I Sing the Body Electric from the Gallery
Taken from the title of a Twilight Zone episode, the picture above shows a man standing and looking at the Huntington Beach Pier. The photo was taken around sunset and a set of filters applied to create an effect that looks like everything is charged with energy. The image is a photo manipulation shown as a sample of what’s in the vacation picture gallery (a loose translation of digital imagery) that includes photographs taken from every day life, then twisted and turned into other shapes, textures, colours and dimensions.
If you fancy yourself as a decent photographer or someone who gets lucky, then you’ll appreciate that you can look at your image you took, and come across one that looks amazingly similar. With the new web environment, we “pro photographers” find it increasingly difficult to distinguish our work from 1,000 other people who captured the same sunset, saw the same car wreck and made the same YouTube video. So what’s next? Overload of images on the net makes it impossible to look at most galleries for more than a sec. Everybody’s got a gallery and some are good… some are better. If you wish to embark on a career in photography, your best bet will be shooting weddings or commercial stuff. We have an archive at beachcalifornia that includes slides, film and digital, and it’s all great. It include world travels, national trips and California cities and beaches out the ying yang. As the images that once sizzled continue to have commercial value because of special techniques, what’s fun is to step aside from reality and use photoshop in a purposeful manipulation. With our journalistic bend on accuracy and truth, we’ve delineated this one special spot for the “not real” scenes. They feature real people and real moments in time that got warped, making transitions to something different. Take a look if you get a chance. It’s just plain fun.
Surfers often just ignore the warnings after it rains in California. They’ve had their hep shots and they’re willing to take a chance. But today I noticed the waves were hot, and the surfers weren’t out. It’s still in the 72 hour quarantine period and perhaps some are heeding the warnings. Campaigns began a few years ago to help improve what runs into the ocean from 30-50 miles inland of a beach. Pet feces, fertilizers, oils from streets, from cars, and even toxic metals all enter the sea, creating a sickening zone unsafe for humans, much less the poor seals and sea lions. What apparently happens is the rain washes the streets that flow into storm drains. The water from the storm drains flows into some body of water or river channel that then flows to the Pacific Ocean. Now if those great ocean swells can continue into the next few days (unlikely as that may be,) then we’ll see some fine surfing and a lot of cameras to capture the action.
We’ve been in for a week of on-and-off again clouds and scant rain. It’s such a welcomed sight for Southern Californians, especially, who rely on water supplies from Northern California to water lawns, wash cars, and take showers. So when the weather forecasters predict rain and the rain seldom comes, it is such a joy to see a bit of gray and gloom at California beaches taht are most often sunny. Even as I write this ode to overcast skies, the sun is trying to break through–and it might. So the inspiration for honoring the rare, gloomy day has quickly faded. Now it’s time to head for that darned sunny beach and take a walk, watch the dogs romp on Dog Beach, and people fly kites at the weekend kite festival. As the planner of the Kite Party Dave Shenkman jokingly commented, “Be sure to place a key on your kite string if it’s raining.” He was referring, of course, to the famous experiment performed by Ben Franklin, who tied a key (metal object) to a kite string, then flew his kite during a lightning storm to test the conductivity and properties of electricity. While Franklin was not killed during this experiment (though he was shocked), others had been. So perhaps what the planner of a Kite Party at the Orange County beaches is referrring to is the intelligence of those qualifying for the Darwin Awards, honoring the species by accidentally removing themselves from it.
On a recent trip to San Diego to write a story about museums, there were pleasant suprises. My hotel choices have always been beach hotels at Mission Bay or Coronado Island, so when I spoke with a person from the Hard Rock Hotel, she made it very clear there was no beach. The hotel sits close to the bay, however, next door to Petco Ball Park, near the train and convention center. And outside the door in front of the hotel is the Gaslamp Quarter sign. Surrounded by a host of new high-rise hotels, I’d scouted the big 3 in my neighborhood of choice and went with Hard Rock for several reasons. The Omni next door gets top ratings and some people love Hotel Solamar for its staff….more.
When its time to take a vacation, even if it’s just a weekend getaway, you check out the events , you plan and your research the hotels till you exhaust yourself and finally hope it all works out. Home-close getaways can be as tricky as a longer trip because you’ve pent so much energy and hope on the a valued weekend when you could have been doing the laundry (cough), or watching a game. Whether choosing a warm desert clime such Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage resort during the winter, or a Big Bear Ski trip (one is 86 degrees, the other is 36), Southern Californians especially have a range of versatile options to make any weekend bright and sunny (the rain seldom makes it over the San Jacinto Mountains into Palm Desert). Having become somewhat of an expert on the weekend getaway, this week I’m doing San Diego (mid-week). This is museum month in San Diego and you can pick up a discount coupon at a San Diego Macy’s store upon arrival in town, or you can buy the big discount book on our site. For $39/adult or $21/child, the booklet includes admission into these museums:
* Japanese Friendship Garden
* Mingei International Museum
* Museum of Photographic Arts
* Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
* San Diego Air & Space Museum
* SDAI- Museum of the Living Artist
* San Diego Automotive Museum
* Museum of San Diego History
* San Diego Model Railroad Museum
* San Diego Museum of Art
* San Diego Museum of Man
* San Diego Natural History Museum
* San Diego Hall of Champion
Included in my getaway that’s only two hours by car from my home, I found an incredible price on a room at the Hard Rock Hotel and will go with a pal. We haven’t talked about food yet, but should probably check out one of the great restaurants in Gaslmap Quarter we can walk to, just outside the hotel which is near the convention center and Petco Park.
Think about it. Close to a million people lost their voice mail communications last week for several days, and all you would hear when you called Verizon was, ‘it will be working on X-date’. The date was 2 days away. I suspect millions of dollars of transactions were lost due to this failure, and there will likely be some lawsuits to follow.
Next came the Blackberry “crackberry” melt down yesterday. Email and Internet service to BlackBerry cellphones in North America stopped working for several hours on Monday, though the problem was fixed fairly quickly, taking around 3 hours. Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) said that no messages were lost and message queues began to be cleared after normal service levels were restored.
But the biggest problem globally was communications cables broken in Beirut. While it may seem that wouldn’t affect the US, outsourcing of bank transactions and work is taking place off shore. India suffered a meltdown during this outage, as did other countries worldwide. An unconfirmed report that up to 5 more cables were broken, points to something more sinister. But we’ve yet to find the stories about this report that was broadcast by a radio host in the U.S.
Lesson: If you have important communications needs, think contingency. Keep emergency back-up systems in place.
GraceAnn Walden knows a good meal when she’s sampled it. Not forced to follow convention, she chose 9 top restaurants in the Bay Area recently…because nine was the exact amount that qualified for best. Among her favorites in no particular order are Spruce, Cafe Majestic and Gator’s Neo Soul Food Cafe. Who’s GraceAnn, you ask? She is an author of numerous food books, was the San Francisco Chronicle food columnist and now gives culinary tours of San Francisco and other destinations around the globe. Tough job but someone has to taste that food.
The writing was on the wall for the OC Post, an Orange County Register newspaper that digested the news down to a sampling of what’s going on both internationally and locally. Before it launched in August 2006 I was somewhat leery of buying any more newspaper subscriptions. I used to get three papers a day…Wall Street Jornal, LA Times and OC Register. Then LA Times broke their contract with me for prepaid annual delivery by raising their rates three months short of fulfillment. Then the Register’s discounts became less and less because costs went up, they said. And there was confusion. They came out with several websites and several magazines in addition to their mainstay daily newspaper. So when the description of OC Post was published, it sounded good. $20 for a year’s delivery of a smaller newspaper with all the good stuff included. I called and tried to order it and the person said I couldn’t because it wasn’t available yet. She didn’t want to take my name. She only was taught to convert calls into instant sales, or hang up. Eventually it came to my house for free four days a week. But honestly, I didn’t have time to sit down and read it. With Google news alerts and occassional visits to the OC Register web site, I already knew what was in the paper before it arrived. The farewell column with a cover picture of the paper’s staff stated that they gave the people what they asked for. They even showed supporting letters from readers confirming this. It really is a worthwhile paper for fast news. And those who sit down at a dining table to eat breakfast and stare at something may find it quite useful. But my day begins at a computer and there’s not much room for papers when the barage of electronic news and messages come at me. So as I observe The Register beefing up its online ads, I get calls and emails from editors around the globe, wanting news content for free. I’ve seen freelance writers take the jobs of staff, and get paid half. I’ve seen them then outplaced. And now, Google has begun looking like Yahoo with ads stuffed at the tops of searches so thick, the results are meaningless. They’ve temporarily snatched the ad dollars newspapers once enjoyed. But who knows, maybe the papers will bounce back. I’ve heard that some are doing fine on the net.
In addition to eating a five diamond meal with the one you love, you can rent your own personal whale watching yacht in Dana Point (around $150); you can get a massage for to at the Hyatt Waters Spa in Huntington Beach; you can slip away to Pismo Beach and cook a feast with your newly purchased wines in your granite top kitchen at Dolphin Bay Resort overlooking the Pacific; you can visit beaches with lovely names such as Lover’s Point; you can get naked and freeze off your tail at nude beaches such as San Mateo’s Devil’s Slide; you can make passionate love after skiing down the slopes in California at Big Bear, Tahoe or Mammoth; you can take a gondola ride from one of California’s esteemed gondoliers; you can sample the guest chef menu at Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, CA. Do you need more ideas? The California Events 2008 calendar has over a thousand of them.
California Travel Guide Tip #20:
Newport Beach isn’t strictly about wealthy $75 million mansions. The lifestyles of the rich and famous can be had by you and me, in fact. Here’s one deal to check out: Il Gelato’s Combo #2 with two side salads is perfect to share with a friend. It includes freshly made lasagna, a sausage, meatball and herb and garlic flavored rotisserie chicken. Located near the Newport Pier next to Portofino Beach Hotel, the small cafe, gelateria & pasticceria prepares first class faire to die for. The Italian rolls and breads, desserts and gelatos are all made daily. In a narrow cafe artfully decorated with expensive glass tile work, you can sit at your choice of several tables indoors or out on the strand overlooking the pier and beach. Just raving about my meal, two guys waiting in line said, “If you think this is good, try Il Farro.” What’s the difference? Around the corner from Il Gelato is its sister restaurant where the food isn’t just made that morning, it is made fresh on demand. “We don’t cook soup in a big pot and let it sit all day,” said a waiter. We cook it fresh, every time for every customer. How can it be any better than what I had? I will find out and let you know. Il Gelato, 2110 West Oceanfront, Newport Beach, CA. Open daily for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Catering available. Call: (949) 675-3632. ilgelatocaffe.com