Don't Hang Up

We're being warned now of yet another phone scam. The usual advice authorities give is to just hang up the phone. Eureka P.D. infobabe, Susie Owsley, goes so far as to suggest a "No thank- you" to the person on the other end before hanging up.

I say nonsense. Keep the scammers on the phone. I may have mentioned this episode before but, just in case I didn't, I'll tell it again. I received a phone scam call some years ago and am proud to this day how I handled it:

I'm hanging around the house one day and the phone rings. The guy on the other end asks for me by name and tells me I have "absolutely won one of four great prizes...". I'm skeptical, of course, and wait for the pinch line when he'll ask me for my name and credit card information. He just goes on quoting me some supposed federal law that's supposed to assure me he can't rip me off.

This guy was good. Real good. He really had the gift of gab. Still, I knew he was trying to set me up but, being the lonely guy I am, it was nice to have someone to talk to and he was a good talker. He knew how to carry on a conversation about whatever the topic might be.

So I'm talking with him for maybe half and hour and he starts trying to get personal information from me little by little- a good strategy. If he'd asked for it all at once some might not notice they're giving away important personal information. First he'd confirm my name, then he'd chat some more and then ask for my address, and so on.

I didn't have a problem with giving out my name and address as that's probably public record, even back then before the internet, but I'm waiting for him to ask for credit card info.

But first he works into the conversation that to receive my "prize" (don't recall just what the prize was, but it was a good one) I just needed to buy something from them to try out. I didn't need to keep it and could return it right away but I had to at least order something. He rattled off four different prizes, the details of which escaped me except for one: Some Jenny Craig diet plan food.

He gives me all the sales details on it. I tell him I wasn't interested in any of the prizes, but if I was, the wife might be interested in the Jenny Craig stuff. He tells me the price is over $900.00 but assured me I didn't need to buy it. All I had to do was return it once it was delivered.

So we chat a little longer about nothing in particular and he finally moves in for the kill and smoothly asks me for my credit card info (even though I hadn't said I would buy anything at that point). He asked for the number, first, in keeping with his clever technique of trying to minimize any appearance of gathering credit info.

That's what I was waiting for. I knew it was coming sooner or later.

I tell him, nicely, that I don't give out credit card info over the phone. He gets a little flustered but keeps his cool and reminds me of the federal law he quoted me some time earlier. He insists he is bound by that law and there was no way he could use my credit card info for nefarious purposes.

I tell him once again I understand that, but I still don't give out my credit card info over the phone. He's getting even more flustered and finally realizes there's not much more he can say, at least at that point, in regards getting my credit card info.

In what seemed to be a last ditch attempt to salvage the situation, he asks me to hold on while he gets his supervisor to come talk with me. I hang up.

Within half a minute, or so, he's calling me on the phone again, but I don't answer. The answering machine picks up the call and I can hear the guy: "Mr Mangels...pick up the phone. Mr. Mangels...I know you're there, pick up the phone...Mr. Mangels, I can't believe you'd be SO RUDE as to hang up on me....". And so on for a minute or two.

Finally he hangs up and it's over.

I was stoked with myself over that. I had him on the phone for at least 45 minutes and he didn't get a thing out of it. Think if everyone did that, assuming they had the time to fool around for that long. The guy could spend a whole day and get...nothing.

Don't hang up!

**************************

Epilogue:

Called Eureka Police and told them I was hit on by what I believed was a phone scam. They say there's not much they can do and to call the Better Business Bureau.

Called the Better Business Bureau in California. That was a fiasco and I never got through.

Called the Better Business Bureau in Nevada, from whence the call supposedly came, and inquired about Sierra Industries. This is who the guy identified himself as representing. Nevada BBB says the company used to be under some other name with umpteen unresolved complaints but now had a number of complaints under their new name and some had been resolved.

I mentioned to the gal what this guy was doing and she wasn't surprised and didn't feel it was actionable on her part. To paraphrase: "That's what these people do. They get your credit card info and sell you stuff you don't want...". So, what's the problem?

I kind felt like the word needed to get out on this and called one of the local TV stations, KVIQ Channel 6. It's no longer with us but it used to be fairly close by my house at the corner of Broadway and Wabash in Eureka.

I spoke with one of the news gals there. She seemed interested but wasn't going to mention it without some live person to reference and interview. She wanted me to come down to do a segment on the scam with her.

I backed out of that one under the excuse that it wasn't that big a deal. In reality, I just didn't want to do it on camera. I wanted to give my news tip anonymously.

That was it. Except for Channel 6, no one else seemed to care.

PG&E Gives Anti- Scam Tips

The Willits News tells of Pacific Gas and Electric Company joining with other utilities to raise awareness of scams by people falsely representing themselves as company employees. This is somewhat timely as I've seen numerous reports on the Nextdoor Neighborhood e-mail list of guys going door to door around Eureka and asking to see resident's utility bills, claiming they could save that resident money. In the reports  mentioned the guys were sent packing.  I wonder how that scam works?

PG&E offers a number of tips in the article, many of which seem common sense to me, but you never know. A lot of it depends on how good the scammer is. A couple of instances come to me. I wrote back in 2008 of a guy who called me with a telemarketing scam. Everyone says "Just hang up!". I say now as I did then, NO, don't hang up. Keep them on the phone to waste their time.

Then there was the guy- I think it was last year- who came to my door purporting to be a Dish Network represntative. He even had a Dish patch on the sleeve of his shirt that he made sure to point out. He said they were going to upgrade my satellite dish and went on with some Dish sounding talk. I even let him step in the door to look at our receiver box. Then he tried to get me to sign a contract of some kind. I'm not sure it was a ripoff. I think he was making money flipping accounts- getting a Dish customer to switch to Direct TV and such. Also, maybe getting me to sign up for a more expensive plan. I sent him packing.

One of the tips in the article is something we might not think of:

"Never dial phone numbers scammers provide or assume caller ID is accurate. Scammers use sophisticated systems where they can mimic caller ID that appears to be PG&E’s number."

I still say don't hang up, unless you're the kind of person that just can't say No.

Blue Noses On The Loose Again?

I suppose they always have been.

An item in today's Sacramento Bee about a shop opening in the Sacramento area got me to thinking about similar efforts in the past around here. In the case of Cupid's Love Boutique, the name of which isn't even on the store, some folks aren't happy that the business will be selling, among other things, sex toys and XXX DVDs.

So what's the big deal? I say leave them alone. Then again, I don't live there.
*********
The most recent situation that comes to mind around here was the opening of T. Great Razooly's Tip Top Club on Humboldt Hill. As many of you know, The Tip Top Club is an "exotic dancing" establishment. For those of you in Arcata, that means it's a strip joint.

The Tip Top Club took over an old restaurant, the name which escapes me right now, just off the freeway across from King Salmon. If memory serves me correct, the building had been vacant for some years prior to Razooly becoming interested in it.

After much broohah, which included Libertarian T. Great Razooly being arrested for opening the business without a permit, Tip Top opened. There have been no problems to date, at least that I'm aware of.

There was an effort by people in the neighborhood to stop Tip Top from opening. I might have been sympathetic to their concerns, except it's not like a business, namely a restaurant, hadn't been in the same building before. It wasn't like a new invasion of their neighborhood.

I was also to learn later on that Tip Top doesn't even have a liquor license. What the point is of having a strip club without a liquor license is, is beyond me. Nonetheless, that's Razooly's business. I would think the place probably attracts less traffic than the restaurant there before it. The signs outside are tasteful enough. What's the problem?

I don't know that there is one, except for some folks that don't approve of certain types of behaviour.

I could see some cause for concern if Razooly was opening a Humboldt branch of The Great Alaskan Bush Company. The Bush Company is in Anchorage, Alaska- a world reknowned strip club which I've had the pleasure of visiting a couple times. A great place to hang out at, even without the girls, the only exception being the cost of liquor there.

But even with the Bush Company, it's pretty tame on the outside. What's the problem?
*****************

I'm not sure it was always that way around here, as I haven't followed it to closely. I do know, when I first moved up here in '73, the building on 5th Street in Eureka that housed the old Co- Op and previously Kacy's Supermarket, used to be a XXX book store, at least I think that's the building it was in. Maybe it was down the street a little further?

The blue noses in Eureka, along with the Eureka City Council, finally got rid of that place. I think they changed the zoning or came up with some ordinance, or some such, to shut it down. I didn't think much of it at the time and, in hindsight, did think the place was pretty tacky: A XXX bookstore with a sign, if memory serves me right, announcing such, on one of the main drags of Eureka.

Maybe no one would have bothered with them if they'd been a little more low key?
********

Back around then Eureka also had it's very own Head Shop, Fool's Jools. Anyone remember that one? They sold drug related paraphanelia, among other things, and were on H Street, right across from the Post Office/ Federal Building.

I paid a bit more attention to it's demise, if only because I knew at least one person that worked there. Barry Scarpellino, whose family I worked for at the time, even sang a jingle that ended up on a Fool's Jools radio commercial.

Some in the city weren't happy with Fool's Jools. Seems to me an ordinance was drafted prohibiting businesses that sold drug paraphanelia. Either that, or they chose to enforce some law or ordinance already in existence.

I was kind of irked to see that happen, even at my young age. Why not just leave them alone? They weren't causing any problems.

The Eureka blue noses were having their day back in the '70s.
***************

I forget what year it was, but there was a big stink some decades ago over the Fortuna Theater. I forget how it happened but the Fortuna Theater became an X Rated theater (did they even have x ratings back then?).

Many residents were outraged. Police ended up raiding the theater and arresting people. Eventually, I forget the details, the X rated Fortuna Theater was closed down, never to be reopened as X rated again. I believe it is open for family entertainment, though, to this day.

One seemingly permanent victory for the blue noses, and I almost can't fault them. Do you really want the only theater in town to be X rated?
*******

Hard to say if the blue nose's victories in Eureka were long lived, or not.

At least a couple sex shops have opened over the years. One, the Pleasure Center, on 3rd(?) Street, went out of business. It wasn't the blue noses, though, I don't think. I was told they either moved to Arcata, or, the Arcata store that was the main business decided not to bother with the Eureka store anymore.

I'm not sure when the other one opened. Good Relations (is that on 2nd or 3rd Street?) opened in Eureka. It sells sex oriented stuff. I can't help wonder if someone isn't trying to shut them down, although I haven't heard of any such movement.

Maybe the difference is they're fairly low key, despite being right out in the open. If you drive by the place I think you'll agree it's nice and low key with no one shouting sex slogans, or anything else. From what I've seen, it fits right in with Old Town, Eureka.
********

I'd like to think that's the key to this whole thing of the sex industries and other such things: If you keep them low key, and not right in people's faces, maybe the blue noses wouldn't get so aroused, but maybe not. That Cupid's Love Boutique, in the Sacramento Area, hasn't even opened yet and they're getting hammered.

North Coast Travelogue 4/21- 4/22

We left Eureka just before 11am Sunday after stopping at Taco Bell for my traditional iced tea. This time Connie suggested a burrito for her, too. She wasn't all that happy with the offerings the One Log House in Piercy anymore and decided to just have a burrito to keep her going.

~~~~~~

The Eel River looked nice and summerish, not really a good sign for April. Despite that, I was surprised to see a bunch of cars parked and people swimming in the river at that place alongside the road just north of North Leggett.Saw even more people swimming in the Russian River down in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Is the water that warm already? It's going to suck if we don't get more rain before summer.

~~~~~~

Stopped at the Moss Cove rest stop between Laytonville and Willits for a bathroom break. Four or five cars parked there, and a couple motorcycles. Only saw 2 guys. Where were the people that were with the other cars?

~~~~~~

Got to Willits for gas and didn't feel like hassling with the crowd at the Safeway. Besides, last time we went, Brown's had gas for about the same price as Safeway. I decided to do Brown's. Price difference wasn't even close to last time. I think it was around 50 cents a gallon more at Brown's. Oh, well. I wasn't turning around and going back at that point just to save a few bucks.

We didn't stop at Willits' Taco Bell, either. Didn't feel like hassling with it and didn't really relish the idea of hours old burritos for dinner. Wasn't quite sure what we'd end up doing for dinner at that point.

~~~~~~~

 No cop cars or protesters we could see at the south end of the bypass construction.

  ~~~~~~~

Flew through the Santa Rosa area. I was worried about Petaluma because of the supposed widening project in- progress there. As it happened, I don't know if we've driven through the Petaluma area so quickly. Maybe because it was Sunday? But we always drive through there on Sunday.

~~~~~

 As we approached San Rafael, we discussed what to do for dinner. It would definitely be something in San Rafael, but how and when? We'd never done it this way before. I suggested we keep an eye out and take a closer look at what was visible from the freeway just north from where we'd be staying. We could either get something before we check in, or check in and then go look.

Connie actually felt like finding something to eat first. That was just what I was thinking in the back of my head. I did NOT want to get to our room, turn around and go out driving again. I'm generally burned out by the time I make Willits and fried by the time I make San Rafael. Not something I enjoy.

As we approached the turnoff before Lincoln Avenue, only a McDonalds and A&W Root Beer could be seen. We pulled off to see what else was there. Just the Macplace, A&W and a couple foreign style restaurants- Mexican and Hawaiian, or some such. I wasn't into dealing with a real restaurant. I suggested A&W as I hadn't been to one in decades. Connie agreed.

We decided on take- out but, since we didn't know what was on the menu, decided against the drive- thru. We didn't want to clog up the line while we perused the menu.

Only two people sitting at a table inside. Food looked a bit expensive for junk food places, but the staff were friendly enough. I mentioned that they didn't have the tacos the Eureka A&W used to have- the best tacos ever. The guy replied they used to have them but his boss said they were too much trouble to continue offering. He said his partner also thought they were the best ever. I looked at her- Mexican gal maybe in her 40s- and she nodded back. Soulmates!

I ordered 2 regular burgers and a large order of fries. Connie ordered a veggie burger and medium root beer. Total came to around $14.50. Steep by my standards, then I noticed the guy combined our orders into one value meal plus a couple extras so he probably saved us a bit. Can't argue with that.

We grabbed our order and tried to head back without going to the freeway. There was a street that seemed to parallel the freeway heading south. We figured it might take us to the Villa Inn. It didn't. It dead ended a few blocks south, turning into a pedestrian trail. No biggie. We just headed back to the freeway and ended up at the Inn within minutes.

~~~~~

Real hot at the Villa Inn. Maybe in the high 70s or low 80s? But the robust air conditioners in the rooms made that not much of an issue. We didn't get the exact "special" room we'd requested, but got the one next to it and that's all that mattered. Any room on that side of the Inn is fine with me.

 ~~~~~~

We got going a bit late Monday morning. I've always felt you should try to get parked at UCSF by 10am. After that there's a chance the parking garage might be too full, although admittedly we've only been shut out from parking once in all the years we've been going there. We left San Rafael after 9:30 That had me worried.

I doubt the new automated toll system at the Golden Gate Bridge saved us any time. It was nice to not have to remember to have cash ready. I prepaid my toll online. If I also get a bill in the mail, I'll assume that's not working well.

In addition to getting going a bit late, we ran into our first ever traffic "jam" on Park Presidio. Traffic moving at a crawl that probably set us back another ten minutes. But, we got to the parking garage and there's plenty of places to park.

 ~~~~~

We prepare to go to the clinic and Connie can't find her purse. YIKES! Turns out she left it in our room back at the Villa Inn. This could be a problem if they ask for I.D. on check- in, which they do on occasion, but nothing we can do about that now.

I grab my cellphone, call the Villa Inn and tell the boss guy what happened. He tells me the cleaning crew hasn't gotten to the room yet, to hang on and he'll see if he can find it. He comes back in a couple minutes and says he has it and will keep it in the office for us. Sweet! What a guy!

~~~~~

Now we've got to stop at the Villa Inn on the way back. We've never gone there from the south, just the north, so I wondered if there was a Lincoln Avenue exit from the northbound lanes. I figured I'd better find out before getting there. When we went to eat lunch at the food court I saw their public access Mac wasn't being used so went and brought up the Villa Inn web site.

The Mac was right near the window and it was very warm there. I was sweating from the heat and having trouble seeing the screen because of the sun's glare, but I found directions. There was no Lincoln Avenue exit but just a couple of turns from the Main Central Rafael exit would get us there. I wasn't sure I could remember the details so used my cellphone to write down the basics. Then we went back to the truck and wrote the instructions down.

 ~~~~~~~

We got out a bit late from the clinic, not leaving until almost 2:30. Quickly made it back to the Villa Inn, grabbed the purse, thanked the guy and sped north- the freeway onramp to the north much easier to get to than the way we just came.

~~~~~

We'd have to stop to eat, among other things, but I wasn't in the mood for Taco Bell, again, or any more stops than necessary. We discussed stopping in Cloverdale and couldn't decide between the Starbucks or the Shell station/KFC/7-11 combination place next to it.

By the time we got there we decided on the Shell station. Our last trip showed they had all kinds of stuff to eat and drink. We ended up with everything we wanted and came out paying probably as much for food and drink as we would have at Starbucks for drink alone. About the only downside to that place was the women's restroom was still shut down so everybody had to fight to use the men's. Fortunately, there weren't many people fighting for it at the time.

Damn. Over 3 months and the women's restroom is still closed???

~~~~~

As we left Cloverdale we notice a big fire on the top of a hill to the northwest. We'd seen smoke from it the day before on the way down and assumed it was a controlled burn. Looking at it now it didn't seem controlled at all. Hard to say how far off it was- maybe 5 to 10 miles as the crow flies- but it was really going. Far away as it was we could see huge flames erupting from it. Not sure what was going on as we didn't see any firefighters or planes. Haven't seen it mentioned in the news, either.

~~~~~

Made it to Willits and had decided to get gas at Safeway this time if only for the price. Got stuck in the five thirty traffic jam at the bottleneck with the usual suspects trying to run up the right lane and cut into the line. Wasn't that bad, though. Good thing it wasn't summer!

Safeway gas wasn't too busy but I saw one guy that made the line cutters at the bottleneck look good:

Connie pointed out a guy that seemed to be done filling up and might be leaving so I drove up behind him. He gets out of his car. Locks it, then runs off toward the intersection. We lose sight of him as he seems to be heading across the street to the Jack In The Box. Was he parking his car here in front of the pump while he goes to get something to eat? What a DICK!

I found another pump. While I'm filling up I see some other guy pull in behind THE DICK's car. I go over and tell him he may want the find another pump because the "...asshole that owns this car went across the street". He also went to a different pump.

I don't know what that guy was doing but as we were leaving he had come back to his car and started filling up with gas. Maybe someone across the street had his credit card? Regardless, he's still a DICK for parking his car there. He should have moved his car to the parking lot to take care of his other business.

~~~~~~~

Stopped at the Leggett rest stop for a bathroom break. As I walked to the building to take care of my business my stomach started churning. Uh, oh. I need to do more than just pee. I didn't want to suffer through using the portable toilet at the Renner Card Lock in Piercy again.

So I did it and only when I'm almost done do I realize the toilet paper dispenser is empty. Like that old joke song: "Stranded. Stranded on a toilet bowl...". There were plenty of the paper toilet seat covers, though, so I used those for toilet paper. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures!

~~~~~~

Made it home at about 8:10pm, almost to the minute of what I'd estimated a couple hours earlier. I never realize how uptight the Bay Area makes me until I can kick back and really be comfortable at home.

Mayo Speaks Up and The Good Old Days

Dennis Mayo gives a thumbs down to David Cobb and a thumbs up to Richard Marks in his op- ed in the Eureka Reporter this morning.

Looks like Dennis' front yard will be a definite spot for your yard signs in 2008, Rich.
***********

Speaking of Richard Marks; Checking his blog this morning, I was saddened to hear of the permanent closing of the Manila Market. Now there's no neighborhood store on the peninsula. Shame to see that happen.

To add insult to injury, one of his commentors lists some other stores and restaraunts that have shut down in the area, never to open again. I don't know about you but, when you get older, more and more things you knew and enjoyed go away, never to be seen again.

Change is inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's always pleasant.

This got me to thinking about the 33 years I've lived up here and what changes have taken place over that time. Are things better now than they were 33 years ago, or worse?

Hard to say. I can think of a few places that went by the wayside up here that I'm sorry to have seen go and will likely never be replaced.

I mentioned in the comments on Rich's blog the A&W Root Beer on the corner of Myrtle and West in Eureka, where that Mexican Restaraunt now stands. Ever have the tacos they made? Those were the best I've ever had in my life. Slimy, greasy things you could almost suck the innards out of with a straw. They were great. Now they're gone. Forever.

Tom's Sourdough Pizza, on Myrtle Avenue in Eureka. That used to be one of my favorite hangouts when I lived in Myrtletown. I used to walk down there, grab a seat near the window and drink beer. A nice informal place to hang out.

Great pizza at Tom's, too, although I'll admit towards the end I probably didn't buy pizza there more than once or twice a year. It was a couple bucks more than other pizza in town, but worth it, if you could afford it. My favorite was the combination with anchovies.

The best thing about Tom's, though, was the deep fried potatoe chips they made. They sliced up big baker potatoes, dipped them in some kind of batter and deep fried them. Those were the best- a meal all by themselves.

I tried to talk one of the guys working there into giving me the secret of how they were made. He wouldn't say, except to mention that buttermilk might help. I tried making the batter a few times but never came close to what Tom's put out.

Tom's Deep Fried Chips. Gone forever.

I miss Sabrina's Restaraunt, too, if only cause I used to like to hang out there, having worked there for three years, or so. It used to be across from the Eureka Theater. I believe there's some Mexican restaraunt there now.

Interestingly enough, the original Sabrina's mother, Babs, was trying to start up a restaraunt in the same building a few years ago. I was looking forward to that, going back to the good old days. The deal feel through, though, and they opened in the old Tom's Sourdough Pizza building in Myrtletown as Babbetta's. Sabrina even works there.

Still, not the same as Sabrina's.

Then there's the stores that come and go. Some are easily replaced. Some aren't.

My biggest loss was Food Mart in friendly Henderson Center, right up the street from my house. Rite Aid has the building now and comes nowhere close to replacing Food Mart.

That was a great store. A real community center. Even had a bulletin board for posting local notices and stuff. Everybody hated to see that place close down. I can't imagine anything could come close to replacing Food Mart there. Gone forever.

Things come and go. That's life. Good changes happen as well, but I don't know that the good changes always make up for the bad ones.

North Coast Travelogue: 9/10-9/13

Had to go down to UCSF again on Sunday. This time we had to stay two nights, so I was hating it.

We left Sunday about 11am and wouldn't you know it, the first car to go speeding past me was a Subaru. This was down past Garberville. I couldn't help but laugh but was disappointed the gal didn't have a Kerry For President bumpersticker on the back of her car.

In fact, after that, I made a point of looking out for Subarus and saw quite a few, but no Kerry stickers. Even stranger, after I started really paying attention, I didn't see any campaign stickers on any cars the whole trip down there, with the one exception being an old Kerry sticker on the back of a mini- van. Campaign stickers must be going out of style.

***********

I keep telling myself to keep some band aids in my truck, if for no other reason than sometimes I cut myself when I'm at work. Just by chance, about a week earlier I'd put four band aids in the bag I carry around with me. Good thing I did.

As we're coming up to Novato, I decided to pull off the freeway for a final break before heading into the city. We pulled off the same place we turn to go to Day's Inn, and drive a quarter mile or so south on the road to the hotel. Found a perfect place to pull over.

I get out to take a leak but, before I go to the bushes, I reached for a book behind the passenger seat that had the instructions to where we were going written down. I had trouble getting the book out and brushed my hand on the truck as I pulled it out. Didn't feel a thing.

So I go relieve myself and as I'm zipping up my pants, there's blood all over my right hand. Apparently I'd cut myself while getting the book out but was unaware of it until I looked at my hand. What a mess. It was really bleeding.

So I ask the wife to look in the glove box where I thought the bandaids were. She can't find them. Then I remembered I might have put them in my bag. By the time I get the band aids, there's blood all over the place and I was wiping it up with some dirty napkins. I only had four band aids and had three cuts- one each on three fingers.

To make things worse, even after I wiped the blood up my hands were all sticky from the blood so it made it hard to get the band aids to stick. In fact, the first one got blood all over it and was rendered worthless. I finally managed to get the cuts taped, cleaned up a bit, and was on my way.

Lesson learned: Keep a box of band aids in the glove box, along with a good supply of napkins or paper towels.

***********

Normally we stay at the Day's Inn in Novato on Sunday night, then drive to UCSF early next morning, take care of business, then be out of there before noon and home before dark. This time, not only did we have to stay over two nights, some relatives of the wife had given us the heads up on a place we could stay in Frisco on the cheap. It was supposed to be close to UCSF, too.

The Native Daughters of the Golden West has a big house in San Francisco. It serves as both a place for members to stay, and their state office. If you're a member, and they have the space, you can stay at that house for much less than a hotel would cost. It costs $20 a night per member, $30 for the member's guest.

To be a member you pay $25 a year and have to be a native born Californian gal. Connie's parents paid the $25 and Connie had to send them her birth certificate. Then, they had a meeting of the local "parlor" (out in Samoa this time) to approve the membership application.

Easy enough, but I was a bit leery of it. First of all, I simply don't like staying in San Francisco. Second, I was under the impression, from what Connie said of the meeting she went to, it was mostly older women and, from some reference to religion I saw on their web page, I wondered if this group, or at least the members, might be big on religion.

I didn't want to have insult added to injury and have to stay in San Francisco and spend the night where everyone was involved in some prayer meeting, or some such. That is NOT my idea of a good time, but this was not to be.

The NDGW house is on the corner of Fulton and Baker in the city. Looking at the map I made some rough plans to get there, knowing roughly the area where it was. What Connie picked up on, and I totally missed, is that Fulton is a cross street of 19th Avenue, which is the street we use to go to UCSF anyway. Once Connie brought that to my attention, I figured that should be easy enough.

So, we end up heading East on Fulton. One of my worries about this thing is parking, as NDGW didn't have any dedicated parking space I was aware of. The trip down Fulton didn't make me feel any better as cars where parked bumper to bumper along both sides of the road.

We finally come to the corner of Baker and Fulton. I thought, using the map at mapquest.com, that the house would be on the southeast corner. It wasn't. So we look at the numbers and realize it was the one on the other side of the street. We couldn't see anything from the street to identify it as such, though. Looked just like any other house.

I needed to find parking now and, surprised as I was, just as we realized what house it was there's an open parking space just to my right. The allow parking nose- in on this street.

So, I park the car and we walk forty or fifty feet to the house and can see the NDGW seal above the entrance to the place. The trees along the street blocked us from seeing it.

We open the silly security gate so many San Francisco houses have and press on the intercom. Some gal says she'll be right there. She comes to the door after a minute or so. Connie says who she is and we're allowed in. She proceeds to take us on a tour of the place without even verifying our identity(?).

This place is pretty impressive. Four floors with, I think she said, twenty plus rooms in all. It has one of those old style elevators where you can see the floors pass by as you go up or down. The rooms are all nice, some big, some small. I thought it weird that all the doors to the rooms were open, too, so you could see inside all of them.

Nothing but single beds in the whole place, from what I could see, but the room we ended up in had two singles. Most rooms had a small television, but no cable tv, just broadcast channels. No phones in the rooms, either, but they had a phone you could use on the second floor.

The second floor had a good sized dining room and a VERY well equipped kitchen: Any cooking utensils you might need, microwaves, toasters, commercial refrigerator/ freezer...everything. And we had full use of it. Anything we needed to use, was ours to use, so long as we cleaned up after ourselves. Next to the kitchen was a large dining room (meant for meetings and such), where we could eat. They just asked that we be sure and use the placemats they provided to avoid stains on the tablecloth.

They also had a history room, a parlor (living room) and a TV room, with cable. Never made it to the TV room.

After the tour, she handed us our key and a form to fill out which she told us to just drop off in a birdhouse looking thing in the kitchen when we left. Amazing. Didn't even make us pay first, or ask for a credit card number, or some such.

She gave us a room on the fourth floor. Normally I wouldn't like that but, with the elevator so close, not too big a deal.

We went out to get our stuff from the truck and when we get to the street, there's two open parking places right in front of the door. I tell Connie to stay right there and I'll put our truck in one of the spaces. I run to the truck, get in, grind gears trying to hurry.

In just the 30 seconds it took me to do that, the two spaces were taken.

I back up real fast, to get the space I just gave up. In just the 15 seconds it took me to back into the street, someone took my old space. DAMN! Just what I expected, except I actually had a place to start with.

So, I drive up to the driveways to the NDGW house. Figure I can't park there but I can unload. We unload and I start driving around looking for a parking space. I drive around two blocks probably three times and there's not a space to be found. It's getting dark and I'm wondering if maybe I should just go to UCSF, park in the parking garage and take a cab back to NDGW.

Just as I'm making maybe my fourth pass, and approaching the corner near the front of NDGW, a car pulls out of a space just in front of me. A small car and not much room there. A driveway on one side and a car just to the rear. I'm not sure if there's enough room for my truck. There was. I just made it, with about and inch between the back of my truck and the car behind me and just enough room for people to use the driveway.

Problem solved. As we were preparing dinner later on, I was telling the house manager of the ordeal. She says, "You know you can park in our driveways? Just stay off the sidewalk and put one of these signs on your dashboard so we know you're a guest...". NOW she tells me. Oh well. l actually went out and moved my truck back to the front of the house, worrying about a replay of my earlier misadventure.

One thing I was worried about with NDGW was internet access. If there were a bunch of people sitting around talking about religion, or other dull matters, I'd go nuts if I didn't have the internet to entertain me. Turned out not to be much of a problem.

While we were being given the tour, the manager, whose name escapes me now, mentioned that while they don't provide internet access, you can receive wireless from the cafe across the street. Oh really, says I. She said it works. Just to make sure I confirmed the phone line on the second floor as I figured if wireless didn't pan out I could always hook up to the phone jack.

Turned out the phone jack wouldn't work as the phone was spliced into the wall connection, rather than having the clip in plugs that are nearly universal nowadays.

I tried connecting to the wireless across the street from our room, once we were settled in. There were three networks showing. Two of them appeared to be secure and I couldn't connect to what seemed to be the open one.

I tried relocating to the Parlor, as it was at least lower, thus closer to the source. I connected, check my e-mail and then went back upstairs. I tried it again in the room and this time I connected right away and never had a problem connecting again.

In fact, that signal seemed faster than the hotspot at Novato Days Inn. The Days Inn connection says I'm connected at something like 11mps. NDGW's bootleg connection showed me at 55mps(!). I didn't know it could go that fast, but I'll admit I'm kind of a dummy about such things. For all I know 55 might be slower than 11, but some sites I frequent did seem to load faster at NDGW than they did at Day's Inn.

Anyway, all in all it wasn't bad. No prayer meetings, but that might of been cause we were the only guests that night. I didn't see anyone else the whole time but the managers, who were quite friendly. Good thing about NDGW is they don't really have a mandatory check out time, either, so if you had a few hours between appointments somewhere you could always come back and hang out there for a while if you wanted.

One downside, not so much about the NDGW house, but the neighborhood there: I've never seen so much trash on sidewalks before in my life as they had around there. All kinds of trash, lots of it, and no one seemed inclined to pick any of it up.

NDGW is a nice option to have. Quite honestly, I like the freedom of a regular hotel room, as at the Day's Inn, but you know what they say: Beggars can't be choosy.

**********

Didn't get out of S.F. until four 4:30ish Monday. Luckily, Connie only made a reservation for Sunday night at NDGW. I wanted to get out of town, to the Day's Inn. Connie suggested it might not be a good idea to drive this part of the drive during the rush hour but, if we stayed in Frisco another night, we'd probably end up leaving during the morning rush hour, so what difference did it make, was my thought.

We had a reservation at Novato Day's Inn. A good thing, too: Just as we approached the off ramp for Day's Inn, you could see a big traffic jam starting, not a quarter mile north of where we were getting off. Cool. Dodged that bullet.

Turned out to be real cool. A fire just south of Petaluma had just about closed 101. Smoke was in the air, as we could see from Day's Inn. Traffic was still almost at a standstill hours later. We lucked out.

***********

Day's Inn was almost a bit different this time around. We ended up in an upstairs room for the first time. This, despite having made a reservation. Then again, I made the reservation only a day early so I should cut them some slack. Funny thing was, the air conditioner in that room seemed to work better than the ones in the rooms on ground level. You'd think with heat rising, the higher rooms would be warmer.

Once again, we enter the room to find no fridge or microwave. We called the desk and mentioned it. They said they'd see if they could find one and called a few minutes later apologizing and saying they didn't have a fridge or microwave available, but if we needed a fridge we were welcome to use the one in the Breakfast Room.

Turned out, we didn't have anything for the fridge. I assumed Connie had brought food for two nights. She hadn't. We ended up having to eat at the Garden Court restaurant which is part of Day's Inn.

I'd gotten an internet survey from Day's Inn a couple months ago, wanting to know how we felt about the Inn their service. I gave them fairly high grades but mentioned in the comments section that their breakfast room needed work, citing no decaf coffee, uncooked hardboiled eggs and such.

Others must have mentioned it as well. Last time around I pointed out the airpot labeled "decaf" to Connie, although it was empty that time. This time it was full and everthing was fully stocked. Their maintenance guy was manning the room refilling everything as supplies went short. Looks like they took their Breakfast Room critiques pretty seriously.

*************

That was pretty much it for a long trip, at least long by my standards. Made it back in good time. We'll have to go back again within a few weeks. Not real enthused about staying at NDGW again, despite how nice it was there. The wife really likes it, though.

We ran into another Eureka couple at UCSF, as we often do. We told them about NDGW. They, in turn, told us about something they found: A place they often stay for free. We'll be checking that one out soon.

**********

Speaking of Travelogues, as Erik Kirk noted on his blog a while back, Ed Denson has a blog up now that deals mostly with his travels. A fun read, for me anyway.

North Coast Travelogue: 6/9 to 6/10

Once again had to head to the Bay Area. This time we actually had a morning appointment. That meant leaving early in the morning on Monday, as we'd been doing before, probably wouldn't work.

What we used to do was leave about 5amish, drive like the dickens to get there for the first appointment (which was about the same as the one we had yesterday) but we'd have to wait a few hours for the second appointment and, by the time we left, we'd just be too beat to drive all the way back to Eureka. So, as I've mentioned here before, we'd go as far as Ukiah, rent a room at the Discovery Inn, and make the rest of the drive the next day. I hate that, although I like the Discovery Inn and Ukiah.

So, I figured we could leave sometime in the late morning or early afternoon and take a more leisurely drive, still getting there in daylight. But where to stay?

I'd noticed the Day's Inn in Novato long ago, since it stood out pretty much by itself on the west side of the freeway on the south side of town. It still has a big banner on it proclaiming Internet Hotspot, or some such.

I thought that looked like a choice spot to stay as it had easy access to the freeway and was within an hour of University of California at San Francisco. I figured I could handle an hours drive in the morning and then a five and a half hour drive later, assuming we got out of UCSF sometime around noon.

Other than that I was sure there were lots of places but they wouldn't be as easy to get to. If we stayed back in Ukiah, I thought the three hour drive to Frisco would poop me out and it might be too much to try and drive all the way back to Eureka the same day.

Checking out the Days Inn online, I only found a couple reviews (I can't find them as I began to write this) and they weren't all that reassuring but nothing that dissuaded me from trying the place at least once. Days Inn it was for Sunday night. I called and made a reservation. The online form didn't seem to work.

So, we left Eureka around 11am Sunday, much nicer than racing to get out by 5am as we usually do. Seemed to get hotter and hotter as we drove south. We'd usually kept fairly comfortable just opening the floor and panel vents to cool us. This time it got a bit warm, even with that, so Connie turned on the air conditioner. That helped a lot. First time I'd ever used it in my truck.

We got to the Days Inn around four o'clockish. We took the first Novato exit, turned right and, just off the freeway was the turn to Days Inn. You had to drive about what seemed like a mile or so to get to the Inn. I'd never noticed it being that far, just from casually looking at it.

Another surprise was how hot Novato was. I thought of Novato as being a more coastal area with more of the coastal temperatures, despite having driven through it umpteen times. It was hot there.

I found the Days Inn to be a pleasant surprise. Despite being right near the freeway, I didn't really notice the freeway noise in the office or our room. The room was nowhere near as large as the ones you get at the Discovery Inn, but they had pretty much everything you'd expect, including the largest refrigerator I'd seen in a motel room and a safe in the closet for your valuables.

Not bad, thought I. The wife agreed but she pointed out some maintenance items that weren't kept up, mainly painting and such. I noticed some trash around the parking lot and grounds, cigarette butts and the like, but I got the impression we might have gotten there between cleanups. If they never cleaned it up there would have been far more trash.

I'm not sure where the nearest stores and restaurants were, as you were far enough out you couldn't see any businesses. I actually found that a plus, but I could see how some might find that a minus for a motel. Didn't really matter, unless you had your mind set on some sort of food, as the Garden Court Restaurant was part of the hotel.

Garden Court is open from 5pm(?) until (?) and served chinese cuisine. I didn't like being stuck with chinese but, for then and there, it was good enough for me. Nice food, problem was it put us back into the $25 for two meals deal. We try to hit the fast food places where we can usually get by for less than $10.

I guess the Garden Court is named so because it also has table just outside that sit next to the garden which is near the pool. A pleasant place to hang out, I would think, but it was too hot for my tastes at the time.

So, back in the room we kick back. The air conditioner didn't seem to have the ooomf of ones like at the Discovery Inn, but they got the room cool enough. As an aside, all the lower rooms seemed to have sliding glass doors facing the pool, which I thought was nice touch.

So, I figured I'd try going online on this Internet Hotspot. Boom! Connected almost with the blink of an eye. I find that warning on the connection software that I was on an unsecured network troublesome, but it's not the first time I've seen it. Worked out pretty good except for the power/ laptop location thing. The plug next to the table was one of those old fashion ones with nowhere for the ground plug to fit so I couldn't use it. I ended up plugging in behind the refrigerator but then the cord went across the path to the sliding glass door resulting in me getting tangled in it as I went in and out the door.

To the west of the Inn is mostly just rolling hills although you can see parts of, what I found out later, is the Birkenstock complex. I went out to take a look earlier on and there were three deer hanging out a few feet from our room. Later on I went out and noticed a number of deer on the hillside over by Birkenstock: Five buck and five does, just from a quick count. It made for a fun side event trying to find all the deer. Luckily I keep my mini- binoculars in the truck which I brought out for the occasion.

The next morning I was up at five, as usual. We'd decided to try and leave by eight which would give us an hour and a half to make the 24 mile trip to the Golden Gate Bridge. Might not take that long but you had to take traffic problems into consideration.

We decided we'd try out the Inn's Breakfast Room, having been impressed earlier on with the one Discovery Inn in Ukiah offers. The Inn's room was ok, kinda on par with the Discovery's, and the Inn had a TV available, too. The only downside was they didn't appear to staff their room and at least one coffee air pot of was empty, leaving one guest fuming. No orange juice, either. But most other stuff was there and when the fuming guest finally went to the desk for help, a staff member came in and started refilling things and some orange juice seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Not exactly a good first impression for the Breakfast Room, but maybe I caught them on a bad day, or between shifts. I did notice the gal who checked us in the day before coming in then so they might have been in shift change turmoil. Nonetheless, all I wanted was a couple hard boiled eggs and toast, so I was all set.

We made it to the Bridge in probably less than forty five minutes, despite the desk gal saying it was forty five minutes without the traffic.

We got done at UCSF and were out of there at noon, racing north. I felt ok, despite not sleeping all that well the night before. I figured I shouldn't have too much a problem making the whole drive to Eureka.

We seemed to make pretty good time with a few minor slow downs. I noticed one thing near Santa Rosa that was akin to what Eric Kirk described on his blog happening in Willits:

When traffic merges into fewer lanes, there's always some people that try to stay in the disappearing lane until the last moment so they can basically cut in line in front of others since most people try to merge ealier on, assuming they know of the merge. Just like some do in Willits, I noticed some around Santa Rosa use the car pool lane to race as far forward as they can and then get in at the front of the line.

Traffic slowed just before the freeway construction area as everyone started merging into the two available lanes. It seemed most merged a few miles back and traffic was probably down to 45mph, or less. That gives the assholes of the state the opportunity to use the fairly empty car pool lane to race alongside the slow lanes and get way up to the front where someone eventually allows them to slip in ahead of everyone else.

I'm with Eric: Don't let them in. I guess that's easier said than done. These guys and gals make a difficult situation worse by making the merge even more congested and deserve public shame. That said, I'll have to admit to not remembering just what lanes will be the existing lanes after the merge so a person can make an honest mistake, as I've done before and will likely do again.

So, after about Windsor it's generally pretty clear sailing. Of course, you always have the speed freaks who seem to get right on your ass no matter how fast you're driving. I actually think that's some psyche thing with them. Maybe it's some weird aggression complex? When they see a car in front of them, they feel they must be going too slow so they try to pass them? I don't know. It just seems kind of sicko to me.

As we get to Willits I'm thinking of Eric's recount of driving through Willits and of him not letting a rude merger into the line. Will I have the guts and presence of mind to do the same?

I get some gas at the Shell station. Probably could have made it on what I had but why drain my tank and have to fill up at Humboldt prices?

It doesn't look too congested at the south end of town. Finally the merge area approaches and traffic backs up, but not too bad. Connie comments, without any prompting from me about the jerks driving by trying to get to the front of the line...I told her I agreed and mentioned not letting any of them in, if they try it with us when we're up front.

We finally get up front, near where the merge is, and there's a logging truck trying to merge. For some reason him trying to get in didn't bother me so I opened a spot for him. Then I notice, in the corner of my eye, a white pick up trying to snuggle up to the logging truck so he can get in too. Nope, says I.

The log truck driver probably couldn't really tell how close he was to my truck so he kept trying to edge forward before fully merging into the lane. On the other hand, I wanted there to be as little room as possible so the white pick up couldn't slip in. It made for some skillful maneuver play. I could see the white pick up trying to move in every time the log truck tried to get some safe distance from me, I'd close up to the log truck and close the gap between the log truck and me. I was probably really pissing the log truck driver off.

Finally the guy directly behind me gave in and let the white pick up in behind me. Probably just as well as I might well have been making a bad situation worse by playing that game. Besides, when I got to thinking about it, maybe that white pick up had just entered 101 after leaving one of the businesses on the east side of the street. I hadn't seen where that pick up actually came from. Hmmm... I'll have to try and pay attention to where these people came from before I start blocking them.

Finally, got out of Willits and headed north, the most frustrating thing for a while being poor radio reception. Weird how I got that one radio station, KWPT(?), The Points, all the way past Laytonville on the way down, but couldn't pick it up until somewhere near the Avenue of the Giants on the way back up.

So I race back, once we get past Richardson Grove, faster than is probably normal driving for me. I've always found Richarson Grove to Eureka, or vice versa, the longest part of the drive, at least perception wise.

We finally get home at a little past 5:30. Funny how I race to get home and when I get here and get out of the truck I have to say to myself: "Now what?"

North Coast Travelogue: 10/7-10/8

Got back from San Francisco again last night. First time I think I've had to drive down there since at least early summer, the wifey's brothers and sisters having been picking up my slack.

This time it was kind of iffy for us if we'd be staying one or two nights. Wife had an appointment at 1:30 in the afternoon on Monday. Normally, if we can get out of there before 3pm, I'll go ahead and try to head home. If not, I stay another night. Problem is, you never know how long you'll be there regardless of when your appointment is.

I ended up making a reservation for just Sunday night. We stayed at the Native Daughters of the Golden West Home (NGDW), corner of Baker and Fulton, San Francisco this time. Our usual place, Cathedral Hill Hotel, we were told didn't have any rooms available. In one way this made what might be a tricky schedule easier.

The folks at NDGW are pretty easy going about check out times so it made scheduling a bit more flexible. The big disadvantage to NDGW was very limited parking available.

We left a bit later than we expected on Sunday, having to double back to the wifey's parents house to pick up some things the wife forgot. Then I had to stop by Taco Bell on Broadway and get myself a big glass of iced tea for the road. That was a mistake, I soon decided, because the iced tea just didn't hit the spot with me that day like it usually does. Maybe cause it's not summer?

Saw three wild turkey on the side of the road near Legget.

As we were just north of Laytonville, something hit the windshield. Sounded like a rock and I expected to have the windshield crack. The wife saw it hit and said it was a bug. Must of been some bug to make that kind of noise. Luckily, no cracked window.

Went pretty smooth until we got to around the Ignacio Parkway turnoff a bit south of Novato(?). First time I remember traffic getting backed up for so long that time of the day. I believe it was around 3:30ish. After about maybe a half hour of stop and go, the pace picked up again and I figured that must be it and it would be smooth sailing in to The City. This was not to be.

As we approached the hill heading up to the tunnel before the Golden Gate Bridge, things started slowing down again. Finally, slowing down to a crawl, off and on. That's never happened there before. Finally, we see a neon sign stating parking for the air show is full. So that's it. We stumbled into the last part of the air show that was part of what we found of later was San Francisco's Fleet Week. Bummer.

But I figured once we got to the Bridge, it should clear up. The clutter seemed to be from the parking for the air show, to the west at Golden Gate Park. I was partly right, but the clutter never ended. We ended up crossing the Golden Gate Bridge not going faster than 35mph, if that. I know we went down to 15.

I figured maybe it would clear up once we passed Toll Plaza. Nope. Bumper to bumper traffic was headed both ways; Both down 19th Ave and the way we went, towards Lombard Street. I've never seen it so congested and it's never taken us so long to get through San Francisco. It actually would take sometimes two cycles of red and green lights to make it through an intersection.

We finally made it to McCallister. That was a real blessing after dealing with Lombard and Van Ness.

I realized later, after looking at the map, that I probably should have taken Gough Street, as that went to where we were going and I noticed it wasn't anywhere near as congested. Reason I didn't was because I'd never been on Gough and didn't know what it might be like. Looking at the map later, it looked like it would have been a good choice.

But, we made it and closed in on the NDGW Home. Now my next worry: Parking.

There's only two dedicated parking spots for NDGW and they're right in front of the two car garage. All it would take was for two other people with cars to be staying there and I'll have to go elsewhere for parking.

As we drove up I saw what I thought was a couple cars in the parking spaces. I kept driving and the wife asks what I'm doing. I told her the parking spaces were full. She indicated they weren't. I drove around the block to show her and found she was right. I was looking at the cars in front of the front entrance of NDGW, not the garages. Both those spaces were open. Cool. We made it.

Had some internet problems at NDGW which I describe separately in a post below.

Monday, we headed for UCSF Medical Center at around 11:45. Although we had a 1:30 appointment we still had to do bloodwork earlier and, potentially, a big problem: find parking. The usual times we get to USCF the parking garage isn't a problem. During mid- day, though, it can sometimes be a challenge, if not impossible, to find parking. Middle of the day like this wasn't a good time for a worrier like me.

So we left a bit early and I was surprised how close NDGW was to UCSF. We'd stayed there twice before but I'd never noticed the closeness as compared to Cathedral Hill Hotel. It took less than ten minutes.

Next pleasant surprise was there was plenty of parking space on the D level of the parking garage where we prefer to park. Things were just falling together.

Got a couple sandwiches at Subway, including a couple of iced teas. I actually bought the larger one and they gave me the smaller cup. I guess it was included with the meal. I took the big one with me to the clinic and put the smaller one on my truck's cup holder to drink on our way home.

We managed to get out of the clinic a little after 2:30 and out of the parking garage before 3pm. A little later than I'd like but I'd made up my mind I was determined not to spend another night in The City.

I started drinking the iced tea I'd left in the truck as headed down Irving to 19th Avenue. By the time I'd turned on 19th, I thought I had a problem. I started getting what seemed to be stomach cramps. Iced tea sometimes does that to me depending on what I've been eating. Was I going to shit my pants???

NOT HERE! We're flying down 19th Avenue and there's NO place to stop. I didn't say anything to the wife and just tried to control the pain from the cramps. Gradually, as we drove along, the cramps went away, especially after I passed some gas. Whew. Scary.

I suggested we consolidate some stops to make it home quicker and rather than just use the drive through at the Willits Taco Bell for dinner and make a separate bathroom stop at one of the rest stops north of Willits, we do both at Taco Bell, buy gas and then no more stops until Eureka.

Didn't work too well. Connie couldn't get into the girl's rest room. The door was locked for at least ten minutes before I finally had her use the men's room and stood guard outside. No one ever came out of the girl's room by the time we left.

Then the usual hang up at the merge as you go through Willits, with the usual suspects staying on the right until that last moment so they can go to the head of the line. I blocked one car from merging but the time wasn't right to block the one that ended up in front of me. People were being too nice.

It would be great to have all the early mergers go bumper to bumper and keep those trying to nose into the front of the line out, but it's easier said than done. Maybe some day.

After gassing at Safeway, no more stops and things went pretty quick. I don't like driving at night but was somewhat relieved when the sun went down as the low sun beating me on the side of my face through the window was taking its toll. Seemed like the ride went faster after the sun went down, as well.

Good news is we won't have to go down there again, unless unforeseen developments arise, for three more months. Bad news is, we still have to go back.

Support Open On X-Mas Businesses

I thought this was a pretty good idea: A list of businesses that are open on Christmas Day. The Times- Standard should try and improve on it next year.

Sure, I hate Christmas, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that hates having everything close down on holidays. It's nice to know you can still buy groceries, beer or whatever on days like today. In fact, I think I'll make a special effort to stop by at least a couple of businesses I notice that are open today and buy something. Those places deserve our support.

I think the Times- Standard should devote possibly a full page to the Open On Christmas business listings next year. Maybe towards the end of November they could announce the project and invite local businesses that will be open to send a notice to the T-S and the paper could list them all free of charge on Christmas Eve. Free advertising for businesses that deserve it.

************

On the other hand, I'm not sure how far I want to go in punishing businesses that support Christmas and close on Christmas Day. Some, like Pierson's Building Center, really piss me off. Come Christmas time, they turn what is arguably the best garden center (in Eureka, anyway) into a disgusting display of Christmas. They gut the store of nearly all the garden stuff and replace it with all those ugly Christmas trees. Yuck!

I wish there was some sort of action I could take against Pierson's for that. Problem is, I hardly ever go to Pierson's, anyway, so they'd never notice it even if I did do something.

Then there's those stupid theme stores that change their inventory depending on what the closest holiday is: Long's Drugs and Rite- Aid are the first that come to mind. As Halloween approaches, they fill the aisles with Halloween stuff. Christmas and Easter, same thing. I hate that. I wish I could boycott them just for that.

Kinda tough, though, especially with Rite- Aid. They're close by and have decent prices on beer. It would be hard to avoid them as often as holidays occur. There always seems to be one holiday or another coming up.

But I'm thinking of boycotting Rite- Aid next year if only because they allow those pesky Salvation Army bell ringers to hang out in front of their store. I hate those bell ringers.

I usually develop a mental block to all the Christmas, Easter and Halloween stuff in their aisles. After the first day or two of the new holiday theme I hardly notice that stuff. Not so those damned bell ringers. You can't ignore them.

Don't get me wrong. I support the Salvation Army's work and appreciate their need to raise funds. I just hate the bell ringers because I hate Christmas and those bell ringers kind of rub your nose in the fact that Christmas is on its way. They're also kinda like approaching a store and seeing a panhandler out front. Nobody likes that, do they?

That's not to say I didn't give any money to the bell ringers this year, but I'll admit it was only because the first one that showed up in front of the Henderson Center Rite- Aid store was someone I knew.

She used to be my next door neighbor not long ago. I was surprised to see her doing that and stopped to speak with her briefly. She said the Salvation Army had helped her out before so she was volunteering as a bell ringer. I can't say for sure but I had the feeling that, truth be told, she was probably doing it as court ordered community service.

Still, she is cute and I threw all my spare change in her red bucket. That was the last time I did that this year and it's good to know those pesky folks will be gone until next year.

So, I don't know if I have the fortitude and energy to do it, but I'm thinking of boycotting Rite- Aid next year from the day after Thanksgiving- when the bell ringers first show up- until the day after Christmas, when they'll be gone.

I don't expect anyone to join my boycott. In fact, I hope you don't. The Salvation Army does good work and needs to raise money. Still, I'm sure my fellow Christmas haters, few of us that there are, might consider joining in.

The most important thing, though, is to support businesses that stay open on Christmas Day. We need more of them, if for no other reason than, the more businesses that are open on Christmas, the easier it will be for some of us to ignore Christmas altogether.

Life With Boopo*

Meet Boopo. He's our new yard guest. He's an immature crow that seems to be hurt.

Last Saturday I was watching some crows that have been hanging around. They were eating stuff they'd found on the sidewalk across the street. Suddenly a crow comes flying down, lands next to one of them and starts flapping his wings with his mouth open towards one of the bigger crows. The bigger crow stuffs something in his mouth and the two bigger crows fly away.

The smaller crow didn't leave and ended up limping around, eventually taking up residence on the front stairway of the Matteoli's house. I went over to take a closer look and he wouldn't fly away. He just limped around like his right foot was broken.

Next morning he was still there but had moved to the lawn and shrub area to the side of the stairway. I'd left some crackers for it to eat but it seemed the bigger crows were its parents and occasionally, after he'd call out and make a fuss, one of the bigger crows would come down and stuff something in his mouth.

Connie went over and put a plastic container of water near him and I was surprised to see him drink from it. We could see other people had thrown pieces of bread on the lawn to feed him, as well. But this isn't a good place for him to be hanging out as he'd be easy prey for cats and dogs, never mind the raccoons, possums and skunks that frequent the area.

Nevertheless, Monday morning he was still there and was either sitting under the bushes or on the lawn. He'd survived two days in a not particularly safe spot. I thought that was about to end later on Monday afternoon when a young kid came by on a bicycle and noticed the bird sitting on the lawn.

He gets off his bike and runs over to the crow to catch him. The bird runs off as best he can with his apparent broken leg, flapping his wings. He actually outruns the kid, but ends up out in the middle of Trinity Street next to E Street. He stops for a second and the kid bends down to try and pet him. Just as his hand is about 6 inches away, the bird takes off again into the middle of E street.

Yikes! The bird stops right where the left wheel of most vehicles heading south go. I figure no way the bird won't get squished as many people won't stop for people, much less animals. I was surprised to see the ten or so vehicles that drove by actually drive around the bird.

I got there and kind of guided the bird back to the Matteoli's yard and told to kid not to chase the bird as it was injured and he could of gotten run over. The kid left.

We ended up calling the Wildlife Care Center later on, leaving a message. They called back and said it was likely just a fledgling that need some more time to be able to fly and take care of itself and we should just let the parents take care of it. Ok.

Tuesday morning I saw him still across the street but then lost track of him. When I go out to load up my truck, there he is in our yard! He was sitting on a pile of wood and would have had to fly across the street to get there (why won't he fly home?). He pretty much stayed in that same area for over a day. We gave him water and put some food out so his parents would have something to feed him, assuming they don't give up on him.

We called the Wildlife Care Center again Wednesday afternoon. The girl came out later on and took a look. She caught him and said he was a bit skinny and she wasn't sure they could do much for him if she took him in to their clinic but she'd ask her associate about it.

This morning he seems to have started moving north. He was sitting in our driveway when Connie went to check on him. Then he started moving around the side of our house towards the back yard. Connie went around back and chased him towards the front as we have two cats that hang in our back yard.

Now it's in our next door neighbor's front yard. I get the impression the crows roost at night somewhere to the north as that's where they seem to go with their food. Might this fellow be trying to work his way back home? I don't know but I'm surprised he's survived all the hazards around here for so long.

~~~~~~~

* Is it spelled Bupo or Boopo? That's the name I gave the bird. It's the name of that robotic owl in the old classic fantasy movie Clash of the Titans.

North Coast Travelogue 9/24-9/26

Drove down to the Bay Area, yet again, last Sunday. Next time you go by Confusion Hill, take a look out towards the Eel River. You can see the outline of the bridge bypass they're putting up. Seems like they're moving right along with that project. Why does this seem to be going quicker than the freeway widening down in Santa Rosa?

*******

Anyone ever use those highway rest stops Caltrans maintains? I haven't used them much in the past but found they can be quite nice to have available when you're spending a lot of time on the road.

When we first started shuttling back and forth to the Bay Area, the ones on 101 were closed, for whatever reason. I think it was a couple months ago we noticed they opened one, the Moss Cove Rest Stop, along the southbound lane between Laytonville and Willits, so we began stopping there when in need.

Not a bad stop, but not much shade in the summer when you need the shade the most. One thing I found interesting was people, who looked like locals, driving up and dumping their trash in the trash cans. I bumped into a guy yesterday who's in charge of maintenance for three of the local rest stops. He said that it was an an ongoing problem with the trash cans and, during deer season, they'd often find deer entrails and such in the trash.

Nice to have the Moss Cove option, but I prefer the Irvine Lodge Rest Stop.

I hadn't stopped at the Irvine Lodge Rest Stop in years. It's in the northbound lane between Willits and Ukiah a few miles north of the Moss Cove stop. We stopped there for the first time a couple weeks ago and what a pleasure that was.

Plenty of shade. Clean restrooms and they just put in new turf. Real peaceful stop. Probably not as many people using it as you can't see it easily from the road, unlike Moss Cove which you can't miss.

This is where I met the maintenance supervisor yesterday. He pointed out the fence along side the creek. I was surprised to learn it was made of concrete. One of those phony wood things. Fooled me. He also told me the rest stop up at Legget was supposed to be opening up for business today (Wednesday).

Friendly guy, that maintenance guy. He's in charge of all three of those stops. I'll have to say though, as a libertarian, some of this rubs me the wrong way: He was telling me he asked for more trash cans, the old ones needing replacement. Instead of just getting the old 55 gallon drums, like they're using now, his boss told him they were going to be getting "bear proof" cans that weigh 300 pounds. Never mind there hasn't been any bear problems there.

And as nice as the lawns they put in look, this is just a rest stop, not a golf course. Why go to all that expense and effort just for a place for people to take a leak? That's just the way the State works. And we wonder why government costs so much.

**********

Going through Mendocino I pointed out the Vroman For D.A. campaign signs along the road to the wife. She commented that they should be taken down since he'd died. I suggested that maybe his supporters might still want him to win. That way they could take their chances with whoever the Board of Supes appoints to the job as opposed to Vroman's opponent winning.

Not sure if that's what they're thinking. I'm just assuming there's as much vitriol against opponents in this race as we've seen in the Gallegos/ Dikeman race up here. I realized later I hadn't noticed any of Vroman's opponent's signs on the way down. I made a point to look for his(?) signs on the way back north. Only saw one, on the west side of the freeway while going through Ukiah. Vroman seems to at least won the sign war.

***********

We were actually given the heads up by a fellow UCSF Oncology Clinic regular about a place we might stay for free while in San Francisco. Turns out a hospital owns a local hotel and often provides rooms to its own, and I guess other hospital's, cancer patients. Shame on me for forgetting the name of the hospital, but it was something like Pacific Medical Foundation.....something.

We had to give that a try. You have to set it up through the American Cancer Society, I believe. Connie made the phone calls and after a few days we got confirmation for our room.

I was a bit apprehensive about this. The Cathedral Hilll Hotel is on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. First, I don't like staying in San Francisco. Second, what if it's some dump? After reading the Yahoo Reviews ( mine's the latest up there.) I still felt apprehensive, since I tended to focus on the negative reviews, which were actually in the minority.

It got even worse when I realized I forgot to make reservations for our second night at Days Inn, Novato. I figured we'd try one night at Cathedral Hill. If it worked out ok, we could stay there for two days the next time. If not, at least we weren't stuck there for two nights.

When I mentioned I forgot to make reservations at Days Inn, the wife wondered why I'd do that, as she made reservations for two nights at Cathedral. That pissed me off, but what was I to do? I thought I'd told her just to make reservations for Sunday night there. Oh well. Cathedral Hill turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

Pretty easy to get to: Just go left after the Golden Gate Bridge, instead of going right to 19th. Take a left at Lombard and then a right on Van Ness. Only took 15 to 20 minutes after getting over the bridge.

We get there and I was pleasantly surprised to find all kinds of room in their parking garage. A bit confusing to getting around in there as the signage wasn't really clear as to where you needed to go. Turned out we ended up parking right near to the entrance to the hotel lobby just by accident. Later, we managed to move our truck even closer. Beats the UCSF parking garage any day.

I was surprised at the amount of activity when we entered the hotel lobby. I'd kinda expected this to be some old has- been that had seen it's better days and now just served as a low class hotel. Not so. There were all kinds of people coming and going and some just hanging out in the lobby, reading or talking on the phone.

The people at the front desk were friendly enough. Along with the keys to our room we got vouchers for two days of breakfasts at their breakfast room, which actually isn't a breakfast room in the sense we've been used to. This was actually a restaurant. They just offered a buffett breakfast along with everything else.

I asked about internet access and the guy told us they had WiFi, but it was AT&T, not provided by the hotel. Whatever plan you decided to use was between you and them. That done, we went to our room.

We were on the sixth floor- sixth out of eight. Despite complaints I'd read about slow elevators here, I found them to be just as fast as any others in town. Sure, if you try during certain time frames when people are coming or going a lot, it may slow down because of all the stops. Otherwise, I didn't find any problems with it.

Our room was just fine, despite some of the reviews I read. In fact, we had two double sized beds instead of one there. There was a TV, coffee pot and a desk. That was about it. A refrigerator would have been nice, but that's one thing they don't provide.

First thing I tried to do was go online and was immediately a bit put off by the AT&T interface. You turn your computer wireless connection on and select the ATT connection. You connect to their web site and try to register. I finally figured out I needed to click on the Connect Now link.

The guy at the front desk told me it cost $9.99 for 24 hours. A bit pricey, but since we got the room, breakfast and parking free, who was I to do the complaining? So, I figure $20 for two days. I can handle that. Problem was, I couldn't find that in the plans they presented on their web page. They only had three options and the cheapest was $25 for three days. I ended up choosing that one.

After entering the credit card info, it told me it couldn't accept my debit card. So, I tried my credit card. Wouldn't accept that, either. Then I realized one thing my form filler program didn't fill out was the state of residence. I manually entered that and the card went through.

It said something about successfully opening my account so I figured I was good to go. I go to check my e- mail and I get the Firefox window saying page couldn't be located, or whatever it says. I tried a couple other pages and get the same thing. It looks like I'm not connected, but my wireless program says I am.

I go back to AT&T and start looking around. After about ten or fifteen minutes I realized I wasn't logged in to them. I go back and forth for about ten minutes and finally figured what I needed to do and finally got logged in. If I had to do it over again right now I'm not sure I'd still be able to just log right in. Not a real user friendly interface on that web page, at least for me.

But, it worked. Next thing I noticed was the room seemed to only have the old style two pronged electrical outlets. I needed the three prong to run the laptop off external power. I looked around and couldn't find a three prong until I went into the bathroom which had one. So, I'd use the laptop for a couple hours, then go into the bathroom and plug it in and let it charge.

That was kind of a hassle, for sure, but it was doable. It wasn't until the next day I happened to look behind me and notice a three prong outlet on the wall next to my bed. How in the world did I miss that? Too far to use with my computer on the desk, but the sill of the window was wide enough for the laptop so I moved operations over there. Everything worked fine then.

One thing that sucks just about anywhere is being a smoker. I'd thought about this earlier: It's not gonna be easy to take a smoke break in an eight story hotel. One thing I noticed about this place, though, was a noteable absence of No Smoking signs. We were in a No Smoking room but there was just a small note on the back of the room door about not smoking.

First I just went down to the parking garage, as it was almost open air. That wasn't as bad as it might seem as the longest part of walking down there was the walk from the room to the elevator of probably 80 feet. On the way back up one time, I decided to check out the so- called Patio.

The Patio was an atrium type place on the fourth floor. They have some kind of meeting room in the middle, a bunch of plants and even a small pool. Not bad. I didn't see any No Smoking signs and the presence of a few ashtrays let me know smoking was allowed there. That became my new smoke break spot.

Getting to the UCSF Oncology Clinic took a little bit of figuring out, if only because of all the one way streets in S.F. But, we made it there in fifteen or twenty minutes despite making a few wrong turns. That's a good thing because we had to be there at 9:30 for blood work and then at 3:30 to see the doctor. Five or six hours is a long time to twiddle your thumbs at UCSF.

So, we were able to drive right back after the first stop at UCSF and hang out at the hotel. I played on the computer and the wifey tried to catch up on the sleep she lost the night before. She didn't sleep well, nor did I, but I can handle it a little better.

As far as food went, we ate at the restaurant in the lobby the first night, pricey though it was. I forget what the place was called. Their web page says "Hilltop Restaurant". I think the picture is the same place but the name was Jack's...something. Good food but not really affordable for us. I ended up buying two separate orders: Steak Fries and some Chicken Strips. The wife ordered a quesadilla.

I also broke with tradition and ordered a beer with my meal. $4.50 for one beer. Is it that much everywhere? Actually, we came out ok at around $25 after all was said and done. I felt that wasn't bad. The waitress told us later they didn't charge us for the Steak Fries. I have no idea why but that was awfully nice of them.

Breakfast there was pretty nice. I'll admit to prefering the normal motel breakfast room where you just show up, sit down and eat, but this was ok. As I mentioned before, this is actually a restaurant dining room. Some people are actually buying regular breakfasts, including the buffett. Others, like us, have vouchers for the free buffett.

The first morning it was fairly busy there. The second it was almost standing room only as there was at least one foreign tourist group in there having breakfast. The food was good, though, with more than just your standard motel breakfast room fare. They had scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and a wider assortment of cereals available than I've seen in other breakfast rooms.

And we got it all for free.

We left around 8:30ish Tuesday morning. The wife always talks about not wanting to deal with the evening rush hour when leaving UCSF. I figured what's the difference? A rush hour is a rush hour. We got to 101 quick enough, scary that it was. Once we got over the bridge and around Marin, the southbound 101 traffic heading towards S.F. looked like it was at a standstill. We were flying right along.

In fact, we made pretty darn good time coming back. Not quite the four hour and forty five minute record I made earlier in the year, but not bad. Even after being held up south of Confusion Hill from this wreck, we still made it back here in around five and a half hours, and that's with maybe four pit stops along the way.

I'll be happy to go back to Cathedral Hill in the future but probably only when we have to stay two nights. If we have morning appointments and thus just have to stay one night, we'll likely just stay at Days Inn, Novato, at least while we can afford it. Then again, there's always the Native Daughters of the Golden West house to stay at, as well. It's nice to have lots of options.

There's Nothing To Do Here

It seems no matter where I lived as a kid, all the kids would be saying that: There's nothing to do around here. I don't know if that has anything to do with this latest committee being formed in Arcata but I've heard similar sentiments by young folk in Eureka.

Reading the Times- Standard story on it, I'm still not sure what exactly they think they'll accomplish, although if they're expecting more kids to find things to do in their free time, they might be disappointed. I agree with one of the comments left on the T-S Topix comments:

Earth to Arcata, if the kids aren't involved in one of your programs already, they probably won't start.

********

I'll have to say, though, I don't know that I felt all that bored when I was a kid. Seems to me there was nearly always something to do. Of course, I was a self- described nature boy back then, and enjoyed going to the beach, or exploring the hills around Irvine. I'd go out roaming around and practice shooting my slingshot or bow and arrow. I even did some bird watching back then, believe it or not.

To be sure, you couldn't do that all the time so I found other things to do. There'd always be word out about someone who had a decent supply of pot. We could always go out and try to find that guy or gal and hit them up for a joint. If that didn't pan out and we happened to have enough money, we could go hang out at the shopping center nearby and see if we could get someone to buy beer for us.

Plenty of stuff to do in Irvine and usually plenty of time to do it but I kept hearing many of my friends and acquaintances bemoaning the fact there wasn't anything to do.

Eventually, some of the movers and shakers in Irvine started believing what the kids were saying. They felt because there was nothing for kids to do that we had no alternative but to turn to drugs and alcohol. So, they made things happen.

They started a Teen Center. It had a bunch of games to play like ping- pong and such and a lot of kids showed up to use the facility. I wondered even back then if that was money well spent, though. We couldn't smoke pot or drink beer there, so what was the point? You had to do your smoking and drinking before you went to the teen center. What's with that?

Still, I think some of the guys enjoyed getting stoned and going there to play ping- pong, or whatever other games were available. I appreciate the efforts of the folks who got the center up and running but, as for me, I'd rather have smoked pot or drank beer at home or out in the hills, which is what we ended up usually doing.

I can't help but wonder if this supposed plan to network all the teen activities in Arcata will be a similar wasted but well intended effort, but, I suppose it's Arcata's effort to waste.