Plaza Pastels

Spent the day out riding in the wind and the rain. Bikes by the Bay was happening down at the waterfront and up in Arcata the 21st annual Pastels on the plaza was adding color to the square. This is a fundraiser for Northcoast Children's Services. They sell squares on the sidewalk to local businesses and team them up with artists to decorate. Here is a little slideshow of some of the works.

Windows Live Spaces

Another old man screams at the clouds

Some random things that are irritating me. People sighting the continued ads for credit as evidence that the credit markets are not ready to collapse. The point of the bailout is to prevent the collapse. If you wait until the system has collapsed and jobs are lost and companies fail it is too late. The rich are going to make out better on any bailout put forward. Life is not fair get over it. We can go back later and try to impose some taxes and surcharges to attempt to balance the pain but if we allow the credit system to fail to stick it to the wall street bunch we will all be screwed and it could take a decade to pull out of it. The Paulson plan sucks and I have outlined my ideas to improve it but to argue with nonsense just pisses me off. If you can’t think through your argument and see that they at least are coherent shut up and let the adults in the room deal with it.
People telling Sarah Palin to step down as the republican Veep nominee for the good of the country. This has got to be the dumbest thing I have heard in politics since , well Sarah Palin trying to answer a question. Caribou Barbie meets the constitutional requirements to be the Vice President. Would she be terrible? Is she undereducated and lacking in deliberative judgment? Yes and yes but that is not the issue. If the majority of Americans want a moron to run the government than they have every right to vote for a moron. I am not worried as I think more people value a well run government and will not be fooled by McCain and his blatant pandering. People voted for the dumb one in 2004 and it was a disaster for some poor folks, think New Orleans after Katrina, but life was going to suck for those folks even with a good president. We have the opportunity in this election to change the course of the country for the better but if most people want to vote for someone that shares their views on the imaginary friend nonsense that is their right. If the morons win and the old man dies the country will go on. We have had a moron in the big chair for 8 years and if the voters do not see that that is not a good thing than they get the government they deserve.
The people not taking responsibility for their part in the nations problems. I have no desire to castigate those that seek instant gratification and get what they want damn the consequences. You only get one life and it can go to shit for reasons beyond your control at any time but if that is how you chose to live don’t piss and moan when it blows up. “Live fast die, young and leave a good looking corpse” is a fine philosophy but if you don’t die and your body is screwed it is on you. If you bought a house that you can no longer afford because the interest rates reset it is your fault. Prices do not go up forever. You gambled and lost, there is no shame in that just in trying to blame someone else for it. If you are bankrupt because you lived beyond your means for years buying toys it is your fault. You have your priorities wrong and you need to adjust your lifestyle. Yes it sucks that they advertise things that you can’t have. If you think that the material crap will make you happy than by all means attempt to get it but as I said above life is not fair.

Apocalypse when?

Like all good mushrooms they keep us in the dark and bury us in shit.
I am not always very good at the suspension of disbelief. A necessary talent for watching modern television shows and movies. Also necessary for watching political debates without throwing a shoe through the screen. I am more concerned with what is being said than how they are saying it and this year I am very disappointed in what I heard. Neither Candidate gave any real specifics and both are going to go for the big hand out to the rich investors on Wall street. I cannot stand the way McCain and his ilk have destroyed the country so I am not surprised that he has no clue but again I am disappointed in Obama. If he wanted to actually stand for change rather than hand billions to the same bankers that have boned us a bottom up solution would work better than more trickle down horse shit.
Let the banks eat their bad investments and instead set up a mortgage adjustment fund. Buy up the vacant houses in foreclosure for the pennies on the dollar that the abandoned hulks are worth and bulldoze them. Those that are still livable and haven’t been gutted for the recyclables can be rented to low income people and the homeless to keep them occupied and prevent further devaluation of neighborhoods. Any house that goes into receivership going forward buy it up at the face value of the loan and rent the home to the current resident at a negotiated rate. This will eliminate the further failure of the credit default swaps that are crushing the investment houses. In addition the federal reserve can reset interest rates to prevent A.R.Ms. From resetting to avoid further foreclosures.
Step 2 will require the creation of an emergency lending authority. Existing firms with lines of credit that they are servicing but they cannot get renewed due to the liquidity freeze would be eligible for federal funds for short term operation. These same circumstances could be extended to small farms for 6 month operating budgets. This would fend off the disaster that Ben and Hank have wrought.
Step 3 will involve expanding the social safety net to help those at the bottom that do lose their jobs and can’t find new ones. Increasing the amount of funds available for food stamps and support to food banks. Expanding health insurance benefit programs such as Cobra and SCHIP. I would rather see a single payer system instituted for all but that will probably take more time and political will than the Democrats have. Extending unemployment benefits will also be necessary.
Step 4 the recovery will be more complex but here are a few things to start with. A bipartisan commission to analyze what went wrong and develop new regulations to prevent it from happening again. A serious commitment to investment in public infrastructure. Rebuilding and modernizing the electrical grid. Retrofitting our bridges and public buildings. Research and development of renewable energy to include wind farms and solar collectors. Expanding our public transit in the form of high speed rail and commuter systems.
I am aware that my ideas have zero chance of happening but I wanted to get my thoughts out there before we are screwed by the political class tomorrow morning.

Still in recovery mode from the weekend. I need to get back to into the fitness regime that I was on but I just don’t seem to be able to get motivated. Went out to the woods to think and got some writing done. I am just in a funk that has no seeable end. I am reluctant to make any decisions at this time of year but I am also reluctant to continue to drift in the sludge of my own thoughts. I have started remembering my dreams again. For long periods of time I sleep and wake remembering nothing of the minds battles in the night. Now when the morning comes I am aware of what I have been sorting through and it has been unpleasant. The feeling of oppression, the claustrophobic dreams of being buried or drowned haunt my mornings now as well as my nights. This combined with the ache in my legs each morning now makes it tough just to get my sorry butt out from under the covers each day. It is two separate things that I must deal with. Why am I now remembering the dreams what significant thing has changed. and why are the dreams so negative. Why are dreams of Cary so vivid. I know perhaps why they are here now, a matter of timing.
The chemistry of the mind and whether or not to mess with it, that becomes the larger question of the moment. For now I need to keep riding daily ,plan another trip to the woods and take things in small chunks. Work each day on the writing as well. Even if it is not particularly productive I need to get into better habits. Working will beget better work of that I am confident.

Foggy beaches and divided brains.

Spent the last few days shivering in the woods as my planning was undermined by bad intelligence. The weather dudes had predicted dry sunny and mid 60‘s, what I got was wet, foggy, overnight rain and mid to low 50’s. Still had a pretty nice time at Patrick’s Point State Park. I had stayed there in their Hiker Biker camp ground but always on my way to or from someplace else. This time I thought I would spend a day exploring the park.
My fitness level has deteriorated after the lung frying of the fires so when I finally made it to the top of the hill I was wiped. The sun would make its only appearance around that time so I made camp and collapsed. After a nap I got up and wrote for a while. Another installment of a new obsession will be up later in the week on the rude blog. Today I am really feeling it as my legs are aching and my joints are swollen. But the Raider’s are winning and the codeine has kicked in so things could be worse.
The harsh weather limited the filming out at the ocean. I climbed down the trail at Wedding Rock and got some good footage of the shore break but most of the out to sea stuff was pretty washed out. The vids will be up on the Radmul channel on youtube. Earlier in the day I rode over to the Sumseng village. A preserved Yurok village with some dugouts and plank style houses. The amount of labor involved in making those planks with an ancient adz must have been enormous. They are kind of dark dwellings without windows and kind of hobbit hole doorways.
Out at wedding rock a few months ago I spent a little time up top doing some whale watching. Wasn’t able to get any photos but did see a few of the leviathans. Thinking about consciousness and having some odd dreams out on the point put me in mind of the brains of whales. Whales never sleep, they have to come up for air 24/7 so if they were to nod off they die. They do dream, or put half of their brain into a REM state. Our brains are divided into hemispheres as our a whales but while ours are constantly interactive through the corpus callosum the whale brain can operate as separate halves one side dreaming while the other stays alert and remembers to surface. That duality would be a very alien intelligence. To have one foot in the world of dreams and one in the realm of reality would be very cool.

Cruisin Eureka

Dropped over to the car show in old town for this years Cruz N Eureka. thought I would share some photos of some of the more exotic hot rods. I am off of the internal combustion engine for transportation but I still can apreciate the hard work and effort that some folks put into their machines.

Some Redwood pictures

Earlier today someone put up a diary on the Redwood parks of California. It was gone in a blur amidst the Palin bashing so I thought that I would share some of my shots from the region. A little respite from the bickering.
The Redwood State and National parks are home to some of the tallest species in the world.


Diverse dense growth from Mill Creek State Park

The view above Cresent City

The Big Lagoon State Park near Orek shows some of the diversity of the park system.

The parks are home to the largest herd of Roosevelt elk in the nation the Davidson herd.

Patrick’s Point State Park offers a great Vantage for whale watching above Trinadad.

The Avenue of the Giants near Garberville.

The Vanduzen river and Grizzly Creek Park. Location for the filming of the Ewoks of Star Wars fame.

Tall trees and beautiful beaches abound. In the network of state count and national parks. Most parks have hiker biker campgrounds that accommodate ride or walkup campers. If you must come in a car I recommend a reservation.

A Dawn Redwood, once thought extinct this one is near Phillipsville on the Avenue of the Giants.

You can see more at the following locations.
My Live spaces page.
My photo bucket stream
My Flikr page