Random thoughts on art, technology, stuff, and occasionally Real Estate: July 2008

On Thursday, July 31 (doors open at 4pm), The Susie Hansen Latin Band  will play an outdoor concert at the Heritage Square Museum <http://heritagesquare.org/> in northeast Los Angeles. The Susie Hansen Latin Band plays from 6:30pm to 8pm. The opening act, Groove Session, plays 4:30pm to 6pm.

The address is 3800 Homer Street, on the east side of the 110 Freeway (Pasadena Fwy) at the Avenue 43 exit. Tell your friends who want to "go green" that they can take the Gold Line, and Budget Rent-a-Car, a co-sponsor of the event, will provide free shuttle service all evening from the Heritage Square stop on the Gold Line to the front door of the museum. Concert is free and open to the public.

Call 323-225-2700 for more info. Dance floor provided!

Mission Accomplished!   The George Wolfe Expedition successfully navigated the Los Angeles River from its beginning to its end.

Here are the official LAist Photos of the Los Angeles River Expedition

In depth coverage from LAist

Maureen McCabe talks about it here and here.

Teri Lussier, creator of the acronym GPTFS (Great Post Thanks For Sharing)  has discussed it here and here.

Do an Active Rain Search on "GPTFS" .... or on "Comment Points" ... and you'll find other discussions and opinions, too.

What's the issue?  Since comments earn AR points, sometimes members leave comments that simply say "Good Idea" or "Thank You"  or whatever, without really contributing to the conversation.

Some members propose eliminating comment points as a way to eliminate frivolous comments.  Teri suggested allowing the blog author to award points to commentors.

Here's my solution:

At the end of each blog post, the blog author would place a multiple choice list of suggested comments.  Readers could then simply copy and paste whichever comment they felt best suited their personal response.

Example.  (Please feel free to copy and paste in the comment section)

1.  Cheryl, you are too funny.

2.  Cheryl, you are a genius.

3.  Cheryl, you are gorgeous.

4.  Cheryl, you are incredible.

See?  Simple and painless.  The blog author gets intelligent comments.  And everybody still gets points. 

My name is Cheryl Johnson

My rank in the Great State of California is 8 (as of today at any rate)

And my member number is 87  Current rank in the AR system is 87 (again, as of today at any rate)

I had no idea what my member rank or number was until today.  (Now that I know, maybe I should buy a lottery ticket with these numbers) 

I didn't know where to look until I read Brad Anderson's post today here http://activerain.com/blogsview/609107/ActiveRain-Hits-1-Members  

Do you want to find your member number  rank?  I can't see any other way than browsing through the pages here http://activerain.com/action/nav/show_featured/all  ..   Start on Page one if you joined in 2006,  jump to page 4005 if you joined in the last ten minutes.

And Congratulations, Active Rain on reaching 100,000+ members.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Jason Crouch, Broker - Austin Texas Real Estate (Austin Texas Homes, LLC) I now know where to find my member number in the order signed up.

"To find your member number in relation to the 100,000 members, click on "My Home", then "My Comments".  The number in the URL is in order of people who signed up for AR. "

I'm member #645.

 That's the number I wanted.  Rank can be a fleeting thing   :-)

P.S.  There is a side benefit to browsing through the member ranking pages.  You might see a few old friends you had lost track of, you might find some new people you'd like to get to know better.

On July 25, 2008, a group of hardy adventurers will embark on an extraordinary expedition of the Los Angeles River by kayak and canoe, to demonstrate to developers and the Army Corps of Engineers that the LA RIVER is indeed a navigable waterway that should be protected and owned by the people of Los Angeles.

A mighty river in previous centuries, Los Angeles River is now one of the most hydraulically modified urban rivers in the world. Nearly seventy-five  percent of the fifty-two mile long river is enclosed in concrete. Channelization of the river  was initiated in 1938 by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of a massive flood control project  which continued until the late 1950s.  Interest in returning the river to a more natural state has developed in the last few decades.

Here is the proposed timetable for the expedition:

DAY 1 (Fri., July 25th)

o 3:00 pm. Kick-off ceremony/"launch" at the LA River Headwaters on overpass @ Owensmouth; Canoga Park. Supporters welcome.

o 4:00-5:30 pm. Our group explores the Sepulveda Basin. Supporters can park at the parking lot at Balboa Park soccer fields and look for us on river. {6000 Balboa Blvd, Encino, CA 91316. Thomas Guide pg. 531, D1}

o 5:30-7 pm. Our boats travel from beginning of Sepulveda Basin to take-out @ Burbank Blvd. x LA River (100' or so downriver). Supporters can try to find us along that route, or show support atop the banks @ that take-out. Woodley Ave. is the best place to park cars for take-out.

DAY 2 (Sat., July 26th)

o 9:00 am. Riverside talk with Dr. Jenny Price (cars @ Woodley Ave.; talk just downstream from river @ Burbank Ave.; east/Woodley side of river). Supporters welcome.

o 3:00 pm. Griffith Park / Bette Davis Picnic Area. Supporters welcome for riverside picnic @ park.

o 5:30 pm. Atwater Village / Yoga Park; Los Feliz Blvd. x LARiver (100' downriver from there on east side of river @ Dover St.). A speaker will address the crew and anyone else who wants to show up as supporters.

o 7:30 pm. Marsh Park. (end of Marsh Street, off Riverside Drive). Supporters welcome to riverside chat at the park. {2961 Marsh St., LA, CA 90039. Thomas Guide pg. 5944, F3.}

DAY 3 (Sun., July 26th)

o 11 am - 1 pm. Greetings from downtown bridges for anyone who cares to locate us.

o 1:30 pm. Maywood riverside park. Casual bring-your-own-food picnic lunch at their new park. Supporters welcome.

o 3:30 pm. Compton Creek. Explore Dominguez Gap/Slough. Supporters welcome.

o 5:00 pm. Willow Street Estuary {2500 block of De Forest Ave @ 25th Place, Long Beach, CA 90806; Thomas Guide pg. 795, C3.}. Supporters welcome.

o 7 pm. Final take-out at Shoreline Park in Long Beach. Supporters welcome. Celebrate. Plant the flag. Mingle. Closure.

The official expedition press release:  http://www.lalatimes.com/lariver/IR_BoatersPlanDescent07082008.pdf

FOLAR:  Friends of L A River http://folar.org/

Here's how to set a "fluid" width column in the TypePad blogging platform as mentioned here

Sign in to your TypePad Pro account.

Click the Weblogs tab.

From the list of your blogs (you can have multiple blogs with a TypePad Pro account), select the blog you want to work on, and click Design.

At the Design screen, click Change Layout.

For this example, I'm choosing 3 Columns Right, under the list of Classic layouts, click Save Changes.

Clicking Save Changes takes you back to the Design screen.  Now click Change Theme.

On the Theme screen, the radio buttom beside Pre-defined theme is checked by default.  Click the radio button beside Custom theme to change it.

This takes you to the Customize Your Theme screen.  This is an easy-to-use wizard that allows you to construct your own TypePad theme.  Click General Page Settings.

The Template Builder wizard will pop up.  At Main Content Column, Left column,  choose "Fluid" from the drop down list of column widths.  Note you can also change background colors, borders, border colors, and link colors with this wizard. 

When finished, scroll to the bottom of the wizard pop up window, and click Save Changes.

Clicking Save Changes in the pop-up wizard will return you to the Customize Your Theme screen.  Scroll to the bottom, click Save Changes. 

Click Save Changes in the Customize Your Theme screen will return you to the Design screen.  Scroll to the bottom, click Republish Weblog.

TIP:  Since TypePad Pro allows you to have multiple blogs, don't make design experiments on your live working business blog.  Create a new, different test blog.  Play with all the theme design features on the test blog. 

Once you're happy with the test blog's theme, you can just apply that finished theme to your original blog.  If you decide you don't like the new theme after all, you can switch back to your original theme.

Think of changing themes the same way you would like of changing a jacket.  It's not a big deal.  :-)

As I was searching researching the history of my little commmunity of Northeast Los Angeles, I came across this gem in the Southern California Quarterly.

It was written in 1889, two years after the Great Southern California Real Estate Boom of 1887. 

Here's the conclusion of the article:

When the boom had become a thing of the past, those who had kept aloof from wild speculation, pursued the even tenor of their ways, building up the real cities and improving the country.  Those who had invested recklessly in paper cities plowed up the sities of prospective palace hotels and massive business blocks, and sowed them in grain, or planted them with trees, or they sought some other employment by which they could earn their bread and butter, sadder, and it is to be hoped, wiser men. 

There was for a time stringency in the money market, but even this proved a blessing in disguise.  It compelled to more economic methods of living, and impelled people to greater efforts to develop the resources of the country.  On the whole, with all of its faults and failures, with all its reckless waste and wild extravagance, our boom was more productive of good than evil to Southern California.

Here's a link to the full article, hosted on one of my sites http://www.bob-taylor.la/greatboom1887.pdf

Thank you, Google Books, for preserving this treasure.

For anyone who wondered just what was being filmed last week on the corner of Avenue 56 and North Figueroa

It was a new TV series for TNT ....

More here

http://www.turnerinfo.com/newsitem.aspx?P=TNT&CID01=6ae1a382-b047-458b-8f12-8c3278b9e85b

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980871.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

The Figueroa Street Business District could become a "Living Backlot" ®   Read Robert Mendel's proposal.  Mendel proposes that creating a an organized, film-friendly corridor along North Figueroa would stimulate tourism to the area, create business for the local shop owners, and begin generating funds necessary to restore the building facades along the corridor.

This is just a test of how a real estate show video fits in the localism content column... will it be too wide???  Will it fit just right???

Enquiring minds want to know...

Here goes.....

OK. Question answered: It fits just fine

UPDATE

Dan Cummings discovered a White Box Buglet when using FireFox. I managed to duplicate the behaviour:

When I access the page from my Localism Home Page http://localism.com/neighbor/cheryljns everything is fine.

When I go to http://localism.com/, search for Glassell Park, and click on the city link ... bingo ... white box.

In 1903 an influential group of women formed the Highland Park Ebell Club, and when the elite women's organization opened a clubhouse ten years later, more than 20,000 people attended the colorful ceremonies.

One of the first causes championed by the local women was the preservation of the land around the Arroyo Seco as a park, and it remains a park today.

Illustration from Highland Park by Charles J. Fisher, Highland Park's Historian for Hire

Would you like to see the Ebell Clubhouse? Easy!

This Thursday, July 24, 2008, at 7pm, you could attend an LAFD Earthquake Preparedness Workshop being held at the Ebell Clubhouse.  The workshop is being sponsored by  the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council and City Council  Districts 1 & 14.

The Ebell Club is located at 131 South Avenue 57, Los Angeles, 90042.