the clouds roll in

The view from the top of what I still think of as Parking Structure D this evening - although it now bear the spuriously pretentious name of the Royal Street carpark.  That's the Shrine in the foreground, with its miniature minaret, and then the towers of Downtown LA standing out against the horizon.  By the time I was half way home - the other side of DTLA - the rain was coming down in huge drops.  I read such a depressing piece earlier - presumably in the LA Times - about how 80% of the rain that falls in LA County goes straight down the streets, into the drains (or the LA River) and out to sea - so although there have been massive amounts of rainfall so far this wet winter, no one seems to have worked out a satisfactory way of collecting all that much of it.  One hopes that some corner of Our Institution is putting their mind to this particular - to use our provost's favorite language - Wicked Problem.