The focus is red wine and to get right to it without distraction, click The Wine Commonsewer Speaks. The rest of the enchilada is just enough of an
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Hollywood Boulevard, looking east toward the most recognizable intersection in the world, Hollywood & Vine, circa 1948. The Art DecoKress building on the right was the international headquarters of legendary Frederick's of Hollywood from 1949 until 2008. The Kress was a chic night club for a short time. The building is currently vacant and for sale. In the distant right, as large as a hotel, is the Hollywood Broadway department store.
As Always,
TWC
Image scanned from a Kodachrome slide and appears courtesy of Vintage Los Angeles & Arnold Hylen Archives. Mr Hylen documented much of pre-freeway LA on film.
30) NO. It replaces money in the general fund that Moonbeam moved elsewhere. There is NO NEW MONEY FOR SCHOOLS in this proposal.
31) I Don't Care if the state budget is a two year or one year budget, those boneheads will screw it up.
2) YES. Public employee unions have pretty much destroyed this state. Get them out of politics.
33) YES Allows good driver discounts to apply when you change car insurance providers.
34) YES Gets rid of the death penalty. We spend billions of dollars on unending appeals and never execute anyone. Waste of money. Let's stop the charade.
35) NO. Human trafficking is awful. It is also already illegal. This is a basket of worms and won't help.
36) YES. Modifies Three Strikes to apply to violent felonies not shoplifting.
37) NO. Another basket of worms. Pragmatically, the GMO labeling will end up having the same effect as these Prop 65 signs do:
38) NO. We spend over $300,000.00 per classroom each year on education, yet teachers and parents are buying crayons and copy paper at Staples so the kids can have classroom supplies. Half the money spent on education goes to administrative costs. The schools don't need more money, they need to stop flushing money down the toilet.
SIDEBAR: Munger's ballot measure (38) would raise more money than Moonbeam's Prop 30 and put it ALL in the classroom. Ask yourselves why the teacher unions support Prop 30. Hint: It ain't about the kids.
39. NO. Always vote no on tax increases. If enacted, the higher taxes will be used to fund new, Solyndra type alternative energy projects and NOT to reduce the deficit or to cover regular state spending.
40. YES. Not that redistricting will help much. But maybe.
The traffic was jacked up on El Cerrito after I dumped the House Blond at school, so I zipped up the onramp and ended up behind a tractor trailer rig hauling decomposing bodies. The unbearable stench set up a roiling in my nether regions that took hard work to keep down. No place to go, neither, I was hemmed in and mine was the next exit anyway. Worse, there was body fluids leaking from the ass end of the trailer that threw a fine mist onto the front end of Mrs TWC's freshly laundered Hamster Car.
Dude, I was half way up the hill, with all four windows down, before I could breath normally again. I'm tellin' you what.....it was a ghastly, cookie-tossing, rotting corpse kind of smell. Anyone who has ever caught a whiff of a dead body after three days in the desert heat knows exactly what I mean. I guess you figured out by now that the car got the second bath of the week this morning.
In Other News:
The heat wave evaporated and the temps dropped twenty degrees since I hiked out to this ridge with the dogs early Wednesday morning.
Those familiar with So Cal might recognize the back (east) side of Saddleback. At an elevation cloes to 5,700 feet, it is the highest peak in Orange County. The civilization at the base of the mountains is, from right to left, Eagle Glen, Dos Lagos, Trilogy, and Sycamore Creek.
Daisy was baked when we got back and she simply clumb* right into the 100 gallon water trough I keep the animals. That dog loves her some water.
The 4X6 is for the cats to stand on when they get a drink.
Even though our serial arsonist is on death row at San Quentin, it still seems that we can't have three decent days in row without wildfire. And it ain't even hot yet. Been breezy and cool. I suppose it's a function of population density and dry chaparral.
Fire across Lake Mathews burning near Tin Mine Road taken from my bedroom deck. The smoke is about four miles away.
The old tin mines in this area provided a significant amount of tin production in the US for decades. I'm thinking arson or off-roaders.
The pilots amaze me. Awesome is an overused term but they do an awesome job under incredible stress. Yes, those are high tension electric lines. I believe this is a Huey Twin 212. Maybe one of you plane guys can verify or correct that.
These things can suck up 300 gallons of water in about a minute.
This plane drops plumes of pink fire retardent that looks similar to pink slime. It appears to be a Lockheed P-2 Neptune. Again, I ain't a plane guy, so corrections are welcomed.
As of 9:00 PDT the fire appears out, though I can see a few flashing lights with binoculars.
Happened to glance out the window Monday morning and thought the light was kind of interesting. You are looking at the Lake Mathews Estelle Mountain nature reserve, which encompasses most of the open area and then arcs around to the left. several miles further out, at the base of hills, lies Corona, California.
Box Spring Mountain is at the east end of March Air Force Base near the intersection of I-215 and I-60 in Moreno Valley. The mountain is only red in the setting sun for a few minutes on certain clear evenings. It is about fifteen miles southeast of Casa de las Rocas Grandes, humble abode of TWC.
The Disney Wonder (Dude, that's a stupid name for a ship) is 964 feet long with 11 decks. It takes 950 crew members to keep 2,700 passengers happy.
The Diz is cruising out to open sea from the Port of Los Angeles. We happened to be in the bar at the Ports O'Call restaurant with my old buddy Chuck and his better half, waiting for El Jeronimo de Crow to take the plunge. Again. And, there it was. An impressive sight.
Decks crowded. Music playing. When the escort boats called out their well wishes, a deafening cheer went up. Apparently it isn't really 1933. Either that, or these guys plan to just keep dancing.
Yesterday it was still summer. Mr Sun convinced TWC that the shirt needed to come off for the duration of his morning constitutional. This morning it looks like rain in Cherry Blossom Lane. Tomorrow winter will arrive. Not real winter, but So Cal winter with blustery winds, some driving rain, and temps in the forties. It's early but welcome.
That's not a polo field, it's algae. Pond scum, if you will. And Daisy Doo was sweltering and went for a swim. I was against it but she didn't listen. Stubborn dam dog sometimes. She came home green and slimed the back end of the politically incorrect pick up truck that's made in America. Took moi a good twenty minutes to hose her off. Apparently algae is composed of thousands of little leaf-like green things that are about the size of thyme leaf. For a dog who loves water, she sure hates the hose.
You can buy that lake and the surrounding 38 acres for a mere 1.5 million Simoleons. Course it will be your problem to keep the off roaders out. Good luck with that.
TWC understands why people use a treadmill, he spent an hour on the treadmill this morning hisself. I'm thinkin' yours may be more hi-tech.
Though not oppressive, the heat was evident early. Hot and silent. No off-roaders, no shooters, no booming bass, nobody. Except for a few industrious water bugs and five or six straggler bees, none of the local wildlife disturbed the cool quiet of the creek bottom, which lies in the shade cast by sixty foot sycamores and spreading oaks that were already old a century ago
Over there in the light is mostly poison oak. Hot tip: don't go to the light. My dad is so allergic to poison oak that if he even looks at it he ends up doing a very believable impression of a third-degree burn victim
Best thing about my gym is that Blackie can use the treadmill right near the drinking fountain.
