Southeast Corner of Santa Monica and Bundy

I've been trying to figure this one out for years.

There is a small gated park at the southeast corner of the intersection of South Bundy Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard in neighborhood of West Los Angeles. I've walked its perimeter, which is fenced, but the gate is locked, prohibiting entry.

My limited knowledge of the history of the area doesn't offer much. Nearby University High School sits atop a natural spring ("Lágrimas de Santa Monica," or "Tears of Saint Monica") that was the namesake of the city of Santa Monica. The area may have originally been incorporated in the city of Sawtelle. I'm not sure if Sawtelle's border extended that far west. According to Wikipedia, the city of Sawtelle extended west to the Santa Monica city limit, which is at Centinela Avenue.

LALife.com lists this parcel as # 4263-036-900 and categorizes it as "Government Owned Property."

AH HA! Found it!!!

Well, sort of...

It's not the authoritative history, but at least it is a story about "Bundy Greens."

Starved of Class Consciousness

I guess I'm just now in my early thirties beginning to realize how I, as an American who grew up at the end of the Cold War, was raised in world that was completely depleted of any and all real economic class consciousness. Viewed through the structural-functional paradigm, US society would have perceived any real study of communism as a contagious disease. From McCarthyism, blacklisting, and ultimately the threat of world domination and ComIntern subjegation, American citizens came to view disparate and wide ranging ideas like Marxism, Communism, Socialism (Fabianism) as one. Ironically, the collectivisation of these ideals in a figurative sense resembles the amalgamation of resources from which communism originally derived its name.
When I first attended a public high school I was told that, as a prerequisite for their employment, all of our teachers were required to sign a document stating that they would not teach their students anything about communism. This small but pertinent concept seems emblematic of the greater idea that Americans seem to have willfully and, over time, increasingly denied themselves any kind of real economic class consciousness - almost as if they were doing so for the sake of their survival.
More to come.

JCVD!

This movie was awesome! I've never been a big fan of kick-boxing so I was never really one of those who would eagerly go see Van Damme show. Recently VD had become more of an icon of eighties action movies - like Chuck Norris. I remembered from high school friends telling me how he deserved more respect than he got, that he did all his own stunts and was actually a skilled fighter (a la Bruce Lee).

This movie was a total departure. If you aren't a Van Damme fan, go see this movie. If you are a Van Damme fan, go see this movie!

Wall Street sells off, S&P 500 at 11-1/2 year low

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN02ELLSNA20081120?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

AT&T USBConnect Mercurcy

This is a neat little toy we got from AT&T Wireless. It is one of the new 3G air cards from Sierra Wireless. I had previously used one of their EDGE cards on an older Sony Vaio laptop and, while the speed was unimpressive even three years ago, it still afforded adequate coverage and consistent connectivity.

I'm still getting this new little device up and running, but I just noticed a neat and odd little feature - it comes with a slot for a MicroSD card. I'm assuming this is just a reader, but what an odd and interesting extra for this device!

We're going to be rolling this out on a 17" MacBook Pro with OS X 10.5.5 and the documentation was a little sketchy on Mac support. For a few moments I wasn't sure we were going to be able to make it work - I remember not that long ago when it took a kernel hack to get an EVDO card to connect a MacBook on Verizon Wireless. But, a quick search on the general AT&T support library revealed that the device manufacturer does in fact support operation on the Mac OS by providing the necessary driver software on their website.

The device worked great once we got it up and running. Considering the spotty coverage on what in Los Angeles is considered to be a second-class network (the EVDOs - Verizon and Sprint - rule here), the software radio seemed to provide better reception than most of the GSM voice handsets I've used in the western region of the L.A. basin.

The Feeling at the Top of the Drop

A few moments ago, I had a very tiny epiphany regarding my feelings about the current mood of the global economy; it reminded me of that feeling one has at the beginning of the ride on a roller coaster as one is about to crest the first, and generally highest, of all the drops.

The feeling is a mixture of fear, anticipation, tremendous excitement. There is agitation and discomfort in not knowing what to expect, as the view ahead is of nothing more than a precipice and oblivion.

I hope that hindsight will regard these perceptions as having been ill-founded.

Follow Up to the PowerEdge 2950 Install

Finally got it up and running last week. What a nightmare.

The first problem dealt with not having a copy of Windows Server 2003 x64. I got a copy, but once I finally got the boot disc wouldn't locate any of the logical volumes to install itself on. I figured this was one of those circumstances where I'd need a third-party SCSI or RAID driver. Sure enough, I had to call Dell, figuring they could help me out. They sure did. Turns out the PowerEdge I was shipped had an optical drive of the CD-ROM variety. That's fine, except the SCSI and RAID drivers I needed, which were not located on the support.dell.com website, were shipped from Dell on a DVD-ROM disc. The Dell tech was super helpful and helped me figure this problem out. The workaround involved a desktop with an ISO CD burning program and a CD-R/W DVD-ROM drive. Thank god I just happened to have one of those lying around.

So, I got the ISO off the DVD, burned it to a CD, then took that CD and the Windows install disc back to the server. I had to boot off the driver disc, which would prepare an install config. I then had to insert the Windows disc. The machine rebooted itself and began the install, which took about half an hour. Once that was complete it worked great. Nice and fast. The only problem was that this server was destined to be part of our existing Exchange 2003 topology.

On 64-bit platforms the only version of Exchange you can run is 2007. Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade. I guess I'll have another article to write once that is done.