Category Archives: Around home

Bitterwater, 58, 33, then darkness

April 14, 2016Around homeSteve Stern

I drove south to see the flowers in the Carrizo Plain a couple of weeks ago. It was a little late and there were almost no flowers but I did get to drive on a couple of new, for me, roads in and along the coast range. Surprisingly, it looked like a crummy flower year anyway. I had driven part of the way and then back home, following close to the fault line, a couple of days before that, so I picked up driving as close as I could to the San Andreas Fault by driving down the Bitterwater Road from Highway 41 to Highway 58. It was as rural as any place in the state.

When I got to Highway 58, it was like jumping ahead a hundred years.

Solar panels covered the valley floor. with , thousands of them. California requires that utility companies get something like 33% of their power from renewable resources by something like 2020. I am very leery of changes that take years to change, like the new California minimum wage of fifteen dollars an hour, when it seems pretty easy to make the change faster. Usually, faster is better, like taking off a band-aid. But, in the case of our power mix, making a big change like that will be tough. Right now, the utilities are getting about 44% of their energy from natural gas, we only get 4.2% from solar which is lower than we get from coal. Coal, there is no coal in California! I think we would be better off renting the roof of every possible house and put the solar there, but this is much better than anything carbon based and while not pretty, it doesn’t desecrate the land too much, so I’m not going to complain.

Down highway, 58, there are almost no flowers as I get to the Carrizo Plain, unlike six years ago when I went with Howard Dunaier.

Rather than retrace my steps, on a road that is becoming very familiar, I decide to drive drive over the Coast Range into the Central Valley and then go north on another road I’ve never been on, Highway 33. (to be continued)

Driving down the fault thinking about stupid

March 29, 2016Around home, Politics, UncategorizedSteve Stern

Running down the San Andreas Fault, driving past Tres Pinos, through the Bitterwater Valley, on Highway 25, passing small ranches, most of them very poor, I remembered a facebook conversation in which I was peripherally involved. This is Red California, politically closer to rural Oregon or Texas than nearby Silicon Valley or San Francisco, and many of the locals are probably voting for Trump and one of the facebook writers said that anybody who voted for Trump was stupid. The problem is that dismissing Trump voters as stupid is counterproductive, it doesn’t build understanding, it makes them the other, not even worth understanding. The writer is really saying, “I don’t understand so they must be stupid”. When Curious Cindie says, “I wonder why people would want to vote for Trump.”, and Liberal Larry answers “Because they are stupid.”, nobody learns anything. I expect that from Conservatives, but when Liberals do it, I am bothered because I want to maintain the fiction that all Liberals are curious creatures and open to new input, new ideas, I want to believe that being willing to explore other points of view is the essence of Liberalism.

But, and this really should be the lead, even if they are stupid, that is not why they are voting for Trump. These voters are voting for Trump because their American dream has vaporized. They have been betrayed by the Republicans – and by the Democrats which is why many of the Trump voters are ex-Democrats, but that is another story – who have told them that the various Trade Agreements would bring prosperity, who have told them that rich people getting richer will make them more prosperous when the money trickles down, who have told them they will stop the immigration of cheap competitive labor, who have told them “Vote for us and we will solve your problems”. They have been told that everybody has the same chance to to become successful – if only the Democrats would get out of the way – but as I pass the small Bitterwater-Tully Elementary School, it is obvious that is not true. If anything, these Trump voters would be stupid if they still believed the Establishment line.

Rubbing salt in the wound, the Liberal Elite, and I am part of that elite, dismiss them as White Trash. Of course they are stupid, White Trash are stupid almost by definition, and that their poverty, unlike Black voters, is obviously their own fault. They are dismissed and marginalized, clinging to their guns and religion to quote Obama who I think said it in an understanding way. These are the people who the system has most failed. Blue collar labor and small businesses used to be a way into the middle class, now it is increasingly a dead-end. When Romney, with his air of superiority, says they should vote for Jeb! or Rubio, he is assuming that the Trump voters have goals that are in alliance with the Establishment goals and that those voters will change their vote once they realize that Trump is not promoting those goals. When even more voters are driven to Trump, the Establishment is shocked. “What is wrong with those people?” they ask, when the real question is “What is wrong with us, that we lost their vote that used to be so reliable.”

Driving by a small, abandoned, oil drilling operation, I thought how emblematic it was of one of the reasons people are pissed at the government and their party Establishments. In 1916, the government passed a bill that allowed oil companies to write off dry holes and other costs, in an effort to protect small drillers that were taking big risks. That has now morphed into tax breaks for yuge oil companies, $700 million per year for Chevron, for example, while small companies have been virtually wiped out. This has happened because big oil companies make big political contributions: Chevron contributed $2,122,682 to Congressional campaigns in 2014 to continue with the Chevron example and spent $8,280,000 on lobbying. Trump says that he is self funding – which is not entirely accurate but still very powerful – and will not be influenced by political contributions and lobbying. That is very appealing to his supporters (it is very apealling to me as a Bernie supporter).

Driving along, I realized I was in the same mental loop I have been in so many times before. It is inconceivable that Trump will get the nomination, he is crass, impulsive, and every party elite is against him and it is inconceivable that he won’t get it, every attack only makes him stronger, and he is a master at campaigning in this new, chaotic, internet-centric world. Hang on, it is going to be a bumpy ride.

The Earth is alive

March 26, 2016Around home, EvolutionSteve Stern

San Andreas — Road cut on Highway 25 closed by the winter rain.

I feel like I have been cooped up all winter, watching it rain, watching the Warriors on a record-setting roll, and giving in to the allure of idleness. To put a purpose to getting out, I took the first of – hopefully – several drives along the San Andreas Fault between home and the Carrizo Plain. It is a part of California that I don’t know.

But it wasn’t until I started driving down Highway 25 that I realized how cooped up I had been. I rolled – buttoned? – the windows down, slowed the truck, and soaked in the spring day. The grass was bright green, just starting to go to seed in some areas, and the oaks were flaunting their new growth, a green that is so green, so bright, that it seems artificial.

Running along the fault, it was pretty hard to not think about earthquakes and how they affect the people who live here. Maybe a confession is due, I like earthquakes. I know that earthquakes kill people – lots of people all over the world, although not so many in Northern California and other parts of the developed world – and cause damage, but nobody I know has ever been hurt and the damage around here has been minimal. I like earthquakes because they remind me that the Earth is Alive.

By Alive, I mean Alive, as in living, not just the opposite of inert. When I drove back home, I detoured to the western gate of Pinnacles National Park just to marvel at what seems to be an incongruity but is really an artifact of the Aliveness.

Pinnacles is a strange little National Park. First, it is small and pretty inconsequential with only about 200,000 visitors a year – for comparison, the Grand Canyon has almost 5,000,000 visitor a year – and yet it was made a National Monument about eight years earlier than the Grand Canyon. Even this week, in what the Ranger said was a busy week because of Spring Break, the entry gate was close and we were told to pay, on the honor system, by dropping our money into a collection kiosk.

The Park is here because the rocks are very strange and, I am guessing, when it was first made a National Monument, nobody knew why. Now we know that the rocks were formed by a volcano on the San Andreas fault about 23 million years ago – that is about 20 million years before Lucy – a little north of Los Angeles. Because the volcano was directly over the fault, the western part of the volcano was on the Pacific Plate and the eastern part was on the North American Plate, and because the fault was and still is moving, the western part of the volcano was dragged about 200 miles northwest over the ensuing 23 million years. Now one large chunk of that volcano is in Northern California and the remainder is still in Southern California. Although I don’t think anybody knew it at the time, Pinnacles is a perfect San Andreas Fault demonstration.

Heading north, back to civilization and home in the fading light, the Wildness turned into a manufactured landscape. The Earth is our home and we are trying to bend it to our will, but here, along the San Andreas fault, it is obvious that is impossible. The earth is Alive and still bats last. This spring afternoon, it is starting to bat flowers.

Watching Grandson Auggie and thinking about the Warriors

March 2, 2016Around home, Local eventsSteve Stern

Basketball 1 (1 of 1) — A bounce pass to Grandson Auggie who is in the open with an open lane to the basket.

“Thanks for making basketball fun again.”a grim immigration agent at the Canada-US Border when Steph Curry went through after playing in Toronto, as reported in a slightly fawning, but stellar, article in this week’s Sports Illustrated.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Grandson Aggie’s basketball game (well, one of his games). I’ve read that several people have complained that the Warriors are teaching young players bad habits, I don’t think so. To me it seems like Auggie and his friends are running up and down the court, passing back and forth, shooting when they are close to the basket – and the basket is much further away when you are under four feet tall – and having fun. Being kids, they probably didn’t have to learn to have fun by watching basketball on TV, but they might have, because if the Warriors exude anything, it is Having Fun.

I know exactly how that immigration fella, in the quote at the top, felt. The Warriors are on a terrific roll and almost everybody around here is watching; Michele and I sure are. Watching the Warriors is engrossing, nail-biting at times, almost always wildly satisfying, and great fun. Basketball is probably the most athletic mainstream sport anyway, and it can be as graceful as ballet, but it is also a sport that rewards sharing. It turns out that it is fun to watch people having fun sharing.

Basketball 2 (1 of 1) — Grandson Auggie getting ready to shoot.

The Warriors are taking the fun and the sharing to a new place. As the article in Sports Illustrated points out, they are playing with Joy, just the Joy of playing (and winning). There was a time when I looked down on jocks but I am pretty much over that now. I probably started getting over it watching a pitcher in a tight game, in front of a huge crowd, let go of everything but the task at hand. That ability to concentrate, to stay present, astounds me. Over and over again. With the Warriors, and Steph Curry in particular, it is the ability to be present in Chaos.

Basketball 3 (1 of 1) — and Grandson Auggie shoots for two.

To be present in Chaos and pass the ball to somebody with a better chance at a basket even if that person is behind you, is a lesson that the Warriors teach every game. That not bogarting the ball, that not shooting yourself if somebody has a better shot, is a great lesson to be teaching young players. Having fun is an even better lesson, even if it is not needed.

(The YouTube below is only three minutes, check it out to see what fun, exuberant fun!, look like. BTW, Curry is number 30.)

Middle California, mostly empty

November 7, 2015Around home, CaliforniaSteve Stern

Last weekend – well, weekendish – we drove south through the Salinas Valley to Paso Robles (hereinafter called Paso to sound like a local). Paso’s recorded history goes back to 1795 when it was considered California’s oldest watering place, because of its mudbaths and hot springs, according to Wikipedia. Two years later, in 1797, the first vineyards were started in the area and, by the late 1800s, the area was already known for its Zinfandels. Now there are about 200 wineries in the area and the historic city core is booming.

It was our 22nd anniversary and for our anniversary dinner, we ate at Artisan in the old downtown area. The price was great and the dinner was good and we would have considered it much better if we were from anywhere other than the Bay Area and hadn’t just had a stellar dinner the Friday before. As an aside, there are not many downsides to living in the Bay Area – not counting cost, especially housing – but one of them is being spoiled rotten by the local dining. I remember going to New York, on a food and architecture pilgrimage, about the end of the 70s and being very disappointed. After eating at Chez Panisse, Poulet, and getting food to go from the Cheese Board Collective, old timey restaurants – like New York’s famous Lutece or the Kennedy favorite, La Grenouille – just seemed so old fashioned. End aside. This time, the disappointment – and disappointment is way too strong a word, the dinner was good, excellent really – was the result of just having had a pick up dinner at Mau in Oakland and Mau just seemed so much newer as in more au courant.

The next day, after a super breakfast at Kitchenette, we toured several wineries. In the rain! To me, the Paso wine country feels a little like Napa forty years ago. The 200, or so, wineries are not enough to turn the landscape into a wall to wall monoculture like Napa and most of the area is still open so driving around was more fun for me.As the day went on, I increasingly realized that I don’t particularly like wine tasting. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against drinking wine, it’s just spending the whole day tasting with the expectation that we wouldn’t be there unless we were going to buy some of their wine that I don’t like. What I do enjoy is looking at the buildings and driving around the countryside , however. We ended the day with dinner at The Hatch where Michele had Chicken and Waffles and I had Ramen – with okra, collard greens, maitake, bacon, rotisserie chicken, and a pickled egg according to the menu – made with great local ingredients. As another aside, I had ordered the ramen for the ingredients, but the noodles were gummy and I realized, once again!, that folk food – for lack of a better descriptor, food like coq-au-vin or beef bourguignon or ramen – is not based on great ingredients but great technique to cover up problem ingredients. End aside.

We spent our last day, wandering around town and shopping like any red-blooded ‘merican – I got a new, Sterling Silver, loop earing, for only $2.68 – and then driving home the long way. We drove east on The 46 – when in Rome, blah, blah, when in Southernish California, I am agreeing to use the descriptor The in front of highway numbers – and then north on county roads, roughly following the San Andreas Fault. Whenever I drive around the Bay Area at anytime near Rush Hour I can easily slip into a California’s-too-crowded annoyance but out here, it’s almost empty. It could easily be everybody’s idea of Nebraska. When we turned north, towards Parkfield – famous for having a 6.0 earthquake about every twenty years – we started running with the grain. The valleys are wide and almost flat, bookended by low rounded hills, with nothing but the occasional ranch. As we cross the bridge into Parkfield, we are greeted with a welcome back to the North American Plate. Parkfield itself is a tiny road stop with a population of 18, most of them interested in earthquakes, I would guess.