2013 Mar 02 | COA Legislative Day, LABV

Very symmetric plate: XNX, 010.

This looked like "alligator" at first glance.

This is annoying. The two left lanes are for turning left and the right lane is for turning either way. They guy in front of me is turning left, but instead of being nice and getting in one of the left two lanes, he's in this one, blocking me and everyone else who wants to turn right.

Big houses in Ranco Palos Verdes.

And they have a beautiful view.

We were supposed to meet at the gate if it was closed. I saw that this gate was closed, so I stopped.

However, this gate was open. I checked the directions again and realized this is the gate they meant. Glad I didn't sit here waiting all day.

Fun way to advertise.

Downtown LA from the south.

I tried turning my mirrors out to remove blind spots for a week. (+) No blind spot, so you don't have to crank your neck to see if a car is just beside/behind you. (-) Harder to parallel park because you can't see the curb. (--) You see a lot more overall movement in the mirror from traffic going in the opposite direction, so instead of movement = car = be careful, you start to ignore movement, which is bad if that movement is a car right next to you. (---) You don't see cars in your side mirror as soon, only when they're right next to you. You have to use your rear-view mirror a lot more for cars a bit farther back. Not a problem if you check it often and cars are moving at normal speeds, but you'll miss any cars moving very quickly. So most-likely worst-case scenario with a "normal" mirror angle: you pull over into a car right beside/behind you going about your speed. With a "no-blind-spot" mirror angle: you pull over right in front of a car going 30mph+ faster than you. So I'm going back to "normal" mirrors. And you can always get the other view by leaning a bit; towards the mirror if they're out or away from the mirror if they're in. But in an emergency, when you don't have time to glance at multiple mirrors or lean, the no-blind-spot position will get you in a potentially much worse accident.

When they're in the outward, no-blind-spot position, if you lean towards the mirror, you'll have the same view as you do with the mirrors in the inward position. However, it still takes time to lean over. And oppositely, if you have the mirrors in the inward position, you can lean away from the mirror and get the no-blind-spot view.

One of the craziest poker hands I've been in. The guy to my right went all-in before the flop. I had AA, so I went all-in as well. The guy to my left also went all-in. I had AA vs AK suited vs AK suited, so I had them dominated and I was almost guaranteed to win. Instead, the board made a straight, so we split it 3 ways. I even had a flush draw, arg. Oh well, fun had to see.

This bus was in the carpool lane, but it was out of service, so I'm assuming it was only the bus driver and therefore shouldn't be there.

Same thing with this cop.

Sun going down over the hills.

Setting sun peeking through the trees.

Wednesday was Legislative Day in Sacramento, where a bunch of optometrists and students went and talked to legislators about various upcoming laws. Most people flew, but I drove. It takes about the same amount of time once you consider driving to the airport, parking, taking a shuttle to the terminal, going through security, waiting for the flight, flying, getting of the plane, and getting a shuttle/taxi to the motel; about 5 hours either way. And flying is a bit more expensive. The cost of gas is about equal to the cost of plane tickets if you get them early (if you get them later, it's more expensive to fly), but then you also have the cost of parking at the airport and the shuttle/taxi to/from your motel. Plus, I love driving and don't like flying.

Here's my classic road-trip meal.

I saw these guys filling gas at the same time I was. It looks like they are going camping with the dirt bikes in the back, although the mattresses seem more like moving. Maybe they just want to be more comfortable sleeping in their tent, though.

The legislators we were supposed to meet with. Actually, we met with their aides instead, but since they usually tell them how to vote, it's still useful.

Barry role-playing a discussion.

The California State Capitol from the back.

They had the weirdest numbering on the signs. 5007-5140 to one side, 5008-5210 on the other. What? They overlap, and it's not odd vs even or anything. Who designed that?

Talking right before one of our meetings. We met with Asia Canady, staff for Ronald Calderon, and Bill Wong, staff for Anthony Rendon.

Rick and Candi in the senate chamber.

A view from above, with Senator Ed Hernandez talking on the right.

The COA Board of Governors up front.

A bear statue in front of the governor's office.

A big meeting room.

The rotunda.

A statue underneath.

Each county had a display. I think the LA one could have been better; more beaches and Hollywood.

What the governor's office looked like in 1906.

And the secretary of state in 1092.

Neat lamps. Although I think the colored tiles in the South Dakota state capital are still the coolest thing in any one I've been in, though..

Cute bears made by kids.

A big tree blossoming.

Fruit trees.

A sculpture, La Familia by Eduardo Oropeza.

Another sculpture in a fountain nearby.

Driving back to LA. There was a lot of farmland along I-5. Here's a tractor in the field.

Tons of trees.

Tons of fruit trees.

The sun setting over the hills.

With some water.

And even some cows.

Trying to take an artistic picture, with the nearly-full moon, reflection of the instument panel, and lights of cars driving in the other direction. This was with my point-and-shoot camera.

The same idea with my DSLR. Neither of them really came out how I wanted, but I couldn't figure out any settings to get it perfect. Oh well; I still have a lot to learn about photography.

The moon was orange-ish from the dust.

It was mostly me and the truckers with a few other cars thrown in.

A big line of trucks.

This is so annoying. These two lanes are going to merge in a few hundred feet, but this guy is still going into the other one. What a waste of time.

Hypnotherapist with a last name starting with Q?

Late for tee time at a golf range.

Ooh, that sounds fun, although it looks rather expensive. I'll put it only my list to maybe check out.

Cool-looking palm trees.

Mexicans out in a field.

And some more. For all you hear about it, I'd never seen this before.

Reminds me of deep sea fishing with the family. Grandpa wanted to shoot all of the seagulls.

That is one ugly fish.

The FedEx guy gets lazier and lazier with each tag. First he doesn't write "Apt" and then he doesn't even write my name or the date. After the first one, I didn't want him to keep trying since I was at work during the day, so I filled out a form online for them to hold it at the pickup office, but I guess it didn't go through the system in time.

They used to have really nummy chocolate-chip cookies here, but people whined about the saturated fat in them so they got churros instead. Still OK, but not nearly as good. I'm guessing that's why they have the sub sandwiches as well.

A patient's medical card. I think that's mold all over it. Usually I scan their cards, but this one I didn't even want to touch, so I just told the patient to read the numbers to me. If it gets rejected for whatever reason, I'll just write it off rather than risk infecting myself or the scanner.

What's the expiration date on these? I'd guess July 25, 2009 and January 24, 2013, but what do the 04A and 02A mean? And my parents sent these to me within the last year. If the left one is 2009, that's pretty iffy.

I was going to buy a new air filter for the jeep, but when I pulled up the number for the one for the Jeep, they didn't have it at Walmart.

When I searched on Amazon, though, there were boxes at the top you could fill your vehicle info into and it's make sure the item matches. It's not the same number as I got from the other searches, but we'll see if it works when it gets here.

All the companies are buying each other. First Alcon and Ciba, then Concise and ODG (contact lens suppliers), and now iPromotions and Hilco.

I order supplies through iPromotions mainly to get these little iPals, so I wonder if they'll still send them. You have to order over $50 worth of supplies to get them, and the last time I ordered about $55 worth of stuff. However, some of it was actually cheaper, so my order was $48 and I didn't get an iPal. I've never been so disappointed about saving money. I'd rather pay the actual cost it said and get my stuffed animal; you'd think their website would have the most up-to-date prices.

Thursday night Linda and I went to the AMC Marina 6 theater. They serve food at your seat and have recliners. It was newly opened and I had a coupon for a free entree, but it expires in February, so we made it on the last day.

Ooh, the seats go back even farther.

Isn't the "temporarily" implied? If it's not temporarily, it's permanently, and then it's not really out of order, since that implies it's going to be fixed, it's broken.