An Alternative History of Sacramento, as Told Through Shootings

 

So what's the thing between Oak Park and G Parkway? They are on opposite sides of Highway 99. I dunno. 

Although I was in Sac for all of it, I only hazily remember the last shooting, because it was a big deal.

Watch For It

My nephew shared this photo on Facebook. 

My opinion:

The purpose of social isolation at the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, was to slow the virus' advance, so the hospitals weren't overwhelmed. Preserving the function of hospitals is still the primary goal. Since hospitals are nearly overwhelmed now - witness the recent doctors' strike in Florida - changes will be made. Unvaccinated staff will be canned: everyone has to be committed to the mission and staff that might be harboring virus will be denied entry. Most importantly, coming soon (watch for it), unvaccinated patients will be admitted only on a case-by-case basis. Hospital functionality is still the primary goal. If there are too many unvaccinated patients, they walk the plank first.

My Turn

Left: The Rite-Aid drive-up window at Stockton and Fruitridge, in Sacramento. 

 

Well, it looks like I may have been exposed to the coronavirus, on Thursday, August 19th. So, on Monday, August 23rd, I put a swab up my nose in the Rite-Aid drive-up window driveway - a self-administered test (which made me sneeze). 

These folks are slow - it'll be three or four days before I hear back. So, for the moment, I'm trying to mask up more and avoid the public. 

Personally, I don't think I have coronavirus, but there is no reason to believe I wasn't exposed.  Prudence is called for.

This Caldor Fire Is Bad

Former coworker Gene T. wrote on August 18th:

Hello Friends,

Thank you for the support and prayers sent these last few days. Unfortunately, we found out today that our cabin and land in Grizzly Flats is a total loss to the Caldor Fire, and only one neighbor’s place, which was recently built, is left standing. (The owner is a volunteer firefighter and his house withstood the flames as he was protecting OTHER people’s homes, and I think there’s a beautiful message in that.)

We lost some precious things to this fire, including the chair that we used to rock the kids to sleep in, and an old train set from Abbie’s father that I was going to re-build with Henry, but we are thankful that we were not there when the fire came.

The recurring analogy that I’ve heard from the folks we know who have seen the damage first hand is that it looks like an atomic blast charred almost everything as far as the eye can see, even the towering cedars that are known for fire resistance and that made the area so special. The biodiversity that the area and neighboring El Dorado National Forest supported, and that we appreciated so much, is now totally decimated, too. A jewel of Gold Rush culture and history is also lost, with the fire claiming all the historic buildings and community meeting places in Grizzly Flats. We hope all these can somehow come back. We move on from here lifted by your love and support, and we look forward to better times ahead shared with you all. 

—Gene & Abbie

Love Story

Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” in Old English:

 

@umaymakesmusic

Should I do the full version? @taylorswift @taylornation #medievaltiktok #oldenglish #anglosaxon #taylorswift #swiftie #fyp #fypシ #music #medieval

♬ original sound - Umay🌸

Sheep

Annoyed by this chart, available from the CDC. Like I told them once before and I'm telling them again:

I'm afraid the error in death rates is still present in CDC charts. The most recent peak is too low by at least a factor of five. Anti-maskers are using the error to encourage complacency. Please correct.

Jonathan's Testimonial

I was surprised by a Facebook testimonial by Jonathan Amsbary, a friend of mine from my early teen years, originally from Chicago, and who is now a longtime professor of English at University of Alabama, Birmingham:

Random act of gratitude. Of all the bad days in my life, I would have to put my very first day of Jr. High at Taylor (APS) in the top three. It was spring and we had just relocated to New Mexico. I was beat up twice, separated from my money from one guy, everything else I was carrying from another and my actual clothes in P.E. Even though I didn’t have a lock to secure a gym locker, they made me dress for class and of course my stuff was all gone when class was over, and the teacher blamed me for not being psychic enough to bring a lock and now I would know better. Then I got beat up again on the bus home. All the while I was told that there were three groups (tribes) -- Surfers, Chukes and Stomps, and that I was a Surfer (which is pretty damn ironic in New Mexico). All the beatings were instructional so that I would know my group and its place in the pecking order. 

In the middle of all this chaos and misery I met Marc Valdez. On the face of things, he and I were from different tribes. But Marc had an Estes Rocketry catalog and that was just cool. I think my mom saw how miserable I was that afternoon (being dressed in PE shorts instead of the clothes she sent me to school in was a big clue) and I got a golden ticket. She basically said I could get whatever I wanted within reason (minibike was quickly vetoed). So, I asked for an Estes Starter kit (Marc had generously given me the catalog which the clothing thief overlooked), and we were off to the hobby store on 4th. Rocketry became a real bright spot in my life. Marc and I spent many days shooting our creations into the heavens. Marc remains a cherished friend despite the 2000 plus miles separating us. I’m not sure I ever told him just how important his friendship was to me, so I’m telling him now.

I replied:

Aww, that’s awesome, Jonathan!

I remember how rough Taylor could be at times. There was one afternoon a group of middle school thugs from Taft lined the ditch behind the playground, challenging Taylor to a fight, as teachers hustled us early onto school buses. I saw Principal O’Neal looking weak and indecisive. With leadership like that it was no wonder the day to day was so hard.

PE. Ugh. I recall being the only one in the locker room who followed instructions and undressed to put on a jock strap. Everyone stared. I didn’t get the memo that it was considered gay, or something.

The model rockets were a blessing. Accessible, yet requiring work and dedication for our flights to actually take flight. And other things too. When I hear Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick,” I think of you! 

Friends, forever!

And I followed up with:

Snippets of memory. Your house on Ella Drive. Cleo, your dog. Your sister. And this:

 

 

And who can forget "Thick as a Brick"?: 

 

Thinking Back To Dick Bills

Most weekday afternoons in 1963, kids in Albuquerque had three choices for television entertainment. We could watch Uncle Roy on KOAT-7, or Captain Billy on KGGM-13, but most of the time we settled on Dick Bills at the K Circle B Time show on KOB-4. 

We had to be choosy, because our TV would overheat in 20 minutes, so we couldn't watch the entire half hour of any show. Eventually, my grandmother bought a new TV and gave us her old one. We put her big, old TV in the trunk of my dad's 1957 Chevy Belair, but he couldn't close the trunk completely. We got stopped by the police on the drive home - TV thefts were big at the time - and also learned a little lesson on racial profiling. 

Dick Bills achieved a modest fame in Albuquerque. Most folks remember his handsome nephew, though: Glen Campbell, who was part of Dick Bills' band, the Sandia Mountain Boys. Glen Campbell moved to Los Angeles in 1960 and eventually reached the zenith of musical fame.

 

And it's a straight line to this song - one of my favorite pop songs ever!

 

Bo Diddley, New Mexican

I did not realize Bo Diddley spent time in NM (from Wikipedia):

Diddley spent some years in New Mexico, living in Los Lunas from 1971 to 1978, while continuing his musical career. He served for two and a half years as a deputy sheriff in the Valencia County Citizens' Patrol; during that time he purchased and donated three highway-patrol pursuit cars.

Israel Leaps To The Lead

The Covid-19 case race between the countries changes all the time. 

On the good side, rates are dropping in Spain, Turkey, and Botswana. 

On the bad side, rates in Israel are soaring, and are now roughly the same as in Alabama and Arkansas. No nation has rates as high as those found in Florida (1,020), Louisiana (1,120), and Mississippi (1,180). 

Rates in Iran, the UK, and the U.S. are roughly comparable.

Smoke

The smoke's so bad today in northern California. We've been pretty lucky this summer in Sacramento, since the biggest fires in the Sierras were usually downwind, but with the Caldor Fire near Pollock Pines, it looks like our luck has run out. 

Looking at 24-hr average PM2.5 levels, it looks like we're 2 to 3 times higher than health standards. 

It's time to do like I did back in 2018 again - strap a furnace filter to a portable fan, for extra protection.

Expanding Range of Coatimundi

John notes this article:

HILLSBORO, N.M. — A family of Coatis were spotted by New Mexico Department of Transportation near a project in Hillsboro.

The department posted photos on their Facebook page of the mother Coati and her five kits near the NM 152 bridge replacement project. 

According to the post these animals are typically found in rainforests, cloud forests and grasslands in South America and Mexico and a few do live in the southwestern United States.

That's really cool! Probably expanding their range into central NM. Like the javelina from SE AZ. 

I remember hiking in the Sycamore Canyon area, west of Nogales, AZ, exactly on the border, about 1984. We stumbled across a big family of coati in the streambed. I was surprised, but I guess they've been there awhile.

Caldor Fire Blows Up

This thing blew up quick! Right now, it's threatening Pollock Pines, and will likely cut Highway 50, the main route between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe. Pollock Pines saw the Sand Fire in 2014. This thing looks worse:

A few miles from the tourist spot of Apple Hill, Pollock Pines is home to many retirees drawn to the trees in the foothills at the edge of the Eldorado National Forest. Many still remember the Sand Fire in 2014 that burned 4,200 acres and 20 homes and came dangerously close to forcing a major evacuation in Pollock Pines and surrounding communities.

On Tuesday, Kimberly McCarthy, owner of the 50 Grand Restaurant & Bar in Pollock Pines, rushed over to the restaurant to gather up paperwork “and get out of the way.”

McCarthy said the restaurant has been closed for remodeling for several months and was getting close to reopening. When she looked out the window from her home near Camino, she could see plenty of smoke. 

“I just hope everybody’s OK,” she said. “It’s sort of surreal.” She said most of the town’s businesses had closed.

90's Nostalgia

Courtney Love, always underrated, and always good!

 

Fred and Grace

Tropics are beginning to get busy. Fred and Grace are up! 

The forecast for Fred looks fairly stable. Right now, Fred is highly disorganized, and passing along Cuba's axis, but the storm should start strengthening once it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. There will be heavy rain in the Keys, and the Florida coast near Naples. The forecast storm track has been shifted west, which will give some breathing room for Tampa when it passes by on Sunday. Tampa should be all right - some rain, but no flooding. Landfall of the storm should be near Pensacola. Alabama and Georgia will get impacts too. 

There is a new storm that should follow Fred's path along Cuba. The storm will likely be called Grace. It too will cross the Keys and reach the Gulf of Mexico, on Thursday next week, but right now it looks like it won't follow Fred's path, but instead head into the central Gulf of Mexico, perhaps heading to Texas.

Camp Fire Refugees

The people still trying to get their shattered lives back together, nearly 3 years later:

Inez Salinas, a single mother, is raising her 5-year-old daughter, River, in a 160-square-foot “tiny house” trailer. She owns her land but doesn’t have a permit to camp there. Even if she did, she’s on notice that she has to leave by the end of the year unless she installs a well and septic tank, and gets designs and applies for a permit for a permanent home. She figures to get to that point would cost her $40,000. She’s struggling just to keep gasoline in her generator to run two box fans on 95-degree days.

Salinas, 36, is racked with guilt for surviving a fire that killed 85 people. And she is terrified of being evicted. A neighbor has called code enforcement on her several times, but so far the officers have been sympathetic and let her off with a warning. She prays every day they don’t come back.

“I have off-the-charts anxiety,” Salinas said. “I feel like a failure as a mother that my daughter doesn’t have basic needs.”

The Camp fire most notoriously tore through the town of Paradise, but half the people who lost their homes were deeper in the woods, in poorer, more isolated places on the buttes, such as Concow, Jarbo Gap, Pulga and Yankee Hill. Many had no fire insurance. They often lived up dirt roads in houses that were built without proper permits. Some had no electricity or running water.

...The most vulnerable of them don’t fit well in the confines of flatland society. Many simply feel claustrophobic in the city.

“We’re hillbillies up here,” said Mike Nimz, 57, who has lived “on the mountain” for most of his life.

Nimz is a “bootstrap” general contractor with a wiry build, a grizzled beard and a fierce distrust of government that is a common sentiment up here. He’s been burned out twice before and landed on his feet just fine. But more than 2½ years after the Camp fire, he’s stuck, living on soon-to-expire permits in a 20-foot trailer with his wife and 15-month-old daughter.

When the state declared the entire burn zone a public health hazard, he had to wait two years for FEMA contractors to clean his three-acre property — including demolition of two concrete foundations, which he said was ridiculous. Until the crews were done, Nimz couldn’t move any debris on his property or live within 100 feet of it, meaning he had to park his trailer on a bald, sun-blasted spot next to Highway 70, where he remains today. 

He’s waited even longer for PG&E to put up a power pole for the permit he pulled to camp on his property, so he doesn’t have to spend $600 a month on gas running his generator. He says he was last promised it would be up this past March.

Case of the Stolen Ball Bearings

Lot of metals out there on military installations. I'm sorry to see Acme Iron & Metal in Albuquerque is involved, maybe as an innocent party. They have great graffiti murals there:

The U.S. Army is investigating a former high-ranking civilian official at White Sands Missile Range and an El Paso contractor for allegedly stealing $2 million worth of nickel ball bearings – that’s a whopping 230,000 pounds of them – used in explosives research at the range, according to a recently unsealed federal search warrant.

The U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Command earlier this month applied for and was granted the warrant, which states investigators have probable cause to believe that Randolph Brady, a former director at White Sands, and Mario Escobedo, the owner of EGL Construction, and possibly others conspired to steal government property. A search warrant return shows that federal authorities on Monday seized more than $1 million from a bank account held in the name of Escobedo’s business. No charges have been filed against either man.

...According to the warrant, Escobedo hired Mountain States Crane, an Albuquerque business, and Maddy Freight Service, a Horizon City, Texas, company, to remove and transport on March 19 and 20 the four tanks, which each contained about 58,000 pounds of ball bearings. So the entire load combined to weigh about 232,000 pounds, which is comparable to the weight of an average blue whale.

The ball bearings were taken to Acme Iron & Metal, a recycling plant in Albuquerque’s North Valley.

...The court documents said that in an interview with an Army investigator, Escobedo confirmed that Brady directed the removal of the ball bearings and that Acme Iron & Metal sent him wire transfers for $1 million after the tanks were delivered. 

No contracts were ever solicited or awarded for removing nickel ball bearings from the range, according to the search warrant affidavit.

The Academic Arsonist

Da fuck?

A college professor suspected in a series of arson fires in remote forested areas of Northern California near the massive Dixie Fire has been charged in connection with one of the blazes in Lassen County and was ordered ordered Wednesday at the Sacramento County Main Jail.

Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, is believed to have worked at a number of colleges in California, including Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University, where a Dr. Gary Maynard was listed as a lecturer in criminal justice studies specializing in criminal justice, cults and deviant behavior. 

...Maynard was arrested Saturday following an investigation that began July 20 and included a U.S. Forest Service agent placing a tracking device under his car after he had been stopped briefly by Susanville police on Aug. 3.

...“Over the course of the last several weeks, Maynard has set a series of fires in the vicinity of the Lassen National Forest and Shasta Trinity National Forest...,” Anderson wrote in a detention memo. “The area in which Maynard chose to set his fires is near the ongoing Dixie fire, a fire which is still not contained despite the deployment and efforts of over 5,000 personnel.

...According to court filings, Maynard first came to the attention of authorities after the Cascade Fire was reported at 9:45 a.m. on July 20 on the western slopes of Mount Shasta.

Mountain bikers who reported the fire and tried to help put it out helped keep the blaze to about 100 to 200 square feet in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, court papers say. 

U.S. Forest Service investigator Brian Murphy responded to the scene and found a man later identified as Maynard underneath a black Kia Soul that had its front wheels stuck in a ditch and its undercarriage centered on a boulder, court papers say.

...During the encounter, the man said he was a professor and Forest Service investigators subsequently found online profiles for Maynard “at various universities in California,” court papers say. 

...A second fire erupted the next day at 2:50 a.m. on Mount Shasta near the Everitt Memorial Highway, and investigators later found tire tracks similar to those made by the Kia, court papers say.

...Authorities then began tracking Maynard’s movements ... [I]nvestigators tracked his movements for hundreds of miles, including to the area where the Ranch Fire and Conard Fire erupted Saturday in the Lassen National Forest, court papers say.

“It appeared that Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree,” court papers say.

Maynard was arrested that day inside the emergency closure area forced by the Dixie Fire, court papers say.

“He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie Fire,” Anderson wrote in his detention memo. “In addition to the danger of enlarging the Dixie fire and threatening more lives and property, this increased the danger to the first responders.”

My Second Tik Tok Video

My first video appears to annoy Larry Elder fans, so I prepared a second video:

@marcvaldez946

#recall #californiarecall #GovernorWatts #california #politics

♬ Peaceful - Arnaud Gauthier

Navajos Welcome a Californian in a Bear Suit

A significant sighting:

A 33-year-old California man in a giant teddy bear suit of his own creation is walking through Diné Bikéyah.

...To raise money – on GoFundMe – for multiple causes such as autism, cancer and the environment, Larios is walking from Los Angeles to Times Square in New York City.

Larios on July 29 arrived in Kinłání-Dook’o’oosłííd, where he visited the Museum of Northern Arizona. He dressed as a bear he named “Bearsun,” which has a padded head, round red cheeks, and a bobble tail.

...“Until he started entering Arizona, that’s when (Bearsun) really caught my eye,” said Laughter, who learned of Bearsun about three weeks ago. “When he got to Seligman and Williams, I said, ‘Oh my god! He’s pretty close!’

...Since then, Bearsun has stopped in several places, including Oatman, Kingman, Peach Springs, Seligman, Ash Fork and Williams, sharing photos of himself in the foreground of the famed Steam Engine No. 3759 at the Locomotive Park, walking down Route 66, on the Grand Canyon Skywalk at Eagle Point, visiting Bearizona and petting donkeys.

In Flagstaff, Bearsun learned about the tribes of the Colorado Plateau and posed next to the Hopi R2D2, a droid from the museum’s art exhibit “The Force is With Our People,” which reflects Star Wars themes such as endurance and rebellion. 

The museum staff also presented him with a Zuni shash fetish, which Larios said he accepted but didn’t know what to say about receiving an “awesome” Native gift of a “bear with a backpack,” meaning the medicine bundle tightly bound with sinew which symbolizes strength and healing. 

“And I have a backpack!” Bearsun exclaimed.