Hey, I can see your house from here

WEB FIND: When you look at it from outer space, Reseda looks like the Center of the Universe. Fitting somehow.

Google (maybe you've heard of them) have added a sattelite photo function to their more graphically legible mapping search services than Yahoo! Maps or MapQuest (with their arbitrarily situated red stars).

Here's a mug shot of Reseda. Different than Terraserver, gets in closer than the free choices offered there and my house isn't on a seam. I still can't really tell the license plate of the truck in my parking spot though.

Que?: What sort of map makes the largest type Ex Mission de San Fernando? Typically, this type. And this looks like a cherry tomato on a dicondra lawn.
-- via Terraserver

It's called a boom like breaking a sound barrier

HOUSING: DataQuick real estate news compiles the LA Times' home sales data, monthly and divided by zip code. House and condo prices in 91335 trend up, and the number of sales is up from Feb.
Sales of Single Family Homes...85, nearly double Feb.'s 48, which was down from 55 in Jan.
Median Price: Single Family Homes...$473,000 a steady increase from Feb.'s $450,000, a continued increase from Jan.'s $438,000
Price % Chg from Feb. '04...31.3% is swinging up from the previous month's 25%, down from Jan.'s 26.2 increase of '04%
Sales Count of Condos...23 steps up from Feb.'s 18, a dip from 25 in Jan.
Median Price: Condos...$315,000 removes previous gains of $345,000 in Feb. and Jan.'s $335,000
Price % Chg from Feb. '04...13% from a year ago trends down from the previous month of 32.1%, ticking up from the Jan.'s 31.4% increase from '04
Median Home Price per Sq. Ft...$351 about halves the Feb. increase of $345 over Jan.'s rate of $337
via the Times:

Although not on a par with the record-breaking pace of early 2004, the number of home sales across the board is "way above the norm," said John Karevoll, chief analyst at DataQuick Information Systems

Speaking of that, this:
'04
Feb.'s post
Jan.'s post

At your disposal

HAZARDOUS WASTE: Bring them your tired computers, your huddled masses of old printers and fax machines, yearning to bypass a landfill. The LA City Bureau of Sanitation has a roving hazardous material drop-off program for residents. It's coming to CSUN this Saturday and Sunday.

What's the big deal?:

Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT's) are the picture tubes in computer monitors and TV's. ... Each year, an estimated six million CRT's are discarded in California. A typical 17-inch CRT contains approximately two pounds of lead. Larger CRT's may contain up to ten pounds of lead. Lead is a known toxic substance and disposal of CRT's in landfills can cause the pollution of soil and groundwater. California's Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has declared that CRT's are banned from disposal in landfills.

Typically, Valley residents would have to haul their waste to Sun Valley on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday; businesses can make an appointment for the 4th Wednesday of each month.
Be smart in packing:

Residents are limited to a total of six pieces per visit to a SAFE Center. Of the six pieces, no more than two pieces can be CRT-related. Small items (mouses, cables, modems, cell phones, etc.) can be packed in a carton box and that carton will be considered one item.

Reseda dump

CLEANUP: The LAPD Police Activities League Supporters and Reseda Chamber of Commerce office spent a couple weeks holding on to their old furniture, if by "holding on" one means "dumping in the alley right by a sign that says not to." This pile was removed on Apr 12, '05, after loitering for at least 2 weeks.
:::::Ed.note-- Sitting behind offices of a chamber of commerce and an LAPD-sponsored organization. Appalling.:::::

For whom the bell tolls

FROM THE STACKS: The opening sentence in the William Carlos Williams poem "The Catholic Bells" speaks to life and the new, and death and the done.

Tho' I'm no Catholic
I listen hard when the bells
in the yellow-brick tower
of their new church

ring down the leaves
ring in the frost upon them
and the death of the flowers
ring out the grackle

toward the south, the sky
darkened by them, ring in
the new baby of Mr. and Mrs.
Krantz which cannot

for the fat of its cheeks
open well its eyes, ring out
the parrot under its hood
jealous of the child

ring in Sunday morning
and old age which adds as it
takes away.

Via Univeristy of Pennsylvania

Say it ain't so!

BLOGOSHPERE: An email from Kevin Roderick says his superb Valley history site, America's Suburb, is history. His self-applied description:

This website grew from the enthusiastic response to Kevin Roderick's book The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb. You'll find book excerpts and photos from the author's files on Valley history and lore. Kevin's observations accompany the entries and are posted regularly here on the ValleyBlog page.

Holy blogoshpere vacuum, Batman!

Fretting, blogging and fretting about blogging

SCENE IN RESEDA: On his faith-flecked and sports-sprinkled Scottie's Rant blog, Scottie laments his lack of sleep and heralds his new home around a notation of a three-gig day playing guitar at a conference in Reseda.

So, I have been gradually moving stuff into my apartment since Friday, and to make matters worse, I played guitar at a conference in Reseda that was a 3-sessions-in-one-day kind of thing. Bill was drumming at this event, so he picked me up at 6 a.m. and we headed to Starbucks for some go-juice. I needed it, because Rhett was down to help Mitch and Sarah move to WA and we stayed at Floyd and Jean's house until 12:30.....which meant I got about 5 hours of sleep.....ug.

Matter vs anti-matter

KUDOS: KTLA sponsors the Stan Chambers Journalism Awards essay competition, named after the newsman who's been with channel 5 news since '47. Winners get $1,000 and a chance to help produce video essays from their entries to air on the station's newscast in June. From the website:

Writing on the theme "What Matters Most," the winners of the Stan Chambers Journalism Awards are:

Jessica Crawford, John R. Wooden High School, Reseda
Jessica's inspiring essay describes her journey from a troubled youth to a success-driven, focused Honor Roll student. After run-ins with the law, the harsh realities of boot camp helped Jessica gain pride, a heads-up confidence, and new attitude towards life.

Site has a photo of all the winners, but no caption to learn who's who. But that's Chambers on the far right.

When the Crue was new

POP CULTURE: The rock band Motley Crue (AllMusic.com says they formed in '81) played the Country Club on Feb. 10, '81, eight months before the release of their first album -- and some bootleg recordings have made it to the eBay.com auction site where -- as of this writing -- $15 buys a CD. When that link dies, there's this. The set list for the 50+ minute show was "Black Widow," "Running Wild in the Night," "Live Wire," "I Will Survive," "Run for Your Life," "Hotter Than Hell," "Chip Away at the Stone," and "Wreck Me."

2 things: A heavy metal treatment of the disco-era "I Will Survive" has to be worth hearing and singer Vince Neil singing "Wreck Me" is sadly ironic considering his '84 car crash that killed a friend.

It's not the last time the Crue overlapped with Reseda.

In a bit of esoteric corporate business parody, the Metafictional Blues blog twists its joke about the acquisition of Zen. Here's the Reseda/Motley Crue reference excerpted from an imagined interview with the pending new management of Zen, with a few extra exchanges for context:

JE: Interesting. Why Zen?
CT: Why Zen? That’s exactly the question we’re asking.
JE: heh
CT: As an aside, I did want to mention that we’re making Michael Bolton grow *back* his mullet.
JE: I think that’s an excellent plan.
CT: I think it’s going to be key to our new strategy.
JE: Will he also be releasing any new albums?
CT: Well we’re hoping he can focus on the business and the mullet for now, but we’ve been in talks with the Crue for a collaborative project. Not to be confused with a multiple media project.
JE: Right, of course. Is this in any way related to Vince Neil’s turn on reality television?
CT: Not really, we’ve been working independently. Actually it’s a funny story how this all happened (laughs), we were in Reseda and saw Vince in a bagel shop wearing only some zebra print bike pants. We did talk a bit but just small talk – our families, skeet shooting, etc. – it wasn’t until later that we realized we both had new projects in the works. (laughs)
JE: (oh man hahahaha) It’s funny how things work out sometimes, huh? Well, I’m sure that your acquisition of Zen is certain to shock some people within the Mergers and Acquisitions world – are you prepared for any backlash?
CT: Always – What I’ve learned in all my years in this business is that a lot of people won’t like what you do. But then, a few months from now, they’ll be buying up Zen, just like everyone else.
JE: Do you have anything to say to those who might argue that Zen is a nonmaterialistic religion?
CT: (chuckles) Well, I think that’s what Zen has always wanted you to think, while it picks your pocket as you Ohmmm your way to the nuthouse. What we’re trying to do is to put everything out in the open and make it a conscious choice. Like Coke or Nike.

Hair raising

SCENE IN RESEDA: Sideways Out The Window's blogger Chris came to destination location Bu-Ba's and got a scare:

We went to some beauty supply store on Saturday 'cause she has to get some things, and I saw the scariest thing of my life. They had a plastic head with a red wig on it, and this guy was standing there in front of it. He was stroking the hair, and looking into its eyes like it was a real female. I couldn't believe my eyes so I had to walk down the aisle opposite him. What's even scarier is that a minute later, he stopped and joined his girlfriend as she shopped. Only in Reseda!

Not being all they could be

SCHOOLS: MQVN's personally-anecdoted education-related Dialogue blog reacts with dismay in the tale of a local college fair where half of the tables weren't for colleges at all:

I helped with some outreach event today at Reseda High School in the valley, representing UC Berkeley as an alumnus. What was really funny was that half of the tables at the "college fair" were manned by military recruiters for the Army, Army National Guard, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and so on.

Cutting in line at a funeral

MEMORIAL: When I heard the President had gone to the Vatican to pay his respects to Pope John Paul II, I was reminded of a similar (but less profund in every way) circumstance of a huge crowd viewing a deceased leader and a "dignitary" joining the line. At the Reagan Library:

I had been in line, on a bus, in line again for about 2 1/2 hrs and just as I'm entering the viewing room, a woman staff member asks if I'd mind if some local officials can step in... It's US congressman Elton Gallegly & wife and (I guess) his daughter & her husband. Congress has its priviledges. 20 yrs ago I interviewed him while he was Simi mayor.

The whole story, without editing or corrections.

RIP JPII

REQUIEM: St. Catherine of Siena church is holding 2 masses Friday to honor Pope John Paul II, as stated on the pastor's blog.

It's an asteroid

WHAT'S IN A NAME: Astromoner Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth, a photo, discovered almost 400 asteroids, among them one named Reseda (the 1,081st catalogued). He spied it Aug 31, '27, five years after the town name was changed from Marian. He found Magnolia (#1060) in '25, 74 years before the movie of that name was filmed in Reseda (not mentioned here), for the climactic scenes on the street (at Sherman Way and Reseda Blvd, though ostensibly Magnolia Blvd.) featuring a whole lot of frogs. Some other geographically relevent finds: Arcadia was catalogued as #1020, Granada (Hills) at #1159 and Arnolda (Schwarzenegger) is #1018. He found Annefrank (#5535) on Mar 23, '42 (photo) years before many knew Anne Frank and years before the asteroid was named that. He found Kohoutek (#1850). (Remember Kohoutek? A photo.

On this date in 1934, Wilhelm discovered Peter (#1716).

Speaking of that, this: It's a fragrance.
It's a shoe.
It's an ink.
It's a pollen speck.

Rev. Billy, a coffee achiever

PERFORMANCE ART: When culture-jamming character Rev. Billy (Bill Talen) unleashed what the NY Times (via WWRN.org) called his unholy war on Starbucks, it was on Reseda Blvd. --- probably Reseda, maybe Northridge. The Greenwich (NY) Villager has a photo of Talen in character. INeedCoffee.com has an essay by Talen describing a raft of culture-jamming events at least a year ago in New York City. A must-read to get the context of this absurdity:

We pretended to break up. I took the 6 train down to Bleecker and ran up the east side of Broadway to sneak into Barnes and Noble the back way, but plainclothes cops were with us the whole way. When we got there they said, "Billy there ain't any episode of Law and Order that don't feature that move, for chrissake. What are we, chopped liver? You insultin' us." The play at the cafe in the anchor store of so many malls across the country, Barnes and Noble, was "The Neo-Liberal and the Happy Fetus." The actors in this case, Ben and Sara, really did a great job. Quite a nice gradual rise to a stand-up opera of an argument. It's a great moment when Sara belted out I AM THE MERMAID AND I WANT MY NIPPLES BACK!!!

A restraining order that resulted from his Reseda Blvd. venture likely inhibits such things by Talen these days.

Watch for falling trees

FATALITY: The season's rain and last week's winds contributed to toppling a pine tree on Reseda Blvd. in Tarzana, says the Daily News. Story offers this caveat:

Local tree experts said people should inspect the trees on their property, looking for what one called "mushy spots" that might indicate dry rot or newly exposed roots.

"Most of the time, the tree has been leaning for some time, and a big wind comes up, and down it goes," said Wayne Smith, owner of Nature's Tree Service in Reseda. "We had a lot of them a couple of weeks ago. They just came down from too much moisture."

Where there's smoke, there's a vacancy

HOMES: Since fewer and fewer people smoke, it's likely there are more and more people who are intolerant of it for health or personal reasons. There are rental units with those people in mind; for them there's the Smokefree Apartment House Registry. Reseda has such a listing (scroll alphabetically). It's rented.

A tangent: (via their links page) For those who are really, really intolerant-- you can test to discover if you've been exposed to secondhand smoke (though most of us would sniff). TobacAlert's urine test is for:

Detection of recent second hand smoke exposure. Potential users include parents of young children, workers in a smoky workplace and other persons concerned about the harmful effects of second hand smoke.

Detection, verification and monitoring of tobacco use status. Potential users include smokers trying to quit, parents worried about whether a teenaged child may be smoking, coaches, insurance companies and smoking cessation counsellors.

It's patented.