Paul Osterhus

Yosemite Falls

2011-06-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

You will get wet.

The proclamation from the man in black polyester, wet from head to toe, fades from our heads as rapidly as his damp footprints dry behind him. It is in the 90’s but the trail along the Hetch Hetchy shore is fairly level, easy to walk, and his wetness is more than just perspiration.

We have just left the more shaded part of the trail and are now in the sunshine on a slight downward path along large exposed granite faces amidst small boulders bigger than ourselves. We continue along the trail and soon find a intermittent waterfall normally dry by this time of year. We join a few families splashing in the pools at the bottom of falls. The water is cool but not cold like we expect from snow melt. Cyndi waggles her toes in the water for a bit and then we continue along. You could get wet here but we don’t.

Falls are everywhere, springing out of the sides of mountains, rushing over the edges of cliffs, cascading down boulder filled valleys. The snow pack is very heavy this year, spring very late. The snow melt from the sudden heat is filling normally dry falls and streams. The Merced river, just starting to rise and already near flood stage, jumps and rooster tails downstream, the river white and roaring for fifteen miles out of Yosemite Valley.

In contrast, the Hetch Hetchy reservoir looks tranquil. Blue mountain lupines bloom along the trail in the company of yellows and purples. Smiling hikers pass us returning to their cars. You will get wet comes from a mother happy because her kids are happy, the kids just recently splashed and cooled in some water ahead of us, but the mother wishing she had brought harnesses as she watches her kids tumbling and scrambling everywhere. Somehow, I don’t know how, maybe magic, she herself is also everywhere, gathering the kids and returning them to momentary order only to see them quickly darting towards other distractions. We are getting hot and are tiring, glad we had stopped for a hearty and tasty lunch at the Cocina Michoacana.

Soon we are at Tueelala Falls and watch it fall 800’ before it cascades another several hundred feet to our level. Tueelala is also normally dry by this time of year but now the water is falling onto the stone footbridge and rushing down the trail on both sides. Hiking in wet shoes seems a bad idea, so I remove my shoes, roll up my pants and walk over the bridge through fast moving water nearly a foot deep and spray everywhere. The downhill cool breeze created by the waterfall feels great and we gasp and smile. We manage to stay reasonably dry.

We rest a bit and dry our feet. High above us the booms and cracks from the falls crashing along the cliff sound like rock slides. Two attractive young women approach and naturally I engage them in conversation. They tell us Wapama falls is about another half mile along the trail and it is beautiful. As they leave they toss over their shoulders You will get wet. I am disappointed they aren’t wet.

A bit further down the trail a recent rock slide half covering the trail is attended by several NPS staff. One woman -- sweating, tired, panting -- slowly lifts and drops a ten pound mall on a rock while standing in the sun. Two more sensible, older workers stand in the shade strategizing. Two younger men are hand rolling knee high granite blocks downhill. The rocks roll only a couple feet, then come to rest and the men push and grunt again. Downhill Sisyphus. Like Sisyphus, an amazingly beautiful place to toil and like Sisyphus, this work will never end.

Hetch Hetchy is part of Yosemite National Park and is every bit as beautiful as Yosemite Valley but unlike the Valley, lightly touristed. The Valley had NPS staff directing jammed traffic at several intersections; thirty minute waits for a space to open at parking lots; lines 20 deep at restrooms; uncontrolled tumbling children knocking down caned ancients. Yet everyone was happy, content to wait for their chance to stand in the spray of the falls. Old, young, even the blind were enjoying the cool, ionized air, roaring water, chirping birds and mixed pine and floral scents.

Moving again along the Hetch Hetchy trail, we can hear Wapama Falls but cannot see it. We head down switchbacks and pass a couple sets of hikers coming up. You will get wet is followed by Cover your camera. At the bottom of the switchbacks we see the spray. A rainbow is in the spray. We photograph the rainbow. I tuck my camera under my shirt. We go around the last corner.

And we get wet. Drenched. Instantly, completely, head to toe. The four bridges normally over Wapama falls are now inside of Wapama falls. Here the water is cold, the waterfall's breeze is now a wind, a cold wind. It is loud. It is beautiful, a bit scary and a lot exhilarating. We are shivering and laughing.

Photographing a waterfall from inside is difficult to do. Actually, it isn’t a good idea. The camera didn’t like it and refused to work for the rest of the day. But standing in the waterfall is fun, even though it can be enjoyed only for a few minutes at a time. I recommend it.

I ring out my shirt and we head back. Our water soaked clothes now keep us cool and because we are refreshed and it is getting late, we quickly and lightly walk the 2.5 miles back to the car cheerfully telling other hikers You will get wet.

See more waterfalls pics here

Quick trip to Sacramento

2011-06-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

I learned one thing on our short trip to Sacramento: Sacramenteros do not make eye contact.

No, that is not a fair description … let me be more precise: Sacramenteros avidly avoid eye contact as if they would crumble into a small pile of dust should they see themselves reflected in your eyes.

Red Light District

The downtown Sac employed are generally government workers ... beleaguered, furloughed, scapegoated in the endless budget battles ... and wear facial expressions that would be sobering at funerals. Sacramento’s many unemployed¹ are far beyond despair and hopelessness, sitting looking at the pavement between their feet, seemginly with minds as blank as possible, tomorrow as empty as yesterday, not panhandling, never laying down, only inactive. Slightly frightened and already wearied teenagers move slowly through the Westfield mall neither talking nor texting. The tidy streets seem withdrawn. Only entry level service staff show anything resembling enjoyment, albeit a joy distant and self-conscious.

It was hot. The streets had little traffic, few pedestrians and what stores were open closed by 4pm. Silent vaguely clumped commuters stood motionless waiting for their buses, looking like long time residents in a minor level of hell. Small knots of suits nattered down the walks and dismissed with minimal courtesy and maximum efficiency the hearty and insincere hallooos from solitary supplicating suits. Worn tourists with tired children stood bewildered at stop lights on the lightly trafficked streets waiting for something to happen. It just got hotter.

When we arrived we found all the hotel rooms between the capital and the Naked Lounge² had been assumed by a flock of congregating Methodists, so we ended up in an inexpensive “adequate value for the money” motel near Old Sacramento and on the edge of Sacramento’s small Chinatown. The motel was fine: it was quiet (except for the whistling trains that kept Cyndi awake all night); it was clean (except for the dirty corners in the tub and the bathroom and frankly every corner was dirty); it was safe (except for the bathroom wall heater that will set fire to the the room). Impressively, the tv had lots of Spanish channels, very little Fox and what I think was a community access geology channel.

Old Sac ... and New

Old Sacramento hugs the eastern bank of the Sacramento River and was basically where the city got started. Floods and fashion moved economic activity away from the river, turning Old Sacramento into a slum. About forty years ago the buildings were restored to look like they did during the Gold Rush and the area rehabilitated to be a historic tourist attraction. From my personal inspection of the historic area I determined that prospectors returning from the hills with their sacks of gold dust preferred to purchase infant t-shirts extolling the virtues of Nana (8 shops) or indulge their remaining sweet tooth with salt water taffy (7 stores and 18 flavors) or get a tattoo (5 shops). The stereotype that prospectors returned to drink and whore is completely wrong, as the alcohol prices in Old Sacramento make it impossible to get drunk even with a sackful of gold dust and the lobbyists have priced whores totally out of the reach of the individually rich.

Female Rail Wheel

The railroad museum in Old Sacramento was filled with well restored train engines, passenger cars and docents dressed as engineers and conductors. Some trains appeared feminine with brightly lipsticked wheels while others had strongly masculine steel coupling rods³. The trains were too large to photograph as a whole and as the wheels were at eye level, I decided to document the wheel variations. We enjoyed the museum.

We walked from the motel to the Capitol and passed block after block of empty store fronts to the north of the Capitol Mall and blocks and blocks of government buildings to the south. The CalPers building looked like a cross between a re-education center and a VA hospital, with disquieting greens and frosted glass walls so loved by HR departments⁴. The DOT building claimed architecture was one of their missions and while many California bridges and roads are beautifully designed, the DOT headquarters itself looks like post-Stanlist functionalism and somehow manages to make even the windows look like pre-cast concrete. The Stanford Mansion is California’s official welcoming center and it is a cute deteriorating little mansion. The nicest building housing a state office houses the state Controllers office, which seems wrong.

The capitol building itself is white, very white, with only a bit of gold leaf on the small dome atop the large dome. The Golden State has sold all its gold. The Capitol is in a very urban area surrounded by ample trees and sits next to a small, quiet, uninspired park. Even though it was built to look like the US capitol, no one would confuse the two.

While we were watching the capitol, the legislature passed a budget bill on the last day before the legislators would lose pay for not passing a timely budget bill. It was not a good bill, just one they passed to keep their paychecks and a bill the Governor vetoed⁵. Aroused news vans with their erected booms waited outside the capitol for the budget news that wasn’t really news. It was hot. The experienced reporters stayed inside their air conditioned vans and sent the junior reporters to do man-in-the-street interviews. The rare man in the street wasn’t very interested.

The next day, while the Governor’s veto caused fingers to point in all directions, we took a pleasant drive through gold country where we found a couple great used bookstores (the form of gold we prefer), an excellent Mexican inspired restaurant in Placerville and a fruit stand with wonderful cherries and lousy smoothies. Sacramento was, all in all, a little interesting and a little disappointing and could be a nice place to live if you didn’t have to work there. But it was the cherries and books that made the trip.

Want more photos?

¹Economists say Sacramento has structural unemployment and is unlikely to experience a normal recovery. It does have the 4th highest foreclosure rate in the country and those who lost their homes regularly form tent cities in the city parks and vacant lots. The tent cites are then shut down by the government, which confiscates the homeless’ meager belongings and stored food and leaves the belongings and food to rot and mold in the lots, causing health problems for the neighbors of the lots. Meanwhile charities feed these homeless day old, nutrition free sugar based bakery products. Christian groups attempting to help are vigorously attacked by Christian groups of other denominations. Benefit concerts are given that raise enough money to promote more benefit concerts.

God Bless America.

²Disappointing me and the more life affirming Methodists, the Naked Lounge was simply an upscale coffee shop with a salacious sign.

³The museum had wonderful exhibits but little explanation. While I wrote this, I was trying to determine the correct name for train wheels (which is in fact as correct a name as any, though “rail wheels” would be better), I came across this train technology site, which had clear, simple information. This information would have made the museum more interesting to me and probably to at least some of the kids.

⁴It is very difficult to make green an upsetting color and hats off to the HR genius that managed it. I’m not sure but I think this shade is to dissuade people from actually visiting the Personnel Department. Frosted glass walls are a favorite because they give the illusion of openness with none of the benefits of privacy and allow for HR people to spy undetected on each other.

⁵Bless his heart.

May Visitors

2011-06-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

Two sets of visitors in May brought an unexpected benefit: our preparations finally got the house clean. Unfortunately, after those visitors departed entropy re-visited us with a vengeance and chaos is again ruling the household.

Bixby Bridge on Coast Highway

Like a clean house, the visits were very refreshing and too short lived. My sister Jane and her husband Ralph arrived from London in early May and Cyndi’s sister, aunt and their husbands (Betty & Trent, Peggy & Jeff) arrived late May from the Louisville area. One of the highlights of both trips (at least for Cyndi and myself) was a ride down the coast highway along Big Sur. Winter brought a number of road wash outs and slides and the timing was perfect: the northern most closures were cleared a week before Jane and Ralph arrived and the southern most slide at Gordo closed Hwy 1 just before the first visit and re-opened just after the second visit.

If you think the Gordo slide timing was bad, then you haven’t driven the Furgeson-Naciemento Road across the Santa Lucia mountains to Fort Hunter Ligget. This is one of my most favorite drives but it is nearly impossible to convince a visitor to take that bypass unless Hwy 1 is closed. So the Gordo timing was great for me, if not the visitors: we got to see the prettiest part of the coast and the gut churning ride up and through the coast ranges.

Ralph and Jane at the Winery

Jane and Ralph got the Napa and City tours, with wineries and bakeries figuring heavily in the fun. Ralph seemed impressed that we seemingly knew every road and intersection and every barrista within a 150 mile radius, but I think the illusion was broken when we got lost in tiny little downtown San Luis Obispo. We always seem to get lost in downtowns. But after spending 10 hours a day for 3 days in a car listening to Cyndi and my stories about geology and history and culture and our kitties, I think Ralph and Jane were very happy to get on Amtrak and continue their trip down to San Diego sans the free tour guides.

Betty, Cyndi and Peggy

The Louisville gang visited Sequoia National Park on a quite snowy and sloppy Memorial Day. Along the way they got to experience Central Valley, the flattest place in the US and another place visitors typically shun. And I think they now understand why that particular shunning. We had to take two cars for this trip and each day a different “volunteer” got to ride with me in the Mini while Cyndi rode with the rest of the gang in a rental. Poor Betty had to ride with me across the Central Valley, where she learned more about geology and irrigation that she ever wanted. And Trent and Jeff learned how to change a tire on the rental while the rest of us watched them. We finally parted ways at Mission San Antonio at Hunter LIgget and while Cyndi and I returned home to re-enable chaos mode, the gang continued to Santa Barbara and LAX for some peace and quiet.

Thanks for visiting, folks. But next time come earlier so you can help us clean house.

More Pictures of

Jane and Ralph's visit

Betty, Trent, Peggy and Jeff's visit

Trip to Louisville

2011-04-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

Our trip to see Cyndi’s family in southern Indiana took us thru Houston and IAH’s third world terminal servicing Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky and the rest of the western southeast. You know, the kind of terminal with eight “gates” sharing one gate number, poorly shaved transvestites scaring children and where you walk across the tarmac in the rain to climb up a staircase with only one handrail to enter a plane built in an actual third world country. The plane was quite nice, the terminal not so much.

Upon arrival in Louisville we first headed to see Cyndi’s mother Jeannie, who I immediately soaked with a bottle of seltzer water. I hadn’t realized the grocery stores pre-shook the bottles and I wasn’t intentionally pointing it at Jeannie, I was just pointing it away from me. Jeannie is a much better person than me and had no hard feelings, especially since we brought food and I brought her daughter.

The next day before we headed towards Lexington to tour the Woodford bourbon distillery, we stopped for lunch at a sports bar in New Albany. The lunch was tasty and the 40+ year old short-skirted waitresses attentive but I was disconcerted to read the sign on the back of the bathroom’s door suggesting cleanliness to the employees1.

The ride to Woodford’s was comfortable and there was a useful sign on the freeway telling us which exit to use, but after that we were on our own. We relied on Google maps to wander 45 minutes thru horse country with white wooden fences everywhere which seemed to fence trees in and people out. Google got us to Versailles, KY but then basically said “you’re on your own from here on”. After a couple aborted searches I stopped to ask directions of a local and he laughed and introduced me to an albino tire installation engineer with robin’s egg blue eyes without pupils and he giggled as well. They finally decided that if I went “that way” and turned right at the right time, we would find Woodford’s. Hoping for more of a clue, I asked “roughly how far” and the tire mechanic shrugged and guessed 5 miles. Maybe 12.

It turned out to be around 7 miles and hidden, but in spite of this the distillery was well visited and they had to add a second 3pm tour for us and the other stragglers. The tour was fun, especially the sampling at the end. I learned their water came from a “deep well” about 45 feet down thru the limestone that filtered out iron and heavy ions but added calcium which contributes to the unique flavor of Woodford’s and the calciated water helps horses grow strong bones, which contributes to the Kentucky horse’s superior racing abilities.

When Cyndi and I passed thru this area on our move to California 15 years ago, we saw the Heaven Hill distillery burn to the ground and the rolling, flaming casks of bourbon were beautiful to watch, but the waste of liquor was horrible to see. We asked if they would burn a barrel for us and I guess they would have but we would have to buy the barrel first and that would cost like $15k and so we stuck with our Heaven Hill memories.

Jeff, Cyndi, Peggy, Betty, Trent

The next day Cyndi’s sister, brother-in-law, aunt and uncle-in-law showed us around Louisville then took us to the Bernheim Arboretun. Unfortunately it was just about two weeks too early in the spring and only a few flowers were out and the trees were still bare, but beekeepers let us pet their queens and stick shapers lets us stroke their sticks (really, I’m serious). Jeff (the uncle-in-law) and I climbed to the top of the fire tower at the highest point in the park and the docent showed us downtown Louisville thru a gap in the Kentucky hills, Fort Knox in the near distance and explained how differential erosion in the limestone formations created the knobs in front of us. I tried my best to see the hills.

In a really dirty trick, Betty (Cyndi’s sister) and six other relatives scheduled their birthdays within a week of our arrival and they had a huge family birthday party at Betty’s. They claimed 47 people attended but I’m pretty sure it was a lot closer to 100. And while I was in a daze trying to keep track of names and relationships (and gave up on this quite quickly), I felt bad for the one young boy attempting to play with his 17 girl cousins. I guess all the fertile females in this clan sleep on their right side.

On the last day of my visit, Cyndi and I drove across the flat limestone deposits2 to see the Indiana ski runs3 and the Spa at Paoli, which was lovely and much larger than expected, seemingly larger than the hill that provided a backdrop. We went on a few feet further to French Lick and drove past their high school on Larry Bird Drive. Larry Bird is not only one of the all time great basketball players but a very good human as well and it is nice to see him honored, but I wonder how the it feels as a student to arrive at school each day to be reminded that the one truly great person to graduate from this high school has already graduated.

At lunchtime we returned to Cordyn, Indiana’s first Capital and home of Butt Drugs. 40% of Cordyn’s surface area is cemetery and something like 35% of the residents are in nursing homes. Cyndi wants to move here and while they do have a WalMart and a Culvers and Cracker Barrel and all the usual fast food places, they lack a Sonic Burger and that is a deal breaker for me.

We ate at Magdalena’s Restaurant on Cordyn’s main square and as we entered a woman about 68 years old eating by herself and who later proved to be demented threw down her salad fork, rushed over, embraced Cyndi and said “Honey, you look just like my older sister”. This is a story I shall repeat often. Ms Dementia then went to all the patrons in the restaurant and told them to move away from the windows because a tornado was coming (it wasn’t, at least not that day) and warning those finished with lunch not to leave or they would get washed away in the flood or blown away by the wind (it was just raining) and sat muttering to herself as people tried to ignore her. Perhaps I look that demented to Cyndi and she feels Cordyn is the right place for me?

1 These signs in California are much more assertive, typically saying “Employees must wash hands before returning to work” and often include a picture showing hands washing, but even this can be misconstrued. I recently observed a restaurant employee enter the washroom, wash his hands, then use the facilities which does technically comply with the stated sanitary regulation, if not its intention. As we had just finished lunch, I thought it best not to immediately relate this story to Cyndi.

2 Of course, limestone is deposited at the bottom of seas and since today this part of Indiana is roughly 700 feet above sea level, there must have been considerable uplift to get the limestone to this height, yet it is perfectly level with no folding and no tilting. I found this interesting and subsequent research revealed that in fact the limestone dips ½ degree from Cincinnati in the east to the Mississippi valley in the west and was uplifted when North America smashed into Europe 220 million years ago. Apparently Indiana was far enough away from the carnage to avoid folding. Since then there has been additional local 200’ vertical displacements of bits of limestone and Geologists love to argue about whether some bits were further uplifted or other bits subsided. It must be exciting to be a Geologist.

2 Skiing is listed by the state as their number one tourist attraction, with watching the Amish second. I need not comment further.

Bypass

2011-02-13T11:47:00.000-08:00

It takes 9 hours and 20 minutes to drive from our home to Las Vegas. We stopped after 9 hours and 10 minutes to visit the scenic Hoover Dam Bypass bridge, which was opened last fall and is an alternate for the road across the Hoover Dam connecting Arizona and Nevada. We had visited the dam almost exactly ten years ago. Much is the same but the water levels are significantly lower and the number of tourists and tour prices much higher. If you walk across the bridge you get great views of the dam and the Black Canyon but you can’t enter Arizona by foot in what apparently is another attempt by Arizona to keep illegals out of their fine state.

I prefer to call the dam by its rightful name: the Boulder Dam. A Republican congress renamed it after their hero Hoover who had nothing to do with the building of the dam but did attempt to destroy the country, which is the core Republican strength. Hoover is an appropriate iconic name for Republicans as Republicans suck.

Boulder City, Nevada sits near the dam and avoided the re-naming horror. Boulder City is a tidy, lovely city that has made both gambling and large hotels illegal and has controlled growth and sprawl by incorporating land for 20 miles around and issuing very few building permits each year. Boulder City has nice parks and lots of realistic, intimate public art. But Fox dominates the city and so nothing is perfect.

Boulder Dam of course provides 2GW of power to the region and I have comprehensively documented the power distribution mechanisms in my photos. Within the Boulder City limits is the new El Dorado Thin Film Solar Array, which generates a peak of 10 MW and is actually rather attractive from some angles.

On our way to the dam we took the Kelso Bypass and visited the Mohave National Preserve. We saw no other cars as we traveled about 45 minutes along an eroding red road to reach Kelso, a “ghost town” where we found a modest visitor center, a grumpy Ranger and the happiest owner-operator of a NPS food concession I’ve met. We saw the Kelso Dunes, the tallest sand dunes in the US, and saw the largest forest of Joshua Trees in the world, many of which were apparently starting to bloom. We saw two cars in the next hour as we continued along the red road back to a US highway near Searchlight.

It is easy to forget how large and generally un-populated California is but when you drive across Kern and San Bernadino Counties you are reminded of this. Fun facts: Kern County is larger than 4 US states and is nearly the size of New Jersey; San Bernadino Country is larger that 9 US states and 23 European countries, coming in larger than Switzerland and just smaller than Ireland. Arid jagged peaks, huge bajadas and low rain fall make for great meditative driving … just remember to bring water … or at least venti ice coffees.

The Pacheco and Tehachapi passes, the Boron Borax mine and Mohave used aircraft yard were pretty much the only other interesting things along the trip. Near Santa Nella hundreds of tumbleweeds were tumbling in all directions. Some tumbleweeds were huge; one as large as the Mini attacked us but I skilfully avoided it and the other panic-ed drivers who were skilfully avoiding it and me. There was the usual I-5 mirage about 10 miles from Buttonwillow, where shimmering double-height cars and trucks are seen moving vaguely near the horizon. Cherry trees started to blossom and egrets and lambs enjoyed each other’s company in cotton fields. Otherwise I-5 is a study in serial boredom.

And yes, we did travel 550 of the 570 miles to Las Vegas and passed by without stopping. After all, there isn’t much to do in Las Vegas.

You will want to see all my photos from this trip. Won’t you?

Old Kentucky Roads

2010-12-07T15:53:00.000-08:00

Between 1980 and 2000 I took about 10,000 photos, most of which are prints and taking up a lot of room in my closets. So a mini-project to reduce and organize is underway. Target is to keep no more than 1,500 of these and digitize about 200.

One category I came up with was “pictures with stories” but the stories are not too interesting. Here are a few examples.

In the early 80’s I found myself in Kentucky for a couple of days. I escaped as quickly as I could and these two pictures may explain my rush. Crossing a one lane rickety wooden bridge was a tad worrisome but to do so at 55 MPH was downright terrifying. And immediately T-ing into one lane dirt roads with no stop signs required courage that only alcohol and ample drugs provided. Fortunately we were well prepared for this trip. Note the dogs guarding the intersection.

Down this road there were several shacks of the like pictured. It wasn’t even clear they had electricity or phones (we saw no poles) and plumbing was outdoors, but they all did have state of the art satellite dishes. I had the impression these were provided by the state as some sort of rural improvement programs.

On Kentucky tv we also saw (repeatedly) early ads for lawyers showing a sad looking couple on a very beat up couch in a very run down room and the wife was saying “the first time he got hurt at work we didn’t anything about it but the next time we called Earl Shie” while the husband just hung his head. I had the impression the goal of work in rural Kentucky was to hurt people.

At the time I was a young banker working for a small bank that no longer exists and is probably poorly remembered. Here I am looking handsome, and I was a much better looking banker than I was an actual banker. I’m with my boss Ed Baumann, who was one of the two best bosses I’ve had (for those counting, I’ve had 18 bosses of which 6 were down-right laughable and 4 pretty damn good).

And here are two of the bank’s “back room” staff: Nanette and Beth Anne. When hired I was told I was to make the back office staff happy and I greatly enjoyed the job until they clarified that I was to make their computer systems work better and thus make the staff happy, which was significantly less enjoyable than what I had been doing. Luckily the sexual harassment laws hadn’t yet been passed.

While I’m back in that time frame, here is my first tech boss, Pat O’Brien. Like they say about kindergarten, I learned almost everything I needed to learn about IT processes and sociology from Pat … or at least everything I was capable of learning.

So I'm half way through the photos and likely you'll read more of my silly little uneventful stories in the future.

Faults

2010-11-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

We have lived within 2 miles of the San Andreas Fault for about 15 years and so last week when we decided to get away and see something different, we naturally visited other parts of the SAF.

We first headed to Pinnacles, which is a 23M year old volcano that had the misfortune to be born on top of the SAF near Los Angles. The SAF split the volcano into two and moved the western half 145 miles northwest where it sits just outside of Soledad and is now a National Monument. The eastern half remains near Los Angles, just south of Lake Elizabeth (the home of fearsome cat hating ducks) on private land and is mostly eroded away but you can identify rock features shared by the east and west half.

The west half, Pinnacles, is the nominal home of about half the wild condors in California, but we didn’t see any during our short hike to Balconies cave, which seemed to be closed due to rock falls, although the Park Rangers seem to think it is passable. The trail was littered with chestnuts … Colossal Chestnuts to be precise and they were quite large but as you are not supposed to hunt and gather in the Monument we left them lay.

As I had done the previous week on a walk near our home, I nearly trod on a small snake when I stopped to take a picture. We were not able to identify the first snake and because, as you know, any unidentified snake west of the Mississippi is called a rattlesnake, it was a narrow and lucky escape for me. I made a mistake of taking a picture of the Pinnacles snake which looked just like the first snake and later I found out it was a gopher snake, which isn’t nearly as good a story as rattlesnake. This time Cyndi said “everytime you stop there is a snake next to you” and I looked at her for a couple beats and said “Yes, I know”. She wasn’t terribly offended as she claims snakes are her power animal but she didn’t much care for the real snakes sunning in the paths.

The next day we went to the Carrizo Plain National Monument, which is maybe 75 or a 100 miles further south along the fault. Don’t worry, no one else has heard of it either. It is a quite lovely large and extremely arid area between a couple of small mountain ranges, about an hour east of Hwy 101 and an hour west of I-5. We where probably the only visitors that day and possibly for the week. When we first arrived, Motorcycle Dave immediately found us and spent about 15 minutes talking to us. Not so much listening tho. Dave has lived on the Plain for 30 years. There are not many people on the Plain and Dave was lonely. But not crazy, which was a relief.

Dave told us about the plans to build a huge solar panel array on the Plain and Dave wasn’t happy about it. From what I could tell, Dave was mostly upset about the visual impact the array would have but also talked about environmental impacts. He thought the environmental impacts could be better handled in the Central Valley and, well, nothing can diminish the beauty of the rather unbeautiful Central Valley.

Later we found the park ranger cleaning out the Education Building and asked her what the BLM thought about the solar panels. Her husband, helping her in the background, immediately adopted a warning-warning posture and kept repeating “No Comment. No Comment”. The ranger agreed the BLM had no comment and rather carefully talked about it. Her personal opinion was that the panels would be better off on the tops of buildings in the cities and had some environmental concerns but said it was mostly a not-in-my-backyard reaction.

The Plain has been the home to several previous failed solar projects. The Walton family (of WalMart fame) are behind the project and have had some success elsewhere. The Waltons have managed (or are attempting) to obtain stimulus money to guarantee the project … that is, there is virtually no risk for them but they would get any profits. I guess I object to this part.

Back to the Plain. In the center of the Plain is Soda Lake. There is no drainage out of the Plain and the couple inches of rain annually end up in Soda Lake where of course they evaporate and leave unusable salts and generally screw up the ground water. All the few residents of the Plain haul their water home from the Fire Station, which is managed by the county government and according to Motorcycle Dave, the county will cut off your water if you disagree with their policies, like approving solar projects. Motorcycle Dave seemed to have some first hand experience here.

Migratory birds use Soda Lake in the winter during the rains. The rains also bring wildflowers in the spring. The birds and wildflowers then bring visitors. The ranger explained we were actually in the pre-season and managed to do so without making us feel entirely stupid. She even gave us the Wildflower Watch web site and invited us back in March to see the flowers … that is, if they get some rain and it doesn’t get too cold.

The San Andreas Fault lies on the eastern side of the Plain and is fairly obvious and in places dramatic. Scattered across the plain are generally failed homesteads and abandoned fields and weird non-functional artifacts. A couple of golden eagles chased kangaroo rats, who spent most of their time scurrying from hole to hole. Unseen redwing blackbirds warbled occasionally. A reflected Temblor range raced along side of us in a thin layer of water on top of the lower soda lake, contrasting interestingly with the otherwise very static scenery. A front was moving in and brought enough moisture to the upper atmosphere to make it a spectacular contrail day. Carrizo Plains has a beauty enhanced by contrails.

This ride from 101 to I5 is through some of the loveliest country in California with grasslands covering smooth folded rolling hillsides and yellowing willows tracing winding arroyos. A bit outside of Santa Margarita is either a retirement home for Hawaiian shirts or a grim warning for trespassing tourists. In McKittrick we got stopped by a road crew and as we were waiting we noticed the flagger’s truck had Hazardous Spill Response Team printed on the side. We were about to turn and run away when we got flagged through. They were laying asphalt but it wasn’t clear if this was to cover a spill or if the truck did double duty. The road was in good shape and didn’t seem to need to be re-paved.

A few other random events from the trip

We naturally started off seeing Olga and getting caffeinated. Olga talked about the large number of books they have at home and that they read much of the time. I asked what she read and she was a bit embarrassed, saying she was reading trash right now. When pressed, Olga said she was reading Somerset Maugham and all this endeared her even more to me.
We ate at Dan’s The Grub Shack in Atascadero … very new, very small, very casual, inexpensive and very good food … I had the best chicken I ever ate. I wasn’t able to determine why the The is in the name. Dan and his wife are very (overly) friendly and eager. Neither had heard of Carrizo Plains, which is only about an hour away and they thought it peculiar we were going there. People turn left slowly in Atascadero, painfully slow and not even that safely.
In Soledad our former favorite Playa Azul has shut down, so we had lunch at the only non-fast food place we found open and it was better than anticipated. The staff was surprisingly competent and the greens where especially good, which should be expected in Salinas Valley but you don’t always get. The restaurant had strange acoustics: they had two radios and a tv playing, refrigeration noise, several tables of conversation and an occasional hollering kid … all of which should have resulted in a din but instead I could hear each noise and voice clearly and distinctly. I could even hear the filling of soda glasses from across the room about 40 feet away. It felt like one of those museum exhibits where someone whispers at one end of a noisy hall and you can hear them if you stand in exactly the right spot at the other end of the hall. I’d go back again just to listen.

More Photos which you must see.

Carmel Valley

2010-11-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we took a Sunday drive thru Carmel Valley. The temperature in the low 80’s was comfortable as diffuse cross-hatched contrails moderated the sun’s heat. The fall colors were subdued, matching the pale blue autumn sky and dry amber hillsides and contrasting with the dark greens of the firs and oaks.

As usual we started in Rainbow’s End for our iced caffeinated drinks and a chat with Olga in which we learned that white ceramic bunnies are a more effective mountain lion lure than dead chickens. Olga even had photographic proof, showing a rather bewildered mountain lion mouthing a ceramic bunny’s head.

When we stopped for street tacos in Carmel Valley, I found a poster advertising a race scheduled for the day I was born. Cyndi was unimpressed but did enjoy the tacos. Heading further up the valley, we turned towards the Los Padres dam where we encountered fisherman with several 12” brown trout and a nice story of a 2’ monster that got away. As Cyndi was nursing her blistering feet, we saw that Madrone berries come in at least two colors: red and orange. Like Manzanita, Madrone berries can be eaten, tho people seldom try more than one.

Below Los Padres dam is an ATT Earth Station, which is for sale and comes complete with a 92’ satellite dish, a 2,500 sq ft data center, two wells and a caretaker’s house. The realtor claims you could make a nice living leasing the property to secret government agencies that rely upon 1970’s technology. He even invoked the phrase “Google is interested” to legitimize the technical merits of the property.

This is tarantula mating season and several males were seen crossing the road in search of nooky. They move quickly when horny and chased by tourists in Hawaiian shirts. In the many wineries the grapevine leaves had generally turned yellow, tho there were some oranges and rusty reds as well. One winery had harlequin scarecrows. I saw no crows at that winery, so while it is plausible the gaily dressed scarecrows were effective, I observed no crows in any winery, so equally plausibly they where simply whimsy.

As we entered Salinas Valley we saw many fields with very strange machines and many people harvesting cabbages, potatoes, strawberries and a large number of unidentified green things. Shortly after a quick stop at the Soledad Mission to admire the roses and use the facilities, we were surprised to find a large field of cultivated prickly pears. Prickly pears appear to take well to cultivation.

On the way home we stopped at a few roadside stands and greeted our cats with armfuls of brussel sprouts, strawberries and artichokes. I think the cats would have preferred a ceramic bunny.

Lookie Here for a few more photos.

Devil's Post Pile

2010-10-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

We had to try three times but we finally made it to Devil’s Post Pile. Ten years ago our first attempt was thwarted by the latest recorded significant snowfall in Eastern California: June 16. That was the first snowfall I had experienced since leaving Wisconsin and I was a very grumpy tourist as I slopped thru the snow to the Ranger Station to be told what was obvious: Park is Closed. A few years later we attempted access again in early September and that time we avoided the snow but not road construction. Closed again.

Devil’s Post Pile is a columnar basalt formation. We saw our first columnar basalt 15 years ago at Devil’s Monument in Wyoming on a lovely fall day. A couple years ago we again found columnar basalt at Devil’s Causeway in Ireland on a miserably cold, windy, snowy February day. OK, it was not a good idea to visit the North Sea in winter and we won’t do that again.

This time our fall Devil’s Post Pile access attempt beat the snow and winter park shutdown by two days and, as a bonus, we saw some brilliant, almost fluorescent fall colors and found manzanitas and junipers full with berries. The Devil does pick some spectacular locations for his work.

We crossed the Sierras through Yosemite on Hwy 120 (again, a day before it was shutdown for snow). A light rain provided some drama as we overlooked Half Dome from Olmsted Point.

Heading out of the park, we stopped at Hetch Hetchy for a quick walk. Shortly after 9-11 I visited Hetch Hetchy with my now departed friend Bill and we scared up a bear. The park service posts “Speed Kills Bears” throughout the park, and we were a bit concerned a drug addled bear would confuse Cyndi’s red hair for a strawberry (well, Cyndi was concerned ... I was hopeful ... errr, watchful). No bears this time.

Even though it seems improbable, we got lost in Modesto and confused in Stockton but we did find a number of road side stands where we stocked up on almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, and, of course, fudge and caramel corn. And we found the only Starbucks in Calaveras County, which is a very popular gathering spot for construction workers, UPS drivers and kids.

Now we are safely back home with cats in our laps and rain on the roof eating the last of the caramel corn, GIMPing photos and, obviously, blogging. This retirement stuff is exhausting.

See more Photos

Sleeping Naked on the Balcony

2010-10-16T16:32:00.001-07:00

2:30 am and Suerte is restless, standing purring between us. After a few minutes he approaches LIlly at my feet, wanting to wrestle. rrrrRRRSTT. Lilly is not interested. Suerte jumps down thud and aaaarrrough aarrrrrough arrrrouuuugh he voices his boredom for a couple minutes then retreats upstairs.

I’ll be awake for a while. Cricket chirps loud and fast, must be warm out, lets try the balcony. Head upstairs where Suerte awaits wanting food. I check, he has food, really is just bored. I scratch him and go out to the balcony. It is warm enough. I lay on the hammock. Chirps come from everywhere.

BAM Slam ... click ... Bam ... SLAM Bam. Neighbor getting into car? Out of car? Probably the slug teenager next door.

Rustling in the leaves in side yard. Eouw Chrour Errow. What the hell is that? ... and again. Never heard that sound before, some angry bird? At 2:30? Doesn’t sound mammalian ... Again, rustling in leaves, crazy wild sound louder, approaching. Crickets continue to chirp so can’t be a threat to them. Very insistent, irritated, demanding sound ... Again rustling, again sound, circling partway across yard. It's not going to crawl up here, is it?

Lots of stars, sky dark grey not black but the moon has already set? Black silhouettes of trees and house against sky, stars. White gutter black in this light, yard is darker than sky ... Slam Slam ... Rustling in side yard approaches house ... Tire noise from distant car approaching quietly on Skyline for quite some time then shushes by and fades ... Bam click Slam. Cyndi thinks the kid is OCD.

Now leaves rustle below .. Aauuo Aauuo softly. Boo Bear, neighbors outdoor cat just below me, probably looking for Suerte. Maybe Boo woke Suerte? Maybe Boo chased bizarre sound in side yard? Anyway, that crazy spooky sound is gone for now ... Bam click Bam Slam.

Flash! Meteorite zips by heading north crossing 30 degrees of sky, tail maybe 5 degrees. Cool ... Dog starts barking in distance, then another, then another. Something moving thru neighborhood across Skyline, maybe half mile away. First dog, then second dog ... both big dogs ... stop barking. Third dog is a yipper and continues to yip. Fourth then fifth dogs, both big, bark a few times then are silent. Barking moving southward about 3 miles an hour. Yipper continues for several minutes, slowly winds down.

Black shadow swims by overhead a few feet above, below the gutter, slow, small. A bat. Explains lack of mosquitoes ... Crickets in side yard suddenly stop chirping but continue in lower yard. Rustling in side yard leaves, snuffling.

HACK HaaacK Couuugh from neighbors. Sleeping with window open? ... Car tire sound approaches again, this time car turns into neighborhood, lights up yard briefly, gutter white then returns to black ... car passes by below then turns onto Big Tree, tire noise quickly fades ... Rustling snuffling moves to Party Deck area.

Hoo Hoo ... Hoo ... Hoo Hoo Hoo. Owl in distance, only natural predator of skunks.

An incoming jet overhead heading east towards SFO. Not many jets this time of night, approaches silently until overhead, the quiet throttled back engine noise trails jet by 5 seconds. Can't see plane, only see lights on nose, wings, tail ... appears to be flying trapezoid, UFO. Flash! Another meteorite, again heading north, just behind jet barely missing it by 20 miles.

HaaacK HACK Couuuuugh. Should stop smoking, dude ... At least OCD slug teen has quieted down ... Now chirps come from side yard but not from below. Rustling snuffling from below too. Must be an opossum or something looking for crickets to eat ... A bat flies overhead heading the other direction, again slowly ... must not be many bugs to dart after tonight.

rrrrRRRSTT! RRRSSST! RRST! Cat fight near neighbors. Boo again? Over quick, just hissing. Boo style.

Motorcycle noise. Much much louder than car, can hear from much further away. Coming up hill? Sound continues one two three minutes ... More dogs bark, this time closer. Again something moving thru neighborhood, this time northwards. Only larger dogs this time, quickly return to silence ... Finally motorcycle noise starts to fade, going down the other side of the hill. So much noisier than cars. Bicycles noisier than cars too. Rant 30: sometimes I hate pedestrians, sometimes I hate cars but I always hate bicyclists.

Crickets all chirping again. Slight beat to sound, different groups, different temps? Beat has frequency of about 1 cycle per 5 seconds. What temp difference does that imply? How does a cricket know which group to synchronize with? This implies frequency quantization, digital cricket thermometers. Is quantization inate behavior? Or emergent? Too tired, too much thinking, don’t care. Still amazed at how much temp, weather changes in just a few feet here. Stop thinking, just watch, listen.

Whoosh a large fast black shodow heads north, higher than bats, much larger, faster. Must be owl.

Another jet overhead, leaving SFO. Contrail grey shadow visible against darker grey sky. But it is night, shouldn't see contrails. Too much light from Bay Area, much better when marine layer muffles city lights. Jet goes by ascending only a small roar, much less than motorcycle.

Wow, stars move fast in sky, those stars are much closer to the tree than before. Can almost see them twist around pole ... Yipping in distance from a few places, coyotes. Maybe the dogs were barking at them? ... Ooooh, that meteorite is large! Slower than the others, yellow-ish, more than 60 degrees north east across the sky, tail half that long, visibly wide and stuttered dashed at the end. Breakup.

That is enough, killed 90 minutes, can sleep again. Back inside I disturb Suerte. He looks irritated then shoves his head back into his paws and returns to sleep. I shall do the same.

Season's First Power Outage

2010-10-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

We had the season’s first power outage yesterday morning when, somewhere in Greater Sky Londa, a tree fell and took out a PGE pole. Trees normally fall when the first winter storm hits, not when it is 90o and calm. This is supposed to be a wet winter, which implies storms, which implies more power outages.

Three years ago our first Sky Londa power outage was fun. It was late afternoon on a stormy and cold Saturday. We quickly determined that power outage was widespread by the sound of numerous generators firing up. We inherited a generator with the house, but never tried it. It didn’t fire up. So I started a fire in the wood burning stove while Cyndi found the short wave radio and a couple hurricane lanterns. We had fun sitting by the fire, listening to music and playing chess or cards or something. We felt it was very romantic and old-timey ... until the power returned and we WhooHoo’ed immediately back to the television. Subsequent power outages haven't been as much fun.

Fall leaves on Party Deck

We recently got the generator working and I started it up to keep the fridge running and the ice cream frozen while we completed staining the fourth of seven wood decks. Yes, we stained decks in the heat but we were at least in the shady side of the house. We started with the hot tub deck and used a stain called Navajo Red. We now call this the Party Deck. Learning from our experience, we turned to a more subdued Redwood stain for the remaining decks.

After finishing staining and taking a much needed and enjoyed shower, we lunched on the yet-to-be-restained upper deck, then read books for the afternoon. Laying in the hammock, I watched jets on their leisurely landing approach through a cloud of thousands of moths.

As the sun began to set, a PGE truck stopped under some form of power switch atop a pole that sits well below our house. We impatiently watched Mr PGE ascend to the switch, expecting him to return power and television to us. But he only fiddled, descended and returned to his truck, waiting for instructions.

I grabbed a drink and a radio and listened to Latin hip hop music from the deck while carefully watching Mr PGE for any movement. It got darker, I got another drink and the radio station switched to cantina music. Thousands of stars replaced the moths while I continued to watching landing jets, circumpolar satellites and Mr PGE. He has great patience. I had another drink.

Finally at 9:30, Mr PGE again ascended, fiddled and WhooHoo! power returned. Cyndi turned to MSNBC while I turned off the generator and staggered to bed.

It only rains at night

2010-08-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

Surrounded by green mountains on a plain punctuated by a few mesas and contoured with several hills sits a city of striking colors and gardens, with people who are kind to strangers and love ice cream. Public art and parks abound, birds sing gently and dogs are generally quiet. The daily temperature is always about 85 degrees and moderated by a cool, gentle breeze. And it only rains at night.

This is Guadalajara, not a dream. Taxi drivers are polite, friendly, get you quickly and safely to your destination, round the fare down and are appreciative of tips. Bus service is reliable and ample. The streets are clean but not fussy, tho the sidewalks are frequently buckled by the rapidly growing roots everywhere. The food is fresh and tasty and healthy, and waiters and chefs genuinely care about you. People are busy but always ready to talk with you; they give with little expectation to receive. Life matters more than material.

On every street you will find an unassuming beautiful woman with an engaging smile and lively eyes. People generally agree that Guadalajara has the most beautiful women in Mexico, and for me, that means the most beautiful in the world.

Large and comfortable public squares, block after block of wedding dress shops, acre after acre of silver and gold jewelry. Sushi and tacos and balloons and factories and universities. Every few blocks is a nursery (plants) or daycare (kids) or cucina economica.

I am infatuated, but it really is this way. I think I finally understand the meaning of cielito lindo.

What is easy and what is not

2010-06-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

I arrived home Thursday evening and Cyndi tells me the Internet is broken, which was odd since it was working 45 minutes earlier when I was at work.

Now I have explained to Cyndi that rebooting her Windows laptop will fix a broken Internet, but today a reboot only gave her a strong wireless signal. Normally she complains about a weak signal so I inferred that the wireless signal strength is inversely related to the health of the Internet, although the specific causal relationship eludes me.

Realizing this theorizing was not impressing Cyndi, I began my arduous troubleshooting. My workstation found the Internet to be lively and robust as usual. My workstation is the household Internet gateway, so the first test has been passed. Still suspecting Cyndi's laptop, I tried pinging the wireless access point and got no response. Looking across the room I see the AP appears healty but the antenna was in a different configuration than when I left in the morning. Aha! My first clue.

"Cyndi, did you use the printer this afternoon?"
"Yes I did"
"Was the Internet working before you used the printer?"
"Yes it was"
"Was the Internet working after you used the printer?"
"Ummm, yes but then it broke"

When Cyndi uses the printer, she brushes the cats off her lap, picks up her laptop and shuffles across the carpet to the printer. The laptop's battery effectively doesn't work so she first plugs in her laptop before using the printer. The printer is located next to the AP. Where all the messy cables live.

Assuming a cable is loose, I check them. The cables are fine but I note only the power light is lit on the ethernet switch interconnecting much of this. Hmmm. I disconnect all the ethernet cables and try one at a time. Nothing works.

My windows pc is powered off and I decide to power it on to see if it's nic is working. Hmmm, this machine isn't working either. I run diagnostics and find the hard disk is missing. Well, is dead.

So my switch is broken and one of my pcs has a bad hard disk.

"Cyndi, where did you plug in your laptop?"
"On the power strip your computers use."
"OK. But don't do that again"
"I didn't break anything"
"Just don't do it again"

---hurt feelings follow for a few hours--

So I get a new switch and that is happy and the AP can talk to my gateway and Cyndi's laptop can talk to the Internet and she can shop on-line again and frankly that sort of sucks.

I insert a new disk into the broken pc and yep, it works. So I go to re-install Windows.

I had purchased this pc a year or so ago and while it came with Vista, I elected to "downgrade" to XP, because XP actually works. However, they only sent me the activation key for Vista, so now I have to install Vista.

Which naturally doesn't have the right drivers and Vista apparently has no natural ability to tell you what is wrong. Grubbing around and more or less guessing, I get new hardware drivers and suddenly Vista works. Only took maybe 5 or 6 hours. And then it's not really usable because the default options totally suck and finding where to change them is a blindman's adventure.

I created two partitions on my fine new TB disk and installed linux on the second. I downloaded a LiveCD from Ubuntu, burnt it to disk, rebooted the machine, answered a couple questions and poof! Linux is running. All the defaults are right. Has all the right drivers. It just works. It took me maybe 30 minutes from start (looking for a good distro) to having a useful machine running.

Too bad linux isn't consumer friendly like Windows.

The Crumbling Hope of Thumbs

2009-04-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

As the rains began to dissipate, Thumbs disappeared. He lasted through two winters, a fall and a spring. It was hard to see at first, but his shoulders slumped a bit after each season.

Thumbs outlasted all of his peers, most of who endured only for a single season. I noticed only one other crossing guard who lasted as long as two seasons.

Thumbs, you did well but your hopes were too high.

From the beginning, Thumbs was obviously different from the other school crossing guards. Thumbs stood tall and proud in his vest. Thumbs face was sincere, serious, approachable but never frivolous or relaxed.

Always vigilant, as soon as the main road's signal turned green Thumbs would mash the cross walk button and wait for the light to turn red. Often he would have to wait for as many as three cars to make it through the intersection, but he always waited patiently.

Thumbs would then stride with purpose into the intersection and hold up his sign. Little did it matter to Thumbs that the stream of traffic stopped for the red light, not Thumbs. Little did it matter to Thumbs that no one was crossing behind him. A lack of pedestrians was not keeping Thumbs from guarding his cross walk.

In the 30 minutes Thumbs was on duty, traffic would back up for two or three miles. Once Thumbs was off duty, traffic would return to normal in 20 minutes.

Thumbs was always punctual, at least for the first 3 seasons. His shift started at 7:30 and Thumbs would be on site at 7:25. Thumbs would carefully set down his coffee thermos and bag, then tidily adjust his jacket, his safety vest, his cap and his aviator sunglasses. Thumbs warmed up for 3.5 minutes, with arm waves and body twists. Thumbs leaned against the light post and stretched his legs and back and buttocks. Thumbs hopped up and down 20 times. Blood flowing and limbs loose, Thumbs was nearly ready.

Now Thumbs would carefully remove a rag from his bag and spend 30 seconds lovingly polishing the cross walk button, preparing it for the 17 mashes he would give it in the next 30 minutes.

Finally, almost ready, Thumbs would take out his most precious possession: his gloves. What wonderful gloves these were. Heavy leather to protect his hands and to protect the button. And a massive, re-enforced thumb on the right handed glove. A thumb that should have been on a goalie's glove. An assertive thumb, one ready to repeatedly mash the cross walk button.

At 7:30 Thumbs mashed the button for the first time of the day.

I never stopped to do a full census but in the random spot checks I made over 250 days I estimate that Thumbs helped about 23 people across the walk per day. That would be a mean of 1.35 people per button mash. The median was about 4 people per mash ... well, technically the median was zero people per mash but of course, I was unable to count the invisible people Thumbs helped across the street.

But at the beginning of this winter I began to notice a distinct difference. The traffic backup shortened to about a mile. Then swiftly to a half mile, then only a block or two. Was it the economy?

No, it was Thumbs. He had lost his enthusiasm. He still looked natty. He still held himself tall. But he rarely showed up for work until 7:29 and he stopped doing warm up exercises. Most alarming, he no longer polished the cross walk button. And while he still wore gloves, the gloves lacked that massive thumb. No more passion, no more cross walk button love.

And Thumbs lost his imaginary friends. He now only mashed in the presence of pedestrians visible to others. This meant about 6 mashes per shift instead of his prolific 17 of the past.

But Thumbs still wanted to mash. Oh he wanted to mash badly. He still had the burning in his belly. Thumbs would stand with his legs a couple feet apart, the left foot a bit ahead of his right. Thumbs leaned forward, hands slightly behind his hips and peered intently down the side street. Where were those pedestrians? If none were in sight, Thumbs turned and peered more intently in the other direction. With no pedestrians in sight, there could be no mashing.

Things quickly went downhill for Thumbs. His peering was unable to call forth the needed pedestrians and he grew weary from the effort. Thumbs began to stand listlessly by his button, still standing tall but looking off into that unfocused mid-distance.

Thumbs began to be late. I sometimes saw Thumbs approaching the intersection at 7:32 and once even as late as 7:35. No, Thumbs had lost it.

After spring break, Thumbs was replaced by a more standard crossing guard. A cold, irritated guard that won't last through the spring quarter. Just like all the other crossing guards.

Oh Thumbs. We miss you. Thanks for standing tall and protecting those children. You wanted the right things, but you wanted them too much.

Inventing Struggles: The Coprophilous Spring

2009-04-12T08:01:00.001-07:00

What a weekend!

Yesterday I read Naked Lunch, then I did my taxes. I finished up the evening by reading a good portion of The Trial.

Burroughs and Kafka were amusing and uplifting. The IRS forms were a confused, bewildering graveyard of hope.

When reviewing potential deductions, I felt like the under-privileged child allowed to tour the rich man's house and see what he can never have.

Cyndi and I had a long discussion wondering if I should call her a dependent. In the end I did. In the end it made zero difference.

Take the number in row 47 and divide by two. Add the number to itself. Replace the number in row 47 with this new number. Repeat.

Oh, there is one nice IRS feature. At a certain point you find a comment something like "to help reduce paperwork and the time you spend doing your taxes, the IRS can calculate your taxes for you". To determine if you are eligble, you have to download a form and then download the instructions. You spend 30 minutes completing the form to find you are not eligible.

But to be fair to the IRS, there is a small group of people who can let the IRS "calculate their taxes for them". So if you are in this very small set, what exactly does the IRS do? Well, they look in the tax table to determine your tax. That is all. You have to fill out all the rest of the forms, do all the rest of the calculations. The only easy part of the whole process is to look in the tax table. Gee, thanks guys. You saved me nearly 12 seconds.

In the end it came to this: take my income and multiply by .28 and that was my tax. All the rest was folderol. It was the equivalent of making your dog do a bunch of stupid tricks and then not giving him a treat. I want to bite my master's ankle.

New Home, Redo

2008-08-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

So how do you bury a contractor?

After a few months in the new house, we embarked on a remodel: 3.5 new bathrooms, a new master bedroom and a new deck. Easy stuff. What we didn't know is that to complete the job, you have to kill the contractor. Well, make that you will want to kill the contractor before the work is done.

But its done enough to call done. Various details include black slate floors, shower walls small glass tiles, black pebble shower floor, bamboo floors, 3 water heaters, 3 radiant floors, granite counters, clean sleek modern look, a very noisy spa tub. Much of the work was done well, some not so well.

So we didn't actually kill the contractor but if you have any ideas on how to dispose of a body, we'll reconsider.

Quarterly Cat Calibration

2008-07-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

Results from our Q2 Cat Calibration Sessions

Suerte	House Cat IV	3.7 (exceeds expectations)
Lilly	House Cat II	3.2 (meets expectations)
Cutie Pie	Outdoor Cat III	4.1 (significantly exceeds expectations, recently promoted)

Median Score: 3.7
Mean Score: 3.67

We are concerned the mean score has risen above the historical average of 3.45, which suggests grade inflation. However, recently promoted cats are evaluated at their old level in their first quarter in the new level and it is anticipated the mean will return to the 3.4 - 3.5 range next quarter as Cutie Pie's score mostly likely moves to ~3.2 at level IV.

The management team carefully evaluates each individual cat thru a pre-calibration stack ranking, a Paul calibration session, a Cyndi calibration session and a unified Paul+Cyndi calibration session. On average, 25 minutes of management time per cat is given every quarter to calibration.

The calibration committees did struggle cross-calibrating the House Cat ladder with the Outdoor Cat ladder. There is some concern the Outdoor Cat levels are about 1/2 level below the House Cat levels, making promotion thru the Outdoor Cat ladder easier than the House Cat ladder. The committees feel the job ladder descriptions are overly ambiguous, leading to this mis-calibration. Management will meet before the next calibration session to create specific examples of cat behavior that meet expectations at each level in each ladder and assure that the ladders are fairly cross-calibrated. We expect management will require two 4 hour sessions to complete this cross calibration and attendance is mandatory, unless you wish not to attend.

New Home, Nearly

2007-04-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

After what I think has been 9 years on the beach, Cyndi and I are heading to the "mountains" and will be living high above Silicon Valley in Woodside, just east of Skyline. While the ocean has been great and we'll miss it and Pacifica, we won't miss the HOA and their insane desire to bankrupt all 42 homeowners.

The new place has character, as the real estate agent puts it. Garage is on top of the house, a spiral staircase down into one bedroom (no doubt my new "office"). Master commode has a spectacular view of the backyard and the backyard has a spectacular view of the commode. Large living area, really too large for the two of us, a very open and yet still small kitchen complete with a new wood burning stove which the cats will love in the winter. Hot tub and rabbit hutches. Low maintenance yard that the previous owner maintained lowly.

Cyndi will miss her many friends but hopefully they'll be willing to make the 40 minute drive into the "mountains" to enjoy the hot tub and Cyndi. I'll miss a few things: my morning walk on the beach, Leigh, the Mermaid and the Farmers Market. And the best two Japanese restaurants on the Pennisula. I won't miss the 25 miles at 85 mph down and then back up I-280 each day, especially when beater pickup trucks pass you wildly on the shoulders at that speed.

In the last year or so I've not seen any ocean mammals but just today a couple of whales swam by and one of them noted me and rolled on his side and waved a flipper goodbye to me. At least I think it was a flipper ... could have been a finger, I guess.

So for a while I'll appear to be rich while actually being poor. I'll have two houses: my mountain retreat and the beach house. I need to sell the beach house before the HOA decides we need to replace the ground under all the structures because Al found a gopher hole in his backyard.

Revolution

2006-10-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

Cyndi and I were to be in Oaxaca today to celebrate Los Dias de los Meurtos. We were to arrive just as 4,000 Mexican National Riot Police swept into the city to put down the revolution that has left several dead. Since we our intended participation in the fiesta was short of actually being one of the meurtos ourselves, our prudence kept us home. We wish the revolution well.

My personal revolution continued as I started my new job. Coming from where I was to where I am has taken me a full 180 degrees around that revolutionary circle. I'm finding the commute tolerable except when fearsome natural events tie up traffic for hours. Events like the sunset.

I've gained the expected 15 pounds due to the temptations at Google. I've enjoyed meeting the people and learning about Google and it's great to work in a place where intelligence is high and sense is common and where true teamwork is more valued than group hugs.

As a final step betwixt where I was and I was to be, we were in Sante Fe for thier annual Zozobra fiesta. The cermonial burning of Zozobra and much of the fiesta took place on hilltop across the street from our very nice and quiet suite. It is believed that as Zozobra burns away, all of the past years hardships and disappointments that people have experienced burn away with him. While I can't speak for Cyndi, the time in Santa Fe was liminal for me as I moved from old to new and I was able to discard the old disappointments in favor of new hopes.

Vortices

2006-09-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

We had a whirlwind tour down the coast to San Diego and back up inland, stopping briefly at the Palomar Observatory where we met what had to be Don Croft who informed us that Palomar is in fact a Vortex, lies on all the Vortex Meridians and is where Extraterrestials first brought life to Earth (as told by Native Legend). He then pushed his wheelchaired student around the Observatory and around and around a tree.

Meanwhile I was convincing Cyndi that Hurricane John was 2,000 miles away and wouldn't affect this trip and the Oaxacan revolution would be resolved before our trip for Los Dias de los Meurtos, when the cycle of life is celebrated.

And the tires turned round and round about a million times on this trip. Repeating this same trip for the third time.

From shore to shore

2006-08-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

We returned from a nice week in Hawaii and while there was all sorts of things to report about from volcanoes to vanilla plantations, they really aren't all that interesting. However, it was election season in Hawaii and it was interesting to see all the lawn signs and read the editorials about the election. And The Homeless Problem is a top of mind for everyone.

As we drove around O'ahu and walked along the shores, we noted a number of people in permanent emcampments on the beach and when we drove along the Leeward Coast, we were totally amazed at the huge number of tents serving as homes. A little research confirmed these were the Homeless of the Problem and apparently are about 60% native Hawaiians. A number of Solutions have been proposed, including the Governor's tardy State of Emergency, providing Housing First solutions and converting military barracks into compounds ... err, make that "shelters". Even one forsighted Republican representative suggested the state invest in one way tickets to the mainland for these folks so they could live in affordable places like Louisville. Damn white of her.

Back in Pacifica the beach continues to be accumulating dead seals and dolphins. There seems to be some parallel but I'm not exactly sure how to draw it with care and feeling.

From Louisville to Hilo via Pacifica

2006-08-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

After Cyndi sat for the bar, I packed her off to see her family in Louisville and let her bounce off the walls there. After re-arranging everything in her mother's house (we'll get calls for months asking "Cyndi, where did you put the extra table settings?") she has returned to Pacifica for a few days and then we head off to Hawaii to placate Pele. Avoiding Kona and Maui this time, we'll end up in Hilo for an orgy of fun at Hilo Hattie's and to view orchids and waterfalls and maybe even snorkel with the lava.

Last Friday I bid farewell ... or really just a temporary adios ... to my fellows at CNET and the two best iced coffee wranglers in SOMA. I'm now suffering from email DTs as I would get 500 to 1,000 work related emails per day (most of them automated messages that only need be noted and deleted) and to keep up with it all, whenever I was at home I would check my email every hour or so, delete 40 or 50 messages and return to the TV or the cats or Cyndi. Now I get bored, start towards the computer to delete email then pull up short. What do all those retired folks do with all their time?

Speaking of which, I just heard from my friends in Lancaster than the first of them just retired herself just last week. 30 years of library science was enough for her.

While waiting for the jet to take me off to Hilo tomorrow I'm filling my time watching "inside google" videos from video.google.com. Good content, low production values.

Why Blogger?

2006-08-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

With so many competing blogging sites, why did I chose Blogger? Simple: it has the best features, best reliability, best support, best performance and is very easy to use.

That and the fact that I soon will be working at the company that runs Blogger. That fact did play into the decision a bit too.

In September I will be joining the Google team. I've certainly enjoyed my seven years at CNET and met many great people there and will certainly miss all of them. And equally, I'm very excited about meeting new people at Google and am looking forward to the new challenges and the energy and creativity those challenges will bring to me.

New Colo, Last Time

2006-07-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

We successfully moved one of our major properties to a new colocation facility over the weekend. This is the 12th such move I've made over my storied carrier ... and if you count all those microsites, it's more like 40. I truly hope this is the last such time I get involved with such a move. They are a lot of work and while it is very satisfying to see so many people working together for a common and tangible purpose, in the end it's just a lot of work with dubious business value. After doing 6 or 8, they start to loose their charm.

This one wasn't as dramatic as renting jets and flying sites across the country and wasn't as easy as a local in place migration. In fact, this was just details: we setup all new equipment, configure it, load data, make sure all our operational processes are in place and move traffic from the old place to the new. Details. Lots and lots of details but no rocket science.

We did learn a lot about the sites tho. It's a bit like moving to a new house: you find all this old stuff you haven't used for years. Do you bring it with you or throw it away? And you do get a fresh start in a clean house. We did get a much better understanding of some things that have grown organically over the years. We need to take this understanding and turn it into actionable follow up items to clean up some cruft that came along. We have the potential to make some dramatic improvements and simplifications that will lead to services that are easier to support, grow and enhance. But the window for those improvements is narrow. Will we move thru it?

Well, one nice thing: years from now when I'm sitting round the table drinking coffee in the local cafe with all the other geezers, I can tell them all about these moves. Over and over again I can tell them. "I remember back in Ought-Six when we moved the 10th largest internet site to Tornado Alley ...."

Starting Over

2006-07-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

A year ago I created this account and added one "test" entry. I didn't look at it again until today. Amazingly enough there were about 100 comments to my test entry. The comments were all selling cheap drugs or erection enhancments or access to porn sites. How did they know I am interested in all that stuff?

So I'm starting over but with a restrictive comment policy. I'll be curious to see what happens now.