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Redondo Beach was hosting a chalk art festival, so I headed down there with my camera to take some pictures of the sidewalk art. It was mostly kids, so the art was mostly lousy, but there were a few nice pieces and a band and plenty of beach sunshine.

I’ve linked to something like The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List in the past. This blog post connected some dots for me though by mentioning that people get together to discuss the books. Sort of a book club/development group. I like that. I may need to find some like minded professionals in LA (westside/south bay) to do that with me. I’m sure I’d get more out of it than just reading the books on my own. Let me know if you’re interested in something like that.

The tall ships have sailed into Ports of Call in San Pedro. I headed down with my camera to make some ship photos. Their riggings are crazy. I don’t even know how you determine which sheet to pull, but it’s kind of cool getting a chance to check them out. There was supposed to be some kind of cannon battle, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to some place where I could see it. Maybe next year.

RoofRay is kind of an interesting site. You enter your address into google maps. You outline your roof (preferably a southern facing roof), and it calculates how much power solar panels could generate for you. It even runs the numbers to tell you what an installation would cost and how long it would take you to make your investment back.

Things I Learned Today: There’s a lot of ambiguity when Hamlet tells Ophelia to “get thee to a nunnery” because a nunnery was both a convent (which is how I read it) and a brothel. I had no idea.

I Love Sarah Jane is an excellent little short about a boyhood crush and kids surviving in a world that has been overrun by zombies. There’s some gore and a lot of swearing, so stay away at work. I’m surprised at how well done it is (if we forget for a moment the explosion since that was just dumb). I want to see more from this world.

Anybody who’s reading my web site (except for maybe my Mom), probably already knows about Jonathan Coulton. He is a big ol’ internet superstar after all. I’d been hearing him on various podcasts and in other dark corners of the internet for a while now. I like his stuff a lot. It’s funny and geeky and earnest in just the right proportions, and he seems like a great guy from what I can tell. I’ve been meaning to buy a few songs. I finally got around to buying 7, and downloading another 15. Good stuff. If you aren’t familiar with him, go check him out. If, like me, you’ve been meaning to buy a few songs, now is a as good a time as any.

I’d heard about Dr. Horrible, but I didn’t pay much attention until today. The first of a 3 part episode was out yesterday. The 2nd is out tomorrow. You have until July 20th to see all 3 on the internet. It’s better than I would have expected. Very high production values, and a quirky sense of humor.

We need more video content created for the Internet, so go check it out if you’re into that kind of thing.

Santa Barbara puts on a French Festival to celebrate Bastille Day weekend, so I headed up there to check it out. It was a little smaller than I was expecting/hoping. I’m not sure it’s really worth the drive all the way to Santa Barbara to see it (especially given the price of gas these days), but it was colorful in its way, and I got to eat crepes and put my head in a guillotine (and take it out again, still attached to my neck, which I find is a key to really enjoying the guillotine). There were lots of dogs, lots of baguettes and a few photos.

I headed over to Marina del Rey to celebrate America’s birthday and make some photos of fireworks. I really need something in the foreground to make these shots a bit more interesting. I had hoped I might get some water reflections, but I wasn’t set up in a good place for that, and I ended up zooming in, so all you really get are the bursts of light. Maybe next year…