes, Range Rover, etc, but all seem to talk on clamshell phones with no bluetooth headset.

¿What?

How in the heck can one afford a $50-80K car but one's mobile is the cheap/free clamshell from _____ [insert name of carrier here] with no bluetooth or headset?

My mom posits that these folks don't care if they get pulled over for talking on their phones with no hands free because they can afford to pay the ticket. I still wonder why not spend an extra $300 and get a phone with bluetooth or a headset in the box. Idiots.

Now for me, I would spend the $$ for a real mobile and then get the Nokia Car Kit CK-200. But I am also not spending $50-80k on my car, or even a leased one.

>

I left Tues 4.20.10 in the morning and returned Thurs 4.22.10 in the evening. It was a very quick turn around time trip from Seal Beach to San Francisco to co-present with Cindy Li on Mobile UX for the UX Web Summit. I enjoyed the Summit, I enjoyed presenting on one of my favorite topics: designing for the mobile web, I enjoyed co-presenting with Cindy, I enjoyed seeing various friends, and I enjoyed my drive home with my brother, who happened to be in SF at the same time for work.

Big Thanks to Cindy Li and the Matt Harris for hosting me and having me at their apartment!

Wed 04.21.10 - FYI, I was a passenger.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

I am going to file this under the category of "oh, california" when really it should be under "oh, serendipity"....

This weekend is the annual Long Beach Grand Prix, of which I had forgotten about until this morning when I went to walk the dogs and could hear the sound of screaming engines 7 or so miles away across the Long Beach bay.

Mid-morning I got a call from my brother Joe, asking if I would pick him and his girlfriend, Christine, up and drop them off in downtown Long Beach so that they could go to the Grand Prix. Sure, I said. Off I went, picked them up and dropped them off in front of the Convention Center on Ocean Ave so they could buy tickets.

About 7:20pm, this evening, I got a call asking if I could pick them back up. This evening's pick up was a bit more elaborate as all of downtown was one big party zone, with streets blocked off and cops re-routing traffic. When I was finally able to get to Pine & 1st Street it was in the wrong direction from our pick up point and I had to yell out the open window of my car to Joe & Christine who were talking to another couple.

Luckily the light was red and they all ran across Pine Ave to jump in my car. All four of them. I was introduced to the other couple who needed a ride down to 2nd Street, which was on the way. The man of the couple was sitting in the middle and he looked vaguely familiar, when he spoke his voice was also familiar.

As we drove east on Ocean Ave down to 2nd Street, it came out that my passenger was a pilot for one of my favorite airlines and not just any pilot, but he flies two of the most prestigious routes LAX to Tokyo and LAX to LHR.

Yep, LAX to London-town, my favorite non-stop. I then asked, "Do you fly the flight that goes out of LAX at ____ and departs LHR at ______?"

He said, "That's my plane." He then went on to tell me various bits and ask when was the last time I flew that route, and yes he was the pilot on many of the flights that I have been on the last few years. We also agreed that the long-long haul flights should all have wifi and where he thought that flying economy was rough, I disagreed because I am short and if the airlines has a power port in economy, then I am happy, though I would be happier with wifi. etc.

I dropped him and his companion off at 2nd Street and said goodbye. As my brother, Christine, and I drove home, I geeked out and giggled a bit.

My brother, "Why are you so happy?"

Me, "Well, I love to fly to London. Love it. I love that flight and it is so nice to now have a person and a face to the faceless people behind the locked door flying the plane."

My brother, "Oh."

Me, "And best yet, it is much better to find out that one of your badass Glamis friends is my pilot on my favorite flight than some boring suburban dude, as he will most likely know exactly what to do in the case of an emergency."

My brother laughed at this.

No really, I love traveling but after 9-11 flying has gotten very un-fun, so it was delightful to meet a pilot who flies my favorite route between LAX and London who is a friend of the family and is a really nice, cool guy. A guy that was at the Grand Prix, a guy who is a part of my brother's Glamis pack of friends, a guy who pilots planes between LA and London and LA and Tokyo.

This makes me happy.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D300.

Sun 04.04.10 - Thomas Bertling kindly brought his Nikon D300 with the 18-200mm lens to my Easter party this afternoon so that I could try the camera out and see if I would want one. I do.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sun 03.28.10 - Last Sunday afternoon the whole of SoCal was socked in with a not so nice foggy inversion layer that obscured all visibility and foiled my plans to take Lloyd Davis around the Palos Verdes Peninsula to whale watch before dropping him off at LAX so he could fly home to London. We did drive from the Queen Mary to LAX via Pt. Fermin, Pt. Vincente and Palos Verdes Drive, but it was not the show stopping March day I was hoping for.

Seven days later, today, the show stopping, crystal clear, once in every five years, truly stunning Southern California day occurred. It was beyond warm, 82F at the beach and 88F just a few miles inland with very little breeze. The air was so clear that one could not only see all the canyons & green hills of Catalina Island (26 miles out to sea) but one could clearly see Mt. San Gorgonio & Mt. San Jacinto 70 something miles to the east with their mantles of snow.

Not a day to waste, so I packed up the film Nikon FM3a, the digital Nikon D70s, my brother's borrowed fancy binoculars, the Nokia N86, and off I went to drive Palos Verdes Drive around the peninsula to the Point Vincente Interpretive Center to see if there were any whales to be seen. The whole drive was packed out with Sunday sightseers and the hills were green and scattered with purple lupine and yellow mustard flowers.

When I got to Point Vincente, the whale watchers were out in force, from the hardcore with their expensive sight scopes to the families with binoculars. The best part is that 2 fin whales were with in eyesight distance about a mile offshore and a whole pod of common dolphins plus babies where only about 200 yds/m off the coast just beyond the kelp beds.

Between watching the fin whales breach, spout out water, flip their tail flukes and the antics of the baby dolphins plus the amazingly clear day, today was a true visual feast.

Happy Palm Sunday! Happy Spring! Happy Baby Dolphin Day!

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Sat 03.27.10 - I will let my Tweets & TwitPics from the Scene of the Big To Do speak for themselves:

4:45pm - http://twitpic.com/1beduk - This is exciting! Car crash on the Seal Beach greenbelt.

4:49pm - http://twitpic.com/1beeyk - Apparently driver told officer that it was an elderly Volvo acceleration issue. Who knew...

5:02 pm - Only injury is the young magnolia tree that the driver hit. AAA Tow truck now here to take the Volvo away.

5:16pm - http://twitpic.com/1bem55 - The tow truck driver was able to release the car from the clutches of the mangled bench & drive it off the green

Update from Sun 03.28.10 around 11am or thereabouts - http://twitpic.com/1bkmjc - The city put the magnolia tree back up, even though it is has black tire marks & broken branches.

Photo of California Poppies taken on Mon 03.22.10 by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Spring sprung on Sat March 20th, 2010. Due to the big family event, I didn't wish all of you Happy Spring and Happy Nowruz on Saturday, so I shall wish Happy Spring to you now.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Tues 03.02.10 - Photo taken on my morning walk with Scruffy McDoglet, the sky was heavy with storm clouds over the land, but clearing up out near Catalina Island, so if you look closely the big, tall automobile carrier ship out in the bay has sunlight glinting off of it.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Sun 02.07.10 - For some folks this may have been the day of men in lots of plastic armor running up against each other in some sort of bowl type object, for other folks, particularly the ones in Southern California today was a truly lovely, sunny, clear day after another good rain storm.

As the first Sunday in February, today did a very good job in the sunny, kinda warm, but lots of flowers department. The local ornamental pear trees have been blooming for the last week and they are in full bloom now.

As for the men in plastic armor assaulting each other today for some sort of trophy, well, I am sure some of them won and others did not. I didn't watch them. Instead, I walked the dogs, went to the Long Beach Marina farmers market, took photos, baked a chicken and some root vegetables, and otherwise enjoyed a fine fine Sunday.

I owe y'all my wrap up post about the Nokia Booklet 3G, which I can summarize here: Ubuntu works as a dual book when installed via Wubi, although as of right now, the proper screen resolution does not work reliably; I tried to install Jolicloud last week but it would never download all the way but would stall about 1/4 into the download; and last but not least, I actually found a use for the Windows side of the Booklet, which was to update various Nokia devices with Ovi Suite, until Ovi Suite decided to go dicey on me and stop.

Tomorrow is a big work day but after I have tied up all the little code ends for the final client wrap up on Tuesday, I hope to do a proper write up about the Booklet Day 14.