I’ve been kicking myself for not checking out the neighboring building’s stormwater pool during the last spring rainstorm of April, figuring I wouldn’t get another chance to see it in the rain until winter. But over the last few weeks, two storms have blown into town from up north. One hit overnight, leaving behind only wet ground the next morning…and one hit in the middle of the day, making it easy to run next door.

Stormwater Pond 1

That actually doesn’t look half bad! Though the barrel embedded in the middle still looks kind of ugly.

I took one other shot where you can see water pouring out of one of the drainpipes.

Stormwater Pond 2

As for the rest of the office-to-hotel conversion:

  • The hotel has been open for a couple of months now, since the beginning of March (or maybe late February?)
  • So has the new Starbucks — the fourth within easy walking distance. At least this one seems to have normal inflated coffee prices, not hotel-markup-inflated coffee prices. And there’s an interesting piece of art inside.
  • The new second-floor elevator in the parking structure still looks like an upturned shipping container. I really expected them to cover it with something that looked nicer, or at least something that would blend with the rest of the structure. Though they did tear up and replace the sidewalk in front of it earlier this week, for no reason I could see.
  • Signs for Jersey Mike’s and ZPizza went up this morning, and I saw people loading kitchen equipment yesterday, so I’ll have a few more options for lunch soon. Update: Jersey Mike’s opened the last week of June.

Contrail Launch

This is the kind of contrail view that starts rumors about imaginary missile launches.

Yes, that happened. A few years ago a bunch of people in the LA area saw an airplane contrail at a weird angle and there was this big news story about a mysterious missile launch off the coast of California. No one claimed responsibility for or knowledge of the launch of course, which made it seem even more mysterious. Even after people matched flight paths and time stamps and viewing angles, the myth persisted, at least in internet comment threads.

landscape-pit

I’m still not sure how this new landscaping is supposed to work. My best guess is that the lower area is supposed to collect runoff and seepage from the surrounding lawn and other plants (and the street gutter behind me, interestingly enough) in order to reduce water usage and actually do something with water that would otherwise be sent into storm drains — a good idea in drought-stricken California.

There does seem to be a drain so that it won’t totally fill up in the rain, like it did a few months ago before they had all the plants in: Continue reading