Body Parts

Posing for Photographs, Muscle Contest, Culver City, California

 

Southern California Spring Exuberance: Quadruple Amarillis

 

After Six Days of Rain, We See Our First Morning Sun

 

Click on picture for a larger image in a popup window.

When I took this photo, the mood I wanted to express was similar to the Victorian theme of hope amid the gloom of ruined castles or archaeological sites, as the engraving below of Alisby's Castle:

 

Early Morning After A Hard Night's Rain

It rains in Southern California, turning the landscape into a scene in England.

 

Click on picture for a larger image in a pop-up window.

How Does A Company Decide Whether To Remain In California?

Companies evaluate where to locate or re-locate their operations all the time. Many considerations enter into their decisions. The Orange County Register discusses the deliberations now being undertaken by a local manufacturing company on whether to leave California for another state. So far in 2010, 158 companies have left California. A very useful article.

(H/T Carpe Diem)

Whoa. What the Hell ... ? What Just Happened Here?

A white car just pulled up in front of our house. About forty feet away. Two people in front. The passenger is gesticulating wildly with her hands. A heavy white woman with short black hair gets out of the driver's side and goes to the back of the car. She opens the trunk. What the hell ... ? She's putting on, what appears to be from this distance, a bullet-proof vest. She doesn't appear to be police. She gets back into the car. She drives away.

Ah, Weather in SoCal

A sweater is the baked macaroni and cheese of cool weather.

What Does U6 of 17.1% in California Really Mean?

It means, for one thing, little businesses are on the verge of going out of business and are running out of time. I go to a vacuum cleaner repair shop, which has been located in a busy thoroughfare for decades, to buy replacement bags for my Royal upright vacuum cleaner. A one-man shop. Walls lined with photographs and yellowing newspaper articles about his customers and his family. I purchase the bags, nine of them for a little less than a dollar apiece. I ask if he takes debit cards. He says, he doesn't take debit or credit cards [any longer]. "Business gets slower and slower. I don't dare take cards [because of the transaction fees]". I pay cash. His cash register malfunctions as he obtains a few cents of change. "I'll fix anything," he said as I glanced around little reception room, with a half dozen repaired machines awaiting customer pick-up. "Recently, I fixed a curling iron."

Many people who repair their appliances, rather than buying new replacements, don't even have the money to repair them.

California's Green Movement Has Ruptured The State's Economy

Regulations, taxation, land development restrictions, state subsidies ... for a green economy. And California gets merely 1 per cent of its jobs as green; meanwhile, for every 3 companies that move to California, 100 companies leave. Governor's Office study estimates that green regulations have cost $176 billion in lost output and 4 million lost jobs.

Rain

I am typing at my desk by an opened window. It is almost eleven in the evening. The thunder storm has broken the humidity of the past several days. It is raining. I am listening to the rain patter on the leaves of the small tree growing a few feet away. The air smells of chocolate. Nothing is ironic.