Knob

Confronted with rock-strewn hills, or pavement that is flat, straight and most likely located in Illinois, drivers of vehicles that easily switch between two- and four-wheel drive should know which button to choose. But with its completely redesigned 2011 Explorer, Ford has simplified the translation of 4x4 settings with a knob. Conveniently located near the driver's right elbow and outfitted with symbols for snow, mud and sand that require absolutely no understanding of the English language, this knob is emblematic of Ford's entirely updated sport utility vehicle.

Confronted with rock-strewn hills, or pavement that is flat, straight and most likely located in Illinois, drivers of vehicles that easily switch between two- and four-wheel drive should know which button to choose. But with its completely redesigned 2011 Explorer, Ford has simplified the translation of 4x4 settings with a knob. Conveniently located near the driver's right elbow and outfitted with symbols for snow, mud and sand that require absolutely no understanding of the English language, this knob is emblematic of Ford's entirely updated sport utility vehicle.

It looks like a finely machined body part from the original Terminator, resting there on the BMW 745i's center console. Your palm fits comfortably around it. But the iDrive knob, which moves up and down in the eight key compass directions, and also spins left and right, may have your mind spinning too as you try to set temperature controls, radio stations and navigation destinations. Information conjured up with the knob is displayed on a small screen in the center of the dashboard.

Against a backdrop of lofty snowcapped peaks, about 500 spectators, led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, gathered Wednesday to watch the Lower Owens River ripple anew with its first surge of High Sierra water in nearly a century. The largest river habitat restoration effort ever attempted in the West was jump-started at 12:15 p.m.

* A-frame: the peak formed when a side wave meets an incoming wave * Bedrock: rocks exposed on a normally sandy beach * Charging: skimming well or aggressively (also: going off ) * Doghouse: a wave that ends by churning in the same spot because of the beach geography. Usage: "I got caught in the doghouse and couldn't do anything with it."

Dorothy Fries of North Hollywood has been working her fingers to the bone in her search for a small thimble that is not flared at the base and is a Size 6 or smaller. Can you point toward a handy source, or is this information that Fries will never have at her fingertips? Toby Horn of Los Angeles is looking for clear plastic seat protectors that tie onto the back of dining room chairs.

As detectives pieced together the 2008 slaying of a young Santa Monica woman, they came to a chilling conclusion: She had been calling police for help when the killer snatched the phone from her hands and hung up. Prosecutors unveiled the eerie account of the 911 call and other details from the March 2008 killing that has attracted national attention during secret grand jury proceedings against Kelly Soo Park, the woman arrested in June this year...

A new study has found that an infusion of feces from a healthy person into an ailing patient's gut was significantly more effective than a traditional antibiotic treatment - raising hopes that the unconventional approach could one day help combat obesity, food allergies and a host of other maladies. The study, published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, demonstrated that the fecal transplant cleared up a recurrent bacterial infection far more reliably than the routinely prescribed medication.

Your life is about to change, and your sports car is terrified. A Peg Perego Duette child stroller. The pair of Old English mastiffs you're dog-sitting indefinitely. A glee club. A metamorphosis of priorities has dropped one or more of these into your world, and suddenly your slick little two-seater won't work for you anymore. So let me offer a suggestion: Check out BMW's redesigned 2011 X3 xDrive35i. It's not necessarily the best all-around vehicle in the luxury compact SUV segment, which includes the Audi Q5, Mercedes-Benz GLK and Acura RDX. But without question, this second-generation X3 is the fastest, sportiest and most fun to drive of its peers.

So many home cooks are obsessed with making dishes just like the professionals do. They buy hand-forged Japanese chefs knives, seek out $50 bottles of olive oil and spend hours preparing elaborately composed dishes from "The French Laundry Cookbook" or "Eleven Madison Park. " But a lot of them have never even heard of one of the most basic techniques of cooking, one that requires no special equipment or expensive ingredients. In fact, you can probably do it in just a few minutes with what you have in your kitchen right now. It's called glazing vegetables, and it's as fundamental to a cook's repertoire as roasting a chicken.

Halloween is meant to be spent with the undead, so what better place to be than the Rolling Stones show at Staples Center? Inside the arena, there were zombies, ghouls and half-rotted corpses. But enough about Keith Richards. Some folks in the audience looked a little creaky too. (OK, maybe one more thing about Richards. Every time the Stones announce another tour, late-night comics have a field day riffing on the band's age.

It looks like a finely machined body part from the original Terminator, resting there on the BMW 745i's center console. Your palm fits comfortably around it. But the iDrive knob, which moves up and down in the eight key compass directions, and also spins left and right, may have your mind spinning too as you try to set temperature controls, radio stations and navigation destinations. Information conjured up with the knob is displayed on a small screen in the center of the dashboard.

Iron Knob of Canoga Park has purchased a 10,500-square-foot facility in Van Nuys for an undisclosed sum. The company plans to move to the larger building at 16901 Roscoe Blvd. in October after improvements. Westcord Commercial Real Estate Services of Van Nuys represented both the seller, Rosco Enterprises of Van Nuys, and Iron Knob. The company manufactures ornamental ironworks.

L.A.'s first Knob d'Or film awards will be announced Oct. 11 on National Coming Out Day at the Gay and Lesbian Center's Ed Gould Plaza in Hollywood. The four finalists in each BreakOut video category--amateur and filmmaker--will be shown during the awards ceremony in the plaza's new Village theater. "The submissions we received are phenomenal," said Morgan Rumpf, executive director of Outfest, one of the competition's organizers.

They open doors to some of the finest places. Today's doorknobs can be as decorative as a fine brooch--and often as expensive. They are available in heavy brass, hand-forged iron, handblown glass, cut crystal, porcelain and Lucite. Some are new designs; others are antiques or copies of early pieces. Two trends are behind the fancy doorknob--an increase in housing restorations and a growth of the minimalist look. Ken Jordan at Renovators Supply in Conway, N.H., speaks for the restorations.

Charlotte, a spider-like robot named after the clever arachnid in the book "Charlotte's Web," will soon be scurrying about in the heavens helping space shuttle astronauts do their chores. The robot, about the size of a microwave oven, will do work that is better fitted for an eight-limbed mechanical spider than two-armed astronauts--things like carrying heavy payloads in shuttle experiments and shooting pictures in space.

When John Frayer sets foot in a salvage yard, he feels like a kid in a candy store. "Seeing those stained glass windows, antique doors and decorative hardware makes me want to buy it all," said Frayer, whose passion for architectural antiques makes him roam local salvage yards every weekend. "It's like a treasure hunt," he said. Frayer's richest treasure chest is Scavenger's Paradise, a fancy salvage yard in North Hollywood.

It looks like a truck, drives like a truck and hauls like a truck. So the 2013 Ram 1500 is, you guessed it, very much a truck. This is despite the fact that beneath the handsome sheet metal are two key elements that, until recently, would have disqualified it from many full-size-truck buyers' lists: an eight-speed transmission and a V-6 engine. Both are new additions for the current Ram truck, which received a thorough mid-life makeover for the 2013 model year. The new drivetrain and thoughtful upgrades mean this truck is well positioned to take on the longtime sales champ - the Ford F-150 - as well as all-new full-size pickups from Chevrolet and Toyota due out later this year.

* A-frame: the peak formed when a side wave meets an incoming wave * Bedrock: rocks exposed on a normally sandy beach * Charging: skimming well or aggressively (also: going off ) * Doghouse: a wave that ends by churning in the same spot because of the beach geography. Usage: "I got caught in the doghouse and couldn't do anything with it."

The problem with creating masterpiece works of art on an Etch-A-Sketch is that if you make a mistake, you can't erase. You have to start over. Or, once you have finished a picture, if you drop the thing, it's ruined. "I've dropped several excellent pieces," said Michael Angelo Vidal Jr. "I still think about them. It's a shame." Vidal has spent more than 20 years hunched over an Etch-A-Sketch, using what most people consider a child's toy to make what he considers serious art. The result is a collection of intricate wildlife scenes, sketches of flying dragons and portraits of such luminaries as the Beatles, Johnny Carson and George Fischbeck--all of which are drawn in the squiggly, black-line style of Etch-A-Sketch.