WEEK 27 2008
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First Post,
17 March 2002
|
Six Years
Ago, This Week, 2002 |
Five Years
Ago, This Week, 2003 |
Four
Years Ago, this
week, 2004 |
Three Years
Ago, This Week, 2005 |
Two Years
Ago,
This Week, 2006
|
A Year Ago,
This Week, 2007
|
Saturday
- my sister, niece and brother in law came down from Reno and we had a
nice visit and little barbecue. The smoke in Reno, well, Sparks, has
been bad and they were happy to be in clearer air. They are staying in
a nearby hotel, for $52 a night on the 4th of July weekend - travel must be down a lot. We didn't do much, sat around and talked.
I turned on my Linux box downstairs for the niece to play on - WebKins
and such, which worked fine once I'd downloaded and installed the Adobe
Flash player (by clicking on the 'install flash player' link on the web
page). She's never used Linux before, but had no issues with it, other
than the missing Flash player.
Mildly apropos of that: I hear someone - Dell? - is offering a 'Vista Bonus Pack' on their computer's now - and that it's Windows XP Pro,
with a coupon for getting Vista later, if you want. Wow. What a
disaster this must Vista must be for Microsoft. OSX has a far more
intuitive interface, Ubuntu has similar functionality and is free - all
Windows has going for it is user familiarity and it's backwards
compatibility.
They plan on breaking the backwards compatibility - have already
done so in part with Vista, and Office 2007 has dispensed with decades
of user familiarity. I've never met anyone who needed anything that wasn't already in Office 2000, and never met anyone who liked Office 2007.
Freedom, glorious freedom. Some moron, out in the Martinez valley
somewhere, is shooting off a gun this evening. First whistlers, then
firecrackers, finally the distinct multiple reports of a firearm. Bah.
The dog was traumatized last night, but at least it was actually the
4th. No sirens, so the gun (sadly) probably wasn't an irritable
neighbor.
Amusingly the SF police had big plans to crack down on fireworks there.
Big fines, aggressive patrolling, all sorts of posturing took place
from various city officials before. But that evening a local news
reporter caught multiple videos of police cruisers just, well, cruising past illegal fireworks displays in the streets.
The reporter, young and female, was aghast at the whole thing, all
these little people acting as scofflaws, ignoring the public display
down on the waterfront where they could be directed here and there via
closed off streets, herded into tidy pens, and generally
controlled by their betters...
Friday 4 July
2008
Friday
-
| Happy Birthday United States of America. |
The Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Thursday 3 July
2008
Thursday
- in the morning we headed over to San Luis Obispo for a visit to Leons
Book Store, as we always try to do. Shockingly it was closed (We
actually stood there, debating for minutes, as to whether we were in
the right spot, if it was the correct storefront, or just the 'pink
romances' annex. Finally the truth sank in).
Apparently the building has to be completely structurally remodeled for
earthquake resistance and the current owners decided not to try to hang
on. Leon himself opened the store in 1969 but passed away a couple of
years ago. Article
about it here.
It's sad, the passing of an era, but at least my friends daughter
coaxed the demolition workers to pull a couple left over stack signs
from the walls for us: DRAMA and RELIGION as it turned out. For
me, SCI-FI or MARITIME might have been more appropriate, but you
take what you can get...
It's both larger and smaller without the books.
On the road in the afternoon, up to SF via the 101, then over to
Martinez. The smoke was thick was we approached Salinas, and then faded
away. I'm guessing this was probably the Big Sur fire. Partial fog in
the city, nice and clear in the east bay.
As usual the TomTom GPS attempted to steer me into the middle of San
Jose. It tried this on my last trip, when we were actually aiming for
Fremont. My working hypothesis is that it was built there, and has an
electronic homing instinct that kicks in.
Then it tried to get me to take the 237 exit from the 101 and
go up the east side of
San Francisco Bay and take the Bay Bridge across to SF.
Insane. We ignored it and simply took the 101 to the 9th Street
exit, close to my traveling companions apartment.
Wednesday 2 July 2008
Wednesday
- we had a nice lunch in Morro Bay, at the Chinese place down at the
end of the waterfront. Perused for cheesy souvenir's and some salt
water taffy.
In the late afternoon it was time to make some jam from all the
berries. It went pretty well - we even had a little left over jam to
spread over various things!
Days are walking about the towns, or sitting at the beach. We tear the
teen age boys away from the computers and teevee and tell them to leave
and not come back until dinner.Which is fine with them, they just need
a push. Nights are usually reading, Scrabble, or watching back episodes
of Buffy
on the DVD player. All very low key and relaxing.
Tuesday 1 July 2008
Tuesday
- berry picking! We went to Carson's farm, same as always. There was no sign out by the
road. We entered anyway and then found a little "closed" sign down
the access road. Ignoring that we then came to the berry field, which
was blocked off by a backhoe parked
sideway's across the dirt road. We ignored that, collected
baskets, picked our two flats of strawberries, and then left a note and
cash in the little wooden box sitting by the barn.
Heh - there were a couple of polite notes and other people's money already in it...
To be honest, it's not as bad as it sounds. The same thing happened
last year, except farmer Carson happened to be there and mentioned that
the closed sign "didn't
really mean closed, just nobody around" and
that "it
was only berries".
Monday 30 June 2008
Monday
- it was nice at the beach. Smoky - but that is most of California
these days. The dry lightning storm started, they say, 15,000 fires.
That's right: fifteen
thousand. But enough complaining, it was pretty darn nice
on the coast!
What to say about Cayucos this year? Well, it was a new rental, not
directly on the beach, but beautiful, big and nearly new. The guest
book started in 2005 I think. I had a private room, with a huge king
sized bed. There was a huge kitchen, and large teevee in the front
room, and a sit down table suitable for eight easily, even more if
needed. The beach was two minutes walk, where the sand was sandy, the
water wet, and it was a good place to be...
Sunday_29 June 2008
Sunday
- Saturday afternoon I headed back from Yosemite to Lancaster. I'd
intended to leave on Sunday, originally, but was tired enough after the
long trip up to rethink things. Sunday I was supposed to pick up the
boys and head to the coast - four hours driving. On top of six or seven
hours on the way down it'd be a horrible day. So before lunch on
Saturday I packed up and headed south.
No big problems on the way - I did run low on gas and retrace my path
briefly, about 8 miles worth, rather than risk going up the Tehachapi
grade with the check fuel light on. I put in about 19 gallons, so it
was probably a good idea, the vehicle would have been on fumes at the
top of the grade.
I leap frogged with my friend Tim, who was also on his way back. I'd
stop for lunch or to check directions, he'd stop for lunch and kid
breaks. At Bakersfield we split, with Lancaster off to the
left and LA along the 99 to I-5 on the right.
The cats were fat and happy when I got in, mostly uninterested in me -
I'd only been gone a couple of days. The weather was decent, in the
80's, and clear - nice after the smoke and haze of the central valley.
Sunday morning I got up, packed a few more things, picked up the boys
and headed out to Cayucos, via SR-166. I like that road, it's two lanes
but enough happens along the roadside to keep one interested. They boys
were good company, as usual, and we made it to the coast by early
afternoon.
