The Great Outdoors

And speaking of mash-up fun, I'm also thinking of improving my geotagged Flickr set of my minibar map of the world by doing some local maps with photos of cell phone trees. If you aren't familiar with the botany of this particular Southern California species, you can check out this website by San Diego area naturalist Wayne Armstrong about this ubiquitous artificial species that can be found near regional freeways. There is a political connection to this bucolic imagery, because some regulations -- now largely voided by court decisions -- once mandated that cell phone towers be made aesthetically pleasing in the landscape. Companies such as Larson Camouflage can also disguise the towers with boulders or cacti. Of course, there are other civic anxieties about the encroachment of these towers that have to do with worries about the environmental impact of RF radiation, which can't be as easily masked.



Update: After cursing being unable to photograph a majestic specimen on the 60 freeway, because of the absence of an emergency turn-out lane, I discovered this arboreal wonder in the parking lot of my very own Academy of Entertainment and Technology after a day of back-breaking labor on a digital video system.