Journal Entries:
Slouching Towards Guatemala

Mapping ænd Æsthetics

Friday, 14 Feb. 2003, Jackson California

Valentine's Day, another PT day, another beautiful day. I've got some mapping projects to do, Use TopoUSA to build a 3-dimensional map of this part of Amador County so I can see what the features are. Definitely track down a Metzger map of the county and adjacent counties.

Get the goddam scanner going, and scan the old National Auto Club map of the Carson Pass Route in, to put up on my cartography page. Put a little work in on that cartography page. Dig thru my maps boxes, look for geological maps of the area. What to do with all that? I'm not sure yet, but I'll think of something.

Check the Census Bureau site by ZIPcodes for Amador County, see the population. Check my hypothesis that the population up-county is greater than in Jackson. Is this the upcountry metropolis? Hmmm, see if I have some mapping software that can display population and other demographics by ZIPcode. Building thematic maps, yes.

[Footnote - results: of the 35,000 people in Amador Co, about 10,000 are in/around Ione, another 10,000 in the Jackson-Sutter Creek-Amador City strip, another 10,000 in the Pine Grove-Pioneer strip, and the rest are scattered around the terrain. Hmmm...]

[deletia - phone call from Guatemala - no room at the inn - which inn? dunno...]

Wednesday, 19 February 2003, Sacramento

In the Crocker Art Museum, California Gallery, the main one with the Hahns and Nashes and Bierstadt and all that, pretty splendid. I'm in the side gallery now, lots of European old masters, many of which are of little interest to me, although there's a Jan Breughel the Elder, River Scene, oil on copper, that's pretty glorious. And Pieter Brueghel the Younger's Peasant Wedding Dance. And some very nice paintings of Venice, the Piazzetta by Bataglioli, and Church of San Maurice by Gabrielle Lapelle. And this wonderful allegory of mining, Theobold Reinhart von Oort - absolutely no realism, but a wonderful rendering.

We came in, immediately came upstairs where there are two famous Charles Christian Nahls paintings, SUNDAY MORNING IN THE MINES and THE FANDANGO. Very famous. THE FANDANGO is so exuberant.

The museum is cluttered with kids with sketchpads, sitting around, doing more-or-less reproductions of what they see on the walls, maybe. A lot of modern work in here [the Mansion Gallery], most of which Maureen hates but some of which I find charming.

Downstairs, more early California, and a collection of OLD [southeast] Asian ceramics, which look surprisingly like stuff we'd pick up at Cost Plus or in Chinatown, except this is all 500-700 years old and worth a fortune. See, bury something and eventually it's worth something. After enough time goes by...

Outside the Italianate palace of the Crocker Art Museum, ah, the bustle of Sacramento sweeps over one like rough dirty surf.

This morning we cruised down the Sierra slopes through rain and darkness. Still kinda dodgy as we strolled through Old Town Sacramento. Now the sun's out, the clouds're thinning, the storm is moving on. We just *might* miss those thunderstorms predicted for this afternoon, which is now.

Coming out of the Crocker, we thought to stomp around down to the old Capitol and look around there, but it's a bit too far to be worth our while today. So, we'll be back. Ah yes, Old Town, brunch at a little basement pasta place, absolutely MISERABLE food. I've never trusted Theme Park food and distrust is amply justified. All You Can Eat For $4? No, all you can DARE eat, all you can STAND to eat! All that you don't barf back up. RALF!!

Stealth LOMOGRAPHY, etc

Friday, 21 February 2003, Jackson California

Strolling around town, beautiful day, warm. My first application of the principles of LOMOGRAPHY today, which in this case is stealth photography. Walking around nonchalantly, camera in my hand, shooting from the hip. Or below. At whatever, whoever is passing by. My initial review of the shots is that a few work, most don't, but,so? I mean, memory chip and rechargeable batteries, it doesn't cost anything to do the shooting, heh heh. A couple of them that are just colorful blurs have a certain something to them.

It turns out that we, or I, don't have adequate formal clothes for a high-class Guatemala wedding, so when we go to the Bay Area early next week, Sunday Monday Tuesday maybe Wednesday, looks like we'll be stopping at the Men's Warehouse to get me 'wardrobed', outfitted, monkey-suited. Ah, you can dress me up but you can't make me behave! Ha ha.

Saturday, 22nd February, Volcano California

Forget buying a new wardrobe, we'll tack-together the old stuff, leave it there when the ceremonies are over. A lot cheaper than buying a lot of new use-it-once stuff and shipping it back...

Stomping up a grade, tracks lead everywhere off into the trees. The hills around here are honeycombed with roads, roadlets and trails. Well hell, they've been honeycombed with trails for a long time, ever since the miners started tearing up the place looking for good stuff, and probably before then even.

I just finished unpacking the, what I *think* are the last of the atlases, oh there may be a few more stashed away in some of those DICTIONARY boxes. I unearthed the old National Auto Club 1950 West Coast Touring Guide, the one in good condition. (Must scan and post those maps!) Nice stripmap of the Carson Route, showing Pioneer as being down by Red Corral. There was no big suburb up around Sugar Pine and Buckhorn ridges, then. Probably all that existed of contemporary Pioneer until fairly recently, well 25 year ago or more, was Pioneer Station, which is hardly a station at all...

Bay Area Again, Again

Monday 24 February 2003, Windsor CA

Another nice day, except when you're going through it. We're down in Sonoma County for more medical stuff. Today, swallow a pill. Tomorrow, find out where it went. Stop and shop here and there. Some necessities, some comestibles, some preparations, but everything at a good deal or we wouldn't do it. Not a new suit for me, we'll try to get the old one tailored. Not much new information, or at least nothing that bears repeating.

Tues. morning, 25 Feb 2003, Santa Rosa

The test this morning, Thyroid Uptake test, showed that Maureen's condition is NOT Hashimoto, which means the lump on the thyroid's either a cyst (benign) or a tumor (malignant). So she's being rushed in to have a biopsy taken this afternoon, so we'll be down here for another day. Should have... yeah, for her other appointment, Worker's Comp, rescheduled from today 'til tomorrow.

Beautiful weather outside, I don't think we'll camp out by the Sonoma County Airport, at least not the industrial area, anymore. We DID find a nice spot over on the Forestville side of Snoopy International Airport, so if we DO have to be in THIS area overnight [again], like for early access to Kaiser Santa Rosa, there's a place to stay.

Now we're doing a round of shops, looking for wedding garb. Nothing good for me yet. I'm thinking that my best move would be to rebuild Jerry's old suit. Maureen is having fun poking around at high-end clothes. I am NOT, but what the hell...

Wednesday 26 Feb 2003, Emeryille

Maureen's exam yesterday showed SOMETHING there, it's not Hashimoto, either a cyst or a tumor, hopefully it's a cyst. She had a biopsy yesterday afternoon, and we'll find out in a week what's going on. We stayed over at that quiet place west of the airport last night, came down to San Rafael for a Workers Comp session this morning, and now we're slowly making our way through every Ross between Santa Rosa and Stockton, I guess, or at least to here, to Emeryville. Have to stop at Ikea , we're just having a shop-a-thon today. Fun fun fun. More good stuff...

Alas, Ikea did not have in stock all that we wanted, so we get to go back there once again. Oh well, we will have other business down by the Bay... didn't find any more music software at Ross, but what I got in the last few days should do me well for playing with mixing of .WAVs and MIDIs. I'm looking forward to getting the guitar MIDI interface hooked up on the Monorail again, and recording some of my songs in MIDI, putting them online. I should have done that YEARS ago...

And if I can ever get the .SNG-to-.MID translator software copied off the 5-inch disk, load it onto my current machines, I can start translating my old AdLib music to MIDI. But before I do a lot of music stuff I have to listen to the Spanish language tapes, and the Spanish language CD-ROM course, and get ready for Guatemala. So much to do, so little time...

Wed. afternoon late, Amador County

Dusk, just crossing the San Joaquin - Amador county line. Maureen's driving the RV, I wore-out a little while ago. The pace of this current excursion has slowed compared to previous ones but still, we've been doing an awful lot of shopping, and that's gets wearying, and it's a dirty filty job... sweaty, exhausting.

So we've had three very full days, get up early in the morning to get medical appointments, and then shop like crazy all day until we fall over, exhausted. But now, fading into the cloudy twilight, the oak woodland and parklike greenery rolls by...

Meanwhile, a web design decision: I had considered converting a large number of my web pages to SHTMLs with server-side includes, put a navigation column that'd be dynamically, not dynamically generated, but dynamically included so it'd be much easier to keep it updated. But when I thought about that further, uh, I would still have to retain all my old HTML files, and have jumps in them to the new SHTMLs, and all the internal jumps would be lost. That would just be too much work, too much overhead, too much inefficiency. So possibly if I design any new subsites, I'll have such SHTML included, or have them as SHTMLs. In fact I might do the Guatemala adventure log that way... But trying to retrofit all the old pages is just not gonna work, nope...

Helldorfer Bros. R Here

Friday 28 February 2003, Jackson

Mid-morning, back in Jackson for PT (Physical Therapy) for Maureen. Ah, very cold last night, there was snow actually, just tiny bits in the last day. Had my beard and hair badly trimmed by a local professional yesterday, won't do THAT again.

The Helldorfer brothers will all be in town tomorrow, we are hosting a dinner, should be a vast crowd, all the Barnards and Carters and O'Connells and Burdicks available. And Helldorfers. Unless Ginny's health collapses, she's been having some heart problems the last couple days, which might be induced by medicines.

I myself am feeling pain in my right wrist, coming after a couple hours of mousing, I guess it's about time to migrate the mail system off of the old Compaq, or at least get rid of its mouse, find a way to enhance its touchpad. I definately don't want any repetitive motion injuries in my valuable appendages.

Only five weeks to go, or a little over, till we take off for Guatemala. Better start studying the language materials pretty quick.

Yeah, install all the new music software on the Sony, then check online for updates, and check for updates on the touchpad drivers for the Compaq, see how I can turn it into a one-button mouse. And if I can't, well maybe I'll just have to start mousing left-handed, ruin that wrist too, eh?

Sunday, 2 March 2003, Mountain Ranch CA

It turned out the dinner party last night was in celebration of Fred & Sharon Helldorfer selling their Lake Tahoe property, so they can afford to buy the Sugar Pine place. Fred was out here to sign papers and see an architect, and his brothers came up from Lake County. Had a whole Barnard-Carter crowd there. Lotsa fun. Good food. Didn't cost much...

We just passed the Community Church on Whiskey Slide Road. Nice warm day, had a great party, dinner party last night, Now here in this sunny afternoon, we're going through West Point, had sandwiches at the Barbeque there, old fella could talk about nothing but all the drug labs in the area, and trespassers.

So we came on through Railroad Flat, took pictures of the herd of buffalo there, and now we're in Mountain Ranch, which is a bigger little town than you'd expect. I think pretty soon, well we'll go down through Sheep Ranch and start heading back...

We turned off on Fricot City Road out of Sheep Ranch, passed a herd of Llamas, but 'way down the hill the Fricot City Road turns to dirt, it's shown on the map as being a major road, ha ha. 'Way down below here somewhere, I'm not sure where, there's WELCOME TO RITE OF PASSAGE - SIERRA RIDGE CAMPUS, 10400 Fricot City Road, San Andreas, Home of the Rams. It's a private school out here, Sierra Ridge, look it up.

Then on down to Caliveritos, beautiful place, must go back - must go back to ALL that area that we covered and check the side roads and ridges, forests, etc.

Slouching Toward Volcano

Wednesday 5 March 2003, Jackson CA

Back in Jackson for PT and Lomography and strolling in the intense sun. Ring-a-Ding! Got a cell call from the Riverside reporter, Shannon Starr, who quizzed me for 20 minutes about Harry Oliver, and about me own self. She sez her paper doesn't have the old Oliver stuff in their archives anymore. Hmmm. She says the profile will be published this weekend. We shall see.

Sunday 9 March 2003, Volcano CA

After waiting 11 days, we finally got the word Friday morning on Maureen's biopsy: despite taking three vials of thyroid liquid, they didn't get enough thyroid cells to make an absolute determination, but none of what they saw looks malignant. Whew. So she just has to go back in a few months so they can jab great needles in her neck again, and see what's happening.

Yesterday I crashed mid-day with fatigue. Maureen was invited by the Barnards to see the CHICAGO film (free admission, Kitra works there) and happily abandoned me to my snoring. After I roused and they returned, we retired to their house for pizza and cards, this time with Kitra & Gavin & Chris in attendance. Great fun was had by all.

I checked the Press-Enterprise website, found the Harry Oliver piece, and found that is was very much about... me... hmmm, I'm not sure I want to circulate this to the DRSB group, it might seem a bit too self-serving.

Now it's noonish Sunday. After Maureen rouses we'll head to Volcano's elegant old St. George Hotel for a should-be-lively concert by Ron Thompson, blues guitarist extraordinaire, then maybe stay for dinner (we've a half-price coupon). Haven't done anything like this in years...

And the plan for tomorrow is: load up the RV in the morning; do PT in Jackson in early afternoon; then hop in the RV, cruise over the mountains, and spend the week around Carson-Reno-Virginia-Genoa, walking about at altitude, acclimating for Guatemala, yup. Then back for PT in Jackson next Friday. I'd better check the weather forecast...

The RON THOMPSON Show

Sunday PM, St George Hotel, Volcano.

We're at the St George Hotel for an afternoon blues concert, and dinner later. Opening are the Downhome Blues duo, guitar and bass working on one pleasant groove. After a few pieces they're joined by a Wingnut Adams duo, harpist Kevin and his fine dirty guitarist Jeremy, the youngest person in the Gold-Rush-era room. This quartet directly plays some VERY hot blues.

Not exactly a dark smokey blues club, the classic Olde Californie hall with tall French windows and a Saab-sized mirror is packed with folding chairs and greying Boomers. A scent of cigar blows in from the blackberry brambles and falling cherry blossoms, across the flagstone veranda. Light, airy,calm room; dark, smokey, exciting blues; it balances, eh?

Then in comes the headliner, Ron Thompson sans Resistors, who solidly sits himself and proceeds to knock down the pink plaster walls with just an amplified Dobro, doing fast-kicking Robert Johnson stuff. Pow!

But wait, there's more! Boogie, and old soul, and Mink DeVille, and rocka-boogie-woogie synthesized piano. He's obviously been doing this a long, long, long time. He toured for years with John Lee Hooker, and it's rubbed off.

Now some trance blues on electric mandolin. Then to an open-tuned slide-driven acoustic guitar with duct-taped electrification, popping the windows with string-bustin' wired urban blues, and frantic Bo Diddly riffs, Kevin backing him on drums.

Then slow down, sing PEOPLE GET READY in his thready voice, the writhing sweating crowd catch their collective breath, only to ramp up some more boogie blues, til the walls fall in again. He stops, we stomps, and he gives us a chaser of WHITE PORT AND LEMON JUICE.

Uh oh, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE - the oldsters are twisting, chairs kicked over, howling in the back - somebody, call the dogcatcher! We've all gone rabid!

So who is Ron Thompson? A well-oiled blues-boogie-rock medly machine who can fill a hall with sound and drive hearts into overdrive, using just the slightest of resources. Zowie.

PS: We then had the usual fine dinner at the St. George, louder but with less wine and pizza than last night's gathering. But this was fun too.

Almost Gone...

Friday 21st March 2003, Jackson.

Downtown again today, in Jackson for physical therapy, a beautiful day except for the focking illegal war. Monday we went down to Sacamento in the morning, looking for stuff for the trip, and then back to Jackson for PT (physical therapy). Tuesday and Wednesday we relaxed except for the start of the focking illegal war. Yesterday we drove down to the Bay Area for a blood test at Kaiser Santa Rosa, and looked for stuff for the trip, and stopped at Ikea for followup furniture.. Another beautiful day except for the focking illegal war. Now there's just a few more things to round up. And then we'll be almost ready to go to Guatemala.