I have been mostly silent about the pond in 2008 because it has been murky and I have been embarrassed. It started last fall when we were in Santa Fe it went green with a tiny algae and I was not able to restore the balance all winter. I even took all of the rocks out of the stream and rinsed them.

Finally I went down last weekend and bought a UV Filter from Steve at PTF (Pasadena Tropical Fish) and within a day the water was clearer. I may need a second unit to get the water crystal clear but this is a huge improvement.

The 25w UV Filter

Here is a picture of the pond with the flowers on the wall behind it:

and finally a picture of the stream from the bench showing the improved but not yet completed bridge.

Note the fountain in the foreground

Next report I hope will have pictures of the fish in clear water.

How about this beautiful display of Azelea in my neighborhood.

Life is Good!

Beyond Borders is screening in NYC on Thursday, May 1 in conjunction with the Tribeca Institute and the NY Immigration Coalition.

Watch the trailer here:

Barack Obama said on Saturday “What the American people are looking for is somebody who can solve their problems.”

Senator Obama I beg to disagree. What the American people want is a chance to solve their own problems. They don’t want an ever bigger federal government trying to solve everybody’s every problem. The American people know from experience that big government is not very good at solving “their problems”. The best way for people to solve their problems is personally and when that is not possible locally.
Now I like Barack Obama and I think that he would make a fine President but he has never worked in the private sector and he apparently has low regard for competition and the profit motive. The United States of America has delivered more of the goods and services that people want than ever before in history. It has accomplished this by having a constitutional, federal system with competing and limited governments. When Senator Obama tells people what “they are looking for” he is acting as an elitist member of the pandering class and I don’t like it.

After it appeared that the fires had died down last night (See report 3)

We were woken up at 3:00 am this morning by the dog barking and this scene of the fire creeping over the next ridge towards us. It appears that we are not out of danger yet.

The fire is now about 2 miles from us above Auburn Street in Sierra Madre. Before we moved here we lived for a few years at the very top of Auburn Street in the current evacuation area. Nurit made us move because it was to scary way up there with the backyard touching the National Forest. She was right again.

The telephoto lens makes it appear scarier. We have to keep alert and hope that the wind doesn’t come up. I will be less sanguine about the fire today than yesterday.

Here is the link for information from the City of Sierra Madre:

http://cityofsierramadre.com/index.php?mod=city_article&id=74

“A price increase is a message about scarcity.

Price controls are like shooting the messenger.”

Alexander Tabarrok

George Mason University

Quoted in Forbes Magazine

The helicopters started at dawn this morning and with the wind cooperating the fire has died down substantially by 11:00 am.

The helicopters flying up from the water point increase anxiety. But we were never in any real danger.

This is the last puff of smoke visible to us. Fires in these hills are only really a danger when the winds are blowing hard.

Yes all of the pictures in the set were taken from my backyard facing East with an Olympus Stylus Camera.

To get this idea you have to know about two different organizations. First there is Road Trip Nation which is a reality TV show that lets young people drive around the nation and ask some smart people “what should I do when I grow up?” The students video the trip and the interviews and the producers make the results into a show about growing up. It is extremely successful. It runs on PBS and has big sponsors like New Zealand Tourism and State Farm Insurance.

The other organization is Matt.org. They are a fairly new organization working to “improve US/Mexican relationships.”  They are building ties between universities, assembling a very impressive board and testing some advertising that hopefully will effect peoples attitudes about each other.

In the last month I have had a chance to meet people from both of these organizations. I was very impressed by the quality of the people in both and by each organizations potential.  The potential synergy between them struck me on the way home from San Antonio last week.  By combining their missions they could greatly magnify their influence.

The combined entity would use the Road Trip Nation Model on an bi-national basis.  Students from the US and Mexico would driving around in each others countries to learn about each others nations.  The ideal sponsor would be McDonalds but it might be State Farm again. The student/road trippers could explore culture, customs and regional issues in each others countries. They would be like latter day Alexis de Tocqueville’s exploring and recording their impressions of each others countries on film.

This is one of my better ideas and I hope that one of the two organizations runs (motors?) with it. I’m going to send the link to both of them and pitch it on Radical Immigration .  All I ask is that when it is wildly successful that I be one of the interviews of the RoadTripAmigos.

One other thing that recommends Road Trip Nation is that they give out free postcards as part of their promotional package.

The fire hasn’t moved far tonight but I took some pictures:

There is a fire burning in Santa Anita Canyon about three miles from here. Here are two pictures I took of it from my back yard: