A Visit to San Francisco (Day 2)

Did I mention that we stayed at the Wharf Inn in San Francisco? lol Yeah, I know I mentioned it in the other post. The photos for this post are from the second day and I figured I'm mention how comfy the rooms were at this motel. Even my trucker friend liked his room and he's a picky kind of guy. We went back over to Fisherman's Wharf to have breakfast at the Boudin Bakery as well as to buy some yummy sourdough bread to take home with us. Breakfast was fast and yummy. Even the coffee was good! After buying a few assorted loaves of sourdough bread, we headed back over to the motel to check out.

Next stop; Golden Gate Park. This time, though we didn't completely rely on the GPS for our directions to the part of the park we wanted to visit. I spent a little time on Google maps and wrote down some general directions so we'd be able to tell if the GPS decided to go nutty again. We went up some of the steepest hills in San Francisco and cruised past Lombard Street just for "effect". I mean, if you're taking a visitor from another country around San Francisco, you have to do that, right? lol

My trucker friend really wanted to visit the Japanese Tea Gardens and to sit down for a "traditional Japanese tea". So we headed straight (Or sort of straight) for the area of the park where the Tea Gardens are. We ended up parking in the underground parking that's under the California Academy of Sciences and then walking across the Music Concourse near the Spreckels Temple of Music.

We walked around behind the building to find the restrooms and came across a couple of San Francisco's "finest". The three of us told the two cops that they had the best jobs in town and both of them agreed. The lady cop told us that she'd been trying to get the mounted assignment for years and she'd just gotten the "promotion" to mounted a few months before. She said that there are no rookie cops riding horseback. She was on the list for almost 27 years. The fellow agreed with her. And with us, about their jobs being the best in the city.

The entrance gate to the Tea Gardens:

And here are a few photos of some of the beautiful sights you see when you wander around in the gardens.

I even climbed the drum bridge! It's a lot bigger than it looks in the pictures! lol

And I asked for permission to post a photo of my trucker friend and his fiance... The actual tea house is in the back ground behind him and the gift shop is above her shoulder behind the glorious azaleas.

Speaking of the azaleas, how's this for color:

After we left the Tea Gardens, we drove the length of the park over to the coast. We stopped at a lovely restaurant called the Beach Chalet, right across the Great Highway from the beach. We had a window table with a beautiful view and we had a very delicious lunch. After lunch, we headed for the Golden Gate Bridge and drove across to the vista point on the North side of the bridge. Of course we had to stop and enjoy the view.

A little bit of color on the hillside below the vista point;

And that's the trip to San Francisco. I hope you've enjoyed the pictures!

A visit to San Francisco (Day 1)

I promised some photos in yesterday's post and I'm a bit late in getting this put together. I got sidetracked yesterday afternoon and didn't sit down to go through the photos. So, I'm working on it this morning. As I mentioned yesterday, I went to San Francisco with my trucker friend and his fiance, who was here visiting from England. I went along to do the driving. My trucker friend was in an accident last fall and is still having trouble walking, plus sitting still in the drivers seat is a problem since the foot that controls the throttle is connected to the leg that doesn't want to work right. So, I got a free trip to San Francisco!

When we got to San Francisco, we discovered that the GPS unit that we had with us didn't work very well up in the financial district with all the tall buildings. We'd programmed it to go to the motel near the Wharf that we'd planned on staying in and the thing kept trying to send us in circles around the skyscrapers.. I finally picked a direction that looked as though it would lead us down towards Fisherman's Wharf and kept going while ignoring all the extra turns that the GPS wanted us to do. Once we got away from the tall buildings, the GPS finally "found" us and gave us the proper directions to get to the motel.

The motel we'd chosen, The Wharf Inn, is about a half a block from Fisherman's Wharf, so we just left the car in the motel lot and walked everywhere. Our first destination was Pier 39. We made a few stops on the block long walk just to enjoy the views and also enjoy the spring day. Thats when I took the photo of the tulips that I posted yesterday. And here's another shot of the beautiful flowers!

Here's a view of Alcatraz from the end of one of the piers. When visiting Fisherman's Wharf, it's "required" that you take a picture of Alcatraz! LOL.. Nah, not really, but I know I saw quite a few other tourists on the wharf pointing their cameras towards the island.

This is the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, which is one of two remaining fully functional Liberty Ships from World War II that's docked at Fisherman's Wharf. If you're adventurous and able bodied, I recommend taking one of the tours through the ship. It's fascinating. We didn't take the tour this time, but I'd gone on it when I was in San Francisco on a previous visit.

We had a lovely lunch out on the end of Pier 39 at Bubba Gumps and then window shopped in quite a few of the shops that are all along the pier. By mid-afternoon, my trucker friend was really struggling with all the walking, so we went back over to the motel to get settled in to our rooms and give him a chance to rest before going out again in the evening. We actually had decent views of both the bay and in the other direction, we could see Coit Tower. (Nope, I didn't even think of taking pictures from the room! Some photographer I am, huh? LOL)

That evening, we walked another block or so to find the Rainforest Cafe. The ground floor of the place is mostly the gift shop with a bar (which is where this elephant was!) in the back near the stairs leading up to the restaurant. The whole place has a jungle theme with lots of animals that move and make noise. Plus you get a thunderstorm every 30 minutes! It was fun to watch the animals and listen to the music and then to hear and see their version of a thunder storm.

The restaurant also has a lot of very large salt water aquariums all over the place. The entrance to the bar is framed by two of these large tube shaped tanks with a "bridge" over the top of the walkway. The fish were able to swim from one tube, up over the top and into the other tube. Watching the fish and everything made the time pass pretty quick while we were waiting for a table upstairs. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that the food was good too! I especially liked the coconut shrimp!

More later... I really need to do a few chores................

Hello there! I'm alive!

I know it's been quite a while since I've written a post here on my blog. I'm not going to give excuses or anything like that. I'm just going to post today... Who knows about tomorrow or the day after.

I will be posting some travel stuff later.. That's for the next post. Plus, this summer I'll try to post some travel stuff too. I'll be driving my Mom and Stepdad to Branson, Missouri. We'll be taking some side trips on the way back there and on the way home, so there will be lots of photos to share.

So, here's my "rant" for today.. lol

How not to "win friends and influence people.
The thing that brought me to the blog today was a confrontation with a "new" poster on the InSessions message boards. Well, maybe "confrontation" isn't the best description of what happened. Here's the background: Back on March 10th an appeal was filed for the Phil Spector case. Phil is still sitting in prison, serving his sentence and hoping the appeal will set him "free".

So, on March 10th, a thread was opened on the InSessions message boards with a link to a pdf of the appeal document. The discussions began and the problems in the thread began early. A lawyer (allegedly) came in and began lecturing the rest of the folks in the thread. Another poster got banned, (a temporary ban, I believe.) and this "lawyer" started posting about how the message boards were (His posts are gone now as he managed to completely piss most everyone off and someone reported him to the moderators, which resulted in him being banned.) The thread has been limping along ever since then, with several attempts to discuss the appeal. A few folks have jumped on the appeal, declaring it to be a success and predicting it will be successful. Others, me included, are waiting for the State's response before jumping down off the fence. I kind of like to hear both sides of an "argument" before I decide which side I'm going to favor.

Anyway, yesterday a "new" poster appeared in the thread. He posted an "introduction" in his first post:

As a preamble, I'm not a lawyer yet but a 3rd year law student. I sit on the law review @ my school and concentrate on evidence. I was appointed to this position after receiving an A in evidence. I also intern under a judge in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Ok, I'm good with that. If what the guy says is true, I suppose he's got a right to brag a bit about his accomplishments. The part of his first post that got me is where he stated that the appeal has a "reasonably good chance of having the case remanded for a retrial". He then goes on to state that he fully agrees with the poster (the lawyer who liked to lecture folks) who had been banned a couple days before. Uhm. If this poster is so "new", how'd he manage to read the other guy's posts? They were all removed when he received his "permanent ban"! Ok, so maybe this "new" guy lurked for a few days before typing.... So I'll let that little thing "pass". Now, the part I had trouble with is that this "law student" is predicting the outcome of the appeal before the State even has a chance to file their response. So, I posted back:

This is probably going to come off as a rather snide answer to your post. But... Here goes.

Based on your experience and knowledge of law (Somewhere OTHER than in California.) the appeal will be successful, huh? Are you saying that you don't even need to see or read the state's reply in order to make a judgment like that? I'm sorry, but even I know that you need BOTH sides of an argument before making a decision. And an appeal is essentially an argument over how fair a trial was, right?

As I said in a previous post. We have the defense's filing with their "argument" and now we await the state's response. We have one hand clapping. And right now it's the defense clapping and whining because things didn't go the way they wanted during the trial. I'll wait until the state's response is filed.

Then, this "law student" comes back with a post that "lectures" me about how the Federal Rules of law apply and so on and so on... Hmm.. Sounded very much like that previous poster who got banned. It was kind of comical, but also pretty rude. A few other folks agreed that predicting a successful appeal was a bit premature and they also stated that they would be interested to read the State's response. This "law student" then jumped on one of the other posts and posted this:

You know what this post looks like? Some middle aged insecure man pissed off @ the world because all he could sum up with his brilliant life experience is that he is just a small fish in a big pond. Clearly you feel motivated to lash out verbally against anyone that has substantial education, is young and has either a) surpassed your mediocre life or b) will surpass your mediocre life.

If you read my first post, I directly introduced myself as a law student and NOT a lawyer to indicate that I lack 100% experience in the field. I then briefly explained some credentials so I would not have to cite or tediously prove every little piece of information I presented.

After that post I immediately received a reply from someone who indicated from the get go their response was snide. Why be snide? I introduced myself and who I was and then stated an opinion like everyone else. But for some reason the mere introduction of anyone who is actually educated and/or young resulted in hostile replies. Then this wash-up decides to post again acting like I was the one who was "snide"... or wait, "rude"... Ooooo.. you're pathetic..

Then I made a comment to someone who for no reason ridiculed something I merely mentioned as a credential. So what? I'm proud I nailed an A in that class. It was damn hard. But then again, you wouldn't know hard work or you would have pursued your interest of law instead of typing about it on a forum.

To answer another questions as to why I'm at this forum and not a "law student" forum is this - I "googled" (yes, another grasshopper term - threatening isn't it wash-ups?) the words "phil spector appeal discussion" and this site popped up. That's it. I enjoy music, especially from your era (one admirable quality from your era) and I enjoy law. Phil Spector is a natural interest. I especially enjoy the album he did with Leonard Cohen.

Excuse me, but I have a paper to continue.

Then about 20 minutes later the "law student" comes back with a reply to one of the other folks on the board with this as the opening line:

hopefully all the insecure wash-ups have resided to their life-long slumber and we can continue this PS appeal discussion. Thanks to some ppl for actually reading my 1st post and defending my reaction to a bunch of well-rounded & obvious life-experienced posters

So. All the folks who disagree with this know-it-all "law student" are now "insecure wash-ups" who are "pissed off at the world". Amazing, isn't it? And hilarious. I'm "pathetic" now because I called the guy "rude"! Ooo! (It sure didn't take the guy long to do his "paper". LOL)

I have to wonder how long this one will last on the message board. He seems pretty good at slinging insults, which doesn't usually go over very well with the moderators on InSessions. I'll sit back and wait for the State's response to the appeal, and then, perhaps, I'll get in the discussion on the merits of both documents.

Other Cases

The Casey Anthony case continues with much drama. Cindy and George "neglected" to pay their house payment for 9 or 10 months and the bank filed foreclosure papers on them. Cindy and George claim that they had no idea that the foreclosure was filed until a reporter asked them about it. Uhm.. Yeah, right. Not very likely. I supposed they had a lot of fun on the cruise and the shopping trips and the visits to tattoo parlors instead of paying all those pesky house payments.

News came out that George had an affair with a younger woman who could be a physical match to the description of "Zanny the nanny" that he and Cindy spouted off about from the get-go. From what's been reported, there are photos and text messages between George and the young woman that proves the affair.

Then we have reports of letters, lots of letters, between Casey and another inmate at the Orange County Jail. None of the letters have been released to the public yet, and the reports are that Casey doesn't actually admit to killing her daughter in them. It will be interesting to see the letters when they are released, if nothing else, just to get a glimpse into the mind of a mother who can kill her child and then lie to everyone around her about where that child is for 31 days.

And now we wait for the next piece of "drama" in the case. And with the Anthony circus, the drama is sure to happen.

The Sandra Cantu case was in the news yesterday as well. It was one year ago today when a happy, skipping Sandra Cantu was captured on surveillance video, just minutes before she disappeared from a Tracy, California mobile home park. What a sad anniversary. Melissa Huckaby remains in jail in connection with Sandra's rape and murder, but it still could be awhile before the case makes it to trial. There is still a gag order on the case, so very little information makes it into the news.

Drew Peterson is also still sitting in jail awaiting his trial for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, and who is also a suspect in the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacey. Drew's lawyer, Joel Brodsky, is a busy guy apparently. He's hitting the news in the Chicago area with a case between a divorced couple where they are arguing about which religion their child should be exposed to. I feel sorry for the child.

I'm still watching a number of other cases, but nothing much has hit the media about them.. Yet.

Travel!
I don't know if you can really call this "travel", but I went over to San Francisco last week with my trucker friend and his lovely fiance who was here from England for a visit. We had a lot of fun and we took lots of photos... I'll post one here and then later today, maybe I'll add some more to a new post.............. Enjoy the flowers! These beautiful flowers were in one of the many planters on Fisherman's Wharf.

Penguin vs. Orcas.... Smart Bird!!

The penguin is being pursued by several Orcas, who are circling him for the kill. People on a small boat are filming all the action of the chase. Wait til you see what the penguin does to fix his problem! Thanks to a eBay and Facebook friend, Oda, for showing this video off... I love it!!



Yes, I know the music is annoying to some, but it kind of fits the action! lol...

Have a nice day?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

How could I resist posting this LOLCat? It kind of reminds me of the look I got from one of my cats this morning when I looked out the window on to my back porch. One of the cats was sitting on top of the dryer just staring at the window waiting for me to let her in... lol

I'm Still Alive...

I'm still around, I just haven't been taking the time to sit here and type.. I am still following the news on the various cases I've posted about in the past as well as watching a few other "new" ones. Right now, however, I'm not going to post about crimes, nor am I going to post about my most recent little trip with my Mom and Stepdad to Monterey, nor any of the other things I've been doing in the last few weeks. I am going to simply post a "music video" that a friend posted a link to on Facebook... The song is created entirely from the normal system sounds in Windows 98 and Windows XP... Check it out!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Update: Scott Malmstrom (July Dead Body Story)

Yesterday's Appeal Democrat had a "Breaking News" story about the murder of Scott Malmstrom. I mentioned him in two posts a couple months ago. Look here and here for the original posts.

So, yesterday afternoon, the Yuba County Sheriff's Department reported that they have arrested a Marysville man on suspicion of homicide in the case of Scott Malmstrom. If you saw/read my previous posts about the dead man, you'll know that he was a registered sex offender. His body was found in a Linda, CA apartment complex after neighbors reported a foul odor coming from Malmstrom's apartment. Anyway, the fellow they arrested is Todd Allen Cole, a 25 year old man who was already in custody at the Yuba County Jail on an unrelated parole hold.

The Appeal Democrat did a little research and found out that this guy, Cole, was arrested by the Yuba City Police Department back in April on suspicion of violating parole, possessing false identification and vandalism, and was booked into Sutter County Jail. He was listed as a Yuba City resident in that arrest. I haven't seen any mention by the paper nor anyone else that states what the original crime was that he was on parole for. The guy is supposed to be arraigned either sometime today or on Monday. Whenever it is, I hope the paper sends a reporter so they can put more info in their story about the crime and about Cole's history.

What I would like answered is;

• What was the original crime he was on parole for?
• What was the parole violation he was picked up for in April?
• When was he released from the Sutter County Jail?
  
• When was he re-arrested for parole violations by the Yuba County law enforcement agencies?
• What was the parole violation he was picked up for by Yuba County law enforcement agencies?
  

And those questions are just for starters!

Malmstrom's sister, Jennifer, has posted comments here a couple times on the story I did on July 29th. The first time, she was asking for anyone with information to come forward and give the info to the investigators. The second time was to tell me and my readers that Cole had been arrested. Jennifer, you may not believe it, but I had just read the story in the paper and copy/pasted it off to a separate document so I could use the information in it to write this post. I apologize to you for not getting this written yesterday. I also saw your comment at the bottom of the Appeal Democrat article. I wasn't aware until reading your comments how many times Cole allegedly stabbed your brother. 17 stab wounds equals a lot of anger in my opinion. It will be interesting to see how this case proceeds and to find out what kind of evidence they have against Cole.

I have to admit that I don't have much sympathy for the victim in this case. He was a sex offender and had his own victims. I do have sympathy for his family, though. The trial is going to be hard on them and I hope they have the strength to make it through the ordeal.

Source: UPDATE: Man arrested for July slaying in Linda

More Fire Images (Updated)

I'm still watching the news about the fires still burning around the state, especially the huge fire in Southern California, the one named "Station Fire". One of the things I'm watching is it's approach to Mount Wilson and the century old observatory there. Mount Wilson also hosts the communication towers for most of the radio and television stations in the Los Angeles basin. I can remember visiting the observatory up on that peak years ago. It has always amazed me that an observatory so near to the smoggy LA basin could get clear views of space. I've felt the same about the Griffith Observatory... Anyway, a really good way to keep track of what is happening up on Mount Wilson is to check in with the web cam that sits on top of the Solar Tower.

Here's some screen captures from last night and this morning:

This one was taken a little while after sunset. I wish I had thought to capture one the sunset views. Maybe I'll try tonight.

This one was just before I went to bed last night...

And this one is from this morning... So far so good. The fire is close, and unfortunately it's getting closer. I just hope that the observatory survives. It's a piece of history and it's an important facility for the scientists who watch the skies.

Another image I want to share is one that I "borrowed" from twitter. A fellow posted a link to it and said that it was an image that had been uploaded to a local media site. I don't know which site, nor do I know who took it, but it's such a striking photo... When I first saw the image I almost thought it was a CGI (Computer Generated Image) or a painting... What do you think? CGI? Painting? Nope.. It's an honest to goodness photo... Kudos to the photographer, whoever you might be...

~~~

Just a little note here, I haven't stopped watching the news about crimes. Still watching things locally and still watching the national news. I've been keeping up on the Anthony's and what they're all up to, and I still have an alert in google for anything that Phil Spector and his wife do. And lately, I've been watching the news about Jaycee Dugard and her kidnappers, Phillip and Nancy Garrido. I don't know when I'll post about them, but I'm sure I will eventually.

Update:

Just a quick update about the link to the Mount Wilson Observatory web cam that's in the post above; Unfortunately the web server is down now. All the smoke that had been building up close to the web cam on the Solar Tower was from backfires set by firefighters trying to protect the main structures and communication towers. So far, so good. They are burning off the undergrowth and dead pine needles on the ground and keeping the flames out of the trees themselves.

Here are the last three entries from the blog (which is temporarily being hosted elsewhere), the second entry explains why the web cam is down:

1 Sep 09, 2:04 pm PDT - CHARA Site Manager Larry Webster, who left the mountain yesterday morning, has told me that what we see on the TV feeds is exactly what the fire fighters told him they would do to deplete flammables on the ground. Their plan, which they would have implemented earlier had they not been withdrawn, was to start these groundlevel fire and literally walk along with them to keep them controlled. This is why we see no flames. The fires will consume the accumulation of needles from the many pine and fir trees as well as other scrub growth that could flame up and ignite lower limbs that would them permit the blossoming of the entire tree into flames. All the smoke we see is entirely consistent with this procedure. Larry and Dave are both delighted to see what's going on, but I've got to say that seeing smoke next to those domes is very unsettling to me. Still, I know what the fire fighters are now doing is necessary to save the Observatory.

1 Sep 09, 2:15 pm PDT - The Mount Wilson webserver went down moments ago, most likely due to a backfire infiltration of a pull box containing telephone lines that bring us our T1 internet service. All future updates will be posted here.

- The Battalion fire chief on Mount Wilson has just called both Larry and Dave to ask how to turn off the fire alarm up there! His name is Cam Todd and he's a Cal Fire chief with crews from Calaveras County. These are the same fire crews who did such a fantastic job prepping the place over the weekend before they were withdrawn yesterday morning. Chief Todd confirmed that these are indeed backfires and he said his guys are doing a heck of a job and their efforts are going just great!

Incredible Fire Photo

Just had to share this photo of odd fire behavior.. Or maybe not so odd. Fire can create it's own wind and weather patterns... The speed limit sign says 25mph.. How fast do you think the fire is "moving"?

Photo source: LA Times

Traveling Again... Fires... And Losses...

Yesterday, I spent the day with my parents out in the car for a day trip. This time my Step-dad decided on going up to Nevada City for breakfast and then on up the hill to Truckee for window shopping and lunch. When we arrived in Grass Valley on Highway 20, we heard sirens and then saw an ambulance and a fire truck racing up behind us, then we saw off to one side of the road a large column of smoke rising up through the trees. We couldn't see what was burning, and with my folks in the car, I wasn't about to go chasing the smoke with my camera to get photos. Also, we weren't able to get over to the side in traffic so that could step out of the car to get a photo of the column of smoke. So, once the emergency vehicles were clear of us, I took the turn onto Highway 49 so that we could get up to Nevada City.

*Skipping forward in time, when we got back to Yuba City and my parents home, I got on their computer to look up some information and found that the smoke was saw in Grass Valley was a fully involved apartment building. Two people were injured and about 13 were left homeless. (Source of photo and information: The Union) One of the injured was a woman who was apparently in the apartment where the fire started. She suffered burns and injuries from exploding oxygen tanks. I haven't been able to find information on how she is this morning. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

After breakfast in Nevada City, we traveled on up to Truckee and spent a few hours wandering around the town, window shopping and enjoying the cooler weather. There are a lot of very interesting little shops and lots of friendly shopkeepers. After wandering through the shops and having a little lunch (No comment on the lunch nor the restaurant we ate at beyond the fact that I doubt if we'll be going back there.. lol), we headed back down I80 towards home. I'd say about half-way down from the summit, I saw flashing lights in the rear view mirror, and it wasn't a cop. It was a fire vehicle (Not a fire engine, it was a supervisor vehicle. An SUV type.) and he literally flew past us and we lost sight of him rather quickly. A couple miles after we lost sight of him, we saw off in the distance between the trees a very large column of smoke billowing up. It was nearly impossible to tell at that point where the fire was because the road twists and turns so much. We got a few more glimpses of the growing column of smoke as we traveled down the highway. And we saw a lot more fire vehicles, engines, crew trucks and supervisors. As we got near Applegate, the color of the smoke suddenly turned from the brown/tan color of a brush or wildland fire to thick black smoke. We knew then that there were structures involved. And from the amount of smoke, we thought there a lot of buildings involved.

After we got off I80, we drove down near the town of Lincoln so we could get a clear view of the smoke and stopped so that I could get out of the car to take a couple photos. In the photo to the left, you can see the thick, dark color of the smoke. At this point we were less than 10 miles (as the crow flies) from the fire. In the next photo, you can see a wide shot of how the smoke was "laying down" and being blown to the north. Even during the few moments we were stopped alongside the road while I took those few photos, we saw another fire truck go by with lights and sirens.

*Skipping forward in time again to us looking up the fire information on the computer at my folk's house, we found out that the smoke we'd been watching on our way down from Donner Pass was the "49er Fire" in the northern part of the city of Auburn. And the black smoke we saw was coming from 50 to 60 structures that were being destroyed. Businesses and residences both. I haven't seen a full official count of structures lost yet. There are still a lot of trucks and firefighters out on the fire this morning, and the last I saw, the fire is still just 60% contained.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful, thank goodness. We unloaded our goodies from Truckee and sorted things out and watched some of the news coverage of the fire in Auburn. I headed for home then, but on the way, I decided to stop and take one more photo looking back towards Auburn and that column of smoke. I picked a spot where the highway climbs up a levee on the Sutter Bypass and pulled off to the side of the road. At this point, all you can see of that black column of smoke we saw earlier is a smudge against the horizon because of the haze in the valley.

The latest information from the CalFire website says that the 49er fire has burned 275 acres (Down from the 500 acres the news stations were reporting yesterday due to more accurate mapping of the fire today.) The CalFire website is also reporting that 60 structures were either damaged or destroyed.

More information, videos and photos from the 49er fire in Auburn can be found in these links:
KCRA3
News10.net
CBS13/CW31
Fox40 News

In other fire news, the Station fire near Los Angeles doubled in size overnight to 85,750 acres burned. And it took the lives of two Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighters yesterday.

The official release about the deaths of the firefighters is here:

Firefighter Line of Duty Deaths

It is with our deepest regret to inform you the media of the Line Of Duty Deaths for Fire Captain Tedmund "Ted" Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones. These two members tragically lost their lives when the where overran by a fast moving fire which approached Fire Camp 16 on the "Station Fire" Incident.

Fire Captain Tedmund "Ted" Hall was 47 years of age and was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department for 26 years and lived in San Bernardino County, California. Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones was 35 years of Age, and was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire department for 8 years and lived in Palmdale, California.

Funeral arrangements are pending and information relating to services will be made available in the near future.

For additional information, please contact Captain Mike Brown, Public Information Officer at (323) 881-2413.

I've said many times that firefighters are heroes. We have two more fallen heroes now. Please say a little prayer or have a good thought or two for these two heroes as well as for their families, friends and co-workers.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today issued the following statement after two Los Angeles County firefighters died while fighting the Station fire:

“Our hearts are heavy as we are tragically reminded of the sacrifices our firefighters and their families make daily to keep us safe. This is a devastating day for firefighters everywhere and Maria and I join all Californians in expressing our gratitude and sadness. Our hearts go out to their loved ones.”

The other blog that I post on has information as well: California Fire News

~~

So many firefighters out there on all of the fires that are threatening people, homes and wildlands. Please take a few minutes today and think of the thousands of men and women who choose to protect you and yours.

A few thoughts about anonymous comments...

My blog suddenly has gotten a lot of attention because of a post from last December about a photo of Rachelle Spector posing with a gun. I'm not going to speculate about what has suddenly drawn people to that photo. (Over 300 visitors clicked into the blog just to look at that stupid photo since Thursday!) It has also generated some comments that I guess were supposed to be insulting towards me. Idiotic comments, for the most part and were good for a laugh before I deleted them. I've added one last comment to that particular post and I will repeat what I put in the comment here because it pertains to all of the insulting comments from people who don't like what has been written on my blog.

I don't know why this particular post has attracted so much attention in the past few days. The post is OLD, people! Csn't you read the date on the post? Why on earth are people just NOW finding this post and sending insulting comments to me about it? If you want to insult someone, try emailing Rachelle. After all, it was HER photo posing with a GUN that started things.

I personally don't care if this post or her photo offends her or her husband's groupies. If she had any brains at all, she would never had someone take a photo of her with a gun DURING HER HUSBAND'S MURDER TRIAL.

To all the anonymous commenters who object to this post or any other post I have on this blog. Don't bother trying to insult me or anyone else on this blog in an idiotic comment such as the ones I deleted today. The comment moderation has been enabled for quite a while now and it will stay that way for a while longer. If the garbage keeps coming in, the next thing that will happen is that the ability to post anonymously will be GONE.. Got it?

The thought of having to censor the comments on my blog is disturbing to me. But then having anonymous idiots jumping in and posting insults to me or any of the other readers of my blog is even more disturbing. I never had any problems with the anonymous posters until I posted about Rachelle Spector. Even the previous posts I wrote about Phil Spector didn't get the attention from the sick idiots that apparently follow Rachelle around. So, just in case one of Rachelle and Phil's groupies read this post, pass the word. Rachelle nor her or her husband's groupies can NOT going to scare me into removing her photo, nor are they going to make me stop posting to my blog.

If any readers object that strongly to my writings, my opinions or my sense of humor so much that they feel compelled to write a stupid insulting comment complaining about what I have written or how I've written something, I suggest that you just click on through to another blog somewhere and stop coming back to mine and trying to insult me in more comments that will not be published. If you think your ideas are so much better than mine, then start your own damn blog. Got it?

Finally, I apologize to the readers of my blog that don't complain and insult in a comment... It seems that it's the childish actions of a few that always ruin things for the many......... I'm sorry, folks.. I really am.

CALIFORNIA FIRE NEWS: Yuba Base Camp at Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds

I went out taking more photos today, only this time I took pictures of fire trucks and firefighters. There is a large fire burning in the hills east of where I am and they set up the base camp at the fairgrounds in town. I spoke to a lot of firefighters over there from all over. There were trucks from Reno and Sparks up in Nevada, there were trucks from Northern Oregon and from all over California. I even found a bunch of them at a car wash cleaning up their trucks.. lol.. Go check out the pics..

CALIFORNIA FIRE NEWS: Yuba Base Camp at Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds

The photo above is of a truck that is down here in our area from Reno. The crews from the Reno/Sparks area were fun to talk to. They gave me a whole line about how one of the fellows on the top of the truck (filling the ice chest with ice and bottles of water) was a "world class weight lifter" among other things... And of course the fellows on the top of the truck were adding their own little tales... I should have taken my boots with me.. The stuff was getting pretty deep out there around the Nevada Strike Team... lol

Heros, I tell ya... They're all heroes. Even tired, dirty and hungry, these guys took the time to talk and joke around with this old lady. Heroes, I tell ya. Thats what they all are. Tell a firefighter "Thank you" the next time you see one.

Eureka, Fort Bragg and More

My Stepdad was getting bored sitting around the house, so he came up with the idea of going up to Eureka for a day or two. So I headed over to Yuba City early Thursday morning and parked my car in their garage, transferred my suitcase to their car and off we went... As we headed north, and then west through the coastal range, the weather changed from bright and sunny in the valley to cloudy up in the mountains. It actually rained on us a bit on our way down from the summit. The weather on the coast was very changeable from one hour to the next. Cloudy now and an hour later it was sunny. I took a coat with me, but never even got it out of my suitcase... lol

Of course we took a few side trips here and there. For instance, once we got to Eureka and got settled in our motel room, we headed out to Samoa so we could have lunch at the Samoa Cookhouse which is the last operating lumber mill cookhouse still in operation. If you ever have an opportunity to be near Eureka, I highly recommend you visit the Cookhouse for a meal. The Cookhouse serves meals "family style" even if you are there by yourself. In other words, they bring bowls and platters to your piece of the long tables and you serve yourself. Oh yeah, they bring pitchers of ice water and your choice of beverage to the table too. There was a man sitting by himself at the other end of the table and they served him with the bowls, platters and pitchers as well. The menu for Thursday afternoon's lunch was:

• Vegetable beef soup (Definitely not canned soup!)
• Salad Short Ribs in Gravy (Big chunks of meat along with chunks of carrots in gravy.)
• Pasta (I'm sure there was a name to the pasta that I missed. It was lightly seasoned but was great with the gravy from the ribs over it.)
• Calico Beans (A variety of types of beans cooked together with sort of a light barbeque sauce.. Yummy!)
• Peas (I let my Mom and Stepdad have the peas and I stole all the carrots out of the dish of ribs.)
• Chocolate cake with chocolate icing

After completely stuffing ourselves at the Cookhouse, we decided it might be a good idea to walk some of it off. So we headed over to the marina.

We wandered around looking at the boats, which are a mixture of commercial fishing boats, charter or private fishing boats and private pleasure boats. At one end of the marina, there is a monument that lists sailors lost at sea from that area. The dates on the names on the lists ranged from the 1800's clear up to this year. Across the sidewalk on the bay side, there is a statue dedicated to all the sailors lost at sea. It was sad to read through the lists and see how many of them had never been recovered after being lost. After walking around the marina for a while, we decided to go back over to the old part of Eureka and look at some of the Victorian homes that are scattered all over the old part of town. As we came down into that part of town, we could see the tower on the Carson Mansion, so we headed off the "main route" down one of the side streets in the direction of that tower we could see above the roofs of the other buildings. We didn't quite make it to the mansion when that street ended in a parking lot for the library. But that was fortunate, because the library had a lovely brochure with a map of points of interest in Eureka. We did manage to find our way to the front of the mansion though.

It's owned by a private club, so we didn't get a chance to go inside or even around the grounds and gardens. But, there are many more stately old Victorians within a few blocks.

Across the street from the Carson Mansion is another, smaller, mansion that was built by the Carson family that is called the "Pink Lady". The following pictures are of more of the Victorians that we walked past, some are offices and some are bread and breakfast inns or even a hotel.

After walking around looking at the beautiful buildings we got back in the car, thinking we'd go check out the "downtown" part of old Eureka. As we drove down the "main street" of the old part of town, we saw people carrying folding chairs and stuff towards the waterfront. Naturally we got curious and headed that direction.

We found a band on the waterfront getting ready for an open air free concert. They played a couple of tunes in between fiddling with the sound balance and stuff.. The music was kind of jazzy and had some of the folks that had gathered there up and dancing. By this time, my Stepdad's legs were about to give out on him, so we went back to the motel and settled in for the evening.

We got up the next morning and headed south down Highway 101 towards the redwoods and Fort Bragg. We had originally planned on grabbing some coffee and the "continental breakfast" that the motel advertised, but since the office was still locked up after 7am and we couldn't even see the coffee maker working we decided to head on down the road. We found a lovely little cafe in a small town called Miranda which is along the Avenue of the Giants. Breakfast was delicious and huge..

Silly me, I didn't take any pictures at all in Fort Bragg or down in Mendicino when we went window shopping and wandering. I guess I'd been there too many times.. lol.. I promise, blog readers, I will try to take some pictures in Fort Bragg and in Mendicino the next time I go over there.

I took a few pictures on the trip "home" yesterday. When we left Fort Bragg, we headed south down Highway 1 for a while. We saw some spectacular views and even went out to one of the lighthouses along the coast.

Point Arena Lighthouse in the fog.

Sun peeking through the fog at Point Arena.

Sea caves near Point Arena Lighthouse.

By the way, if any of my readers are from the area around Booneville CA, can you please tell me what was going on there yesterday? When we came into town on Mountain View Road, we saw a group of people standing by the fence at the end of the airport, then we saw all the people that were along the road next to the airport. We drove down that road to the point where it was roped off and all the airplanes were parked.. We were curious, but we didn't see anyone handy enough to pull over and roll down a window to ask.. lol, I figured I could find something on the internet... WRONG! LOL! So, if anyone knows what was going on at the Booneville airport, I'd sure appreciate it if someone posts a comment!

Hopefully this will work.. It's a map of our route (for the most part)...

View Yuba City, Eureka, Fort Bragg & Back in a larger map

Yay! It worked! LOL.. It didn't want to work earlier..

Catscan anyone?

moar funny pictures

NEXT MAN BELLIES AND HAIRY BACKS CARWASH COMING UP!

Here's the email I recieved from Pat and Kacie's Ride for Hope:

Hey all

Our carwash date is August 9th '09 at Breaker Glass on P'ville Dr. 9:00 am till 3:00 pm.

Just hoping to get some hairy backs and men's bellies out there to participate and have pretty fun day of it.

Last years went very well at just a short notice to those we know and our sexy dancers on P'ville drive just draggen' them in.

This year should be bigger and better.
Hoping all can come out on the 9th and give us a hand.
It is well appreciated.

Please let me know if you can join us.

Thank You
Pat

P.S. oh yes, I have more bellies to call than you see on the email list above, also the ladies are just money handlers and spectators, but are also very welcome to come on out.


So it's on for next wekend, Sunday the 9th. Placerville Drive crosses Hwy 50E to Tahoe just before Placerville. Take the off ramp and bear right till you cross over the freeway and while you are passing the El Dorado Co. fairgrounds on the right keep an eye open for Breaker Glass on the left for the carwash.

Hope to see you there!




I think we might try to be more vigilant about using sunscreen this year. We all got toasted last year...

Let them know if you're coming from out of town to support us and our cause to End Domestic Violence. It would be cool to know how far we're reaching.

Again, hope to see you there, I'll be having fun!!!
I'll be wearing the white beard...
Gene.