But go where? There are so many options. Road trip through the “golden circle” of national parks that are strung together like jewels on a necklace left strewn on a table. Spend the summer in Yellowstone seeing our nations first and likely greatest national park. Or, do I backpack the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevadas?

I love the Sierras. I love Utah too and would probably be quite fond of Wyoming, but I still really love the Sierras. This mountain range helped inspire Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot to start the Forest Service and the National Parks service. Yosemite it one of my favorite places on earth, but I hate bustling with fat tourists to see the valley floor.

I’ve been wanting to start backpacking for a while, but haven’t gotten around to doing it. Then, a few weeks ago I was in the local book store when a book just jumped out at me. It was “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson. Instinctively I picked it up, almost buying it without even reading the back. Thus I dove into the story of a middle aged man living in Massachussets who one day decides to hike the Appalachian Trails… all 2,100 some-odd miles of it. With practically no backpacking experience he and a long-lost, out of shape friend embark on the lengthy trek from Georgia to Maine. It didn’t take more than one chapter for me to declare “if they can do it– I can do it!”.

I instantly thought of John Muir, 211 miles of trail meandering through Yosemite National Park, Ansel Adams Wilderness, John Muir Wilderness, Kings Canyon National Park and finally it wanders into Sequoia National Park. It takes three weeks to do, but you see a part of California that for many people is turned into a waddle out of the car for a snap shot before getting a burger at the Ahwahnee hotel.

No matter where my summer ends up taking me, backpacking will likely be a part of it. I’m in the process now of researching. In March I plan on taking my first trip with REI to Joshua Tree. A roommate is planning a trip up Half Dome in spring as well (16 miles, two days) that I am eager to embark on. If not this summer, I hope that one summer I make the John Muir Trail.

I will update this from time to time as a sort of diary on my path to freedom.

 On the lookout is an old military station built in the 1800s to protect the port from the Russians or whoever else may want to take it. It became obsolete and now is just an interesting relic of our military past. There is a similar development up on Diamondhead in Hawaii which is now closed for the same reason.

Side trip aside we started working our way to Point Reyes National Seashore. Unfortunately, most of this leg of the trip was completely blanketed in fog. We were unable to appreciate the mountains or the cute little towns in this stretch of California.

Rainbow bridge when leaving San Fran

Point Reyes National Seashore is an fascinating example of the geology of California. The park is a peninsula just north of San Fransisco. The peninsula does not belong there. It has been moved along the San Andres fault at least 300 miles to where it currently lies. Of course, millions of years from now, it’ll be in another place. It will probably be smashed up against and under the northern part of California after the Juan de Fuca Plate picks upt up and submerges it against the Pacific Plate.

The park also has a number of still functioning dariy farms on it. Many of these ranches date back to the 1850s. Historically, they have fed San Fransisco’s addiction to milk, cheese and other dairy products. Unfortunately, since it is now a state park, many of these ranches are being forced to close down. When drive through the park you see a lot of abandoned facilities.

North Beach:

Point Reyes is also unique in that the western side of it is very flat and smooth, with beaches that go on for miles. Much of the coastline up here is very rugged from recent geologic activity. The beaches have beautiful dunes that are covered in plants that thrive in this cool, wet, environment. Here is the western beach from above:

Banana slug?

Mist on plants. Much of the moisture in this area comes from fog, not from rain.

In Point Reyes we worked our way over to the lighthouse.

This is the water catch system for the lighthouse. It is a hill of concrete that ends at this thing. This caught the water to be used to drink, and to produce the steam that ran the light in the lighthouse.

Baline from a gray whale

The light from the lighthouse

Gray whale skull

This lighthouse is quite the modern marvel. It was built way out on the point in a very precarious place. Bolted down to the hard bedrock moved by the San Andres fault, the structure teeters on the edge of existence. It was far both from the crashing sea which is notorious for pairing up with its friend fog and sending many a ship to the rocks long below the light house. It was also, however, far from the top of the ridge where people could easily navigate to. Building the lighthouse, and getting to there was quite a conundrum to solve.

Somehow, with the insane ingenuity of the 1850s they had managed to work their way down 30 stories of elevation along a narrow ridge, and bring all the building materials there to construct this light house.

The lighthouse was built to be cared by someone with complete independence from the outside world. There was a building down near the lighthouse for working, and feeding coal to the steam engine. Then, over 300 steps up to the ridge was a place for the lighthouse keeper to stay.

This line of work was very grueling and lonely.  The area logs 2,000 hours of fog yearly, and once the light house had to go for 9 days straight, day and night, to keep sailors off the rocks below.

This building was located just below the lighthouse… it made a very loud foghorn sound about every 30 seconds

Stairs inside the lighthouse. We weren’t allowed to go to the top

Another faclity of the lighthouse above the steps. Anchored to Point Reyes Conglomerate

This is where the park rangers for the lighthouse live. What a view.

After leaving Point Reyes we worked our way up the coast. The 1 winds in and out of rugged coast. We saw some beautiful places such as the town of Jenner where the Russian River meets the Pacific. I wish we had stopped there, but we had FINALLY overtaken a car that was holding us up for miles, and we didn’t want to give up our position. We did stop at this point, however. You can see the 1 winding it’s away along the coast (grey line in the middle of the photo). The large rock in the distance is Goat Rock which lies at the threshold between the Russian and the Pacific. You can also see the fog in the background, this would be a companion for our whole trip.

Our next stop was Fort Ross. This is an old Russian fort that was settled in 1812. About 50 families lived here of Russian, Alaskan, and Indian origin. Russians had positions as far south as Bodega Bay in the United States.

Most of the people at the fort lived outside of the walls in a little town just on the otherside of the walls. These buildings aren’t in very good shape.

This fenced off area is where the village was.

Sign says “environmental living program garden” there is nothing growing there

Wall of the fort

Looking back at the town. Somewhere over there is the world’s tallest Euctalptus tree. Take that Australia

The bay where the Russian ships would land.

This is the sort of view we got of the inside of the fort. All of the doors were locked. How fort like.

locked door

It was getting dark so we hauled it the rest of the way to Gualala where we would stay for two days. Gualala is the sort of town that you sort of just drive through between destinations on the coast. It is the largest hamlet between Bodega Bay and Point Arena. While the sign says it has 585 residence, we are told it is closer to 2,000. I learned that the sign hasn’t changed in over 20 years. So the government will kick people off their land (and I assume pay just compensation for it) but they won’t update the signs along the highways.

Gualala is an interesting story. My dad originally heard about this little town in a California Coastal Commission meeting. In a turn of events much more bizarre than people giving Obama enough money to buy a brand new BMW people a county down, and a mile away, from Gualala actually convinced the CCC to ban the Gualala annual Forth of July fireworks show. They claimed that the sound of the fireworks was harming birds that lived on an island a mile and a half away from the fireworks, across the bay, over a cliff, through the trees, down the other side, from where the fireworks were being set off. In fact, you could hardly even hear the fireworks from where the island was!

The science these people presented to prove that the birds, not endangered or even threatened birds but common birds, were being scared away was so unscientific and shoddy that they should have just been laughed at. They flew planes directly over the island to count birds (how much sound does that generate?) and considered a nest abandoned if the bird was standing next to it, but was not in it. Also, there are hundreds of cities all up and down the coast who do firework shows without any issue, including Monterey and Point Reyes, both of which set them off directly over sanctuaries.

While this should have been thrown out on its face, the loony bins who run the Coastal Commission AGREED with the neighbors who live across the river and county line from the town and banned the fireworks! It is worth noting that the ONLY reason why the CCC exists is because of these people across the river from Gualala. The place is called Sea Ranch, it is 10 miles of HIGHLY regulated housing along the pristine northern California coast. Let me rephrase that: along the pristine state-owned northern California coast. Only, they were not allowing access to the state beaches along their property.

The fight was so bitter that the Coastal Act was founded to help prevent developments from doing such things. Sea Ranch gave up eight access points in exchange from being EXEMPT from the Coastal Act. They are the only place in the coastal zone exempt from the act. And now they are using it to fight Gualala’ fireworks. Gualala is the town they all go to for their food and activities, they use their roads and their facilities without giving property tax to help maintain the town. Sure, they spend their money there, but Gualala doesn’t see their fair share of sales tax revenue so it is a moot point.

My dad found this story, thought it was crazy, and blogged about it. The residents of Gualala found him, and started to contact him. My dad does a lot of work with the CCC so he has a good idea of how things work. He began to advice them on how to go forward. In exchange, we got the royal treatment in Gualala from free rooms at the Surf Motel to a tour of the place where all of the fuel pumps used in professional motorsports in America are designed to free kayaks.

The guys all fighting for the fireworks are a bunch of really nice guys. The stories they have to tell from the insanity of the Northern Coast are just amazing. It is astonishing what some people believe. These guys are the Gualala Festivals Committee, who exists to try to make the town interesting enough for people to stop in, not just drive through (and I do suggest stopping and giving them your business. Especially Bone Smokehouse, great BBQ). Most of the people in the town really like what they do as it gives them something to do. There really isn’t much to do way up here. But others… well, let’s just say that they live on another planet.

The first year they did a town Christmas tree they forgot a tree topper. In a last minute save for their folly they hung an American flag at the top. While some may think that the town would get offended at a Christmas tree, a sign of Christianity, in their far-left town, they weren’t. No, they were fine with the tree, just not with the flag. The local paper was flooded with angry letters asking why the Republican flag was on the top of the tree, why Bush’s flag was on the top of the tree, why the flag that stood for war and destruction was on the top of the tree. Funny, I always thought it was a symbol of your freedom to say stupid stuff like that, and that it was tied in no way to Republicans or to Bush or to Iraq. I thought that Betsy Ford designed the flag back during the Revolution. I didn’t know that it was something Bush drew with crayons on the kid’s menu at Denny’s (they only give you blue and red anyways). I guess I was wrong.

How do these guys put up with it? They live in an extraordinarily beautiful place. The coast is dotted with the typical northern California jagged rocks and micro-islands.  The Gualala river has cut a mightily fine cliff into the coastal plane before hitting the pacific, creating an even more stunning landscape. The river only makes it out into the Pacific in winter and spring. In summer and autumn it is separated by a spit of sand, forming a lagoon. The river snakes up a valley surrounded by huge redwoods in a forest that looks primeval. However, it is not. The forest is second or third growth. The whole area was logged to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Funny, all those environmentalists living in their old growth redwood homes are so against logging!

There is no natural harbor at Gualala. There was no way for the boats to dock to carry the logs down to Frisco for the rebuild. Instead, again in the ingenuity of this era, they built a massive tree slide. Mules with a rope and pulley system pulled the logs over the cliff I was describing earlier to a massive slide which took the trees down to a boat that was anchored down below. Some boats were sunk in the process when a tree hit with too much force (they be heavy things), but for the most part the system worked and the logs got where they needed to go.

We got into Gualala about 6 in the evening. Walking back from the restaurant a man passing rolled down the window and called out my dad’s name. It was the man who found his blog! In a town this small it isn’t hard to find someone. We chatted a little and worked out plans for the next day.

Flowers on the side of the road

We had dinner at Bone’s Road house. Some of the best bbq I’ve ever had. I highly recommend both the pork and the beans.

Stay away from clift

Sunset:

So we did.

My dad, little sister Brookie and I embarked on this trip on Sunday. We flew into San Jose Airport from John Wayne in Orange County. We were supposed to get into the Bay Area at around 12:30 but thanks to my forgetting to take my purse, we ended up missing that flight. Thankfully we had booked through Southwest, and were on the 1:20 flight up with the only penalties being slightly more expensive tickets. Try that with United, or another airline. My forgotten purse would have cost us over $300.

Unfortunately, the mistake cost us some time in San Francisco. After picking up our splendid gold Dodge Magnum rental car we began to make our way into the city. On our way into San Francisco there was a police car zigging and zagging across the freeway slowing us all down to a crawl, and sometimes a stop. We threw out ideas as to what may be happening up ahead: accident, high speed chase, etc. As we were passing the San Francisco airport a motorcade came onto the freeway surrounded by even more police cars. Once on the freeway (and in the fast lane) we were allowed to pass it. We passed a charter bus that said “press” on the window, a second bus that said “pool” on the window, a car that said “staff” with guys looking quite a bit like secret service in it, and about four more vehicles filled with secret service. Someone important was going somewhere, that was for sure.

Once in the city we made our way to Union Square where our hotel, Kensington Park was.

Typical SF buildings:

After passing the hotel twice and having to deal with the long drawn out turn around system in one-way streets we FINALLY got there. The hotel is the old Elk’s Lodge, and is likely 100 years old. Inside there are beautiful painted ceilings and beams. The stately hotel is still used by the Elks today, they occupy the first 5 floors of the 15 story building.

While the downstairs was beautiful in its old grandeur the rooms were beautiful for their clean and modern design. The rooms were chic without the shabby with black and white furniture and a beautiful marble bath.

After checking in we decided to be tourists and take the cable car down to Fisherman’s Warf. On the way we passed the buses from the motorcade we saw earlier on the freeway.

Other pictures from the ride:

People loved taking pictures of the cable cars… and I loved taking pictures of people taking pictures of the cable cars.

One of the Gumball 3000 rally cars. One of the girls from the car took pictures of our cable car.

Coit tower:

Once at Fisherman’s Warf we wondered around looking at the sites. We were all very hungry since we hadn’t eaten since 8 that morning, unless you count the bags of peanuts on the plane. After looking at a good portion of the Warf we got some Dungeness crab from Peir 9. The food was good but way over priced considering you only got a plate of crab, no sides. From the table, though, we could look across the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge. What a view that was.

Tourists with strang hats

Oysters that come with a free side of food poisoning (note the green color). There were a lot of places up here that did bbq oysters. We never did try that.

The restaurant had bibs, Brookie was too good for it, but my dad and I were not. I had crab roasted on butter and garlic, my dad had seafood with tomatoe sause. They didn’t take the crab out of the shell on his so he actually needed the bib.

The view from the restaurant

Seqway tours. That’s right… tours on seqways. They all had helmets and vests on too. You can see the bridge in the background if you look for it.

After dinner we wondered around the docks where the fishing boats unload their catch. I had a lot of fun with my camera here:

Then, we found a little, free Maritime museum. It was full of all sorts of old Carnival games and devices. There were numerous fortune telling machines, and those ones where you squeeze on the lever and the lights go up and down a sign board that tells you that you are hot, or ugly or what ever the scale is for the certain machine.

Behind the museum was a WWII submarine. My grandfather was a commander on a sub back in WWII. He was rather lucky, we learned that over 20% of submarine volunteers (they all choose to go on the boats) died in combat, which is higher than any other navy position other than aviation. This sub had made it through, as did my grandfather’s. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but still a great thing to see up close. We didn’t get to go on board since it was so close to closing, but I’ve been on one in the past. All the spaces and the doors are so small, I can’t understand how people can run around down there during combat. Must have been a lot of bruised heads.

We walked over to Gharadelli square after the museum for some hot chocolate and to see that very nice part of the warf area.

After we had our drinks we went back to the cable car stop to get back to the hotel. The line was very long and for about 40 minutes no cars came. Limo drivers were going up and down the line soliciting the services to the cold tourists. My dad, using his iphone, plotted a walking course back to the hotel. It wasn’t far in theory, but we all knew how many times we went up and down hills in that two miles from the hotel to the warf.

Just as we were about to start walking or grab a cab, a cable car moved. One of the workers apologized to us. He explained that Obama was at a rally at a hotel (re: motorcade) along the route and they had to stop the cars until he left. That was twice the man kept us waiting yesterday. Just to come to a city where he has pretty much every vote available. To prove that point he set a fund raising record: nearly 8 million dollars in one night, from 200 faithful followers. Those oxi-moron-ic rich dems gave up nearly $40,000 a piece. Damn… all to a man who wants to take it all away from them if elected to give to those people who couldn’t figure out how to make that much money. This falls on the mild side of what crazy things I will see and hear about on this trip though. I swear, there are times when I have to wonder if I am even in America.

Pictures of the cable cars while we waited:

Once we got back to Union Square we walked around a little more before going to the hotel and going to sleep.

Funny location of window right where her goods are.

Looking down a hole in the middle of the sidewalk

Point and case, the home page for the OC Register:

“trains disrupted for a bit” hmmm that sounds like a real pressing problem there. Also a real technical term. How long is a bit? 5 minutes or 5 hours?

“how to cope with the quake” hold it right there. If you cannot cope with 15 seconds of shaking then you need to move to Oklahoma where they don’t get earthquakes. We all done coping now? Ok, moving on.

“Shaken, not overly disturbed” another awesome story right there about how nothing happened.

And of course, share your earthquake stories. There you will see hundreds of people talk about how their saltshaker collections shook. Sort of like the guy I heard on the news today.

Since the quake hit so close to lunch time I chose to take my lunch in front of the TV to see if there was some carnage. Instead I got something like this:

“We have Mr.-hypocondriac-with-nothing-better-to-do-than-call-the-12-o-clock-news on the phone from Chino Hills. Mr. Hypocondriac, could you explain what happened?”

“Yeah, I was working at my desk when the earthquake hit. I had to hold stuff down and sort of ride it out. After the quake I got up to check things, and some books were knocked over and some papers.”

awesome man, thanks for sharing!

Another gem was from the DailyNews:

The Daily News
Article Last Updated: 07/29/2008 11:55:36 AM PDT

An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale originating from Chino Hills hit the region at 11:42 a.m., according to city officials. The tremors lasted 30 seconds.
No major injuries or damage has been reported so far in the city of Los Angeles.
Tremors were felt as Check back for continuous updates.

someone was so excited that they forgot to finish their story.

More from the OC Register:

“at least two people were injured when ceiling tiles fell on them at St. Jude Medical Center.” At least there was a doctor in the house.

” It also prompted Caltrans to replace an expansion joint on a truck overpass on the southbound I-5 Freeway, near Bake Parkway.” This kind of scares me. It prompted them to replace the expansion joint? I drive on that bypass every day, and it tells me that Caltrans knew it had to be replaced but was putting it off. However, when the earthquake came and the expansion joint MAY have failed they chose to replace it. Thanks caltarns. And democrats think we can trust the government to fix things. I drove by this today and the expansion joint CLEARLY had metal and bolts that have been pryed from the concrete. Yeah, they were promped to fix it… I wish they would have just fixed it when it broke instead of waiting until it could have been an even bigger problem. Please people, Northridge, 1994, portion of freeway fell killing police officer. Don’t forget the past.

At a Stater Bros. Market in Fullerton, Janet Brown saw food rattle off of the shelves and children duck behind shopping carts when the quake started. A woman in the check-out line shouted: “Bring out the brandy! We all need a shot!” Lol

And finally, even more proof that it was such a non story: “Just another California earthquake,” Sheri Cassidy said as she ate at a Baja Fresh restaurant in Santa Ana. “It didn’t change my lunch plans.”

The reason why nothing really happened was because of our safety standards for construction. There is a reason so few structures were damaged and so few people were injured, stuff just doesn’t fail in America for a quake this moderate. We are all lucky we live in a place with these standards and that this was such a non-story. I’m glad it is a non-story.

Finally, I leave you with this:

The international CXT is the largest SUV every made. It was created a few years back for those who felt that a Hummer H2 just wasn’t what they wanted to be seen in at soccer practice any more. The CXT, or Commercial Extreme Truck, is based off of a Semi-truck. It is 21 ft long, 9 ft high, and weighs over 14,000 pounds, or twice that of a Hummer H1. It was born in 2004, on the heals of Hummers success, when gas was um cheap, and bigger was better.

Oh how quickly they fall.

Today Chevy released the official numbers of the 2010 Camaro. This car hit the car show scenes in 2006. It was impressive, it was beautiful… it missed the mark by a few years. Or, so I thought. Once gas prices hit $4.00 a gallon I predicted that the sports car market (expecially the entry level one) would be hit nearly as hard as the SUV market. We’ve already seen what’s happened to the SUV market. The future of Hummer is in peril, Toyota is discontinuing the Tundra, and Chrysler isn’t going to lease any more cars because of the financial hit it took on the depreciation of leased SUVs. They haven’t released what kind of hit that was, but Ford announced that it lost 2.1 BILLION in residual values from large vehicles coming off of lease. But, I digress.

Back to the Camaro. I thought that Chevy messed up about as bad as it typically messes up (ie, not investing in small, RWD car production 5 years ago) when it chose to keep this car as a concept for so long. How many shows and movies do you need to be in before you release a freakin’ car? I thought the ship had sailed, the market for these cars is going to stagnate, and all of the years you sat with your shiney concept car would all be in vain.

But, could it actually be that Chevy thought this through more than I thought? Perhaps. the first line of the CNN release for the Camaro really shows how things changed in such a short time: “When unveiling new performance models, car companies usually boast about horsepower, engine size and expected zero-to-60 times.

But when General Motors unveiled the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro Monday afternoon, it was the car’s fuel economy numbers that were front and center.”

That’s right, no longer is it about that 4 second quarter mile, or the 350 hp (thank God) now… it’s about fuel economy. The Camaro is no Prius, that’s for sure, but it get’s Mustang V6 fuel economy ratings with Mustang V8 power… impressive. Of course, the next generation Mustang (also with a 2010 release) is going to have better fuel economy as well, I am sure.

In other Ford “time changing” news, they released today that they are bringing in even more smaller, European cars, and re-vamping their truck lines to build them. Proof that you either need to get with the times and change, or get ready to be run over in the long run.

Best of luck to our American car companies. Their products may suck, but they are a huge part of our economy. I really hope that the changes that they are making will turn them around.

After all, all of those yuppies drinking bottled water have just been drinking tap water all this time without even knowing it. All most bottled water is is filtered tap water. You can get the same thing with a brita filter at home, and save yourself all that money.

I’ve been listening to people complain about how high gas prices are since I got my license, back before gas was $2 a gallon. I’m sure I just dated myself there. In any case, as the cost-per-barrel and the average price for a gallon of gas continuously shatter every previously set record, some times when they have only been a record for a day, it is difficult to ignore the topic. I really do feel bad for the poorer people who live in areas without public transportation and are now seeing 15-20% of their income going to gas. No one should have to decide between buying food or buying gas in order to get to work in the morning. But I don’t feel that gas is going to get cheaper in the long run, so the only real solution for people like these is for them to find some way to change their ways… and I’m not saying that as if it is an easy thing to do.

Even now, with premium in So Cal up to 5 dollars a gallon, Americans can still be releaved to know that in Europe they are paying nearly double what we are. Yes, most of this aditional cost is a direct result of socialism and is in the form of taxes, but those extra costs aside, they are still paying, 8, 9, or 10 dollars for a gallon, while we are paying only 5 dollars a gallon.

I don’t think many Americans know how much Europeans pay for gas, because they don’t complain about the costs nearly as much as we do. I feel this has to do in part with them having more time to accept higher fuel costs, but also in how they’ve gotten around the costs: smaller cars and public transportation. In America, we just haven’t gotten on ball with the European mindset for transportation. We are still stuck in the post-war “a car in every garage” mentality. In fact, in LA there are more cars than there are people! Why does one person need an Expedition to do drive to and from work, in traffic, alone? And why do they do so when the train runs right beside the freeway?

I got the small car part of the European mentality down years ago, but now I’m getting on the public transportation ball as well by taking the train. This is partially because of the increase in gas prices, and partially because it is less expensive, faster, and a lot less stressful than sitting on the 5 in rush hour. I do a little bit of reading and arive relaxed instead of anxious and exhausted. It isn’t as easy for everyone to just jump on a train. I’m lucky to live a mile from the train station, and I’m lucky that my boyfriend lives a mile from his train station. There are a lot of people who I know the train would work for them, but they don’t take it. Why?

I think the answer to that is American’s drive for independance. Even I feel vulnerable when I take the train, and I love public transportation. It is a little nerve racking to know that you are completely dependant on Metrolink to take you where you need to go, and friends to drive you other places if needed. It just doesn’t fit in with our culture.

I had a lot easier time riding public transportation in Japan, France and Washington DC than I do in my own backyard. Aside from the fact that their trains run a lot more often in these areas, being without a train is an even more vulnerable situation than being with one. Aside from the unknowns and dependane on the trains, you don’t know the streets, you don’t know the traffic patterns, you don’t know the area, etc. Because of all of these unknows it is much more comforting to get in a box on a track, knowing exactly where it is going to take you. You don’t get that feeling here.

Since I started taking the train more I started thinking about how much I actually need my car. I could take the train/bus to work, I already take it to LA on the weekends. I can ride my bike to restaurants and the grocery store, and there are buses that go places futher than comfortable to ride. Because the public transportation system in So Cal sucks, I don’t feel that I could be 100% dependant on it. For example, the last train out from Unioin Station is at 8:45pm…. that’s nothing compared to midnight or even 2am in other places. Even if I could take the train everywhere, that wouldn’t solve my want for independance. My want to to in my car and go somewhere without a schedule telling me what to do.

I think it is time for us all to admit that the car culture in America is dying. It saddens me a lot. Next weekend I’m supposed to be at Buttonwillow raceway, helping out and watching a friend do race school. Another friend is doing a track day at Willow Springs, which I’ve been invited to as well. Buttonwillow is 160 miles away. Last year I wouldn’t have batted my eye to this distance. I would have driven there, taken some laps around the track, then driven the two hours from Buttonwillow to Willow Springs to cheer on my other friend, and back to Buttonwillow. I would have wasted a tank of gas doing this and thought nothing of it. But now, while I’m still going to go to Buttonwillow, I’m not looking forward to the trip like I would have. I just don’t feel like paying for it at the pumps. I wish I could have been born 30 years earlier so I could have enjoyed the car culture longer.

Every morning, as I drive my carbon dioxide emitting vehicle into work, I spend my time listening to Adam Corolla. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Corolla’s morning show, he’s Stern’s replacement on Free FM, and is most well known for the 10 or so years he did on Love Line with Dr. Drew.

What bothered me about him on Love Line I love about him on his morning shows. Quite often when someone else is talking he’ll pick up a word or a phrase that reminds him of something he hates and launch into a fifteen minute rant about that topic. His rants are glorious in how he phrases his complaints, and genious in the points he makes. Most times I’m in my car nodding my head with everything he says. You can listen to his top rants this week at the “This Week in Rage” section of his website: http://adam.freefm.com/ (warning: some strong language).  I think the nurse one is the best myself, and I’m a little surprised that my favorite rant of the week didn’t make the top 5: his rant about how his childhood was ruined by his mother’s doomsday apocalypic fears.

His mom fell victim to the 1970s hippy mindset that we were all going to destroy ourselves in a nuclear war. When he was a kid he had to listen to his mom and her friends talk about how horrible it is to bring a child into this world. He was old enough to realize hey, wait a minute… you just brought ME into this world! What were you thinking? I don’t want to be here! He grew up thinking that by the time he was 30 he would either A. be dead or B. be living underground in a post apocalyptic future.

As I listened to this rant, I really felt bad for him growing up in that environment. I was also releaved that I didn’t grow up with parents who shared his mother’s sentiments (thanks mom and dad). Then, it hit me… we have an entire generation growing up the same way he did. The global warming doomsdayists are no different from the hippy nuclear war disaster doomdayists. I really wonder how it is going to effect the children born today as they are growing up thinking that they are going to die from horrific natural disasters or the rising of the sea or the melting of the ice caps or the extinction of the species etc, etc, etc. Honestly people, they are kids. Let them have their childhoods and don’t worry them about this stuff. And if you really feel that this is going to happen, then as Adam’s mother would say, what are you thinking bringing a child into this world?

For years now people have been complaining about the designs done by Chris Bangle,the head designer of BMW. Now, I drive one of his cars, so I adamantly disagree with those naysayers. BMW finally stuck it to them, by declaring that if you don’t like the design than YOU should change it yourself! They aren’t challanging anyone to go through the expensive and difficult venture of making and designing their own car, instead, they have come out with an interesting concept of a car called Gina light modelwith a body built with a flexible metal skelaton and fabric, so the shape of the car can be changed to the whim of the owner.

I think it looks amazing as is. Keep on keeping on Chris!

My Bluetooth piece looks like it belongs in a modern art museum. It glows a sexy shade of red and is so clean and sleek in design that it only has one button on it: + and – for volume. Every other command one may ask a Bluetooth earpiece to do is done though a cryptic series of Morse Code-esque tapping done to the main unit. Turning it on, off, syncing, unsyncing, hanging up and placing a call are all done through some unknown foreign language of pompous pushes. A few times the damn thing died on me because… yeah, it doesn’t tell you when the battery is low. At least, not in a way that is distinguishable to me yet. Perhaps it flashes twice to let you know it is dying. Like Columbus stumbing upon the Native Americans… I have yet to discipher this language. It may be telling me where the gold is, but I cannot understand.

Don’t get me wrong, the thing looks great. I do believe that if I have that attached to my head while I sit at Starbucks that I’m officially 10x more legit. But the thing is completely useless! What is the point of looking cool if you need to learn code in order to work something that is supposed to make life easier?

My Bluetooth unit isn’t the only thing that is so sleek that it has managed to make itself completely unusable. Actually, it’s a whole company that is so self absorbed in the glory that is itself and the sleekness of their products that you cannot tell where its head ends and its ass begins. Maybe you’ve guessed what I’m talking about. If you are sipping your green tea while you sit at your Ikea table rested carefully on top of your bamboo wood floor then look at the logo on your computer. Does it resemble a certain fruit you get at your Farmers Market? That’s right; I’m talking about Mac here. And I’ll be the first to admit, that stereotype is old, played out and wrong. After all, even people with carpet buy these things now.

I have to say, there are some aspects of Macs that I like a lot. The aftermarket product availability for their Ipod, for example, is top notch. I also think that their advertisement is some of the best out there right now next to MINI. And I will not deny that their products look amazing… but that is the problem. They have made their products so minimalistic and sleek that they have ceased to be functional.

I was on my friend’s Macbook while he was setting up his new Mac G5. I wanted to do a print screen of a photo. If I were on my PC I would hit control print screen and have the image copied. So simple! Now, try to do this on a Mac. Just like my Bluetooth it requires a cryptic series of key pushes in a certain order to command the computer to do what you want it to do. It is not as simply and dummy proof as control print screen, oh not at all, and it isn’t even universal for all Macs! Ironically, as I was struggling with this my friend was struggling at the same time with similar minimalistic problems with his new Mac G5. The computer was so damn minimal that it was hiding nearly a terabyte from space for him. After all, showing these hard drives would clutter the look of the my computer folder.

I look down at his Macbook’s super sleek floating keyboards and make a very shocking discovery… there is no print screen button. He didn’t know how to do it. Hmm, there must be a solution for this somewhere, so I went online. I type in “how to do print screen on mac” not only were the answers plentiful, they were scattered on lists called such things as “frequently asked questions”. If it is asked so much, why not just label a key print screen? Oh, that’s right… Mac. First place said control F3. That didn’t work. Then it was something like control F13, but the computer didn’t even have an F13, it stopped at F10 (read: minimalistic), then I think it was apple shift 3. So after a number of incomprehensible codes I got it to copy. Go Mac!

This doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of my frustration with this stupid operating system. Why do I need to hit control mouse in order to right click? Is splitting the mouse in two so aesthetically unpleasing that they couldn’t do this? Why the hell do the screens disappear up or down at the slightest whim? Why isn’t there a bar showing me where everything is. Why do I have to do a shortcut to see what I have open, a shortcut to open something new, a shortcut to change over to another program… where is the shortcut to see what all of the shortcuts are? But just as that chair would be less visually stimulating if you could actually sit on it, the Mac would be less visually stimulating if you could actually use it.

I’m sure I’m offending a lot (again, number is used lightly) people who swear by their Mac. But it doesn’t crash! I don’t have viruses! It’s the thinnest laptop on the market! Yes, but do to Mac’s communistic cost controls you paid more for it than any other comparable unit, and you just look like a smug asshole for using it. I bet you have one of those slick bluetooth ear pices on right now too.