First visitors

We had G and C come to stay with us for two nights, which was exciting, because they were our first ever visitors. Well, they had been in Australia and New Zealand for 6 months, and they had two days to kill - so we killed the days for them. (G and C both work at University of Previous Employment, and coincidentally, at the Aunt and Uncle of R, who is an old friend - and was best man at our wedding.) The Getty Centre is an impressive building (or series of buildings) and apparently has some impressive art - I've never seen it, as my job at the Getty Centre, as it is every time we go there, is to hang around outside with the twins, so that they don't go smashing any vases.
The first two pictures are of the Centre, taken from my vantage point of the grass, where the twins could run around with destroying anything, anyone, or each other. (The rest of the place is made of very hard, and somewhat slippery marble and limestone.)
My one complaint about the place is that it's very non-interactive, there are streams and fountains and gardens and stuff like that, and it's all very impressive, but you are supposed to wander around looking at it, and going "Ooh" and "Aaah" (like at a fireworks display). You are not supposed to interact with it. And two four year olds really, really want to interact with everything. But you are not supposed to climb, dip, dig, sprinkle, or anything else, so it's slightly hard work.
There was a metal sculpture on the way out, that seemed to ask to be touched. G was about to touch it, when a guard jumped out and said "Don't touch!" We asked him if that was his job - to stop people touching the sculpture, and apparently it was.
The other thing that the Getty has is impressive views. Picture number 3 is looking towards Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, and Westchester. If you click on the picture, it gets bigger, and you might be able to see the marina (about half way up, and 1/3 of the way across). The hill just above that is Westchester, which has the airport.

This picture is looking the other way, towards (I think) Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the San Gabriel mountains beyond (I might be completely wrong about that).

After the Getty Centre, we went to look at the Gene Autry museum, which was recommended to G. We were a bit knackered and basically couldn't be bothered, but we tried to drive past it to have a look and thereby convince ourselves that it wasn't actually worth going in. It turned out to be really hard to get to, because just as you almost got to it, the road was closed, and made into a one way street - with lots of cars coming the other way.

Obviously there was something exciting going on, so we went to investigate. It turned out to be the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Festival of Light. We followed the directions to Los Feliz Avenue (or Boulevard, or whatever, no one cares about that bit of street names). G and C were moderately excited about trying to translate Spanish street names - this one they liked because it didn't seem to make any sense - feliz means happy, but Los implies a plural, so it meant something like The Happy, or The Happies.

Anyway the LADWPFoL (I'm not typing that again) is kind of like Blackpool illuminations. Except American. I'm going to pinch some pictures of it from Flickr - you won't know I didn't take them, will you. (I really like Flickr for that - if you want better pictures than you took, of anywhere you've been, then you just type its name into Flickr, and you've got 'em.
So here they are:



This last one celebrates William Mulholland, who, it seems, wasn't a very nice chap. LA has enough water to keep everything green and nice, because of a massive aqueduct that he built (well, not personally) to nick all the water from a place called the Owens Valley - where they used to grow stuff - until all their water got nicked. When they got pissed off about this, Mulholland said he "half-regretted the demise of so many of the valley’s orchard trees, because now there were no longer enough trees to hang all the troublemakers who live there." He also built a dam to contain the water, which later collapsed and killed 450 people.

New friend

S met a new friend, B, at Trader Joe's the other day - they were both speaking German to their respective offspring, and noticed. Today we went to the beach to meet this new friend. It was interesting, for a number of reasons.

We went to the beach to go 'sledging' down the (artificial) sand dunes. This consists of sitting on a surfboard type of thing (sledges being in somewhat short supply around here) and being pushed down the slope. After progressing a couple of feet, you are pushed again, and fall off.

B works (or worked) in psychology, and has written computer programs that do 'biofeedback' and project auras in colour.

B does research, and has a PhD from the American World University. It was based on 'life experience' and took her two years. She sent off her 200 page thesis, and they said it was too long, and they only wanted 80. Article on Wikipedia (and the web page itself) suggests that they were never going to actually read it anyway.

Christmas Post

Gosh, another post on Christmas day. That's what you do on Christmas day though isn't it? Try to get away from everyone else, and the ideal thing to do is to go and sit at the computer. When we have traditional family christmasses, you can sneak off to the computer, and find that there are more people at the computer than there are doing whatever christmassy thing was officially going on.

Anyway, having made a pathetic and probably futile attempt to explain why I'm sitting here typing on Christmas day, I'll continue. We went to the beach today - not for any special reason, but because we could. We'd been meaning to go to Malibu beach, because there must be something special about Malibu beach or they wouldn't have named a slightly sickly sweet drink after it. So we went, and it was almost dark.

We hung around at the beach for a while, until it was so dark we couldn't see, and then went home. I'd have imagined that on Christmas day, the authorities would have let you drown, but there was a lifeguard on duty (who was leaving as we arrived - it was obviously OK for us to drown). I'd have imagined that on Christmas day, you wouldn't need to worry about parking, but as we were leaving we were reprimanded for parking beyond the time that the car park closed.

Anyway, as regular readers know, I've got a new camera, so I've put some pictures up. The first is S and A, standing on the beach, the second is Malibu lagoon, with the Pacific Coast Highway and the Santa Monica mountains in the background, and the last one is a stork or a crane or some other bird with a long beak and long legs, on a tree.

Having read my book about taking photos I now know how to cheat and make pictures like this look better than they are - they are all taken at dusk, with long exposures. The second picture was taken only 2 minutes before the first one.

Sprouts

I couldn't find Brussels Sprouts in any shops, anywhere. Christmas dinner just won't be the same.

My Christmas Present

This is my Christmas present from S. It's some rocks. But these are special rocks - you put them in a bowl, and cover them with (distilled, white) vinegar, and then you wait. And wait some more.
When all the vinegar has evaporated, the rocks grow some interesting structures, that look a bit like popcorn, and this mimics some geological process - but taking less time, by a factor of a couple of million.
I've just noticed that the picture looks like an arty black and white shot. It's not, it's just black rocks, and glass on a white background.

(And the stripey bits around the edge of the bowl are compression artifacts, and would get your picture rejected by www.istockphoto.com).

Actually, if you type "popcorn rocks" into Google (or your search engine of choice, I imagine - I've just not tried any other, because I'm not, errr..., well let's just say not the kind of person that uses other search engines, and leave it at that. People that use Google know the kind of person I'm talking about) you can find out all about them. I'll take another picture when they've grown. If I remember.

Christmas Eve

Today was Christmas Eve, which S, being German, thinks is Christmas day. But she also thinks it doesn't start until about 4pm - it's all very confusing.

Anyway, as a present for me, from me, I'd bought a camera - my excuse being because I'd lost the old one when we moved house. Bizarrely, today I found the old one, in the place where it's supposed to be, and where I'd looked about 5 times. S says that I told her not to bother looking there, because it wouldn't be there, and was cross. Anyway, I also bought a book about how to take nice looking pictures with one's digital camera.

Anyway, at the end of the book, it mentioned a website called istockphoto.com, which is a picture agency, but anyone can upload pictures, and anyone can buy pictures (pictures cost a dollar to three dollars to download) so I had this great idea that, having read my book, I'd go and take artistic photos and make piles of cash.

Except it's really hard to take photos that anyone except one's mother would be proud of, if you were ten years old that is.

Anyway, we went to the beach today, because we could, and I took photos that no one would want to pay money for, and I'm putting some of them here. You don't have to pay, but you do have to spend time (if you want to), and time is money, so I'd stop now, if I were you.

This one is a lifeguard's boat, which was just hanging around.

Here are some people swimming. On Christmas Eve.


This was my first ever attempt at a really long (30 second) exposure, of a night time city scene. It's almost got something going for it. In the same way that if I painted a picture of a woman in a green dress, it would almost be like the Mona Lisa.



On the way home, we passed someone who was making ice sculptures in the street outside his house. They were lit from underneath, and looked quite impressive, in a way that is singularly not captured in these photos. D and A were very sad that they couldn't lick them.




This is A and D on the beach, silhouetted at sunset. If they didn't have their bicycle helmets on still, they wouldn't look like freaks.

Recycling

I would have imagined that in California, recycling was all the vogue. But it's not, it's very difficult to do. There is a can bank, about the size of a dustbin, about 4 miles from here, next to a car park where it costs $4 to park. Wholefoods market has recycling bins, but that's about 10 miles away, and is colloquially referred to as Whole Pay Check.

However, on lots of containers, one pays a deposit of about 5c, which one can get back by recycling. But not at the shop you bought it from, oh no. I'd have imagined that a deposit so small, for something so large (a 1 gallon container of milk) actually devalues it - if you decide to recycle for the money, it immediately stops being worth doing, a large bin bag full of milk containers is worth about 50 cents. However, the shop has to display the address of somewhere you can take them to recycle, so today I dragged my bin bag of milk containers to the car, went shopping and on the way out, wrote the address of our local recycling centre on my arm. The map lady then showed where it was - surprisingly close - less than a block away (had there not been a shop in the way) and duly directed us to what appeared to be a demolition site. I drove futilely around a couple of times, to make really sure, gave up and went home.

There were signs in the apartment complex about Christmas tree disposal. I thought these might say something about where they could be recycled, but they just said "Don't drop needles in the corridors, and put them in the big bins". You'd have imagined that with 532 dwellings in one relatively confined place, it would be straightforward to collect the Christmas trees, and perhaps shred them and put them on the gardens (so they needed less water), but they don't.

Mysterious heating

In our abode, there is a thermostat in every room. When we turn them up, the room gets hotter. But apart from that, the heating is a complete mystery. I've never lived anywhere where I understand the heating less. I don't know what the fuel is that makes the room hotter - gas? electricity? Hot air recycled from the local oil refinery?

And even more mysterious, I don't know where the heat comes from. There isn't a radiator. Or a vent that warm air comes through. I've crawled around on the floor, and tried to see if one bit feels warmer (it doesnt'), and I've done the same with the walls and the ceiling (same). In the living room, one area does seem to get warmer faster, but I can't find any source of it.

I thought it was maybe a weird American thing, and other Americans would understand. When we were moving in I asked the removal men (who should understand that sort of thing but they didn't know either.

Maybe it's all just some sort of placebo effect - there's not anything attached to the thermostats, it's just that we believe there is, and so we feel warmer.

A Quiz

Hello readers. Today, in an exciting innovation, we're going to have a quiz. S's Christmas present came today. Partly because it was a very large box which was getting in the way, partly because S knew what it was (and S hates surprises anyway) and partly for another reason that I can't tell you yet, she opened it.

And here it is:


The quiz (you were waiting for this, weren't you) is to say what it is. The first person to say what it is (by leaving a comment) will get some sort of prize. Not that I can think of any suitable prize that I could present to you, which wouldn't simply insult your levels of affluence - that being the type of reader this blog attracts. So, maybe you will have to have the knowledge that you won. Or maybe I'll make a charitable donation to a charity of your choice, rather than a charity of my choice. (At CoCE, we got the newsletter today, which goes to staff and 'supporters' and there was a bit on the back about how you can give money to CoCE. Maybe that should be MY charity of choice.)

You can also ask questions, again by leaving a comment, to make it fair. Ideally, these should be answerable with a yes or a no, but whether a question is allowed will be at my discretion. (For example "What is it?" would not be allowed. And would mean you were a pompous git. The kind of person that walks into a pub and says "Good everning my man, two pints of your finest ale, if you will.")

The multi-coloured thing at the front is a pack of felt tip pens - the kind you use on OHPs. The pens are there to give you a better idea of how big the thing is, and also to cover up the bit where it says what it's name is - because (you technological whizkids) if you knew that, 30 seconds of Google later, you'd have an answer.

Do you want another clue? Oh, go on then. It plugs into the mains electricity, but it's not plugged in here. Oh, and one more thing, this isn't it's final location.

Update (some answers): To Jen, no, it's not eco-friendly. Pretty eco-neutral, I'd say, although maybe friendly to one's very local environment.

to Andy: It does come in beige or black, and therefore I could have bought the wrong one. But S stood over me, saying "beige" the whole time I was ordering it. You'll be surprised to hear it's not a CT scanner. It's not a massage device either. But it does have an electric motor in it.

To Anonymous Paul: It's got nothing to do with the twins. and it doesn't keep anything warm.

To M: It's not a holder for toilet rolls. Although we are getting a little low, so maybe it's time for more. (Oh, the joy of impulsive shopping with Amazon 1-click).

To M (again): yes, it is something to do with the cat.

To anonymous: No, the pens aren't relevant. They are the first thing I came across that had an obvious size, so you could tell how big it was (I was looking for a ruler, like they use on CSI). The pens also conveniently cover the label.

To Phil: It's not a personal pampering device.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo (well, we've been)

The boys and I went for a trip to the LA Zoo today, partly because S wanted us out of the house, and partly because there was supposed to be Christmassy stuff going on there. However, the Christmassy stuff was some reindeer (which was slightly interesting), except the boys didn't really understand why it was that reindeer were interesting. "Where is the sleigh? Where is the playground?"

There was a place to interact with goats - you got a brush from the brush bucket, and brushed a goat. Which amused the boys for a few minutes only. There was a rope that the goats went and hid behind when they'd had enough of being brushed - most of the goats were there. As we were in the goat place, we met R, and his daughter A. R is a lecturer at Newcastle and is here for a year, partly working at Corporation of Current Employment, partly at the VA.

It's the way of zoos, especially zoos that keep their animals in conditions vaguely similar to natural ones, that the animals are not especially visible or interesting. We caught a glimpse of some sealions. The hippos sat in the water creating gentle ripples with their breating (and poohing). Only the tails of the crocodiles were interesting. This crocodile on the right was visible, but it didn't mover, and it's actually very small.
All the boys wanted to do was go to the playground, and partly as a result of a new gorilla container being built, and partly as a result of my poor map reading skills, we took an extremely circuitous route, and took a long time to get there.

There was a hot metal sign at the playground, but being December, we ignored it. There was also a shower, presumably to cool down overheated children. Being December, A and D should have ignored that, but didn't.






































Finally on the way out, we got to an exhibit they liked. Snow was being created, to make a pile that children (and adults, I guess) could play in. Huge blocks of ice were delivered from a lorry, and went on a conveyor belt into what I presume was an enormous shredder.

A hose came out of the shredder, and spray the resulting snow into an area that was closed off with bales of hay, occasionally hitting the watching crowds with small bits of fast moving ice.

Snowy adventures

We went to a local park today, where several tons of snow had been deposited by a truck, giving children a chance to play on sledges and throw snowballs, and things like that. Something that was never going to happen in this climate without serious artificial intervention. The picture shows an action shot of someone sliding down the artificial slope.

Health Encounters

We had our first encounter with the health care system when we went to be checked out when we enrolled with the doctor. It was all very efficient, you have a card, that you use to identify yourself to the different sections. When we went to the blood taking bit, we just put our cards on the tray, and they knew who we were, and what they had to do. The doctor told me about checking for testicular cancer, and that it wasn't a problem, because it was easily cured nowadays. I said that they had done their work, and they could whip them off any time. He didn't think that was funny. (Obviously, I do know about their other roles, being an informed sort of chap.)

The use of the internet was very clever (I thought). You can get a password to log into the website, where you can check aspects of your records, like when you last had an immuniszation. When the results of the various tests we had were ready, I was sent an email, could log into the website, and get the results, along with blurb about what they mean. I was right in the middle of normal of most tests, except for HDL cholesterol, which was low. This sounds good, except that HDL cholesterol is the good sort of cholesterol, so you want more of that. Apparently the results aren't hugely reliable, because I had eaten though.

Pharmacies

We didn't go into a pharmacy (or drug store) for a while - after all, we weren't ill, and we didn't need any aspirins. Until I went to Trader Joe's too late, and it had closed. The pharmacy had a sign outside saying that they had milk. We needed milk, and so I went there.

Pharmacies in England could learn a thing or two from these - it was amazing. First of all, all the medicine was out on the shelves - you didn't need to ask for anything. None of this "Is this for you? Have you taken this medication before? Do you suffer from ....". Instead, it's "200 paracetamol and a bottle of vodka? That will be [some amazing bargain price]". Actually, I've not noticed if they sell vodka, but they do sell wine and beer. The only thing that is actually behind the counter that you need to ask for is cigarettes. (The one I was in today had a sign that said "Our main priority is your wellbeing" - but you're selling ciggies! Actually, I don't know if that one did sell ciggies, but I wouldn't have been surprised.)

As I've already mentioned today, they also sell toys. Alarm clocks and radios and stuff like that (I bought an alarm clock which is one of those that sets itself by radio signal, which means it doesn't matter when the boys press the buttons on it - it gets back to the right time).

They sell quite a lot of food (not much fresh, except milk, so no bread). They sell paper and pens and ink for inkjet printers. You could almost live by only shopping in pharmacies.

Christmassy Stuff

Today we went to the Christmas party at the German school. This involved recitals of songs and poems (in German, naturally), and a visit from Santa. It was all a little dull, made only slightly more exciting by the control freakery of the woman in charge - any time anything didn't go the tiniest bit to plan, she fretted dreadfully. She forgot to put the microphone down before shouting at the group of youngest children for touching something that they shouldn't have done, and causing eardrums in the audience to burst. When Santa came, parents had to provide presents, and S was told off for not writing the boys names "so that we can read them". I said that they were the ones without names, so it was easy.

After the recitals, there was a selection of snacks and other stuff - much of it German themed confections. I'd been shopping just before and bought some sushi, which made S cross, because she said it was inappropriate for a Christmas party. When we got there to put our stuff on the table, there was a much larger tray of sushi, so I felt redeemed. S said it didn't make a difference, and was still inappropriate.

A lost his present, almost immediately, and was sad (it was a toy car from the film Cars). He said he wanted one like D had - which was a Lightning McQueen, but there were no LMs left in the shop (originally he had a Mater). We took an unusual route home, to go to another branch (it was Longs Drugs, there are lots of them around, and I really must write an entry on pharmacies here). There were no LMs here either, but we got him a Luigi, and he was happy.

On the way home, we saw a sign that said Local Airport Children's Fair, so we went to have a look at what it was. It seems it was an attempt by the local airport (which is pretty large) to give something back to the community. Or, a cynic might say, to try to persuade local residents that they weren't so evil, and so when they finish moving the runway and making it bigger (so that it can handle Airbus A380s) then they really shouldn't mind, and it's only 50 feet closer to their houses (it's on the other side of the airport from us - if it was our side, I probably wouldn't make jokes). Which they might just buy from them and demolish anyway, so they can build another runway. And if they could wake you just a little earlier in the morning, you shouldn't complain too much. Because they've been nice to the kids.

Anyway, we queued at the start - I wondered if this was to pay, but we were given (age appropriate) raffle tickets for the boys, and wristbands, which allowed them to see Santa (again). There were three bouncy castles, which were so covered in children they looked like a throbbing mass of bodies - the castle itself was almost invisible. D was determined to go on one, so we allowed him. Within about 15 seconds he had to be taken off, having been injured. (The bouncy castles were free, and unsupervised).

We queued up to see Santa, and got a quite impressive bag of stuff - considering it was free - although a lot of stuff seemed to have airline logos on it. There was a pencil and a ruler with the airport on, and an inflatable aeroplane that said "Southwest Airlines" on it. (The food and drink was free as well - the glasses also said "Southwest Airlines" on it.)

The ethnic mix of the place was interesting - the vast majority of people there, probably 3/4 were African-American, then most of the rest were hispanic, a few asian, and I guess somewhere between 1% and 2 % were white non-hispanic - (as we have to say: hispanic is an ethnic, not a racial classification). Occasionally I liked around to see if I could see another white person, and usually I couldn't. It was the first time I've seen a black Santa. With dreadlocks.

There were kiddies fairground rides, including the world's slowest dodgems. The boys thought they were very exciting, even though when they moved it was at a very slow walking pace, and there wasn't much space, so most of the time all 5 cars were jammed in one corner of the ring, with parents pushing on the outside to try to separate them.

Then there was the raffle. And the raffle was (a) the most impressive raffle I've possibly ever seen and (b) free. There were lots of prizes, and none of them real duffers. The prizes were in age order, so they did 0-3 first, and then 4-8. There were quite a few bikes, an MP3 player, several remote control cars, and a bunch of other stuff. I was trying to work out the ticket to prize ratio, but we had 113 and 114. The winners included 114, 124, 106 and some others that were nearby. And then 113!!! We won a remote control car, from RadioShack. We had to run home and charge 6 AA batteries, so that I could play with it for 10 minutes, before they went flat. D and A did play first, but I think it was too complicated. They liked rescuing it when it got stuck.

Musical marathon

I'm up to 'C' in the attempt to listen to all my CDs. I'm onto the bonus tracks that come with the CD version of Safe as Milk, by Captain Beefheart. Amazon has snippets that you can listen to here. I should state I've nothing really against Captain Beefheart (and his Magic Band), and if one were in a haze of some sort, late at night, it would be quite appropriate music. It just doesn't fit well with running DIF models in Mplus (which is what I'm doing today - 204 of them).

Santa Claus, Reaffirmed

As Christmas approaches, it seems that there is a German Advent style tradition that the boys get a present each day. Given that buying and wrapping 48 presents is too much for even a devoted parent such as myself to do, it's lucky that Oma has done it already.

On Sunday, we went to the Apartment Complex Christmas party. In an attempt to make it seem Christmassy and jolly they had the fire (gas, but with fake logs). Given where we live, this make it extremely hot and unpleasant. Santa Claus came to see the children, and this was an impressive Santa Claus. I can't help wondering what he does the rest of the year. He had a (real) bushy white beard, was suitably rotund, a deep jolly voice, and seemed to have an enormous amount of energy to sit and talk to children about what they wanted for christmas, and to sing christmassy songs, and to explain that the reindeer were on the roof and that's why the children couldn't see them.

When it came to A and D's turn, Santa asked them what they wanted for Christmas. They said "a racing car". Next morning, when they came to open their presents, it was indeed a racing car each.

Christmas

Thanksgiving serves a second function, as well as giving thanks (or whatever the true meaning of thanksgiving is). It acts as a boundary for Christmas. Before thanksgiving, there's nothing Christmassy. After thanksgiving (and Black Friday) Christmas is allowed to start. So today, I was wandering around the shops, while "Let it snow, let it snow let it snow", and "there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas ... " played.

But it won't snow, and there won't be snow here. We went out for a walk up some hills today. I wore a t-shirt, and shorts. It was hot. It's going to be hot tomorrow too - we almost went swimming today (except the boys said that they wanted to go up some mountains).

We bought ice creams from a bizarre ice cream van. (It might not have been bizarre, it might just have been American). The van looked very ancient, and like it had been in a number of minor collisions in its time. It was completely full of stuff - it had footballs and beachballs hanging from it - there's a picture of it (it's not very good, 'cos it was taken with my phone). It's almost a mystery to see where the driver should sit. The small sticker on the right says "Drum machines have no soul". On the other side of the bonnet, was a sticker that said "Howard Dean for President".

There was a vast array of different kinds of ice cream available. In England, there's no way an ice cream van would have had that many delicacies on offer. And if they had, they would have run out of half of them. But the woman serving was able to put her hand onto whatever the boys chose. Then put it back, when they changed their mind, and repeat the procedure, several times.

I've got off the point a little, what was I saying? Oh yes, shorts, ice cream, Christmas. It just feels a bit wrong.

Tuberculosis

We haven't got tuberculosis.

We have enrolled the boys into a preschool, which is a parent's cooperative. Which means (amonst other things) we need to go once in a while, to help out. And in order to do this, we need to prove that we haven't got TB, so we aren't going to infect everyone else's little preciouses.

You'd think proving you haven't got TB was easy - you do something like walk there, and that shows that you aren't lying in bed, dying. But you can have latent TB, which isn't necessarily symptomatic. The problem is, like healthy Europeans, we've been vaccinated. And tests for diseases don't test for the disease, they test for the presence of antibodies (which was the problem with vaccinating cows during the foot and mouth outbreak - once you've been vaccinated, you can't tell if you've got the disease.) It seems that for the strains of TB which are common around here, the vaccine is fairly useless, which is why they don't bother.

So, we are going to go to the doctor for our skin tests, which have a pretty high probability of coming up positive. Then we look like we've got TB, so we have to prove, even harder, that we haven't by having a chest x-ray. And we have to get this redone every two years (or less, if the boys leave the preschool, which of course they will).