Blog Digests

July 21, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I just wanted to mention that I love what Jonah's doing over at LA Blogs with the twice daily "blog digests." He's pulling together a nice little sampling of all the updates that pass through the left side of the page. For someone who's already done so much to bring the local blogging scene together, putting these things together twice a day is definitely going above and beyond.

Music: More Anna Nalick Info

July 21, 2004 by Eric Richardson

A year ago I mentioned seeing Anna Nalick play at the Hotel Cafe. I've been away from the computer so much these last few days that I've been slow to post this, but I got an email last week from "Anna Nalick's (proud) aunt." I love getting emails from musician's families that find my site. It makes me feel important somehow.

Anyway, Anna's aunt confirmed the Columbia deal signed last October and added that it's a three album deal, of which one album is in the can as of February (to use the film terminology... it means the film's been shot. what's the music equivalent?). There's also a new official website, though it's only really a mailing list signup at the moment. The album is titled "Wreck of the Day", and the first single "Breathe" should be released in August with the album following in October. To quote a little from her Aunt again:

She writes all her own lyrics and music and, as you'll see in the next few months, she is really talented. On top of that, she is just an awesome human being. We all have great hopes for her success in the music world!!

From the little I saw a year ago I definitely agree that she's got the talent, and I too wish her the best of luck in the ever-tough music world. LA's a tough place to play, and it's always good to see someone come up and have a chance to make it.

Update (2004/07/22): Just some minor changes. Album title is "Wreck of the Day," as I had written earlier. Release date has been bumped back, with the date right now being October 26. Anna's about to embark on a three week radio tour, so hopefully the official mailing list will have some locations for that.

Final Chapter of the Play-by-Play

July 21, 2004 by Eric Richardson

As promised, here's the last installation listing all the things my mom and I did while she was out here visiting. We've already made it through Sunday night, so we'll start this chapter Monday morning. I'm still going for the bullet point approach, since it's quick and I've got a lot to catch up on today.

• Monday morning we slept in a bit, then I picked her up around 11 and we made the quick drive up to JPL. I've been there a year and a half now, so we figured it was probably time for a family member to actually see where I work. My boss gave a little tour around my group, and then after eating lunch we made our way down to the auditorium and caught onto a lab tour that was just starting out from there.

• After that we started out about 3pm and took a hike in the mountains behind the lab. We only went to Paul Little picnic area, but the 4.2 mile or so round trip was all we could fit in before dark.

• Monday night we picked Miggles up from my apartment and made our way out to Venice for dinner at C&O Trattoria. It was a mixed-emotion visit to an old favorite, though I have to hold off judgement before I can say if it was an aberation or a trend. The food's still as great and plentiful as it ever was, but prices are up and a couple of little things just seemed a little off to me. Still a great value and great left-overs, just not quite the steal it once was.

• Tuesday morning I picked my mom up and brought her back downtown. We walked over to the LA Flower District and made our way through an amazing array of plants and blooms.

• Lunch was at the Angelique Cafe, which I've mentioned before. Good as always, and I've still got a half a steak sandwich sitting in my refrigerator next to the leftover pasta.

• After lunch we did a little shopping, never wandering more than a block from my apartment, but still managing to find everything we were looking for. My mom bought a big piece of rolling luggage for a little under $20, and I picked up a vacuum for $50.

• A little break at the apartment to watch the Cubs blow their game against the Cardinals, and then the three of us got in the car and took a little drive down Wilshire, turning north on Western and making our way into Griffith Park. We wound around hills, climbing via car to the observatory. There we exited the car to take in the view, one thing led to another, and eventually we were climbing Mt. Hollywood. While on the summit I got invited to Def Con, which would be weird anywhere but in LA. Here anything goes. I won't be heading to Vegas this week, though I might take up an offer to get comp'ed into ApacheCon later this fall.

• Back to my apartment for leftovers, and then over to Kathy's (where my mom was staying) for me to get a bit of a hair cut.

• Our final trip was over to Westwood to pay a stop at Diddy Reese for some ice cream sandwich goodness.

United's flight tracker shows my mom's plane to be leaving any minute now, so I think that wraps things up. It was a busy five days, but they were good ones.

WIFI: Panera Bread near LAX

July 21, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Life should get a little back to normal now. I just dropped my mom off at the airport after a fun 5-day visit, and now I'm sitting at the Panera Bread near LAX. WIFI connectivity is great and worked right away. The store has a lack of power for the most part, but there's a seat I'm eying that may well even fill that need too. Not that big of a deal, though, as the plan is to work here for a few hours and then head right down the coast to Manhattan Beach for a few of the peak sun hours.

All in all a great place to hang out for a while if you ever find yourself near LAX in the morning hours (South Bay Galleria and its Chick-fil-A would be my choice once you hit lunch).

saturday and sunday

July 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

As I continue with the play-by-play of what my mom and I have been up to since she's been out here, I'm still holding to the short summaries. I will come back and fill in details for a few of these as I get time in the upcoming days. We pick up the tale Saturday afternoon.

• Saturday afternoon included my customary trip over to the Bonaventure Hotel to ride up and down the glass elevators. It's a fun view, and it's close and free.

• Saturday evening we had dinner at Border Grill in Santa Monica. Very good food, and reasonable given the $20 off coupon we had (thank you Last Remaining Seats). Afterward we walked over to the park overlooking the ocean, and were there around sunset; though the sun had already gone behind the hills to the north there was lots of color to be had.

• Sunday morning we went to Bel Air Presbyterian for the 11am service, and afterward looked off the hill at the plume of smoke rising from the Santa Clarita fire.

• From there we made our way down the 405 to Manhattan Beach, where we walked around for a while. Lunch was at Wahoo's, since you don't really ever see a fish taco in the midwest.

• From Manhattan Beach we headed slightly north, ended up at Lickity Split in El Segundo. I had peppermint while my mom had chocolate.

• Sunday evening we had dinner at Water Grill, just around the corner on Grand just north of 6th. It was everything you expect a high-class resturant to be. We started by splitting Clam Chowder and crab cake (Water Grill kindly brought the clam chowder in two bowls). The clam chowder had real clams in it. For a main course I had the Rhode Island hook and line striped bass, while my mom had the Alaskan troll caught king salmon (as you can see the menu was very descriptive of where and how each fish was caught). Both were amazing. Dessert was a chocolate truffle tart with ice cream on top.

I'll leave off here, and pick up with Monday later on today.

go go go

July 17, 2004 by Eric Richardson

My mom arrived yesterday morning, and it's already been a packed day and a half. I'm a little tired, so I'm not going to post a full review right now, but here's what we've hit:

• The Natural History Museum, which I had seen in June. I wanted my mom to see the LA: Light/Motion/Dreams exhibit and the model of downtown.

• The California Science Center to see Body Worlds. Crazy.

• The Koo Koo Roo on Wilshire to eat and then next door to see the tar pit.

• The Grove, including a great view from the top of its 8-story parking garage. The skies were clear and the view included the Hollywood sign, downtown, and the trail of buildings that follow Wilshire down to Century City and beyond.

• The Hard Rock Cafe to see the retooled lineup of Yardley.

• Today, a morning LA Conservancy walking tour of historic Broadway theaters. We were able to see inside five or so theaters and to hear the organ played at the Orpheum.

• Lunch at Cole's, claimed originator of the french dip sandwich.

weekends downtown

July 15, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Yesterday there was a post on blogging.la asking the oft heard question:

So, blogging.la, what would you say is "The" Los Angeles attraction that must not be missed?

In the comments be sure to look for the suggestions of Will Campbell. His day plan sounds tiring, but amazing.

But then you get a couple comments by "Mike", derriding other suggestions in favor of just going surfing (not bad in and of itself, but in his context a bad comment). One of his comments includes

Have you been downtown on a weekend? Did you like sharing your lunch with the 20 homeless guys sitting next to you?

Funny thing about that... One of the most surprising things to me about moving downtown was that downtown on a weekend is absolutely packed. I live on Spring, between 6th and 7th. One block west is Broadway, where Will suggests seeing the old theaters. Broadway these days is home to a huge range of shops selling cheap clothing, electronics, basically anything you can imagine. And on the weekends people come there in droves. D4 and I walked up the street to Grand Central Market this past Saturday, and the sidwalks were so full it was hard to get around.

Yeah, you'll definitely see the homeless people around there at night once the shops close, but during the day you're going to have a tough time picking them out from the mass of other people milling about.

speaking of downtown

July 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson

While I'm on the topic, downtown blogger Jim Winstead has for a while now been doing some figuring and running the numbers on what it would take to open a video rental store in the area. Downtown is largely berift of options in that regard, and while being able to get DVDs from the library is cool, their selection is way too odd to be of regular help. Anyway, after thinking he wasn't up to it, he did end up going to home entertainment 2004 is Las Vegas.

The building next door to me has some empty storefront space, and in the window is a sign that includes a bit about how residents would like to see a gallery or video store (paraphrasing since I'm at work right now). You'd like to think that with the influx of population and apparent interest someone could make the numbers work.

the ever-evolving downtown

July 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Last week I mentioned that some days my bike ride seems a lot tougher than others. Today it was a breeze.

The L.A. Times today has an article titled "Developers Set to Start Staples Center Project." It talks about the upcoming start of construction on LA Live, the massive entertainment/hotel/housing/shopping project to be built on the north side of Staples Center. The hotel aspect is one of the focal points of the project, and the article today lists a detail I hadn't seen before:

As planned, the 1,200-room hotel is expected to include three components in one high-rise of as many as 55 stories: * 900 guest rooms and the largest meeting space in Los Angeles County under one hotel brand. * 300 rooms above those, under the flag of another, higher-end hotel chain. * As many as 100 luxury condominiums at the very top of the building.

The whole stacked-use concept is kind of cool. I realize the hotels will probably share a lot of management and infrastructure, and so really won't be entirely separate, but it's still kind of funky having two hotels in the same building. And as everything downtown right now, it includes a large dose of housing. The city of LA recently launched a map of adaptive reuse projects downtown, and it's pretty crazy to see graphically what you sort of understand walking around the area. Just the "Under Construction" category includes 2,551 units.

It's a fun time to be downtown.

Update: The Daily News has this similar story that includes some artist's conception drawings of the LA Live project.

handsome devil

July 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

As I'm writing this Morning Becomes Eclectic is playing "Tennessee Wedding" by Jim Bianco. I'm loving it. Jim Bianco is amazing. His next local show is the LA cd release party at the Knitting Factory on July 29th.

four whole years

July 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Looking at my On This Date... I see a post telling me that today is the 4th anniversary of the release of eThreads 1.2. That is, as I've mentioned, the most recent release. Yikes. Four years.

smart, sgi, smart

July 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson

I mentioned last month that I had picked up an Indigo while up in the Bay area. Sunday night a 13W3 SGI monitor out here, so all the pieces were in place to give it a shot at booting up. I thought I was going to have to find an old, big external SCSI cable, but then last night I realized I had one under my bed, so that wasn't really an issue. What is an issue, though, is this error:

Initializing tod clock
setting secs=0 min=0 hour=0 day=1 month=1 year=0
Can't set tod clock

And repeat, ad infinitum.

Apparently if the clock battery on the Indigo motherboard goes dead, it won't boot at all. This flies in the face of logic and even of other SGI behaviour (my Personal IRIS has had a dead clock battery since I got it. On boot it sets the clock to the latest file timestamp on the drive). I think the box is an R4K, which means the battery's soldered onto the mobo. This guy says it's an easy connection, so I'll have to break out the soldering iron and see what happens.