Trying to Forget What I Saw

My reading list lately has been non-fiction. Lots of books about the ocean. The last ten on my GoodReads list shows three Rachel Carson books. Several Orca or Dolphin books too.

Great Blue Heron landing at nest

I have seen whales from above while flying a Cessna when I had a ticket (pilot licence) . There was a very small airport next to the 5 Freeway in San Juan next to the riverbed. I learned to fly there. (not in the riverbed). I have seen whales from the cliffs here in San Pedro and a few from my sailboat while out sailing. I have encountered large pods of Dolphins several miles out past the Light House. One day maybe four years ago (I forget) I was out walking my dog DeDe and when we came back to the boat and our "Local Preacher Lady" asked me if I had seen the whale. Elizabeth is as sober (sober in San Pedro is rare) as they can get and has a Episcopalian Church in Laguna Beach. I said what whale and she said there was a small whale swimming between the docks here. So the dog and i got out our rowing sabot and started the search and it didn't take long before the whale surfaced right in front of us. His or her snout was covered with barnacles.

Two nestlings Blue Herons

One year we sailed to San Francisco and during the hours before sunrise I could see the whales blowing their exhaust into the air as we went past Point Conception.

Protecting the nest

As a kid in Santa Monica we spend many a day on the pier above and below it fishing. There was a tackle shop on the pier and in the windows there were all these shiny Penn Reels priced far above the nickel a dime menu little kids have.

Osprey at Night

My mother always like to go fishing with my Uncle Carl when we would visit in Arkansas. I didn't fish much there but loved to snorkel in the lakes and around the fishing docks that were loaded with fish waiting for handouts.

Dueling Egrets

While working at Telemetrics in Gardena the guys at work chartered several fishing boats and I went out on three of fishing trips. That is the only time I ever caught any sizable fish.

Trying to get along is not their idea

So recently my reading lead me to three movies that can be seen on YouTube or Amazon. One was
The Whale about Luna an Orca that becomes friends with locals, The other is Blackfish and the disasters at Sea World and the third is The Cove which deals with the killing of Dolphins in Taiji Japan.

On my sailboat there is a Television that gets over the air signals and I watch PBS and the 23.3 Channel here which is a Japanese Channel that shows news and promotes travel to Japan.

The producers are always showing the fine delicate features of the Japanese arts especially the cooking. The wood carving of the Buddhist Temples, the bright colors of weaving and so many other fine items. But they don't show the mercury levels of the whale and dolphins meats that are sold everyday to the Japanese.

So why is it that a Culture has such contradictions?

Every Day I Remember What I Forgot

A few days ago I started blogging and was writing along with the Blogger auto saving and in the process of adding a link something went wrong and all of my great stuff flushed into the 5th Dimension. I might have been grousing about the Homeless I encounter as the two dogs and I wander about the City of Angeles. I used think as a kid that I was born at The Queen of Angels Hospital but I was mistaken and since there wasn't any smart phones to turn to for answers I had to wait until I needed my Birth Certificate for the answer.

It seems a shame that the hospital where I was born is no longer around unless you need an off ramp on the 110 Freeway as if it was and I won the SuperLotto I could have a Bronze Plaque placed there.

Yesterday I was talking to a neighbor boat owner from the South Pasadena area and he said as so many people keep telling me about the homeless "they have to live somewhere".

There are 300 slips in our marina. I was living in South Pasadena at my daughters place and spending my weekends on my sailboat for about a year. On our dock there is a sailboat who's owner lives in Ohio and spends time with himself and wife at his daughter's house in South Pasadena. My neighbor across from me (who lives in Pasadena) has a cousin in South Pasadena not to far from the Traders Joe there and he has had several boats here. So that makes four that I know of from the same area with boats here. You may have never read Ripley's Believe It or Not in the Sunday Funny Papers as I did every weekend or owned a paper back that showed all the really weird stuff.

For someone not familiar with Los Angeles really south end (San Pedro) I live in a harbor and my PO Box is located in a Post Office on an Air Force Base (I don't make this shit up). So to pickup my mail I ride my bicycle south to the beach turn right past the Aquarium go up the hill and then back north to the Base Post office.

On the street going to Cabrillo Beach the city workers were cleaning out the weeds below the cliffs by the fort.  Jimmy our homeless camper who has been living there for a while might get roused again and I asked the workers if they were going to remove his camp ground but got no real answers.

This morning the dogs and I were walking through the small park that lies below the Fort when I saw Jimmy's head sticking up in the bushes. He had lived there before for quite a while until he was removed by three police units and three city truck crews,

This really pissed me off today because we walk there all the time as there is a family of Cooper Hawks that have a nest there right next to the Fort fence.

Happy my German Shepherd ate something that totally upset his GI tract. So for several nights we had late dog poop patrols. I turned to the magic drug "chicken Soup" and today he is much improved. Jewish Penicillin even works on German Dogs.

Expanding Tour Operations

Via Cabrillo Marina

News Bulletin Just In 

Saw it on the morning TV news about LA County Deputies dumping homeless at 25th Street and Mermaid. This could be an up tick for my tour business as this morning's walk to the beach resulted in only one homeless sitting at a table in Cabrillo Beach

There was a temporary halt to my homeless sightseeing tours as I was attacked twice when walking my two dogs carrying my Nikon on a neck strap. Once at Cabrillo Beach as we were leaving the tide pools and walking up the small hill. Then one day later in 22nd Street Park by a nut case that had been camping on a park bench.

Neat and organized

This morning June the 12th I started out with my dogs, my backpack and my pepper spray. I got my pepper spray from Amazon but earlier I was told to go to Big Five and get the Bear Spray. My German Shepherd could be scary looking and barking if you were a tree or ground squirrel but he could care less about people unless they are on skateboards which tend to piss him off.

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Skateboarders used to be skaters on boards. Not now, lately here in San Pedro I have been seeing millennial homeless riding their skateboards. This morning a young guys said hello to us as he walked up the hill laden with his bulging backpack. Then a young pair had a long board with over sized wheels, a shopping cart full of junk and they were camping in the Bougainvillea's across from Crafted on Harbor. The Bougainvillea are nice to look at but conceal those that camp above the abandon rail roar tracks that were once used my the trolleys. This camp has been removed several times but at great expense but after a little time they are back in.

Happy at the tidepools

The city is working on the stairs at 22nd Street above the marina so we made a detour up towards Mesa Street picking up roofing nails in the turn lanes. I don't search for nails as I used to but still pick them up as we walk by. This morning there were 8 shiny nails. We turned north on Mesa and saw a camp of about 5 homeless (some with bikes) at 21st and Crescent. There is a shady tree area next to the paved path that is a homeless drinking rec center as it is only a block from the liquor store at Pacific Street.

camping on the beach with lots of bottles

We dropped over to Crescent that runs above 22nd Street Park and walked down to Harbor Blvd. Crescent Street has to be one of the trashiest streets around here and is probably cleaned every ten years or so. Lots of the trash is wind blown as in the afternoons the wind drops down off of Palos Verde and makes it way here.

tide pools by cabrillo

When we reached Harbor Blvd, where the large anchor sits on the corner the morning troop of about 50 male walkers were doing their turn around at the anchor then heading back to the halfway house.

There are several help centers located close to the old YMCA


Present location of the Harbor View House where plans are to empty the mentally disabled facility and build apartments as part of the cities "Make San Pedro Beautiful Program"

Between Bloch Field 
and the Bougainvilleas there is a grassy park area that Happy the German Shepherd likes because of the low flying Swallows and the gopher holes

Homeless with skateboard

The Yorkie could care less about gophers and always watches the Shepherd digging in the holes wondering what that is all about.

The LAPD has been rousing these homeless by Post Office

When we reach 22nd Street we use the green belt between the divided roadway had head south towards SpaceX and the Lane Victory. This appears to be a no homeless zone as SpaceX has security and Cabrillo Way Marina does too.

They were gone for a day while dedications were made for street improvements

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Looping back we pass the stray/feral cat colonies that stink up the area around the grill/bar and the homeless bench sitter that is west of the tackle shop. We see him each morning that we go that way pushing his dolly with his belongings. yesterday afternoon I saw him up on Pacific by the 7-11.

Not a pretty picture

Across from the cat colony stench is the public bathrooms for 22nd Street Park. Those are cleaned every day by a crew and the benches have become living quarters. The inhabits vary and last week young lady has been replaced by another different young woman.

Heading up the hill I must avoid other dogs as my Yorkshire can be a real pain in the ass when he sees other dogs.

Lucky can be a monster

Next time I will try and put together some homeless viewing sites that were not included today.

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus but he does not visit the homeless because they lack smokestacks.

Forgot My Security Answers for Security Questions

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Did God ask Moses any security question ?

I am never into brief explanations. If everyone was to be short winded there would be no Gone With the Wind , Grapes of Wrath, Infinite Jest, or Catch 22.  When you have some free time in the afternoon read David Foster Wallace. Somewhere in South Pasadena lies a  my copy signed by Wallace.

Blue Heron in Palm Tree

Ketch 22 has 2 masts but Catch 22 has one question and lately I find this  confusion when dealing with cell phones or submitting comments on the web.

"If you wish to report your cell phone is not working and need a replacement Please call #1-213-312-1234" How do you call when your phone doesn't work? 

Another similar situation is when your phone quits and the other party wants to confirm your identification by texting you. How can you answer the text if your phone doesn't work?

If you are connected to the web you are able to e-mail and you can send messages but you can't answer a SMS  message.

Landing Heron

This subject may have been discussed in an earlier blog but I forget as I have often mentioned. My Samsung Galaxy S6 met the hardware floor like a roller skater first learning at a roller rink and never recovered. AT&T refused to make any efforts to replace my phone at a price outside of Trump's Budget. 

What do they rent at Trump's Budget Car Rental ? 

Fred our local bicycle nut at our marina referred me to the 99 cent store here in San Pedro where I could hook up with a freebie phone. 

Red Fox

Two trips later between me and the sailboat and the store traveling by my trusty bicycle I had a new phone and a new telephone number. The phone is an ANS UL 40 small and cheap (free is not cheap) Learning how to use it after over a decade of cell phones experience was frustrating. The POS had a mind of its own, swiping and touching worked better on my German Shepherd or Yorkshire.

Recently it turned into a brick and it stayed that way. This happened once before but neglect got it going again. If you discharge the battery completely you can restart charging if you are in a zero state. 

Please comment if you currently live in a Zero state.

These guys are needed to kill feral cats

So I finally figured it was time to deep six the brick but I didn't toss it into the ocean as I have done accidentally several times before. So I went to Assurance Web Site (where the phone came from) and got a redirect to Virgin Mobile Web site. I had never any past experience with virgins recently so this was quite a surprise considering my age. 

(My middle name is discursive) 

Just last week a sweet child named Sandy told me I was probably the fittest person in the whole marina. 

Super friendly

Virgin Mobile owned Assurance Wireless so at Virgin's web sight I sent an e-mail about needing a phone replacement. Their reply was prompt giving me a reference number and saying they would be back with me in 24 to 48 hours. The next day I got additional e-mail saying "do to security restrictions" I would have to supply my PIN and answer a question. The question was "What is my favorite city?" Now this was strange as no one had every asked me that question before on line. I sent a reply to them with  PIN request and "

Santa Monica".  They replied that my answers were incorrect. Nonplussed as never having been turned down before by a virgin I silently mussed and slept on it. When I awoke I heard an epiphany but then discovered it was only the German Shepherd dreaming. I realized then I had never had a reason to provide Virgin Mobile with any answers as I never had ever made any contact with them. I sent them another e-mail and tried to explain that and have not received any reply.

(maybe the Virgins are sleeping)

Corvus are my friends

Sometime and somewhere yesterday I took the bricked phone to the Sprint Store as the phone had a Sprint SIM installed. The Sprint store is San Pedro now is located in the former Radio Shack location. The Sprint agent told me they were no longer involved with Virgin Mobile after the merger and he said I should go to the mobile store across the street from Vons store  on GaffeyStreet. I went to both stories across from Vons,  one next to the tattoo parlor and the other next to Meat Ball Express. At the Boost store the fellow told me they had did some service for Virgin Mobile in the past but no longer did so. My phone was quickly becoming an orphan.

Happy is my German Shepherd

The battery on my brick can not be replaced or removed and you can not do a master reset if you can not get to the screen. So I tried another approach that worked once before which is leave it alone and like small children they will solve the problem by them self. So the brick went without charging for 24 hours discharging it self. And this morning, I like the Greek in the bathtub (not the sailor in the shower) exclaimed Eureka (420 growing center) as the brick started to show its evil red led that it was alive and charging again.

Lucky is a Yorkshire Monster

Several Samsung I have had were reset by removing the battery and reinstalling it. I would surmise that when the hardware awakes and sees the battery in a discharged state although connected to a charger it could possible reset to a previous state and lie idle while recovering. So this brick probably need to go to what we used to call the "All Bets Are Off State", Last century we designed and built a RJE 2780 lookalike  terminal that had  hardwired logic and the master reset logic was wired to every flip flop in the machine and was anded with power on reset. So the device always started in the same logical state.

Wild animal on patrol

So the brick has returned from the darkness of the undersea where  light stops after too many fathoms of depth. (Have you ever read Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us ?) and my brick is now chirping away similar to the birdsong of a Chickadee or a nearby Mocking Bird telling me that another Twitter is in the notification box or more often that the Bank of America bill is due.

How long my phone remains active and in working conditions is a good question. A good question also is "Can you live without your cell phone roosting in your pocket?" Could that Apple phone or Samsung be another cuckoo laying parasitic ideas that bloom into ideas that are not your own?

Many years ago I was introduced to Sisyphus by a recently Engineer from MIT that had moved to UCI so his wife could attend Medical School there.

My sliding rock over the last decade started in 2007 with the introduction of the Iphone and my son wanting one. I had a cell phone starting before 1989 where my first or maybe a second phone was stolen out of my car.

So the not so smart phone becomes another lamprey draining my cash and my wits.

So many of the above text has nothing to do with the enclosed pictures.

All the pictures were taken by my Nikon's not a smart phone.

Things You Don't Usually See

Blue Heron having lunch

I have been interested in photography for a long time. My father took pictures and he had an enlarger to resize his black and whites. My daughter has boxes and albums that my mother had saved plus my fathers. 

Lunch is being difficult

My grand parents lived in Los Angeles and the next door neighbor owned a camera store, my cousin's husband owned a camera store too. My other cousin Sonny Boy also was in to cameras and would bring his photos (he lived in San Bernardino, we were in Santa Monica) to show his prints to my father.

Finally

My Mother bought an earlier Polaroid camera at a jewelry store on Third Street in Santa Monica that gave her credit. She loved credit just like she loved the ponies (Hollywood Park). 

The Polaroid came with a brown leather carrying case (we still have it) and my father also had a 8 mm film camera that he used to take pictures of visits to Knotts Berry Farm for Mother's Day.

My father and his father, my Grand Father could play several different musical instruments. My Grandfather had a German Band in St. Bernard, Ohio. We still have several of the instruments from the band that are over a hundred years old. 

So my Father wanted me to play the trumpet and we had his Father's Silver Cornet and Alto Horn always laying around in the front room. So in Junior High (John Adams) I joined the Junior Band with my new trumpet for a daily class. The band room was attached to the school auditorium. Any kid that grows up in Santa Monica is very lucky. Our Junior High had not only a nice auditorium but a super gym with great wooden floors.

After playing in band at John Adams I moved up to Senior Band in High School and became a member of Samohi's Marching Band. Talk about being a geek. I had three classes in fall. 

1. Marching Band 

2. Band

3. Orchestra 

and after football season was over I only had band and orchestra. Since there are only a few horn seat in orchestra and the two trumpet players were brilliant (one played in a recording studio while still in high school and the other Gary Shields was by super good friend. Gary was the typical NERD and had a Studebaker.

This must be going some where so as I artfully segue into using my Mother's Polaroid during a Marching Band trip to Disneyland. Our Marching Band during non football season would do parades and the orchestra would enter contests. Twice we went to Disneyland and marched down Main Street and gave a concert at the Pavilion next to Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

In Flight

Band members were not strangers with the cheer leaders as we always rode in the same buses during football seasons. So at Disneyland after our concert we all got free rides in the park and then there was Paddle Wheel ride on the water and I had my Mother's Polaroid camera and I was taking pictures of the Cheer Leaders and was getting rewarded with return kisses until I ran out of film. Being a clever lad I kept taking pictures of the cute girls with an empty camera.

Landing

Some where later my Mother got another Polaroid camera and continued to take pictures. she loved to take pictures of the Television and her cats (my mother started the first cat colony). My father was more interested in dogs and I gave him my Sheltie (Sherlock) who loved to chase cats so my Mother fattened the dog up just to slow him down. 

Soaring

Down wing

feeding fledgings

We going to end this blog for now as it is time for lunch,

To be continued.