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Where I live there are a lot of big drainage ditches. They’re always fenced and often really, really grody.

I think I like to take pictures of them because they’re not really what you think of when someone says Huntington Beach or Orange County. Yet they’re all over the place here.

This is what downtown Huntington Beach looks like:

Downtown is right near the pier, and it’s all ritzy and nice. Well, most of it. There are some older buildings, historical landmarks, that are in pretty bad shape, but they’re being renovated. This is one of them, an old antique store:

I live on the edge of Huntington Beach and another town called Westminster. You’ve heard of the Westminster Dog Show? Same place. Westminster isn’t that nice, and neither is the part of HB we live in. It’s OK, not super grody, but I love to take pictures of the grodiest places.

An empty lot is rare around here.

This is an empty Montgomery Ward building, with an empty Levitz store behind it:

Both really old, and both out of business.

Somebody told me they just took down the Levitz sign, but I haven’t been by that way to see if it’s true.

One thing Orange County has a ton of is liquor stores. I was really rather surprised by this when we moved here.

Liquor stores and donut stores on every corner.

And here I was expecting health food stores everywhere.

Another thing I like taking pictures of is places behind places. This is the alley behind my doctor’s office in Long Beach:

It was actually clean the day I took this. Usually there’s garbage all over. My doctor’s office is in a ghetto part of Long Beach.

This is an alley in a nice part of Long Beach (downtown):

I’ve already posted about my love of murals, this one is also in Long Beach:

I really like this stencil type of graffiti:

That one is behind a retail shop in HB. This one is behind Amoeba Music in Hollywood:

It says, “Life is Beautiful.”

And just for fun, a little Darth Vader doing MJ: