More Baseball

The Angels are #1 in fan satisfaction. I certainly agree.

Another Tidbit

Sorry blogging has been light. You'd hate me if I told you that I had Monday off because of Mr. Chavez, Wednesday off because I have too much vacation, and Friday off just because.

So instead, I'll explain why I drafted Garret Anderson in our fantasy baseball draft. He will be the comeback player of the year. Believe it. CNNSI is already starting the hype.

Photos

Now all three Cham brothers have flickr accounts! Matt's pictures look great.

Whew

Taxes done!

Baseball

I've been informed that Sports Illustrated has picked the Angels to win the World Series. That's my pick too.

Woo boy. Baseball is back. This weekend is the fantasy baseball draft and I'm trying to get tickets for Tim Salmon bobblehead day - hopefully they will retire Mr. Angel's number too.

Clean

My cubicle is as clean and organized as it has EVER been. Now for the hard part, doing the daily maintenance to keep it that way.

Phase

I'm going to phase out bball. My friends are all getting hurt. I've got a bruised hip and hand myself. If I follow my Dad's example, I'll start playing tennis. We'll see what sticks.

Planning Debate

Planetizen is an excellent resource for planners. I'm way behind on a lot of good reading.

Michael Lewyn rebuts Joel Kotkin's "New Suburbanism" ideas that run contrary to the New Urbanism school of thought. Most of the critique is focused on citing different demographics and the implications between the data. For example, does density have implications on families?

On the other side of the coin, less space doesn’t mean less children. The Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg (a neighborhood in Brooklyn) live in a neighborhood with over 30,000 people per square mile, over twenty times the density of South Korea-yet the average Hasidic family has eight children. (See http://www.demographia.com/db-nyc-wardrank.htm for Williamsburg density statistics; http://newyorkmetro.com/news/cityside/16864/index.html for birthrate statistics). So Kotkin’s assertion that in cities, “there’s literally no room left for kids” is flat-out false.

Granted, this isn't very rigorous use of demographics but the overall debate is good for planning.

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Speaking of downtown, I was informed of a really good loft opportunity but the damn homeowner fees push it out of my price range.

LA River

I went to Gallery727 to see the 5 Rivers Afloat Exhibit on Friday. Love those small downtown galleries. So fun! I'm hoping that LA-APA can coordinate more events with them. We should totally support local planning/art efforts. Here is my flickr set.

The LA Times did a write up on it this past weekend too.

Shopping Spree

H&M in Arcadia has a Men's section! Lately, I find I enjoy shopping sprees much more than the consistent grind of frequent window shopping and sale searching.

New Car Game

While I've already got my dependable car, I always like to play a game where I figure out what new car I'd get if I was in the market. I've followed the Acura TSX for a while but have officially changed my choice to the Honda Civic Hybrid.

Update: Or is the Natural Gas Civic...

Jesus Radio

The closest I get to Christian radio right now is the Jesus Show on KFI. The host roleplays the Son of God and talks to callers. It caught my attention because the concept was almost offensive and the constant Depeche Mode bumper music was funny. After listening for awhile, I found that "Jesus" had pretty good answers and was pretty sharp. And I think he helps.

LA Weekly now has a profile on the person behind the character. Neil Saavedra is more rough around the edges than I hoped. I like the drinking smoking types (C.S. Lewis) but he should consistently attend a Church! Goodness, he ain't Jesus at all. But then again, we all knew that. And most Fuller seminary students I know often don't go to Sunday service very often. So God bless him. He does good work. Maybe one day, he'll take more of his "own" advice, which ultimately is the challenge for us all.

LA

My round of blogs this morning led me to a nice post on why one blogger loves LA:

And finally, the realization that this town is essentially a citified suburbia. Densely packed neighborhoods, a myriad of streets forming a N/S/E/W pattern (except near Downtown), the sound of traffic speeding along semi-residential major thoroughfares and helicopters in the distance

It further reinforces in me that Los Angelean planners should embrace what we are and never ever try to make it like other places. This is how I feel about aesthetics in general. With few exceptions, it is always better to simply own who you are and add aspects of that which inspires you as opposed to self loathing and wholesale replication of someone else's aesthetic (or architecture or street grid or hair style). I found the site via Curbed LA because of a post on downtown LA Lofts. It's a shame I missed all the tours last weekend.

More Pictures

New set from the successful LA-APA Mixer last week.

To Do

Oh! There is only a week or so left to see that Gallery 727's LA River Exhibit I posted about before. I need to fit in 300 this week too...

God and Politics

Last week's sermon (March 4, 2007) caused me to reconsider how I get some of my more nuanced political opinions. Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and I get the feeling that I could benefit from seeking God's wisdom prior to man's wisdom. And if I end up on the other side of the aisle here and there, that ain't so bad.

So what does God consider righteous? What is God's justice? Who does God see as the poor? How does God ask me to respond? What does God ask of Christians collectively? What kind of policies would God want me to advocate? There are no easy answers but at the same time, I'm looking forward to looking at Jewish law, Hebrew and Greek definitions of righteousness and justice, Jesus's teachings, and things like that. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up right where I started. Haha.

Fashion

This post from The Sartorialist is a must see. While it is runway and not street photograhy, I was immediatly struck by how much I like them. Of the three, the second picture (sans the hat) is my favorite.

Angel Thoughts

Bartolo Colon won the 2005 AL Cy Young (best pitcher) award. He won't win this year but I think he'll be just as good. Why? It is a contract year. This is good news for everyone except Joe Saunders, who might lose his spot in the rotation.

McMansion

Curbed LA has a little tidbit on zoning in their CurbedWire. Apparently City Planning is looking to change provisions on single family homes. The rumor is that they will limit the construction of McMansions. LA is mostly infill so this doesn't affect huge tracks as much as the typical ethnic family that doesn't care about annoying their neighbors and stacks as much tacky square footage on their lot as possible (adding pink stucco and columns too). I'll be curious to watch this process. Generally, people in LA don't like to be told what to do on single family homes, but they love telling their neighbor...

Public Art

Down here in Pedro, the condo boom hit a little on the late side. Only one of the projects has been constructed. There are some high rises coming soon but I wonder if the wave was missed.

Centre Street Lofts is the constructed project. I've kept an eye on it since it is tied to the Waterfront project and I am always kinda sorta in the market myself. The development, which received public funding through CRA, designated a significant number of units for "moderate income" (I didn't qualify). There is also an interesting public art component to the project. The piece is called 'Mojo' and was designed by Christian Moeller. I think of it as a real life Pixar lamp, but this New York Times article elaborates more and discusses the Big Brother and surveillance aspects.

March

Book club of the month is Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. CD of the month is Cold War Kids, Robbers & Cowards.

*Crack!!!*

I've got spring training baseball on the radio here at work. Life is good.

Planning Podcast

Planetizen podcasts Planning Director Gail Goldberg's talk with Maryland Governor Parris Glendening on smart growth. Great idea but the sound quality is poor -- too much echo. Here are some major points that I could pick up.

1. There is no need to prevent sprawl because LA is already there. The objective is to use urban design and land use to strengthen the cohesiveness of neighborhoods within LA.

2. Local constituents are in many ways the primary drivers of planning in LA and that is where the the Planning Department needs to focus their education efforts.

3. The last point, and my favorite, is that the goal of LA is to accommodate the diversity inherent in the city. She comments that SF is a wonderful place but has priced out families, and the poor. I would say they designed away from families too.

I just like playful jabs at no-cal. Apparently, the average income is so high that a family of four that makes something like 90K a year can qualify for low income housing.