Today’s lunchtime news chum brings together a collection of items with a local flavor:
- Hows. Well, first I stick the flag in the sand… For those living in Granada Hills, the market in the Knollwood Center has long been the little market in the area. First an Alpha Beta, and later a Hows, it has been closed for a while. Good news. It’s going to be a Fresh and Easy.
- One Way or the Other. One side effect of living in the San Fernando Valley is water use. For years, conservation has been pushed, but it has a side effect the city doesn’t like. Never fear. The DWP is urging an additional $5 monthly fee to make up for losses due to conservation. Of course, bringing water to Los Angeles is an expensive job, as discussed in this article from the LA Times. Lastly, what DWP is doing shouldn’t be a surprise. Banks do it all the time: when they can’t get money one way, they get it another.
- Building 5. Many years ago, I worked for SDC. In Santa Monica, the buildings included 2500, 2600, Q7, and Building 5. Building 5 was 3000 Olympic, and it is actually the only original SDC building still standing (the rest were sacrificed for the Water Garden project). 3000 Olympic was gutted, chopped, reworked, and became the Lantana Media Center. It’s in the news day, as the Expo Light Rail is planning to run through the area, and so Lantana is building their own sound wall abutting the parking they are losing behind the building (along the rail line).
- Look, a 707. Of course, I grew up near LA Airport, in Westchester. This was the time before they started taking houses due to noise and runway growth, but eventually loads of homes were gone, including homes of friends of mine that lived S of 92nd, in the hills near Trask, and in other areas in Westchester. Now it looks like LAWA is finally developing a plan to use those areas. The usage will be a mix of commercial, hotel, and open space.
Bonus Item: Folks probably know I love my iPod. If you are a long time user, you should know that there is a recall of 1st generation iPod Nanos due to batteries reheating. If you have one (I did), you can look into replacing it here. Related to this, I saw an article about how CDs are dying (I see those regularly), and began to think of an ancillary impact: It will be harder to see your used music. This must have echoed into the ethersphere, for shortly after those thoughts I saw an article about how the RIAA doesn’t like resale of used digital music files. We’re moving from an era where you own the copy of the music, to where you are licensed to listen to it. This is why I don’t want my music in the cloud, and why I eschew purchasing from the iTunes store (which has digital rights) in favor of Amazon (which sells unlocked MP3s).
