There has been a helicopter at low altitude over my head for at least 50 minutes of each of the last 5 hours. It's madness.

This image pretty much sums many all the problems of Los Angeles, an oblivious disregard for one's affect on other members of the community, or even that a community exists. But what can you do? It's not just LA anyway. On the bright side, this morning I woke up, wandered into Bill and Jessica's backyard and picked about 10 fresh grapefruit and had myself 3 huge glasses of unbeatable juice. I also had chocolate cake for breakfast. Today is a good day.

In a radical step, possibly never seen before, I walked to the Reno airport this morning. It was about 2 miles, so not very long, but there was something especially satisfying about getting there in an entirely non automotive fashion. I did have to jump over a small fence, but it otherwise went quite smoothly.

Stupidly, I left my camera in my luggage so once again missed the opportunity to take photographs of some very interesting sights, including a spectacular vista of the Yosemite valley. I saw half dome from an angle I've seen it before.. it's actually way narrower than I thought. Then over the southen part fo the vast central valley of California where you can see the transition between desert and irrigated farmland. There seem to be a tremendous number of either chicken or hog farms down there, rows upon rows of long white sheds among the farm fields. In certain areas, salt is visible on the surface - the result of overly agressive groundwater pumping, straight out of Cadillac Desert.

And of course the spectacular final aproach into the ultimate megalopolis, LA. Next time my camera remains in my pocket.

The popular question lately has been: "What the hell are you doing in Reno???" Indeed. Good question. I'm taking care of the pakenheimer's place and getting some work done, basically. And honestly it's not that bad. Would help if I knew a few people here, but I'm by no means of the opinion that provincial America is a black hole, although some of the casinos downtown come close. Ok, I admit it, I'm bored.

The Truckee River begins by draining Lake Tahoe, and plummets down the backside of the Sierra, through Reno, then out into the great basin of Nevada. It terminates at the mysterious, remote, and enormous Pyramid Lake.

I drove out there today to check it out, and it is far more impressive than I thought it would be: After miles of stark Nevada desert, you suddenly encounter this vast ocean of impossibly blue water, punctuated by bizarre tufa rock formations, including the namesake Pyramid Rock, and mountains shaded grey, purple, and pink.

The ground was also literally crawling with enormous insects known as Mormon Crickets, who frequently swarm around here like a biblical plague.

It has been said that contemplating this place is a four dimensional experience.

I've tragically ceased to be a frequent poster on this website, but having begin to reorganize myself after 4 months in Arizona, I stumbled on this fabulous photo I took of a sign above the urinal in a bar in Jerome, AZ. Run-on sentance, I know. Anyway, thought it summed up the character of that town well. There are few places that party harder than Jerome... a self described "drinking town with an artist problem", it's also incredibly beautiful and profoundly unique in the Western US - it looks almost European with narrow walkable streets perched high above the desert on a mountainside.

Nice to be back in San Francisco! In the meantime, speaking of the other side of California, the new Gawker Media site, Defamer, has launched... for all your L.A. gossip needs.