Redevelopment

The Garfield Inn has been in Alhambra, CA for over fifty years. In its heyday it was the location to lodge and be seen at. It sits on a prime location not far from downtown Alhambra and is of historical significance.

Like many communities in the San Gabriel Valley, Alhambra is experiencing a lot of redevelopment which is a kind way of saying that prime real estate is being scooped up and converted to either condos or combination residential / commercial housing.

I like my small community. I like its single residence properties with sizeable yards and its low density. The new developments are bringing increased traffic with inadequate parking and traffic jams from non-synchronized signal lights.

Recently while walking through the neighborhood, I encountered two different developers researching the Garfield Inn's property as they photographed and took measurements. I've seen this behavior before and it means one thing:  The city of Alhambra is considering selling the property to the highest bidder for demolishing.

Notice I didn't title this post Gentrification; it's not gentrification when existing buildings are not renovated but completely razed, sometimes the original foundation is uprooted. It makes me very sad to see my community being developed into oblivion and becoming more like West Los Angeles with its multitude of  high rises, apartments and condos with underground parking that regularly floods during a major storm.

The Happiest Place on Earth

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Awkward Moment

Have you ever experienced an awkward moment? The kind that makes you feel unsure about what to do or say? Sometimes you feel you're damned if you do or damned if you don't?

Yesterday I pulled into a parking spot at my local Ralph's grocery store. A few minutes later a car parked next to me and a blond woman exited. She had an employee badge dangling from a lanyard.

I remained in my car checking my grocery list when I noticed how filthy her car was; the car hadn't been washed in months from the layers of dirt that had accumulated. It reminded me of the rings on a tree that tell its history of how many years it's been growing.

I then noticed all the clutter in her car. It was filled with papers, empty containers and plastic  bags. Only the driver's seat was clear of debris.

[caption id="attachment_42" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Material Possessions of Homeless Persons"][/caption]

All at once I felt sad for her because  she may be homeless, but she was obviously working and trying to regain balance in her life. However, if she parked this vehicle at the employee lot then everyone would know she was homeless and what a terrible realism this would be.

I contemplated how I might help her:  Should I offer to pay for a car wash? Offer her the use of my water and drive way and we could wash the car together? Help her find shelter away from the car?

In the end I wasted so much time pondering what to do that she returned, entered her car and drove away. My fear of approaching her and being rebuffed paralyzed me and I'd failed to reach out and possibly help someone.

Twitter Desktop App Alternatives

I'm sitting at my spouse's job site because it's time to do payroll and one thing I learned early on, you never ever mess with peoples money. Normally I come with Boo on Sunday because afterwards we go to dinner in the San Fernando Valley, which is a good 30 miles from home. I usually bide my time by surfing the Net or logging in to Twitter, Brightkite or an alternate desktop application. Today we arrived to realize the I.T. department had blocked these sites and more! I saw my day becoming quite long and arduous as I contemplated having nothing to occupy my time with.

I Googled Twitter apps and reviewed several sites. Clicking on links resulted in the dreaded Web Sense message "This Websense category is filtered: Social Networking and Personal Sites." Not one to easily despair I continued researching different Google results and happened upon two sites that worked:

iTweet was functional and aesthetic enough to work with. It was intuitive and most important gave me access to Twitter so that I could read tweets and replies.

Tweenky's interface was bare bones and boring but I could read tweets and post so it will do in an absolute emergency.

I have an old notebook computer running WXP that used to connect to the home network with no problem. As of yesterday it stopped connecting and I've been troubleshooting ever since. Twitter has been a resource in determining what's causing the connection failure and since I desired to be productive, I thought I would continue exploring solutions from Boo's work. Thanks to iTweet and Tweenky the day was interesting and fun even if I haven't fixed problem yet.

Socialthing Desktop App

If you're like me you use a variety of applications with little thought about their usefulness in your daily routine. My eyes were opened this past weekend when Socialthing was offline.

I've been using Socialthing to read and post to Twitter, Brightkite, Plurk and supposedly Facebook - more on this later - via Ping. It conveniently displays posts of those I follow in a convenient view that allows me to assign a color to users I never want to miss anything on.





Its interface is uncluttered and displays thumbnail images of photos posted on Brightkite, something I have not seen any other desktop application do.  It's web-based which means I can access Socialthing from any computer anywhere - it's just so darned convenient!

I've been using it for about one year and when it was offline I was lost.  Of course, I tried searching Google for replacement desktop apps like Twhirl but it must be downloaded and installed via Adobe Air to use.  Also, Twhirl doesn't access Brightkite's API so this made my decision not to use it easy.

Apparently Socialthing has been bought by AOL and they've been enhancing it to integrate into AOL's network. I don't know if non-AOL users like myself will continue having access or if we'll be shunned. The one thing I do know is that I will be lost without Socialthing. Its absence last weekend left a huge void in my enjoyment of social networking.

As for Facebook, I feel like they're a walled garden. It seems they fuss with their API enough to thwart other apps from accessing their network and allowing users to read / post. I've become increasingly frustrated with Facebook's antics to the extent that I rarely login. My page is getting dusty!

Photo Sharing Sites

So many sites are appearing everyday hoping to entice social network users to post their photos with them. I have accounts with:

• Moby Picture used to allow me to post a paragraph of descriptive information which I liked a lot.


• TwitPic is ultimate in its simplicity but only posts photos to Twitter.


• Pikchur does post to all the sites I am active on and displays the photo in Brightkite posts (unlike other services which display a URL), but truncates my description to include its Pikchur URL. Annoying


• Tweet Photo is the newest arrival and while it does cross-post to some sites, it does not post to social networking site Brightkite which is a huge faux pas.


• Ping FM is fantastic at cross-posting to multiple social networks but does not include a photo description.

So do you use any of these and, if so, which do you prefer and why? Any recommendations are greatly appreciated.

Multi-unit Housing

This new complex providing eight units replaces two single residences. I see my neighborhood changing from single residences to condos, apartments and senior housing, with each new development comes increased density and parking issues.

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[caption id="attachment_23" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="I love how the sun's streak filters the lily"][/caption]

Economy or Swine Flu?

I hadn't been to the movies in a long time since I normally rent DVDs from Hollywood Video and use rent one get one free coupons. The store isn't far from my home and it makes for a nice walk when I want to exercise.

I think of  Saturday night's as bustling with movie goers, especially teenagers, eager to spend two hours being entertained and then catching a bite after. Last night was the first Saturday of Wolverine's opening weekend. We anticipated lines and sold out showings.

We approached the ticket counter at the Edwards theater in West Covina, CA and bought tickets for the showing one hour away. The ticket sales gal said we could easily have tickets for the 5:30 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. showings, but since we were waiting for my sister to arrive we held steady.

Upon entertaining the venue the snack bar was empty and there was no line for the 6:30 p.m. showing. The theater itself was not filled once the film began. Upon exiting there was a dearth of patrons and we felt like we were viewing a film on a weeknight.

We began speculating if the sparseness was caused by the economy or the swine flu? None of us had ever seen a theater this empty on a Saturday night or an opening weekend of what was anticipated to be a blockbuster flick. I felt like a character in a Twilight Zone episode where I'm the sole person left out of the loop.

Let's Go Dodgers!



At last night's game two fans wore surgical masks on their baseball caps which resulted in laughter. I sat among 54,000 plus fans in the middle of a level 5 health crises - the Swine Flu - and had a fantastic time. Except for these two guys no one spoke about or seemed concerned with the Swine flu. We just watched a fantastic game where the guys in blue beat the San Diego Padres 8-5!

Imminent Swine Flu Pandemic

[caption id="attachment_16" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Dodger fans wore surgical masks on their baseball caps but never on their faces!"][/caption]

I attended blanket night at Dodger Stadium last night, the team was in fantastic shape beating the San Diego Padres 8 - 5.  The game was sold out with many fans outside offering to pay scalpers' demands for a ticket.

It's been one full week since the media hype engines spread Swine Flu hysteria. Yet here I sat among 54,000 plus people - Dodger fans - who despite hearing of the level 5 health crises were laughing, eating and having a great time.

We sat in the stadium seats shoulder to shoulder inhaling the same air, daring to risk our lives for a night of enjoyment. No one mentioned the Swine Flu. No one joked about it. No one considered it.

The elderly, parents, young adults and children simply cheered and reveled in a close game on a beautiful night and had fun. Hell, I even high-fived a guy I didn't know twice after two awesome plays.