OBSERVATIONS

Well I've been in California for a week now and I thought I would describe those little things, positive & negative, that have caught my attention.

The weather in the Central Valley of California in the late Spring is beautiful. Lows in the 50's and highs in the mid 80's. I know that won't last long. Temps in July and August reach the 115 to 118 range.

I can still see stars at night but the light pollution cuts that by almost 2/3rds from Mau'i. I miss the night sky.

It is very quiet at my son's home. At night I can hear the train whistle in the distance. A muted lonely mournful sound. No street traffic. No sirens. No trucks using their "Jake brakes". At night the occasional dog briefly announcing a trespass by a feline intruder.

My son and family have a beautiful home. Far exceeding anything that I provided when he was growing up. I am proud of him. I have treasured jewels in my mind of each brief moment in time spent with them over the last 2 decades. Mundane for them but precious for me.

I am amazed at how much Modesto has grown. I first moved to the area in late 1976. The population was circa 76,000. It now is near 225,000. Kihei was 10 square miles and Modesto is 39 square miles. The area has adequate intracity bus service. Gas was $4.39 at the station this morning.

There is a major problem with gangs and certain neighborhoods have driveby shootings on a regular basis. But seldom enough that it does make the front page of the local paper. Unlike El Lay, where the local news doesn't even report incidents unless there are multiple deaths.

The local economy is agriculture driven but a vast percentage of the residents commute the 90-100 mile one-way trip to the Bay Area every work day, where salaries are double (or more) to those provided locally.

Flat. The valley is absolutely flat. On a clear day you can see the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas to the east and the coastal range to the west. On a clear day.

The valley has bad air pollution. Dust, smog, etc. Air circulation is stagnated by the bordering terrain. The only way for air to flow is via the Carquinez Strait, where the Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers enter the northwest corner of San Francisco Bay.

While I am happy here, getting caught up on my family's lifes, I am still in the process of getting things together for the eventual transition to Asia. To get a passport I need a certified copy of my birth certificate. That has to come from Los Angeles County and has been ordered. Upon receipt I can apply for my passport. It will probably be late August or early September before I make the next move.

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As I am sure you are all aware, Big Brown did not win the Triple-Crown. In fact he came in last. Which, considering the track temps at the time, was a smart move by the jockey. We didn't need another dead horse.


When Google first lauched Gmail in 2004, they were filtering spam at a rate of 25% of all traffic. Now they are doing it at 75%. I get, all filtered away, about 3,000 spam messages a month to my Paradise Driver account. My personal account gets about 1,000 and some others that exist but are seldom used get less than 100.

"Let's all be careful out there!"

SATURDAY'S ODDS & ENDS

Is your cell phone complicated? Try living in Japan where everybody is gadget crazy and their mobiles reflect that. The iPhone is going to be inroduced there late this year and while fancy by most people's standards, in Japan it is just a middle-of-the-road device with few features. Japan is about 5 years ahead of the rest of the world in cell technology.

If Obama is elected to the Oval Office, no matter what he does he will disappoint a lot of people. Both nationally and globally. His non-specific slogan calling for Hope and Change could work against him.

See what happens when stoners play with lasers. They could get 20 years for their efforts.

Police in Vancouver, Canada are employing decoy cops to control traffic.

Seismologists have determined that a new and rare type of earthquake, called a supershear, can occur on long straight fault lines. And they produce reactions more widespread than the type of quakes we are used to.

Something is going on near Colorado Springs. A boy was taken to the hospital with 2nd degree burns to his feet. Firefighters have measured the ground surface temperature at 800°f and no one can offer an explaination.

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE

"Let's all be careful out there!"

FLIP-FLOPS, THONGS, SLIPPERS, SANDALS

WHATEVER YOU CALL THEM

They aren't good for your feet. In Hawai'i, thats almost the entire shoe business.


This very tragic event taught me something new. I had never heard of "dry drowning". And, no, its not an interrogation technique.

Is Jasper TX one of the places where McCain wants to meet Obama for a "Townhall Meeting"?

McCain is doing another "flip-flop" regarding the Constitution.

"Bush knows little about economy" - McCain aide. Boy that is an understatement.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's "governator", is rapidly falling in the polls as the State's economy takes a nosedive.

49,000 more jobs were lost last month. Oil attained a new record high and the Dollar got flushed. Thats why the DJI slid down its mousehole yesterday. The $10.75 jump in crude yesterday was greater than what the cost of crude was 10 years ago.

A fatal entry for my LLDE file.

The title of this editorial is "Why McCain would make a better President" but for the life of me I can't find where the author made his point. Its more of a lesser of two-evils op-ed.

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Thanks much for coming by. I hope your weekends is enjoyable. Hope to see you again soon.

"Let's all be careful out there!"