Gary and Megan – LDR
Gary Jones and Megan Simpson talk about how they met and how they dealt with the difficulties of a long distance romance.
Airplane displays in the Antelope Valley
“The Antelope Valley has a rich aviation heritage. Air Force Plant 42 has been the site of the first flights of many important and novel aircraft. Aircraft flying out of Edwards Air Force Base are often seen in the skies overhead. There are several places where you can see vintage airplanes displayed in the Antelope Valley.” (via Air and Space)
There’s something happening here…
“Butler’s Coffee, the Antelope Valley’s most happening java joint, has music every Saturday night, plus plenty of other music and other activities and entertainment scattered throughout the calendar.
Our music program has been, by almost any measure, a huge success. We’ve already had some great performances from various local and LA area acts since we’ve opened; folks like Tracy Newman, The Willard Grant Conspiracy, Katy Moffatt, John Zipperer & Friends, Shotgun Granny, Chuck Roberts, Men of Worth, Shakeh, Doug Moon, Barn Burning, Allie Taylor, Ian McCartor, Shotgun Granny, Ryan Beuder, Julian Corpeño, Julia Jordon, The Keeftowne Blend, Silent Planet, Laura Browne-Sorenson, Luis Narino and The Browne Sisters & George Cavanaugh.
Can’t wait until showtime? Why not check out our very first video? This YouTubeClip shows Allie Taylor and band putting their stamp on a Katy Perry number at Butler’s back (way, way back) in November 2008.
So don’t just sit there at home, vegetating. Check out our Calendar. We have music most Saturday nights and we’re adding more nights (and a few matinée shows) as we go.
Have a club? Meet here…” (Full article via Butler’s Coffee House)
Female Black Bear Gets Tranquilized In Palmdale
“PALMDALE (CBSLA.com) — A large female black bear decided to sleep it off up a tree in Palmdale Saturday.
The bear was likely trying to keep cool.
She was spotted up a tree near homes on 40th Street E. and Q-2 so game wardens were called to try to coax her back into the wild.
The bear didn’t look like she wanted to move, so she was eventually tranquilized.
Officials were there to catch her when the bear fell from her perch.
Authorities said the bear was in good health.
Officials estimated the bear at about one-and-a-half years of age. They believe she was in the residential area looking for food and/or water.” (via CBS Los Angeles)
The Flat Earth Society
“The Flat Earth Society (also known as the International Flat Earth Society or the International Flat Earth Research Society) is an organization which aims to further the idea that the Earth is flat instead of an oblate spheroid. The modern organization was founded by Englishman Samuel Shenton in 1956[1] and was later led by Charles K. Johnson, who based the organization in his home in Lancaster, California. The formal society was inactive after Johnson’s death in 2001 but was resurrected in 2004 by its new president Daniel Shenton.[2]
The ideas of the society are widely seen by accomplished scientists as pseudoscientific.[3]
Continue Reading →
Ceremony for BYD buses for Antelope Valley BYD rolls out electric buses for Antelope Valley
“Electric bus manufacturer BYD Motors rolled out its first two vehicles manufactured in California and destined for the Antelope Valley Transit Authority (CA).
“It’s a small beginning. A few buses. But like many things, it holds promise as something very big and very important,” said governor Jerry Brown at a ceremony at the company’s plant in Lancaster.
In hopes of gaining a foothold in the U.S. market, the Chinese company established its North American headquarters in Los Angeles and the firm set up an assembly facility in a former recreational vehicle plant in Lancaster. The southern California city’s mayor R. Rex Parris has come under fire for dealing with Chinese firms, but he said that his goal was to create jobs in his city. “We like money,” Parris said in an interview. “It’s not a parochial nationalist view; it’s a market view.”” (via The Transit Wire)
AVTA’S BYD Electric Bus Goes the Distance
“The Antelope Valley Transit Authority’s (AVTA) new BYD electric bus is performing better than advertised! AVTA and BYD operators put the electric bus to the test this weekend during a 24-hour marathon ride that looped from Rosamond to Palmdale a total of 18 times.
The BYD electric bus managed to travel an astounding 746 miles over the 24-hour period, operating in three shifts. Each shift logged between 240 and 256 miles before recharging the battery.
“This is tremendous news and it proves the BYD electric bus can be a transit work horse like its diesel counterpart,” stated Board Chair Norm Hickling. “We are looking forward to putting our electric buses into service on local transit routes to further evaluate their true performance under all weather and road conditions.”
This weekend’s 24-hour marathon began on Saturday at 1:04 in the afternoon starting from the BYD factory in Lancaster. AVTA’s electric bus was loaded with 5,250 lbs. of sand bags to simulate the weight of 35 passengers. The bus traveled a total of 240 miles before its first battery charge, which is nearly 100 miles more than BYD advertises and 30 miles more than is needed to service an average transit route in the AntelopeValley. The air conditioning system ran during most of the test except during the early morning hours when it was cold outside.” (via Electric Cars Report)
Thoughts and images from the semi-fictional city of Los Angeles
“You’ve seen this movie before.
A pair of young city-dwellers drive out into “the country” to explore some remote curiosity. Maybe they’re on the way to visit a relative, or tracking a local legend, or – in the most hopeless cases – taking a “shortcut” to some commercial-friendly vacation destination. Whatever the case, the movie doesn’t end well. They make a wrong turn, pick up the wrong hitchhiker, get trampled by Lady Luck and/or Mother Nature before being tortured and killed by giant insects or an inbred family of hungry cannibals.
Oddly, this type of movie frequently gets shot in Antelope Valley, about sixty miles north of L.A. Driving through, it’s not hard to understand why. The high desert landscape is naturally forbidding. Strong winds stir up dust devils in the rocky sand and the only signs of life are Joshua trees – which don’t grow big enough to provide shelter from the sun. Here, a person is completely vulnerable to the elements. The population of the valley – concentrated mostly in the western cities of Palmdale and Lancaster – is growing fast, but settlements to the east still appear inhospitable. One gets a profound sense of loneliness on the empty roads, and hopes that this is not the day the radiator overheats or a tire blows out… because, as Hollywood has proven, this is the perfect place to disappear.
Continue Reading →
Lancaster Blvd Farmer’s Market
null
Welcome to the BLVD Farmers Market! The Farmers Market is done in partnership with Raw Inspiration, a non-profit operator for California Certified Farmers’ Markets, the City is offering citizens yet another way to live healthier and be proactive about personal wellness.
Current Hours:
Thursdays, 4-9 p.m. on Lancaster BLVD
March 20-October 30, 2014
Continue Reading →
Antelope Valley coach Mark Covert ends 16,437-day running streak
“LANCASTER — It began in 1968 with a 15-mile run by Griffith Park and through the streets of nearby Burbank on a hot July afternoon that Mark Covert can remember like it was yesterday.
It ceremoniously concluded Tuesday with the final steps taken just outside Marauder Stadium on the Antelope Valley College campus surrounded by several friends, family members, student-athletes, coaches, former teammates and running enthusiasts from around the country.