I know a gal in Los Angeles who volunteers her time to a Community Arts Organisation in Los Angeles. As part of fund-raising for the operations to help provide free after school programs, she is training for the Los Angeles marathon. This is a good organization worthy of a little help from the national community.
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Dear Friends, Family, and Colleagues,
For the past year I have been training hard so I
can get myself prepared to run the infamous Los Angeles Marathon for the second time.
In training for this marathon I have lost over
fifty pounds, have gained a healthier lifestyle for myself, and have come to
understand that my growth as a person is in direct reflection to how I give back.
In choosing to give back I am running this
marathon to raise funds for an amazing organization called Inside Out
Community Arts, which provides free after school programs and
services for at-risk youth and families in Los Angeles. I have worked for this
organization now for over three years as a teaching artist and am currently on
the Board of Directors as the Artist Representative. This work is a labor of
love for me. I love these kids. They are the reason I do what I do and I am who
I am. Inside Out Community Arts gives youth from all backgrounds are given the
tools, confidence and inspiration to make a positive difference in their
communities and the world.
My goal is to raise $3000 dollars or more but I
can’t do this alone I need your help.You can help me out by
donating ten dollars or whatever you can, also if you know any else who would
like to help these amazing kids please forward them this email.
Please click on the link at the bottom of this
email to support at-risk youth in Los Angeles!
If you would like to sponsor or join me at the
L.A. Marathon as a walker or runner to help raise funds for Inside Out, please
visit Inside Out’s registration page…we’d love to
have you out there with us!
Either way, thanks for supporting me and an
organization that’s truly making a positive difference in our community!
In Service and Gratitude
Sandy Bowles
Click here to visit my personal web
page in support of Inside Out Community Arts.
or
copy and paste this link into your web browser:
I have a soft spot in my heart for Minnesota…
and I have family in South Dakota,
and I used to live in North Dakota…
so I really like living in California! LOL
Here’s some Minnesota humor a friend in Minnesota sent.
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Government surveyors came to Ole’s farm in the fall
and asked if they could do some surveying.
Ole agreed and Lena even served them a nice meal at noon time.
The next spring, the two surveyors stopped by and told Ole,
“Because you were so kind to us, we wanted to give you this bad news in person
instead of by letter.
Ole replied, “What’s the bad news?
The surveyors stated,
“Well, after our work we discovered your farm is not in Minnesota,
but is actually in South Dakota !”
Ole looked at Lena and said,
“That’s the best news I have heard in a long time,
why I just told Lena this morning,
I don’t think I can take another winter in Minnesota.”
I was in Van Nuys a couple of years ago and took this photos of a treehouse.
I’ve never built a treehouse… I think they’re cool and interesting, and I enjoy building things…. but I don’t want to put nails and screws into a living tree. It’s not good for the tree, and one day when the tree has grown around it, someone (like me) might cut into the nail with a chainsaw when the tree is dead. Metal in trees is real bad for a chain blade, and it might snap causing injury. But still, I am fascinated with treehouses, and tend to photograph them when I see them.
I’d love to be able to control the weather, but I know I’d crack under the strain of knowing that while it blessed one person, another would be hurt by whatever weather I put down.
And while I hate this gloom, the interminable rain keeping us from harvesting cactus… and the damage that wind does to structures and trees, and tall cactus plants…. I know that as soon as June comes along, we’ll likely already have been a couple of months without rain… and I’ll be wishing we had gotten more….
Wish in one hand…. hold another under a cow.. see which one fills first.
So while I can pretty-much do nothing but sit back and worry about runoff, landslide, shingles, windows, trees and other elements of destruction…. I can at least watch some good movies, and listen to some good tunes….
So I just had to look up on YouTube for a band from Romania called the ‘Nightlosers’. They made their own Country-Western song called ‘Shame Shame Shame’. Now first off, seeing Transylvanians playing BOTH kinds of music… Country AND Western, and sporting ‘Redneck’ attire is very unusual… and so is the video itself which features them in a large animal shed with chickens, ducks and lambs. It looks like they got some people from their local village to sit as audience members… the old folks look so much like the old folks in my family in Germany when I was a kid. It is so fun seeing the old women in their long dresses with their shawls and scarves… so very Eastern European, bringing back such delicious memories of goose and duck, and soup, cabbage and potatoes, and their own home-made apple cider. I imagine there’s not much of that seen anymore… times change, that’s what’s so great about film… being able to capture for a long time what is happening now.
But, gloomy is how I feel.
‘The End of The world’
~Skeeter Davis~
From 1967….
But what is sitting and longing for sun,
but a wishing for old days that shine in the mind.
Luckily it is the sunny times… that we remember most.
From the sea to the hills one can travel in a day on foot here.
In the mind, such a trip is faster than light.
All you need is to see it once,
and it’s there for you anytime you need it.
always keep the sun at your face…
and you cannot see the shadows…
~Hopi proverb~
Those were the Days is a song popularized in English by Mary Hopkins in the late sixties. But it was originally a Russian song called ‘Dorogoi Dlinnoyu’ and first recorded in 1920. Maybe Russian music appeals in this weather…. it tries so very hard to be sunny and optimistic…. but we all know the deprivation that has stalked the Russians for centuries…. I found a Russian language version of this song on YouTube… it is beautifully rendered.
What I get a kick out of is the Asian audience…. probably on a tour-vacation. I like their participation… they made it a more delightful experience for the musicians I am sure.
‘What is good for the Russian will kill the German’
~Russian proverb~
Please say a prayer for the folks in Haiti,
and for the people in the California wildfire areas…
they are likely to get a lot of rain and mudslides.
I love tech-speak… so this is a very informative video…..
From a mechanical standpoint, I especially appreciate the maleable logarythymic casing. But electrical folks would probably enjoy the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive-interactants. All-in-all it seems a pretty sweet way to power a panametric fan. Available soon wherever Rockwell Automation Products are sold.
This is my surfboard from High School
I never was a good surfer, LOL… I tended to ‘purl’ the nose into the water, stopping the board and pitching me in front of it where the wave and the board would both pummel me. But I was pretty durable back then…. cuts and scrapes from rocks didn’t bother me too much, although I sometimes wondered of the wisdom in hanging my bloodied feet in the water from a board in the ocean for hours.
I really do think that surfing is one of the best sports there is…. it is usually an individual endeavour… just you and the sea….
Some of the beautiful and memorable events in my life happened from the top of my surfboard…. I’d spend a long time in the water…. all that rowing is good for the shoulders and back…. and the regular beach activities are healthy and clean. On ‘flat days’ we’d sometimes just paddle out to and beyond the kelp ‘fields’.. far out at sea, such that the cliffs along the shore were only visible at times when the swell raised you up a bit. Ah yes, the rash impetuousness of youth… but it was all good clean fun.
It’s always fun until someone gets hurt.
Many of my friends still surf.. even now that they are in their fifties and some in their sixties…. those who still surf have retained flexibility and stamina… it’s good seeing folks getting older nowadays and still staying kids in many ways… with the added smarts of being older.
This is my old surfboard from high school. It was made about 1967 by a shaper in Santa Barbara named John Bradbury. He eventually became a well known shaper, but unfortunately he passed away nearly twelve years ago. You can see this board had part of the tail break off before I got it, it was repaired with some fiberglass and resin. There are also a few small dings I (inexpertly) repaired with resin.
He built this and other similar boards for the waves at places along the Santa Barbara area… the Rincon… The Ranch… Jalama…. I still have the board… but don’t surf anymore.
One photo has the logo he put on this board.
His logos changed through the years as you can see at Stanley’s Surfboard Logos
(a huge site with a large number of surfboard logos)
Lompoc California, 1969: Crossroads of the Drug Trade
Lompoc in 1969 was at the crossroads of the drug trade in California. The psychedelics came through from the Bay Area on their way to the California Southland. As if in exchange; from the Southland came the Mexican marijuana and the South American cocaine. Amphetamines were already being ‘cooked’ in houses near Lompoc. And out of the exotic orient came small parcels of heroin, courtesy (it was alleged) of military members coming back from Vietnam and Thailand.
It was that brief shining year when the country was preparing to leave the sixties behind, and to step forward into the seventies. Into this volatile mix of chemicals came a young woman, a girl really. No one knows where she came from, and no one knows her name, because her life and all her hopes were savagely stolen by ‘Person/Persons Unknown’.
Sue Grafton, a local writer wrote of this crime against humanity in her book ‘Q is for Quarry’”
I got my copy on loan from the Santa Maria library. But I chose the audio version so I could ‘read’ it while driving. Judy Kaye narrates it in a very well done style. She shows very high ‘voice-control’ skills and manages the many accents of the various characters quite well.
Sue writes in the style I would imagine Ellery Queen writes in. Now, I have never read an Ellery Queen novel, so I might be wide of the mark in this statement. I am not a huge fan of murder-mysteries, I only got the book because it takes some facts from a local unsolved murder, and weaves a tapestry of real and imaginary scenes, some of which I know, and some that I feel must be fictional. Note: the local County Seat and County name are changed (is this to protect the innocent?)
The murder happened in 1969 outside Lompoc, and remains unsolved, even to the point where we don’t even know who the girl was. And in all of these years, no one has come forward to claim her as a long disappeared sister.
This crime so fascinated Ms. Grafton that she got the local officials to look into this matter again. They disinterred the body, and had a forensic sculptor do a probable recreation of the girls features and image.
One can see further info on the murder and the investigation by going to Jane Doe Unsolved Crime
The people at the library said that the book caused such a stir among the local folk when first released, that it was always on the ‘waiting list’ of books, and never really sat on the shelf for the first few years after release.
Sue Grafton has written a great many highly acclaimed books. Anyone interested in the genre would like he writing style. Personally, the local scenery that unwove fascinated me while the story played out. It’s fun to live in a little tiny place, and read about it in a novel, it’s just gloomy that it is a sad case that brings the news.
I am registered with Magic Casting in Buellton California for notification of film work in the area that they are contracted to provide casting services for. They are nice people… and they sent me a casting notice and let me know I could pass it on to others. They are needing some background actors…. so if anyone would like to be in a feature film filming in the Santa Barbara County area, you can follow the links and register yourself as someone who is interested.
Working background is a good way to have a ‘first-hand’ look at how films are made.
As you know, we are working on a Feature Film, Son of an Afghan Farmer.
There is approx 6 weeks of shooting and we will be using many extras. Below
is the need for the first week of filming. Please forward to anyone who
lives in North SB County who you think fits. Also, we will have Santa
Barbara scenes using “college students” as well as “business people” and
“average people” in late Jan. and early Feb. You may email to let me know
your availability or use our website form.
Thanks!
This is a feature film shooting scenes in Cuyama Jan. 12-16th. These scenes
are creating Afghan farm fields and we need extras.
Talent needed are:
1. “Middle Eastern looking” farm hands, beards are most desirable but not
absolutely necessary; ethnicity could be hispanic or other.
2. “Middle Eastern looking” Thugs, w/ suits, dress clothes; prefer middle
eastern but could be other ethnicity that appears ME.
This is a wonderful production crew that will treat all talent well. Filming
will continue throughout SB County for the month if you don’t fit these
current roles, you may still contact us.
MAGIC CASTING-Website is www.magiccasting.mysite.com, please click on
“Afghan Farmer” tab and you can fill out an availability form. There is no
registration fee for this, and no commissions are taken by Magic Casting
from talent.
