Monday, January 30, 2006

In the Shadow of Stonehenge

A friend of mine sent me a picture she had taken at stonehenge. It was a huge file so I had to open it at my temp job. Then I thought, you know, if a modem line could crop a photo, you would just get the SHADOW at Stonehenge.

Paris and Sacramento

When you move to Sacramento people tell you it is just like Paris.
This is a lie and they know it. What they mean is that there are as many trees per capita as there are in Paris. I don't know about this. I've heard Paris called the "City of Love" but never the "City of Trees." No one has ever come back from Paris and mentioned that the trees were the most fabulous thing they'd seen.

People come back from Paris and mention the Louvre or the Pompidou or the Tower or the food or the chocolate or the fashions. No one ever mentions the trees.

But Sac has TREES. Tons of BIG BIG BIG LEAFY Trees. Big big fruity trees. It said in the paper last month that the city of Sacramento produces over 3 tons of leaf garbage a month during the fall. Oranges just fall off the trees and onto the streets; maiming passerby and cars.

Big fat leafy trees to shade the city from the 105 degree summer sun.

So, of course there are a lot of happy fat frolicking squirrels in Sacramento.

Do you know what it is like to live with two scent hounds, two dogs with 400 years of breeding that says eat and kill squirrels? Well it's hard to take a walk in the park with them without having your arm dislocated or falling and being dragged to the nearest tree. "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" That's their marching orders and nothing I do can stop it.

Here they are in the redwoods, looking cute, but thinking "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!"

"EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!" "EAT AND KILL SQUIRRELS!"

Floods and Levees


As a child I grew up in LA, which is a desert and so I did not know what a levy was. Don MacLean's song "Bye Bye Miss America Pie" was popular and played on the radio so much that you had to pick up the words to the song even though whenever it came on you would run to the radio to turn it off.

It's mostly nonsense. But in the song the narrator drives his chevy to the levy, but the levy is dry.

Well I realized two things when the hurricanes hit down South, one is that I am now living in an area where the flood control people in New Orleans don't want to live. Surrounded by LEVEES, I drive into town on the WINDING LEVEE ROAD. There's actually a sign that says "Winding Levee Road." The other thing is I realised is that the song doesn't rhyme. You can take your CHEVY to the LEVEE but it doesn't rhyme the same way taking your CHEVY to the LEVY does. And you can't take a chevy to a levy, because there is no such thing as a levy.

So over the new year we had some rains, and the flood control people had to let out tons of water from the dams and they opened weirs and such. Our local park flooded, apparently it's part of the flood control system, so here's a picture of the park, flooded. The levee wall is to the left. It looks rather like a river, except that the American River is 500 yards south of this and this is usually a little dry arroyo.

First Post

My goal is to post photos of signs.
Since I have moved here from New York City, I have noticed that there are some good signs and I want to capture all this old neon and put it somewhere, so here we go.I haven't actually taken any photos of any signs yet, because it's been raining.

But I do have photos of Beso and Leche, the pbgvs.

Here's a photo of Leche:






Here's a photo of Beso looking like Joey Ramone.