Endeavour at LAX!

Last Friday, the Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at LAX after being ferried cross-country by NASA's Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier.  The building where I work faces LAX, so I had a front row seat to Endeavour's 4 passes. I worked on Space Shuttle back in the day - 9 years doing thermal analysis on proprietary payloads, then designing ECLSS water/oxygen lines for its space station docking module, then working on several possible shuttle upgrade projects. It was exciting to see its last flight, but sad that there's nothing really to replace it.  

Here are some photos from the event, plus a video of it coming in for landing - great view until I ran out of window. Enjoy!

Third pass - look at all the parked cars on the 105 Fwy with their occupants out taking photos.

Circling around our buildings before coming in to land.

Cars stopped on the 105 Fwy on-ramp.

Just landed - welcome home!

Random shots from a busy week

This week has been busy - we celebrated Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) on Monday and Tuesday.  I had a very good time - prayers, services, friends and family over for meals.  But I still have to get my work done around the holidays (satellites must be built!).  So not much time for photography.  But since it's been a while since I posted, I wanted to put something up for the interim.  Here are a few random shots taken from the car.  I hope you enjoy them.

Walk around town

I went for a walk this morning - early, before it got hot again (I'm ready for some cool fall weather right about now).  My route took me through Los Angeles, a little bit of West Hollywood, and Hollywood.  Some of the way was along residential streets, but a lot was along Sunset Blvd and La Brea Ave.  I'll give a little commentary, but see if you can guess which photos are from which city.

There are a lot of photos posted below, but I hope you'll enjoy scrolling through them all.

The alley just south of Melrose has a lot of street art, some of it commissioned.

Local bar

Since my neighborhood is not an historical district, no street is safe from
over-sized houses being built on modest lots.

Lantana

The street I walked north on is full of sweet little bungalows...

... though some have been peculiarly re-muddled.

One last hold out amongst the apartment buildings.

Hollywood Hills.

The apartment complex my grandparents owned in the 1960's.

Burger lovers paradise:  south side corner of Santa Monica Blvd...

...and the north side corner.

Cherimoya

Flowers and fencing #1

Famous sites on Sunset Blvd.

Even movie stars need to do their laundry...!

Most of the people I met on Sunset at this time of day were the homeless.

Flowers and fencing #2

Did you guess that I was in Hollywood at this point?

But this classy place was right next door.  Go figure.

Jim Henson's Muppet Productions, located at the old Charlie Chaplin studio.

Charlie's here too.

What once was a charming bungalow, now gone seedy.  It would be nice if
someone bought it and renovated it, but since it's located on a busy commercial
section of La Brea, its days are probably numbered.

A little television reference.

Flowers and fencing #3

Flowers and fencing #4

I think it's so interesting that there is a cement plant right in the city!
Actually, I pass two more of these plants on my way to work every day.

No walk would be complete without a psychic sighting.

One of the ubiquitous medical marijuana clinics.  I must have passed
twenty of them on my walk.

Tourist mecca.  By noon there will be a humongous line.

Friendly robots saying good-bye!