For a few years now, I've been steadily becoming more and more obsessed with food. You may think this natural, considering that I live in San Francisco, snobbledy foodie capital of the U.S. But this started back in New Mexico, where the local cuisine is based entirely around one amazingly spectacular ingredient. The "localvore" movement that's come to the forefront over the past several years appeals to me, and I want to go ultra-local by growing my own food. Unfortunately, I live in an area with tiny, tiny "yards" for the most part, and I can't access the 1/2 acre that I was once told (by dry-farming New Mexico hippies!) it would take to supply two people with all of the food they need. Luckily for me, I live in the land of agricultural abundance, and have fresh, local, organic produce available year-round.
I still want to go self-sufficient one day, but I also know that it's not going to happen here. And there's the conundrum: by the time I'm able to supply myself with produce, I'll no longer be able to do so all year (as I'll live somewhere with a winter that isn't exactly like the rest of the year). The answer to the conundrum? Food preservation.
That long lead-in is to set up my big Christmas presents that I got this year. First, there's my brand-new, 23-quart Pressure Canner (Thanks, Alison!) and affiliated utensils. This guy can be used to can all kinds of food (unlike a water bath canner, that can't be used for low-acid foods like vegetables because it cannot reach temperatures above 212 degrees). My second acquisition is a fancy "Food and Jerky Dehydrator" (Jerky isn't Food?) (Thanks, Joan and Bob!). I'll be able to use this one to dry fruit, hopefully of my own production one day.
I'll be using my blog in the future to document my terribly novice attempts to keep and preserve the produce that I grow and buy (with picutres!). This will hopefully start in a couple weeks, when I will turn a theoretical delivery of surplus oranges (from DP) into something, probably marmalade (which I don't even eat) or orange slices or something. This time of year, about the only fruits available at the farmer's market are apples and pears, so there will be some applesauce, sliced apples and pears, and dried apples and pears prodcued soon (especially if my go-to apple retailer brings back the $0.50/lb bruised apple bin).
One more note about my motivation for this project. I jokingly told my brother-in-law-in-law last weekend that I was getting into this kind of thing to prepare for the apocalypse. While that is kind of sort of true (where are you going to get food when society breaks down if you can't make and keep it yourself?), there's another reason in addition to the localvore thing. I think most of us have parents or grandparents that once lived "in the country" if not directly on a farm, and growing and preserving food was a matter of course, which everybody knew how to do. When I was talking to my mother several months ago about doing this, I asked her if she had a food preservation cookbook I could have, and she told me that she didn't have one, as she just always asked her mother if she had any questions. Well, now grandma is gone, and the knowledge went with her. In this country, generations that knew how to be self-sufficient are slowly disappearing, to be replaced by children who think that milk comes from the supermarket, not from cows (or possibly rats, if you live in Springfield). I want to keep this knowledge alive, and, in the process, reduce my impact on the environment by not causing the shipping of apples from Chile, peaches from China, and oranges from Australia (and don't even get me started on bananas).
Let me know if you want to sample my wares (except during cherry season, because cherries are the single greatest foodstuff ever created (including the Twinkie), and I'm going to be very, very greedy with them), and you'll probably be getting something from my kitchen for Christmas if you're a gift-receiving-level friend or family.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
2010 Holiday Letter
Dear Friends,
2010 has been both an eventful and stable year for us. For the first time since we became a couple six (!) years ago, we lived in the same apartment and both held the same jobs for the whole year (which will make Alison’s mom’s life much easier when it’s tax time!).
We also did many exciting things – the most notable, of course, was our participation in Sail for a Cure and the Leukemia Cup Regatta. We could not have done this without the emotional and/or financial support of our amazing friends and family! Thank you so much! Although it turned out that we pretty much would have rather done ANYTHING other than go sailing on San Francisco Bay, we raised several thousand dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to help find a cure for blood cancers and improve the quality of life for people who are living with blood cancer, including Max Harris, the brother of one of Alison’s good friends.
This year we also learned that Alison’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been undergoing treatment, and we are relieved to report that she is doing extremely well! In November, we went to Phoenix and took part in the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer with our families and many of our very supportive friends. We were overwhelmed by the number of people walking to show their support. The next day Alison ran a half marathon in honor of her mom and in support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Of course, we also traveled many places during the year: Avenue of the Giants in Northern California for a half marathon of the same name, San Diego with Alison’s family for another half marathon, Denver (mostly to drink beer and enjoy the scenery), and many day or weekend trips to various locations around the Bay Area. Our big vacation was a 10-day camping trip to Yosemite and Sequoia/King’s Canyon National Parks for Matt’s birthday in September, including over 65 miles of hiking. We also enjoyed Thanksgiving in Yosemite for the second year in a row, and were treated to the entire valley coated with snow. Everyone should see this!
To round it all out, Alison also completed her very first triathlon - a sprint - and got to spend time with some of her girl friends on solo trips to San Diego, Las Vegas, and Baltimore. Matt was thrilled to be able to attend the Nelson family reunion in Iowa and see many nth cousins, removed to various degrees, and see his grandparents’ ashes interred in the family plot. Best of all, we got to see our rambunctious toddling nephew, Tyler, several times throughout the year – thanks Karen and Bernie!
We wish everyone a fantastic holiday season and hope to see everyone very soon! Remember – you’re welcome to visit us in San Francisco – just make sure to bring your walking shoes.
Love,
Alison and Matt
2010 has been both an eventful and stable year for us. For the first time since we became a couple six (!) years ago, we lived in the same apartment and both held the same jobs for the whole year (which will make Alison’s mom’s life much easier when it’s tax time!).
We also did many exciting things – the most notable, of course, was our participation in Sail for a Cure and the Leukemia Cup Regatta. We could not have done this without the emotional and/or financial support of our amazing friends and family! Thank you so much! Although it turned out that we pretty much would have rather done ANYTHING other than go sailing on San Francisco Bay, we raised several thousand dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to help find a cure for blood cancers and improve the quality of life for people who are living with blood cancer, including Max Harris, the brother of one of Alison’s good friends.
This year we also learned that Alison’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been undergoing treatment, and we are relieved to report that she is doing extremely well! In November, we went to Phoenix and took part in the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer with our families and many of our very supportive friends. We were overwhelmed by the number of people walking to show their support. The next day Alison ran a half marathon in honor of her mom and in support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Of course, we also traveled many places during the year: Avenue of the Giants in Northern California for a half marathon of the same name, San Diego with Alison’s family for another half marathon, Denver (mostly to drink beer and enjoy the scenery), and many day or weekend trips to various locations around the Bay Area. Our big vacation was a 10-day camping trip to Yosemite and Sequoia/King’s Canyon National Parks for Matt’s birthday in September, including over 65 miles of hiking. We also enjoyed Thanksgiving in Yosemite for the second year in a row, and were treated to the entire valley coated with snow. Everyone should see this!
To round it all out, Alison also completed her very first triathlon - a sprint - and got to spend time with some of her girl friends on solo trips to San Diego, Las Vegas, and Baltimore. Matt was thrilled to be able to attend the Nelson family reunion in Iowa and see many nth cousins, removed to various degrees, and see his grandparents’ ashes interred in the family plot. Best of all, we got to see our rambunctious toddling nephew, Tyler, several times throughout the year – thanks Karen and Bernie!
We wish everyone a fantastic holiday season and hope to see everyone very soon! Remember – you’re welcome to visit us in San Francisco – just make sure to bring your walking shoes.
Love,
Alison and Matt
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Tracking Environmental Footprints of Products
And here's a quick hit. From today's edition of The World, a story (http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/04/tracking-environmental-footprints/) on tools becoming available to track the actual environmental footprint of various consumer products, including where all of the various components are made. I don't think that these all list the source materials for each of the constituent products, but it's a good start for anybody that has ever caught themselves thinking about exactly where all the pieces of their computer/car/toaster/etc. were mined, farmed, pumped, refined, molded, and put together, or who has fretted over which of two options would be worse environmentally once you go through the entire chain of impacts connected to each choice. Maybe it's just me.
Incomplete, but a step in the right direction.
Incomplete, but a step in the right direction.
Don't ask, don't tell...that you're a jackass.
The past two days, All Things Considered has aired two conflicting views on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that our military has employed since 1993. You can probably guess my stance on the issue; I think that if nobody was allowed in the military, regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference, then we'd probably have fewer wars.
This story was aired in three snippets. They can be found here, here, and here.
The first was with Duncan Hunter, an ex-Marine and Republican Congressman from California. Alison has mentioned this guy in the past (in a good way!). I listened to the story in disbelief, although I guess I should be numb to such things by now. Read the transcript for the full on crazy. In his very first reply, he implies that the biggest danger from the military is from those turds and miscreants, transgenders and hermaphrodites! The horror! I bet they're just hammering at the door to get into the military, I am sure. Way to couch the whole issue in terms of minorities of the minority group against whom you are discriminating.
He goes on to make two slightly less-crazy arguments, that I'll note here. The first is that the he believes the majority of young soldiers in the military are from conservative families, and that they don't want gays in the military. Which may or may not be true (more on that later). What it ignores is that the fact that a group doesn't want another group to be part of their organization has time and again been shown to be no reason to actually keep out that group. I'm going to give an example here in terms of both race and gender (which people who argue against homosexual rights claim is an unfair comparison because they actually believe that people choose to be homosexual and be constantly derided by a large number of their fellow citizens and taxpayers). I think this is reminiscent of the Augusta National Golf Club controversy, and similar situations played out at various other country clubs around the nation that don't allow women or some other minority to join. There's still no women at that club, but they're now on the waiting list. Second, prior to segregation, I am willing to bet that a majority of southerners didn't want black people in their schools, or drinking from their water fountains, or what have you, and they especially didn't want black people marrying white people. But our federal government said something along the lines of "Who the shit cares what you want? If what you want is wrong, then it's wrong!" I'm pretty sure it is against the law for a taxpayer-funded group (i.e. our military) to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, not to mention the moral odiousness of it.
The second only semi-crazy argument that he makes is that somebody coming out to their unit mates decreases the cohesion of the unit (I'll categorize his weird homoerotic comments about showering together with this one too). Now, I can understand how this could be true, if your unit is made up half of gay people and their supporters, and half of intolerant folks. But I don't think that's the way the military works these days. It's way more varied, and soldiers form bonds with other soldiers in battle situations where they feel like they can trust one another. My question is this: how can you possibly have unit cohesion if one or more of your unit members is hiding the biggest secret of their lives, being forced to lie about who they are, and presenting a pretend face to you while you are deployed in the most intimate and dangerous settings possible?
And don't even get me started on the likely amount of buggery going on amongst professed heterosexuals on deployment either.
I'll leave the Hunter section here with this quote, where he puts it all on the line with a full court press of insanity, trying to justify himself by comparing the military to NPR:
To which I say, "Have you ever been to an NPR office? It's just one big gayfest!" And yes, NPR does not care "one way or the other;" the point is that the military does care one way, and it is codified.
So yesterday afternoon they had two more segments. The first was a letters segment, which I only include because not a single opinion read on air agreed with Hunter (shocking!). I liked two in particular.
1. "It's good to know that our representatives in Congress stay cognizant of national security issues. I had no idea that a hermaphroditic takeover of our armed services was a real threat."
2. "I am so glad that Representative Duncan Hunter gave an interview to NPR. His blatant ignorance and inarticulate yet transparent bigotry created some of the best arguments for repealing don't ask, don't tell that I've ever heard." FTW!
The third was an interview with Major Mike Almy, a former Air Force officer who was discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I don't have much to say about this one, since I obviously agree with the dude, and don't really have any analysis to add. I'll say this, though. He states in his interview that he would gladly go back into the military at the drop of a hat if he were allowed. Can you imagine wanting to rejoin a company that has treated you with such disdain for who you are? But there you go. In a time when we're fighting two wars (although, of course, there was never a declaration of war), and the military is stretched thin, should we really be kicking people out for this? We're allowing in criminals, and people are not going to be allowed to stay in a job they love because people like Duncan Hunter are uncomfortable with gay men seeing their willies in the shower, or they think that they're going to be taken forcefully by another man? I mean, come on, are we collectively in the second grade? Don't answer that.
This story was aired in three snippets. They can be found here, here, and here.
The first was with Duncan Hunter, an ex-Marine and Republican Congressman from California. Alison has mentioned this guy in the past (in a good way!). I listened to the story in disbelief, although I guess I should be numb to such things by now. Read the transcript for the full on crazy. In his very first reply, he implies that the biggest danger from the military is from those turds and miscreants, transgenders and hermaphrodites! The horror! I bet they're just hammering at the door to get into the military, I am sure. Way to couch the whole issue in terms of minorities of the minority group against whom you are discriminating.
He goes on to make two slightly less-crazy arguments, that I'll note here. The first is that the he believes the majority of young soldiers in the military are from conservative families, and that they don't want gays in the military. Which may or may not be true (more on that later). What it ignores is that the fact that a group doesn't want another group to be part of their organization has time and again been shown to be no reason to actually keep out that group. I'm going to give an example here in terms of both race and gender (which people who argue against homosexual rights claim is an unfair comparison because they actually believe that people choose to be homosexual and be constantly derided by a large number of their fellow citizens and taxpayers). I think this is reminiscent of the Augusta National Golf Club controversy, and similar situations played out at various other country clubs around the nation that don't allow women or some other minority to join. There's still no women at that club, but they're now on the waiting list. Second, prior to segregation, I am willing to bet that a majority of southerners didn't want black people in their schools, or drinking from their water fountains, or what have you, and they especially didn't want black people marrying white people. But our federal government said something along the lines of "Who the shit cares what you want? If what you want is wrong, then it's wrong!" I'm pretty sure it is against the law for a taxpayer-funded group (i.e. our military) to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, not to mention the moral odiousness of it.
The second only semi-crazy argument that he makes is that somebody coming out to their unit mates decreases the cohesion of the unit (I'll categorize his weird homoerotic comments about showering together with this one too). Now, I can understand how this could be true, if your unit is made up half of gay people and their supporters, and half of intolerant folks. But I don't think that's the way the military works these days. It's way more varied, and soldiers form bonds with other soldiers in battle situations where they feel like they can trust one another. My question is this: how can you possibly have unit cohesion if one or more of your unit members is hiding the biggest secret of their lives, being forced to lie about who they are, and presenting a pretend face to you while you are deployed in the most intimate and dangerous settings possible?
And don't even get me started on the likely amount of buggery going on amongst professed heterosexuals on deployment either.
I'll leave the Hunter section here with this quote, where he puts it all on the line with a full court press of insanity, trying to justify himself by comparing the military to NPR:
BLOCK: But Congressman Hunter, wouldn't you agree that there are gays and lesbians serving in the military right now, they just are not open about their orientation. So the problems that you raise presumably would be problems already. They are in the barracks already. They are in the showers already.
Rep. HUNTER: No, but they aren't open about it, like you just said. Its like if you want to work for NPR, you don't go to work and on the first day say, hey, I want everybody to know that I'm gay. You probably don't care one way or the other as long as they, you know, get their particular job done. I think the military is the same way. That's why don't ask, don't tell works.
To which I say, "Have you ever been to an NPR office? It's just one big gayfest!" And yes, NPR does not care "one way or the other;" the point is that the military does care one way, and it is codified.
So yesterday afternoon they had two more segments. The first was a letters segment, which I only include because not a single opinion read on air agreed with Hunter (shocking!). I liked two in particular.
1. "It's good to know that our representatives in Congress stay cognizant of national security issues. I had no idea that a hermaphroditic takeover of our armed services was a real threat."
2. "I am so glad that Representative Duncan Hunter gave an interview to NPR. His blatant ignorance and inarticulate yet transparent bigotry created some of the best arguments for repealing don't ask, don't tell that I've ever heard." FTW!
The third was an interview with Major Mike Almy, a former Air Force officer who was discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I don't have much to say about this one, since I obviously agree with the dude, and don't really have any analysis to add. I'll say this, though. He states in his interview that he would gladly go back into the military at the drop of a hat if he were allowed. Can you imagine wanting to rejoin a company that has treated you with such disdain for who you are? But there you go. In a time when we're fighting two wars (although, of course, there was never a declaration of war), and the military is stretched thin, should we really be kicking people out for this? We're allowing in criminals, and people are not going to be allowed to stay in a job they love because people like Duncan Hunter are uncomfortable with gay men seeing their willies in the shower, or they think that they're going to be taken forcefully by another man? I mean, come on, are we collectively in the second grade? Don't answer that.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Reading list update
As you can see to the right, I got a lot of books for Christmas (this doesn't include The Onion Front Pages coffee table book, a new Stairway Walks of San Francisco book, and an organic living book), so my reading list is well-populated again. We'll see how long it takes to get through.
On the subject, I just finished "Galapagos" by Kurt Vonnegut, and he's swiftly becoming one of my favorite American authors.
And I have a blog backlog ("backblog"?) that my company would envy. Oy!
On the subject, I just finished "Galapagos" by Kurt Vonnegut, and he's swiftly becoming one of my favorite American authors.
And I have a blog backlog ("backblog"?) that my company would envy. Oy!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sketch of a City Occurrence
As I was walking to the subway from my office, I came upon and passed a group of 8 to 10 young people (am I old enough now to say things like "young people" when referring to twenty-somethings?) walking the same direction as me, albeit more slowly. This was around, say, 7:15 at night. I eventually noticed that one of them was carrying another fireman-style, with two more helping support the carried. He was most assuredly not conscious. Nobody seemed particularly concerned about this, in fact they all were quite jolly. These kids didn't seem drunk, however. The only snippet of conversation I heard was something about leaving him in his office, which it seemed they thought would be a hilarious idea.
I was going to close this by saying that I love the big city sometimes because you see this kind of thing sometimes, but I'm pretty sure it happens with just as much regularity in the small town too. Just they toss the unconscious in the back seat of a car and drive them home.
I was going to close this by saying that I love the big city sometimes because you see this kind of thing sometimes, but I'm pretty sure it happens with just as much regularity in the small town too. Just they toss the unconscious in the back seat of a car and drive them home.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Steps to a Perfect Cantaloupe
1. Go to the Farmer's Market (I went to the one in Noe Valley) and pick up any old cantaloupe. This one was a blue cantaloupe, which unfortunately refers to the tinge of the rind, not the insides.
2. Take the cantaloupe home and put it on your counter.
3. Forget about your cantaloupe, or don't find time to eat it.
4. Look longingly at your cantaloupe every day. This step is important.
5. Watch your cantaloupe until it just starts to get a bit of mold growing on it, where it was taken off the vine.
6. Look longingly at your cantaloupe for a couple more days. These days are critical.
7. Two days after you first notice the moldy growth on your cantaloupe, slice it open. Eat both halves in one sitting because dammit who can resist?
The end.
2. Take the cantaloupe home and put it on your counter.
3. Forget about your cantaloupe, or don't find time to eat it.
4. Look longingly at your cantaloupe every day. This step is important.
5. Watch your cantaloupe until it just starts to get a bit of mold growing on it, where it was taken off the vine.
6. Look longingly at your cantaloupe for a couple more days. These days are critical.
7. Two days after you first notice the moldy growth on your cantaloupe, slice it open. Eat both halves in one sitting because dammit who can resist?
The end.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Bay Area Backroads #41: Pescadero
We took our first Bay Area Backroads trip this weekend, starting with card number 41 in the deck, because, you know, we're logical like that. Note that card number 1 in the deck is Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is just a bit far away for a day trip if your wife has to run 6 miles in the morning for her Team in Training training (have YOU donated?).
It was a beautiful, warm, non-foggy day (note that these terms are all relative; it was warm for here, not necessarily for wherever you are), and we have quickly learned that the direction in which you go depends highly upon these factors; if it is a cold, foggy day, you have to go east, whereas if it's a day like yesterday, you must head toward the ocean and enjoy it while it's enjoyable. So we went west. And south.
Alison wanted to go down to Monterey to see the seahorse exhibit, but the Annual Santa Cruz Mountains Wildfire happens to be this weekend, and we don't want to take the ashmatic lungs through that. However, if you stay close to the city, you're, well, close to the city. What's the perfect compromise? Pescadero, of course!
This town is about an hour away from San Francisco, just a mile or so inland from the ocean, and very typical of small towns in the west. That is to say, everybody knows everybody, there's only a few stores, and the town is full of inveterate racists, misogynists, and homophobes (just kidding about that last one, I'm sure there's only a few of them around!). But that's not where this trip starts.
We totally missed the turn-off to Pescadero, because obviously the giant Pescadero sign was not sufficient. We drove south of the town for a ways, pulling off at one of those brown "Coastal View" signs typical of the Pacific Coast. As far as we could tell, getting to this coastal view entailed traipsing across somebody's property, but there's no arguing with the Man, as they say. Because it was such a strange, out-of-the-way access point, and because it wasn't one of the more developed state beaches, it turned out to be a great, secluded spot. We ate our home-made lunch of peanut butter +/- jelly sandwiches, then went looking in the tide pools. This is one of Alison's favorite activities, searching for anemones and urchins and starfish and crabs and whatnot; "creatures." We saw three starfish (two live, one dead), and got to discover what dead sea urchins look and feel like.
We had the place to ourselves for probably about 30 minutes before anybody else came down, which is probably practically unheard of for the bay area coast on a weekend. Also, these kelp forests were super neat:
After lunch we continued south to visit the Pigeon Point Light Station, the tallest operating lighthouse on the Pacific coast. It was pretty neat, and worth the stop, and the guy in the store was very nice and talkative, but if you're not interested in lighthouses, coastal views, or history, this might not be the place for you. It was built in 1872 and has a hostel onsite that you can stay in.
After the lighthouse we tried going down to the beach right near there, but it was covered in seaweed, flies, and fishermen. We drove back to the north, this time successfully seeing the giant Pescadero sign, and drove inland toward town. Luckily for us, this weekend just happened to be the Pescadero Arts and Fun Festival, a little fair type thing with a bunch of arts and crafts booths, food stands, and a live music stage. It was fun (as advertised), and Alison got some screaming deals on some handbags made out of repurposed fabrics from Ja Ja Ja Purses. The lady in the booth was super nice, and told us all about the purses and such. Hooray for reusing and keeping things out of the landfill! We left after some ice cream in a fresh waffle cone, and visited the business district.
The business district of the town is only a block long, and features one restaurant/bar, a church, an antique store, and a couple markets. We walked past all of the businesses to Pescadero Creek, which was flowing under the bridge. On our way back we stopped at one of the markets and got a steaming hot loaf of garlic artichoke bread (artichokes seem to be a local specialty) from a local bakery and a little thing of soft goat cheese from a local cheesery. We ate them out back behind the store, in a little grassy picnic area next to the creek with some apple trees scattered around. Beautiful. We stopped in at Duarte's, and had a beer at the bar (read the history of the place, it's great...although they don't mention the fire in the early part of the 20th century, during which the fire fighters apparently took special care to save the bar itself from burning; that bar is still in use today).
We left Pescadero, picking up the Echo from its spot next to a pumpkin field, and drove back north toward Half Moon Bay. Our Backroads card mentions the Pescadero Marsh, a prime bird-watching spot, but we're not interested in such things and so skipped it. I wanted to get to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for dinner. We stopped near the pier in Half Moon Bay when Alison screamed, scaring the driver before explaining that she'd seen a herd of sea creatures out near the pier. She ran over there and got a picture of the bunch of seals that were lolling about. I ran back to the car for binoculars, and by the time I got there they had moved out further.
We moved on to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, where we wanted to sit outside, but were thwarted by the 45-minute wait (despite the fact that at least 3 tables were empty, cleaned, and reset with fresh tableware). We opted for the bar area, where there was no wait, and sat down to a table with a nice view. After waiting about 10 minute for anybody to acknowledge my presence, I went to the bar to ask if we were going to be served, where I was made to wait by the bartender while he finished having a conversation with another group of guests (conversation's fine, but when somebody comes up to actually get some service, and you aren't doing anything important, well, the service is more important). Menus in hand, I thought we were sure to get served...after another five minutes we just left. They missed out on our custom that day, their loss.
We stopped one last time on our way back to the city at a farm stand to get some fresh produce. They had all sorts of organic stuff, but we started getting suspicious when Alison spied some mangoes and bananas, neither of which is grown locally. Apparently only a few things in their stand were actually grown by them, which seems kind of terrible for a farm stand. Another couple got there a few minutes after us, only to be told that the farm stand was "closed." What?
The results of this trip: Pescadero was neat, a nice little town with lots of picnic tables and people sitting around and chatting. Half Moon Bay was not neat, and seemed to be populated by people who couldn't be bothered. Go to Pescadero, skip Half Moon Bay. Especially for next year's Arts and Fun Festival!
It was a beautiful, warm, non-foggy day (note that these terms are all relative; it was warm for here, not necessarily for wherever you are), and we have quickly learned that the direction in which you go depends highly upon these factors; if it is a cold, foggy day, you have to go east, whereas if it's a day like yesterday, you must head toward the ocean and enjoy it while it's enjoyable. So we went west. And south.
Alison wanted to go down to Monterey to see the seahorse exhibit, but the Annual Santa Cruz Mountains Wildfire happens to be this weekend, and we don't want to take the ashmatic lungs through that. However, if you stay close to the city, you're, well, close to the city. What's the perfect compromise? Pescadero, of course!
This town is about an hour away from San Francisco, just a mile or so inland from the ocean, and very typical of small towns in the west. That is to say, everybody knows everybody, there's only a few stores, and the town is full of inveterate racists, misogynists, and homophobes (just kidding about that last one, I'm sure there's only a few of them around!). But that's not where this trip starts.
We totally missed the turn-off to Pescadero, because obviously the giant Pescadero sign was not sufficient. We drove south of the town for a ways, pulling off at one of those brown "Coastal View" signs typical of the Pacific Coast. As far as we could tell, getting to this coastal view entailed traipsing across somebody's property, but there's no arguing with the Man, as they say. Because it was such a strange, out-of-the-way access point, and because it wasn't one of the more developed state beaches, it turned out to be a great, secluded spot. We ate our home-made lunch of peanut butter +/- jelly sandwiches, then went looking in the tide pools. This is one of Alison's favorite activities, searching for anemones and urchins and starfish and crabs and whatnot; "creatures." We saw three starfish (two live, one dead), and got to discover what dead sea urchins look and feel like.
We had the place to ourselves for probably about 30 minutes before anybody else came down, which is probably practically unheard of for the bay area coast on a weekend. Also, these kelp forests were super neat:
After lunch we continued south to visit the Pigeon Point Light Station, the tallest operating lighthouse on the Pacific coast. It was pretty neat, and worth the stop, and the guy in the store was very nice and talkative, but if you're not interested in lighthouses, coastal views, or history, this might not be the place for you. It was built in 1872 and has a hostel onsite that you can stay in.
After the lighthouse we tried going down to the beach right near there, but it was covered in seaweed, flies, and fishermen. We drove back to the north, this time successfully seeing the giant Pescadero sign, and drove inland toward town. Luckily for us, this weekend just happened to be the Pescadero Arts and Fun Festival, a little fair type thing with a bunch of arts and crafts booths, food stands, and a live music stage. It was fun (as advertised), and Alison got some screaming deals on some handbags made out of repurposed fabrics from Ja Ja Ja Purses. The lady in the booth was super nice, and told us all about the purses and such. Hooray for reusing and keeping things out of the landfill! We left after some ice cream in a fresh waffle cone, and visited the business district.
The business district of the town is only a block long, and features one restaurant/bar, a church, an antique store, and a couple markets. We walked past all of the businesses to Pescadero Creek, which was flowing under the bridge. On our way back we stopped at one of the markets and got a steaming hot loaf of garlic artichoke bread (artichokes seem to be a local specialty) from a local bakery and a little thing of soft goat cheese from a local cheesery. We ate them out back behind the store, in a little grassy picnic area next to the creek with some apple trees scattered around. Beautiful. We stopped in at Duarte's, and had a beer at the bar (read the history of the place, it's great...although they don't mention the fire in the early part of the 20th century, during which the fire fighters apparently took special care to save the bar itself from burning; that bar is still in use today).We left Pescadero, picking up the Echo from its spot next to a pumpkin field, and drove back north toward Half Moon Bay. Our Backroads card mentions the Pescadero Marsh, a prime bird-watching spot, but we're not interested in such things and so skipped it. I wanted to get to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for dinner. We stopped near the pier in Half Moon Bay when Alison screamed, scaring the driver before explaining that she'd seen a herd of sea creatures out near the pier. She ran over there and got a picture of the bunch of seals that were lolling about. I ran back to the car for binoculars, and by the time I got there they had moved out further.
We moved on to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, where we wanted to sit outside, but were thwarted by the 45-minute wait (despite the fact that at least 3 tables were empty, cleaned, and reset with fresh tableware). We opted for the bar area, where there was no wait, and sat down to a table with a nice view. After waiting about 10 minute for anybody to acknowledge my presence, I went to the bar to ask if we were going to be served, where I was made to wait by the bartender while he finished having a conversation with another group of guests (conversation's fine, but when somebody comes up to actually get some service, and you aren't doing anything important, well, the service is more important). Menus in hand, I thought we were sure to get served...after another five minutes we just left. They missed out on our custom that day, their loss.
We stopped one last time on our way back to the city at a farm stand to get some fresh produce. They had all sorts of organic stuff, but we started getting suspicious when Alison spied some mangoes and bananas, neither of which is grown locally. Apparently only a few things in their stand were actually grown by them, which seems kind of terrible for a farm stand. Another couple got there a few minutes after us, only to be told that the farm stand was "closed." What?
The results of this trip: Pescadero was neat, a nice little town with lots of picnic tables and people sitting around and chatting. Half Moon Bay was not neat, and seemed to be populated by people who couldn't be bothered. Go to Pescadero, skip Half Moon Bay. Especially for next year's Arts and Fun Festival!
Bay Area Backroads
Those of you who read my wife's blog are likely familiar with her wildly successful City Walks SF series, the result of a gift from KEC of the deck of City Walks Deck of San Francisco (highly recommended!).
A few weeks ago, while out shopping around, we happened upon the Bay Area Backroads Deck, also from Chronicle Books, our local book publisher. This deck features 50 day trips from central to northern California, stretching from San Luis Obispo to the Oregon border. The deck was put together by the show Bay Area Backroads, a local program that features local trips you can take to see interesting sights in the area. We watched the show a few times before we willfully lost access to the airwaves, and enjoyed it.
As we have done with our City Walks (almost finished!), we are going to try to go through all of these trips, seeing the northern half of our new home state. I'm going to write about each one here, talking about what we saw, and what we liked and didn't like, and what have you. Hopefully it will be worth all of our times.
A few weeks ago, while out shopping around, we happened upon the Bay Area Backroads Deck, also from Chronicle Books, our local book publisher. This deck features 50 day trips from central to northern California, stretching from San Luis Obispo to the Oregon border. The deck was put together by the show Bay Area Backroads, a local program that features local trips you can take to see interesting sights in the area. We watched the show a few times before we willfully lost access to the airwaves, and enjoyed it.
As we have done with our City Walks (almost finished!), we are going to try to go through all of these trips, seeing the northern half of our new home state. I'm going to write about each one here, talking about what we saw, and what we liked and didn't like, and what have you. Hopefully it will be worth all of our times.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Issues of the day
What a goddamn depressing day. Nothing surprising happened today, but it's amazing that we can be ready for something, brace for it, and still when it gets here it just takes the wind out of the sails and backhands our happiness like that dad did to his kid at the baseball game I went to last night (playfully...?).
It starts with waking up alone, something that mercifully happens very rarely to me. My wife is in Hawaii right now on her last few days of pre-job vacation (is it a vacation if it's pre-job? I guess it is, since she technically worked three days last week, but I'm not sure it fits the spirit). She left yesterday morning, gets back Friday, then flies out on Sunday to go to a company gathering for the new job until next Tuesday. This is not the first, nor the longest, time we've spent apart from each other, but I would always rather she be here with me - selfish, I know.
Dear Alison, please don't take the preceding paragraph the wrong way, I know that we both need our alone times sometimes, and I would never want my ramblings to make you feel bad about going on a vacation that I would have gone on too if our situations were reversed!
It's not only sad to wake up alone, but it always takes me a lot longer (something that would amaze Alison, who knows it takes me a long time to wake up as it is), and I hit the alarm for 30 minutes this morning before finally rolling out of bed. Whenever I do this, I inevitably feel ashamed later for the half hour earlier I could have gotten to work, which would have meant a half hour earlier getting home, and a half hour less of time wasted doing nothing, since I'm obviously conscious for that half hour. But actually getting up is so hard.
Today was an astounding day weather-wise. No fog to speak of when I got up, and it was actually warm enough that I was way too warm when I got down to the Castro on my commute this morning for the fleece I was wearing. In fact, it was a waste to carry the thing today, I never wore it again. Beautiful day; I actually took a walk this afternoon for 15 minutes, rather than eating lunch outside or going out.
But at 10:00 the news came in that the Supreme Court of California was upholding Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage that the voters of California voted in this past election cycle. I think that everybody who was being realistic knew this would happen, but it hurts the same. I'm not going to go over again how much this sucks (not really my place because I'm not one of the many people the ban hurts, except by making me feel guilty for being allowed by law to marry the person I love), or how people who are anti-gay-marriage are jerks and bigots and such, because that's been said thousands and thousands of times. I listened to Forum and Talk of the Nation today, which both had shows on this topic. It seemed that the prognosis was generally good for the future, from the law professor who asserted that the court's opinion would logically lead to the State of California getting out of the marriage game entirely (something I wholeheartedly endorse), to the Governator (a conservative! Well, a California/Hollywood conservative, anyway...), who said that it's only a matter of time at this point before gay marriage is legal and equal (cold comfort to people today, as I'm sure Johnson's Reconstruction was to black people after the Civil War). It also amazed me to hear the opinions of people on both sides of the issue, from the pro-gay-marriage (It's religion, religion, religion) to the anti-gay-marriage (Marriage is for procreation, never mind that people who are biologically unable to have children are allowed to get married, and gay couples are allowed to have children; or, Why do gay people need marriage? Domestic unions are the same! I can't come up with an apt, non-clunky simile here, so please provide your own). I personally think that religion does have a lot to do with it, although a lot of people are likely uncomfortable with the idea, or all their friends are voting against it (I was in Williams, AZ, a few years ago on a job, and the folks from the City who we were working for chose seeing Brokeback Mountain as a jesting allusion to closeted homosexuality in a coworker, as in "I bet you're going to go see Brokeback Mountain [you big fag]!" I think there are likely a lot of similarities between small-town northern Arizona and much of inland California), or any other number of reasons that are not based directly in religion. Incidentally, those same City workers, I'm sure, don't go to church on Sunday, or, if they do, it's only for show.
I also had a ticket tonight to see City Arts and Lectures tonight with Dr. James Hansen. No, not the late, great Muppeteer, but the famous scientist. The one that spoke out against Bush II-era administrative censorship of scientific results. He had an interview-style talk that ranged over the science of climate change (no slides, and a layman audience, so you can imagine the scientist in me was left wanting more; luckily, he's a big nerd and easily intimidated - the scientist in me, not Dr. Hansen), although it dealt a lot with the political side of things. Every time I see one of these talks I get really depressed about the future, because I remember that everything I do as a consumer and user of energy is completely insignificant to actually solving the problem, and that the changes must be large, rapid, and fundamental to actually effect change. That realization then gets passed on to the cynic in me (who, though brooding and kind of an asshole, usually rules the roost), who declares such institutional changes to be pipe dreams that only the blind optimist believes will actually happen before things like this and this and this and this occur and won't somebody please think of the poor penguin babies?! No, we as a race/culture are far too selfish for that (I was thinking on my way home tonight that the "selfish" appellation is something that pretty much anybody on pretty much any side of pretty much any ideological debate could apply to the other side; isn't that exciting!) to ever occur. And that, my friends, is a depressing prospect when you know what the person familiar with climate feedback processes knows. A questioner in the audience mentioned, and Dr. Hansen confirmed, that the projection with all ice gone from Greenland and the Antarctic, as well as all ice caps melting, is about 70 meters, or 250 feet, of course happening over a long time frame, although the rate will continue to accelerate should we do nothing.
I took the subway home to the Castro after the lecture and surfaced to loud, thumping music and news vans and police everywhere, having entirely forgotten in my bout of inner composition on the subway (plus, I'm reading a thoroughly enjoyable book about Ireland right now, much better than the previous one, but more on that another time). I went to the Hot Cookie for a treat, more to avoid the news cameras on the other corner of the intersection than anything else. I did not buy a chocolate penis. They had a DJ on a flatbed truck cranking out some truly inspiring volume, but the party seems to have happened earlier in the night, if it ever got going (I'm sure it did; I've learned that people who live in the Castro do one thing spectacularly well, and that's party). There were maybe 100 people in the street then (around 10pm), and some of them were still dancing away. I wonder now, if I could be as down about things that really don't affect me directly, how can they be dancing when they've just been officially told by the government that they are, in the words of Dr. Harry Newman, "less than?" I guess they're just optimistic, and at least on this issue I can see some light at the end of the tunnel, with the examples set by good old Iowa (how did I ever make fun of you so much as a child, implying that all of your residents wore these things?) and several northeastern States.
Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe a little Baja Fresh or curry in a hurry will brighten my day.
It starts with waking up alone, something that mercifully happens very rarely to me. My wife is in Hawaii right now on her last few days of pre-job vacation (is it a vacation if it's pre-job? I guess it is, since she technically worked three days last week, but I'm not sure it fits the spirit). She left yesterday morning, gets back Friday, then flies out on Sunday to go to a company gathering for the new job until next Tuesday. This is not the first, nor the longest, time we've spent apart from each other, but I would always rather she be here with me - selfish, I know.
Dear Alison, please don't take the preceding paragraph the wrong way, I know that we both need our alone times sometimes, and I would never want my ramblings to make you feel bad about going on a vacation that I would have gone on too if our situations were reversed!
It's not only sad to wake up alone, but it always takes me a lot longer (something that would amaze Alison, who knows it takes me a long time to wake up as it is), and I hit the alarm for 30 minutes this morning before finally rolling out of bed. Whenever I do this, I inevitably feel ashamed later for the half hour earlier I could have gotten to work, which would have meant a half hour earlier getting home, and a half hour less of time wasted doing nothing, since I'm obviously conscious for that half hour. But actually getting up is so hard.
Today was an astounding day weather-wise. No fog to speak of when I got up, and it was actually warm enough that I was way too warm when I got down to the Castro on my commute this morning for the fleece I was wearing. In fact, it was a waste to carry the thing today, I never wore it again. Beautiful day; I actually took a walk this afternoon for 15 minutes, rather than eating lunch outside or going out.
But at 10:00 the news came in that the Supreme Court of California was upholding Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage that the voters of California voted in this past election cycle. I think that everybody who was being realistic knew this would happen, but it hurts the same. I'm not going to go over again how much this sucks (not really my place because I'm not one of the many people the ban hurts, except by making me feel guilty for being allowed by law to marry the person I love), or how people who are anti-gay-marriage are jerks and bigots and such, because that's been said thousands and thousands of times. I listened to Forum and Talk of the Nation today, which both had shows on this topic. It seemed that the prognosis was generally good for the future, from the law professor who asserted that the court's opinion would logically lead to the State of California getting out of the marriage game entirely (something I wholeheartedly endorse), to the Governator (a conservative! Well, a California/Hollywood conservative, anyway...), who said that it's only a matter of time at this point before gay marriage is legal and equal (cold comfort to people today, as I'm sure Johnson's Reconstruction was to black people after the Civil War). It also amazed me to hear the opinions of people on both sides of the issue, from the pro-gay-marriage (It's religion, religion, religion) to the anti-gay-marriage (Marriage is for procreation, never mind that people who are biologically unable to have children are allowed to get married, and gay couples are allowed to have children; or, Why do gay people need marriage? Domestic unions are the same! I can't come up with an apt, non-clunky simile here, so please provide your own). I personally think that religion does have a lot to do with it, although a lot of people are likely uncomfortable with the idea, or all their friends are voting against it (I was in Williams, AZ, a few years ago on a job, and the folks from the City who we were working for chose seeing Brokeback Mountain as a jesting allusion to closeted homosexuality in a coworker, as in "I bet you're going to go see Brokeback Mountain [you big fag]!" I think there are likely a lot of similarities between small-town northern Arizona and much of inland California), or any other number of reasons that are not based directly in religion. Incidentally, those same City workers, I'm sure, don't go to church on Sunday, or, if they do, it's only for show.
I also had a ticket tonight to see City Arts and Lectures tonight with Dr. James Hansen. No, not the late, great Muppeteer, but the famous scientist. The one that spoke out against Bush II-era administrative censorship of scientific results. He had an interview-style talk that ranged over the science of climate change (no slides, and a layman audience, so you can imagine the scientist in me was left wanting more; luckily, he's a big nerd and easily intimidated - the scientist in me, not Dr. Hansen), although it dealt a lot with the political side of things. Every time I see one of these talks I get really depressed about the future, because I remember that everything I do as a consumer and user of energy is completely insignificant to actually solving the problem, and that the changes must be large, rapid, and fundamental to actually effect change. That realization then gets passed on to the cynic in me (who, though brooding and kind of an asshole, usually rules the roost), who declares such institutional changes to be pipe dreams that only the blind optimist believes will actually happen before things like this and this and this and this occur and won't somebody please think of the poor penguin babies?! No, we as a race/culture are far too selfish for that (I was thinking on my way home tonight that the "selfish" appellation is something that pretty much anybody on pretty much any side of pretty much any ideological debate could apply to the other side; isn't that exciting!) to ever occur. And that, my friends, is a depressing prospect when you know what the person familiar with climate feedback processes knows. A questioner in the audience mentioned, and Dr. Hansen confirmed, that the projection with all ice gone from Greenland and the Antarctic, as well as all ice caps melting, is about 70 meters, or 250 feet, of course happening over a long time frame, although the rate will continue to accelerate should we do nothing.
I took the subway home to the Castro after the lecture and surfaced to loud, thumping music and news vans and police everywhere, having entirely forgotten in my bout of inner composition on the subway (plus, I'm reading a thoroughly enjoyable book about Ireland right now, much better than the previous one, but more on that another time). I went to the Hot Cookie for a treat, more to avoid the news cameras on the other corner of the intersection than anything else. I did not buy a chocolate penis. They had a DJ on a flatbed truck cranking out some truly inspiring volume, but the party seems to have happened earlier in the night, if it ever got going (I'm sure it did; I've learned that people who live in the Castro do one thing spectacularly well, and that's party). There were maybe 100 people in the street then (around 10pm), and some of them were still dancing away. I wonder now, if I could be as down about things that really don't affect me directly, how can they be dancing when they've just been officially told by the government that they are, in the words of Dr. Harry Newman, "less than?" I guess they're just optimistic, and at least on this issue I can see some light at the end of the tunnel, with the examples set by good old Iowa (how did I ever make fun of you so much as a child, implying that all of your residents wore these things?) and several northeastern States.
Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe a little Baja Fresh or curry in a hurry will brighten my day.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Obama Endorses Gay Rights
Today President Obama signed a non-binding resolution on universal rights for gay people. It calls for "decriminilization of homosexuality."
This resolution has been around for awhile, having been put forward on December 19 of last year. This means that the former administration actually resisted getting on board with a statement that it should not be a CRIME to be homosexual. What the hell century is this? Are we North Korea or something?
Somebody out there please try to defend not signing this thing because I really want to know what justification there could be.
This resolution has been around for awhile, having been put forward on December 19 of last year. This means that the former administration actually resisted getting on board with a statement that it should not be a CRIME to be homosexual. What the hell century is this? Are we North Korea or something?
Somebody out there please try to defend not signing this thing because I really want to know what justification there could be.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Some hatin', true.
I'm working on another blog post right now, but I thought I would compile some recent Bush-related articles posted on The Onion*:
Bush Dies Peacefully in His Sleep
Spider Eggs Hatch in Bush's Brain
Single-Engine Cessna Crashes into Bush
Bush's Eyelid Accidentally Nailed to Wall
Bush Dragged Behind Presidential Motorcade For 26 Blocks
Bush Passes Three-Pound Kidney Stone
Crocodile Bites Off Bush's Arm
Bush Tumbles Wildly Down Washington Monument Staircase
I forget sometimes that the ills that have been visited upon our country for the past eight years were foreseen by many. Check out this classic Onion article entitled "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over". This was posted January 17, 2001, just three days before Bush took office. A few quotes:
*I in no way wish pain upon Mr. Bush, although I whole-heartedly endorse him going through a war crimes trial.
Bush Dies Peacefully in His Sleep
Spider Eggs Hatch in Bush's Brain
Single-Engine Cessna Crashes into Bush
Bush's Eyelid Accidentally Nailed to Wall
Bush Dragged Behind Presidential Motorcade For 26 Blocks
Bush Passes Three-Pound Kidney Stone
Crocodile Bites Off Bush's Arm
Bush Tumbles Wildly Down Washington Monument Staircase
I forget sometimes that the ills that have been visited upon our country for the past eight years were foreseen by many. Check out this classic Onion article entitled "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over". This was posted January 17, 2001, just three days before Bush took office. A few quotes:
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.
Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."
An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.
"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."
"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."
*I in no way wish pain upon Mr. Bush, although I whole-heartedly endorse him going through a war crimes trial.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
You haven't lived...
...until you've heard Arnold Schwarzenegger say "Ponzi Schemes." Also, should any governor ever say this?:
The answer is: this should never be a thing that an elected official says. Thankfully, from the audio feed I was receiving it seems that nobody in the room laughed (this was delivered as part of the State of the State Address).
Conan's sword could not have cleaved our political system in two as cleanly as our own political parties have done.
The answer is: this should never be a thing that an elected official says. Thankfully, from the audio feed I was receiving it seems that nobody in the room laughed (this was delivered as part of the State of the State Address).
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Some life instructions
Picture this. You're driving down a highway and you see a car with a flat tire. Or you come across a car with a dead battery in a parking lot. The owner of the car is Jim Lehrer. You should stop and help him. It's like your prerogative. This is why.
Today our VP Dick was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. If you've never watched this show, it's a wonderful news program that I don't catch often enough because I don't watch a lot of TV. Strangely enough, KQED plays the Newshour over the radio every afternoon, which is kind of disconcerting since it isn't set up as a radio show and therefore you lose gestures and graphics and such, but that's neither here nor there. Jim Lehrer is an incredibly fair, patient man, and an extremely well-respected newsman.
Lehrer and Cheney discussed a number of things, and ranged into talking about the economy. The following exchange took place (italics are mine duh):
MR. LEHRER in a fair, patient tone of voice: What about - going back to the original question - about seeing this coming? Isn't that part of the stewardship of the president, of the vice president and of his administration - to see these things coming and try to prevent them from coming, rather than to act after they've happened?
VICE PRES. CHENEY in an asshole tone of voice: Did you see it coming, Jim? You're an expert.
MR. LEHRER winning: I'm not the president or the vice president of the United States.
MR. LEHRER: FTW!
Today our VP Dick was on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. If you've never watched this show, it's a wonderful news program that I don't catch often enough because I don't watch a lot of TV. Strangely enough, KQED plays the Newshour over the radio every afternoon, which is kind of disconcerting since it isn't set up as a radio show and therefore you lose gestures and graphics and such, but that's neither here nor there. Jim Lehrer is an incredibly fair, patient man, and an extremely well-respected newsman.
Lehrer and Cheney discussed a number of things, and ranged into talking about the economy. The following exchange took place (italics are mine duh):
MR. LEHRER in a fair, patient tone of voice: What about - going back to the original question - about seeing this coming? Isn't that part of the stewardship of the president, of the vice president and of his administration - to see these things coming and try to prevent them from coming, rather than to act after they've happened?
VICE PRES. CHENEY in an asshole tone of voice: Did you see it coming, Jim? You're an expert.
MR. LEHRER winning: I'm not the president or the vice president of the United States.
MR. LEHRER: FTW!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Seriously? Does anybody buy this?
I am in the process of writing another post, but I just saw this bit of news. An interview with our VP Dick. He asserts that nobody at the CIA did anything illegal in interrogations. You can argue, from a certain point of view (which I and other, expert, people would not) that torture is the way to get information. You could argue that it's justified to protect the national security or what have you, although I think the ethical questions overrule any kind of other benefit. But to argue that it's LEGAL? Come now, VP, I know that you think we're stupid, but really. The lying has to stop some day.
What I've been reading
I just finished a book, which is getting annoyingly rare these days. I walk an hour plus every day now (I stopped taking the terrible neighborhood bus because it's terrible) plus 20 minutes on the subway per day. Which seems like a lot of time to spend reading except that it's not the easiest thing in the world to walk and read at the same time. Alison made it a little easier since she bought me a nifty reading light for a pre-Christmas gift. It still takes me about a month to read a book unfortunately. This book I just read is The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment by Paul and Anne Ehrlich. Alison had heard of these folks before but of course I'm ignorant and had not.
The book started out very slow...the whole beginning of the book was a lesson on the mechanics of evolution (why we evolved, and stuff). It was a strange way to write this book, with a lot of very technical scientific writing mixed in with language pandering to the completely non-scientific. It felt a little trite to the scientist in me, but also a little muddling to the non-geneticist in me.
It got way more interesting toward the end, with a lot of stats about the human ruination of the environment. I think that everybody should at least read the last half of this book to get a better understanding of our impacts, in case you don't already know. It's leading me to greatly reduce my meat intake (not because of my health, or the high price of good meat, or the cow farts, or the fertilizer in the waterway, or even my lovely wife's aversion to it, but rather simply because it turns out to be an incredibly inefficient way to get our food energy, and would make much more sense in terms of sustainability to eat vegetables instead).
My main conclusion drawn from this book is that there is basically no hope for the human race. I have felt this way for awhile to a certain degree, but the way we're headed in this book seals the deal. People, we are screwed.
Next I'm going to read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. I hope this book cheers me up by thinking about what will happen to the world once we've destroyed ourselves. Alison already read this book, and wrote a blog post about it.
It's unfortunate that we as a species have decided that it's our right to do whatever we want to to make us happy at the cost of everything else on this planet, but there it is. It's also unfortunate that when we go down we're going to take with us an unprecedented number of species away from this world. The generalists will survive, cockroaches and rats and such. In a world devoid of lots of the species that usually fill the ecological niches present in this world, at least there should be a species explosion to fill them in rapid (geologically) order, yay!
The book started out very slow...the whole beginning of the book was a lesson on the mechanics of evolution (why we evolved, and stuff). It was a strange way to write this book, with a lot of very technical scientific writing mixed in with language pandering to the completely non-scientific. It felt a little trite to the scientist in me, but also a little muddling to the non-geneticist in me.
It got way more interesting toward the end, with a lot of stats about the human ruination of the environment. I think that everybody should at least read the last half of this book to get a better understanding of our impacts, in case you don't already know. It's leading me to greatly reduce my meat intake (not because of my health, or the high price of good meat, or the cow farts, or the fertilizer in the waterway, or even my lovely wife's aversion to it, but rather simply because it turns out to be an incredibly inefficient way to get our food energy, and would make much more sense in terms of sustainability to eat vegetables instead).
My main conclusion drawn from this book is that there is basically no hope for the human race. I have felt this way for awhile to a certain degree, but the way we're headed in this book seals the deal. People, we are screwed.
Next I'm going to read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. I hope this book cheers me up by thinking about what will happen to the world once we've destroyed ourselves. Alison already read this book, and wrote a blog post about it.
It's unfortunate that we as a species have decided that it's our right to do whatever we want to to make us happy at the cost of everything else on this planet, but there it is. It's also unfortunate that when we go down we're going to take with us an unprecedented number of species away from this world. The generalists will survive, cockroaches and rats and such. In a world devoid of lots of the species that usually fill the ecological niches present in this world, at least there should be a species explosion to fill them in rapid (geologically) order, yay!
Monday, December 8, 2008
A late goodbye, hello
Some of you know, and some of you do not, that I recently left the Land of Enchantment for the Golden State. This means a lot of things, major shifts in my life. This means that I quit school (probably). I've never really quit anything before, and I don't feel too good about it, but I think it was the right decision. It also means that, for the first time in my life, I have no plans to be going back to school. Think about that. I've never not been either in school or preparing to go to school. There's a finality in that that I've never experienced, and I'm not sure how to take it. For now, I mostly just don't think about it.
This also meant moving again. We had some troubles with the landpeople, but luckily my wife is awesome. It meant I had to tear out my garden, which was a little sad because the yellow squashes were finally starting to bear fruit; the zucchini, beans, and corn were pretty much played out, with little result from the non-pop-corn (I should take a picture of my bean and popcorn harvests some time; I dried them and brought them with me...shhh! don't tell California). I had already finished up with the community garden, since my pepper plants succumbed to frost. The zucchini plant also proved to be pretty well infested with aphids, so it was probably time for it to go. It was taking up at least half of the garden when I killed it. I haven't yet gotten around to planting anything here, a month later. And we had to give up all our houseplants (including my grape vine that was doing quite nicely) before the move. Hopefully some of those plants still exist?
Another thing the move meant was that I got to realize what great friends I have. I am a complete douche when it comes to keeping in touch with people and such, as pretty much all of you know. I only talk to one of my friends on a regular basis, and that's because he's a bulldog about calling me regularly. So I had notified two of my friends about the upcoming move so they could come help me fill the truck. I texted (texted!) BT the day of to see if he wanted to come down the street to help out, and he passed the word to SB, who passed the word to KGS and PS...all of these people showed up at my front door on no notice, with SB, KGS, and PS having to drive all the way down from Santa Fe for this. They stayed for hours and hours, helping me move boxes and pack boxes and wipe down surfaces and such. I really don't know how to thank these people. And AKW wouldn't even let me pay him for the beer that he brought over, so I basically did nothing for anybody, with no notice, and all of these people still gave of their time and energy just to see me off. I am truly luckly to have such people in my life. I hope that they still want to know me after my little escapade, although I would not blame them if they did not. They are all welcome to come stay with us in the big city any time, of course.
The next thing the move meant was a very long drive by myself (Alison already having moved out here the previous month). I hope not to have to drive a rental van that far again, maybe ever. The trip took 16 hours, with all of it taken up by road either terribly boring, pitch black, or that I've already seen before. Or all of the above in some cases. The only new towns I got to experience were Barstow and Bakersfield, and I tell you I could go my whole life without experiencing them again and be perfectly happy. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but they're just more Kingmans and Yumas. Nothing for me there. The move took me all of a day and a half, and I did it on a pretty amazingly low budget (less than $1K for the van, meals, gas, and lodging) which netted me a good signing bonus. The nicest part was seeing Alison again, even if we had to stay in a not-so-nice place for a couple nights.
The move also meant finding an apartment. I'll be first to say that Alison put in a heroic effort looking for a place in this city. The rental market here is apparently even worse than in Albuquerque, where you have to basically commit to taking a place as soon as you see it. In SF, you have to commit, and you have to have credit reports, references, and all kinds of other documentation ready at a moment's notice. This was kind of a shock to me, and led to quite a bit of running around for her, and a little bit for me. When I got to town, we looked at a total of two places and I encouraged her to agree with me that we should take the first one we saw. Now we live in a huge (by SF standards - 700 square feet for a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom) apartment on Twin Peaks, from which you can see the entire city, the Bay, the ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, and everything else (on a clear day). Look at the pictures of the city in that article (incidentally, you can see our apartment complex on the aerial photo, just east of the parking area to the north of the two peaks). It's quiet here too, the quietest place I've been in the city yet. The roads are all very steep, and so nobody ever drives through our neighborhood.
It means that my carbon footprint has nosedived. It takes me about 40 minutes to get to work in the morning on the bus and the subway, and about 50 minutes or so on the subway and on foot (up the mountain!) to get home. I have a bus pass now, so I ride all of the buses for free. I have been in the car 5 times since we finished moving into this apartment, which is a bit over a month. I've commuted on public transit, I came home from the airport on transit, and we go into the city to do our shopping, socializing, and eating on transit. I've never, ever lived anywhere so easily accessible as this place. What a wonderful thing.
It means that I am having all kinds of new experiences. I have never lived sniffing distance from the ocean before. In fact, the closest I ever lived before here was Phoenix, which is a far cry yet, climatologically if not proximally. I've never lived somewhere so liberal before (although the passing of Proposition 8 was a pretty crushing blow, and kind of a shock in such a progressive state). Every day I embark on the subway in the morning (and disembark in the evening) in the Castro, beneath a huge gay pride flag. This place is easily the most diverse, most accepting place I've ever lived in, and I'm very appreciative of that.
I hope that this will be a return to regular blogging for me, although I only have a limited number of hours to spend with the wife between work and bed. I had such a long hiatus because my life was in flux, and I hate having to tell everybody that my life is in flux; I'd obviously just rather not deal with it and tell people after the fact.
Finally, it has come to my attention that my mother has located my blog, so everybody cut out the penis jokes and all the childish bullshit, for her sake if not for mine.
This also meant moving again. We had some troubles with the landpeople, but luckily my wife is awesome. It meant I had to tear out my garden, which was a little sad because the yellow squashes were finally starting to bear fruit; the zucchini, beans, and corn were pretty much played out, with little result from the non-pop-corn (I should take a picture of my bean and popcorn harvests some time; I dried them and brought them with me...shhh! don't tell California). I had already finished up with the community garden, since my pepper plants succumbed to frost. The zucchini plant also proved to be pretty well infested with aphids, so it was probably time for it to go. It was taking up at least half of the garden when I killed it. I haven't yet gotten around to planting anything here, a month later. And we had to give up all our houseplants (including my grape vine that was doing quite nicely) before the move. Hopefully some of those plants still exist?
Another thing the move meant was that I got to realize what great friends I have. I am a complete douche when it comes to keeping in touch with people and such, as pretty much all of you know. I only talk to one of my friends on a regular basis, and that's because he's a bulldog about calling me regularly. So I had notified two of my friends about the upcoming move so they could come help me fill the truck. I texted (texted!) BT the day of to see if he wanted to come down the street to help out, and he passed the word to SB, who passed the word to KGS and PS...all of these people showed up at my front door on no notice, with SB, KGS, and PS having to drive all the way down from Santa Fe for this. They stayed for hours and hours, helping me move boxes and pack boxes and wipe down surfaces and such. I really don't know how to thank these people. And AKW wouldn't even let me pay him for the beer that he brought over, so I basically did nothing for anybody, with no notice, and all of these people still gave of their time and energy just to see me off. I am truly luckly to have such people in my life. I hope that they still want to know me after my little escapade, although I would not blame them if they did not. They are all welcome to come stay with us in the big city any time, of course.
The next thing the move meant was a very long drive by myself (Alison already having moved out here the previous month). I hope not to have to drive a rental van that far again, maybe ever. The trip took 16 hours, with all of it taken up by road either terribly boring, pitch black, or that I've already seen before. Or all of the above in some cases. The only new towns I got to experience were Barstow and Bakersfield, and I tell you I could go my whole life without experiencing them again and be perfectly happy. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but they're just more Kingmans and Yumas. Nothing for me there. The move took me all of a day and a half, and I did it on a pretty amazingly low budget (less than $1K for the van, meals, gas, and lodging) which netted me a good signing bonus. The nicest part was seeing Alison again, even if we had to stay in a not-so-nice place for a couple nights.
The move also meant finding an apartment. I'll be first to say that Alison put in a heroic effort looking for a place in this city. The rental market here is apparently even worse than in Albuquerque, where you have to basically commit to taking a place as soon as you see it. In SF, you have to commit, and you have to have credit reports, references, and all kinds of other documentation ready at a moment's notice. This was kind of a shock to me, and led to quite a bit of running around for her, and a little bit for me. When I got to town, we looked at a total of two places and I encouraged her to agree with me that we should take the first one we saw. Now we live in a huge (by SF standards - 700 square feet for a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom) apartment on Twin Peaks, from which you can see the entire city, the Bay, the ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, and everything else (on a clear day). Look at the pictures of the city in that article (incidentally, you can see our apartment complex on the aerial photo, just east of the parking area to the north of the two peaks). It's quiet here too, the quietest place I've been in the city yet. The roads are all very steep, and so nobody ever drives through our neighborhood.
It means that my carbon footprint has nosedived. It takes me about 40 minutes to get to work in the morning on the bus and the subway, and about 50 minutes or so on the subway and on foot (up the mountain!) to get home. I have a bus pass now, so I ride all of the buses for free. I have been in the car 5 times since we finished moving into this apartment, which is a bit over a month. I've commuted on public transit, I came home from the airport on transit, and we go into the city to do our shopping, socializing, and eating on transit. I've never, ever lived anywhere so easily accessible as this place. What a wonderful thing.
It means that I am having all kinds of new experiences. I have never lived sniffing distance from the ocean before. In fact, the closest I ever lived before here was Phoenix, which is a far cry yet, climatologically if not proximally. I've never lived somewhere so liberal before (although the passing of Proposition 8 was a pretty crushing blow, and kind of a shock in such a progressive state). Every day I embark on the subway in the morning (and disembark in the evening) in the Castro, beneath a huge gay pride flag. This place is easily the most diverse, most accepting place I've ever lived in, and I'm very appreciative of that.
I hope that this will be a return to regular blogging for me, although I only have a limited number of hours to spend with the wife between work and bed. I had such a long hiatus because my life was in flux, and I hate having to tell everybody that my life is in flux; I'd obviously just rather not deal with it and tell people after the fact.
Finally, it has come to my attention that my mother has located my blog, so everybody cut out the penis jokes and all the childish bullshit, for her sake if not for mine.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Look at the size of that thing! (That's what she said.)
Some of you (or maybe most of you) that are not around me very much may not be aware that I have recently become very interested in growing my own food. Many great reasons for this, including:
1. Reducing my food miles by placing my food source area adjacent to my kitchen.
2. Knowing exactly what chemicals, etc. go into my food (keeping in mind that I don't have any idea what was put into the soil at this house before we moved into it).
3. Getting my food cheaper than from the grocery store, as all it costs is seeds, manure, and water (which is ridiculously underpriced).
4. When the inevitable apocalypse (zombie or zombie-free) occurs within my lifetime, I need to know how to survive in a post-supermarket world, and being able to grow my own food (I already know how to operate a handgun) will be a great help.
I have two gardens going right now, one of them being a community garden in which we are participating. The other is right outside our east wall, and I have planted the "three sisters" in there, corn, beans, and squash. These crops were traditionally planted together by the locals before imperialist Europe arrived on the shores of New England. I have three kinds of corn (blue, sweet, and pop), two kinds of squash (zucchini and yellow), and black beans. These have all grown quite well, and I'm kind of sad I didn't keep a good pictoral track of its progress up to now.
A couple days ago I was rooting around in my plants a little bit. I've been worried about my squash because I always hear that it's a good idea to hand-pollinate your squash for better success (that's what she said) and I've only been finding one gender of flowers on the plants. So I've thought I was going to be devoid of vegetables all summer. I looked down at the base of the plant though, and discovered the giganticest zucchini ever:
This zucchini measured 11 inches long, and it must be at least 2.5 inches diameter. This rocks. I want to use it soon, but I'm a little afraid of eating the first thing I've ever grown for myself.
I looked around in the garden today, just to try to find some more zucchinis, and saw about three more in progress. I discovered my flower-gender conundrum problem. The flowers I was seeing, which were high in my squash plants, were all female. The male flowers, it turns out, are at the base of the plant, which makes sense since the zucchinis end up resting on the ground. I also saw a bunch of bean pods all over my bean plants, which I had not noticed before. I'm not exactly sure when beans are ready, and the pods don't just come off when I pull them lightly yet. We shall see.
Finally, a picture of me, my zucchini, and my lush, lush garden:
1. Reducing my food miles by placing my food source area adjacent to my kitchen.
2. Knowing exactly what chemicals, etc. go into my food (keeping in mind that I don't have any idea what was put into the soil at this house before we moved into it).
3. Getting my food cheaper than from the grocery store, as all it costs is seeds, manure, and water (which is ridiculously underpriced).
4. When the inevitable apocalypse (zombie or zombie-free) occurs within my lifetime, I need to know how to survive in a post-supermarket world, and being able to grow my own food (I already know how to operate a handgun) will be a great help.
I have two gardens going right now, one of them being a community garden in which we are participating. The other is right outside our east wall, and I have planted the "three sisters" in there, corn, beans, and squash. These crops were traditionally planted together by the locals before imperialist Europe arrived on the shores of New England. I have three kinds of corn (blue, sweet, and pop), two kinds of squash (zucchini and yellow), and black beans. These have all grown quite well, and I'm kind of sad I didn't keep a good pictoral track of its progress up to now.
A couple days ago I was rooting around in my plants a little bit. I've been worried about my squash because I always hear that it's a good idea to hand-pollinate your squash for better success (that's what she said) and I've only been finding one gender of flowers on the plants. So I've thought I was going to be devoid of vegetables all summer. I looked down at the base of the plant though, and discovered the giganticest zucchini ever:
This zucchini measured 11 inches long, and it must be at least 2.5 inches diameter. This rocks. I want to use it soon, but I'm a little afraid of eating the first thing I've ever grown for myself.
I looked around in the garden today, just to try to find some more zucchinis, and saw about three more in progress. I discovered my flower-gender conundrum problem. The flowers I was seeing, which were high in my squash plants, were all female. The male flowers, it turns out, are at the base of the plant, which makes sense since the zucchinis end up resting on the ground. I also saw a bunch of bean pods all over my bean plants, which I had not noticed before. I'm not exactly sure when beans are ready, and the pods don't just come off when I pull them lightly yet. We shall see.
Finally, a picture of me, my zucchini, and my lush, lush garden:
Monday, July 21, 2008
Recycling ABQ 4-6
I'm way behind on blogging about my recycling-picking-up adventures. I've also been on vacation a bit lately, spending a weekend in the Silver City area and this past week in northern Michigan (my first ever visit to Michigan, it included a trip to the fabled Upper Peninsula, my first ever chance to see a home game of my longtime favorite sports franchise, the Detroit Tigers, and several hours spent picking wild blueberries, among other activities). However, I did some collecting before these trips, and am now getting around to listing them while cleaning the house. I don't remember the dates on these, so I'm just going to list them all at once.
Trip #4: ~1 mile, OSE building to house:
Total of 26 pieces, although this counts as one piece an entire Alibi, which maybe should count as like 30 sheets of paper, as we all know that is what it would have ended up as had I not picked it up.
2 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper
Trip #5: ~1.1 miles, Community garden to house:
Total of 21 pieces
1 glass bottle
3 aluminum cans
14 plastic bottles
2 pieces of paper
1 chipboard box
Trip #6: ~0.6 miles, ATC to house:
Total of 39(!) pieces (my plastic bag become overburdened and started to tear; I had to leave it somewhere, walk home, get another bag, and come back to complete this collection)
18 glass bottles
5 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper
Total number of pieces so far is 158:
38 glass bottles
31 aluminum cans
67 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
13 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
1 chipboard box
Amazing what a holiday weekend (4th of July in this case) will do to a town.
Trip #4: ~1 mile, OSE building to house:
Total of 26 pieces, although this counts as one piece an entire Alibi, which maybe should count as like 30 sheets of paper, as we all know that is what it would have ended up as had I not picked it up.
2 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper
Trip #5: ~1.1 miles, Community garden to house:
Total of 21 pieces
1 glass bottle
3 aluminum cans
14 plastic bottles
2 pieces of paper
1 chipboard box
Trip #6: ~0.6 miles, ATC to house:
Total of 39(!) pieces (my plastic bag become overburdened and started to tear; I had to leave it somewhere, walk home, get another bag, and come back to complete this collection)
18 glass bottles
5 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper
Total number of pieces so far is 158:
38 glass bottles
31 aluminum cans
67 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
13 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
1 chipboard box
Amazing what a holiday weekend (4th of July in this case) will do to a town.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Recycling ABQ 3
I had to go water the garden today, so I made another walking trip up to my old house at 11th and Mountain here in town. I noticed a lot of stuff on my way up, but decided not to pick it up, rather getting it on the way home. Today I took a plastic bag with me for collection. After doing my thing at the garden, I started collecting recyclables, but took a different route home, stopping at the old house to pick up mail (the postal system is seriously ridiculous here, and it apparently takes a month to start getting your mail forwarded; I have never had this problem during all of my moves in Arizona, where mail starts getting sent ahead pretty much immediately) and chat with the old landlady, then stopping at the grocery store.
On this 1.1 mile trip, I collected a total of 25 pieces:
1 glass bottle
6 aluminum cans
12 plastic bottles
2 plastic bags
3 pieces of paper
1 tin can
Total number of pieces so far is 72:
17 glass bottles
15 aluminum cans
27 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
5 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
On this 1.1 mile trip, I collected a total of 25 pieces:
1 glass bottle
6 aluminum cans
12 plastic bottles
2 plastic bags
3 pieces of paper
1 tin can
Total number of pieces so far is 72:
17 glass bottles
15 aluminum cans
27 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
5 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
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