Three Parts of One Photo, Westwood and UCLA

These are three parts of one photograph.  One pigeon part, one palm tree part and a larger part that contains the other two.

 Pigeon godhead rising out of light.

Love that glow-in-the-light stop sign.  Didn't give you a shot of just the stop sign.

Palm reflected in background building.  Sorry for the blur.  

The Picture UCLA Doesn't Want You To See!

Truely.  After I took this picture, I was settling in to take a picture of a sign warning cars to not run over the pedestrians.  A very large UCLA HealthCare Security guard who was walking along where I was barked at me "Don't take pictures of the buildings!"  I was incredulous, and asked "You mean I can't take pictures of my own building?"  The guard repeated his statement.  I asked why.  He wouldn't answer.  I moved on, shaking.  It took me a full day to calm down.  I still think he was massively out of line.  One of these days I'll take that other picture and post it.  Probably there is a copy of it already in the blog; I know I've been around there snapping shots.

Without further ado:

Crane over UCLA.

And here is what I probably would have posted had the security guard not interfered.  I like stairs, but that is one intimidating length of stairs to climb up while exposed to the entire world while getting to work.  

Two Trips to Restaurants

And we wandered off to not one, but two restaurants this day.  Here are the patterns and views from traveling.

Light patterns from the blinds.

And the view through the blinds.

Colorful garden plants.

For lease up to 2 gazillion square feet and a view of the restaurant.

Glowing green roof.  Evidence of alien contamination?

The roads are like highways out in Valencia, where the bricks are insane.

Southern California downpour.

What's on your ceiling?

A Trip to the non-Warren Buffet

And we wandered off to the morning's buffet brunch.

The usual contradictions of buffet brunch.  Fruit, potatoe with an e, pasta with red sauce, rib singular and pasta with white sauce.  And all of it slopping over and into the next item.

This is your bacon before you eat the bacon and this is your brain after you eat the bacon.

And this is the bacon after you've eaten most of it.  Hopefully not your brain before you eat the bacon.

Take this blog with a grain of salt.

Sweet champagne, with humidity.   

Cool cool refreshing glass of water.

Time for dessert: blueberry cream pie.  

A much too delicious oreo crusted non-cheese cake something else pie.

Larchmont District: Olio

A collection of found objects in the Larchmont district.

Best buddies.  Partners in getting pissed on.

Ah the über-friendly establishment. How do you like my umlaut?

Since when did they start making wooden phone booths?

Raindrop detritus on the table top.

As part of our homeless bum and wayward teenager dispersal program, we put sharp vertical objects on all non-approved horizontal sitting surfaces.

Double protection, belt and suspenders.  If the wheel stop doesn't get them, the guardrail will.

Stairway to heaven.  Or at least the second floor.  And just how do I know it's not a stairway to the ground floor?

Stop all that $#!+.

Reflections in a small puddle.

Someone put a lot of time into this.

Loved the picture.  A little blurry, but oh so colorful.  I had to include this.  In case you are hungry.

Ghost photographer.

Larchmont District: Oh, The Trees

As any happening district must, Larchmont is peppered with non-pepper trees of an arty and artistic nature.  And you know what that means:  ROOTS!  And BRANCHES!  And tree trimming!  And root trimming!  And so, forthwith:

Roots.  These are those destructive type trees, so you need to be on top of them, trimming the roots or you get sidewalk heave and that means: LAWSUITS and that means: LAWYERS.

Enough branches to shake a stick at.  As the song puts it: one more leading nowhere, just for show.

The whole tree and nothing but the tree, so help me.

Shaggy.  Auditioned for the part in Scooby-doo.  Made the first call backs, but Matthew Lillard could better chase after Scooby.

Underneath this tree lies a hoard of buried treasure.  Or perhaps a batch of alien eggs.  Trees need better labels.

Larchmont District Shops

Visited the Larchmont district near Melrose and Vine over by the Wilshire country club.  These are pictures of some of the shops.

Barber shop has been here for quite some time, from before this was a happening area.

Alley way for tenants only.  No deliveries, so what's the point?  Are we talking residential tenants?  And not commercial tenants?

I like the green paint job for the Avocado Grill, but I'm less certain about visiting an all-green skin care and massage mini-spa.  Perhaps Kermit might enjoy a visit?  

Please, step into my back parlour for cookies and milk.  Over here is the master bedroom suite and down this hallway you can find the children's bedrooms.  Can you imagine spending 8 work hours a day in this?  Where do you take breaks?  And the bathroom?

One of the less quainter (is that a word?) establishments.