A camera odyssey, frame by frame

This column’s mystery of the week involves a lost camera with a long digital trail. Let Ken Poole explain.

“A camera was found in Maui a few days ago, apparently lost by a tourist,” wrote Poole. “A resident of that island found the camera. When no one claimed it, he took the chip -- it was a digital camera -- and put it into his computer. There in full color were pictures of a wedding and a band.

“He noticed a bandstand, which bore the name the Elm Street Band. He found the band on the Internet and e-mailed them photos with the message, ‘Do you know who lost a camera on Maui?’ The band determined that the pictures were of a wedding reception they did last November at Loyola Marymount University. The band contacted the bride, Annette Medina.” Which is where Poole came into the picture. He’s Medina’s father. He has since e-mailed family friends, but so far no one has claimed the well-traveled camera.

“Either my friends are big spenders,” Poole concluded, “or too embarrassed.”

Witch’s brew: With Halloween approaching, I descended into my dark cellar and brought out a collection of some of my most spine-tingling typos as well as other creepy sights (see accompanying):

* A meal for the broom-flying set (from Fred Reichel)

* A storage area for scary sounds (from Bob Mulligan)

* A company that must be a competitor of Ghost Busters (from Paul Parmentier)

* A Porta Potti even less inviting than the usual ones (from Mavis Medley)

* And, finally, a bus that you might think delivers creepy winged creatures (from Carol Trudelle). Or perhaps the name refers to the fact it’s operated by Brockton (Mass.) Area Transit.

Anyone we know? Parking is such street sorrow, the late columnist Herb Caen once said, updating Shakespeare. He was writing about San Francisco, but his lament applies to L.A. just as well.

Take the case of Jennifer Steinhauer, the New York Times’ new bureau chief in L.A.

Kevin Roderick’s website, laobserved.com, speculated that, for Steinhauer, the “most painful culture shock about moving to Los Angeles this year has been parking tickets.”

Roderick noticed that in a recent story on the perils of parking in L.A., Steinhauer wrote: “A reporter who has lived in Los Angeles for a mere four months, for example, could have already racked up a ticket for blocking her own driveway, a second for not moving her car within seven minutes of the required time on street-cleaning day and two more -- in only two hours -- for allegedly parking on a residents-only side street.” As Roderick wrote, “Welcome to L.A.”

miscelLAny: In my Official Sample Ballot, John Gutierrez and Daviann Mitchell, who are candidates for the same Superior Court seat (Office No. 18), each claim to have been endorsed by L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca, L.A. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn and L.A. County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. Guess I’ll flip a coin.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.