A friend was in town from Austin with her family this past weekend, and on Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. I drove to West L.A. to pick her up. I learned a new lesson-- Friday afternoon traffic to the coast is best avoided. Oy vey! It took me an hour to drive about seven miles.
Once I picked her up we made a stop at The Lake Shrine at Sunset and PCH; it's a picturesque Hindu oasis tucked away from view at that intersection. From there we drove to Topanga Canyon (again, slowly) and caught up on things while we hiked.
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Pop. Explosion
From "Dewey and the Pelican," by Seven McDonald, in last week's LA Weekly:
“I think we’ve reached the tipping point,” he says, in the driver’s seat of his Ford Taurus. “It seems like there is an impenetrable wall of cars.”
Weber, who’s working on a book called Surf Porn, which he describes as “Pat Hobby meets Ken Kesey,” says he noticed a marked increase in congestion after the epoch of the new millennium, or rather post-9/11, after which, he heard, millions of people flooded the city.
“You used to be able to access many different parts of the city in a day,” he says. “You can’t do that anymore. To get across town and back, it can take you four hours.”
“I think we’ve reached the tipping point,” he says, in the driver’s seat of his Ford Taurus. “It seems like there is an impenetrable wall of cars.”
Weber, who’s working on a book called Surf Porn, which he describes as “Pat Hobby meets Ken Kesey,” says he noticed a marked increase in congestion after the epoch of the new millennium, or rather post-9/11, after which, he heard, millions of people flooded the city.
“You used to be able to access many different parts of the city in a day,” he says. “You can’t do that anymore. To get across town and back, it can take you four hours.”
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Back to Business
So now I have to get back to business because I have two job interviews this week and need to do my homework on the companies. I had to cancel the trip to Santa Barbara in order to do so. I hope I can sleep tonight. Both positions barely pay enough to scrape by on, but perhaps I need to swallow my pride (and financial concerns) and accept that as part of the transitioning process. The employment agencies who arranged the interviews are, I'm sure, taking a nice cut. Neither of the jobs are in entertainment, although one job is not completely out of that realm.
In regards to the entertainment industry, maybe I'm a victim of ageism, as I'm no longer in the desired 18-34 age demographic, so I'm not as easy to exploit salarywise and perhaps am seen as not having "my finger on the pulse."
Thank God the word-processing temp job is over. I went to yoga after work on Friday and my toes spasmed into a misshapen pretzel. That's how messed up my body was after sitting in a hard plastic chair for three days.
During my lunch break on my last day, I walked around the Yahoo! campus, which was down the street, caddy corner to Universal Music Group. That's definitely where all the young people are. Google, a logical place of employment for a former librarian, also has a campus in Santa Monica. Maybe I should have located myself there due to the increase in new media companies in the area (and thus the increase in traffic heading that direction). But I really can't drive there and back every day. It took half an hour just to get from Santa Monica to the 405, which is about a third of the way home for me.
In regards to the entertainment industry, maybe I'm a victim of ageism, as I'm no longer in the desired 18-34 age demographic, so I'm not as easy to exploit salarywise and perhaps am seen as not having "my finger on the pulse."
Thank God the word-processing temp job is over. I went to yoga after work on Friday and my toes spasmed into a misshapen pretzel. That's how messed up my body was after sitting in a hard plastic chair for three days.
During my lunch break on my last day, I walked around the Yahoo! campus, which was down the street, caddy corner to Universal Music Group. That's definitely where all the young people are. Google, a logical place of employment for a former librarian, also has a campus in Santa Monica. Maybe I should have located myself there due to the increase in new media companies in the area (and thus the increase in traffic heading that direction). But I really can't drive there and back every day. It took half an hour just to get from Santa Monica to the 405, which is about a third of the way home for me.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Traffic
One of the many reasons I chose to live in the Beverly Center area is that it is smack in the center of the map, and I didn't know where I'd end up working. I'm very close to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Century City, and the Miracle Mile, not too far from Westwood, and within reasonable distance of Santa Monica. My current job is a 9 to 5er, and I have to travel around 5-10 miles, which takes 20-30 minutes. Not bad, considering the time of day.
The problems occur when there's an accident somewhere. Then a 30-minute commute easily becomes a 2-hour ordeal. This has happened to me twice so far.
There's also a lot of unprotected left turns in this city, which I try to avoid as much as possible; I should write a "protected lefts" guide to Los Angeles.
The problems occur when there's an accident somewhere. Then a 30-minute commute easily becomes a 2-hour ordeal. This has happened to me twice so far.
There's also a lot of unprotected left turns in this city, which I try to avoid as much as possible; I should write a "protected lefts" guide to Los Angeles.
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