Expedition to the Queen Mary

99.999% of people in LA travel by car everywhere.  Being British and fairly terrified of driving in big cities we have managed to explore large parts of the city by public transport and/ or feet. On Friday we (that's Andrew, Amy and I) set off at 8am and, by getting a bus to Hollywood, then two metro lines to Long Beach and then a transit, managed to get to the Queen Mary just after 11 am.  The ship itself was wonderful - lots of 1930s wood veneer - and very beautiful.  But it's an odd place now - trying to serve as a hotel, events location and the venue for self-guided tours.  Somehow this mixture of uses doesn't quite work.  On the way back, we did a different route, via Santa Monica - same number of buses/ metros and another 3 hours of travel.  Total cost per person $7 for 'transportation' as the Americans call it.  A Billy bargain as we might call it....

The beautiful Queen Mary, launched 1934 (same year as my Dad was born), maiden voyage across the Atlantic to New York in 1936, retired to Long Beach in 1967.

The Great Work...

..is starting to turn into something!  After a lot of faffing around today I finally drafted  a detailed plan for each of the 5 chapters.  I now feel I have a sensible plan and all I have got to do is stick to it.  Perhaps easier said than done, but I am remaining positive (for now at least).  I've read more than enough and now just have to think hard and crank the words out.

Alligator hunting

So, my weekend in Mobile, Alabama was a busy busy one.  I was attending the 42nd Binghamton Geomorphology conference and giving a paper on 'Microbial geomorphology'.  At the start of the conference we went on a great one-day field trip to the coastal area around Mobile, including a stop at Weeks Bay where I took the photos above and below.  The water REALLY was that strange colour - the general consensus was that it is caused by humic acids or tannins coming off the surrounding bog.  I suggested it was Coca Cola.

The Coca Cola infested waters of Mobile Bay.

We also went to Dauphin Island which had been badly affected by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, but is now being rather more insidiously affected by human developments. Whoever allowed THIS hotel or apartment block to be built?

Beautiful Dauphin Island

Obama-watching

For the second time in 4 weeks we have spotted President Obama out and about in Brentwood, LA. The first time round we saw roughly 12 large police motorbikes followed by lots of blacked out cars rushing past the end of our street.  Later that evening the local news confirmed it was the President on his way to a fund raising event. This afternoon we noticed lots of police and fire brigade activity around the Post Office area, and eventually four helicopters landed on the nearby park, and a cavalcade of cars sped out.  Once more, apparently, he's here fund-raising.  The police operation was very slick, but all the police officers very polite and friendly as they moved the curious onlookers safely out of the way (whilst letting us still get a good view).

President Obama's car as it sped by us... we clapped and waved like idiots.  Hope he appreciated the gesture!

And the words are finally flowing...

I have finally put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard more accurately) and written 2000 words.  Not necessarily the best words, but words nevertheless!  Today I have been wrestling with issues such as 'what is a ruin?'...on which there seems no agreement and an awful lot of waffle.  I hope I have not added to this waffle too much.

Joshua Tree weekend

If you're going to go to the desert, best go when it is REALLY hot and then you get the complete desert experience.  The first day we were there it peaked at 99 deg fahrenheit; the second day it was a mere 97 deg fahrenheit.  As my brain starts to melt at 90 deg fahrenheit (sorry for the 'old style' units by the way, but that's what they use out here) I was not at my most mentally alert. I did manage to take some photos (see below), however, as well as doing a few gentle walks and scaring myself silly when I saw the sign that said 'Warning! aggressive africanized bees have been found in this area.'

What's great about Joshua Tree National park is - just about everything.  The landscape is amazing, thanks to the monzogranite outcrops sculpted over millions of years to form eccentric hills and boulder piles.  The flora is also wonderful - dominated by the Joshua Tree which is in fact a giant yucca masquerading as a tree.  And as for the animal life - we saw chipmunks, jack rabbits and even a coyote.  It felt as though we had sneaked into a Disney cartoon.

Joshua Tree in front of monzogranite boulder pile.  Nice hey?

The aptly named 'Skull rock'.  

View over the San Andreas fault - which is the straight ridge line in the middle of the plain - looking west towards the Santa Rosa mountains.  The haze is the plume of pollution from Los Angeles.

Warning heatwave

It reached 97 degrees fahrenheit today in Los Angeles.  Luckily, the Getty Center has super-efficient air conditioning, but going outside from building to building felt like walking into a furnace.  The forecast for the next week or so is up and down but more up than down, so my sparse collection of summer clothes (I packed for autumn and winter) will get very good use over the next few days.  Off to Joshua Tree National Park tomorrow (where, being inland, it will be even hotter!) to get another fix of desert landscapes.  I will report back on Sunday...

What must every Los Angelino learn about?...

...what to do in an earthquake, of course.  This evening we had our first emergency briefing at the Getty Scholar Housing Complex.  So I now know to 'drop, cover and hold' - nothing smutty about that, but rather:

Drop onto the floor
Get under cover (preferably a table)
Hold on to the table

I haven't yet practised but it seems simple enough.  Let's just hope that we don't ever need to do it for real.

LA lab life

Touring the Getty Conservation Labs this morning made me REALLY envious.  Not only do they have fantastic equipment (for example, wide-ranging inorganic and organic analysis tools such as FTIR, Raman and XRD - many field-portable as well as lab based), but they also have tremendous projects to work on.  Such as:

• applying scientific techniques to identify the plastics in Disney cartoon artwork
• using pigment identification methods to understand the work of 15th century artists and to visualise what the colours would originally have looked like
• putting antique furniture into X ray machines to spot hidden damage
• detecting hidden paintings lurking behind a Rembrandt masterpiece (see: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=787 and my artwork of the day today)

Do science and you could end up working here helping to understand, illuminate and conserve art and architecture of all kinds all around the world.  Got to be a good option...

The wonderful world of ruins

Today, I thought it would be a REALLY good idea, as part of 'the great work' to produce a world database and map of the main ruin sites.  How hard could that be?!  My laptop almost reached meltdown by the time I had got to ruin number 189...but I still think eventually it will turn out to be a good idea.  There are ruins everywhere - Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Ireland, Thailand, Cambodia... I hope to add my world map to this blog when I have fathomed out how to produce it properly.  I feel an intimate session with ArcGIS coming on...

We survived Death Valley

Just back from a great 2 day trip to Death Valley National Park. First challenge - getting out of LA on a busy Friday afternoon driving an automatic car for the first time in a long while.  After a few near death experiences, we got the hang of it and off we went.  Two arid zone geomorphology enthusiasts HAD to love Death Valley with its tufa pinnacles at Trona, salt weathering at Badwater, reversing dunes at Mesquite Flats and gullies galore at Zabriskie Point.  How could you not love them?...

Tufa pinnacles at Trona.  This tufa formed in an ancient lake, rather like the travertine that makes up the Getty Center buildings. Could this be what the ruins of the Getty will look in 18,000 years?!

Salt pan at Badwater, Death Valley

Gullies at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley.

Thursday must be travertine day

The Getty Center is clad in travertine, an Italian limestone deposited by hot springs in the Tivoli district near Rome.  It's a beautiful stone, with lots of interesting organic remains in it - debris from plants and animals that fell into the hot spring water and became petrified.  Just thought you should know that... see the photo on the left if you don't believe me.

Artwork of the day

So, if you look down on the bottom right hand side of the blog you should find a new art image each day.  As I am based at the Getty Center, I am trying to visit and explore ONE artwork each day and then post it here.  You should be able to click on the image and get into the Getty Collection site for my information.  Today's picture is by Carpaccio (thought he was a cold meat?) and is the only painting I have ever seen displayed so that you can see both sides.  On the back of the panel is a trompe d'oiel (spelling?) of letters hanging on a string.  Why, I ask?

Progress on 'the great work'

Read 3 books today.  Thought a lot.  Ate a bit.  Played with my laptop.  Wrote one sentence - 'Ruins are nothing new' - which is how I think I am going to start my monograph on linking heritage and biodiversity conservation, with a focus on ruins. Hope the rest of it is rather quicker to write...

Wet Wednesday

...and wow was it wet today!  2-3cm of persistent rain spread over much of the day.  The Getty (which is up on a hill) was in the clouds and sopping wet.  Being the Getty, we were met from our shuttle bus by a whole pile of umbrellas.  They really do think of everything.

What am I doing here?

So, the purpose of my visit is to write a monograph called 'Green ruins: linking the conservation of cultural heritage with the conservation of biodiversity'.  The Getty Conservation Institute, where I am based, has lots of great resources for this project - notably, a great library, willing research assistants, infinite supplies of coffee and Friday donuts.  All I have to do now is WRITE...

1 week in...

...and still loving it.  I am here on sabbatical, as a Getty Conservation Scholar at the Getty Center in LA.  California gets a bit of a bad press in the UK, especially LA, but I have been 100% impressed so far.  Apart from the great weather, the people are very friendly, there are even some footpaths (or sidewalks as I need to learn to call them) and you CAN walk without being arrested. On the negative side, traffic is as bad as everyone says - the 405 near us is packed day and night with bumper to bumper SUVs, BMWs and Maseratis.