Kent's Korner

Breadmaking

2012-01-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

I made bread today. I used a rye bread recipe I got from a colleague who introduced me to his homemade rye bread made from sourdough starter. The ingredients are a mixture of white and wheat flour, rye flour, caraway seeds and some salt. Pretty simple, actually. I think the caraway seeds are the most important ingredient, as they give the bread its distinctive flavor.

This bread came out better and more "airy" than any of my previous attempts. In the past, working with sourdough, I used less "starter" and did not ever try to "knead" the bread much. So my breads tended to be dense the point where they were chewy and tough to eat.

This time, however, following my colleague's instructions, I got better results. As you can see, there is still room for improvement. The bread "blew out" on the left side.

I think there was too much moisture in the dough. Though I baked the bread for 45 minutes - 15 min. longer than the recommended time in the recipe - the bread is still soft and kind of "mushy" on the bottom, while being crisp on top. Mike says that when the bread "blows out" like it did here, it means I probably should have kneaded it more.

So next time, I have to knead the dough more prior to baking. I watched a you tube video on how to knead bread. Of course, I do this AFTER failure at baking. That's typical of me. Whatever "kneading" I did was not the recommended length. The video says to knead for 8 minutes. I would not have thought to do it that long. I also did not do the "press test" as shown in the video. Next time...

Oh, yes: how I like to eat sourdough rye bread. My current favorite snack with this bread is to slice it, toast it for a little bit, then add mayonnaise (NOT Mirace Whip) and, on top, my home made sauerkraut and olive oil. It's a yummy feast. Goes great with a little white wine.

Biking in Oakland

2012-01-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday after work I biked 6 miles from my office near downtown to Darin's house on Davenport Ave. in East Oakland / Laurel for a meeting of some of the City Slicker Farms board of directors. I decided to bike because I needed the workout to get my muscles ready for this weekend's bike tour through the lower Sierras east of Merced. I will report on the experience and the condition of Oakland's "bikeways."

Riding up Grand Ave. along Lake Merritt was a safe experience. I passed a lot of cars in the rush-hour traffic. Occasionally I had to weave around parked vehicles or cars blocking the bike lane, and once I almost ran into a pedestrian who was not looking and just about stepped into my path (illegally, I had a green light) at the crosswalk near the Veteran's Center. But generally, it was clear sailing and I got onto MacArthur Blvd. to climb over the hill above Lakeshore Ave.. This is one of my least favorite climbs in Oakland, though it is on a bike lane, thankfully. The hill is deceptively long and, when there is traffic, you are sucking exhaust fumes most of the way. (the freeway runs parallel, so the air is never particularly good.) For a scary report on breathing in fumes from cars, read this. I dispute the finding of the author that biking in cities is bad for you.

In any case, from the end of that segment I switched (via Park Ave.) to Excelsior, continuing East on the route I normally take on Saturdays to the Altenheim where I teach German class in the morning. Excelsior leads back onto MacArthur, in the Dimond District. This segment (near Fruitvale Ave.) tends to be congested and, again, there is a bike lane, which adds safety. However, invariably motorists in this part of town will "occupy" the bike lane because they don't realize it gets used much (though I did pass two other bicyclists on this stretch - a good omen.) This happened yesterday, as well, though I was able to avoid collisions with motorists. A friend of mine was hit by a car on this stretch last year, (I was right behind her, we were traveling at slow speed.) So I was alert and careful. The pavement became noticeably more choppy on this section. MacArthur east of Fruitvale appears to mainly be laid in concrete, which results in fewer potholes but more "ridge bumps" where the concrete sections have shifted over time.

Google bike directions then sent me left / north on 35th up a little ways to California, where I wove eastward via side streets Bayo, Vale and Tompkins. This section has the worst pavement of the entire route. I suspect that our new mayor may be trying to get some of these streets in the 4th district paved soon (worst was California St. and Bayo). Riding after dark, even with a light on the front of the bike, the major danger to a bicyclist here is crashing and damaging the bike (and body) in one of the many potholes, which are sadly, becoming ever more common in the city. However, I will give credit to Mayor Quan: under her mayorship, I have seen more streets in need of replacement being repaved than in the last 5 years combined - especially in the Temescal district.

After some huffing and puffing, I arrived, sweaty and hot, at my destination. My host was gracious to fetch me a glass of water so I could cool off while listening to our teleconference call for the next 30 minutes!

Overall, Oakland has made progress in recent years striping more bike lanes, which makes biking safer by putting us in harm's way less frequently (even though there is no physical separation between cars and bikes here, as exists in European cities I have biked.) This has been accomplished despite an incredibly challenging fiscal environment in the city. Just google City of Oakland and you can read about the sad state of our City's budget. I give a lot of credit for this to the two Oakland "Bicycle and Pedestrian Program" managers, Jason Patton and Jennifer Stanley. They are examples of how our much-maligned City employees can be worth multiple times their salary, when they are doing their work for the public good. However, it is impossible to overlook the fact that, even in some instances where streets are getting new bike lanes (including most recently Webster St. downtown, near my office), the pavement is still in pretty bad shape. I have had conversations with Jason and Jennifer about this. Their approach they told me they use is to try to schedule bike lane stripings for after pavement improvements, but because of funding shorfalls, pavement improvements sometimes are not scheduled for decades on a particular street, so they will in those cases stripe it anyways.

So there you have it. Biking in Oakland is still an adventure, but with our wonderful weather and improving conditions, becoming more and more commonplace.

Socialist Plot to Take Away Your Plastic Bags!

2011-12-19T01:16:00.000-08:00

Thank you for checking back in. Here is some recent news from the "Zero Waste" front. StopWaste.Org recently proposed two new ordinances for Alameda County: 1) a "Mandatory Recycling Ordinance" and a 2) a "Single Use Bag Reduction Ordinance." I will give some information on both proposals. The information in this post is mostly obtained from the project EIR, posted on stopwaste.org. An article appeared in the Yodeler online this past summer, written by Debra Kaufman (I think) from Stopwaste.org reporting on the general intentions of StopWaste to put these proposals forward.

In case you wanted to know, StopWaste is a hybrid of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (ACWMA), an independent agency, and the Source Reduction and Recycling Board, approved by Alameda County voters in 1990 as part of Alameda Cty Measure D. Its offices are at 1537 Webster St., only blocks from my office at Kaiser, and I know some of the staff who work there through my past non-profit activities. I have had generally good interaction with StopWaste, and am impressed they are able to carry on their work despite the uncertain financial situation facing area cities, and the complicated politics of being a hybrid "agency" / voter approved board.

Getting back to the proposals, the proposed county wide mandatory recycling program (CWMRP) would charge a fine "for putting things like newspapers, aluminum cans and food scraps in the garbage instead of recycle and compost bins." The Oakland Tribune recently reported on the program. The goal is to divert 90 percent of materials that could be recycled or composted, such as paper, plant debris and food, from city dumps by 2020. Right now 69 percent gets composted or recycled. Phase 1 would begin in July with businesses, haulers and the owners or managers of multifamily buildings such as apartments. As the project EIR puts it, the CWMRP is supposed to "maximize recovery of recyclable and organic materials and reduce the disposal of recoverable materials." This goal is tied to the effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through needless trucking of waste to landfill. If more waste that can be separated and recycled, the less waste needs to be trucked from Oakland to Altamont Land Fill (40 miles away) and from other East Bay cities, as well.

The plan begins with paper, cardboard, food and beverage containers and a variety of similar materials. Phase 2 would start July 2014 and expand to mandatory composting. San Diego, San Carlos, San Francisco and Sacramento are among other California cities that have put mandatory commercial recycling rules on the books. Though there is a long list of suggested rules to apply to different properties, including single family, multi-unit, commercial / business and retail tenants, the basic gist of it is that everyone will be required to separate their waste, for instance newspaper and carboard, from the regular trash, in case they were not doing so already. The EIR states on page 10: "The difference will be that the garbage containers will not be as large or as full, and the recyclables and organics containers will be more completely filled, more often."

The second proposed ordinance is the very benign sounding Single Use Bag Reduction Ordinance. This ordinance would "ban" single use plastic bags and force county stores that sell packaged food to charge a .10 fee for each paper bag, incentivizing customers to bring their own, reusable, bags. If adopted, the "bag ban" *(ban on plastic, fee for paper) would begin January 1, 2013 and affect about 1,900 stores in the county. These stores include drug stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, grocery stores, convenience food stores and liquor stores. Restaurants, take-out food establishments, charitable thrift stores and retail stores that don’t sell packaged food would be exempt from the ordinance.

While you might think this ordinance would not attract as much opposition as the first one, in fact it's just the opposite. The plastic bag fee proposal got the retailers and plastics manufacturers, under the umbrella of an organization named "Save the Plastic Bag Coalition," to write a 27 page EIR comment letter (check the EIR document linked above if you want to read the letter). This letter, signed by the coaliltion's legal counsel, makes the case that a) plastic bags aren't as big a problem as we think they are, b) banning plastic bags while charging a fee for paper bags will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because the paper bags, which require more energy to create than plastic, will not be recycled as the author of the proposal assumes, and c) the proposal is unfair to plastics manufacturers because it bans plastic bags while only charging a low fee for paper. Or so I understood. I may be misinterpreting this letter. It's so very long and full of spurious claims doubting the findings of the EIR. I basically see this letter as an attempt to threaten the county with a lawsuit - which occurred before when other CA municipalities tried to ban plastic bags (including Oakland). The pasticbaglaws.org website in fact points to one of the culprits of the current predicament: AB2449, passed in 2006 under then Gov. Schwarzennegger, which, while requiring stores over a certain size to provide plastic bag recycling bins, bans these same stores from charging a fee for plastic bags:

"The bill would declare that certain matters regarding plastic carryout
bags are matters of statewide interest and concern. The bill would prohibit
a city, county, or other public agency from adopting, implementing, or
enforcing an ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule that requires a store
to collect, transport, or recycle plastic carryout bags or conduct additional
auditing or reporting, or imposing a plastic carryout bag fee upon a store,
except as specified."

In the absence of the ability to charge a fee for plastic, municipalities and counties across the state are instead opting to go the more strict route of banning plastic bags altogether. And manufacturers and retailers are predictably protesting. However, they have no right to protest - they should have allowed cities and stores to charge a plastic fee back in 2006, but instead it was their influence that led to AB2449 being written (or flawed, in my opinion) so as to forbid this common-sense practice.

By the way: the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition has an interesting web page that disputes the size and scope of the "Pacific Garbage Patch" in the Pacific Ocean.

In summary, I am glad that StopWaste.org has come forward with these 2 ordinances despite the challenge it will be to implement it, to educate the public and then enforce the terms. I wish we could do what other nations have done - like Canada, Australia and Europe, where they charge a fee for both paper and plastic bags. The essential problem appears to be, as usual, our own political culture.

Links I need to refer to

2011-11-30T20:47:00.000-08:00

Pardon my interrupting the exciting flow of information coming to you via my blog but I am putting in some links here for my own use. I used to have my own web domain for such things but it got to be too expensive so this is my alternate method.

SunGard to Implement MACESS.exp at Kaiser Permanente; Three-Year Claims Payment Consolidation Initiative Takes Advantage of Advanced Business Process Management System.

Visit to Wausaukee

2011-07-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

Since I am not a big fan of air travel on holidays, I decided to visit Wisconsin the weekend after July 4^th and see what the parentals are up to instead of fighting the crowds and firework toting yahoos spoiling my North Woods peace on Independence Day. This worked out pretty well and I am happy to report I got through the entire weekend without hearing a firework or gun being shot off – a real rarity for Wausaukee and Wisconsin.

Arriving on AirTran at Mitchell Airport at 7 in the morning, it was nice to get picked up by Dad in the same type of car that my parents have been driving for 40+ years (used car no less than 10 years old). The weather was in the low 80s and humidity noticeably higher than where I live in the Bay Area, though I am very aware that I am spoiled living in a climate that has no temperatures lower than 50 nor higher than 85, with hardly any humidity year-round (except when it rains).

I noticed there was a lot of construction work being done near Mitchell Airport, and this was also nothing new since it seems like construction has been going on there since about 2000. I did not stop in the City of Milwaukee once during my visit, just driving by north and south on my way to Mequon, Wausaukee, and back. The City looked as it always does in summer: clean, orderly, green and quiet. I read in the newspaper about the “mobbing” by a gang of pre-teen and teenage youth in the Riverwest neighborhood (about 1 mile inland from Lake Michigan, not far from UWM). It's a little hard to believe this stuff happens in as serene a place as Milwaukee. I even hung around that neighborhood when I went to UWM 1997-99.

I also read about as the usual crowds of people and sweltering temperatures at the Summerfest grounds along the Lakefront. Summerfest appears to be as popular as ever, even including a footrace this year where about 1,000 people suffered from dehydration because of high heat and humidity and the race organizers running out of water.

One common theme in Milwaukee in the summer, then, is crowds of people trying to enjoy themselves, to exercise or in the case of the Riverwest youth mob, to commit crime together. So there is definitely a social element in Milwaukee!

We left for the northern town of Wausaukee around 3 p.m. the same day, allowing me to catch up on some sleep after the red-eye flight. The weather was fine and Mom had even gotten the usual chocolate croissants for the car ride, which is about the only time she gets sweets from the bakery. We got to Wausaukee about 6 and the first thing I did was buy a fishing license at the local gas station on the way to the cabin so I could go bass fishing, which is just about my favorite thing to do there. Luckily I had provisioned some new rubber worms and worm-hooks the previous year, so I was “geared up” and didn't need to purchase extra. There are not many good stores left to buy fishing tackle in Wausaukee anymore. Like other small towns in America, Wausaukee is losing out the the big retailers in other towns 20, 30 and 40 minutes away. But I digress. I do not fish for bass with anything other than rubber worms and craw-dads these days, with maybe a Fat Boy floating minnow to mix it up. Rubber baits are where it’s at in summer. You've got to throw some bait down where the bass hang out and just about hit them on the head with them before they will bite. At least, that's how I like to think. And when those bass do bite, it’s exciting action and the pulse and fight of a healthy fish of just about any size is hard to beat in terms of fun and excitement.

Anyways, I headed out in the canoe about 7 p.m., allowing me to put in 2 quality fishing hours. Being in the lightweight fiberglass canoe, I got blown around a bit on the lake, though, so that I was not able to do much good bottom-fishing. Without an anchor or trolling motor (our family does not believe in technology), the fishing is usually just not very productive when there is any wind at all for me. I need those still, windless, humid North Woods sunsets to liven up the fishing action, when the water gets calm and glassy, you can see bugs swirling around the boat (and up and down your neck and arms), the fish are sometimes feeding on surface insects, and frogs croak on the shoreline. I love that feeling and weather and stillness, only occasionally broken by my canoe paddle, a passing motorboat or my uttered curses when I again miss a cast and have to untangle my line from some weeds or from my own gear.

I did see a loon up close, which was neat, and a really beautiful sunset on the lake (I took this on my cell phone.)

That same evening (after fishing) some family stopped by so I caught up on the latest Lewandowski/ Paluta / Napierkowski news. This is always good. It seems a lot of information gets exchanged in Wausaukee this way. When I am there and talking to relatives, it is usually the best way to learn about the family goings on, graduations, weddings, babies, new/lost jobs, and also less fortunate situations. Our family just is one of those that likes to know your business. I guess it's part of what they call being "close-knit."

The next day, Saturday, Uncle Roy met me at 8 and we headed out on the pontoon boat for our next round of fishing. Again, I got skunked, though this time I had the advantage of a big boat and motors (both outboard and trolling), more gear and a good vantage point. However one of the rods I took was Dad’s old spincast set from about 1980 that doesn’t cast worth a darn anymore. So that messed me up. Plus, I just was plain not concentrating and missed many casts (even more than the previous night). Also, the fish just weren’t biting on my bottom fishing lures. Uncle Roy caught 2 bass, embarrassing me, using his Rapala floating minnow. He threw them both back (neither fish was much to brag about.)

Coming back to land, I had the usual healthy breakfast and then we had our requisite post-breakfast / brunch conversation about many things but nothing important. Then I got to participate in Cabin Work Day 1, meaning I got to help Dad do some of the work there is to do around any log cabin in the North Woods. In this case, that included cutting dead wood (or in our case, a 20 inch diameter log), moving the cut wood, digging dirt up, moving dirt to another spot, dumping dirt and raking dirt. That was mostly it for Saturday. I sweated up a storm and it felt pretty good. The sweat was making my shirt heavy and running down the top of my nose. I never sweat like that in California, except sometimes when I go for a bike ride, but even then it’s not the same kind of sweat – it’s more like a salty sweat, where I lose lots of minerals and my skin gets all crusty, but the wetness evaporates instantly because it’s so dry. So, anyways, it was a sweaty, dirty day in Wausaukee. In the evening I did not fish, because we were invited to dinner at 7 at Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriet’s. They have a cabin at the end of the road.

On Sunday, I got up a little later, around 9, and again went fishing. This was round 3 in case you are keeping track. Finally, I got my bass. I was fishing the area around Stein’s – not too far from the public boat landing where I have had success several times before. I placed my rubber worm in a perfect spot, bounced it once and immediately could see the line go taught and start to move through the water. This is always an exciting moment, when the fish takes the bait and moves with it. The suspense is will you be able to hook the fish, and then will you be able to bring the fish to the boat without the fish spitting out the lure, tangling itself on some underwater obstacle, or otherwise dashing your hope of finally landing something? In this case, I was in luck. I got to enjoy the feeling of the pulsating bass fighting on the end of the line, tugging and jerking the line and even making the drag click. It jumped out of the water at least twice as the largemouth are apt to do, trying to spit out the lure, but it had swallowed it and was hooked very firmly. So it was just up to me to reel the fish in. I did not take any picture though it surely would have been entertaining and fitting for this blog. The fish could not have weighed more than about 1 lb. and was about 14 inches long. Nevertheless it put up a nice fight and I always feel sorry when I have to hurt the fish by removing the hook. Even after 25 years of fishing I still feel bad. I eventually was able to extract the barbed hook from inside the fish’s gullet and, observing no blood and no damage to the gills (you always should keep a fish if its gills are damaged), I put it back in the water and watched it swim off. Hopefully it will live to fight another day, maybe even on my bait.

Though Wolf Lake is a much prettier place than shown here, the size of the fish shown above is about the same as I caught. The bass I pull out of Wolf Lake have a noticeably darker color. They are also good to eat, if I bother to keep them and clean them.

The rest of Sunday was spent working, though at the more leisurely pace that Dad now works at since he is retired. Our big task was to repair the 20+ year old raft, which needed all the bottom boards mended sort of like an IKEA bed frame. This was not a complicated operation except for the fact we needed to flip the raft over to work on the bottom, and the raft weighed approx. 800 lbs or more because of the weathered wood, degraded foam insulation core, nails, screws and boards. Using some of Dad’s special Neanderthal engineering tricks (apply leverage using long posts), however, we did manage to lift the raft enough to rest it on some of the cement bricks, after which we had to recruit the 3^rd adult in the party, Mom, to help flip it over in an act of brute force. Luckily we were able to do this without damaging the raft too much or our own backs.

After some discussion and the usual debate between Dad and myself how to best do any task, we sealed off the rotting insulation core with plastic sheeting and staples and then replaced the rotten bottom boards with new ones and nailed them on the frame. I had actually suggested we just throw out the insulation cores and salvage the wood from the raft, since mice had decided to make a nest in it some winters ago and the Styrofoam pellets were coming off the foam, and I suppose, leaking into the water. But surprisingly, mending and fixing the raft felt pretty good, and we made quick work. So my worries were unnecessary. After sealing off the foam with plastic sheets, and then replacing / re-nailing the bottom boards, we flipped over the repaired raft once more using the above mentioned technique, onto some waiting logs. Imagine the Egyptians or the Incas moving some large stone around on round logs and you get the picture. We finally leveraged the raft back into the water after which I went for a refreshing walk through the famous Wolf Lake muck (up to 1 ft. deep in parts) and positioned and then anchored the raft in the deeper water. Then I went for a quick swim and came in for a nice dinner.

So we'll just have to wait till next year to determine if that raft should finally be salvaged for parts. I wouldn't bet on it!

In the evening on Sunday (before fishing) I went up to Uncle Roy's to look for mushrooms in his woods (there were none, it was too dry) and chat a bit more. On the way back to the cabin I ran into this young family of skunks waddling down the side of the road. They acted pretty oblivious to my presence. I suppose I could have tried to scare them but I was afraid of tempting the skunks to emit their spray.

This was about the most exciting wildlife I saw the whole weekend, with the exception of a bunch of deer on the fields, and some loons and sand cranes in / near the water.

Sunday after dinner, I went fishing one final time with Uncle Roy for 90 minutes, had no action, and we decided to call it a night. It was time to once again leave the cabin. I'll be back in September.

So anyways, that is the highlight of my July Wisconsin trip. I won't go into details about Monday (though I was around) because that was mainly spent on the computer dealing with work and other responsibilities.

I hope I did not bore you too much with this more detailed account of my activities, but some family members and friends seem to appreciate this style of writing better. I am glad if you were able to be entertained by this.

Cleaning Up

2011-06-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

This past week I finally started doing something I've been putting off for 5 years: CLEANING MY CARPET. You see, I live in a 60s era apartment building near Piedmont Ave. and all the units have the same bland grey carpeting (I have some friends in the building so I know what their places look like.) This grey carpeting is fine, generally, except that it accumulates dirt and shows stains after a while if you don't clean it. Especially when you are the type who likes to cook on their own or fix their own bikes inside their apartment (even if I tried to use newspapers to catch the grease - it didn't always work.) So then you have all these GREASE STAINS and they make the carpet (and therefore the place you live in) look crappy. Yet, if you're like me, you just sort of ignore it, realizing that the effort needed to actually deal with the problem would take more time than you are willing to spend to fix it. And to be honest, it never really bothered me much, until somebody pointed it out. Which somebody eventually did (almost 2 years ago, to be exact). Actually, it was more than one person.

So, recently, over Memorial Day weekend, I was invited up to dinner at my friend Tom's house in Crockett. (if you ever wanted to see a "ghost house" you should go there sometime.) Tom showed me his carpet cleaner and this led to me thinking maybe it's time I gave it a try and clean my carpet like others have told me to do. At the same time, I can dispose of different junk that I have accumulated over 5+ years living in this place.

Now if I had been smart, I would have taken some "before" pictures of the carpet and then also the "after" pictures to impress you with the result. As a matter of fact, I do have some sections of the carpet still uncleaned (because most of the furniture needs to be cleared, it's a multi-stage process with me.) So here they are:

The above picture (from my entrance) shows some of the dirt spots. You will also note the lighter area, where I had an area rug covering it up. Below is what it looks like now, after cleaning:

It's actually quite liberating cleaning your carpet. I feel like, beyond the dirt I am ridding my carpets of, I am also cleaning up a mess I've made in my personal life. Of course that is not true: though the carpet is cleaner, my personal mess (from a recent break up) remains. However, I can at least take heart that not everything in Mundus Kentus is a mess.

By the way, there is no environmental angle to this post. I could have at least used an eco-degradable carpet soap, but alas, I just bought whatever they were selling at Safeway (there were only two choices: OxyClean or Pet Odor remover. I chose Pet Odor because I used to keep some cats here for a friend.)

Ferment Change coming up

2011-03-31T23:35:00.000-07:00

So I'll use this blog to post something about an upcoming event I am supporting ... it's the 4th (5th?) annual "Ferment Change" event happening in May near downtown Oakland at solar powered Humanist Hall.

The best thing I love about this event is that it's all volunteer driven. The second thing is that it's about making your own fermented food and drink which appears, especially in these recession-aware times, to have become fashionable. In fact, everything that the "Shrinkage" article talks about - brown bagging, growing, dumpster diving, foraging, scavenging - these are all things that appear to have "emerged" in the East Bay as a new fad. Heck, I went to the White Elephant Sale a couple weeks ago and it was a mob scene!

Anyways, since I'm sort of half way on the "planning committee" for the event (though I've successfully avoided showing up for a single planning meeting at Max's house :-)) it has given me inspiration to try my own hand at a few of the "crafts" As a result, I'm learning to make Sauerkraut and Sourdough. So far the sauerkraut is working, but I need more practice with sourdough bread.

All the proceeds benefit good causes. So c'mon out and check the action - there are plenty of events to participate in!

Bob Morris Post on Why Environmentalists Failed to Mobilize Anyone at the Polls in 2010

2011-02-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Today I was checking in with the Sierra Club "Activist Network" (it's sort of like a Facebook application for the Sierra Club's 500,000+ members.) Though the AN is not used very much, sometimes you do find really interesting and useful posts because of the specific environmental activist angle of all the participants.

One such A.N. post was from last November, which is by now 4 months out of date. However, I have decided to write about it because the post follows nicely on my last post about money in politics. My point in my last post, in case you don't want to read it, was that unlimited spending and money is the root problem of America's political system. Bob's basic point, which sort of refutes what I was saying, is that money did NOT win last year's election for the GOP. Bob feels that the GOP message resonated better with voters and so the GOP won.

I would disagree generally but not universally with Bob. Where Bob reasons that the biggest failing of environmental activists like me is an inability to communicate with our neighbors and friends, I would speculate that the elections are becoming more and more a "sounding board" of sorts for people from all walks of life, who vote for the party OUT of power if they are unhappy, and vote for the party IN power, if they are happy. Since the economic crisis that started under W. Bush was so severe, and is still in strong effect, I would say that the last election was more a response by people frustrated with the economy, than people who were identifying with a specific idealogy (Democratic or Republican.)

I do like and respect Bob's thoughts on how to try to "talk to voters on their own terms," however. Too often I am caught up in this trap myself, where I feel I have the moral high ground on an issue and approach it with a "how could you not agree with me?" type of attitude. This is doubtless an unhelpful approach.

Anyways, for those of you who care to read it, here is Bob's post:
http://connect.sierraclub.org/post/ActivistNetworkBlog/enough_excuses.html

Election Ruminations and Regrets

2010-11-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

So last night I watched the election results roll in like all of you and I was of course disappointed in the national change in power in Congress. Our fellow Americans appear to have a very short historical memory. They are blaming Democrats for the problems caused by the guys who were in power before they were elected. But I am preaching to the choir here.

In any case, last night and this morning I was following local election results at acgov, and was pleased that several of the candidates and state propositions I supported won. Some did not, but in all races, even ones where I spent a lot of time volunteering (like the Rebecca Kaplan for Mayor campaign), the tone was positive and upbeat. So yay for local voters!

This is where the post gets grimmer. I've taken some time to gather information about national election results and reflect on what happened in general. Beyond the issue with voters having no memory and no patience, we have a sad phenomenon which is the growing influence (and spending) of money in politics (Newsweek.com.) This election cycle, campaign spending is projected to exceed $3.7 billion, up 30% over the last election.

I am first of all saddened that we are spending all this money on politics. Just think what this country could be if that money were instead spent educating kids, or supporting our public schools, parks, and transportation. Second, I am curious just how such a drastic increase in spending could happen in such a short time. No doubt the recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision ("Citizens United") has had an impact. In fact, according to Public Citizen, the undisclosed expenditures by independent groups influenced the election in in 58 of 74 "party-shifting contests" this cycle.

Beyond this disappointment with national trends and ever more increase spending, however, I have to be honest and confess that I have contributed to the "big money" mid term election this year through my own giving habits. I compiled a quick list of my giving for political races this year. Below I have tallied it:

Candidate Amount Won Election?
Barbara Boxer $150 Y
Democratic Party $500 N
Democratic Party CA $100 N
Jesse Arreguin $50 Y
Kriss Worthington $125 Y
Progressive Major'y $200 N
Rebecca Kaplan $100 N*
Robert Raburn BART $250 Y
Russ Feingold Senate $100 N
Steve Kagan Congress $250 N
Vinnie Bacon Fremont $50 N
Total: $1,875

* Oakland Mayor will not be decided till Friday, but it's looking unlikely that Rebecca will win.

I did not realize it until I compiled this list, but I spent a hell of a lot of money this year. Part of it has to do with my impulsively generous streak. I am not trying to boast here. My giving made a difference in some races, and in others made no difference at all. The point is, I am only one of millions of Americans who made a decision to give significant chunks of money to political candidates and/ or parties this year. I represent one end of the political spectrum. There are lots of people like me who gave to progressive causes. And there are lots more who gave to conservative causes. And then there are the corporations and "independent expenditure groups" that I mentioned above. And where does that leave us? With lots and LOTS of political ads.

Regrettably, I should have given more money to charity and less to political campaigns. I supported public financing of elections this spring - which our own "enlightened" electorate in California defeated. Perhaps that's the only thing truly worth supporting with money anymore?

Sigh.

2010 Oakland Mayor's Race

2010-10-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

Here are my thoughts on the Oakland mayoral race. Realistically, there are 3 candidates with the name recognition, experience, and connections to possibly win: Don Perata, Jean Quan, and Rebecca Kaplan. A fourth candidate, Joe Tuman, is working hard to reach voters and appears to be benefiting from the general anti-incumbent mood (as well as his base among long time friends in Oakland.) Then there are another 6 candidates, all well-meaning citizens, but who lack the campaign staff and infrastructure needed to make a serious run. I believe all these candidates should be thanked for giving up months out of their lives to put themselves and their ideas out there..

As many of you know, I am active with the Sierra Club locally. We conducted interviews to determine our endorsement in this race in late August. I participated in all the interviews. We endorsed Kaplan #1, Quan #2 and Perata #3. Rebecca Kaplan (click for questionnaire) presented in superior vision and for how to "fix Oakland" in a sustainable fashion. She has an excellent plan to make Oakland a more transit and pedestrian (and bicycle) friendly city. She knows who the key people are in the city to get things done, and admits that the next mayor will have a major role to play in appointing department heads over the next 4-6 years (many city employees are set to retire.) Rebecca has excellent grasp of fiscal policy, as well. Jean Quan, meanwhile, has very good "green credentials." She is quick to mention the help she provided to the Sierra Club for our tree planting campaign (which is much appreciated), and I know she is passionate about watershed protection. Don Perata had a good environmental voting record during his time as a state senator in Sacramento. He won an award from the Sierra Club California for his work defending AB32 from Republican attacks. So each has something to champion in terms of the environment and the things the Sierra Club cares about.

In terms of the campaigns, Rebecca appears to be hitting the phones hard, is making appearances all over the city and appears to have a base among the artist / progressive / Oakland black chamber of commerce and younger environmentalist crowd. Jean Quan meanwhile has a lot of neighborhood activists wearing "Taking Oakland Block by Block" shirts, and also counts many environmentalists among her supporters. She has basically been campaigning for over a year and I think a lot of her hard work cultivating supporters and volunteers is paying off. Don Perata, meanwhile, has the best campaign ads and videos. He also has people walking the streets for him. When I saw his ad showing him sweeping the street in East Oakland the first time, I had to laugh. However, Don is allowing his friends the Prison Guards to try and influence the campaign with negative attacks on Jean Quan.

In summary, all three of the top candidates I mentioned could be a good mayor. But who will win? And how will they succeed in addressing some of Oakland's problems, such as the looming $589 million budget deficit? I cannot predict it. But the next mayor will need to work hard at getting their colleagues on the council to work together. During the 5 years I have lived here and observed the city council, it has unfortunately been marred by a lot of divisiveness. The missing element, in my opinion, is a mayor who can bring the warring council members together and get them to agree on important issues. Will Don Perata be able to bring together the council? He appears to have his favorites picked out already. How will he get the rest of the council to work with him, if they do not agree? What about Jean Quan? I could see her getting the council to work together. But there is pretty visible personal animosity between her and some other council members. So I see Rebecca Kaplan as the best "coach" and "facilitator". She is a fresh face, positive, enjoys good relations with other elected officials - but she's not inexperienced, either. I am confident she is the best choice for mayor.

Come Nov. 2nd, I think Oakland voters will vote according to what they believe is best for the city. America as a whole seems to only accept short term solutions, but Oaklanders in this respect appear to know better. Maybe that's because they've been through long hard times as a city before.

Sierra Club convention, Feingold for Senate

2010-09-24T01:08:00.000-07:00

I'm wrapping 2 posts in one here - one per paragraph.

Today I spent the day at the Sierra Club national headquarters with 60 other chapter delegates from across the country at the meeting of the "Council of Club Leaders." This is like a convention where people all gather to work out their differences and propose new "rules of the Sierra Club." It is essentially an excercise in democracy, except of course, we are all pretty much united by our belief in the "John Muir and Redwoods" goals to "explore, enjoy and protect" the planet and nature. I also got to meet new ED Michael Brune as well as most of the national board of directors. They are really hard working. Especially the board always amazes me. They do all this work for nothing except to serve the movement! You basically can't do this and have a regular job at the same time.

In other news, I was sad to hear, through the Wisconsin delegate who attended the convention, that Russ Feingold from my home state is trailing in the polls. This is deeply disturbing. First, because Russ is a true blue progressive voice, who has never - or let's say much more rarely than any other politician I know - compromised his beliefs. He was the sole dissenting voice who voted against the Patriot Act in 2001. Secondly, Russ is such a solid debater, speaker and campaigner, that it saddens me that so many citizens of Wisconsin are buying the claims of his opponent that Russ is wrong for the state. I took the time to listen to a good analysis of what is happening there posted on the nation online. The idea that the changing media landscape is allowing a well heeled challenger who allies himself with the Tea Party to "dictate the message" to ignorant voters (because they don't get any news about what their current Senator is really doing) is pretty scary. Here is what I think: if the people of Wisconsin actually took the time to understand what is going on, instead of blaming the current administration for the economic mess we're in, I cannot imagine that Russ would be challenged to win in a serious way. And, what happens in Wisconsin is no doubt happening in many other states. Anger is trumping reason.

Musings on the Green Mayors Forum

2010-08-31T21:11:00.000-07:00

So last week I was in the news a bit for not inviting all the mayoral candidates to the "Sierra Club Green Mayoral Forum." This was an interesting and unaccustomed role to be playing. I'm usually not very public. In fact I only joined the Sierra Club to go hiking and meet girls!!! And I haven't exactly done a lot of either in the club, though I have certainly come to appreciate and respect what the club does (and that's why I spend so much volunteer time for them.) Anyways, this little brouhaha was well publicized and, admittedly, self-created, since I sent out an unnecessary "sorry we're not inviting you" to the candidates, thus inviting recrimination right away, and in a very public way. Also, and this is probably the bigger error, I cc'd local blogger Zennie Abraham, who had been covering this previously, and then he promptly posted my entire email claiming I mistook him for a candidate!

There is always a silver lining, however. Zennie's blog and the attention it brought us I think drove up the interest among the public quite a bit and (I think) as a result, we were able to really pack the room last week at the Eastbay Community Foundation. Also, partially as a result of the firestorm of attention Zennie and other local bloggers brought us, we decided to change the format of the forum to avoid nasty confrontations with the non-invited. 9 of the 10 registered candidates for mayor showed up, which I guess is a first, and the discussion that was had was interesting, though very limited by the time limits we had to impose (several candidates told us they had to leave at 7 p.m. so we kept the entire forum part to about 75 minutes and each candidate could only talk on any given issue for 2). You can read more details about the event here (thanks to Oakland Local for covering it, by the way.)

In the end, I'm glad we did this (and big thanks to Andy Katz and Igor Tregub who were the primary event planners besides myself.) The event generated more positive attention than negatives for the Sierra Club, and gave everyone a chance to hear the candidates talk about what their "green vision" might look like. Next time, hopefully, we will be able to structure it so we can have more in-depth discussion.

Hope, Restored

2010-07-14T01:44:00.000-07:00

Dirt mixed with bark and twigs

As I walk down the trail,

Click, Click

Goes the walking stick

Making me feel old and frail

Approaching middle age,

Moving through dark forest.

The mountains around me

Stare down impassively

No mark of progress

Nothing to distract me

Only rocks

Dotting the steep slopes

Intermingled with snow.

My thoughts turn inward,

Like a burrowing plow

Under forest pine-bough

Unearthing, laying bare

Regret and despair

My memories,

A ball of worms

Writhing,

Unaccustomed to light.

Red paintbrush, violet lupine

A splash of color, a sign

For stale thoughts to retreat

As soft grass brushes my feet

How can I dwell in wrong?

Listening to faint birdsong

Pulling me back from slumber.

Sunlight breaking through trees

Melancholy darkness recedes

Beautiful meadow, soft, green

Fed by clear blue water, so clean

Rushing, tumbling, rolling

Overpowering winter

Giving life, washing wounds,

Restoring hope.

Novella's Book, and the Trinity Alps

2010-07-07T23:49:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I last posted here but I wanted to write that I finished Novella Carpenter's Book, Farm City, about 3 weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. This is an entertaining first-hand account of Novella's quest to establish a garden - or if you will, an Urban Farm - to sustain herself and her neighorhood with fresh healthy food. It was personally interesting reading this book because I know a few of the characters that appear (including the author) and the location (I once visited the site, several years ago. It's only about 1 mile from the office where I work downtown Oakland.) Beyond that, the book is an entertaining read because of Novella's humble, witty style and her ability to tell stories within the story. It's also educational and taught me several things about gardening, for instance, that bees and turkeys are difficult, ducks and chickens less so, and not to get all bent out of shape if one or more plants get damaged by an animal or human intruder. Novella basically attributes these events to karmic law, in that what you lose today, you will gain tomorrow.

I look forward to her next book and hope you get a chance to pick this one up at a library or bookstore near you. (I got mine at Pegasus in Berkeley.)

Also I can report that I had a fantastic time hiking in the Trinity National Forest in northern CA (near Redding) with a group of folks from the local Sierra Club. The scenery was truly beautiful and it was a treat to be able to get to an area where no cars, campers, RVs or fireworks were allowed! My shoulders and legs are still a bit sore, but that is part of the deal with backpacking. I'm not 25 anymore ...

Though it was over 100 degrees only 1 hour away by car, in the mountains where we were, temps were cool and we looked up at the snow and swam in an icy cold mountain lake. There were a lot of backpackers up there and it was impressive that everyone picked up after themselves (well, almost everyone) and the place was so clean and spotless. California is truly a beautiful place, and I think most folks who live here do appreciate it.

A most hardy garden perennial

2010-06-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows about California's most famous weed, but what about the other kind that is used commonly for cooking and will take over an abandoned garden if left to its own devices? That's right, I'm talking about oregano, which I am lucky to have growing in ample supply just down the street. Some of you loyal readers may recall my efforts to plant a garden behind my former apartment in 2005. Well, that garden has been laying fallow now for 3 or more years with the result that only the most hardly, drought resistant plant survived. That would be ... oregano! Now, in 2010, there is a regular weed-patch of oregano growing back there, especially now after the wetter than normal spring we had here in Northern California. The plant has completely choked off all other growth (sorry, I don't have a picture of it handy).

Last week I walked over to the old garden, scissors in hand, and was able to harvest a whole bunch of the weed without really making a dent in the overall patch. Below is a picture of my home drying operation:

Note: no electricity was used for this operation. The drying all occurred in the open air / on top of the oven.

The other night, I made a pork tenderloin (purchased at Mandela Foods Cooperative in West Oakland) in wine sauce according to an online recipe and used some of the above leaves as a substitute for the recommended basil. It was heavenly. The oregano that grows here, especially in the un-watered state, appears to be especially pungent and aromatic. I normally don't go to great efforts to prepare food at home - I'm a lazy cook. But, this time, the spice made the difference. Since I ate the entire roast myself, though, nobody else can vouch for it - you'll just have to believe me.

UPDATE (6/6/10): I tried to send some of my finished, dried oregano in plastic baggies in the mail as gifts. Sensing this might seem suspicious, I talked to the clerk in the post office before trying to send it. The clerk, who used to work in the mail sorting center, advised me not to do it. He said that a "post inspector could come knocking on your door asking why you are trying to send this weed." So I will have to give out my "gifts of spice" the old-fashioned way...

Farmer Jane Book Launch

2010-05-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

Today I had the pleasure of attending the book launch party for "Farmer Jane," a new book by Temra Costa. The party took place at a remodeled restaurant right in the heart of downtown Berkeley, Revival Bar and Kitchen. Several women connected to the "local food movement" (or organic food and food justice) spoke to the crowd of approx. 200. The place was bustling and I had a good view from my corner (where I was promoting the Fundraiser dinner for City Slicker Farms) and some good conversations. Next to me were representatives from Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF) who told about their work trying to "inspire hundreds of thousands of California eaters to Buy Fresh Buy Local." Knowing some of these folks as I do, I can vouch that they are indeed contributing to a better, healther food system.... and you don't have to watch Food, Inc. to know that this is important. (ever driven past a feedlot in Colorado or Texas?)

Winter Olympics 2010

2010-02-25T22:31:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog for awhile and am not feeling really inspired. So it's time for some "filler." I've been spending quite a few hours in the last weeks watching the winter olympics. For whatever reason, I find the winter olympics more entertaining than summer. Maybe because the summer games are all about the short "power" events: weight lifting, shot put, track and field (less than 200 M). I'm more into the thrill of speed and the drama of a tight competition between top athletes (the 400 M and above do offer that in summer). In the winter olympics, skiing (downhill and x country) are my favorite sports to watch.

Downhill skiiers like Lindsey Vonn (pictured at left) go screaming down the slopes at a death-defying speed ... and make it look sooooo easy. And then sometime they crash, giving us viewers what we were HOPING to see - a spectacle of a near-death experience (I missed Lindsey's crash). I ski a little bit - really, not very well. It allows me to appreciate what those athletes do. I wish I had a picture of me on skis to compare to Lindsey. That would be funny.

My favorite athletes of the games? I don't know ... our U.S. downhill women (Vonn and Mancuso) are great competitors, and beautiful too.... but I think I like the Canadian men's curling team. Here are a bunch of guys that could be working in my office at Kaiser, competing in the Olympics. Featured below are Kevin Martin and Marc Kennedy of the Canadian curling team. I wish NBC would show this sport!

It's frustrating to have to watch so much figure skating.... all that glamour, drama, and pretty outfits make me feel old, inflexible and lame.

My final rant is about the "new" sports: snowboard half pipe, free style skiing, ski cross, aerials, moguls, etc. It's like a showboat competition. I get it - you have diving in the summer, you can have aerial ski jumping in winter. But really .... diving at least lets you watch the athlete up close and nearly naked. With aerial skiing, you see a bunch of youngsters clad in heavy clothing doing crazy stunts in the air. Am I supposed to really be able to tell the difference? Sadly, they have created so many new "games" for the winter olympics in recent years (and I realize, curling is one of those) that it's impossible to watch any particular sport for long enough to really appreciate it. I am thinking of how NBC hops to the next event as soon as the top contenders are done. It's anticlimactic. How about the bottom finishers? I suppose I could subscribe to some kind of pay-per-view, and get those sports I want. But cable TV? please... don't want it.

new

Berkeley Daily Planet to cease printing

2010-02-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

It is truly a sad day for free speech when the East Bay's most independent-minded, intellectual and progressive newspaper announces it will cease print operations. I just read about it in their online edition (which will continue, for the time being). Basically their funding problems are varied, but all revolve around the lack of advertising money. It appears that the tipping point was the just recently disclosed fraud committed against them and other area non-profits by a payment processing company, Clickbooks.com, whose owner absconded with millions of dollars to the Philippines.

The BDP, in contrast to other "free newspapers" in the Bay Area (like the East Bay Express or the SF Bay Guardian, which are valuable information sources in their own right), did not rely on pages upon pages of "personal ads" which mainly appear to be semi-legal sex advertisements. It included sections devoted to local politics, national politics, poetry, gardening, the environment, and of course, their most popular feature, the letters to the editor and the op-eds (to which I myself have contributed). The Berkeley Daily Planet was certainly widely read preceding the 2008 city council elections in Berkeley. I found it a valuable resource for keeping up to date on happenings in the City of Berkeley (being a Sierra Club volunteer leader I am supposed to know what's going on in cities in Northern Alameda County).

The BDP is truly a reflection of the intellectual breadth, depth and power of the people living in Berkeley and the East Bay. Its passage - which I hope is temporary - is a loss for everyone.

Tree Planting

2010-02-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

Today I joined with some folks from the local chapter of the Sierra Club to plant trees in Oakland. I had been hearing about this project for several weeks (I sit on several committees in the local Club) and was sort of excited to finally be able to go out and participate myself. It was a real learning experience.
Basically this volunteer-run project involves planting trees in front of homes throughout Oakland where the owners have made requests to the Oakland Tree Services Division (which I understand belongs to the Dept. of Public Works) for trees. Since the City of Oakland has drastically reduced the budget for tree planting, it can no longer keep up with demand from residents for new street trees (which involves planting small trees from local nurseries between the sidewalk and the street in selected locations). There appears to be a backlog of anywhere from 3 months to 3 years (really - one of the property owners we talked to today said he had ordered his tree "3 years ago."). Our role as volunteer planters, then, is to supplement or even replace city staff in planting trees.

One good side effect of this effort was that we all learned something about planting trees. For instance, you need to "break up the root ball" before you plant the tree in the ground. Second, surround the root ball with compost, if possible. Third, put some mulch / bark on top of the root ball to prevent water "burn off" by the sun.

The homeowners we talked to were grateful for our services. In light of the slow response by the city to tree requests, who can blame them for being upset, and therefore happy when volunteers come to do the job (that many feel) the city should be doing.

Cat on my Lap

2010-01-16T00:30:00.000-08:00

Cat on my Lap

Oh cat on my lap how you purr

like a living pillow with fur

not much to talk about

your eyes I have no doubt

betray not one emotion, demur.

Such a child you are, but so sly

pathetically, sadly, you cry

Squeeze me! Pet me! Touch me! I sigh-

knowing, not how, but why

you will convince me to once again to comply

Those Egyptians sure knew what to do,

to raise, to breed, ones like you,

with your ability to seduce,

my unwillingness to reduce

I would like your talent some time too.

Chestnuts

2010-01-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

On New Year's Day I was hiking in Marin County (near Fairfax, off Bolinas Road) and picked up some nuts that looked like chestnuts. They were bitter to taste, so I brought them home and baked them in the oven for a while. Now they have a more mellow taste, though I am still finding them somewhat bitter. Seems like there is lots of natural oils in these nuts. I did a little research before I began chewing (just to make sure I wouldn't poison myself). I found a wikipedia entry but not much else. I thought they were Japanese chestnuts. Then I asked a friend and he said they are california buckeye, a seed that is considered poisonous. Wooops!

Next time, I'll try to leach them first, like the Indians did, to remove the toxins.

Regret

2010-01-03T01:15:00.000-08:00

Regret,
The feeling you have missed a chance, why did you, if you only had ...
the consequence of a real event? just a current malaise? maybe, a former one?
The mind a flytrap, no matter how hard you shake it,
unable to shake an uncomfortable thought.
Losing sleep, restless, looking to escape
For a moment, escape, a sudden realization
on a sunny day, the clouds, lifted.
There is clarity, fleeting,
then, later, much later,
The heaviness of doubt, questions, return.

Debate Recap

2009-12-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the climate debate where I defended "cap and trade" against 2 senior EPA staff who are very critical of the plan and are calling for a carbon fee (tax) model. I'm sure Allan and his wife Laurie carried the evening in terms of the audience reaction. But I made my points. Cap and Trade isn't as good as Carbon Tax, but it's more politically viable. As evidence I submitted a graph showing different US states heavily invested in coal as a source of electricity. This represents "equity investments" made in cheap fossil fuel by key political states. To get these states to participate in any climate change / GHG reduction plan, you have to buy them off with free "emissions credits" or perhaps, the hated offsets (offsets are supposedly very susceptible to fraud, because no one can verify their claims to reduce GHG emissions). I don't see any other way other than cap and trade but perhaps I'm too pessimistic.

Arguments In Defense of a Cap and Trade Program

2009-12-08T00:27:00.000-08:00

In Defense of Cap and Trade
Points to be argued during the Dec. 10th, 2009 Kehilla Synagogue Debate

Following the lead of Europe, a US Cap and Trade system would function as an important next step in establishing a global emissions trading system. A global Carbon Tax is not politically feasible, because of the wealth disparities between nations. A global market in GHG emissions credits, however, is possible, as has been demonstrated in heterogenous Europe with its poor Eastern states pledging to reduce carbon emissions in the new phase of the Emissions Trading System (ETS).

Cap and Trade is the only method whereby diverse economic and political regions in the United States can agree to share in the pain of converting from an energy intensive lifestyle to one of conservation and efficiency.

The United States in its different geographic regions reflects the diverse cultural, economic and policial heritage of our nation. It is nearly impossible to get the United States to agree on major reform of a system that most acknowlege is badly broken: health care. By the same token, trying to impose a carbon tax on regions of the country that are fundamentally opposed to change will be an effective declaration of political war. A cap and trade system, where offsets and emissions credits can be distributed in greater proportion in the regions where structural reform will be most painful (for instance the coal-intensive southeastern US), will be much more likely to succeed by gaining the support of climate change advocates from all parts of the country, and not just the well-to-do progressive hubs.

We should not underestimate the difficulty in getting all 50 states to agree to any system that will increase the cost of energy. Imposing a price on carbon (either through a carbon tax, or cap and trade) involves a fundamental restructuring of the built environment and with it the existing culture in certain parts of the US, similar to the change that occured in the 19th century when slavery was abolished. Cheap energy was the foundation for many region's planning and zoning, and in much of the US, the strip-mall character of the landscape will take decades to unravel.

Response to Auctioning Proposal
(source: "The European Union’s Emissions Trading System in Perspective," A. Denny Ellerman, Paul L. Joskow, Mass. Instititue of Technology, May 2008)
A commonly advocated remedy for windfall profits is auctioning allowances instead of allocating them freely to existing units (Sijm, Neuhoff, and Chen, 2006). This remedy would not cause electricity prices to be any lower, but it would end the granting of the scarcity rent associated with the free allocation of allowances to fossil generators. Advocates advance two main virtues of auctioning. It would ensure that carbon prices are passed through into retail prices where electricity markets have not been liberalized (thereby improving efficiency) and it would raise substantial revenue for the government that could be used for other purposes some of which could improve efficiency and equity. In opposition, it is argued that auctioning raises equity issues for suppliers who made investments when there were no constraints on CO2 emissions and whose profits may be adversely affected by unanticipated carbon emission costs (“windfall losses”). If these suppliers are not compensated in some way, they are likely to oppose efficient market-based CO2 emissions control mechanisms or to lobby for complicated tax credit, deduction, and other mechanisms to protect themselves.

Response to the "Windfall Profits" critique
(source: Ellerman and Joskow, MIT)
In member states with fully liberalized electricity markets the market value of allowances was included in wholesale prices regardless of whether these allowances were received for free or purchased. Research conducted by Jos Sijm at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands and his collaborators finds that CO2 costs have been passed through to wholesale electricity prices but that generators have not been able to recover the full market value of their free allocations. In a careful study of wholesale electricity markets in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France from January through July 2005, Sijm et al. (2005) estimated that the average pass-through rates varied from 40 percent to 70 percent depending on the country and whether it was a peak or off-peak demand period.

Cap and Trade ... and my favorite Procrastination

2009-12-08T00:21:00.000-08:00

One activity I like to do when I am at home and Roxanne's cats are around is to sit on my couch and watch episodes from a cable TV series. Since I don't get cable TV (too many channels = too much choice), I rent or borrow them. Currently I'm watching the first season of "The Wire", a portrayal of crime, police and life in the (mythical) projects of west Baltimore, MD. For those of you not familiar with it, the series ran from 2002-2007 on HBO and enjoyed a small, loyal following (I would compare "Wired" fans to the crowd that likes "Lost"). After watching most of the first season, I can see why. The show's vivid portrayal of the frustrations faced by actors on both sides of the "War on Drugs" is compelling. Throw in fine character acting by little known actors and you've got the recipe for a really fine TV show. I have many episodes to catch up on (am on the 12th episode of Season 1, which I will save until Thursday or Friday).
The Wire was useful as a way to unwind but also a way to procrastinate. I've got a carbon tax vs. cap and trade debate that I'm participating in and need to prepare for. I've been procrastinating mightily. Such is my lazy nature. The next days I will do what I can to get ready. I've got most of the material assembled (and read) to at least make a passable defense of cap and trade (see my other blog post from today), but the anti-capitalist sentiment runs high in the environmental crowd, plus people are not keen to support anything that requires the involvement of Wall Street to determine the fair price of carbon.

Flu Update

2009-12-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

Well this flu has got me down. I missed a day at work this week and every night I go to bed, I have a cough. Every morning, I have a cough. It is definitely cutting into the blogging time (even though it did "free up" part of a day for me on Tuesday). My friend, the acupuncturist, recommended I try some "Wellness Pills." I picked some up at a nearby natural food store (Health Foods? in the Rockridge shopping center between the old Long's and Safeway). The guy who sold it to me said it was good stuff, of course.... so far I can't really judge whether or not it's helped. Could just be a psychological trick / advantage, like a placebo. But I'll assume it's doing something. At least I can be semi productive now ...

Thoughts on the Bay Area

2009-12-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

While in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving I appear to have picked up the flu. I think it was from my mother. In that case, I can't really complain about this since it was she who gave me life in the first place! On the good side, this has led to me having a "free day" today (thankfully I enjoy paid time off for being sick as a Kaiser employee). So I have a little time to do things like update my blog.

I realized on my return to the Bay Area last week how blessed we are here with the natural beauty and mild weather. It is so easy to take this for granted. I had the same experience many years ago, driving to California the first time (during the winter). After driving through the snows, winds and desolate regions of the Plains States, Wyoming and then Nevada, when I reached the central valley in California it was like a paradise. I remember smelling the lush vegetation, seeing the green grass in January, and people walking around in T Shirts and shorts without a seeming care in the world. Well, now we know the last part is no longer true - the state has problems in ratio to its size. Yet I cannot stop feeling like we are truly lucky to live here, assuming we can afford to pay the rent and for food!

Speaking of affording the rent ...recently I have been reading "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck. I read the book once when I was a teenager. Reading it again makes me appreciate how different life was for many, many people until recently, for instance the Chinese in the 1920s and 1930s (when this book was set). The scenes of starvation and forced migration are powerful. Beyond that, I can appreciate more the changes occurring for the main character, Wang Lung, that Buck describes as he changes from a poor young man to a wealthy landowner. Though I am not a landowner, I once had to pinch every penny (in the early 90s) and now, approaching middle age, I guess I feel more "rich" and don't have to worry so much about money. Some people who know me would say this is not a good thing. In any case, having money doesn't make us happy, but it's good to appreciate what it can do when spent wisely.

Google Chrome, and other Technology Musings

2009-11-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

Recently while surfing around the web I downloaded Google Chrome on a lark and installed it. Since then I've become a big fan of this new browser. Here are my reasons why I like it:

- Chrome loads faster than either Microsoft IE or Mozilla Firefox

- Chrome allows searches in the "address bar" (just start typing a phrase - it's a built in search - of course, a good deal for Google!)

- Chrome has a "last viewed" selector for recent sites that is waaaay cool (see picture)

- Chrome refreshes automatically - I do not have to "clear cache". This is very useful whenever I work on websites (which is something I do for a couple of non-profits)

In other news, 2 friends of mine recently experienced computer problems. One is a mac user who had her laptop stolen in Central America. Another is a friend whose laptop's motherboard friend. Both are wondering what to do. I recommended to check eBay or Craigslist for quality used machines. But I would not invest in a computer that is more than 1.5 years old. Last time I did that, my laptop was obsolete by the 2nd year I owned it. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

Ella Baker Center

2009-11-13T00:47:00.000-08:00

Today I attended an end of year celebration and fund raiser event for Ella Baker Center, an Oakland non-profit co-founded by well-known community activist and "Green Collar Economy" author Van Jones. The event was inspiring, with speeches, awards, and of course, an ask for money. It wouldn't be a non-profit event without a pitch for money! It's always impressive to hear about all these idealistic, progressive people hard at work here in the local community. It makes me feel inadequate. My work produces little besides the fact that my colleagues appreciate my technical assistance. (Theoretically I am helping save Kaiser money, which translates to lower premiums. But I digress.) So to witness people working at their passions and doing what they believe in is an inspiring thing.

I just read a brief history of the EBC. Despite what you may think about the issue of police brutality, I am thankful for organizations like this that keep the police, but also the state and its voters, accountable. Most bad ideas in California are a result of a proposition system that essentially lets any millionaire with an axe to grind or a big enough ego go and try to buy a new law. This creates laws, like last year's "Jessica's Law," passed here in 2006 via a citizen's initiative, that are impractical, expensive, and wasteful. In the case of drug offenses, it's probably a federal issue. However, any way you cut it, due to "3rd strike" sentencing and sentencing for drug offenses, too many people who could be helped with a little counseling are instead caught up in a prison system and (most) destined for a life in and out of jail, at the expense of you and me, the taxpayer.

Which brings up another topic: how to get rid of the California proposition system altogether. Now that's a worthy idea!

Note, I served on a jury this spring, in Oakland, and can tell you I am not a rabid, police-hating radical. In fact I was one of the "law and order" people in the jury - only because this is Alameda County. The justice system is slow, ponderous and not very lenient. In my opinion, it catches up too many people in its teeth who belong elsewhere besides court and prison.

Back in action

2009-11-12T00:34:00.000-08:00

Dear All 3 Former Readers of "Kent's Korner" :

Kent's Korner is back. I got the idea to start blogging again. My idea is that writing can be therapeutic.

One thing though: since I last blogged, in 2007, I am somewhat "known" in the local community. This is (hopefully only) because of my political activity. I am trying to give my readers a warning that I am going to try to avoid rantings in here. Sometimes I have an urge to do this.

In any case, the content of this blog, at least to start, will involve my job, (I'm a data analyst at a large HMO), my thoughts about technology, politics, volunteering, and life in California (and beyond).

Please drop a comment or just a rating. That gives me another reason to keep writing.

Welcome back readers!

This blog has closed!

2007-03-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Friends,
This blog has officially closed. I'm still keeping the archives open, which you can access at right. Otherwise, if you have bookmarks to me, please relink them to eastbayenvironment.blogspot.com. Thanks

Skiing in Tahoe

2007-03-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went up to near Lake Tahoe with some friends to go cross-country skiing. It was a beautiful weekend. The sky was clear blue the whole time, temps up to 60 (in the mountains), and a relaxing healthy activity in the high elev. woods. We skiied trails at the Royal Gorge "cross country resort", which is a huge, 9000 acre system (the "largest in North America") with over 300 KM of groomed cross country ski trails. The conditions were pretty ideal: high 50s, sunny, and not too many people. (it might have been too warm, but not being very expert skiiers, it didn't bother us). I'm not sure if the price of tickets discouraged people from coming (they cost $29 per adult on a weekend, to use the trails). Anyways, we brought all our own equipment and shared the cabin together (found it privately) so the trip was still a bargain. The skiing itself was good but not great. It was a little too warm and thus the snow was slushy. I had to switch to my "ribbed" skis, which are slower, so I could get up the inclines. Having done cross-country skiing for many years, I was often waiting for others in the party to catch up. This gave me a chance to enjoy the surroundings. Also I noticed a lot of people "skating" on those trails. That is a special technique (as opposed to what most people practice, that is the "normal", or classic, nordic technique). "Skating" is really like roller blading on snow, with poles and light skis. Done correctly, it looks very graceful. I resolved to try it out ... next year.

And with that, friends, I conclude my last post on this blog. I think it's time to turn the page and close this chapter of my existence! It's been nearly 2 years of blogging with "blogger.com" (the first post was May 2005). The service has not disappointed. However, I feel this blog has achieved everything I think it can, and, speaking honestly, I just don't feel like maintaining it anymore. Plus, my name now is getting out to more and more people in the East Bay due to conservation activities I am involved in. I feel this blog has just a little more personal information than I care to share with the public. Besides, it's not like I don't already spend enough time on the computer! so Adieu, Sayonara, and Auf Wiedersehen. You can always check my alternate blog, which I intend to keep up, for the time being.

Word ... to the Mummy

2007-03-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

ODE TO THE MUMMY:

Oh Mummy, how old art thou
With your golden face
Ever raising your eyebrows
From behind the glassed case

Your mask of cool restraint
Belies your inner torment
As you try through ink and paint
A signal to your master to send

For looking at your new environ'
Concerned you are become
At the lack of order, of clean, and of light
It looks very much like a slum.

But no fear, my Mummy, you are safe
in good hands have you arrived
in Oakland I treat guests well
have some Zinfandel and enjoy the ride.

Trip to Texas

2007-02-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

Ahh, Texas. This year for the first time I visited my parents who were snowbirding as usual during cold Wisconsin weather in Alpine, Texas. Alpine is a very nice town. It's got about 4 stop lights (ok, maybe a few more, since it's also got Sul Ross State University). All the streets are wide and straight (compared to the Bay Area, they are), and there is practically not a single hill in the whole town (except an incline leading up to the college). There is also a nice restaurant and hotel, Holland House, that purports to run the smallest brewery in Texas (the brewmaster, whom we couldn't meet because of some legal troubles he's having, came from Bavaria). We ate there and enjoyed the beer.

The highlight of the trip though was the 2 1/2 days I spent with Mom and Dad in Big Bend national park. The park is huge - it takes about 1 hour to drive through (similar to Yosemite, but less ups and downs). It's also semi-arid. And, a great place to take photographs. I stored my digital pictures here at yahoo photos (clicking "slideshow" will give you the easy to watch 5 minute show).

One photo of note is the "Prada Marfa" permanent art exhibit (shown below).

This exhibit, featuring real Prada shoes and handbags (I read on the sign these were donated by Prada Italy), has already been vandalized in the year or so since it opened in the middle of ranch country about 20 miles outside the town of Marfa (approx. pop. 2,000). A friend and I speculated this was because of the high price of the shoes, which apparently retail as a pair for over one thousand dollars! This friend, who is Texan, doesn't like the exhibit. She says it's an insult to the local people, because the exhibit says "you can look but you can't shop." (the door does not work) Or something like that. I think, hey, it adds coolness and hipness to the place.

In any case, "Bid Bend country" is a cool place to visit in winter. Also a real bargain compared to the West Coast. Put it on your destinations list...

Super Bowl

2007-02-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

So what did you all think of the Super Bowl? I watched the second half at a friend's place in S. F., and was most impressed with their risotto herb dish, the grilled chicken with wood flavoring, and the rich dark chocolate cupcakes. Oh yeah also the 6 different kinds of wine they were offering. Thank you April and Bob!

As far as the game itself ... well I wasn't paying such close attention but it looked like those Bears took a real thumping. In fact, I came in and the Bears had 14 points. I think at the end they only had 17. In that time, the Colts scored like 13 points unopposed. And I lost $20 to my uncle, because I bet on the Bears (and he is from Chicago, wouldn't you know it).

Halftime observation: Prince looked great. Who is his makeup artist? Or skin therapist? I need to hire that person. He even performed well in the rain... finishing with "Purple Rain" : how appropriate. We were debating if he was really playing the guitar. Several people doubted it.

One other tidbit : here in San Francisco, we had absolutely beautiful weather. 60s and sunshine. It was a shame to go inside today. I noticed how quiet the streets were. Old people, couples, and non-football fans (apparently) were doing shopping, walking around Market St. (downtown), or just chilling out. Next year I may have to skip the party and join them ... but only if it's NOT at April and Bob's :-)

Berkeley Tree Sit

2007-01-23T23:47:00.000-08:00

I thought you might like to read a NY Times article regarding the tree-sitters trying to protect some Oak trees in Berkeley. I have been twice myself to this grove to observe the tree-sitters in action, and can attest that they have been perched up there since before Christmas through some unusually cool temperatures here in northern California (high 30s and low 40s at night in some cases). They are getting "ground support" (like food and water, plus exchange of buckets) and once in a while are relieved by other activists who go up in the tree to replace them. UPDATE: The Sierra Club, which I am part of, does not have a position on this particular grove of trees. I need to make that clear, as there have been attacks made against me in connection with my role in the local Sierra Club group. However, the Club DOES oppose the University's overall expansion plan, the "Southeast Campus Integrated Projects" - which includes the removal of these Oaks.

I just wanted to blog this item, since it's a typically Berkeley story, and it's going to get very interesting in the next days and weeks as the University finally decides what to do. My suspicion is that enough noise has been made and local celebrities have spoken out, that the University will back off its plans to take down the trees. But the UC is large and Berkeley is only one campus ... so I could be wrong.

p.s. the grove itself is not very large, just a bunch of scraggly looking oak trees (not the large oaks that grow in other U.S. locations like in the midwest), plus one healthy redwood tree (which towers above the oaks). But it's the principle of tearing down these trees to build a football facility that has so many folks riled.

Sierra Club Filmfest

2007-01-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

Well Folks,

Again I "volunteered" to do an event on behalf of Sierra Club and it's running now and looks like it's not a total failure. So I may as well tell the 5 blog readers about it. The event is called "Sierra Club / Sustainable Peralta Film Festival" and it's basically a chance to show a bunch of environmental themed movies from a list provided to us by Sierra Club national productions. (click the link to the page from national club and you can see all the movies I had to choose from). As the lead Club organizer for this event, it was my job to pick from all the available movies, the ones that I thought would go over best in Oakland. Take a look at our program and you will see which ones I chose. I did this after viewing at least twice as many movies at home on my own. The ones we aren't showing I excluded mainly because they are too, well, "white". How does one say this. Most of the movies tend to focus on issues that are rather academic / scientific and don't highlight the theme of environmental justice very well. For instance, if sea level rises 1-3 feet by 2100, as some scientists predict, which neighborhoods do you think will be affected first?* The lowlands. In Oakland, this means the neighborhoods in West Oakland surrounding the Port. These are traditionally not "white" (though it is changing even in these neighborhoods due to "gentrification" and the escalation of property value)

So what I'm saying is it's not a black-and-white issue. However, if you see most of these movies, you might not get that impression. So, we / I selected movies that highlighted social justice / environmental justice themes.

The movie THIS BLACK SOIL, which we showed Tuesday, was in fact a "stretch" in terms of being environmental, because it was really about how a very poor (black) community out east was able to organize itself (with help from outside), resist a planned prison construction and later got help from the government. But still it was a good message. In the end they showed the community getting their hands dirty working some farm fields, and so that at least made something of a connection from the people to the land vs. people to prisons. Tonight we showed POWER OF THE COMMUNITY, which was about Cuba. Attendance was about double what it was Tuesday (70+ people compared to about 35 on Tues.) This movie was probably a little more entertaining. Or maybe showing free movies on a Tuesday is just hard? After all the publicity work we did I kind of hoped more people would come. But still it's good at least that many people did come and hear our message.

I was a little nervous tonight. But since I didn't have to do much at the mike except fill in some dead space in between the movies, and act as moderator for our featured speakers, it was not too bad. My friend did remark that I used the "evil umm" a lot. Maybe Dead Crow in Georgia can give us tips how to avoid the dreaded "umm" and such filler words?

p.s. Crow, I have learned (by doing a public service announcement at KPFA) the 7 "banned" dirty words on the radio. Do you have them memorized? :-)

***

* from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise : If all glaciers and ice caps melt, the projected rise in sea level will be around 0.5 m. If the melting includes the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (both of which contain ice above sea level), then the rise is a more drastic 68.8 m.[3] The collapse of the grounded interior reservoir of the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea level by 5-6 m.[4]

Who Killed the Electric Car

2007-01-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

I was at the screening of "Who Killed the Electric Car" at Humanist Hall in Oakland Friday. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It basically answers the question, "what happened to the electric car and to California zero-emission mandates." Basically, California CARB (CA Air Resources Board, a governing body with offices in Sacramento) "caved" to industry, at least according to this movie, in 2003 when the "zero-emission vehicle" requirement, established in the early 90s, was being challenged.

Mark Geller from the organization Plug-in America showed up at the movie and did a great Question and Answer afterwards. One interesting answer I thought was to my question "what about BioFuel?". Mark's opinion (granted, it is a biased opinion), is that biofuel is great, as long as biofuel / ethanol / vegetable oil is available LOCALLY, in sufficient quantity, for those people who need it. Apparently we are still far below the level where biofuel could "run out" in Northern CA... I don't know. In a mass industry scenario, according to Mark, this would not work. Callifornia would have to import biofuel from Nebraska (which is of course better, than importing oil from Saudi Arabia ...). He thinks the electric vehicles are better overall, because the "grid is available already. We don't need to build a separate infrastructure" (biofuel filling stations). I know this probably sounds like anathema to biofuel advocates. But it's an opinion worth considering ...

Studies have come out both for and against the ZEV program.
For: http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?page=article&storyid=691
(this article is by an EV advocate)

Against: http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/rr.12.02/driven.html
(RAND corporation - they argue that a "Partial ZEV vehicle" is more effective that a ZEV - and also have good ideas about the CARB buyback program to get old polluting engines off the road )

The movie is great at pointing out how far industry, for instance General Motors (and other automakers) as well as BIG OIL, are willing to go, to protect their established industry, that is, an industry based on carbon-based fuel, and carbon-burning parts, that wear out, and need to be replaced (auto parts, which are not found in ZEVs).

Interestingly, I asked Mark afterwards, did he ever talk about the subject to any international folks, and he mentioned he met some German engineers from BMW. He said they're ignoring electrics just like we are, and are focusing on the fantasy-hydrogen cars (as are the big 3, at the encouragement of our president). So it sounds like the German auto industry has its own government in its pocket, as well.

"Who Killed The Electric Car" can be rented at Blockbuster and other major DVD /video stores.

Dollars and Euros

2006-12-13T18:35:00.000-08:00

Which bills would YOU rather use?

I was at Long's drugs a few weeks ago to pick up some household cleaner and some christmas cards. I go up to the cash register and pay about $9.50 for the stuff (christmas cards are SO overpriced!). I gave the girl a $20 (I am pretty sure I did, at least) and she says "10 dollars, thank you". Being absent minded as usual, I was thinking of something else and didn't pay much attention to her. But then later as I was leaving the store I remember pulling out a $20. Hey! What happened to my change? Too late! No way to prove, that I had given the bigger bill. This is like the 3rd time this has happened to me in about 3 months. It's always when I'm buying something small, like at the post office or the drugstore.

Therefore, I would like to use this opportunity to beg - no PLEAD - for the U.S. treasury to get modern and print some REAL colorized bills! If I was looking at a blue $10 vs. a green $20, I'm sure I would be making less mistakes (and so would the cashier). In fact there is an initiative underway at the U.S. treasury to modernize the bills with some color. However, if you look at them, the new bills still aren't really much different than before. I would say, the Europeans do this better.

In any case, this is the last blog entry for the year. Being in the holiday spirit, I am ignoring my own promise, not to post anymore to this blog for lack of guestbook entries. From now on, I'll just post, when I feel like it. Which is pretty much how I've been doing it.

To all those of you (all 4 or 5 of you) who have read my blog this year, I would like to wish a happy new year 2007.

Kent

Marin Headlands / Muir Woods

2006-12-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

I think the last post was kind of personal (because people that read this blog, or are family members, are in it). Well I got some good comments from it, so thanks. But don't expect me to start telling you my night time dreams anytime soon (then you'd really think I'm strange).

Instead, today I'm going to stick to the more or less generic topic "Touristy Things to See and Do Around San Francisco". The occasion this time was the visit of another far away friend - Michal - who lives in my former town of Freiburg, Germany. In addition to bringing his good cheer, Polish traditions, and humor to my apartment (and the business conference he attended, presumably), Michal also brought the (unneeded) excuse for me to take a day off and show someone around.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ARTICULATED WHILE DRIVING ACROSS THE OAKLAND - SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGE
We started our day in San Francisco dealing with Bay Bridge (Oakland to San Francisco) traffic, which if you go back to my postings from February 2006, you will see an example of. I still get frustrated sometimes, sitting in the car watching everybody have to idle, when there are these "FASTTRACK" lanes, which are supposed to let people with radio-sensing devices mounted in their cars "whiz" by without stopping to make change at the bridge toll (the bridge toll is $3 from Oakland, $5 from Marin / via the San Francisco Bridge, by the way). These "FASTTRACK" lanes however, are not visible until you get within about 1000 feet of the toll plaza - far too close, in my opinion. There are also a few lane indicator signs farther back, but these are routinely ignored (there is no penalty for hogging the dedicated lane for fasttrack). However, as I (once again) discovered on Thursday, the REAL problem is the stoplights mounted a few hundred yards beyond the toll plaza. These are for the purpose, I assume, of preventing traffic jams on the Bay Bridge (the lanes narrow from about 8 before the bridge, to 4 on the bridge). So... what can you do? CalTrans would need to dedicate a FASTTRACK lane on the bridge, all the way from Oakland to San Francisco (in my opinion), for this option to really work. (but I bet, they could charge a whole lot more money, and get away with it)

BUFFALOES IN GOLDEN GATE PARK
Thank you for bearing with me through that first part. The first real "sight" Michal and I saw, in San Francisco, were the buffalo in Golden Gate Park. I had seen them only once before. A friend reminded me of them last week, and I took my friend to look at them (figuring, it would be something of a novelty). The thing is, the buffalo were hanging out way in the back of their pen (as you can see), and were basically doing nothing. This is apparently not a new phenomenon, either.

I came to the conclusion that buffalo-watching isn't all it's cracked up to be. By the same token, hunting buffalo with rifles back on the plains the 1800s must have been very, very easy.

GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE
The second major site we saw was Golden Gate bridge. I am first including a picture taken while biking across the bridge (the bike path is always the left side, with a view of the Pacific).

Some interesting factoids: this bridge - an "Art Deco Structure" - was constructed in the 1930s at the cost of $35 million (it was built under budget - now when was the last time you ever heard of THAT before?). It contains 80,000 miles of steel cabling. The principal architect, Joseph Strauss, died 1 year after its construction, from stress-related disease (I think the architect of the London Tower Bridge met a similar fate, if memory serves me right). There were 11 fatalities during its construction (I suppose in the modern era, that would have meant the bridge construction would have cost 10 times more).

Here is a picture from the other side - the "Marin Headlands". This is a place that is kind of hard to get to (in the car), because you can only access it via the southern-bound stretch of Hwy 101. Michal is doing his best Charlie Chaplin pose.

MUIR WOODS
The last place we visited this day was Muir Woods National Monument, in Marin County. It was a fitting end to a very nice day. The trees in this park are indeed some of the biggest I've ever seen. I guess there are trees in California you can drive a car through, but they're further north near Eureka! (just kidding, the exclamation mark after the town name is not real). But, truth be told, it would have been offensive to this eco-minded yuppie blog author, to see cars passing through this forest. Instead, I posed in the burnt out hollow of one of the remaining giants in Muir Woods, a tree that probably has a name, which I didn't bother to read (I was distracted by a group of spanish speaking female tourists behind us).

This tree I am standing under, by the way, is still alive and green!

EVERYTHING I THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT REDWOOD TREES
Hey, this is my blog, right? So, I can use it to selectively tell you what I think is important, right? Factoid number one: a forest similar to this inspired George Lucas' forest scenes in Star Wars III, on Planet Endor. Factoid number two: only 4% of old-growth redwoods still exist - almost all under park protection. Factoid number three: the largest redwoods only grow on the north Pacific coast, where enough moisture is provided by continuous fog for these trees to grow much taller than their cousins further inland (there are redwood trees all over California, but only the coastal variety grow to such heights).

Were you satisfied by your visit? Please tell us how we're doing.

Up North Trip

2006-11-30T23:10:00.000-08:00

I spent a couple days in Wisconsin, camera in hand (this is always dangerous)... and now I have some pictures to share. Yeah, yeah, I know the rest of the world could care less. But, like, I'm trying to please the fans, ok? Sooner or later, this site's gonna be so big ...

Anyways, here's Dad. He's working on the patio. It's the day after Thanksgiving, and it's Wisconsin. Yeah, sometimes you don't know anymore that you're up north. Dad asked me to put this on the blog. So, of course, I will oblige

Second, I visited a food pantry downtown. It's on 12th and Vliet. Right there was an overpass, that has a view towards "beautiful" downtown Milwaukee. As you can see, they just finished the long-running highway renovation to the Marquette interchange (which extended all they way up to Vliet Ave., where I am standing).

I am keenly interested, if any of the natives think the interchage construction project was "worth it". I can't really tell the difference, except now the road is smoother.

Lastly, I got to visit the new Schroeder household in Germantown. What a grand place! Here is Steve, at work, with the Mrs. advising.

In case any of you were wondering why Steve isn't gambling so much anymore, it's because he's become Mr. Houseman. Way to go, Steve! It's a whole lot cleaner and better looking than your old apartment.

Finally, Teresa and I posed for a (self-)congratulatory picture, after we - I mean Teresa- finished stringing up the Christmas tree lights.

I had to quit halfway through, after it was determined that I wasn't stringing up the lights dense enough. Well, the final product speaks for itself (check the previous pic and you can see the lights)

So, in that spirit, happy Advent

Favorite Cartoons

2006-11-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

I need a quick post, so I can start packin' for Thanksgiving in Wisconsin. So what can I say? How about just showing you 3 readers a couple of my favorite cartoons? I found them last week surfing some blog I can't remember that was full of cartoons. Too bad I don't remember the site (just spent 15 perfectly good minutes searching). That's a perfect summary of my time spent blogging: 3 minutes surfing or searching, for every productive minute spent blogging. It's a wonder I get anything done at all!

In any case, here goes: My favorite cartoon number 4 (This is a Top 4 List, for the purpose of brevity) has to do with, you guessed it, politics.

My favorite cartoon number 3, is about the new process of internet background checks. The caption that accompanied this cartoon read "JOB APPLICANT UNFAIRLY PENALIZED BY UNEXPUNGED ARREST RECORDS ON THE INTERNET". I had to look at it for awhile before I got the joke.

My favorite cartoon number 2, has to do with science class. I guess Pluto is no longer "lonely little Pluto"!

This is actually pretty revolutionary, I think. I was taught in science class "there are 9 planets in our solar system." How many times did I have to memorize that? A bunch. And the order of the planets? It just goes to show, all knowlege is temporary .... so why bother memorizing? (that's what computers are for, anyways, right?). Oh yeah, don't expect me to remember your phone number, either. That takes me a long time now with cell phones and Palm Pilot.

And my favorite cartoon of the year is, again, political and making fun of the right wingers. I just love the caption on this one. Enjoy!

Death Valley

2006-11-08T23:53:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I had the pleasure of travelling to Death Valley. It was the perfect antidote to too much thinking about politics, and other depressing topics (even though, now I am less depressed about it, than I was before Tuesday the 7th). On the advice of a friend, I signed up for a trip with Green Tortoise adventure travel to see the famous California desert and national park, almost all the way out to Las Vegas from here. Green Tortoise is a local travel company that is well-known around here for providing low-cost multiple-day (and even multiple week) bus trips up and down the West Coast. They also run a hostel in San Francisco, and in Seattle. Apparently they used to cater to the hippie crowd with reliable and low-cost service. Now they cater to the wish-we-were-hippie crowd, I think. (that includes myself) No dope, no walking around naked, no tree worship. On the plus side, though, it was clean, friendly, and comfortable.

I can't say Death Valley is the most spectacular place I've ever seen. But it is definnitely the most desolate. I read somewhere, that Death Valley shares similarities with the Planet Mars, for being so inhospitable to life. But, after spending the last 4 months or so confined to the boundaries of Oakland and San Francisco (with side trips to Napa Valley and suburban Pleasanton), I was only too glad to experience a totally new natural environment, even if it did not include palm trees or swimming pools.

The weather was sunny, hot and dry all 3 days we were there. I worked on my tan, did a little hiking, went into some mineral hot springs, collected some rocks, and learned some stuff about geology (especially about Borax). I still have the rocks - and even, a little salt. Please don't tell the authorities, since my removing rocks from Death Valley probably consitutes some form of petty crime. The following picture is from the sand dunes. We did a little walking around there. It felt good to take the old shoes off.

We cooked in co-op style - that is, everyone took on a task, and helped prepare meals.

Best was probably at night (it got dark around 6). We would sit around talking and drinking, while the bus drivers Tom and Paul did most of the dinner preparation.

It was a very international crowd. About 6 of us were American, the rest Europeans. Thanks to those of you who are from the trip group, and are reading this. You helped make it a great weekend, for me.

Oh, yeah, make sure you watch my video on YouTube, "Sand Surfing". I added music, to get rid of my own annoying narrative voice. Enjoy

UPDATE: I just saw the online photo album of one of the trip participants, Arnaud. His photos are much more impressive than mine.

Democracy Stinks

2006-11-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

You might not believe it, but the San Francisco Chronicle has endorsed Arnold for re-election as governor of California. To me, this is like John Kerry making peace with W. After all, this is the same paper that runs the W.-hating feature columnist Mark Morford! I guess, wonders never do cease.

Apropros politics and elections, I did a little walking these last weeks out east of the Bay Area, to try to help unelect U.S. congressman Richard Pombo (R-Tracy). I don't particularly enjoy ringing people's doorbells on a Saturday afternoon to tell them about a political candidate they should, as responsible citizens, have informed themselves about, and never voted into office in the first place. But, honest to God, there were people I met even in nearby Pleasanton - which I consider to be pretty left-leaning - who had never even heard of Pombo's opponent Jerry McNerney (except maybe through one of the many attack ads currently being run against him).

One person I talked to asked me about McNerney, "is he pro-life or pro-choice"? Like I am going to have a chance of influencing that person's opinion? (Does McNerney get the Catholic pro-choice vote because he's Irish?)

I feel pretty conflicted in this whole thing. On the one hand, there I am doing something I basically don't respect myself for doing (if I were one of the homeowners whose doorbell I was ringing, I would not want to talk to me). On the other hand, my fellow citizens are so NOT informed !!! Like, do you people ever read a major newspaper?

IF I COULD BE GOD

I was talking to my buddy Andy last weekend. I told him, if I could be God, there would be a voter IQ test. As I was explaining above, my fellow Americans are too ignorant to vote (check out the post about the Florida Alzheimer patients in the last election). Hell, I don't pretend to know everything. But what I see, hear and read, is that, voters in this country do not take their responsibility as voters, seriously. They scare me. YOU ALL scare me (unless, you read this blog)

That's why this test is easy. Here are the questions for YOUR VOTER IQ TEST:

"Which country is allied with the U.S. in the Iraq War?"
"Where did we try to bomb Usama Bin Laden to oblivion in 2002?"
"Name 2 candidates that are running for office in your district"
"In which southern state, does the reader also known as 'Crow', live?" (hint: Newt Gingrich comes from there)

Failure to answer 2 of these questions correctly, means you should NOT vote!

I am curious to hear your answers (please see guestbook)

Enemy Combatant

2006-10-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

I spent a number of hours this weekend finishing a book I bought not too long ago, called Enemy Combatant. It is written by Moazzam Begg, who is a Pakistani British citizen, active in Islamic charity causes, who got picked up while living in Islamabad, Pakistan with his family back in 2002 and spent almost 3 years in American captivity - 2 in Guantanamo. Though I have read better pieces of literature, this book is one of the most gripping I've read in in a long time. Perhaps I find it so gripping because it is so believable. In the book, Begg describes a system of U.S. incompetence, in terms of human rights denied, statements contradicted, evidence not revealed, interrogations muffled and even, sadly, cruelty meted out rather arbitrarily towards the people we are holding in cages. He also describes how he ran into U.S. soldiers (mostly low-ranking guards and MPs) who were kind to him, and genuinely showed interest in his background and culture (he speaks english, after all). And, what I found most believable (and can myself remember from my days as a reservist in training) is the constant overkill, in terms of shackling prisoners unnecessarily, roughing them up, assigning teams of guards to one unarmed (even unclothed) detainee, and making them uncomfortable as possible (for instance by never shutting off the lights at night, and playing loud music), in the hopes of "breaking them down". The trouble is, only a few of the many people we are holding as "Enemy Combatants", actually knows anything about Al-Quaeda, or terror cells, or whatever else we are accusing them of.

Here is an NPR link with a radio interview with the former prisoner. If you are not interested in whatever else I have been saying, at least listen to this interview - it's on real audio and takes about 3 minutes.

The book's point to me, and excuse me for sermonizing, is that, when the leadership of this country is so utterly incompetent, and disregardful of human rights we once fought for, and now claim to protect, it has a very strong trickle-down effect "in the system", as even the most low-ranking soldier realizes that despite however badly he screws up, disregards human rights, and dehumanizes prisoners, it really doesn't matter ... because he's just following orders, and the chain of command. My condolences to the Men in Orange, who are wrongfully imprisoned in Bagram, Kandahar, Guantanamo and elsewhere.

End the madness- Impeach Bush! I hope the City of Berkeley passes their ballot proposition to do so.

California's Latest Trend

2006-10-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I visited Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where the "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass" Festival was going on. It's a big collection of bluegrass and country music stars (Ricky Skaggs, Earl Scruggs, Patty Griffin, The Del McCoury Band, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, and many others) that gets together once a year to put on a series of "free" performances in September in San Francisco's biggest city park. I say "free", because actually, a local area bluegrass fan and billionaire, Investment banker Warren Hellman, sponsors the whole thing. And what a grand party it is! Despite the fact that the music is not all that blue-grassy (looking at the artist list above will tell you that much), fans from all over the area (and lots of non-fans as well) converge on the park to enjoy music, companionship, food, beverages, and herbal cigarettes of all kinds. Actually I expected more of the herbs. I was only there for about 3 hrs on Sunday. I heard some band called "Drive By Truckers", booming from mounted speakers, and later, listened to the end of "Del McCoury Band" (much better, it is actual bluegrass music). Finally, Emmylou Harris came on stage to give the send-off. There must have been over 100,000 fans there listening to her (in the back, you couldn't hear much). Overall, it was a good time, and made me feel lucky to be in San Francisco. Especially nice, was riding the MUNI train home afterwards, and not dealing with traffic. San Francisco is one of the few U.S. cities that has an actual functioning tram railway system. I love this investment of local tax dollars.

Wine Country Visit

2006-09-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated the old blog for awhile and no one seems to have missed it. BUT ... I would be remiss if I did not at least provide occasional food for thought, or if you live in some small town in Georgia, or in a larger town in Wisconsin, or an even bigger one in Illinois, a glimpse of the good life we lead here in California.

A few weeks ago my old college roomate Jon and his wife Sissel came to visit from Norway. It was one of their wishes to go up to wine country and relive the movie "Sideways" as much as possible. We did try, in a kind of haphazard way, to accomplish this, but other plans kind of got in the way (like, we tried to do other things in the morning and didn't get going with the wine tasting till 2 p.m.) Nevertheless, it was a really nice Sunday afternoon last weekend, from which I have some pictures to share.

In the picture above, Sissel (Jon's wife) and I are sampling some of the red wine at Roshambo in the Russian River. The visit to this place was recommended by a local. I think they figured, since we were young, we would like it here. Of all the wineries I visited, this place did have the most cocktail-bar like atmosphere, thus allowing us to somewhat relive "Sideways" (minus the extracurriculars). Rochambo has the youngest staff of all the 5 places we visited, and has the hippest music floating down from the ceiling. However, it was not the best wine we tasted, and we were on a tight schedule, so we moved on.

The nice thing about tasting wine where it is made (if possible, I recommend actually eating some grapes off the vines) is you appreciate the work that goes into it. Consider that to make this wine we are tasting, they started out with a bunch of grapes, which are basically a sticky, sugary mess of water, skin, pulp, and seed. The non-liquid component needs to be removed from the mixture in the vats to make the wine (and they don't use their feet either). Then, the wine-chef needs to ferment the wine just right, so that the sugar in the wine turns into alcohol, without the flavor being lost and the wine turning sour. Any "wrong" bacteria in the mixture and the whole lot is spoiled. The whole environment needs to be highly controlled.

In fact wine is probably cheaper than it ought to be (I have read that growing grapes doesn't even turn a profit anymore). A good bottle of wine can be found in some of the vineyards for about $20. (my favorite variety is probably the Zinfandel). Most of the wines we tasted were priced between $18 and $30.

I case you are wondering how we made the pictures, we had the pleasure of riding around Napa valley in a convertible, with the top down (it was a Chrysler Sebring). This was a new experience for me. I can definitely see the attraction of convertibles out here in California, where it never rains between May and November.

So, next time one of you 3 readers of this blog comes out here to visit, make sure you rent the convertible, and call me up so we can go back up to Napa!

You Tube?

2006-09-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

I did a little trolling of blogspot (you can do it too, just click "next blog" at the top right of this screen). After a few uninteresting examples I came upon one I found somewhat strange but interesting. I noticed it (and some other blogs) contained video samples. The thumbnail screen says "You Tube". What is "You Tube"? I checked w/ my friend google. He sent me to You Tube Central. I guess You Tube is just a service for promoting your own video. Hey I can do that! (but I need equipment first)

So here are 4 "You Tube" videos I'd like to introduce. Apparently none of them are real new.

The first is the video "I'm Not Missing You" by Stacie Orrico.

I am only posting it because I don't watch music videos anymore so I thought, wow, this is what I've been missing these last 4 years since I watched videos (on MTV in Germany). This particular video reminded me of a relationship I used to be in. Except my girlfriend didn't sing, and she wasn't a glamgirl like Statie (but she did play the guitar). Also, this video reminded me of how old I am. When I was the age of the girl in that video, I think I was still washing dishes at Stemmler's Restaurant in Thiensville, and not posting videos on You Tube (or even making them - I think I was playing video games and working most of the time)

The second video is from the You Tube site and is called "Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years." I guess this particular video has gotten a lot of "i-play" (I just made that word up). I think mostly, from girls who think Noah is cute. Otherwise, what the hell is the point of watching a guy's face for such a long time? (I actually was interested to see if he would age, but got bored after 2 minutes looking at him)

Then there is a pretty good "anti-Noah" video which some fat guy made (excuse my political incorrectness). I liked this video. It made me laugh (but the music was not as nice as Noah's soundtrack). That guy could be more funny if he edited better.

My favorite video I watched tonight though was called "Impression Skills." Whoever that guy is, he is really funny.

So how much time did I just cause you to lose? Just wondering.

Half Dome Rock, The Aftermath

2006-08-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Oakland now and glad I made it to Half Dome Rock on Saturday last weekend. It was quite a trek.

Half Dome rock is actually just the "tip of the iceberg", as it were, in terms of being the last, imposing piece of a long, somewhat arduous trek up the mountain. The total elevation gain is about 5,000 feet. However, long sections of the trail are not very steep and easily walkable by anything with reasonable health. The tricky parts are the steep staircase ascending Vernal Falls / Nevada Falls, and the last part - the cable-walk up the rock to the summit.

In the picture above, me and the hiking group podr in front of Vernal Falls, on the way up to Half Dome Rock. Josette is taking the picture. Behind us begins the steep stone staircase that leads up to the top of the falls and beyond. The stone stairs (I don't have any pictures of these) were originally constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps - that great socialist experiment of President Roosevelt - in 1934.

Anyways, to get back to my story. Before we left last week, I looked at some pictures a friend sent to me and began having serious doubts if I was going to make it. Especially the cable-walk near the top had me thinking this might not work out.

In the picture at left, Andy poses in front of the steel cables that are strung up to the top of Half Dome. These cables have been there since 1919, I learned. There were so many people going up and down last Saturday that we had to wait a considerable time at this spot.

However, with gradual uphill walking, combined with egging from some of my friends, all obstacles were overcome. All 5 of us who started the walk finished it on top of the rock. My friends then proceeded to give me grief for expressing doubs. Sometimes you can't win ...

Picture of 3 of us on the summit, looking over Yosemite Valley.

During the walk up and down the mountain, we were surrounded by people of all ages going up the same way. Mainly they were in their 20s and 30s, but we saw plenty of people in their 40s and even older doing the ascent. Overall, though, it was a lot more people than I am used to seeing on any hiking trail. It was almost like going to the amusement park or the zoo in places. This would be my only complaint about the trail. Otherwise it was excellent.

By the way, my left knee is telling me I better not do anymore hikes like that for a long while...

Half Dome Rock

2006-08-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

This is the rock I want to climb next weekend with some friends.

Well, actually, we're not going to be "climbing", in the sense that we will be walking, and not scaling, the mountain. There is a well-known trail that goes up the back side...

The climb starts in the valley near Happy Isles Nature Center (4035 ft.) and ends at the top of half dome rock (8836). There is a good description of the trail I found using google on the web.

I have done very little aerobic excercise the last weeks (besides riding my bicycle to work and back), so it will be interesting to see how I and my friends fare.

We want to climb up the whole way on Saturday and then back down. And then we have to find campsites... !

Since this is the most popular trail in the park, and Yosemite is so full of people in the summertime, we could not obtain the needed wilderness permit to camp anywhere near Half Dome. Therefore we will probably have to drive all the way out of the park again to find a spot!

You would think with all the space in Yosemite, finding a place to camp would not be so hard. But, not on a weekend in summertime, apparently!

Well, either way, I'm sure it will be a great experience.

We thought we had problems

2006-08-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

This whole Middle Eastern war has me down. I would like to say something clever and funny about the whole mess, but then, there is nothing clever and funny about it. Just sadness, and cruelty. You think you have problems? How about this Lebanese guy in a wheelchair.

Last Friday, I bought a bicycle off of craigslist. Now imagine, how would I ride my fancy bike (even if it is 10 years old, it is still fancy by my standards) in a war zone?

We should feel lucky for roads that are not full of rubble.

On that positive note, I have a poem I'd like to share. It was written by a friend of mine in Milwaukee, John Dubord, who runs a food pantry (Friedens', on Vliet). John is a retired printing executive, Catholic priest, and now, a non-profit director and community activist. Please respond with your comments.

BAGHDAD

He sits, then he stands, hot as
Spit on an angry lip
And doesn’t know how come he rages.

He jettisons his pasts, a pilot
Heading for the crash that comes
At any moment
He jettisons his dreams, and now
The pilot is a Kamikazee.
He casts his planning overboard,
Zips his vest of hand grenades up to his
Chin and enters through the hole.

Outside the hole the dog is dragging by,
Rear legs in the air,
Front legs pawing past the wormholes
In the grass that wipes the ass that
Itches.
The dog surely doesn’t know,
The dog just pulls itself to some
Distraction, satisfaction,
Till the itching goes.

The young man plunges through the hole
And lunges for the trigger,
Just a finger-pull inside his pocket,
Hoping he can focus on the heavenly delights
Until it detonates, he leaves in vapor,
No where angry any more.

It's the End of the World As We Know It ... and here's why

2006-07-31T08:41:00.000-07:00

Last week I got a brochure in the mail. Like all brochures, I threw it in the growing pile of my unread mail. Well, yesterday I finally got around to looking at it. The title of the brochure was "What's Next? - Are You Prepared?" I thought this had to do with preparing for the next big earthquake, which is expected to happen sometime soon. So I thought, finally, the local government is being proactive. They are taking steps to ensure everybody knows what to do in case of an earthquake. Of course, I could also be living on a remote desert island, stranded with Claudia Schiffer.

Not to disparage Oakland anymore than it already has been, but this was not a case of good local government. Instead it was yet another example of an obscure religious organization with money which seeks to influence impressionable and uneducated people. This brochure explains all natural calamities and tragic occurences of the past decade or so in terms of the Bible, particularly placing the blame for everything bad on "Satan". Here is an excerpt:

"While appearing to the children of men as a great physician ... he will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations .... in every place and in a thousand forms, is Satan exercising his power."

Satan in Oakland? True, we have some bad crime rates. In fact, I am scared to walk around alone at night in a lot of areas. But, if I were to get mugged, something tells me they're after my wallet, not my soul. The authors of this brochure do not understand the East Bay. Despite tbe presence of some sect-like churches (like my own), this is not what I would call a "god-fearing community". So why do they send us stuff like this? Here are 3 possible answers.

1) People will always look for "the easy answer" to their problems
2) Some churches use #1 to their advantage
3) Paper is too cheap in the Unites States

Solution:
1) multiply the price of paper by, say, 3 times
2) repeal tax-exempt status for all "non traditional" churches that have enough money to send out "free" info-propaganda (i.e. if they're rich enough to send me a brochure, why are my tax dollars supporting them?)

Something tells me the Scientologists are behind this. Then again, there was no picture of the egomaniac L. Ron Hubbard in this brochure.

Next cult please?

Lake Seseganaga (Northwest Ontario)

2006-07-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I went on my first ever fishing trip to Canada. It was with some cousins from Minnesota and Ohio to a place in northwestern Ontario called Lake Seseganaga. My cousins have been doing this for about 8 years with their sons and know the lake well (it's a huge lake, with thousands upon thousands of acres of water). The closest town to the area that is listed on the Internet is Sioux Lookout. We passed it on our way in from Minneapolis. Here is a map of the trip route we took.

Note that the lakes up there are accessible only by plane. The geography of the region prevents good roads from being built. So we rode a 1944 prop plane 20 minutes to the lodge and back. It was pretty neat, even though I didn't always feel that safe. But, whenever I got a feeling up being unsafe, I just thought of how many trips this plane had made since 1944, and that this could not be its most dangerous or its last one.

The area up there was formed by glaciers and looks pretty unspoiled - at least, until you see the cleared patches of forest. There are areas of water 10-40 feet deep (in some places down to 100 feet), separated by limestone rocks and cliffs and a mossy type of vegetation and soil.

The fishing at Ses Lodge, as we call it, was pretty good. I would not say this lake has never been fished - we pulled out fish that had hooks and jigs in their mouths from previous encounters - but it certainly has a healthy population of game fish, guaranteeing pretty much anyone with the right tackle a couple of large adult fish every day (or more, depending on skill and conditions). Speaking of skill, we ended up catching 75% of the fish (mainly walleye) on jigs tipped with minnows (the leeches didn't seem to be bringing them in this year). All the rest of the tackle we bought (mainly at Cabela's giant super store near Minneapolis) was not used. However, the Rapala deep tail dancer lure - a balsa wood imitation minnow which dives to the depth of 30 feet - was the one that brought in Roman's trophy northern on the third and last day of fishing.

Speaking of which, the best fish story was no doubt Roman's trip record northern pike. We were trolling around a certain spot that the lodge owner had pointed out as being a good area to catch fish. We were talking about relatives we both know, just passing time, when Roman's rod bent double and he said "this one is a fish" (often when you're trolling you don't know if you have a fish or a snag). Seeing how he was bending the rod so hard to pull the thing out of the water, I got my net ready. The fish seemed very tired. Roman did not lose much on the drag. He was using "spider wire" which no doubt did make a difference in how fast he could reel it into the boat. The fish was pretty exhausted by the time it reached us. When the fish saw the boat, and we saw the fish, we were at first kind of dumbstruck at seeing such a large thing attached to a fishing line (it was after all almost 4 feet long!) The fish then dove once, and not very far away. When it came back to the boat, it paused next to us. I leaned over with the net and "scooped" it into the boat like a bale of hay. It flopped around a bit until we managed to pin it down. Both of us were breathing pretty hard.

The next task, getting the lure hooks out of this large fish's mouth, seemed like it would be tricky. But luckily, this one had not really swallowed the lure too much (also I think it's easier to remove hooks from bigger mouths). I then took the honorary photo of the fish.

Roman put this one back in the water and went about reviving it. It took a long time - like 15 minutes. Long live the great northern!

In the end, we caught a total of 181 fish. For all 6 people, that averaged 30 fish per person (or 10 per day, more or less). With concentration and effort we could have caught more (using the fish finder more, less trolling / more jigging, etc.) But it was not all about the number of fish. We were sometimes trophy-hunting, sometimes trying to catch lunch, and sometimes, sleeping in the boat (Matt). The last day we wanted to fill our limit, esp. for walleyes, which are good eating fish. Here is a picture of that night's catch (I am holding up both my fish and my boat partner's) :

What other animals did we see? Unfortunately, no moose or caribou, which apparently sometimes like to swim across sections of the lake. However, we did see plenty of loons (which are loud at night - makes you think of wolves), a couple deer and a bald eagle. One day, one of the boats threw back a small injured northern, which was on its way to expiring in the water (we tried to avoid this happening but invariably it does, esp. with barbed treble hooks). Anyways, after about 3 minutes, the bald eagle dove from the sky and plucked the 14 inch fish right out of the water. An impressive sight.

Well, those are my fish stories for the summer. I would like to hear some of yours!

World Cup Wrap-up

2006-07-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Sports Fans,

I would like to publicly apologize for belittling the Germany team 3 weeks ago in my last post on this blog. Since then they have proven me quite wrong. Not only did the team play entertaining soccer, as I first gave them credit for, they established themselves as legitimate contenders, which I did not at first believe possible.

Furthermore, after watching several games in which the German team was not involved (several games involving Portugal and Italy), I will give that team further credit for not "flopping" around on the field whenever they wanted to slow down the action. This habit seems to have gotten around like a bad virus and many teams, including the now-world-champion Italian squad, seem to be employing it as legitimate strategy. It was also refreshing to watch the German team play well and not complain to the ref at every call that went against them (well, they did maybe complain a little, like all teams will, but not overly so). Good job to Juergen Klinsmann, their new coach and to the players.

As to today's final match, I watched it at the French Consulate in San Francisco. This is a building right downtown in the Financial Distric (Bush Street, next to the Goethe Institute). I was invited to go along by a friend who may eventually read this blog so I will refrain from too much honesty (because I might want to go again next time there is a soccer game being shown there!) It was quite a patriotic celebration, with seemingly all the French expatriates in the Bay Area turning up (there were about 200 people there - and I'm sure there are many more expatriates, too, I just don't see them). People were whistling and yelling like they were at the real game. I could not however bring myself to join in the chant "Allez les Blues". I object to all patriotic chants and anthems, including our own. And the host consulate, once it finally opened its doors to the impatient crowd on the street, even gave us complimentary snacks and beverages, which I appreciate.

To get to the action on the screen, that is, on the field: the game started out really sloppy, with the French star Henry having to recuperate with smelling salts from a mild collision on the field in the 2nd minute. The Italians were trying to be too much gentlemen, or whatever, I thought, and dilly-dallied in this situation. Then soon after, the French regathered and in one of the first attacks their striker basically flopped down in the box. The ref awarded a penalty kick, which Zidane (the big star, more on that later) converted. I was at first mad that the ref made such a bad call, even though the hosts at the French consulate were ectastic. However, I was glad soon after, when the Italians finally started to play serious soccer to catch up to the French lead. They scored eventually, in about the 20th minute, to make it 1:1, and I thought this would be a good match all the way through. However by about the 30th minute, I was disappointed, with both sides, especially the Italians, simply kicking the ball back and forth with no real threat on goal. The game went into overtime after 90 minutes still tied 1:1. Then in overtime, the French kept trying to press, and the Italians got tired and simply stood around playing defense, which they did very well.

Eventually then, the confrontation happened which I'm sure everyone who gives one iota of a hoot about soccer has read about. Materazzi, the Italian man of the match, started to trash talk to Zidane while patting him on the belly. I believe those soccer players have gotten quite slick at trash talking nice and quiet, like talking to their girlfriends. In any case, Zidane eventually lost his cool and head-butted Materazzi, which though we may never know for sure, I believe he fully deserved. On the udder hand, though, Zidane did himself and his country a diservice by taking his revenge right there on the field. It was like inviting bad karma, I thought, to do that, and the French eventually lost in the dreaded penalty kick.

This made me think of Charles Barkley, the basketball player we Milwaukee fans used to love to hate turned fun-guy basketball TV commentator. I believe it was "Sir Charles" who in a famous quote once said, "I am not a role model". I wonder if Zidane will say anything like this. What a way to go out.

I have this daydream now, which involves Zidane helping coach some school kids, or something nice in a little French town, and then one of the smart-ass kids does an imitation of the Zidane head-butt. I don't think he'll ever live it down.

Overall it was a pretty ugly match, which I did not particularly enjoy watching. However, the operatic drama of it all certainly did entertain me. I'm interested to hear what my 2 readers think!

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article about the Germany v. Poland soccer match

2006-06-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

I took some time off of work today to watch the soccer match between the national teams of Germany v. Poland in the world cup. Germany won the match 1:0. Though I enjoyed watching, and both teams gave a good effort, I was not particularly impressed by either team. I've watched highlights and periods from several games in this world cup, and particularly the teams from Brazil, Croatia and Czech Republic impressed me as "world class". Germany, on the other hand, have a decent team, are young and play entertaining soccer. However, no objective fan would confuse them with real contenders.

Just to give you an idea of the hype surrounding the German team's current success (they won their first two matches so far against mediocre teams, in my opinion), I translated the first part of an article from the well-known paper "Frankfurter Allgemeine", which is sort of like the German version of NY Times.

The original article in German can be read here.

"Great Performance, Great Ecstasy"

"The easy win against Costa Rica had a light aftertaste, the hard-won success against Poland, on the other hand, gives (Germany) a lot of hope for this World Cup. The 1:0 in the 2nd match of the national squad was a first-class soccer game with enormous intensity, a lot of tempo, tactical discipline and countless chances. Since the Confederations Cup in the past summer, the team of trainer Jürgen Klinsmann has not delivered such a convincing performance. And just like a year ago, the team is being greeted by great enthusiasm in the stands and in the whole country.

Because the Polish eleven, who needed a victory at all costs, were a good opponent, this victory is worth even more. Even without the goal by Oliver Neuville in the after-time (91st minute), the national eleven deserves great praise. The opponents from all over the world will have been watching with surprise at their TV screens. Such a presentation by the German side was not expected by anyone...."

You may think, that's great, the Germans are proud of their team. You might even think they're being nationalistic as usual (my experience is Germans are patriotic but tend to hide it usually). And it's true, Germany usually has little reason to cheer for anything ("cheering" kind of goes against the cultural character, you could say). So the soccer team playing well in the world cup in their own country is then a good reason to get excited.

What surprises me, though, is the belief that the people, including friends of mine, over there appear to have, that their team might be a "contender". C'mon - get real! The German soccer team, as much as they are fun to watch, is ranked 19th in the world. Even if you gave them a few spots for playing at home, they certainly aren't in the top 10. This tournament will be over early in the 2nd round for the host country. I just hope they can deal with the dissapointment!

Big City Adventures, Part 1

2006-06-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

A new series in adventure writing. The intrepid traveler never stops exploring.

We start with a bike trip to South Milwaukee.

Conditions:
2 days before Memorial Day 2006. 88 degrees, hot, muggy. Air conditioning weather. Boy do I not miss that, living off the Pacific Ocean.

Pre Departure:
The adventure team meets at their embarking point: Mabbet Ave. Milwaukee. Objective: explore Lake Michigan coastline. Map and navigate new, unexplored territory. Dangers: treacherous potholes, manhole covers, flying Frisbees.

Phase 1
The adventure team gets on their bikes. Mechanical problems surface on mile 1. Kent's bike is about 3 sizes too small. Knees banging elbows. Decision was made to continue despite this difficulty.

First landmark are the condominiums north of South Shore Park. Not known if inhabited. Many rollerbladers and strollers in the area, though.

Phase 2
The adventure team continues. Mechanical problems negligible. Yury showing signs of impatience at having to constantly stop to make observations. We see a bird with a cool red mark on its chest. I quickly document it for the trip journal.

It is vitally important that I photograph all wildlife while exploring new territory.

We approach our destination: south shore park.

This looks like virgin unexplored territory ... if you don't count the lawnmower in the background.

Phase 3
We bushwack our way south through the park. Have to detour and dodge large trees and barbecue grills. Finding a peaceful spot, we stop for water, only to be surprised by a foreign observer.

He pretends to read his book while he spies on us!

Safe Return ... or Not
It's been a long day, and the adventurers are exhausted. The heat saps our last energy as we stumble back to the embarking point.

This has been an exhilarating experience. The adventure continues.

Air Pollution Workshop

2006-05-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

This week it's time to reflect what being a Tree-hugger can mean.

Last weekend was the "big event" I had been helping plan for about 6 months on behalf of the Sierra Club. We called it the "West Oakland Air Pollution Workshop." The idea was to focus some community attention on the issue of air pollution, which in Oakland, has not been getting as much attention as I felt it deserved. Basically I felt the club was ignoring the issue, so I promoted this event and got "tasked" to organize it. And what do you get for volunteering? A lot of work!

Needless to say, I was happy when it was over on Saturday. The participants included some local regulatory bigshots. For instance, the director of an agency called the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, or BAAQMD for short. He came and spoke with all the folks in the room, including one community activist type who came to the event, it seemed, for the sole purpose of venting steam at the director. It may have been a legitimate gripe - I'm still not sure. Better not to dig too deep there ...

The rest of the speakers either conducted short presentations (the first two speakers) or participated in panel discussions. The presentations on air pollution focused on topics such as why it's bad to live close to a major road in the bay area, or, where are all the toxics sites in West Oakland (and why you wouldn't want to bring up small children there). It was very informative. Actually, sometimes I get the feeling it's not a good idea to pay too much attention to these presentations or statistics. After all, we are all living with a certain amount of pollution, so why trouble the mind or make oneself feel bad for living where one lives? If you think about it, though, if no one is scaring the public and the regulatory directors, then little motivation for action exists ... right?

A small success in this event is it gave the Sierra Club a little PR.
The club is regarded in environmental circles as somewhat stodgy and "white" (due to the fact, perhaps, that a lot of the club's activity centers around legal action). We were trying to counter this image. Never mind that all the people who came from the club, with one exception (my co-organizer Margaret) fit this description. The main thing was, to sponsor the event, to plan it, and just do it.

One of the presenters at the beginning, Azibuike Akaba / Cal EPA, explains the dynamics of toxicity in West Oakland (shown on map). Note the empty seats. Too bad we couldn't get more people to show up. If you want to have a hard sales job, try motivating the public to spend 4 hours on a May Saturday listening to people - even good speakers like Azibuike here - talk about air pollution!

I moderated two panel discussions featuring local activists or regulators. It was challening trying to manage a discussion where everyone had a lot to say...

On a side note, I am reading a really good book with environmental themes at the moment. It is called Garbage Land, by Elizabeth Royte. Discusses the "trail of trash" that we are leaving as a society as we move from the recycling-friendly 90s into an era where we have become the world's leading trash exporter. Pick up a copy at your local bookstore. You will not be disappointed!

Can you afford to retire? on PBS Frontline

2006-05-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

I saw an excellent documentary tonight on PBS' Frontline titled "Can you afford to retire?" It started by examining the case of United Airlines in the post-9/11 recession. United was deep in debt and declared bankruptcy. Using its bankruptcy status as leverage, it was able to extract more than $3 billion in concessions from employees in their pay, benefits, and retirement. Plus, it slashed retirement checks to currently retired workers by 1/3. The most shocking thing to me was, that the bankruptcy agreement which the lawyers prepared for United guarantees that all the creditors (meaning the big banks) got paid back all their money, plus interest, plus fees. The laywers, of course, got theirs. It was estimated that "professional fees" for guiding United through retirement (i.e. payments to lawyers) was $400 million. So, the final equation ... banks make billions, lawyers millions, workers get shafted. Sounds pretty much like Reaganomics to me.

The show then went on to examine the current model of retirement in place at many companies. It seems most Americans, IF they are lucky to have any retirement benefits at all, are relying on their 401K plan (where the company contributes some sort of dollar for dollar amount) for their retirement. Company-sponsored "retirement plans" are history. My company, the HMO Kaiser Permanente, has some sort of retirement plan. I guess I should feel lucky that I qualify. What I found interesting on Frontline was the analysis of data from current holders of 401Ks age 55-65. The top wage earners manage their money better. So, they are getting 20-30% annual returns in their funds. The "bottom" wage earners, those in the $35-$50 K annual salary range, manage their money worse. They are making like 5% a year. So, the rich get richer. What a great system.

All I can say is, if you read this blog, and you vote Republican, then watch Frontline every week (here it shows Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. usually). Then tell me in a year if you are still a Republican voter. And I hope you manage your money well.

Press Corps Dinner

2006-05-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

You may have heard the talking heads talking about the press corps dinner last weekend in which an impersonator (his name is Steve Bridges I found out) got up on the podium alongside President Bush, and gave a "dual speech" with the President, followed by Steven Colbert making fun of everybody, especially the president. Someone I know forwarded me the link to the video of the dinner (on google video). I watched about 1 hour of it - far too much - and didn't like Colbert, but thought the Pres' was actually funny. Go figure. Usually I just cringe every time that man opens his mouth.

The most interesting segments I thought were actually at the beginning, when they showed footage from previous press corps dinners going all the way back to JFK. Seems like all the presidents could be funny, at one moment or the other. Clinton's crack about Jay Leno was pretty good. I also thought Lyndon Johnson was funny. Well I guess even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while....

World Cup Soccer schedule

2006-05-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

The soccer world cup is right around the corner and no one seems to be noticing. This year, we even have a good team (ranked #4 in the world). But all the people talk about around here is the 49ers NFL draft!

Well, I for one, am glad the public will be getting so see some of the world cup games on ABC, as well as other tournament games on cable (ESPN and ESPN2). Since the games are all between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., I will do my best to ignore all internet sports results and instead watch the taped matches when I get home. For the official schedule go here. Fortunately, I won't have to watch FC Bayern München once again beat everybody, since they're not even in the tournament. (some of their players are, though) My early picks to win it all: Argentia, Brazil (as always), England, Czech Republic, Italy, and maybe, just maybe, the home team Germany will squeak into the finals again ...

Redcross filmfest

2006-05-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had some time to surf again. I had an email in my inbox from RedCross.com and decided to check them out. They are doing a short filmfest and are asking the public to evaluate the films. It's worth a look if you are in the mood for some quick entertainment and like creative filmmaking. The first two short films - from Atlanta and L.A. - really stood out. The rest of them were, well, so-so - at least in my opinion. I think the characters really make a movie. The "Donut or Donate" movie is absolutely hilarious and had me laughing out loud at my computer.

In other news, I seem to have finally found a group I can play basketball here in Oakland with, without having to join an expensive gym. They meet Thurday nights in Rockridge and generally are around my age (late 20s to late 30s). Most of them kick my butt in hoops, but I can play some good "D" when I am motivated. Long arms and legs help. It does cost $10 a night, so I am playing it week-to-week for the time being.

Lots going on in local politics. There is the local mayoral election in June, which is turning into a 3-way horse race between 3 candidates who pretty much span the ethnic and gender spectrum here. We have the hispanic patriarch (Ignacio De La Fuente), the dark horse she-candidate (Nancy Nadel) and an african-american 60s-era political star, Ron Dellums (he served many years in Washington as a congressman). It looks at the moment like Dellums has a slight advantage. I saw them debate a couple weeks past and was impressed with Nancy Nadel.

Interesting that in Oakland, aging "stars" like Dellums and Jerry Brown (our current mayor) can so easily get elected mayor - and would want the job!

Last night, I was the M.C. at our speech club's panel discussion on impromptu speaking. This was not an especially difficult assignment, since the panelists did most of the talking. I got to try my cooking skills, though, which was the main organizational challenge for me. I am proud to say, the "quick and easy crostini" black olive toasties came out well and were quite the hit. You can read the recipe exclusively here, on Kent's blog.

Lastly, someone who occasionally reads this blog asked to see more Hawaii pictures. For you, my highly unloyal readership, I am posting a few more shots from Oahu. Hey, would someone fill up my guestbook please! I was actually debating shutting this blog down, but Godfather Jerry has convinced me to keep the thing going a little while longer.

On my day travelling alone, I visited the famous Hanauma Bay state park, which is kind of a snorkeler's paradise.

I took a swim in some muddy water near a waterfall with my cousin's girls. Here Sally is running away from me. That's JUST my experience lately with women!

Even following a garbage truck, you feel like you're in paradise, with all the lush green vegetation surrounding you.

- End -

Sun, finally

2006-04-18T23:55:00.000-07:00

Today we finally got some lasting sunshine. Actually, the nice weather started yesterday. Just in time for the workweek. Of course, had I still been living in Germany, I would have had a 4 day Easter weekend and could have started working on my California tan yesterday. Oh, well. Funny, how in this society, where more people observe religious holidays, fewer people actually get vacation to observe them.

With the turn in the weather, my bike rides to work and back have become noticeably more pleasant. Before, that is, during the last 2-3 months, I had to don or carry some sort of protective clothing whenever I left the house. This was to either avoid the rain falling out of the sky, or the dirt my bike tires kick up from below. Sometime during winter, I did manage to put on fenders on the bike (though I screwed that up pretty badly), and that does help.

Regarding my bike ride to work: I live almost exactly 2 miles from my office, so getting to work on a bicycle is not that tiresome. In fact, in the morning, I actually am faster on my bike than people who start around my house in a car are getting downtown (I've measured). It's due to a) the fact I live on a hill, and my entire ride to work is mostly going downhill and b) contruction projects around Lake Merrit, where they're building a big new catholic church, which limits the numbers of lanes cars can travel on. I like to pedal right next to the orange pylons, on the "illegal" side, where the cars can't go. This lets me slide past the downtown Oakland traffic jam (which is pretty tame compared to what people fact on the local highways and bridges). I enjoy this little "cat and mouse" game I play with regular commuters. Of course, they may be rooting for me to go faster. Who knows. Maybe they enjoy sitting in their car in the morning, listening to the radio and drinking coffee.

1) The intersection of Harrison St. and Bayo Vista Ave., one block from my house. From here, almost the whole way is down-hill.

2) Harrison St. / Grand Ave. You can see the cars ahead stalled next to the contruction site where they're building the catholic cathedral. To the right you can see the orange rubber pylons. I know they're rubber, because sometimes I run into those on my bike. I can usually get between those pylons and the construction equipment. The construction guys usually give me space. So far, none of them has spoken to me.

3) Harrson St. / 20th St. The tall building in the background is my office building. I work there on the 7th floor (1800 Harrison).

If parking were free at my job, I too would be sorely tempted to do the environmentally bad thing and drive to work. However, I have to pay for parking (I think currently it's about $8 a day), so the choice is easy. I've become a dedicated bike commuter. With those savings, I can drink 2 glasses of beer a day at my local bar, the Kerry House on Piedmont Ave.

Oahu

2006-04-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I finally got to visit the island of Oahu (Hawaii). My cousin John and his family have been living out there for about 1 1/2 years now. He is a doctor for the Army. I would say, if there is a great place to serve your country, then it's in Hawaii. We enjoyed boat rentals, island tours and acquarium visits (not to mention PX shopping) at reduced military rates. (The island is otherwise quite pricey). When I got to the airport, John greeted me with a lei, which is Hawaiian for flower necklace (I think). Thank you, John. And thank you Joanne, for all your work, and for the bag lunches and for being Mom!

My cousin's family and kids during our outing to the beach

Hawaii is definitely a wonderful place to be a kid. Where else can you go to the beach and swim, any day of the year? It's true, they did just have a long period of rain ... but after I got there, it gradually cleared up. I went snorkeling twice, which is enjoyable, even though I did forget my contact lenses (I am nearsighted). Snorkeling is great, but I suppose if you do it many times, it could get boring. I kept cutting my feet because I was too lazy to bring snorkel shoes (and what are you supposed to do with your shoes when you want to put the flippers on?)

During a day tour on Monday (my 3rd day there), I learned about the island chain. I wasn't aware that major settlement of Hawaii didn't occurr till about 1000 A.D.. Or, that the largest ethnic group of Oahu's residents are Asian (not Polynesian, and not white). Basically, it's a big mix of people. There are also several colleges and schools in Honolulu. I wish I'd been there before I went to college!

Here's a morsel for my show-me-booty-or-give-me-death readers. I forgot to zoom in!

Moscone Center

2006-03-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was in the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco Monday and Tuesday this week for the SUGI, the SAS User Group International. This is basically a computer software conference hosted by SAS Institute - the "world's largest privately held software company" - which makes software devoted to the analysis of data. Their software is good, and I use it for my job, so I will refrain from comments and snide remarks ...

In any case, SAS threw out some serious dough for this conference. I attended the opening session on Sunday evening. After Oscar-like presentations by the CEO and directors (complete with very colorful backlighting on a huge soundstage in front of an audience of 5,000) they had perform, if I remember it correctly, the Japanese drummers to highlight Japantown, the 3 Tenors (I couldn't see Pavarotti but they were professionals) to introduce "Little Italy", i.e. "North Beath" neighborhood, and the lead singer from Jefferson Starship, Mickey Thomas (who sang "We Built This City"). I'd say I enjoyed the 3 tenors most. It was humorous to see the entertainers trying their best - and they gave it a good effort - to get 5,000 statistical programmers and data analysts like myself "pumped up" about the software we use. The place was rockin' indeed!

Then, on Monday morning as I arrived to the conference, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, and turned around to see ... my old supervisor from Kohl's Department stores from 1999! I hadn't seen him for years. That was kind of a shock. I kind of left that place in a hurry back in the beginning of 2000 only to find myself in a dead-end IT project in Germany, wishing I'd been more careful. Well, he seemed to have forgotten about it. Maybe because of this encounter, I went and watched Kohls' presentation to the assembled audience later on (today). They talked a lot about their campaign to use computer analytic tools from SAS to put the right size products on their shelves. I was more interested in what systems they used and how they implemented them. More of the engineering stuff, you could say. But, in front of the audience of mostly retail employees, they revealed precious little that I could use in my job here. Oh well...

The conference goes on tomorrow but I think I've had my fill of seminars and tutorials. It's a luxury of my job that I can go to these things but even they have their limit. I look forward to a regular day at the office tomorrow.

My Coldest Winter (Part 3)

2006-03-22T22:28:00.000-08:00

This is the last entry I will write for now about the winter of 1994. It was a good mental excercise for me to write this. Actually, I wrote it sometime late last fall. I guess I was in a mood to excercise some old demons. Well, I think I've sufficiently bored you with it, so here is the last part. As it begins, I am desperately searching around Dinkytown, near the U of M in Minneapolis, for an apartment under $250 a month, in the dead of winter.

6. My First “Apartment”

Eventually, I found an apartment. It was a room in a 3-bedroom apartment. Since I was in such a rush, I found the place in the morning, called the owner, and on his verbal agreement moved in the same afternoon. My 2 roommates were both home. They were surprised anyone would be moving in these temperatures.

The apartment didn't actually consist of 3 bedrooms. It was about 700 square feet divided between 4 rooms. My room was created by putting in a thin sheet of drywall in the middle of a larger room. One half was the common room, with the T.V., two dirty leather couches, and a coffee table. My room was the other half. If someone was talking on the telephone in the living room, I could hear through the drywall what the person was saying, and usually, some of what the person he was speaking to was saying, as well. That's how paper-thin the wall was.

The guys I was about to live with couldn't be any different - at least, on the surface. Jeff worked at Kinko's. He had the late shift, and came home sometime around 1. Then he would watch movies, or play them, for the rest of the night. He always had the volume cranked up. I don't know how he slept. The other roommate (I don't remember his name) worked at an electronics store, in addition to being a student at the U. He was from Nigeria, and easy going. Most of the time, he hung out with his friends, and enjoyed watching and sometimes playing basketball – often in the living room. At that time, Glenn Robinson was finishing his senior year at Purdue, and Voshon Lenard was at Minnesota. I knew all about the college athletes, because my roommate was watching them on TV all the time. I sometimes joined him. It was a way to pass the time.

One other thing about these first roommates and that was they didn't like to clean up their food, their plates, or their trash. I don't mean to rant about them, since I'm far from perfect in this category, and besides I don't believe in ranting about people in your past. These roommates later proved to be good guys. However, I am trying to give you an idea how I lived. The apartment often smelled of hamburgers or some greasy food that the other guys had eaten and not cleaned up. I suppose this was kind of good for me. I couldn't afford hamburgers, you see, and seeing and smelling stale, greasy leftovers made me permanently lose my appetite for fast food. I lived on a diet of rahmen noodles, sometimes complimented by broccoli and a hot dog. As a luxury, I might enjoy a bottle of the cheapest beer I could get (at the time, it was a brand called Black Label).

7. Looking for Work

After a couple weeks of hunting around, I still hadn't found even a temporary job. January is not the best time of year to be looking for work in the upper Midwest. Back in 1993, we were still coming out of recession. There wasn't much demand for college students with liberal arts degrees. I know I wasn't alone.

One day I finally did get a call from the temporary staffing company. I should come in to meet the client. The office was in the western suburbs, far from where I lived near the University. So I got in my Pinto, and drove it out of the city. I didn't like to drive this car anymore. I knew it was a safety hazard, for me, and for the other people on the road. Anyways, that day I happen to leave the lights on after I got to the office where I was meeting the staffing person. After a short meeting (I forget what the outcome was, but I wasn't in any great mood when I came out), I came back in the parking lot to see the disheartening sight of barely illuminated headlights someone had left switched on. This was of course my own black Pinto. When a person finally agreed to help me jumpstart the car, we hooked up the cables together. I remember it was a lady, a really nice person. However, neither she nor I knew much about cars, I think. I got in my car and turned on the ignition. Smoke started to appear. There were sparks. I turned off the key and ran back around to look in the hood. The car was dead. Black wire cables were smoking and the distinct smell of burning rubber cable hung in the air. The car was pretty much a wreck. I had the nearest tow agency come and pick it up. They agreed to take it for free. Though I knew it woud be a hardship for me, I felt relieved in a way. My choices were being made for me.

8. General Mills

So now I was, in addition to being jobless, carless. I began to appreciate the availability of public transportation. I used the bus system in Minneapolis a lot that winter. Eventually, I found a temporary job in the west suburbs of the city, working at General Mills. I would have to take one bus from my apartment at the university to downtown. There was a transfer station there for those who had to get to work in the suburbs. You had to wait out in the cold, I remember. Either this was to discourage people from riding the bus, or, more likely, to discourage poor people from hanging around the bus stations. My total commute, including the bus rides (when they were on schedule) was something 1 hour 20 minutes.

The last leg of my daily trip to work at General Mills was from the parking lot to the inside of the building. This was a significant walk, actually. I don't how many people worked at this complex, but it was probably something like 10,000. Remember, this is the company that supplies the world with such products as Cheerios, Trix, Count Chocula, and Lucky Charms. In any case, the parking lot for this office complex in the suburbs west of Minneapolis was accordingly large, for all the employees that worked there. General Mills, in its infinite generosity, had built a kind of wind-sheltered walkway from the parking lot into the corporate offices. Mind you, this was not heated. It was still really cold. You could hear the metal clanging as you walked. Metal makes different sounds when struck at low temperatures. Something like when you banged against the flagpole in middle school. Dong, dong. I remember this sound. And being really happy to get to work, in the warm building. Have you ever wondered why people in the Midwest have the reputation for being hard workers? Because there's nothing else to do there in the winter! I mean, you really are glad when you successfully make the journey from your home, through the snow, the ice, and the cold, to your warm, cozy office. That's if you're lucky and you work in an office.

My job at G' Mills consisted of opening bills from doctors and hospitals to current and former General Mills employees that were covered by company insurance or pension plans. That job was a real eye-opener in terms of how much medical care can cost, both to a patient and to a company that pays pensions. I and several other temps like me would receive the letters, open them, and sort them. Letters without bills went one place, doctor and hospital bills another place, and dentists' bills yet another. It was sort of like in “The Incredibles”, where Mr. Incredible the humble office worker is working in sea of cubicles, assigned the task to deny claims from his clients. Except I didn't even have the power to deny any claims. I was just a lowly mail clerk.

On the bright side, getting to work at a big company with a proud tradition like General Mills gave me a peek into the corporate world. They had their own gift store. You could get giant plush Lucky Charms dolls, or clothes with every brand of cereal emblazoned on the front. I walked by there every morning. I don't remember if I felt jealous of the people who could actually afford those things, or even more estranged by this type of captive commercialism. I think I thought about money a lot. That's I guess what happens when you have to measure every dollar.

Well, I'm coming to the end now. After 3 ½ years at private college, I had started at a pretty low rung. Looking back, I'm kind of glad I got through all that. Those months, and years actually, when I was living from month to month working temp jobs were not particularly good for me. I think it was mostly hard mentally. I mean, I was just 23 or 24, so physically, no problem. But, despite the conditions, I still had moments where I would I laugh, and tell jokes. Eventually, I moved on, to better places and jobs. It was a passing phase, I guess.

Well, thanks for reading. I have a question for you. What it was like when you got your first job? How did you deal with the transition?

My Coldest Winter (Part 2)

2006-03-14T00:06:00.000-08:00

I will finally continue the story I started about 2 weeks ago. It is the true account of my move from college to "The Real World". I say, true account, because another writer who also spent some unpleasant times in Minnesota recently became famous for writing a book he claimed as "autobiographical", and then later admitting he had fabricated certain parts of (I suspect his visit to the dentist and unmedicated root canal surgery was one of these fabrications).

Anyways, I digress. On with the REAL story ...

3. Looking for work – or not

A couple weeks later, I had made my plan. I would go up to the City, which is what I called Minneapolis. I would just go and try my luck. Trying to find work the conventional way just wasn't my cup of tea. I know, I should have used the college career placement office. But they were so meticulous. Wanted to quibble about misplaced commas, when all I wanted was my own car. Wanted me to sign up for on-campus interviews, for the spring, when what I wanted was a job, any job, now. I mean, how hard can it be? I'd never held any job before that I could get in one day. Go in, fill out an application, talk to the boss, and the next day, they call me, “your hired”, or, “we don't need you this year. We're full”. And the college wanted me to revise my resume? Like I had all the time in the world. Please ...

In the meantime, I read my college books in the comfort of the library on “The Hill”, pondering these questions. It seemed silly to be making any serious plans, especially plans that would obviously involve a great deal of discomfort and attention to detail. (I associated these two things together) After all, my first priority was getting through my Russian History class in January and arranging my exit from college. I didn't want to be surprised later on that I still needed an extra class credit or something. That would mean 4 or 5 more months of this place. I had grown to know every square foot of campus. Though more recent visits have confirmed that “The Hill” (what people affectionately call the campus there in Northfield) is indeed a beautiful spot, I learned then that no matter how nice a “paradise” one lives on, if one does not alter the landscape from time to time, one will grow tired of it. I was ready for someplace new, dirty and exciting.

4. Moving Day

At the end of January, it was time to move. I had a friend up in the city who said I could stay for a little while. I had saved up a couple hundred bucks. I packed my belongings in the Pinto, hoping that the brakes would not completely fail during my move and ruin me and the belongings. I remember the night I was packing. We were having yet another snowfall. All my fellow students and coeds were having a gay old time, chasing eachother around, pelting eachother with snowballs, going up to their warm, cozy dorm rooms and doing what college kids like to do best. I had no such pleasures to look forward to. I started the car. Thankfully, the ignition was still in working condition. I let it warm up, spewing poisonous exhaust into the frigid air. Going around the vehicle, brushing snow off the lights, the front window, the back hatch, I was rather proud of myself. I felt like one of those settlers who headed west in horse-drawn carriages loaded to the beams with all their possessions. The car purred peacefully. Nice Pinto. Goodbye, Thorsen Hall.... goodbye, St. Olaf College.

That night, I arrived in Minneapolis. It was about 0 degrees. I pulled into the parking lot of my friend's place. My buddy, let's call him Jake, rented an upper level room in an apartment he shared with 2 other people. The lease holder was a Japanese graduate student, in her late 30s or early 40s. I knew other Japanese, and liked them. But this Japanese didn't like me. “Jake, your friend cannot stay here. He does not pay” She was trying not to have an open argument in front of me. For some reason, her sense of civility which prevented her from trying to embarrass me in front of my friend was not enough to convince her not to throw a poor student out of the house, into a killing frost. My friend then agreed to keep me for at least a couple nights. I really wasn't feeling good about this. I had always felt like it was not right to stay where you're not wanted. Or to cause an argument by your presence. Well, I had my work cut out for me. Find an affordable apartment for less than $250 a month in the middle of the coldest winter in memory in Minneapolis.

5. Looking for a Shelter

Now I was desperate. If I didn't find something soon, I would either (a) have to go to a homeless shelter to survive, or (b) go back to Wisconsin, hanging my head in failure. I drove around the area near the place I had crashed (where Jake was living), scanning for “For Rent” signs. I knew that the car – the Pinto - was my weakness. Assuming I could get some sort of job, I couldn't trust the car to start and get me to work every morning. So I had to have a cheap apartment near public transit. That pretty much limited me to the University Area. It is the area just to the East of the Mississippi River, which separates the campus at the University of Minnesota / Minneapolis into 2 parts. Where I ended up living, in case you are looking at the map, is around where it says "SE 5th Ave.", just north of the red star.

One good thing if you're looking for cheap housing is, the U of M is surrounded by student apartment buildings (in what is called "Dinkytown"). The bad thing is, these apartment buildings are some of the cheapest, worst-maintained housing you'll ever see. I didn't care about that at the the time, though. I needed a place, and I needed it fast.

My Coldest Winter (Part 1)

2006-03-03T00:22:00.000-08:00

1. College

The coldest winter of my life was 1993-94. This was the winter I graduated from college. I graduated in the middle of the year, because I only needed 3 ½ years to collect the necessary credits at the small private college where I went to school. Financially, this made sense, since tuition at the time still cost more than I or my parents could pay. So I borrowed, I worked summers, and I studied enough in order to graduate a little early. However, I think I may have miscalculated on this decision. You see, this was winter in Minnesota. 1993 was such a cold winter, I broke my friend's starter on his Ford because the ignition got stuck in “start” when I turned the key. It was so cold, you'd get snot running down your face from exposure if you were outside any length of time. It was so cold that other students (with cash to spare) would order pizza from Domino's instead of trudging the ¼ mile over to the cafeteria to eat for free. Well, they did that all the time, anyhow, but even I did it despite having no money, to avoid the cold.

Anyways, in college, I lived in a small town, Northfield, about 1 hour south of the Twin Cities. I lived on the campus, and I ate my meals at the cafeteria. In other words, I had no job, no furniture, no cooking skills, and no clue. All I knew was, I could not go home, because it would be impossible to live under the same roof as my parents. It was January. At the end of the month, my 3-credit class in History of Russian Literature was over, and I had enough credits to graduate. I had to make some decisions.

2. Getting my first car

So I did what any college kid in my situation would have done. I scanned the want ads for cheap used cars. I found one, in some little town midway between Northfield and Minneapolis. It was a 1981 Ford Pinto, black. The owners wanted $400. “Engine runs good”. I did not argue. I took the greyhound bus up to the closest town along the highway near the owners. The owner picked me up from the shopping mall and drove me to his house, explaining that the master cylinder needed a little work, but otherwise, the car was o.k. I didn't know what a master cylinder was. He was real nice. Asked me what I studied. What I was going to do. I don't think I knew it myself.

We got to the owner's house. It was basically a shack back in the woods somewhere. The wife came out and sized me up. I was a green college kid, ready to part with my money. I had no ride, and no way even back into town. “So ya want to buy our car?” I said, “well, I do need one”. Or something like that. “Can you give me a break on the price?” “I'm sorry, we can't. You can see how poor we are.” Their dirty looking kids were running around, as if to emphasize the point. I began to consider the situation I had put myself in. I had come to the seller's house with his ride, and had no way back to campus, unless I either bought the car, or told them no, please give me a ride back. Then the whole day and enterprise were for nothing. So, I said, to hell with it, I need a car, and besides, you gotta start somewhere. I paid the $400. On the way home, I noticed the brakes were indeed really soft. It was my first lesson in life. Never deal out of compassion.

Winter Olympics

2006-02-20T23:31:00.000-08:00

After competing in my own "winter olympics" at Sugarbowl ski resort near Lake Tahoe, in which I crashed too many times to even call it funny, I returned to my beautiful Oakland apartment for some rest and relaxation today catching up on chores, errands and TIPOANTD. (Things I Put Off And Need To Do) This last item included everything from washing dishes to rearranging the old stuff I keep stored in boxes on the balcony to doing the laundry. As a reward for my work, I then treated myself to 2 hours of olympics on TV tonight. I did enjoy the men's downhill slalom, won by the Austrians, and the women's "Super G", also won by the Austrians. Seems the Austrians do just fine in skiing. I'm curious if Arnold still cheers for his home country or has he cut off all his ties now that he has angered his hometown of Graz with his decision to let convicted California drug dealing murderers be executed?

Anyways, I wanted to cheer for America, I really did. But after all the "Bode Hype", I just can't get real excited about that so-called ski superstar of ours. Anyways, he bombed on the runs, "bombing out' being the operative word (merely "bombing" in ski slang would have meant he was really fast). I was less interested, but nonetheless watched, some of the ice dancing. That was actually a pretty interesting event to watch, if somewhat long (like 5 minutes a pair). I'd like to mention a few things about that event:

1) is it just me or does the TV network purposefully hire really feminine-sounding commentators to narrate that event? Why can't they get normal people? People that drink beer and sometimes mess up pronunciation and don't gush all over some couples outfits and choice of musical accompaniment? Speaking of which, they should do the same for the snowboard broadcasts and toss out all those adolescent, surfer sounding people they have doing the broadcast now.

2) is it just me or are the "winning" moves in the ice dance usually a form of imitated sex? Let's look at this picture of the winning Russians as an example:

See what I mean? All that's missing is a good old pelvic thrust and their ecstasy would be complete! I believe I did see some pelvic thrusts in the French pair's dance (forgot their names).

3) is it just me or are the selection of sound track accompaniments to the ice dance just absolutely awful? Is dancing to French cabaret music on the ice is supposed to be elegant? Or techno-infused tango? C'mon! Can't you just pick some nice classical music like Debussy's "The Swan" or maybe a Broadway tune like "Don't Cry for me Argentina"? In fact I think all the skaters should skate to the same music. That way the audience could tell the pretenders from the performers apart a little easier.

I know your answer: it's just you. Well, think of a different answer please because though I'm wrong half the time, I'm not wrong all the time!

p.s. I plan to apply for a spot on the Olympic Ice Dancing judging committee in 2030. Hope it's in a nice place and they still pay off the judges then! :-)

p.s.s. for your amusement I included a new post on the topic of Olympic sports on T.V. Please take a moment to complete it. There is even a "curmudgeon" entry for all you people who come here just to logon to spam my guestbook and call me names.

Bombs and more Bombs

2006-02-16T22:20:00.000-08:00

Hearing a lot about the "new nuclear threat" in Iran in recent weeeks in the news I dedided to inform myself at my local library. I eventually ended up borrowing a rather large and voluminous book titled "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", by Richard Rhodes. I still have to return it to the library and it's been 3 weeks. This book goes into great depth describing the Manhattan project as well as the whole history of atomic research. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that a background in quantum mechanics would have been helpful advance knowlege for getting through this book. Nevertheless, my less scientifically inclined mind was still interested by a lot of the historical aspects. Did you know, for instance, that our government spent over $2 billion dollars in 1945 (not adjusted for inflation) on developing the A-Bomb? Or that most of the lead scientists who played a part in the bomb's development were either Hungarian, Jewish German or from other countries? Or that we developed huge sprawling industrial complexes in remote places like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, or Hanford, Washington (which now has apparently become a Superfund Cleanup site) to extract the required "ingredients" (mainly enriched Uranium, and a derivative "new" element Plutonium)? That was besides the thousands of workers who were working at Los Alamos and even in Chicago (does "Fermilab" ring a bell?) A true national project.

I'm not going to argue that this wasn't a good thing that we developed the bomb and not somebody else. There was, after all, this little problem called Nazi Germany which was threatening to build the same bomb (a threat which turned out to be empty). Still, if you read this book, you will probably come to the conclusion, like I did, that we did not really need to use the bomb on Japan to get them to surrender. From the bombs we used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 300,000 Japanese were killed, either within minutes of the blast, or soon after from radiation. For that we got "faster" surrender. You can argue that this faster surrender saved American lives. Undoubtedly it did. But the facts as laid out in the book by Rhodes show that a large part of the reason we used the bomb... was because we spent the money, we developed it, we tested it and so we wanted to use it. You have to imagine there were many, many, months and years of labor on the part of thousands of scientists and laborers required to test the design, to build the nuclear accelerators, the develop and operate the plutonium production, the explosive components and of course to test the bombs themselves. Then you can understand why there was such pressure to use those bombs. And that to me is the whole sad thing about the military industrial complex. We spend the money and the effor developing the weapons. So, naturally, we want to use the weapons. It's like having a 4x4 Toyota Tundra, and never taking it off the road. (it's just an example, I have nothing against trucks)

Considering all the effort that goes into developing and testing nuclear bombs, I am amazed people can develop these bombs in places like Pakistan and India. Granted, most of the knowlege how to build the bomb is now documented and can probably be implemented by any fairly sharp team of physicists. But to get their hands on enough enriched Uranium and then to actually build and test and explosive device is no small feat. My bet is that Iran will not get there for awhile, especially now that the mullahs are taking over their universities. And if they do, their facilities will probably get bombed by Israel, which is another little war we can all look forward to watching on the news. Not that I'm anxious to see it happen.

Anyways, I thought this book was interesting enough to write about, and since I am my own editor, that's just what I did. Doubtless I've either bored you by now, or convinced you more than before that I really am a left-wing Californian. Well Yee-haw, I'll save my rants against the Bush administration for a later time. Got to get packing for this weekend's ski trip, which takes me Sierra bound again. Me and a buddy are going up to Donner summit, and from there who knows where. Hope this time my chains don't break!

Winter activities - Chinese New Year

2006-02-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

Ski (ca. 1755)
[from Old Norse skith, stick of wood]
Wintersport: One of a pair of narrow strips of wood, metal, or plastic curving upward in front that are used especially for gliding over snow. The word is also used as a verb, to ski, when a skier glides on skis for traveling or as a sport.

Cross-country skiing is the recreation with one of the greatest demands for energy and involves rates of 15 kilocalories per minute, or even more, for long periods.

This weekend in addition to trying to recover from a flu bug - I'm feeling hot as I type this - I got together some equipment I hope to use during the upcoming weekend, when I make a trip up to Donner summit ski area and stay for a couple nights in a Sierra Club owned ski hut.

Actually, the idea for this weekend came to me awhile ago. I had intended to do some cross country skiing in Wisconsin over Christmas, and even lugged my skis home like one of those people going for vacation to the Rockies (in fact I was asked upon arrival back in Oakland, "How were the mountains?") Well, as those of you who live in Wisconsin know, ski has been less than plentiful in recent years, at least not in consistent form, and true to this trend, I got "rained out" of any ski opportunities this past Christmas. So, this weekend up in the Sierras is supposed to be my "make-up" for the missed opportunity. I have all the X-C equipment ready including my Norwegian "Torr" and "Bloet" ("dry" and "wet") wax. My buddy Jon who will be accompanying me suggests that we also try a day of downhill skiing (he snowboards). We will be in the general vicinity of Lake Tahoe. As reported previously here, and ONLY here :-) I can also down-hill ski. Not that you would know it looking at me. So, yesterday I picked up some used downhill skis for 40 bucks from craigslist from a guy over in S.F. with an accent that sounds like he's Crocodile Dundee's brother. He was selling the skis for his wife, who was selling them for a friend. So he gives me the skis, and I after giving them the quick once-over, give him the money. He looks at my money and says, "so is this the prize you agrade on?" Just wanted to give an example of the Aussie accent, an accent I could get used to. Well, it turned out these skis were not such a steal after all, because today I found out I have to get the bindings re-mounted, meaning the things that attach to your boot, because the former owner of these 188 cm K2 skis wore a size 8 or 9 boot, and I wear size 10 1/2. So that took up some time this weekend. But hopefully it's all worth it. I intend to try skiing like that French guy Antoine whatever his name in the men's downhill come Sunday. I've got his form memorized: crouch low, shift your weight using your butt, arms out front and be like a rocket. Yeah, that'll be me. Look out Sugarbowl resort! Well at least I'll save the $30+ ski rental fee.

The other thing I did this weeekend was watch the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. I was raised on PBS and I remember on Sesame Street or one of those shows they used to show Chinese New Year's parades and I was actually scared of those dragons. To be honest, yesterday's Parade was kind of a letdown, maybe because I still have those old memories of watching it as a child. It was actually more interesting getting to the parade and back. First was the horrible traffic on the way over (see picture below). I would have taken public transport, except I wanted to pick up those skis I mentioned above. Once I finally got to the City, I parked well away from the parade in a free spot and walked part of the way down California and Sacramento Avenue. Later I hopped on Bus Route Number 1, which runs down Sacramento. The bus was packed. In front were mainly what appeared to be the Chinese crowd (even the bus driver was Asian but I don't think Chinese) and in the back more or less the other tourists like myself who probably go to Chinatown once a year for the New Year parade. Actually I could go a little more often. It is an interesting place. Lots of little hole in the wall shops selling fresh vegetables and fruits (even at 6.30 p.m. on the Saturday of the parade), plastic toys, Wontons and soup, firecrackers, Chinese dresses, dishes, healing medicines, soap, teas, and you name it. And all built onto some of the steepest hills in San Francisco. I posted a couple pictures below of what I saw.

This is what faced me on my way over to San Francisco from Oakland. Mind you, this is 5.30 p.m. on Saturday ... glad I don't have this commute!

When I finally got there, I got to see most of the parade. Probably this was the highlight, unless you count seeing the S.F. mayor Gavin Newsome as a highlight.

The Cingular Parade float - "raising the bar". Ha! I did not really appreciate this "commercial" aspect of the parade. There were also floats from a big Bank, Cathay Pacific Airlines, and more companies I can't remember.

This is a view of Chinatown, all decked out in anticipation of the crowds of tourists in town to see the New Year parade.

California Optimism

2006-02-01T00:09:00.000-08:00

Time to get Gael's face off the front posting. You all might get confused and think I'm good looking as he is. Well, I am, but not in the conventional sense. Har har.

Anyways, my topic tonight is California optimism. It amazes me sometimes how positive people are here on the West Coast. I always knew that Americans are by nature optimists and positively inclined. It has precedent. We beat the British, we built the atom bomb, we sent a man to the moon. But Californians top even this optimism and "positivism". First off, people out here rarely criticize eachother publicly, and when they do, it's usually couched in terms that makes you feel just a little less glowing. For instance, when I screw up, my experience with "a regular boss" is he / she would say something like "you were a complete fool" or "don't do that again". Or, worse yet, they freeze me out for a while, and then complain to me weeks or even months later about this or that "problem" that came up (this was the habit of my old German boss, good guy though he was, he never was up front with me like I wished). In California it's totally different. If you have a bad moment, people react by telling you "that's ok", and "you'll do it better next time". Absolutely blows my mind sometimes. I should feel lucky.

Second, Californians will laugh and find funny absolutely anything that is humorous, and many things that aren't, on just about any occasion. I know I am generalizing. It just strikes me sometimes when I am sitting around being my usual introverted self in a room full of high-spirited Bay Area residents, that I am somehow different. This for instance happens when I attend my local "Toastmasters" club once a week. I've been part of this organization for about 3 years now. The whole excercise is public speaking, and going "out of your comfort level" in front of a crowd of 20-30 people. Anyways, I do it, partly out of intellectual curiosity (you hear very interesting things during these speeches), partly out of a feeling of obligation (don't want to quit the club just yet). The thing is, at least here in Oakland, when I go to a TM meeting I am sometimes practically assaulted by extroverted people. Hey , it gives me one more thing to work on myself.

Che Guevara - more than a fashion statement?

2006-01-30T22:24:00.000-08:00

No this is not your correspondent! Though if you are female, you probably (and I certainly) hope that it is. Instead this is the actor Gael Garcia Bernal. He played in "Motorcyle Diaries", directed by our very own Robert Redford. I watched it this past weekend and I'm writing in here that it's a great movie. Before you call me a communist sympathizer, which I am, you should watch the movie. Then criticize it. I've never been to South America. But this movie reminded me of many wandering trips I've taken, sometimes aimless, and sometimes planned impulsively. Also, it left me feeling like I really should have been more adventurous when I had the chance... well, I'll leave the interpretation up to you.

Becoming interested in the subject of Che by this movie, I logged onto the Internet to read a biography of Che Guevara. I always like to find out when watching movies based on historical figures, did the movie actually portrayed the figure as he / she lived, or was it a romanticized version. In this case, certainly there are romantic / dramatic aspects to the movie which probably didn't happen in Che's real life. And certainly Che Guevara in real life did not have the teenage heartthrob looks of Gael Garcia Bernal

Yet, still I liked this movie because it showed two young guys being young guys, doing stupid stuff, swearing and chasing women, and didn't dwell on the fact they became famous communist revolutionaries later in life. So, to me, it's a real anti-Hollywood movie in that sense, not overly dramatic, no Hollywood ending, plus a very well-produced one, if you like seeing beautiful mountain and high elevation landscapes from South America. Kudos to Redford, the producer Walter Salles, and the rest of the production crew.

Sean Penn live and in person

2006-01-25T23:50:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday night I got to go see Sean Penn give a Question-and-Answer as part of the "Noir City Film Festival" which ended last weekend in San Francisco. The venue was the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, a sort of neo-classical monument at the outskirts of Presidio park (not far from the Golden Gate). Previously, I had seen bikini-clad female bodybuilders posing there in front of the Romanesque columns for photographers. Last weekend, there were just pot-smokers hanging out, so nothing so entertaining ... darned! Anyways, I heard about this event on the radio that same morning, so I wasn't sure I could get tickets. I took along a new friend I'd met on a plan ride to Chicago over Christmas. She reads this blog, too, so no more about her on these pages ... :) She and I stood in line for about 45 minutes before we were told we could get into the theatre. Our wait paid off - we got in! The movie we saw was called "The Pledge" and, quite honestly it wasn't the best movie I'd ever seen. It wasn't the worst, either, so fine, ok, we went to a nice Theatre to see an average movie and then watch some famous guy speak on stage. That's not bad entertainment for $10! The wine at $7 a (plastic) cup was much more outrageously priced. One thing I noticed, and that was the numbers of young women ages 24-early 30s dressed to kill and waiting to see and hear Penn. Many of them left after he finished and before the "midnight screening" began. That's right, they showed us a "freebie" after the event, just for those real "Noir" fans. It was a really old movie with Kirk Douglas called "Out of the Past". Loaded with plot twists and fast-talking dialog, not to mention a bunch of look-alike actors wearing fedora hats and trenchcoats, it was pretty hard to follow. But I guess, a classic, and for the first hour or so (till I had to get a little shut-eye) it was a refreshing change from the usual Hollywood hits I see at the theatre.

In case you were wondering, Sean Penn looks and talks like the Sean Penn I was used to watching movies (my favorite movie he was in was "Carlito's Way", followed probably by "21 Grams"). He is a little shorter than I imagined, and talks sort of like a tripping college professor. Who knows, maybe he was tripping. Well, anyways, Penn is nothing if not interesting to watch and listen to, even if you don't like him.

Skiing in Tahoe

2006-01-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I was invited to go skiing up in the Lake Tahoe area with some people I've gotten to know here. Having skied a few times in the last few years, with increasingly more success and less hard landings, I jumped at the chance to see California's premier winter vacation destination. I was not disappointed. The runs were beautiful, the snow was plentiful and the views were fantastic. I just wish I was a better skier. What really gets me is when I am struggling to get down some black diamond slope and a teenager comes whizzing by me, usually on a snowboard. Then I really feel like a ski chump. But otherwise it's fun to be out there and enjoy the mountain, as it were. Only one downside and that is the increasing cost of this activity. I paid $54 for my lift ticket on Sunday at your basic high-elevation mountain ski area, and $64 on Monday at one of those "fancy ski resorts" (Northstar at Tahoe). Kind of makes it an elitist sport doesn't it... well I guess it was always that way, even when I remember paying $35 to ski Breckenridge in 1995. (and I thought that was a lot, too)

Just one other thing to report and that is the long hellacious drive I had on Saturday to get up there. The California Dept. of Transportation was requiring everyone to drive with chains on their tires, in case they were not already operating a 4 wheel drive vehicle. For most people, this means either paying somebody $20 to put on the cables over your tires, or doing it yourself. Being the strapping young man I am, I opted to save the $20 and do this myself. After 10 painful and dirty minutes "clothing" my front tires on my Ford Focus, I was proud to have done it and rejoined the main traffic, advancing at a snail's pace up the pass. Then 1 mile later the chain on my left tire snapped with a sickening "pop". Oh Chr-t I said to myself, getting out and picking up the thin mangled steel cable. It was a mistake to buy the cheap $35 special at the auto parts store. I ended up spending another $69 on the mountain for new cables. These luckily were of better quality and lasted me the whole trip.

On a lighter note

2006-01-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

... I realize I may have turned off several readers with that last post. It just has been something occupying my mind, so I used to opportunity and some of my idle time to put thoughts to paper, so to speak. Well, today I did do something moderately interesting, and not computer-related: I took a long bike ride in the city across the bay. If you are familiar with S.F. you might recognize some of the pictures. If not, then I challenge you to show off your knowlege of S.F. trivia. For instance,

- where is the "Fisherman's Wharf" and why is it so named?
- where is "Coit Tower" and is it visible in the pictures? And who recently created a fuss by mentioning it in the national news?
- what is the significance / history of the "Sutro Baths"? Do they still exist?
- what is the "Legion of Honor"?
- do you recognize any other points of interest (besides the obvious Golden Gate Bridge) in the pictures?

p.s. you are allowed to use the picture titles as hints (I wouldn't have used such descriptive names, had I thought ahead of time to do this little "contest"). But that still leaves out the answers to the questions above. I'll tell y'all at the end who won. Happy Monday.

There is no perfect world

2006-01-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

I was thinking to myself today. What is it that set me off so much during the Christmas holidays? I was in kind of a "valley" the whole time I was home. At first I thought it was the depressing grey weather we had there. Every day between 30 and 40 degrees and grey. Global warming greeting me every time I stepped out the door. But no - the weather alone doesn't explain it. I've lived through several winters of truly miserable depressing weather in northern Europe, with hardly any of the fun white stuff and no sunshine, either. And I wasn't depressed during all of that. Ok, for 2 of those winters, I guess I was, but I know the weather was not the reason. It was loneliness, and the feeling of inadequacy when you see the world in shades of grey, while everybody else sees color and seemingly passes you by. Hey I don't mean to dramatize what I was going through. That is bygone times and I'm over it.

So what was it this holidays that set me off? The proverbial "Christmas Blues"? The feeling that when you go wherever you go for the holidays, you expect it to be something special - and it just isn't? Because this one was certainly the same old, same old. The same dinner table at my parents. The same relatives in Chicago, bless their souls (and I do, cause they're all I've got). The same ride in the minivan with my parents to church on Christmas Eve. The same people in the half-empty church that feels so without character, warmth, history. It just felt like I'd stuck myself in a time machine and gone back a whole lot of years. Nothing besides my current job and financial situation was any different than it was before.

I know there are people would would kill to have the chances I've been given in life. There are also people with goals in life. People quite a bit younger than me. But that just isn't me. For one, I don't really know what makes me "happy". I don't believe life is all about "winning" and "reaching your goals". For me to stand here and tell you "this and that will make you a happy person" would be complete bullshit. For one I don't even know for myself. Beautiful women? Nice cars? Money? I've tried a little of all. And they're nice. But leave you feeling empty. There is one thing that would be satisfying. That would be waking up to a certain someone every morning whom I'd be so happy to be with and I would look forward to spending my entire day and I would never get tired of talking to or just hanging out with. Well, I had that chance once, and I let her go. Maybe she wasn't the right one. I just really didn't know and the decision to stay in a foreign country the rest of my life was just too tough.

Going back to where I started. I guess what bothered me most about this Christmas was I didn't want to experience it alone, and I ended up doing just that. And spending the Christmas the way I always have, I was reminded of all the situations in my childhood growing up, and got the very strong impression really nothing has changed in my 34th Christmas. Sure I've got the job in California and the apartment and the decent late-model car. But I still don't have "it". Before you think, just plug in "woman" and everything's ok: something tells me that ain't it, either. You don't stop criticizing yourself just because a partner or lover is around. It just recedes in the background for awhile. And comes back at a later, usually inopportune time. So I suppose, I should try something new - anything - anyone - and get over my past mistakes, and my thinking, and soul-searching, and complaining.

Will that do it though?

Manhattan

2006-01-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

The New Year is one day old and I like it already. I got back to my apartment last night feeling tired after the long flight from Midway airport (we flew through a snowstorm over the Sierras, and I had a "fear of flying" moment). We landed safely, obviously, so that was the first blessing of 2006. I slept like a dead person yesterday and woke up this morning to beautiful California rain. Examining my apartment, I discovered that my Jade plant on the patio seems to be doing great in this moist weather, despite the dirty Oakland air. The second blessing!

Later in the afternoon, I decided to watch a movie. I chose "Manhattan", by Woody Allen (released in 1979). The movie stars Woody Allen as himself, a divorced 42-year old New York writer dating a 17 year old high-schooler. Besides that, the movie also stars Diane Keaton as a journalist lady friend and mistress of Woody's best buddy. I liked this movie even though I've never been to New York and I still get annoyed by Woody's tendency to ramble on and intellectualize. I give it a 9 out of 10. This is the first Woody Allen movie I ever watched from start to finish. I liked the fact that Woody Allen's character is shown with all his "warts" in terms of his fickle attachment to different women. Also I like the high school girlfriend (Tracy), played by Mariel Hemingway, who was in fact 17 or 18 when the movie was made. To be honest, I probably liked Tracy in the movie because I'm 34 years old and single and she is 17 years old and beautiful, even without makeup or "bling". In fact I like Mariel Hemingway whether she is 17, 18 or 45! (and I like her grandfather's books, too)

In case any of you saw the movie, I thought the ending scene where Woody catches up to Tracy before she leaves New York is wonderful. What happens is that Woody has this "realization" he should never have dropped his young girlfriend (Hemingway) in the first place. So he calls her, gets a busy signal, then runs across town, calling again from payphones along the way (I also love the fact there are no cell phones, and the pay phones of the day actually worked). In the final conversation between him and Tracy, Woody is made to look completely and utterly childish and foolish. I don't know of any living director or actor who would dare to make fun of themselves in this way (in actuality I guess Woody Allen was dating a girl about that age at the time).

About all the discussions whether or not it was "right" to "glorify" a relationship between a 42 and 17 year old - who cares? The movie is a work of art and not a social commentary. Besides, if a guy as nerdy as Woody can date Mariel Hemingway, even in the movies, then it gives us over-30 single guys hope that we can find our princess, too.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-22T22:15:00.000-08:00

I have one wish this Christmas: for Santa Claus to visit my apartment. Merry Christmas!

Interner Serverfehler!

2005-12-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

Apologies to all 3 of my loyal readers that this blog was down the past few days. Unfortunately, this was an unavoidable situation. Though I did understand the German message I was seeing, this didn't help much as the translation amounts to the dreaded and cryptic sounding "internal server error". I don't administer my own webserver. It is leased space which is provided by the hosting company. I got this website in October 2003 by signing up for a 3 year special "no monthly fee" deal being offered by the German parent company 1&1 Internet AG und Co. What I had forgotten though was that there IS an annual domain name registration fee (don't ask me what that pays for, though I suspect it probably goes to ICANN in Virginia). And since my credit card expired this past year, they couldn't collect the $5.99 I owed them. So what do those friendly people at 1&1 do? Shut down my website until I get frustrated enough to call (lesson: NEVER bother sending email to internet service providers about billing questions). Now THAT's customer service!!!!!!!

Well, now it's all settled, at least, until my free trial period expires next November. Hopefully, my blog stays online until then, so you all can reap the benefits of my enlightening and enriching postings. Ha ha ha....

Teacher Training, Part 1

2005-12-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

On weekends I "moonlight" as a German teacher for teenagers, at a local Bay Area Saturday German School. The school is set up with classes for all ages, where the students learn basic speaking, reading and writing skills. Most of these kids are part German, so they hear the language frequently at home or during vacations abroad.

About half the kids in my class come to school because their parents make them. The other half come and get annoyed by the bad behavior of the rest. I have to deal with disciplinary problems. I have kids brining Ipods into class. I have kids who complain they're too cold, and others who complain they're too hot. I have kids who cuss when they get a question wrong. Other ones cuss at eachother. Keep in mind, these are "smart" kids - who are learning foreign languages on Saturdays.

This morning, my class was a zoo, as usual. "Kevin" brought his Ipod. I told him to take it off. He took it out of one ear. I ignored him. "Mary" complained she was cold (it was kind of cold). I told her she could sit in front of the window, where it was sunny. She refused (she prefers to sit "with the girls", and not in back , by the window with "the boys"). I told "Mary" she could stand in front of the heater. All the girls joined her, forming a gaggle in front of the heater. All the kids stood up, "in rebellion". I had to start yelling and tell everyboday to take seats.

Then, for no reason at all, they start yelling at each other. They rarely make the effort to speak any German, unless I start yelling for them to be quiet, and pay attention, and answer the godd- question. (I don't say godd-) to them. I do a fair amount of yelling. I feel sorry for the adult class next door. I am surprised they have not complained to me yet about the zoo we have.

Here is what we did in 2 1/4 hours of class.

- We went over our dialogs for the "Adventsfeier" (Christmas Party). Our class are narrators for the fairy tale re-enactment to take place next Sunday. All they have to do is learn 2 or 3 sentences each. Though I have been asking my students to learn their parts for 3 weeks, hardly any of them know it. They mispronounce words, mangle phrases, and skip punctuation.

- We listened to some tape dialogs for our German textbook. We listed 2 or 3 times to each, because usually, while the tape was playing, someone (usually "Kevin" or "Matthew") was talking. In an addition, I did not realize that since our new texbooks are East German, the people speaking the dialogs all would have East German accents. That's like teaching kids english listening to a bunch of people who grew up in the Kentucky mountains.

- We went over the concept of "split verbs". I started handing out chocolates to whomever got a question right or could give me a correct example. That got some reaction. Mostly, yelling, in english.

- We played a German word-game (where more yelling occurred, between students)

Basically, kids these days, even smart ones, don't listen to you unless you "get tough" with them. This is too bad, because it makes the job of teaching more like a policeman. I won't tell you what I'm getting paid to do this, but let's just say, I'm not doing it for the money.

I will keep you apprised ...

Happy Thanksgiving

2005-11-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

This is the shortest post I have made to date. I liked the picture, so I thought I'd share it. It's from the State of Virgina Wildlife Management page. However I found the Wisconsin DNR site a little more pertinent to most of my 3 or so regular readers, and a better overall website to link. Enjoy your Holiday!

State of Fear

2005-11-20T23:40:00.000-08:00

There is a new book out by Michael Crichton called "State of Fear" which has been mentioned to me by a couple friends. I thought it might be worth checking out, and since at the moment I have a bit of the flu and am more or less "home-bound", I felt it would be a good day to go to the local Barnes and Noble and "pre-read" it. What I mean by "pre-read" is, basically, read all the S&R parts (suspenseful and racy) and if I liked it, buy the book. Otherwise I could just put it back on the shelf and go home.

Incidentally, I used to do this in libraries often when I was in early teenage years. I would find the "thriller" section (including Stephen King novels) and read just the "sex" parts and also the "scary" parts. I might actually read the entire novel in some cases. I think I developed some bad habits. I have since quit reading the sex scenes in novels, though at the time it was educational.

Anyways, today I was more interested in what Chrichton had to say about the environmental movement (he says they're misguided), whether he would really frame them as the villains (he does) and whether he would really argue, at least within the framework of this story, that global warming is not a real phenomenon as most scientists accept it is (he does argue this).

Crichton's book does contain what I would consider his "trademark" style of detailed scientific evidence which backs up a certain theory or claim being put forth by a character in the book. In this case, the protagonists seeks to debunk a popular theory (global warming being caused by human activity) and stop the "mad scientist" radical environmentalists. Meanwhile, some "good" scientists analyse weather data to find that in fact "global warming" is not truly "global" but is in fact "local" - a phenomenon, according to the book, of strong localized increase in average temperatures due to concentrated energy use and deforestation in urban areas.

I think it's admirable to take what we hear in the press with a grain of salt, and Crichton with this book encourages us to do so (In the back of the book, he actually says this). However, in this day and age, with this fossil-fuel worshipping administration, with the wars it has led us into (if you don't think the fact we're in Iraq has to do with oil, then you shouldn't be reading this blog), with the hurricane season we just had, and with all the signs pointing to a real warming trend - why would anyone want to say humans aren't the cause of the problem? Or put another way: why would anyone not want to play it safe and say, ok, I guess warming weather is a problem, so what can we do to prevent it from happening?

I believe Crichton wrote this book because it's a popular idea in certain circles that environmentalists are pushing an "agenda" and the media are sympathetic to it and blowing it out of proportion. I also think he's a gifted scientific researcher / writer who can run with such an idea. However, I am offended at the same time that he would "use" the environmental movement in this way to set up an techno-action thriller so he can sell more copies of his book. In the end, I think it's all about money and sales to him and so he does not in my opinion differentiate himself from right-wing talk show hosts who will say anything to make a buck on the airwaves.

Needless to say, I did not buy this book and don't recommend it to anyone except to read an interesting anti-theory. You can do that in the store or, if you reserve it early, at your local library. In the meantime, keep recycling, don't drive when you don't need to and tell your representative in Washington it's time to get Americans to save gas.

If you want to read good fiction this holiday season, I instead recommend reading something from John Grisham. "The Brethren" and "The Partner" are a couple of my favorites. Grisham does a better job developing his characters and interweaving the plots (towards the end of the book everything kind of "comes together"). He also has a new book called "The Broker", which I would be reading right now if it wasn't for the fact I made personal committment to myself to read Dosteyevsky's "The Idiot" this year.

p.s. I did not drive to Barnes and Noble for this excercise, because I combined it with another errand.

p.s.s. if you want to read a more positive review of "State of Fear", check out what Charley Reese has to say.

Trip down South

2005-11-14T23:34:00.000-08:00

I feel the need to add some content to the site. Thanks to those of you who visited since 2 weeks ago and have given me positive or, in some cases, mirthful comments regarding my fall posting.

First off, I am happy to say that the house-warming party at my new place Nov. 5th was a success. There were 12 guests in my apartment and I do believe that is a personal record for me! This was not a big party nor a "wild" one by anyone's standards. I think the wildest thing we did was bake and eat a quiche with blue cheese, pepper jack and mushrooms instead of the called-for provolone. Yes it was perfectly boring! I was happy just that the people stayed, ate my food, and seemed to enjoy themselves. The point was made at one point that it was a "mellow" party. Well I've had parties where friends got drunk and got on my nerves ... SO... I think I will take the "mellow" label anytime. And no, I'm not talking about any of the readers of this blog being my drunk annoying friends. Back in Milwaukee, I don't think any of us cared if we were drunk.

Did you see "Ghostbusters"? Remember the party Rick Moranis had in his apartment? It was the scene when Bill Murray came over to tell the party that the building was haunted. Moranis, who plays a nerdy accountant who wants to date the sexy Sigourney Weaver next door, introduces his friends and makes remarks about how much money he saved each person on their tax return. I think there was a little of that going on at my own party. Unfortunately, Sigourney Weaver wasn't here. Also, I'm not an accountant (I'm a computer analyst - close enough) p.s. did you know Rick Moranis was one of the McKenzie brothers?

Anyways, here is a picture of the new place. You could call it an "aftermath picture" after the party. The guy pictured is my friend Jon who has roomed with me before (after college) and now has done it again (but only for a couple weeks he says)

The 12 guests drank in total a measly 3 bottles of wine.

During the last week I was also had a short vacation (5 days). I flew to Atlanta and rented a car, visiting my friend Eric (who lives near Rome, GA) and then driving to my brother's in Charleston, where he plays in the local symphony orchestra. It was all in all a great time. A couple of observations:

- In contrast to the Bay Area, there is a "true fall" in the south (in Georgia, at
least there is). Here we have young Mr. Jens posing with a Magnolia "cone".

What do they call these things?

- Here's a gratuitous picture from the same trip. I like to reward readers of my blog. I believe I finally caught up to the one and only "Chief of Dead Animal Society".

Let me show you my shotgun

- My golf game is not as good as my brother's. We went to the municipal golf course in Charleston one day while I visited and played a round of 18 holes. I was feeling fine when we got to the first tee

This course, which supposedly is the "worst qualilty" of all the courses in Charleston, had plenty of challenges. Here is a shot of the one of the par 4s on the back nine.

Of course, I hit my tee shot into the water.

p.s. I scored a 135, in case anyone wanted to know

Random Fall Observations

2005-10-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

Fall is my favorite season. I like seeing nature change, even though it's still sunny out and generally nice. It's a time for new beginnings. But also new endings!

So in this spirit I would like to make 4 random observations:

Observation Nr. 1: fall in northern California arrives with an almost unnoticeable lowering of temperatures (instead of daytime temps. in the 80s we now have high 60s) and, in certain areas, the leaves change color too. However, judging by the amount of sunlight and people relaxing themselves doing summer-like activities such as biking, sailing and surfing, you'd never know it's fall.

Do you like my shorts?

Observation Nr. 2: cooking a meal for friends can be fun, if done right. Adding immensely to the joy of cooking is when you don't burn your spaghetti sauce.

Yes, I can cook - spaghetti sauce being one of the 3 dishes I know!

Observation Nr. 3: my tomato plants are just about done for the year, and, after I and the new tenant in my old apartment building finish harvesting the couple cherry tomatoes left on the vine, I suppose they should be torn out and composted. I learned this year that not just any tomato plants will grow anywhere, even though we're in California. Also, you do need to give them water more than a simple hosing down twice a week.

I ate two of the pictured tomatos today at work. They tasted good, and meaty

Observation Nr. 4: after my first harvest of lettuce resulted in the lettuce plant going to seed, it would indicate that my lettuce fared no better than my tomatoes. Also that my garden substrate or whatever it is they call the soil is less than perfect. What you see below (behind the reddish chard / rhubarb looking plant) is a former loose leaf lettuce plant that was producing nice leaves for salad. It is slowly coming to resemble a branchy bush ... My friend Willow explained it to me like this: when the plant feels under stress, its urge will always be to procreate. Which explains the "going to seed" phenomenon.

Skyline Blvd

2005-10-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had a chance to finally see the East Bay all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge from up top. I invited my colleague Joe to accompany me on another bike ride. This time, he agreed. But Joe is a secretive guy who didn't want to get photographed, so you will have to just imagine what my colleague looks like (hint, he's married and has a grown son).

For the sake of saving blogspace, I linked the map showing the route
we rode. The road along the top of the ridge (the one that separates Oakland from the dry hinterlands to the east - see previous bike riding blog) is called Skyline Boulevard. I've been up there once before, and wondered how the bike riders got up. Well, last Saturday I figured it out. I will admit I needed the road map in the book I bought, "Bay Area Bike Rides", to do it. VERY much worth the $15 I paid for it.

We started in Orinda (on the back side of the Hills) and took a road through what is called Wildcat Canyon (didn't see any wildcats, unfortunately). We did see "wildcat" bike riders, though. I mean all those brightly colored bike rider dudes riding in packs. Some of them whizzed past us like they were chasing Lance Armstrong. Others, going more leisurely, I was able to follow or even pass.

In the canyon (near the town of Moraga), one of my favorite spots on the eastbay, the road was gentle and winding. I even could smell redwood trees (I apologize for my camera's sake)

Next, we had to ascend up to Skyline Blvd (lower right corner of the circuit on the map at top). The hairpins on the canyon road ascending to Skyline were moderate, by alpine standards, yet were as much as my legs and my ten-speed could handle. It was fun, actually. I kept thinking, what if one of those softball-sized rocks laying on the side of the road actually fell on top of me as I drove underneath? Fortunately, no such incidents occurred. A nice view towards the east greeted us at the top. They had posted extremeley high fire danger and it was not hard to see why. Everything is tinderbox dry. (and people still build homes up there! - after the Oakland hills fire you think they would have learned)

Once up top on Skyline Blvd., we proceed back towards Berkeley, thankfully not having to deal with any major grades (that's "grade" as in "slope", for all you flatlanders). The views up there are spectacular. Here is another sample featuring yours truly

On the way down, we sped through Tildon park (top of Berkeley) and Tildon golf course. Yes, Berkeley has its very own golf course, and I didn't see any tye-died golfers either. When I moved here, I thought like everyone from the Midwest that Berkeley was just the university. Anyone who lived in or "came from" or even went to Berkeley had to be a hippie and communist leaning! Well, after a while you get to learn that even Berkeley also has snobs, suburban homes ... and a golf course (which I want to play on). The subject of Berkeley probably warrants a separate blog entry ...

So that's my "virtual tour" presentation from the Bay Area this week. I am waiting for the big earthquake, predicted to come and upend life as we know it. We could, like, be experiencing the aftermath of a 7.6 earthquake and be living in a cold mountain climate.

In the meantime, I tell myself to try to enjoy life while I can...

Before I finish: thanks to my friends, like Carla from the Netherlands, who confesses they read this blog from time to time. But you didn't leave any messages! Carla, do you think I write this blog just for the satisfaction of the Dead Animal Society and our Midwestern Republican commentator Siskel? Please, if you visit, sign my guestbook. Thank you and good night-

Fantasy Football Update (Steve)

2005-10-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

Just so nobody thinks I don't respond to my readers, Steve here is the update on my fantasy football team. For all you other readers, this is how a single guy with computer skills and fast connection can spend his idle time. Don't follow my example! :-)

As you can see, I didn't do terribly well point-wise, but got really lucky, with my opponents each week scoring lower than normal. My scoring total is middle of the pack. However, I still have a 4-1 record. Oh yeah ... did you guess which team is me? Hint : it's named after the city where I now live.

Player-wise, I've dropped a couple duds off my roster, which inevitably happens every year I play this game. Those were:
Tyrone Calico (WR, Ten) (now playing David Patten, WR Wash)
Ryan Moats (RB, Phi) (now playing Brian Finneran, WR Atl)
Eric Johnson (TE, SF) (now playing David Martin, TE GB)

Here's the rest of my roster and my report on each player:

QB: Kerry Collins : playing well, perhaps not up to high 1st round draft level, but close.
Steve McNair : a nice substitute. He won last week's matchup for me with a 26 point performance.

RB: Steven Jackson : showing improvement. Last week was his best game so far.
Kevin Jones : likewise, same as above.
Rickey Williams : my "dark horse" finally coming back from a long suspension

WR: Michael Clayton : a total DUD. This guy was projected to have a great year. Instead his teammate Galloway is collecting all the receptions.
Nate Burleson : mediocre. Hurt by D. Culpepper's lackluster performance and overall bad Vikings management / coaching.
Travis Taylor : a pleasant surprise. I was lucky to get him in the 14th round. Suffers from same problem as Burleson though.
Keenan McCardell : had a nice couple of games to start, but last week he only caught 1 pass for 5 yards! The judgement is still out on him.
David Patten, WR Wash : just picked him up off waivers.
Brian Finneran, WR Atl : likewise.

TE: Jeremy Shockey : glad I picked him high (I think, in the 6th round). He's been my mainstay, very consistent.
David Martin : nice fill-in last week on Shockey's bye.

K: Jason Elam : not as good as I'd hoped.
DST: Bengals : better than expected.

In summary, I'm hopeful about my prospects. My team has thusfar played below its potential, yet I am still 4-1.

Bike Riding

2005-10-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

During the last week, I vowed to try to take a ride on my "new" road bike (one I "inherited" from a colleague) every weekend until the weather turns. I guess sometime in November, it will become rainy here and the outdoor recreational opportunities become more limited.

So, this morning found me at the BART train at 40th and MacArthur at 9.30, headed north toward Pittsburgh / Bay Point. The BART ride was surprisingly long. But, with sunlight streaming into the car and not too many passengers, I had a pleasant ride, enjoying the view of the brown California hills (oops, "golden" hills, I am supposed to say). My ride began at the last BART stop (about 15 miles from downtown Oakland, by my reckoning): Pittsburgh / Bay Point. This is an industrial-looking town along the south side of the Sacramento River delta. Lots of not-so-scenic looking refineries and power plants, plus a port to accommodate barge traffic coming down from Sacramento (see map). Not the prettiest place to start a bike ride. But, I had contacted a local biker club and was told this is where the "novices" would meet, at 10 a.m. Well, I got there around 10, and no one else from this "club" was there (I asked another biker resting nearby, just in case I had missed them somehow). The "novices" were apparently taking a break, or had graduated to a better classification. I was on my own. I asked the same biker at the BART stop where I might be able to enjoy a "scenic" ride. He sort of laughed. "Lots of traffic here. I don't like to ride in this area", he said. I could see that the area didn't have that many roads ... and where there are fewer roads, there are more cars. That's just life in California. I noticed the same thing in certain parts of Europe, so I I'm used to that. I set out intrepidly, despite my fellow biker's advice, and headed for the hills.

And what a hill it was! I proceeded from Pittsburgh back toward Walnut Creek (and Oakland) via the "Kirker Pass" on the romantic sounding "Railroad Avenue". I didn't see one other biker on this road. And I soon figured out why. a) lots of fast-moving traffic passing by, b) lots of flat-tire causing gravel and litter on the shoulder / bike lane (the bike lane was not marked as such, but at least there was a stripe), and c) a hill that steadily increased in grade until it because practically impossible at the top to go on. Nevertheless, I didn't regret the ride. I learned the limits of both my own legs and my 10-speed bike. My legs can get me up a short hill, like the one I live on, without too much problem. When it comes to longer inclines though, like the approx. 4 mile uphill I did today over the pass, I still need training. I walked about 1/4 mile. To be fair, my older-model road bike (I'm guessing it was made in the 80s) is also not designed for the faint of heart and body. While modern roadbikes have a forgiving 24 speeds, (allowing even weak guys like myself to traverse most hills), my Peugeot only has 10, of which only 8 are really usable.

As I wrote on the accompanying map, my estimated bike distance was a paltry 18 miles, while the BART ride was about 20 (including the trip back from Walnut Creek to Rockridge). I saw a lot of scenery, including lots of the nice suburbs that border Oakland and Berkeley to the north/west. Lots of sunshine there, hills to go biking and walking, shopping malls, beautiful, tanned (mostly white) people. The American Dream, I suppose. This includes the cities / suburbs of Walnut Creek, Pleasanton (the old home of PeopleSoft, now Oracle/PeopleSoft), and Concord. I will return. I need to measure myself against the Kirker Pass again.

Anita

2005-10-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine from Germany, born in Ohio and residing with her husband and 2 children in Freiburg, died during the night yesterday. Her name was Anita.

I got to know Anita through church, which I attended sporadically at first, and then more often as time went on. She and I hit it off because basically, she is the type of person who appears to be on happy pills 24 hours a day and could not resist cracking jokes even during the dullest of moments. This is a very rare type of person to meet in Germany.

Anita sang with me in the choir (they were desperate for male voices and corralled me into it), and though we were not very good musicians, we did our best to keep our spirits up and stay warm somehow, in spite of rehearsing in old drafty and cold German churches (ours was not, but the ones we sang in usually were)

Now Anita is gone and, if I were still living over there, I would certainly miss her companionship and presence.

Since I am not over there, I can't really miss those things but only reminisce instead what might have been.

The feeling left is that I should have been there during these last months as the disease came back and affected her liver and body. But I left that place and there is no going back to what you used to have. My time there was done, at least, it was done in that town.

The worst thing about death is the finality of it all. Anita is gone forever. No dreams remain, no possible plans to make, or happy reunions, or joking about the good old days, when we were young and stupid, or at least adventurous and silly.

The next time I visit Freiburg, it will be a sad occasion. My best friends from there were all friends of Anita.

Moving is hard sometimes.

New Apartment

2005-09-28T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hello All! Long time no new posts. I see from my guestbook that some people are still visiting. Thank you. Even if you do it just to criticize either me or eachother, my door is "always open" for entertainment from the public at large.

In case anyone was wondering, the reason for my brief disappearance from blogging-world was that I moved. I now live a whole 200 yards down the road from my old place. Thanks to my friends April and Bob, I was able to get moved in by my deadline date Sep. 17th.

I am feeling fine and dandy about the new apartment. Finally, I have a two room apartment! It's funny, that what they call a "One Bedroom" apartment in America actually contains two rooms: one "living room" and one (in this case) equally large, or slightly smaller, "bedroom". In Germany, this would be called a "Zweizimmerwohnung" ("two-room apartment"). While living over there from 2000-2004, I always was in an "Einzimmerwohnung". That's "one room". I bet you are all just fascinated by this lingoism. In any case, after so many years of living within 4 walls, I am now feeling like I have arrived in the lap of luxury. And I am now paying less rent than before!

Above is a picture of the living room. As you can see, things are still somewhat "in flux". That couch-thing you see on the left is the futon, on which I still sleep. I have yet to purchase a decent bed. I expect that, until I get visitors, perhaps from among those that frequent this site, it will stay like this.

Another important event also occurred since last time I posted. At 4.25 local time last Saturday morning, I was jolted awake by shaking. At first, I thought it was my sometimes rambunctious new neighbor upstairs, doing something I didn't want to know about. This was just my first instinct. But then when I started processing brain signals, and sounds, like my TV cabinet creaking from moving back and forth, I put two and two together and realized I'd experienced .... my first California earthquake! It was only a 3.2 magnitude tremor (epicenter was only a couple miles from my house, and 6 km beneath the earth's surface). Several local people I talked to didn't even feel it at all! That means I must be a pretty scared, naive Midwesterner.

It does make me wonder what could happen if I experience the "big one" that the experts are predicting to happen here in the next 60 years (with 90% likelihood). If it's at night again, will the roof over my head keep intact? Or will I be crushed under a load of drywall and concrete? Will I still have any possessions left? Will my job still exist? Thoughts like these do lend a certain kind of perspective. At least now, I understand why people around here don't bother spending as much as other people I know in Wisconsin getting their houses all up to snuff. Why bother investing that much when it will likely get destroyed by an earthquake anyways? I don't know what earthquake insurance costs around here for homeowners. I do know, however, that at both places I've rented, I had to sign a form acknowleging that there is no legal protection if my stuff all gets destroyed in my apartment by an earthquake. And, my auto insurer, State Farm, told me it would cost much more than my property is worth to buy such insurance. So, am I living "on the edge" ... or what?

Sierra Club Activities

2005-09-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the first-ever Sierra Club national summit in San Francisco, held in one of the city's convention centers (the Moscone Center). I guess attendance was fairly good - judging by reports I heard at the conference, and my own impression from attending the conference on Sunday. The only reason I was there was because I volunteered and got in for free. They assigned me a cushy job as a "pass checker" at one of the meeting rooms. You see, the Sierra Club charged something like $160 for people to attend all of the 3 day conference, which gave them access to all the "forums" and speakers in the individual rooms. To be fair to the Club, the conference did cost quite a bit to put together, so I suppose some kind of fee is necessary. Anyways, those who either couldn't afford the $160, or were just too cheap to pay, like me, could either pay just $15, which let them visit the exhibit hall, or volunteer. My job as pass checker was keeping the "cheapskates" apart from the "faithful", who ponied up their money to attend. And I even got free lunch. Not bad! Naturally, I was rather lax on the "cheapskates", for whom I have sympathy.

The highlight of the conference for me was listening to Marine General Lehnert from Camp Pendelton talk about being an environmenalist and a marine at the same time. He made some great points. People clapped politely when he was done, but I think he deserved a "standing O".

Too bad though I missed Al Gore's speech on Friday. I guess he really socked it to Bush. Where was that spirit when you ran for president in 2000, Al?

As long as we're talking about (elected and un-elected) presidents, I was emailed this picture by a friend in Milwaukee. If it weren't such a sad situation, I would say it's hilarious.

NEWS: I will be moving this weekend. Knowing my own tendency to procrastinate, I decided the best thing I could do to expedite this process is to take apart and disassemble my computer to limit my tendency to surf endlessly and do all sorts of other useless activities on this infernal machine. So hasta la semana proxima, everybody...

Bagdad in New Orleans

2005-09-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

I turned on the computer after getting home today and read the news on MyWay, as is my custom. The first picture I saw from New Orleans was this.

I guess there are people with guns down there shooting at cellular tower repair people. So the Sheriff's department gets to "play Army".

Can you just imagine, a little old lady, stranded for days in her apartment, opens the window to ask for help and sees these Sheriffs. "Hey Billybob down there, would ya help out an old lady?" "Close your window and stay inside! We busy hunting snipers!"

Despite all of the catastrophe news, when I see pictures like this I see how ridiculous America can be. Call me upatriotic.

Let me put it this way, for all pro-handgun advocates: is it better that we have guys like this with M-16s patrolling the streets of our cities, or would it not be better if there were serious gun laws and the cops could keep their guns holstered, and give some real meaningful help?

On a related subject, the latest I heard from Texas is they are sheltering 13,000 hurricane victims in a shopping mall in San Antonio. Well, hey, those people won't have to go far to spend their $2,000 government vouchers!

The Salvation Army and American Red Cross appear to be doing a lot of good work, and are asking for donations...

And yes, I did finally get around to posting pictures from my trip to the Sierra Nevada the weekend before last.

One last thing: everybody please sign my guestbook! Call me a moron if you want! Or should I go on strike to test the faith of my readership?

Email from San Antonio

2005-09-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

This week I'm not going to do much creative work in blogging. I thought it would be inappropriate to talk about my hike in the Sierra Mountains and show you all the nice pictures. I'll do that next week.

Instead I'm posting an email that was forwarded to me by a friend. It is written by Nancy Daniels, Lt. Col. US Army (ret.) She is part of the psychological counseling team set up in San Antonio TX to support arriving refugees from the Gulf Coast.

"Experience from Hurricane Andrew in the 1990’s was that several whole cities were knocked out. New middle class homes had not been built to code and fell on their occupants. It was hard to get assistance in because there were no phones, no electricity, no water, no roads. Storms have a way of wrecking road systems through flooding and debris. Also, if there is enough wind and water, the road bed gets taken right out of the ground.

New Orleans set up the Super Dome and Convention Center as a refuge of last resort for the sick and crippled who couldn’t evacuate. By Saturday night there was enough wind that the airport closed. People who could buy tickets went out on Trailways, but they didn’t really know where to go. Lots of people didn’t have money for more than a few days in a hotel. There were some evacuee centers in Baton Rouge and all around the state. Lots of people couldn’t evacuate because they couldn’t buy a bus ticket and didn’t have a car. There wasn’t any public transport for evacuation near as I can tell. So people went to the superdome. Still others stayed in their homes and rode out the storm. They were just fine for a while after the storm. There was no water, no phone, no electricity by Monday after the storm passed. Then it got sort of hot and sunny and things were looking up by Monday afternoon. People were willing to stay in their homes and endure the hardship until the power and water were back for a few weeks. Then Monday night the levees broke. Tuesday morning people woke up and washed out of their beds. I mean the water just sort of rose up during the night and took people by surprise.

Amtrak tracks are under water. They only run a few trains in and out of there each day. I think the schedule is two trains a day going east and two going west.

Only one route on I-10 was passable. It was hard to get to. Finally they got more roads open.

Yesterday I was at the evacuee center. I heard the stories. Life is kind of messy and chaotic anyway. Disaster preparedness is not foremost on the minds of people who live kind of hand to mouth anyway. One man said he pulled a woman out of the water into a boat. She died in his arms, but it looked like there was really nothing wrong with her. He thought she was just overwhelmed. He was asking for some new clothes since he had been handling dead bodies.

Walmart brought out some clothes and diapers. Everybody needs clothes and we haven’t got laundry facilities. Things run out real fast because there are about 5000 in the shelter in various states of chaos. There are plenty of volunteers, but as with any operation communication is very difficult. Well organized refugee efforts have to unfold over time. It’s not possible to have emergency situations quickly organized. Communication is really a very fragile commodity.

This is a triple decker disaster. First was the grinding poverty. Then there was the Category 5 hurricane that took out 6000 square miles and along with it all infrastructure—(water, sewer, roads, power, phones). Then the levees broke and flooded 80 % of New Orleans. So that’s why things are such a mess.

Buses were coming in every 5 minutes with about 50 passengers each. There are second and third evacuation centers opening all over this city and many others. Everything is overflowing. These people are sick, too. There is a federal agency-NMDS that is coordinating sending folks to hospitals. Only the sickest can be sent to hospitals. They’re full, too.

I have been in disaster planning for many years. It is hard to imagine the reality of something like this. We have never anticipated or planned to manage anything of this magnitude. Ordinarily something this big wouldn’t necessarily have this many survivors.

I am going back to the evacuee center today.

Love,

Nancy"

Best bargain wines

2005-08-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

I'm off to go hiking in the Sierras starting tomorrow and ending Monday eve. As usual, my place is a mess, I'm only half packed, and it's almost 11 p.m. I had to buy a lot of equipment for this one, like a tent, walking sticks (I know they're yuppie, but I figure being 34, I got to start taking care of my body), water purifier, polyester clothing (so you don't stay damp) etc. etc. It cost me a bundle at REI before I realized I could get most of this stuff cheaper at other stores. For instance the 2 person tent from REI that I bought for $170 can be had for half the price at the outdoor shop across the street. Naturally I will return the REI tent and keep the cheaper one. I love America!

On another subject, just so you folks don't think I never give you free stuff here on this website, here is the top bargain wine list published in today's S.F. Chronicle:

Best Budget Brand Wines under $15 or less

- San Francisco Chronicle Wine Section, Aug 25 -

1. Bogle Vineyards (Sacramento Delta). Try their Chardonnay for $9 or Petite Sirah also $9
2. Castle Rock Winery (Calistoga, CA). Napa Valley Chardonnay $15
3. Concha y Toro (Chile) all red wines are good deals.
4. Don Sebastian and Sons (Sonoma, CA). Good merlot, Chardonnay or C. S. They often blend other's wines into their own.
5. McManis Family Vineyards (San Joaquin Valley). Chardonnay, P.S. and California Viognier (?), all around $10.
6. Falesco (Italy) Umbria Bianco, Umbria Rosso, Umbria Rose $8.
7. Hogue Cellars (Yakima, WA). Merlot, Riesling, Sangiovese Rose $10-$15.
8. McWilliam's Hanwood Estate (Australia). Australia Chardonnay, Riesling and Shiraz all around $10.
9. Villa Maria Estate (N.Z.) Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and Merlot all $13-$15.
10. Three Thieves (Mendocino Cty, CA). They sell 1 Liter glass jugs and Tetra Brik Boxes of "Bianco Trebbiano", California Zinfandel and C.S. for $6-$10.

Enjoy the shopping!

Elkhorn Slough Excursion

2005-08-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today I had an opportunity to enjoy some more of California's scenery south of San Francisco. My colleague Dan from work invited me to meet him down between Santa Cruz and Monterey (that's about a 2 hr drive) for kayaking excursion. Despite the early 7 a.m. wakeup this morning (or maybe because of it), I had a relaxing drive listening to A.M. radio through the normally congested Bay Area suburban / industrial areas between Oakland and San Jose, followed by a scenic and windy drive south on Hwy 17 from San Jose to Santa Cruz. The last part of the drive was along Highway 1, which further south and further north of Santa Cruz becomes a very scenic coastal road, but in that area is more or less hillly and barren. Arriving at the appointed hour (we had agreed on 10 a.m.), I found the rental facility and saw kayakers already taking their morning instructions from the "harbor master" (the guy who was renting out the boats). Figuring I was late, as usual, I hurried inside, only to be told I was the first in the group to show up - at 9.58! This is my kind of crowd.

Anyways, we got going soon enough, and because it was foggy, as usual, you had the feeling it was still early in the morning, even though it was rapidly approaching noon. For an explanation of coastal fog in norther California go here.

Below are some pictures of us getting going in the morning.

Learning the Basics: Land Kayaking 101

Dan and Collin following by the rest of the horde

An agreeable sight was looking east into "Elkhorn Slough" (the name of the estuary that runs in about 5 miles from Moss Landing harbor). It looked very peaceful and calm. Reminded me of Wolf Lake in Wisconsin.

I soon started seeing some of the wildlife they told us about at the rental place: in this case, some pelicans perching on logs.

If you click on the picture you will see the sea lions looking very lazy.

A sea otter having a snack. In the morning I could actually hear the guy chewing away on a clam or mussel of some sort.

At the end of the day, we were nice and tired. Since I decided to "go the extra mile" and not turn around like some others did after about 1 1/2 hrs on the water, I ended up paddling a longer distance that I thought I would - I guess it was about 7 miles. I admit I had the advantage of a fast boat and no kid that required "pushing" on the boat. I had a sunburn ... on my ankles - the one place I forgot to apply sunscreen.

To sum it up, a tiring but eventful day - and now I'm ready for bed!

Just hanging around

2005-08-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

I have to finally admit I've settled into a bad routine. First off, this week I actually had to work. Our main technical "guru" on the team at work is leaving us! After 8 years in the team, he decides to take a new position somewhere else in the company. This guy was so good, the rest of us didn't really even have to work! Joe is nothing short of brilliant when it comes to computers, especially what he can do with MS Access and Microsoft Office. So does his leaving say anything about my ability to work together with others??? I hope not. Joe and I got along pretty well. I just stole a lot of his grapes (he always keeps a bag of white grapes in his cube, and I love to stop by to "chat", that is to eat his grapes).

So this week was kind of hectic, because I had to try to figure out what the heck Joe had been doing these past 8 years so when our medical contracting customers come to me from now on, I'll be able to help them. That was the first "bad routine". The SECOND one is, this week I spent a even more time on the Internet that usual. I mean a LOT of time... like 3-5 hours a day, every day! (not including at work, where I try not to "surf") Thank God no one's charging me per hour for this, like in the old days of AOL. Because if they were, I'd be poor. Maybe I should go BACK to AOL?

Anyways, the main reason I was online so much this particular week is the Lewandowski family fantasy football league draft, which is happening online as we speak. For those of you readers not familiar with fantasy football, it involves picking offensive football players at each position (in American football there are certain positions like Quarterback, Running Back and Wide Receiver that score almost all the points). The better you know which players will do well in any given year, and the better you are at picking those players (there is a rotating order to the draft), the better your chances for success are during the "regular season", which begins after labor day in early September and lasts till Christmas.

We - that is "the league" - decided to have the player draft "live" this year, to give everybody a chance to pick all their players instead of the SI.com computers doing it for us. And with 15 people in the league (all family members - a new record for us), that's a lot of picking. The fun part is, you get to "chat" / talk trash with your competitors - and watch them pick. The bad part is, if you are like me, you end up spending a lot of time scouting NFL players online to see who has the best fantasy football league prospects and not getting around to doing more healthy stuff like "real" sports or cleaning your apartment.

I put up a picture of the most recent draft board just to give you an idea of the suspense and drama going on. Incidentally, the picture you see at the top, "Welcome to Oakland", is also my team logo. It has little to do with the name of my fantasy team except for the "Oakland" part. I have always had Sausage-related names all 4 years (it started with "Knackwursts", which I kept for the first 2 years, then last year it was "Smoking Knockwursts" and now I made the radical change to "Oakland Sausage Factory"). Just something to emphasize my Milwaukee roots...

By the way, here are my picks so far:
Round Pick Player Position
1 7 Kerry Collins QB, Oak (a mistake, considering I could have gotten Priest Holmes)

2 9 Kevin Jones RB, Det
3 7 Nate Burleson WR, Min
4 9 Steven Jackson RB, SD
5 7 Michael Clayton WR, TB
6 9 Jeremy Shockey TE, NYG
7 7 Tyrone Calico WR, TEN (here I could have picked Keenan McCardell from the Rams, but didn't because I'd been reading how great a preseason Calico and Steve McNair are having)

So ... that's the long version of Why I am Online Too Much. I am beginning to think it's like a bad habit I can't break. I'm a compulsive Internet addict. So Steve, you might be a gambling fanatic, but I've probably got you beat in terms of computer time...

Well that's my weekly roundup. I am going to post a new poll, this time it's about what are some of the hobbies I should be taking up. I'd be interested what you have to say.

By the way, the results from last week's poll indicate that I should take along the tomato girls when I want to impress women like Rachel McAdams, and that I should also work more and not think of Rachel so much. Thank you very much - but I'M STILL SINGLE!

Worst Movie of the Year ... Period

2005-08-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody,

Just so you all know it I am still here and going strong. The aphids seem to be going away, thanks to my garlic broth remedy. However a new calamity has struck the garden: the tomato plants are getting yellow on the bottom! I asked an expert here in north Oakland and she said I might be over-watering and causing the tomato to focus all it's "juices" to the top. So from now on, tomatoes only get watered once a week! Let's hope that cures them.

On another note, I saw a totally terrible movie this weekend : "Wedding Crashers", starring, well, who cares who those guys were!

The basic premise of the movie is these two guys, who are professional mediators in their other lives, go around to weddings of people they don't know (they find out by reading the paper) and get drunk and hopefully also laid with the other girls at those parties. The only redeeming quality of that movie is Rachel McAdams, and that's because she's cute, smart and WAY too good for this movie. At least for me, there was one thing I could enjoy looking at and listening to.

question: How old is Rachel, anyways?
answer: though I would have guessed about 18, she is actually 28 going on 29, that means 5 years younger than me. So do I have a chance? (you can vote in this week's poll)

Anyways, if you were considering whether to spend your $8 or whatever it costs to see "Wedding Crashers" in your neck of the woods, I am here to say SAVE YOUR MONEY and spend it on a better movie you will remember longer than this forgettable one. Heck, you could even rent 2 movies for this price, one of them being "Rocky IV", and the other being any other movie with Rachel McAdams or a movie star/starlet of your choice.

Speaking of "Rocky IV", I mentioned it because I just watched bits of that movie in between "Fear Factor" on TV tonight. It was shown on Cine de las Estrellas here (in Spanish, of course). Even though it was considered a flop back in the 80s, I loved the training sequences in the cabin in Siberia, and the inspirational 80s music including the "Final Countdown" by Survivor. On item I have to criticize however- Sy Stallone does not look like much of a boxer the way he lets Dolph beat him up. And it's not very realistic to get absololutely pounded for 10 rounds and then win the fight. But hey, it's Hollywood, and I STILL liked this movie way, WAY more than "Wedding Crashers".

One last thing: remember how Ivan Drago a.k.a. Dolph Lundgren says "I must break you" as he's facing Rocky in the beginning of one of the boxing rounds??? Well in Spanish it's "Yo contigo acabare". That sounds a lot cooler to me than "I must break you". Go Ivan!

New garden arrangment - Aphid invasion!

2005-07-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here you have an up-to-date view of the gardening rearrangement. You may notice I moved about half the plants. Here is a summary of changes:

1) moved the Kale from front center to rear middle left (between 2 tomato plants) to improve sun exposure for front cabbage, collard, and remaining 2 lettuce plants.
2) moved cabbage plant from between the left-most tomato plants to the right rear spot to improve sunlight exposure.
3) replaced dying lettuce plants in front right with Collard.

A guest remarks that I am a "Lettuce Killer". I am offended by this accusation. Listen up: my actions to remove 2 dying lettuce plants were "mercy killing". Don't you understand? I had to kill a few sick plants to save the crop. So please, stop labeling me a "killer".

On another note, while doing the replantings, I noticed that the cabbage appears to be in less than perfect health. You may have noticed the holes in the cabbage leaves. There is also some kind of white slime that has collected in the "armpits" of the cabbage leaves. I can only guess that this is due to some kind of aphids, or "cabbage loopers", whatever those are (looked it up on google). So I took the unconventional step of brewing a home remedy consisting of diluted, cooked mashed garlic, and poured a little of if on all the cabbages. Now things smell wonderfully like garlic in the evening. All Aphids must die! If this doesn't do the trick, I will think about putting on a plant screen next.

New Garden Work Crew

2005-07-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a full two weeks since I last updated my Gardening site. The reason is, everything's coming along splendidly in the garden so there wasn't much news to report. There was some new growth in the tomatoes. I will make another post to display that. Also, I had to kill some lettuce plants. They apparently don't like the direct sunlight. Or the bat guano.

A recent guest remarked he'd like to see more girls in bikinis. So to "spice things up", I decided to hire a work crew I will call the "Tomato Girls". These girls, dressed mostly in red to honor the produce that rules my batch of land, are as you can see hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, roll-your-pant-leg-up types. I only hire the best :-)

They are expert in using the gardening implements I provide and their effect on plant reproduction seems quite amazing. After just one shift of them toiling in my backyard, my tomato and cabbage plants had "spruced right up".

On another note, it appears my time here as master of Apartment E at 3912 Harrison Street may be soon ending. I found another place just up the street that offers more space and a garage for my car (see my earlier parking post from May), for the same rent I pay now. I will have to make side trips to take care of my plants. Since it's only a 1/2 block away, and it appears the rental market is moving real slow around here, that shouldn't be a problem....

Stay tuned! And thanks for visiting

Garden update

2005-07-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

Quick update on my garden, which because I have little other social life, has become my main topic of conversation. The plants all responded to my emergency bat guano- planting mix quite well from 2 weeks ago. Interestingly, the plants on the near / "house" and middle sides of the garden - the tomatoes in the cages, most of the 5 cabbages, and the kale - are doing the best, while the lettuce on the far side of the garden is only staying green, but not really growing. It was in the far side of the garden, where the lettuce is, that I "dropped the load", meaning, I used about 85% bat guano mix there, because I'd run out of the topsoil from doing the grading in the rest of the small garden. So it seems to me that you CAN over-fertilize vegetable plants. Maybe they're like us humans - you give them too much of a good thing, and they start wilting.

July 4th weekend in the Midwest

2005-07-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm back refreshed after a long (5 day) weekend in Wisconsin. I know this blog is supposed to be more about the area I moved to in northern California, but it wouldn't be complete without some journalistic impressions from home. After all, I suspect that the majority of the 5 people who visit my site are from my home state :-)

Anyways, the first order of business after arriving at my parents' last Thursday was to prepare for a trip Up North. Nothing to exciting to report about this. My friends, Julia, Zurab and Yury (Zurab is from formerly Soviet Georgia), had prepared their stuff the night before, and came to pick me up in their car. Since the place we were going to up north is fully furnished, all I needed was a bag with some extra clothes. I took more than I needed.

Arriving in Wausaukee, everything was prepared for us. In contrast to winter months, we could immediately settle in to the place, since it wasn't necessary to heat the building first. During winter, on the other hand, you have to have the old electric heaters running at least 4 hrs before the place is habitable. See my winter travel diary if you want to know more about visiting north country in the winter.

Here you see a picture of the cabin - as you can see, a "real" log cabin.

I've been all over Marinette county, and besides the couple of similar looking buildings that relatives have built, there aren't many homes like this. The logs, besides being rustic looking, are also excellent insulators. The white stuff you see in between the logs is a type of mortar. The original part on the left was built in 1980. The original logs and mortar are still in pretty good shape. The right side was added on by the Pashek brothers, a nearby building company (I tried to google them online, but couldn't find them).

Enjoying some fine food prepared by Julia - the best quiche I've maybe ever tasted - we relaxed during the first evening. The next day was our swimming adventure on Wolf Lake. This featured some muck-walking, to the amusement of all 4 of us. Did you know that the bottom sediment of such northern lakes as this one is composed largely of plant detritus and ground mussels and clams? I happily happily demonstrated the application of mud to myself and others in the group.

I'll spare you the rest of my northern adventures, since they involved mostly me working around the place to "pay rent". Unfortunately my friends had to leave already after 1 1/2 days, far too short a time. They appeared to like it there and I suppose we'll return again. And again unfortunately, I didn't think to take any digital pictures while they were up there ... bummer!

In Milwaukee on July 4th, I got together with my friend and fellow blogger, Steve Schroeder. Besides gambling a lot, he has also surpassed me in terms of blogging volume. Here is a picture of us two taking a break from watching the Brewers and babysitting. Actually, Theresa, Steve's wife, was doing most of the babysitting. I tickled the baby a little bit and coo-ed to him, but I think he was more interested in food. Below you see a picture of me and Steve, followed by Theresa and little red-eyed Alex.

Steve actually did gamble a little on his laptop that day, but didn't appear to win much. Checking his blog shows that he lost $2. Well Steve, you could have blamed me for distracting you from your favorite past time. Then again, I could say you should be happy it was only $2 you lost that day!

During my visit to the Schroeders', we were also entertained by some nice views of the sunset in Milwaukee.

So as you can see, I got around a lot over the weekend and saw a lot of people. That was the main objective. Plus, I never once used the computer (except to help some friends, and my mother, with their questions). I was very pleased with this!

During the return flight(s) to California, I had the opportunity to see my tax dollars at work in the Milwaukee Airport - in the form of extra security staff. These guys checked me for bombs like nobody's business. I got "selected" for a "special" security check consisting of frisking and wanding my entire body. Maybe it was because I presented California ID - I don't know. The TSA guy, after he finished wanding and frisking me, made me take off my belt buckle, and turn up the waistline of my pants! It was so ridiculous. I wanted to yell at the guy but it's like in a bad movie, where the cops have you, and you know if you speak up, they'll only treat you worse.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think those people working for TSA, or cops in general are bad people. It's just that these types of experiences, coupled with things I have heard and read about, like incidents of police brutality in Oakland, only reinforce my opinion that we live in a police state. p.s. I know the girl pictured in the linked CNN article - the article is true.

OK, I went off on a mini tangent. When I start talking about politics, I tend to do that. The next blog will be from California again. I'm not sure what it will be yet, but I'll try to pick something good. Thanks for reading! p.s. leave a comment please - it helps motivate me to keep writing.