It’s weird what sleep will do to you – when you hear a sustained rumble outside your window at 5am, you’re not sure at first if it’s your house, something outside, or just you. But upon waking, and realizing a helicopter has been hovering in one spot for 20 minutes, makes you wonder what the hell is going on. Freeway shooting? Bomb threat? No where to land at the hospital?

Nope. Fire.

I didn’t smell any smoke or hear any sirens while it was going on, but that copter decided to hover for 40 minutes before moving slightly south and allowing me to go back to sleep. It was enough of a fire for me to find a fine layer of ash on my car when I got out to go to work today. Click on the pictures below for a larger version.

While this isn’t a post regarding “the OC,” it was an amazing sight to see in LA: A Car tried to go down the escalator at The Grove shopping center.

Yes, that’s right; it tried to go down the escalator.

Well I’m sure it wasn’t trying to redeem its gift cards at 2:45 in the afternoon, but nonetheless the picture of a nice BMW smashed through the top of the second floor escalator made a lot of people gawk and stare.

I tried to take a picture of the “incident” but I was quickly yelled at by a security guard who ran around preventing people with camera phones from taking pictures. In addition, this happened on the Valet level of the parking structure.

I ventured out of south County last night up to Huntington Beach.

In the hunt for free parking I discovered “signs of antiquity” in HB. I know that historic old places like these aren’t long for this world in the rapidly redeveloping HB.

From all of us (well, most of us) to all of you out there, Merry Christmas! From the rest of us, Happy Solstice, Yule, Channakah, Kwanzaa, and New Year!

Caught this today while wrapping up my X-Mas shopping:

Sort of hidden in the new section of the Spectrum, but none-the-less a perfect fit.

With all the news of “monster winter waves” pounding the coast, I decided to wander down to San Onofre State Beach to check things out. I left the board at home and took the camera instead. That was the right decision. They were popping off like a string of Chinese firecrackers and there were a number of good surfers enjoying the fireworks. There were not your average sets — while I was there (less than an hour) one leash and one board snapped. But my question is who was the woman out there on the mint green board trunking it?

More pictures here.

We

Welcome to the newest member of the Metroblogging family, Paris!. Besides already having some great pictures and that oh-so-easy metblogging interface you’re used to, the entries are in both English and French – learn as you go!

I’ve been looking for a house with just the right touch of California holiday decorations. I found this one in the Palisades above Capistrano Beach.

The “Hula Angels” (or whatever they are) actually dance.

After testing the temperature of the water yesterday morning at Bolsa Chica (57 degrees and beautifully clean, thank you!), I wandered down to Main Street in Huntington Beach to do a little Holiday shopping. It looked like a few other people had the same idea — here are a group of Santas on their Hogs.
The discovery that Santa rides a Hog brings to mind a number of questions. For example, what type of tattoos does Santa have under the red jacket? Does Mrs. Claus wear chaps? Does Santa ride a Honda in Japan? And, even with a side car, just how does Santa manage to carry all those presents? For the curious, more photos are on the OC Metroblogging flickr site.