Speaking of frost…

..Napa and Sonoma grapevines are chill-dogged, big time.  Vineyards are reporting struggling baby shoots in record spring time frosts.  
This link is brought to you via the mighty Rogue Pundit .   You have entered southern Oregon’s Rogue River area in the mythical State of Jefferson.
Seriously. The Rogue Pundit is full-on.   Do you know of green burials and diamonds [...]

Earthquakes…

are like scuba diving at night at Cape Mendocino, pitch black, without a torch.  And something bumps into you. 
This was a roller — like a grouper.  Great whites are out there, though. Groupers don’t even move  that much – what am I talking about.
Okay, earthquakes are like a night dive in the Sacramento River delta. This one was a sturgeon.
 Earthquakes [...]

Speaking of earthquakes…

we just experienced one about an hour ago. The chair shifted and I thought I was having a stroke or something, but my dad said that their house shook pretty good, too. Boy, it’s something. Wow. Wow.
Eerie. 

Word # 4

ineradicable
You might protest that no family has been in the Sacramento Valley for anything approaching “always.” But it is characteristic of Californians to speak grandly of the past as if it had simultaneously begun, tabula rasa , and reached a happy ending on the day the wagons started west. Eureka — “I Have Found [...]

Does anybody really know what time it is….or was? (Get me a Tylenol!)

You’ve probably seen this Penn and Teller video about how people at a World Fest signed a petition to ban water. There is something to be said about the follow the herd type of thing. I mean, you can say that about every political side of the issue; there are [...]

Strawbs

P1070389, originally uploaded by jasonstimpel.

From the Saturday Farmers’ Market at the City Hall parking lot.
Tuesday market starting July at the Shasta Center next to the Dairy Queen.
Thursday market starting June at the downtown Marketfest
Sunday market starting July at the Turtle Bay parking lot.

GPS Tractor

Smart tractor.
During harvest, sensors collect data on crop health and yield to determine precisely how much each square foot of soil should be nourished, weed-whacked, and bug-zapped the following spring. For each acre, this tech saves farmers $10 to $20 — and spares streams and groundwater 10 to 20 pounds of chemical pollution.
Wikipedia on [...]

Gerneracion Y

Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.
Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the rest of the [...]

So True (Not For Me, But For You)

Blogger sweatshop.

Something unrelated to the above video (or related in a different way) — want to watch something really sickening? The year– 1989; the place– Sausalito, California; the what — Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link; the why — online community pioneers.
[link via boing boing]
Am I using the correct punctuation? [...]

Western States Taxidermy Championships

More pics here.