An Egyptian Adventure at Venice Beach

Riding on the bus from LAX to my mom's, we meet a man who'd just opened a new shop on the Venice Beach boardwalk.  An Egyptian shop.  His name is Peter and he invites to come see the shop and have a cup of Egyptian tea. 

It was in the brick courtyard on the boardwalk that used to be Charlie Chaplin's house where he invited his friends to stay, he told us.  Hmmm, I know where the Frank Gehry house is, why have I never heard of the Charlie Chaplin house?  Since this is on my bike to the beach route, I said I'd try to come by.

So Monday morning, after riding down to the Venice pier on a great day for a bike ride, I stopped at the brick courtyard on the way home.

Here's what it looks like from the bike trail.  517 Ocean Front Walk.














And as you go into the courtyard, it looks like this.  It's cute and quaint, but apparently it was never Charlie Chaplin's.


I had looked it up and found a site called Westland that had a post titled:   Debunking Venice's Historic Myths.  

The writer says that he's:

 "operated a Venice history display and postcard stand along Venice's Ocean Front Walk since 1979."

He talks about the many stories about Venice Beach and then goes through many of them and tells us whether they are true or not.  In one section, he talks about whether celebrities really once lived somewhere.

"517 Ocean Front Walk - Charlie Chaplin - NO

The current owner named the commercial courtyard the Charlie Chaplin Courtyard under the mistaken belief that it was built by the silent movie star. The Sea Spray Apartments were built in 1922 as exclusive apartments."

No matter.  I find Peter and get introduced to his Egyptian partner Saber.  They met in Egypt.  And, I forgot to mention, when Peter got off the bus, he then got his bike off the rack, and rode home.  Maybe after setting up this shop he can't afford a car, but I'd like to think his use of public transportation and a bike is his environmental consciousness. 

Saber and Peter at their Egyptian Shop

I'm invited in and shown around.  Since I forgot my little pocket camera in Seattle, I've taken along my big new camera.  I tell them I'm a blogger and take pictures.

I'm a little disappointed with these pictures.  I think there is so much detail in each item that it all gets lost in a picture that tries to get too much.

There's lots and lots of items for sale.  I've never been to Egypt, but I'm guessing this looks a lot like the tourist shops around the big attractions in Egypt.  All the kinds of images of Egyptian art we know from museums, television shows, and books on ancient Egypt.

Peter gets me some tea. (I took some photoshop liberties with the background.)  I know in India that shop keepers often bring tea out for their customers.  And I think it's pretty common in the Middle East.  It's the first hook the salesman puts into his customer.  I should have had my first warnings.

Then Saber starts talking to me about my family.  He pulls out a scroll and says, "This is a family tree."  It's a painting of, apparently, a family.  He asks my name and gives me a chart of the Latin alphabet with their hieroglyphic equivalents.  S.  He points to the hieroglyphic on the chart and then writes it in marker on the scroll he's holding.

Uh oh.  Now what?  I think I'm caught on his line.  Soon he's written my family members' names all over the top and bottom borders.  I've lost round one, now it's just a question of how much I'm willing to pay for this.

Sure, this is a risk he's taking as a salesman, but I'm also in awe of his salesmanship.  He's a pro.  I've met these guys before - in Greece, in Israel, and particularly in India.  But this guy is really good.  He's written my family all over this painting - I've got to buy it, right?  What's he going to do with it if I don't?  That's confidence.

So he tells me that because I'm going to write a story about the shop he will let me pay whatever I want.  But before I offer $10, he takes me to a small painting on the wall and asks me, "Which one is bigger?"  My (see, I've already accepted that I'm buying it) painting is about three times the size.  The painting on the wall is priced at what I thought was $22.  He corrected me.  It was actually $220.  Well that's absurd.  I'm out for a Monday morning bike ride and I'm being hit up for something I don't even want for $220.  I tell him I'll pay $30.  He tells me that the paintings are done by poor Egyptian students and it takes about three weeks to make one like mine.

"My" Scroll Before He Wrote On It

$30 is still way more than I need to spend on this.  But it's a new store, some of the money will somehow, I rationalize, go back to people in Egypt, though I have no idea whether his family is connected to the military dictatorship, the Muslim brotherhood, or any of the other factions and who will get the money.

I have no cash.  They credit card reader on Peter's iPhone isn't working right so I end up at an ATM at a shop nearby.  When I get back Saber tells me to write a good story about the shop.  Will he like this?  If he doesn't will he reclaim his papyrus?

As I ride home with my new scroll, I'm asking myself:  Is it a dry erase pen he could just clean off if I didn't buy it?  (It turns out to be permanent ink.)  Is it really painted or just a print that costs them a dollar or two each, so that marking up one is worth it if they sell two out of every ten they mark?

I don't know.  I don't really care.  I'm not easily separated from my money by salesmen like this, but he was really good.

I did go online today to see how much Egyptian papyrus paintings cost.  At Pyramid Imports you can get an 8"x12" painting for from $13 to $14 reduced to $5.99-%6.99.  This is about the size of the one they had marked as $220.
A 13x17" painting sells for $14.99 reduced to from $6.99 to $7.99.
A 13x33" painting sells for $24.99, no reductions.

And all these prices will add shipping but no tea and no banter.   And the online sales folk don't have to pay rent for a highly trafficked tourist spot. 

Mine is 17.5" high and I'm guessing at least 36" wide. (It's all rolled up and well wrapped and I don't want to open and have to rewrap it.)  So I probably paid a fair price for it.  If I wanted it.

I first encountered serious bargaining in Greece as a college student.  Storekeepers would tell you how much you were robbing them and they would fight tooth and nail over a price.  But if you met the shopkeeper socially, he would treat you with utmost generosity.  A little later I was in the flea market in Rome and wanted to buy a pot of geraniums for the American family I was staying with.  Since it was a gift, I erased the chalked price on the flower pot, as I gave it to the salesperson, who promptly wrote a lower price on the pot.

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, I got much more skilled at the fine art of bargaining, though the Thais are much less serious about this than the Greeks or Indians.  And, I'll add now, Egyptians.

Saber was a pro.  It was like watching anyone really skilled at what he did.  Say, like watching a magician make the money in my pocket mysteriously jump to his pocket.  I knew he was doing it, yet I couldn't stop him. 

As regular readers know, I'm trying to get rid of things not buy new ones.  But now I have an Egyptian family painting with all the names of my immediate family members written on the border in hieroglyphics in felt pen.

So, I do recommend you at least stop in this shop if you're on the Boardwalk.   The address is 517 Ocean Front Walk shop number 16 in the courtyard.  The buildings were NOT built or owned by Charlie Chaplin, but it's a good possibility that he walked by them at some point.  It's south of Rose about four or five blocks. 

After thinking things over, I know that I would be much more interested in modern Egyptian art and posters that reflect what's happening in Egypt today.  These copies of ancient art are nice, but I'd rather see and buy art that connects me with today's Egyptians and their struggle for democracy. 

I'm guessing this shop is as close as many people will get to stepping into a tourist shop in Cairo.  Just check out the prices of Egyptian stuff online and don't pay anything close to the prices marked on the goods in the store.  Remember, don't ever feel like you've been cheap.  If they sell it to you, they're making money.  If your price is too low, they'll say no.  And if you are too easy, it's no fun for them.  The prices marked on things are just the beginning points of an elaborate bargaining process.  Your best weapon is knowing what these things go for and checking online makes that pretty easy. 

And these are, I'm convinced, two decent men trying to pay their way in life and support their families with this store.

TSA Fast Lane, Arctic Prof Calls For Arctic Oil Moratorium; 34 Years In Prison On False Testimony - Back In LA

We're back to be with my mom in LA.  We were on the pre-screened list at the airport yesterday so we didn't have to take off our shoes, show our plastic bags, or take off our shoes.  The ADN had an article on this program last December.

TSA spokeswoman Lorie Dankers, up from Seattle for the occasion, said there are two ways for travelers to join the program. Five U.S. airlines are authorized by TSA to invite selected frequent flyers into PreCheck. Or a person can apply through one of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Trusted Traveler programs like Global Entry.
All five of the select airlines serve Anchorage: Alaska, Delta, American, United and U.S. Airways. Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines, said a batch of invitations went out over the weekend by email. If you didn't get one, it won't do any good to call up the airline to complain, she said.
"We don't set the criteria -- the TSA sets the criteria for who's invited to participate," Egan said. "It's a TSA program solely."

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/12/04/2713439/tsa-opens-fast-lane-for-prescreened.html#storylink=cpy

I'm not sure what 'invite' means in this case.  No one told us until we got to the security line and they scanned our boarding pass and told us to go in that lane.  And it's the first time it happened.  Is there a little racial profiling mixed up in this?  Older white male and female?  I'm sure that didn't do any harm.  Or maybe NSA has told TSA that we haven't talked to any terrorists lately.  Who knows?

The LA Times has an interview today with Professor Sergei Medvedev, an Arctic specialist who is calling for an oil moratorium in the Arctic and who Putin called "a moron." [I'm sure Putin used a Russian word.  It would be interesting to know how it translates substantively and emotionally into English.]

"Political science professor Sergei Medvedev, a longtime lover and explorer of the Arctic, drew the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin when he recently called for international protection of the icy northern region in the face of economic development plans.
Last month, Putin called Medvedev, who teaches at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, "a moron."
The incident prompted a nationwide discussion of the Arctic and coincided with the arrest of 30 Greenpeace activists protesting a Russian oil drilling project in the region.
Medvedev, 46, who anchors popular television shows and studied and worked for 15 years in the West, spoke to The Times last month at the Architecture Museum in downtown Moscow."

LA Times story about man in prison for 34 years, convicted on eye witness testimony.  The witnesses sister has now testified that she told police back then that her sister was lying.  Finally it comes out and judge agrees he was falsely convicted.

Prosecutors had argued that about 12:30 p.m. on April 6, 1979, Register shot Jack Sasson five times in the carport of his West Los Angeles home. Sasson, 78, died three weeks later.
At trial, the physical evidence against Register was scant, court papers said. None of the seven fingerprints found on Sasson's car matched Register's. Police never recovered the murder weapon.
They did seize a pair of pinstriped pants from Register's closet, which had a speck of blood smaller than a pencil eraser. But it was of little value — the blood type, O, matched Sasson and Register.
Instead, the prosecution relied on eyewitness testimony, notably that of Brenda Anderson. Then 19, Anderson said she was at home when she heard gunfire, looked out the window and saw an African American man sprinting from the Sassons' carport, court papers said. She identified him as Register, though Register's girlfriend testified that he was with her at the time of the shooting.
Register was convicted and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. Each time he appeared before the parole board, he refused to admit guilt.
"It appears that the only reason that I have been consistently denied parole is because I have maintained my innocence," he once told the board, court papers said.
Register might have remained behind bars, his attorneys said, if not for a stroke of luck. In late 2011, another of Brenda Anderson's sisters, Sheila Vanderkam, found a website that locates convicted felons. "I typed in the name Kash Register out of curiosity," she said in a declaration, "and learned, to my horror, that Mr. Register was still in prison."

Another example of police and prosecutors apparently more interested in convicting somebody than convicting the right person.

I biked down to Venice Beach just before sunset.  

[Feedburner notes: This one seems to have taken about seven hours to be seen on blogrolls. I posted it at 7:28pm and the first hits from blogrolls came at 4:30am the next day.]

LA - Parting Shots - Swamp to Golf, Eggplants, Car Door Art; and the Beach

Headed back to Anchorage today (Wednesday).  Got some things done around the house - most significantly got the electric panel for the house updated;  went through her mail;  paid bills; and filed what needed to be kept.  And we spent some good time together.  I'm getting more patient and trying to imagine what the world is like from her perspective.  I ask her and she tries to tell me.  Sometimes she completely there and on top of things, other times she drifts off. 

Here are a few pictures I didn't get to post yet of LA.

 

Penmar Golf course on my bike route to the beach.  As a kid I played in the swampy, hilly wasteland that was here before the public golf course was put in.

[UPDATE Oct. 25, 2014:  The editor of GolfCalifornia asked if they could use this picture on a piece about Penmar (and The Lakes of El Segundo) golf courses.  You can learn a lot more about the golf course itself there.]







Some of the eggplants available at the Saturday Market at Virginia Park in Santa Monica.

The good thing about cell phones is that when you have a long conversation, you don't have to just sit there.  You can go for a walk.  So I was in the middle of a heavy conversation as I approached this house.  My head was mostly in the phone, but my eyes were trying to figure out how this car was parked here in front of this house.  It was only when I got close that I realized this was not simply a car door, it was a "piece of art."

I biked down to the beach one last time this afternoon.  (My heel's been giving me problems so I'm biking instead of running.)  I went north instead of my usual south until I got to the Santa Monica pier.

And my parting shot of Venice Beach at Rose. 

Don't Eat Contaminated Fish And Other Tales Of The Last Day In LA

 

I made a few phone calls and then biked an hour down along Venice Beach to Marina del Rey where I found this sign that belied the healthy look of the water of Santa Monica Bay.

 

The fog had been pushed way out, but you could see it off in the distance.  (Not in this picture, but further out on the left.  

We did odds and ends for my mom, made more phone calls to clear up bills that we'd thought had been cleared up.  There's no end to having to check and double each statement.  We also managed to drive my mom to the cemetery - Monday is the anniversary of my brother's death.  He died in a work accident at age 23.  It's 38 years now.  My mom used to take flowers there every week for years and years, but now that she can't drive and getting in and out of the car is hard, it's not so often.   And then back home and then the caregiver dropped us off at the bus stop.  We had lots of time, but it was getting into rush hour.  The first bus was packed and I figured the next one would be emptier.  They wouldn't let us onto that one, too full.  But we had a good time talking to various folks waiting for the bus.  A guy from the music industry who'd gone to Hollywood to pick up his new $8,000 bike, but the bank didn't release the money, so he had to take the bus back home instead of his new bike - as in bicycle, not motorcycle.  And there was a fellow in a wheel chair who was a little pissed at not being let on the bus.  But before too long a relatively empty Rapid bus picked us up and we got to the airport in plenty of time.   On the bus we fell into a conversation with a guy who'd live on 30th and Spenard in the early 90's and it was clear he remembered Anchorage fondly. 

 

The sun was over the horizon as we took off.  In this picture I'm looking over the south beaches (the opposite of the previous picture.)

I don't recall ever flying so close to the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara and Ventura.  You can see the fog bank just beyond the islands.

My travel preference from long ago is to go somewhere for a long time - say three months or better yet a year.  But with kids and mom scattered along the west coast, and mom needing more and more attention, we've racked up enough miles to be MVP (20,000 miles or more on Alaska Airlines) the last few years. 

That means when you book in advance, you have your choice of all the seats to choose from.  It also means two free check-in bags - though we usually just do carry on.  But with Alaska's 20 minute guarantee, we have checked them in sometimes.  Especially if we have a long layover somewhere and want to get out of the airport.  But we also get bumped up into First Class every now and then.  

The times we've been in first class, we've gotten a meal that I would call a nice snack.  Hot, nicely put on the plate, but not much food.  This time it was different.  We had a Niçoise Salad, a pasta dish, and Salted Caramel Budino.  (The ones I saw online seemed solid.  This one was a hot liquid.  I knew it was full of things I wouldn't normally eat.  Looking at the recipes was a mistake.  Impressive.  And then a little bowl of warm nuts.  

The Niçoise Salad

Maybe we got all this food because this was the non-stop flight - almost 5 hours.   Which also gave me lots of time to read my book for Monday's book club meeting - Erik Larson's In The Garden Of Beasts.  It's a fascinating non-fiction account of a history professor who gets appointed ambassador to Germany in 1933 when Roosevelt got turned down first by several more likely candidates.  It takes place in mostly Berlin, a place I first visited as a student the year I spent in Germany.  It's fascinating to see the conflict from the people who get around and know what's going on and the newcomers to Germany who see the surface and don't believe things are that bad. 

We'd been hearing that it's been raining while we were gone, but that it should be sunny Saturday.  The tarmac was wet when we landed.  And it's late August and by midnight it was actually dark.

Landing in Anchorage

But it wasn't raining and the air felt fresh and comfortable.  Nice to be home.  But these trips to visit Mom are going to be pretty regular.

Santa Monica Sunset

I've been busy doing things for my mom - making calls, arranging repairs, checking bills, etc.  I've also had a sore heal [heel] for the last two days.  This has happened before and I need to stop wearing the shoes I was walking in the other night and see if that stops this.

So I was eager to get some exercise and finally got some time just before 7 pm to ride the bike down to Venice Beach.  I decided to head north, into Santa Monica, this time. As the sun was getting low on the horizon.  It drops much faster than it does in Anchorage.

There's Santa Monica pier in the background.

Here's a guy slack lining as the sun sets.  Slackline.com says this sport began among the rock climbers camped for months at a time in Yosemite Valley.

"After the long days of jugging, hammering, scoping, bolting, cleaning, smearing, crimping, jamming, bleeding, taping, sending and summiting, people would flock back to camp 4 for the evening. Just as new routes were being created on a daily basis, so were new ways to spend down-time. The inhabitants of camp 4 could be found walking parking lot chains, hand railings, and even ropes strung up between the trees. In the mid to late 70’s this type of hobby became increasingly popular, as local hotshots and visitors alike were seen balancing on the rope. It appeared to have positive effects in honing balance for climbing, and strengthening the legs and core."

 And riding along the beach in the cooling evening air definitely had positive effects on my state of mind and body.

Wheel Chairs Take Over Skateboarding Plaza At Venice Beach

I was going to ride on by the skateboard plaza, but there were lots of people, speakers and music, and flags all around, so I stopped to see what it was.

The skateboard plaza is in the background where all the people are.









Life Rolls On and Ezekiel  were sponsoring They Will Skate Again.

This Saturday July 20th from 9:00am - 4:00pm at the Venice Skate Park we're sponsoring the Life Rolls On Foundation's (LRO) annual "They Will Skate Again Shoe City PRO" event & contest. Every year we design and donate their event tee and we'll join hundreds of volunteers who come out to support the They Will Skate Again adaptive skating workshop, pro skate exhibition and adaptive skate competition (prize purse over $10,000). Featuring participants from all different levels of assisted mobility, giving everyone an opportunity to hang out, skate and compete in the park for the day. Our skate team including Derek Fukuhara, Justin Cefai & Vince Duran will be out there in donating their time along with skate legends Jay Adams, Bob Burnquist & Christian Hosoi and stars including Scott Can & Sal Masekela. Come by, say what's up and help out if you're in the neighborhood....stop by the Ezekiel Booth for games and giveaways at the interactive festival village!

I got there while they were warming up for the big events later on, but here's a bit of video of these folks taking over the Skateboard plaza.  The announcer was promising the good stuff later on, but I needed my own exercise and getting back. I know I'm supposed to put the best on in the beginning to get your attention, but I've saved the best for last. 





I'm sure YouTube will have much better stuff that people took later on, so check there.  There's an "inspirational" video that looks like from prior years at the Ezekiel link.

In the world of serendipity, I had  just posted a picture of my mom being wheeled down the ramp in front of her house.  And when I got home I was telling her there was life still to live in her wheel chair.  She gave me the look. 

Beach Break After Day With Nonagenerians

My mom's caregiver took her down the new ramp to get some sunshine yesterday.  Then I went off to the valley to visit I (91) and F (97).  Say what you want about living to a ripe old age, if you can't walk and take care of yourself, it's not an easy time.  Especially for people who were active and independent all their lives. My mom and I discussed, last night, whether it was better to lose your physical abilities or your mental abilities.  These are questions one shouldn't even have to think about.  But we do.  My guess is losing the mental abilities is better for the person, worse for the people around them.  But I guess it depends on which mental abilities and which physical abilities and what the person liked to do in life. 

It was about 20 degrees warmer in the valley with I and F, but I did take F for a 20 minute wheelchair stroll around the neighborhood.  Then I went to the library to pay off my mom's fine for losing an audio tape.  When I explained that my mom is sure she returned the tape and that on things like that she's usually right, the librarian looked me in the eye and said, "If your 91 year old mom thinks she returned it, that's good enough for me" and cancelled the $85 fee for replacing it.  I offered to pay anyway because the library has given my mom lots of pleasure listening to her tapes and ended up taking a Friends of the Library application form, which I have to fill out and send in. 

Then to the market, another challenge.  Mom's regular caregiver left for the Philippines Thursday where her mom is sick.  Her sister-in-law is subbing for the two weeks she's gone.  So I went to Trader Joe's (near the library) and grabbed a lot of frozen items that I thought my mom might like as the new caregiver tries to prepare things my mom will eat.  I just wanted some back up items with a lot of variety.  I think they'll be fine.  My mom likes the new caregiver a lot. 

I finally got home and we talked a while,  then I needed a break and got out the bike and rode down to Venice Beach.  I was just going to ride on the biketrail, but the surf was big and noisy, so I parked the bike and walked along the surf. 

 

There was an almost full moon in the sky and the tide was high - almost up to the life guard stations.  Lots of people were in the water and I was jealous I hadn't worn trunks underneath.  This shot is looking north about 6:45pm.  

 

And this one is looking south.   I'm looking forward to joining my kids and wife (and Z who had her 6 months birthday Thursday) in Seattle Monday. 

 

How Much Do Clouds Weigh? Thoughts While Flying From LA to Anchorage

As I flew from LA to Anchorage last night clouds covered the water below most of the way.  We left as the sun was setting in LA, about 8pm.  But as you'll see it never got dark as we flew north and as we landed in Anchorage about 40 minutes early at 11:20pm, despite a moderate cloud cover, it was totally light out.  I love summers here.

Santa Monica Bay

Click to enlarge this google map

The water was already rising from the sea as we took off.  Along the Santa Monica Mountains in the background fog was already up.  Here, just west of the airport, looking north, it was mostly clear with just a hint of the evaporation.  The canal like object is the outlet to the sea from Marina del Rey.  I'd ridden my bike to sea side end of the northern jetty just before getting ready to get the Lincoln bus to the airport.  Venice Beach lies
north of the marina.

I hadn't been on the non-stop flight for a while and forgot it stayed mostly over water.  I began to think of all that water migrating up from the ocean surface and hanging in the air.  The little girl in front of me talked about bouncing on the clouds. 

Here's a view along the beach front that ends at the marina.  This is the tonier end of Venice south of Washington.  The bike path from Santa Monica, through Venice, ends at Washington - at the pier - and you have to take the streets to Top Sail, when a path begins again to the marina.  Before Venice Blvd is the carnival like area of the boardwalk with lots of people.  From Venice (going south) to Washington, the frontage is homes, including the Frank Gehry home, not shops along the bike trail.

I'm assuming the folks south of Washington didn't want the riff-raff so they didn't let the bike trail continue past their beach front homes.  But that's just a guess and I've learned our assumptions are often way off.  Only when you get several blocks from the jetty of Marina del Ray, does a path reappear, and you can see it was pretty empty on a warm July Tuesday afternoon when the norther parts of the trail were packed.

 

A little up the coast, ocean was covered in clouds and moisture had seeped in between the the mountain.

Further north the upper clouds turned pink and the lower ones, looking a bit like ice, were white.  I started wondering what percent of the ocean might be clouds right now.  I figured that was probably a very small number.

But today, I decided to see if I could find it.  Someone had emailed me a link to an article about Wolfram Alpha

Engine Outside Window Glowing and Not

Wolfram Alpha is probably the most useful site on the internet.
It's not a search engine, it's not an encyclopedia, and it's not a calculator, but it's a little bit of all of that. It's really the only member of its field.
Originally developed as an online version of Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica software, its basic functionality is that of a math equation solver.
Over the years, however, it's grown substantially, and has really matured as a site to become one of the coolest and most informative sites online.
Here are some of the coolest things you can do with it.

It had a list of interesting things you could  ask it to calculate.  So I asked what percent of the ocean was in clouds.  It couldn't figure out what I was asking.  I tried a few others and finally, how much do clouds weight?  Here's the answer I got:

I could have given that answer myself.  So I went back to google and got a few other answers:

From the Smithsonian:

"How much water is in a cloud? What would be left if you squeezed the water out of it?
Jerry Jones
Eugene, Oregon
It depends on the cloud. A giant thunderhead may contain more than two billion pounds of water, but even a modest-sized cloud may contain water equivalent to the mass of a 747 jet. If you could squeeze the water out, the cloud would disappear. But you can’t. Some desert peoples use cloth “cloud catchers” to gather condensation and fill local water tanks for drinking and irrigation.
Doug Herman
Geographer, National Museum of the American Indian"

The USGS offered this bit of trivia on its Water Cycle page:

Care to guess how many gallons of water fall when 1 inch (2.5 cm) of rain falls on 1 acre of land?

When you clicked to see the answer it was 27,154 gallons of water.  Is that a lot?  How many Olympic sized swimming pools would that fit?  *Answer at bottom.

The USGS page on Water Storage in the Atmosphere came a little closer to answering my original question.  (It also answers in more detail the 2 billion pounds answer above.)  It also had this chart.

Global distribution of atmospheric water

One estimate of global water distribution

Water source	Water volume, in cubic miles	Water volume, in cubic kilometers	Percent of total freshwater	Percent of total water
Atmosphere	3,094	12,900	0.04%	0.001%
Total global fresh water	8,404,000	35,030,000	100%	2.5%
Total global water	332,500,000	1,386,000,000	--	100%
Source: Gleick, P. H., 1996: Water resources. In Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, ed. by S. H. Schneider, Oxford University Press, New York, vol. 2, pp.817-823.

 

So, he estimates that .001% of total water on earth is in the atmosphere.  That doesn't seem like much, but when you consider how much of the earth is covered by ocean and how deep that ocean is, it's quite a bit.

From How Stuff Works (I can't find anything on this site that talks about where their information comes from and there's no author listed for this article, so be skeptical.)

The oceans are huge. About 70 percent of the planet is covered in ocean, and the average depth of the ocean is several thousand feet (about 1,000 meters). Ninety-eight percent of the water on the planet is in the oceans, and therefore is unusable for drinking because of the salt. About 2 percent of the planet's water is fresh, but 1.6 percent of the planet's water is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Another 0.36 percent is found underground in aquifers and wells. Only about 0.036 percent of the planet's total water supply is found in lakes and rivers. That's still thousands of trillions of gallons, but it's a very small amount compared to all the water available.The rest of the water on the planet is either floating in the air as clouds and water vapor, or is locked up in plants and animals (your body is 65 percent water, so if you weigh 100 pounds, 65 pounds of you is water!).

As we got further north, the sun was back in play.

I've discussed Edward O. Wilson's book The Future of Life before.   A key argument he makes is that the earth's natural systems are a huge infrastructure project - redistributing water, cleaning air and water, developing good soils, and lots of other things that men pay little attention to when they dam rivers, pollute oceans, cut trees, etc.

I think the notion of moving the huge amounts of water from the ocean to the clouds and out over the land where it comes down as rain or snow should give us pause.  Humans are working hard to find reasonably priced desalination processes.  And here nature does it for us effortlessly.  We just have to stop polluting the source and then polluting and otherwise wasting the water that the clouds provide free of charge.  







*ANSWER:  The Region 8 EPA says an Olympic sized pool holds 630,000 gallons of water, so 1 inch of water on one acre wouldn't do much to fill it. 

And since water weighs 8.34 pounds/gallon the 2 billion pounds of water in a thunder cloud mentioned above comes to about 240 million gallons, or a lot more than what you need to fill an Olympic sized pool. 

Bike Break Down To Venice Pier

I moved along the various tasks I'm pursuing hoping to make things easier for my mom, I moved into her room to listen to the Redistricting Board meeting, blogged it, and then got out the bike for a ride down to Venice Beach.

It was Friday after July 4, the weather was comfortable - partly sunny, in the high 60s I'd guess - and there were lots of folks on the Venice Boardwalk.  I'm cheating a little here, this first picture I took the other day - it's at Venice Beach at the end of Rose Street.  These are the beaches I grew up at, but now I realize how big the sandy area is.  You can just barely see a strip of blue water between the sand and the clouds

There's the 'boardwalk' - not sure why it's called that because it's asphalt, not boards, and then  there's a grassy area, a bike path, and finally the sand.  And the sand from the beach is slowly taking over the bike path.    Here are some Venice police with their rides on the grassy part.

LAPD's website explains the Mounted Unit:

"The full-time Mounted Platoon was established in 1987 as a component of the elite Metropolitan Division and is currently composed of 35 full-time sworn police personnel consisting of 1 Lieutenant, 4 Sergeants and 30 Police Officers. City funds were allocated for the purchase of 40 horses to be used by the officers during the performance of their field duties. Also purchased through funds donated by the Ahmanson Foundation were a fleet of 8 trucks and trailers to transport the officers and their mounts to the various details, and a state-of-the-art police equestrian center appropriately named "The Ahmanson Equestrian Facility."

Their basic duties are:

• demonstrations
• crowd management
• crime suppression

A little further up I stopped at the Skate plaza to watch folks do crazy things, mostly without helmets.  

Made me think about the Redistricting Board. 

Since my cell reception isn't too good at my mom's, I made a few calls from here and a little further down at the pier.

Surfers, from the Venice Pier

 

Looking south from the pier, here's a family enjoying the sun.  

Bikerowave - I Learned More About Bike Repair In An Hour Than My Whole Life

I have a cheapo bike I bought very used a couple of years ago and leave in my mom's garage for when we visit.  The derailer was having trouble, shifting gears was getting tricky, and the bike couldn't be rolled backwards.  I knew about Bikecrowave - they have a bike parking lot at the Mar Vista Farmer's  Market - but I waited until things bent and locked completely. 

So last night I stuck the bike in the trunk and drove over to see how this worked. 

"Bikerowave is a bicycle repair collective, much like the Bicycle Kitchen, Bike Oven, or Valley Bikery here in LA County.  We provide space, tools, and equipment in order to effectively teach people how to build, repair, and maintain their bicycles. We are a not-for-profit all volunteer member run organization. Our goal is to empower cyclists with the basic knowledge to maintain their steed, as well as enable them to more easily connect with the cycling community."

I felt like I was in Kindergarten again.  Dan helped me get the bike on the bike rack and walked me through every step of the process.  What tool to get, where to get it, what to tighten, what to loosen.  

He found a suitable new derailer in the back, but then decided I needed to true the wheel.  Really?  How . . .  Wait, I'm at Bikrowave, they'll walk me through it.  I got handed off to Joe who showed me how to adjust the spokes and a few other things to make the wheel work better. 

It was so easy!  When I hesitated, he pointed at what I had to do next.  








Why don't we have a place like this in Anchorage?  The bike shops wouldn't be happy with people giving this away free.  Sharing versus selling.  Would a lot more sharing and bartering of talent ruin our economy or mean that a lot more people would become more self-sufficient and less dependent on a paycheck?  Today's bottom line capitalism with smaller businesses being bought out by bigger ones that demand maximum profit, means helping and sharing with others is bad. 

And at the end I asked what I owed.  $3 for the used derailer and $7 for the hour of bike stand time. (Just look and they have various deals - but really, had I taken this to REI, it would have been at least $45 and more likely over $100.  And taken several days.   I was one of the last 'customers' there and the volunteers all got sandwiches and sat around talking about a variety of things and I heard a few philosophers mentioned. 

I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to actually go do this, but I really love having a bike here.  They are only open in the evenings on weekdays, closed Fridays, and open days on the weekends.  So I made myself go try something new and different.  Wow, I can't believe that I changed a derailer and trued the wheel. 

And their blog suggests they do a lot more things - sort of like the Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage.  I'll get them to check this post and see if we can find a way to set up something like this in Anchorage. 


Oh yeah.  Can't ride my bike right now.  The gears are great, but when I put the tire back on the wheel, I must have poked a hole in the tire.  I'll go back tomorrow and fix that. 

For west side LA folks - they're on Venice between Centinela and Grand.