So your city has declared a climate emergency

 We are experiencing record heat in both North America and Europe, during a La Nina year (when the planet surface tends to be cooler than average).  The only way to stop this long-term runaway heating is to quit emitting so much CO2 and other planet-warming gases. Yet, our elected leaders, even in deep blue states, are not doing the necessary work.

I am so tired of fighting for substantive changes that I wrote about in Data Driven Climate Action. We know that 44% of LA County's GHG emissions comes from the transportation sector. If you add fossil fuel refining, it's over 50%. Over 2/3 of transportation emissions comes from private light-duty vehicles (cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans).  Much of those miles are "junk miles" in the sense that they are short trips that could be done without a car if the built environment were not so auto-centric. 

I have been a bicycling advocate since graduate school in the 1990s, when I was studying gas-phase chemical physics. We knew it was cars back then, and it's still true today. 

Global Atmospheric CO2 was 360 ppm (parts per million) when I volunteered for my first Boulder BikeWeek. 

CO2 was 367 ppm when I volunteered for my first El Segundo Bike to Work Day Challenge in 1998. 

CO2 was 369 ppm when I went to my first Beach Cities Bicycle Network Community Outreach meeting in 1999.  Community outreach took forever. My 21 year old daughter wasn't even conceived yet, which was why I had time to attend the meeting. 

CO2 was 392 ppm in 2011 when the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan was adopted. Cities pledged that they would add the bike lanes when they repaved or did work on any of the streets in the network. Over time, the network would be completed. A few cities did the bare minimum, striping in door zone bike lanes or stenciling sharrows when they repaved streets. Others, just ignored the plan. 

CO2 is 428 ppm in mid-2022.  Here are the existing bike lanes in the Beach Cities. Transportation planners are still expecting people to drive to the beach and ride along the Strand as recreation, not as every day transportation.

Here's the innovation in 2022. Those promised bike lanes will become a Local Travel Network, LTN, suitable for use by all sorts of low-carbon vehicles such as electric golf carts, eBikes, eScooters, motorized wheelchairs, skateboards, etc. They plan to start delivering this network in 2024. Notice how much less ambitious it is than the 2011 plan. It will not include anything other than sharrows and a few beg buttons at existing traffic signals. Unlike the 2011 plan, there will be no new traffic signals to allow cyclists to cross busy arterial streets. 

These purple lines are streets/roads where speed limits are 35 mph or less and are not truck routes. But notice how few of them cross the 405 Freeway or any of the high-traffic arterial roads/state highways. 

Not only are the legal crossings few and far between, necessitating long detours, but some of those purple streets are one-way. Going in the reverse direction will require an even longer detour. I can't make anything this ludicrous up. 

Consider the case of a student in North Redondo Beach who attends Mira Costa High School on an inter-district transfer. (The bus from North RB to RUHS in South RB is jammed and leaves kids stranded at the bus stop. To avoid this, some families beg for an inter-district transfer to the closer MCHS.)

If they had delivered on a bike lane along Artesia Blvd when they repaved it, students could take a direct route with a maximum grade of 5%. Not super pleasant, but doable if you had a protected bike lane.  Of course there is no bike lane of any kind because that would have removed free on-street parking.  Which is more important than our kids' lives and planetary health. 

Direct route: 1.6587 km, max 5% grade

Instead, students must take a roundabout way to an existing traffic light at Robinson/2nd St. 

Westbound detour: 2.2982 km, killer 15% grade short hill

But Robinson is a 1-way street going westbound, and so is Plant, the only other street connected to the east side of that traffic signal. To get home, our student has to take a different detour that crosses Artesia Blvd (CA 91) twice and Aviation at an angled intersection. 

2.874 km, wheelie territory 15+% grade sustained climb

If they had built the 2011 Bicycle Master Plan, with a new traffic signal at Voorhees, our student would have had a reversible direct route. There's a 13% grade climb for half a block. But it's doable with an eBike or a very low gear or if they dismount and walk that section. 

1.6991 km, max 13% grade

(I used mappedometer.com in metric to make calculating grades easier. )

In what world do we expect people in an automobile to take a detour that adds 75% more length to their trip and steepens climbs from 5% to 15% grade? That's just abusive. 

It's late, so I won't dissect why kids are riding eBikes in all sorts of unsafe ways. Spoiler, it's because the streets are hostile and don't allow them to take more direct and safer routes. 

This LTN will not make any difference when completed. 

2024 will look a lot like 2022. Only CO2 will be higher still.  And we'll have more dead kids*. 

* "the crash may have been a result of misaligned crosswalks due to the single diagonal cut handicap ramp, rather than two separate ramps aligned with the crosswalk." 

I have written before about the danger of single diagonal curb cuts.

LTN: One possible solution to decarbonizing transportation

Bad Dad and I were featured in A Local Travel Network for the South Bay Story Map* riding my Ebike and an Escooter we bought for combining with transit just before the March 2020 lockdown.

Click through to see the full wide picture that also includes a BMW electric car.  I have mixed feelings about this project.  I think it is a reasonable baby step, but the South Bay Cities Council of Governments does not appear inclined to offer more than sharrows.  In fact, their South Bay Bicycling Master Plan counts roads with 50+ mph traffic and a sign on the shoulder saying it is a bike route as a bikeway.

The Story Map makes some good points about the South Bay region of Los Angeles County.  This area is home to roughly 1 Million people and 750,000 cars.

70% of South Bay trips are less than 3 miles, yet we do most of them by car. It's both a problem of habit and the built environment. We don't provide safe spaces for people out of cars, so people make trips in cars, even if they would prefer to do otherwise. Spend some time exploring pedestrian and cyclist data using UC Berkeley's Transportation Injury Mapping System. 

In 2009-2020, there were 100,000 collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists, including ~3100 deaths,  in Los Angeles County.

This is just the people that braved the streets outside of cars. This doesn't even represent the suppressed active tranportation trips that people took in cars or forwent out of (quite rational) fear.

I'll take allies where I find them.  I am accepting the LTN (if they actually build it) as a down payment, but not as payment in full, for the safe streets that we deserve and need as we decarbonize local transportation.

* We were told to be near the intersection of Pacific and 10th street in Manhattan Beach, CA one Saturday morning to film.  We bike through that area on our way to the beach several times a week.  It's one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the region.  The organizer wanted a quintessential South Bay setting with the ocean.  But, I would not have selected a neighborhood that aggressively protects Single Family Home Zoning to preserve the affordability of $30,000,000 ($30 Million) dollar homes.  We have to quit showing SFHs as if they are normal or representative. Nothing could be further from the truth.

'Free college for all' or 'Free college for most'?

'Free college for most' doesn't sound as catchy as 'Free college for all!'

In a perfect world, the government would have enough money for all. But, in the current political climate, I'd settle for directing the money to the the most financially needy. I want government to give away subsidies to people in need or to change people's behavior. Giving money away to people who have enough and were already going to buy a product (college education) does neither.

New York may make waves for offering tuition-free college, but there is still the pesky problem of books and living expenses.  Meanwhile, California has been quietly charging tuition, but rebating it back to low and middle-income families.  In fact, most families will pay less under the CA system because CA offers more aid for living expenses.

Consider the University of California budget for 2018-2019 that was recently adopted.  It includes a small increase in tuition, but the bulk of UC costs is not tuition.  Living costs and books dwarf tuition two to one.

By charging tuition, and then redirecting those dollars to financial aid for needy students, many students and their families pay negative tuition.  That is, their financial aid is greater than the amount of tuition.

The median family income for CA families with children under 18 in 2010-2014 is $61,991. 

Under the new UC budget, tuition is ~$13,000/year and the students and parents would be expected to contribute ~$15,000.  (Undergraduate students can take out subsidized loans of up to $7,500/year or roughly half of the family contribution.)

If students start at a community college (CC) and live at home for the first 2-3 years, they can reduce the cost even further.  About half of CA CC students received full tuition waivers.  They only had to cover books and transportation costs, and those were subsidized for the neediest students.

Starting next year, the first year of California community college would be tuition-free for everyone.

One third of all UC graduates were CC transfer students.  They typically move away and live on campus at an UC for only the last 4-5 semesters.

CA has effectively had free college for most, if they can get over the hurdle of being prepared to take advantage of it.

This is where I think CA--our entire nation--could do better.  Notice that families with children under 18 have a lower income than families without children?  Not only are children expensive, but they impair their care-givers' ability to work for cash income.  This is why we need cash transfers from the unencumbered to the people who work hard to raise the next generation of citizens/tax-payers.

Look at the incomes for families with children under 18 by CA state assembly districts.

Consider the median family incomes in South LA, district 59.  Imagine raising kids on $26,341/year. Note that families with children are poorer in district 59 than those without.

That is one quarter the income of families in the South Bay region, district 66. Although families in this area with kids enjoy higher incomes than families without kids, the income difference is slight compared to the cost of childcare and other child-related expenses.  I want to be clear that, given the high cost of living in LA, $100,000/year is not luxurious at all.


But you cannot compare two-parent families earning $100k/yr with one parent families earning $25k/yr.  Every family in the latter group that manages to raise their children to be college-ready has achieved something heroic and earns my enthusiastic support.

The ecology of the NFL stadium

Our future is hotter and drier.  Our population is growing.

 In Los Angeles, and most of the western United States, we need to use our water more wisely.  That means capturing rainfall, using it to naturally irrigate landscaping, and storing the excess underground for future use.

The proposed stadium plan is about as ecologically and hydrologically dumb as you can get.

Proposed NFL stadium in Inglewood, CA.

As I wrote in Did someone mention a lake? for LA Observed:

No one asked, but this scientist wants to put in her two cents.

The LAT showed some beautiful photography of the existing site. This picture doesn't look like an empty lot to me. I see permeable surfaces, water and wildlife. The birds see a home.

Put it in context of the surrounding neighborhoods. This area has a surfeit of asphalt. It would be a textbook case of the urban heat island effect EXCEPT for the cooling effect of the greenery and the water of the former Hollywood Park race track.

The site of the proposed stadium as it looked in Jan 2016. Photo credit, Mark Boster, LAT.

I also appeal to environmental justice. The mostly white, mostly affluent kids of Manhattan Beach enjoy Polliwog Park while their peers in Redondo Beach enjoy (and even camp overnight) at Hopkins Wilderness Park. Percolation Ponds can be beautiful community assets. The mostly dark-skinned and less affluent children of Inglewood deserve better than this NFL stadium plan.

Go to work/school late tomorrow

and watch the launch of DMSP F-19 from the beach.

From Spaceflight Now:

April 3, Atlas 5, DMSP-F19
Launch window: 1446-1456 GMT (10:46-10:56 a.m. EDT; 7:46-7:56 a.m. PDT)
Launch site: SLC-3E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, designated AV-044, will launch the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program 19 spacecraft for the U.S. Air Force. Built by Lockheed Martin, this polar-orbiting weather satellite will be used by the military for global weather forecasting. The rocket will fly in the 401 vehicle configuration with a four-meter fairing, no solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.

F19 means it will be the 19th Defense Meteorological Satellite launched.  This is the second to last one; only 20 were manufactured.

I've previously pulled my kid out of school for the entire day to drive her to Vandenburg AFB for a prior DMSP satellite launch.  This time, I think we will just watch the satellite fly by from the Manhattan Beach Pier.

Spaceflight Now 101 has a page about the launch with links to the launch webcast and the ascent ground track.  As I explained before, polar-orbiting weather satellites fly nearly due south from Vandenburg AFB.  Tomorrow morning's sky is forecast to be clear so the entire Santa Monica bay should get a good view of the satellite as it flies by.

In case you missed it, you can watch the video.

Watch live streaming video from spaceflightnow at livestream.com

Some happy thoughts

As we hurtle to a government shut-down, I feel the need to point out some happy things.

Los Angeles will experience another Ciclavia this Sunday, October 6.  Come bicycle or walk around downtown LA without cars.

Tanaka Farms is hosting their annual Fall CSA day for CSA subscribers on Saturday October 5.  Subscribe and you and your family can join the Tanaka family to celebrate the fall harvest.

The Affordable Care Act will go into effect tomorrow.  Read what the available evidence really says in Obamacare, the Oregon Experiment, and Medicaid at Science-Based Medicine.

Medicaid coverage decreased the probability of a positive screening for depression (−9.15 percentage points; 95% confidence interval, −16.70 to −1.60; P = 0.02), increased the use of many preventive services, and nearly eliminated catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.

I've been swamped performing family work, recovering from family work, and applying for market (paying) work.  But, I hope to write something tomorrow about the connection between Cinderelmo and geomagnetism/geophysics.  It's something I doubt you'll ever read in the main-stream media (MSM) to cover, but I hope you will find it informative and uplifting.

Little Ethiopia Treats

I previously mentioned in LACMA Summer Evenings that we enjoy eating in Little Ethiopia before or after visiting LACMA galleries.  There is something about eating with our hands brings out the kid in all of us.

If you have to endure this kind of traffic where Fairfax Avenue compresses from two down to one lane, then why not stop for refreshment midway?

Fairfax used to be an orthodox Jewish neighborhood.  Many Ashkenazi (European Jewry like my in-laws) congregations sponsored Ethiopian Jews for immigration and shared this area.  As the Ashkenazi moved westward and northward, Ethiopian businesses sprung up to fill the storefronts here.

Orthodox Ethiopian Jews eat vegan on ritual days.  But you don't have to wait to sample it; Rahel serves vegan food every day.  We are not vegan.  But, given a tasty alternative, we prefer to eat lower down the food chain.  This is one of our family's favorite restaurants in Los Angeles.  If you didn't tell someone that the food is vegan here, I don't think they would notice the absence of dead animals.

Before eating family-style with your hands, you .must. wash your hands thoroughly with soap and hot water.  Rahel's hallway and dining room walls are lined with artwork by friends of the owner's.  Prices are marked (and quite reasonable).

The lunch buffet is quick, cheap and tasty--but you miss the chance to dine family-style off a big platter. (But don't use that excuse to skip washing your hands!)

We start by sampling the salads.


Then we return with a clean plate for the hot entrees, which we eat with injera.

Injera is a type of bread made with teff flour, which is difficult to source outside of Ethiopia.  Consequently, most restaurants in America stretch it out 50/50 with wheat flour.  However, 100% teff injera is available upon request at Rahel.

After stuffing ourselves, I like to shop for (what else?) textiles. Iris enjoys the thrift shops, especially the vintage jewelry. We have also had fun purchasing CDs of world music.

Some other perspectives on Little Ethiopia:

• Discover LA's guide to Little Ethiopia
• LA Times neighborhood synopsis
• Little Ethiopia Business Association

We also enjoy eating at:

• Rosalind's: oldest African restaurant on the block and it offers west African food, too
• Genet's: spiciest and some say the most authentic
• Messob: good food and great atmosphere

What we order when not dining at a buffet:

• Vegetarian sampler: for large groups, get several
• Doro wot: chicken and egg stew with spices
• Beef tibs: for carnivorous Iris
• Whole Fried Catfish: because it looks so cool and tastes pretty good

LA Zoo

To prove that we do know how to dress appropriately, I want to show some pictures of our visit to the LA Zoo before freezing our buns off at the foggy Getty Center.

Many people are not aware of the obscene amounts of money spent throwing children's birthday parties among the upper middle class and rich. It's hard to go against the tide. But, we have a friend who did the math and figured out it was much better value to donate the same amount of money to the LA Zoo and then use the private tours as a birthday party substitute. It's a much better use of money because his donation helps other people's kids (school tour groups) attend the zoo for free.

This means we get to go to the zoo before the general public and go behind the scenes.  We were all fascinated by creepy crawlies like the snakes.  How do you change the food and water for a venomous snake?  This staffer showed us how.  (Very carefully and with the right tools.)

I especially enjoyed seeing the Komodo dragons before the arrival of the usual Saturday crowds.

The highlight was a private meeting with the twin adolescent tigers.

Close enough encounter for you?

I learned firsthand how quick and silent they could be when I leaned in to see a plaything, a yoga ball, while they were in an adjacent cage.  The smaller and normally less aggressive tiger ran through the gate between the cages and charged to force me to back off.  Once I stepped back, he became quite mellow.

Huntington Summer Evenings

One of my favorite summer delights is the Huntington Library and Gardens Summer Evenings.  Gardens open for members only 5:30 to 8:00.  Bring your own picnic or order one of theirs.  Lay your blanket out on the great lawn to enjoy a free concert.  The kids dance spontaneously on the lawn, the paths, and any open spot.  Cuteness overload.

Alternatively, find a quiet corner elsewhere and enjoy the balmy, but comfortable temperatures of summertime in Pasadena.  We like to hike over to the Chinese gardens and sit on the deck overlooking the water.

We can usually find an open table.  Sometimes, groups have to share tables (and exchange home-made picnic fare).  It's all fun and friendly.

Kids run around the lake.  Koi cruise up, hoping for some food.  Dusk at the lake with the mountains in the background is magical.  Iris and I bring sketchbooks and watercolor pencils and attempt to capture the scenery.

Just bring the bug repellant and you will have a great time.

The remaining Summer Evenings for 2013 are Aug 4 and Aug 19.  Reserve your parking pass ASAP.

Membership levels begin at $120/year.  It's worth it if, like me, you enjoy watching gardens change with the seasons.  I take out of town visitors there often and their jaws drop when they see and experience it.  The art collection is impressive.  We love the history of science hall.

Pennamite was awarded access to their research library and I might apply for access as well.  I am interested in studying their history of science materials with an eye to writing about them here.

Right now, they are featuring a show on textile arts from Californian collections!

All photos courtesy of http://www.huntington.org/.

Who knew the internet would lead to this?

Many, many years ago, a stranger from Australia left a comment telling me that I was mistaken and included a link to updated data to contradict my opinion. She did it in such a pleasant way, and the research article she referred me to was so well-done, that I emailed her back my thanks. We kept in touch via email and our blogs over the years.

I learned that she earned a living as a technical writer/editor while pursuing graduate studies in medieval  history.  I'm a scientist with more than a casual interest in history.  She was a historian with more than a casual interest in science.  The Internet is a great way for people on the long tail to meet like-minded individuals.  The best part is, we're similar, yet dissimilar.  That way, we can learn new things from one another instead of being ditto heads (option 6) in an echo chamber.

Graduate school was put on hold after she got a fantastic job opportunity.  But that job abruptly ended through no fault of her own.  She took advantage of forced time off and accrued frequent flyer miles to tour California.

This is her third visit with us.  On this trip, she brought her aunt (in the safari vest), and six Style Arc patterns.  She took a panorama shot of us at the Getty Center after the marine layer crept in.  We look like typical under dressed tourists who don't know that the California coast is usually cold during the summer.  In our defence, we began the day at the inland and much warmer LA Zoo.

After they toured around San Francisco, they flew to San Diego, where we picked them up and went for a drive up the coast to La Jolla.  Can you tell the difference between a seal and a sea lion from this distance?  I can't.  But it sure was fun to see them clamber back up on the rock after swimming.

Hopefully, this means she can return to blogging and we can enjoy learning from her again. Meanwhile the patterns await while I deal with some RL issues like family work, job applications, and brushing up on statistics and programming with books and MOOCs.

LACMA Summer Evenings

I was shocked to learn that some of the Beach Cities families also participating in the Sister City exchange have never been to LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  It's a shame because it's a fabulous cultural resource and it is free for kids and their adult chaperones.  LACMA is also free for all many hours each month.  Check the visiting LACMA page for details.

Each Friday and Saturday evening through the summer, there are free concerts--Jazz on Fridays, Latin on Saturdays--at 6 PM in the main entrance court.  We pack a picnic dinner and listen from above, on the balcony area of the Ahmanson building.  Other families bring blankets and sit on the grassy areas around the plaza.  If you get there really early, you can find seats right in front of the stage.

LACMA is free for all LA County residents between 3 PM and closing M-F.  On Fridays, all of the galleries are open to 8 PM and BCAM and Resnick Pavilion remain open until 11 PM.

The LACMA film program also screens classics or hard to find movies at very modest ticket prices of $0-10.

With all this--and $10 flat rate parking--I don't know why museum attendance is in decline.  It is a great value in terms of cost and quality of experience.

I also heard from some gallery visitors that they eat in the nearby (artificial and pricey) Grove shopping complex when they visit LACMA.  They drive through Little Ethiopia, but don't stop to explore the shops and restaurants because they don't know where to go.  We just stopped, walked around, tried a half dozen restaurants, and narrowed it down to our favorites.  Next up, I'll review some of them.  Ethiopian is a good cuisine for vegetarians, vegans and people on gluten-free diets.  We're omnivores that enjoy good food, and that--and the hospitality of the culture--are the best reasons to eat Ethiopian IMHO.

MMM ThemeFriday Hometown

This Friday's Me-Made May 2013 theme is our hometowns. That's actually not an easy call in the metropolis of Los Angeles, where one town blends into the next. Is my hometown Los Angeles? The South Bay*? The Beach Cities**? Redondo Beach? The "Felony Flats" (FF) neighborhood of Redondo Beach?

In the end, I decided to show all scales. We took this photo at the corner of McKay and Artesia--where I pick up my CSA box, shop for groceries and hardware and dine. As you can see from the sign, this grocery store serves a diverse clientele.

Have you played around with the North American Census Dotmap?  Each dot represents one person from the US, Mexico and Canada censuses.  You can zoom in and pan around.  Too much fun.

I took a screen shot of Los Angeles, and marked the locations of where people live  in Hollywood movies (sparse whitish areas) and where they live in reality (dark semi-solid blobs).  In the movies, Angelenos drive everywhere because they live so far away from everything.  In reality, Angelenos have the lowest carbon footprint among American cities because .most. people live with incredible density--on par with New York City.


Have you played around with the Walkscore Heat Map of Los Angeles?  You can also zoom in and pan around to explore different regions.  Areas marked in red mean that you can't walk to any services from there.  Areas in green enjoy high walkscores (low walk times) to amenities.  Notice the deep red color of Malibu and Hollywood Hills--home of most Angeleno characters in movies.

Compare that to the Walkscore Heat Map of Felony Flats.  The intersection where we took the photo has a Walkscore of 89 under the old scoring system and 96 (out of 100) under the new system in beta, earning FF the coveted "Walkers' Paradise" designation.

If you play around with both maps, you will notice that some densely-populated areas such as south-central LA endure very low walk scores due to lack of services.  Places that don't generally get much respect in  the media, such as the San Fernando Valley and pockets of the South Bay, enjoy some of the highest amenity levels within walking distance of large populations.

Our family likes our urban places urban and our wild places wild.  I think that is why we enjoy living here so much.

Myrna asked what type of scarves I make out of jersey scraps.  It depends on the shape of the scraps.  For this one, I cut two bias strips and seamed them together to make one long scarf.  Bad Dad managed to take a good shot of the scarf, but caught me with my eyes closed.  You want to see the scarf and my dinner more than you want to see me, right?

I'm wearing a linen shift, Burda 8511.  I've used it to make this dress and several shell-style tops.  Carolyn has made this dress so many times, she gave it it's own label.  Sometimes, you just want a well-drafted basic.

The gray linen comes from SAS Fabrics, an odd-jobber in nearby Hawthorne.  The bolt probably came from a local manufacturer.  I purchased the jersey from Trash For Teaching; they told me that the jersey came from American Apparel's nearby factory.  Many LA-region factories throw leftover materials into T4T barrels rather than trash them.  T4T collects the barrels and then sells the castoffs for $1-2 per pound.  To shop at T4T, you need to be involved in education.  Blogging about sewing from cast-offs counts as teaching.  So does teaching someone (yourself or others) to sew.

* The South Bay is generally considered the area bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west, Interstate highway 405 to the northeast, Los Angeles International Airport to the north, Los Angeles Seaport to the south.  Proximity to a busy international airport and two major seaports attracts many international companies.  In turn, this attracts a diverse and international populace to the South Bay.

** Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo Beaches

Tidepooling tomorrow at Abalone Cove

I've previously blogged on and on about tidepooling in Abalone Cove.  Tomorrow, we'll have another low-tide opportunity to putter around the tidepools and visit critters in their rocky homes.  Meet at the Abalone Cove State Park parking lot at 1:00 pm for a docent-led hike.  Wear sturdy walking shoes that you don't mind getting wet and bring a towel for drying off and a water bottle.

February 24, 2013 (1:00 pm) ~ Join the Los Serenos docents on a public hike to the tide pools at Abalone Cove Shoreline Park (the parking fee will be waived up to 45 minutes prior to the hike and 30 minutes after).

View the daily tide predictions for LA.

This is a very fun activity for kids and the young at heart.  And, tomorrow, the rangers are providing free parking.

Did I mention that whales and dolphins frolic offshore from the tidepools?  Today, the whale-spotters saw 9 whales and much breaching activity, including synchronized breaching (like synchronized swimming, only on a much larger scale).

Message from the observers: One of our northbound pairs there was rolling and the side of the flukes. They milled for a while and their blows were backlit by the setting sun so their blows were pink in color. On two occasions they synchronized their fluke up dives - very pretty. Three of our five sightings were large whales that fluked; this included our southbound whales. FIN whales were seen throughout the day. We counted over eight whales, there were five in just one group. There was one whale that had a "massive blow", but no one used a scope to see if it was a FIN whale or a BLUE whale. Also seen were COMMON, BOTTLENOSE and PACIFIC WHITE-SIDED dolphins. There were a series of three green flashes that each turned blue at the end. We have taken to augmenting the viewing of the green flashes by using our scopes.

Chevron El Segundo Refinery Community Tour Day November 3, 2012

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to tour the Chevron refinery in El Segundo with the local MIT club.  The tour proved so popular, they had to add a second bus and put others on the wait list.  I was disappointed because they wouldn't let us off the bus.  However, no one is allowed off the bus at a refinery these days unless they have had extensive safety training.

On rare occasions, Chevron runs tours for the general public.  If you live near El Segundo, don't miss this Community Tour Day.   (I don't know how they define 'neighbor', but you must enter your city of residence on the reservation web form.)

Aren't you curious about the source of your gasoline, jet fuel and the terminus of that natural gas pipeline that runs through your neighborhood?

Kids are welcome, but younger kids may not get much out of the tour.  The guide for our Chevron tour said that it is suitable for high school and college students.  However, middle school children in the MIT club group seemed to understand the information just fine.

Make sure the kids use the restroom in the visitor center before embarking on the bus.   There is no bathroom on the bus and they won't let you off!   The public tours are 60-minutes.  (Our private group tour lasted nearly 2 hours and some kids got squirmy at the end.)

If the tour sells out or your city isn't on their 'neighbor' list, don't despair.  Talk to your children's science teacher about a school trip.  Your school group need only provide round trip transportation to the refinery and the rest is free.  Contact tours@chevron.com for available school tour group times.

Chevron El Segundo Refinery Community Tour Day

Saturday, November 3, 2012
9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Chevron El Segundo Refinery
Administration Building
324 W. El Segundo Blvd.
El Segundo, CA 90245
The Chevron El Segundo Refinery will be offering free bus tours of the facility to our neighbors on Saturday, November 3, 2012. The 60-minute tours will leave from our Administration Building, and will be given completely via bus. Parking will be in the Chevron Lots located on the north side of El Segundo Blvd. between Richmond St. and Virginia St.
All adult participants will be asked to show a photo ID. All bags, backpacks and purses are subject to search. No photography of any kind, including photos taken with cell phones, are allowed during the bus tours.
Reservations are required and can be made at: www.chevrontour.eventbrite.com. The first tour will depart at 9 a.m. with subsequent tours leaving every 15 minutes.
Please direct questions to 310.615.3747 or tours@chevron.com.
We look forward to seeing you on November 3!

Don't delay. The (free) tickets are selling out quickly.

We can discuss the tour later.  I am buried under EdX homework and birthday party plans.  Iris' Halloween costume is still a hot mess (my operator error, sigh).

Unschooling

Life has been busy and good chez BMGM, but not often blog fodder.  If you are purely interested in sewing content, scroll to the end.

Our entire family has been taking on-line classes through Coursera, edX, and CalTech.  It's been like going back to college, without the tuition and parties.  OTOH, Bad Dad and I are taking a literature course together and every family meal is a discussion section.  Only there is no question that the cute guy with the green eyes hidden behind his glasses .is. interested in me.  ;-)

There was no school last Monday because of Rosh Hashanah.  I took Iris and three of her friends to LACMA and lunch at Rosalind's in Little Ethiopia.

Ask Mr Protocol's amaneunsis*, Mike O'Brien, sent me a tweet; we were laid off the same day and we missed each others' company.  I invited him to meet us at LACMA.   I had been taking a class about Internet History and who would be a more interesting lunch date than the person who wrote software for the ARPANET NCP-to-TCP cutover?  (ARPANET is the pre-cursor to the internet. That't the TCP of TCI/IP.)

The girls wanted to see the Egyptian display.  I wanted to see the leather bound books in the Japanese area.  Fortunately, Mike agreed to accompany the girls so I could sneak off alone.  The books are amazing and well-worth visiting.

But, the surprise is how well I planned the outing.  I had forgotten that Mike learned to read hieroglyphics as a break from ARPANET programming and then traveled around Egypt.  The kids enjoyed his company and all his stories as much as I do.

* Ask Mr Protocol was a monthly column about internet protocols and security that ran for 15 years.

• The full Mr Protocol archive in pdf format
• Mr Protocol on combining bicycles with computers
• Mr Protocol on internet security and security apparatchiks

The Coursera literature class is reading Cory Doctorow's novel, Little Brother, which you can download in many formats for free through this site.  I can't say enough good things about this novel.  But, it also reinforces my good taste in choice of friends as Mr Protocol wrote in March 2000,

There are two basic rules to security considerations of any sort, computerized or otherwise: 1) The effort put into security should be consonant with what you’re trying to protect, and 2) a steel front door does no good if the back wall of the house is missing. Or, putting it another way, security should be appropriately scaled, and it should be applied evenly. Sort of like a good coat of paint.

There is nothing inherently good about security. It is a negative concept: it exists, in its entirety, for purposes of prevention. In a perfect world, the entire apparatus could go away and it would be unmourned.

...after a digression on how SSL encryption for e-commerce works, my emphasis at the end...

Most people never have to move beyond that. However, if one looks around, it isn’t hard to find folks who, as much as they might wish it, don’t fall in with what “most people” need. Take email. There are the people who send things via email that they’d rather not have read by people other than the intended recipients. Some of these people are working on sensitive technology in big-money start-ups, for example, or are exchanging email about contract negotiations, email that the people on the other side of the table would just love to read. Then there are the people who need to keep their email secret from the CIA, the NSA, the NRO, the FBI, the Trilateral Commission, the UFOs and all seven clones of Lee Harvey Oswald. No, really!

Security isn’t in the eye of the beholder. It’s in the eye of the beheld.

Sewing Content
BTW, Iris is wearing Vogue 8936 and I am wearing a Frankenpattern with pieces from Vogue 1224 (skirt) and Kwik Sew 2852 (bodice). Yes, I did make Vogue 1224 straight up and will post pix and a review later.