cam, 180 words, 0 comments, California, Carlsbad, Surfing

All Australians can surf; except for me. We did surfing lessons at Carlsbad, CA on saturday. The surf instructors were mainly servicing the Four Seasons group, but they allowed me and a mate to jum p in and take part. By the end of the two hours I was happily catching waves with a decent probability of success.

I carry an unfortunate physical similarity to Peter Garret in that picture. Being tall, lanky and bald will do that I guess. It was physically tough, especially as a beginner you get thrown around a lot by the waves. But it was a gentle swell, even so, I was the only one who went the full two hours, the rest got tired or had enough after about an hour or so. (more)

cam, 421 words, 0 comments, La Jolla, California, Sea Lions, Photography

I made a rookie mistake at the beach yesterday which has left me with half of my face a bit tender and burnt. I protected my body amply with spf-30, but not my face sufficiently. The east coast of the US leaves you with bad habits when it comes to the sun. I having been living in a desert city for seven months, so really, no excuse.

We spent yesterday afternoon and evening in La Jolla, CA [pronounced la hoya]. It is a wonderful seaside community, kind of Coogee-ish, for lack of a better analogy. The town has a colony of sea lions that hang out on the rocks there. A couple of them were braying loudly in a dispute over a resting place on a rock.

The bay at La Jolla had buoys out in it, approximately half a mile from the shore. A group of swimmers numbering about 200 maybe, swam out to the buoys and back. They gathered up in the park in a mix of swimsuits and wetsuits. I thought that was wonderful. If I was living in there it would be a great way to unwind at the end of the week with a mile long ocean swim. (more)

cam, 126 words, 2 comments, Oceanside, California, Beach, Photography

A flight from Arizona yesterday evening took me over the deserts of the South-West, past the valley of wind turbines, and dropped me off at Los Angeles. It is a quick trip and after the sorting of a rental car and GPS, I ended up in Anaheim right next to Disney. Close enough that their nightly fireworks were incredibly loud.

The next day we traveled down the Pacific Highway - a name familiar to Australians - and ended up at the beach at Oceanview. Like coastal Sydney, the southern Californian coast is blessed with wonderfully temperate weather and great surf. The next hours were spent body surfing, sunning, talking before heading off to eat tacos, burritos and quaff down Mexican beer. Not bad. (reply)

cam, 234 words, 6 comments, Traffic, Transportation, Lexus Lanes, California

When I was in Washington DC there was discussion of putting in pay-for commuter lanes in the same manner as HOV lanes. Naturally they got the moniker Lexus Lanes due to the impression that only the wealthy would pay for them.

Time lapse traffic from splorp's photostream

New Jersey originally had HOV lanes for high occupancy vehicles but in 1999 when I first started commuting down Rt.287 they removed them. It seems they caused more trouble than they were worth and it was simpler and easier to open up all the lanes to general commuter traffic. New Jersey did a pretty good job of keeping the traffic flowing.

California's Bay Area is thinking of introducing Lexus Lanes. It is a tough thing to bring as public roads are already payed for through a mix of county, state and federal taxes. They are a public asset that have already been payed for. So introducing a free market aspect to them, what is seen as a shared resource, is difficult to do. As always the money goes to something altruistic - like schools, paying for road maintenance (which is already financed through taxes), etc.

The other issue facing policy makers is that roads are very expensive and congestion is real. It will not get better and the car remains the most efficient means of transportation, and will continue to be so. (reply)

cam, 325 words, 0 comments, USA, California, Labor Market, Technology

Californian companies are starting to do the process of insourcing. This is where a company creates satellite offices in nearby cities, such as Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City or Portland to do development. One of the reasons is ease of communication; most of those cities are a day flight away from San Francisco. Another concern with outsourcing overseas is that a vendor is intimate with your business logic.

I thought the lower rent and salaries in these cities was a major consideration but it is not. The Californian labor market is tapped out of quality technology candidates and smaller tech companies are having trouble competing with the 'cool' billion dollar companies like Google* for skilled workers. (more)