Fallen Trees

So this weekend we went for a small walk to go shopping.  Coming to the end of our own street (maybe 150 m from our apartment), this was the scene we came upon.  It hasn't been particularly windy or stormy, but it has been raining fairly frequently over the past week.  Looking at the roots, which seem far, far too small for such a big tree, it seems that they just couldn't support the top heavy mass of the tree anymore and uprooted.  

The sidewalk just past the crushed car and before the smashed brick wall is the sidewalk that we walk along every day to and from school.  Whew!

Sadly, these two trees were my favourite trees of all of the trees in our neighbourhood.  Immensely tall with huge canopies and extensive branching, they towered over everything in the area.

Been so long....

Well, it's been nearly a month since the last post to Flamie Stuff.  It's not because it has been a boring month; in fact, it has been a very busy and exciting month.  When I returned from Vancouver with my work visa, most of the anxiety was relieved, but a lot of hassle and setup still needed to happen.  I'll save you the boring details, but I'm finally setup with payroll, have received my first payment, am setup for medical/dental benefits, and am working full-time.

On April 6, Dad Martindale came and visited.  We had a fantastic time with him and enjoyed an amazing time in Death Valley (I'll post separately about that... soon... I promise :P ).

My laptop started to flake out on me, so I've ordered and received a new laptop.  I went all-out on this one and so far I'm very happy with it.  For those that care, it's a Dell Studio XPS 16 (1645 to be more precise), Intel core i7-720QM, ATi Radeon Mobility 4670, 4 GB ram, 500 GB HDD, 1920x1080 WLED Screen.  Zoom zoom!

Rowan's been super busy with her Ph.D.; working hard, going to conferences, TA'ing, and doing the stuff that graduate students do!  She's also been a knitting manic and finished approximately a million projects ;)  I'm sure she'll post about that eventually.

Anyways, that's the end of my government mandated 15-minute break, so back to work for me.  Love you all!

Odd power outage...

Yesterday, Sunday the 7th of December, around noon, Rowan and I were sitting in the apartment, happyily watching some Star Trek (the original series!) when we heard the typical screech of a car braking suddenly. Usually, this ends in silence and everyone continues on their way, but this time it ended in a surprisingly loud bang which coincided with the lights flickering once before we lost power. Clearly something fairly major had just occurred. With not much else pressing to do, we ventured out to the street and sure enough, about half a block (~100 m) from us (see attached map) an SUV had slammed into a power pole, shearing it completely off at the base and moving it the entire length of the car through a nearby fence! If you look closely at the last photo, you can see the frayed remains of the base of the power pole. Unfortunately, we didn't get much information from the police that were already all over the scene by the time we were there, but it was obvious that this was something more than just an accident. There were about 10 police cars there and a bunch of officers were approaching a nearby house carefully. Apparently, no one was seriously injured, which is always a good thing. All of this happened around noon, and we didn't get power back until after 6pm. I went to investigate around 5pm, and it looks like they just removed the broken pole and restrung the lines between the nearby poles. Perhaps the pole will be replaced at a later date?

"Winter" in Los Angeles

So apparently winter in Los Angeles is accompanied by rainy days. Well the last few days have been pretty rain filled, with some surprisingly (to me at least) bouts of very heavy rain. Thankfully, even in Los Angeles, the rain smells wonderfully refreshing and the pitter patter sound is just as soothing. Weather in general is now cooler, hovering between 10-20 C on the overcast days. Though on sunny days it can still easily be in the mid 20's. I love the cooler weather, though I missed having a true Canadian fall and I know I will miss the snow of winter. Ong-Bak joined me in looking out the window at the rain. Scimitar has the right idea for what to do on a cool rainy day. Cats are always so smart.