Photos of my apartment and surroundings

This is, unsurprisingly, our front door. Unlike me, Adele has a green thumb, so she likes plants and stuff outside, and I love the way they make the walk up to the door look. (She has some really pretty geraniums that I like and some Martha Washingtons that I like as well. We've had herbs, but other than the rosemary, a lot of them don't do so well in the brutal summer heat out here.)

And looking over the railing to the left in the above photo past the plants, this is the view we have of the mountains to the north. This is the (mostly) southernmost ridge of the San Gabriels, the transverse mountains that are one range down from the Sierras. They're middling high, about 8,000ft at their highest -- high enough, but not a patch on the Sierras, which reach their max height with Mt. Whitney at 14,494ft (the tallest peak in the lower 48, I think). These mountains don't run terribly north-south, hence their classification as a transverse range.

Because of them and the foothills to the south that lead into them, we have almost no SW-NE running freeways, which makes getting to the LA metro area a real pain in the ass around here. The San Gabes are really pretty, though. Lots of sugar pines, Coulter pines, and Jeffrey pines in them. The sugar pines do smell like bubblegum, and the Coulters have these massive pine cones on them that the loggers used to call widowmakers for obvious reasons.

I have no clue what sort of tree this is, but it's near the entrance to Bldg 3, which is our building, and its leaves turn the most incredibly rich deep red color, like chianti. I really like it. A little past it, you can just make out the magnolias.

This is the football field. :-) Okay, it's the pool. Nobody's out there since it's "so cold lately." *rolls eyes* There's also two hot tubs nearby as well, often filled with some type of Burbank hottie. Since this is after all Burbank, we've got more than our share of underwear models and various young hotties looking to get their big break in reality TV living in the complex, which means that the hot tubs can get a little ... scenic at times with pretty boys in small swimsuits. I'm not complaining.

This is my all-time favorite tree -- either a gum tree or a Japanese maple, I'm not sure which. Adele would know. This tree's leaves turn the most incredibly bright red colors, like Jollyrancher candies. I think this tree is one of the main reasons why I like what passes for autumn out here. I can't even begin to describe how pretty the leaves are when they turn. I saw a really neat bird in it once, too -- smallish, maybe only a foot tall, but with the hooked beak and wedge-shaped behind of a bird of prey. Really pretty. I don't know what kind of bird it was -- I know they get red-tailed hawks out here.

This is the view up Angeleno, the street that borders our complex on the west side. This is looking north-ish (northeast, actually) up to the San Gabes. This mountain glows in sunset when the sun hits it just right. It turns bright orange. Very pretty. Mostly though, it's just ugly, boring dried-out brown.

The building to my left as I took this shot is a new complex of "luxury condominiums," otherwise known as apartments for sale instead of rent. They are running, and I'm not kidding you here, half a mil apiece. Seriously. $500,000 for a damned flat. Frigging insanity. They have been building it since we moved in in April of 2004 and are just now finally finishing it up.

I have no idea what that black thread in the right side of the picture is.

This is looking down San Fernando. The bright gold colored building is the south-west corner of those insanely expensive condos. To my left, which you can't see here, is a restaurant called Gordon Biersch that sells interesting German beers along with the sorts of food that you tend to eat with interesting beers (hot wings and burgers). It's quite a good place actually. They also sell garlic fries, which are delicious but ... aromatic. I ate them once and I swear to you that after a full day of picking and flossing, I woke up the next day still remarkably aware that I had had garlic fries the day before. They're great, but they'd be banned in Transylvania.

More down San Fernando Blvd, which borders my complex on its south side. Lots of tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants and other places that are really fun. Used bookstores, expensive shops ... Apparently, SF Blvd used to be a real hole, but it got hit with the Urban Renewal Stick a while back, and now it's really very nice. This is my daily walk, actually -- up to the mall and then back on the other side of the street. I try to do it every day.

Walking further along SF Blvd, you hit this little thing, which is the little open area near the AMC movie theater. They always put these giant gold balls out during the winter holidays. There's a nice sushi restaurant there, some sort of fusion barbecue place, and a Coldstone Creamery as well as a Ben and Jerry's. To my left as I took the picture is a fantastic Italian restaurant called the Market City Caffe. They have unbelievably good food, and they aren't pricey. On Sunday late mornings, they have a string quartet performing. Literally everything in this place is delicious. I want to get you out here and take you to this place.

In the area of the square where you see a fellow in a sky-blue sweater they had some snow. A little 20ft by 30ft patch of it. Which they brought in. In a truck. LA really is a different world.

Another look near the movie theater. You can also see the beginnings of the San Gabes as well, more like the foothills that lead up into the actual mountains -- although they probably are mountains in their own right.

Are palm trees not the dorkiest looking things you've ever seen?

San Fernando Blvd dead-ends at this mall and then picks up again on the other side of it. To the left out of the frame is a PF Chang's restaurant with the two big horses flanking the entrance. This is a pretty good mall. Further past the mall (further west on SF Blvd) you hit the Burbank media center where almost every TV show in existence holds their various fairs and press conferences. There's also an IKEA on that side of the mall, which is potentially dangerous in terms of outlay of money. I avoid it.

Turning at the mall and coming back along the other side of San Fernando, this is what you see. This is mildly busy just because of the holidays, I think, but it is only a Sunday. It gets packed on Saturdays and Friday and Saturday nights.

This is a pretty winter sky -- how can you tell it's winter? Clouds. I'm serious. Normally, it's completely blank. I remember hearing about a TV show -- a spaceships-and-rayguns sort of show -- that wanted to have a shot in it of an actor standing outside and looking up on some alien planet someplace and seeing big spaceships flying overhead. Well, they figured that they might as well take the actor, bring him outside in the parking lot and have him look up over his head and just shoot it from below, so that the camera looked up along with him with his head in the frame.

Well, they did, but then they realized that they had to use computers to put fake clouds in the shot, because -- typical for a summer in LA -- the sky was completely clear, and it looked like he was standing in front of a blue screen.