C'mon Feel the Silence

OK, so it's a take on the Quiet Riot song:



It's quiet as a tomb here at Pasadena City Hall. Ordinarily the energy is quite high any day of the week, but there are no council meetings until Sept. 8. Some employees are on vacation and others are focusing on long-term projects that need some special attention.

Believe me, I have plenty of those kinds of projects. I ordinarily don't leave the building until about 9 p.m. or later because I get a lot of job-related writing done after 5;30 p.m. when the phones have stopped ringing off the hook.

I'm getting a lot of writing done so far, and hopefully I'll get home at a reasonable hour. We'll see. . .

By the way, I have to give a shout out to Aaron Proctor, who told me some time ago how to post a YouTube video (don't laugh). This is the first time I've done so.

Bloggers Picnic

I was in elite company on Saturday afternoon at the San Gabriel Valley Bloggers Picnic, minus the trees and the park and the picnic tables and the ants and the flies and the sun and the dogs.

It was at the Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, which I have passed many times over the years but had never had an occasion to visit.

We were in a private banquet room of sorts, with three or four tables pushed together, and there was plenty of good food and company. I finally met so many of my fellow bloggers whose sites I have admired over the short time since I learned what a blog is, including Dianne, Petrea, Ben, Irina, Ed, Susan, Kelly, Billy, Frank and many others.

I promised Aaron Proctor a very special Christmas present this year: a bar of soap to wash his mouth out with.

Here's most of the gang, with thanks to WCGB:



* * *

I was in San Diego from Saturday evening to Monday morning (I'm usually down there on weekends these days, looking after my dad). I always take the 15 freeway down because it's so easy and usually wide open. Here it was this morning on the way back, about 8 a.m. somewhere between Escondido and Temecula. Way quicker and prettier than the 5, and it leads directly to the 210.



When I got to my office at City Hall and opened my window shade, I was struck by how fortunate I am to be on the second floor on the Garfield side, with beautiful magnolia trees outside in full bloom.