Half Moon Baked

The care giving is finished and I am beginning to work on the 5.3 project. I am going to get back to the ocean and begin with Half Moon Bay . I have about 10 days of this and that to clean up the apartment and finish a few of Don’s affairs. When that is finished I think the water would be a good place to start. I will be going in the winter months so they allow for up to 14 nights of camping.

350 part 2

The vids that wouldn't load in the first post.

350 Day Of Action

Spent the day riding around old town. Left my 350 mark. That is 350 PPM (parts per million) of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Watched the costumed children wander about and watched a little speed pumpkin carving.

Manic Murals

Windows Live Spaces
Decided to ride around town and take some photos of the many murals that add to the local color. In keeping with my desire to become a new media douche bag I thought I would co opt the creativity of another to express myself. Thanks to the Ink peoples center for the arts for sponsoring many of these.

A Teusday blurb

Took a great ride today in the sunshine. Planning a trip south for later in the week maybe out hwy 36. Haven’t been out that way in about 5 years that would be fun.
I have once again wasted some time arguing against superstition in the bloggophere. I will continue to do so even though I know it is pointless. Just as I am arguing for Senator Obama to adopt the right position on every issue. Currently it is on the issue of FISA and warrantless wiretaps and gathering of emails for data mining. Once he promised to fight it he should keep his word. The thing that has kept Democrats from winning with many of what the media calls low information voters is the unwillingness to stand on principle. Not what the issue is, if they knew about issues they wouldn’t be in that group but once the meme that you are untrustworthy is out it is tough to put back in the bottle. The switch from advocating public financing to opting out has already damaged him so now playing politics with the 4th amendment makes him look like a liar, pragmatist means nothing to the undecided. They don’t know what it means and they do not believe in it.

regional Radmul

The country is made up of many different regions. It is one of the ways we get our identity and in America identity is a big thing. I am a Californian, not by anything I did I just happen to be born here by a stroke of luck but it is part of my in group. It means something to be in that group just as being southern or western or a Yankee means something. Part of that meaning is derived from regional art. If you ever have the chance to travel through the Pennsylvania Dutch country you will see the hex signs painted on barns, very cool art for the fertility of the farm. In the Radmul region of the moment it is chainsaw art. Up and down the north coast of Cali carving stumps into cool stuff for the tourists is one way an artist can make a buck in an environment that because of limited transportation has little economic development. This is a region that derived its wealth from the exploitation of resources and once the trees were cut and the river fisheries screwed up the economy went into the crapper. The growing of pot has provided a positive cash flow with mixed effect. Criminal activity is probably not the best way to build a sustainable life style, but I digress.
As I ride through the towns and parks of the coast I try to take in the local art and remember how it was when I was a kid and how what gets made has changed over the years. There are still lots of bears and fish but some of the kitchy stuff from my youth has been replaced by dragons and unicorns. Of course Paul and Babe the blue ox are still there but now they have been joined by space aliens in Crescent city. Here are a few examples of the regional redwood art and some Aliens to boot. More can be found here and here on my photo storage sites. Hope you enjoy and someday get the chance to see them in person.

Some Elk Bulls

The first Video from the trip to Crescent City. Two hundred miles round trip it wore my ass out but the scenery was great and the wildlife cooperated as this vid testifies to. The roadkill report showed it to be a bad week for rocky raccoon. Twelve of them one so bloated it must have been five times normal size. A few deer a sparrow sized bird one domestic cat round out the carnage. On the live front I did much better. Whales two gray and one humpback out at Patrick's point two sea lions and some brown pelicans while I was waiting on the whales. A redtailed hawk a few buzzards and an angry jay. The California Jay was pissed about something as he was scolding me while I had lunch. The pictures will be up at photo bucket in the next few days but I am sore and worn out from the ride so a recovery day is needed before I get everything up.

Stream of Radmul Consciousness

Will head north again after casting my vote in the election tomorrow. I plan to get an early start and will be out for about eight days. From the look of it. WiFi is limited so I do not know how many updates I can post from the road but I will do what I can. The plan is to push hard for distance each day with the Oregon border or bust the theme of this adventure. Not sure what bust would be lets hope I don’t find out. In the meantime here is a little stream of nonsense for your perusal, the type of things that run through my head as I search for answers in the world of Ideas. I will try to figure out what happens to our friend Mr. Dunbar along the way. Feel free to send any questions or even better any answers you might have my way. Radmul@aol.com or comment below. Enjoy your week I know I will enjoy mine.
Does my pessimism derive from my deterministic view of the world? Why do people think they have a choice? The empirical evidence all points against it. Why do people not realize that the choices made are generally not the result of a freely made choice. How do we decide whom to hold responsible for something and whom to absolve from guilt. Group evolution how does this play into holding people responsible? Deciding which norms are valid based on how getting rid of them effects the norm is that a valid argument for discrimination? I would argue no. Justifying the oppression of the one for the favor of the many must be based on the premise of the burden of proof being on the discriminator. You should be required to show that my wanting to do something you don’t like harms you in some way before you get to arbitrarily prohibit it even if now allowing it may damage the existing norm. Even if you could demonstrate some harm to marriage between a man and a woman deriving from the legalizing of gay marriage it still does not justify the discrimination. Why is your life more valuable than another’s that is the crux of the argument. If you take the position that the societal benefit outweighs the harm done to the minority how can you argue against extending that principle to everything. Is this just an academic argument with no value as we have no choice in the matter? Did the big bang produce homophobia? I would contend that the belief in an afterlife leads the discriminators to self justify their bigoted behavior. The mistaken concept that in the next life the underdog will get his happiness allows them to deny the victim their full pursuit of happiness. In the here and now. This destructive meme must be abolished.
The concept of an idea being viral in nature I find intriguing. The idea that language is a reproducing entity that an idea works to ensure its own survival for good or ill. These questions need further investigation. Some thoughts in support of memes, like genes that change over time due to minor modification, descent with modification is the actual term for evolution, language is passed down with minor changes over time some good some ill. The lower brain and higher brain operate differently to some extent independently of each other. Did the cerebral cortex evolve in conjunction with memes, is our higher brain simply a meme machine? This concept is harder to falsify the it appears on the surface, try to prove that fire is not alive. It is self replicating, it uses energy consuming oxygen and giving off CO2 much as we do and so on. Makes for an interesting thought experiment. In Darwinian terms what is the survival advantage to being able to engage in abstract thought like philosophy in the first place? The history of everything is such a tough nut to crack. We have the basics but the details are still as mysterious in some ways as they were to the first being that was capable of asking itself , “Why am I here?”.
Even in that there are more questions than answers, or so it would seem. There is research being done with bonobos, a form of ape, that indicates that they are self aware. They take care of their dead to some extent or at least they seem to feel the loss at the death of their young. They use tools, learn from and teach each other and use sex as a social instrument. Bonobos are the only animal other than us that has been observed enjoying sex in the 69 position, both hetero and homo. The harder one looks the less unique the human animal turns out to be.

Rhoadies from the Rode

Went out with lots of Questions about the larger picture. Am I a pessimist because I believe in determinism? Is the big bang responsible for Homophobia? What the hell is going to happen to Dunbar? Found no answers but I did find a few flowers to brighten my day. Thought I would share a few with you guys.

Ignorance and politics

Those of you that are frequent crisis visitors will probably have noted my penchant for bad alliteration.In today's post I am ripping off Strawberry Alarm clocks incense and peppermints. Thought this video here was cool and I spent a big chunk of the day in political junkie mode hence the politics. The ignorance I will explain later but first a little bike related news.
My workouts are going well did 140 miles this week and hit a milestone, 1000 miles on the odometer. Considering it is only a few months old I was impressed. I am planning to ride north again first part of next week. I had wanted to get out sooner but I have a doctor visit Monday and was supposed to be attending camp Obama this weekend but it was canceled. This time I am going all the way to the Oregon border if it takes a week each way.
Today was the Rules and Bylaws committee meeting for the democratic party. Generally a snore but because of the cluster frack of Florida and Michigan there was some actual drama promised and sort of delivered. As usual the Clinton camp acted like asses and Obama showed an amazing amount of class. In a for Democrats pretty organized event they argued and eventually compromised on the seating of delegates from the two rogue states with the only sour note the performance of Harold Ickes a douche of the highest magnitude trying to claim that Hilary Clinton was getting screwed because they did not let her have all the delegates from the illegal primary. He ended his whine reserving the right to take it to the credentials committee before being embarrassed by the speeches of the other members of the committee. This may be a little inside baseball for most of you but Obama had given Clinton what she wanted on Florida and the vote on Michigan was 19 to 8 against her by a group that was supposed to have at least 15 of her supporters on it. The Clinton supporters pretty much made asses of themselves shouting down speakers and yelling out non sequiturs. When all was said and done Obama was still in the lead by an insurmountable number and Hillbilly was vowing to fight on to the bitter end. Not a bad days entertainment all in all.
And now for the ignorance portion of today's program. I was pretty up beat having written the 2nd instalment of A New Obsession an adult story that I posted on my rude blog. Then my friend Mina was shooting some pictures with some of the props I had sent her and I was watching on the Spycams. Then the folks at CNN killed my buzz with more fallout from the latest crazy preacher scandal at Trinity United Church. You know home of the Reverend Wright that wacky spiritual advisor to the Obama family. Turns out that He and Michele were having to quit their church after a visiting preacher gave an insulting little moronic ridicule filled rant about Hilary. Father dipstick made the mistake of making it all about race and the idiots in the pews danced around like, well idiots and Fox news had another weeks programing. If Obama is not the next president we will have the good folks at a little south side church in Chicago to thank for it. I have spoken before about the Ignorance of faith but today I have a slightly different take on the theme. I watched the presser from South Dakota Barack had to explain why he had quit the church and felt genuinely sorry for the guy. He takes this shit seriously and so does his wife so it is really crappy that the news goons have hounded him out of his little social club. Especially when these same dickhead media morons can't seem to be bothered to investigate real stories like say lies about WMD or contractor fraud. Running for president is not supposed to have a religious test, look it up the Constitution prohibits it, look it up.

Kinetic roundup

The Kinetic sculptures are on their way to Ferndale and I am wimping out and heading for the couch., the recliner actually. Chasing the race kicked my butt and It shouldn’t have. The problem was all the walking on the sand. I have gotten to the point that I can peddle for 5 or 6 hours in a day with only mild swelling in the knees but walking even a mile or two kills my joints.
Yesterday was land today was water. I first rode to Arcata and watched the start of the race. The prerace takes a couple of hours when they safety test the sculptures making sure they can steer and stop. Then after clearing the wandering stoners from the street the noon whistle blows and they are off. Twice around and then out Samoa boulevard to the school at manila. Then things get tough as the contestants ride for a few miles in the sand before they head down dead mans drop. The folks from “glory hogs” even set up a BBQ at the bottom of the hill and passed out hot dogs to the spectators.
It is a great community event and almost everyone is in the mood to make it a great time for all. As usual though the local police presence does what it can to kill the buzz. Humboldt county sheriffs are just such huge dicks cruising around in their boat ragging on kayakers about life jackets when even if they went in the water there are hundreds of folks to pull them out. A bunch of little Cartmans with “authoritee” but what can you do.
Day two shifts to the water as the sculptures paddle, row, float and sometimes sink along the F street boardwalk in old town before heading to table bluff for the night. I again took the pussy way out and rather than camp I slept at home. The allure of a warm bed after being in the cold wet all day was just too strong. The sky was at least clear on Sunday but the wind was still a bit on the brisk side. I for some stupid reason forgot sunscreen on Saturday so on Sunday I was Radmul the red nosed rider.

Pictures from the race

A few shots from th 40th annual Great Kinetic Sculpture race on the Arcata plaza. The egrets were out along the highway between Eureka and Arcata. Today rode 24 miles on the roads and another 8 on the sand. My legs are on fire as I write this so I will be crashing early but will get more shots up tomorrow. The videos may take a little longer as I will be attending the second leg . This week will be more about bikes and less about political rants you have my word.

Another wierd Wednesday

Spent the day in a funk from the foggy morning to a spacey night. I had a good ride but the new bottom bracket for the machine has still not arrived. The slop is getting a bit worse leading to occasional shifting problems. When your knees are sore missing a shift hurts like a bear. I feel better after this long ride than I did after the last so that is an improvement but I need to figure out a way to keep from getting as dehydrated as.I have been. I am going to sweat and I am drinking lots of water but at the end of the day I am still low on fluids leading to cramps and constipation. Tried the electrolyte drink they were handing out samples of at the tour but it was not the tastiest of beverages. Gator aid and the like tend to have more sodium than I want but at least it tastes good.

Did find an interesting new website from Microsoft called the World Wide Telescope. Killer space shots and talks on astronomy and cosmology but as with all things from the Micro softies it is a pain in the ass to install and get working. Another in a long line of mixed outcomes today. Anna's cam show was the same thing. Enjoyed the chance to chat with my friend but tech problems screwed it up half way through so I was frustrated waiting around for a tech fix that never came.

Want to ride north again this weekend after laundry tomorrow. The Kinetic sculpture race is coming and I plan to hang out and shoot some footage as I ride along. Rocky the porch cat says "hey."

Picked up a helmet today for the Tour of the Unknown Coast this weekend. I am going to do the 100k as the 100 miler I think will be a bit long. I am getting in a lot of miles but I am not up for exhaustion and the hills are a bit intimidating on much of that route. I plan to head south about noon on Friday so I have a good shot at beating some of the wind. Wind has been vicious this week 20 plus and cold so not a lot of fun training this week. Also on the not fun front had some dog problems. Leash laws are not enforced much and had a German Sheppard attack at of all places the hippie stoner coffee shop. Those people have become useless since they changed owners anyway, never have any coffee. When you are in the coffee selling racket how do you constantly run out of beans. Anyway didn’t get hurt that bad but wrecked some jeans and ate up a bunch of time filing a complaint and I still had to find another source for my dark roast.
Spent some time writing and part 4 of the Black Mina is up on my rude blog. It is intended for mature audiences and that is an easy way to protect the youngsters. Rude is free to join so check it out and if you want send me a rude mail and I will hook you up with some free house passes for access to voyeur cams and the like. Part of the crisis attitude is to do as much as possible using free hosting sites free storage for photos and videos, basically to add content in exchange for usage. I have added a bit of advertising but I hope to keep that sort of thing to minimum as this is not really a money making venture. The ads are supposed to be tailored so I hope they are not too annoying.
Speaking of annoying I am still having problems with the laptop so for the time being I will only be uploading from the homestead. I will need to find a repair spot but I just haven’t gotten round to it. Also had to order a new bottom bracket for the machine. It has a bit of slop but not a real problem I just don’t want to breakdown in the middle of nowhere. Dan at Sports Cycle assures me it will hold up for the tour as the new parts will not show until the middle of next week.

May?

Got in a good ride today for the first time in a while. No rain, no cars running me off the road and the pain in my knees was tolerable. This week has been a bummer with tech and turf problems so I have not gotten much done on the creative front. I doubt that I would have gotten much done this week anyway simply because of the time of year. I have trouble getting into the frame of mind that leads to good stories under the best of circumstances but anniversary week is never the best of times.
I am going out to the beach to camp this weekend and hope to get back into story mode. We have a first Saturday downtown art show each month and I will see if anything interesting is doing there. I have finished shooting the pictures for The Black Mina project but the storey is stalled. I have an idea were to take it just having trouble getting there in a decent manner. Same problem with the Devils Tower storey.

A little more southern radmul

I encountered a wide range of people on the southern ride. I am not particularly social but I find that people want to talk to weirdoes on bicycles. Neither am I antisocial and I am an amiable fellow so I indulge people’s questions and listen to their stories. One young lady in the Miranda Market told me about her late grandfather taking up riding at an older age. I munched a Popsicle and cooled down while she told me her tale, she had an infectious smile and brightened a morning that was already going very well.
At the Richardson Grove campground I met some folks from Hanover Germany. The worlds fair was there in 2000 he said. They were driving up the coast in an RV from San Francisco. One of them had gone to school in Berkeley and loved California. Hard to blame the guy, it is the coolest place on the planet that I have seen myself.
While waiting for my breakfast in Garberville I had a conversation with a tourist from Aurora Colorado. He was digging the big trees so I recommended the giant sequoias near Santa Cruz to him. Hope he makes it they are truly spectacular. It is on my list of places to ride to so some in person pics will be forthcoming.

For those that are interested in the details the ride lasted 4 days and covered 162.4 miles. For fans of hills there are 3 600ft climbs within about a 4mile run so there is definitely some challenging portions to Hwy101 thru southern Humboldt County.

Radmul Rides South

I am not a morning person so getting an early start is not usually my thing. When on the road I am finding it easier because I am crashing early. It tends to work itself out but the nervous energy of anticipation gets me going on trip days.
Heading south is a little flatter for the first 20 miles or so but once you get to Scotia it is an uphill ride. I started slow warming up my leg muscles as the sun warmed up the day. The country is not as stark as the coast but is just as beautiful in its own way. Mixed forests and meadows, Fortuna and Loleta are dairy country with Humboldt Creamery the local brand. They do make a tasty Neapolitan ice cream.
Along the way I passed Table bluff and the Humboldt National Wildlife Refuge as well as lots of cows. Then it is into the logging towns and Palco mills. The smell of lumber being milled is like being buried in those pine-scented trees from the carwash. The smells of the road seemed exceedingly strong on the first day riding south. Cow dung, road kill and Western Red Cedar in overwhelming waves. You are riding along and wham and a few hundred feet down the road it’s gone fortunately.
Speaking of the smells the road kill report for this trip included 3 snakes, 4 birds of which one was a massive crow, 2 possums 1 deer and a house cat. It was almost two deer as a fawn came flying up to the freeway but I startled it back before it got into the traffic.
I had a spot of bad luck in that I had brought along a really killer cinnamon roll for breakfast and it fell off the trailer somewhere along the way. I had added it at the last moment and stuck it in so as not to smash it and as a result I got nada and ended up at a Denny’s for a Grand Slam. Filling but a huge let down. Two days later in Garberville I had essentially the same thing, pancakes eggs and sausage, at the Millwheel and it was a thousand times tastier; that and I hate to eat cooperate food.
The Avenue of the Giants is amazing. I rode my bike thru a 5,000year old tree and saw another that people had thought was extinct for 20million years. In between is about 25 miles of old growth forest even if it is only a few miles wide the big trees give you a sense of perspective. When you see one of these mountains with a replanted tree farm that they try to pass off as woods and compare it to a real forest like this and it drives me crazy. The human population of this region tends to be a little different as well, after all this is the land of the Bigfoot. I passed by Hobbiton USA and an ear of corn on the side of the road. Chainsaw carving is abundant in addition to kitschy tourist art and some interesting stuff from the hippies.

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.

The Black Mina project

I have the plan for the south trip. Day 1to Humboldt State Park. then down to Standish Hickey on day 2. Day 3 I head north and east out hwy 36 to Grizzly Creek. Day 4 back to the house. A short trip but I need to get back for Jury Duty next week and this way I can always extend.

The picture of the little cow palace got me thinking about going south when I was a kid to the Cow Palace in SF. Saw the circus there and that seems an apt metaphor for my current endeavor. Although I want to avoid the lions and tigers and especially the Bears I have been called a clown on more than one occasion.

I have posted a piece of fiction called the Black Mina on my Rude blog. It is more adult than might be appropriate here and will be serialised over several parts. It does require a sign up but it is free if you are over 18. Check back next week for picks from Phillipsville.

Redwood trip report

I returned from the camping trip up the coast. The weather was a little damp but the scenery was unbelievable. I need to work on my conditioning before tackling the mountains again. I traveled 125 miles in 4 days of riding. I made 34.4 miles each of the first 3 days with the short day coming when I arrived home.
That was odd the way it worked out but ran into a few problems with a trail that wasn't maintained. I wasted half a day trying to reach a campsite out at Ossagon Creek. There was blow down all along the trail and I thought what the hell I’ll be a good guy and clear some but eventually got to a section that needed a chainsaw, which I did not have. I had portaged twice already and gave up and turned around after tweaking my ankle. By the time I got back to the paved road I was whipped so I went down hill to Prairie Creek.
Let me back up a bit, on day one I was up early and after a few packing modifications I was off. Took a while getting used to the weight again but made it out to Clam Beach by lunchtime. Then it was all uphill for a while to Westhaven and Camel Rock. I shot some vids and pictures along the way and ended up at Big Lagoon for the night. That was one of the things TV taught me wrong. From watching Giligan’s Island as a kid I did not know the thing that made it a lagoon was the sandbar. They always just paddle out on their rafts or whatever. Speaking of Bad TV from the 60’s seems more than just Bob Denver was 420 friendly. Dawn Wells got busted for pot possession; we have some useless laws for a free country. It was the camp host at one end of the campground and I at the other in what felt like the middle of nowhere. I sleep well in the true dark and quiet, a few hours after sundown the silence is clarifying. I would have slept well under any circumstances, as I was exhausted.
Along with the trail problems I also had a few tech problems. My tape recorder gave up the ghost, it was 15 years old but damn it pissed me off. The sleeping bag cover sweats so it was a total waste however I did get good at guying the tent to avoid condensation and the rain bothered me not a bit when I was inside. Since I was not going as far I decided not to rest day 3 and rode back to Clam Beach another 34 miles.
For the next trip I will be cutting the weight and looking for something a little less mountainous but I need more conditioning. This trip the wildlife I saw elk at the little red school house some mule deer and a falcon. I did not get photos of the Sandhill Crane or the Egrets. The chainsaw carvings were a little more exotic. The road kill report was pretty light a gopher 2 birds a field mouse and a skunk.