For the past couple of years, I've been working to set up the South Bay Cities Regional Housing Trust. At the first Board meeting for the Trust, I presented on Affordable Housing 101. This was my very first slide, "Building housing costs money."

Please, Mr. Traffic Engineer, may I cross the street?

That's a very specific type of building. We've seen a lot of buildings of that height built in recent years that don't have a large number of entrances facing the street. What you describe is absolutely what we should be aiming for, but it doesn't happen at any density without rules requiring it.

I’m in San Francisco this weekend, and for the first time I’ve seen a significant number of Waymo driverless taxis out in the wild. After watching them for a while, I’m now of the opinion that they should be banned outright. They do nothing but make traffic worse & are a danger to other road users.

Today is mine and @onetwobre.bsky.social’s anniversary. She got me a first edition, first printing of Death and Life. Of course, I’ve had the same paperback copy that every planner owns for years, but it’s pretty neat having a first printing. It looks good on my urban planning shelf.

I’ve never seen a copy of Neighborhood Defenders in a bookstore before. The Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur was incredible. It was probably the most well-curated bookstore I’ve been to, full of classics and other influential work. I’d love to do nothing but read through the entire store.

This may be the world’s shortest no parking zone.

Since the weekend, a fire has been burning on Santa Rosa Island. I had plans to go backpacking there next month, which won't be happening now. (Channel Islands is the last National Park I need to visit in California.) More importantly, the fire is devastating island fox habitat on Santa Rosa.

I highly recommend switching over to StoryGraph. I get awesome data dumps whenever I want them. You can even import your Goodreads data so you don’t lose any past quantification.

The entire hotel is that way. There is this lounge room just off the entrance that is spectacular. It’s been the setting for a bunch of tv shows and movies. It’s a really incredible hotel that’s downright cheap to stay in because it’s no longer in the best neighborhood.

And with that, we’re headed back to Orange County. It was absolutely possible to get around this par of LA without a car. Some areas were perfectly nice to walk, and others not so much. The city is much better than it had been for getting around without a car, but still has a long way to go.

Our last stop of the day is Kinokuniya, a Japanese book and stationary store. It was the only store where we bought anything, and it wasn’t even a book! I got a new Leuchtturm1917 notebook for when I finish my current notebook of fiction writing, and a felted owl craft for the girl child.

We spent a little longer in the bar than expected. We needed to wait until they started serving food. So, we ended up missing one of the bookstores we had planned to go to, since it closed at 6pm. But it wasn’t our last stop!

Our feet are tired, it’s time for a drink. Since the Biltmore is next door to the Central Library, it seemed like a great place to rest our feet.

A brief pause from indie bookstores, but still book related, we stopped by the LA Central Library. We’ve been collecting library cards, but not LA’s yet. It’s the library’s centennial & they have special library cards, but unfortunately they were out! But we still got cards we can use on Libby.

The Last Bookstore felt like the trendiest stop on our tour. This felt more like an Instragram spot than a real bookstore. They have a lot of books, but also a lot of empty shelf space. But, it was crowded, so they’re doing something right.

Since we were in the area, stopped by Hollyhock House. This is one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s LA homes designed during his Mayan era. Honestly, I’m surprised his popularity survived this era. This house would have been awful to live in, no wonder it got donated to the city in less than twenty years.

Our first indie bookstore stop is Skylight Book in Los Feliz. This was much more a bookstore aligned with my interests more than @onetwobre.bsky.social’s. It’s mostly an art bookstore, with a good selection of architecture, urban planning, and photography.

The B Line was completely deserted when we first got on at Union Station. It seemed like no one was using LA Metro to get around. However, each stop a few more folks got aboard and by the time we got off at Vermont / Sunset the train almost felt crowded.

Of course, we need to fuel before we start book shopping. @onetwobre.bsky.social has never been to Philippe’s, so we’re stopping for a beef dip and baked apple.

It’s Indie Bookstore Day! @onetwobre.bsky.social and I are headed into LA by train to take transit around LA, visiting as many indie bookstores as we can. Folks say you need a car to get around LA, but that seems less and less true. Let’s see how well this works.

The average American has three friends.

For the past couple of years, I've been tracking Tadej Pogačar's campaign to become cycling's GOAT. He's making advances on Eddy Merckx's record, but isn't there yet. If he can keep his current dominance for another few years, he will be the GOAT, but he's not there yet.

We haven’t seen new-code subdivisions destroyed. We’ve seen some individual homes destroyed, but not whole neighborhoods the way we’ve seen entire neighborhoods of older buildings. I drove through Altadena after the fire there, and I could absolutely see how a wall of new homes would have helped.

I did my third FTP test this year. I haven't been the best at eating or exercising over the past six weeks, and it shows. My weight had been slightly down before the kids' spring break, but bounced back up on our vacation. Thankfully, my power has continued to progress & is where I want it.

This was the first time I’d ever received a warning before an earthquake hit. I’m real far away and barely felt the earthquake, but it’s awesome to see this type of warning system work.

Last month, I talked about the risks of the dollar not being the world’s reserve currency. It looks like that’s already happening. Today, yields on the 30 year T-bill nearly hit its peak in the past decade. The bond auctions over the next two days are going to be terrifying.

I 3d printed the Right Hand of Pierre and Jacques de Wissant to use as a helmet rack. Unfortunately, I have two more helmets that it doesn’t hold. I guess I’ll need to print Jacques’ left hand.

I need to drop my car off in Corona, right next to the Metrolink station. Instead of having someone drive all the way there and back to pick me up, I thought I’d see if I could take the train back. Apparently, I would have needed to plan 12 hours ahead. No wonder nobody takes transit in SoCal.

For instance, the middle of this street is the border between Anaheim and Garden Grove. These shouldn’t really be two cities here. Of course, that means that everything the San Fernando Valley and Dana Point should be one big city.