leftovers

I was at a meeting yesterday hosted by the Los Angeles Board of Public Works.  To welcome us, one of the Commissioners asked us if we knew what the purpose of city government was.  Nobody volunteered with a succinct, accurate answer so the Commissioner said the main purpose was to provide "security" for the citizens.  As such, most of the city's budget goes to the police and fire departments.  All other services are considered ancillary. The Business Improvement District that I work for has a similar M.O.; over 60% of our budget goes to our security program, while the remaining funds are spread thin throughout our cleaning, maintenance, improvements, advocacy, and management programs. It suddenly became painfully apparent to me that humans spend a great deal of their time and money to protect themselves from other humans.  It's amazing that we can accomplish anything when our main function in life is to prevent and clean up other people's messes.  Why is this?  I

this is a continuation of the previous blog entry (in case you haven't read that one, you should start there first!) ... this is a new feature of my blog, detailing my experiences seeing live concerts of my favorite bands, and music-related pilgrimages.  So, I'm sitting there at the Rosemont Horizon watching the Human League play, and it's the first time I've seen them play.  Moreover, it's the first time I've seen any of my "favorite" bands play, and the Human League had been a constant staple of my music library for almost a decade at this point.  It was a truly awesome and life-changing moment for me.  Up until that point, I had never really "gotten" the live experience.  I had heard live recordings that only made me want to hear the studio recording.  Previously, I had thought, why go to the trouble to sit in an uncomfortable seat or make your way through a crowd just to hear a band doing a second-rate rendition of a song that sounds bet

This is a new feature on my blog, where I will tell the stories about my experiences attending live concerts by my favorite bands.  Having just seen the Human League on the Regeneration Tour earlier this week, which was my 6 th time seeing them, I thought I would recall my first encounter with the mighty League - which incidentally was not only my first music-related "pilgrimage" but also the first time I really saw a concert by one of my favorite bands. Human League wasn't my first favorite band (that honor goes to the Thompson Twins) but they have been the most enduring group in my record collection (or iTunes library as it goes these days) since my tweens .  I remember first borrowing their album "Crash" on cassette tape from my friend, Angie Dewey, and ultimately collecting every single one of their albums - many on various formats - over the years and up to this very day.   It wasn't until 1998 (August 15 th to be exact, thank you internet !) that I

The farm that I grew up on was just about a mile or two northeast of Paradise off of Highway K-18.  It was a wonderful place and I don't think I would have rather grown up anywhere else.  Our house was in a valley near Eagle Tail Creek (a tributary of Eagle Creek) and although I don't know much about the history of the farm itself, I know that the house we lived in was built in the 50's by the Fowler brothers, and that there was at least one house there previously which supposedly my grandma Strecker lived in at some point.  I also was always under the impression that part of the basement had retained the original foundation from this house, as parts of the north and eastern walls appeared older than the rest of the walls, but my mom recently told me that was not the case (she thought). Part of the fun of growing up on a farm was exploring the many different areas and buildings.  Although it was not what you would call a large farm, it did have several outbuildings, includ