Greg Sanders

0ff on vacation

Headed down to the Outer Banks with some friends. As a result, probably won't be posting until Tuesday. Also sadly any pictures will be with the cell phone camera as the main one is in the shop.

Kyoto Grand rooftop garden (2010-05-15/16)

Our mornings at the Kyoto Grand hotel in Los Angeles were quite pleasant. The first day we went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. It was a pretty standard hotel restaurant with a Japanese twist but nothing particularly remarkable. Subsequent days we hit a bakery in the shopping district and were glad for it. From this example and my past travels, I think it's safe to say that some western pastries really have been integrated into bakeries I've encountered in East Asia, although often with interesting fillings like bean paste or curry.

The rooftop garden was a favorite element of both mornings and nights at the Grand, although all the assorted food and drink options that seemed associated with it were some combination of closed or being renovated. That ultimately didn't matter because it was quite soothing simply to walk around. I've certainly seen higher caliber gardens in my day, but to have one so fully at my disposal was a new and delightful experience.

Review: Finding a specialist through Blue Cross

I don't want to get into too much medical detail on the blog, but I've been looking to find a speech therapist to help with recovery from a procedure earlier this year. Feeling oh so clever, I didn't go through my doctor and instead tried to find one I could get to via Metro without having to ride the bus.

I was a bit late in getting started on the process, but I have to say, it's been quite a pain. The search tool online is nice, but the trouble is the various providers claim that speech therapists are available at most locations and yet for two of the three companies I've called up it turned out that the specialist I wanted was only available at less convenient locations. The third time, it turned out they didn't take my type of insurance. This has been particularly frustrating as I've often figured out that things won't work only after I've spent some time on the process.

So in the long term, I may put in a request with Blue Cross that they clean up their information some. It could be that the various providers are just trying to maximize business, but if that's the case offering a comment tool might go a long way to clarifying what's really available. As a general consumer advisory, I recommend asking about locations up front. Finding out about the insurance late in the process was probably just a fluke of how I contacted them.  In most cases the providers seem pretty eager to find out if you're covered.

The Getty defies summary (2010-05-15)

The museum part of the Getty was first-rate. We only saw part of it: an exhibit on illuminated manuscripts, a making of section on statuary, and a variety of fascinating rooms of European art pieces. Two odd pieces of note: a tomb covering featuring a breakout (not pictured) and a painting of a watermill with the wheel in the center. However, living in the D.C. area and visiting New York fairly regularly, I've been blessed with seeing many high quality museums so that wasn't what stood out most for me.

Instead, it was the design of the grounds themselves. They were wonderfully attuned to their natural setting and managed to blend natural elements and modern aesthetic sensibilities in a way I'm not sure I've ever before seen in person. The variety of the gardens was astounding and the placement of each plant seemed carefully planned to accentuate their most notable features. The considerable number of people sharing the experience with us did not diminish it, although I suppose that if there were twice as many that would change. The mix of elevations, rocks, water, and the architecture of the buildings were also essential to making it a complete piece.

This is not to say nothing was out of place; one column on the balcony near the cacti blocked a 180 degree view of the city while not seeming structurally necessary. However, the effect on the whole was to raise the bar. I don't even know where I'd start were I to try to adapt a single design element to my living space. It almost makes me glad to not do design work as it goes through inspiring to become intimidating. I will caveat that by saying that I think some appreciation of modern artwork is necessary to get the full experience, but the consistent level of craft imbued in every part of the terrain addresses the most common objection to many contemporary works. I'll be sure to take my Mom next time we're out and I think Dad would have liked it (although I'm banking a bit on the funicular to put it over the top).

Review: Ghost Writer

First off, this is a Roman Polanski film.  He had fled the country after pleading guilty to statutory rape of a 13-year old. The world economic crisis and the resulting U.S. clout over Swiss banks means that he is now on his way to facing justice. In that context, I'm comfortable watching this film but I certainly understand those who disagree. The film can be read as an analogy for his situation, but ultimately I think that's a less interesting and also one fraught with spoilers, so I'm not mentioning it again.

The film is the story of a ghost writer who is brought in to clean up the memoirs of Adam Lang, a former British Prime Minister who in some ways bears a strong resemblance to Tony Blair.  The protagonist is replacing the former ghost writer, one of Adam Lang's staffers, who had drowned. Complications ensue, including a war crimes indictment for Lang on charges that he assisted in expediting British citizens from Pakistan to America to be tortured.

As you might guess from the description, this is just my sort of film. I've long been a Pierce Brosnan fan and he's brilliant in his role as Lang. Ewan McGregor does a great job as a writer who is in almost as far over his head as his drowned predecessor. Olivia Williams similarly does a note-perfect job as Lang's wife, although I'll note that the role seems to have a bit less of Blair's human rights lawyer wife, Cherie Booth, and a bit more of Hillary Clinton before she made a run in her own right. Similarly I think Adam Lang is a bit too terrorism-obsessed to have played the role Tony Blair did in shepherding through the Northern Ireland peace accords. But this isn't a documentary and doesn't claim to be. In any event, I also now intend to buy Robert Harris's novel, as if half the lines in the movie are from the novel it will be an excellent read.

On the whole, I think what really held the film together was that it was a conspiracy thriller where the motivations became clear as you learned more. The cinematography was lovely, although Kate was less fond of the Massachusetts modern house/bunker than I was, partly because of the bunker design and partly because of the constant clouds and rain. (Kate adds: Cape Cod in summer is great.  Cape Cod in winter is another matter entirely.)  Equally important from a sheer pleasure standpoint, it's quite mordantly funny. Thus, if you enjoy political intrigue and thrillers and aren't boycotting Polanski, I strongly recommend it.

Quick Review of Ironman 2

I enjoyed it, although I don't think it particularly stands up to a lot of thinking. Either that or a substantial portion of the characters are fairly incompetent. But the gee whiz tech that fit with the current world really delivered. I don't know if a smart phone you can see through is actually a good idea at all, but I'll be if it didn't look cool when Stark was using it. I also liked some of the treatment of the military industrial complex; the different model drones for each service did feel right. I was particularly amused when Lt. Col Rhodes gave the standard acquisition response when deciding what new weapons he wanted for his system: all of them (this seems like a good time to point out that I don't speak for [any] employers in these blog posts).

Funicular Transit Blogging: The Getty (2010-05-15)

The Getty is an art museum in the hills around L.A., the parking garage is at the bottom of the hill, probably for some combination of practical and aesthetic reasons. So, somewhere along the line, some decided that the practical solution to getting people from the parking garage to the museum grounds would be a funicular. Seriously. The museum has its own pair of cable cars. How awesome is that?

First, a quick engineering refresher on inclined railways. Normally trains are limited in the elevation they can handle, particularly if you've got massively long freight trains or a small tourist railroad without a lot of horsepower. One solution is to pull the train by cable rather than engine, for example the San Francisco cable cars. Then, much like with elevators, the train going downhill acts as a counterweight for the train going uphill.

The actual design at the Getty is interesting, typically with incline railways, the cable is in the center of two tracks. In this case the cable runs along the side. This allows them to be rather space efficient, if you go through the slide show, you'll notice that much of the track is only a single lane wide. There's an exception at the bottom and in the exact center where the track widens and the funiculars stick to their cables along the outside and pass each other. The way the system works, they always pass each other at the same point, so the two cars have to leave at the same time but after that the timing works out automatically.

On a practical basis, this makes the Getty more accessible and allows it to handle larger volumes of crowds in an elegant manner. From an artistic basis, it gives the approach a somewhat otherworldly feel. The museum is literally above it all and the designers wanted you to know that. There are a fair number of funiculars in the world but each tends to be a bit different given varying grades and numbers of passengers. It would harder to pull that off with a bus or the like and not nearly as fun in my entirely biased opinion.

La Brea Tar Pits (2010-05-[15])

As a paleontology buff when I was a kid, I've hit the La Brea Tar Pits just about every time I've visited Los Angeles. A few quick facts:

• It's a saber-tooth cat, not a saber-tooth tiger.
• The technical term for the 'tar' in question is actually asphalt. La Brea apparently is Spanish for tar.
• The tar bubbles but it isn't hot; also it just takes an inch of the stuff to trap even a strong animal, so don't think that it works like quicksand.
• The timing isn't right, so there's no dinosaurs in the tar pits, and I think they're a little tired of being asked that.
• Animals with humps often have big backbones; the example in this case was a bison. I always figured that was fat.
• The turtles and birds in the little wildlife sanctuary in the middle of the museum are really cute.
• Wolf pack tactics do not work well with tar pits.

With those facts firmly established, I do strongly recommend a trip to the museum. The ticket price wasn't that bad, I think $7. Parking was a bit more on top of that but you'll probably be okay so long as you don't fall for some of the expensive nearby options. The selection of fossils is terrific and you can see people working on the bones in one of the glassed-in workspaces that are rightfully popular in modern paleontology exhibits. Also, aside from parking, it's free to wander the grounds and to look at the places where the tar bubbles up. As someone who grew up in Silver Spring, where the actual spring has long since been undercut by some update of the sewer system, it amazes me that such a pre-historical oddity is still so active in the middle of a major city.

[Update: Date fixed]

Griffith Park and East L.A. (2010-05-15)

Our friend Coby picked us up at Sunset/Vermont Subway station and then we were off to Griffith Observatory, which was celebrating its 75th anniversary that Saturday. Unfortunately, this celebration meant that it was closed to the public. So instead we walked around the hills and enjoyed the view. We at least did get to see the iconic exterior of the of the observatory which has appeared in many movies but that I remember most from Bowfinger. The other bit of bad news for the trip in general was that the seasonal level of fog limited our sightlines. The views were impressive, but we didn't see the Pacific Ocean until we drove up to it the next day.

We then drove past Little Armenia and Korea Town to our next stop: the La Brea Tar Pits, which will be covered in a future entry. For lunch we went to the Farmers Market by The Grove shopping mall. One definite feature of L.A. is that the malls tend to be the open-air pedestrian style that are coming back into favor in less temperate parts of the country. The whole area was packed; as we walked to the Market we learned that the Jonas Brothers were appearing live.  Hearts aflutter we then proceeded to wander around the many stalls of the market.  Kate got a chicken potpie-style crepe; I had cheese and spinach on something like pizza dough from a place with a name like Moishe's Kitchen (my memory fails me a bit here). One interesting feature of the Grove, rail lines go straight down the center. It'd be a great place to put a true streetcar although I don't think the four car higher density light rail that L.A. general uses would be the best choice here.

After that, Coby was kind enough to drive us around Beverly Hills and Bel Air. I didn't get a picture of it, but one of the random noteworthy points was a sign noting the presence of private security with a "oh yeah, we mean Blackwater-style security, so don't screw with us" vibe. The hills themselves are interesting and windy and as with much of Los Angeles are filled with beautiful flora.

Next was the Getty, which again will have a separate entry, and then we drove down in the direction of Orange County to hit an okonomiyaki place. I'm actually not normally a fan of cuisines where you cook the food at your table, but I feel a bit differently when the cooking is grilling a giant pancake (and when a skilled hand like Coby is doing all the work anyways). Sadly, I accidentally violated my personal rule to stay away from octopus (too smart) because I forgot some Japanese terminology; sorry, guys. We finished the evening with parfaits. That dessert has been subsumed into Japanese cuisine, with a twist of course. In this case, the contents were two sticks of Pocky, a scoop of red bean jam, whipped cream, some green tea ice cream, corn flakes, more whipped cream, and fruit cocktail.

Yes, Los Angeles has a subway (2010-05-15/17)

And it actually goes places, although it doesn't serve all of the city by a long shot. There's two traditional heavy rail lines, the Red and the Purple, and they link up to Green, Blue, and Gold Light Rail lines which account for much of the system's geographical coverage (it's a PDF, the L.A. Metro is oddly fond of PDFs). Apparently 8% to 10% of L.A. residents do use public transit or walk, which isn't great but is not unusual for major U.S. cities. From what I saw there are many parts capable of supporting rail transit; it's just such a sprawling metropolis that those parts aren't relevant to a good percentage of the city. However, the subway/light rail/commuter rail system is steadily expanding based on the signs in the subway, which includes a new light rail Expo Line. Given the current economic climate and California's budgetary situation I'm not sure how many of these additions will actually happen but it's still encouraging to see.

The subway car exteriors are chrome and seem intentionally retro, but that may just be the D.C. Metro regular in me talking. The interiors were more modern and sometimes had innovative layouts making it easy for bicyclists. The stations themselves have some variety with some stations like Vermont/Sunset and the Hollywood ones (not visited on this trip) being particularly attractive. The Civic Center art was odd, albeit interesting, and involved suspended sky-jumping figures.

Payment on the system was simple, a flat rate for a trip with enforcement via inspection rather than restricted access. There were optional passes for frequent riders, and I did pick up a Transit Access Pass (TAP) card at Union Station. The TAP card is basically an alternative to paper tickets and can hold any kind of credit, although at Union Station you do need to buy a minimum of a daily pass with each new card. I've decided to start up a collection after regretting my failure to get an Octopus Card in Hong Kong.

Exploring L.A.'s Little Tokyo for the first time

We chose our hotel, the Kyoto Grand, both because it had a rooftop garden and because the Little Tokyo neighborhood sounded neat. Los Angeles has a great number of Asian national/ethnic enclaves and Little Tokyo is just one of the three Japanese ones that our friend Coby was aware of. It sits adjacent to the government buildings we mentioned in the last post.

We spent most of our time in two proximate shopping districts that were both self-contained within separate city blocks. The whole area had a definite Japanese feel, although the redevelopment was recent enough that I'd say the ritzier bits were about half-organic, half-developer who chose Japanese trimmings. That said, I rather liked the multilevel design public art near the square dedicated to lost Challenger Astronaut Col. Onizuka and the renovations in the other district to add towers and other elements unlikely to be found in your average pedestrian mall.

We closed out the evening by quickly Googling a few of the restaurants and then dining at the highly recommend Oomasa. Procuring a table proved tricky; the place was quite crowded and there was no one standing around to explain the system or give time estimates. Instead you just grabbed a number and waited for a table to open up. After a while, we double checked with some of the other would-be diners and just decided to sit at the lovely sushi bar with wood paneling depicting a mix of landscapes.

The sushi itself was quite good; Kate was amazed by the freshness of the ingredients. I particularly liked the white ginger and the toro sushi recommended by the chef who served us. There were also misadventures at the start with chopsticks that I'll tell in person put would just as soon not post on the web. All and all, a delightful start to the weekend.

Pictures by Greg Sanders and Kate. Once the slideshow is up, Look through them to see a meter that takes credit cards and a restaurant with a terrible accent based name pun. [Update: Slideshow posted.]

Touring L.A.'s eclectic and modern civic buildings (2010-05-14)

After arriving at our hotel, the Kyoto Grand in Little Tokyo, we went out to walk around city hall and other civic buildings. It really is an interesting and scenic part of town, according to our tour book some people hate the transportation building, the big rectangular modern one and call it the Death Star. I disagree with that on two points, first, we kinda like it. It has quirks and personality that are desperately needed in brutalist architecture. Second, if you want a derisive sci-fi name for the building, call it a Borg cube.

 

Otherwise, we enjoyed walking by city hall and the L.A. times building. I'm feeling a bit bad about letting that newspaper drop me from their distribution list, maybe I'll re-up, I did like the quirky display one of the street facing offices had. The L.A.P.D. building was a surprisingly appealing bit of architecture. Lots of glass to emphasize a theme of transparency I'm guessing plus a nice garden. The gold bricks were part of a memorial wall of some sort.

[Update, slideshow added. Photographs taken by Greg Sanders and Kate, available under a creative common license.]

Travelblogging: Monterey, CA (2010/05/11-14)

Monterey is a lovely seaside town about two hours south of San Francisco. Unfortunately, I didn't see that much of it as I was mainly in town for a conference put on by the Naval Post-graduate School presenting attending sessions and backing up my boss as he presented some of our research. The hotel, an Embassy Suites in Seaside, was quite neat with a big central courtyard with lots of greenery, a waterfall, and a koi and turtle pond. The made to order omelets as part of the included breakfast certainly weren't too shabby either and the potato cubes were quite tasty if probably unhealthful, I'd recommend it the place to anyone staying in the area.

Outside the hotel, my main experience with the area was walking over to the beach Thursday night once all the business was done. I'd have probably managed to figure out something to do Tuesday night if I hadn't been dealing with the consequences of leaving my wallet behind in Maryland. In any event, the beach at night was a pleasurable walk enhanced by the lights of what I believe is Monterey proper on the far side of the bay. The combination of hills brimming with lights and water reminded me a bit of my time as a wide-eyed tourist in Hong Kong. The walk itself was fairly straightforward aside from the fact that a stream ran out into the ocean at the pedestrian entry point with a steady path leading you a couple dozen feet along one of the dunes.

I didn't manage to get out of the hotel quite as quickly as I wanted on Friday so I ended up deciding to skip Lobos park and instead went for a slightly longer drive to Oakland Airport via Santa Cruz. I think I may have screwed up the directions a bit, as Rt. 1 looked like a coastal highway on while the map but while interesting rarely came within view of the ocean after the initial bit. That probably would have been remedied had I gone all the way to Half Moon Bay, but since I didn't know the plane was running about an hour late I was a little too worried about time to find out (As a side note, I don't doubt that I could have checked the flight status on my phone, but how safe is it to arrive late if you know your flight is late?).

Happily, the initial bit of coastal highway in Monterey and the subsequent varied farmland was nicely complemented by the hills around Bear creak on highway 17. It's easy to forget how hilly California can be, although part of just the sheer size of the state and the resulting variety. However, I don't have any pictures of that part of the trip since I was still solo for this part so I didn't have a passenger/photographer to help out.

Photographs taken by Greg Sanders, available under a creative common license, although I took them with my phone, so I doubt you'd want them.

I've finally started reading Scott Pilgrim

I'm borrowing them from an old good friend of mine, who I haven't queried about mentioning by name, so I'll leave that vague.

I'm really liking it, although I have a little trouble with character identification (not Megatokyo levels, just some difficulty). Oddly enough, I'm not sure I actually like the eponymous protagonist, but that hasn't been a problem. The parts of his character I'm not that excited about are also parts that his friends mock, and in ensemble pieces that works wonders.