Notice of Intent (to cancel Allied Waste Services)

For shame!

A little background. As many in this area will recall, about two or three years ago, BFI was bought out by Allied Waste Services. When it was still BFI, Athens Services came to town , offering a cheaper alternative, but rather than switch, I called up BFI and told them I had a lower offer. BFI promptly matched Athens' rate without argument. Ever since Allied Waste took over, they have been trying to sneak up my rate, but each time I have called and told them that Athens is cheaper, and they have (now grudgingly) acquiesced and matched Athens rate.

Wind-powered Blackout

As far as I know, we still have no power this morning (I'm in a Starbucks). According to Steve Gerow, the Edison message from last night estimated power being restored by noon today. My rough estimate from a walk last night is that the blackout area was all of Loma Alta east of Sunny Oaks and all the side streets off Loma Alta along the same stretch. Zane Gray and Rubio Crest were lit up as if nothing happened. I didn't walk around the bend towards Noyes, so I don't know how far east it really stretched. A few of us saw a truck driving around last night with a spot light, presumably looking for downed lines. My weather station computer stayed on battery power until about midnight. The image above is the last one it uploaded before the network went down.

[10am Update: Got back to Stonehill and found power had come back at about 8am. Updated wind gust chart above shows additional weather station logging all the way through the windstorm, and then a gap until it came back to life when the power was restored this morning.]

Great Cougar Pic

This amazing shot of a mountain lion was posted on the ACT mailing list this morning with a caption reading in part, "Photo taken by JPL employee Wednesday,1-16-08, looking down into the Arroyo Seco from the bridge from the JPL east parking lot to the JPL campus."

PSN focus on Education

Pasadena Star News deserves credit (clicks and eyeballs) for giving us a dedicated Eduction section on their website to complement their new Tuesday section on the same subject.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/education

This kind of substantial reporting about PUSD that goes beyond the scandal-du-jour is to be commended. Please vote with your clicks and visit it every week.

(One day maybe they'll even give us the Education article RSS feed I've been asking for)

Jack Scott at ATC meeting tonight

from http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/search/ci_6921705

State of the State address in Altadena

ALTADENA - State Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, will give a State of the State address at tonight's Altadena Town Council meeting, which begins at 7 at the Altadena Community Center, 730 E. Altadena Drive.

Scott will speak at 7:30 p.m.

For more information, call (626) 398-6174.

Pasadena Now: scooping the pulp press

I just read a Dormitas post in which s/he makes this aside: "This from Pasadena Now (the most consistent coverage of Pasadena news we have):"

I couldn't agree with Dormitas more.

Pasadena Now, the news organization that recently made the headlines by outsourcing journalism to India, seems to be scooping the old guard Pasadena pulp press.



Pasadena Now shows some technical rough edges, probably hallmarks of being a small operation. For examples, the fact that their home page CSS doesn't render properly on all browsers, and their Flash content throws non-fatal errors (see screen image above). At first I was dismissive of PN based on their lack of technical polish, but then Jill Davis Doughtie pointed out their Headlines RSS feed:

http://www.pasadenalivingmagazine.com/_ArticleManager/publish/rss.xml

Yesterday's high over 109 °F

Yesterday the Stonehill News weather station recorded a high of 108.1 °F but we lost power and Internet during the hottest part of the day. The mercury thermometer topped out between 109 °F and 110 °F (approximately 109.5 °F, but I don't want to state it too precisely as the mercury thermometer has lower resolution than the digital one).

ID	Location	High
KCAALTAD1	Top Of Lake Ave	108.3 °F
KCAALTAD2	Stonehill Dr	108.1 °F
KCAALTAD3	N. Mount Curve	104.1 °F
KCAALTAD7	Zane Grey	104.4 °F

The other three Altadena weather stations all seemed to have stayed online through the day yesterday. Above are yesterday's local highs as recorded on WUG.

Last year, July 22 is the day (not) to beat with a high of 112.5 °F recorded at Stonehill News.

It seems that we may have the dubious distinction of being the hottest place in Altadena =)

I considered the possibility that my temperature gauge was out of calibration, but it generally agrees with the mercury one. I guess it's possible they're both reading high, but not likely. They are both positioned in the shade on the north side of the garage, and never see direct sun. Assuming that the thermometers are reading correctly, I assume that there is some micro climate effect having to do with the orientation of the Gooseberry Canyon (watershed)