Showing posts with label 420. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 420. Show all posts
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Stroll on Stoner
We held a little action, A Stroll For Herbal Freedom Great turnout and good buds. Five-0 showed up but they were there to jerk Katy around and ignored us. As regular readers are aware that long walks are not my thing but a leisurely stroll with 4 and 20 people and plenty to puff got me through it.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Occupy 420
The weather cleared and the doggies dropped by the occupy. 420 didn't draw a huge crowd but the smoke out was a success. They pressure washed the steps to remove our chalk as well.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Friday, September 3, 2010
Lies are Bad, M'kay?
If Alcohol an Tobacco taxes do not offset their social cost that is an argument for raising the taxes on Tobacco and Alcohol. It is not an argument for not taxing Marijuana. The folks making this argument also discount the social cost of prohibition propaganda.
Once it is proven you are willing to lie than everything you say is invalid unless you have proof. I am not so old that I cannot remember the change in world view that came with the realization that people would lie about things that didn’t matter. If you wanted to give me a quarter to make me feel better because my gum is sore where the tooth came out I am on board with that. We have one day a year when we all give each other stuff, sign me up. I don’t need a bullshit story about magic fat guys. Even if the magic fat guy story is not as creepy as the guy nailed to the wood fairytale we didn’t need the lies.
I do not have a spectacular memory but I remember thinking as a child. My thinking was not always very good but I did think. This is not much different than my thinking as an adult and that is kind of my point. The folks in the “Drugs are Bad” Mr. Mackeyverse seemed to have forgotten that.
Being a red headed child of the smart ass variety I was beaten a lot, perhaps that is why I became aware but I find that does not make me unique. There is plenty of evidence for the thinking child in the study of human development, the Piaget types and the like, so why do we ignore the idea when it comes to drugs.
Once it is proven you are willing to lie than everything you say is invalid unless you have proof. I am not so old that I cannot remember the change in world view that came with the realization that people would lie about things that didn’t matter. If you wanted to give me a quarter to make me feel better because my gum is sore where the tooth came out I am on board with that. We have one day a year when we all give each other stuff, sign me up. I don’t need a bullshit story about magic fat guys. Even if the magic fat guy story is not as creepy as the guy nailed to the wood fairytale we didn’t need the lies.
I do not have a spectacular memory but I remember thinking as a child. My thinking was not always very good but I did think. This is not much different than my thinking as an adult and that is kind of my point. The folks in the “Drugs are Bad” Mr. Mackeyverse seemed to have forgotten that.
Being a red headed child of the smart ass variety I was beaten a lot, perhaps that is why I became aware but I find that does not make me unique. There is plenty of evidence for the thinking child in the study of human development, the Piaget types and the like, so why do we ignore the idea when it comes to drugs.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Smugglers blues.
Have been working on the lost years project for a while and thought I would share an excerpt. Here is a little Glen Frey tune to set the mood.
When we finally got to the front of the queue we were greeted by a woman in her fifties by her appearance. Gray hair in a style like Edith from all in the family with glasses and a big wool sweater. She was not smiling. We handed over our documents. Me my drivers license and passport, Don only his drivers license. The woman took this as spme kind of personal insult. That Don didn’t have a passport or a birth certificate was some how an affront to all of Canada. Things went down hill from there as our, “We just wanted to drive up and check it out but were staying at a hotel in the US.” reason for our visit was too vague to suit her.
She looked down her nose at us for a while, looked down her nose at our papers and then walked around the vehicle looking down her nose at the Jeep. She granted us one last dirty look before heading into the office with our ID. A few minutes later we were directed to pull into a parking space and join the party inside.
The idea that we had failed before we even got into the country was just too rich. We sat on the bench we were directed to and waited. I was not concerned at this point as we hadn’t done anything so what could they do? If they denied us entry I would come back by myself tomorrow morning and life goes on. And then we walked into a skit from Monty Python.
We were called into an office with a middle aged nondescript bureaucrat in a bulky sweater. He reminded me of Graham Chapman as the British major because of his bushy mustache. He offered us a seat and asked where was the third man? We looked at each other and then back at him with blank expressions.
The man held up the two drivers licenses and 1 passport and repeated the question “Where is the third man?” Although his accent was more nasal than Chapman’s.
I resisted the urge to say, “oot and aboot” and explained that he had two pieces of my ID and if he would check the names he would see that there was just the two of us.
He looked at the passport and then at the two licenses spreading them out on the desk. Then he looked up at us and smiled and inquired as to the reason for our visit to Canada.
Once again we related the tourist story. We wanted to check the place out see the sights. I was not really expecting to have problems getting out of the US, I was ready for the third degree getting back in.
As the woman had earlier he explained that a drivers license was not proof of citizenship and while they didn’t require a passport they did need proof of citizenship all the while speaking in a very neutral bureaucratic tone. Then he asked again, “What happened to the third member of our group?”
While I am amiable and comfortable talking to anyone Don is loquacious and tends to ramble inappropriately. I had always known this and it didn’t much matter most of the time, this was not most times.
Don began to ramble about being down south and having things packed away while I once again tried to explain that the border guard had two pieces of my ID and that there are only two of us. All the while the Canadian had an impassive look on his face. When we finished he smiled and turned to his computer terminal. He made what looked like three entries and then turned back and asked us to wait on the bench outside. The, “Group W” bench ran through my mind but we were the only one’s there so it was not nearly as fun.
About 15 minutes later the Canadian version of Edith Bunker handed us back our papers and told us to enjoy our visit. She walked away and we headed for the door. We thought that it could have been an excuse for them to search the car but they can do that without a reason so? Perhaps we fit the profile of weed smugglers and they wanted to check us out? It was the third man stuff that freaked me but at this point I was ready to go all in. Another really bad way to decide on a course of action and later I accepted the risk for my decision.
We followed the freeway into town and using our rudimentary map from the Cannabis Culture magazine made our way to the section of town that harbored the smoke shops. Unlike in America this was not some seedy garbage strewn back ally but part of a clean newer mall. The folks I asked for help were very nice. They explained that as in our neck of the woods the legal status was somewhat ambiguous and that the seed folks were located elsewhere in town. The young lady gave me a card and wrote the address of a seed bank on the back. She had long dark hair and plastic hoop earrings and I think she thought it cute that the old hippy was looking to score some seeds.
We had to convert a little cash to get out of the parking garage. Everyone else was more than happy to accept dollars. That was back when our money was worth something. So with a couple of loonies in our pocket we headed across town.
Did I mention it was cold. Some of my readers will have seen my piece on the, “cash for clunkers program” and what a piece of shit the jeep we were driving was. At this point it was mostly minor things like shorted wiring in the stereo and the passenger door lock didn’t work. It drove lousy in even the slightest wind but we found out in a few months what that was about when the rear end disintegrated. Like all vehicles of that type it was poorly insulated and the heater barely kept up as the darkening night brought a significant drop in the temperature.
We found the address and parked on the cross street. We were on a bit of a hill and the neighborhood of first floor businesses with three or four floors of apartments upstairs reminded me of San Francisco. Most of the stores were closed with the exception of the two seed sellers in the middle of the block. I scanned the street and with the exception a few people way down the block we were alone. I locked and closed my door and started for the store when Don let out a loud, “shit” followed by a string of colorful expletives.
I thought he had broken the key off in the lock but it was the lock itself that had broken. I let loose a few choice words of my own at that point but I wasn’t that worried. The odds that anyone would steal our jeep in the 15 minutes we would be inside were so small as to be nonexistent but Don decided to stay outside with the car.
Perhaps he had been spooked by the problems at the border, paranoia strikes deep sometimes and improvisation is a talent some people do not possess. Don went into a mild freak out and decided to stay outside while I went in. He got back in the jeep and I went down the street into the building the address indicated.
Inside the place looked like any office. A desk with a lamp and computer monitor. A 4 drawer file cabinet and a couple of chairs. A guy in his thirties with thinning hair and thickening waist line greeted me and offered me a seat. There were a few posters of buds on the wall with seed producers advertising logos. That was the only evidence that this was other than an insurance salesman’s digs.
We chatted a bit about genetics and Amsterdam and the strains of cannabis that worked best for pain control. I took care not to mention that I would be taking them to the states and he pointed out that while the courts were forcing medical cannabis on them the government was still being rather dickish about things on the whole.
He handed me a black three ring binder that served as his catalog and I began to leaf through it as we talked. The pages were plastic with small pockets usually reserved for keeping trading cards in mint condition. Each pocket contained a couple of seeds and a picture of the buds they would produce as a label.
We were interested in feminized seeds. The plants are forced with certain hormonal stressors to produce almost exclusively female offspring. Of the genetic lines we were interested in he had White Widow and California Orange from the Dutch Passion line. He charged a 75% premium for feminized but we had already factored that in to our calculus. Saving time had become a prime factor so I handed over 400 dollars and received 24 seeds. 12 White Widow and 12 of the Orange.
The seeds were in tiny little plastic vials with printed labels on each.
My business in Vancouver concluded I now had a little time to spend on seeing the culture. He gave me the skinny on the weed scene, again in the shadow world of tolerated but not perfectly legal. Down the street 2 blocks was another shop that I could purchase some bud. He added an address to the card I had from the smoke-shop and we said our goodbyes. This seemed a bit like a screening process, If you were cool you got passed to the next station on the weed railroad.
Despite the problems I was feeling good and walking tall as I started up the hill to the jeep. The buzz lasted the length of that stroll and the whining began. It was too cold to go get smoke, somebody would steal the car, they would smell it on us at the border. what sold it for me was “We could come back tomorrow to check out the scene.” I said fuck it and we headed back to the good old US of A. Of course I knew it was bullshit but I didn’t feel like arguing.
I was wearing some cheap ski gloves made out of an inflexible vinyl and stashed the little vials of seeds in the fingers of my left hand. I remember being nervous but I fully expected to beat any search in my normal arrogant fashion. We were doing everything wrong and should have hung longer or at least bought a T-shirt but we were at the border before thinking about it much.
For all the nervousness the crossing back turned out to be anticlimactic. The young border guard on the American side asked for our Id and ran his little mirror under the car. They had some sort of laser off to the side that did something and Don told the broken lock story as the reason we were back so soon and we were back in the Scottish Lodge in a musty room as successful smugglers.
When we finally got to the front of the queue we were greeted by a woman in her fifties by her appearance. Gray hair in a style like Edith from all in the family with glasses and a big wool sweater. She was not smiling. We handed over our documents. Me my drivers license and passport, Don only his drivers license. The woman took this as spme kind of personal insult. That Don didn’t have a passport or a birth certificate was some how an affront to all of Canada. Things went down hill from there as our, “We just wanted to drive up and check it out but were staying at a hotel in the US.” reason for our visit was too vague to suit her.
She looked down her nose at us for a while, looked down her nose at our papers and then walked around the vehicle looking down her nose at the Jeep. She granted us one last dirty look before heading into the office with our ID. A few minutes later we were directed to pull into a parking space and join the party inside.
The idea that we had failed before we even got into the country was just too rich. We sat on the bench we were directed to and waited. I was not concerned at this point as we hadn’t done anything so what could they do? If they denied us entry I would come back by myself tomorrow morning and life goes on. And then we walked into a skit from Monty Python.
We were called into an office with a middle aged nondescript bureaucrat in a bulky sweater. He reminded me of Graham Chapman as the British major because of his bushy mustache. He offered us a seat and asked where was the third man? We looked at each other and then back at him with blank expressions.
The man held up the two drivers licenses and 1 passport and repeated the question “Where is the third man?” Although his accent was more nasal than Chapman’s.
I resisted the urge to say, “oot and aboot” and explained that he had two pieces of my ID and if he would check the names he would see that there was just the two of us.
He looked at the passport and then at the two licenses spreading them out on the desk. Then he looked up at us and smiled and inquired as to the reason for our visit to Canada.
Once again we related the tourist story. We wanted to check the place out see the sights. I was not really expecting to have problems getting out of the US, I was ready for the third degree getting back in.
As the woman had earlier he explained that a drivers license was not proof of citizenship and while they didn’t require a passport they did need proof of citizenship all the while speaking in a very neutral bureaucratic tone. Then he asked again, “What happened to the third member of our group?”
While I am amiable and comfortable talking to anyone Don is loquacious and tends to ramble inappropriately. I had always known this and it didn’t much matter most of the time, this was not most times.
Don began to ramble about being down south and having things packed away while I once again tried to explain that the border guard had two pieces of my ID and that there are only two of us. All the while the Canadian had an impassive look on his face. When we finished he smiled and turned to his computer terminal. He made what looked like three entries and then turned back and asked us to wait on the bench outside. The, “Group W” bench ran through my mind but we were the only one’s there so it was not nearly as fun.
About 15 minutes later the Canadian version of Edith Bunker handed us back our papers and told us to enjoy our visit. She walked away and we headed for the door. We thought that it could have been an excuse for them to search the car but they can do that without a reason so? Perhaps we fit the profile of weed smugglers and they wanted to check us out? It was the third man stuff that freaked me but at this point I was ready to go all in. Another really bad way to decide on a course of action and later I accepted the risk for my decision.
We followed the freeway into town and using our rudimentary map from the Cannabis Culture magazine made our way to the section of town that harbored the smoke shops. Unlike in America this was not some seedy garbage strewn back ally but part of a clean newer mall. The folks I asked for help were very nice. They explained that as in our neck of the woods the legal status was somewhat ambiguous and that the seed folks were located elsewhere in town. The young lady gave me a card and wrote the address of a seed bank on the back. She had long dark hair and plastic hoop earrings and I think she thought it cute that the old hippy was looking to score some seeds.
We had to convert a little cash to get out of the parking garage. Everyone else was more than happy to accept dollars. That was back when our money was worth something. So with a couple of loonies in our pocket we headed across town.
Did I mention it was cold. Some of my readers will have seen my piece on the, “cash for clunkers program” and what a piece of shit the jeep we were driving was. At this point it was mostly minor things like shorted wiring in the stereo and the passenger door lock didn’t work. It drove lousy in even the slightest wind but we found out in a few months what that was about when the rear end disintegrated. Like all vehicles of that type it was poorly insulated and the heater barely kept up as the darkening night brought a significant drop in the temperature.
We found the address and parked on the cross street. We were on a bit of a hill and the neighborhood of first floor businesses with three or four floors of apartments upstairs reminded me of San Francisco. Most of the stores were closed with the exception of the two seed sellers in the middle of the block. I scanned the street and with the exception a few people way down the block we were alone. I locked and closed my door and started for the store when Don let out a loud, “shit” followed by a string of colorful expletives.
I thought he had broken the key off in the lock but it was the lock itself that had broken. I let loose a few choice words of my own at that point but I wasn’t that worried. The odds that anyone would steal our jeep in the 15 minutes we would be inside were so small as to be nonexistent but Don decided to stay outside with the car.
Perhaps he had been spooked by the problems at the border, paranoia strikes deep sometimes and improvisation is a talent some people do not possess. Don went into a mild freak out and decided to stay outside while I went in. He got back in the jeep and I went down the street into the building the address indicated.
Inside the place looked like any office. A desk with a lamp and computer monitor. A 4 drawer file cabinet and a couple of chairs. A guy in his thirties with thinning hair and thickening waist line greeted me and offered me a seat. There were a few posters of buds on the wall with seed producers advertising logos. That was the only evidence that this was other than an insurance salesman’s digs.
We chatted a bit about genetics and Amsterdam and the strains of cannabis that worked best for pain control. I took care not to mention that I would be taking them to the states and he pointed out that while the courts were forcing medical cannabis on them the government was still being rather dickish about things on the whole.
He handed me a black three ring binder that served as his catalog and I began to leaf through it as we talked. The pages were plastic with small pockets usually reserved for keeping trading cards in mint condition. Each pocket contained a couple of seeds and a picture of the buds they would produce as a label.
We were interested in feminized seeds. The plants are forced with certain hormonal stressors to produce almost exclusively female offspring. Of the genetic lines we were interested in he had White Widow and California Orange from the Dutch Passion line. He charged a 75% premium for feminized but we had already factored that in to our calculus. Saving time had become a prime factor so I handed over 400 dollars and received 24 seeds. 12 White Widow and 12 of the Orange.
The seeds were in tiny little plastic vials with printed labels on each.
My business in Vancouver concluded I now had a little time to spend on seeing the culture. He gave me the skinny on the weed scene, again in the shadow world of tolerated but not perfectly legal. Down the street 2 blocks was another shop that I could purchase some bud. He added an address to the card I had from the smoke-shop and we said our goodbyes. This seemed a bit like a screening process, If you were cool you got passed to the next station on the weed railroad.
Despite the problems I was feeling good and walking tall as I started up the hill to the jeep. The buzz lasted the length of that stroll and the whining began. It was too cold to go get smoke, somebody would steal the car, they would smell it on us at the border. what sold it for me was “We could come back tomorrow to check out the scene.” I said fuck it and we headed back to the good old US of A. Of course I knew it was bullshit but I didn’t feel like arguing.
I was wearing some cheap ski gloves made out of an inflexible vinyl and stashed the little vials of seeds in the fingers of my left hand. I remember being nervous but I fully expected to beat any search in my normal arrogant fashion. We were doing everything wrong and should have hung longer or at least bought a T-shirt but we were at the border before thinking about it much.
For all the nervousness the crossing back turned out to be anticlimactic. The young border guard on the American side asked for our Id and ran his little mirror under the car. They had some sort of laser off to the side that did something and Don told the broken lock story as the reason we were back so soon and we were back in the Scottish Lodge in a musty room as successful smugglers.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Radmul Rides South
Back from the southern trip and I am sore as I have been in a while. All the last leg, 48 miles, was into a 20 to 30 mph headwind. that just sucks the fun out of any ride. It makes it like riding an exercycle for like 9 hours straight as opposed to the wonderful weather on the trip down. Here is some video from the road. I will post more in the coming days. It was a great trip with some of the most amazing country. The new packing arrangement with less weight was nice but some of these hills still take a long time to get over. I have found that if I just go at it eventually I will get to the top. When the sunscreen is running into your eyes and you are gasping on the side of the road that can be harder than you might think. shot lots of pics and they are up on flikr I will put together a group for here when I straighten that page out. set up to upload the way I have in the past but screwed up something and it started to upload my whole catalog so I need to go through and edit it but that will have to wait.
A few procedural notes. The state web site is not accurate for open campgrounds so if you are traveling call first. Benbow was closed for the season when I got there so I went down the road To Richardson Grove. I want to head south again and go farther but time was a problem. I will give more details of the trip but I have to shop and get coffee today and I am moving kind of slow. I did a little computer work on the road but not quite as much as I should have. I hope to get in a little better shape over time as now I am pushing hard each day so at the end I am too tired to type much. The voice recorder works well for making notes so I am getting some writing done but I still need to put in the transcription time. enjoy the vid and I will give you a better yarn in the next post.
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