One late night on my drive home, traffic suddenly came to a standstill on the 405 North. (Read the story here.)
The ambulance arrives on the scene…
After an hour of waiting, many got impatient and started to back out, including this limo.
limo backing down shoulder of highway from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
photo credit: Chris Doolittle
Firefighters in California have adopted a fire suppression policy for over a century now, which works very effectively in the underbrush type fires of Northern California, but do very little to stop the brush type fires of Southern California. In fact, wildfires are still occurring increasingly year after year, with over 99% of the ones in coastal Southern California started by human activity. It’s not just an issue of how we fight the fires; it’s how we prepare ourselves to prevent the fires.
Much of the problem arises with urban sprawl. As our communities push further out into the undeveloped land surrounding us, we not only put ourselves at risk of being in the path of a wildfire, we are more in danger of starting them. Since fires are something humans feel they can control, more or less, there is often a misconception that we can just stop the unwanted ones from happening. However, that is not the case, especially since our homes are teeming with highly flammable materials, including the very palm trees swaying our backyards. Fires are bound to break out, whether caused by humans or nature.
So, we should follow Dr. Jon E. Keeley’s advice: think of wildfires like we do of earthquakes. We certainly don’t go around trying to patch up the San Andreas Fault, and neither should we try to stop all the brushfires from igniting. As a matter of fact, in a study conducted by Keeley and Fotheringham in 2000, they found that chaparrals (native plants in Southern California) need periodic wildfires to help their seedlings grow! It’s actually the smoke and chemicals from charred wood that allow the seeds of chaparral to germinate, otherwise they lay dormant.
Chapparals have adapted to the wildfires that swept the area every decade or two and now need them to continue to survive. That’s not to say that the increased frequency of wildfires is a good thing, though! When fires occur too frequently, native chaparrals die before they get a chance to recover and soon the hillsides are replaced by non-native weeds and dry vegetation. These new plants are far less resistant to burning, increasing the frequency of fires, which spread to kill off even more native plants. And thus the cycle continues, to the point that of the nine megafires (fires that burned more than 100,000 acres) in the past century, half occurred in just the last six years.
So how should we deal with the wildfires? Well, to start off with, it would be smart to NOT build homes and developments in high-risk areas, which experts have identified. Then, for those homes that are already on the fringe of wild land, clear out the vegetation in a 100-yard radius. Also, homeowners should be cognizant of the materials in and around their homes. Palm trees in particular are dangerous because they are extremely flammable. Embers flying from a burning palm tree in your yard could then ignite a fire on nearby structures. Finally, we should accept that wildfires are part of the cycle of life for our local vegetation and have a plan like we do for earthquakes.
To learn more, check out Dr. Keeley’s Oppenheim Lecture Series presentation.
When the rains come to LA, it sure does dampen the place. Check out the dense fog that covered us for a week!
Visibility sucks and drivers get even worse than they already were.
I don't even know how much more of that hill there might be.
The world beyond is veiled...
Oh, dreary days!
I love my alma mater. This is how we get into the spirit for sports games:
1. Get pumped up listening to the UCLA Bruins Marching Band.
how far we’ve come, bruin style from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
2. Go to the Rose Bowl and be entertained as Red Bull parachuters wind their way down from the sky.
redbull parachuters from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
3. Cheer your team to touchdowns (and dance along with Joe and Josie Bruin).
ucla touchdown from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
4. Enjoy a lovely halftime show, including a showdown between some young’uns.
little footballers from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
5. Celebrate a victory where the lights of the Rose Bowl are turned off just so we can do an 8-clap in the dark.
rose bowl dark from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
6. Round off the night with a firework show!
rose bowl fireworks from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Oh the funny things you find while driving…
Whatever was that for?
Good to know, in case I wanted to break in and have some of that...
Such a bright green color!
I’ve been looking through some of the Bloggie nominees and I found that I have no interest in the food or travel blogs. Ironic, since I love food and travel! But I think that is precisely the problem, actually. Rather than looking at pictures and videos of other people enjoying eating delectable dishes and fantastic adventures, I’d much prefer to be the one doing those things! So maybe it’s in part jealousy, but mostly it is just the fact that I’d rather go discover it myself. I don’t want to live vicariously through these other people having a great time when I could be the one loving life like that.
Food blogs are great for those who want to be shown new foods to try, how to cook cool things, or just love to look at food. Food blogs are not good for those who want to discover the great edible things out there themselves, don’t care much for cooking, or see images of food and must go eat. Now. Can you guess what type I am? I absolutely love to take pictures of my food and share it with my friends. I quite like seeing their pictures. However, reading a blog with pictures and extensive descriptions takes up too much time when I could be at a restaurant or little street stall, munching away. So though they could come in as a useful reference if I’m really having trouble finding something to eat (ha!), food blogs are generally not worth the effort to me (except in times when I miss something and just can’t find it in LA, or whichever city I’m in).
Travel blogs are great for those who can’t go and want to see what it’s like, don’t want to actually go but want to see what it’s like, or are about to go and want to see what it’s like in a new place. Travel blogs aren’t ideal for people who can travel (just not at this exact moment) and experience things themselves, don’t care about traveling at all, or want to find their way around a new city themselves. Though I can’t make it out to a far-away city right now, it’s certainly within my means in the near future and I like to not really know what it’s like til I get there and I look up places of interest, or talk to locals and recent visitors who can share their wisdom. I don’t want to spend my time hearing about other people’s travels because I want to be traveling.
Generally I’m obsessed with researching ahead of time, but when it comes to traveling, I am perfectly content with vaguely knowing what a country is like, showing up, and finding some really awesome experiences. I also seem to have random run-ins with locals. And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Once again, I find that I would prefer to just use these types of blogs as references (aka: “Hey, I want to go to [insert country/city here], I wonder what random things they have to do there?” *searches entries on travel blog and glances through titles and tags* “Ah, ok, got an idea, let’s go!”). Beyond giving me an idea of what’s available, especially obscure stuff, it doesn’t interest me to frequent those type of blogs. Let those people enjoy their travels and share it with those who want to hear about it! I want to go out and do it too, without tainting the experience with too much foreknowledge!
So really, it just comes down to me not wanting to live a vicarious life. Why do that when you can be the one sharing your experiences? As my friend Ninja once said, I want to live a life worth making a movie about (or writing a book about, in my case). You can’t do that if you’re too busy cooped up reading about other people’s lives! Not that those blogs aren’t great for certain crowds. I just find that I don’t belong in the particular group that reads food and travel blogs, that’s all. 🙂
What about you? Do you like to safely follow the lives of those more adventurous than you? Or do you prefer to go have the adventures yourself?
When I was working at the Venice Whole Foods this past Monday, I was heading to get my car from street parking and bring it back to the lot so I could load up my equipment after my demo when I lost my iPod touch. (More on this part-time job I’ve worked on and off for a couple of years in a future post.) The last time I remember seeing it was when I was holding it in my hand walking to the car. By the time I realized it was gone, I had driven the car to the lot, packed up in the store, and started to take my stuff out to the car. It could have been anywhere along my walk to the car, inside the car, or in the store! I retraced my steps again and again, hoping to see a little black pouch lying somewhere, but had no such luck. I checked with Customer Service and nobody had turned it in, so I went around for another try, even checking my bag of used cups to see if it dropped in there while I was cleaning up.
I held out hope for a couple of hours, though I sort of knew that if I hadn’t found it by then, with my extensive efforts, it was probably already taken by someone or otherwise lost to me forever. I spent quite some time looking up ways to track it down, but for all that effort it seemed that it wasn’t worth it. Even if I were to track it, it’s impossibly hard to get back if someone really did take it. By the next day, when I called to see if anyone turned it in, I pretty much knew the answer. I also figured that it was pretty easy to figure out how to contact me if someone had it and intended on returning it, so if I hadn’t heard from anyone, it seemed a lost cause. However, just to confirm, I also did a complete clean of the car to make sure before I committed myself to getting a new one.
Now I’ve ordered myself a brand new one, complete with engraving on the back that includes this web address, so anyone who finds it and wants to return it can do so easily. I can happily use a passcode without worrying that the person would never be able to figure out how to get it back to me. I’m also getting iHound, which will help ease my peace of mind in case I do misplace it again. Now I just need to figure out how to make sure that if someone has my iPod, they don’t start using my accounts… so far no suspicious activity and no important information was stored in there. Does signing in to an app on one device sign you out from the other? If it’s that simple, I’ll just sign in to everything when I get the new one. Whatever the case, I have now taken measures to be much safer with my information. And of course, I will try not to lose this one… it’s the first electronic device I’ve lost! 🙁
Check out when I first got it… ironically, I ended up hardly ever using it to listen to music.
Now that the weather has cleared up in LA, things are looking beautiful! Click on the pictures to see a larger size.
All the rainfall meant plenty of snow those mountains!
I loved the red-roofed set of buildings, the freshly green hills, and the snowy white mountain range beyond.
From my backyard, without a zoom, this is the view you get.
The cover for our hot tub was covered in frost in the morning!
Check out the detail of the little ice bits.
I love when the air is crisper and cleaner. LA without smog is fabulous. Everything looks so much brighter now!
I wanted to do a “real” video blog today – you know the type where it’s a webcam shot of someone talking at you? Well, turns out when I upgraded to Windows 7, I lost all the pre-installed programs so now I don’t have anything to record on my webcam with. Until I figure out what software I need or find a different program that can do that for me, you’ll just have to make do with watching me enjoy the kick of this rifle.
rifling it from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Well, what an intense night it was, what with an electrical transformer exploding underground, shaking the buildings in the Glenrock meets Levering intersection. Panda and I were happily enjoying our dinners when I swear, the entire building swayed a few feet and then snapped back to its normal position. For some reason, I thought it was something like a dumpster that got rolled off the roof. It certainly sounded like it, but the movement of the building only made sense in retrospect, when we found out that it was due to an explosion. The boom was louder than the sonic boom we’d experienced back in August or so (then again, that sonic boom came from veeery far away). At first we weren’t sure what to do and I peeked out the porch to hear car alarms going off. Panda called up a coworker and then reported it to the police, who’d gotten wind of it just minutes earlier.
As Apartment Coordinator, it was his duty to make sure his residents were alright and go find out if we needed to be evacuated or anything like that. So, we headed out to see what the commotion was all about. I went straight outside to take pictures, hoping to practice my photography skills in the dark! Out on the street, people were all gathered staring at the steam (and smoke?) rising from a manhole in the ground. Let me tell the rest of the story with pictures… (click pictures for full size)
This is the scene we were greeted with not long after the explosion. The steam is rising from the manhole that got blown off.
You can see across the street all the people who gathered before we were all chased away.
The ambulance quickly found that nobody was injured, thankfully.
The ambulance soon gave way to the firetruck, which lent its hose to the efforts. Apparently there was a bit of a fire going on underground.
The police came and blocked off Levering at Midvale so cars wouldn't drive down towards the mess.
People kind of just stood around dumbfounded as they talked to each other trying to figure out what happened.
After the people were cleared, the firefighters huddled up to plan what to do.
The firetruck served a dual purpose of providing a hose and blocking off traffic.
I never saw what they used this hose for, but I guess they needed it underground to fight the fire the transformer set.
And so it wound its way down to the scene of the action.
A policeman on scene as watch guard, probably to keep pedestrians from getting too close.
I loved the backdrop of the skyline juxtaposed against the bright lights below.
Residents nearby were startled not only by the boom of the explosion, but their glass breaking!
Check out that massive crack, yikes!
The shards of glass that fell from above.
The bits that landed inside the room. Thankfully it was pretty concentrated!
The troublesome manhole, just a rectangular hole in the ground.
That's where all the trouble originated from...
Those lights were rather glaring, as they shone on the intersection.
We went back to the room after the hubbub and things were quieting down until the lights went out for us too (buildings on another street over had lost power with the blast)!
The firetruck with the bright lights seemed to have retreated and we were offered a darker view of our surroundings.
I thought it was cool how the lights faded away into near pitch-black darkness. You don't get that much in the city!
The emergency lights kept people from tripping in the dark.
The parking enforcement lady was brought out to guard this part of the road and redirect all traffic.
We went to get some glow sticks from the emergency supply closet and found some hatchets and axes!
We got the bag of glow sticks and began to distribute them.
We placed the glow sticks in strategic places in stairwells and hallways.
It looked like a news truck, but had no logo and nobody was reporting outside...
Cars not knowing what went on came down Glenrock only to run into the road block and have to turn around.
This is what Glenrock looks like when all the lights on the block are out.
One of the many buildings that found itself enveloped in darkness.
That glaring red sign that most people know about was dark for a rare occasion.
What a night it was! I have concluded that I should definitely get a tripod to go with my future DSLR… but these night shots turned out so much better than they would have on a normal point and shoot. 🙂
Check out the Daily Bruin article that came out just an hour after the event, then the one written after more information was gathered.
