It’s been so beautiful out the last couple days of 2008. A lovely way close out the year. I took the opportunity to shoot a couple of Then and Now scenes in my favorite city. The old photos are courtesy of the Shasta Historical Society (consider joining us) and the new ones I took yesterday.

I didn’t get too technical about duplicating the exact location, but that might be a fun project.


Here’s what the Eaton House project is looking like, all winterized apparently. We save so few of our old buildings in Redding. This is a great opportunity to preserve something of the past.


It’s going to be much better when finished than it had ever been. One thing about Redding’s past is that there wasn’t a whole bunch of architecture really worth saving. Some of what seemed worth saving is gone. The Carnegie Library, The Old Courthouse, the Hall of Records. All dust. Judge Eaton’s house is a fairly ordinary looking thing, and maybe that’s what will make it interesting to future generations.

Merry Christmas to you. I ran into this image while surfing today, and thought I’d share it with you. It was done by an artist on Flickr named Haarnaald you can see HERE. Nice work. Amazing what a skilled photo/artist can do with fractals.

Happy holidays to all!

Here’s a few images of the new McDonalds building on Cypress Ave in Redding, rising from the ruins of the old building. It looks to be very substantial, and much more well constructed than the building it replaces. The old building was destroyed by meteor strike from outer space, as seen below.

Okay, just kidding about the meteor.

Food for Thought is running a winter photo contest. There are some lovely entries. If you haven’t seen them, you can click HERE and vote for your favorite. I really like Brian Rueb’s entry, which looks like Burney Falls in snow. These two here I took of the western range a couple days ago didn’t make the cut. Sometimes photos just can’t do justice to the real thing.

I entered a shot I took a few days ago in my garden. It was one of 2 entries that featured a Buddha statue, which I thought was interesting. He looks peaceful somehow, in snow.

While Christmas shopping, I went to the Bug Emporium on Hartnell, only to find it shuttered and empty. Wow, that’s too bad. Where will shoppers find that perfect gift now?

I wonder what happened? Just over a month ago, I wrote this piece about them for Food for Thought. I hope they just sold out of stock due to unexpected high demand. Then again, perhaps the inventory was trampled in a Wal-Mart like Black Friday incident. Or perhaps they were forced out of business by big-box competition for the erratic bugs-on-pins marketplace. A jealous Turtle Bay Museum conspiracy? Who knows?

Seen in happier days, Redding’s Bug Emporium and Museum was a beacon of knowledge and commerce. Hey, check out those gas prices from just a month ago.

Perhaps you read that the National Park Service is trying to eliminate the communications equipment from the top of Shasta Bally. Their concerns revolve around aesthetics and views for the park.

Those concerns are valid, but only to a point. The laws of nature and physics dictate the best positioning for this equipment, not aesthetic judgments. The antennae and equipment pre-date the park. It was put there by (apparently wiser) citizens some 50 years ago, who saw the site as the only viable and practical location for complete coverage. The Park Service seems to have very little concern for local communication, only their vision for a prettier mountaintop. It’s an admirable idea, on paper. The reality is that Shasta Bally is not Half Dome, and the man-made lake it overlooks is not Tahoe. While it is lovely to consider a pristine mountaintop presiding over our park, that vision is trumped by the absolute necessity of getting clear communication in an emergency in our mountainous areas. This is not an aesthetic concern, it is a concrete reality of the electromagnetic spectrum. We should not lose this irreplaceable communication resource for the vague goal of a prettier mountain. Your life may well depend on it someday.

Eliminating this local resource will be harmful to the local population. Tell the Park Service Bureaucrats how you feel about this at their website HERE. In attendance at the hearing in Redding last night, it seemed apparent that the decision has already been made, and your interests and safety are secondary. Imagine CalFire unable to communicate, or an auto accident on 299. If you think those antennae aren’t pretty today, I guarantee you will feel differently in an emergency. The Park Service individuals making this decision won’t have to live with this after they retire to wherever, but YOU WILL.

Local story goes big. RS staffers seen later whooping it up. Kids these days.Tsk.

This image is making the rounds on the internet. Sort of funny and not funny, all at once.

Yesterday, local Red Bluff Ford announced they were declaring bankruptcy. And Miller Auto of Redding announced they would be abandoning Mitsubishi. Today, we learn they won’t be selling Suzuki or Cadillacs, leaving only Jeep. Obviously, local auto sellers are struggling. Should they be bailed out too? Where does the bailout end? Who decides?

I think the bailout raises a lot of questions. I don’t see those questions being asked as we race to bailout the big players, while local small businesses fail without a similar lifeboat.

The fake ad implies that US Automakers failed because their products sucked. Elsewhere in my blog I wrote that we made a business decision specifically to buy American cars, and in our case Cadillacs, to be supportive, and (we thought) to show some national pride. But my Cadillacs have had serious and expensive problems, in and out of warranty. It’s very disappointing. Should their lack of quality be rewarded with a bailout? Also, a large part of the big automaker’s financial problems stem from their very generous labor contracts. Their workers and retirees enjoy excellent pay and benefits, which is great for those workers. But as I look around my town, it becomes apparent that excellent pay and benefits are rare indeed. Should the poorly paid workers in my town be expected to bail them out?

Oh well, nobody said life was fair. Unless you’re getting a bailout.

My friend and fellow planetarium musician Jim Combs plays in the Atlanta area (mostly) as Sensitive Chaos. He also plays in collaboration with other folks, and leads the music festival there, City Skies. If you’ve been enjoying some of Craig Padilla and my music posted here, you will probably also enjoy Sensitive Chaos. You can buy music and CDs at the website, but even better, you can sample very long pieces at no cost at the secret webpage. Shh. Its a secret webpage. There’s more than 13 hours of recordings available there. You can drop some money in the digital tip jar too, just like listening at a venue. Check it out. Add some nice longform MP3 tracks to your iPod, at whatever you’d like to pay (think starving artist). Thanks Jim! Play on.

You see time. This recently released 18 minute video from TED is thought provoking. Awe provoking, really.

TED has lots of thought provoking information from smart people. Worth a lengthy surf to their site if you haven’t seen some of what takes place there. It’s always encouraging to see smart people.