Thursday, October 11, 2012
Salmon in Lake Tahoe
Strangely enough, there are salmon in Lake Tahoe. Lest ye disbelieve due to the improbability of salmon somehow crossing over the Sierra Nevada Mountains into an internal drainage basin which starts in Lake Tahoe's feeder streams and ends in Pyrimid Lake north of Reno, I will resolve the incongruous mystery with the simple answer: "There was an accident with the spawning tanks at the Fish Hatchery in Tahoe City in 1940. The salmon got out into the lake. It was a boo-boo." So now they have bright red salmon spawning in Lake Tahoe thanks to Man and our inevitable and continuous accident rate. I went to see them last weekend. Here's some pictures.
And another:
The stream was pretty well full of fish, but I needed better filters to photograph them.
The banks were also lined with hundreds of people watching the spectacle. Black Bears were known to come down and chow on the dead and dying salmon. Waste not, want not.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Sledge Hammer
When I was a kid I used to watch an afternoon tv show called Sledge Hammer. The hero, a renegade cop, had a .44 Magnum which he threatened to use on perps constantly, flashing it all the time. Of course, it being a kids show, every time he fired it, he just shot the gun out of someone's hand. Bulletproof vests didn't (publically) exist in the 80's so no body shots saved by a vest tricks. It was a kids show. Like Power Rangers or The Tick, just 10 years earlier.
I mention this because we're now at the stage of breaking apart concrete with on this wall project with a sledge hammer. And I have to say, this was one of the better skills perfected in college. You wouldn't think that operating a sledge hammer to break rocks is a collegiate activity, but I was a Geology major. Breaking rocks so we could study them was part of the deal. And operating an 8 pound sledge is hard work. Really, nuff said. This is what it looked like with the fence boards taken down. Notice the post in the center? Its leaning about 10 degrees to the left. That's supposed to be straight up and down.
Even more obvious here.
So we started digging. I moved ALL THESE ROCKS.
The hole behind the wall is 3 feet deep. The pile of rocks is about 2 feet high, and 5 feet across and about 15 feet long. The pile weighs as much as your car. The rocks are the size of an angry Korean girl's fist... so not that big, bigger than plums, smaller than apples. Not fun trying to coax those onto a shovel. The edge keeps bouncing off them. Had to get creative with a hoe and it takes two people to really get rocks moving out. What's worse is the gravel/rock also extends under the pile instead of merely being next to the wall. Perhaps that was a good thin, but with 10 inches of red dirt on top, I'm wondering if the contractors even knew what each other was doing? Anyway, finished removing rocks this morning. Notice the boards are somewhat straighter?
Keep in mind that the board in the foreground right is cut at a slant. The white line below that is the true level edge, and YES it is straighter without the weight of untold thousands of pounds of river rock pushing it out. Dad, who is 71 but too stubborn to pay a contractor to do this, proceeded to chip away at the concrete holding the rotted out fence posts with a hammer and chisel. I went after it with a full on 8 lb sledge hammer. Then Dad got the brighter idea of using an air-chisel, which works far better and less painful too. This is the result with the new fence post in the hole:
Second (middle hole) still in progress:
Note the wood broken off? Its mush from water damage. That was pressure treated lumber and it lasted only 14 years thanks to some errors in drainage from a well meaning homeowner next door. Oh well. Sure, its backbreaking labor right before its supposed to start pouring rain, but what can you do? Life is filled with Necessaries rather than Optionals.
UPDATE: Finished digging out the concrete and rotted post. Put new posts and fresh concrete in here:
Post is MUCH straighter now.
See? Better. We want to let this setup another day before we throw all those rocks down into the hole again. They were hard enough getting up there in the first place.After a trip to the lumber store and a few hours of work, we cut and installed the fence stringers. These are redwood so should last better than the original fir boards.
Bit by bit, day by day, we get closer to done. This is how you do it when one of you is 71 and the other has a bad back.
UPDATE: So we shoveled the rocks in Sunday afternoon. Monday morning we put up fence boards so here we are, mostly done.
This was the work of over a week. Thousand plus pounds of rock moved. Boards shifted. Holes dug. Lumber fitted. Labor was hard, but its done. No more worries of the wall and fence falling down the next time it rains hard. Dad says he hopes it will outlast him so he doesn't have to deal with it again. I hope he's right.
And I got paid for the labor, at a good rate. The neighbor lady, a grandma, insisted and would be insulted if I didn't take the check. So now I'm apparently worth $25/hr. I will have to put this on my taxes. The wall is solid and will not be falling over in the coming rains. Meanwhile its 79'F and we're celebrating completing the project with Zinfandel (Ravenswood) and steaks. With a sore back, yeah, I can get behind that.
I mention this because we're now at the stage of breaking apart concrete with on this wall project with a sledge hammer. And I have to say, this was one of the better skills perfected in college. You wouldn't think that operating a sledge hammer to break rocks is a collegiate activity, but I was a Geology major. Breaking rocks so we could study them was part of the deal. And operating an 8 pound sledge is hard work. Really, nuff said. This is what it looked like with the fence boards taken down. Notice the post in the center? Its leaning about 10 degrees to the left. That's supposed to be straight up and down.
UPDATE: Finished digging out the concrete and rotted post. Put new posts and fresh concrete in here:
UPDATE: So we shoveled the rocks in Sunday afternoon. Monday morning we put up fence boards so here we are, mostly done.
And I got paid for the labor, at a good rate. The neighbor lady, a grandma, insisted and would be insulted if I didn't take the check. So now I'm apparently worth $25/hr. I will have to put this on my taxes. The wall is solid and will not be falling over in the coming rains. Meanwhile its 79'F and we're celebrating completing the project with Zinfandel (Ravenswood) and steaks. With a sore back, yeah, I can get behind that.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Wines and Beers
Applied for a job today at a local wine and beer shipper. They want an order clerk. Dunno if they're still hiring, as they posted on Craigslist and maybe I'm being anxious. I used to do the job they advertised right out of college, with my fresh and useless Geology degree in hand and no jobs to speak of. So I became a wine shipping order clerk in Healdsburg. Did that for a year and change prior to moving to the Sierra foothills.
Nice town, Healdsburg. Very touristy despite actually having serious wine-business to do. You wouldn't think wine was serious business unless you grew up around it like I did. It was everywhere and earned a billion a year for the county I lived in. A billion. Pause and imagine that from a semi-rural county on the fringe of the Bay Area previously limited to ranching, dairy, and vegetable crops. Some winery in Napa valley wins the international contest for Chardonnay in France and suddenly we're planting vineyards everywhere. Those odd little goat farms are making gourmet cheese. The alpaca wool sweaters are selling for $350 apiece. The local restaurants have wine lists of multiple pages and $4/bottle corkage fees if you bring your own for dinner. It became the place to go for a weekend away from The City (San Francisco).
Of course, the twisty roads would kill you if you drove drunk, and even sober drivers had a tough time of it, but I was inured to it all, having grown up to the sounds of whining engines, squealing tires, and sirens as a common thing heard multiple nights a week. I suppose I was traumatized by this, because it was so common as to be normal. Apparently, that level of death is a bad thing? I dunno why. Darwin Awards hadn't been named yet, but these were winners.
The days were sometimes hot, but the fog came in every evening at 5-6 PM and temps would sink from 85'F to the mid 50's. Bring your sweater or a light jacket or you'll catch cold coming out of the movies or watching a local soccer game. Good times. The Pacific was only about 18 miles as a crow flies. We still bbq'ed and smoked various meats, ate the best local cheeses, and enjoyed the sparkling waters, even as kids. Back then you could get really good sourdough bread. Now? Not so much. The bakeries went under and part of California culture DIED when that happened. It used to be at 5 PM you'd settle down with wine or a local IPA, a loaf of fresh warm sourdough, and cheese or butter to put on it and enjoy a pre-dinner repast. It still allowed a full day of work, you just had a pre-dinner snack to warm up your appetite. Somehow you get fat from that today. Not sure why it didn't do the same then. Youth perhaps.
Now that the season has turned, mornings are chilly and the days warm enough for shirt sleeves by late morning, but close your windows at night or the evening chill will give you a cold before you know it. Rain threatens, though mostly its theoretical. The storms are passing to my North, so far. Wait a week. I can see value in waxing my car for the winter. The light is golden all day, thanks to the lowering angle. Skies are so blue, and there's no pollution to see at this elevation so visibility from the mountainside crosses the entire Sacramento Valley over to the Coast Ranges. Sunsets are red and orange. I find myself wanting to plan meals soon. I think a soup with Italian sausage, maybe. Something with a bit of red chard in it, maybe some red potatoes. Skip the beans. Maybe use some yellow squash and chunks of carrot and onion. That would do. Its good soup and bread season.
Nice town, Healdsburg. Very touristy despite actually having serious wine-business to do. You wouldn't think wine was serious business unless you grew up around it like I did. It was everywhere and earned a billion a year for the county I lived in. A billion. Pause and imagine that from a semi-rural county on the fringe of the Bay Area previously limited to ranching, dairy, and vegetable crops. Some winery in Napa valley wins the international contest for Chardonnay in France and suddenly we're planting vineyards everywhere. Those odd little goat farms are making gourmet cheese. The alpaca wool sweaters are selling for $350 apiece. The local restaurants have wine lists of multiple pages and $4/bottle corkage fees if you bring your own for dinner. It became the place to go for a weekend away from The City (San Francisco).
Of course, the twisty roads would kill you if you drove drunk, and even sober drivers had a tough time of it, but I was inured to it all, having grown up to the sounds of whining engines, squealing tires, and sirens as a common thing heard multiple nights a week. I suppose I was traumatized by this, because it was so common as to be normal. Apparently, that level of death is a bad thing? I dunno why. Darwin Awards hadn't been named yet, but these were winners.
The days were sometimes hot, but the fog came in every evening at 5-6 PM and temps would sink from 85'F to the mid 50's. Bring your sweater or a light jacket or you'll catch cold coming out of the movies or watching a local soccer game. Good times. The Pacific was only about 18 miles as a crow flies. We still bbq'ed and smoked various meats, ate the best local cheeses, and enjoyed the sparkling waters, even as kids. Back then you could get really good sourdough bread. Now? Not so much. The bakeries went under and part of California culture DIED when that happened. It used to be at 5 PM you'd settle down with wine or a local IPA, a loaf of fresh warm sourdough, and cheese or butter to put on it and enjoy a pre-dinner repast. It still allowed a full day of work, you just had a pre-dinner snack to warm up your appetite. Somehow you get fat from that today. Not sure why it didn't do the same then. Youth perhaps.
Now that the season has turned, mornings are chilly and the days warm enough for shirt sleeves by late morning, but close your windows at night or the evening chill will give you a cold before you know it. Rain threatens, though mostly its theoretical. The storms are passing to my North, so far. Wait a week. I can see value in waxing my car for the winter. The light is golden all day, thanks to the lowering angle. Skies are so blue, and there's no pollution to see at this elevation so visibility from the mountainside crosses the entire Sacramento Valley over to the Coast Ranges. Sunsets are red and orange. I find myself wanting to plan meals soon. I think a soup with Italian sausage, maybe. Something with a bit of red chard in it, maybe some red potatoes. Skip the beans. Maybe use some yellow squash and chunks of carrot and onion. That would do. Its good soup and bread season.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Moved
So I've moved out of the Bay Area. I spent 4 months after losing my job to internal politics (and being right too much of the time always grates on people) seeking work, applying all over the place and got exactly ONE interview (Tesla) and couldn't find anything that paid my rent. My lease ended in October and they wanted $1500/mo. to re-up. Kindly no.
So I packed up my stuff and put it in storage where the job market was no worse than the Bay Area and within a short drive of my aging parents. I've got a good dozen applications processing there so I'm pretty much waiting for a call for an interview. Assuming I get the job, since I'm good with old people and there's a ton of those nearby and kids working these sorts of sales jobs hate them (not realizing old people living in those communities have money and pay their bills) so they're a good demographic for me. There's several applications (half a dozen, more) processing up here in the gold country too. The Gold in Gold Country is literal btw. I'm sitting on the side of a mine. They're not empty mines either. Still a couple billion in gold down there, about two miles deep. Will take 2 years to pump the water out so you can get to it, but the water has to be cleaned up and treated before it can be released into local streams and that's a pretty big cost. Thus the mines are still closed, for now. I think that will end in time.
I registered to vote once I moved back up here, a few days after I arrived. I want to vote for Romney because I didn't vote in the last election, not liking either guy, and Obama has been BAD FOR AMERICA. "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" asked Al Gore during Clinton's re-election campaign. Ask yourself that question today. What's the answer? Worse. America is teetering, its middle class has shrunk drastically, 48% of college graduates live with their parents because they can't find good paying jobs, and real unemployment is 24%, real inflation (including food and gasoline and rent) is 12.5% annually. Quantitative Easing could very easily tip over the world economy into a true global depression that shuts down the factories in China, where they make our lightbulbs because we don't make them in the USA anymore. Ponder that.
And the Middle East is still filled with yahoos who would kill each other given half a chance because Middle Easterners love their grudges, whereas Gaelic types like me mostly gave that stuff up couple thousand years ago. When we finally get an electric car battery that doesn't require rare earth elements, we won't need to give the Middle East anymore money and they can starve to death as they clearly deserve. All the easy money has enabled a lot of crazies. Take the money away and they die off as they richly deserve. The one bright spot of the Greater Depression is eventually the US$$ will be too weak to justify Mexican Mafia slipping drugs across the border anymore so the drug problem will dry up due to lack of funding. And won't that be hilarious?
Don't get me wrong. There's still some jobs advertised in the Bay Area. $10-12/hr. You can live on that, with a 40 mile commute and a bridge to cross twice a day, if you're half a couple and sharing rent expenses. I'm solo, however, and those costs are non-trivial with gasoline finally at $4.50/gal again. The October Surprise is once again slaughtering the Middle Class right before the election. "Are you better off now...?" Ahem. I wonder how people will vote?
My elderly father was looking at tiny fuel efficient cars last week, after seeing the pump price jump. He's got a car that gets 34 mpg highway. He doesn't have to commute except for groceries. My car, which is 14 years old, needs tires and its struts replaced, around $1300 all told, gets 32 mpg highway. I don't plan to replace it. You can buy a LOT of gasoline for the cost of a new car that's slightly better fuel economy. When the time comes and it jumps past $15/gal. the shock to the economy will be so huge that Uhaul will be doing brisk business as people give up and move back to the farm, with the economy tanking and people just plain unable to stay afloat, kids or not. That's sort of where I am now, only this is a nice retirement community I'm squatting in, not a farm, and I'm going back to work just as soon as one of these job-advertising yahoos calls me. Lots of jobs advertised, not much follow through. Modern HR people seem lazy and largely incompetent, or overworked and lacking the basic follow through "no thank you" messages earlier HR had, barely 10 years ago.
Kids these days are just worthless. Sigh. They really dumbed down the colleges. College today is High School of Yesterday. Many of the jobs I see are paying Minimum Wage or not listing pay because they pay Minimum Wage. The trouble with that is turnover is murderous and the other employees spend all their time training the new kids who are going to leave the minute it gets hard or something better comes along. We really are becoming like Jamaica, aren't we? Folks in the Mountains are kinda rough, unshaven, eyes high from pot or meth, many with obvious signs of hangovers or other ailments. The visible body piercings and tattoos and weird hair colors make you unemployable in most settings. I don't have those, but I never get far enough to be interviewed. My last job really hurt my reputation. Sweat Shops will do that to you. These days I'm looking hard at IT jobs and applied to several. I can do the Desktop Support because memorizing the current problem bugging everyone is easy enough, and being nice to Users who are confused and need help is easy. I don't have to lie to them or sell them something they don't want. Just fix the problem, explain as needed and move on. I guess that's my niche.
I recently bought a used mountain bike with a full suspension at a garage sale benefitting the local high school debate club. After fixing it up I realized it was too small for me, so we're (me and Dad) giving it to my Nephew. He lives somewhere biking is sensible and we think he'd really like it. We hope. Its pretty nice, full suspension. A springer, not real shocks, but it absorbs the bounces well enough on the rough roads and its not too heavy. A good bike for a kid, better than I had. I always had steel hardframe bikes and I was the suspension. Kinda wish I could work at a bicycle shop or a scooter shop if I'm stuck at Minimum Wage anyway. I won't be getting an apartment if that's all I can get for wages. And that's pretty tough. That's the economy today. Way too many jobs are scams, pay nothing, are part time, or ask so much but don't pay enough to make up for the requirements that they aren't serious in the first place. That's the economy today.
India took most of the IT and call center jobs that middle class Americans used to do. I look forward to war in India, one WE aren't involved in, to return jobs to America. I don't even care if there's megadeaths there. I know lots of Indian people. Not good folks. I look forward to so payback, or seeing it on TV/websites. Stuff America isn't involved with anymore. Bring the troops home. Let the world burn. To hell with them; we've got our own problems here. I'd be happiest if bringing the troops home DIDN'T make WW4 worse but cooled things down. I really wonder if our thinking on international politics is just Dead Wrong. Interventionism is costing us so much. Pull out, let them finish their slaughter. Its not our problem.
China took all the manufacturing jobs that the Poor used to do. So our poor are unemployed thanks to China and the Middle Class are unemployed thanks to India. Any war distracting them from business would be good for America, I think. Next best thing is trade tariffs that END BUSINESS DEALINGS WITH BOTH. If we had manufacturing jobs here, the Poor would be working. If we taxed the everliving hell out of multinationals so only domestically hiring companies could afford to work here, there would be jobs worth having for the Middle Class again. Employment problems are solved by ending business with India and China, full stop. They can sell to other people, just not us. Hell, we're at (economic) war with both, we just pretend we aren't because its uncomfortable to admit since we're clearly losing. In a world with $4.50/gal gasoline and a shrinking Middle Class, something significant must be done.
Food posts to follow. Just needed to get this coffee fueled rant out.
"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Al Gore 1996 presidential election speech.
*from my mother's sewing room*
So I packed up my stuff and put it in storage where the job market was no worse than the Bay Area and within a short drive of my aging parents. I've got a good dozen applications processing there so I'm pretty much waiting for a call for an interview. Assuming I get the job, since I'm good with old people and there's a ton of those nearby and kids working these sorts of sales jobs hate them (not realizing old people living in those communities have money and pay their bills) so they're a good demographic for me. There's several applications (half a dozen, more) processing up here in the gold country too. The Gold in Gold Country is literal btw. I'm sitting on the side of a mine. They're not empty mines either. Still a couple billion in gold down there, about two miles deep. Will take 2 years to pump the water out so you can get to it, but the water has to be cleaned up and treated before it can be released into local streams and that's a pretty big cost. Thus the mines are still closed, for now. I think that will end in time.
I registered to vote once I moved back up here, a few days after I arrived. I want to vote for Romney because I didn't vote in the last election, not liking either guy, and Obama has been BAD FOR AMERICA. "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" asked Al Gore during Clinton's re-election campaign. Ask yourself that question today. What's the answer? Worse. America is teetering, its middle class has shrunk drastically, 48% of college graduates live with their parents because they can't find good paying jobs, and real unemployment is 24%, real inflation (including food and gasoline and rent) is 12.5% annually. Quantitative Easing could very easily tip over the world economy into a true global depression that shuts down the factories in China, where they make our lightbulbs because we don't make them in the USA anymore. Ponder that.
And the Middle East is still filled with yahoos who would kill each other given half a chance because Middle Easterners love their grudges, whereas Gaelic types like me mostly gave that stuff up couple thousand years ago. When we finally get an electric car battery that doesn't require rare earth elements, we won't need to give the Middle East anymore money and they can starve to death as they clearly deserve. All the easy money has enabled a lot of crazies. Take the money away and they die off as they richly deserve. The one bright spot of the Greater Depression is eventually the US$$ will be too weak to justify Mexican Mafia slipping drugs across the border anymore so the drug problem will dry up due to lack of funding. And won't that be hilarious?
Don't get me wrong. There's still some jobs advertised in the Bay Area. $10-12/hr. You can live on that, with a 40 mile commute and a bridge to cross twice a day, if you're half a couple and sharing rent expenses. I'm solo, however, and those costs are non-trivial with gasoline finally at $4.50/gal again. The October Surprise is once again slaughtering the Middle Class right before the election. "Are you better off now...?" Ahem. I wonder how people will vote?
My elderly father was looking at tiny fuel efficient cars last week, after seeing the pump price jump. He's got a car that gets 34 mpg highway. He doesn't have to commute except for groceries. My car, which is 14 years old, needs tires and its struts replaced, around $1300 all told, gets 32 mpg highway. I don't plan to replace it. You can buy a LOT of gasoline for the cost of a new car that's slightly better fuel economy. When the time comes and it jumps past $15/gal. the shock to the economy will be so huge that Uhaul will be doing brisk business as people give up and move back to the farm, with the economy tanking and people just plain unable to stay afloat, kids or not. That's sort of where I am now, only this is a nice retirement community I'm squatting in, not a farm, and I'm going back to work just as soon as one of these job-advertising yahoos calls me. Lots of jobs advertised, not much follow through. Modern HR people seem lazy and largely incompetent, or overworked and lacking the basic follow through "no thank you" messages earlier HR had, barely 10 years ago.
Kids these days are just worthless. Sigh. They really dumbed down the colleges. College today is High School of Yesterday. Many of the jobs I see are paying Minimum Wage or not listing pay because they pay Minimum Wage. The trouble with that is turnover is murderous and the other employees spend all their time training the new kids who are going to leave the minute it gets hard or something better comes along. We really are becoming like Jamaica, aren't we? Folks in the Mountains are kinda rough, unshaven, eyes high from pot or meth, many with obvious signs of hangovers or other ailments. The visible body piercings and tattoos and weird hair colors make you unemployable in most settings. I don't have those, but I never get far enough to be interviewed. My last job really hurt my reputation. Sweat Shops will do that to you. These days I'm looking hard at IT jobs and applied to several. I can do the Desktop Support because memorizing the current problem bugging everyone is easy enough, and being nice to Users who are confused and need help is easy. I don't have to lie to them or sell them something they don't want. Just fix the problem, explain as needed and move on. I guess that's my niche.
I recently bought a used mountain bike with a full suspension at a garage sale benefitting the local high school debate club. After fixing it up I realized it was too small for me, so we're (me and Dad) giving it to my Nephew. He lives somewhere biking is sensible and we think he'd really like it. We hope. Its pretty nice, full suspension. A springer, not real shocks, but it absorbs the bounces well enough on the rough roads and its not too heavy. A good bike for a kid, better than I had. I always had steel hardframe bikes and I was the suspension. Kinda wish I could work at a bicycle shop or a scooter shop if I'm stuck at Minimum Wage anyway. I won't be getting an apartment if that's all I can get for wages. And that's pretty tough. That's the economy today. Way too many jobs are scams, pay nothing, are part time, or ask so much but don't pay enough to make up for the requirements that they aren't serious in the first place. That's the economy today.
India took most of the IT and call center jobs that middle class Americans used to do. I look forward to war in India, one WE aren't involved in, to return jobs to America. I don't even care if there's megadeaths there. I know lots of Indian people. Not good folks. I look forward to so payback, or seeing it on TV/websites. Stuff America isn't involved with anymore. Bring the troops home. Let the world burn. To hell with them; we've got our own problems here. I'd be happiest if bringing the troops home DIDN'T make WW4 worse but cooled things down. I really wonder if our thinking on international politics is just Dead Wrong. Interventionism is costing us so much. Pull out, let them finish their slaughter. Its not our problem.
China took all the manufacturing jobs that the Poor used to do. So our poor are unemployed thanks to China and the Middle Class are unemployed thanks to India. Any war distracting them from business would be good for America, I think. Next best thing is trade tariffs that END BUSINESS DEALINGS WITH BOTH. If we had manufacturing jobs here, the Poor would be working. If we taxed the everliving hell out of multinationals so only domestically hiring companies could afford to work here, there would be jobs worth having for the Middle Class again. Employment problems are solved by ending business with India and China, full stop. They can sell to other people, just not us. Hell, we're at (economic) war with both, we just pretend we aren't because its uncomfortable to admit since we're clearly losing. In a world with $4.50/gal gasoline and a shrinking Middle Class, something significant must be done.
Food posts to follow. Just needed to get this coffee fueled rant out.
"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Al Gore 1996 presidential election speech.
*from my mother's sewing room*
Monday, May 2, 2011
Provence en Anglais
The South of France (Provence) mimics where I grew up, only with carbonate geology (affecting soils). I grew up with clay based soils thanks to the local volcanoes. They don't have that in Provence. We don't get scorpions either. We get heat and passion. No lavendar trays, no Mistral wind to drive you mad in deepest Winter.
We got heavy ground hugging fog every evening around 5-6 PM that hung around all night until around 10:30 AM the next morning, when it would suddenly burn off and reveal sharp blue skies and a brilliant sun. We both have good wines, good bread, good meat and good cheeses. Both regions are agricultural with poor sense of time and lousy roads. Both kinds of road kill people. Such is life.
Our architecture is Spanish influenced, California being a former territory of Spain lost thanks to distance, incompetence, and low value since, apparently, the Mexican caballeros never looked DOWN when running steers across a stream in the Sierra Nevada foothills to see the huge gold nuggets there. Really. Never did. How lame is that? This is one of those quirks of History that seems highly implausible. Spanish Land Grant rock walls are all over the place, running with barbed wire fences through the middle. The wall looks older because it IS. The coast running nearby provides fresh seafood and surfing for those brave enough to fend off the Great White sharks hunting for sea lions. Inland is redwoods and oaks, tall dry grasses, orderly rows of vineyard, and the occasional town. Some are tiny burgs with a few stoplights and then you're back out into the wilds again. Some are burgeoning metropolises with ivy hung brick walled colleges you'd swear belonged somewhere in the East. Only, instead of French Bistros, you find better taco and burrito stands. Its different. It's home.
We got heavy ground hugging fog every evening around 5-6 PM that hung around all night until around 10:30 AM the next morning, when it would suddenly burn off and reveal sharp blue skies and a brilliant sun. We both have good wines, good bread, good meat and good cheeses. Both regions are agricultural with poor sense of time and lousy roads. Both kinds of road kill people. Such is life.
Our architecture is Spanish influenced, California being a former territory of Spain lost thanks to distance, incompetence, and low value since, apparently, the Mexican caballeros never looked DOWN when running steers across a stream in the Sierra Nevada foothills to see the huge gold nuggets there. Really. Never did. How lame is that? This is one of those quirks of History that seems highly implausible. Spanish Land Grant rock walls are all over the place, running with barbed wire fences through the middle. The wall looks older because it IS. The coast running nearby provides fresh seafood and surfing for those brave enough to fend off the Great White sharks hunting for sea lions. Inland is redwoods and oaks, tall dry grasses, orderly rows of vineyard, and the occasional town. Some are tiny burgs with a few stoplights and then you're back out into the wilds again. Some are burgeoning metropolises with ivy hung brick walled colleges you'd swear belonged somewhere in the East. Only, instead of French Bistros, you find better taco and burrito stands. Its different. It's home.
The Greatest
What do you do when you realize someone famous is a 2nd cousin? Cat Power is a cousin of mine. She's famous for "The Greatest" which is a very good song. How do you recognize that? She's worked hard to reach this level, but most of her work isn't very good. I don't disagree about her efforts, but still, effort does not equal result. She tried, but the outcome was mediocre. That's live. Like L7, you try hard and some of it is awesome, some is crap. You have to accept this.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Beer?
This looks interesting: Brewing Beer
I'm curious to see how expensive it ends up being. Research more.
I'm curious to see how expensive it ends up being. Research more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)