Eye Level Pasadena

Mowing the lawn

We’re looking for ways to conserve money around our house, so I decided to start mowing the lawn myself. I have fond memories of my dad mowing the lawn with a push mower on Saturdays when I was growing up, and also I remembered some of Roger’s posts at Easy Green about how much pollution gas-powered lawn mowers can emit, so I knew I wanted a manual push mower.

These websites helped me figure out what exactly I wanted:

• People Powered Machines: Which Manual Push Reel Mower is Right for You?
• Epinions.com: Reel Mowers
• Reelmowerguide.com: Guide to choosing and using a manual reel mower

We have some St. Augustine grass, so a Brill would have been too lightweight for us. I decided on the Scotts 20-inch manual reel mower without the grass catcher. (Grass clippings are good for the lawn and I’d heard that the grasscatcher didn’t actually fit this mower all that well.) I assembled the handle Friday night while I was watching a movie, and I went outside in the dark with Gavin holding a flashlight so I could test it out as soon as the movie was over. It was solid and easy to push and a little addictive. I finished half of our front lawn by flashlight because it was so satisfying. Saturday morning I got up early to finish the rest of the front and all of the back. I’m pretty out of shape, but even so it was just a light workout. The blades are quiet enough that I can mow without worrying about waking up the neighbors. I could hear birds chirping. It felt good to be outside in the early morning pushing the lawn mower around, watching the grass clippings fly and listening to the birds.

I do not currently sell ads on this blog, and I do not post about businesses or products in exchange for money or other good stuff. If I ever do get anything (besides goodwill) in exchange for posting about a person, place or thing, I’ll be sure to let you know right in the post.* I only post about people, places and things that I like or that I want other people to know about, or both.

I do use Amazon Associates referral links, though. If I link to a product on Amazon, and you click that link and then buy anything at Amazon in that visit, I receive about 4% to 6% of the sale. So far this quarter (Q1 2007) I have made $0.46. I think the maximum I have made in a quarter in my entire Amazon Associates career on different blogs has been $10.00. I only link to things on Amazon that I actually like and use.

I have mixed feelings about using Amazon Associates referral links on this blog. I want people reading this blog to be comfortable knowing they can trust that I mean what I write, and I want it to be clear that the priorities of this blog are sharing good information and connecting people with other people and with good resources.

On the other hand, I am an Amazon lover. I linked to Amazon before the Associates kickbacks, and if I stop using the Associates links, I’m still planning on linking to Amazon. Why not collect the 4-6% of sales that Amazon makes from my links?

What do you think? How do you feel about Amazon Associates links?

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*Just like Hollywood Flakes does. I love their reviews. The upfront disclosure is great, and the reviews are funny, realistic and absurd in a way that makes me wish people would send them more things to write about. I guess what I’m trying to get at is not that I’m against ads or product reviews, but that I want what’s going on here to be clear.

I’m guessing that a lot of people out there already know this, but I just discovered that you can watch videos of Pasadena’s city council meetings online. These are fascinating. They’re talking about what’s going on with our city! They’re making decisions. They’re arguing. The meeting agendas are available alongside the videos, and there’s a drop-down menu under the video screen that lets you jump to whichever part in the agenda you’d like to see on video. This streaming video service is so well done. Check it out:

City of Pasadena – City Council Streaming Video

The tomatoes and basil are from Pasadena’s Saturday morning farmers’ market, and the buffalo mozzarella is from Roma Italian Deli & Grocery.

Caprese salad in the making, 1

Caprese salad in the making, 2

Caprese salad in the making, 3

Dan Lee’s Academy of T’ai Chi Ch’uan

Tai Chi classes are offered in the basement of Pasadena Presbyterian Church on Thursday nights. Enrollment for the next set of classes will be open between March 29 – April 12. For more information, visit danleetaichi.com.

Violet’s door

I have yet to make it inside Violet’s Cakes in Old Town, but oh, how I want to.

Violet’s Cakes
21 E Holly St
Pasadena, CA 91103
(626) 395-9821

Superspark’s review: Violet’s cakes
Google local: Violet’s Cakes

Foothill Cities has a post today on a possible cap on housing development in Pasadena’s Central District, except for projects with a high percentage of affordable housing units: The Omnipresent Bunny

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I’m curious about what you guys’ ideas might be for solving Pasadena’s housing problems. What do you think we should do and how should we do it?

This Caltech press release yesterday bugged me: Certain Types of Brain Damage Can Improve Utilitarian Moral Judgments, Research Show

Fortunately, blogwaffe swooped down from the ethernet to shine the light of reason on it with his post: Lost your prefrontal lobe? Out of the boat!

If you said “throw the injured person overboard”, science has concluded that you have brain damage. (link)

latimes.com: Pasadena mayor speaks softly — and wins: Bill Bogaard strives to be boring, a secret to his successful reelection, he says (by way of proctorformayor.com)

I love this city.

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Update: Kelly at West Coast Grrlie Blather on this article in her post Where the Boring Mayor Lives:

I’ve lived in Pasadena for over two decades, and I’m becoming a curmudgeon. Why? Because of the way this city has changed….

…Pasadena now has scads of expensive, ugly rental housing. (Note to self: post photos of egregious examples.) Our traffic has started to rival the famed Westside of LA traffic. And lower income folks are moving out of this town because they cannot afford to stay here.

I’m glad to read that Bill wants to address the affordable housing issue over the next four years. Sadly, that train left the station quite a while ago. Pasadena does have an affordable housing ordinance, but developers can buy their way out if their deep pockets are so inclined (scroll down to “The Breakdown”). (link)

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Update #2: Aaron Proctor and I were emailing back and forth about this today, too, and he posts an excerpt from one of his emails in Rant to a friend:

It’s a shame that this city actually doesn’t care if low income people can’t afford to live here. My friend and his wife have two kids and are taking care of their 100+ year old grandmother and live in a house that they can’t afford to live in anymore. They’re probably going to move back to Nevada..they can’t afford to live here anymore. But, hey, as long as the Paseo is cashing in on people who live in Arcadia, Monrovia, and surrounding cities – who the hell cares about Pasadena? (link)

And here’s a snip from one of my emails:

I don’t want Pasadena to grow by squeezing people out. I want it to grow for everyone. Otherwise, everyone loses. Squeezing people out hurts the squeezers and the squeezees. I don’t want us to become sterile and chain-storey and even more isolated and lonely and afraid.

Blue Hawaiian at Bahooka

Fish looking down at our table

Another aquarium over our table

Pufferfish on the ceiling

I visited Bahooka in Rosemead for the first time last weekend. It’s a tiki bar and restaurant with aquariums all around the building and above all the tables. It’s hard to get a sense of the decor from these pictures, but it’s pretty dense and pretty impressive. If you like flaming drinks and aquariums too, it’s worth checking out.

Bahooka
4501 Rosemead Blvd
Rosemead, CA 91770
(626) 285-1241
(626) 285-7514

Tikizone.com Bahooka page