Malibu morning picture of the day - Monday, May 12, 2014

Happy Monday morning all,

This is what the start of a "Red Flag" Santa Ana wind day looks like at the bottom of a south-facing canyon.

Yes, I intentionally cropped out all foreground. Pretty boring.

Low humidity, high temperature. Practically no moisture in the air. Malibu Canyon is a hot-air exhaust pipe for the Southern California valleys on these kind of days. Having worked in Malibu over 21 years, everyone is happy if it stays boring. You get 3-4 of these in a row and things start to happen out in chapparal-land. Here's the whole shot uncropped.

I pointed the camera phone low to try to get the ghost of Saddleback Mountain's silhouette that you can see today. (It's a mountain in north San Diego County that you can see on clear days here.) It's barely visible.

Had to work a dinner event for my employer this last Saturday at L.A. Live; it was in the JW Marriott in one of the upper banquet halls.

The scale of the place reminds you of going to a conference in a Las Vegas hotel, where you essentially what seems like a city block to get from an elevator to a check-in table.

If I had to pay to be there as an employee, it would have been about $150 a head (you're not there for the dinner, it's a fundraiser). Sorry about the blurry photos. It's hard to get clear shot in dark room with middle-age eyes.

If you've never been to Vegas and want to get that conference vibe, put on a tie and walk around like you belong. Clothes may make the man, but carefully chosen, they can make you invisible. I've decided that on my next out-of-town trip to a conference, I'm going to wear navy-blue Dickies pants and shirt, black Red Wing steel-toe shoes, a navy baseball cap, hang a walkie-talkie on my belt, and see how deep into employee territory I can penetrate without getting noticed. If you've got brown skin and black hair like I do, it's like putting on the invisible suit--you're a cipher. Helps if you've worked "crew" jobs before to know how to move properly. In another book that I'm writing, it's how my protagonist, a tax preparer turned reluctant mystery detective, gets around security--basically looking like a plumber.

The Red Line this morning at 5:56 AM

The substitute speaker for Maya Angelou at that dinner  was Martha Williamson (a "show runner" of the TV series Touched by an Angel) who basically related four stories as her presentation. She's good; but the most memorable comment I heard that evening was on my way back to the train to go home. An L.A. Kings game was getting out at the same time so a lot of people were walking to the Blue Line platform. "Those hockey players are a LOT better looking than the basketball players. I could really get into this hockey thing." 

Hope you're off to a good start this week.

Love,
Pops