Category — whole wide world

It’s time once again for Silver Lake’s world famous Sunset Junction Street Fair. That means lots of great people, great food and drinks, and of course, great music. If you don’t live in Silver Lake and are just visiting for Sunset Junction, it’s also a great time to take a walk up some of the amazing Silver Lake stairs and hills. The climbs up Micheltorena St., Golden Gate Ave. and Maltman Ave. all provide amazing views of the city and a nice leg workout. Just remember to wear a comfortable pair of walking or running shoes, and have a great time!

Save the date: this Friday, August 15th, 2008 from 12 noon to 1 pm Pacific time.

That’s when two hunters plan to reveal the dead body of a Bigfoot they discovered in the Georgia wilderness at a press conference in Palo Alto, CA. I thought I knew just about all there was to know about Sasquatch investigations, but I have just discovered that there is a whole Georgian Bigfoot history that I knew nothing about. So if the press conference Friday turns out to be legitimate and not another Sasquatch hoax, this Bigfoot discovery may feel like a sort of victory for the people of Georgia.

Here’s a photo of the alleged Bigfoot:

I am a little skeptical (and I’m not the only one), but I am still curious about the press conference. I hope it’s not just a publicity stunt!

Eco-conscious yet deal-minded home decorators and re-modelers can rejoice: IKEA may be adding things like solar panels and other “green goods” to its inventory in the near future. That would be a great way to green up your home on a budget, provided you don’t mind sitting in the traffic nightmare that is the IKEA parking lot (OK, maybe the parking situation at the Burbank store has me a little jaded.)

If you can’t wait until solar panels make it onto IKEA shelves, check out the links:

• Solar Home
• Affordable Solar
• House Power Magazine

I just wanted to take a second to thank my guest blogger Safiyyah Lanier for the recent post on Outdoor Urbanite. You’ll be seeing more of her work, and maybe a few more guest bloggers in the future, since there is so much great outdoor information out there and it is difficult for just one Urbanite to keep up!

Thanks again for the great posts!

Terri

Ugh, I just spent 2 hour in Photoshop making a fabulous “Happy Independence Day!” image, and now the darn thing won’t load! But I wanted to get my good wishes posted before I take off for the holiday weekend, so here goes:

Have a fun, fantastic, amazing time as you celebrate 4th of July!!! And remember, dogs hate fireworks, so please have extra consideration for your special pooch during their most stressful time of year!

See you next week!

Apparently there is now a theory that over-use of GPS navigation will make people eventually lose their natural sense of direction. While I’d love to try to dispute that, there are unfortunately already far too many stories about people doing really dumb things in the name of GPS, and it seems like the trend will continue as the technology improves.

Some examples of what over-reliance on GPS can cause:

Faith in GPS sends Mercedes downstream when the driver listens to GPS instead of signs warning of danger.

GPS cause accident in France when an elderly man made an “immediate U-turn” on a highway due to a GPS prompt.

Man follows GPS straight into a train and his car gets smashed. He’s lucky he wasn’t still in the car.

A British Village Requests Removal From GPS Maps after too many trucks caused accidents in the town’s narrow streets.

I wonder if there is any information about which GPS units are the most problematic, or if this problem is just something that affects GPS systems in general. It seems like it’s fine to use GPS as a helper in your travels, but don’t rely on it as an authority.

I know I said I would blog more about my Route 66 road trip months ago, so my apologies that is has taken me this long to get around to it. I have decided to go through the states along the way in no particular order, starting with New Mexico.

I LOVE the New Mexico section of Route 66, even if it has been mostly consumed by I-40. It was great to have the GPS system in the car because my obsession with sampling biscuits and gravy at various Denny’s restaurants between Los Angeles and Missouri got us off track more than once. I know there might be plenty of diners and restaurants along the way that some people consider “better” than Denny’s, but I am not interested in those places. I am a huge Denny’s fan and I don’t care what anyone says. I didn’t care that someone scribbled anti-Denny’s graffiti in one of the rest rooms in Joshua Tree National Park, I still ate at that Denny’s later that evening. Which happened to also be Christmas Eve. THAT is how much I like Denny’s.

But anyway… my final point is that I believe the best biscuits and gravy were at the Denny’s in Santa Rosa, NM. That alone is enough for a ride through New Mexico along Historic Route 66, but here are a few more good reasons:

Gallup - Part of Natural Born Killers was filmed here! Also, there is a rumor that if you take a detour onto Highway 666 (now 491) north of Gallup, you might meet some ghostly hitchhiker, so consider yourself warned.

Albuquerque - Home of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Tucumcari - Clint Eastwood has made many cinematic appearances in the area.

Several bits of interesting news on air quality and air pollution:

• According to WebMD, Los Angeles is not even on the list of 10 Worst Cities for Asthma …but Memphis is!

• Green Blog reports on air pollution causing baldness, or at least making it worse.
• From Science Daily: Unmanned Aircraft To Study Southern California Smog and Its Consequences
• 18 States take greater steps to cut carbon emissions

Info on how to protect yourself and loved ones:

• Home Air Quality Tips from American Lung Association
• American Industrial Hygiene Association: Is Air Quality a Problem in My Home?

Luckily, there are a whole bunch of air purifiers and HEPA air filters that improve the air quality in your home, but I’ll post more on those later.

Today is RSS Awareness Day! It’s an entire day devoted to spreading the word about RSS.

What is RSS? RSS means Real Simple Syndication. It’s an easy way keep up to date with websites that frequently update content. When you see an RSS button on a site, you simply click the button to add that site to your RSS reader. It saves you clicks because the reader will update whenever there is a new posting. I primarily use Mozilla Firefox, and when I click RSS buttons on my favorite sites, it adds the feeds to my Bookmarks, allowing me to organize feeds how I want. It is really incredibly easy and convenient, especially if you are planning on bookmarking a site anyway. By clicking the RSS button to add the feed, the bookmark now has a drop down menu with the latest entry titles. I can instantly tell if there is anything new without even visiting the site. And it only takes a second to add an RSS feed.

For example, to add Outdoor Urbanite to your feed reader, just click the green RSS button located in the lower right corner of the page:

It’s that easy! The latest posting headlines will appear in your reader instantly. You save time and clicks while staying current with postings.

So get out there and have some fun adding feeds on RSS Awareness Day!

Hope you get outside and enjoy the beautiful day! Here are some Earth Day links with tons of ideas for saving the planet:

• Earth Day Network
• World Wildlife Foundation
• The Nature Conservancy
• Sierra Club