302. “The ‘50s never die.”

The Impossible Burger at Mel's

I have read, with mild interest, about the search for a better veggie hamburger substitute. As with most things this trendy, much of this development is taking place locally. While I think the effort (time and money) could probably be better spent. And while I would be more interested if it was the search for a better BBQ ribs replacement. I wouldn’t object to a veggie burger that tasted more like the burgers of my youth. One of the candidates, in this competition is the “Impossible Burger” which I just ate at Mel’s Kitchen.

Mel’s is a famous local diner chain, it was featured in the movie "American Graffiti" -- still the best film George Lucas has made, in my opinion. One of their locations here, on Van Ness, has undergone an upscale transformation at the request of their landlord, a hotel also undergoing an upscale transformation. Instead of being a “diner” it is now a “kitchen.” There are still photos on the walls of "American Graffiti" and of the ‘50s in general, and there are some at-table jukebox controllers scattered about, but the actual music being played is not of the period. This would seem to be the decorative equivalent of façadism. But, then again, ‘50s music is problematic, so I’m not really complaining.

At any rate, I read in the paper that they were offering the Impossible Burger, so I took advantage of the opportunity to try one. It certainly isn’t the worst veggie burger I’ve ever ordered, though it’s close to the most expensive at $16. Without fries! Surprisingly, I would describe it as having the consistency of an uncooked hamburger patty. It tastes fine, but it does make me wonder what exactly they were aiming at. It is served at Mel’s with sliced pickles, a pesto sauce, and the usual lettuce and tomato. The bun was good but didn’t really add much to the experience.

While eating, I was thinking back on the outstanding burgers of my youth, starting in the ‘50s with White Castle. There the thing you recall is the bun, not the patty. My early ‘60s favorite was from Harvey’s on Colfax in Denver. There the primary taste ingredient was the secret sauce. I don’t recall much about either the bun or the patty. My final, late ‘60s favorite was from Whataburger, and I can’t recall anything specific about that one. So, at least for me, the bun and the sauce was more important than the actual burger patty. If I were interested in this search for the perfect veggie burger, I would ignore the patty entirely -- well, I’ve had Garden Burgers that were seasoned and tasted much better, so I would look into that. But I would just play with the bun and sauce and other toppings. A little avocado tends to make everything a little better. And even then, the only reason to even include the patty is to add some protein to the delicious mix. A “patty” of baked or sauteed tofu would work just as well if it had all the rest going for it.

Grease: Sundown Cinema

Last Friday I had to fill in for someone at the last minute. This was for a small event in our other big city park, McLaren Park. This was the first time I've been on foot in that park, but it was quite nice. This was for a public showing of the movie "Grease" -- which I realized I had never seen. There were only a few hundred people in attendance, probably because the weather has been cold and overcast, though it was surprisingly pleasant that evening. There were several food and drink vendors and a large security force, for some reason. The sing-along and dance-along aspect of the event would probably have worked better with a larger crowd.

I only caught a few scenes from the film, not my cup of tea. What I did like was the mostly ‘50s music that preceded the film. The DJ was a young woman with a box of LPs. She did a great job selecting music to play, there was very little I knew, but everything sounded of the period. If I had a tape of what she played, I would listen to it again. Which is a surprise considering my normal aversion to music from that decade.

The event was pretty boring for us as there was hardly any trash to sort. We were all done by 10:30pm though we were scheduled to work longer.

TMM and STC and "enki"

I’m caught up with my TMM blogging, I’ve done what my book club is reading this month (I cleverly specified the end of "Snow," rather than the end of chapter 6, so that we will focus on the philosophical debate and not get sidetracked by poor Joachim. I think they are regretting letting me be the “guide” for this book). I need to go over what I’ve blogged again, but I’m quite happy with it. I’ve linked material from all three of my active blogs. Everything is tying together nicely. And it occurred to me the other day that this will almost certainly be my last reading of TMM. Fortunately, there are one or two other things I still need to read.

On my recent Staycation trip to exotic Emeryville, I picked up yet another stylistically stunning design magazine from the UK, “enki” by name. Since I’m not quite ready to jump back into Genji, I’ve been amusing myself with “enki.” Mostly I love the typefaces and the overall graphic style of the mag. There is at least one instance of a room painted entirely in a dark gray, so popular in UK magazines and so very tempting to me. I’ve pretty much decided to go with the bright white look when I next paint my place, but whenever I see a photo of a room like this I fall in lust again. I just don’t think it would work in such a small space. I don’t actually plan to paint for nine years, so I have time to change my mind a few thousand times.

The most interesting house in this (September 2018) issue of “enki” is a modernist houseboat in Haarlem. It checks all the boxes, sustainable, modernist, climate-change resistant. It looks better on the outside than on the inside, which is nothing special, but I don’t understand why houses like this aren’t everywhere. Or at least everywhere there’s flowing water. Too big for me, of course. And I still have yet to see a multi-family floating project. I hope the Netherlands leads the way with this as the USA almost certainly wont.

There’s been exciting local news about the STC, our new multi-billion dollar bus station. Someone noticed that two of the steel beams, that hold up the part of the structure where I was catching the NL bus to Oakland two weekends ago, are cracked. The entire facility has been shut down and the buses returned to the Temporary Terminal. The beams must have been right above my head as I waited to catch the bus. I can’t wait to see how they shore it up while inspecting and repairing/replacing the beams. Seems like you would need a temporary beam that runs the width of the building and out over the street below, and then three-story posts to hold that beam in place. But how would you maneuver such a beam into place? (Instead they've opened holes in the bus level deck so the support posts run directly down to the street.)

There’s already a huge amount of litigation concerning the nearby residential tower that is sinking and tilting, and now we will get another layer of litigation to determine who is responsible for this SNAFU. And we lose the use of our lovely new park until the structural part of this problem is resolved.

301.Rambling, mostly

Link to Table of Contents

Dentist

Just had my second and last cleaning at the world’s worst run dental office. Originally my appointment was a month ago, but the dentist was ill, or something, so no one was there and no one ever responded to phone calls. A week later I dropped by and found the dentist returned and scheduled an apt for today -- only she says it was for last Thursday -- and since all I have is the note I wrote, we will never know if I simply misunderstood her (she has a strong accent) or if she confused it. In any case, she fitted me in and I’m fine for the next six to eight months. 

My usual dentist, the one who did my expensive crown, has a wonderfully run operation, so she only does exams and actual dental work. She delegates the routine cleanings. My dentist for this year does the cleanings herself in this stunning office on the eleventh floor of SF’s premier medical building -- the one I can see out my kitchen window. None of this makes any sense to me.

Something else that perhaps does make sense to me, is that neither this dentist nor my usual hygienists have much praise for my teeth and gums. Over the years I have improved and improved my dental self-care until my gums and teeth are as problem free as one could wish -- though this dentist did mention I could do something about my tea related yellowing. Fine. I’m adding that to my list. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to the health of my mouth, or the profits of the dentists. I conclude that they are not actually that pleased to see that I’ve done everything that’s been suggested, so that professional intervention is not required. She didn’t even bring up the usual X-ray topic. Since I think trouble free teeth are not all that common, you would think a grudging, “congratulations, there’s really nothing much here for me to do” wouldn’t kill them. If they ever start giving me pamphlets on the alleged dangers of fluoride use, I will know what to think.

Dream

It’s a huge, multi-floor bookstore. But getting from floor to floor is nearly impossible because there are a variety of options but they are all like rides and take time or are physically challenging.

There are also holographic “characters” that are always roaming the aisles. Authors or characters from books. Animals too. And they can interact with each other -- not sure if you can ask them questions, probably not. I had dream deja vu with this place. But this time it occurred to me to wonder how creepy it must be for the staff when there are no customers, only holograms in the store.

Oddly, this dream started with me at a laundromat that had suddenly decided to not provide dryers anymore. There was a bit in between that I can’t even explain. And the transition to the bookstore is equally inexplicable.

The last time I was in Moe’s bookstore in Berkeley I did have a problem navigating their, not that big but multilevel store, because the floors are not as all accessible from one staircase, as you would expect.

The Bank Cafe 2.0

I learned today [actually some time ago now. I've been sitting on this.] that they are planning a major remodel of my Bank Cafe. The sidewalk outside is already boarded off. Apparently this will happen in sections with the Peet’s remaining open until almost the end, when that part of the space is transformed. According to my informant, behind the Peet’s counter, the mezzanine will be extended -- currently it is only about 30% the size of the ground floor. That will involve heavy steel structural work, so this isn’t just tarting up the decor.

I’m surprised the new bank is willing to invest so much in this odd idea of the previous ownership. These “third space” places are a swell idea but I can’t imagine how they make any economic sense. 

In the past week or two the bean bags -- which used to furnish the stadium seating area -- have disappeared. I assumed this was because “undesirables” were frequenting them, but perhaps it was just in anticipation of the coming construction. There is a semi-permanent indigent in residence here. She mostly just sits in the same spot near the door, with her bags, and looks into space. Occasionally, if I’m sitting close enough, I’m aware of her talking to herself, but mostly people don’t sit that close -- unless they have head colds or there’s nowhere else to sit. There is also full time security here now, which didn’t use to be the case.


Today's addition
I'm deep into blogging The Magic Mountain now, which requires room for book and computer and, if I'm at it long enough, access to an electrical outlet. All things I can find here at the Bank Cafe. 

That last sentence above "Today's addition" is interesting, the "didn't use/used to be" part. Normally I judge these questions by ear, the way I judge when "an" or "a" should preceded a vowel -- the rule is not always a good guide. "Used" sounds a shade better to me, in this case, but I looked it up and saw that "use" is preferred. If I hadn't already written this paragraph, I think I would have probably altered the sentence, before publishing, to "There is also full time security here now, which wasn't always the case."

I'm finding the dialectical nature of the juicy parts of TMM particularly hard to blog. I'm not trying to capture one set of ideas but two, or perhaps three. Our two professors are making their respective points but also trying to score off each other. They say things in the heat of argument that they might not entirely mean. And then I have to keep in mind what kind of game Mann is playing.

This is a wonderful review of Western thought on subjects of the ultimate importance, but Mann is also saying something about Europe in the first decade of the 20th century. But is he also saying something about Europe in the third decade of that century? At times I think he must be. How could you be writing this in Weimar Germany (and not Goethe's Weimar Germany) and not incorporate what you see happening around you? It's all more obvious in Doctor Faustus, when he was safely writing in Pacific Palisades.

Yesterday the official high temperature for SF was 84F. I don't recall the temperature exceeding 80 at any other time this summer, and tomorrow is the equinox. I'm still hoping for, counting on, an Indian Summer, but it looks like yesterday was our regular summer. And I didn't seize that day. I went to the gym in the morning and ran an errand in the afternoon. I was over dressed because I've given up listening to the weather forecasts since all we've gotten this summer has been sweater weather. I should have gone to the park. Or something. I will try to seize the next warm day. 

Planning is well under way for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, coming up in about two weeks now. I'm all signed up for my usual shifts. I've floated a revolutionary new idea for getting all the heavy glass bottles off the fields -- don't really expect anything to come of it for this year, but wanted to get the process started. (Also, that part of our process takes place after i go home for the day, so this won't affect me directly.) 

My boss made the sound decision of passing on greening Fleet Week, which, once again, falls on the same weekend. That means the team we used for Fleet Week last year will cover the night operations while our regular crew will cover the days. If it weren't for the fact we've lost so many of our regular people, this could mean we might really get ahead of things during the event, leaving less to do after -- usually there's a crew sorting what's left over for several days after the end of the concert. But that isn't true of the trash from my area, which is almost all sorted by the time I leave. If we can manage to do the same everywhere, we could be finished at the end of the concert, as with most other events. 

That isn't entirely possible, because some trash will continue to be generated (or collected from the grounds) as the concert facilities are taken down. But that's minimal and manageable. I'm told it was much better on Monday last year than in previous years. It would be easier to build on that if we had the same people working the fields during the day.

Not sure what it says about me that HSB is the high point of my year -- and I don't mean the music. The most frustrating thing (so far) is that the two new acts I was excited to see were going to performing this year are both at stages in the most distant other meadow. I can't even recall the last time I was in Lindley Meadow. Usually the acts I like are at the stage in Marx Meadow -- and I could in theory slip over there to listen for a few minutes (would never actually happen) -- but Lindley is a decent hike. My only hope is that Chris Thile and/or Ani DiFranco will join someone else on the Banjo Stage. And that I will be where I can hear that stage at the time.

More likely I will be behind the food vendors struggling with the urge to kill them.

Speaking of an urge to kill... Last week, when I did my laundry, I noticed the dryer was making a loud, bad belt, sort of noise when it started up. No one reported this to me. I called and it was repaired just short of a week later, when I next needed the dryer. Then, the very next day, I noticed the ceiling light at the top of the stairs was out. Again, no one reported this and I only noticed because I was watering the poor plant on the 2nd floor. I could easily have gone a week or longer without noticing that light was out. How hard is it to leave a note on my door?

I briefly considered replacing that ceiling fixture with an LED alternative (why does "an" sound better there?), since it is actually above the stairs and the hardest fixture to get to. And according to my notes, the fixture is thirteen years old. But replacing the fixture is a two person job -- me to do the work and someone else to record my last words if I fall off the ladder and down the stairs -- and my local (and otherwise well stocked) hardware store still doesn't carry that kind of fixture. I would have had to order it online. 

Okay, this is why writing (rambling aimlessly) is actually useful. It occurs to me as I type this, that while a fixture with an LED "lamp" that can't be replaced, as is the norm in the kind of fixtures I have in mind, will last longer than the florescent ring tube in our current fixture, the fixture itself will not last nearly as long. An LED fixture might last thirteen years -- depending on the number of hours per day it is on -- but our current fixture will probably last much longer. And replacing the tube is not really that hard -- compared with replacing the fixture. I just saved myself a nasty piece of work.

This just in: My boss took the Fleet Week gig, too. So it's going to be the usual shit-show.

Gumps

There must be a name for this, but I don’t know what it is, and maybe I don’t want to hear it. I’ve never purchased anything at Gumps or Shrieve & Company or Britex Fabrics, I’ve never even browsed the jewelry store, but these are some of the few remaining grand San Francisco retail names and I was pleased to see them all clustered, as of this year I believe, at the same end of this block of Post Street as the Bank Cafe. But now Gumps has announced bankruptcy and is having an “everything must go” sale. It’s not even like I’m going to score a bargain at the sale -- there’s nothing there I need or want (or have room for). 

This means another grand old SF name is gone and it will be another vacancy on the block, just when it was close to being fully occupied. “Sad,” as the Orange abomination would say. What I will miss most is the wonderful fragrance that has always blown out their front doors. Not sure if it was something they added to the HVAC or simple the scent of various very expensive things, but it has been something I’ve looked forward to for years now on our increasingly malodorous streets. I do think about it every time Murasaki writes about how great Genji smells. 

300. Dragon Boat Races 2018

Northern California International Dragon Boat Festival

I was trying to remember on Sunday how many of these I’ve worked. Three now at Lake Merritt and at least five at Treasure Island. This year things went pretty smoothly, we were even done a little early both evenings. But let’s start with getting there.

It took me three years to look up the other bus line that runs by Lake Merritt in Oakland, where the event is held now. When I did, I discovered there’s a perfectly lovely AC Transit bus that I can take from the new Transit Center in SF to a block from where we previously had dumpsters and this year parked a very big truck we loaded with sorted trash bags. It only takes twenty minutes as well. Since I usually have breakfast on Geary before work days, and the Geary bus terminates at the Transit Center, I simply jumped on the bus after breakfast, rode up the escalator to the bus deck and caught the bus to Oakland. Easier and almost certainly faster than my previous train then bus method.

I did arrive early to catch the bus, so I spent some time checking out the new bus deck. It occurred to me, also on Sunday, that it was either brave or stupid of them to have a bright white ceiling there given that all the buses are diesel powered. Virtually every surface is bright white. The buses are much cleaner now than they were before the old terminal was terminated, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see the ceiling get darker in time. 

I’ve now taken the trip from SF to the East Bay and back three times and it really does work great. The connection to the Bay Bridge is as smooth as advertised. Normally this only saves a minute or two, but I’m sure there were times when buses got stuck in street traffic going to or from the Temporary Terminal. Back to the Dragon Boat Races. 

I meant to bring my camera on Sunday to photograph the inside of the truck, but forgot. I posted some photos of the event last year. I work the racing crew areas at the far end of the event from our truck, so I only visited at the end of the day, before I walked the short block to catch my bus home. On Saturday night my favorite crew chief had a little sorting station inside of the front right and the entire left side of the truck was a wall of bags stacked a single bag deep. An amazing creation, but he is a genius at trash organization. J___, my favorite event person -- actually he doesn’t work for the event but runs a separate team of haulers so that we sort and they haul -- was also impressed with the truck organization. I was advocating moving the truck closer to the event, but J___ was concerned the bags would fall if the truck moved. Though by the end of the day the back of the truck was mostly filled with bags, so that wouldn’t have been a problem. Maybe next year.

Usually I complain about the food vendors, but the support crew people are worse. Here are the ways you can ruin the sorted order I’ve been maintaining in our eco-stations all day long: 

1. Actually the first option doesn’t ruin it, and this is what we hope people will do, just set their unsorted black bags and boxes next to the station so we can do it properly. Officially, in general and especially at some events, the vendors are supposed to sort it all themselves -- but they can’t, and if they try we are still left with the mess.

2. Toss the unsorted black bags or boxes into a random container. It’s a mystery to me how they pick the stream to ruin. This isn’t so bad if I can get to it and remove the bag before there’s a pile of additional trash on top.

3. The worst, and I happened to be walking to the station and saw the crew guy doing this, is dumping the unsorted bag into a random container. In this case, the bag was primarily compost -- in fact a huge amount of heavy fruit mostly -- but it went into the landfill. That was on Saturday so on Sunday I grabbed their cans periodically and took them out to sort at the station. And I gave them so much shit about the dumping that they were good about placing any black bags, reverently, beside the station like a sort of offering to the trash fairy (me).

When you order a large amount of coffee from someplace like Starbucks, it comes in a plastic bladder inside a cardboard box. There were hundreds of these things since every crew needed coffee apparently (the non-coffee drinker judges them all). As with everything else, they tend to toss these into a random container... though I will admit that they are usually either in recycling or landfill. The bladder is not recyclable, it belongs in landfill, but the box can go in either recycling, if dry, or compost, if wet. Which means you have to take every single one of these beasts apart. Needless to say we get very good at this task, but I enjoy educating (making fools of) the high school students on the support crews by, once a year, forcing one of them to do one of these repetitive and annoying tasks they should be doing all the time. This years victim (student) was a girl who walked up with the coffee abomination and proceeded to empty the contents on the grass. This was unusual enough that it caught my attention, so when she then walked over with that “where do I toss this” look on her face I explained that she had to take it apart and put it in two places. I got to take a short break as she discovered how the box opened,  then how you can pull the bladder out of the box. I only wish we had more time for “education.” 

I’ve already sent in some suggestions for how we can improve this new truck-based system for next year. Why the event couldn’t obtain dumpsters I don’t really understand, but that’s not my responsibility, and this system seems to be working at least as well. Maybe better.


My favorite thing about the crew zone are the camp dogs. Many people bring dogs who hang around the camps all day long. Some are tiny ones who peek out from under chairs and bags, but there are also the decent sized ones who make eye contact with me, mostly, I’ll admit, because I’m usually carrying a bag of compost. 

299. Beer Circus & Opera in the Park plus

Beer Circus

You try to live a good, honest, simple life and then, just once, you slip up and the next thing you know you’re at a Beer Circus in Sonoma County. And if you’re thinking of The House of the Rising Sun, I only wish.

I won’t tell the story of how I ended up signed up for this event, as it doesn’t seem plausible even to me, but I will say that I ended up carpooling from SF to Petaluma too early Saturday morning. The people I rode with were on a later shift, so they dropped me at the fairgrounds and went to a gym (?)... these crazy kids today. As we were pulling in I noticed a Lumberjacks restaurant out on the main street. I had had an early breakfast (too early) and, since I had time to kill and was looking at working a long, hot shift, decided a second breakfast would be a good way to fuel up and kill time. 

The Lumberjacks motto is “Where the big boys eat.” It seems they are a national chain and it also seems that competitive log chopping and sawing are a thing. Where I was seated I could see the video screen showing these competitions, mixed with info on the chain. It made for one of those, “you’re back in Kansas” moments.

The food was fine, if nothing to write home to SF about. I avoided the four egg omelette and ordered two eggs scrambled plus potatoes and toast off the “Senior” menu. This was my first experience with a senior menu. I over tipped a little so it cost about what my breakfast out usually costs. And now for the “circus.”

This was a beer event sponsored by Lagunitas. We’ve worked beer events in SF that featured a range of different beers, but this was just Lagunitas, plus circus like events and many people dressed up with some sort of “circus” look. Though, as it turned out, it was no more of a freak show than our more normal events. What it was, however, was hotter than those of us from SF are used to this summer. Which is actually fine as we need to get in shape for the next month of hard-core events that often get hot weather. 

So we came. We greened. We left... but didn’t drive directly home, as I would have preferred. Someone was hungry so we briefly cruised Petaluma at the hour when most restaurants are closing, before finally stopping at a Chipotle for a late dinner. It was actually surprisingly good. Then we drove home. And while we were driving home my cell phone slipped out of my pocket, as I discovered when getting ready to take my shower. Fortunately, we were all working together the next day at Opera in the Park.

Opera in the Park

I’ve never liked opera and many, many years of working this event -- which is an outdoor sampler of the operas the SF Opera will be performing this season -- has not changed that. Except that now I dislike opera and despise opera goers. They are the absolute worst. Talking with a woman working an earlier shift, she mentioned how entitled they were, and then the remainder of the day each person seemed to be in a competition to prove that they were the most entitled of them all. The over-served crowd at the beer circus were actually less annoying -- though the vendors at the circus made up for that, nothing new there.

Since OITP is in Sharon Meadow, I had breakfast at the Pork Store. When I arrived at the park, the weather was perfect. Not too hot last last year, when half the crowd was hiding in the trees, or too cold and foggy like three years ago when they cut the show short, presumably to save the singers from pneumonia. 

We can’t make noise or block the view of the audience picnicking on the grass, so aside from keeping the perimeter in good shape, we take our lunch and other breaks during the performances and rush around trying to catch up during intermission and especially at the end. And by the end the crowd is both over-self-served (they bring in bottles of wine, mostly) and even more entitled. They dump their picnic debris at the nearest eco-station, or at least near the eco-station, as everyone knows that leaving your personal bag of unsorted trash, like an offering, near the eco-station is both proper and avoids the problem of deciding which container to put it in. Let the help sort it out.

My favorite crew chief, who usually works this event, was replaced this time by the boss. So the final cleanup took longer. The boss was trying to make reality conform with our stated goals for the maximum weight of bags to lift and the like, when all the glass bottles made this impossible. Usually we just manhandle everything into the trucks as best we can, J__ is a great organizer of trash loads, but yesterday it all went slower with more conversation. But it got done. And the diversion rate was much higher than the day before because Sonoma County doesn’t accept half the items we can put into compost in SF and Oakland. That’s the problem with greening in Kansas.

And we also got a beautiful Golden Gate Park sunset. And, unlike at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass -- which is now on my calendar -- we got to enjoy it after the noisy crowd had left. Though there’s something to be said for both experiences. 



You would think this would be the end of this story, but not quite. The curious thing about Sunday is that, not only is it the day of the week I have the most greening shifts, it is also the night I put out the trash for my building. And because we’ve recently had problems getting our trash toters back in the morning, I have to listen for the sounds of the garbage men in the alley so I can go out and reclaim our bins -- including the special locking one we have for recycling. Or had until last Monday.

So, last night as a crazy woman decided to set up camp in our doorway and spend the hours between 10pm and 6:45am ranting and laughing to herself, while periodically throwing garbage around the alley and at the buildings, I couldn’t do what I would normally do, turn up my music until I couldn't hear her. (When debris started hitting the buildings I did call the police -- three times -- but they never showed.) So I got as little sleep as she did.

And so I got some retaliatory pleasure in getting to wake her ass up around 7:15 when the garbage people arrived. My favorite Recology employee and I quickly cleaned up the worst of the trash -- I had my picker, of course -- but I needed to make a second pass that afternoon when I watered the garden out there. And he found and returned our “special” blue toter, which I promptly decorated with bands of tape and signs requesting it be returned locked -- so that the other buildings can’t use it. We’ll see how that works. 

I really do wonder what it is with crazy people and their constant trail of trash. Just did a Google search and got nothing. 

298. Greening plus Digital photography.

I've been distracted of late and these notes have been sitting on my computer waiting for me to move them here. Now is that time.

Greening Moto Bay

It occurred to me last night, as I pulled load after load of heavy trash bags and our eco-stations’s wood stakes and collapsed boxes from the bay end of the huge pier 30,32 complex to our trucks near the Embarcadero, that I have been failing spectacularly this year in my scheme to work the middle of events, and not the start or end.

The good reasons for this scheme is that it would make best use of my roving-sorting-and-pulling skills. The real reason is that the starts are boring and annoying, and the ends are such hard work. Some events are too short to have a separate “middle” shift. Sometimes there are middle shifts, but not for my pay grade. And I’m in a bind here in that I do want to be around for the final station sort, especially when there’s a major food vendor component. That’s where my roving sorting skills really do pay off, as they prevent unsorted vendor bags from being hauled back to our dumpsters or trucks. 

But yesterday’s event, Moto Bay, had very little food so my skills were largely wasted. This was our first time with this event, so we didn’t know exactly what to expect. This, I suspect, was also why our "A" crew was working it. And the setting was lovely. These piers are just south of the Bay Bridge with a great view of the new SOMA downtown, the Giant’s stadium, and what there is to see of the developing Mission Bay neighborhood modestly rising to the south. And as we were closing down around 10pm, the fog was rolling in dramatically.

Still, after the third heavy toter load from the far end of the pier, I was ready to hand this job over to our younger workers. I did manage to get away before 11pm, fifteen minutes early. 

In praise of Today

And by “Today” I mean all the newfangled things that people so often like to nit pick, and in particular my little Samsung digital camera. I tend to buy the low-end of high-tech gadgets, since I tend to not really use them that much. This camera is a perfect example of this tendency. It was the cheapest option that seemed to do the things I needed for a particular project (no idea what it was, as this was years ago). And then it mostly set in a drawer for years as I’d gotten out of the habit of photography. 

But photographs turn out to be a wonderful way of documenting things around my building, so I started taking pictures again for HOA purposes. And then for myself. I never bothered to really learn the ins and outs of this camera -- and Samsung doesn’t exactly make it easy to figure out. I only recently turned my flash back on and was shocked by how much improved the indoor photos were. I only shoot in low resolution mode since I only display my photos on the computer, and am more interested in simple documentation than in resolution -- but I can shoot fairly high res if I wanted to.

So, while taking some vastly improved flash shots of our laundry room today -- people (not including myself) are keen on having it painted -- it occurred to me that this is, almost beyond doubt, the best camera I’ve ever owned. The 10x optical zoom is better than anything I ever had for my 35mm cameras. I can do macro photography much easier than with my 35mm cameras. This camera only has a display screen on the back so framing a shot is similar to a view camera -- which I’ve always preferred. And it goes without saying that the ability to view and delete shots you’ve just taken makes life so much easier than with a film camera. Likewise, the free editing options of Google Photo are superior to anything I could have done in the darkroom in the past. It’s possible I can’t play some of the depth-of-field games I used to play with my film cameras, but I don’t actually know that for a fact -- since I’ve never tried/studied the documentation that carefully. 

All I have to do to seal this matter, is think how much easier it would have been to photograph weddings with cameras like this. And beyond “easier” it would have been low stress as the nightmare all wedding photographers of the past lived with was the possibility of failing to properly load the film so that the film wasn’t actually advancing in the camera as you worked -- so that at the end of the day you had nothing on film. And yes, this happens. Not to me for a wedding, but it did happen to me at least twice on other “once in a lifetime” photo opportunities. 

And I haven’t even mentioned that this camera is small enough to carry in my pants pocket, and I now usually carry a little USB cord with it in my backpack to I can upload to my computer, edit, and send out links from anywhere. (Sending out the links does require WiFi access.)

Tea and fitness

This morning I had a terrible time getting out of bed and off to the gym. It was a cold Sunday morning and my bed had never felt so warm and comfortable. When I finally arrived at the gym I noticed that it was exactly 10am and the outside temp was 56F. Old people seem to be always cold, something I’m rather looking forward to, as I tend to get overheated, but I have yet to detect any indication that this is happening to me. My threshold for feeling cold remains 60F. How much is this tendency to feel cold simply the consequence of taking blood thinning medications, I wonder.

I’m at my new favorite Peet’s -- deep in SOMA -- but I think this may be the last time. My bus luck getting here couldn’t have been worse, and then I arrived to find it packed. I’m sitting on a stool again.

297. The Decisive Battle

The Decisive Battle

There are so damn many YouTube channels devoted to military history it’s getting ridiculous. There are now two devoted to doing short ship biographies. I click on them thinking, well, I know this material, but I wonder if they will cover X, and then I listen to the entire thing and learn a few things I didn't know. And since there have been a series of them on WW2 USN ship classes recently, it’s got me thinking of yet more ways to address the ungraspable scope of late Pacific War conflict. Yes, I know I need help, but until I receive it, here’s a “quick” look at the “Decisive Battle” of the Pacific War that doesn’t go into the action, but merely looks at the ship assets at the time.

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was focused, before the actual war, on a Decisive Battle that it imagined would occur in the Western Pacific somewhere around the Caroline/Mariana Islands. All their plans -- including the ships and planes they chose to build -- were in the interest of winning this battle. They imagined the US Fleet would have to fight its way across the Pacific, getting weaker and weaker as it suffered losses from submarine, aircraft, and other attacks. Only when it was weaker and over extended would they charge out with their heavy battle force to crush the USN. The only part of this plan that went the way the IJN hoped was their husbanding of their battleship assets to mid 1944. Everything else was a disaster.

The USN did suffer losses, severe losses, especially during 1942. But as they surged forward they brought with them floating dry-docks and other repair assets that allowed them to maintain their ships even in the Central Pacific. And the flow of ships returning to America for more extensive repairs was more than offset by the constant addition of new ships to the fleet. The commissioning of new ships increased year by year and was still going strong when the war ended. As often happens, the IJN had expected their opponents to do what they would/could do. (The USN made the same mistake when it took them over a year to notice that Japan was not building new tankers and destroyers fast enough to replace their losses. Once they realized this, those classes of ships were made priority targets and their losses surged until Japan had a severe shortage of both.)

Now, there is one problem to going into asset detail about “the” Decisive Battle of the Pacific War -- there were kind of two of them. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was the decisive battle. After that engagement the IJN had no chance of winning. But that had been one of the carrier vs carrier battles where surface ships didn’t engage each other. The Decisive Battle everyone envisioned had to involve the battleships. So there is also a sub-Decisive (or post-Decisive) Battle of Leyte Gulf. I’m just going to cover the final battle as that should make my point. 

Also, I can’t help pointing out that two more USN new battleships, two battle cruisers (technically "Large" cruisers), and twelve new heavy cruisers in addition to thirteen Essex class carriers and three even larger Midway class carriers were in the pipeline and would be commissioned later in or just after the war ended.

I will list the ships belonging to the major divisions of each navy’s forces at Leyte Gulf. I will also, and this is central to my point, indicate if the ship was commissioned during the war or before the war began. What you will see, I believe, is that the USN fleets the IJN actually encountered in mid-1944 were to a large extent a new navy -- one that hadn’t existed on December 7th, 1941. While the IJN fleets would be what had survived the fighting to that point.


The Battle of Leyte Gulf - October 1944

USN Third Fleet, Task Force 38
Task Group 38:1 - CVs (Large Fleet Carriers) Wasp, Hornet, Hancock - CVLs (Light Fleet Carriers) Monterey, Cowpens - CAs (Heavy Cruisers) Chester, Pensacola, Salt Lake City, Boston - CLs (Light Cruisers) San Diego, Oakland

Task Group 38:2 CV Entrepid - CVLs Cabot, Independence - BBs (Battleships) Iowa, New Jersey (Halsey's flagship) - CLs Biloxi, Vincennes, Miami

Task Group 38:3 - CVs Essex, Lexington - CVLs Princeton, Langley - BBs Massachusetts, South Dakota - CLs Santa Fe, Birmingham, Mobile, Reno

Task Group 38:4 - CVs Franklin, Enterprise - CVLs San Jacinto, Belleau Wood - BBs Washington (Lee), Alabama - CAs Wichita, New Orleans 

USN Seventh Fleet, Task Force 77
BBs West Virginia x, Maryland y, Mississippi, Tennessee y, California x, Pennsylvania y- CAs Louisville, Portland, Minneapolis, HMAS Shropshire - CLs Denver, Columbia, Phoenix, Boise

x = Sunk at Pearl Harbor. y= Damaged at Pearl Harbor

Task Unit 77.4.3 - CVE (Escort Carriers) Fanshaw Bay, Kalinin Bay, Gambier Bay, White Plains

Task Units 77.4.1-2 had similar numbers of war-built escort carriers

CA HMAS Australia and CL USS Honolulu had been badly damaged prior to the start of the battle and were retiring to Manus for repairs.

IJN 
Northern Force -  CV Zuikaku - CVLs Zuihō, Chitose,  Chiyoda - BBs Hyūga, Ise - CLs Ōyodo, Tama, Isuzu
Center Force - BBs Yamato, Musashi, Nagato, Kongō, Haruna - CAs Atago, Maya, Takao, Chōkai, Myōkō, Haguro, Kumano, Suzuya, Tone, Chikuma - CLs Noshiro, Yahagi
Southern Force -  BBs Yamashiro, Fusō - CA Mogami

Second Striking Force -  CAs Nachi, Ashigara - CL Abukuma 

So, at the closest thing the Pacific War had to the imagined "Decisive Battle," the IJN could only bring two new super-battleships and three new light cruisers. Meanwhile, aside from Seventh Fleet's old fire support battleship force and the heavy cruiser force (the new heavy cruisers were just starting to hit the fleets), the USN was almost entirely wartime construction.

What would also be interesting to show (I have to draw the line somewhere) would be the USN assets that weren't even mobilized for this battle. While the IJN had been carefully -- arguably, too carefully -- husbanding their main battle force for this moment, the USN had been using their assets more vigorously which meant that there were, for example two battleships that were not present for one reason or another (they were either being rested or repaired). And the same was true of all the other classes of ships. 

And since all this data about the USN fleets is here, as I've mentioned before, you can see that Admiral Lee had his flag on the USS Washington when he should have been on either the Iowa or New Jersey so he could lead the fastest and most powerful battleship force Third Fleet could delegate. And Halsey had his flag on the New Jersey when it should have been on a cruiser for maximum flexibility. 

(I've been thinking about this since I published it last night and I want to give Admiral Lee the benefit of the doubt here. He had a strong bond with the Washington and her crew, and if you divided the American battleship force into two equal units, three fast and three slow, then Washington would fit with the Iowa class ships. But, the whole idea of a "fast" force is to have the speed to chase down the enemy, and Washington would have slowed the force down from 33 knots to 28 knots. The only sensible division of the battleship force would have been two fast and four slow. So Lee really should have been on one of the Iowas or on a cruiser. 

Both Spruance and Kurita realized that the logical place for a modern fleet commander was in a heavy cruiser, but Halsey had to be in the biggest ship under his command. And even though he got burned by this at Leyte Gulf, he didn't learn and stayed on the New Jersey for the rest of the war. While this only led to embarrassment, not disaster, at Leyte Gulf, it is indicative of his poor decision making while in command of Third Fleet.)

P.S. The final IJN operation of the Pacific War was Operation Ten-Go, a suicide run by the BB Yamato with some escort ships to attack the American invasion force off Okinawa. Spruance was in command of Fifth Fleet at the time, so he sent his battleship force, again six ships but this time three Iowas (though not Iowa) and three of the slower South Dakotas. Marc Mitscher was in command of Task Force 58, the carrier force, and he had no patience for the dreams of the battleship officers. He launched a massive attack that sank both Yamato and the CL Yahagi about the time they lost sight of Japan. 

But here's what caught my eye when reviewing this engagement. The IJN lost between 3,700 and 4,250 men killed on that day. The USN's two worst days of the Pacific War were when Pearl Harbor was attacked (2,335 killed) and the Battle of Savo island (1,077 killed including Australians), so a total of 3,412 killed. And the IJN threw away more lives than that for Ten-Go with nothing at all to show for it. No one has any idea how many men the IJN lost at Leyte Gulf but it would have been far higher than even this 4,250 figure.

The tree that wouldn’t die

After two rough years, the little potted tree in our alley, now sitting outside my window, has finally had a good year. 

Not only have all its remaining branches remained unbroken, but it’s developed a bush like addition at its base. I will probably trim this once it drops its leaves -- in the next month or so -- but I wanted to give it all the leaves possible to make up for the branches it’s lost.

While it still looks green and fairly healthy, in fact it is preparing for its yearly taking-out-of-the-trash. Its leaves are accumulating whatever the tree doesn’t need, and soon I will be sweeping up its garbage. The leaves lost their completely-healthy look last month. But I’m still just amazed that the poor thing is still seemingly thriving, given its modest pot, modest supply of water and nutrients, and modest dose of sun -- between the narrow alley and all our fog, its sun exposure is truly limited.


I’ve thought of planting something more attractive in the dirt around its base, or just mulching it, but for all I know the grass that has found a home there is fixing nitrogen or something else useful. At any rate, migrant grass is probably the perfect sidekick for such a determined little tree. 

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?