"Taking a Break"

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which whisks visitors 2 ½ miles up Chino Canyon, north of the city, will close Sept. 8, 2008, for annual maintenance. It is scheduled to reopen Sept. 27, although visitors should call ahead to be sure. For Labor Day weekend, the tram begins running at 8 a.m. daily, and the last tram from the top leaves at 9:45 p.m. Tickets cost $22.25 for adults and $15.25 for children 3 to 12. Info: (760) 325-1391.

Hotel with a past . . .

This is what the Willard, now the Willard InterContinental, looks like today. The term "lobbyist" was coined here.
(Willard InterContinental)

The Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., circa 1900s, sits at Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th St. NW.
(Willard InterContinental)

Lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., in the 1900s.
(Willard InterContinental)

The modern-day look of the Willard Hotel's lobby.
(Willard InterContinental)

1952 was a long time ago

Republican nominees for president and vice-president (respectively) Dwight D. Eisenhower, left, and California Sen. Richard Nixon share a laugh at Chicago's Blackstone Hotel on July 12, 1952.
(Associated Press)

Foshay Tower Caught in the Middle

The Art Deco Foshay Tower, once the tallest building in Minneapolis, is now dwarfed by neighboring skyscrapers. After a major renovation, the Foshay has been reborn as a luxury hotel — the W Minneapolis.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Mary Tyler Moore Immortalized

Who can turn the world on with her smile? Mary Tyler Moore in bronze. Her famous hat toss — as seen in the intro to her 1970s TV show — is immortalized in downtown Minneapolis. The Republican convention is set to begin, but for visitors of any political stripe, Minnesota’s fraternal twins — Minneapolis and St. Paul — have much to offer.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

La Miniatura

Frank Lloyd Wright's Millard House, also known as La Miniatura, is considered one of the best examples of the famed architect's textile-block designs. Situated in a tree-covered ravine overlooking a pond, it features an open floor plan and more vertical lines than typical Wright designs.

Did you ever wonder ???

HOW CAN we explain the incompetence, the scandals, the corruption, the waste, the giveaways, the bridges to nowhere and the no-bid contracts in Washington, D.C., today? "Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident," Thomas Frank writes in "The Wrecking Crew," "nor is it the work of a few bad individuals." Those who run our government "have not done these awful things because they are bad conservatives; they have done them because they are good conservatives." They want government to fail, he argues, because that gives them a stronger argument for cutting regulations and taxes that reduce corporate profits. Some may see this as a powerful argument for electing Democrats this November.

All things come to an end

Fireworks explode during the closing ceremony in the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 24, 2008. The stadium is also known as the Bird's Nest.
REUTERS/Eric Gaillard (CHINA)

"The Fabled California Zephyr"

California Zephyr Railcar Charters owns and Operates Three Historic Passenger Cars. The Silver Lariat, Silver Rapids, and Silver Solarium, were built for the fabled California Zephyr, and were in continuous service from 1948 to 1981. They were purchased from Amtrak in 1985, and upgraded to modern Amtrak standards. These cars are capable of traveling most anywhere in North America, primarily on Amtrak trains or special trains.

Patagonia's Grey Glacier

Grey Glacier, Patagonia, Chile

Grey Glacier is part of Torres del Paine National Park, which also is home to those jagged peaks you see on the Patagonia clothing logo. The whole area is South America's answer to Alaska -- vast spaces, dramatic seasons, looming mountains, exotic creatures, enormous quantities of ice and water.

A "Solar-Powered" Dream"

BEIJING -- It has the wingspan of a commercial airliner, the weight of an automobile and solar panels to provide enough electricity to light a very large Christmas tree. If this strange contraption actually flies, for some it will be as great a feat as anything achieved at the 2008 Olympics.

Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist best known for his 1999 trip around the world in a balloon, is trying to repeat the journey in a solar-powered airplane.

In 1981, U.S. engineer Paul MacCready flew a solar-powered airplane across the English Channel and inventors have been tinkering with the technology ever since. But previous models of solar planes could fly only by day. Piccard and partner Andre Borschberg are developing a prototype at a former military base in Dubendorf, Switzerland. Its wings, which span about 198 feet, are covered with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity. At night, the plane will run on excess electricity stored in batteries. The engineering challenge is to generate enough power to fly the plane and charge the batteries and to keep the weight under 3,500 pounds, about the same as a mid-size car.

Piccard and Borschberg hope to conduct a test run of the single-pilot plane in the spring and by 2011 have a slightly larger two-pilot version to fly around the world.

"Flipping Around"

Carl Edwards executes a celebratory flip after winning the3M Performance 400 last Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.

A Los Angeles "Classic"

When it comes to classic Los Angeles roadside attractions, few can top the smiling boy in the red checkered overalls hoisting a towering burger above his shoulder.

Aficionados of Bob's Big Boy hamburger chain have been mourning the beloved outpost on Wilshire Boulevard near La Brea Avenue. The Big Boy on Wilshire (above)closed at the end of July and is now more than 80% demolished, said Chris Nichols, chairman emeritus of the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy and author of a book on Wayne McAllister, who designed many well-known Big Boy coffee shops.

"Is it possible that Mickey Mouse now belongs to the world ???"

Brand experts reckon his value to today's Walt Disney Co. empire at more than $3 billion. Acts of Congress have extended Mickey's copyright so long that they provoked a Supreme Court challenge, making Mickey the ultimate symbol of intellectual property.

All signs pointed to a Hollywood ending with Disney and Mickey Mouse living happily ever after -- at least until a grumpy former employee looked closely at fine print long forgotten in company archives.

Film credits from the 1920s revealed imprecision in copyright claims that some experts say could invalidate Disney's long-held copyright, though a Disney lawyer dismissed that idea as "frivolous."

Although studio executives are not yet hurling themselves from the parapets of Sleeping Beauty's castle, the unexpected discovery raises an intriguing question: Is it possible that Mickey Mouse now belongs to the world -- and that his likeness is usable by anybody for anything?

Sheraton Gateway Hotel sold for $97 million

The Sheraton Gateway Hotel outside Los Angeles International Airport has been sold by Los Angeles real estate developer Kor Hotel Group to a Chicago-area investor for $97 million, a real estate brokerage said Thursday.

The recently renovated hotel with 802 guest rooms on West Century Boulevard has been acquired by Harp Group, according to brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, which represented the seller.


"The LAX hotel market has performed extremely well in recent years with occupancies for the major hotels topping 80%," said John Strauss, an executive vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle. Room rates have been rising over the last five years.

It was the third-largest hotel sale in Los Angeles County this year. The Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena -- formerly a Ritz-Carlton -- sold for $165 million, and the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City was acquired for $366.5 million.

Kienholz -- still controversial

In 1966, when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art put up a retrospective exhibition of Ed Kienholz's work, the County Board of Supervisors threatened to shut it down.

The artist was a local hero, known for wrestling with tough social issues through gritty assemblages of cast-off objects. None of his art conformed to conventional standards of beauty, but the supervisors deemed one piece particularly offensive, even pornographic. “Back Seat Dodge ’38,” a sculpture of a drunken sexual encounter, had to go.

It didn't. Instead the show became a succès de scandale. But 15 years later, when the museum bought "Dodge," some members of a support group that contributed to the purchase resigned in protest.

This year, when an effort to buy another troublesome Kienholz gathered force, fundraisers had reason to worry. "The Illegal Operation," an indictment of back-street abortion, would appear to be a much harder sell.

So it came as quite a surprise when the mission was recently accomplished without ruffling feathers. Though the museum won't disclose how much it paid, sources close to the fundraising effort say the price was about $1 million. A coalition of 16 donors provided funds to buy it from its longtime Los Angeles owner, the Betty and Monte Factor Collection. The new acquisition will go on view in February at LACMA -- after returning from an exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

"Walking With Dinosaurs"

WHEN THE angry, life-size mama T. rex came roaring through a curtain to defend its young during the St. Paul, Minn., run of "Walking With Dinosaurs — the Live Experience," Kristi Curry Rogers momentarily stopped thinking like a professor and responded like a protective mom herself.

"I have a 5-year-old daughter, and at that moment I thought, 'I'm really glad she didn't come with me,' " said the dinosaur expert from Macalester College in St. Paul, who was there to apply the cool eye of science to one of America's hottest entertainment tours. "The adults gasped, and almost all the young children started crying."

Since last summer, what's likely the BIGGEST cast ever to command a spotlight has roamed America's arenas, to the accompaniment of smoke, sound, light effects and dramatic music -- and a fact-filled narration by an actor-ringmaster playing the part of a paleontologist.

The 42-foot-long T. rex and nine mobile giant dinosaurs made their Southern California debut with 10 performances scheduled at the Honda Center in Anaheim and a seven-show Staples Center engagement runs Sept. 25 to 28. At the controls are a driver at the bottom of each creature, and two-member teams of high-tech puppeteers stationed in a booth high above the floor. Five smaller carnivores that round out the cast are inhabited by realistically dinosaur-suited actors who have no intention of being confused with Barney.

Laugh a lot at "Spamalot"

Broadway fare seems to have trouble succeeding in Las Vegas; however, not "Spamalot" at Wynn . The show, which is a slapstick adaptation of the cult-classic film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," is all about the laughs. The story line loosely follows King Arthur and his knights as they search for the Holy Grail.

The cast with John O'Hurley playing the lead role of King Arthur and Nikki Crawford as The Lady of the Lake is rock solid poking outrageous fun at everything. "Spamalot" features a chorus line of dancing divas and knights, flatulent Frenchmen, a killer rabbit and the only legless knight on the Strip, which is an example of how ridiculous the show can be. To everyone's delight, many references in the show have been staged and written about Las Vegas. The show's closing song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" epitomizes what Las Vegas is all about... fun and frivolity.

Oui . . . Montreal tops in new Monopoly game

EAST LONGMEADOW, Mass. (AP) — Bye bye, Boardwalk. The Quebec metropolis of Montreal snagged the most expensive spot on a new global version of Monopoly, unseating the Atlantic City fixture as the board game's most prestigious property.

Montreal will be joined by the Latvian capital Riga, which grabbed the game's No. 2 Park Place spot, and 20 other world cities when Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition goes on sale later this month. Other cities featured include Cape Town, Jerusalem, London, Paris, New York, Rome and Taipei.

The latest version of the board game will be printed in 37 languages and sold in 50 countries, toy maker Hasbro Inc. said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, "Chance" and "Community Chest" cards will highlight global cultural fare, from Brazil's Carnival celebration to Ireland's St. Patrick's Day festival.

Created with Atlantic City street names in 1935 by Charles Darrow, more than a dozen versions of the game that allows players to become pretend real estate moguls are sold today.

Hasbro said nearly 6 million votes were cast during an online contest to name the cities featured on the global edition of the game.

Monopoly Here & Now will be available Aug. 26.