Time Away...

Hey all... I will be on hiatus from Friday, Dec. 22, 2006 until Jan. 2, 2007.

Have a great holiday and happy new year!

- Dan

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 1, No. 9

LASHER'S STEAKHOUSE
A new steakhouse just opened at Olive Avenue and Third Street. Reviews are rollin' in. Chowhound.

SOLAR POWER
The Burbank Board of Education will check out a proposal to put solar panels on Luther Burbank Middle School tonight. Leader.

COMMUTE TIMES INCREASE...
But so does average income, at least in the San Fernando Valley. Leader.

TAX REVENUES INCREASE BY $33.7 MILLION
The increases are due, in part, rising property values in four redevelopment projects either started or finished during the 2005-2006 fiscal year. Leader.

POLICE BLOTTER
Minor mayhem and other assorted criminal nonsense in Burbank. Leader.

GRACIELA SOLD
Tony hotel in downtown Burbank sold to LaSalle Hotel Properties for $36.5 million. Hotel Interactive.

Dear Daily News

It's not you. It's me. But our relationship has to stop. I can't have you showing up at my doorstep at four o'clock each morning. I told my fiancee our relationship was over, and she's getting upset.

Please don't think I haven't tried, Daily News. I did.

I remember the chilly day we met last year. A burly man with a name tag that read "Bud" called out to me. Daily News, he said, $24 for 12 months.

"And it comes with a $10 gift card," said Bud. "So cheap, you don't even have to read it."

I remember laughing, Daily News. But then I felt bad that someone would sell you so short. You are clearly worth far more, and I wonder if that has affected your self-esteem.

I have appreciated your local coverage and your jaunty red and blue masthead. I think your sports columnists are superior to those in the LA Times, and I like the fact that I can read you in 25 minutes, the time it takes for my Metrolink train to whisk me downtown.

But no more. We had three newspapers at the time: the LA Times, the NY Times and the Daily News. We were overwhelmed. Stacks of newsprint gathered in our home like an illustration in a Shel Silverstein poem.

So, in October, broke it off. Perhaps it was cold of me to breakup by telephone, but you refused to speak to me. What could I do?

I called your friends in Woodland Hills, and left message after message.

But you must not have received them, Daily News, for you continue to show up at my door day after day. I tried to reason with you, but you still refuse to speak, preferring to mock me in silence from the end of my driveway.

You are stubborn, Daily News. You do not listen.

But know this: I have made my decision, and no number of unannounced visits will make me change my mind. I do love you, Daily News, but we must part. Besides, we'll always have the web.

Yours,
Dan Evans

And the Hunt Begins...

As I've mentioned a dozen times, I am getting married. Since I do wedding photography, in addition to my day job as a mid-level bureaucrat, it has fallen upon me to secure the services of a photographer.

I have been procrastinating, I'll admit, since the whole of the process seemed weird to me. I have an idea of what I want, truly, but I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get it. Will I be able to afford it? And, since I'm really only doing this part-time, I have few, if any, contacts amongst wedding photographers. I'm really as in the dark as can be.

This, of course, makes me completely typical of my clients, most of whom have never hired a photographer before, don't really know what to expect, and are a touch nervous about spending the amount of money most shooters ask for. Though I do have an understanding of why photography costs what it does, I am pretty much in the dark otherwise.

However, I am going to swallow my anxiety and venture forth into the jungle of commercial wedding photography. As I already advertise on The Knot, I've started there. I'll post my thoughts on the website design, portfolio and pricing of each person I decide to take a closer look at. Heck, it'll probably be educational for all involved.

More bulletins as events warrant. (The Burbank Follower will be posted later this afternoon.)

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 1, No. 8

See what happens when I go Christmas shopping? I miss a ton o'Burbank news. In case you did as well, here's what happened in the Media City.

Friday, December 15

FOUR ARRESTED AT SOBRIETY CHECKPOINT
The Friday night checkpoint, at San Fernando Boulevard and Delaware Road, netted three drivers, drunk, and one sober - with an outstanding warrant. (KNBC's headline, oddly, states that three were arrested.) KNBC.

MARRIOTT TAKES OVER AIRPORT CONVENTION CENTER
The hotel and convention center was owned previously by Hilton. Leader.

SCHIFF APPOINTED TO APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
The congressman, whose district includes areas of Glendale and Burbank, was nominated to the post by fellow Valley Democrat Brad Sherman. Leader.

Saturday, December 16

DJ SUSPENED FOR ON-AIR FREAKOUT
Clear Channel Radio suspends KFI host Bill Handel for threatening fellow yakker Jamie White on-air Friday morning. Incensed by comments White, who works at sister station KYSR, made off-air to his preteen daughters, Handel shouted, "If you ever talk to my kids like that again, I'm going to kick your ass." The stations' studios are located in Burbank. LAT. Background article here.

Sunday, December 17

HORSE OWNERS VS. WHOLE FOODS
Home and horse-owners in the Rancho neighborhood of Burbank push back against plans for the upscale grocery, complaining the increased traffic will spook the horses. NYT. The Gray Lady followed a Dec. 4 article in the Daily News. (The DN link has expired, but the LAist article on the issue can be found here.)

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 1, No. 7

QUINCY JONES DEFENDS NICOLE RICHIE
Judging from reader comments, most people think Jones may have well kept his mouth shut. San Francisco Chronicle.

Man. Is that all that's happening in the world o'Burbank today? That's sorta sad.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 1, No. 6

YEARLONG PLAY FESTIVAL
The festival, 365 Plays, moves to a small theater in Burbank. LAist.

RICHIE HAS PREVIOUS DUI
The saga of Rong-Way Richie continues. She apparently has a 2002 driving under the influence conviction, meaning jail time if convicted of her latest run-in. TMZ.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 1, No. 5

LAS VEGAS MARATHON
A Burbanker (or, perhaps a Burbankette) recounts his/her running the Las Vegas Marathon in under five hours. Lucky Star. Ugh. I ran the New Orleans Marathon in 2004 - the one right before Katrina - and I shall not likely do it again. Marathons hurt, yo.

RONG-WAY RICHIE FOLLOW-UP
And, yes, I realize I can no longer make sighing sounds about the hype surrounding the Nichole Richie vs. the 134 deal if I continue to post about it. I'm weirdly fascinated, OK? TMZ.

WI-FI IN BURBANK
The City Council hears proposals on making wi-fi available citywide. Study pending on whether the service should be free or subscription-based. Leader.

SAVED FROM THE SHREDDER
A Burbank councilman wants to look at a documents scheduled for destruction. Other members of the council think it's silly. Leader.

BURBANK MAN GETS 50 YEARS IN KILLING
Herman Delos Rios, 54, receives a 50-year sentence for the March 2005 murder of Sunny Henrig. Leader. The subhed in the print edition notes that Rios "could be given parole in just 24 years." Huh. In 24 years, Rios will be 78. If he makes it that long, he's not likely to be much a danger to society, but whadda I know?

NBC STUDIO EXPANSION
A proposed expansion of the NBC-Universal property will likely impact Burbank traffic...and not in the positive direction. Leader.

Tripping the Triforium Fantastic

Whoa.

I stumbled down the Temple Street steps of Los Angeles City Hall this evening, my eyes fixed. It lives. It lives!

The weirdest public art in Los Angeles - the Triforium - now comes complete with blinking lights. The six-story art installation at Temple and Los Angeles streets - ridiculed at its unveiling, bemoaned by judges and largely ignored by the public - shines again brightly. Starting tonight.

The Burbank Follower, Vol. 1, No. 4

So, not surprisingly, I have decided to change the name of the blog from the quasi-lame Burbank Bureau of Intelligence to the quasi-amusing The Burbank Follower. Why? Well, since I'm aggregating news and blogs about Burbank, I'm hardly breaking anything... hence, I'm following. Also, it is an amusing take on our LA Times-owned local community insert, The Burbank Leader. So, there ya go. Enjoy.

ADVENTURE HIKE... FOR YOUR PET
Heh. Gotta love LA. Personalized adventure hikes (in Burbank, no less) for you and your pet. Look Sparky, it's the Smokehouse! Eventful.

SLEEPER CELL
A crew from the Showtime series films at the Starlight Bowl. Gazette.com.

Burbank Bureau of Intelligence, Vol. 1, No. 3

NICOLE RICHIE
Blog fall-out from Nicole Richie's late night arrest for going the wrong-way on the 134 in Burbank. Amusing use of "celebutante" in The Times... is that a word? Evil Beet. TMZ. LA Observed. LAT.

RICHARD DREYFUSS
Snarky coverage of a get-rich-quick conference to be headlined by Richard Dreyfuss on Jan. 10 at the Burbank Airport Hilton. TMZ.

Speaking of Tori Spelling

Huh. So maybe that's what she's dining with the hoi poli (see earlier posting below) ... She needs the cash. Daily News.

Burbank Bureau of Intelligence, Vol. 1, No. 2

CITY WI-FI
The Burbank City Council will consider expanding wi-fi to the entire city at its next meeting Dec. 12. Who's gonna pay? Leader.

KNITTING FACTORY
A Baltimore-based knitter has a nice time in our lovely town. The Hook and I.

BIG DOG
No, not the Los Angeles firefighter. A Sunland resident finds a way to take a dog from Burbank to Baton Rouge. Creekhiker.

Sister Sister Sister

Note: This review also appears on Losanjealous.com

Sister's Christmas Catechism
By Maripat Donovan
Brentwood Theatre
Dec. 5 - 17
Tickets: $40
Runtime: approx. two hours

Jesus. I'm lost.

Where the hell is the Brentwood Theatre? (And where do they get off with the snotty British spelling of "theater" anyhow?) Allegedly at the corner of Wilshire and San Vincente, the theater is more accurately at the corner of Random Building and Raised Parking Lot in the far west corner of the Westside VA complex.

Once found - via the usual incantation of curse words coupled with random wandering - the venue underwhelms. It has the feel of a pricey private school theater (think Harvard Westlake), which is, well, perfect, since the one-nun show is set in a parochial classroom.

As in the other two Sister's Catechism plays, we, the audience, are the students. The lights are left on - quite disquieting to a generation that prefers its entertainment in darkened rooms - and immodest dress and poor posture is frowned upon.

Though it drags toward the end, the show is funny, weirdly educational, and, in a word, brilliant. It also is the first show I've seen commencing with Star-Spangled Banner sung by a homeless group.

Scolding latecomers, praising the largely Jewish audience for their knowledge of obscure Catholic saints, and doling out Vatican II wisdom with a side of sharp wit, Maripat Donovan (Sister) almost makes you want to go to church again. Well, almost.

Los Angeles

The spellchecker for Blogger does not know "Los Angeles." Just thought you should know.

City Hall Musing - Retirement Posters

Yet another thing about the Pointy Building that confuses me: retirement announcements.

Nearly every week, Los Angeles City Hall is plastered with dozens of fliers announcing the retirement party of so-and-so, celebrating their lifetime of city service. Sure it's impressive, and a tad frightening, to think that someone has held steady employ here for 36 years, but if I don't know the dude, why do I care?

I don't mean to be rude or cynical, but, damnit, it's weird. I wonder what would happen if people started crashing these parties. I wonder if there's a secret society of bored city workers who go to ALL these things. Fess up people.

City Hall Elevator Music - Part 1

First in an occasional series...

Metrolink, my friends, is a gift. I take it most mornings to the City Hall phallus, skirting the aggravating traffic of the Golden State Freeway, through a thoroughly ugly section of Glendale, and past the sludge that is the Los Angeles River.

This morning, I took the 8:35 am train from the downtown Burbank station (which arrived at 8:39, natch.) This is the late train, empty but for myself, the conductor and a surly-looking Asian dude with wraparound sunglasses.

And, indeed, I was late. Late because I had to return an unwanted, unordered and overpriced cell phone to the overloads at T-Mobile. That story, though long, is uninteresting, and I shall not share it here.

I got to City Hall at about 9:10 a.m. Late, but not so late that my tardiness would be noticed. The sun was (and is) shinning, and the weather forecast was for a 70-degree day. Add in the fact that it's Friday, and you have a happy and content bureaucrat.

Not so much with my elevator-mate this morning. The doors of the express elevator swung open, revealing a woman, blankly staring ahead. After determining she did not plan to exit, I stepped in.

"Good morning," I said.

"Mmm," she said.

"It's a beautiful day," I said. "Supposed to be nice all weekend. Gotta love LA."

"Oh," she said. "Where are you visiting from?"

"Umm," I replied, confused. "Burbank? I work here."

The elevator dinged, alerting all and sundry that we had reached the third floor. The woman exited without a word.

Yoga, Downtown

This afternoon, in my semi-regular attempt to get (and remain) healthy, I went to the downtown yoga place during my lunch hour. Now, mind you, this took a tad bit of negotiation on my part, as the class is 90 minutes long - and most assuredly requires a shower at the end.

As I've mentioned, I am part of the wondrous machine called Los Angeles City Government, and bureaucratic types are generally opposed to two-hour lunches.

Stop laughing.

My boss, anyhow, is opposed to two-hour lunches, and I had to promise to make up the time. And I do. Really.

Anyhow, the class this afternoon truly kicked my ass... I haven't been going on a particularly regular basis - and it's rather amazing how quickly you lose whatever flexibility and stamina you've so painfully built up. Second, I have noticed that some instructors heat the room much more than others.

Even worse, some are fond of pumping up the humidity, making the place a tropical house of pain. And, damnit, there she was.

To be fair, of course, my pain today had much more to do with a lack of practice and an uncharacteristically wussified pain threshold than the heat.... But, damnit, it didn't help.

Random & Mostly Pointless Celebrity Sighting

The Great India Cafe sneaks up on you, wedged between the highly-priced-and-uncomfortable-looking-furniture-palace and a we-can't-believe-they-let-us-open-a-porn-store-in-Studio-City porn store. We pulled up to a prized bit of after-hours street parking (!), waved to a bored-looking valet, and ambled toward the door.

Ahh, the Great India. The Christmas-light filled patio. The savory sauces, the sumptuous nan! The random A-minus pregnant celebrity in the corner! Wait, what?

Yes, indeed, a rather round Tori Spelling sat in the corner with a gent, presumably her husband. I did not recognize either, actually. My geekery tends toward politicos, not actors. But Donna, a clandestine reader of Star and US Weekly, certainly did, stage-whispering the sighting over shrimp tiki-masala.

That's nice, really. People in Wisconsin have bird-watching. In LA we have celebrity sightings. Of course, no sighting is really complete without a long (and completely subjective) discussion as to the rating of the sighting. Does Tori Spelling count as a A-list sighting? A-minus? B-plus? We settled on A-minus. No reason, really. Just seemed correct.

But it certainly raised the profile of the Great India Cafe in my mind... Not that it was bad before. Donna and I ate there about a six weeks ago, following a school-related cocktail party. (Yeah, I know. I went to public school.) It was full of good wine, wealthy private-school parents and little in the way of food. When surrounded by such people, the thinking couple drinks... and this thinking couple did just that.

And, because drinking more seems to make sense after heavy drinking, we stupidly got another bottle of wine at the restaurant. After seeing the results - uproarious laughter at fart jokes, mainly - the staff was kind enough to offer us a ride home. We declined, preferring the comforts of a taxi. But, damnit, that was nice. Especially after I accidentally spilled some sort of orange sauce on the floor.

Ah, LA.

The Incontinent Racist

I JUST WANTED to go to yoga.

I do a kind of yoga called Bikram Yoga, which involves being in a room heated to 106 degrees, while you stretch and bend in ways that would make Mary Lou Retton blanch. As you might guess, this causes a fair amount of sweat, and the Atwater Village studio invariably smells of feet.

It smells bad, friends. Real bad. But that smell was nothing quite like the olfactory assault endured this very evening during my commute. By bus.

“What?!” I hear you say. “You live in Los Angeles. Only day laborers, nannies and homeless men travel by bus in Los Angeles. A mid-level bureaucrat like yourself should travel via a sensible, beige, automobile, presumably a Camry.”

Yes, the Camry is indeed beige. I tried calling it “light gray” once, but that sounded, well, worse. Still, I hate traffic more than the average Angeleno, and the bus, in my silly, silly mind, was a relaxing way to avoid it.

Wrong. Bus travel in Los Angeles is similar to the Hobbesian musing about the human condition: nasty, brutish and short. Well, except the short part.

I left City Hall at 5:34 p.m., plenty of time to make the 6:30 class at the studio, a mere 7.3 miles away. When an asthmatic Kenyan marathoner could cover the distance in the time required, one naturally presumes that travel by the magical internal combustion engine will be swifter.

No.

After some confusion about where, exactly I needed to go to pick up the 91 Sylmar, I found my stop. It was in a logical location, at the corner of Spring and Temple streets, in the shadows of City Hall (i.e. “The People’s Place of Business.”)

I, however, was across the street, alongside a sign proclaiming a stop for the 92 Sylmar. I presumed the 91 would stop at the same place as the 92. Silly Dan.

Imagine my surprise, then, as I saw the 91 stop across the street. The light and luck were with me, and I ran across the street just in time and boarded.

The bus was packed, standing room only. I jimmied my way into the only spot left, eight feet behind the driver.

The man seated at first base, the spot closest to the front and opposite the driver, wore a fake fur coat, a ball cap covering his balding hair and several layers of flannel. As it was all of 85 degrees this evening, I thought this odd. He spoke passionately in monologue to the driver, ranting about the poor state of the world as it related to (in order): women, Asians, Jews, gays, bisexuals, lesbians and Dick Cheney. He might taken on blacks, Islam and Al Gore, but I was only going to Glendale.

I hardly feel bad about the piling on of our current vice-president, who is STILL being pilloried for shooting an old man in the face. But the man’s tirade was filled with such amazing ignorance and hate I began to feel queasy. And remember, I lived in New York.

I began to feel a bit bad for the driver, as the poor man couldn’t exactly change his seat. And then the driver spoke.

“Yup. You’re completely on it, man. Fuck them. Fuck them all.”

Huh.

When I first got my driver’s license, my mother told me to “never drive angry.” This ironic advice, mind you, since whenever she got angry, she would go for a drive. It calmed her down.

The Sylmar 92 driver, on the other hand, grew angrier at each mile. And, oh dear God, he suddenly had a reason: a man in a parked car opened his door in front of the bus, causing the driver to screech to a halt.

The driver honked, which, as any West Coast driver knows, was the equivalent of insulting the memory of the driver’s dead grandmother. The honk elicited a rude, and common, reaction from the man.

As expected, this incensed the driver and sparked a treatise against Asian drivers, Asian men, and his sincere belief that “some people are just to fucking dumb to live.”

True. I agree. Some people are too dumb to live. However, ill-advised as this man may have been to open his car door in the path of a 15-ton MTA local, he possesses more intelligence than, say, your average Golden Retriever. (Then again, so might a glass of lukewarm water, but I digress.) But we care for and love Golden Retrievers. Perhaps man-opening-door deserves a bit of the charity we grant hairy furballs.

No. Driver man would disagree. Heartily, I presume.

The driver, goaded on by first-base man, continued his rant for a good five minutes. This may not seem like a long time, if compared to movie watching or football, but is a hell of a long time when you have nothing else to do, and the smell of pee and half-digested popcorn hangs in the air.

Oh, right. The smell.

From the moment I got on the bus, that putrescence, that fetid awfulness, that rotted-ass stench took over my nostrils. My eyes watered a couple of times, and I seriously considered walking the remaining distance, if only to escape that 60-foot moving hell. However, I was fascinated by first-base man and the driver, and I stayed.

I was convinced the smell was coming from a frumpy looking man behind me. He certainly looked the part: dirty clothes, downcast gaze and the skin condition that Michael Jackson said turned him into, well, Michael Jackson. He looked weird, ya dig? Weird. But he was very polite, I will note, giving up his seat to an elderly woman with dark glasses.

Turns out, I was wrong about the rancid odor’s origin. The suspected smelly got off somewhere on San Fernando Road, in an area that I wouldn’t visit without the wrench, the library or Colonel Mustard. The smell remained.

Then I saw them: the pee stains. First-base man had them all over his denim. At least six circular stains marked the left side of his trousers, indicating a lack of care, control or colostomy maintenance. Crumbs sprinkled the bottom of those pants, and a trace of sweat glistened from his brow.

My stop, my deliverance, approached. I pulled the cable. I stepped into the fresh Glendale air, completely late for my class. And since they don’t allow people to come in late (very un-LA, I might point out), I came home. And wrote this.
2 Comments

Adam Rakunas
Sorry to hear about the bad ride. Sounds like the dice rolled against you right off the bat. I used public transit to get from Santa Monica to Gardena before changing jobs; it was a hell of a shlep, but I got a lot of writing and reading done. And, yeah, there were drunks and racists and lunatics on my commute, but that's life in the big city.
Thursday, July 6, 2006 - 03:14 PM


BeenThereSeenThat
It's hard to be enviromentally friendly isn't it. When I lived in LA during my High School years I had to ride the bus and the unique characters and outright stench they were carrying with them will remain seared in my memory. As for life in the big city well I live in Santa Cruz, CA now and we have these exact same characters here( although they are generally more politically correct if not crazier and smellier) and there are only 60K people in this burg.
Friday, July 7, 2006 - 09:29 AM

Album Frustrations *

I SWEAR. EVEN WITH five years of ever-increasing Mac usage, there are so many places that seem to want nothing to do with us quirky Apple users. The latest case in point is a company called http://www.mypublisher.com/. I truly dig their stuff: nice format, nice printing, nice price, nice everything.

Except, as it turns out, the ability to do it on a Mac.

MyPublisher does, I’ll admit, feature an iPhoto plug in, allowing Mac users to access a limit number of its products. But, not all. Alas, the products that are not available via the plug in are the ones I want: the big hardcover albums. I wrote customer service, and was told that there are no plans to expand the albums available to Mac users. Bummer.

* Dec. 5, 2006 Update *

I did find a workaround, albeit an annoying one. I installed a PC emulator on my Mac (don't try this at home, kids... ugh), which now allows me to use the famed MyPublisher.com.

The Point of Megapixels

OFTEN WHEN people are shopping around for wedding photography, or for photography of any kind, they want to know about the megapixels. Often, this is the first question, and I certainly understand, as it’s the most understandable figure, and the one touted the highest in advertising for cameras.

Unfortunately, though, it is one of the most misleading figures in photography. A higher megapixel number will allow a particular digital image to be blown up farther (i.e. larger) than one with a smaller number. On wedding shoots, I use a Nikon D70 and a D70s, both of which shoot at 6.1 megapixels. This figure surprises some people, as some of the lower-end point and shoots advertise at 8 megapixels and up. They assume that the D70 must be a lousy camera because of the lower figure, or at least makes me suspect as a photographer.

Sigh. No. I do know what I’m doing.

I happen to love my D70, due to its easy of use, battery life, durability and Nikon name. I’ve been using Nikons since my mom gave me her old tank of a Nikonmat in the mid 80s. The megapixel number on the D70 pretty much limits me to enlargement size. I have blown up images to 12x18, and I presume that I could go up to 20x30, but I just wouldn’t want to try. For 99% of my customers, 12x18 is a great size, and there is no need to go any larger.

Then again, you probably wouldn’t want to blow up a traditional film 35mm negative much bigger than 12x18 anyhow. There’s just simply a limit to how big you can enlarge these images. For people that want the bigger photos or gallery photos, I drag out my medium format film camera. This is the camera that wedding photographers have used since, well, someone figured out that the bigger negatives these cameras produce (about 2.5 times the area of a 35mm negative) allow bigger prints.

San Diego Photographer Ken Rockwell has a great discussion on this topic, if you’re interested: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Indiana Bureaucrat & the Urinal of Doom

IT SITS ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF LOS ANGELES CITY HALL, just beyond the prow of a ship emblem in the center of the polished floor. The bas relief cutter points to a nearby restroom, perhaps a symbol of the smooth-sailing goodness of a recently emptied bladder. This restroom seems normal enough: it has a wood door, the familiar blue triangle, and even the usual sharp tang of urine.

But this belies the true mystery found inside its cramped walls, for this room is haunted.

Several years ago, a normally unflappable colleague of mine sought relief in this most intimate of rooms. As the door creaked closed, he walked around the corner, following the nature call to the trio of urinals at the back corner.

This room also features three stalls, and inside one of these stalls was an average-looking man, if a tad short. The man had left the stall door open, and was contentedly peeing, seemingly oblivious to any other occupants.

His hair was red and spiked, and the clothes he wore seemed from another era, perhaps the 80s. Presuming the man had simply lost his way from Silver Lake, my friend went about his business, washed his hands, and left.

After exiting, my friend remembered he had forgotten his keys on the bathroom sink, and reentered the room to retrieve them. The room is fairly small, 15 feet by 8 feet at most, and he fully expected to see the redheaded man again.

But he was gone. Vanished.

My friend refuses to use this particular restroom, positing that there is no need to visit the single haunted restroom in City Hall. There are at least a hundred other restrooms here at 200 N. Spring St., he claims, where the biggest danger one faces is a lack of sanitary seat covers (i.e. ass-gaskets or cowboy hats).

But I disagree. For the past six months, I have oft traveled the 22 floors between my office home and the Urinal of Doom, hoping to see this strange undead creature. My luck has not yet held out, but I am hopeful. Who was this man? Why wouldn’t he haunt the mayor’s private washroom, only yards from this smelly, public convenience?

More bulletins as events warrant.

Bikram Yoga & Random Blatherings

THOUGH I HAVE TO ADMIT that it makes me feel a bit too SoCal to say it: I’m seriously digging the Bikram yoga. There’s a place that recently opened downtown (on Temple, across from the DWP building). It has several advantage for me: first, it’s close to City Hall, it doesn’t smell like feet (yet) and they give a discount to all government employees.

Heh. It still makes me laugh a little bit. Gov’t Employee. Like Gov’t Cheese, it doesn’t exactly have the greatest of connotations. Still, it allows me the time to do my wedding photography (whereas journalism just wore me out), a bit of art photography, and reduce some of the debt I got into whilst trying to make it as a freelancer.

One more random thought: The DWP (Dept. of Water & Power, for those outside the lovely LA basin) building on Temple usually has ALL of its lights on. Now, is this still the case? I’ll check back with an update... But, as always, feel free to leave your own thoughts.