Out My Front Door

Yesterday morning when I opened my front door to go to work, the air was so crisp and clean, the grass was so green from the rains and the mountain was so beautiful that I quickly took out my camera and snapped a shot.

I live in an 1,100-square-foot house on a 10,000-square-foot lot, and the house is set all the way at the back of the property. All of the properties on my block are zoned R-2 (two residential structures per parcel), but mine is a rare one that doesn't have a second house on it.

That allows for the park-like yard with the huge sycamore and two Deodar cedars all lined in a row, with the mountain as a backdrop.

I don't know when the trees were planted, but they're definitely mature. The house was built in 1922.


Over the 20 years I've lived here, some friends and neighbors have pressed me to build a duplex in front of my house as an income property. But then my view would be the back side of a duplex. And the cedars would have to go.

I work long hours, and sitting on my front porch every morning to sip tea and enjoy the view is a big part of my quality of life.

I water some plants but I almost never water my lawn. It's pretty big, so watering is an expensive proposition. Therefore, thankfully, my water bill from PWP is very low.

Hey, remember that Pasadena's cool-season lawn and landscape watering schedule kicks in on Monday, Nov. 1. It's a mandatory cutback! More info here.


UPDATE: I shot this photo at 7:00 this morning when I was sipping tea on one of the rocking chairs on my front porch. This view, or the back side of a duplex? I'll take this one.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Scullery Captain* wins with his/her 12:27 p.m. Tuesday guess "Trash/debris being collected to be burned in the City's Power Plant on Glenarm(?)."

In the photo above, shot in 1933, rubbish is piled up at the new incinerator operated by Pasadena's Municipal Light and Power Department (now called Pasadena Water and Power, or PWP).

It was one of Pasadena's first attempts at recycling.

From PWP's book "100 Years of Community-Owned Power":

Long before the era of landfills and waste disposal systems, Pasadena faced what a 1930s Municipal Light and Power annual report called a "rubbish condition," with combustible rubbish unpleasantly burned in open pits, causing smoke to drift over the region. At one point the City used an incinerator on Raymond Avenue north of Glenarm Street, but it became obsolete. So, the City turned to Municipal Light and Power to design and construct a rubbish-burning incinerator adjacent to the Glenarm Power Plant.

Built by department employees primarily using equipment discarded from the power plant, the incinerator -- designed to handle one hundred tons of rubbish per day in either of its two furnaces -- began operation in November 1933. Besides correcting "a perplexing situation which caused the general city considerable concern," as Municipal Light and Power's 1934-35 annual report noted, the incinerator saved Pasadena taxpayers about $11,000 annually.

Department employees developed the incinerator with the plan to convert the disposed-of waste material into steam power for feedwater heating at the Glenarm Power Plant. Though some challenges ensued, it worked. Enough steam was produced to equal one barrel of fuel oil for each three tons of rubbish burned, and the byproduct obtained from the steam during the burning operation was used in the plant.

The incinerator continued to operate over the years, and when the City placed a ban on the backyard burning of combustible materials in 1957, the department expanded the incinerator's capacity to 250 tons per day, with some refuse delivered by City employees in a new backyard pickup program.

For the department's power plant employees, having the incinerator on-site definitely had its perks. Retiree Herman "Tex" Romine recalled dairy trucks bringing in partially thawed but packaged ice cream that hadn't sold to dump in the incinerator. "Everybody would come over and get all the ice cream they could. We had free ice cream for a week or so," he said, adding that employees with fireplaces also got plenty of firewood; in fact they never ran out of it in winter.

But the supply of free ice cream and firewood couldn't last forever. In 1965, Pasadena's Engineering Street Department decided to take rubbish to the Scholl Canyon Disposal Area instead, which reduced the income from the incinerator. The department ceased operating the incinerator on January 1, 1967, and then demolished the equipment to prepare the land for other uses, ending yet another colorful chapter in the department's history.

* SC, please e-mail me at aerdman@cityofpasadena.net and I'll tell you about your fabulous prize!

In the Pink!

A week ago I blogged about a photo opportunity with firefighters in pink shirts.

On Monday night, Pasadena City Council members donned pink shirts during their weekly meeting here at City Hall.

Vice Mayor Victor Gordo (left) and District 6 Councilman Steve Madison are in the top photo.

Below: District 3 Councilman Chris Holden and District 2 Councilwoman Margaret McAustin.


And here are City Clerk Mark Jomsky and Mayor Bill Bogaard:


Firefighters came in their pink shirts and received a proclamation from Mayor Bogaard for showing solidarity this week with breast cancer awareness and women's cancer research.


I snapped this shot in the anteroom behind the council chamber, with District 1 Councilwoman Jacque Robinson in the middle:


Real firefighters wear pink!

Mystery History

Where are we? And what's happening?

The first person to guess correctly will win a fabulous prize!

I'll have the full scoop on Thursday.

Serendipity

Mike treated me to a belated birthday lunch yesterday at Euro Pane near City Hall. Mike and I know each other because we're local bloggers.

So I walked in the door to say hi to Mike and, much to my surprise and delight, my long-time friend Bill Matthies was there, too:



Neither one of them wanted to pose for photos, but I snapped them anyway. So there.

Mike and Bill know each other casually because they both happen to frequent Euro Pane. I had never been there for lunch (only early morning meetings), so I had no idea that I would ever run into Bill there. We haven't seen each other in more than a year.

Mike had to leave early, and Bill and I settled in for a catch-up chat, but too soon it was time for me to get back to work.

Bill and I have known each other for the better part of 20 years. In addition to having a few great friends in common, we've hung out at the Troubadour, sung duets in Latin by the light of the moon, swapped stories in teepees, and on and on.

Bill is an artist in the most magnificent sense of the word. One of my prized possessions is a very limited print of his "Sunset on the Arroyo" (I have #16 of only 25) featuring a sycamore tree on the edge of the Arroyo Seco with the Colorado Street Bridge in the background:


It's on the wall of my office at Pasadena City Hall.

Thank you, Mike! Yesterday was serendipitous to say the least. And the egg salad sandwich was phenomenal.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Davis wins with his/her 11:22 a.m. Tuesday guess "Unlike today, when a number of tickets for the annual Rose Bowl game are available to Pasadena residents at the Pasadena Civic Center box office, back in the 50's (by the look of the womens' coats), tickets were sold at the stadium itself. The first day these were available, folks arrived early in the morning for their spot in line. Some brought folding chairs, others made fires to ease the chill. Sound plausible? (I wasn't there.)"

Davis, your link didn't go to any contact information, so please e-mail me at aerdman@cityofpasadena.net and I'll tell you about your fabulous prize!

In the photo above, dated Dec. 21, 1951, more than 3,000 Pasadena residents form a line several blocks long in the early morning hours at the Rose Bowl Stadium for an opportunity to purchase 1,750 tickets available to the public.

Eleven days later, Illinois and Stanford football teams were on the field at the stadium. Illinois won 40 to 7 (ouch).


Illinois' Bill Tate (above) was named MVP.

This year, public tickets to the 2011 Rose Bowl Game will go on sale at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 7, through Ticketmaster only.


Many thanks to the Tournament of Roses.

Pasadena Firefighters Go Pink!

On Monday morning, Pasadena firefighters swapped their standard uniform shirts for pink t-shirts to help raise awareness of breast cancer and women's cancer research.

As public servants, Pasadena firefighters lead by example in this community every day.

In the composite photo above, firefighters from Fire Station 34 pose with representatives from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

We had a photo opportunity for media on Monday; firefighters will wear the pink shirts while on duty from Oct. 25 to 30.

Shirts will also be available to the public for $20 at Fire Station 34, 1360 E. Del Mar Blvd. All proceeds will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The International Association of Firefighters logo is on the front, and the back reads “Firefighters for the Cure.”


Many thanks to the Pasadena Fire Department.