Don't let Supervisors ban short term rental in Altadena

Forgive the local politics, but next month LA County board of supervisors is going to be voting on a draconian restriction that completely bans short term rentals in all unincorporated parts of the county with very limited exceptions for primary residences.

If you appreciate use of unique local STRs like the ones up at Zorthians and the Ranchito, please take a minute to voice your opposition to Barger's office.

Below is a link and a prompt you can use to fill in the contact form on Kathryn Barger's site.

https://kathrynbarger.lacounty.gov/contact-us/

Field Office Location:

San Gabriel Valley

Subject:

Vote no on the proposed STR ordinance

Message:

As a resident of unincorporated Los Angeles County, I am opposed to the proposed short term rental ordinance. It is needlessly restrictive and punitive to small businesses and families who rely on STR income. We personally enjoy the use of numerous unique STR options in Altadena when we have friends and family visit. Please vote no on the proposed STR ordinance.

What If: Official Rules

What If is a game. I just made it up, and so the rules are subject to change, based on game-play feedback. This post will be updated when/if rules change, so you can permalink it as the sacrosanct official rules. We'll use Semantic Versioning, you can always be sure if you've got the latest version by looking at the version number at the top and the change log at the bottom of the post.

What If v1.0.0

Objective: Get points by proposing your best answer to any What If scenario, or teaming up with a better answer.
Number of Players: Minimum of 5 is suggested
Age: Any, as long as they can understand the rules and participate. They should be able to talk in a manner which all the other players can understand. Minimum of 8 is suggested.

1. All turns start with the youngest player, and proceed by increasing age, returning to the youngest after the oldest player's turn (until you want to stop playing).
2. Anyone can join or leave the game any time, if you want to play that way (decide as a group before you start).
3. Each player poses a What If scenario, and then the youngest player gives an answer. The youngest player will always answer first, even on their own scenario.
4. Any What If scenario can be vetoed by any one player objecting.
5. If your proposed scenario is vetoed, you can keep changing the scenario or proposing new ones until no other player objects.
6. If a player is being particularly objectionable, all the other players may unanimously agree to skip the player's turn to make a What If scenario.
7. Any player can ask clarifying questions about the What If scenario before it is accepted.
8. Once the What If scenario is understood and accepted by all the players, everyone goes around, always starting with the youngest player, and proposes an answer or solution based on What they would do If they were either alone, or were the most responsible person in a group when the What If scenario happens.
9. As each player's answer turn comes up, they can do one of three things:
• Join with any previous player's answer
• Propose an improvement to any previous player's answer
• Propose a completely new answer
10. If a player has their answer improved upon, they decide if they accept the improvement, or consider that a completely new answer.
11. If other people have already joined a player's answer, and that player decides to accept an improvement and join the improved answer, the original answer goes up for grabs; every player who joined it can choose to also follow the original player and join the improved one, or stay with the existing one.
12. When an answer splits, the youngest player left on that answer becomes the new owner.
13. Once the current player is finished deciding if their answer is new or and improvement, everyone has the option to join any given answer, following the same process of deciding who owns the answer if the current owner joins another answer.
14. After the oldest player finishes answering, and every player has finished deciding which answer they want to join, points are awarded based on the number of people on each answer as follows:
• For the owner of the answer, 2 points per person who joined it.
• For everyone else on the answer, 1 point per person who joined it.

Example Game Play

1. Five players play in this order: Fiona (13), Pepper (15), Lily (15), Dad (45), Grandma (103).
2. Nobody else wants to play.
3. Fiona poses her scenario first, since she's the youngest. Her What If scenario is, "What If you suddenly discovered you can fly one day."
4. Grandma objects, because she says that's too boring.
5. So Fiona changes her What If scenario to, "What If you suddenly discovered you can fly one day, but slowly and not very well."
6. Nobody objects.
7. Pepper asks if flying is risky, and Fiona says, "Yes, it is risky. You sometimes have a hard time controlling it, and you could fall really hard and maybe die. It's similar to riding a motor cycle."
8. The scenario is accepted, and answers will be given in order starting with Fiona, as they always will. Fiona is always first in this group.
9. The turns go like this
1. Fiona:
• Fiona would carefully practice and try to get better at it.
2. Pepper
•  Pepper would only do it to a hovering height
3. Lily
• Lily would join Fiona's answer
• Pepper and Fiona stay with their current answers
4. Dad
• I would improve Fiona's answer by adding motorcycling leathers and helmet.
• Fiona accepts Dad's improvement.
• Lily is now the youngest on Fiona's answer, so she owns it
• Lily decides to join Fiona, moving to Dad's answer.
5. Grandma 
• Grandma would improve Pepper's answer by adding a cool witch outfit.
• Pepper accepts Grandma's improvement.
• Fiona and Lily join Grandma's answer.
• Dad complains loudly about it, but still loses the round. 
10.  Points are tallied on the two remaining answers
• Dad's answer:
• Dad 1 person x 2 points = 2 points total
• Grandma's answer:
• Grandma 4 people x 2 points = 8 points total
• Lily 4 people x 1 point = 4 points total
• Pepper 4 people x 1 point = 4 points total
• Fiona 4 people x 1 point = 4 points total
11. The points are tallied, and then everything starts from step 3, but with Pepper proposing the What If now. Turns proceed in order until everyone gets a turn to propose a scenario, and then everyone decides if they want to go another round.

Rain wrap-up 2016

The Stonehill News weather station recorded 14.43 inches of precipitation for the rain season ending June 30, 2016. I have made a tradition of reporting what my neighbors Dan Gollnick and Bill Westphal recorded, going back to 1999 and 2003 respectively.

Here are the available seasonal totals:

Season    PacRad     KCAALTAD1   SHN       Avg
1999-2000  19.76"      --        --        --
2000-2001  21.22"      --        --        --
2001-2002   8.27"      --        --        --
2002-2003  24.47"      --        --        --
2003-2004  15.47"     14.72"     --        --
-----------------------------------------------
2004-2005  62.56"     56.66"    61.61"    60.28"
2005-2006  24.06"     22.37"    23.35"    23.26"
2006-2007   6.81"     6.52 "     6.15"     6.49"
2007-2008  26.04"     24.66"    23.64"    24.78"
2008-2009  16.34"     15.77"    15.09"    15.73"
2009-2010  26.50"     25.55"    24.92"    25.66"
2010-2011  34.49"     34.17"    30.70"    33.12"
2011-2012  13.62"     13.66"    13.39"    13.56"
2012-2013  11.58"     11.59"    11.39"    11.52"
2013-2014   6.38"      6.82"     6.66"     6.62"
2014-2015  12.81"     10.28"    11.82"    11.64"
2015-2016  16.84"     14.17"    14.43"    15.12"
-----------------------------------------------
(04+) Avg  21.5"     20.19"    20.26"    20.65"

Weather

originally posted 7/01/2007

The web cam snapshot is updated every minute. The graphs and data on this page are updated every minute. The raw data is also submitted to Weather Underground every minute.

---

Weather Dashboard:

Unusually hot nights in Southern California

The last three nights, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 8-10, 2015, have been unusual for southern California. This graph shows the outdoor temperature in Fahrenheit for the last five days running. The horizontal axis shows midnight for each day. The nights of October 6/7 and October 7/8 show the typical southern California pattern, a smooth even cooling off starting at sunset, with the coolest part of the day being just before sunrise.

I've taken the curve from the first night on this graph and overlaid it on the last three nights. The bold, jagged line is the actual temperature, and the grayed out smooth line below it is what the night temperature might have looked like if not for the unusual hot dry air that caused the jagged warming effects throughout the last three nights.

Simple Shower Water Recapture System

In spring of 2015 we implemented a variation of the "bucket flush" concept. If you search with terms like "bucket flush graywater" there is plenty of material out there, but all of it that I found is either too complicated (involves plumbing) or talks in generalities.

We have been using a bucket flush system in both bathrooms for about six months now; this is a write-up of exactly how we did it, and how it has been using it in practice.

Catching the water

I found these plastic organizer boxes from Really Useful Boxes at OSH, and it turns out they're available online direct from the manufacturer for about what I paid at OSH (just over $10 each). While they are not the cheapest organizer boxes, I chose them for a number of reasons. On top of being very sturdy, they are wide-mouthed for catching water, a good size for the shower stalls and are a manageable for kids to carry and pour. They hold 8.1 liters (about 2 gallons) each. You won't need the lid, and the handles pop off easily if you don't want to use them.

Advice From Dad: Installment 1

Preface

I am the father of two wonderful teen girls. Over the past 15 years, I’ve occasionally heard well-meaning, but old-fashion clichés such as, “Two girls? Watch out dad! Better have the shotgun ready!” I know the sentiment behind this is well-meaning, but it implies that girls are helpless. I trust my girls to carry their own metaphorical shotguns.

I strive to help them feel empowered. I trust they will try to practice common sense. Of course they will make mistakes, but that is how we all learn. For years I’ve been contemplating what kind of dating advice I might give them when they’re old enough. I hope to impart self-confidence, and give them some advice that will help guide them as they begin to navigate the fraught waters of adolescent sexuality.

I acknowledge that the following advice may be more frank than some parents are comfortable with. I wrestled with the decision to publish what is fundamentally personal material. Before I shared it with my daughters, I sought feedback from a few parents of their BFFs. I didn’t want my kids to share it with their friends, without first having vetted it with some fellow parents. I received positive feedback, and some encouragement to publish it. So here’s the first (and possibly only) installment of “Advice From Dad” for my two wonderful daughters.

Installment 1

Hello my darlings,

You are both old enough that I want to start a dialogue about some adult topics that we haven’t discussed much in the past. I’ve been working on articulating these first few topics over the summer, and I think they’re ready to share now.

Rain wrap-up 2015

The Stonehill News weather station recorded 11.82 inches of precipitation for the rain season ending June 30, 2015. I have made a tradition of reporting what my neighbors Dan Gollnick and Bill Westphal recorded, going back to 1999 and 2003 respectively.

Here are the available seasonal totals:

Season    PacRad     KCAALTAD1   SHN       Avg
1999-2000  19.76"      --        --        --
2000-2001  21.22"      --        --        --
2001-2002   8.27"      --        --        --
2002-2003  24.47"      --        --        --
2003-2004  15.47"     14.72"     --        --
-----------------------------------------------
2004-2005  62.56"     56.66"    61.61"    60.28"
2005-2006  24.06"     22.37"    23.35"    23.26"
2006-2007   6.81"     6.52 "     6.15"     6.49"
2007-2008  26.04"     24.66"    23.64"    24.78"
2008-2009  16.34"     15.77"    15.09"    15.73"
2009-2010  26.50"     25.55"    24.92"    25.66"
2010-2011  34.49"     34.17"    30.70"    33.12"
2011-2012  13.62"     13.66"    13.39"    13.56"
2012-2013  11.58"     11.59"    11.39"    11.52"
2013-2014   6.38"      6.82"     6.66"     6.62"
2014-2015  12.81"     10.28"    11.82"    11.64"
-----------------------------------------------
(04+) Avg  21.93"     20.73"    20.79"    21.15"

Rain Wrap-up 2014

The Stonehill News weather station recorded 6.66 inches of precipitation for the rain season ending June 30, 2014. I have made a tradition of reporting what my neighbors Dan Gollnick and Bill Westphal recorded, going back to 1999 and 2003 respectively.

Here are the available seasonal totals:

Season    PacRad     KCAALTAD1   SHN
1999-2000  19.76"      --        --
2000-2001  21.22"      --        --
2001-2002   8.27"      --        --
2002-2003  24.47"      --        --
2003-2004  15.47"     14.72"     --
--------------------------------------
2004-2005  62.56"     56.66"    61.61"
2005-2006  24.06"     22.37"    23.35"
2006-2007   6.81"     6.52 "     6.15"
2007-2008  26.04"     24.66"    23.64"
2008-2009  16.34"     15.77"    15.09"
2009-2010  26.50"     25.55"    24.92"
2010-2011  34.49"     34.17"    30.70"
2011-2012  13.62"     13.66"    13.39"
2012-2013  11.58"     11.59"    11.39"
2013-2014   6.38"      6.82"     6.66"
--------------------------------------
(04+) Avg  22.84"     21.78"    21.69"

Rain Wrap-up 2012

The rain season of July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012 ended with 13.39 inches recorded on the Stonehill News weather station. I also have made a tradition of reporting what my neighbors, Dan Gollnick, at the top of Stonehill has recorded, going back to 1999, and Bill Westphal (Wunderground call sign, KCAALTAD1) over near Loma Alta Elementary School since 2003.

Here are the available seasonal totals:

Season    PacRad     KCAALTAD1   SHN
1999-2000  19.76"      --        --
2000-2001  21.22"      --        --
2001-2002   8.27"      --        --
2002-2003  24.47"      --        --
2003-2004  15.47"     14.72"     --
2004-2005  62.56"     56.66"    61.61"
2005-2006  24.06"     22.37"    23.35"
2006-2007   6.81"     6.52 "     6.15"
2007-2008  26.04"     24.66"    23.64"
2008-2009  16.34"     15.77"    15.09"
2009-2010  26.50"     25.55"    24.92"
2010-2011  34.49"     34.17"    30.70"
2011-2012  13.62"     13.66"    13.39"
--------------------------------------
(04+) Avg  26.30"     24.92"    24.86"

Unpoppable at the Folly Bowl

 

Yes, this is a free jazz quartet, jamming on rubber-band-sax, balloon-bass, guitar and drums. We saw them at the Folly Bowl in Altadena on Sept 10, 2011.

A Fine and Pleasant Misery: The Backyard Safari

The chapter titled The Backyard Safari from A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick F. McManus was forwarded to me yesterday. I was reading it by myself in the SJC airport and couldn't contain my laughter. (It's only six pages long) Enjoy:

Rain Wrap-up 2011

The rain season of July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011 ended with 30.70 inches recorded on the Stonehill News weather station. I also have made a tradition of reporting what my neighbors, Dan Gollnick, at the top of Stonehill has recorded, going back to 1999, and Bill Westphal (Wunderground call sign, KCAALTAD1) over near Loma Alta Elementary School since 2003.

Here are the available seasonal totals:

Season    PacRad     KCAALTAD1   SHN
1999-2000  19.76"      --        --
2000-2001  21.22"      --        --
2001-2002   8.27"      --        --
2002-2003  24.47"      --        --
2003-2004  15.47"     14.72"     --
2004-2005  62.56"     56.66"    61.61"
2005-2006  24.06"     22.37"    23.35"
2006-2007   6.81"     6.52 "     6.15"
2007-2008  26.04"     24.66"    23.64"
2008-2009  16.34"     15.77"    15.09"
2009-2010  26.50"     25.55"    24.92"
2010-2011  34.49"     34.17"    30.70"
--------------------------------------
(04+) Avg  28.11"     26.53"    26.49"

Snow in Altadena Feb 26, 2011

As the week progressed, and Saturday drew near, weather predictions of snow down to 500 feet persisted, leading many to hope it may actually come to pass. After a rainy night, morning broke Saturday, and it seemed like we might have missed our chance when some light brief hail and more rain started falling.

Then a strange thing happened late in the morning; the temperature dropped suddenly by about 10 degrees F, and an unusual kind of "soft hail" mixed with rain began falling. It was the source of much excitement. The entire neighborhood seemed to be out on their decks, judging from the periodic shrieks of excitement from various directions.

Rain wrap-up 2010

The rain season of July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 ended with 24.92 inches recorded on the Stonehill News weather station. I also have made a tradition of reporting what my neighbors, Dan Gollnick, at the top of Stonehill has recorded, going back to 1999, and Bill Westphal (Wunderground call sign, KCAALTAD1) over near Loma Alta Elementary School since 2003.

Here are the available seasonal totals:

Season    PacRad     KCAALTAD1   SHN
1999-2000  19.76"      --        --
2000-2001  21.22"      --        --
2001-2002   8.27"      --        --
2002-2003  24.47"      --        --
2003-2004  15.47"     14.72"     --
2004-2005  62.56"     56.66"    61.61"
2005-2006  24.06"     22.37"    23.35"
2006-2007   6.81"     6.52 "     6.15"
2007-2008  26.04"     24.66"    23.64"
2008-2009  16.34"     15.77"    15.09"
2009-2010  26.50"     25.55"    24.92"
--------------------------------------
(04+) Avg  27.05"     25.26"    25.79"

PUSD: Perception vs Reality

"PUSD testing scores improve: Teacher layoffs leave some wary of lasting results"

I picked up the Pasadena Star News this morning, and saw this headline.

When I turned to the opinion page, I found another headline:

"The culture of PUSD must change"

The opinion piece is a Guest View by Ross Selvidge who emerged as the leader of the No on CC campaign. First let me state that, while I supported Measure CC, I do not claim there are no valid arguments against it.

That being said, I read through his piece, and just shook my head through the entire thing. It's a smug, gloating indictment of PUSD based on the same cherry-picked data and tired old tropes use during the campaign. No surprise, to be sure, but it's frustrating that the only people who seem to get local media attention with regard to PUSD are the ones who can boil the complex issues down to meaningless soundbites. The local papers have been accused of everything from laziness to outright bias on PUSD issues. It seems that they often pick up the phone to get easy quotes from the same old nattering nabobs of negativism who make a sport of sitting on the sidelines and taking pot shots. So I appreciate the factual tone of headline and the story on the front page today, and it was a disappointment to see such an uninformed and negative opinion piece in the same issue.

Big improvement at Eaton Canyon falls

Okay, this picture may not be the most inspiring, but for anyone who may have felt a bit depressed by my June post with photos and video of the extreme defacement of Eaton Canyon, north of the Mt Wilson Toll Road bridge, I have some good news .

Last weekend I hiked the trail, and was pleasantly surprised. First, while the creek was dry about 1/3 of the way up, the water was running over the falls, and was still creating enough of a pool that there were people swimming and enjoying themselves in it.

But more importantly, all the June graffiti was painted out. As you can see from the photo above, some tags have reappeared, and some of the abatement paint jobs are not the most artful, but before you gasp in horror at the thought of painting over rocks to "remove" graffiti, it really is a gigantic improvement, and the ham-handed cover-up paint job shown in the photo in only obvious because it's on a smooth surface. On rocks, the texture forces the paint-over to be more mottled and blend much better than this. I didn't get any photos of the cover-up of the "murals" at the falls (there were some women swimming and I didn't want to be creepy), but they're far less noticeable, and a major improvement.

Selected Station Fire Time Lapse Videos

These are both worth watching full screen (they are embedded as HD already)

View from Mt Wilson Sept 4th - 7th




View from across town, Aug 29

Dodging the Station Fire

Our family's two-week summer vacation started the weekend before the Station Fire. We came home for two nights (Thursday 8/27 and Friday 8/28) before it was seriously threatening our neighborhood in northeast Altadena. The breeze delivered two days of clear skies and two nights of choking smoke.

Thank goodness the wind never presented the seasonal Santa Ana pattern that can happen at this time of year, with the characteristic hot gusting winds out of the north that fanned the local fires of 1993. The Station Fire has only been fanned by the gentle Foothills breathing rhythm that residents rely on to draw the day's hot air out to sea every night. The Stonehill anemometer chronicles this pattern of gentle south breeze all day and gentle north breeze all night. A look at the current 5-day readings illustrates the breath-like regularity of this pattern.



With our windows closed all night, we contemplated our vacation plans and decided that they were in some ways a blessing. So we voluntarily evacuated to escape the smoke and enjoy the second half of our vacation on Saturday 8/29, and monitored the email lists, web cams and blogs from afar all week. The steady flow of information made it possible for us to enjoy our vacation with one eye on how things were progressing online. At one point early in the week, we contemplated flying me back home to help defend the neighborhood should it come to that, but decided against it. Amidst the bounty of near-real-time information, these photos were among some of the most reassuring to me personally. They were emailed by Dan Gollnick, showing professional Hot Shot crews fortifying the perimeter defenses along the Altadena Crest Trail.

How to subscribe to the email loop

I just had an email inquiring about getting on the stonehill news email loop.

Subscribing to our email loop is a simple self-serve process. Please feel free to share this link with your neighbors.

http://stonehillnews.com/subscribe