I went down the beach today to go swimming, the first time in many months I've done that. The water was a decently warm 69 degrees and the tide was +1.5 right as I was there at 4:30 PM, so high that there was almost no dry sand. Normally a high tide would not have such a drastic effect on the sand but this last winter the storms were very strong and a lot of sand was washed out to sea. The beach level at the end of Oceanside Blvd (lifeguard tower 9) is at least 5 or 6 feet lower than normal; the waves were washing right up the access ramp, something that never happens otherwise.
The beach down at the pier is in even worse shape; instead of a typical SoCal sandy beach there are hundreds of yards of exposed rocks of varying sizes and a 2 or 3 foot berm of sand that one has to climb up or down to get to the water.
It's ugly, unappealing and a tourist turn-off. Word gets around fast with the internet these days; a bunch of tourists posting at hotel review sites or tourism sites or wherever will note the poor condition of the beach and warn other potential visitors away. We can't pretend that no one reads travel boards or hotel review sites.
Tourism is vital for a beach town but our appeal lies in our beaches and water; we will be suffering a lot this summer, I bet.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
New Website Look and Feel
I've spent the last two weeks off and on revamping my website; out with the late 90's html and in with the early 2000's css! Yay!
Alan Zeleznikar Dot Com
Alan Zeleznikar Dot Com
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Clean Up Time
Have you guys started top pick up your signs yet? They transformed from free speech to litter at 8:00 PM local time.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
2010 Oceanside City Council Election
Tonight I went to the Oceanside City Council chambers to sit in on the candidate forum for the special election we're having to fill Rocky Chavez' empty spot. It was sponsored by the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce and moderated by one of the members, maybe the president. I don't know exactly, because...
Confession: L called me right as the session was started needing some help so I missed the first 30 minutes because I was talking to her. Sorry, priorities.
The forum had 7 candidates: Lloyd Prosser, Mike Lucas, Chuck Lowery, Ward O'Doherty, a write-in named Dowell and Ken Crossman.
Lucas was not nearly as looney as he was 2 years ago at the last one of these I attended; he's a slippery one. His website and campaign materials seem reasonable; you have to actually interact with him to get that he's a crank. He did claim that our water supply is not safe and does not meet Federal regulations for safety because he has it tested every year and it flunks. No details though. He has a real issue with water and development; he's lived here 30+ years and this is the second time I've heard him complain that there are too many houses and people here. No comment about what he would do about that, such as, I dunno, having the City buy up houses he doesn't like or something, but he doesn't believe in water conservation "because my house was built in 1975 and when I moved here there was enough water." He also commented that he'd vote "No" on everything.
Of the remaining candidates, Dowell doesn't stand a chance as a write-in and did not say anything noteworthy anyway. Crossman doesn't have a website and had no campaign materials available so he's out. That leaves Lowrey, O'Doherty and Prosser.
Lowery first; a lifetime Oceanside resident and now a former small business owner; he sold his bakery that he'd run for decades here in town a few months ago apparently. Basically supports redevelopment without sweetheart deals to developers, supports the idea of city employees paying into CALPERS (everyone did, no differentiation there). Surprising to me he does not support a city-funded July 4 celebration "in this recession." Supports re-sanding the beaches with taxpayer money (which is how it gets done, by the way).
O'Doherty is a new-comer to the political scene. He is a former TV show producer and director and is claiming a credit for the 1996 Olympics, the Academy Awards and Golden Globes and some other stuff. I haven't been able to find anything on that so my conclusion is that he was some peon second unit guy and not a part of the primary production team. He is now a "financial advisor" - you know, one of those useless professions whose services no one really needs. He seems like a decent enough guy, very earnest and frustrated at the "closed club" that is local politics. He seemed to be in favor of the same things everyone else was. Didn't support the beach sand thing, which tells me he hasn't lived in beach towns very much. Also thought we didn't accentuate tourism enough (but apparently won't pay to rebuild the beaches every Spring, go figure).
He did get off a funny comment during the Q&A where they were all asked "Do any of you have a family member already working for the city?" His comment was "I don't have any family members working anywhere."
By the way, there was a reason for that question...
And now to Lloyd Prosser. Of all of these guys, Prosser "looks" and "acts" like a politician - very smooth, very congenial. Comes off as reasonable. A life-long Oceanside resident (sort of since he was in the USMC and retired as a Lt Col but apparently was born here and went to Oside High and has lived here since at least retirement 20 years ago) he, again, seemed to be in line with the other 2 or 3 guys I was watching. He spent 17 years as an Oceanside Utilities Commission bureaucrat and is now some sort of government "consultant" (eyeroll). But, all that bullshit notwithstanding and this in my opinion is a big negative, his wife is Vicky Prosser, who is Jack "Cement Plant" Feller's personal assistant. So, I guess if you like that guy then you'll like Lloyd Prosser. I dunno, do we really need another frickin' USMC retired officer on the City Council? Rocky was such a success for the city, after all... (that was sarcasm).
There were several other questions asked by the moderator (where they came from I don't know, they weren't audience-sourced) that were semi-stupid in their form, such as "How many of you have ever signed the front of a paycheck?" Meaning, I suppose, how many of you have ever owned a business?" But were I a clerk working at a payroll company I could say "Yes" to that question. Later they were asked if they had ever "managed" a business, which you can say "yes" to and not be the owner. So, I'll go ahead and say some dipshit at the Oside Chamber of Commerce thought that first question was "clever."
I guess the Waste Management trash and recycling contract is crappy and everyone was all over that, too.
So, we're kinda same-old same-old as far as choices go here, meaning the pool of candidates do not represent any sort of radical agenda and they are all professional looking and acting, something that was also emphasized as important for council relations. The more moderate left leaning candidates actually have more relevant experience at running businesses than the more right leaning ones (one of whom has basically spent his entire adult life sucking on the government teat either in the military or as a civilian government bureaucrat), even though that always seems to be oh so very important to the right leaning voters.
How ironic, and not in a "black fly in your chardonnay" kind of way.
A quick note about Proposition K, the charter city proposition. This thing is a stinker, but not in the concept, it is a stinker in the execution. It was written by Associated Builders and Contractors lobbyist Bill Baber with/for Jack Feller (he's not smart enough to be able to write something like that himself). It's just their little project, done in secret with who knows what kind or "agreements" between them. I'm not being a loony here, that radical left leaning liberal loony newspaper the North County Times says this things sucks and should be given the heave-ho, because it among other things does not include language requiring competitive bidding for contractor jobs with the city. Hmmmmm... an ABC lobbyist not including language like that? Had to be a mistake, right?
Confession: L called me right as the session was started needing some help so I missed the first 30 minutes because I was talking to her. Sorry, priorities.
The forum had 7 candidates: Lloyd Prosser, Mike Lucas, Chuck Lowery, Ward O'Doherty, a write-in named Dowell and Ken Crossman.
Lucas was not nearly as looney as he was 2 years ago at the last one of these I attended; he's a slippery one. His website and campaign materials seem reasonable; you have to actually interact with him to get that he's a crank. He did claim that our water supply is not safe and does not meet Federal regulations for safety because he has it tested every year and it flunks. No details though. He has a real issue with water and development; he's lived here 30+ years and this is the second time I've heard him complain that there are too many houses and people here. No comment about what he would do about that, such as, I dunno, having the City buy up houses he doesn't like or something, but he doesn't believe in water conservation "because my house was built in 1975 and when I moved here there was enough water." He also commented that he'd vote "No" on everything.
Of the remaining candidates, Dowell doesn't stand a chance as a write-in and did not say anything noteworthy anyway. Crossman doesn't have a website and had no campaign materials available so he's out. That leaves Lowrey, O'Doherty and Prosser.
Lowery first; a lifetime Oceanside resident and now a former small business owner; he sold his bakery that he'd run for decades here in town a few months ago apparently. Basically supports redevelopment without sweetheart deals to developers, supports the idea of city employees paying into CALPERS (everyone did, no differentiation there). Surprising to me he does not support a city-funded July 4 celebration "in this recession." Supports re-sanding the beaches with taxpayer money (which is how it gets done, by the way).
O'Doherty is a new-comer to the political scene. He is a former TV show producer and director and is claiming a credit for the 1996 Olympics, the Academy Awards and Golden Globes and some other stuff. I haven't been able to find anything on that so my conclusion is that he was some peon second unit guy and not a part of the primary production team. He is now a "financial advisor" - you know, one of those useless professions whose services no one really needs. He seems like a decent enough guy, very earnest and frustrated at the "closed club" that is local politics. He seemed to be in favor of the same things everyone else was. Didn't support the beach sand thing, which tells me he hasn't lived in beach towns very much. Also thought we didn't accentuate tourism enough (but apparently won't pay to rebuild the beaches every Spring, go figure).
He did get off a funny comment during the Q&A where they were all asked "Do any of you have a family member already working for the city?" His comment was "I don't have any family members working anywhere."
By the way, there was a reason for that question...
And now to Lloyd Prosser. Of all of these guys, Prosser "looks" and "acts" like a politician - very smooth, very congenial. Comes off as reasonable. A life-long Oceanside resident (sort of since he was in the USMC and retired as a Lt Col but apparently was born here and went to Oside High and has lived here since at least retirement 20 years ago) he, again, seemed to be in line with the other 2 or 3 guys I was watching. He spent 17 years as an Oceanside Utilities Commission bureaucrat and is now some sort of government "consultant" (eyeroll). But, all that bullshit notwithstanding and this in my opinion is a big negative, his wife is Vicky Prosser, who is Jack "Cement Plant" Feller's personal assistant. So, I guess if you like that guy then you'll like Lloyd Prosser. I dunno, do we really need another frickin' USMC retired officer on the City Council? Rocky was such a success for the city, after all... (that was sarcasm).
There were several other questions asked by the moderator (where they came from I don't know, they weren't audience-sourced) that were semi-stupid in their form, such as "How many of you have ever signed the front of a paycheck?" Meaning, I suppose, how many of you have ever owned a business?" But were I a clerk working at a payroll company I could say "Yes" to that question. Later they were asked if they had ever "managed" a business, which you can say "yes" to and not be the owner. So, I'll go ahead and say some dipshit at the Oside Chamber of Commerce thought that first question was "clever."
I guess the Waste Management trash and recycling contract is crappy and everyone was all over that, too.
So, we're kinda same-old same-old as far as choices go here, meaning the pool of candidates do not represent any sort of radical agenda and they are all professional looking and acting, something that was also emphasized as important for council relations. The more moderate left leaning candidates actually have more relevant experience at running businesses than the more right leaning ones (one of whom has basically spent his entire adult life sucking on the government teat either in the military or as a civilian government bureaucrat), even though that always seems to be oh so very important to the right leaning voters.
How ironic, and not in a "black fly in your chardonnay" kind of way.
A quick note about Proposition K, the charter city proposition. This thing is a stinker, but not in the concept, it is a stinker in the execution. It was written by Associated Builders and Contractors lobbyist Bill Baber with/for Jack Feller (he's not smart enough to be able to write something like that himself). It's just their little project, done in secret with who knows what kind or "agreements" between them. I'm not being a loony here, that radical left leaning liberal loony newspaper the North County Times says this things sucks and should be given the heave-ho, because it among other things does not include language requiring competitive bidding for contractor jobs with the city. Hmmmmm... an ABC lobbyist not including language like that? Had to be a mistake, right?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Waiting
Been a rough 5 or 6 weeks and a tough week this week and I am looking forward to a little relief tomorrow and through the weekend finally.
I've signed up for 2 UCSD Extension photography classes; one a studio lighting/strobe usage class and the other a portraiture class. Probably a lot of overlap from the studio lighting class I had but I need as much background in the area of artificial lighting as I can get.
I've also upped my web presence by opening a Photoshelter account based on a suggestion from the instructor in my Business of Photography class - the same one who pronounced my work as "not ready for prime time."
Oh well.
In brighter news I had a great time at the Elvis Costello solo show in downtown San Diego the last Sunday night - Elvis, 7 or 8 guitars and almost 2 hours of music. Super-fun awesomeness!
I've signed up for 2 UCSD Extension photography classes; one a studio lighting/strobe usage class and the other a portraiture class. Probably a lot of overlap from the studio lighting class I had but I need as much background in the area of artificial lighting as I can get.
I've also upped my web presence by opening a Photoshelter account based on a suggestion from the instructor in my Business of Photography class - the same one who pronounced my work as "not ready for prime time."
Oh well.
In brighter news I had a great time at the Elvis Costello solo show in downtown San Diego the last Sunday night - Elvis, 7 or 8 guitars and almost 2 hours of music. Super-fun awesomeness!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Oceanside Traffic Plan Public Comment and Review Meeting
I went to a public comment meeting tonight regarding the update to the "Circulation Plan" which is basically the transportation plan for the city with predictions out to 2030. In case any of you are interested, the city is still acting as though the Rancho del Oro/SR78 interchange is going to be built. Also, the lady that owns the Marron Adobe down in the valley below the 78 was there. She's huge. Some guy also urged the city to work with Carlsbad to extend Cannon Rd south to connect up with ECR (?). All of the objections were voiced by local neighborhood activists.
A quick note about the traffic light at Cameo and RdO. Apparently it was put in without the proper procedures and a couple of the neighborhood activists demanded it be removed since it looks like the first tendrils of building the offramp.
By the way, I thought they were going to present the plan tonight but no, the assumption from the planners and was that everyone had already read it, which I had not, so I have to acquire it from the city and then take a look. You guys might want to, as well.
I can tell you this, though, as I mentioned RdO/78 is still on the table, widening College Blvd to 6 lanes up to Mission Ave is on the books (with an option for a 6 lane/4 lane hybrid, 6 lanes up to Olive St) but I have no idea how they're gonna do that past Oceanside Blvd to be honest, some connecting work in the north east area where the agriculture and horses are and of course the legendary I5/78 interchange improvement, something that has been on the books since the late 70's early 80's.
So basically the plan reflects a city that is still developing but didn't really plan correctly back when this part of town was still rolling hills and RdO was created as a residential street, not a throughway between 78 and 76 plus assumes that the only good transportation solutions are single occupancy single trip automobiles, which in 20 years will seem quaint, I'm sure.
I also had the "honor" of meeting Councilman Jack Feller, who in his chit chat with me let it be known he was quite unimpressed with the peoples' objections to the plan. Jerry Kern, Esther Sanchez and Jim Woods were also there.
A quick note about the traffic light at Cameo and RdO. Apparently it was put in without the proper procedures and a couple of the neighborhood activists demanded it be removed since it looks like the first tendrils of building the offramp.
By the way, I thought they were going to present the plan tonight but no, the assumption from the planners and was that everyone had already read it, which I had not, so I have to acquire it from the city and then take a look. You guys might want to, as well.
I can tell you this, though, as I mentioned RdO/78 is still on the table, widening College Blvd to 6 lanes up to Mission Ave is on the books (with an option for a 6 lane/4 lane hybrid, 6 lanes up to Olive St) but I have no idea how they're gonna do that past Oceanside Blvd to be honest, some connecting work in the north east area where the agriculture and horses are and of course the legendary I5/78 interchange improvement, something that has been on the books since the late 70's early 80's.
So basically the plan reflects a city that is still developing but didn't really plan correctly back when this part of town was still rolling hills and RdO was created as a residential street, not a throughway between 78 and 76 plus assumes that the only good transportation solutions are single occupancy single trip automobiles, which in 20 years will seem quaint, I'm sure.
I also had the "honor" of meeting Councilman Jack Feller, who in his chit chat with me let it be known he was quite unimpressed with the peoples' objections to the plan. Jerry Kern, Esther Sanchez and Jim Woods were also there.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Death Valley Road Trip and Photo Safari
Last week I went on a 4 day photo road trip with a pal from work. We had a good time and accomplished a lot of sight-seeing and photo making. But, I also came face to face with many of my limitations as a photographer. I had a lot of equipment management problems and operator errors. I've forgotten how to operate some of my lesser-used but vital on this trip accessories, such as my wireless remote shutter controller.
I have mentioned to several people that I need to sit down and literally spread out my gear on the living room floor to do an inventory. I have too much stuff these days and have forgotten what I own. AND it's spread out all over the house too.
For example, I brought two 2 MB cards. I couldn't find one of them after I got to the motel so I had to limp along with just one card, which was filled by the end of the day each day. When I got home Sunday and began the process of transferring the files to my computer I noticed I had an 8 MB card right next to the monitor. A few days later I found my other 2 MB card. I had problems with my remote control. I was messing up camera settings. Battery power was an issue.
I totally did not put 2 and 2 together that my road trip buddy had a DC to AC converter power source; I could have plugged my battery right into my charger right there in the car or even transferred files to the laptop as my single 2 MB card filled up.
I have a dedicated gear spot in my office upstairs, I should start taking that seriously.
I've decided that I need to set up an High Dynamic Range custom function on my camera and want to see if I can force it to take 5 shots instead of the stock 3 shots from AEB. Plus I have decided I need to be in Aperture Priority mode when doing it. For panoramas I need to shoot in a small f-stop especially if I want to do a vertical one. Stay away from 1600 ISO long exposure night work. My night shots need noise reduction on, so now I have to get Noise Ninja to reduce the noise I have in those images I took out there with it off.
I learned a lot on this trip, mostly about how scatterbrained I am. I need a physical checklist of my gear and I need to develop more experience and skills so that I can execute a more accurate mental checklist for each type of shot; HDR, panorama, long exposure night, whatever. I will develop some paper checklists for these different techniques and then take them out with me and work with them until I've memorized them.
This photography stuff is hard, man.
Death Valley photos
I have mentioned to several people that I need to sit down and literally spread out my gear on the living room floor to do an inventory. I have too much stuff these days and have forgotten what I own. AND it's spread out all over the house too.
For example, I brought two 2 MB cards. I couldn't find one of them after I got to the motel so I had to limp along with just one card, which was filled by the end of the day each day. When I got home Sunday and began the process of transferring the files to my computer I noticed I had an 8 MB card right next to the monitor. A few days later I found my other 2 MB card. I had problems with my remote control. I was messing up camera settings. Battery power was an issue.
I totally did not put 2 and 2 together that my road trip buddy had a DC to AC converter power source; I could have plugged my battery right into my charger right there in the car or even transferred files to the laptop as my single 2 MB card filled up.
I have a dedicated gear spot in my office upstairs, I should start taking that seriously.
I've decided that I need to set up an High Dynamic Range custom function on my camera and want to see if I can force it to take 5 shots instead of the stock 3 shots from AEB. Plus I have decided I need to be in Aperture Priority mode when doing it. For panoramas I need to shoot in a small f-stop especially if I want to do a vertical one. Stay away from 1600 ISO long exposure night work. My night shots need noise reduction on, so now I have to get Noise Ninja to reduce the noise I have in those images I took out there with it off.
I learned a lot on this trip, mostly about how scatterbrained I am. I need a physical checklist of my gear and I need to develop more experience and skills so that I can execute a more accurate mental checklist for each type of shot; HDR, panorama, long exposure night, whatever. I will develop some paper checklists for these different techniques and then take them out with me and work with them until I've memorized them.
This photography stuff is hard, man.
Death Valley photos
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