376. Pandemic and greening

 

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Greco and Pork Store and Outside Lands 

Day 578/123 = 10/15/2021

Got my third vaccine shot yesterday so today is a day-off. I had my once-a-month blueberry pancakes out for breakfast and now I’m working at the Peet’s at 8th and Brannan. No exercises today as I’m letting my arm recover and was expecting to not feel that well, though, so far I feel fine.

Getting the shot at my neighborhood Wallgreens lacked the ritual and significance of getting the first two at Moscone Center South. Certainly more convenient, though. I presume I won’t get boosted protection for a couple weeks, but since I’m already taking so many precautions this isn’t so significant. Statistically, it will just move me from under 80% to over 80% protection -- maybe 10% more protection. And there are so many variables that I’m not even sure of that. Probably, because I’m in such good shape and eat so well, I didn’t need to do this at all, but at this point I’m not going to take any chances.

I heard a great bit of new English usage this morning at breakfast. Someone described something as happening in “June of the pandemic.” What I like about this is that it is a way of grouping time that spans two years. (Though I think it was understood that “the pandemic” meant prior to the vaccine.) For me, the pandemic started in March of 2020 and ran until April of 2021 -- so we need to come up with a way of differentiating the two Marchs and Aprils. Perhaps “first April of the pandemic.”

Day 579/124 

I’m sitting on the sidewalk at Caffe Greco after shopping at the new Cole Hardware. That corner restaurant between the two has finally given it up and the space is vacant. I got Shoe Goo to repair my boot that Anthony is not in the mood to repair. We are supposed to get some rain this week so I didn’t feel like I could wait to see if he would finally come through. I’m happy to see that Greco at least seems to be thriving. 

Everyone talks about workers quiting their jobs or not filling all the empty positions, but I haven't heard as much talk about the small businesses that you can't get to do anything these days. Besides the shoe repair guy, the person who repairs old windows still hasn't responded to my requests for a bid for our work. I'd add the HOA's lawyer to the list, but we always have a problem getting timely response from our lawyers. I don't know why.

I didn’t have much of a reaction to my third COVID shot. The arm pain lasted less than 48 hours so I’m already back to doing my regular exercises. Never did feel sick otherwise. Too soon to tell if my cell phone reception has improved :-|

Day 584/129 

By next week we should be under 50 cases a day for our rolling 7 day average. And it is dropping fast. Hospitalizations are holding kind of steady, though they are off their peak. [And this is the problem with extrapolating. The numbers hit 50 and then rebounded.]

So what does this mean for me? Perhaps next week I will go to the Pork Store and not worry about how crowded it is. They are still checking vax status, though I still don’t see the value of that. Aside from annoying the anti-vaxxers.

Day 593/138 

I was looking for the daily case numbers to drop below 50 to declare an end to my personal SIP, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. Both the case rate and the hospitalization rate seem to have plateaued or worse right around 50. The next few weeks, before Thanksgiving, were supposed to be my happy time before hunkering down again after Thanksgiving. But maybe not. 

I also thought my greening season was over but I’m working at least one more day. I’ve avoided the hell of Outside Lands, but we will continue to sort the trash for four days after the concert ends. All the shifts on Monday were too early, and it’s supposed to rain most of Tuesday, so I took an eight hour shift on Wednesday. I may regret this, but it seems like the least I can do for the team. Plus I repaired my work boots and I want to see how they hold up. And it’s an excuse to have brunch at the Pork Store again. Was there last week and learned that the last of the regular waitresses is leaving at the end of the year. This is the one from Luxembourg. 

Day 597/142 

Worked a full eight hour shift of table sorting to finish the Outside Lands cleanup. Was working with a new woman who has worked in the past with a returning regular. He should have put us with some of the less experienced people, but it was interesting working with someone who was similarly trained. There is a lot that is subjective about the sorting process. She pulled some tofu containers that I had tossed in the landfill and moved them to recycling. It is almost impossible to get the plastic film off the top of the (semi) rigid plastic tubs. I’m pretty sure they just get tossed by Recology. Then I pulled a big dirty aluminum tray out of the landfill and used a towel I had saved to clean it up enough for recycling. Aluminum is one of the few things we are certain will actually get recycled, so the only reason to not recycle it is if it’s too dirty to clean up.

We were using the largest size debris boxes which was a problem after they got so full you had to close the rear doors. They are just a little too tall to dump a can of sorted trash over the side, unless you are over six feet tall. There was a time when we would have had ramps, but these were judged to be unsafe so now we have to improvise. Stupid. It’s especially a problem when you overload a bag/can making it too heavy to even lift over the side. This is something I’m frequently guilty of. I needed help on multiple occasions as a result.

Up to a certain weight, you can toss bags over the side without much difficulty. Except that bags are not allowed in the recycling stream. Previously this year bags weren’t allowed in the other streams either, but they seem to have made an exception for this event. Thank god.

One of our crew actually lives in San Jose and was unclear on how to get back to the train station after his shift. So one of us knew the best way to get out of the park -- there are still fences up everywhere limiting where you can go. And the three of us took the streetcar that SHOULD have dropped him where he was headed. But then it said it was not going all the way. I talked to the operator and he said we could still stay aboard as his train was going to switch from being an N to a T. This was a new one even for Muni, but I finally figured it out. There was a Warriors basketball game at Chase Center and Muni was adding N trains to the usual K/T trains that serve that area. Makes sense once you realize what they are doing, but the K/T thing is already so nuts adding N/T trains to the mix is just over the top.

342. Greening 2019

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AIDS Walk 2019

Yesterday was AIDS Walk, which went really well again. For one thing there seemed to be an over abundance of us. I only worked four hours because we were done early. I reminded everyone of the factors that can make this event go sideways -- an abundance of “free” mixed stream boxes a producer of lube always gives the event, and overly enthusiastic volunteers who will pull bags too quickly that still need to be sorted. 

I arrived just as the walkers were returning and the entertainment was starting. I quickly determined that the Chevron area was creating the most mess so I worked there until it was time to start taking down our eco-stations. The problem here was that Chevron was mixing plastic flatware and lots (LOTS) of little condiment packages with the paper plates of food. So I was pulling out the plates -- with some food and a few cups -- after knocking off the plastic items. This resulted in a bunch of bags filled with my usual nearly 100% compost while the contamination built up at the bottom of the containers. But this was a nearly perfect event for me as I got to sort down the four stations in the Chevron area myself.  After getting out as much of the good stuff as I could reach, I would pull the bag and add it to the next station, slowly getting more and more of the food that had fallen to the bottom. By the final station there was just a mess of plastic and some food that I was happy to toss into the landfill. Then I moved on to shut down other stations that I had not been maintaining.

This was in Golden Gate Park’s Sharon Meadow. This being July, we didn’t get any sun until almost the end of the site cleanup. Typical summer in SF. 


One interesting, and surprising, thing happened yesterday. The new woman last year, who at this event was annoyed by my pulling out compost she had just sorted, praised my method. Either she finally noticed how it works or she finally noticed that I have “special” status with our boss as the oldest employee (who remembers details like the lube boxes from hell from year to year). Don’t know which it is. Don’t really care.

Undiscovered 2019

Surprise! (for me) they moved it two blocks west. Luckily you can just catch a glimpse of the new location down Jessie. 

The new location is a little harder to get to but also more secure. And the event is now more like a baby La Cocina event. If it gets any busier we’re going to need more than 6 yards for the compost. 

I trained the new guy, who seems to be a quick study. Since it was already busy when we started, I was in sorting and pulling mode, so he, to my surprise, copied that as well as just the basic sorting. I was prepared to cover one of the eco-stations in the entertainment area, as well as the ones in the food area, but the first time I hit it he was already there doing what I would do. Happy day.

Because it was so crowded at my end, dropping my sorted bags in the toter at the south edge of the event worked well. It might have been easier for E___ to use the toter, instead of the wheeled round, for hauling, but that would have left the bag stash more visible -- though I’m not sure anyone would have cared.

The only problem at the end of the day was that my head-lamp batteries had died so I had to improvise to do the final sort of the station bags. That and the mess left by some vendors.


I pulled a single blue glove from the compost -- just to mess with me, I’m pretty sure. And the event staff put a stack of pizza boxes in the compost without removing the plastic spacers or foil condiment packs because, of course they did.

Art & Soul 2019

Another greening season, another Art & Soul Festival in downtown Oakland. What I like about it is that it's the first of the Oakland events I work with James, who supervises another crew that does mostly hauling and grounds. That and that it gives me a chance to get warm in the middle of a cold SF summer.

What I don’t like is the amazingly consistent resistance of A&S goers to what we are trying to do. They insist on throwing their food and plates into the landfill, and if you call them on this some will tell you they do it on principle because sorting the trash isn’t their job. It, apparently, is the job of the Man. The food vendors are also total assholes, but that never really changes. I only had three vendor eco-stations to maintain this time so I would go in, sort them all out, work the street and concert areas for an hour, return and find the most ungodly and unlikely messes. Which took much longer to sort out than if we just collected their damn bags and sorted it and kept them away from the sorted bins. I’ve actually sent out an email suggesting we drop the pretense of “vendor self-sorting” but I doubt that will fly since people would rather believe that we are slowly educating the public and vendors. After twelve years of greening work I can attest that there is no change, especially with vendors. Though to be fair, every year at this time I have to ask what the Oakland bin colors mean because gray for recycling and burgundy (brown) for landfill makes absolutely no sense.

At the very end of my shift on Sunday I was scheming the pickup of a bunch of leftover food from the caterer in the VIP area behind the big concert area near me, while trying to wind down the vendors. Some had already left so I pulled the properly sorted compost and recycling toters and put them out in the street to be taken to our dumpster location. A bunch of MEN were sitting around the other eco-station talking and drinking while the women took down their setups. I couldn’t even get to the station because of the lounging men so I said screw it and headed for the VIP area. Which turned out to be a good decision as they managed (how?) to not know that their Sterno cans didn’t belong in landfill. So I collected them for reuse while my crew chief showed up for the food pickup I’d been scheming since the previous night, when we composted all the leftovers. (I was really hungry and they looked delicious.. But getting them home on the train is just too much bother.)

There was at least one funny thing that happened on Sunday. We have a worker who admits to being OCD and, while much better lately, has a tendency to be too perfect when sorting trash when it gets busy. But she’s the perfect person to sic on a dumpster that is obviously too contaminated. 

Anyway, the first time I worked with her and noticed her problem was at A&S many years ago. I was working the same area (around half a dozen public eco-stations plus the vendor stations) and she was supposed to be covering for me while I took a lunch break. I left her working a particularly vile BBQ place where they were giving away small, but free portions of ribs. Most of the ribs were going into the landfill, because Oakland, and she was trying to sort that out. I took my half hour break and returned to find her still at it. She had never left to cover the other stations she was so focused on getting this one perfect. Sisyphus had nothing on her. I was so pissed, imagining the state of the other stations, that I left her at it and rushed to clean up the mess she had inadvertently made.


Anyway, her soul sister was working Sunday and she too was focused on the landfill bags. It is hard to let all the good compost at the bottom of landfill bags go at A&S, but it’s a war you can’t win unless you stay at one station all afternoon. But at least I was keeping the four eco-stations in order (by quickly pulling out the bulky paper items on top) so she was actually helping, but in a way that doesn’t make any long term sense. This time I was just amused. I probably should have talked to her about it, but I’m not sure that’s really my job. And, except when she wore out the bottom of one landfill bag and left it leaking it’s contents onto the street, she was making my job a little easier.

Outside Lands 2019

I arrived an hour early at the usual service entrance but they wouldn’t let me in there. I walked miles -- around the event -- to the entry closest to where I was supposed to be working but they weren’t letting anyone in there. I finally tried the main entrance for concert goers but they didn’t like my backpack and water bottle. So I left. First time I’ve ever not managed to work my shift.

That was Friday and I’m next scheduled for Sunday. I will go in without my backpack or much of my gear and with little enthusiasm. This is my least favorite event anyway and now they’ve made it even worse.

Sunday
Well I did finally get in and to my work area, but it was a pain and took about an hour. I also managed to have my phone die on me -- for the first time -- so I couldn’t contact anyone when I was stuck short of where I needed to go. But then the coolest thing happened. While sorting bags of trash I ran into a brand new cable, still in its packaging, so that I was then able to recharge my phone. And it’s a neat little cable, much smaller than mine. So I ended up coming out ahead there. Of course I did have to pay $4 for a bottle of water since I couldn’t bring mine into the event.

As before, we got caught-up before the last set and they stopped bringing us more bags, so we had nothing to do until almost time to quit. 

Oh another cool thing happened: Almost at the end some people from a bar booth started bringing us their trash on a golf cart. There were bags full of beer cans -- and unusually for a vendor, they was nothing but beer cans so they could go directly into the recycling. I went to grab some more of the bags so I was too late to catch the woman tossing the entire, unopened bag into the dumpster. You have to open them up and dump the contents. Fortunately, I had a younger coworker to send in to get the bag. And he found a bunch of other bags that had no business in there. We had no idea how or when they went in. But the point is that, if not for the woman tossing in her bag, we would not have noticed the others. It SO worked to our advantage. Or at least my advantage since I wasn’t the one who had to jump in and fish them out.

Unfortunately there was no upside to the guy I helped dump a large toter of “recycling” into the recycling dumpster only to then discover it was completely mixed trash. We had to fish out all the trash and compost. The same guys had a toter full of compost that we opened the compost dumpster so they could dump it directly and they managed to do that in the worst way possible, so that stuff was draining out under the doors. Aside from those two idiots, it was a pretty good shift.

296. Outside Lands 2018 and the Transit Center opens

Outside Lands 2018

I’ve avoided working this concert in Golden Gate Park for two years, but my boss seemed especially short handed this year, so I took a Saturday shift. 

I think I’ve become known in my company as the “man who works Hellman Hollow,” which is the area known before Warren Hellman’s death, as Speedway Meadow. We have three -- possibly four -- dumpster locations at OL and I’ve always worked the ones at Hellman, behind the east most stage (which would be Banjo Stage at HSB). The layout of the dumpsters wasn’t quite as good as it was three years ago when I crew chiefed here for all three days -- and ended up with a repetitive stress injury to my right hand. Otherwise the work hadn’t changed: Most of the bags arriving are either close to pure compost bags (still don’t know how the group that subcontracts us manages that) or bags of recycling that are mostly contaminated with compostable cups. Those can be dealt with quickly and tossing the green compost bags deep into the compost dumpster is one of the pleasures of the job. Assuming the bags aren't too heavy.

The final class of bags are the ones that are mixed and need to be hand sorted. Most of these come from the vendors -- as always. I think it was between 10 and 10:30 that we finally managed to get caught up, including the pile of bags we had found when we arrived at 3pm. Almost immediately massive, end-of-the-night loads of fresh bags started arriving, many from the vendors, so when we left at 11:30 the bag pile was larger than it had been when we started. Such is life.

As much as I hate table sorting, there was one thing I was looking forward to as I headed to the park on Saturday... I wasn’t going to have to deal with the public. Our crew was consistently in a better mood than the other crew that was out in the crowd collecting bags. And there were no scavengers! Recology got all the aluminum and plastic cans and bottles for once. And we didn’t have a constant stream of thieves thanking us for letting them steal the recycling. My Golden Cynicism is still a work in progress.

One odd thing this year, we were told to not open the doors at the end of the big dumpsters because last year one dumpster wasn’t closed properly and the load was dumped on a street, after Recology picked it up. This is silly for two reasons, we open and secure these doors at most events we work -- it’s not rocket science. And most importantly, it’s the responsibility of the driver to make sure his load is secure. I guarantee that the driver this happened to last year -- if he wasn’t fired -- will be checking every load carefully for the remainder of his career. Anyway, someone had thrown a bunch of bags full of mixed recycling into the recycling dumpster before we arrived and I don’t climb in and out of these monsters anymore, so I opened the doors and sorted it out. Often it’s hard to get the doors open or closed properly because they get bent and otherwise damaged, but there were stacks of metal staging poles stored next to us and I used one to hammer the door closed when I was done. That puppy was not coming open by accident. (The doors are also secured by two chains... there’s nothing subtle about these doors.)

While it’s always nice to be working in Golden Gate Park, especially when you get to enjoy the sun going down, the mix of sound from a variety of stages, made the enjoyment of the music very hard. Still, I was surprised by how many Florence and the Machine songs I recognized.

For my generosity in working this event, I rewarded myself with lunch (breakfast) at the Pork Store and a taxi ride home when I got off at 11:30pm. By a miracle, there was a taxi waiting at the light when I reached the edge of the park, so I didn’t even have to call.

When I drove a taxi, I preferred a minivan as I could fit in large families or most anything else -- wheelchairs with the 9000 ramp vans -- but it was a Prius that I flagged down last night and it certainly had a lot going for it as a taxi. First off it was so nice and quiet, especially when stopped at lights. As I have speculated, the regenerative braking may be the best feature for a cab driver as it not only provides power but it saves on wear of the “brakes.” Back in 2002, our brakes were always a problem. I wanted to ask how much gas cost him per shift, but he didn’t have enough English to make conversation easy. If I were still driving I would be delighted to get to drive a little taxi like that.

The fare was exactly $20, so $25 with tip, which was more than I had expected, but very much worth it. I get off several hours earlier for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but I might be tempted on Sunday night if I don’t feel as strong at the end as I did last year.


One aspect of table sorting we’ve lost in the move to roving sorting, at the front end of the event, is the socializing around the table. This is, I believe, considered a loss by some people, though not by me. I was working with a guy I actually like who was talking about conspiracy theories. I had a vague recollection of our having run aground on this topic before, I can think of some other cases as well. Thinking about this seeming tendency or desire to believe conspiracy theories, I can’t help thinking it’s related to the human tendency to believe in invisible sky-fairies. It’s both a way to explain things we can’t otherwise understand -- or don’t want to understand -- and a way to bond with a group. If we both believe in a conspiracy by invisible lizard overlords to run the world, we can spend hours debating if they are blue or green lizards.

Salesforce Transit Center

(Formerly Transbay Transit Center)
I toured the new facility today. It is semi-finished. The park on top is quite nice. The bus level is great for East Bay bus drivers who can now come and go without getting into downtown traffic. 

For bus riders it’s a mixed bag: You’re protected from winter rain and shaded from the sun on those rare days when it’s hot. And you can get from SF bus to East Bay bus without crossing traffic. On the other hand, there’s no view to speak of and there’s a long escalator or short elevator ride between bus levels. Greyhound and Amtrak have not made the move yet, which is awkward if you want to make a cross country to local connection. 

The first and second levels are supposed to be retail, but no one is stupid enough to open there before all the construction in the neighborhood settles down. And the train connections intended for the lower levels of the structure are a decade or more in the future. If they happen at all.

I eventually ran into someone who seemed fairly knowledgeable about the building and asked where the escalators to the train level were going to be, as it wasn’t immediately evident. I was told they couldn’t say for security reasons. Since he did say that the area had been paved over, it isn’t clear to me how this knowledge would be dangerous. My guess is that he just didn’t know. But since he made it more interesting by saying he couldn’t tell me, I raced down and figured it out in a couple minutes. It’s not like there are an unlimited number of places openings for sets of escalators could be. I was even able to confirm my guess based on something missing in the paving in those sections. 

My favorite thing at STC was the water “sculpture.” Jets of water that are triggered by buses moving on the bus level below the park. When buses arrive, you can see the jets of water approaching until the bus pulls into its bay. But this is where it gets good -- when the bus leaves it pulls out quickly and the jets resume without warning. People standing out in this area taking photos -- and it’s tempting to do this -- can then be caught by surprise. I can see myself taking a picnic down there just to enjoy the sun (ha) and watch tourists get soaked. I predict there will be sweatshirts soon, “I Got Drenched at Salesforce Transit Center.” 

On the right is the area where the water jets shoot up. And behind that is the lower part of Salesforce Tower, now the tallest building in town.

The urban view from the park isn’t bad, and it will get better as the projects approved to fund the Transit project continue to get built. By the time they are finished, I suspect the majority of commercial space in downtown will be within a few blocks of STC and there will be a significant amount of new residential as well. (Though not as much residential as I would like to see.) 

So, was it worth all the trouble and expense? Still unclear. Economically, the STC probably requires at least one of the two planned train systems to arrive to be profitable -- and to attract retail to the first and second levels. But the odds of our ever getting both trains is quite low, and even the Caltrain extension is far from certain as it requires an immensely expensive tunnel from Mission Bay to STC. And, on top of that, the entire Caltrain route needs to be electrified and all the locomotives (at least) replaced. This might “pencil out” if the cost is shared with High Speed Rail, but if they have to fund it all themselves, I have a hard time seeing it happen.


On the other hand, the saving grace of the project is all the high rise development that got approved to fund the STC. An amazing amount of land wealth has been created in the vicinity of STC and all these buildings, and their neighbors, will be paying property taxes from now on. That is really the upside of STC. The promise of trains may prove to simply be the bait that got all these buildings built in a city that likes to say “no!”

Here are some photos of the park above the bus station,

This is from the escalators that rise from street level to the bus level.

Some views of the neighborhood from the park,

I have no idea.

This is the new bus bridge that connects STC to the Bay Bridge. The section this side of a loop where that bus in the distance is, is all contraflow, which I'm sure will result in mayhem at some point. It is possible for a car to get mixed in with the buses coming off the bridge, especially if alcohol is involved, and then the confused driver has to negotiate the intersection where he should loop around and get out, but where he could also be flummoxed by the contraflow interchange and end up making a loop around the bus station going against the traffic. 

I wonder if there's a betting pool on how long it will be before that happens?

183. Seeing the end

Previous - 182. Of this and that

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My Name Is...

I'm liking the meditative pacing of this novel. There's not much of a plot so far. The protagonist is stuck in the hospital and her mother, who she never sees, has come to stay with her. They converse and then there are sections either about her childhood or about her life after she left home, either before or after the hospital stay. Meanwhile here in SF the pavement is damp.

We were warned by the meteorologists that the pavement might get damp today, and now it's happened. (Bystander to news person: "This is such a quiet and dry neighborhood, this sort of thing never happens around here. Since all those high-tech hipsters started moving in everything has been going down hill. I'd move if I could").

I'd heard that Arizona, or at least Tucson, was having a particularly vigorous monsoon, and it's gotten so vigorous that it has been drenching SoCal and now dampening our pavements. Is nothing sacred? To add injury to insult, there's not enough moisture to wash the sidewalks clean, but the air is humid enough to bring out the smell of urine and shit. The weather is supposed to return to normal by Sunday.

Strout got me again. Right after saying there was no plot, I hit her describing a traumatic incident from their childhood -- mostly involving her dad and her brother, but of course the remainder of the family also. The hints about her father are coming so slowly that I thought, after the PTSD from an incident in WW2, that she was done. But no.

And there was just an incident where we saw how rude it could be to psychoanalyze someone based on their reaction to something, so now we see her father's nasty reaction to catching his son wearing women's clothes and how can we not think, "Hmmm?" Could he really be both closeted and suffering from PTSD? It does make a sort of sense.

Work

For some reason, there is always a slow work patch here in August. It should only be this weekend that I'm not working, but I'm skipping the big Outside Lands concert again this year, too, which will make it two weekends in a row. There's a slight chance I will pick-up a Monday shift right after the concert, but I really don't like back-end, table sorting. Especially eight straight hours of it. This is what I work hard at the front-end to avoid, but we don't do the front-end for OL.

I think the real reason I'm even considering taking the Monday shift is that I suddenly realized there are only two months left of the 2017 event season. And since Moscone Center (our convention center) is currently torn apart in the latest expansion effort, the big conventions that usually follow the event season will not be happening here this year. 2017 is becoming rather like a book when you notice you are in the second to last signature of the binding. 

There are the two big events I look forward to (train for) all year -- the Dragon Boat Races and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass -- and a couple other events that can be fun or a pain -- the big one being Art & Soul in Oakland in two weeks. Beyond that, some other things will probably appear on the schedule, maybe even after HSB, but the end is almost in sight.


A couple days ago I heard people upstairs and went up to investigate, it was my neighbor and his son trying to decide what to do with the floor of the unit, as they try to rent the place out. The son is about my age and the father in his early 80s with some heart problems, but otherwise he and his wife are still going strong. But the son is supposed to be taking over the business of the condo rental. They are both very much alike, so it seems to be going pretty smoothly, but it's odd to see that particular father making way for his son. He too seems to have a sense of the end coming into view.

Why there was a gap

I can't believe that it's taken me so long to think of this, but since partial conditioning is more effective than constant (?) conditioning, it really makes sense for me to not post every single day -- which I've tried to do when blogging. So this may become the new normal.

Next - 184. Our electric future