My Site
Just another WordPress site
Torrance comes to Fiesta Floats
On Sunday evening several bus loads of Torrance residents, along with their mayor, the city council, commissioners and other various dignitaries headed out to Irwindale and Fiesta Parade Floats to check out the progress of the float that the City of Torrance is sponsoring for the 126th Annual Tournament of Roses Parade.
The theme of this year\’s Rose Parade is \”Inspiring Stories\” with the Grand Marshal being Torrance hometown hero, Louis Zamperini, who passed away earlier this year. The Torrance entry is called \”A Race Well Run\” and will feature black-and-white photos of Zamperini\’s life, the Olympic torch and other imagery that reflects Zamperini\’s life including a replica of the B-24 plane he was shot down in during World War II. Since the movie Unbroken was released on Christmas Day the City of Torrance hopes that this float, dedicated to the memory of Louis Zamperini, can once again bring international recognition to the city.
Sunday\’s visit required a little imagination as all the floats essentially had most of their big items removed so flowers and seeds could be added prior to the reassembly which must be completed by Tuesday night. If you would like to see the progress that has been made over the last two weeks, you can see a few of my photos on CNN\’s iReport. I will return one more time, on New Year\’s Eve, so I can get some up close and personal shots of the finished product. Continue reading
Louis Zamperini Celebration of Life Photos
![\"Louis](\"http://www.gotbaddog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/zamperini2.jpg\" "\\"zamperini2\\"")
The following photos were taken Thursday evening at the Louis Zamperini Celebration of Life which was held at Torrance High School\’s Zamperini Stadium. I should probably preface this by saying that I am not really in the habit of going to memorial services for people I do not know but over the past couple of years Mr. Zamperini\’s name seemed to pop up more and more in conversations so much so that I felt like I did know him slightly. As I was walking the dogs last night I recalled how our family moved to Torrance [almost] 50 years ago and that even then my dad would mention the Zamperini name; even if I did not really appreciate who this man was. By the end of last night\’s event I felt that I knew Louis much better and I wished I had made more of an effort to learn about him while he was alive.
The remembrance to honor Louis Zamperini\’s life was a very moving and educational event. From local juvenile delinquent to hometown and national hero, we learned a lot about Zamperini. We were able to hear from people like former Torrance Mayor Ken Miller whose family moved next door to the Zamperini family 80 years ago when Miller was a freshman at Torrance High and Zamperini was a senior. Zamperini\’s daughter Cynthia, his son Luke and his grandson Clay all spoke of their lives with a living hero that was, by all accounts, a very humble man. We then got to hear from people like Kyle Gauthier that had only recently met Zamperini who had donated several thousand dollars to help send this young man to Victory Boys Camp, a camp he established in 1952 for wayward youth, where he taught other juvenile delinquents the skills to succeed in life. Speaker after speaker pretty much had the same things to say; this was a man that endured a lot, but was made a better man for it. Continue reading
The City of Torrance has a new mayor and council
On Tuesday evening, the Torrance City Council went through a major changing of the guard, with Pat Furey being sworn in as our new mayor; and Kurt Weideman, Heidi Ashcraft, Tim Goodrich and Geoff Rizzo being sworn in as new council members. Weideman had been appointed to the council a year ago when Councilwoman Susan Rhilinger resigned due to health; and Ashcraft was appointed in December when Cliff Numark was elected to the El Camino College Board of Trustees. They have a combined year and a half of experience compared to the 30 years of experience between the departing Mayor Frank Scotto, and Councilmen Bill Sutherland and Tom Brewer. It is going to be an interesting time for Torrance; no doubt.
The evening began with a ceremony marking the departure of City Clerk Sue Herbers who retired after 20 years of service. In her farewell address she mentioned that she will still be around and be as active as ever; even if it is as an audience member. She did mention that if the council decided to accept applications for the vacant seat that we now have since Furey became Mayor, she would apply. More on that later, but personally, she would be outstanding.
Herbers last official duty was the swearing in of Council members Weideman, Ashcraft, Goodrich and Rizzo; Pat Furey as Mayor and Rebecca Poirier as the new City Clerk. And with that we lost 50 years of experience in one swoop. Continue reading
Torrance residents: Be careful out there
![\"crash\"](\"http://www.gotbaddog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/crash.jpg.jpg\" "\\"crash.jpg\\"")
If you follow current events in Torrance you are probably aware of the decision to install permissive blinking yellow lights for left turn lanes and certain major intersections in the city. The intent, of which I am in favor, is to allow cars that are sitting in the left lane at a red light with no oncoming traffic to proceed with caution. It is a great concept that I am sure everyone agrees is long overdue; however, when these signals are installed they also need to be programmed and apparently they are not being programmed correctly or whomever decided on the cycling of the lights did not give any real thought to the process or the possible consequences of their haphazard decision. Allow me to elaborate.
This evening at 9:45 my fiancee and I were walking the dogs eastbound on 182nd Street approaching Prairie. At Prairie we would cross 182nd and continue south on Prairie. As we reached the northwest corner of 182nd and Prairie I immediately pressed the button for the WALK signal to protect Tanya, the dogs and myself as we crossed 182nd Street. As we stood there waiting for our WALK signal Tanya and I noticed that all the left turn lanes for the east/west traffic were blinking yellow immediately. There was no protective green for the cars in the left turn lanes in either direction. It became clear that instead of supplementing the green light as it should, the new signal was replacing it! There is no more protective green arrow for left turns. That is not the intent of those signals; but it gets worse. Continue reading
Torrance: No Parking on Street Sweeping Day
Torrance residents have a new issue facing them and that is the fact that due to Federal, State and County mandates we must cut down to zero the amount of trash that enters our storm drains; failure to comply will result in fines of up to $10,000 a day. One method of cutting down on the trash and debris is to improve the efficiency of our street sweepers; in order to accomplish this the City of Torrance is proposing the addition of no parking signs on street sweeping days. This has caused quite an uproar as many people are suggesting that this is not necessary; that people will voluntarily keep their cars off the street on street sweeping day. I saw one comment on Facebook that suggested, \”Street sweeping has been going on for years in my neighborhood – WITH NO SIGNS! Crazy, isn\’t it, to think that people might actually do what is best and right for their neighborhood WITHOUT forced government intervention? Every Monday there is NOT ONE car parked on the street as far as I can see. CRAZY!\”
I decided to watch the video of the April 22 City Council meeting (http://torrance.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=8) and it seems a large number of the people that are against the no parking signs are from the same part of Torrance as the person that made the Facebook comment, so I decided to head out there on Monday. These are the photos of what I observed.
If you have an opinion about this proposal you should head to the Torrance City Council meeting tonight, Tuesday May 20 at 7:00 PM. Continue reading
The 55th Annual Armed Forces Day Celebration in Torrance
It is that time of year again, the Torrance Armed Forces Day celebration is this weekend with the highlight being the 2014 Armed Forces Day Parade, the nation\’s longest running military parade sponsored by any city which will be held Saturday from 1:30-3:30 PM. Every year a different branch of the military is honored and this year it is the US Navy. The parade runs down Torrance Boulevard from Crenshaw to Madronna. If we are lucky and the weather forecast is correct, it should be a lot cooler than it has been.
These photos are of the military exhibits which can be found at the Del Amo Fashion Square, by the Macy\’s entrance and will be viewable from Friday through Sunday. You can visit the City of Torrance website for all the pertinent Armed Forces Day celebration information. Continue reading
Mooneyes Mother\’s Day Show & Drags
Regular readers of GotBaddog may recall that since 2010 I have been attending and photographing the Mooneyes Christmas Party, Car Show & Drag Races at Irwindale Speedway. This past December the weather did the unthinkable by raining out the event; if you can imagine rain in December. As a result, Mooneyes rescheduled the event for Saturday, May 10 and renamed it the Mooneyes Mother\’s Day Show & Drags. Even though I had other plans, I decided to stop by Irwindale to check out the morning action.
The first thing I noticed was that there was a much smaller crowd that I have ever seen at the Christmas Show; so much smaller that the parking situation which usually causes the most complaints was not an issue at all. As I made my way through the car show to the drag strip it suddenly dawned on me that I had forgotten to bring my ear protection. As I usually like to get situated a little ways down from the staging lights I decided my ears would survive without them. After I signed my waiver and prepared to get situated I was informed that things were different this year and photographers had to stay in one small area right by the staging lanes. To those unfamiliar, this is where the cars typically do their burnouts to make the tires sticky; it is also about the loudest place one can stand. After one of the first cars hit a wall it caused a fairly significant delay while debris was removed from the track; the next set of cars that staged were far too loud for my unprotected ears and I decided that I was not going to be able to get the shots I wanted so I called it a day. Continue reading
Easyriders Bike Show 2014 Anaheim
It is January and for custom bike builders and those that enjoy looking at custom bikes that means that the 2014 Easyriders Bike Show Tour is now underway. The first stop for the tour was Saturday, January 4 at the Anaheim Convention Center. I have been attending various Easyriders events as a participant or spectator since the mid-80\’s and while there are definitely bikes that show up in the show year after year, it is interesting to watch the evolution of motorcycle building. Huge front wheels, etched chrome and amazing paint jobs seemed to be the theme in recent years with front wheels seemingly getting taller and fatter every year.
In addition to the motorcycle viewing and vendors providing everything from beef jerky to eternal salvation (yeah, you may have to look at the photos to get that one). For entertainment there was a dance routine performed by the Purrfect Angelz, a fashion show and live music. For the bike show, there were two classes for the judging of bikes with the People\’s Choice being voted on by attendees and the Judged Class being chosen by Easyriders Magazine editors.
Next week the tour moves up north to Sacramento which will be a two day event and is usually huge in comparison to Anaheim. From Sacramento the tour moves to Charlotte, NC; followed by Nashville, TN and Columbus, OH in February. You can get full details on the Easyriders Events page. Continue reading
Floats readied for the 125th Tournament of Roses Parade
If you will recall, last week I headed out to Fiesta Parade Floats to take photos of the floats they were building for the upcoming 125th Tournament of Roses Parade. It was December 23 and at that point the floats were virtual skeletons; waiting for December 26 when the actual decorating could begin. The parade rules state that all surfaces of the float framework must be covered in natural materials; usually flowers and seeds. Since these natural materials have a tendency to decay after they are plucked from the ground, the decorating does not begin until December 26. The decorating must be completed by the evening of December 30 so that the floats can be judged on December 31.
Yesterday, December 30 I headed back out to Fiesta Parade Floats in Irwindale to see how progress was coming along. The first thing I noticed was how great it smelled in there with thousands upon thousands of flowers; most already on the floats, but some still waiting to be applied. One of the volunteers told me that they got a slow start because of the extremely warm weather we have been experiencing, but it was obvious that most of the floats were very close to completion.
After I left Irwindale I headed out to the Rose Bowl Stadium parking lot, having been invited by the California Cut Flower Commission (CCFC) to come photograph the float by entered by California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Last year the CCFC reached out to me because approximately 80% of all cut flowers sold in the United States are imported from other countries. The CCFC and California flower farmers were working with the Cal Poly Universities and the City of South Pasadena to ensure that more than 85% of the flowers used on their floats were American grown, specifically from California’s flower farms. This year, Cal Poly is the only certified \”California Grown\” float in the parade with more than 85% of the flowers used to decorate the float being sourced from California flower farmers. Continue reading