The Paradox of Life in LA

...was brought home to me this morning. Yesterday, several blogging buddies of mine mentioned the recent announcement by Hub Culture that LA is the current "center of the universe" (apparently just above...Berlin(?).

Anyway, while it is fine to revel in the moment, there was a nice Op-Ed today in the LAT about Beck and Posh coming to town. This piece reveals the self-loathing and (lack of) introspection that go with the glam culture that is LA.

I still love it here, though.

This photo of the Malibu fire was taken by a Pepperdine student who went down to the beach when it first started. (Photo from RTB's blog)

Per my earlier post about the fire in Malibu... Here is a photo of the fire burning at about 5:15 pm from the b-school parking lot. At this point there were no firetrucks or anything there. It was just getting started. Everything in this photo EXCEPT the fire is part of Pepperdine University. (photo from JAW).

Thank you, Dr. King

One of my all-time heroes is Dr. Martin Luther King. I am encouraged by the strength of his leadership through a very trying time in American history. It is amazing to me that his legacy was created practically within my life time and it has had such an impact on our culture.

Two short stories related to Dr. King...

First, this morning at breakfast I took about a half-hour and recounted a brief history of civil rights in American history to my two oldest children (Marcus came in an out as a four-year old is prone to do). It was very interesting to me to see how much they have learned about these issues in 2nd and 4th grades respectively. They were already familiar with several of the key concepts (Declaration of Independence, Emancipation Proclamation, Segregation, Rosa Parks...) but ignorant of some of the darker sides (Liberia, slave trading as an industry...). Anyway, after our long introduction, we all sat down and watched the "I Have a Dream" speech from the March (available on video, audio, and pdf here). It was a wonderful experience and I think we'll do it every year on MLK day.

Second, my wife shared a telling story. She said last week she was at Ralph's here in Malibu and on the TV Screen at checkout there was a brief segment on MLK. Behind her in line was a junior-high age girl with her mother. The young girl saw the video and said something like

"You know, if he were alive today he would have nothing to do. We don't have anything like that anymore."

Michelle said all the adults nearby sort of chuckled and sort of gasped. They tried to tell her that these issues were still very much a problem but it is perhaps not evident in Malibu (a 95% white community). Makes me wonder...did white (and black?) children in Maryland, New York, Michigan, California...in the 1960's "get it" with Dr. King? Or did they--like the Ugg wearing, BMW driving 16 year old at Ralph's--think "all that oppression is in the past".
I wonder...what are the injustices going on all around the world that I'm unaware of that 30 years from now my children will be teaching to my grandchildren as examples to learn from?

An update on the Fire...
In case you haven't seen it on the news yet, there is a big fire in Malibu tonight, right across the street from Pepperdine. Tonight as I was leaving work around 5pm to watch the Fiesta Bowl (what a waste! Would you love to see USC vs Florida?) I saw some smoke out over the ocean. As I got to the parking lot I could see large flames down at Bluffs Park, where the kids have their AYSO soccer and Little League. The park was completely aflame. I stood and watched for about 10 minutes and was amazed at how quickly the flames were spreading around. When I was watching there were no firetrucks or police there, so it must have just gotten started. The Santa Ana winds (why do they call them that, was St. Anne an especially hot saint?) were blowing hot wind at about 20-25 mph and the fire was spreading fast. Fortunately the winds were blowing the fire away from Pepperdine towards the ocean. Unfortunately, there are some very nice homes on the waterfront there. As of 9pm PST there were 8-10 homes completely destroyed by the fire and another 4-6 that were severely damaged. I don't think anyone has died, but there is a lot of lost property. It looks like Pepperdine may escape this one without any damage, but it's sure a bad fire.

Anyway, we're fine. We're keeping our eyes and ears open for any news (tonight we wish we had cable...). I'll post again in the morning to let you know the status.

Tech update...
We went to Circuit City yesterday and bought a new notebook and monitor to replace our aging home infrastructure. It's very nice having a 19' LCD panel in the bedroom. And the new living room laptop has one of those widescreens that is great for watching movies. I love it!

Of course the day was generally an example of Murphy's Law...it took nearly 90 minutes at Circuit City despite the fact that we had purchased the items online the night before and were only coming to pick them up! Incredible how a lack of training can cause a tremendously poor customer interaction.

Then, Michelle spend an hour at Costco gathering about 20 items that we had Costco coupons for. When we got to the checkout she discovered that the coupons were not valid until the next day! So she had to put everything back...

Then, when she got to the car to come pick us up (we were at Chili's watching the Eagles squeeze out their victory over the Giants), she couldn't turn the key in the ignition of the Sienna! She wound up calling Toyota because the security lock was engaged and would not allow the key to turn. She got it working, but it took an hour.

What a day...

UGGGHHH!!!

This has been the worst six weeks for home technology in my life! At Thanksgiving we came home one night and one of my notebooks was fried. I eventually got it back up, but the screen was shot. So, I put Linux on it and brought it to the office.

Score: -1 Notebook

Then, a few weeks ago my bedroom PC started dropping the IP address several times a minute. That was with it plugged in--not wireless! As you know, repairing the TCP/IP network takes about 15 seconds...so about 45 seconds of every minute of usage was hang-time while the machine repaired the TCP/IP connection. UGGGH!!!

Score: -1 Notebook - 1 Desktop

So, I brought the Linux notebook (see above) home to use in the bedroom while I waited for a new NIC card to arrive in the mail (thanks, Dad!). But, the day it arrived I put it in, went to the bedroom to try it out and the LCD Panel is fried. No power. I don't know if the Linux box just got it too hot or what. But it won't come on at all.

Score: -1 Notebook - 1 Desktop - 1 LCD Panel

Now, I'm sitting in the living room on my Tablet PC and the HD is making awful funny noises. It sounds like an eminent crash within the next days or weeks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! I'm already down to three working PC's at home and two at the office. I don't think I ever want to get lower than that!

Maybe I'll just use this opportunity to buy a few new Macs! :-)