SWCAMBORNE

Yesterday I put a deposit on a Smart Car We had seen them in Europe a few years ago and were pleased to see that they finally are being sold in the USA. I want a white convertible with a leather interior.

Smart car in Italy 2005 

The one problem I thought is that it will be hard to carry lumber and big things. Then I remembered my own saying: “a problem is an opportunity in disguise.” Why not make lumber in small sizes that is easy to reassemble into 8 foot pieces.

cheesy illustration of a brilliant idea 

Some smart engineers could make plastic pieces that would hold two 4 foot pieces of 2×4 in one 8 foot piece for about a dollar. Then owners of small cars like me (hopefully) could still buy lumber.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

Wayne Gretsky

Great Hockey Player

We have lived in our house near Eaton Canyon for more than 20 years. To get here you have to drive past the Eaton Canyon Golf Course a nine hole county course.

For many years it irked me that the operators of the course didn’t trim their bushes and make the street frontage look neat and well manicured. I considered writing to them or posting signs to pressure the management into making it more respectable. I would get particularly incensed when I walked along Sierra Madre Blvd and had to walk on the parkway strip because the Oleander bushes were not trimmed. And I would add with righteous indignation “they don’t even irrigate the parkway and it is full of rodents.”

A few months ago I had an epiphany about our neighborhood. We live in one of the last pockets of countryside in an increasingly urban and suburban area. It is a nice thing that the golf course doesn’t have curbs or sidewalks. The tatty old chain link fence is a link to another way of life when there were barns and feed stores nearby and people raised their own food. The rodents attract coyotes whose howling in the night makes us feel connected to nature in a way that the Discovery Channel never can.

Now I see the unkempt perimeter of the golf course not as something to be fixed but as something to be preserved. When I finally stopped to think about it I realized that “countryside” is by definition a bit wild and overgrown and not “kept” and now I like it that way. Now I want to live in a slightly rural area and my angst over the golf course not being perfectly urban has ended.

There is a lesson to be learned here but I’m not sure what it is.

In January of 2006 and again in March 2007 I sent an email to Mike Antonovich asking him to repair the Mt Wilson Toll Road.

I received a reply in a few weeks from Shari A. in the County Supervisors office. The reply referred me to Gary T at the City of Pasadena. This week I found that email again and followed up with Gary. This is his answer:

Mr. Burrow:

We are working with the Los Angeles County Fire Department on the
repairs to the City portion and the County portion of the Mt. Wilson
Toll Road. The City is pursuing funding from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and the County will be performing the repairs.
At the moment, we are awaiting confirmation from FEMA with regards to
approval to a change in the original scope of work and the schedule.
The County is pursuing approvals from various agencies for environmental
reviews. Due to the dollar magnitude to repair the City’s portion of
the road, seeking FEMA approval prior to the start of work is crucial
because without funding the repairs become a challenge. The tentative
schedule for completion is December 2007.

I appreciate your offer of assistance. Be assured the City and County
are working diligently to restore the public access to this road.

Gary T.

Thank you Gary. The good news is they are working on it. The bad news is they are waiting for FEMA money before they start and the date is entirely unrealistic. But there seems to be a commitment to reopening the road.

If you care about getting the toll road reopened and you live in Pasadena it would be a good idea to contact your City Councilperson. If you live in the county contact Mike Antonovich’s office

In Baseball the ideal line up starts with the players most likely to get on base and advance and then follows with the power hitters.   This model for drawing up a line up is almost universal.

What it fails to take into account however is that the opposing pitcher often takes a few batters to settle down and start throwing well.  If the manager adjusted his lineup to take this anomaly into account, by batting one of his power hitters first, his team might end up with more hits.

In fact he could only make the adjustment against pitchers who have shown a tendency to give up early hits.

I’m just thinking outside the box.  In this case the batters box.