The Cake Story and the Story of the Cake

(Click on the photo for a larger version. Give your eyes a break!)

Thanks again, Leslie and Macario (and Emma Rose) for the thoughtful birthday gift.

(The following is an excerpt from Leslie's Blog)

That backstory is that a few summers back Jim and his friend were in Hawai'i, going around the islands on a cruise, and hung out with us the day their ship was in port at Hilo. It happened to be Jim's birthday, and I baked him a pineapple upside down cake, with pineapple from our garden, and it was a hit.

This year I told Jim to come over for his birthday and I'd bake him another one, and when he wouldn't/couldn't/didn't, I went online and sent him a pineapple upside down cake.

For awhile it was an "alleged" birthday gift, as he describes it, because there was some discrepancy between my definition of "overnight delivery" (over one night) and the company's (one day after they actually send it out for delivery, whenever that happens to be). So after awhile I asked Jim if something from me had arrived and then for days we chatted about the "alleged birthday gift" --without him knowing what it was (he was worried it was going to be a bunch of hula dancers doing a singing telegram).

It finally showed up at his doorstep today. I loved getting to see "the rest of the story" in photos.

Aunt Ardis

I have a lot of trouble trying to upload photos to this blasted blog. Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm up so late because I try over and over and over again like I'm standing at the slot machines.

All I wanted to do tonight was post the obituary photo of my Aunt Ardis. She passed away in the early hours of the morning on July 23rd, much to the relief of the members of the family that wanted her suffering from Alzheimer's to end. She was 87 years old and lived an exemplary life of service and dedication to her family and church.

She was born in a rural setting and at a time when infant mortality was much higher. After her birth in 1919, her mother lost her next two infants in 1920 and 1921 shortly after they were born. The next child was my Aunt Beulah followed by Calvin, my father, and then Delma Jean, Elva, Fay (who died from polio in 1951), Gary and Herbert. Notice anything? All of the children who survived infancy were named in alphabetical order. I'll have to get the whole story on that.

I remember hearing stories about them taking Uncle Fay to Salt Lake City straight from the farm when he got sick and how he was frightened by the elevator. He was only 19. Sadly, polio landed him in an iron lung. He never recovered and his death affected his family deeply. My dad was 27 when he lost his little brother. He'd made it through WWII but nothing he could do could save his brother from a tiny virus.

Ardis is the first sibling since Fay to pass on. That was 55 years ago.

But my family has a rich pioneer heritage. It's one of those family history situations that can make you question if you really have what it takes to belong. People sacrificed to come to this country. They suffered plagues, famines, intolerance, hard work and meager circumstances. Their church called on them for further service, sacrifice and dedication. Yet the family stayed together and is still together. I'm the one who's on "the road not taken" and yet I still value all the things I've been taught. Though I've chosen a different path, I'm awfully proud of my family and respect the glue that holds us all together.

http://www.legacy.com/saltlaketribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=18605579

An Inconvenient Heat Wave

The heat..the heat. It was fun at first, then it got ridiculously hot and has stayed hot. I haven't ever felt heat like this here in California. I wonder what the cats are thinking when they're stretched out downstairs on the floor like a sweater that's been laid out to dry. There are things I'd like to do but can't stand the profuse sweating. So I just sit quietly.

Last night the fog came in and the outside temperature dropped to around 60°. It felt great downstairs but the upstairs bedrooms stayed hot. There wasn't enough of a breeze to clear out the hot air. The fan didn't do much. It was still 75° inside when I woke up this morning at 7AM.

And now it's hot again. But the all time worst heat I've ever felt was on my birthday, last Sunday, when we left San Leandro at 2PM to go to Baker's Square in Pleasanton for lunch and a piece of banana cream pie. It was an unbearable 95° here but the temperature continued to rise as we got closer to the restaurant until it hit an unbelievable 115°. Un-be-lieve-able.

The restaurant was very comfortable. The pie was good. I'd been craving it for a long time. But when we walked outside it was like a blast furnace and this time I mean that as a literal analogy and not just an exaggerated description. As we drove home I kept thinking about that Twilight Zone episode where the world is being consumed by heat. Yikes. What a way to go.

The heat made me cranky but so did the fact that I spent $10.50 to see The Devil Wears Prada. That's a high price just to get some relief from the heat. I wanted to see An Inconvenient Truth but wasn't assertive enough to make that happen. At least that would have been more appropriate.

Somehow I came across an article about a U.S. Senator from Oklahoma who is still denying the whole global warming thing. Senator Jim Inhofe (R) ((of course)). He refutes every bit of evidence and says it's a mass conspiracy. What an idiot. He won't even concede that (even if it's a hoax) things like better gas mileage, alternative energy, cleaner air and lower emissions are a good thing and something we need to do.

See: http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=060722_Ne_A1_Heatw72040


My brother ended up in Oklahoma a few years ago. I was very distressed by that. He doesn't like it there and I hope he can leave A.S.A.P.. But until then, I hope he has the good sense to vote this guy out of office! Oh, dear Lord, I hope he doesn't support this idiot!!!

Blackmail and Eternal Friendship

If you hear from a friend who says he/she has some "heinous" photos of you from a long time ago, what do you think your first reaction would be? Blackmail?

Several years ago in a happier time and place when I worked for United Airlines at OAK, I joined two of my friends and co-workers for a weekend in Honolulu. The photo above was taken as we taxied to the runway. Obviously Julie had been drinking before checking in at the airport. On the other hand, I must have been suffering from malnutrition back then. Yikes.

During the flight, I must have loosened up a bit myself! I do not remember this photo being taken but I do remember explaining to the girls what a "swimmer's jock" was.

We found a cheap hotel room and planned to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Apparently these weren't the only photos taken that I had completely forgotten about.

The hotel room was one of the saddest little hovels I've ever seen. I can't remember the name but it was a hostel, I think, intended mainly for Japanese tourist students. We paid for two beds and a rollaway. I, being the luckiest, got the rollaway. No, it was I, being the MAN, who got the rollaway. Ha!

I wouldn't have fit on the bed anyway. They were only 4 feet long. At least that's what I thought until we realized that they were pushed under a table at one end. The room itself was a big problem. You'd have thought that a room with two beds and a kitchenette would be large enough for three people, right? Of course. No. Not at all.

It was tiny. The rollaway was too large for the room. It took up all the available floor space including the entry a.k.a. the kitchenette. So I had to use the mattress to sleep on the floor where my feet ended up under Anne's bed, one of my arms under Julie's and the other arm, if extended, went into the bathroom. My head was down the hall in the kitchenette.

Waking up crippled and miserable, Julie took pictures of me trying to make coffee. For some reason she gets a big kick out of these images.

(Well, I have one or two she might get a kick out of too. But since she just send me a nice birthday card, I won't post them..)

I had never snorkeled before and had never planned to. I'll never forget trying to walk with flippers on and then trying to float/swim with flippers on. If you take a close look, my feet already qualified as flippers anyway so they really weren't necessary.

But don't we look darling standing there with our faces all scrunched up in those little masks!

This must havebeen taken before we got into the water because after being in the water, to my horror, my trunks were 90% transparent revealing that alluring "swimmer's jock" I had been showing off on the plane.

Okay. "How I Learned To Breathe Through a Snorkel" happened when I finished practicing and actually got horizontal and started floating around looking at cool stuff. The very first thing I saw was an eel. I panicked like a little girl with a bug in her hair. I just started screaming into my snorkel pipe which must have sounded like part of the soundtrack from "Exorcist." I remember splashing, trying to swim/float backwards and get away. I'll never forget its beady little eyes looking up at my big buggy eyes on the other side of the snorkel mask I'd spit into and rubbed down to make the view clearer, as instructed by the girls. It was an awful sight, above and below sea level.

It took some coaxing but I did go back out again but never where I couldn't immediately just stand up and run back to the beach across the top of the coral if need be.

Ah, it was a beautiful day and one that we all remember well. Anne, unfortunately, has since passed on ahead of us. But we will be friends eternally and when I catch up I'm going to be so proud that I never, ever showed the picture I took of her in that hotel room to another living soul. (She made me promise.) She's tough and, yes, she scared me a little.

Bizarre! and, once again, George Bush is a Retard

I really suck when it comes to maintaining a regular blog. I've been dividing my efforts writing too much description in the photos I upload to flickr. Well, not really. But sometimes when I'm typing away I think, "I could use this on that damn blog that nobody reads."

That reminds me of my mother again. She referred to my blog once as my "blob" and I just ignored it thinking she was trying to be funny. I haven't always been able to tell when she was trying to be funny and when she was just funny by default.

Once my sister was instructed to go downstairs and get a loaf of bread out of the freezer that she'd bought at the church bazaar. A few minutes later I heard laughing. She called me downstairs to ask if I knew which loaf of bread she wanted; the one that was obviously a loaf of bread or the one with the little label marked "bizarre bread."

Okay so the really big news, besides the gigantic spider I nearly got eaten by and managed to kill on the patio, is that this Sunday is my 48th birthday. It's safe to make that announcement here because nobody reads this anyway. It's kind of amazing to me that it's 2006 and all of us are still alive. I mean, we haven't blown up the planet yet. I used to think that December 31st, 1999 would be the last chance we would have to bend over and kiss our asses goodbye. Well, considering the news lately, maybe the last chance is still coming. I mean George Bush has done more than any one person in a thousand years to usher in the Millenium than anyone I can think of. What a retard. I'm so ashamed of him. Everyone I know who expresses an opinion just about chokes on their own vomit when his name comes up. He'll have us all learning Farsi before Spanish, you mark my words.

So where was I? Ah, yes. Getting old. It's a bitch looking 45ish but feeling 75ish. And this brings up the other subject. Leslie in Hawaii (as opposed to the Leslie not in Hawaii) has encouraged me to write a totally anonymous blog where I feel free to just let it all out without having to worry about anything other than letting all my feelings out. It would be therapy. The only problem is I couldn't tell anyone about it because then I'd be too inhibited. The proper way to do it would be to write it, have people find out about it some backasswards way and then everybody can pretend they don't know about it and I can deny it with plausability in case someone is so gauche as to mention it. Ha! That reminds me of Will's family (of "Will and Grace") and how they "handle things."

Enough for now. I've got to go read another blog so my life doesn't seem so bad. It's written by a woman who gives birth about every 6 months, according to my calculations.

The Response

A few days I wrote about a nasty situation at the Chelsea Premium Outlet Mall in Vacaville, CA. For a refresher, please see "Photography is Not a Crime."

Today, taking me by surprise, I actually received a response. Predictably, though, it was unapologetic and actually misrepresented the circumstances by which they were made aware of my violation of their "code of conduct."

Code of conduct? Who are they kidding? Who goes shopping realizing that they are doing so under implied consent of a code of conduct?

Here's the letter:

click on it for a better view or see: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=188397227&size=o

Just by coincidence, last weekend we stopped at another one of their fabulous outlet malls in Napa (mostly because we had to pee) and I noticed that the management office was right next to the rest rooms. I noticed a document taped to the window that turned out to be exactly what this letter is referring to. If it was much larger than a standard sheet of paper, it wasn't by much. It's not exactly something that would stop shoppers in their tracks and say, "Gee, I hope I'm acting within the mall's code of conduct!"

It was about 102° outside. I was hot, tired and miserable. I SHOULD have taken a photo of the document because it was fairly thorough. What was most interesting was the first 16 items on the list. It included things like shouting, causing disturbances, doing illegal things and other stuff I can't remember. Number 17 must not be very serious because it was near the bottom of the list.

I had asked Chelsea for the complete list but, obviously, didn't get it. SO I will be FORCED to take a photo of the list the next time we are at one of their FABULOUS malls.

Now just for clarification, the only reason it "came to their attention" that I was at their Vacaville mall taking photos is because I wrote to them and said so. Their employees have no way of knowing who I was.

They may get to know me in the future, however.

Does any of this sound totally ridiculous?

A Burning Black Blob of Black Smoke and Bl, uh, Flames

Traffic is unpredictable at any time and so I've learned to dial 511 to check for driving times and find out what incidents might need to be avoided.

511 is an automated system that calculates driving time between certain points in the SF Bay area using the bridge toll transponders that we keep on our windshields. It's a clever system. Aside from the potential issue of literally being tracked, it allows people to get an up-to-the-minute report on what's happening on the highways.

Yesterday I wasn't surprised to find a slowdown on the 880/980 Northbound interchange in Oakland because the system reported a slowdown there. But I was surprised to find a burning car. You don't see those every day. But I've seen several and they always make me wonder "why."

With my camera at my side and wishing my windshield was cleaner, I put down all the windows, got my camera ready and started taking pictures when I saw that something was burning and putting out a lot of smoke ahead:














And then I realized that I was about to drive right into the smoke with all my windows open. But I didn't think to hold my breath. I just wanted a few good photos.


But in the end, all I really got was my lungs full of black smoke that smelled like burning plastic and rubber and a photo of a ball of flames as I drove by:










I can guess what the causes of car fires are. I've seen some scary ones along the freeways in hot and cold weather. They must be frightening for the people in the car. And cars must not blow up as easily as they do on TV where when one little thing goes wrong and BANG the car blows up. Still, I'm curious about car fires. I'd like to see a documentary on them some day with profiles of the people and their cars.

Easy as Dell and an Icky Thing at a Happy Place

Tonight I was on the phone for a loooooong time with a tech support agent at Dell. He did such a fine job diagnosing and solving my issue(s) that I'm still awestruck by the depth of his knowledge and the massive amount of assistance I got that I didn't even expect. He saved me a lot of money, too, and for that I'm extremely grateful.

Thank you, SHAILEN 01115972, for excellent customer service. You really did make it "Easy as Dell."

The situation at the Vacaville outlet mall kept me awake the other night. Only tonight did I start to feel better after receiving a few comments from other Flickr photographers who commented on my situation. Yes, Gary, I think we should converge on that stupid mall with video camera, tripods, cameraphones, Brownies (the camera; but fudge would be good too), and a KUTV Channel 2 news crew complete with reporter, cameras and a satellite link. Bastards. And no, I haven't heard anything back from management yet. Do you think I will?

At the zoo yesterday (July 4th) I witnessed something kind of icky. It was unexpected and violent. The zoo is supposed to be such a happy place and we forget that in nature animals eat each other all the time. Well, what I witnessed wasn't quite THAT bad but it was a bit shocking. So I've decided to mention it here and include a photo so that you, too, can enjoy life at the zoo.

Everything was lovely late in the afternoon. I was doing some "Primate Patrol" keeping the crowds under control around the chimps and the gibbon and siamangs' islands. Across from them the two pairs of blue and gold macaws were sitting in their shacks grooming each other and playing kissy face all day.

I noticed a squirrel jump into their exhibit and examine some of the stuff the keepers left out for the birds to bite, shred and play with. Then it headed for the inhabited shacks where the food is. There was a very loud shreek, a flurry of activity and the squirrel came running out again but not before suffering a bite to the left foreleg.

So of course I took some photos. Most of them didn't come out right because my settings were wrong but I got one good one of the poor fella just before he returned to the shack for another raid.

You can clearly see the wound.

I feel bad for him/her but to go back and risk it again left me quite astonished. It's leg was obviously useless. And the second time the macaws just let him take their food.

Strange.

Everything's new to me. I reported it to someone later and she said "they do that all the time." Really! I should carry the video camera too for some really entertaining reports.

PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT A CRIME

You're looking at what I saw as my parting glance after being harassed while trying to take simple, general interest photos at the Chelsea Outlet mall in Vacaville, California yesterday.

I'm way past being sick of people in little golf carts with uniforms and radios bothering me while trying to set up and take innocuous photos of things that in no way relate to any security, commercial license or legality issues. This time I've contacted the management company, asked for their written policy to examine for personal interest reasons and to scrutinize it for legality questions.

What's the big deal about taking photos in true public space and what the general public assumes is public space anyway? So what if you're on the sidewalk and want to take a photo of your friends in front of the Sanrio store or, in my case, are practically laying on the ground to get a unique photo of a fire hydrant?

Yesterday I noticed the color yellow for some reason and decided to devote the day to photographing things that were yellow, challenging myself to find interesting interpretations. Earlier in the day I had captured part of a grate in the sidewalk and later on after lunch (which I should also write about separately) I found this bright yellow hydrant across from the restrooms. There were some yellow flowers in the ground cover around it which I captured but didn't publish. And at the same spot was a bright yellow railing/barrier that looked great in the late afternoon light against the black asphalt pavement.

I missed that photo because that's when the first person stopped me. She said she wasn't "security" but was driving a security vehicle and warned me that security wouldn't like it that I was taking photos. I told her that I'm just an amateur photographer and wasn't breaking any laws but if she felt she had to sound the alarm or call in the troops to go ahead but I wanted to go back to work getting the shot of the paint on the railing.

She drove off, obviously in a huff over being talked back to. But I never got the photo I wanted because it was only a couple of minutes later that the real security person in the big truck (pictured above) stopped to ask me what I was taking pictures of. Feeling like it was none of her business but suspecting that it might be her business, I said "yellow things." She responded snidely, "yellow things?."

And so it went. I told her what I was doing and she did her best to tell me that I was prohibited from taking pictures anywhere on the outlet property and that the policy, though not posted anywhere the public can see including on the website, is posted in the management office. I don't remember what happened or who said what but I know she drove off after I suggested that if they don't want people taking pictures they ought to post some signs where people can see and she should go find her superiors and suggest just that and that I would be doing the same which I have.

Of course all during this intercourse I wanted to take pictures of her but was sufficiently intimated out of doing so. And as she drove off I suppressed my desire to yell something obscene and show off my middle finger, taking a fuzzy photo instead.

Probably 75% of people walking around these days is armed with a camera. They range in size from the Hubble telescope down to something small enough to hang from a keychain. They're in cell phones and tiny personal, portable computer devices. Spys have them in their coat buttons and writing pens. Some look like credit cards and mine just looks like an old-fashioned camera. So what's the big deal? We're being watched everywhere we go and in every thing we do. Our cars are watched on the highways and in parking lots. There are eyes on us on the sidewalks and inside stores. Our phone calls are logged and possibly listened to. Our purchases are tracked both in the stores and online. Next time you buy something and the clerk wants your zip code, take their picture and say "tell your boss it's none of your business."

A group of photographers on flickr.com have formed a group called PhotoMOB(ilization) because of the harassment we get for situations like this all the time it seems. Usually it's from pseudo-police who are overly aggressive and are all puffed up with patriotism and 9/11 paranoia.

I hope to hear back from the property management company and if I do, I'll post more info here. Regardless of what might happen next, I'm unscathed and will continue to exercise my right to take photographs. Photography is not a crime and neither is free speech, fortunately.