You won’t recognize the place after watching this short video. And this was recorded a few days before our Deepwater Chernobyl.

We keep trying to help the salmon that swim by our River City. But they have to go and grow up in the ocean. And we wonder why there are fewer every year. It’s all connected, it’s Really Redding.

The recent Deepwater Horizon/BP oil blowout is big. How big? Here’s a map of the spill, only spread over Shasta County.

Paul Rademacher is using GoogleEarth to give us all a better understanding of the size and scope of the problem. Although the news is using phrases like “the size of Delaware,” it can be hard to visualize. The link lets you place the oil over any geography on earth. You need to install the Google Earth plugin if you don’t have it already. It seems to be a harmless plugin.

The oil is not harmless.

Early on, some doomer bloggers were predicting this would be something we’d never seen before. That it would be unstoppable, and carried in the gulf stream, it would eventually destroy the entire ocean ecosystem of the planet. Maybe. Can you say it won’t? So far they have been unable to stop it, or even slow it down. And if you have been following the news daily, they seem to be downplaying it every day, until the news get worse. At first it was just a fire, then it sunk. Then just a few thousand gallons leaking, now millions. Then, they were going to put a cap on it, but it failed. A mile beneath the sea, and 30,000 feet below that, the oil has other ideas. It’s like a bad science fiction movie, only real.

Anyway check the link. We are an oil based civilization, and the fragile sea pays the price.

“I still recall my mother’s first words to me: ‘I haven’t killed anyone in years, but never think that I’ve forgotten how.’”

Warren Ellis

You should have a soft heart as a mom, but if you have a soft head too, your progeny are doomed.

Skip Murphy

Not exactly Hallmark card material, but Happy Mother’s Day, mom. Celebrating tough-minded, soft-hearted moms everywhere.

Returning from Chico, we came across the grisly aftermath of a horrific highway accident on Highway 99. All that remained was the cleanup crew dealing with the wreckage of a fuel truck.

We learned later that a very young woman had attempted to pass some vehicles on this dangerous stretch. The driver of the fuel truck lived, amazingly. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of the young woman.

I am dismayed by rubberneckers, so I kept moving safely with traffic as we rolled through the controlled section. Erin snapped a few shots out the window. It was a surreal scene.


We are fascinated by death. It’s only human. To me, the oddity of auto death is our fatalistic acceptance of it all. Many more people die in auto accidents than most any other human activity in our culture, but we seem collectively, to be okay with that. Perhaps its the utter randomness of the events that make it seem so unlikely to have happen to us. I mean, what’s the chances of a woman trying to pass a few slower cars when a FUEL TANKER is in the other lane; coming together at about 130 mph? It just seems so implausible, so unlikely. Evidently not.

Again our condolences to all involved. We especially want to thank the men and women safety responders who had to deal with this terrible scene. You are heroic.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, not complete without random and violent auto death. It’s Really Redding.

I wrote on this same topic a year ago. This year, we may vote to remove the marijuana prohibition. Probably, you will soon see campaign rhetoric heat up. When you see arguments against removing prohibition, I ask you to consider who will benefit most from leaving the status quo in place.

Illegal drug cartels
Marijuana dispensaries and their landlords
Alcohol manufacturers and distributors
Pharmaceutical manufacturers
Lawyers and courts
Hydroponic gardening stores
Prisons and their unions
Police eradication budgets

When you see or hear the campaign advertising against legalization, please consider the source carefully. The prohibition has been a complete failure. Time to try something new. Click on the image for more thoughtful info.

It’s April 15. A special day, ahem. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everybody wants more services. Before you go off on *insert enemy name here* you may enjoy this classic video from John Cleese:

The enemy list may change, but Monty Python remains. I know when I think about extremists and other irony-challenged individuals and groups, they are such very bad persons, and if it wasn’t for them, I’d actually be good-natured, and courteous, and rational all the time.

Readers at Bruce Ross’ blog recently caught wind of the looming financial crisis facing California Pension funds. Last week in Sacramento, we walked by the CalPERS building and it made quite an impression.
It’s a lovely building. Still, the central glass tower seems to serve no function other than providing full time glass cleaning jobs. As art, it’s beautiful. As a symbol, it doesn’t speak of thrift, or frugality, or savings, or any of those qualities one might associate with a retirement program. Such architectural hubris is not at all uncommon among big banks and securities firms, but this glass palace seems over-the-top for offices of state bureaucrats. But then, obviously they don’t see themselves as such, do they? The building speaks much louder than words.
This disconnect probably wouldn’t have caught my attention, were it not for the frustration of knowing we are unable to even do as much as house our police department in an abandoned shampoo factory in Redding. Or, that our city council appears to have been bullied into not buying a decent new office building across from city hall for 1/4 of what it cost to build it. Private investors knew better than to pass that one up. Too bad CalPERS couldn’t have invested in either building. It would appear they have some money to throw around. I guess it’s who you know that counts.

I especially loved the first line in the form. “Count all people, including babies…” as though there were some question as to whether babies were people. We got our form yesterday. It’s going right back out. It’s important to count as many folks in our community as actually do live here. We receive benefits according to our actual population. A great many things rely on an accurate count. Do your part.

Many, many years ago I worked a stint as a census enumerator. I learned a lot about Redding and Anderson Streets. And when you knock on doors unannounced, you learn just how many people own watch dogs around here. It’s Really Redding.

Actually 7 new windows, courtesy of STS-130, the 130th Shuttle mission ending (hopefully) today. If you’ve been keeping track over the last 13 days, you know our brave astronauts have finished installing an observation module on the International Space Station with 7 new windows, called the Cuppola. The view should be amazing and useful. Why even have a Space Station if you can’t look out the window?

Of all the things we do as US citizens, this is one of the coolest. We fly people into space, and look at stuff. The Space Shuttle program is winding down. This is one of the few remaining flights. It’s been an epic period in human history, of which we as citizens can all be proud.

We wish the citizen astronauts of STS-130 well on their safe return to the planet. In terms of media attention, we sometimes focus on the idiotic and trivial, while wonderous and heroic things happening all around us seemingly go unnoticed. Not unnoticed here. It’s Really Redding.

I was heartbroken when my flash unit failed a few weeks ago. Especially because the repair center wanted nearly as much money to fix it as it originally cost. Repair or replace? It’s a tough call.

I spent 10 years or so of my career as an electronics tech, so I decided to try to fix it myself. The trouble is that everything electronic is so tiny now that it probably does make more sense to dispose of it than to attempt a repair.

Getting it apart was like a Chinese puzzle. Which makes sense, since most of this gadgetry is made in China. All this stuff is designed on computers, and mostly built by robots. They manage to design it with very few screws or fasteners, which makes the assembly very integrated. Everything has to go in precise order. It’s very meticulous.

So, an inductor has failed. You can’t really replace the semiconductor, unless you were a nano-robot soldering machine. I ordered whole new logic board for $64, and crossed my fingers. And eyes.

Then the trick is getting it back together in the right order. No small feat.

Success! That was a good feeling. I was really hoping not to just throw it away and buy another. Waste not, want not.

I guess it’s because I’m 55 years old and have accumulated a few skills over the years; that plus I’m stubborn and frugal. My gamble paid off for this item, but I’m probably a relic from bygone days of Heathkit television “sets” and computer kits. I can’t imagine younger people looking at a broken cell phone, or failed flat panel TV, and saying to themselves. “hey, maybe I can fix that myself.” Which is kind of a shame, since it likely means more disposal of e-waste. End of an era really. DIY, it’s Really Redding.