Scooter & Bike Shares And Other Transportation Around Venice And Santa Monica - Updated

Over the last couple of years when we visited LA, I've notice the scooter thing.  First it was my bewilderment at seeing scooters just sitting, seemingly abandoned, on the bike trail along the beach.

The bikes had stations like this one, where you could use your phone to rent a bike and you had to return it to another station.

But the electric scooters had gps and could be left anywhere and rented anywhere you found one.

This didn't go without controversy.  People complained about scooters menacing pedestrians or being abandoned where they block sidewalks.  There have been reports of vandalism against the abandoned scooters.


The picture shows two Jump scooters (Uber) and a Bird scooter.  I've seen Lyme and Lyft scooters as well.







When the bike trail along the beach goes from Venice (a neighborhood that is actually in Los Angeles) to Santa Monica (a separate city), there's the sign banning scooters.









I've seen some scooters left there at the border,




like this Bird and the others in the background just before this sign.















But I also see a lot of folks riding their electric scooters along the Santa Monica beach bike trail.

Two riders on this scooter.

An electric skateboard.

 An electric mini bike.

Selfie bikers

A speed biker overtakes someone just cruising along.

Non-motorized tricycles.

 Just for fun I'm adding in a couple of forms of transportation that don't actually take you anywhere - the rollercoaster on the Santa Monica pier,



and this guy who was swinging so high and for so long that I was wondering if he was chemically high as well.

And a non-motorized race to the top.   

Besides the beach, there are lots and lots of people riding around the streets of Venice and Santa Monica on these scooters and bikes.  I think it's a great idea whose time hasn't actually come yet.  That is - the streets, bike trails, and sidewalks aren't geared for all these different vehicles going at different speeds.  The idea that you can pick up an easy means of short transport - say two or three miles or less - and just leave it where you end up, is a great alternative to the car.  And a great connector from buses to your final destination.

People are working out how to do this without endangering pedestrians or blocking people's way.

Here are some Jump scooters that found a good spot to park, not far from my Mom's house.

I think this could be a big part of everyone's future.  We just need to redesign streets to accommodate these slower options.  I'm a bit concerned by the lack of helmets among riders.  I haven't seen anyone crash yet, but I've seen a few people looking scared as they come around a curve faster than they were ready for.  

And I'm not sure what the City of Santa Monica intends to do about motorized scooters on the beach bike trails. There sure doesn't seem to be any enforcement at the moment.   When rules are not enforced and then suddenly enforced or selectively enforced, they're a lot easier to challenge.  

I don't know what's happening in the rest of the LA area.  I suspect because of the beach, Venice and Santa Monica have more scooters, but I'm not sure.  I haven't noticed them much when we've been out of the area.  

[UPDATE Dec 22, 2018 7:50 pm - well, it seems the scooters are doing well in the Westwood area where we had a Persian dinner tonight.  

It turns out there's a company doing the same thing with electric cars.  My granddaughter and I passed this place this morning near the Santa Monica Saturday market. 

I looked up Ioniq and got this website for Waive cars.  It says you get the app, locate a car nearby, book it, and drive it for two hours FREE!  They say they make their money from advertising.  After two hours it costs $5.99 per hour.]  There were six or seven more in this lot.]

October 1 - Day German Move On Danish Jews Thwarted By Georg Duckwitz German Ambassador To Denmark

LA Times has a bit of history for this date.  It's the story of the German ambassador to Denmark who helped get most Danish Jews to Sweden just before the Nazis were to send them to concentration camps.  From the article:

On Sept. 19, Duckwitz learned from Best that the operation was imminent. He wrote in his diary, “Now I know what I have to do.” When he was told by a fellow sympathetic official that he would risk Gestapo wrath if he were caught trying to countermand Hitler, Duckwitz responded he would do whatever it took to stop the deportation.
The next day, Duckwitz contacted two Swedish diplomats and traveled to Stockholm where he met with Prime Minister Albin Hansson, who agreed to propose to the Germans that his neutral nation would intern the Danish Jews. The Nazis didn’t even bother to respond.
On Sept. 28, Best received the go-ahead to launch the roundup, planned for Oct. 1, Rosh Hashana. Duckwitz immediately telephoned Danish political leaders. One of them later recalled that when they met, Duckwitz looked pale with shame and shock.
“Now the disaster is at hand,” Duckwitz said. Ships were waiting in the harbor to take the Jews to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. “Those of your poor Jewish countrymen who get caught by the Gestapo will [be] … transported to an unknown fate.”

Most were ferried across the channel between Denmark and Sweden by all sorts of vessels where Swedish officials took them in.  

Over the next few days, millions of Danes would shelter, protect and smuggle their Jewish neighbors to Sweden. They were delivered to the harbor in free taxis and hospital ambulances. Fishermen and ship captains made more than 700 trips across the Oresund. Duckwitz had tipped off his Swedish contacts, who were waiting to assist the refugees. And in a final critical action, he convinced German harbormasters he knew to ensure the coast guard sent out no patrols.

But this story, celebrating this Oct. 1, 1943 rescue mission is not just a history lesson.  The author wants to be sure readers get the more universal message.

Many ask themselves whether it is possible to stand up to pervasive evil. The Danes showed that when a nation — from the king to the taxi drivers and fishermen — decide they will not permit atrocities in their midst, even the Nazis could be hamstrung. And Georg Duckwitz, who put his career and even his life on the line, offers an object lesson on how one person can save thousands.

I'd note, as well, that we should look at each individual we've labeled "the enemy" carefully.  Some of them don't belong in that category.  Find them and let them help.

Meanwhile, life goes on.

Turnagain Arm Mudflats - A Favorite Beach Walk Has Fewer Rocks, More Mud

There are lots of spots along Turnagain Arm to stop and explore.  On the east side (away from the water) they tend to go up pretty steeply and that's less and less appealing as we get older.  On the west side are favorite spot is a small parking spot near Indian where the bike trail starts.  But where you can get over a small chainlink fence and then over the railroad tracks down to a rocky beach.

Though we discovered yesterday that the rocky part is much more limited than it used to be  It's mostly mudflats now.



Yesterday there was only a thin area that was rocky, right along the where you climb down the boulders from the railroad tracks.  Then it turned quickly to mudflats.














Here's a picture from September 2012 at this same beach.  While it's not the same exact spot, you can see the same mountains in the background.  You can't even see the rocky slope on the left where the railroad tracks are.   The area between the railroad tracks and the mudflats was much greater.






But let's enjoy the amazing textures of the mudflats.

This one is from the road.  I can't remember such a low tide where I couldn't see any water except for in the deeper channels.

As we got over the railroad tracks we found a couple and their dog enjoying a picnic overlooking Turnagain Arm.  It was warmish (high 50s F) and no wind at all.)

And here we are on the railroad tracks (looking south) as we head back.

Slack Line Juggler Santa Monica Beach

This post is dedicated to my friend JK.

Another day with workers putting in moulding, doing electrical work, and various odds and ends at the house.  Phone calls to arrange further stuff, moving furniture, figuring where to hang pictures, and other work preparing my mom's house for rental for most of the year when we're at home in Anchorage.

I couldn't wait to get on the bike and ride down to the beach and then north along the beach bike trail.   I try to go earlier, because it gets more crowded as it gets closer to the sunset.  Today I had to stop and take some pictures. First, they had a much longer slack line than I've seen there before - it's the first one you see in the video.  Then on another wire was a juggler.  I also pan on the trail so you can see the traffic I have to navigate in this section of the trail, just south of the Santa Monica Pier (which you can see in the background.  Watch for the roller coaster.)



That spot on my camera is getting annoying. Sorry.

Once I get past the pier, the traffic thins out.  There is one short row of houses, separated from the beach by the public bike trail.

And there was a film crew camped out in one of the parking lots.

And I was getting back to the point where I leave the beach and head home, the almost full moon was rising to the east.

And to the west the sun was slipping down toward the ocean.

Here's why I did the video - you can see that a still shot just do this juggler justice.  You need to see the balls moving while the juggler goes up and down on the slack line.

Living In A Construction Zone

Furniture out, workers' tools in

My mom's house isn't big - about 1200 square feet, three bedrooms, one full bathroom and one with a sink and toilet.  But when my parent's bought it back in 1956, they did a great job with the location.  Since my mom died in 2015, we've spent a fair amount of time cleaning things out, giving things away, selling a few things, donating lots.  It seemed like however much we pulled out, the closets didn't seem to get emptier.  Then there were drawers and cabinets and, drum roll, the garage.

I'm not complaining.  My mom knew where things were and she always had something to use for whatever situation, whether it was gift to take when visiting someone, a bag to hold something in, the old waffle iron, and on and on.  She didn't want us moving things around because then she wouldn't be able to find them.  She did say, repeatedly, "When I'm gone, you can do what you want."

So the last two and half years, our trips here were focused on cleaning things out.  People have been telling us to to rent it out while we're not here - most of the time - and so we are required to get it

more up-to-date - like getting rid of the popcorn ceiling and painting pretty much everything.  There's now a dishwasher and dryer after all these years of washing by hand and hanging the laundry out to dry in the sun.  We've go a new deck in the backyard - which was getting bedraggled because of various droughts.  The gardener keeps things from getting overgrown, but not from dying.  So what long ago used to be a lawn in the back had become a patch of dirt.  The deck takes away that eyesore and adds an outdoor room.  All this has happened in the last two weeks and we've been living in the middle of it.

When we head out this week, the carpet will come off the living room floor and the old hardwood floors will be sanded and polished.

That means we've been getting everything into the garage so the floors will be cleared.  We still have a little table in the kitchen (no hardwood there so that's ok) and an air mattress bed that we can move out ourselves before we leave.  Bathrooms have been in and out of service as they get various upgrades - new grout, paint, and fixtures.  One bathroom got a whole new vanity.

I'm still finding things I didn't know were here.  An old cream and sugar set was wrapped in old
newspaper.  Not sure why they had the Chicago Sun Times from June 6, 1989 - two days after the Tiananmen massacre.

I couldn't remember Li Peng being shot back then and when I googled Li Peng assassination most everything - including bios of Li Peng - omit mention of an assassination attempt.  There was one book - Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China -  I found where a Chinese student talks about his participation in Tiananmen protests and he writes,

"After we had hung up our poster, we heard news that Deng Xiaoping had suddenly died and that Premier Li Peng had been wounded in an assassination attempt.  That afternoon firecrackers were popping all over campus to celebrate Deng's death.  But we soon discovered that these "news reports" were baseless rumors.  In fact students from Jaotong University had not been run over by tanks, Deng Xiaoping was alive and well, and Li Peng had not been wounded."

Publishing unsubstantiated rumors, as this headline shows, isn't new.  But neither is attempting to fool the public with false stories.  Yellow journalism was taught in the American history classes I took in high school.  But there's a new sophistication in the creation and spreading of the new brand of fake news we see today.



We try to drive as little as possible - J walks and I ride the bike all I can.  But if you need to go far or fast or carry a lot, you need to take the car and traffic can be frustrating.  Public transit is ok for a few destinations, like the airport.

Some of my old bedroom furniture was snapped up by a young man with a square beard and tight jeans who was excited about picking up 'mid-century' stuff for a token price.  I was happy it was going to an appreciative home.  Various people have been leaning on me to get rid of, or do, this and that.  I think they are mostly right, but I don't want a generic house in the end so I'm holding my ground on some things.  And listening to reason on others.




And we are in LA, where the weather has gone from nice to rainy to very nice.  And we've eaten lots of good food.  As we were coming home from house-related errands we stopped on a block of Venice that had a Brazilian cafe, a Caribbean place, a Thai place, and a Himalyan place.  We ate at Tara's in part because of the garden like setting on a busy street.

Domo Plate at Tara's

And yesterday when it got into the eighties (F) even at the beach, we decided we needed a break.  J walked and I biked the two miles to Venice Beach.

After playing in the surf with my granddaughter when she was here in December, I was seriously thinking about catching some waves.  I watched the few would-be body surfers not catch anything and I remembered our bathtub was out of commission while the resurfacing dried.  But I did go into the water part way and it felt great to have the surf rushing between my legs.  The water didn't feel terribly cold (about 60˚F).


There's still work to do when we're gone - the floors, and when that messy job is over, new blinds will be put into most of the windows.  We're headed to see our Seattle granddaughter before touching base again in Anchorage and then more Seattle time before coming back here to see what we still have left to do.

... was out getting garbage and recycling into our cans and two neighbors' cans.  Neighbors up the hill have moved into their house about a year after we moved into this one.  The neighbors to the south moved in much more recently and became very good friends with my mom.  And the LA sanitation department picks up bulky items like carpet and sinks if you call a day ahead - and they were open Sunday to take my call.

The Fog Rolled In, I Got A Flat, And We Get Picked Up By A Good Samaritan

The workers were here at 9am and finished up the ceiling.

I got a call from my friend B - he wanted to bike to Palos Verdes, starting around Redondo Beach.  It was sunny and beautiful and getting out of the house so the workers could do their thing without me around seemed like a great idea.


As we cruised around the beach cities looking for a parking spot, we entered the fog.  Low, grey clouds.
Here's a shot of it.

And it was chilly.  A very damp, low 60s. (I know, chilly is relative.) After a bit we needed to get off the beach bike path and head up hills through Torrance.   I stopped partway up the hill to watch the fog roll up from the ocean.


As we got further up, the sun was visible, sort of.







And then as we rode higher, we got above the fog.   There's Palos Verdes above us, visible.





And this, I'm pretty sure, is Malaga Bay.  You can see the wall of fog sitting there waiting over the ocean.   There were 20-30 surfers out in the waves below.

But soon we were in the fog again.  B kept checking the map on his phone to see how much further it was.  I didn't actually know what 'it' was, except "Palos Verdes."  As far as I was concerned, we were already in PV.  Should we go the rest of the way?, B asked me.  I told him I didn't know where we were going or why it would be worth the extra three miles uphill.  I was also thinking about the two foot wide bike path on the other side of the street and the cars whizzing by.  Our side had about ten feet of parking area that was also a bike lane.  Finally B said it was Terra something resort.  Then I remembered I'd just read about them hiring foreign interns and using them to replace their minimum wage workers.  Human trafficking was in the headline.  I didn't need to go there.  B suggested I might interview some of the workers for the blog.  I was thinking about when it gets dark in LA (early - about 5:30pm in late December).  We went a little further and turned around.

We'd gone about nine miles.  After about a mile my bike was getting very sluggish and making a strange noise.  When I looked down I could see my back tire was flat.  We found the nail.  B's repair kit wasn't working - no patches and his hand pump didn't work on my valve stem.   I told B to ride ahead to the car and I'd walk as far as I could and he could pick me up.  We were about eight miles from the car.  He wanted me to turn my bike upside down so people could see we were in trouble, and he'd hitch a ride in a pick up truck.  I'm not sure why I didn't want to.  I guess I was embarrassed that I didn't have stuff with me to fix the flat.

Five minutes, that's all B wanted, then we could go with my plan.

After four minutes I was ready to start walking, then a pick up stopped.  B ran and talked to the driver and soon the bikes were in the bed and we were in front with Steve Lavine who had been out for a walk.  He used to run and bike and hike, but he had various health issues now and it was even a struggle to walk.  We met a new friend who took us all the way back to the car.  He said he was headed our way anyway and it wasn't too far extra.  B was pleased to have been right and I wasn't upset I was wrong.

Oh, and Steve has a second cousin Norm LaVine who lives in Anchorage. Hasn't seen him in 25 years.   If anyone from Anchorage knows him, tell him we are trying to convince Steve to come visit him in Anchorage.

Thanks, Steve, for ending our bike ride with a spectacular show of good will.  Getting a ride back was great, but getting to know a total stranger  who'd stop and pick up two guys with bikes was even better.



I'm not that surprised, but we do get jaded by our media that tends to focus on the tiny number of people who do harm each day rather than on the 350 million other US inhabitants who are like Steve Lavine.