Cachagua
She thought about it for a minute and then told me a remarkable story about her relationship with technology during the last 40 years living up the mountain a bit east of where we stood. She did not exactly answer my question, but made a point nonetheless.
“I pretty much stayed on the mountain. There are no phone lines. There is no electricity,” she said. “I have my iPhone and I can get 3G and I can get what I want and I have a little solar panel and propane and candles. I’ve been off the grid forever. Now, I have the small solar panel and I can turn on the light and charge my cell phone. I’m not used to it. My daughter tells me, ‘You can plug things in!’ And I say, ‘I don’t have anything to plug in.’ Blow out the lights, not turn out the lights, is my thing.”
Her boss, the chef Michael Jones, filled in the rest of Liz’s story on his blog (punctuation all his). “Liz lives in a trailer on the mountain with no power and no water…two horses, a goat and two dogs. Cats don’t count. She carries water in plastic buckets to the critters….and to her own self,” he wrote. “She pays child support to a scumbag in Missouri or one of those other M states or square states…..Her daughter that I know is an honor student at Davis…….Because she has no power or water, Liz hangs with us after working her 10 hr shift at The Store. We are her TV.”
I’ve ridden my bike out past Cachagua Road and I can attest to the beauty and isolation of the area. It was very near Jamesburg that, climbing a long hill, I passed a man in a cowboy hat and boots, his back to me, urinating. The two cyclists coming down the hill had a much better view and the man made no attempt to stand behind cover.
This particular excerpt reminds me of the photos I’ve seen and the stories I’ve heard about my mother-in-law’s family when they lived in the mountains above Big Sur – a kind of lifestyle that seems almost extinct.
“It is a vast energy package”
I particularly love the “midnight buffet”. At midnight the doors to a vast restaurant open and passengers stream in to gorge themselves on elaborate food sculptures, while one of the staff stands above them with a microphone telling them over the speakers the amazing statistics of how much they are consuming on a voyage.
finally
About a year ago this post went up without much explanation:
Joel and Deron* have put on something over their jockstraps.
*The one he wears like a mask*.
*To block the image of Michael nesting in Troy Polamalu’s hair*.
*A frequent dream of Deron’s that leaves him feeling oddly aroused.
Originally created by Michael on September 9, 2010 and scheduled to publish the morning following the Super Bowl the post looked like this:
The NFL season has ended
And was changed by Deron on September 12:
I have the strength to say it. Deron, you are the handsomest man I know.
John Statz | Distance
I’ve been listening to this album for the last few days. I had a little trouble picking out a track to share, so I just went with the first one.
dear clusterflock
White chocolate?
not all bad news
Hostess filed for bankruptcy protection today. But don’t worry, you should still be able to get deep fried Twinkies at the state fair:
The company said that it does not anticipate any disruptions in the making of or delivery of its breads or cake products and reassured that its popular brands, which also include Drake’s, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, will still be available.
attack ads
I was always taught that before you criticize someone else, you should look at yourself. So let me admit up front that I’m completely disgusting: there’s not much worse than a cockroach. You know what is worse? The emerald cockroach wasp. They have what some people would call an interesting appearance, with a metallic blue body and red legs, but they reproduce by stinging us and using us as hosts for their larvae, which then consume our internal organs in such a matter that we stay alive just long enough to give them life. That kind of behavior demonstrates a real lack of respect for private property rights, and is also unthinkably gross.
text my mom sent
check out the bear with boobs behind jesus.
in case the NAzis with the GERMAN dog come back to kick me out
I am clean and keep a neat tent. I shave and shower every other week, we can alternate so some one is always in the tent. My girlfriend will bring food so we don’t have to leave. $1.00 rent is due upon our agreement and is due on the first of every month. It is not refundable as your dollar symbolizes your dedication to the tent and our cause.
(via)
dear clusterflock
Favorite children’s book?
headline of the day
Errant ‘Mythbusters’ cannonball hits home in Dublin
Milwaukee on bed-sharing
Milwaukee Health Department’s Safe Sleep Campaign
quote out of context
Using Einstein’s E=mc² formula, which states that energy and mass are directly related, Prof Kubiatowicz calculated that filling a 4GB Kindle to its storage limit would increase its weight by a billionth of a billionth of a gram, or 0.000000000000000001g.
spam from elsewhere
really important: cialis
what I said
Or, what I planned to say when I officiated my little sister’s wedding on Saturday. There was a technical issue (broken Kindle which contained these words) and the inevitable mispoken phrase, but more or less, here it is:
Marwage…
Now, with my obligatory Princess Bride reference out of the way…
Welcome to the Tour de Wilson.
Cait and Brad have invited you all here today to witness their official union as a married couple and, because I’m an expert in both marriage and cycling, I’ve been asked, and granted the power to officiate the ceremony. On their behalf, I apologize.
One day, about 10 years ago, I needed someone’s help moving furniture for my mom. I don’t really remember much of the story, but I vaguely remember driving to Alameda from Sacramento with a lifeguard I worked with at Sac State.
this post is about football statistics
The first thing Romer did was analyze every fourth down during the first quarter of every NFL game between 1998 and 2000. (He had help from a computer program.) Then, he figured out the fluctuating value of a first down at each point on the football field. After all, a first down was more valuable for a team if it occurred on an opponents two yard line than on their own twenty yard line. The next thing Romer calculated was the statistical likelihood of going for it on fourth down under various circumstances and actually getting a first down. He also calculated the probability of kicking a successful field goal from various spots on the field.
if this then that
I’ve only played with it a minute, but on Sunday Robin Sloan posted about ifttt which is a cool little service that will link multiple online services. It’s simple and genius.
In his post Robin said it was still invite only but I had no problem just walking on over and signing up. That said, I now have 5 invites if you have any trouble signing up and want to give it a try, just drop a line in the comments and I’ll share.
while Texas burns
Gov. Perry avers that we can handle ourselves down here, and I believe it. That’s why he’s slashed the Forest Service (an agency swollen with vampires, and vegans) budget and cut fire department funding by 75 percent, leaving us with a hose and a prayer. The hose isn’t doing much, but I can tell that prayer is helping. In fact, I know it’s helping.
As Perry is keen to remind us, Texas has the power to secede from this sinful Union if we feel like it, leaving the rest of the country to wander around with no infrastructure, eating each other like in The fucking Road, stymied, burned to bubbles and unable to follow-through on its own metaphors, sort of like Texas right now, actually. Well this is how we want it, I think!
headline of the day, II
Shopper arrested with live lobsters in shorts
“writing, especially on the internet, is hardly the quickest path to fame and fortune”
I don’t mean to end on a crushing note. There’s huge value in internet publishing beyond its minute potential for saving you from ever needing “a real job.” But for a while I thought it would have that potential for me and it didn’t. Instead, what I got was an unexpected community of people to learn from, and a chance to work with people like Lloyd. People interested in making good stuff on the internet, even if it never gets us anything. That’s the reason to try your hand at web-publishing: it’s a beach-head onto the wider world of substantive accomplishment and relationships than any Twitter account or Facebook page is. But it hardly guarantees you of anything but a modest square of sand.
headline of the day, 2
Man arrested for chomping on snake
headline of the day
Pa. man charged again for putting ribs in pants
barack obama is your new bicycle
The book too.
quote out of context
And then, obviously, because I am perverse, I was put off it by its ubiquity and other people’s enthusiasm. Others’ loss of perspective about its merits made me lose my own. Maybe I was trying to lower the average human opinion of the oeuvre closer to what it deserves by artificially forcing mine well below that level. Incidentally, this is where the parallels with my view of football end: even if that were a struggling minority sport only played by a few hundred enthusiastic amateurs, I would still consider it an overrated spectacle that lures vital funding away from snooker.
hat tip: Sarah
logo out of context
