Pantry Door

A little over a year ago, we started remodeling the kitchen and adding the two new rooms. The only thing that didn't get changed in the kitchen was the door to the laundry room. The laundry room now doubles as a pantry, which is to say it has a bunch of shelves.
I saw a nice glass panel pantry door at Lowes, so I ordered one. About 10 days later it came in and we fetched it home.
I stashed it temporarily behind a piece of furniture.
I bought a hinge template for the router and I used the circular saw to trim the edges. Here it is, test fitted into the opening.

With all the cuts made, I took it to the paint shop ("garage") and painted it with some oil base paint.Here it is in place.
This is what it looks like when the light is on in the laundry/pantry.

Fire Again

Another fire broke out at the northeast corner of the valley last night. The Santa Ana winds are blowing toward us and we can smell the fire and there are ashes drifting in the air. There is also a fire up in Santa Barbara. The finds are blowing at over 70 MPH.

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Despair

Despair.com

More Fires

This morning a small fire started in Sepulveda Pass. It was out by the afternoon, but it caused I-405, the San Diego Freeway, to be closed in the early morning. Ashleigh and I detoured around the closure. On the radio, the officials were talking about the possibility it could burn like the Mandeville fire of 30 years ago -- the previous post I made here. We drove along Sunset Blvd and saw a half dozen fire trucks parked near Kenter Canyon, another place they feared the fire would spread.

1978 Mandeville Canyon Fire

This was taken from the Beeson Agency office in Century City looking west to the setting sun in the smoke. I'm pretty sure it's the 1978 Mandeville Canyon Fire. LAFD archive. The LDS Temple on Santa Monica is visible to the left.

Wild Fires

There are two fires burning around the San Fernando Valley now. This seems to happen when we have Santa Ana winds. The radio news said there were gusts up to 83 miles per hour (130 KPH). We forgot to put the umbrella down in our patio and the wind pushed it hard enough that it cracked the glass table top. The temperatures are around 80F today. Yesterday morning it seemed pretty chilly at 9 AM when we started Becca's softball game.
The fires are not menacing us much as I write this, although they have snarled traffic quite a bit. The 118 freeway is closed so people who need to go that way are forced onto the 101 freeway. The 101 was moving, but they are threatening to close it -- why I don't know as the commute would turn into a total nightmare.
Here is the Daily News' map of the fire. I don't know if it will stay updated or not.

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Here is my version showing the fire areas with the blue line indicating a path through the brush toward where we live.

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We've seen numerous wildfires from our property, but they're just far enough away that they don't threaten us directly. In 2001 there was a very local fire on Castle Peak. It was visible from our house:

But much more visible from a few blocks away:
The fire on Castle Peak was extinguished in a few hours.
In September of 2005, a major fire burned through the open area to the west of us. I took this photo (and others that I can't locate) from the driveway.
The 2005 fire burned from the north all the way to Malibu. In 1993 we had a major fire that came the other way and was visible to the south, but didn't come so close to us. The 1993 fire was sandwiched between the 1992 riots and the 1994 earthquake. There were floods in that span as well.

Softball Team

Here's another coed softball team from the dawn of time. That is me with the Prince Valiant hairstyle.

Claire's Return Delayed

A ridiculous delay. Three and a half hours late!

City	Date	Scheduled	Estimated	Actual	Terminal	Gate	Baggage Claim
Departing
ORD Chicago	09/20/2008	3:10 PM	6:30 PM	6:27 PM	T3	K16
Arriving
LAX Los Angeles	09/20/2008	5:30 PM	8:31 PM		T4	48B	2

Softball Team

No, not the one Becca plays on now, but the one I led in days of yore.
That is me, kneeling in the front.

Chatsworth Train Wreck

This afternoon there was a head on collision of a northbound Metrolink passenger train and a freight train in Chatsworth. Lorie and the girls used to ride horses at the facility just south of Stoney Point park. The accident occurred where the track curves around Stoney Point after emerging from the tunnel under Topanga Canyon Blvd. There is only one track, and the trains would normally pass each other at the Chatsworth station where there are two tracks. At least 20 people were killed, but many have survived.

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Medieval Times p.s.

Some years back, the company I worked for held the annual party at Medieval Times. Before the show, there was a private party in the lounge area and they gave the girls these foam swords. They are impressive in that it's almost impossible to hit somebody hard enough to hurt, yet they still feel reasonably solid. Later, another member of our family enjoyed playing with one of the swords. Also, in that version of the show, our knight was the hero.

Changes

When we moved in in 1987, this is what the house looked like:

This is up-to-the-hour:

More from the Archives

Claire is on her way to the airport for a three-week sojourn in Chicago. I just scanned this from a negative. Erin must have taken this on April 18, 2003.

Blast From the Past

This photo goes back to June 1996. Three weeks after it was taken, 80,000 tons of rock fell off a cliff in Yosemite Valley, burying the snack shack visible behind Lorie. The Happy Isles rockfall is pictured here and here.

Medieval Times

Today, we caught the 3:30 PM show at Medieval Times. What is it? From their site:

Medieval Times is an exciting, family-friendly dinner attraction inspired by an 11^th century feast and tournament. Guests are served a four-course banquet and cheer for one of 6 Knights as they compete in the joust and other tests of skill.

We arrived nice and early. The first thing they do is take your picture so they can sell it to you later. The guests are assigned one of the six knights to root for -- we were in the yellow section -- and we each received a crown denoting our allegiance.
Here are some of the characters lined so the king can go past.
After getting our picture taken, we went inside where there wasn't much to do.
So I took pictures.
Very expensive soft drinks while we waited.
Finally we were let into the arena. Perhaps because we were first in line we were given seats in the first row!
The menu was on the napkin. The only choices were between beer and Pepsi. I was driving, so I opted for the Pepsi.
Here is our knight, the Yellow Knight.
There were six knights.
They fought until only the evil Green Knight was left.
Then the Prince showed up, vanquished the Green Knight, and they lived happily ever after. The tournament was interrupted with displays of dressage. The horses were beautiful and very well trained. I didn't take many pictures because I was watching the show, but the Medieval Times web site above has pictures and explanations.

Griffith Observatory

Thursday evening, we went to the Griffith Observatory. Here is Claire with the Hollywood Sign barely visible on the hill to the rear, to the left of the antenna.
The observatory was renovated starting in 2002 and reopened in 2006.
This signage made us laugh.
One of the exhibits is a Tesla coil. As the docent said, "What does it have to do with astronomy? Absolutely nothing, but it is really cool!"
We went inside and saw the planetarium show. Afterward we climbed back up to the roof terrace to enjoy the lights of the city.

San Diego Weekend

We spent Saturday and Sunday in San Diego. We left early Saturday. The last time we tried to leave on Friday, it took five hours to drive down there. This time it only took three hours. We stopped in Old Town San Diego. It's supposed to be historic, but it's mostly shops selling cheap things. We bought Ashleigh a parasol at this place for $8.95. There are a lot of Mexican Restaurants, but we were hungry for lunch and went into the Acapulco that was closest to the parking spot we found.
This store sold minerals and gems.
I always thought stagecoaches were pulled by horses.
These performers didn't seem to have anything to do with history, but the guy did eventually juggle some knives while the girl stood on his shoulders.
Then we went to our hotel, the Embassy Suites in downtown San Diego. It had a nice atrium.

Which we got to enjoy for a while as we had trouble unlocking the door.
Then we took a walk through the shops at Seaport Village and then to the gas lamp quarter where Lorie checked out the Shorelines Gallery where she previously purchased the fish sculpture that hangs in our new family room.
Here is the USS Midway, a museum ship visible from our window. Lorie and I toured it back in October.
Sunday, we checked out and went to SeaWorld. We arrived just in time for the Dolphin show. This guy playing the guitar and singing was pretty annoying.
Still, it is fun to watch the dolphins perform.
I caught this guy jumping over the rope.
We stopped and fed the flamingos.
Here are some sea turtles. I'm not sure what kind they were.
At the tide pool, you can touch the starfish. There is also a place where you can touch some Bat Rays.
They have a raft ride, Shipwreck Rapids. We didn't go on it because we didn't want to get wet and have to drive home in damp clothing. I like the Archimedes' screws.
We went up in the sky tower.
Here it is from the ground.
We visited the Budweiser Clydesdales.
Okay, that wasn't really a Clydesdale. The horses were inside and I didn't take any pictures because they were behind bars.

Lorie and Becca decided to ride the Journey to Atlantis ride. Since it gets you even wetter than Shipwreck Rapids, they bought overpriced ponchos. The ponchos are supposed to look like orcas, but I thought they looked like Jedi. Here they are in line, not noticing me with my camera.
I stood in the sun for about 20 minutes before they finally appeared. Up they go.
And down, down...
Down.
Safe until the elevator phase.
We saw the walrus eating a fish. For some reason he kept expelling the pieces and then sucking them back in.
This Snowy Egret was waiting for an extra piece to float up.
We left around 4:45 PM and drove home. It was a good drive and we made it home in three hours. Here is the Journey to Atlantis ride seen from the parking lot. The tower on the left is the top of the water drop. The big tower is the elevator that lifts the car/boat up a second time.