Ebb and Flow

I'm a little verklempt this evening, my Giants broke my heart in the 9th at Washington DC. Call it the bottom of the tide...

I finally triumphed over biology and got my power nap in before I woke up at 5AM and watched the LIVE broadcast of the Tour de France's Stage 5 from Saint-Quentin, France.

It turns out I should have fallen back to sleep with 3km to go because once again I had to watch a Team CorduroyPlanet sprinter hit the pavement at high speed.

Yesterday it was World Champion Mark Cavendish who was lucky to escape with only road rash and torn clothing. Seeing Cav sitting on the pavement with his helmet all cracked up, and his jersey in shreds, you could see his disappointment as his goal of winning the green Sprinter's Jersey vanished into the sodden French atmosphere.

I expect Cavendish will not make it to the final stage in Paris...he'll say screw it, and save his body and mind for the London Olympics.

Today Team Garmin-Sharp's Tyler Farrar was knocked to the pavement near the end of the stage. Bloodied, he picked himself up again and soldiered home, dead last, 4:07 behind the winner's bunch.

Farrar had to be restrained after the stage as he was marching towards the team bus of the rider who knocked him to the ground. I understand his frustration...Tyler has been knocked off his mount three days in a row. I'd want to give the latest guy with sharp elbows a piece of my mind too...and maybe poke him in the chest with my finger while I was at it.

Today's Stage 6 is the last pure "Sprinter's Stage" until that final stage on the Champs-Élysées in two weeks time. Tyler Farrar has Olympic aspirations too, so I expect he'll bail in enough time to fully recover for London 2012. Such is the ebb and flow of pro cycling's Grand Tours...

Mayors To Your Battle Stations!
There's USS Iowa news from Independence Day, it too is the bottom of the tide as it turns out.

The bigwigs of the city of Los Angeles hosted Iowa bigwigs for the dedication of the USS Iowa Museum at San Pedro in Los Angeles Harbor. Unfortunately, Iowa's Governor Branstad choked on a piece of carrot and was sent to the hospital at the insistence of his hosts. Branstad protested, but made the trip to the hospital. He was fine, just as he claimed before the trip to the big building full of Doctors, nurses and sick people...

Across the country, on New York City's Coney Island, svelte Californian, Joey Chestnut ate 68 "Hot Dogs and Buns" to win the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest for the 6th year in a row. NYC Mayor, Michael Bloomberg made a speech congratulating the winners, then wondered aloud: "Who wrote this s**t?" The video is on YouTube, bottom feeders.

I found this just a little ironic. Mayor Bloomberg has been making a name for himself as NYC's Nanny Mayor, legislating against salty, fattening, and sugary foods in the Big Apple... to see him praise Joey Chestnut for gobbling down 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, while crusading to outlaw soda pop to-go in cups larger than 16oz, seems to this observer of the passing scene, as capital H hypocrisy...low tide indeed...

British Grand Prix Weekend Begins
On tap overnight? Formula One's Free Practice One from Silverstone streams LIVE at 2AM PDT...gotta nap in shifts to get it all in LIVE...good night!

Bahrain: The Plot Thickens

As I expected, things aren't as rosy in Bahrain as apologists for the ruling Royals have been saying in the lead-up to Sunday's Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix.

Wednesday night, a car carrying four members of the Force India F1 Team became caught in traffic stemming from an anti-government demonstration, when several Molotov Cocktails landed in their vicinity and burst into flames. No one was injured, but a couple of team members have left the Kingdom.

Tensions Rise in Bahrain after F1 Team Car Incident.

Force India Driver Nico Hulkenburg speaks about the incident.

Force India vows to race in Bahrain.

SpeedTV's Bob Varsha opines on events in Bahrain.

Several Top F1 racers are terse and tight-lipped about the potential risks of being in Bahrain.

Protesters vow to stage a large demonstration outside Bahrain International Circuit Sunday

Free Practice One runs Friday morning at 12AM PDT

More updates as events dictate. Stay tuned!

The Bleat Goes On

Wow, what a race in Shanghai! Lots of passing, though the host broadcasters managed to miss most of the action following the leader who was more than 20 seconds ahead of the second place runner.

Giants baseball was up and down over the weekend, but they got their four runs and beat the Phillies 4-2 Tuesday night, and Santiago Casilla notched his first save Post-Wilson. Buster Posey even stole 3rd base. Things seem to be returning to normal.

On the other side of the world, Formula One folks are trickling into Bahrain. A few drivers flew directly from Shanghai to Bahrain.

I found a Formula One journalist on Twitter who was on the same plane as the early arrivals. @ianparkesf1 has been the best conduit to what's happening on the ground in Bahrain that I've found. @ianparkesf1 has been tweeting LIVE from Bahraini demonstrations for two days and counting.

If you're curious about what's happening in the Island Kingdom just read @ianparkesf1 's Twitter Profile. His dispassionate reporting and photos tell the story. So far the demonstrations are standard Middle East fare...police with megaphones, protesters with Molotov Cocktails (Petrol Bombs) at ready, bonfires in the middle of the streets and rock throwing, with police responding via tear gas once the Molotov Cocktails fly.

@ianparkesf1 's overview of Bahrain...scroll down past the betting come-ons. Here's @ianparkesf1 Demonstration Story

Telling isn't it that the pictures show the protests are far from the glittering, modern glass and steel wonderland of the Capital's downtown. These streets could be in Bin Laden's Abbottabad, Pakistan by the looks of them.

Like I said, I have a bad feeling about this.

More Politics

I'll keep it short today...it's been a busy week and I'm too tired to stay up for the Craig Ferguson Show...and it couldn't be from the Giants victory in Denver this afternoon, or the Formula One Practice 1 I streamed after dinner...or the exciting extra innings victory by the Reno Aces, who tied it in the 9th with two outs, to come back in the 13th (after the Salt Lake City Bees loaded the bases with no outs in the 12th!) to end their five game losing streak.

There was some drama in the Giants/Rockies game...closer Brian Wilson turned his ankle with two outs in the ninth, and the bases loaded. He visibly lost some heat on his fastball and cutter, walked in a run before throwing 32 pitches total, and rang up the Rockies 4-2 for his first save of the 2012 season.

The just ended P2 from Shanghai, China was dry, unlike P1. No major drama, but cool temps kept the grip scarce, and the speeds down.


The big drama came from a closed door meeting. "F1's commercial rights holder held a meeting with team principals in the Shanghai paddock to talk about the Bahrain situation - with the FIA having confirmed earlier in the day that the race will be going ahead."

So F1 will race in Bahrain...it's a guaranteed payday for the teams. This can't end well.

I found out it's not just the Bahrain Grand Prix scheduled for this weekend. The FIA is bringing GP2 to Bahrain next weekend too!

I hope they know what they're doing...Formula One is the epitome of "The 1%", and the gloss will be off the jewel should the worst happen.

Not one but two thumbs in the eye? I don't get it...

Good night...

Information Overload

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Truckee. It's forecast to reach nearly 60F this afternoon. I tell ya, it feels like the 70s on the front porch once the sun moves around to the west side of the DaveCave.

I didn't have anything to say last night, so here I am 8+ hours late to scratch out a screed.

The truth is I'm a little numb...my lost wallet made a lot more stress than I needed at this time.

I got a good night's sleep and got up in time to listen to Farmer Fred Hoffman's Garden Talk Shows this morning.

Sunday's second Cactus League game for the San Francisco Giants is streaming on KNBR.com from Scottsdale, AZ...while I've got NASCAR racing from Phoenix on the tube with the sound off.

This is weird! The Giants-Diamondbacks game is being delayed by...a swarm of bees...now the Giants Announcers are calling the play by play of the stadium maintenance crews, who they described as looking like something out of "Ghostbusters", as they try to rid the stadium of the huge swarm...confusion reigns as the D-Backs players take to the field...except for the guys on the right field side where the swarm action is!

The delay is almost 20 minutes now, and the swarm is now in the Giants' dugout! The play by play is fascinating! None of these guys has a clue about bee swarms. I made a plea via Twitter for some photos...to no avail...

Now 40 minutes...still no beekeeper on site...OMG! 41 minutes in, and the game resumes with the swarm still hanging in the Giants' dugout!

I heard on the Trainwreck News this morning that sunset is after 5PM now...bee swarms are usually a springtime thing, though sometimes they will swarm later in summer if the hive outgrows it's home...

Speaking of information, my cloud-based backup vendor, Carbonite.com is suddenly in the news...In the wake of Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh's unfortunate dissing of a Georgetown Law Student on his show, Carbonite has dropped his show as a sponsor...Carbonite was a major advertiser on Rush's show...

Now I listen to Rush from time to time, after being a regular listener a few years back. I don't really have a dog in this fight, but the Left has been looking to silence him for years...good luck with that...

What scares me about the whole kerfuffle is this...Seven Rush advertisers have dropped Rush now...and in reading about it, I found that the conservatives who love Rush are mounting a counterattack to those advertisers who dropped Rush...

One account I read cited Carbonite's financials...they've never made a dime since they started...in fact they've lost millions a year since they went live.

From their most recent quarterly filing with the SEC:

"We experienced net losses of $17.4 million for 2008, $19.2 million for 2009, $25.8 million for 2010, and $17.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2011, respectively, and have an accumulated deficit of $94.3 million as of September 30, 2011."

Doing the math, that's $156.7 million down the drain! I fear if the Conservative Social Media folks can mount a campaign half as effective as the DumpRush forces, Carbonite might go down the drain with all my cherished photos and files! Carbonite has shareholders, they'll have a say if the stock starts tanking!

No wonder I'm burnt out! I fear I need a new apolitical backup service...ASAP...

Paradox

You can take the groomer outta the tractor, but you can't take the weathergeek outta the groomer I guess.

I awoke after my afternoon nap (it is Body Clock resetting time after all) and turned on the TV news. They said showers were coming...a quick click to Magnifeye.com's webcams told the story.

Wet roads in the foothills, Blue Canyon had rain (hence no TV reporters doing remotes) Sunshine from Donner Summit to the State Line.

It's almost 1AM and the precip never got here...or much past Blue Canyon for that matter...

I had a fine old day watching C-Span. They had extensive coverage of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC. The three leading GOP candidates speechified, along with pundits galore. Fully half of the attendees are under 25 years old.

After the late news, I saw MTV's Kurt Loder on a late night chat show. I remember him from when MTV came to Truckee in 1988. He looks old...what the hell? I'm old now too!

24 years have past...does MTV have any M on it anymore? I gave up on MTV when it became all game shows and reality shows back in the 90s...

Revelations

Not the Bible book...no tablets from on high...just some ah-ha moments from my world this week...

I've been enduring a long two week siege from my chest cold...so I'm extra weary every day...fortunately, Mother Nature gave us a break in the weather, no new snowfall all week...less snow shoveling, more shuteye time...plus my fever broke after a week.

Then this massacre in Tuscon Saturday lit up the TV and radio with the non-stop drumbeat of partisan politics...four endless days of (dare I say it?) Vitriol...arrrgggghhhhh!

Let me up...shut up...just another crazy person who shot up a bunch of innocent bystanders while trying to kill the object of his twisted stalking mission...the shooter snapped when the congresswoman didn't give enough credence to the shooter's concerns about the lax attention to grammar by the Federal Government!

I, like most Americans was relieved when the polls closed on the first Tuesday in  November...the cacophony of the almost endless Campaign reaches the pain threshold about a week before Election Day.

The overwrought politicking in the wake of the Tuscon Massacre brought me straight back to the peak of the campaign caterwauling...not a place I'd voluntarily return to.

Time Out!
Enough of politics...I can't take it anymore!

I had a revelation at the the fuel dock the other morning.

I was chatting up the Vehicle Maintenance Boss, Nick. I said the new pumps and motors had my old BR350 running like a cheetah...Nick said the pumps and motors weren't new, just the splitter box and track belts were renewed in the off-season...What? I'd been hearing about the "new pumps and motors" all season!

My good ol' BR350 has nearly 9000 hours on the clock, but it's running like a thoroughbred! This tractor is the best cat I've ever driven, and I've run more than a few big hearted groomers in my time!

Last night, even with less than Hero Snow conditions, running my old BR350 was a pleasure...my crew did it in spades overnight, too...extra trails galore...no machine woes, good skiing today, and we were off the hill an hour early.

So it was revealed to me that my cat is still delivering despite it's advancing age...once again politics reveals itself as America's Favorite Blood Sport...damn the yin and yang revelations...I need another nap!

Vindication is Such Sweet Succor!

Here's some climate news that I've been waiting for since I became aware of politicized climate science more than two decades ago!

Now, I'm a "Seat of the Pants" Guy...I always have been. You know the type...comfy Levis, rough hands, regards common sense as essential...I'm a German Engineer's Kid too, so I know a thing or two about reality and mathematics.

As I get more massive in my dotage, I give a lot of weight to Mass (groan...sorry!)

I've just never bought into the CO2 theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. The minuscule  portion of the atmosphere made up of CO2 molecules just wasn't weighty enough to do all the horrible things the AGW Alarmists were saying it was doing...even if Mankind raised the levels of Atmospheric CO2 tenfold!

It's the water stupid! (to hijack a meme from today's political dust-ups)

Earth's Oceans outweigh Earth's Atmosphere by many orders of magnitude. Oceans are many times more dense, too. Throw in all of Earth's living feedback loops, and the only possible conclusion to the question, "Who's in the Climate Driver's Seat?" is our Oceans powered by the Sun.

Some Science Guys at the Science and Public Policy Institute,  published a paper wherein they plotted the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation + the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and compared the resulting plot to North America's temperature record, and voilà, Climate Clarity Illustrated!

There it is! Mystery solved, the Sun runs our climate.

Like photovoltaic solar power, the Sun excites the collectors, and the energy is stored in batteries for on-demand usage. Earth's Oceans are huge "Wet Cell" Battery Analogs,  that store that thermal solar energy, making it available to moderate temperature extremes in the short term, and drive continental temps over the long, multidecadal scale, that will be found eventually, to be driven by long-period Solar Cycles! CO2 is but a bit player on the Global stage! Just not enough Mass to store enough energy to deflect a needle of even the most sensitive instrument.

So, everybody, take a break! The sky is not falling, the Planet is not suffering from a fever, mean old Mankind isn't killing the planet or the Polar Bears. Take some time to enjoy our little Blue Jewel of the Solar System...everything is going according to plan (and the Laws of Physics)

Now relax...smell the roses...kick off those shoes...something to drink?

Inside Baseball

A curiously American phrase that one. Perhaps I've chosen a slightly off the mark title for today.

Inside Baseball implies dreaded minutia as it relates to something most can't or don't want to deal with or otherwise relate to.

OK, I can hear the stampede for the doors...I have it coming, I have been going on about September Baseball most of the month...

So here it is. There's just a flood of climate news coming out daily. Most of it huge in significance, too.

It's fair to declare AGW Dead...RIP
Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't happening...period. The Climate Gate Scandal opened the door on reality a little...what with all those leaked emails showing the conspiracy to "hide the decline". That is, to hide the observed global temperature decline while the scientists and the policy makers who fund their research were all shouting "the planet has a fever"

All week long, Anthony Watts' Climate Blog Watts Up With That, has been reporting on climate stories one after another, that all break new ground and show unequivocally than mankind and it's industry are but a flyspeck in the Big Climate Panoply.

Studies cited on WUWT have reported newly discovered Oceanic Cycles that correlate precisely with Europe's weather, and the advance and retreat of the glaciers in the Alps. Cyclic warming and cooling of Atlantic Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures are running on a 65 year periodic cycle, independent of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation! (AMO)

"In the monthly Atlantic SST record, we can observe that the recent warm phase peaked in 2005 and subsequent cooling of North Atlantic started, despite the recent AMO peak as a response to 2009/2010 El Nino. This climate shift is even better visualized in the 0-700m ocean heat content record for the Northern Atlantic. Based on previous records, we can expect the European climate to follow the SST record and to mimic the 1940-1975 cooling trend."

Simple physics says that ocean temps drive terrestrial air temps, not the other way around!  The mass of the oceans is several orders of magnitude larger than the mass of the atmosphere...it's a simple matter to do the math...my endothermics and exothermics are a little rusty, but I remember the core principals 40 years on.

What's going on here? Why is so much climate science showing up that goes against the AGW grain?

It's the law of averages, the pendulum swinging to the other side after 30+ years of alarmist gravy-training.

There's also the little matter of increased computing power, and the scientists who "thought outside the box" rather than succumb to the fashionable alarmist orthodoxy of the day.

As I'm always inclined to, I'd venture that the same mechanisms at work in the Atlantic are also at work in the Pacific. ENSO and the PDO, these cyclic temperature fluctuations will likewise be correlated with our Temperature and Glacial Records once some grant money is ponied up to crunch these datasets.

This past week, peer reviewed papers laid waste to Arctic Ice Loss Alarmism, related new understanding of our Sun and it's effects on Earth's Climate Systems, and reported Solar observations so startling as to defy belief.

That's a lot of good news in my book. The debate will go on for several more years, but we will look back on September 2010 as the beginning of our return to climate sanity, when the Western Liberal Democracies began to let go of our Climate Fetishes, and started to get back on a path towards sanity and growth.

Even some of the Media are starting to report the Climate Skeptics' positions...call it what it is: Progress.

I guess it wasn't all that Inside Baseball after all...

Sailing Into the Future

It's a lazy day off Monday. I kept the web surfing down to a slow simmer. No hi-tech maintenance today, no ossified computer clean-up over at the SturgeUrge Compound.

I was up at the usual time. I got out of bed an hour earlier than I have been and enjoyed a nice pot of fresh ground French Roast. I finished going through the Sunday paper and scanned the Sunday circulars and the Fry's Electronics ad on the back page of the front section of the daily broadsheet.

There it was! The multi-function EPSON printer I've been waiting on...for half-off of retail! It's the current top of the line Artisan Series multi. Printer/copier/scanner/fax all rolled into one.

Like I've always boasted, the price will come to me. Score one for TruckeeDave.

Sunday night before I turned in, I saw a tweet announcing that the Golden Gate Yacht Club and the 34th America's Cup Defender Syndicate press conference to announce the plans for the 34th America's Cup, was streaming LIVE in just a couple of hours. 1:00PM Valencia, Spain time. 0400 here.

Monday afternoon, after I snatched up my killer deal on the EPSON, I surfed the 'net over to the 34th America's Cup website, to see what they're proposing for the America's Cup and Challengers' Regattas, the year of the Regattas, and the Boat Design. All the info is on their website.

Today's presser laid out three of the four corners of the Cup going forward. The only unknown is Where the regattas will be contested. The Golden Gate Yacht Club and BMW/Oracle Racing will bid to hold the regattas on San Francisco Bay.

Lots of words are generated in media around the Bay in anticipation of the America's Cup Bid. Now that there's a plan for the next Defense of the Cup, and a whole Ecosystem of racing, boat designs, feeder series, and timelines, Syndicates around the world will pitch their ideas to the local governments and business comunities and bid for the right to host the 34th America's Cup.

Since I first saw 12 Meter America's Cup Racers racing to determine who would be the Challenger in Australia in 1986, it's been my dream to see the big boats race on The Bay.

The Protocol announced today in Valencia calls for very Space-Age (or rather, Internet Age) 72 foot catamarans powered by a Wingsail. There's some nice video of BMW/Oracle Racing's yacht online here.

I favored a monohull, or more traditional boat. But I can see the wisdom of sailing into the 22nd Century, on San Francisco Bay, aside Silicon Valley, on Super Cutting Edge racing yachts, with television cameramen on each yacht to showcase America's Cup Racing to the world.

Combined with an annual World Series for the class, a Youth Series feeding the Top of the Card from races in smaller but similar hi-tech racing yachts, in your face TV, and agreement from America's Cup Racing Syndicates across the World, America's Cup could eke out a spot in the burgeoning Internet/Television audience.

Several Syndicates are vying to host the next Cup. The Host will be announced in December.

It would be great if you, dear readers want to see this dream come true, it would be great if you let your State and Local political and business leaders know how much you want to see this happen on San Francisco Bay.

Here's some resources of like mind to help you see what's planned, and who needs to hear from us so it will happen on The Bay:

Latitude 38 Local SF Bay Sailing Magazine
34th America's Cup on SF Bay Facebook Page
eMail SF Mayor Gavin Newsom

Dreaming the Dream

Breaking News: Snow fell in Colorado Friday!

I'm still hoping that the America's Cup will be contested on San Francisco Bay come 2013 or 2014. Larry Ellison's BMW Oracle Racing won the right to host the next America's Cup in a place and manner of it's own choosing when it won the America's Cup this February in Valencia, Spain.

Ellison wants to bring the Cup Races to the Bay, but there's trouble in Paradise it seems. I found this story at the San Francisco Chronicle this morning: "America's Cup may need environmental exemption"

Typical of what passes for newspaper writing these days, the story doesn't identify who "some environmental groups" are, and San Francisco is overrun with hyperventilating "environmental groups", if by groups you mean somebody with a website, a blog, and a fax machine.

Sure, there's a preponderance of Enviros in San Francisco, some of them biggies, but Green is a Cottage Industry in the Bay Area.

I'm not sure from the Chronicle story what the enviros are worried about. Piers 30 and 32 aren't pristine wilderness...nothing on San Francisco Bay is. There's every likelihood that these piers are built on bayfill. Most of the SF Waterfront is fill. I could understand if the Organizers were trying to put up a Wal*Mart for the Cup Races, but you'd think a new, public transit served entertainment infrastructure this close to downtown would be favored by the greenies.

These piers have been home to music festivals and a few sporting events over the years, hosting the Van's Warped Tour in 2009, the Summer X-Games in 1999/2000. Now reduced to fading parking lots, the piers would be the ideal place to build new taxpaying infrastructure in The City's South Beach near the SF Giants' AT&T Park.

Folks, the State of California is broke. (or broken, really) Should the A/C Regatta go forward, the State would rake in $140 Million in tax revenue for starters. Californians, drop your State Legislators a letter of support for whatever it takes to get the Regatta to happen on California waters.

Shovel Time

That project back in the Diggins isn't going to finish itself. There is a little can of worms still lurking after all. It seems that there isn't a standard design for 3/4 inch galvanized unions. I've tried two examples and I'm still getting some weeping at the joint.

I've got a third example of the breed ready to install Saturday. Should this one do the trick, there'll be no excuse to keep me from digging and screening the garden beds and installing the soaker hoses.

I enjoyed a funny ironic thing on my way to the project at hand. I recorded another episode of the History Channel's "Modern Marvels" their story of gadgets, structures, machines, tools, and all things engineered.

Tonight's episode: "Shovels"

I took the hint...and I learned the the business end of those giant excavators they use 24/7 in the world's largest open pit mines, the shovel part of "steam shovel" is named the Dipper.

Some of these dippers hold 50-60 cubic yards of material in a single scoop...er, dip. The biggest dumpster you can get is a whopping 40 yards!

The show also toured the World's largest shovel collection, back East at some university. I didn't watch every second as I was editing the hour so I can burn it to DVD, so I never caught the name of the school...but they have more than 750 Ames shovels in their collection.

Ames shovels built America, dug for gold in two gold rushes...California and Australia...built the Panama and Erie canals, and built most all of America's railroads.

I looked it up. The Stonehill Industrial History Center is at Stonehill College, Easton, Massachusetts. First made in 1774 at North Bridgewater, MA, Ames shovels were built in Easton since 1803.

By the 1850's, the Ames Brothers were successful businessmen, and one of them became the US Representative from Massachusetts, and was a big mover and shaker in getting Congress to fund the Transcontinental Railroad.

When I was in 7th grade, I visited Promontory Point, Utah where the Golden Spike was driven in 1869. Even though the golden spike was driven 95 years earlier, there were still many rusted, abandoned Ames shovels laying about the two roadbeds.

I've been shoveling my driveways in Truckee for more than 22 years with the same Ames square-point gravel scoop shovel.

I'll be digging in the garden Saturday with an Ames shovel, too.

Random Thoughts

It was a good streak. The SF Giants baseball club has been on fire. They're proud owners of the best record in Major League Baseball for the month of July.

Rookie phenom, Catcher Buster Posey hit for a 21 game streak that ended Thursday. The rookie streak was second longest in SF Giants' history behind Willy McCovey who hit in 22 games in a row in his rookie year, 1959.

The Giants have been winning by playing great "Small Ball" ...great defense paired with workmanlike hitting...singles, clutch hitting, and just putting the ball in play. There are no Big Sluggers like in the Barry Bonds Era.

It's been the most fun I had watching the Giants since 1962 when the Giants won the pennant in a playoff against the Dodgers and went on to lose the World Series to the New York Yankees. The first time I ever cut classes was to go with my Dad to Game One of that World Series at Candlestick Park. I think I was in 4th Grade.

It was 6-2 Yankees with Whitey Ford pitching for the Yankees, and Billy O'Dell for the Giants. Roger Maris and Willy Mays both got key hits along with Giants' left fielder Felipe Alou. Yankees' 3rd baseman Clete Boyer's 7th inning home run sealed the Giants' fate.

Seven players in that World Series went on to be enshrined in Baseball's Hall of Fame:

3 Yankees: Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle.

4 Giants: Willy Mays, Willy McCovey, Juan Marichal, and Orlando Cepeda

The joy that America's Pastime has brought me has almost outweighed the misery our Ruling Classes in Washington DC and Sacramento have been dishing up of late.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi famously said "we're going to drain the swamp"...yet today, the swamp is deeper, more fetid and smelly than ever. Our Elites are ruling against the will of the People.

I can't bear to enumerate the "long train of abuses and usurpations" today.

I take solace in the fact that the Tea Party Movement polls better today than the Democrats and the Republicans combined!

The Ruling Class has certainly awakened the Grassroots. Clearly we need some Public Servants in the Halls of Power who care more about the Republic than their Parties and their Power. It's past time that we started putting millions of overpaid Civil Servants into unemployment lines, and cut the size of our bureaucracies State and Federal down to a size where they can't suck all the oxygen out of the room ever again.

The trouble we find ourselves in did not happen because there isn't enough regulation of the markets. The heavy hand of Government upset the apple cart, and more government regulation is only exacerbating the current slowdown of the economy. Trillions of dollars are sitting on the sidelines, investors are afraid to venture a penny in this hyper-regulatory anti-business climate.

The rest of the Western Civilization's economies are back on track, ours will further falter when our taxes go up in January, and if President Obama's Gulf Oil Drilling Moratorium goes forward and raises gasoline back to $4/gal or worse.

One More Train Wreck

This time it's me!
I guess our Magical Misery Tour took more out of me than I thought. I was happy as a clam to take the accidental nap at 9PM...and happy to wake up, knock out the dishes and hit the hay at 11:30

This morning I woke to the 0600 alarm, turned it off, stretched and smiled, and then actually woke up at 0830. Now at 0900, I'm still feeling weary. Perhaps it's the reading material I digested before bed last night.

Last night I read several pundits' opinions on President Obama's Oval Office Speech on the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Pundits from both sides of the aisle ripped the President for the slothful Federal response to the disaster. There's plenty of blame for everyone involved.

Why are we drilling a mile deep in sensitive Gulf waters? Because since the 1969 Santa Barbara Blowout and Spill, the Federal Government has put more and more land and shallow water oil deposits Off Limits. I guess the thinking is: This will save sensitive eyes from seeing oil production (like keeping slaughter houses out of sight, out of mind) and as an added bonus, these regulations will drive the price of oil and transportation fuels high enough to give Alternative Energy a Leg Up.

Our last eight Presidents have all speechified about American Energy Independence and moving to Alternative Energy. Congress has authorized Billions in subsidies and research. President Obama didn't miss his opportunity Tuesday night to use the Gulf Oil Disaster to segue into his thoughts on Energy Independence, Alternatives to petroleum, Climate Change, and Green Jobs. He said we're running out of places to drill.

Not to put too fine a point on it but...the truth is we're running out of places to drill for oil that the Federal Government allows oil drilling. Worldwide, there isn't anywhere that a hole drilled for oil isn't first regulated and taxed by a Government Entity...it's been this way for most a Century!

Do you know that the USA is the World's Third Largest Oil Producer after Saudi Arabia #1, and Russia #2? This fact seems to be a "dirty little secret" given the relentless meme that we're running out of oil worldwide. There's more proven reserves worldwide than at any time in history! You never hear that on the Evening News! The drumbeat says: we're running out of oil, and we will replace it with Wind, Solar, and BioFuels.

No wonder I'm weary! What about Nuclear Energy? France makes most of their electricity with their Nuclear Powerplants. They reprocess their spent nuclear fuel which is against Federal Regulations here in America. In 1977, President Carter banned the Commercial Reprocessing of Spent Nuclear Fuel in America. In 1981, President Reagan lifted the ban, but Congress failed to appropriate the funds to start the industrial reprocessing industry.

Reprocessing is a synonym of Recycling. This year we celebrated the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day...I made it a point to watch the News Coverage on TV...lots of recycling stories...no reprocessing stories...

What of Solar Power? There's a battle brewing to stop a huge Commercial Solar Power Station in the Mojave Desert. Environmentalists don't favor the Transmission Lines needed to bring the Green Megawatts to population centers.

Wind Power? No, it kills migrating birds.

A large scale Windpower Project off Cape Cod is suffering another fate...NIMBY, Not In My Back Yard!

How about HydroPower? Save the fish. (I'm on board with this one...I like fish, and I dislike Waterskiing/HydroPower Reservoirs more than I like Wild Rivers and Wild Salmon!)

Natural Gas? See Petroleum Regs...

No wonder I'm weary...

Moving On

One More Train Wreck
At the risk of driving CorduroyPlanet into a ditch beside the Information Superhighway, and becoming a Train Wreck myself...I have one more thought on the subject of Train Wrecks...Big Media Division.

This morning I was listening to Armstrong and Getty, the Sacramento based Radio Talk Show. I'm a regular listener, and frequently start my day chortling away at their funny mix of comedy, culture, and political observation. They don't hit you over the head with the Politics, rather they mine that rich vein for the hypocrisy...all the better to highlight the hilarity therein.

The Set-Up
Tuesday, Americans in twelve states went to the polls, to choose in Primary Elections, who would run in November for various State and Federal Offices. Most of the Political Coverage on TV has been trumpeting the "Anti-Incumbent Ferver" supposedly sweeping the country. Armstrong and Getty addressed the subject by playing clips from the Cable TV's Comedy Central show, "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. Stewart's hilarious take on the Primaries and more pointedly, his take on Big Media's Anti-Incumbent Narrative can be viewed here. The bit begins about a minute into the show and runs about five minutes. Can't watch at work, or prefer to listen? You can hear Armstrong and Getty's show here. Stewart's bit begins around 30 minutes into the podcast.

Hitting the high points for those who are too busy to watch the clip, Stewart's bit began with clips of many Talking Heads referencing the Anti-Incumbent mood of the Electorate. Stewart then lowered the boom on the media citing these results:

In 84 Major Races with Incumbents...82 Incumbents won. Of the two who didn't win, one was forced into a Runoff Election. There was ONE incumbent who lost, Nevada's Republican Governor, who began losing his re-election bid almost from the first day of his term.

While serving his first term, Governor Gibbons was accused first of "using State Resources to pursue an extramarital affair", then sued for sexual harassment, then accused of "impeding an ongoing criminal investigation", and finally endured a bitter divorce battle. This in a state of Fiercely Independent Westerners who voted 53% for Barack Obama in 2008.

My take home from Stewart's bit was this: Big Media was more concerned with maintaining their Anti-Incumbent Voter Narrative! Radio funnymen, Armstrong and Getty this morning said that among all of Big Media's News Outlets, only the Daily Show reported that 82 of the 84 Incumbents did not lose their re-election bids! Stewart did a fine and funny job of skewering Big Media for it!

So, in 2010's America it's come to this...Given today's media landscape, if you want Hard News you need to watch a Talk Show on a Cable TV Comedy Network, or listen to a Comedy Talk Radio Program! The Daily Show actually won two Peabody Awards for TV Journalism for their coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Elections!

Is it any wonder that Big Media continues to run off the rails?

Big Media's slavish flogging of their precious narrative instead of just reporting the facts is exactly why Big Media is an ongoing Train Wreck! Americans won't pay to be lied to! They've been voting with their feet for a number of years...witness the cratering of Newspaper Circulation, and Network TV Viewership, as well as the crashing stock prices of former Blue Chip Media Companies. Even the New York Times, "America's Newspaper of Record" is selling off assets before they become worthless!

Is it just a coincidence that the sources I cite here are "New Media" sources? No, it is The Story!

I want to know what is really going on in my country, my neighborhood, and around the world. Sadly, like millions of other former customers of the Legacy Media, I've had to search out Alternative Sources to get the News every day.

"Alternative Media" or "New Media" is already well on it's way to becoming the new "Mainstream Media"

In the Marketplace the "Consumer is King." Media who report the facts will prevail...unless reckless bureaucrats decide that Big Media is "Too Big To Fail"

Should that come to pass...well, that is a whole different story.

Where To Begin

Reality? Where to end is more on my mind today...(I'm still up Tuesday afternoon, drat it all!)

Ski season ends Sunday. Thinking back over this first year of CorduroyPlanet, I'm sorry to admit that I didn't pen enough nuts and bolts grooming stuff...instead I dithered about...spewing about fishing, days off, and gadgets. I'll need to work on my discipline going forward!

Oh, I did do a half-dozen Grooming 101 blogs, but I fear I didn't do nearly enough material to demystify Slope Grooming for the uninitiated. This is a sad state of affairs, as Grooming is a fairly esoteric discipline to the civilian ranks. Mountain Folks, Pass Holders and Resort Workers grok the world of corduroy making by the very act of osmosis...being around it day in and day out, makes the bailiwick pedestrian, familiar, and ordinary. There's so much to it, that I know I won't tire of telling my story anytime in the foreseeable future. Herein lies the rub...I've been doing this for 30 years...so much of it is second nature now...part of me...what I am...what I do.

It's easy to miss the forest for the trees when you're a forest dweller. In a few months, about the time the light changes towards the autumnal, I'll get the itch again, and I'll bust out of the gates, firing an all cylinders...covering the nuts and bolts with renewed vigor.

This space will still publish five days a week, though the focus will soften even more...more cuisine, fishing, gardening, history, gizmos and politics will fill the days until the snow flies once again...I'll try to keep it anchored to My Mountain and Grooming...but I am a "Go with the Flow" Guy!

I'm turning off the laptop now, one more try at some shuteye before I head up the hill to work tonight. Just let me thank you all for paying me any mind at all...I'm humbled knowing you're out there clicking on my shit. Thank you all.

Redeclared

I got the news Tuesday that my newest friend passed away last week.

David was a very interesting guy. An American, he was born in Rhodesia to American Missionary Parents. Returning to the States, he got his college degree and met and married his sweetheart Janie.

David and Janie returned to Africa and did their missionary work until they began their family, and returned to the states to raise said family and teach in Public Schools.

I met David and Janie at my Mom's monthly church luncheons a year or two back. Dave fascinated me. He was a real Weather Geek just like me. Only all of his hands-on experience was from Central Africa. We'd get to gabbing over the monthly luncheon, and the time flew by. Gardening enchanted us both, and skiing. We held similar political philosophies as well. We're Conservatives who believe in America's Founding Principals. It's funny...I marched in the streets in the 60's, but some would brand me a Redneck Hippie today...well, whatever.

David who was nearly Eighty years young fell and broke his hip last month. We missed him at the Luncheon. I called the tiny redheaded firecracker Jackie, who organizes and caters the Church Luncheons (and does all the planning and decorating, publicity...etc) to get Dave and Janie's snail mail address so I could chide David into limping in to next month's soiree. She broke the sad news to me...David caught pneumonia in the hospital and never rallied. Another death by contagious hospital...

While I was on the phone with Jackie, I watched President Obama sign his Healthcare Takeover Bill on TV (with the sound off) Later I caught the replay where Obama droned on about the 100 years the Progressives have tried to "give all Americans Universal Healthcare"

In my estimation, it took the Progressives 100 years before the stars aligned enough to put this sham past the American People, despite the fact that almost 70% didn't want what Obama and the rest of them were peddling!

Should this travesty clear the Constitutional challenges and become law, the Federal Government will exercise total control over one half of America's economic engine! There's been a lot of noise coming from the Tea Party side calling this Socialism. I beg to differ, it's Fascism...textbook Fascism. Ask Mussolini, look it up. Top-Down central control of the markets has never worked throughout history...never...not once.

The troubles with America's Healthcare Sector are NOT a result of under-regulation. The burgeoning of Healthcare costs can be traced linearly to Government meddling in the Medical Markets...going back to the Post-War wage controls imposed by the Truman administration.

Hoping to stave off a wave of wage inflation when our returning armed forces rejoined the workforce, wage controls were instituted, so the employers instead offered medical benefits instead of higher wages. Today, 85% of Workers get their Health Insurance from their employers. Third Party Payers take the consumer out of the equation, stifling efficiency of the market.

I remember our Family Doctor made lots of House Calls when I was little. Dr Lewis would come look at us kids, reassure Mom, and she would write a check to Dr Lewis for around $20! Today that would come to around $80...House Calls ended when Medicare came into being as part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. That was the second big disturbance in the healthcare market.

Next up? Senator Kennedy's creation...HMO's...more upsetting of the market. Today, even before the President signed, a full 50 cents of every healthcare dollar spent in America is spent by Government!

So, here we are. the final nail in the Medicine Market's coffin. It's a sad day...stay tuned!

I Declare!

It seems that I confused some readers when I wrote "Mutiny" this week judging by this Comment from gee_oh_jo:

"OMG! Lunch and break times use to NOT EXIST before the laborers had their share of being taken advantage of by management. Break times are mandated by safety laws that laborers sweated for, lost lives for and finally won!!! That's a significant part of the U.S. economic history. One should receive a 10 minute break every two hours on company time. A 1/2 hour punch out time for lunch is customary OP.
How you can relate the DI to work procedures is kinda a stretch. Later on down the slope. "

I believe gee_oh_jo is my friend BajaBabe, from the Great Green North. BajaBabe's from the Cold Upper Midwest originally, and her Family has deep roots in the Farm Labor Party. Railing about "Work Rules" was like waving a bright red cape in front of an angry bull...BB's hardwired that way.

My intent was to use the New Lunch Break Regime to ramp up to my bit about the CARB Regs requiring new diesel engines in most applications across California, and to the Declaration of Independence and the problem with our Governments' ever burgeoning intrusions into American's lives.

I'll reiterate my point:
"I've been hearing libertines say: "Keep the government out of the bedroom" for decades. Today apparently, the government is welcome in our dining rooms, kitchens and pantries, bathrooms and laundry rooms, and everywhere else from our highways to byways, schools, businesses, workplaces and hospitals."

In 1992, President George HW Bush signed into law the "Energy Policy Act" which mandated the 1.6 gallon per flush toilets. In no time at all, the most smuggled item across our border with Canada became Old School Toilets!

Eighteen years have passed and still we tolerate this intrusion into our most private of places...I'd guess that today the most smuggled item is Cigarettes...across International Borders...and across State Lines because of the onerous Sin Taxes the Government keeps piling on the coffin nails...

The list of things the Government regulates "on our behalf" grows daily, raising the price of goods and services, and growing the bureaucracy ever larger, all the while creating new classes of criminals to be suffered and dealt with.

Government grows during Good Times and Bad Times...always growing and consuming more of the Private Sector, while usurping more and more of The Public's freedoms in the guise of protecting them, and especially to "make things fair" for them.

This ultimately is Tyranny...oh, it's a Soft Tyranny now, but who's to say our "Public Servants" will always strive to serve...isn't it more likely that they would rather Rule us, for "our own good" at some time in our future?

Today, 30% of America's economy is under the direct control of Washington DC. Should ObamaCare become the Law Of The Land, fully One Half of our once mighty economic engine will be directed by faceless, Un-Elected Federal Bureaucrats!

Did you know that AMTRAK loses money in it's Club Cars? Are you kidding me?! How do you lose money in the Bar Car, when you're the only game in Train?

Post Office...Broke, Medicare...Broke, Social Security...Broke, Fanny Mae...Broke, Freddy Mac...Broke...need I go on?

America got to the top, and helped untold millions around the world Declare Their Independence, all because America was free of an intrusive Government.

Americans just want to be left alone by Washington DC!

You, The Governed...have you given your Consent to Washington DC today?

Mutiny!

I made my way to work a few minutes early last night. I wanted to see if my BR350's tiller problems were finally resolved.

I parked and walked up to the shop, noticing the frozen meltwater everywhere. (Uh-oh I thought, Spring Conditions were here!)

Entering the Crew Room, I was greeted by a bunch of formerly happy, way pissed-off groomers.

WTF? I thought...Hero Snow and everybody's up in arms...what gives?

I grabbed the Work Orders and looked at the Remarks at the bottom of the page. There was a sentence that said there was a new sheriff in town and his new rules said: 30 Minute Lunch Breaks and Two 10 Minute Breaks were MANDATORY...and please record you lunch breaks here:...

Oh man, tempers flared...my guys were ready to Storm The Castle with Pitchforks and Torches! Damnit! This is costing me $250 a paycheck howled my All-Star Winch Pilot. "I work six days a week, and this is how they treat me?!"

Everyone had their opinion...their personal gripes, and their push-back solution...I'm old, OK?...57 years in the tank...I know enough to wait and see...

As I suspected, this new edict didn't come from Our Brass, but from our brass reacting to the latest edict from Sacramento...

Look, our consensual governments are overstepping their bounds from Sacramento to Washington DC. Our Public Servants are harassing us now in their misguided attempts to provide us with their mythical Utopia. This plan comes from Sacramento's desire to protect our "Migrant Workers" from the Evil Agribusiness Capitalist Robber Barons... so,it would seem Illegal Immigrants now have more rights than American Citizens, at least in the eyes of our Pols.

Given that our Public Servants are out of control today, and not listening to their constituents...I thought a refresher on the Declaration of Independence is in order.

Wikipedia notes on the Declaration of Independence...ours was the first, and has inspired more to date...there's 71 Declarations of Independence around the world now...

I'm pretty sure our government schools don't teach the Declaration today, so here's the relevant text:

"When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."

Today's Abuses and Usurpations come from our own "Public Servants" not a far off Imperial Ruler by Birth!
Our ruling elites are Over the Rainbow now...good intentions have become the latest incarnation of Tyranny... and if we are to stay free, we must remove these despots from our midst, and shrink our bureaucracies to benevolent levels.

I've been hearing "Keep the government out of the bedroom" from libertines for decades...apparently, the government is welcome in our dining rooms and kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and everywhere else from our highways to byways, schools, businesses and hospitals.

Our Grooming Fleet now wears the "Mark of the Beast" as I refer to it. These are red numbered stickers that show that our cats' diesel engines comply with the California Air Resources Board's latest edicts to ensure that California's diesel engines don't offend the en vogue Environmental Fashions of the day. Many millions of dollars have been spent by business to earn the right to wear the red stickers...alas, many more millions-worth of business has fled California for less imperious climes.

You know I've always been a "Glass Half Full" Guy. This latest intrusion into my business is uncomfortable to be sure, but I see it as another arrow in my quiver with which to convince my Mountain's Brass to stop buying Grooming Equipment and Lease it instead.

There's no upside to owning an expensive diesel machine with a capricious government agency looking for even more to regulate or outlaw!

Look again at the Declaration:
"That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed"

Have you given your Consent lately? I didn't think so...