ah, the BRU
August 25, 2004 by Eric Richardson
I've never been a fan of the Bus Riders Union. They sued the MTA ten years ago and got it to agree to a consent degree saying that it would add a lot of bus service, etc. And this may have really been important ten years ago. But today the BRU is stuck in the impossible mindset that buses are exclusively the answer. The LA Times today has an article on ongoing disputes involving the consent decree. The BRU continues to allege that Metro needs to add more buses and more service, and any time Metro starts to plan a rail line the BRU comes out opposed. In light of that background, I found the following from today's article to be pretty funny:
Bernardo Torres, 40, said Rapid buses often get so crowded that people start fighting. But he isn't sure that more buses are the answer.
"There will be more traffic and the congestion will be even worse," he said. "I think they need light rail."
Don't tell that to the BRU... They won't like you very much.
the fun of waterski recruiting
August 25, 2004 by Eric Richardson
We had the semi-yearly involvement fair at USC today. Basically at the beginning of each semester all the clubs set up tables out on Trousdale to recruit new members. I was out selling the waterski team, which is always fun and tiring. For a little over three hours you stand in front of your table holding a ski, telling everyone how cool your club is and how they should definitely come out and join. Now, granted, waterski/wakeboard isn't exactly the toughest sell... It's a pretty appealing event to begin with.
Here's the thing about our involvement fair signups... Every year we probably sign up more people at the involvement fair than any other club. This time I walked out with probably eighty names and email addresses. Of those people, though, maybe 15 will ever come out and I'll probably only see 5-8 more than once. What that tells me is that the demand is there, we just aren't selling ourselves properly. Sure, some of those people sign up without having any intention of ever showing up, but I'd say out of the 80 that's probably only 20 or so people. The rest are people who are genuinely interested, and what we need to do is figure out how to get them to turn that interest into action.
Next weekend will be important. It's a football bye week, so we can plan a Saturday trip. We need to go big and get people hooked right away, before classes and other commitments start to tie them up.
Downtown: debating the new LAPD HQ
August 24, 2004 by Eric Richardson
As promised earlier, I went to City Hall tonight to attend the meeting about the new police headquarters. It was my fist time in City Hall, so that part of it was cool in and of itself. It really is an amazing building.
I arrived at the meeting about a half hour after it started, so I missed any remarks and presentations that opened. What I was there for, and what went on a good hour plus, was public comment. For the most part you could divide the speakers into two camps:
- Little Tokyo people glad to see the HQ out of their district and into the Civic Center, and
- Higgins Building people wanting the HQ anywhere else but where they want to put it.
A lot of people said the same things over and over, and you get a little tired of that after a while. Brady Westwater, president of the Downtown Neighborhood Council (DLANC), made what I thought was the best use of the two minutes each person was given. Basically what he said was (a bit more diplomatically, but hey, it's my paraphrasing): All of you who want the HQ to not be there: get real. It's happening. People have signed off. That debate's over. The debate now has to be how to get LAPD to use the site in a way that maximizes usable public space.
The architect had some rough shapes on hand to fit into a cool cardboard version of the surrounding blocks. Some of the designs looked like they had real possibility. There will be a long give and take process to balance LAPD's priorities against those of nearby residents, but I think this is the time where that debate can be fruitful.
Some random notes:
I would suggest against a public speaking tactic that involves trying to show up the public figures on hand. It's not going to work, and it just makes you look bad. Show respect at all times, even when you're attacking their policy.
Opponents of the HQ played the children card, and had two young girls come read a little speech that talked about how they wanted the chance to grow up like normal little kids and could only have that with a park.
All in all, an interesting and informative time.
end when you're done
August 24, 2004 by Eric Richardson
You know what I can't stand? Professors who don't know when to end a class. We're done. We've learned all we're going to learn this week. And yet we're still here, and we're waiting while he finds something online that he wants us to connect to.
Come on... I'm supposed to be at City Hall in a half hour. Let's wrap this up, please.
Ok, granted the class isn't officially supposed to end until 6:45. But we're done, let's go.
i'm not a gamer, but i'll pretend
August 24, 2004 by Eric Richardson
So I have a class on Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games this semester, which I mentioned yesterday. Today is the first class period. One of the "texts" is the game Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. We get a free copy of the game and a 3-month free subscription, which is cool and all, but the hardware requirements are pretty intense. It requires a graphics card capable of hardware texture and lighting, which my GeForce4 is, but it's in a machine with a PII 400, and oh... It's running Linux. My laptop meets all requirements except the graphics card. I guess Annenberg is going to set up some lab computers for us, though, which should make it ok.
Update: For those of you who might be interested, here's a bit of the breakdown of the people in the class: * 6 male, 2 female * a few real gamers, but not all * one cinema-television PhD student