This is the online journal of Charles Dowdell. www.theguysatwork.com charlesdowdell at gmail.com
Friday, August 23, 2019
Last weekend I had a quick adventure. I flew to Tampa picked up a moving truck, got it loaded up at my Brother's and drove to Atlanta and unloaded. Then flew back to SoCal. I did manage to lose the keys to the rental truck. I decided that wasn't much fun, but I am sure I learned a valuable lesson, just not sure what it was. I also managed to take down a phone line across my driveway with the truck. Opps.
We had dinner with my cousins in Huntington beach while they were out this way last week. It was a great dinner in a great place, so much to talk about. It turns out my half-niece Marina is headed to Antarctica right now. I am very pleased she got into the program. It will be fun to watch her blog. https://www.the-strudel-is-real.com/
I have been watching some of this stuff lately. I admit it. More brute violence than the finesse of rock climbing, but what ever works (or breaks). Better entertainment than regular rock climbing.
We added a large Loftbed to the apartment. It has a queen size mattress and I can walk into the desk area without hitting my head. It is a very good way to double usable space, but you do need high ceilings. I built some stairs/steps to get into the bed around the back side.
I was up in Long beach a couple times this week. It is about a 20 minute drive.
The weather this week in SoCal has been pretty much as it has been for months, 75 Degrees F and 50% RH. The rest of the US is having a heat wave.
I remember the first "man-on-the-moon" as we called it. I was 8 years old. Some of the memories I have was that it took soooo long for each phase of the mission. The decompression of the LEM after they landed seemed like eternity. I complained and my OLDER sister said something like "You don't want the astronauts to open the door early and get sucked out of the lunar module"... followed by the typical "DUH." I remember the video simulations (not real video) of the events when there was not video available (lots). I remember the actual video as well with "live from moon" I think it was blinking. It was analog B&W. It absolutely sucked compared to today, but it seemed a lot better than what I am seeing on youtube today. Maybe because my Dad probably put fresh vacuum tubes in the TV just before the event. I also remember going outside and seeing and hearing no one. In those days we spent a lot of time outside, especially kids and especially on a nice Summer day. There was no one playing, no one washing their cars.
The other thing that strikes me is everything else going on in that era, in the span of about 1 year, we had:
Woodstock
Kent State shooting
Vietnam war at its peak-- neighbors not returning home
Martin Luther King assassination
Another Kennedy assassination
The 1968 election-- even for a kid it was big deal
I like this podcast/youtube. We lived the context of what was going on. It was definitely real. It was science. We didn't talk about STEM we lived it.
The penthouse is more difficult to furnish than initially figured. But we are working on it.
I went to the Orange County (California) fair. It is close-by. We will be back this season in the next couple of weeks.
The ionizing radiation levels have been slightly lower today than normal in Costa Mesa, CA.
I had some vivid dreams this past week. I miss my friend Pete. He really was amazing. We are trying to tally his patents. His goal was 100. Beside the measurement using patents (post Polaroid-Kodak patent lawsuit~4.5 million) there was so much more.
We decided to hang out in SoCal over the 4th Holiday. We also moved into a new apartment, a penthouse. It is a bit better and a bit cheaper.
We felt the first earthquake. The chair I was sitting it started rocking and then the curtains. We went outside as a precaution. No one else did. We didn't even feel the larger quake here in Orange County. We will rebuild. ;-)
I took this picture of the "homeless" just inside the border of Santa Ana. Notice neither one of the folks has shoes on. They are also not near a bus stop. It reminded me of what I have seen in India. Everyday Rolls, Ferraries, McClearens, travel this road. I would have liked to get the dichotomy in the same pic. The story goes that CA has great tax incentive programs for funding rehab facilities, actually houses with some sort of basic credential. So folks come from all over the country. When they mess up in these facilities they get kicked out. They used to kick them out in parks, now they are kicking them out in Santa Ana. There are 3 jails there after all.
Have you ever seen someone picking up after a cat the way you have to for a dog?
My friend Pete passed away. I met him in 1982. We were friends the whole time despite all the competing circumstances. We picked up where we left off every time.
I will miss him. I am glad I got to spend quality time with him over Memorial Day weekend a couple weeks back. I always had tremendous respect for him in all ways. The weirdest part is that he respected me. Very humbling, and actually disturbing. He confided with me and I with him. Ask me to tell you a story about him.
Interesting song I heard about today. The lyrics are important.
Southern California Wants to Be Western New York
Dar Williams
There's a part of the country could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake,
Yeah, it's out there on the cutting edge, the people move, the sidewalks shake.
And there's another part of the country with a land that gently creaks and thuds,
Where the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms with free-standing tubs.
They're in houses that are haunted, the with kids who lie awake and think about
All the generations past who used to use that dripping sink.
And sometimes one place wants to slip into the other just to see
What it's like to trade its demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey,
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress the Sunday pork,
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.
It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools,
It wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel,
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids,
And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids,
And it's embarrassed, but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy brown hair who is
Taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear.
And southern California says to save a place, I'll meet you there,
And it tried to pack up its Miata, all it could fit was a prayer,
Sometimes the stakes are bogus, sometimes the fast lane hits a fork,
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.
Tempe, Arizona thinks the Everglades are greener and wetter,
And Washington, D.C. thinks that Atlanta integrated better,
But I think that southern California has more pain that we can say,
'Cause it wants to travel back in time, but it just can't leave L.A.
Southern California Wants to Be Western New York
There's a part of the country could drop off tomorrow in an earthquake,
Yeah, it's out there on the cutting edge, the people move, the sidewalks shake.
And there's another part of the country with a land that gently creaks and thuds,
Where the heavy snows make faucets leak in bathrooms with free-standing tubs.
They're in houses that are haunted, the with kids who lie awake and think about
All the generations past who used to use that dripping sink.
And sometimes one place wants to slip into the other just to see
What it's like to trade its demons for the restless ghost of Mrs. Ogilvey,
She used to pick the mint from her front yard to dress the Sunday pork,
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York.
But I think that southern California has more pain that we can say,
'Cause it wants to travel back in time, but it just can't leave L.A.
But now I hear they've got a theme park planned, designed to make you gasp and say,
Oh, I bet that crumbling mill town was a booming mill town in its day,
And the old investors scoff at this, but the young ones hope they'll take a chance,
And they promise it will make more dough than Mickey Mouse in northern France,
And the planners planned an opening day, a town historian will host,
And the waitresses look like waitresses who want to leave for the west coast.
And they'll have puttering on rainy weekends, autumn days that make you feel sad,
They'll have hundred year old plumbing and the family you never had,
And a Hudson River clean-up concert and a bundle-bearing stork,
And I hear they've got a menu planned, it's trés western New York.
Angie and I went up to Sequoia National Park and King Canyon over the weekend. It is nice to get away to some really spectacular places fairly easily.
I heard they were starting a Toastmasters club at work. I decided I need to participate. It is nice to be recognized as a Distinguished toastmaster. It is such a positive organization and it is nice to see young people working to better themselves.
