I tried to make it look like me. I'm unimaginative like that. (I don't know where those earring-looking things came from. I do not have earrings.)
NaNo looms. People in the forums are all excited. I'm not. Attitude. Well, I haven't posted in over a week. Go figure.
Everywhere I go, "Yes on 8" posters, signs, bumper stickers. Depressing.
People say this election is defining somehow, extremely important. Know what? It isn't. Global events are moving beyond America's ability to direct them. This coming time of retraction will not in History's light be our finest hour. But it's necessary. Recharge, rediscover.
As much as I believe he's a con man, Mr. O will make a good President. A full-D government counter-balanced by a large and angry minority of neo-conservatives will make for interesting times, not much like we've seen before.
Enough politics. See how easy that happens?
Does anyone else miss Roy's blog?
Recently I went to the 60th birthday of the place where I had my first job. For three weeks after high school I was in weed abatement at SID. Drove ancient trucks atop narrow levees and bathed the sedge and dallasgrass in herbicides. Daydreamed the entire time about space colonies. I was seventeen. I'd had zero preparation for life and was fired after three weeks. Didn't get the work concept, basically.
But I have fond memories. My brother worked there too once, when he got out of high school. Our uncle worked there for years. Our cousin works there now. And our grandfather was the Secretary / General Manager in the '60s. Close as we'll ever come to a family business.
One of those places that built this state. Most simply put, SID manages the water coming down Cache Creek for the benefit of Solano County agriculture. Built the dam that in 1958 or so flooded out the town of Monticello and created Lake Berryessa. Good, constructive, community-type stuff. (Don't you love these obscure local references, given without links or description?)
Sometimes I have much fonder thoughts of organizations like that, than of the relentless scramble for consumer and corporate dollars that the business that employs me boils down to. But only sometimes. I'm not getting soft, really.
9 comments:
Bout time you posted again. I like the AC/DC shirt. :)
Get your NaNoTude going, mister, it's almost here!
Does anyone else miss Roy's blog?
I keep checking it in hopes of a magical reappearance, but alas. :( Roy? WTF?
herbicides? yikes?
Are those rose colored glasses?
Cache Creek is good rafting. The water comes over the top of the dam so it's nice and warm, not like most of the frigid, from-the-bottom TVA controlled rivers around here.
Tea, yeah, Nano, uh huh. No, it'll hit, if I could just be home much before bedtime.
Annie, yeah, herbicides, and I've done malathion too. Gonna live forever.
O'Tim, what dam do you mean? The Berryessa one is big and mean with an internal spillway (glory hole), can't get near it. There may be others, I don't know the coast range all that well.
Oh, yes. I worked two summers at SID, and I know EXACTLY which ancient truck you're talking about. It dated to the 40s, had tank and spray equipment on the back for hosing down the weeds, and would not go over 50 mph no matter what.
Oh, and Annie, re herbicides, they were used because the plants in the canals reduced the water transport capacity and clogged up the valves. Bad.
For severe problems, they would treat the canals with a product so nasty that none of us summer job kids were allowed near it. Only trained full-timers were allowed to work with it, and it had the most evil, evil name I have ever heard:
MAGNICIDE H
South Park you looks like a tweaker.
Yeah, that's a much less relaxed than normal me. Hm.
Rafting on Cache is above the town of Rumsey. The flow is fed from Clear Lake (no dam) and Indian Valley Reservoir via the North Fork Cache (dam with nice sun-soaked spillway). I recall it's pretty popular in the good flow of warm rainy springtimes and because it's fairly close to the Bay Area.
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