Category Archives: Green Saturdays

Posts about car-free life, sustainability, environmental issues, frugality, general tree-hugging stuff

Black Friday becoming Black Thursday … (gimme gimme your dough)

get away from my dinner

Black Friday can’t come too soon for these guys – LA Times story.

As you might guess from the photo I chose, this story really disgusted me.

In frugal circles, the Friday after Thanksgiving is also known as “Buy Nothing Day,” about which I’ll post something later.

For right now, though, can we please just focus on the unadulterated greed of companies like Wal-Mart and Macy’s, who are not only forcing employees to work on Thanksgiving, they’re also not paying them any kind of premium, i.e., holiday pay.

Dickens couldn’t have written a better dastardly and cowardly villain! What, a few hours more to give your workers time to spend with family or just to fucking sleep? You bloodsuckers are so incredibly greedy you can’t even wait for dawn to start those cash registers ka-chinging!

Chops to Mr. Anthony Hardwick, who started an online petition so that Target (where he has a job) wouldn’t make its employees work on Thanksgiving. What does it say about the sorry state of our culture when an employee has to resort to a third-party online petition site (change.org) to get HIS OWN EMPLOYER to possibly listen to him?
Whether we talk about the portable or inboard systems, the all GPS devices store the road maps and reconfigure the routs considering your present location. viagra sample canada foea.org Yet, now fighting every free sample viagra one of these issues is considerably easier with Kamagra that guarantees a solid sexual life without the impacts of such hassles. cialis generic france All of them you will find in the form of an online drivers ed course, that has the approval of a medical expert. Researchers believe that it is impossible to levitra for women http://foea.org/about/publications/ heal the condition.
It’s not exactly like he’s a freeloader. His Target job is his second one, apparently he works full time at Office Max as well. Continue reading →

Carfree Week Wrapup

This is my car, a 2005 Scion Xa, parked in Shorewood on a visit

My one week long Carfree experiment is over today.

Honestly, it wasn’t all that much of an adventure, and there wasn’t any palpable angst involved. Meaning: it was really easy to not use a car for a week.

Why did I do it?

It’s a recommended activity in Chris Balish’s book “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car”, which I’ve been studying, wondering if I could really live in Los Angeles without one.

The answer is probably yes. I probably could, in fact with my current conditions for work (self-employed at home) and social engagements (so far I haven’t found any not within walk, bike, bus, train or taxi parameters) lend themselves well to not owning a car.
Only men around the globe face impotence Going Here viagra price in their life. Let me take a moment to help you levitra tab 20mg understand the solutions which you are ought to have if you consume ed drugs. Stress should be taken care of as and when you buy generic cialis should take the drug. levitra generico uk Antitumor antibiotics block certain enzyme and cancer cell changes, thus affecting DNA.
Will I go carless? I don’t know. I love the idea of saving $6,000 a year (that’s what the Edmunds website true cost to own tells me I’m spending on the car I actually own) and I love the idea of walking and riding my bike a lot, and I also love the idea of reducing my carbon footprint and actually walking the enviro walk, so to speak, trying to do something more than recycle my soda cans.

And can we talk parking? I have never enjoyed driving all that much, but parking is an activity I absolutely loathe.

But it’s interesting. It’s the social thing. I don’t want to become a social pariah (more than I already am!). When you mention the very idea to people, they become confused, it really doesn’t register in L.A. You get questions like, “oh, your car is in the shop?” “If you didn’t have a car, how would you get anywhere, how would you do anything, how would you get food?” Etc. It’s true, many ~~white~~ people have never been on public transportation and have no idea how to go about it. Also, walkers in L.A., except in a few neighborhoods, can be few and far between, so you do feel exposed and vulnerable.

I was telling a friend last night about my carfree week when he realized I had ridden my bike to the restaurant where we met. It was like it didn’t compute at all, like why would a sane person do such a thing?

Why indeed?

Carfree Week: Getting to the Gym

It’s day four of Carfree Week. Yesterday I sort of hibernated, as it was raining for most of the day (though it cleared up late afternoon). Funny thing about living in climate where it doesn’t rain at all for a good part of the year – when it finally comes, it’s like a huge regional event and news story and that’s all anybody talks about. It seemed cold, even though the temperature was probably upper 50s low 60s. If I had a fireplace I would have made a nice toasty fire!

Any readers who live where there’s real weather will roll their eyes. Believe me, everything is relative. Also, having lived both in the snowy Midwest and desert Southwest, I can tell you, those Midwestern brick homes keep the heat in. SoCal, not so much!

Sorry for the digression. How to get to the gym? Very easy:

Now, there are a variety of options that men have higher sexual desire than women. cialis generika 10mg So viagra for cheap once taken can provide erections up to 40 hours which is the longest working life for any PDE5 inhibitor. The third system is emerging best price on cialis from recent research. Due to the anxiety the blood supply in the body is supposed viagra canada shipping to move. View Larger Map

When I realized where I was going to live when I moved back to L.A., I rejoined Gold’s, which lets me use their Hollywood, DTLA, or North Hollywood locations as part of the membership (and I think there’s a few more locations in the package, too, but those are the ones I’d mostly frequent). As you can see on the map, it’s an easy 1.5 mile bike ride from my place to the gym on Laurel Canyon, which has a bike lane. Still, the cars go very fast on that street and I’m super cautious. But there are a good number of cyclists and plenty of lights to slow things down.

So instead of driving to the gym, I got some extra cardio coming and going. My workout? Today it was chest and elliptical, which I hadn’t done in awhile.

CarFree Week: Getting to the Dentist

Today is Day 2 of the Car Free Week test run, which is basically to see if I can live without my car in Los Angeles and to see what that would truly be like.

I’ve been car lite for a number of years, off and on, so a lot of the strategies of walk, bike, bus, train, and combining all these modes, are well known to me and I’ve employed them in the past, both here in L.A. and in San Francisco when I lived there.

Of course, today would be the day where it rained like for the first time since last spring, although it was merely sprinkles. Not an issue. In fact, I’m loving the cloud cover.

My dentist, Dr. James McFadden, has an office in the pink and black building at the corner of Melrose and La Cienega in West Hollywood. I currently live in Valley Village, near Magnolia and Radford. Ugh. Probably one of the more difficult commutes of this week to do without a car.

View Larger Map
With stunning Hudson River views from the living room and a 360 degree skyline view from the balcony, who would ever want to leave home? Alec Baldwin Renowned actor, comedian, and producer Alec Baldwin is viagra on line known for owning a number of elegant condominium units in the metro. In the case of on line levitra https://pdxcommercial.com/property/barrestaurant-near-intel-hillsboro/ a male Partner, they have to go to the store to obtain any medicines and if you did not get one in the shop then hunt for it in other stores, but these days it is no more like that it has become more simple you can just sit at your home and order for the medicines that you are using. For such man even Sildenafil Citrate should not be used concomitantly. canadian pharmacy sildenafil The chemicals in cigarettes tend to narrow the blood vessels, reducing blood flow to cialis prices in australia the penis and limiting erectile function. If I were using the car, I’d go over the hill at Laurel Canyon. [Note: this map if for public transport options the entire way. I modified it for my bike through Hollywood and WeHo.]

But I wasn’t. I was using my bike, the Red Line train, and the bike. My route getting there was the Chandler bike lane to the North Hollywood Station, then the Red Line to Hollywood/Highland. I took various streets, but mostly Orange Drive, south to Melrose. I crossed south over Melrose at La Brea to the first east-west street south of there, Clinton Street, and took that west on the bike to where it emerges at the intersection of Melrose/LA Cienega. Voila.

Coming back, I took Clinton all the way east to June Street where it ends at the Country Club. Took June north to Willoughby, then east again to Vine, which they’ve made into a more bike-friendly street with share lanes. I took that north for the few blocks to the Hollywood/Vine Station under the W Hotel and then took the train back to NoHo, then onto the Chandler bikeway back to where I live (just east of Laurel Canyon Station).

Thoughts: West Hollywood is not an easy place to get to with public transport, but it’s doable. Many maps will tell you the best bike route east-west in Hollywood is on Willoughby, but I prefer Clinton as it’s a nice neighborhood and few cars. Between June and La Cienega there are lights at every major intersection you need to cross except for Highland, where it’s fairly easy to get across because of the boulevard in the middle of the street, and “Keep Clear” signs for cars which seem to be followed. I didn’t like the bike options from the Hollywood/Highland station, but perhaps I just don’t know the route yet.

Looking at my calendar for this week, this is the most challenging car-less trip I have planned, that I know of for now. Perhaps someone will ask me to come out to Santa Monica or West L.A., but it hasn’t happened yet!

New Bike Lane Comes to Downtown Los Angeles

In traffic-choked L.A., a car lane is given to bicycles.

Photo, J-Blue, Bike Lane (not the one in the story)

So happy to see stories like this, city government making good on their pledge for more bike lanes.
They experience great difficulty to fall or stay asleep throughout the night. cialis 5 mg seanamic.com Also known as male impotence, erectile dysfunction is a problem which causes men to suffer from flaccid penile issues is Erectile Dysfunction. buying cialis in spain You can practice high intensity exercises to increase testosterone naturally. cialis generic 10mg This medication is available to cialis generika you in your presence only that is the phone call is given to you before delivering the tablet so that it doesn’t goes with anyone/ everyone.
This one is from Koreatown to Downtown on 7th Street. The plan calls for 200 miles of bike lanes every five years, though (according to the story) some wonder if there’s funding to actually accomplish it.

I’m hopeful they do. Always have thought L.A. is a perfect bike town – great weather, fairly flat except for that band of hills separating city from valley, etc. – but even those are manageable.

Also hopeful that L.A. drivers – who are aggressive, who feel entitled to any patch of asphalt, who can be fracking murderous assholes with 3-ton battering rams! – will get with the program and learn to coexist on the road. This means, fellow cyclists, you must also follow traffic laws and become predictable – the best way to stay alive and in one piece.

Yet More Farmer’s Market Pix, this time Studio City

Something easy for lazy Sunday of a 3-day weekend: More pictures from a Farmer’s Market, to add to the ones I’ve already posted on the blog of Los Feliz and Palm Springs.

Today I bought tomatoes, broccoli, eggs, peaches, spicy greens mix, and a chocolate chip muffin (which is already gone) and carried it all home in a backpack on my bike.

In addition to the pony rides at this Market, there’s a petting zoo. Next time, I’ll take pictures there.

Super Sweet

It is comprised midwayfire.com online pharmacy for levitra of three stages of the male organ. The informal group of stockbrokers organized themselves as the The Native Share buy viagra and Stockbrokers Association which, in 1875, was formally organized as the Bombay Stock Exchange .BSE was shifted to an old building near the Town Hall. The stored glycogen will be viagra professional converted back into the glucose by your liver and muscles. It can cause pain, cramps, and burning sensations in the upper neck can cause high blood pressure. cialis 20 mg why not find out more

Strollers and balloons are big at the Studio City Farmer's Market

orchids

I was too big to go on the damn pony ride.

Murder on the Red Line

You don’t want to be Todd Martens.

Red Line train at Union Station

Above, first-hand account by Los Angeles Times staffer Todd Martens on the murder that took place on the subway car he was riding in last week.

I’d read the stories in the Times earlier, but this blog account is much more detailed and written in a way that any of us might write it if we were witnesses, as opposed to being journalist-witnesses.

I hadn’t realized that the murder took place in the first car in front – directly behind the operator cage.

This is usually the car I choose to ride in if I can – I know it’s got an empty wall for bikes, and usually there’s fewer people – though certainly not at rush hours. Also, like Todd points out in his post, you can see through the front windows of the train in that car and actually see what the tunnels look like, what the stations look like from afar, etc.
I next page viagra sale know this sounds barbaric, but it actual enjoys it. icks.org cialis generika Most men with ED experience due to lifestyle diseases and this is the reason why they opt for supplements. There is a range of benefits associated with the internet you can get cialis generika http://icks.org/data/ijks/1482457151_add_file_1.pdf or Herbal cialis quickly and more importantly discretely. Buying bulk peptides can make tadalafil 20mg for women or break a research experiment.
Which is why a father took his small son to that car that day for his first train ride. This, almost impossible to believe. Who wants to bet that was the first and last train ride this kid will ever have?

This stabbing murder last week was the first homicide on Metro since it started. Since then, there’s been another stabbing, this one in Pasadena, so far not fatal.

It’s not going to make me stop riding Metro – I saw that as one of the advantages in moving back to Los Angeles from Palm Springs, that I wouldn’t need to use a car for every single trip anywhere.

But it does give you pause. The other night I entered the Red Line in that first car with my bike on a fairly quick trip home to Valley Village, only 5 quick stations between Sunset/Vermont and North Hollywood, the end of the line. Like it’s said, you never know what you’re going to get, and what I got was a really loud drunk man (another “transient” – don’t know – dirty backpacks, skateboards – what is it with the weaponization of skateboards? – and scary looking pit bull, who was not a service animal… you get the idea) who was trying to encourage the train occupants to sing Happy Birthday to him, or to “party” with him in some way. He didn’t appear to physically threaten anybody and the dog was, I have to say, well behaved, probably embarrassed for its owner. But this guy was verbally frightening, especially considering the recent events. And we were trapped in a moving train, buried beneath the bloody earth of Hollywood. I thought most of the passengers did their best to ignore him, looking out the windows at the black walls shooting past, or at their shoes. As I’d hoped, he, the dog and another companion left the train at Hollywood and Highland, which seems to be an area with a lot of these types anyway. The train car was again silent, and sped away into the night.

L.A.-Indio rail expansion plan might actually happen (?)

Desert Sun story on L.A.-Indio rail expansion plan

This is the main story in the Desert Sun this morning. I have been waiting for this – rail expansion between Palm Springs (Indio) and Los Angeles the entire time I’ve had this place out here (almost 10 years).

It just makes so much sense. There are no good public transport options between the Coachella Valley and the L.A. Metro area. Can I tell you how much I hate that drive?

There is a Greyhound Bus, but since they eliminated the downtown Palm Springs station they’ve made it oh-so-unbelievably inconvenient – you either have to backtrack to Indio (30 miles in the wrong direction) or get yourself out to the sandy, desolate and windblown train stop to pick up the bus.

Sandy, desolate and windblown station.

Then, it stops at every little bumf*** burg between here and the city, before finally terminating at downtown L.A.’s bus station – which isn’t even adjacent or walking distance to Union Station or any other kind of subway/bus terminal, making it even more complicated, time consuming and just plain stupid.

A very senior and well known cardiologist from Los Angeles had sad that fast shipping viagra http://www.heritageihc.com/buy5785.html “Symptoms of erectile dysfunction seem no more a dreary problem. Because of our adaptations over the last million years, we are pfizer viagra australia who we are today. To fight this problem, zenegra is special medicine available which can get erection. ‘Alkem Laboratories ltd’ sildenafil viagra de pfizer is the manufacturer of this medicine. This product made of the magic Amazon berry is, among other things, an internal beauty product that is able to penetrate, nourish and protect human cells and viagra super provide the users with a younger, glowing and sexy appearance.

No thanks.

In all my dreams of simple, efficient, fast and pleasant Southern California train travel I’ve never had the mistaken impression that someone would build the train line just for me. But I can tell you, I’d be a loyal and frequent customer! I learned to navigate L.A.s’ award-winning Metro system of light rail and buses and came to realize how much cheaper and less stressful my life would become the more I used it.

The era when the conventional wisdom about mass transit in L.A. – that you were either poor, stupid – or both – to use it, is long past. I believe it’s only a matter of time before trains connect all the urban areas of Southern California from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border and inland. I’d love to see it happen while I’m still breathing.

My Year of (Under)employment, Job 1: Background Actor

After I slapped myself in the face, trying to stay awake

As the year rapidly comes to a close, I figured I should contemplate, in retrospect, what I have done/haven’t done with those hours, days, weeks and months.

Sure, some if it was spent scouring craigslist, indeed.com, mediabistro and other sites for job listings that turned out to be meager. However, a considerable amount of time was actually spent doing part-time work.

The first job I got after lay-off was that of Background Actor. I had signed up with Central Casting at other times in my life, and had done a few jobs, and generally liked it. I figured since I was older and grayer now there’d be less competition in my demographic – what I remembered from the cattle calls in Burbank was that the vast majority of people wanting to be “extras” were between the ages of 18 and 30.

Perhaps one instance in which age worked in my favor?

This time I also signed up with a calling service that would book me so I didn’t have to spend hours each day using precious minutes on my cell listening to annoying casting directors rant. I got an age break here, too: since I was such a fossil, the monthly fee was reduced! Take that to Denny’s for your lunch.

I did a few movies, a few TV series, a couple of pilots – probably the only one you’ve all heard about is Entourage. I played the crucial role of a hospital administrator in the season finale. I was issued a badge and clipboard of my own.

I noticed a couple of things I hadn’t remembered from earlier stints at this: the pros bring their own foldable lawn chairs – or chaises in some cases. They get the best “base camp” spots. Background actors tend to segregate themselves as to age group – so there was no way I was going to infiltrate the cool kids camp – sort of like high school. Straight guys my age, unfortunately, tend to be blowhards who want to talk about politics or how bad this or that is, instead of more fun and youthful topics, like dick, what the leading lady is wearing, of figuring out the sexual orientation of the entire cast.

When I moved to Palm Springs, I stopped this work as the commute just didn’t make any sense. When I’m back in L.A., good chance I will sign on again.

What I liked about this work:

Insanely easy. If you can follow simple directions as to what to wear, how to get there, and what time to show up, you can succeed at this job.
It’s fun. I love playing pretend, I love even being on the fringes of acting. Doesn’t everyone?
Truly temporary. Your job ends when you leave for the day.
They pay quick, usually within a week or so.
There’s free food. Beyond craft service, they give you actual meals, many of which were quite elaborate, considering.
There’s really a lot of downtime where you can do other things: flirt, read the paper/book, work on your script or novel on your laptop. Yes, everyone brings laptops now.
The AD’s. That’s assistant director, the person(s) who control the set. Without exception, in my experience these were professional, competent and enthusiastic people who treated us great.

What I didn’t like about this job:

The hours suck. To make the takeaway non-union wage of about $100 a day, you got to work about 12 hours and maybe get lucky enough for meal penalty payments and other little bumps. If for some reason they let you go early, you might only get your minimum wage of $64 a day. Also, the call times are usually quite early in the morning. This didn’t bother me much as I’m an early riser.
The pay sucks. See above. Then again, it’s really easy and you’re just sitting on your ass most of the time.
You have to provide your own wardrobe. Which seems counter-intuitive – as if, we’re doing this as a lark! We’re all fucking poor, out of work or just out of school, and don’t have hugely diverse wardrobes full of many “looks” and “colors”! I learned that you can just bring what you have, and if they don’t like it, they give you something from the wardrobe truck after belittling you for not having the right clothes. “What do you mean, you don’t have a camel trench coat? What’s wrong with youuuuuuu?”
You have to be available. You never know if you’re going to work the next day or not, but you have to assume that you are, so you can’t really plan anything (unless you’ve notified your calling agency in advance). This was difficult to get used to, and once I was not able to “accept my booking” and got put on probation! A scarlet letter! Again, it’s like being in high school.

In few men ejaculation happens as soon as prescription cialis they start experiencing deep emotional pain, but these soon become self-defeating. These inhibitors work by expanding the blood course viagra without prescriptions canada with the body it incorporates an extraordinarily positive effect on the heart. People are either unaware or embarrassed to accept the fact that they are facing cheap cialis slovak-republic.org such a disorder. http://www.slovak-republic.org/religion/ generic cialis online Hence, it is important for an affected man to discuss such issues with their physician.

t r u t h o u t | Stop Them From Eating My Town

Link to: t r u t h o u t | Stop Them From Eating My Town.

big box

Don’t eat my town! This post from Thom Hartmann is great at really laying out, for the person who’s not an economist (c’est moi), the local economies involved in small town businesses and local banks and the symbiotic relationship between them and local consumers.
Many men suffer from erectile dysfunction, which is a achat cialis cipla noticeable condition, high blood pressure does not cause symptoms you can feel or see. It causes erectile dysfunction which leads to many levitra canada pharmacy other problems. generic tadalafil canada http://djpaulkom.tv/dj-paul-reminisces-on-beginning-of-three-6-mafia-and-tragic-loss-of-lord-infamous/ There are vast causal factors you will find causing erectile dysfunction. Feel Free Contact Us : viagra without rx / Erectile dysfunction was and will always be like an elephant in the room.
Also great at pointing out the history of the corporate big box takeover in this country, starting with Reagan’s refusal to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act in the 1980s, which is what led us to where we are today, with small city downtowns devastated and looming multinational chains out by the freeway – all of which hire local citizens at low wages and lower benefits – and then keep none of the money they make in the community.

Not just a screed, his post also offers remedies, from enforcing laws to ending corporate welfare, plugging tax loopholes and encouraging American entrepreneurship. This is a great read. It made me want to patronize what main street shops we still have in the town where I live (actually, there are plenty) as well as shop second hand both in person and on the internet.