EUROPE DESIGN

MR. COFFEE
I finally got thru to corporate headquarters and talked to an actual representative of the company about the design deficiencies of my espresso machine. I just wanted to give them some follow up regarding their machine I had just purchased, although superior in some ways to my now abandoned Krups Espresso machine. It was really helpful that they said the conversation was being recorded, I said I didn’t give a shit about that. First of all, their two handles to operate the thing are shaped in such a peculiar, non-ergonomic way that I found it impossible to use. (See my previous Blog where I showed “There, I’ve fixed it”). I also wanted to point out that the water filler hole is mostly blocked be the valve mechanism resulting in water splashing all over when filling. (Although if I was left handed it could work fairly well). Another improvement would be to round off the left hand portion of the machine over the coffee cup to reflect the movement required to tighten the cup handle (left to right). Do these people really use industrial designers or just get some kid out of college to cobble a design together? Anyway, when I finally did talk to Mrs. Coffee about some feedback from an actual user, she said they did not have that capability. How in hell do they know about any design problems? When people stop buying the damn things due to some really stupid features? What is happening? First Krups wasn’t interest and I had the same thing with even Subaru. I’m just going to give up trying to help these companies.

TRAVELS WITH LAMONT

EUROPE ENGINEERING WORKS - When Joy & I get to Europe, we try to visit some outstanding engineering project. Here is a partial list of some of our favorite spots.

TIDAL ELECTRICAL GENERATION Brittany?
On one of our trips to France, we discovered a pretty far out and progressive electrical generating system that uses tidal movements for generation. This is situated in a large estuary near Dinard and St. Malo, just South of Mont St. Michael. As the tides flow in or out, it passes thru a long series of turbines that lie beneath the road bridge. All this is incorporated in a bridge which runs on top of it. When the tide changes, letting the water in or out of the estuary, the turbine blades rotate and generate electricity. Each turbine is about 8' in diameter, one of the few drawbacks is the corrosive salt water on the equipment.,
I had some great photos of this but my camera was ripped off in Antwerp.. The turbines are reversible, of course, to take advantage of in and out tides. This has been in operation for about 30 years, the only drawbacks are the salt water on all the equipment. There is one lock that allows all the small water craft access thru the dam & roadway.

MIDI CANAL France
This was the first canal built in the 1600's to link the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
The Architect Pierre Riquet solved the main problem of how to replenish the locks as they were emptied to let the barges pass. He built a huge reservoirs at the highest places as rains (even in summer) would keep them full. There are a about a hundred locks from near the top down to sea level. Joy & I rented this small “Barge” with just the two of us and it was a lot of work navigating all the locks by ourselves (We prefer another couple to help). That’s probably why I fell in a lock for the first time. At one point there are a series of seven locks, like a staircase. It takes a while to get everyone up and down these but sometime after the War (II) a side lock was built to accommodate the 120' long canal barges. This is a tilted channel with a sliding gate that is high enough for the barge. It is operated by this monestrous moveable machine pictured..

ROTTERDAM BARRIER Rotterdam, Holland
The largest man made moveable object on earth, the Maastracht Barrier is a mind boggling structure. It consists of two floating gates, anchored to at ball joint about 30' in diameter (Ten meters to you). The struts are about 12' diameter and each gate is as long as the Eiffel Tower is high (About a thousand feet). This allows the Dutch to close off the Rhine River when the North Sea gets too high and can protect the harbor from flooding. The barrier can hold back about 9 feet of the north sea, but then they have to be able to let the river water out too, so you figure out the math, I can’t

FIRTH OF FORTH BRIDGE Edinburgh, Scotland
This is an oldie but a goodie. Built after the previous rail bridge was lost with an entire train in 1860, this bridge is going nowhere. The main support tubes consist of bent iron plates riveted together to form about 12' diameter. This was built about the same time as Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge and is slightly shorter in span but has to withstand winds much higher than the Roeblings. This bridge has so much iron to paint that entire families spend their lives on it. The term “Like Painting the Forth Bridge” means it will never get done.


FALKIRK WHEEL Near Edinburgh, Scotland
Proving that the Scots haven’t lost their genius for engineering and everything else, this contrivance replaces 10 locks joining two canal systems. It operates like a Ferris wheel with two buckets of water. Four boats enter the upper bucket while four more load in the lower one. Some ingenious gates are close and the whole thing rotates around till the upper tubs are on bottom to unload. Always a balanced load, a 13 HP motor moves it all. There is a swell restaurant below where we had a sandwich and a glass of Gallo wine, while we watched the rovolutions thru the glass roof.

HOLLAND INFLATABLE DAM Somewhere along our canal route from Sneek to Amsterdam, Holland
On our Dutch canal trip we approached a very peculiar structure. Wonderful in design, we finally realized it was two ends of a very large inflatable dike. Each end was a four story building where control rooms operated the whole thing. This probably doesn’t get used but every few months or years, meanwhile the tube rests on the bottom of the canal, which at this point is really a river. Before we embarked on our boat, I explained in detail to our new boat mates the intricacies of negotiating locks that were 15 feet deep. In actuality, the deepest lock we went thru in Holland was only 18 inches drop!

EIFFEL VIADUCT - Brier, France
Canals once in a while have to cross over a road or another canal and in few cases, a river. Such is the case with the canal that crosses the Loire River just before it enters Brier. Constructed in 1897, it features the longest such viaduct in France, 663 meters. Gustav Eiffel was the engineer on the piers but strangely, not the steel members that span between them. These canals are only about six feet deep and of course, you all remember your physics class that any boat will displace an equal amount of water.

LA DEFENSE BUILDING Paris, France
This building is so spectacular that we have to repeatedly visit it. Paris is a city that has a certain height limit for any buildings due to an unfortunate high rise called the Black Tower. Everyone was so incensed about it that they outlawed anything more that about seven stories, the usual old Paris building height. This was due to the fact that no one would walk up more than seven stories. Most elevators have been retro-fitted in all the buildings after it was invented in about 1850. However, in their infinite wisdom, Parisian planners designed new city areas on the outskirts of Paris so you can build really tall skyscrapers. La Defense, amazingly, is a government building, with its huge hole in the middle, giant monumental stairway (No handrails, please), glass external elevators and the “Clouds” designed by an artist to kind of fill the hole.

PONT DU GARD Somewhere near Avignon, France
Back to the good old days when you had lots of slaves, the Romans designed a water system for their camps in Southern France(Gaul). This viaduct, one of the largest and best preserved, still could serve the use it was for which it was originally conceived. Just to get water from one side of a small river to the other sometimes stressed the Roman engineers, but did not deter them. It was a combination roadway, and waterway, and the size of the stones are impressive, hard enough to weather only little in the last two millenniums.

MILLEU VIADUCT Milleu, France
Back to the 21st century, here is the world’s most beautiful bridge. Recently completed, designed by Richard Rogers (Of Pompidue Center in Paris), a truly awesome achievement. Perched on several towers span a deep gorge, it replaced a treacherous and very dangerous highway portion of a highway from Paris to the South of France. The highest concrete tower is as high as the Eiffel tower, 1,000 feet. Amazingly, it was designed & constructed in about four years, For a cost of only 600 million Euros. The French, being a socialist country, Bids project out like this to private companies (we do it with our socialistic CalTrans), who in turn hire the architect as part of the team. The winner then builds it (with his financing) and owns it and runs it for seventy years, when they turn it over to the government. The steel roadway was built in the Ukraine, and trucked to the site, erected by pushing it out to the towers.

CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

CARR RESIDENCE

I'm just finishing a wonderful medium sized residence in Graton are for the world's best client. I knew if I stayed with this long enough I would encounter him. Harry Carr is a doctor here in Sonoma County, a batchelor who has a rare affliction, good taste in design. 2400 square foot with three bedrooms, the house has three heating/AC zones, ceiling heights that vary with the use (Basic 8'' general, 10' at kitchen & Master Bedroom, 14' at Living & Dining). Cedar celilings at high areas. Interiors are cherry floors with black slate at higher use areas. All cabinets are cherry. Joy & I have been able to help with the furniture specifying as well as designing a few major pieces (In cherry, of course). We used a single ply membrane on the roof, EIFS (Exterior Insulation Insulation System) for exterior walls, with redwood trim and trellising. Incredibally, the cost of the house came in at $256 per square foot, an amazing cost for this area considering we used the best appliances and fixtures available.

All lavs have wood countertops, which I like to use, except for granite in the kitchen. The house sits on a west facing slope overlooking vinyards and apple orchards.

THERE, I'VE FIXED IT
I've used the Krupps espresso maker for 20 years. My third one failed after many years of service so I bought a new one for $60. after a few months, the valve was difficult to use so I returned it to the store and they gave me a new one. Lo and behold, the same thing happened after another few months so I tried to let Krupps know of the problem. Well, this day & age, companies don't seem to want to hear anything negative about their product, and after trying on their web site, calling them, etc. to make them aware of this problem, I gave up. I returned it again, got my mony back, went over to Target and bought a Mr. Espresso for $25. (Actually $24.99). This machine is just the basic coffee maker with milk steamer like the Krupps, except not quite so cool looking. But it actually has a few features that are superior to Krupps. However, there is a major flaw in their design as the knobs are of some really weird design that actually hurt my fingers to operate it. In lieu of tossing the whole godamn thing out I, being the ultimate do it you selfer, decided I could make it funtional without too much trouble. I simply screwed on two plywood discs to the knobs, added a bit of epoxy, and viola! it works better than my old Krupps. Of course, I will paint them black and all will be well with my morning espresso.

I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!

Harley Davidson motor noise machines. These miserable people that need to assert their idiocy on the rest of the population ought to be neutered so they can't reproduce anymore. Then maybe in a generation we (If we still have any hearing left) can spend the rest of our days in peace. My house is several hundred feet from a minor highway and although I do hear all the cars passing by,, it's mostly the air and rubber that I hear. But there is always some fool ripping by with his no muffler Harley blasting a noise path thru the neighborhood. I perceive these egotists at the center of a decibil monster that is a circle several hundred feet in diameter destroying the peaceful lives of us tranquel folk. I cannot imagine what is must be to live in a place like Richmond, Virginia, where they passed an Ordinance making it illegal to "cause a disturbance" that can be heard 50 feet away from the noise source. Now, I know that nut cases like Sarah Palin wouldn't let government intrude on our lives like that, but I'm all for it, and give those folks a medal who passed the ordinance on top of it. Of course, then you have to battle the ACLU that you're taking away the rights of others to fuck up the life of your neighbors.

VACATION TIME, AGAIN

Oh yeah. But we're not going anywhere soon.

All I've got are some memoriesw of Europe so I 'll just regurgatate some of those in lieu of actually being there. We always get in a weeks canal cruise which has become deriguer anytime we do play on the other side of the pond. It's pretty amazing that they will let you drive off in a $100,000 boat with only five minutes of instruction. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough on our cruise in North Holland as they didn't mention how to work the air conditioning (or that there even one was there) and we hit one of the hottest weeks in history. Joy & I shared the boot with two women from the East, but I was the capitan, of course, with my vast knowledge and experience on boats. I was a qualified submariner, you know. Pictured is our boat tied up in a small medievil town noth of Amsterdam, searching out a cold beer. Of course, these are not always strickly a canal trip as once in a while we found ourselves out in the middle of a huge inland sea (Zee). This kind of freaked Joy out but we soon realized that the water was only 3' deep if you miss the dredged waterway. We actually did ground once but got away without too much damage. If you choose this method of sightseeing, be sure to get a boat that has a BOW THRUSTER, a very important feature, especially when backing up to a dock. And always remember to duck when going under a low bridge.

BOOK REPORT

"Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson, lays out the dangers faced by our overextended Empire, which insists on projecting it's military power to every corner of the earth and using American capitol and markets to force global economic integration on it's own terms. This book, written a couple of years before 9/11, warned us of the consequences of our foreign policies that rely on a massive military presence in so many countries. His more recent book is "The Sorrows of Empire" to opens our eyes to our 800+ military bases around the world (We have 80 bases alone on Okinawa). We may be at a point where our military is so imbedded in our government it may be too late to regain control from them. Onward, Christian Soldiers!

CHICKEN OR EGG?

CHICKEN OR THE EGG?
Have you ever wondered why chickens lay eggs every day while other birds in our trees only lay a few in a nest maybe once or twice a year?
I’m glad you asked! It seems that chickens were domesticated about 10,000 BC , in India or Vietnam from the Red Jungle Fowl, who still exist and look just like a real chicken. Dogs & pigs were also domesticated about the same time, my guess is that you needed eggs with your bacon, didn’t you? A chicken, if left alone, when about a dozen eggs are laid (a clutch) she stops laying and sits on them , turning them over until they hatch, then they’re on their own pretty much. However, some clever dude found that if he took away each egg as soon as it was laid, the hen automatically laid another to take it’s place. The hen does this diligently for a few years until she runs out of eggs, then it’s time to whip up the Coq au vin. Those of you who are anti-Columbus should realize we have the Spanish to thank for introducing this wonderful commodity to the Western World.

OLYMPIAN GAFFE
It has degenerated from an original contest between men to see whom would be the victor or the best or more skilled at a particular area like javelin, discus, wrestling, racing, etc. How do you justify that the current highlight of the Olympics is “Ice Dancing”, have we become a world of pansies? How do you even judge that? It appears that if you perform a couple of “Triple Axels” in your choreography and not fall down too much and show a lot of panties, wee, you’r going to be the toast of the sport world. I have to admit that it may be more physically exerting than “Synchronized Swimming”, or even “Curling”. Curling is all skill, if you’re adept at sweeping furiously with a broom. What’s next? Yoga? Ballet?

GEOGRAPHY PROBLEM
Here is something has mystified me for years. I have yet to get a clear answer from anyone & I thought hordes went to Niagra Falls to get married. All the pictures I have seen of the falls show the river running from right to left. However, I assume (maybe this is where I am wrong) that the river runs from the lakes to the Atlantic, in other words, from left to right from the US side. If that the case, all the pictures of the falls are taken from the Canadian side. Help me out here.!

AVALANCHE!
A new house was just completed next door to our little ‘A’ frame cabin at Donner Summit and has presented us with a new problem as their roof snow builds up on their 4 in 12 metal roof and will slide off in a big mass which ends up inside out porch. Joy is afraid someone will be caught in this small avalanche and has taken steps to alleviate the danger. Hearing the avalanche canons occasionally gave us the idea that a loud bang could knock their snow off when we desired. We considered getting some blanks for a handgun, but settled on trying a recording of Beethoven’s 1812 Overture which features actual cannons in the score. Not having that handy, the closest score she had was Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lot of Love”. Joy positioned the Subaru in our drive, opened the doors, put on some earplugs and played the drum solo part wide open. Voila! The whole snow load slide right off the roof! Mission accomplished! We now have plans to drive up and down the streets playing our song and blowing all the snow off everyone’s roof.

CLEAN ENERGY REPORT
On one of our trips to France, we discovered a pretty far out and progressive electrical generating system that uses tidal movements for generation. This is situated in a large estuary near Dinard and St. Malo, just South of Mont St. Michael. As the tides flow in or out, it passes thru a long series of turbines that lie beneath the road bridge. All this is incorporated in a bridge which runs on top of it. When the tide changes, letting the water in or out of the estuary, the turbine blades rotate and generate electricity. Each turbine is about 8' in diameter, one of the few drawbacks is the corrosive salt water on the equipment. This installation has been operational for many years, maybe twenty years? I'd show you pictures of it but some asshole stole my camera.

WALLED CITIES
One of our most memorable experiences (Only if you’re a history buff) is staying in an old walled Medieval city in France. Aiuges Mort, in the Languadoc area of Southern France, is one of the few left that have a couple small hotels inside the city. Cars are not allowed so you have to drag your bag all thru the city banging around on the old cobblestones. Naturally they do have a system of allowing small delivery vehicles in at certain times. In the Hotel St. Louis (He really wasn’t a saint but a real asshole). We had a small room in a sixteenth century building with a tiny balcony overlooking a small square . It’s not the same as the Reniassance Faire, but you do get the feel of life in a fifteen century, before the cannon rendered the huge walls obsolete. Nevertheless, you could almost read the history of these walls, from the lower level Roman stonework to the top of the battlements, the stonework changing style about every 400 years of it’s building.
Also in southern France is Carcassonne is totally restored, being restored in the 1800's by the Architect Villet le Duc. Of the three hotels in the cite, we stayed for a few days at Hotel _____? It also gave one the impression of living in a filthy town, in a 12th century abbey, converted when indoor plumbing arrived. However, they never quite understood the system of plumbing vents as the sewer smell was sometimes pretty ripe. (Naturally, this was the cheapest of the three hotels in town). Otherwise, we were happy, roaming up and down the ancient stone circular staircase that was amazingly worn from hundreds of years of wear.

THE MERCHANTS OF DEATH
I am currently reading about the people and companies who make war, not love. It’s pretty interesting reading a book written just before the 2nd World War. The names Krupp, Rothechild, etc. have a marvelous method of supplying both sides of antagonists with weapons with deals made between countries to go easy on bombing other’s plants & facilities.

THE MERCHANT OF DEATH
Then I read about Victor Bout, a Russian and a current purveyor of weapons. This guy is pretty amazing, selling to both the rebels & the government of all the African countries so they can kill each other more efficiently. He has developed a huge clandestine airline of huge, tough, Russian Air Force surplus planes. He knows how to get around all the controls the UN imposes on arms selling. Incredibly, he was selling to the Taliban and the US occupation force at the same time in Iraq and Afganistan. Sometimes these things just don’t seem believable.


MORE UNBELIEVABLE SHIT
An even more interesting book is The Sorrows of Imperialism, by Chalmers Johnson. The extended title is “Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic”. The author describes the rise of our Imperialism in the last 100 years, beginning with our acquisition of the Phillipenes, Guatanamo Bay & Hawaii. The military is so ensconced in our government with lobbyists, the shuffling of presidential advisors & advisors that we probably will not be able to reverse this process. Did you know we had 80 bases on Okinawa alone? Shit, that has to be smaller than California, doesn't it? No wondedr the Okinawans hate us, as well as the rest of the world. However, most of the world relies on our money that they have a hard time getting us out. It seems we have about 800 bases in a network around, the world, probably why our military budget of 400 Billion a year is larger than the combined budget of several of our allies combined. We just want to protect our oil supplies. And it just isn't Republicans like Bush I and II, as Democrats have kept it going also, even Carter.
There's no hope!

JUST READING

JUST READING
I’ve always heard about the conflict of the Federalists & Anti-Federalists but never came across much about it. Finally got it together and read LIBERTY’S BLUEPRINT by M. Meyerson, who clarifies it nicely. During the time it took to write & ratify the Constitution, anonymous authors wrote about eighty essays that were published in the New York newspaper weekly. Signed Publius, it was mostly John Adams & Alexander Hamilton who wrote them. Naturally, an antagonist soon appeared under the name of Brutus, to take the other side of the arguments. The biggest nut the framers of the Constitution wrestled with was mostly how much power was to be given to the individual states versus the power of the Federal government. Madison’s in depth study of all previous governments was a great asset to the essays and helped the statesmen understand the pitfalls of each. Some of the questions were pretty basic, like should we have a president? Who would elect him? Surprisingly, they were not elected by popular vote originally, but by one of the houses. I guess it took years to get it all finished. They spent a lot of time on the power of special interests, but couldn’t believe that would become our method of government.
Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. (Anonymous).

HYPOTHESIS
Also just finished a DVD of Smithsonian about the history of earth. It’s kind of interesting to note that each stage of development kind of correspond to the current stage of most of the other planets of our Solar System. What I’m thinking here is our search for life on other planets even outside our own system has to coincide with a very narrow time frame in the development of a planet. In other words, our planet is 4.5 Billion years old, yet we only became cognoscent of the possibility of other cultures in the last 50 years. If our planet continues it’s evolution (After all, we all are destined to die, even planets) it will destruct in a few billion more years. Maybe human life forms may only be around for another several hundred years and then die off. You can see the very small window of opportunity for us to emit a signal during the entire billions of years of a planet’s life. For two planets to coincide at their apogee is a far probability.

HAIKU (JL2)
Look! How did my lawn get covered with diamonds?
Oh. It’s only snow crystals in morning sunlight.

THE GARAGE DILEMMA
The great American garage has always been a big problem for me and I usually try to convince my clients to use a carport, for several reasons. One, a modern car is actually waterproof, unlike the buggies of the past. Especially in our climate where we don’t have to shovel snow off it in the mornings. Two, sure as hell, the garage will be filled up with junk of some kind and there you’ve lost your car space. A recent study pointed out that 50% of Americans can’t park in their garages, and this was a National study (Snow country). Told you so! The auto is an integral part of our lives, so why not make it easy to access? Third, there is no third. A carport just gives a more open and light feeling in a house. In some instances on small narrow lots, I’ve even had to use the carport as an entry to the house. In my condo, only three of us out of 28 can use the garage.

SHOPPING
I recently went shopping for pants, which I do about every ten years. My last pair of Levi’s were marked “Relaxed Fit”. Now what in hell does that mean? It Wasn’t until I got my new jeans (Regular Fit) that I realized that “Relaxed Fit “ meant “Fatty Fit”. Can’t we just be a bit more honest and call it like it is? How about “Skinny Ass Fit”? “Kind of Normal Fit”, or “Old Wide Ass Fit”?

THREE MILES
There is a statue in the square of Delft, Holland of Hugo Grotius, a lawyer around 1600. He is famous for his writings on international law, among other things. Most of what we currently use today was based on his thoughts of it. One item that might interest you is his concept of International waters being three miles from shore. The reason for this is at the time, that was as far as a cannon could fire in those days to defend their country.

HATE REVISITED
My wife just came across my original Hate List of only about five items. But one of them is still driving me nuts. It’s that almost everyone in the US ends a telephone conversation with “Bye Bye”. Now where in hell did that come from? Are we all infants and still need coddling? You’ll never be able to stop yourself from doing it but just begin
noting how many people do it. Or more of a challenge, see how many people don’t say “Bye Bye”.

Bye Bye.

ONCE MORE AROUND THE SUN

CONFESSION
As an architect, we have to know quite a bit about mechanical systems as well as enough structural knowledge to design a 10 story building that will with-stand a major seismic event or a hurricane. But occasionally, down here on the micro level of household lighting, well, it is possible to miss. A case in point being a light fixture over my stair at my condo we completely renovated five years ago appeared to be turning orange. This was a halogen lamp, which was original before our remodel so I figured it was time to replace the lamp. It being located halfway down the stair, it was difficult to access with anything I had but I laid our ladder nearly flat from the top stair to the adjacent wall. This was probably not a good idea but I was able to get up to it and install a new lamp without maiming myself. However, after putting everything away, the light was still orange. It must be the fixture itself. I called our electrician, Pedro, who arrived a couple of days later. Meanwhile, I had made a little platform Gismo that allows a ladder to barely set on the steps and nearby wall. Pedro took the fixture down, tested it and found that it wasn’t getting full power (120 volts). At that point he looked at the switch which is a slick paddle type we installed during our remodel. While taking it apart he realized it had a very small sliding thingy that allowed one to dim the light. In my defense, all the other dimmers in the house are a very different type with a large paddle one moves to dim it. Also, no one in his right mind needs a dimmer on a stair as it’s kind of a dangerous place. Unless you really look close at the switch it is not apparent that it’s a dimmer. Anyway, the problem happened due to me just hitting the paddle to turn it on or off , not realizing it was a dimmer. Over the years the slide gismo would move incrementally when I hit it until the light was dimmed. Well, Pedro was good about it and only charged us about half his normal fee, as he realized that he should have began with the switch in the first place.

BOOK DUST COVERS
When you (Or if you ever) buy a hardback book, it comes with a “Dust cover”, or a marketing ploy to attract your attention to buy it. Now this is something that really ticks me off, people who do not throw the cover away, and try to keep it on the book forever. You can’t read a book with the dust thing on as it keeps slipping around, falling off, getting in the way of serious reading. Who ever came up with the idea of calling it a Dust Cover, anyway? A book cannot collect dust when it is standing on a shelf, can it? If it’s laying around, being read, will it collect dust? If so, you better just turn on your Moron Tube and forget about books, they’re not your thing.

QUIET TIME
Most mornings I get up early around six, do my toilet (which takes about three seconds to accomplish the return to my usual suave and deboner self), fire up the Krups espresso pot, pick up the Press Democrat, and read all the miserable news with my coffee and oatmeal. Joy arises about the time I’m ready to leave, after I’ve made her another batch of cappuccino. I give her the old so long kiss, as I won’t be seeing her for about an hour at my office. Then I repair to a local bakery for a coffee and maybe an Italian turnover, if I’ve opted for the Union Hotel Bakery in Occidental, driving thru the vineyards. There, I can read one of the three books I’ve got in the pipeline in peace and relative quiet, as Joy tends to fill up any quiet space with some kind of chatter, irrespective of my sitting tranquilly trying to read about the History of Warfare.

VIEWING GOD
I overheard a couple of atoms in a cell in one of my toenails discussing the existence of God. They had heard that it was a He and he was obviously an old man with a long white beard. Now I was amazed they had somehow gotton that description pretty close to my actual appearance. However, one of them was asking me to improve his life by granting him (I think it was a he) a favor of one sort or another. I didn’t have a real way to tell him that I had no real control about his existence as well as the fact that I’m merely a speck myself in the ocean of life and some other force has been running my life which I really don’t have any control over, ergo, no way I could help the poor devil out myself. Oh, well, I’ve got to trim my toenails this weekend so that may solve his problems.

MORE THINGS I HATE!

I HATE DYING
However, I recently had a rehearsal of that very thing when I experienced a heart attack on my body. Woke up early in the morning feeling really lousy, told Joy about it. She immediately went into speed mode, gave me an aspirin and drove me over to the nearby hospital. It didn’t take them long to realize I needed to get to the cardiac unit in Santa Rosa. While zooming on the freeway with sirens blaring I began to think that this could be serious. By the time I was on the table, it was probably only two hours since it started. They gave me a local anaesthetic in my leg, managed to get a bunch of wires up to my vein that was blocked, hoovered out the blockage and installed a couple of tiny stents to keep it open. Amazingly, I was watching the procedure on two TV monitors all the time. However, the stent looked really big as it was magnified on screen. They’re made in Santa Rosa so I feel good about buying local products. They kept me in the hospital for three days, trying to see if I could survive the miserable food they sent up. Here’s a tip. Try not to order anything that has to be cooked, no matter what kind of French fancy name they give it. Just stick with cornflakes & canned peaches. Upon release, I pressed the doc to allow some wine with dinner. He finally agreed on a glass so I took that to mean two. In France, the doc would have prescribed to cut back to a bottle a day.
Having dodged that bullet, I’m back to work full time, feel just as good as before this mishap, and am back to Tai Chi Chuan three times a week for a couple of hours.
And sneaking a spot of Whaler’s Rum once in a while.

HISTORY OF INVENTIONS
I keep forgetting to tell you about my list of inventions. I’ve been collecting dates of inventions from partial lists I’ve come across but mine has it all (Well, almost).
It’s about four pages long but so interesting to me anyway. I only started about 30,000 BC to the 20th century , but you’ll need it if you need to know when the stirrup was invented and how it changed history. (I’m not going to tell you).

COLLEGE MONEY PROBLEMS
If our higher education industry is in financial trouble, let me put out there a couple of simple ideas to rekieve the crisis.
Firstly, eliminate the football, basketball & baseball sports programs. Students should have left that juvinile behavior behind in high school. After all, isn’t this supposed to be Higher Education?
Next, take a hard look at the classes that are being offered that have no relevance to getting a real job when you graduate. The following is my list from Sonoma State University.
Fondue Fun!
Pressure Cooking (Does anyone have one anymore?)
Magnificent Cookies
Baking Bread at Home
Feng Shui your Home
Faux Finishing (or Fake Finishing)
Ukulele for Beginners
Health Harmonics
Peaceful Parenting (There is no such thing)
Personal Development (Do it on your own time)
Yoga (Find a Guru)
What ever happened to calculus and trigonometry?
While your at it, stop sending me those expensive brochures, I graduated fifty years ago!

CAMPARI
One of my favorite apertifs is Campari, a bitter, bright red 23% alcoholic drink. Concocted by one Gaspare Campari in 1867, a master bartender when he was 14 years old, it contains 60 natural ingredients, originally colored with Carmine Dye from crushed cochineal insects. I can only hope they have changed to red dye nowadays. Supposedly only one person has the entire recipe at a time, to make sure no one else copies it. (Why would they want to?). Containing quinine, it makes me realize why I’ve never contacted malaria.

YELLOW RIBBONS
Why does it bother me so much to see so many motorists sticking on decals of a ribbon? It re-surfaced soon after we got embroiled in another Crusade in the Middle East recently (Eight years ago?). I suppose originally it began during the Civil war, everyone hanging a yellow ribbon on the tailgate of their wagon. At first, it was a distorted American flag to support the war in Iraq. Were these supplied by the Bush gang? Soon the anti-war folks got their own ribbon to support our military but please bring them home (How does that work?). It wasn’t long before the women got theirs, pink, to fight breast cancer (I’m on their side on that issue!). Not to be outdone, the critter folks had a cute white ribbon with little paw prints on it (Awwwwr). The best one I saw was a camouflage ribbon, but didn’t get any real message from it. In a country where most voters get their political information from television, I suppose they believe sticking a ribbon on their new gas guzzling SUV will change my views. Right!

BUREAUCRACY
Once you get to know how to spell the damn word, it may be constructive to see how it affects our lives. It is apparent that as a corporation gets large enough, the wheels of efficiency begin to slow exponentially. We can all understand that governments, even small ones, gather togethe an apparatus so unwieldily that doing business with them is a virtual catastrophe. I spend a lot of time dealing with building departments here in Sonoma County and other areas. This is the side of architecture and building that almost negates the whole idea of fun. Or try to get CalTrans to OK your new drive way if you are so unfortunate to be on a state highway (and they’re all over!). Even worse, try to get PG&E to move a power pole. Months & months of inactivity will go by and yet it’s still there, impeding your work. It doesn’t take you long to realize that it isn’t the organization so much but the people that you are dealing with. Their job is secure, by some union or other, so that not doing too much becomes the status quo, If you are a motivated person, you will eventually be ground up into hamburger by your co-workers, who can’t stand the fact that you are making them look like slugs or morons. You will be ostracized and gotten out of the way. Although I can’t imagine how, as it is virtually impossible to fire anyone in these positions of tenure.

SOUL FOOD
The current “Burning question of the hour” usually is “Is there a God”. Of course, first, you have to go through the whole thing of whether religion is relevant these days before you get to the basic question. I have long ago left organized religion behind me but am still struggling to meet “God”. While contemplating that one, I am first and foremost confronted with the concept of soul. Now humans have probably considered the concept of such transubstantiation as far back as 30,000 years ago (or 32,009) since they began burying the dead along with precious objects from their life (Mammoth tooth?). Let’s think about this for a moment. Is my life animated by a “soul”, a kind of energizer bunny, and when we die, does the battery keep on going?
However, since it appears that there is only a finite amount of material on earth and the universe, all the atoms of my body will be transformed into heat, smoke and other atoms, to be reconstituted or reincarnated into another baby or some other part of the earth fauna of foliage. This is where it really gets sticky. Since the number of atoms are constant, where would we get extra atoms if we needed them? Let’s assume we have souls. At what point did a soul attach itself to a Neanderthal? Or do all living things (Lichen, plants, bugs, birds, animals and fish have souls? Is a soul the actual battery/life force that keeps us alive? Does our close relative, Mr. Chimpansee have a soul?

SUICIDE IS PAINLESS
I talked with a doctor recently who had a teenager come into his ER after drinking some poison as she was having a bad hair day. Her actions kept several professionals working feverishly all night, incurring a large hospital/Doctor fee. If she just wanted to “show her parents/boyfriend/etc.” that her life was miserable” or did she seriously want to end it all? Allow me to make one of my pithy suggestions here. Why not set up a “Suicide Hotline” where these kids could call and get some real information on how to kill yourself? You could point out graphically what happens when you suck on a 12 gauge shotgun and your entire brain box is splattered all over the room,(Like Hemingway). Point out the best, and cleanest, way to whack yourself, like maybe putting a hose in your car from the exhaust. Don’t be so damn selfish but think of your loved one (or hated ones) and friends who have to clean up your mess.
Let’s leave the desperate and misguided and look at the old infirm folks, those who are at life’s end, standing on the abyss, but are stuck in a situation of extreme pain which is soon terminal (of course, life is terminal). I am always reminded of the movie “Soylent Green”, where Edward G. Robinson is determined that his useful life time is up(He was the last librarian), so they put him in a room with his favorite music, and a large TV screen of a serene pastoral scene. A lethal but delicious cocktail thus ended his miserable life. However, I don’t support using his body in a reconstituted wafer (Soylent Green), even if it is nutritious and tasty.

CURMUDGEON

CURMUDGEON
1. Archic: a crusty , ill tempered , churlish old man.
2. Modern: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner.

GOVERNATOR
It’s always fun to watch Arnold’s movie PUMPING IRON where he smokes up a pot storm, in between lifting weights.

ELECTION
When 80% of precinct reported, a total of 53,000,000 voted for Obama ( 51%), while 49,000,000 voted for McCain, (49%). I don’t get it, that seems pretty close, yet the Electorial College, whatever the fuck that is, landslided the guy. I don’t care, I didn’t vote for either of them. That’s 102 million of 300 million, where are the rest of the voters? Let’s see, 2% for Peace & Freedom, etc. 60% of voters in Sonoma County voted absentee. These didn’t get counted for weeks, can’t we figure out a system with computers?!
MEANING OF LIFE
Here’s your burning question of the hour (or lifetime).
Is the life of mankind necessary for the earth to survive? Do we contribute any sort of maintenance of the earth? Or are we just trashing it. Maybe that’s our job?
CYBER CAFES
Do we have Cyber Cafes here in USA? How come they’re all over Europe, even in small towns? Do we just assume all tourists from around the world carry their laptops around all the time? Do we even have any Tourist centers? I don’t understand how tourists find their way around in the US, Every town in Europe has directions to a information center (Icon is a large i).
BOTTLED WATER
When I was a youngster in San Diego, Alhambra sold bottled water to businesses in 5 gal. glass bottles. I suppose Perrier was available here if you were rich and stupid enough. I still don’t get why everyone has to always be sucking on a bottle when it doesn’t even have any alcohol, although it may contain arsenic like Perrier. Tap water may be held to higher standards, but with so many not drinking tap water with fluoride, the dentists are going to have a field day soon, when all the drinker’s teeth start falling out. The downside of all this is the huge environmental damage it causes. 90% of bottles are not recycled, it takes 17 million barrels of oil to make all the bottles, creating more than 25 million tons of carbon dioxide. How about all the energy to transport all this around the US in tanker trucks, trains and even ships! Remember, 40% of all bottled water began as tap water.
POST OFFICE
They’re raising the stamp fee again. Are they going broke? How did a government agency spend millions on subsidizing the US Postal bike team? Next they’ll be buying NFL football teams. They take out full page adds in hundreds of newspapers to get their story across to us that they are a giant monopoly and no one can compete with them. Did they replace all the delivery vans in the US with their little custom made van? How much did that cost? Why not buy thousands of British small vans (Production car) with right hand drive. That’s what the French do, use those cool little vans from Reynault and paint ‘em La Poste yellow.
THIS MAKES ME BERSERK!
Those slick little envelopes that you have to tear off the ends and one side in order to open. Except it tears the shit out of the contents that it’s welded to. I finally just get a pair of fucking scissors to open it. Guess what? It’s a God-damned solicitation! Awwrg!

AUTOCAT
We’ve finally automated our cat, Francie. Whenever we go anywhere, we had to hire someone to feed her and clean the litterbox. Although she does prowl around all night outside, she has to come inside the house to eat and shit. Well, we bought an expensive litterbox that automatically cleans the litter up and dumps it in a little tray after she does her thing, along with a rotary feeder that’s good for 8 days. She amazed us by accepting the technology readily, something I can’t say for most of the population who are anti-technology. (Stem cell, etc.).

WAR ON DRUGS
First of all, here’s a thought. Drug use is not drug abuse. If our government hasn’t determined smoking pot is illegal, then the abuse is you not conforming to the rules. It’s part of what is called ‘Victimless Crime’, except the victim is you, especially when you get thrown in the slammer, your wife and kids are on their own for a few years only because you are doing something to yourself. No matter that nation’s culture. However, if you lived in another country such as Arabia, where smoking drugs is just fine with everyone, you can end up in jail for drinking alcohol.
This is known as the great lost war of the 20th century (Along with the Vietnam War, Iraqi Civil War, The Afghanistan....etc.). I know I’m always harping on this, but in reality, it is really in the realm of religion interfering with government (Similar to the abortion issue). Drugs are merely a means to artificially help us through the day, or in other words, help us feel better by ingesting some external substance. No matter what the draconian punishments are, humans will always find a way to obtain it. We must have a little more faith in our fellow man, allowing him to make his own decision whether or not he wants to completely ruin his life or take control of it and temper his use of such drugs. As we spend about 30 Billion a year on this war, it cannot be all because we want us to be “good citizens”, there must be other agendas to keep this up and ruin lives of productive folks who consider such laws as silly.
Granted, trying to keep heroin, crack, etc. out of our hands may seem like the right thing to do, but just look at the results after 75 years, it has merely fed the rise of gangs, violence in the same magnitude of our great failed prohibition of alcohol, led by a small cadre of religious fanatics. Is there is too much money to be made to admit the ‘experiment’ has been a failure? There’s got to be some rational reason, isn’t there?
Well, if as long as we keep this war going, I have a suggestion for the DEA. Just as our government has stopped using large denominations of currency ($500, $1000 bills), to make it more burdensome for the bad guys to do business as they have to carry around all these $100 bills, My solution is to stop all currency except for the quarter. This will really put the brakes on drug dealing, believe me. Can you imagine a drug deal where the buyer has to hand over one million dollars all in quarters? They would need a fleet of Brinks trucks to make it happen. Well, it could be good for the armored truck industry.

JOURNEY'S END

As we enter the realm of the Autumn of our life, we have to accept the fact of our mortality, the end of our life on Earth, our demise, or to put it bluntly, our personal Death. In our culture, we seldom talk about such things, or ever even see a dead body, unless they’ve been gussied up and put on display in an expensive, beautiful coffin, where they look really comfy for their trip underground.
Since my work has involved research into ramifications on each project I’ve begun, I have finally begun to research my own death. How does one do that in this environment? After we’ve answered the main question: “What is the Meaning of Life?”, ( Monty Python’s movie of this didn’t really answer my question.) , then we begin to ask what happens to our miserable body when confronted with the actuality of it? Aside from exloring that question, there is also the problem of the degradation of the body, especially if it takes a long time to die.
Many years ago I read lots of esoteric tomes such as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead”, “The Egyptian Book of the Dead”, Kubler-Ross’s “Life after Death”, and many other dissertation on what occurs after our physical form expires. I recently came across a similar book of Kubler Ross, “Life after Life”, which is a compilation of near death experiences related to a doctor by his patients. It’s pretty amazing that most of these experiences are fairly similar, traveling in a dark tunnel to a light, beings kind of around you, looking at your body and the real world activity happening around it. Most of these people had been clinically dead for several minutes, but somehow regained their tenuous hold on Life. These experiences were similar to one I had while on a particular peyote trip. There I was, all of a sudden, floating up on the ceiling, ( it seemed about twenty feet high), looking down upon my body, lying there on the bed. I had no idea how I had gotten there, but more important, how I was to get back into my body down there. I remembered that we (Who’s we?) are connected to our bodies with what is called the Aka Thread, but wasn’t sure if I was cogniscent of it. Needless to say, I did get reconnected but after reading all these experiences, was I in a near death experience? But also, most of these experiences are very similar to what the Masters of India have been describing for centuries, the experience of the final stages of meditations, where one can experience “Death while Living”, kind of a resolution of “The Question”.
But I digress. What I really want to find out are the problems that occur during the dying process, especially when it is a prolonged affair. However, I would like a really quick death, like a heart attack, like my friend, Dick Osborn, who had a heart attack while on vacation in Hawaii. Since we can’t program such ends, I do have to look at long hospital stays, with all the financial miseries that could entail.
A book that has been very helpful has been “Talking about Death Won’t Kill You”, which, after reading I bought another copy to send to my children, who will have to make those decisions that most of us don’t want to make. I’m assuming my wife will be totally useless during this time, as she refuses to talk about all this, my kids will have to cover for her. She may be getting the message as she now is beginning to realize our relationship someday may end, which switches on her Koala Bear mode to my Eucalyptus mode and wants to hug a lot more. I sometimes have to move her next to the refrigerator in order to scrape her off on the door handle so I can do my kitchen chores.
Although I’ve written out a “Do Not Resusicate” form, it seems even with that, you could be kept alive for long periods. And I never knew what putting you on a ventilator meant, which I now understand that they have to cut your throat and stick it in your windpipe, which means that you have lost the power to speak forever. Or , as most doctors aren’t trained to deal with patients dying, they may keep you alive even as the poor patient is really wanting to die as they know their time is up. And maybe dying at home with your family would be really neat, well, better than a hospital.
How about when our work is done here and our old body is in bad shape, instead of dragging it out, we go into the “End Room” as in the great movie “Soylent Green”. You are given a great drug that will let you ease into the unconscious and finally death. However, we needn’t go so far as to recycle the body into a green potato chip like food in order to keep the rest of the living alive.
Is there some significance that one of the only galleries that sells & displays artistic funery urns is located in my building here in Graton? Funeria, has gained an international following in the short time it has been extant. I have taken advantage of this and procured my art urn so that Joy can have my ashes on the shelf, displayed as a significant piece of art.

PUBLISHING!

REFLECTIONS
My latest book, EDUCATION OF AN ARCHITECT, has been finally published, after a couple of false starts,( like inadvertently leaving out chapter 5, one of the best).
Sex, drugs, Bebop, etc, are all part of the learning experience. Critics say “Smut, pure smut” (At least my wife did). Written at the Willowwood Café (with copious amounts of zindfandel) in Graton. Initial sales will be from there until I have time to get an ISBN number & get it to Amazon.com.
Meanwhile, you can also order from me direct, send cash, check or money to :
J.L. Langworthy, PO Box 528 , Graton, CA 95444 ($22 + $2.50 postage).
Remember that my first book, HILLSIDE HOMES, I initially sold for $10, but recently was selling on e-bay & Amazon for $280!
You also have the opportunity to purchase my CD (Windows PC only) for $22. This consists of photos of most of my significant work, consisting of for parts;
About forty residences
Some of my furniture
Forty years of unbuilt projects (Drawings)
My modular housing projects (3D, Components, Panels)

SPEAKING OF BOOKS. I want to recommend a couple that I’ve come across. THE EMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES by Ivan Eland , who makes a strong case that we have developed into an Empire but refuse to admit it. That we just think it’s our job (Ordained by God) to make every country a democracy whether it kills them or not. Probably only a small percentage of Americans actually support the concept while the rest of us don’t give a shit.
The other book is Jon Stewart’s AMERICA. Like his Daily Show, I actually learned how our government is put together, how lobbyists work (They own it!), all with an incredibly humorous viewpoint. The guys a genius.
Speaking of America, I cannot believe the ads for recruiting by the Army. Have you seen the poor farm boy, all outfitted in his tailor maid uniform with his smashed down beret over his right eye? Hey, I always thought berets were cool and I was glad when I saw our guys sporting them, but these guys look crazy! I’ve also seen photos of our boys home on leave (or in the obituary) with the same kookie look.
And while we’re at it, (Remember this blog began as “Things I Hate”!) What about all our pseudo “Patriots” who drive around with American flags on their vehicles (trucks & cycles) who treat it with total disrespect as they are supposed to take it in at night unless they keep it illuminated. These eventually get all tattered up like a relic from Iwo Jima.
I know it’s a touchy subject, but am I the only person on the planet that has a problem with the design of our flag? Most of all the other nations have cool designs for their flags, but ours is a mish mash of stripes & stars, really complicated due the the adding on process over a couple hundred years. I suppose the best you can say for it is it represents our over complicated method of government (Democracelerosis). Anyway, we are probably out of space to add any more stars(or countries: Iraq? Afghanistan?) to it so maybe it’s time to re-design. (The same goes for our money, but that’s another bitch of mine). Since I’m a doer and not a blabber I set out to redesign it myself. After several sketches & designs I came up with one I thought was pretty simple with just a couple of stripes and one big star. However, when I looked through my encyclopedia on flags, it seems mine was the exact one that Cuba uses (and maybe Texas).
CHURCH GOING. It’s time to bring back temple prostitution, like the Greeks and Romans as well as India had. That should lift up the sagging church attendance, don’t you think? Strictly for the religious experience, mind you.

$$$$$

MONEY
As the USA wallows in design conservatism our monetary system, the Dutch have shown how many light years they are in front of us in that area. They recently had a competition (What a concept!) for the design of a new 5e coin. It is only good in the Netherlands. The interesting part is that it is called the “Architecture Fiver” and is a pretty far out coin. The front contains the names of 109 Dutch architects, past & present, rendered in a single line that coils to create the likeness of Queen Beatrix (The real Queen, not a pop idol), The back features Dutch architecture books arranged to form an outline of the country. Check out the designer’s blog at www.pythonide.blogspot.com for a really interesting discourse about how he designed it.
MONEY MYSTERY SOLVED!
I’ve been ranting all over the place about how gas stations still use the mill, or 1/10th of a cent on all their pricing. I’m probably the only person I know who actually has an actual mill, a tiny miniature copper penny, let alone even knowing what it is. It’s the ultimate pricing scam, like pricing everything like $9,999.99, which, in effect is $10,000. This reflects our mass stupidity as if we can’t relate to the fact that it really is basically $10,000. I get so tired of all the God damned 9's! Anyway, it seems that the government is responsible for the gas pricing fiasco. I should have known. In 1932 the Feds passed the Revenue Act which imposed a penny per gallon tax on gas. It is now 18.4 cents per gallon. This probably made sense when gas was 20 cents a gallon but is meaningless now. Whole numbers should have replaced the pricing but have you ever tried to remove a government program, no matter how obsolete?
GREG REITAN
Greg has lived in one of my modular houses that I designed & built in LA for 10 years. He has just released a CD of his swingin’ trio, titled “SOME OTHER TIME”. Very mellow and very cool stuff. Read about how he recorded it in his redwood pad at www.sunnysiderecords.com/release_detail.php?releaseID=423.
He’s working on another titled “ANTIBES” and it’s also very groovey, man.
Greg is about the only pianist (Other than Theolonious Monk) that uses all the keys & even could use a couple more at the top of the keyboard. His music is not background music, it’s the type where it demands you really listen to it, just as if you were hearing it in a studio or Jazz club, which is similar to Dave Brubeck’s , where your enjoyment is the music, no matter how many times you hear it.

SINCE I HAVE NOTHING TO DO

DETRITUS OF CIVILIZATION
I was always curious why ancient ruins in Europe were below the street level, at least in cities like Rome and Athens. It finally occurred to me that the town just builds up around old ruins by piling their trash around. You can almost tell how old a ruin is by measuring how much below the street level it lies. Now ancient Athens’s ruins are about 20 feet of more below. That means they’re from about 500 BC. Except there is a small Greek Orthodox church there and it is only about 8 feet below, which means it is from around 1500 AD. Old ruins in Rome from about 2000 years ago are generally about 20 feet below current level. The recent Metro station in Athens has a wall behind glass of a record of their history, even a burial sarcophagus cut in half. Now that station is probably 30' below street level. Can you imagine the problems of digging a subway around Athens and running into all this history? We freak out if we find an arrowhead when digging a foundation 12" deep.

AFGHANISTAN
I am planning to write Obama about our war in Afghanistan and how to make it a little more profitable. Before we invaded the country, poppy cultivation was a major industry there. The Taliban (Fundamentalist Muslims) grow it to fund their war against the infidels (Us). Let’s take it away from them and grow it ourselves. Someone has to grow it as it is the world’s best pain killer. It isn’t all smoked, you know. Actual doctors prescribe it all the time. Anyway, think about it, with the profits from growing half the world’s opium we could probably pay for the entire war effort there, simultaneously depriving the nasty Taliban of much needed money for their war effort. After all, that’s what the Brits did in the mid-1800's, running opium to China..

MIRACLES
I just came across an article about Thomas Jefferson and how he pasted up an entire bible but cut out all references to miracles. I didn’t think anyone would believe in a religion that didn’t have a bunch of miracles sprinkled here and there.
Let’s look at a few;
Christians - Raise a dead man to be alive again
Change a few loaves of bread into hundreds of fish
Change water into wine by the amphoras full
Walking around on top of the water
Getting back into his body after being dead for a few days
Curing leprosy

Jewish - The old testament didn’t seem to do many personal miracles, they were mostly big ones like destroying Jericho, turning a few people into salt, flooding the entire world except for Noah and about 100 species. I always wondered how he got a pair of Llamas, and where were the penguins?.



Muslims - Mohammed flying through the air on his white horse half way across Arabia
The Kaaba black stone (asteroid?) Who knows where they think that came from?
I suppose that frolicking with 72 virgins if you die in battle for the cause could be construed as a miracle. Recently when women started being suicide bombers I wondered what their reword could possibly be. A friend reminded me what could be better for a lesbian than 72 virgins. Point well taken.
Allah (God?) wrote the Koran thru Mohammed , no errors in it nor contradictions.

Buddhism - I don’t recall any miracles in their myths.

HOLIDAYS, a primer
We need to clean up our holidays. Here’s a few reccommendations:
New Years -Jan 1 - Winter Soltice - I suppose this is valid as we’ve been celebrating it for thousands of years. Always need an excuse to get blind drunk.
M L King - Jan 19 -This type of thing is a bunch of bullshit. If he hadn’t been shot he probably would not have been made into such a hero. Don’t we have any sort of criteria about who gets his name forever on a day when all bureaucrats get off? Next it’ll be Britney Spears Day!
President’s day - Feb 16 -Lincoln’s & Washington’s days were too close together so some brilliant idiot combined them, So the message here is all president’s are to honored that day. Nixon, Clinton, Bush II, etc.
Labor Day -May 1 - How did May Day ever evolve into honoring workers? Is it so unusual for us to work? Actually it was started by a Labor Union who wanted the day off. The It was made official two months after the Labor Day Riots of 1894. May Day used to be kind of a festive day honoring Spring, then the Commies took it over and became a big parade day showing all your weapons of mass destruction.
Memorial Day -May 25 - Formerly know as Decoration Day, in honor of Union soldiers who died in that war. Kind of signifies the beginning of summer. I guess now we are honoring all the millions of soldiers who have died in all our wars, usually the current one. The red poppies sold by old warriors signified the bloody fields in Flanders, France, as they have those beautiful red poppies all over. The poem by LtCol John McCrae should be read by all of us year.
Independence Day - 4th of July! I guess this one is OK. Although it represents when we proclaimed our independence and not when we actually got it, years later. Every free country has one.
Columbus Day - Oct 13 -We’re really reaching here. How did we ever set a day aside for Columbus? Well, the Italian Americans were a pesky lot and made it official in 1892 for the 400th anniversary. He never did get to the US. To bad the French didn’t promote Champlaininstead, who would have at least gotten here to the US.
Veterans Day - Nov 11 -Originally Armistice Day to commemorate the end of WW One in 1919. In 1954 it became Vets day due to some shoe saleman vet in Kansas. I thought Memorial day took care of all us vets.
Thanksgiving - Nov 26 -Who are we kidding? This is historically a time when people all over the world celebrate the harvest, an important time in most cultures. Why did we have to take a mythical dinner of the Pilgims & Indians as a baseline?
Christmas -Dec 25 -If you’re a Christian country, you can’t just have a solstice day. Fortunately, this is one of the few religious holidays in the U.S. France has 8 out of their 12 that are Catholic. But this is also Passover time & now Kwanzaa,( everyone’s getting in on the act.) Of course, us pagans still put up an evergreen to continue a thousand year tradition.

DAYS THAT ARE PSUEDO HOLIDAYS
Valentine’s Day - Feb 14 - The scourge of all men, pussy whipped into buying crap for their woman.
Halloween - Oct 31- Derived from All Saint’s Day. End of the harvest, an old Celtic party with masks, & costumes worn to copy or placate evil spirits. Used to be for kids here in US but now most idiot adults have to dress up and go to their jobs.
Easter - Apr 12 - Marks the exact day & hour when Jesus became alive after being dead for a couple of days.
Somehow worked in to the Jew’s Passover. At least it’s not a legal holiday (Yet).
St. Patrick’s - Mar 17 - The Irish had to reach back to 433 AD to find a really good excuse to get blind drunk.
Mother’s Day - May 10 - Ancient Greeks & Romans did give gifts to one of their Gods of motherhood. But in 1912 Anne Jarvis trademarked “Mothers Day”. She must have been working for Hallmark cards.
Father’s Day - Who give’s a shit?
.
HERE’S MY RECOMMENDATIONS
First off, drop Mr. King’s day, that’s a given.
If we’re not celebrating the great presidents, just forget the whole thing.
Veteran’s Day is redundant as Memorial Day takes care of us.
Let’s combine Christmas with New Years Eve. Maybe we could get away from spending all that money on presents for everyone we know.
Give Halloween back to the little kids, and don’t spend hundreds of dollars on their stupid store bought costumes.
Mother’s day has got to go.

PHOTO VOLTAICS (PV)
I’m hearing everyone talk about the fabulous revolution in PV’s that will replace our reliance on fossil fuels. But wait, most of our fuel comes from the middle east. It seems we are reluctant to use our own reserves due to “environmental concerns”. If you think renewable energy sources will replace current usage and we’ll be wonderfully clean, take a look at some statistics at electric generation for US;
Coal 48%
Gas 22%
Nuclear 20%
Hydo 7%
Wind <1%
Solar/PV <1%
OK, so if Wind & Solar double every two years, you can see what a great effect that might have on the grid. Nada. Let’s not forget that it takes two years for PV panels to offset the energy it took to make them in the first place. Surprised that we do so much Nuke generation? Since the public has been set against them we have not built a new one for 30 years. I agree that there is still a problem over what to do with the waste. But the tremendous amount of pollutants that are generated by fossil plants are probably a lot more harmful that the nukes. When we zip around Europe on their fabulous fast trains at a couple of hundred MPH, we forget they are powered by 80% nuclear plants, the same as Japan.
We never hear that you have to clean the PV collectors once in a while as the efficiency goes way down when they’re dirty, and that is an expensive proposition.
But as long as State, Feds & utilities can subsidize installations, we might be able to afford it as long as we have enough to last out the payback time of many years.
VEHICLE EFFICIENCY
We’re still hearing about electric cars but I’ve always had a hard time with their use. Several things bother me. First of all, you may be making the air cleaner where you’re driving but you are polluting the Four Corners country where the fossil plant is spewing forth. Second, I’ve heard that the batteries last about 10 years, what then? Naturally, this question is never mentioned by the electric car industry. Throw the car away as the technology is defunct by then, or pay $10,000 for new batteries? I’m sure there are a few uses where it would work for short usages. Of course, Hybrids are looking pretty good and they are getting better, at least you can go further than 100 miles. And sure, in America, you can buy a hybrid SUV, naturally.









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JUST FORGET 2008

ELECTION
When 80% of precinct reported, a total of 53,000,000 voted for Obama ( 51%), while 49,000,000 voted for McCain, (49%). I don’t get it, that seems pretty close, yet the Electorial College, whatever the fuck that is, landslided the guy. I don’t care, I didn’t vote for either of them. That’s 102 million of 300 million, where are the rest of the voters? Let’s see, 2% for Peace & Freedom, etc. 60% of voters in Sonoma County voted absentee. These didn’t get counted for weeks, can’t we figure out a system with computers?!
MEANING OF LIFE
Here’s your burning question of the hour (or lifetime).
Is the life of mankind necessary for the earth to survive? Do we contribute any sort of maintenance of the earth? Or are we just trashing it.
CYBER CAFES
Do we have Cyber Cafes here in USA? How come they’re all over Europe, even in small towns? Do we just assume all tourists from around the world carry their laptops around all the time? Do we even have any Tourist centers? I don’t understand how tourists find their way around in the US, Every town in Europe has directions to a information center (Icon is a large i).
BOTTLED WATER
When I was a youngster in San Diego, Alhambra sold bottled water to businesses in 5 gal. glass bottles. I suppose Perrier was available here if you were rich and stupid enough. I still don’t get why everyone has to always be sucking on a bottle when it doesn’t even have any alcohol, although it may contain arsenic like Perrier. Tap water may be held to higher standards, but with so many not drinking tap water with fluoride, the dentists are going to have a field day soon, when all the drinker’s teeth start falling out. The downside of all this is the huge environmental damage it causes. 90% of bottles are not recycled, it takes 17 million barrels of oil to make all the bottles, creating more than 25 million tons of carbon dioxide. How about all the energy to transport all this around the US in tanker trucks, trains and even ships! Remember, 40% of all bottled water began as tap water.
POST OFFICE
They’re raising the stamp fee again. Are they going broke? How did a government agency spend millions on subsidizing the US Postal bike team? Next they’ll be buying NFL football teams. They take out full page adds in hundreds of newspapers to get their story across to us that they are a giant monopoly and no one can compete with them. Did they replace all the delivery vans in the US with their little custom made van? How much did that cost? Why not buy thousands of British small vans (Production car) with right hand drive. That’s what the French do, use those cool little vans from Reynault and paint ‘em La Poste yellow.
THIS MAKES ME BERSERK!
Those slick little envelopes that you have to tear off the ends and one side in order to open. Except it tears the shit out of the contents that it’s welded to. I finally just get a pair of fucking scissors to open it. Guess what? It’s a God-damned solicitation! Awwrg!
AUTOCAT
We’ve finally automated our cat, Francie. Whenever we go anywhere, we had to hire someone to feed her and clean the litterbox. Although she does prowl around all night outside, she has to come inside the house to eat and shit. Well, we bought an expensive litterbox that automatically cleans the litter up and dumps it in a little tray after she does her thing, along with a rotary feeder that’s good for 8 days. She amazed us by accepting the technology readily, something I can’t say for most of the population who are anti-technology. (Stem cell, etc.).

MISERY TIMES

Given the current economic climate I thought it appropriate to dig out my old standby recipe to share with all my friends (Both of you). This will hopefully keep you until the upturn.

LAMONT’S DEPRESSION DINNER
(In memoriam of a miserable time. But I was there!)

Aperitif: Beer
Salad: Iceberg Lettuce w/ Homemade Thousand Island Dressing
Primi Patti: Hash w/ Ketchup (home made) & Chopped Liver
Segundo Patti: Depression Steak (Gravy on White Bread Toast)
Peas (canned) or Spinach (Canned)
Dessert: Whiskey Bread Pudding (Raid dad’s stash)
Digestif: Bathtub Liquor (See above)

Enjoy!

Meanwhile, be sure to pick up some stock in “Top Ramen” soup mix as it sells for 25 cents for a big bowl. We usually use this when we’re sick but now-days we serve this to our guests when we have a soiree.

DICTIONARY
I’m always confused by the term “sectarian” and “secular” so I keep looking it up in the dictionary. Maybe you have the same problem so I’ll share this with you.
Sectarian: Narrowly confined or limited in interest & scope: a bigoted adherent of a sect.
Sect: a religious body.
Secular: not pertaining to or connected with religion.
Insurgent: one who engages in armed resistance to a government, or to it’s execution of it’s laws, a rebel.
So, if you are a sectarian, you better check your bigoting. And that makes me a secular kind of guy. Also I seem to be some kind of insurgent as I don’t agree with our drug laws. And why do we have to have “Wars” on everything? The War on Drugs, complete with Drug Tzar. The War on Poverty, etc.
We have been brainwashed for the last 70 years that drug use is drug abuse. What our government (and our sectarians) are saying is that if it’s fun and will make you feel good for a bit then it ‘s ABUSE! Jeez, can’t a guy have a little fun now and then without being a felon? Here is what Aldous Huxley wrote after his experiment with LSD in the 50's;
“....But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.”

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
Happy Halloween? Happy Turkey Day? Happy shopping? This has just become another damn holiday for most people, meaning we have to go out & spend hundreds of dollars so we can take our kids around to beg junk food. This has come a long way from when I was a kid, adults didn’t dress up and go to work in some ridiculous costume all day. It began as a pagan holiday, the Catholic church grabbed onto it, calling it “All Soul’s Day” when nobody really knows if we even have a soul.

EL PRESIDENTE
Well, now that we have a half white leader we have to question the sanity of anyone who wants to take on a job that is involved in two un-winable wars, an economy that is in the tank, people aborting all over the place, everyone and his mother not able to get a new heart or lung whenever they need one, etc.. Gosh, I sure wouldn’t want the job, and it doesn’t pay anything near what our CEO’s are getting.

COMPLAINTS

OFFSHORE
During the 1960's I lived and surfed in Laguna Beach, on those pristine nearly white perfect sands. However, there was a really irritating problem that was always present, sometimes more than others. The beach would have globules of tar all over the beach and consequently, all over my feet. I would have to clean it off with gasoline when I got home. We all assumed it was somehow related to ships dumping stuff somewhere and it floated into our beaches. It was only much later, when offshore oil drilling began off Long Beach that we learned the oil had been seeping out of the ground by itself and floated on down to our beaches. The drill rigs took care of that pesky problem as well as supplying us with some domestic oil for our gas guzzlers.
OWN YOUR OWN
During the last few decades I have been upset by the incessant harping by our government and others (Read fuzzy headed liberals) that everyone should own their home, especially poor folks. Being a home/Apartment designer and builder, I just couldn’t see the where this came from as well as how is this going to work. I saw non-profit corporations springing up all over, getting money from several sources, to provide these poor folks with their own homes. Well, now, a lot of these didn’t even have to put down a substantial down payment, thereby losing nothing by the time they decided to dump the whole thing and go rent somewhere. Then, recently, the whole bloody thing collapsed and we’re all in deep shit now. The message here is you have to work a long time to own something, and maybe you will spend your whole life just renting crappy apartments, just like we all did before saving up enough to buy into the concept of home ownership.
ROADS
I know France is kinda Socialist but they do have their country road maintenance in hand. All over we were amazed at how the small roads looked as if they were just paved last week. I don’t know if a pot-hole exists in France. In marked contrast, the roads around here in Sonoma County are a disgrace! I hoped Public Works would fill all the holes on the route of the Tour de California. I did notice they just marked the pot-holes with orange spray paint so the bikers would be able to see them. I’ll bet that really worked when the peleton swept over them. It’s embarrassing!
OLYMPIA!
Well, the games are here again, but I can’t watch them as the advertising drives me nuts. Anyway, the equestrian event is not my idea of what the games should be. I think the whole concept should be re-visited. The first games were individual trials to find out who was best at any event. You know, wrestling, javelin, running (with & with-out armour), that kind of thing. I don’t know when team sports entered the picture, but that’s when it all went to hell. Badminton? Oh, yeah! How about basketball. Does any other country even have a basketball team? I saw teams playing Field Hockey & handball (with a 6" ball) what the hell are those games? Do we even have teams for those? If so, they are the world’s best kept secret. Badminton & tennis. Now those are probably marginal. Swimming, speed skating, weightlifting, yeah, but water polo? I don’t even want to talk about Curling . Do they still have synchronized swimming? That was hard to believe, although the girl’s gymnasties acrobat floor routines ought to be shit-canned.! Just see what you can do on the rings & bars & horses, forget all this cutsey bull-shit floor routine that nobody has a clue how to score, and maybe they should be more than nine years old. However, how about Beach Volleyball? In a stadium. But they do have the best uniforms (bikinis)! At least that livens things up a bit. Bike racing? Sure, one on one, the best undrugged man wins.

CATCHING UP ON RANTS

Just returning from Europe, several things were indelibeled on my aesthetic consciousness. The first that was blatantly obvious was the long walk to Customs at JFK. After all the airports of Europe, it looked like we were coming into a third world country. All the mechanical stuff was broken down. Moving walkways, escalators, elevators. I did mention this to a lady at the Admiral’s Club, saying “Did you know your terminal is falling down around you?” She didn’t.

The second great disappointment was getting the old Greenbacks again. This just drives me nuts after using the beautiful and functional Euro money. Their whole system was carefully thought out, not just cobbled together as we do, just keep it looking like it has always been, with an old important person pictured and a masons eye on top of a pyramid plus the ever present In God WE Trust. First of all, our great dollar is worth 63 cents in Europe. Maybe it’s time we hired the Belgiums to design a new currency system as well as new coinage. If a penny costs us two cents to make, is there something wrong here? Just eliminate it. Why can’t we have a dollar coin that doesn’t weigh a ton and pull your pants down. The Euro goofed when they used the penny, but at least it is really tiny.

I am chagrined to be back in a country where all the big rig trucks are ugly as sin. Every time we stopped at an aire (or rest stop/Restaurant/gas station) I had to get out and photograph all the beautiful trucks parked around the place. They are all cab over type, not the long snouted like we have. Volvos, DAM, Mercedes, Renault and Iveco, all are well balanced work of functional industrial art, including the trailers.
Speaking of their transportation systems, they have beautiful freeways all over the place, but they are not free. They are toll roads, usually built and owned by private companies. You must be careful not to get lost and end up on one in the wrong direction, as you may have to go many miles until there is a overpass so you can get back to the right direction. It cost us about $40 in tolls to drive from Dijon to Cassis on the Mediterranean, plus gasole (Diesel) at $7 per Liter!
This is a similar concept in their use of public toilets. In great contrast to our liberal policy that you shouldn’t have to pay to take a piss, any public toilet will cost you (50 cents) and have an attendant to watch over you all. She will be a large older woman, just get used to her working around you. But there will be no grafitti and it will be clean and safe.

I’m really mystified why American drivers don’t want to understand the concept of a fast and slow lane on freeways. I am appalled that probably 80% of drivers here will not move over when a car wants to pass them in the fast lane. Are they just dense? Using a cell phone? Or just being an asshole or speed monitor and will show you. In marked contrast, just try that on a French freeway and will be literally pushed out of the fast lane. However, all Eruo drivers understand the system and will always move over to the slower lane even if they know they will have to go round you shortly. They are always moving over so often, their cars have a turn indicator that only blinks twice when you hit it.

The Golden Gate Bridge is currently considering spending $50 million dollars on a suicide barrier to try to keep idiots from using it as a jumping off platform. Approximately 1600 people have jumped since the bridge opened. That will be about $32,000 per jumper. Now I know our bureaucrats don’t understand the concept of Cost-Benefit Ratio but I do. There has to be some reason involved here and not just a knee jerk reaction to try and stop people who will find other ways to off themselves.

My solution is very simple, extremely cost effective and does not impair the aesthetic design of the bridge, one of the of the most intriguing in the world. Install a plank out about ten feet from both sides of the walkway so the jumpers can march out to their demise with dignity, not having to crawl over barriers and guardrails. The cost of both these leaping places would probably only be about four thousand dollars. Send me the other $49, 955,000.

I assume everyone has heard of the top secret American Embassy being built in Bagdad. Called “George W’s Palace”, “American Palace”, it will be the largest embassy on earth, costing $600 million, with offices for a staff of 8,000! It has 21 buildings, including housing, gyms, tennis courts, pools, movie houses, etc.. all on a mere 104 acres. In addition, we are building four large U.S. Military bases, why? To keep an eye on the Iraqis? If we ever leave.

VARIOUS RANTS

TRAVELS WITH LAMONT

PARIS
We always fly into Paris, just to root around in all it’s history and to determine which Boulevards Baron Haussman cut through the city in 1850. We visited Rue Montorguil, the pedestrian street that’s been a market for centuries. This gives us a couple of days to decompress our jet lag. We make our rounds in our neighborhood on the left bank, to a fromagerie, le Alimentation (Fruits), le Nicolas (Wine), un patissarie for baggette and fab desserts, head back to our hotel D’Orsay, and have a little dinner in our room. I take the opportunity to do my Tai Chi in deserted street in front of the Hotel D’Orsay AT 7 AM.
CRUISE ON THE CANAL D’EST
Met our friends the Dodsons, who picked us up in a Hertz car, drove out of Paris (Insane!) To a small town, Bains-le-Baines, a couple of hundred kilometers away. On the way we stopped at Ronchamp, Corbusier’s iconic chapel. I could never reconcile Corbu’s change of style but it seemed to be well wrought. There was a Sunday service going on so we went in and pretended to be Catholics for a few minutes. More surprisingly, a small school next to it was really interesting, rough concrete, sod roof and a few bright painted surfaces around. I don’t remember seeing any photos of it.
We stayed overnight at the Hotel de la Poste, a converted Post Office. Next day Bill & I went foraging for supplies for a week on the boat. Contrary to all rumors, we found the biggest super market we’ve ever been in. It even took us a while to figure out how to get in the damn place. There was nothing more we could have desired, even large selections of sliced bacons. We then returned the car to Herz, got a taxi back to the boat to unload our stash. We set off for our adventure (Our fourth) down the canal on our $150,000 42' cruiser, three staterooms and a bow thruster.
Joy is a genius at scheduling, she had all our lunch & evening stops already planned. The canal maps we get are extremely well documented, showing where boulangeries, wine shops, etc. are located. Even notes what day the town markets take place. When we got to the end of our trip a week later, we met Emma, CEO of the company (Hotels Afloat) we deal with to rent the boats. She’s a Brit expatriate we have been dealing with for several years. She brought over a bottle of wine and we learned a lot about the French method of taxation and deprivation. She and Joy worked out a deal for Joy to make up schedules for various canals that boat renters could buy from her. These boats cost about 180 Euros per couple per day, about the same as a hotel room.
CASSIS
After our canal trip, Joy and I rented a car and drove down to Cassis on the Mediteranian. We had been here before and wanted to spend a few days in a small old hotel on the plage (beach). This is a typical, picturesque small fishing village. The second day the Mistral started blowing it’s furious blast, which was constant for two days, interspersed with huge rain and lightning storms each night. We don’t get stuff like that in California, and it’s pretty exciting for us. No boats were able to get in or out of the port during the blow.
MARSEILLE
On our way to Marseille, I was eagerly looking forward to stopping at the Museo de Legion Etrangere, in Aubane, on the way to Aix in Provence. These towns look small on the very detailed maps we use but the’re a mess to enter. First of all you have to find the Office of Tourisme, which is generally by the gare, but not always. Sometimes there are signs that direct you to the Office, where you try to find a parking space. They gave us a map of the town and directions to the Foreign Legion. On the other side of town we finally found it, only to find they are closed on Thursday! Awww! I was so looking forward to seeing Capitan D’Anjou’s wooden hand there. He was killed in the famous battle of Camerone, Mexico, where 60 Legionaires fought off several thousand Federales, dying valiantly to the last man.
Well, on to Aix, where Joy tried to find her soap shop, so she can load us up with some heavy gifts for a few thousand of our close friends. Unfortunately, the shop had closed, probably replaced by another Gucci. However, I did find a shop totally devoted to Converse All Star tennis shoes. Probably a fashion I started years ago.
We usually had lunch at Le Deux Garcons, but we were not real starved so we stopped for crepes at a small sidewalk café.
On to Marseille, to La Residence, our favorite hotel on the Vieux Port. We settled in on the seventh floor where we spend endless hours on the deck watching the shenanigans of the French on boats and cars. We were here with the Dodson’s a while back, and it turned out they were celebrating the founding of Marseille 2500 years ago. Try that on for a bit of history! Seems the Greeks got here first while setting out colonies all over the Med. We found a small soap factory, La Savonaire, that Joy had seen on TV (Samantha Brown). We bought so much soap that they gave us a tour. Most of the machines were over a hundred years old but built so massive they are still working fine. They don’t build ‘em like that, anymore.
BLANKENBERGE, HOLLAND
We flew on Ryan Air up to Brussels, but next time we’ll do our math. The short flights around Europe are pretty cheap (80E), but the airports are always way out, there is always a baggage surcharge (200E for us this time!). Maybe back to the train (If they aren’t on strike!). Our ship to Edinburgh goes out near here so we stayed a couple of days in this seaside town. There didn’t seem to be many old buildings (Except our hotel), it was probably bombed to smithereens during the war. They had a slick little tram system that ran up and down the coast, alongside a huge dike that might have been natural. However, it continued through the whole town which was were a wall of ten story apartments extended for many blocks. These all seemed to be second homes.
In a toilet here, Joy found a guy drying his false teeth on a roll type hand towel which was a new experience for her.
EDINBURGH
We boarded a huge ferry for an overnight trip Scotland. No huge waves on the North Sea, just a great lightning storm during the night. Checked into the Hotel Premier Inn - 85 Pounds ($170) new, no phone, no minibar, no coffee maker, no coffee. Had to get up and go next door to a restaurant for breakfast, about $20 each for a buffet. Found out later we could get a $6 continental breakfast.
Visited the Queen’s ship, Britannia. Recently decommissioned. The incredible waste of resources is mind boggling. You had an admiral to run 250 crew. These folks would sail around the world to visit all her domains, review the fleets and all that, but really, was any of it necessary? Not to me, anyway. Even more pathetic was the dukes job, probably all make work shit, which he could do in his very own little play office.
FALKIRK WHEEL
The main reason we came up to Scotland was to see this jewel of the world’s engineering projects. Recently regenerated two old canals, replacing 11 locks at this place with a fabulous wheel. A pretty far out concept, with lots of really sticky problems to solve, all done in about 3 years. The first canal ran from sea to sea yet was only 172 km across Scotland. What’s that? Like Sonoma County? When your boat gets to the top, you go thru a tunnel under the Antonione Wall, Romes’ way to keep out the bloody Scots to the north. These Scots must have been real buggers if the Romans couldn’t suppress them.
FIRTH OF FORTH RAIL BRIDGE
The 1890 engineering feat. At the time , it was comparable to our flight to the moon.
This is a monstrous structure, consisting of huge steel tubes 12' in diameter. The term "Like painting the Forth Bridge" meant a job that would never be finished. However, the Brooklyn Bridge (suspension) was completed in 1883 but was not subject to the huge winds of the Forth. Also the Forth’s span is greater at 1710' vs. 1595' for the Brooklyn. 63 workers died during construction. About the average for the time. No worker’s compensation there.
We specifically took the ferry from Holland in order to come in under the bridge.
Our first order of the day when we arrive at a new town is find a good Italian restaurant. We found Prezzo right next door and had a few meals there. Our waiter was a large fellow from Estonia (Wherever that is). He had great accent so we told him he looked like a movie actor playing a Russian in a James Bond movie. He said he had done a couple of bit parts.
Salade Caprese, Ministrone soup with a bottle of Pogobonsi Chianti.
The first day in Scotland, after visiting Falkirk, we started walking up to the Royal Mile, where all the goodies are in Edinburgh (Pubs, Scotch tasting, etc..) About halfway up my body began to fall apart with a tremendous pain in my back. We had to abort and get back to our hotel so I could writhe in pain lying down. After a couple of hours I began to feel OK. We had no idea what happened , thought it might be my back was out. Next day we got into the pub so Joy could have real Fish & Chips. After waiting a long time and finally getting a table, I was so ill we had to leave immediately. We found a cab, back to the hotel to writhe around a bit. By the next evening, after several hours of agony, Joy got a cab to the Royal Infirmary emergency room. The first nurse I talked to said "Have you ever had Kidney stones?". That made us feel better right away as I had no idea what the hell was wrong with me. After several tests the young woman doctor said I should get an x-ray to see where the stone was. This was at one AM & we had to get to the airport in a few hours so I checked out. Guess what? Even though this was Scotland, they didn’t charge me! (Unknown tourist). But they also didn’t give any pain pills.
AMSTERDAM
By the time we flew to Amsterdam, checked into our houseboat "Donna Teresa"on the De Costa Gracht canal, I had more attacks and pretty much in pain on this nice modern houseboat. By the time we left after a few days we realized I should have gone to a hospital there.
Beautiful women, hair and skirts flying, zipping along the boulevards and traffic, are all over the place. Nobody wears a helmet, except they might put one on a little kid. Most bikes are rattly old things as theft is a major industry there. Bikes have the right of way. Any accident with a bike, the taxi or car is automatically responsible. Unlike here, where motorists try to run down anyone on a mere bike.