September, 2, 2005 archives

i got my renewed drivers license yesterday (less than a week after renewing it online!) and besides putting the donor sticker on my card, i also registered with the donate life california site. it’s cool that they’ve made it so painless to register for organ donation.

since i registered online, my new license has my old picture. it also has my old weight — fifteen pounds too high, and that gap is growing. i thought i remembered reading once that you should get a new license if the weight on your card is off by more than ten pounds, but i couldn’t find anything about that on the renewal site. and given the choice between renewing online and having to go in, it was an easy call.

this should be no shock: this month i’ve sent my usual monthly charitable donation to the red cross for the hurricane katrina relief efforts.

i’ve been feeling a little bit country the last few days — seeing i see hawks in l.a. and the other groups on wednesday, listening to will the circle be unbroken by the nitty gritty dirt band at the gym the last couple of days, and seeing seven redneck cheerleaders last night (short review: very funny, great cast that will be different if you go see it, and a really great theatre — i would have totally crashed in the comfy chairs if i hadn’t taken a nap earlier in the day).

just a few days ago i was worried about bouncing off the walls this weekend, but i hit a wall yesterday and am now looking forward to spending the weekend curled into a ball.

la works has floated a couple of volunteer opportunities recently that have caught my eye. the first is helping to clear brush and do other work at the gibbon conservation center in santa clarita on october 9.

the second is helping with the collection of donations for hurricane katrina relief at dodger stadium during their upcoming series with the san francisco giants. i’m signed up for monday. (they’re looking for 16 volunteers each day.)

the identity of the mysterious building on spring street has been made, courtesy of an architectural guidebook to los angeles by david gebhard and robert winter. it’s an annex to the i.n. van nuys building. it was built in 1929-30. the book claims that the north parking entrance “retains its original classical metal gates,” but unless it is behind the not-original not-classical gate you see in the picture, that may no longer be true.

if you look at the picture, the ledge near the top of the annex does match up with the ledge around the van nuys building (on the right). i don’t see many architectural similarities between the buildings other than that.