This is a place for fellow hikers and backpackers in Southern California to organize meet ups, post gear reviews, trip reviews, and etc. Hopefully this will unite local hikers and allow us to meet and explore the beautiful landscape we inhabit.
Subreddit dedicated to the model Michele Maturo.
Hello, I am currently a student at UC Berkeley and was recently flagged for an Unusual Enrollment History (UEH) because I attended three different institutions (UIUC, East Los Angeles College, and UCSC). I did receive academic credit from all three institutions, but I had to withdraw from UIUC after my first semester due to financial circumstances. I took classes at a CC called East Los Angeles College to transfer into UCSC. After going to UCSC, I transferred to Berkeley. However, I am concerned since I need to provide documentation such as billing statements that show that I did not "use federal financial aid to pay for registration" at those three previous colleges because I did use financial aid to help cover some of the costs.
If anyone who has experience with being flagged for UEH, how were you able to resolve it?
Anybody looking for tickets to the LA show on July 22? Ended up getting tickets for San Diego and am trying to get rid of my LA tickets. Let me know!
I'm a handsome, fit, charming, tall white man with a big...vocabulary. To put it simply, I'm the whole package.
I'm married. She is a cuckquean who encourages my infidelity.
Numbers: 6'1", 190, 8"
I'm a dom-leaning switch.
Kinks (as dom): Cuckquean/cuckcake/cheating/homewrecking; bull (for couples); raceplay; breeding; edging & denial; impact play; ffm threesomes; BWC worship (receiving)
Kinks (as sub): ballbusting, edging & denial, large penis humiliation
Location: California. Live in Los Angeles; but drive throughout the state for work.
1st artist to open for a new venue in Los Angeles. Says there's an artist presale tomorrow. Anyone know the code?
Introduction As a big guy myself, standing at 6’4” with a size 13 shoe, I often wonder about what it would actually take for someone like me to disappear. I’m the type or person who friends use as a marker to find their way through a crowd, and I’m almost instantly recognizable walking down the street.
That being said, there is one place where I could almost certainly disappear without a trace: the wilderness. I think many underestimate just how easy it is to go missing in the wilderness, even a rather small wilderness. A single wrong turn or a mistaken landmark can spell doom for even seasoned woodland travelers.
Honestly, I attribute this underestimation to the popularity of “Missing 411” cases. Many assume that those who went missing in heavily wooded areas or national parks must have disappeared as a result of something supernatural or conspiratorial, simply because they can’t accept just how easily and remorselessly nature can gobble us up.
If I suddenly decided to go missing within society, I think I’d be found in no time. But if I went missing in the wilderness, it’s always possible that I would never be found, even if my body came to rest nearby well-traveled thoroughfares.
I bring all this up because I think much the same for former American professional basketball player Rico Harris, who is even more recognizable than myself. Harris is a Black male, who stands at 6’9” tall, weighs 300 lbs., and has distinctive tattoos, such as one that reads “BALLIN IV LIFE” across his left forearm. If he’s alive, he’s almost certainly worked very hard to keep his presence secret, both from his family and from law enforcement.
Police investigators have suggested that Harris simply walked away from the scene of his disappearance, got in a car, and headed somewhere to start a new life. While there are certainly factors that point to this being a logical possibility, at least in terms of where Harris was in his life mentally and emotionally, I think that the lack of sightings of an individual that matches his description in the almost nine years since he went missing makes it far more likely that Rico Harris’ body is lying somewhere in the wilderness near where he vanished and that it simply hasn’t been located by anyone.
I feel that police assertions that Harris may have simply left the scene to start a new life are wishful thinking, designed to provide the family with false hope and perhaps prevent law enforcement from having to conduct further searches to recover Harris’ remains. Regardless of your opinion on the case, let’s review what we do know so that we can make an educated guess on what we don’t.
Rico Harris’ Life and Struggles Rico Harris’ life followed a tragic path tread by far too many young, talented athletes. He had the physical talent to play in the NBA but none of the mental or emotional intelligence and maturity to deal with such instant stardom.
Harris seemed to maintain a sort of love/hate relationship with the game of basketball and had actually taken a break from it before returning for his final two years at Temple City High School, where he quickly became a local star, with scouts comparing his play style to that of NBA player Lamar Odom.
Harris was soon recognized as one of the nation’s top 100 prospects and received scholarship offers from such blue-blood basketball programs as Connecticut, Kentucky, and UCLA. Ultimately, however, Harris would commit to Arizona State. He would never play a game there.
He wasn’t eligible to play during his freshman year but stayed on campus, away from family and other positive role models in his life. He struggled academically and socially before being accused of unlawful imprisonment and sexual assault by two young women on campus.
These women stated that Harris and two of his other teammates had prevented them from leaving and forced them to perform sex acts on them. However, after further investigation, police dismissed the charges against Harris and his teammates after noting discrepancies in the girls’ stories. Nonetheless, the Arizona State basketball team had seen and heard enough to sit Harris for his upcoming sophomore season.
Deciding that he needed to pursue his basketball career elsewhere, Harris transferred to Los Angeles Community College where, surrounded by inferior talent, he began to shine once again and again became a star, attracting NBA scouts to games who still saw potential in the young phenom.
After the season, Harris planned to transfer to Rhode Island. However, a failed class prevented his transfer from going through, and he chose to return to LACC for a second season. An offer from Rhode Island remained on the table next year, but Harris shocked everyone by instead transferring to Cal State Northridge, stating to one confidante that he believed that the LACC coach was merely trying to use him to help out his friend, who was the Rhode Island head coach.
Instead, he wanted to remain closer to home and work with a coach he trusted. Harris sadly had a long history of rejecting and mistrusting men who tried to play a fatherly role in his life, likely an issue stemming from his own broken relationship with his father, who could quickly turn from friendly to violent and who his mother eventually moved away from with the children to escape.
Eventually, Harris would also be suspended by Northridge as well, which officially brought about an end to his collegiate career. Harris spoke out about feeling pressured by everyone around him; this pressure led him to increasingly turn to drugs and alcohol, which likely further hampered his performance on the court.
In the 1999 NBA Draft, no team decided to take a risk on Harris, leaving him to go to the now defunct International Basketball League. In 2000, Harris joined the Harlem Globetrotters, and it felt like his big break. Their fun-loving antics seemed like a great fit for his skills and talents.
Unfortunately, only about a month after joining the Globetrotters, Harris was driving with his girlfriend in South Los Angeles, when he got into a dispute with several individuals. He got out of the car to confront them when someone cracked him in the back of the head with a baseball bat.
Though Harris recovered from the wound, his balance never fully returned, and he continued to suffer from frequent intense headaches. Harris’ basketball career was, sadly, over.
Harris Spirals, Then Seemingly Recovers
Harris felt completely rudderless. He did not know what to do with his life now that his basketball career was over. His alcohol addiction worsened, and he began to develop dependencies on heroin, methamphetamine, and crack.
Harris was arrested over one hundred times, most often for public intoxication, and he was clearly struggling. His lowest moment came in 2007, when he overdosed on prescription medication and nearly died.
After a lengthy rehabilitation period with the Salvation Army in downtown Los Angeles. Afterwards, he began working in security, a role that he seemed ideally suited for and seemed to enjoy well enough.
In 2012, he began dating Jennifer Song, an insurance broker from Seattle that he met while working a security detail. In September 2014, Harris abandoned his apartment in Los Angeles, intending to move in with Song full-time up in Seattle.
Though Song reported that they had a good relationship, many of Harris’ friends and relatives saw quite a bit of tension in their relationship leading up to Harris’ disappearance. Based on Harris’ history, it seems likely that some of this tension was connected to his living away from home, which had always caused problems in the past.
But despite this perceived tension, Harris seemed to have truly turned his life around, with his addictions in the rearview mirror, when he suddenly went missing on October 10, 2014.
Rico Harris Vanishes On October 9, 2014, Harris visited his family home with the goal of completing his move in with Song. His visit was brief. He apparently purchased a new phone for his younger brother, which shows that his financial struggles likely were not at the forefront of his mind.
He also spoke with his mother. Song told police that she thought Harris was seeking closure related to some difficult childhood events. His mother later stated that she did not feel that he got what he was looking for.
Harris’ close friend David Lara had spoken to Harris on his trip down to Southern California and reported that Harris seemed optimistic and was looking forward to marrying and starting a family with Song. Little is known, however, about Harris’ mood after visiting with his family.
Harris began his drive back up to Seattle, heading north on Interstate 5, stopping for gas in Lodi before continuing up north of Sacramento. There, about 10:45 am on the morning of October 10, Harris decided to get some rest, convinced by Song’s urging since had now been awake for 36 straight hours. He left Song a voice message, telling her that he was going “up into the mountains to rest.”
I’ve always found this phrasing particularly odd. I’ve heard people say they’re figuratively going “into the mountains” to find a place to pull over or find a motel, but the full “up into the mountains” has always struck me as being very literal, and perhaps a sign that Harris was already suffering through a bit of a mental breakdown before officially stopping for the day.
Regardless of intention, at 11:15 am, Harris turned off his phone. He has not been officially seen, heard from, or positively identified since.
The Search for Rico Harris Friends and family initially assumed that Harris would just turn up. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for a couple days at a time. However, by October 14th, after missing an interview he had been excited for in Seattle, Harris was finally reported missing.
Later that day, Yolo County police located Harris’ vehicle, seemingly abandoned in a county park parking lot near Cache Creek. The inside of the car was a mess. It was also out of fuel and had a dead battery.
A mile south of Harris’ car they found his backpack. Inside was his cell phone, which was dead but otherwise seemed fine.
There were also two plastic bottles, one filled with a solution that seemed to be hard liquor mixed with an energy drink. The other was empty but smelled strongly of liquor. Sources seem to disagree on whether the bottles were found in his car or his backpack. Regardless of where they were found, it is clear that Harris had either relapsed or had been successfully hiding his addiction as of late.
Police combed Cache Creek Canyon without success. They used infrared imaging from planes, perused the area on foot and on ATVs, and brought out tracking and cadaver dogs. There was no sign of Harris, and nobody could imagine how such a large man had simply vanished.
Several sightings were reported of a man who matched Harris’ description, and to be quite frank, I can’t imagine there were that many men who could be mistaken for Harris in the area at that time. He was spotted walking along the side of the road and sitting on a guardrail, looking at the creek. These sightings took place on October 10 and 11, shortly after Harris’ last known contact with family and friends.
Police found selfies on Harris’ phone showing him posing joyfully beside a sign welcoming him to Yolo County; perhaps he was amused by the name, with YOLO being common parlance (particularly at the time he went missing) for “You only live once.”
There was also an apparently accidental video that showed Harris rifling through his glove box, singing along to his music and seemingly in good spirits despite his somewhat erratic behavior.
Had Harris’ story ended here, it would have still been compelling, but it went further. On October 18, a truck driver reported seeing a man who matched Harris’ description walking near the parking lot where his Nissan had been left.
Imprints were later found in the parking lot that were not defined enough to have a cast made. However, they were apparently not consistent with animal prints and were large enough that they could very well have come from a size 18 shoe. As someone who wears a size 13, I can tell you that that’s a huge footprint and not something that could be left by just anyone. The shoeprints were allegedly leading away from the parking lot.
No legitimate sightings of Harris have been reported since.
Analysis of Harris’ Disappearance Let’s begin by looking at the official police narrative of Rico Harris’ disappearance. Law enforcement has asserted that there is no evidence of foul play in Harris’ disappearance. I tend to agree with this assessment. By all accounts, Harris came to Yolo County alone, and there were no signs of a struggle surrounding his disappearance.
Furthermore, if you find the eyewitness testimony of those who allegedly saw him reliable, as I do given his unique stature, he was never spotted with anyone else.
Where I differ from law enforcement is in my belief about what happened to Rico Harris and his intent throughout the whole process. Police believe that Harris only arrived in Yolo County by accident, that he took a wrong turn and ended up out there.
I’m not sure he did. He told Song that he planned to go “up into the mountains.” Perhaps this is what he meant; perhaps something within him led him to stray from his established path, perhaps because he was having a mental breakdown or for spiritual reasons or simply because he felt like he needed a place off the beaten path to rest.
I think it’s possible that he took a wrong turn and got lost, but neither his selfies nor his communications with Song (where he mentioned nothing about being lost) nor his actions thereafter really suggest this.
Next up, police don’t seem to have any kind of theory, at least publicly, as to what happened in the days between Harris’ initial disappearance and his return to the parking lot on October 18th. I doubt he was in town anywhere nearby, since local law enforcement was actively working to ensure that locals knew they were looking for Harris. Despite this, there are no reports of him in town, despite his size which would have immediately set him apart.
I theorize that Harris was likely out in the woods during this time. If he had relapsed on alcohol, it is not beyond reason that he may have had access to other drugs as well. Perhaps Harris turned this incident into an unexpected retreat. Detectives say that Harris looked like “a free man” in the videos found of him. Perhaps this inspired him to go into nature, even with or without the influence of drugs and alcohol.
So why did Harris not return for eight full days? Maybe this is when he ran out of drugs. Maybe he had become lost and only found his way back by that point. Perhaps he had finally had a reality check and decided that it was time to return to his life.
Regardless, I do believe that Harris returned to the parking lot. The shoeprints along with the sighting are enough to make me feel that this was legitimate. After this, police suggest that Harris either went into the woods or into town. One detective goes so far as to suggest that, “We have no sightings, so he probably got a ride.”
This is where I strongly disagree with law enforcement. I don’t think that Rico Harris left to start another life. He seemed to struggle mightily with being far from home and family, and I can’t imagine he would run away, then spend almost nine years without so much as briefly contacting a family member or friend.
And to return to the subject at the beginning of this piece, I don’t mean to suggest that it would be completely impossible for Harris to vanish into a new life, but his physical circumstances would make that especially difficult. I think that it would take a whole lot of work for Harris to disappear into another life fully, and I just don’t think the evidence points to him either being at that point or being willing to commit himself to so difficult a project.
Personally, I find it far more likely that Harris wandered back into the woods, dejected to find his car missing, and either committed suicide or accidentally died, having seen his missing vehicle as the final proof that he wasn’t meant to return to ordinary life.
Looking at photographs of Cache Creek Canyon, I’m honestly surprised this is not brought up more often. Police often speak as if Harris went missing in a small city park and that they’d certainly find him if he was there.
I’m just not so sure. Cache Creek Canyon looks like it contains plenty of dense foliage. I feel like a body, even one the size of Rico Harris’s, could easily evade detection, particularly if located far from the main trails.
Conclusion Unlike many cases I cover on here, where the victim has been missing for far too long to realistically still be alive, Rico Harris has been missing for less than a decade. If he did indeed run away, as the police seem ready to accept, he could very well be alive.
If you know a 6’9”, 300 lbs. Black man with a “BALLIN IV LIFE” tattoo and a mysterious past, please consider contacting Yolo County law enforcement. Heck, if you are Rico, consider contacting them yourself. I don’t know anything about the demons of your past, but I do know that there are people who love you and who deserve to know that you’re okay.
However, I find it far more likely that Rico is still out there somewhere near Cache Creek Canyon, his tale sadly having come to an end in a corner of the park that nobody’s checked yet. Maybe he’ll stay there forever, unfound and unburied.
This is truly a case where I just don’t know what to think. I don’t understand why law enforcement’s active theory, or at least publicly promoted theory, is that he hitched a ride and drove away. It just doesn’t add up to me, and I can’t help but wonder if they have additional reasons for thinking this that they haven’t shared with the public.
Nonetheless, I hope we can find Harris one way or another, so that his family have can closure if nothing else. These days, they sit around wondering what happened to him, and wondering if one word, one phrase, one answer could have changed things entirely.
Sources https://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-missing-basketball-player-20190316-story.html https://www.vizaca.com/rico-harris-missing/ https://allthatsinteresting.com/rico-harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rico\_Harris I placed an order on May 11th. Tracking info came in on May 22nd. Says package is at the ChuLi Center in Los Angeles, CA..but that was back on the 31st of May. I know international orders can take a bit..but do orders from China take longer than usual?
Thanks in advance for the feedback 👋
According to Rose Bowl General Manager Jens Weiden, AmericaFest, the annual fireworks extravaganza hosted in the Bowl every Fourth of July for almost a century, lost more than half a million dollars in 2022 and would need to be reworked if it returns to the iconic stadium.
Instead of the traditional AmericaFest this July 4, the Rose Bowl will be the scene of a sold-out soccer match and an after-match fireworks show for soccer ticket holders on the adjacent Brookside Golf Course.
In years past, AmericaFest has been described as the biggest Independence Day fireworks display west of the Mississippi.
In 2022 the 96th annual AmericaFest Celebration included the Palomino Festival, highlighting country music presented by Goldenvoice.
“We will continue to look at options for future years, but I would expect that if Americafest comes back it may look different than it has in the past,” Weiden told
Pasadena Now on Tuesday. “Last year Americafest lost over $500,000, and that just isn’t sustainable long term. We look forward to working with our stakeholders in the Arroyo and the City to see what that evolution looks like for future years. In the meantime we are excited to welcome LAFC [Los Angeles Football Club] and the LA Galaxy to America’s Stadium on July 4.”
The soccer match was originally scheduled for Feb. 25, but poor weather forced organizers to reschedule the event.
“We’re excited that on the 4th of July this year, we’re going to have a soccer match between LAFC and the LA Galaxy at the stadium,” Weiden said. “It’s a rescheduled soccer match that was supposed to take place in February, but because of inclement weather, we rescheduled it to July 4th. And the exciting thing for us is that we have a history of doing soccer matches here on the 4th of July with fireworks. When the LA Galaxy played here for years, we would have a soccer match and then do fireworks after the soccer match. And so this year that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to have a sold out soccer match on July 4th, followed by a firework show on the golf course at the conclusion of the game. So we’re excited that we’re actually going to do both.”
“We’re going to have a world-class soccer match, and then we’re going to do a world class firework show after that the attendees of the event and also the neighbors that are around the Rose Bowl can enjoy. So we’re excited that we’re going back to our roots a little bit here and doing a soccer match with fireworks to follow.”
It is not known if the after-match fireworks show will be presented as “AmericaFest.”
Pasadena Now has reached out to the pyrotechnic company responsible for the fireworks for the show in previous years.
According to ESPN, 70,000-plus tickets were already sold for the soccer match in February when that event was rescheduled.
The ticket sales puts the match on course to potentially break Major League Soccer’s single-game attendance record of 74,479.
The event is projected to make hundreds of thousands of dollars for the stadium.
The Rose Bowl Operating Company (RBOC) is looking for ways to increase stadium revenue.
The fiscal year 2023 budget plan for the Rose Bowl Operating Company projected a loss of $2.8 million. The RBOC’s operating reserves would cover the loss.
This would have been the 97th annual AmericaFest.
According to Nina Chomsky, president of the Linda Vista Annandale Association, a nearby neighborhood group, was not told of the changes to the schedule.
A sold-out soccer match could have major traffic impacts in the Arroyo.
“We just followed the ‘news’ from the RBOC,” Chomsky told
Pasadena Now. “We at LVAA had no way to comment or suggest alternatives. It was all presented as a ‘done deal.’”
Tens of thousands of people typically attend the AmericaFest event for a day full of tailgating, celebration, and entertainment, including a motorcycle stunt show and a world-renowned fireworks display.
https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/rose-bowl-says-americafest-fireworks-show-has-to-change Hello, I am currently a student at UC Berkeley and was recently flagged for an Unusual Enrollment History (UEH) because I attended three different institutions (UIUC, East Los Angeles College, and UCSC). I did receive academic credit from all three institutions, but I had to withdraw from UIUC after my first semester due to financial circumstances. I took classes at a CC called East Los Angeles College to transfer into UCSC. After going to UCSC, I transferred to Berkeley. However, I am concerned since I need to provide documentation such as billing statements that show that I did not "use federal financial aid to pay for registration" at those three previous colleges because I did use financial aid to help cover some of the costs.
If anyone who has experience with being flagged for UEH, how were you able to resolve it?