Didja know that the paradise of the Pacific has become a murderous hellhole? This link doesn’t look like it works, but it does.
Monthly Archives: August 2017
NO!! HANDS OFF ROUTE 66!!!
From the SF Chronicle, an account of how the Trumpies are laying siege to THE LAST UNSPOILED SECTION OF ROUTE 66. And a few other treasures. Any of you who have kids and haven’t taken them on their Route 66 road trip, hurry up. Who knows what they’ll try next?
The story is HERE.
SHORT RIBS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS AUGUST 28 2017
R.I.P. the Sac Red Lion- State workers and others will wince (or rejoice) at the news that the Old Sacramento Red Lion Inn at the Arden Fair mall is being turned into a three-story storage facility. Apparently the place really fell apart after the State moved its nearby offices down to the Capitol Mall area. It was, at one time, a great place to stay but la plus ça change etc.
WOULD YOU HIRE an attorney who tried to bring a loaded gun into a courtroom? Andrew Stunich, whose offices are across from Coast Central on Harrison Avenue, tried to do just that the other day. Apparently his excuse was that he “forgot” he had it. Jeez, what else does he forget? He’s apparently a business attorney who does a lot of insurance work. And has some ‘splaining to do to the court.
We finally tried Shamus T Bones the other day. I was convinced from the bad reviews that it wouldn’t be great but I wanted to check out the view. The view turned out to be mostly parking lot but at least you could see the sky and across the Bay, and the refinery is mostly obscured by the other buildings. The building is pretty cool, but the decor includes a lot of mounted deer heads. It was pretty empty at 2pm. Service was quick and cheerful. My friend had a pulled pork sandwich and, for her side, she chose the daily soup which was described as “brisket soup”. Unfortunately, her soup contained a LONG hair, which was a real turn off. I had the brisket plate ($12.99) which was great, lots of brisket, in fact enough to make a whole ‘nother sandwich with the leftovers that night. I used Southside Mike’s BBQ sauce on the sandwich and it was better than the house sauce at ST Bones, which is just okay. I had chili for the side and it was very good. If I go back I’d try their chili burger, except they don’t make one, or more brisket. I’m kind of over the pulled pork thing, unless I’m in South Carolina. Their lunch menu cannot be accessed on line, which is weird.
CYBER BULLYING IN HUMBOLDT- We had a Nazi (“Johannes”) pop up on our little blog last week and when I made a very innocuous comment on LOCO to the effect that A Taste Of Bim is a good place to eat, somebody posting as “Eureka” started suggesting that I should kill myself. Well, I might very well do that, but not at the behest of a troll. I left word at the LOCO office about what was happening and they removed the garbage instantly. Thanks, LOCO!
HURRICANE HARVEY- Corpus Christie is my birthplace (I was born in the Navy Hospital there- the doctor’s name was “R Nixon” which always made me wonder…) but we hightailed it out of there as soon as I could fly on a plane. You had to be 30 days old then. We left and I have spent very little time in Texas since, but you have to be sorry for the folks going through this nightmare. Let’s hope no one else is killed. Disclosure: I have a brother in Sugar Land.
OUR FAKE PRESIDENT has outdone himself again. How low can he go? Pardoning the convicted ex-Sheriff Joe is an outrage and a specific insult to Latinos. He obviously thinks he can hang on by playing to his 30%. Every time he shows up on TV he resembles Mussolini more closely. I can hardly wait to hear what Mike Flynn is going to share.
A LOT OF GRUMBLING and objections to TWO projects that the City of Eureka hasn’t thought out very well. The idea of housing the Chamber of Commerce visitors’ services in the lobby of the Clarke Museum would read like a bad joke except that they ‘re serious! THERE IS NO PARKING!! And the boneheaded idea of turning one of the ballparks across from the Zoo into a City corporation yard makes no sense at all. This is a residential neighborhood, no place for truck traffic. Let your Council members know what you think at or before the Sept 5 Council meeting.
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Where Do Trolls Live?
Somebody has figured out that they live in Bellflower!!!! From what I recall of LA, Bellflower is a mediocre not-quite slummy area near LAX. They apparently have a high concentration of online weirdos.
Read about it HERE. And don’t neglect to check out the Russia link.
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HARBOR GROUP TO MEET WEDNESDAY, SCHNEIDER TO SPEAK
Press release from the Humboldt Bay Harbor Working Group:
EUREKA– Humboldt Bay Harbor Working Group (HBHWG) welcomes, David Schneider, President Schneider Dock Industrial Park. Mr. Schneider will speak about obstacles he has faced with development on and around the harbor.
Following Mr. Schneider’s presentation, the forum will be open to discuss what folks would like to see in future presentations surrounding the Humboldt Bay Harbor.
This forum is scheduled for Wednesday, August 30th, at Samoa Cookhouse from 12:30 to 1 p.m., with lunch served from noon to 12:30 p.m.
Barbecue Ribs will be served for lunch at $16 and soup and salad is available for $12. To RSVP please contact 707-441-1974 or email: Charles.Bean@Yahoo.com
Irish Call-Center Sells to Canadians, to Hire 1000 In Folsom.
They always said the Irish have the “gift of gab’. That gift has turned into cold hard dollars for VOXPRO which has been acquired by Canadian Telus and will have 1000 employees soon in Folsom. The SF Business times reports it HERE.
SHORT RIBS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS -August 21 2017
The current issue of Rolling Stone looks like a GQ with hunky Justin Trudeau on the cover and the banner “Why Can’t He Be Our President”. Why indeed?
I am sad at the deaths of Glen Campbell and Jerry Lewis. My cousin used to say that Campbell looked like an ugly Kennedy. True. But his records, hit after hit, were the wallpaper of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties. And the CNN documentary I’ll Be Me , was a fitting farewell. Look it up if you haven’t seen it. As for Lewis, I remember seeing The Geisha Boy in the old Rialto Theater. He was a genius. That bit where the doctor shines a light into his ear and the light comes out the other ear is genius. I hope someone comes out with a good biography. A life well-lived.
DELAYED REVIEW- 101 Barbecue, Eureka. We tried this place on August 4th, but I only posted on Yelp, not here. Here’s what I thought.
“Tried them yesterday for lunch. Place was pretty much empty at 2pm. We both ordered the special , which was a half rack of ribs (pork) for $10. The ribs were pink and uncooked! I couldn’t cut through them even using the serrated knife they provided. I showed the waitress how difficult it was going to be to eat the rack without being able to separate the ribs and she took them back. I ordered a “lunch side” of potato salad. The potatoes were cut in tiny dice as if they wanted it to look like mac salad. Soupy dressing on the salad. I ordered a club san instead of the ribs I wanted. It was actually pretty good. The cook or owner came out and offered us a free dessert to make up for the ribs (He had some excuse about someone accidentally not cooking them long enough. The “Bananas Foster” (“learned how to make it in New Orleans”) was basically a big sundae of vanilla ice cream, with a banana topping, nothing like the BF you get in NOLA which is flambeed. I didn’t try it because I hate bananas but my friend ate it up. Neither of us was impressed. Might try it again some day but either Sammy’s or HSH is a better experience.”
THANK GOD HE’S GONE: The chaos of the Trump White House is taking a toll on journalists, bloggers and everyone else. The warmonger Steve Bannon needs to get off the government payroll and crawl back to where he came from. If you’ll miss him, tell us why.
Short version this week- Trump fatigue and bad air are to blame.
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My Confederate Past
I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War. The Confederate side was definitely the most interesting. According to the 1840 South Carolina census, Clarendon County, my great-great-grandfather was a “farmer” who owned two slaves. He was probably a sharecropper. Thanks to some cousins who did the paperwork, I am eligible to be a Child of the Confederacy AND a Daughter of the American Revolution. My cousins joined the DAR but lost interest pretty fast.
My forbears had wandered from South Carolina down to Florida by the time my father and his brothers were growing up in Miami. My great-grandfather was a printer by trade and commuted to Cuba by boat for many years to print racing forms, returning on weekends. Somewhere along the line someone had joined the Klan. One of my uncle Richard’s favorite stories was about playing up in the attic and finding all these neat costumes which turned out to be Klan robes. He always concluded, “When Grandma found out, she beat the shit out of us”, which I kind of doubt.
In recent years, my Dad lived in Jacksonville FL and my brother graduated from NB Forrest High School. Forrest was perhaps the vilest of the Confederate generals. You can Google him. The high school was renamed Westside High several years ago. In a military town like Jax, that’s something.
I’m not real big on statues and the prospect of moving them to a location where they’re not bothering anyone is fine with me. I wonder if the Myrtle Grove cemetery, established in 1861, doesn’t have some Confederate statues? What are they going to do about Stone Mountain?
If my ancestors had left me a huge fortune, earned on the backs of slave labor, I would have been condemned to a life of White Guilt, bigtime version. Since they didn’t, I only feel the generalized awareness that we all didn’t start out in the same place and that life has been pretty easy for me, and not so easy for others. I try never to forget that. And I thank God I grew up in California.
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BAY AREA Renters say they want to move. Will they come here?
The high rents in the Bay Area continue to be a destabilizing factor in the Bay Area. Read about it HERE.
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That “VICE” Video you’ve been hearing about
is HERE. Please watch.