Torrance Education Foundation Recognizes Local Teachers

These photos were taken Tuesday evening at Edelbrock’s, Vic’s Garage in Torrance, where the Torrance Education Foundation held a recognition and appreciation reception for Torrance school teachers that had applied for and received STEM grants. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math; which are all subjects that American students need to excel in if we are to compete in tomorrow’s world. The Foundation awarded 48 grants totaling $39,500 for K-12 enrichment projects: Family STEM Nights, CyberPatriots, Hour of Code, After-School Engineering Club, Math Counts, Science Olympiad, and Robotics. The teachers recognized at the event are doing their part to …

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4th Annual Torrance Cherry Blossom Cultural Festival

These photos were taken Sunday, March 15 at the 4th Annual Torrance Cherry Blossom Cultural Festival, which was held in the southeast corner of Columbia Park in Torrance. The free, family friendly event was sponsored in part by the City of Torrance, the North Torrance Homeowners Association, the Torrance Sister City Association, Torrance Craftsmens Guild, and Soka Gakkai International-Buddhist Association for Peace, Culture and Education. Entertainment was provided by Susan Manns Wahine Ilikea Dancers performing Polynesian dances, O-Edo Ichi-Za performing traditional Japanese fan dances, and Myoon Taiko drumming. There were also several food trucks available and one of them even …

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If it’s too loud you’re too old? Maybe not.

Every once in a while I write an article that I know ahead of time is going to upset some people; I am relatively confident there will be those that are not going to like this article. I am okay with that and apologize ahead of time if you don’t approve of my thoughts. A couple months ago, at a Torrance City Council meeting, there was a topic of discussion regarding a free “summer” concert series that runs from January through October on Saturday evenings from 6:00-9:00 PM at the courtyard on Cabrillo by El Prado. Since the event is …

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Fiesta Floats of the 126th Tournament of Roses Parade

It is New Year’s Eve, and the time is up for the preparation of the floats for the 126th Annual Tournament of Roses Parade with will begin at 8:00 AM on January 1, 2015. I began my day by heading back out to Irwindale and Fiesta Parade Floats, the leading award winning float-builder in the Tournament of Roses Parade. I lucked out today as I happened to arrive at Fiesta Floats after they had begun removing some floats from the building they were built in, giving me the ability to take some photos without dozens (or hundreds) of people vying …

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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 …

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Candy Cane Lane returns to Sleepy Hollow

It is that time of year again, when the residents of the Seaside area of South Torrance, also known as Sleepy Hollow, show true community cooperation by decorating entire blocks in an extravaganza of Christmas lights, transforming the neighborhood into Candy Cane Lane. A tradition that, by all verifiable accounts, began in 1985 has become seemingly more popular with each successive year; if not with the residents most definitely with the visitors that come to view the lights. In prior years it seemed that you had to know where you were going in order to find the decorated neighborhood. This …

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An Open Letter to the Torrance City Council

On July 15 the City of Torrance got a new mayor, Pat Furey; and a new city council consisting of incumbent Gene Barnett, and newly elected council members Kurt Weideman, Heidi Ashcraft, Tim Goodrich and Geoff Rizzo. Now, it is true that Weideman and Ashcraft had one year and six months experience respectively as they had both been appointed, not elected, to the council but their combined 18 months of experience is but a drop in the bucket compared to the time put in by the council members they replaced. The fact is that on July 15 Torrance lost 30 …

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Louis Zamperini Celebration of Life Photos

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 …

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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 …

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Torrance residents: Be careful out there

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 …

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