walkabout day 4

Sunday Mass.

At the church my Father pretty much built. They have a new (female) priest which probably would have my Dad spinning if he hadn't been cremated, but she was thrilled to meet me and said she thought he would have adjusted with the times. Maybe. Or maybe too much has changed.

But a lot is the same. Much of his decorating touch remains. Many of his mosaics are still prominent. The damn reception hall is named after him. However they remodeled my old bedroom out of existence. I met a few of my parents old friends, said polite hellos to whomever, had some bad coffee and cake, and went on my way.

My way led me past the cemetery while I was looking for a drive-through car-wash.... I had completely forgotten that I should make a visit... Willful ignorance I suppose. So I got some of their favorite, roses, and somehow found the marker after a 10 year absence:

The mortuary had forgotten to add my Dad's end date and by the time I pinged them to fix it the year had advanced but no one told the stone carver, so he seems to have lived a year longer than he did...

My mother's parents are just 13 rows up in the same section as well:

Then. Filial duty fulfilled I hi-balled on Hwy 60 into Los Angeles. Had a nice walk/snack with Brian and Elif et fil, and checked into my downtown "Hotel". It's actually a "Motel" but for price and location not too shabby. I can walk a half-mile to what may become my favorite restaurant, The Water Grill, where they have....wait for it....an oyster bar.

I still can't get the Android tablet to cooperate. It seems to sense what I would like to do and make it either impossible or improbable.

walkabout day 3

Now into the Heart of the Beast.

I drove over hwy 74, with a little detour to Idylwild, and into Hemet itself.

It's bigger. Goes on almost as long as Arizona.

But there's still not much of anything there.

Stayed in another dive motel, shabby but clean, noisy but apparently secure, and had dinner at Yelp's #2 local restaurant. An Italianate simulacrum with home made pasta that was pretty good. However, later that night some combination of food, dehydration, stress, and anxiety disagreed... 

walkabout day 2

Re-entered my native state (dazed and confused) without having to surrender any of my illicit citrus or aliens. Toured the East side of the Salton Sea on Hwy 111 from El Nowhertro to In Dio. There's not much of nuthin there there:

But I did see pelicans and egrets rummaging around in the water.

Spent the night with Kathy and Paul in Sun City number NNN and had a nice dinner on Palm Springs' You Can't Afford Any of This But Thanks for Looking row.

walkabout day 1

Jeez....AZ goes on for bloody ever...

But I got to Welton and holed up in a Microtel which at least had functional wifi so I could check that I did indeed have no relevant email.

Local pizza and a Terminator movie for dinner.

Into darkest California tomorrow for sure.

walkabout day 0

This input system sucks. Maybe I should try voice?

In any case I dropped ABK off at ABQ and header further south. On the way down I-25 there is a nice hunting-lodge type rest stop near TorC:

And after a lovely drive through the burn scar of last summer's Silver Fire near Kingston, NM in the Gila National Forest on Hwy 152 I came upon this major EarthWork outside Silver City:

There are a couple more in the area, including the Big Pit along I-10 somewhere near Deming, NM. I'm surprised they didn't make it into that nice Art & Place book that was the Xmas rage last year.

For my first night on the road in Silver City I got bounced to a different dive motel which has no desk clerk, ice machine, nor wifi. Not auspicious since "4G" seems to work at old modem rates and just hangs up when uploading images. At least this point and click for each letter typing distracts me from having any actual thoughts beyond 140 characters.

Based on international reviews I went to The Curious Kumquat for dinner. It was curious. But pretty good nonetheless. Not quite so fiddly as your usual foraged in the wild high concept foamy cuisine.

walkabout day-1

I ment to post this tuesday 1/14 but I had to run from mechanic to dentist to pharmacy to fire department and well... stuff happened. So. Anyway. Here I am with a friend on St. Mikes in pre-transit:

I would like to point out the extent of the full integration of my computing systems here... this photo was taking on my Android tablet (basically a funnel into Google products). I could not upload it to my Blogger site (basically another funnel into Google product placements). The Tablet just hung there saying ....uploading... without doing any apparent thing. I tried a number of times with different cloud connection options. Also the keypad on the tablet defaulted to the 2nd stupidest (the 12 key phone pad is the stupidest) mechanism for inputting text, but only on the Blogger page, making typing just about as painful as it could be.

I copied the pics to my notebook and am I'm posting from there, connected with (to quote the motel clerk "spotty") wifi service in Los Angeles on day5. So in general. My big idea about moving into the 21st century with mobile cloud services supporting my blogging throughout this trip is not likely to happen. I should mention that the Maps app (another Google product) just hangs up on the tablet whenever it goes to sleep after not receiving enough attention while driving, so using it as an actual map is entirely pointless if you have a short-term memory span like mine.

Cracker Jack

Just a short week ago I had no idea that any of this was even a possibility.

...and then...

I brought home this prize from the Fire Department Holiday Party Gift Exchange:

Because no one was interested in "stealing" it from me -- for a short glorious time I had a squeezable rubber chicken which sorta laid an egg, but the Fire Captain stole it from me -- this was my last chance choice. Not surprisingly I had no idea what it was because I don't watch television, and apparently, don't pay enough attention to my surroundings when searching for plumbing fittings to retrofit into my automata at Home Depot. For those like me, if there are still any, it's a marketing tie-in for what is considered to be the most popular "Reality" TV show on the <SATIRE>Arts and Entertainment Network</SATIRE>.

THE VERY NEXT MORNING

These guys' faces are plastered across every webpage I visit because their Cracker Jackass in Chief made some cretinous comments about folks who are not exactly like his own family, in an interview in GQ magazine. <SATIRE>When I was a sprout, GQ was the upscaleish Playboy with slightly less exposed flesh and slightly more manly fashion layouts. Now I guess it's just the Cracker Jack Playboy.</SATIRE> Anyway, the brouhaha went viral, A&E promised to ban the miscreant from the show, and Sarah Palin came rushing to the defense of freedom of poorly-thought-out-speech.

Or was it?

I now know more than I ever though possible about duck hunting in Louisiana and, if the CJAinC is actually briefly absented from the program I'm sure his Holiday Bonus Check will reflect the shortfall. So. A masterfully played publicity stunt which also solidified the base constituency, eh what?

As an antidote I went searching for what I would have sworn on a stack of Cracker Jack Bibles was a Tom Lehrer song that turned out to be by the Firesign Theater -- so much of my youth was a haze of culturally confused references -- What Makes America Great?