Tuesday, September 13, 2011
"Aquatic Capital of the Nation"
Images from top, left to right: Long Beach skyline from Bluff Park, RMS Queen Mary, Aquarium of the Pacific Blue Cavern exhibit, Hanjin Terminal at Port of Long Beach, Villa Riviera, Metro Blue Line, Long Beach Lighthouse.
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257. In addition, Long Beach is the second largest city within Greater Los Angeles and a principal city of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan area.
The city is a dominant maritime center of the United States and was recently named "Aquatic Capital of the Nation." It wields substantial influence critical to the global economy. The Port of Long Beach is the United States' second busiest container port and one of the world's largest shipping ports. [2] The city also maintains a large oil industry with the substance being found both underground and offshore. Manufacturing sectors include those in aircraft, car parts, electronic and audiovisual equipment, and home furnishings. It is also home to headquarters for corporations including Epson America, Molina Healthcare, and SCAN Health Plan. Long Beach has grown with the development of high-technology and aerospace industries in the area.
Long Beach is located in Los Angeles County, about 20 miles (32 km) south of downtown Los Angeles and 105 miles (169 km) north of San Diego. Long Beach borders Orange County on its southeast edge and other Gateway Cities to the west and north.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
"beautiful, glamorous and talented"
She was beautiful, glamorous and talented; equally adroit at musicals, comedy, drama and romance; an Oscar-nominated superstar and reportedly the #1 fan mail draw of her time. But Nancy Carroll is all but forgotten today - why? Supposedly, her prickly personality, temperamental outbursts and demands made her persona non grata at Paramount, her home studio; she briefly moved to the decidedly lower-rent Columbia, but by 1938, Carroll had effectively retired from the screen. She appeared in the early television series The Aldrich Family (1950-51), and returned to her stage roots. Carroll was found dead of a heart attack after failure to arrive at the theatre for a performance in 1965; she was 60 years old.
CNG-powered taxis
An Orange County taxi company became the first cab business in California to put new compressed natural gas-powered Ford Transit Connect Taxis into service.
California Yellow Cab of Orange County started using the first 10 of 50 Transit Connect Taxis it plans to put into service by 2012.
The Air Resources Board encourages the use of natural gas-powered vehicles because they are less polluting than autos with standard gasoline engines. Taxi companies and other businesses like them because natural gas costs less than gasoline.
“We have a situation here in Orange County where the per gallon equivalent of CNG is almost $2 less than the price of a gallon of traditional fuel. Given that, along with the increased infrastructure support, it’s not hard to see why it makes sense for us to go with the CNG-powered Transit Connect Taxi,” said Tim Conlon, president and general manager of California Yellow Cab. Orange County has 30 compressed natural gas filling stations. “Our goal is to convert our entire fleet to alternative fuels," Conlon said.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
"classic vanilla"
When electric car maker Coda Automotive Inc. introduces its first model this year, the independent Southern California manufacturer will pioneer a new EV profile: the unassuming four-door five-seater.
If cars came in flavors, Coda's debut would be classic vanilla. Understated by design, it's a car for do-gooders who don't need to flaunt their green credentials. Think Honda Civic, only all electric and homegrown.
Today, Coda is opening its first-ever storefront on L.A.'s Westside in the Westfield Century City mall. Located next to a Swatch shop and Godiva chocolatier, this nontraditional automotive sales outlet is geared toward getting curious passersby into its new car for a test drive.
The company let me preview a preproduction version of its sedan for a few hours in late August. I drove it from downtown to West L.A. in city traffic and back along Interstate 10.
Priced at $44,900 — $34,900 after applying federal and state incentives — the Coda is most notable for its range and quick charging. It can travel as far as 150 miles per charge and can recharge in about six hours with a 220-volt charger; that's twice as fast as the Nissan Leaf, Coda said.
'Band of Brothers' actors: a tight unit
Band of Brothers, 2001By Liesl Bradner, Special to the Los Angeles Times,September 8, 2011
Currahee, a Cherokee word meaning "we stand alone together," is the name of a rugged, small mountain in Georgia where soldiers during World War II trudged their way uphill as they trained to become paratroopers. The word also fittingly served as the title for the opening episode of "Band of Brothers," the groundbreaking HBO miniseries that aired a decade ago Friday.
The Emmy-winning, 10-part series, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, continues to resonate with audiences who view the work as a much-needed historical tribute to the soldiers who helped defeat Nazism in Europe. The series was based on Stephen Ambrose's 1992 book that followed the real-life exploits of Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from training through D-Day to the end of the war.
The reach of the series today extends to the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., where many scenes featuring Richard Winters, the young American officer portrayed by British actor Damian Lewis, are used to teach future battlefield commanders about tactics (assaulting a fixed position at Brecourt Manor in Episode 2) and leadership (how to treat combat fatigue in Episode 3).
But even at the time it aired — in the days and weeks after the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11 — the series, while thanking the generation before, helped settle and inspire the one ahead.
"The men of Easy Company were resilient and stuck together. It was a powerful message to a nation trying to overcome something like 9/11," said Col. Eric Kail, who oversees military leadership curriculum at West Point. "Great strength is not from ourselves but from each other. That's a message soldiers have been trying to get out for a long time."
The $120-million production was shot entirely on location in England over eight months in 2000. The program was a powerful launching pad for a cadre of young and then unknown actors from the United Kingdom. In addition to Lewis who landed TV series work in NBC's "Life" and Showtime's upcoming "Homeland," "Band of Brothers" also boosted the careers of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, who starred together in this summer's "X-Men: First Class."
Other Brits included a baby-faced Tom Hardy, Batman's Herculean nemesis in next summer's "The Dark Knight Rises," who is nearly unrecognizable as Pfc. John Janovec and Simon Pegg as 1st Sgt. William Evans, Capt. Sobel's (David Schwimmer) assistant.
"It was truly an ensemble piece," said casting director Meg Liberman of their deliberate decision not to bring big names on board.
She acknowledged having mixed feelings originally about casting Lewis as Winters, whose character anchors the entire series. "I really wanted an American actor to play the part, but Damian came in and blew us away."
The American actors from the series didn't fare so badly either. Neal McDonough (who played Lynn "Buck" Compton) later starred in several Spielberg productions including "Minority Report" and "Flags of Our Fathers." The actor, who could be seen in this summer's "Captain America: The First Avenger," also met his wife the day he arrived in England for boot camp.
"The notoriety took me to another level," said Frank John Hughes, who played the wisecracking Bill Guarnere. "Before it was bad guys, criminals and mobsters. After playing Wild Bill, I switched to the other side of the law."
Added Matthew Settle, who played Capt. Ronald Speirs, who arguably has one of the most remarkable scenes in the series as he runs through the German occupied Belgian town of Foy: "I still get a lot of guys coming up to me saying, 'What's Speirs doing on "Gossip Girl?'"
Michael Cudlitz, who played Denver "Bull" Randleman and can be seen starring in TNT's cop drama "Southland," hosts an annual cast reunion at his home, which has been attended by Hanks and Spielberg.
"People fly in from all over," he said. "Even now, I don't think there's anyone that wouldn't drop anything to help each other out, and that's a rare thing in Hollywood."
"It was like joining a frat," said Ron Livingston, who played Lewis Nixon, the captain with a fondness for Vat 69 whiskey.
Like their characters who jelled as a unit thanks to a mutual loathing for Capt. Sobel, the actors bonded over their disdain for the production's military advisor, Dale Dye, who played the company commander Col. Sink but also ran the boot camp.
"He allowed himself to be the common enemy, but that's the way he works," said McDonough.
"They were creating bonds early on in boot camp," said Dye. "I was waiting to see if all that had faded as the production went on, but in fact it increased. "
Many of the actors struck up friendships with the men they portrayed during production and some have lasted to this day. "To call it a friendship would be to slight it," said Hughes of his relationship with Guarnere, 88. "He's like a father to me."
"He played me like the devil I was," said Guarnere from his home in Philadelphia. (He lost a leg in Bastogne saving his friend Joe Toye.)
"When it came to anything heroic, he wouldn't talk about it," said Hughes. "They'll only talk about someone else's bravery."
calendar@latimes.com
We have a history of . . .
Southern California's latest foodie trend has the region atwitter. Lines form long into the night at the latest hot spot for edible treasures, while wily entrepreneurs outdo each other by parking at the best spots. But not everyone is happy. Brick-and-mortar restaurant owners fume that their pop-up rivals take away business; county health officials quickly enact regulations, and politicians push laws to regulate or even ban the vendors from city limits — but not without sparking a public uproar.
Such a scenario has dominated Southern California for the past couple of years as food trucks — whether traditional loncheras or their luxe cousins — increase in popularity. But the same mobile phenomenon overtook Los Angeles more than a century ago, spurred not by tacos but tamales, and the vehicles of choice weren't trucks but, rather, horse-drawn wagons. They're long forgotten, nearly invisible even in the local history books, but these pioneer tamaleros were crucial ambassadors for the growth of Mexican food here — and in a region wedded to transit, their movable feasts laid the tracks for drive-thrus, lunch trucks and our insatiable fascination with easy-to-find, affordable grub.
"Experience fireworks and music under the stars"
The Hollywood Bowl’s fireworks tradition began in 1969, when a display was added to the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular concert. The Fourth of July and the Fireworks Finale concerts joined the roster of annual shows in 1971, and a rich history of pioneering combinations of music and pyrotechnics has continued ever since.
LA fireworks and music lovers alike are consistently impressed with the Hollywood Bowl’s innovative and perfectly timed pyrotechnic displays. The celebration of sight and sound offers LA and Southern California residents an opportunity to experience spectacular fireworks displays all summer long.
" part of Air Force's Battlefield Air Targeting Micro Air Vehicle program"
The U.S. Air Force has gone all-in by authorizing full production of the AeroVironment backpack-sized Wasp III micro air vehicle, which will soon to be standard issue for combat controllers and USAF special ops, according to the Pentagon. This follows the U.S. Marine Corps' purchase of a Wasp III system, which it plans to deploy at the platoon level as a complement to the Raven (above).
Weighing in at a mere 1 pound, the plane's diminutive 29-inch wingspan can still loft a variety of hefty payloads in addition to its infrared cameras that stream video directly to ground control. The Wasp is launched by hand and can be operated either manually or programmed for auto-pilot with autonomous GPS navigation, according to AeroVironment. The Wasp III is part of Air Force's Battlefield Air Targeting Micro Air Vehicle program (BATMAV), which will allow troops to scan enemy targets from 5 kilometers away for up to 45 minutes at a time, according to the company.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-9858288-42.html#ixzz1XNzC6o2J
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
9 11 Aftermath
A man stands in the rubble of the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, calling out to potential survivors.
(Doug Kanter/AFP/Getty Images -- Sep 2001)
The "50th Super Bowl in early 2016"
ANGELES -- As AEG president and CEO Tim Leiweke stood on a makeshift football field outside the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center, the future home of Farmers Field, he said he envisioned standing on an actual football field inside a new state-of-the-art 64,000-seat football stadium by 2015. His goal is to host the 50th Super Bowl in early 2016 in the same city that hosted the first Super Bowl in 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
For this to happen, the stadium would require a waiver from the NFL owners voting on the Super Bowl location since all stadiums considered for hosting a Super Bowl must be in operation for at least one calendar year before the game. The league will likely vote on the location for the 50th Super Bowl in late May 2012 and it is uncertain whether construction of the proposed downtown stadium would be underway by then.
"World War I: A group of German schoolboys soon learn that war has absolutely nothing to do with either glory or heroics"
More than eight decades after its release, Lewis Milestone's unflinching film version of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front remains the greatest war movie ever made. Or rather, the greatest anti-war movie ever made. In its simple, straightforward manner, All Quiet on the Western Front manages to be infinitely more powerful than all other loftier (and widely acclaimed) war dramas I've seen, including Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (which borrows several elements from All Quiet), Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, not to mention mediocrities such as Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, William A. Wellman's Battleground, Oliver Stone's Platoon, and Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down.
From All Quiet on the Western Front's first sequences, when the German schoolboys are all eager to take up arms to fight for Fatherland, Honor, and Glory, to the very last scenes showing a soon-to-go-lifeless hand stretching out to reach for a butterfly, and young, ghostly male faces marching to their death, director Milestone and the film's credited screenwriters — playwrights Maxwell Anderson and George Abbott, and silent-era screenwriter-director Del Andrews — never make a false or unnecessary move in this immensely touching drama.
All Quiet on the Western Front's Paul Bäumer was Lew Ayres'(above) second sizable role (following Jacques Feyder's The Kiss, with Greta Garbo); even so, the then inexperienced 21-year-old actor brings a highly effective freshness to his idealistic schoolboy turned disillusioned soldier. Ayres' acting may be hardly what one would call subtle, but it's undeniably honest. (Ayres would later be a — much criticized by some — conscientious objector during World War II. He did, however, serve as a non-combatant.) In a brief supporting role, Beryl Mercer is flawless as the young man's mother. (Mercer replaced ZaSu Pitts, who plays the mother in the film's silent version.)
Cadillac ELR Coupe -- Luxury Electric Compact Coupe
GM makes money from platforms, not just cars. With that thought, Cadillac just announced the ELR Coupe, a sleek sportster built on the Voltec platform that also powers the Volt. The dual-powertrain Caddy has been rumored ever since a concept (pictured here) was shown off at the 2009 North American International Auto Show. Well, friends, it’s on.
Monday, September 05, 2011
"the skyscraper is back"
In the days and weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became commonplace to hear pundits predicting the disappearance of the skyscraper -- as Mark Lamster points out here -- or at least that it might be a very long time before we started building very tall towers in great numbers again. Those predictions turned out to be about as wrong as they could be.
Thanks to oil money sloshing across much of the globe, a booming economy in the middle part of the last decade and -- most important of all -- a quickly urbanizing China, the skyscraper is back in a big way.
Another fascinating wrinkle in the story also has to do with China. During the 1990s and the early 2000s, as Chinese cities were expanding at a furious pace, the country could hardly import foreign architects fast enough. But now China is beginning to export its own skyscraper experts.
The eye-catchingly curvy Absolute Towers just outside Toronto, designed by the young Chinese architect Ma Yansong, are nearing completion at 56 and 50 stories tall -- a sign that China is now building other cities' skylines along with its own.
Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In
The first full-length trailer was released for Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito), starring Antonio Banderas, on August 29.
The footage features excerpts from the film with very few lines of dialogue and a mostly impressionistic suggestion of the narrative, with still-frame images and photos interspersed with title cards.
Based on the novel by Thierry Jonquet, Mygale, it is a story of revenge. The thriller centers on a plastic surgeon haunted by his past and obsessed with inventing thick synthetic skin.
The actor and director reunite after working together 20 years ago on Tie Me Up! Time Me Down!.
Banderas has recently appeared in kids films, including Spy Kids, Shrek and the upcoming Puss in Boots, a spin-off of Shrek.
After showing at Cannes, the film has been released in several countries and will be screened at Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.
The Skin I Live In will have a limited release in the North America on November 18.
"Kingdom Tower"
Just recently announced, the Kingdom Tower will be the world's tallest building when completed in the year 2016. This building will be the central piece of the $20 billion Kingdom City development in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, beside the Red Sea, the likes of which has every major name in architecture involved.
Kingdom Tower is designed by Adrian Smith, of Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, who is coincidentally the lead architect behind today's tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which Smith designed while still employed with Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
Some facts about Kingdom Tower: $1.2 billion in anticipated expenses; 3,280 feet tall with a total construction area of 5.7 million square feet; and a multi-use program consisting of a luxury hotel, office space, services apartments, luxury condominiums and the world's highest observatory.
"The Evolution of Balboa Park"
Balboa Park began as 1400 acres of land set aside in 1868 by San Diego civic leaders. Known then as “City Park”, the scrub-filled mesa that overlooked present day Downtown San Diego sat without formal landscaping or development for more than 20 years.(Today the Park's total land parcel has been reduced to 1,200 acres.)
The first steps in Park beautification were made in 1892, largely due to the contributions of Kate Sessions. Sessions offered to plant 100 trees a year within the Park as well as donate trees and shrubs around San Diego in exchange for 32 acres of land within the Park boundaries to be used for her commercial nursery. Several popular species, including the birds of paradise, queen palm and poinsettia were introduced into the Park’s horticulture because of Sessions’ early efforts. In fact, many of her original trees are alive and visible today. It is no wonder that Kate Sessions earned the title “The Mother of Balboa Park” at the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition.
Just after the turn of the century, a master plan for Park improvements and beautification was formally introduced. Supported by a City tax levied in 1905, the process began in 1903 and continued through 1910. Water systems were installed, planting continued, roads were built, and the Park began to take on much of the familiar look of today.
San Diego was set to play host to the 1915 Panama Exposition, and “City Park” was a less-than memorable or distinctive name for such an internationally prestigious event. In 1910, Park Commissioners announced plans to re-name City Park and the public was eager to throw potential names into the hat, including: San Diego Park, Silver Gate Park, Horton Park and Miramar Park. After months of discussion and great public interest, the Park Commissioners decided on the name Balboa Park, chosen in honor of Spanish-born Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the first European to spot the Pacific Ocean while on exploration in Panama.
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