Garages, 2

I thought doing a series on garages in Pasadena would be easy. My favorites are the old ones, some going back to the early part of the 20th century. (This does not impress the European readers or those on the east coast, but so be it.)

But it's hard to find a garage without a car or a garbage can in front of it, so I grabbed this shot hoping the purply-blue flowers might make it into a photo. I didn't notice until I got the picture onto my screen how interesting the garage is, regardless of the flowers. I love the complete individuality of the doors. Even the hinges don't match.

The fact that the padlock is painted the same color as the rest tells me these doors are rarely opened, if ever. I can't tell from the street, but this could be a storage space, or someone's studio or office, entered from the yard on the other side of the fence.

I hope they don't plan to "fix" those doors. They're perfect the way they are.

Pick One

It sure feels like summer's over. It is over, I guess, with kids back in school. Summer stays late in southern California, but here it is October and I'm lamenting its departure. I'm a glutton that way.

It's been nice, though, to feel the fall chill. Why is fall so nostalgic? I think the word "nostalgic" was invented to describe autumn. My reaction to cloudy skies is to relate them to similar skies of days gone by. When early darkness comes, I remember earlier days that ended too soon.

But I'm being over-dramatic. We have one more day of rain, then tomorrow it'll be sunny again and the weekend will be hot. Maybe I should have saved this picture for Saturday. Or maybe then I'll post gloomy skies and moan that the rain ended too soon.

Do you have a favorite season? Mine's summer. But I do like rain.

The Giving Season

We've been enjoying some wet weather. It feels like winter, southern California style, although it's only a taste. We can expect the heat to be back this weekend, with perhaps more rain next week. Nice.

The weather puts me in mind of what's to come: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and what we like to call "The Holidays": Christmas, Chanukah, New Year's and The Tournament of Roses.

You're going to need fortitude. You're going to need sanity. You're going to need presents.

I'm here to help. At Pasadena Daily Photo, we've got a contest coming up, with prizes courtesy of Colleen Dunn Bates at Hometown Pasadena and Prospect Park Books. Beginning later this month, we have books to give away. Not just any old books, but five (count 'em, FIVE) copies of Hometown Pasadena 2009-2010, the definitive guide to our fair city. (That's a $24.95 value.) Hometown Pasadena 2009-2010 is a great gift for your favorite Pasadenan.

My plan is to do this contest-style, beginning Friday, October 22nd and giving away a book each Friday for six weeks until they're gone.

Did I say six weeks? I believe I said I have five books.

Okay, well, the sixth prize will be a copy of At Home Pasadena, a beautiful, hardcover coffee-table book about the artful Pasadena life we'd all live if we were totally creative and organized and had a landscaper, a chef and a cleaning lady. (This book lists at $39.95.)

Hey--I didn't say the presents couldn't be for you.

I'm trying out my Amazon links for the first time today. Full disclosure: if you buy the book from Amazon via the link here, I get a cut. Frankly, I'm not sure how much. I'm probably not going to pay the mortgage with it, but I like to be upfront about these things. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for the books, Colleen!

Zen Monday: #115

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what I think the photo's about.

I look for a photo worth contemplating or, failing that, something odd or silly. And unless I absolutely must say something, I stay out of the comments box until the end of the day to avoid influencing the discussion.

There's no right or wrong. We're here to have fun.

Webster's Fine Networking

Anton Anderson emcees as Lori Webster looks on. Fluorescents be damned, I like the shot anyway.

Like a lot of people, I've been looking to spruce up my online social networking skills for the sake of my business. I'm okay at blogging, but I've got a few things to learn about Facebook and my LinkedIn page is neglected. (I'm so pathetic at Twitter I'm not at liberty to discuss it here.)

Lately I've been speaking to groups about blogging. The first thing I tell them is that blogging is networking. The second thing I tell them is that networking is giving. Networking used to conjure up depressing pictures of dreary social functions where you'd pass out your business card in hopes of getting work. It felt like begging and I was lousy at it. But that's an old idea. Now, networking is about service--finding out what your network needs and filling that need, knowing the returns will come. Giver is a much more powerful position than Beggar.

Last Friday night, Webster's Fine Stationers in Altadena showed us how it's done. WFS, owned by Scott and Lori Webster, hosted a well-attended Social Media Meet and Greet event, free and open to the public. The audience comprised upwards of 50 local entrepreneurs of all stripes and levels of networking knowledge. Everyone was eager to learn and share.

Anton Anderson of Productivity Consulting emceed and Hilary Cable of Business.com Answers led the evening with an informative talk about using Facebook for your business. (She cleared up some Facebook mysteries, which until Friday I would have told you was impossible to do.) I spoke briefly about blogging, and Deb Halberstadt of HalfCity Productions guided us through the uses of LinkedIn.

Then we got to eat! courtesy of Amy's Patio Cafe. And there was wine tasting! provided by Anne Louise Bannon and Michael Holland of OddBallGrape.com. And there was much offline networking, quite social, provided by a lively and interesting crowd.

It would be nice if you clicked all the links, though I know you won't. Still, it gives you a visual idea of how many people and businesses contributed to the evening.

I'd like to see Webster's Fine Stationers do this type of event again, perhaps with even more community input. At a time when so many of us need to stay on top of these changing networking platforms, WFS provided a forum, a gathering place, a community service. Lori, Scott and their great staff filled the needs of their network, and I know the returns will come rushing back to them.

Love Tag

I almost posted this photo for yesterday's "graffiti" theme day. I see this kid-sized blackboard on my walks in the neighborhood. I've even featured it before. The messages change, as you can imagine. This time I got permission from the homeowner to come onto the porch and get a close-up.

I resisted posting about graffiti yesterday--so much so, that when I did I used an old photo where the graffiti is off to the side in the picture. I don't want to encourage taggers. I don't want to spread gang messages.

As Margaret mentioned in yesterday's comments, "tagging and graffiti art are different things." As long as the owner of the "canvas" (i.e. wall, fence, or whatever's painted on) is fine with it, it's fine with me.

I do wish we, the City Daily Photo bloggers, would vote for more ambitious monthly themes. I'd like to see us challenge ourselves more.

Theme Day: Graffiti

Pasadena's good at cleaning graffiti when it happens. If you see graffiti and you want it removed, call the Pasadena's Graffiti Abatement Hotline at 626-744-7622 and the offending tag will be removed within 24 hours. Sounds like a tall order, but so far I've seen it work every time.

I took this photo two years ago. I'm pretty sure this graffiti's gone by now. Sure, a new tagger will come along. But the City's got more paint.

The City Daily Photo family is now 1286 blogs strong, and many member blogs around the world participate in theme days. Check them out here.