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My first impression of Los Angeles was not so good. We were on a several-week camping trip when I was about 9, starting in San Francisco, then to Wyoming and Utah and Arizona, and finishing up in southern California. I remember my first sight of LA, driving down from the mountains (we were probably coming in via I-15 through San Bernardino, though I don't remember): A vast sea of dark gray smog, out to the distant ocean, with tall buildings poking up above it here and there.

In Los Angeles, you couldn't really see the sky like in other places. It was lighter above, and grew steadily darker the further down you looked, a smooth gradient to gray well before the buildings hiding the horizon.

We saw the sunset from Disneyland one or two evenings, a beatiful orange sky I'd never seen before - really orange, solid orange, a thick band covering much of the sky. During the day, the sun was a diffuse focus of brilliant light spread out larger than a harvest moon.

I didn't go back to southern California until 2003, almost a quarter century later. California had made great strides on air quality in the years since. The pollution capitals of the US had mostly moved to Texas by then, and the sky in Los Angeles was unexceptional, just the sky like in most other cities I've been to.

Today, I took a flight from San Diego to Boston by way of Los Angeles, and got a view of the city from 25 or more years ago, for several minutes as we approached the airport. When we got out of the plane, I saw that same gradient sky, and that same sun. We left before sunset; I wonder if it's as orange as it was back then.

P.S. Glad to be back in Boston, where the air is cold but breathable. Although our plane waited over 50min after landing before they had an open gate for us and I'm waiting for my bags but missed the T. Yay for dreams_of_wings coming to pick me up.

I'll be in San Diego all of the second week of November.

Remind me who I know there, if you know? Or who I should meet?

[Poll #1280552]

I'm in Santa Fe for several days for listgirl & Elena's wedding, and I'll probably have some free time. Suggest somewhere I should go, something I should do or see, someone I should meet, somewhere I should eat, or any permutation of the above?

I'm sharing a hotel room with mechristy, mostlylies, and rekling. Last night I dreamed that I was away somewhere, sharing a room with the three of them, for an event put on by mutual friends. I feel cheated by my dream-brain.

Today I bought mzrowan's house, the one I've been living in ever since she first bought it in 2006. She's still here, though she plans to move soon to the place she's been renovating for a few months and will hopefully buy soon.

Although it all went smoothly today, there were a few times over the past month when I feared it'd get derailed, and the conclusion is: mortgage lenders, whoever they are, probablly all suck at communicating with you. When mzrowan and redheadedmuse's house buying turned into a mess, it turned out there was an explanation, but the bank just didn't tell them. I dealt with a different lender, Monument, but had almost-similar experiences.

What made the difference was having Joe Cooper, who redheadedmuse recommended, arranging things. He connects buyers with lenders, so he works with various banks and mortgage lenders, but the best part of the service he offers is communication. When the lender pulls some random inexplicable move and you go "WTF?!?", Joe explains why they did it, how the rules or laws relate, and even what the original purpose of those rules or laws is, and then you know what you need to do to make things work.

For example, when the lender says "sorry, you seem to be $18,000 short of being able to make your down payment" when I've looked at all the numbers and I know I have more than enough, they don't explain anything. They expect that I just take them at face value. Joe explains to me how we got laws requiring documenting the source of my funds, what funds do and don't need to be documented, and the key fact that since I made my deposit to the seller in July, that means they have to consider my July bank statement since that statement documents the deposit, which in turn means I have to document the source of any funds that went into my account in July, even though I thought I only needed to document what went in in August since they said they only need to look at one bank statement.

I second muse's recommendation: If you're going to get a mortgage without the standard lawyers and brokers, and you're not already very familiar with the process, don't try to deal directly with a lender; call Joe Cooper at 617-969-1441.

I created a new community, baystate, for Massachusetts.

Do I know anyone in Austin who may have somewhere for me to stay for any or all of July 16-20? (Wednesday through Sunday of next week)

I am pre-registered for Netroots Nation and very much want to go, and I can get a free flight with my frequent flyer miles, but I don't think I can spend on a hotel right now...

Friday afternoon, silentmachine's roommates took me to Minnehaha Park to see the falls, and we also stumbled onto World Refugee Day. We wandered into Sea Salt and got ice cream, but it wasn't until after I got mine that we noticed this...



We asked and the guy behind the counter said it really was made with squid ink, and tastes somewhat like black cherry.

First, some context: I'm at the ACLU national conference and this evening, we heard from George Soros, who recently made the largest private gift in ACLU history. Introducing Soros, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero announced the $12 million seed gift for the ACLU's ambitious new expansion. The goal is to "fill in the middle": We have strong, long-running ACLU affiliates in places like Massachusetts¹, New York, and northern California, but there are many states where the local ACLU is too small and underfunded to deal with the challenges of their coverage area & political climate.

So with that in mind, Romero was describing the plan:

"Someday there will no longer be civil liberties dead zones in the US ... you can look at the map, and you know what states I'm talking about, It's not places like Chelsea² where I live. Well, I don't know, maybe in Chelsea... if there's detention, it's the good kind of detention."

(A surprising number of people got it. I like this crowd.)

Reading The Rise of the Creative Class crystallized for me the idea, which I already had, that our new age of easy communications actually makes physical, geographic locations more significant, not less. Paul Graham's new essay, Cities and Ambition, presents another view of how cities matter - one that also seems familiar, but that I hadn't thought about in quite that way.

Some cities are centers for particular kinds of activity. Such a city subtly sends you a message related to that activity - by the things you see walking down the street, by the snippets of conversation you overhear, and many other ways. A city's message, he argues, comes from the fact that there is something people in that city tend to consistently view as more important than other things, and this attitude is catching. It's a three-way cycle:

• People move to that city because they value what it values above other things, and because it is a center for that activity
• People in that city value that thing because the city is a center for it, and because a lot of them moved there because it was the thing they already valued more
• It is a center for its activity because it is known for it so people move there to do that thing, and because people living there are encouraged to value that thing, which in turn encourages the activity itself

To really know a city's message, Graham says, you probably have to live there for a while. As examples, he gives the paces he has lived, and the messages they send:

New York City: You should make more money!

Silicon Valley: Be powerful. And start companies.

Berkeley: Live better. Enjoy life.

Boston, especially Cambridge: You could be smarter. Read more, learn more. Develop ideas.

He also gives a stab at interpreting the messages of some places he's been to but hasn't lived in, while acknowledging that he's not sure and that a local might interpret it more accurately. For example, he thinks the message Paris was sending him was "do things in style; appreciate art and beauty". And not all cities send a coherent message, because not all cities are focused in that way.

Where do live? What message is your city sending you?

Have you lived somewhere else that sent a clear message? What was it?

Edit: To clarify, in case you don't click through to read Graham's essay, in his formulation a city's message is both the thing it suggest you should aspire to, and the thing that people generally respect and honor most, and think is cool. So the coolest, most honored & respectable thing you can be in Silicon Valley is someone who started a now-influential company; in Boston, it's a smart person who had a great idea or created something new; in New York, it's being rich.

A month ago I posted to show that Obama would win the Democratic nomination - that he'd already won enough votes and delegates to ensure his eventual victory, and there was no reasonable scenario for Clinton to campaign her way to a win.*

Yesterday, Clinton won West Virginia 67% - 26% - 7% (Edwards), her second-biggest percentage win so far, and only the second state where she's hit 60%. She gave a victory speech where she implied she could still win. In case this leaves you wondering whether she's making a comeback, or has a chance, here's ( an update on the delegate math... )

Short answer: No. She's so far behind that her WV win actually left her worse off.

Oregon will probably finish it.

Update: Last night, John Edwards endorsed Obama. ( How this affects delegates... )
Overall, this probably means a +11 - +17 delegate gain for Obama, and cuts Clinton's possible advantage from seating Florida by ~6-13 depending on how Florida is handled.

* Clinton could still be nominated if some big unexpected thing happens, such as a Spitzer-like scandal, but that's not something she can campaign for; if it happens, it'll happen, regardless of what she does.

I picked Country Club Castelfusano, a "tourist camping village", for our last night because of its proximity to Fiumicino airport, to make it easier for us to catch a 10am flight. Castelfusano is, by the way, apparently an actual old castle, though rather small. It and its surrounding grounds are penned in by a fence in the middle of the giant camping village - which contains a pizzeria plus two restaurants, swimming pool, jacuzzi / "fun area" (closed until later in the spring), games room, dance hall, meeting rooms ... oh, and some wild pigs and their cute little piglets. They're in a separate little fenced-in forest between the castle grounds and the camping bungalows. The castle is guarded by a bull, marked on the map by a picture of a bull.

Indeed, they do have a shuttle bus to Fiumicino for 3 euro, but the earliest shuttle each day leaves at 8:30am, and with morning commute traffic that would not necessarily have gotten us to the airport in time, so we came up with another plan: take Castelfusano's free shuttle to the nearby commuter train station, take that train a few stops towards Rome, get off at Ostia center, and catch a public bus.

We got the 7am shuttle bus, a 7:13 train, and were in Ostia center by 7:25. Ostia is very close to Fiumicino, but the co.tra.l bus meandered its way first through the center of Ostia, then Fiumicino (a town as well as an airport location) before dropping us off at the airport in front of a daunting series of terminals. None of their signs said "American Airlines" so we asked, and were directed to get on the airport terminal shuttle. As were people taking US Air, Continental, and others that were listed on the signs.

According to a bit of fragmented Italian conversation I overheard on that airport shuttle, a brand new Terminal 5 had opened just one week earlier, and all flights to the USA now depart from there. This is apparently because the US was dissatisfied with security at the rest of the airport.

After a private shuttle, a commuter train, a public bus, and an airport shuttle, we reached Terminal 5 and quickly found American Airlines check-in. Well, not check-in exactly, just some booths where they checked our documents and determined our worthiness to enter the USA. Then through some doors to another big hall, and there was check-in... where they checked our documents again, checked our bag, and gave us tickets. We were told to go to gate C25, directed through another door... and herded with the rest of the USA-bound travelers onto a bus.

Everyone got off the bus into another airport building, where upon entry we saw a great big map of this new terminal with its gates numbered C20-C33, and up the escalator we went... not to the gates, it turns out, but to a platform to catch a light rail. As far as I could tell, the structure we were in served no other purpose than to be a transfer station between the buses and the light rail. Everyone got on the same little train, which had only one other stop: the actual C20-C33 gates structure.

Despite all of this, we got to sit for over 45 minutes before boarding. The agents at the gate checked our passports again (passport check #3) and, after not choosing either of us for the random extra screening, allowed us to proceed down the normal-looking gate extension, onto the plane. Err, no, that would be too simple. First came passport check #4. Then: another bus.

(We're at JFK now, where there's real Internet. When we got past passport control & customs, someone tried to offer us a shuttle bus.)

Edit: Home! Transport used: Private bus, commuter train, city bus, airport shuttle bus, airport bus 2, light rail, airport bus 3, plane, plane, private car. #1 through #8 to leave Italy, #8-10 the rest of the way home. Goodnight!