Unattended children

I hope the puppy is just temporary because if your children are unattended, you have other problems that a puppy won’t help, and having a puppy in the family would probably be cruel to the puppy. JMHO.

Out & About—Here, There & Everywhere

Many readers who like my San Diego Historical Landmarks series might think that I have given up on them. Not so. I simply want to do them in order, and I got stuck at #15. Its name is “Conception,” and it’s on the United States Naval Submarine Base at Point Loma. In other words, it’s not accessible to the general public….

….Except for one day each year. Guess which day that is? Yep. Today. “Cabrillo Festival” day. So you know where I’ll be going later today, and I can resume my San Diego Historical Landmarks series. I have no idea what I’ll find there since I have not done any research on #15 year.

Meanwhile…. September has been a very active month for getting Out & About, and I’ll have blog posts on everything as the summer comes to a close and the cold, wet, fall and winter months arrive. To whet your appetite, here’s a sample of some of the places I’ve been.

We’ll start at home with Zoey the Cool Cat. I continue to take care of her every need—boxes, tummy rubs, food, clean litter box, food for the squirrels and rabbits so she can get her daily exercise running from window to window watching them, and what does she do? Turns her back on me.

September 3—Wildlife Corner at our new home

September 9—Queen Califa’s Magical Circle in Kit Carson Park, Escondido

September 10—Surf Dog Surf-a-thon at Dog Beach in Del Mar

September 13—San Diego Zoo

September 15—Getting some kicks on Route 66 in Rancho Cucamonga

September 16—Chili Cook Off & Classic Car Show in Alpine

September 18—Big Border Baby in Tecate

September 21—Watching trains in Colton

September 22—MCAS Miramar Air Show in San Diego

September 23—San Diego Bonsai Show

September 23—Wavecrest Woody Meet at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas

September 24—Cuyamaca Rancho State Park near Julian

September 24—Apple Days in historic Julian

September 24—Gold mine tours in Julian

September 24—Cool shopping in Julian at The Warm Hearth, The Birdwatcher, and the Julian Jewel Box

September 25—Newest visitor to our new home

September 29—San Diego Quilt Show

 

Out & About—The Warm Hearth in Julian, California

About once a quarter I discover a store that is way beyond cool, so it’s unusual to find three cool stores on the same day within a block of each other. All three stores are in Julian, California, a mountain community founded around 1850. Gold was discovered in 1869. Perhaps Julian is best known now for its apple pies; I can highly recommend any pie by the Julian Pie Company. Julian’s Apple Days Festival, held last weekend, is why I was exploring Julian.

The first, and the largest, of the cool stores I found is The Warm Hearth. My wise old grandmother always told me that a house is just a house until you make it a home. So many goodies at The Warm Hearth that can help make my new house, or yours, into a home.

Near the front entrance, and what immediately caught my eye, was a huge display of hot sauces, some of which I have never heard of. Considering that I have been hot saucing for 51 years, that’s quite unusual for me.

I stood there making mental notes of each hot sauce, and salivating. I know it’s not nice to salivate in public, but, oh well. What Hot Saucer could refrain from salivating over a hot sauce called Devil Drops, or Pain 100%? I don’t think anyone saw me….

Across from the hot sauces were all sorts of other sauces. Rattler BBQ Sauce piqued my interest.

As many of my readers know, when I find trains of any sort, I get kind of excited.

I have never had an appreciation for wine, not that I didn’t try when I turned 18 (would have to turn 21 in today’s world). The only wine I wound up liking is Zinfandel. However, I have a lot of friends who are wine connoissuers so whenever I find cool wine necessities, I think of them.

There were coffee and bacon necessities, too.

Many readers know about the dysfunctional family I grew up in, so this one really hit home with me:

My wise old grandmother had several interesting clocks in her home, including an old railroad depot clock and a grandfather’s clock. Clocks have always fascinated me, and at one time I had a huge collection of clocks. They got left behind in April 1993 when I escaped Texas.

When I was 10 and being bullied in sixth grade, my wise old grandmother counseled me with her wise words of wisdom: “Ten percent of the people will hate you because that’s the kind of people they are. Ten percent of the people will love you because that’s the kind of people they are. Eighty percent of the people will hate you or love you based on your actions and words. So be nice.” I thought of her words when I saw this:

Of course, there still are witches (and warlocks), and there are good reasons to be one of them:

An interesting assortment of books for the kids and cards for every occasion:

There were gifts for our fine, furry, four-legged friends, too.

Lots of other make-a-house-a-home stuff, too.

I think I found my next water fountain at The Warm Hearth. Hopefully it will still be there when I return.

Chris is the owner of The Warm Hearth. He graciously gave me permission to take all these interior pictures for this blog post. Thank you, Chris.

I liked The Warm Hearth so much that I offered to let Chris adopt me and I would work at The Warm Hearth. Since I come with an endowment, he wouldn’t even have to pay me. Just consider it family child labor.

 

Out & About—Not fair. The plane had a flying start.

Air shows sometimes include the unexpected, such as Shockwave Jet Truck.

Shockwave is a custom race truck equipped with three huge J34-48 Pratt & Whitney jet engines originally in the United States Navy’s T2 Buckeye.

Repurposing. My wise old grandmother would be proud.

Combined horsepower: 36,000

Thrust: 21,000 pounds

Speed: 376 mph (world record for semi trucks)

Shockwave is the most powerful truck in the world and races, uh, airplanes at air shows throughout North America.

I did not consider it a fair race, though. Shockwave had a standing start while the plane was privileged with a flying start. Shockwave still won, though. Na na na na na na.

If you like the unusual with a little fire, smoke, heat, noise, and speed, there’s nothing quite like the Shockwave Jet Truck.

Based in Springfield, Missouri. Owned by Darnell Racing Enterprises. Driven by Chris Darnell.

Out & About—MCAS Miramar Air Show

On Friday I went to the MCAS Miramar Air Show. It’s the largest air show in the United States. I had been in previous years on Saturdays and Sundays but can definitively say that it’s much more fun on Fridays because the crowds are smaller.

The United States Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, are always a joy to watch.

The United States Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration team is always the featured event. There was a near in-air accident but at the last moment the top pilot pulled up and missed the cloud.

Apparently it can be dangerous for planes to take off or land with debris on the runway, so out come these suckage trucks to suck up everything. The trucks suck very slowly, but each truck has 14,000 pounds of suckage force. And I’m-a just-a gonna leave it right there…….

Videos—One fewer item on the Bucket List

In February 2010 I bought a Canon Rebel T2i DSLR. My whole reason in buying it to replace my Canon Rebel XSi was because the T2i had video. Sadly, though, I was never satisfied with the videos because the autofocus pretty much didn’t work. A Google search indicates that I wasn’t the only one in the world who was dissatisfied.

In late 2015 I replaced the T2i with a T6s because the autofocus was supposed to be vastly improved. Nope. The delay in focusing just wasn’t acceptable.

The shakiness of the videos didn’t make me happy either. Some of the shakiness was the camera’s fault because it weighs 26 ounces. Add a lens that weighs  19 ounces, or one that weighs 69 ounces, and taking videos is not a one-hand event. Even two-hand support gets tiresome, and more shaky,  if the video is longer than about ten seconds.

So this past June I considered buying a dedicated video camera. After a couple of months of research, I settled on the Canon Vixia HF R800. It retails for $299.99. I figured if it didn’t do what I wanted it to do, I could sell it on eBay. Well, it does what I want it to do (and what I wanted my DSLR to do).

The Vixia weighs a whopping 8 ounces. Could 8 ounces do what 95 ounces could not?

The autofocusing is awesome. It has a 32x optical zoom and an 1140x digital zoom. I wasn’t hopeful about the digital zoom because I was familiar with digital zooms on Point & Shoot cameras. Well, the zoom is extraordinarily easy to use and focusing is pretty much instantaneous.

After experimenting by taking videos of the birds, rabbits, and squirrels eating together in my back yard….

….it was time to test it out on the big boys—TRAINS! I wasn’t disappointed.

I took the Vixia to the famous Colton Crossing in Colton, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles. Ever since I discovered the Colton Crossing, I have wanted to get a picture of a Union Pacific train using the Colton Crossing upper tracks—the Flyover—to “fly over” a BNSF train on the lower tracks. Here’s my video of exactly that:

Bucket List has one fewer item on it.

Now I have to learn how to keep my fingers out of the field of view when in wide angle mode. I think I can handle that.

Picture of the Moment—Trash by any other name is still trash

Yesterday,  when I drove Highway 94 to Tecate to get pictures of the Big Border Wall Baby, I passed a CalTrans maintenance dump where they accumulate rocks, crumbled concrete and asphalt, and items discarded at the side of the road by uncaring individuals. The dump had a unique sign:

As my wise old grandmother might say: “Trash by any other name is still trash.”

Out & About—The bad guys don’t drive bright red cars

Some readers might have seen the news over the past couple of weeks about a giant baby in Mexico peering over the border wall into the United States. It’s over in Tecate at coordinates 32°34’46.8″N 116°35’20.6″W or 32.579667, -116.589056

Yes, we already have a border wall here in San Diego County.

Some of it, like in the pictures above, is about ten years old. Other sections, like the numbered panels in the picture below, are even older.

Border Patrol agents like to park their vehicles in hidden locations on the top of mountain peaks, which, I’m sure, often results in the following conversation:

BP Agent 1: I see movement. 773.
Agent 2: I see it, too.
Agent 3: Copy.
Agent 2: Oh my God.
Agent 1: What is that?
Agent 3: It’s a little baby!
Agent 1: But it’s got YUGE hands!

I call it the “Border Wall Baby.” It was created by an anonymous French street artist who goes by JR. It is seventy feet tall and is basically a billboard support by scaffolding on the Mexico side.

It will remain until early October, so if you want to see it, you don’t have much time.

JR says that he did not plan the art to coincide with Twitler’s announcement to repeal DACA, a program to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. We have to believe him since Twitler is unpredictable and the scaffolding took six weeks to build.

The concept came to JR in a dream and is based on an actual baby named Kikito who lives in one of the houses nearby. JR told news reporters, “I wonder, is this kid worrying about what will happen? What does he think? At 1 year old, you don’t see the frontier or which side is better.”

Kikito’s mom weighed in, as well. As JR tells it, “She was so happy, and she told me she hoped the image travels around the world. In her own words, she said it should help people think that they are not criminals; they are not rapists, which is how she feels Mexicans are often being portrayed. He’s just a little kid; he’s 1 year old, that’s why he has no political vision about the wall yet. He’s just looking at anything around him with curiosity.”

I got stopped three times by Border Patrol agents. The first asked me what I was doing. When I told him I was looking for the Border Wall Baby, he gave me explicit directions of how to get there and once I finished, to turn around and come back. To go any father would require a 4-wheel drive vehicle. The second agent asked me what I was doing, and I told him I had just been to take pictures of the Border Wall Baby. He said, “I thought it was something like that because the bad guys don’t drive bright red cars. They try to blend in.” The third one just waved me on by.

Out & About—Classic car show & chili cook-off in Alpine CA

One of my favorite places to go in San Diego County is Alpine. It’s a mountain community at an elevation of 1,842 feet above sea level but is not too deep in the mountains. No winding mountain roads with 25 mph speed limits. In fact, Interstate 8 can get you there very quickly at 70 mph. Now that I live in Winter Gardens, I’m a mere 10 miles from Alpine. I can see myself going there often.

Yesterday I headed to Alpine for the annual classic car show and chili cook-off.

Mr & Mrs Redd were there with all the kids.

This dog is not what you think.
It’s a dog statue. Where do you buy a dog statue like that?

Only 90 years old. What’s the problem?

My wise old grandmother had a 1960 Chevrolet Impala.
It had chrome everywhere. I hated it because I was the one
who had the privilege of polishing the chrome every weekend.
I don’t miss chrome but I do admit that it’s pretty when it’s shining.

When you have connections, you can arrange to have your car show number
match the year of your classic car, in this case a 1957 Chevy Bel Air.
Just to the right of the drive-in tray you can see the window sticker.

Here’s a close-up of the window sticker.
For a mere $2,846 back in 1957,
you could have had this classic car.
You dummy. What did you spend your money on?
What were you thinking?

When I headed over to the chili cook-off, I saw lots of people
wearing Granite Hills Key Club shirts,
like these four who graciously agreed
to let me take their picture:

Back in 1972 I asked my wise old grandmother what I could do to help others. She told me about Key Club at Henrietta M. King High School in Kingsville, Texas. I joined. That was my first experience volunteering and helping out. I followed up Key Club by joining Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity at Texas A&M University, and then continuing my volunteering even unto the present day.

Pirate Chili won my vote for best chili and best decorated booth.
It didn’t hurt that their chili came in a free ceramic pirate cup.
I, too, understand incentives (bribes).

I got to enjoy the music of my friends in
The Ideas Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio.
I never get tired of their classic rock ‘n’ roll.

Opinion—They lost me

I’m not a fan of wild west shootouts unless they are in the movies, so when I saw this notice on the window of a restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga where I had planned on eating lunch yesterday, I went elsewhere.

My thinking on this matter is because, as many law enforcement officials have told us, when police arrive they don’t know who’s the bad guy and who’s the good guy. They have to assume that anyone waving a gun around and shooting is the bad the guy. Perhaps if concealed carry AND open carry actually required training and insurance at a minimum, kind of like a driver’s license, I might have greater confidence in the people who feel a need to eat lunch or shop at Walmart with guns proudly displayed. Just doesn’t make sense to me. And as we have seen too often, these people (I’m painting with a broad stroke here but as my wise old gramdmother said, “A few bad apples do, indeed, ruin the whole bunch.”) don’t understand what “protection” means. To wit:

Woman kills homeless man who asked her to move her Porsche SUV

Woman pulls gun at Walmart over last notebook

I grew up with guns and hunting, both let’s-kill-something-because-we-can-hunting and we-need-food hunting. My dad killed himself with a handgun when I was six. Maybe he would have killed himself anyway with a knife, razor blade, car exhaust fumes…. I don’t know. But the fact is that he killed himself with a handgun. I’m biased. I freely admit that.

As my wise old grandmother also said, “When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.”