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The Beat’s offhand mention of Anaheim GardenWalk got me curious and I went looking around for more info on the mall’s current status. The last few times I’ve been there, it’s been practically a ghost town: behind the anchor restaurants out front, there were a handful of stores, then nothing, nothing, more nothing, and finally a movie theater way at the back and a Johnny Rockets that probably only stuck it out because it was so close to the theater. (The mall opened in 2008 — very bad timing — and never recovered.)

Apparently they’re trying to reinvent it as a restaurant/entertainment hub, with House of Blues moving over from Downtown Disney and more luxury hotels. (What is it with the luxury hotels?) Edit: I think I’ve been to the old location a half-dozen times, and it did suffer from sightline issues and crowding. They’re taking over part of the movie theater at Garden Walk to build the new venue, which will be bigger, add some seating areas in addition to the standing room, and have some of the side spaces as well. I think the HoB has a better shot than the rest of the mall, honestly.

So I’m not convinced, but if it works out, it could benefit WonderCon next year. It’s not a super-long walk (except in hot weather), and if they have a shuttle for parking like last year, it would make it even easier to get to.

From a comment at The Beat’s article on the Guardians of the Galaxy ride opening at Disney’s California Adventure.

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drifting-smoke-sand-fire

A few views of the smoke plume from the Sand Fire burning near Santa Clarita (in the mountains north of Los Angeles), seen from a distance. The fire broke out on Friday, just a few days after the smoke from the recent fires on the San Gabriels finally cleared out and I was able to see the mountains again.

On Saturday, the smoke plume was drifting southward, turning the sunlight yellow and orange in coastal areas. We headed inland that day and managed to escape the worst of it, though I was still wheezing by the time I got home. The views above and below to the left show the smoke cloud near sunset on Saturday evening, seen from the side. Unfortunately my phone went a little overboard with some of the color enhancements and digital zoom. My new phone’s camera is better than the old one, but I’m really going to have to do something about fixing or replacing the dedicated camera.

smoke-and-palm-tree sand-fire-smoke-plume

Monday I could see two distinct plumes of smoke rising behind the Santa Monica Mountains to the north. By late afternoon, the western plume had faded into the haze while the eastern one was still clearly visible. I took the photo at upper right from the LAX area around 6pm as I was leaving work.

This morning I could see a wall of gray cloud off to the west. It took me a few moments to be sure, but the edges and movement looked more like fog than smoke, so I figure it was the marine layer, keeping the sun off the beaches for the morning.

The sky is just plain hazy today, with no distinct smoke clouds visible from LA. (Firefighters have made some progress containing it.) Of course the smoke is settling out over the whole area…. As much as I like walking to lunch, I think I’m going to stick somewhere close by.

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Opera RingThe reporting is a bit confusing, but it looks like the Opera web browser has been sold to a Chinese consortium. The group wanted to buy the Norwegian company outright, but the bid failed, and they fell back to an alternate deal.

According to NewsWeb:

The following business units of Opera will be included in the Transaction:

· Mobile Browser, including Operator Co-brand solutions
· Desktop Browser
· Performance and Privacy Apps
· Opera’s technology licensing business outside of Opera TV
· Opera’s 29.09% ownership in the Chinese joint venture nHorizon

The Consumer Business will be reorganized into a separate company structure. For
clarity, the following businesses are not included in the Consumer Business or
the Transaction:

· Opera Mediaworks
· Opera Apps & Games (including Bemobi)
· Opera TV

It’s a shame to see Opera broken up and dispersed…but in a way, that already happened years ago. When they switched to WebKit in 2013, they lost what made them unique and (IMO) valuable: They’d been a solid third-party (well, fourth-party) that helped keep the web from collapsing back into a monopoly. Within a year the community portal was gone as well.

Since then I’ve only bothered with the desktop browser occasionally when I need to test multiple sessions at once. I used to keep a copy on my phone for times when I was stuck on a slow connection, but these days the cell network in my area is a lot faster. When it gets slow, it’s also unstable, so compression doesn’t help much.

VivaldiI think I will check out Vivaldi again, though. Founded in part by Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner, it started as a new home for the Opera community. When I first checked out their browser, it was a really rough preview, but it’s at 1.2 now. While it’s using Blink as the rendering engine, they seem to be trying to innovate through the UI instead, with a heavy emphasis on customizing everything.

(via Slashdot)

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Looking up at the head of a palm tree silhouetted against the sky, blue with a thin layer of clouds. A bright white ring, tinged slightly reddish on the inner edge, fills the frame, off-center from the three, the lower left quadrant roughly aligned with the ends of the fronds.

Have you ever seen a ring around the sun? Or a pair of bright spots flanking it? Or a rainbow-colored cloud? Just as sunlight reflecting and refracting inside raindrops can create a rainbow, sunlight reflecting off of ice crystals can form fascinating and beautiful halos. It doesn’t even have to be cold at ground level: if the ice crystals are high up in the atmosphere, spread in a thin layer of cirrus cloud, you can still see them… even in places known for warm weather like Los Angeles. I have a whole gallery of halo photos I’ve taken in southern California. (Edit: Most of them here on this blog too!) You’ll see them more often than you expect. You just have to look up.

Photo Challenge (WordPress): Look Up

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After way too long, I finally upgraded the processor on my desktop. I’d held off because that always involves upgrading the motherboard, which is major surgery on the computer, and with a small child who wants to grab everything, that wasn’t really a good idea. Replacing phones and tablets, and replacing the Windows box, sure, those are relatively simple. Nothing fragile is open for several hours, and we use them all the time.

But I’ve recently done some small maintenance with him around and he’s been able to keep his hands to himself and just look, and I’ve trusted him to help with a few things like clipping in the panels on unused drive bays and opening/closing the main case screws.

I ordered a processor/mobo/memory combo from NewEgg, and it showed up on Saturday. I waited until Sunday morning to get started, knowing that these things always take more time than you expect (and typically at least one extra trip to the computer store). No surprise, it turned out I needed a new power supply for the new motherboard. In an odd echo of the last time,* I drove out to Fry’s and found one with the connectors and wattage I needed, with a rebate on it, then picked up some takeout for lunch.

The kiddo was able to leave the half-disassembled box alone while I was out. Things were strained by the time I was finished around four, and he had a full-on meltdown at the grocery store later, but I got the new hardware installed.

It’s amazing how much smoother everything runs now. I feel like I can actually use the computer again!

*I may have done another upgrade between then and the time we moved, but I only remember adding the wireless card in 2010 so that I could move the computer desk to another room and put the crib in its place. I definitely hadn’t done anything this major on the home desktop since he was born.