Fix 50 Finishing?

If they actually finish this Highway 50 project I will be disoriented. So many things to miss: the blinding lights at night, the inexplicable repetitive construction noise, the surprise traffic jams even at midnight, and trying to relearn every week which lanes are open and which are closed. 

I'm interested if they'll finally open up the seep holes on the underside of highway deck, allowing bats to finally reclaim their favorite homes. Six long homeless years for the critters. And what will happen with Sacramento's homeless humans? They used to gather in large numbers under the highway deck too. A reprise?

Sacramento’s Fix 50 project, a six-year construction effort to rehabilitate a 14-mile stretch of Highway 50, is entering its final phase and is expected to be completed by the end of September, according to Caltrans.

Mass Deportations Crush Job Opportunities For Whites

Mass deportations of undocumented workers kill job opportunities for remaining white workers, due to workplace disruption and lower demand. 

In other words, if you fire all the foreign-born pizza-delivery workers, no pizza-delivery jobs will open up, because fewer people will be ordering pizzas in the first place.

California saw a 3.1% drop in private-sector employment the week immediately after the Trump administration stepped up its immigration raids in the state, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census data. 

UC Merced researchers said the steep drop is second only to the unemployment surge the state experienced during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and greater than the immediate decline during the Great Recession in 2007 and 2008.

This appears to be the first analysis of the data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey from the time when federal agents’ focus on the state became clear in early June, when a raid at a garment factory in downtown Los Angeles preceded weeks of sweeps and unrest.

Big Drone

This morning, I was pushing Jasper in his stroller around the neighborhood, thinking antifa thoughts and wondering where I can get green algae, when I heard a noise above. It was a large drone, passing northward, about 200 feet directly overhead. I tried to shield my thoughts from this interloper. “Wow, that’s a large drone,” I thought. “It looks large enough to carry an open tray of kitty litter. If so encumbered, I hope it reaches its destination without incident.” 

A few minutes later, the drone returned, this time heading southward. I hid under the tree canopy and masked my antifa thoughts to the tune of Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina.” Large drones to add to the surveillance. It’s like Ukraine, but kinder and gentler.

Memorial Service For Shirley Gumpy - June 24, 2026

Life Pointe Church in Woodland. It was nice to see Cindy, Missy, and Megan (who flew out from Tennessee).  I don't think I've seen Megan in more than 25 years.  We used to all dance at Sally Forment's Woodland Dance Academy, c. 1993-2005.

Eleven Years Ago

An awesome, awesome gentleman! Giancarlo Esposito, aka Gus Fring.

RIP, Alan Greenspan

Too much irrational exuberance at age 100:

Greenspan’s tenure as Fed chairman — from August 1987 through January 2006 — was just five months shy of the longest Fed chairman’s tenure. That distinction belonged to William McChesney Martin, who served from 1951 until early 1970.

In his 2013 book “The Map and the Territory,’’ Greenspan defended himself against critics who assigned him significant blame for the 2008 financial meltdown. He argued that traditional economic forecasting was no match for the irrational risk-taking that can feed catastrophic price bubbles. 

“Bubbles go up very slowly as euphoria builds,” Greenspan said in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. “Then fear hits, and it comes down very sharply. When I started to look at that, I was sort of intellectually shocked.”

The MOU

@pearlmania500

After claiming he won 40 times, he just lost the entire thing.

♬ original sound - Pearlmania500