Space-based Solar Energy Coming to Earth

I was in Mrs. Litton-Smith's sixth grade class at Hohokam Elementary School in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1978 the first time I ever heard about the concept of capturing solar energy in space for use as electricity on Earth. Now, a California Company says it wants to make the concept happen...REALLY! (via bldgblog.blogspot.com). Image courtesty of Wikipedia.

Region's Largest Mall in Bankrupcty; Northridge Fashion Center not Closing--for Now

The Great Recession is pounding once-bustling malls across Southern California and the nation, moreover. Case in point, General Growth Properties, the nation's second largest mall owner/operator, has announced it is bankrupt. GPP is seeking Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankrupcty Court.

GPP's Northridge Fashion Center, the largest mall in northern Los Angeles County is assuring customers and tenants that, as general manager Danielle Gordon put it, "...the mall will be open today and tomorrow, and going forward."

What was interesting to me, however, was the fact that I did not ask Gordon if the mall was going to stay open. I only asked what impact there would be locally in the face of the parent company's Chapter 11 filing. In Chapter 11 bankruptcies, companies generally continue operating while they restructure their debt with the protection of the court from adverse actions by creditors. The $30 billion real estate investment trust is believed to owe more than $28 billion to its creditors.

Phantom Billboard Artist, Gias, Strikes on La Cienega

Remember L.A. artist, David Browne's little doves hanging over intersections across the city? Well it may be that artist Gias is the next David Browne. Check out this amazing video of the artist's rogue billboard (on La Cienega just south of Pico on the west side of the street) message about the perils of TV, Drugs and Religion in time-lapse progression over the course of four days and nights (courtesy joosbox.tv):

Dedication of Hunter Allen Trail

They say only the good die young. I don't know how true that is, but I know the people who gathered at the west end of Victory Blvd. last Saturday morning for the dedication of Hunter Allen Trail at Ahmanson Ranch in the far west part of the San Fernando Valley would rather have seen Good Hunter Allen live into his thirties and beyond.
The ceremony was officiated by a Chumash Indian medicine man, who, in full-native prayer garb, dedicated the trail to Hunter's family, the American People, Native Americans, and their ancestors, who are buried on lands across the continent.
Hunter died tragically a year ago when the pain of his personal life became too much for him to bear.
However, the way Hunter lived his public life earned him the name Baby Dragon. Though somewhat diminutive in physical stature, he was a force to be wreckened (as fomer WaMu CEO Kelly Killinger learned. Killinger lost his battle with Hunter, a young West Hollyood activist, determined to save a large swath of hilly California meadowland, which the bank owned and developers salivated over. With no money and a gut full of passion, Hunter used cunning, irony, and friends to succeed in making the land part of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy--forever protecting it from the voracious appetites of California's sprawl-driven developers. Thanks to his efforts and the efforts of others, banks and developers are now looking at urban redevelopment as the wave of the future for building in Southern California.

A Model for Rivers and Greenspaces

L.A. City Councilman Ed Reyes has invited Seoul's deputy mayor for infrastructure to show us how it's done...building a riverwalk and a park with environmental sustainability as the guiding principle, that is. All snarkiness aside, this is actually a great idea. The South Koreans have done good work in urban planning in terms of such projects. There will be a presentation at City Hall, open to the public, Friday, April 17 at 2:30, where
Dr. In-Keun Lee will talk about and show images of how Seoul has transformed a canal into a beautiful river walk. Expect to see more of these kinds of exchanges as L.A.'s new 4-block great park to be installed at the foot of City Hall downtown, and the L.A. River project unfolds (however slowly completion of the two shall meet the light of day).

Ipod Touch Here: A solution for a Frustrated Verizon Blackberry User

For more than a year, I've struggled with my Blackberry. Don't get me wrong; I know how it works. That's the problem: I hate how it works! I think there are two kinds of people. There are those who get algebra and the Blackberry algorithm. Then there are those of us who think a whole other way.
However, I don't want AT&T. So, for now, no iPhone. My plan is to ditch the Blackberry, get a regular, non-PDA camera phone, and and iPod Touch for my other, net-based needs. Tell me what you think of this solution if you have any experience with similar situations--especially if you know about the mythical world of unlocking the iPhone for use with Verizon (which I understand to be impossible because Verizon doesn't use removable chips).

Mark to Market: Other Big Financial News

FASBE, the rule-making body for the accounting industry (think of it as the lawyers' bar, except for CPAs), has bowed to political pressure and approved "more flexibility," i.e., more generosity, in the valuing of legacy, i.e., toxic, assets. The bottom line? Better-looking bottom lines for banks and other financial institutions. But is this just institutionalizing the kind of willy-nilly analysis that was the problem way back with Enron, and during the current crisis on Wall Street? Or, is it a necessary evil to grease the gears of the U.S. and world economies? I'll try to get some answers from leading accounting firms later at the Business Journal's website: sfvbj.com. (Maybe accounting is not such a bad beat for this reporter after all). Meantime, here's Reuters U.K.'s take on the so-called mark to market issue: http://uk.reuters.com/article/regulatoryNewsFinancialServicesAndRealEstate/idUKN0226528020090402

(No) Signs of the Times

The AIG sign on one of the Warner Center Towers in Woodland Hills has been blocked out with a big, black square covering. Has the King of Rocky Finance left the building? Are they still here and making way for their (probably very expensive) re-branding as AIU Holdings, Ltd?

Gone also is the small street-level moniker of FreddieMac on Oxnard Street at the same cluster of Warner Center Towers. Where have the visible sings of local incarnations of the American taxpayers' corporate crown jewels?

I will be answering these and other salient questions in the lead ValleyNewsmakers(tm) piece in the coming April 13 issue of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.

L.A.'s Sea of Poppers

I have noticed, and I think there's a story here, wherever I see (driveby see) a major construction project in L.A. I smell what some might know as poppers. One whiff of the air on the southbound side of the 101 in the Cahuenga Pass near Universal at about the time the time of construction completion of the newish L.A. Fitness (you know, the building with the round, purple cardio module now practically suspended over the freeway), and I'm sure of it: Poppers.

If you don't know what poppers are, they (and don't be confused by the plural...a bottle of poppers contains a very odiferous liquid--nothing that will pop out at you) a chemical sold as either "room odorizer" or "video head cleaner," which people sniff for a quick rush, usually while dancing or having sex. Poppers have an odor that is a cross between dirty sox and jet fuel.

Other spots I've smelled the very specific and distinct odor of poppers include one in Reseda, on the corner of Tampa and Victory where an expansion of the Victory-Tampa Medical Square is ongoing, as well as at the new Pavillions construction site in West Hollywood.

If a sea of poppers underlies the City of Angels, there is an opportuntiy here: Cars that run on amyl nitrate!

Life goes on

I'm back. Last post: Dec. 10. Today is May 8. Much has happened.

I've gotten a lot of freelance work. Writing a lot for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. Actually have a beat there--Law and Accounting. Also just finished the bulk of a special pullout section of SFVBJ about the biotech industry along the 101 Biotech Corridor, as it's called. I tried to stick a new nickname for the corridor, but the editor there, my friend Jason Schaff, nixed that.

What was my "brilliant" rebranding of the corridor? Drum roll: the DNA Highway. Whaddyuh think? Nice, huh? Okay I guess Jason knew what he was doing. Anyway, it was a great experience. Four 2000-word articles about biotech (Amgen, Baxter, and a lot of small labs and firms. One of those projects that make my motto about journalists true: "We know everything about nothing, but a couple things about everything."

I'm also doing a little bit of work for the paper at which I was managing editor for four years, North Valley Community News.

Of course, I'm back in school. In fact, the semester is almost over already. I did well, and even won a pretty respectable scholarship to help pay living expenses.

My internship with Marta Waller at KTLA Channel 5 begins in June.

I'm also doing a little bit of publicity work for a single client (a fact which will disqualify me from writing story from time to time, though nothing has come up yet).

Haven't done anything for the Daily News since last year. But that brings up a blog I want to recommend, that of retired Daily News Editor in Chief, one of L.A.'s great journalists, Ron Kaye. It's fast becoming one of the best local political blogs on the Web. Go to www.ronkayela.com to check it out.

I'm going to find a minute or two every day to blog from now on.