Going up into the mountains is always a leap of fate. There are wild animals like bears, steep drop-offs, fast moving rivers, freezing temperatures and in the winter avalanches. Castle Peak at Donner Summit is at once a wild place and also one that is a stones-throw from civilization as the hum of Interstate 80 is often heard in the distance. Cell service is strong. You have to venture a few miles from this major thoroughfare to enjoy the silence that makes these places magical.
I have skied up to “The Castle” many times. I remember well the first time skinning up past Andesite Peak and to the saddle. A young Sierra Club dame leading the way as we traded off breaking the trail. The snow was deep. The skies were clear. Eventually we made it back down.
In January 2017 after a huge dump we did ski up to the saddle. The weather looked to be turning so we headed down the safe way, sticking close to the trees. 2016-17 was a big snow year with totals over 500 inches. On that trip all the resorts were closed for days. Mostly we skied the backside of Signal Peak.
Signal Peak by Donner Summit – January 2017
Signal Peak by Donner Summit – January 2017
Castle Peak at Donner Summit – January 2017
It is with a heavy heart I heard about the recent tragedy at Castle Peak. In terms of doing this trip late in the year, generally the risk of avalanche is slight. The snow that is left has settled. the biggest danger (by far) are the many fast-moving snowmelt rivers that run under the snow and ice. These are deep and cold, unpredictable, fast and are often like tunnels. If you fall into one of those, you may have a major problem. Just a heads up.
Now to the post in 2017:
I have always wanted to ski late in the year during a big snow year. 2017 was that year. It is a truly amazing experience to hike up and ski off the top of a mountain in 70 degree weather. The sun bright and hot. The snow hard but not yet slushy in the morning.
We made our way up to the top of this undisclosed mountain along the Pacific Crest Trail. A mile in we ran into a group of six hikers with packs. As usual custom along hiking trails we stopped and drank some water and chatted a bit. These were six people hiking the PCT all the way from Mexico to Canada. They had all started out doing the hike solo but formed a group over time. One person from Oregon. Another from Albuquerque. Another from Israel and another from New York. I asked them if they could let me know one of their most essential tools in their pack. Something they value most of all and could not do without. They first said what all people who backpack say. “Just too much shit. You do not need much in the end.” Then they stood and pondered and then one of the older hikers said, “You pack your fears. If you are afraid of being thirsty, you carry too much water. If you fear hunger, you pack too much food. If you are afraid of being cold, you pack too many clothes.” Some heavy trail knowledge – just in the nick of time.
“You pack your fears. If you are afraid of being thirsty, you carry too much water. If you fear hunger, you pack too much food. If you are afraid of being cold, you pack too many clothes.”
We kept heading up the mountain. At times using skins and skis. At other times hiking straight up. We made it to the top and ate lunch. The top of the mountain is a unusual place. Life was exploding with bugs, birds, rodents, birds and butterflies. 9100 feet. At one point a tiger swallowtail butterfly cruises by and you have to wonder what she is doing at the top of the world.
Photos is from the failed Ernest Shackleton voyage to the South Pole. Sometimes it is just really hard and you get stuck.
Just putting this out there for the technology trades that the Google Content ID project has remained in BETA for 10 years. Man, I have worked at some slow projects in the software world, but 10 years! Hello people in the white buses…
Google (Alphabet, Inc.) has poured resources into automated cars, artificial intelligence, buses to ferry workers back and forth to San Francisco, gender qualifying in movies (creepy stuff), a more cryptic privacy policy and better marketing tools and analytics… but God forbid they get Content ID out of BETA. No money to be made there.
June 14, 2017 – 10 year anniversary!
Google Content ID project has remained in BETA.
NUMBER OF DAYS content identification tools for YouTube HAS BEEN IN BETA
[getdays]
Why does this matter? The YouTube/Google Content ID is how Google pays the band. If you make it appear that you do not know the band even exists, then there is no one to pay and all the money just goes into Googles bank account. Brilliant plan for Google. Because of how the 1998 DMCA was written, there is no way (except for endless take-down notices) to get your work off of YouTube. For musicians, bands and artists – Google in the end is your master and owns you. My condolences.
“Imagine a business model where you are given all of the music publishing content for the last hundred years for free. After you build the initial interface, you basically do not have to do anything. The system is set up so that users and fans just give you content even though they have no rights to the ownership of that content. With much of this illegal content you garner about 50% of all advertisement revenue generated by that content. This can go on indefinitely. Sounds like there is no way you can fail. You will make billions off this stuff. YouTube just laughs all the all the way to the bank.”
Anonymous
BETA [bey-tuh or, esp. British, bee-] adj. A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to try under real conditions.
– PC Magazine Encyclopedia
At what point will the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) of 1998 ever make it into the news? It is the basis of our digital world and the piracy it created was/is a huge giveaway from the creative class to the tech class.
People are making some sick money around here! I was walking down the street in SOMA and all these hundred and thousand dollar bills came flying out of this Audi sports car and they just keep driving.
— Anonymous conversation overheard on the streets of San Francisco – 2017
The tents with the homeless surviving inside sort of move around and play musical chairs with the freeway on-ramps. That has not changed in the last 5 years. The road repair in San Francisco sometimes means that the streets start talking another language, especially when riding a bike.
What road repair can do to messages..
The season has turned from spring to summer. The fog is beginning to roll in and we head to the coast only at opportune times. Morning low tide is the best in the summer. If you land in San Francisco at SFO and head north up Interstate 101 in the afternoon, during summer the fog will dance with hills like two tango dancers. An amazing sight. Gives you hope that the house is not completely burning down. If the heat becomes unbearable out there on the plains, you can cool down here on the coast. Like winter in the Midwest a time to watch the weather report and nourish the few sunny days. By July 4th the fireworks will as usual be obscured by the fog.
Below are some photos from March and April 2017…
The parking lots are falling into the ocean. This is from March when the waves were better.
Two pickers at Sunday Streets on Valencia
People are making some much money around here, I was walking down the street and all these thousand dollar bills came flying out of Audi sports car.
Radio Havana on Valencia
Looking down Ocean
CLICK ON IMAGES +
Rod repair in SF
The parking lots are falling into the ocean. This is from March when the waves were better.
Two pickers at Sunday Streets on Valencia
Was walking down the street and all these thousand dollar bills came flying out of Mark Zuckerbergs car.
It was a rather ordinary August afternoon in San Marcos, Guatemala. The sky was beginning to fill with the usual afternoon clouds that would soon make for scattered showers that are so common this time of year. I was going about town with Lucia, my seven-year-old daughter, doing some errands – a spool of white thread, socks, stop at the supermarket for the usual. Suddenly I saw her. She saw me. Our eyes met and I knew at that moment I had to have her. Her hands were together as though in prayer, and out from the crowded street, she called my name.
“Pablo, how are you these days? I need to speak with you. The matter is urgent.”
I quickly looked around, wondering whom it was that had spoken, when I suddenly realized it was she – the poster of The Virgin Guadalupe. Among the other tacky posters around, two puppy dogs with some corny slogan in beveled font, Don Johnson next to a Mustang looking so cool, she stood out as something of exquisite beauty and value.
“I am fine Guadalupe. And why do you inquire?”
“In the last five hundred years, after my meeting with Juan, we have built thousands of fine temples, and given peace and joy to the down trodden and suffering.”
“I know, there are many fine churches throughout the land now. They ring their bells early and late. Is this something that you can help me with? It often wakes me early in the morning, especially on the weekends. I believe it is recorded bells too, which I find cheap and disingenuous.”
“I hear you clearly my dear Pablo. I find it strange that the bells never make a mistake as well. If they are recorded, the least they could do is play in tune. I will do what I can.”
“But I am speaking to you now as merely a friend. I need your help. I have listened to the weeping, the sadness, the troubles and miseries of the people of this downtrodden land for five hundred years, and to be perfectly honest, I am a bit tired and depressed. Take me home with you.”
“You seem to be a person of great quality but I have never brought someone of your stature home. I think it would also make my wife a bit uncomfortable… you know another woman in the house and all.”
“My dear friend Pablo, I am a virgin and I intend to stay that way. Your wife should not worry. Besides I promise that I will just blend into the wall as best as I can.”
“But what of that little cherubic kid at your feet? Does he have to come along too?”
“Yes, he is my son. The Son of God. I fear waiting here in the bus station any longer will not be good for his health. You see he is not breathing too well the last few days. The fumes from all the buses are affecting his asthma. To be quite frank, because of all the noise, he has missed his nap all week and has been a real pill. He bugs me constantly for suckers and candy from all the venders who pass by. I do not think I can last much longer. Besides that, this Don Johnson guy next to me is really getting on my nerves. He thinks he’s soooooo cool. What an ego!”
“But I thought you were a virgin? Is your son adopted?”
“No he is not adopted. It is a long story and something that Joe, my former husband and I, have had to try to explain so many times… it is complicated. But do not fear. I am a woman of great quality and believe me, a virgin.”
Lucia and I stood on the narrow sidewalk and were truly captivated by the beauty of Guadalupe. We tried to ignore her pleas and walked away more than once, only to be called back by some sort of magical force. She had cast a spell on us. We had to have her. She seemed to be a work of art, unlike no other, in this culture-starved city.
We asked her master what was her price, thinking that perhaps she was holding our dear Guadalupe hostage, and would suggest an outrageous ransom. “Ten quetzals” she replied. I was astonished. A little over a dollar and I could free my new friend and her child from their misery.
As we walked home with Guadalupe rolled up, she continued to speak to me. “Pablo, thank you so much. I promise to look after you and your family. You know that nasty stomach infection you had. It was the water. Always brush your teeth with the bottled stuff. I promise, it won’t happen again.”
When we got home, we let Guadalupe have some space by herself at the end of the hall. She now looks after us daily. Her little kid who always hangs out at her feet no longer whines and is reading Mark Twain for a change. We all feel the arrangement is just grand.
The Internet has a strange way of broadcasting value and worth. A forty-year-old book about transgender issues can be a cornerstone of critical thought at the time but then gets misquoted and passed off as old fashion. Today the book is out-of-print but fetches around $100 used on Amazon for a used hard cover edition. You have to wonder why the publisher does not make another printing? Modern books read like pop self-help books, quoting daytime TV shows and sourcing checklists of acceptable pronouns. The Transgender Empire written by a “radical lesbian feminist” (how did she ever get that label?) is both academic, historical and cuts to the chase and journeys deep into the topic. Below is just a short quote from the 1994 reprinting.
The medical model is also a disease model. And here exactly is the rub. If transsexualism is treated as a disease, then does desire qualify as disease? As Thomas Szasz asked in his New York Times review of The Transsexual Empire, does an old person who wants to be young suffer from the “disease” of being a “transchronological, ” or does a poor person who wants to be rich suffer from the “disease” of being a “transeconomical”? Does a Black person who wants to be white suffer from the “disease” of being a “transracial”?
All these questions, of course, raise larger social and political issues and remove these conjectural “diseases” from the medical/psychiatric framework.
Hector’s Hauling & Clean Up – Out with the old, in with the new – (415) 215-9120
Best hauling service in the outer mission district of San Francisco.
Highly recommended! I always get a kick out of Hector’s truck. The hand painted lettering just lets you know this is your guy when you need a bunch of crap moved, and moved ASAP.
Here are the before and after shots of my summer project – replacing a retaining wall. Hector hauled the concrete off to the dump. Swept it all up. Great guy. Excellent listener.
Concrete
Concrete
Concrete gone!!!
3 Months Later
With Fencing – Pros
http://www.withfencing.com/
Need a retaining wall, these guys do it all the time
Lo Buglio Design
http://www.lobugliodesignbuild.com/
Need someone to give great advice on woodworking and construction. Nick is the guy.
This is an open letter to Robert Thompson of NewsCorp. There is no link on your webpage on how to contact you so I thought I would write a letter. Sort of “old-school” don’t you think? I recently read Fake News and the Digital Duopoly in the April 5th version of the Wall Street Journal. Found it on a cafe table. Great op-ed, and I agree with everything in it. Clear and crisp writing and the article shed much needed light on lots of things.
“publishers will routinely and selectively “unpublish” certain views and news.”
Robert Thompson – Fake News and the Digital Duopoly Wall Street Journal
I posted a piece on Facebook that was critical of Facebook and Google, the gist of which was just making sure all my “friends” know that Google and Facebook are private companies and that the space is NOT public and that they gather and mine your intimate personal history starting with – of course your birthday. This post of course disappeared from my history a few months later… never to be found again.
Your business model can’t be based on both intimate, gradual details about users and no clue whatsoever about rather obvious pirate sites.
I hate to tell you Mr. Thompson. Google and YouTube are the pirates. YouTube is one massive landscape of unlimited counterfeit movies and music. That should be the first thing addressed. It is called the revising of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It is wishful thinking that this will happen by the sense of goodwill and altruism of YouTube.
Pretty refreshing that the city got around to doing some road repair on Mission Street at Valencia. Por fin! This is a very busy intersection and in the repair they moved the bus stop further north which was a good move. Below are some composite creations of the old fading into the new. They did a pretty good job overall. Did some drainage work. More concrete! More concrete! Those buses are heavy!
(click om images)
Mission at Valencia – Old to New
Mission at Valencia – Old to New
Mission at Valencia – New
Mission at Valencia -Looking South
Nice new Rock Gardens
Nice new Rock Gardens
San Jose Ave
Now just repair San Jose Ave. San Jose is a disaster and I challenge any city official to ride a bike down that bike lane. San Jose Ave has been like Swiss cheese for years.
The other amazing thing about San Jose is that for nine months the city and sometimes a contractor parks a backhoe at the corner of San Jose and Dolores Street. I know parking is bad in the city but parking a backhoe from months on end at San Jose and Dolores, a main thoroughfare is pretty ridiculous. Just finish the job! Maybe by the year 2020 San Jose will be resurfaced?
Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we’ll deliver when available.
Great to hear that vinyl is still the go to medium! Booker Little on trumpet is completely amazing! This is an album that I am not familiar with that is perfect for these times. It is truly incredible that it is over 50 years since this was made. It gives you the feeling that in present times we are moving backwards
It was over a year ago in January of 2016 that I posted the article below, imploring the San Francisco mayor Ed Lee to focus a bit more on infrastructure. I called the mayor’s office and sent a print out of the post below to the mayor. No results. The roads in San Francisco are simply terrible. It has been said that they are like the roads in a third world country. I must say that in most third world countries I have visited the road s are way better. Travel through Latin America. The roads are better.
If you take the 14 Mission bus you get a feel for just how bad these roads are, as the bus is literally bouncing all over the road. I mentioned this to a 14 Mission bus driver while departing from the bus and she said “all the roads in this city are really bad.” The wear and tear on the Muni buses must be great and the costs just get us down the road.
The San Francisco economy is bursting at the seams. Now is the time! How can the roads be in such ill-repair? One day last week while riding to work I saw a group of people meeting around a new sidewalk rock garden on Mission and Valencia. I asked a person what was going on and what was happening with the crappy roads. The man, evidently working for the city, said that they were schedule to repave this section of Mission this weekend but because of the rain it may be delayed. I asked about San Jose avenue a few blocks away and he said he had no idea. I am not confident anything will happen out here in the hinterland south of Cesar Chavez.
A year later here are the photos of the same places as the year before.
Standing in line at the Onondaga post office, in the outer Mission in between Mission and Alemany I experienced an amazing moment of humanity this afternoon. I had just entered and was standing in the back of the line. A white guy around 35 years old, was yelling expletives at the post office teller, complaining that they did not have the correct size box. He was trying to mail a new skateboard deck and it did not fit in the standard size boxes. “What the fuck! We are living in California. No fuckin’ skateboard boxes. What the hell is this place? Give me a fucking box that will work!” At that moment a woman in line told the guy “Please stop swearing and treat the postal worker with some respect.” The guy then sort of softened and confessed that his best friend had recently died and that he was in a real bad way. He then tried to shove the skateboard into the box that was too small. Eventually, using two boxes and getting help from two people in line, they got the skateboard packed up. The woman, then at the teller expressed her condolences in a kind way. “ I am sorry for your loss.” “Yeah, it has been really hard.”
San Francisco. A place of many people. Asian, black, white, arab, latino all standing in that post office line, and at that moment the very fabric of society was at stake. Do we as a society accept the concept of people being rude and abusive to one another? Is this a form of entertainment? Do we think that acting like a two year old when you are an adult is adequate? At that moment, the character of San Francisco was on display and we moved forward one small step. Civility and empathy these days seems to be in short supply but I witnessed it there in the Onondaga post office.
A big thanks and shout out to Sandy Cressman. She was that woman in line at the Onondaga post office bringing some humanity to the situation.
On the new United States President’s website https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/constitution is a page about The U.S. Constitution. What is strange is that it is not the actual U.S. Constitution but an interpretation of The Constitution – so inconsistent with the strict constructionism or originalists so popular with conservatives these days. Is Scalia rolling over in his grave? Why would the U.S. Constitution be presented on the whitehouse.gov website this way? It is actually a form of disinformation or what is often now called fake news. Kids, remember to always refer to the original source not some hack’s interpretation of the document.
Let’s do a comparison.
First Amendment
Actual U.S. Constitution.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Trump’s Whitehouse Website
The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So far pretty good, but why not just publish the actual text and not how to think about the text. Then things get weird.
Second Amendment
Actual U.S. Constitution.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Trump’s Whitehouse Website
The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms.
In Trump’s version there is no mention of the “well regulated Militia.” As always, people see what they want to see and disregard the rest. What we are witnessing here is what George Orwell called “Newspeak.” A simplifying of words, meanings and vocabulary.
The Internet has a strange way of broadcasting value and worth. A forty-year-old book about transgender issues can be a cornerstone of critical thought at the time but then gets misquoted and passed off as old fashion. Today the book is out-of-print but fetches around 
