It was more than one night

The owner of the 1996 Fatboy; the biker, he was my professor in the class on litigation I took. He is a highly sought after and very well respected attorney.

The man with the fuchsia hair is the co-founder of a hosting structure for WordPress sites and Applications. He helped build the BBC News website; he worked on the technical end of the launch of MySpace. He was an advisor for Apture and NutShellMail just to name 2. He has homes in both Austin and San Francisco.

The man with the golden highlights is the Founder and Senior Pastor at a local Church.

I bet that first one was a bit shocking. Tamara studied law? Yes she did. 

She also had a fascinating conversation with the second man about biological parasites. Tamara can have a conversation? Yes she can. 

The pastor I worked with while I was an Account Executive with Hearst. Tamara did business with a Pastor? Yes I did. My Father was the Director of the Mission Service Corp.

 You call me unprofessional. Can you place before me one person I have done business with that I have not been professional with? Your blanket statement offends me and is untrue. You do not like my tattoos? Then say that! Do not call me unprofessional. Have you taken a closer look at the hundreds of ankles of the women around you? You do not like the way I dress? Then say that. Do not call me unprofessional. Clothes do not make the man. I was a Territory Manager with an international company for the entire California bay area for 4 years. I know how to dress. I have entertained at tea in my home the wives of Wing Commanders and Base Commanders. I have been hostess to Scottish Nobility. Do not call me unprofessional.

As for the part in the movie One Night with the King … it was the movie. If you fail to understand that then none of this matters anyway.

Have a great Easter Weekend. 

Train crash

As I was carrying my tea tray over to the sofa to settle in for a bit I had a spasm grip the right side of my back and I could not breathe. That was a wee bit scary but I did not drop my tray. I had a flex patch pasted on to my back  that I had put on last night because I had tweaked my right back while twisting in the shower to grasp the shampoo bottle.  So either it is now worse or whatever was out of place is now back in place or I have new chaos. The day will tell but I will patch up again this morning because I am not feeling fierce.

I had a dream about a train this morning. The engineer of the train fell asleep and the train was buckling up and crashing as I awoke. 

Shall we seek Lady Tamara’s help for an interpretation?  Trains represent travel and travel is an increase in status or income.  Crash draws attention to an important achievement. The louder and greater the crash the more noteworthy the accomplishment will be.  Hmmmmm…. This is a premonition dream. We shall see…..

Picture this….a tall athletic man in his early 50s, dark eyes and tanned skin. Black jeans, black button down shirt, black boots, black leather vest with patches and black chaps, no fringe. His hair is dark with streaks of steel grey. It is in a braid that hangs down the center of his back ending 2 inches below his belt. He climbs off of a 1996 black and silver Fatboy with the grace and ease of a panther climbing out of a tree.  What do you see? What do you think?

Picture this…. Black gothic pants, black t-shirt, boots and fuchsia pink spikey hair; sitting in an airport with a black backpack. What do you see? What do you think?

Picture this…. Spikey, surfer boy, blonde highlights in his already blonde hair, jeans, chukka boots and a button down shirt un-tucked with the top three buttons un-buttoned.  What do you see? What do you think?

I have more.

Think about these people and who you now believe they are.  I will tell you tomorrow. In the meantime there is a clue in the movie One Night with the King.

Enjoy the mystery that is everywhere!

Leonidas sings Night Music

I wanted to watch a movie that took me on a short escape. Something light yet melancholy and there it was staring at me from the P row on the shelf; Phantom of the Opera. I had seen this performed live in all its glory in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theater.

If you ever have a chance to get to San Francisco to see anything at the Orpheum do so. The building is beautiful inside and out. It was built in 1926 and is French Gothic in style, seats over 2,200 and is a designated landmark.

I popped in the movie and settled down to be whisked away. I had seen the movie years earlier after it first came out in 2004. As I was watching and listening there was something vaguely familiar about the voice of the phantom. About two thirds of the way through it came to me that the voice sounded like Gerard Butler. 

Of course you never get a really good look at him and when you do you see the scar side of his face. So I with anticipation for the credits to roll and sure enough it was him and he sang. He sang a lot. Yes he really did sing the songs and Andrew Lloyd Webber said that Gerard Butler's voice was the one he had always dreamed of for the Phantom. So there I sat with a vision of Leonidas half clothed, sword in hand 

singing Music of the Night. It was like climbing on the back of a Harley with a huge hairy biker in leather vest, boots and velvet studded chaps.

 Dreamlike. I had no idea he sang. I had never heard of Gerard Butler prior to 300. What a lovely idea…. Strap on a sword, plait up your kilt, go make war, come back home and sing me a lullaby. Yes!! I want one of those please.

Sweet dreams are made of this…..

What does your dream date do?

Easter Egg Warrior

He is 6 and he is standing at the edge of a yellow caution tape that was strung around the entire play-scape. His eyes slide slightly right as I walk up but he does not look over; he is very still his breathing is measured. I look toward the direction that has him engaged; then sweep my gaze over the entire area and back to the spot he is intent upon. I sit down on the ground about 5 feet from him. At this bold move his eyes dart over to me and slide the distance between us then again back to what I now believe is his target. He again looks at me, turns ever so quickly to glance back at his parents, again, back at me where he nods and then refocuses on the target. My assistant, the lovely Olivia, and I at this cue from him engage his parents in conversation. I can see him relax ever so slightly as he scans again the play-scape. I shift toward him and in a calm voice I ask him if he has his eye on his target. He nods,” do you have a plan or are you just going to run around and grab up as many eggs as you can?” He looks over at me, “I have a plan”. His gaze again shifts to his target.  “Once you clear that area do you know what area you will sweep next?” He nods. “Are you going to start out here on the edge where there will be fewer children and work your way into the middle or are you going straight to the middle and do battle there for eggs?” Without looking at me he slowly raises his arm and points to a location in the middle of the area and says “I am going to the middle and getting all of those eggs.”  Somehow this conversation has gotten very intense and the air around us seems alive and crackling. “After that are you going to work your way back this way?” No he says quietly “I will continue in the center.” I am looking toward where his gaze is settled. “So, you have a strategy from beginning to the end of this?” His gaze crawls over to me; I turn my head to look at him. Once he has my eyes locked he says “yes I do”. His expression is intense. His blue eyes are sharp and focused. His nostrils are flared like a war horse ready for the signal to charge at a joust. “Good hunting little man.” He turns back to refocus. 

He did as planned and stayed his course. I lost sight of him in the fray but his father stayed watchful. As the other children left the hunt having gathered what they believed were all the eggs he stayed still searching. He finally worked his way back to where we were his bucket full. The situation had taken on a surreal feel to it. I could have been standing on the edge of a battle field in York or Calais, Antietam or Vicksburg. He was like a soldier ready to enter the fray; not as a follower but as a leader. If I were going into battle I would want this little man on my side.

It is usually easier to photograph the very small children hunting for eggs as they tend to stop and inspect each egg allowing you the chance to grab a shot that may be in focus. I never did get a shot of the little soldier but, I got something better a postcard for my memory.

Next egg hunt will be my grand-daughter Easter morning.  When is yours?

Faulty Nuke Plant

My last stop on this adventure I called the Rockstar tour was Bodega Bay in Sonoma.

 Where is it? 40 Miles north of San Francisco. 

Bodega Bay is protected by a granite peninsula called Bodega Head. 500 miles south of Bodega Head lay the Tehachapi Mountains. Why am I telling you this? Because the granite of Bodega Bay is the same granite formation the mountain range is. That is how far the plates have moved. The great earthquake of 1906 moved the plates about 15 feet. The San Andreas Fault runs parallel to the coast and crosses Bodega Bay.  Bodega Head sits on the Pacific Plate while the town itself sits on the North American Plate. The two Plates pass each other at the rate of about two inches a year. The Pacific Plate moves North and the North American Plate moves south.

Legend has it that the bay Sir Francis Drake found and named Nova Albium was Bodega Bay. In 1775 the Spanish first charted the bay. In 1807 Russians aboard an American otter hunting ship rediscovered the bay. In 1809 Russians actually claimed this coastal area of California for Russia burying markers and erecting temporary buildings. By 1870 Bodega Bay was an active harbor.

Both movies The Birds and The Fog were filmed on Bodega Bay and in town. Best of all a portion of the beach scenes in The Goonies was filmed on the beach area of Bodega Bay.

A nuclear power plant was planned and the site on Bodega Head was excavated until someone decided building a nuclear power plant along the San Andreas Fault may not be a good idea. (ya think?) The abandoned area is now called “The Hole in the Head”.

This truly is an amazing area.

Eureka!

We arrived in Eureka just at sunset and made a beeline to the beach overlook. I caught the last glimpse of the sun as it gracefully set into the horizon. It was dark and magical.

Where is Eureka? 100 miles south of Oregon and it is the largest deep water port between San Francisco and Coos Bay Oregon. It is the home of California’s oldest zoo, Sequoia Park Zoo and hundreds of preeminent Victorian homes.  Eureka was founded in May of 1850 by the Union and Mendocino Exploring Company.  It was occupied by logging companies, fishing companies, and miners.

Humboldt Bay had been elusive to explorers since 1579. Weather conditions, the geography, and the very narrow entrance kept it hidden until 1806 when the Bay was documented by Russians but then lost again. It was not until 1849 when explores came upon the bay by a land route that the exact location of the entrance became known. 

Eureka is a California Historic Landmark. 16% of the city structures are cataloged as historically significant. Many of those building being designated as state and nationally significant; about 1500 buildings qualify for the National Register of Historic Places. Some of the styles of architecture represented are Colonial Revival, Greek revival, and Queen Anne.

The average temperature is 53.

 If I disappear you can find me living in Eureka in a Victorian cottage overlooking the ocean. 

Girls vs Tree

Have you ever wondered how the world would be if you were a Hobbit?  I suppose if you are 5’2” no, that thought does not cross your mind. But when you are 5’10” or greater finding things larger than you do not happen often. But I found a world that was much larger than me.

Trees that I could use as a house, stand up inside, walk through, were large enough to use as a bed.  The redwoods offer many amazing perspectives. You can stand inside them, drive through them, be in a ring of them and feel as though you were protected by an escort of well-trained efficient armed guards. It is like they know things; happy things. They are not gloomy or frightening; there is a feeling of joy, of praise, of pride in their assignment in this world. You can believe that they have met and remember The Creator. 

As we were roaming around the Chandelier Tree in Humboldt a couple of girls in a tiny convertible drove into the park whirled around the tree and parked in front of it. One girl got out and guided the other into the tree. She then lifted up her phone and started snapping photos. They were laughing and having a grand time. Then the other girl wanted to get out and take photos of her friend in the car in the tree.  But, the girl in the car could not get out. The door would not open. She turns the car off and attempts to climb over the windshield and across the hood to get out. Well this as you can imagine was not going as smoothly as she had envisioned it in her mind. She tried to get one leg over the windshield and then the other leg while trying to keep her balance with nothing to hold onto. This course of action went on for a few moments and then once she got her footing the hood of the little car bowed under the slight pressure of her weight. She realized she could not put her full weight on the hood and get out. Now while all this was funny her friend standing in front of the car curled up laughing hysterically was even funnier. The girl in the car now had one leg over the windshield and one in the car and was stuck. Her friend could not get to her to aid her and they were so drunk on laughter neither of them could do anything. We left them to their joy.

Back to the redwoods…..  There is a team of researchers who travel through the redwood forests in search of the tallest trees. So far they have found 135 trees topping out at a wee bit over 350 feet tall, the tallest at 378.1 feet tall.  A football field measures from goal line to goal line 300 feet.

 Here are a few interesting facts you may not know if you have never seen them.

Coastal Redwoods can survive to be 2,200 years old.

Redwoods do not have a tap root. They have an intricate shallow root system that allows them to better support themselves. These roots may be only 5 or 6 feet underground but have a stretch of over 100 feet from the tree. The roots of 4 or 5 trees may intertwine and often fuse together giving greater strength to the group.

Redwoods are not as round in diameter as sequoias but, they are taller.

Redwoods do not live as long as the great sequoias.

The Spanish first called these trees Palo Colorado meaning red tree.

The seed of a redwood is about the size of the head of a pin and you will need to gather about 125,000 before you will have a pound of seed.

A redwood requires hundreds of gallons of water each day.  How does this happen you wonder? Redwoods can create their own rain from the fog that is present daily in the northwestern coastal region. The taller trees producing the most rain which drops to its shallow root system.  

You must see these beautiful trees some day.

Samoa - Prison Camp

Have you ever been to Samoa? Samoa California, the area formerly known as Brownville, located on a peninsula 10 miles long and 1 mile wide protecting Humboldt Bay. It feels like a barrier island taking the brunt of the force of the Pacific and leaving the bay with a lake like quality.

There is a 300 acre recreation park and you can surf, fish, ATV, hike and several other fun activities. The dunes which a few upon closer inspection are weapons bunkers left over from WWII when the Coast Guard maintained the area for surveillance of the Pacific Coastline. 

 It was also a seasonal food gathering site for the Wiyot Indians who gathered shell fish and piled up the empty shells onto mounds you can still see scattered about.

Samoa is about 23 feet above sea level at its highest point but, the average is three feet.

There are the remains of an abandoned lighthouse in the wetland area that was built in 1850.  The area was also used as a prisoner of war camp for Native Americans in 1862 during the Bald Hills War. A sawmill was established and at the onset of WWI an emergency shipyard was constructed and 7 wooden steamships were built between 1917 and 1919.

The north jetty is constructed from concrete breakers known as dolos which actually look more like jacks from the childhood game. The USS Milwaukie ran aground during a rescue mission and was broken up by the pounding surf as did the submarine USS H-3 which was rescued and at least 25 other ships. The approach to Humboldt Bay is known as the graveyard of the Pacific.  Humboldt Bay is one of the most dangerous harbor entrances in California. It is only .25 mile wide, extreme tidal currents, constantly shifting sand bars and unpredictable weather with severe fog combine to make it a terrifying run through the gauntlet.

Most of these waves in these photos were well over 20 feet high. They would appear to be making a straight run down the jetty and then all of a sudden make a left turn and slam into the wall where we were standing. The sound was like claps of thunder. We watched for well over an hour. I have never seen anything like it and I have seen many jetties. 

 If you get the chance…..

Eel River lamprey

Crossing the Eel River and then a few miles later we cross it again and again and I begin to believe there is more than one Eel, there are 14 of them.  Here is why. The river is 200 miles long and runs somewhat parallel to the coast.  The river and its tributaries actually cover 3,448 miles.

In 1850 Josiah Gregg and a party of men were exploring the area when they came upon a group of Native American people. Josiah traded a pan to them for what he thought were eels from the river. They were actually Pacific lamprey.

What is a lamprey you ask? It is a jaw-less fish-like vertebrate, with a toothed funnel like, sucking, mouth. Some species of lamprey are known to bore holes into fish and suck on their blood.

The adult Pacific lamprey resembles an eel being about 30 inches long, dark blue or brown in color. This species is born in fresh water and swim to the ocean as juveniles returning to fresh water as adults to reproduce.  The Pacific lamprey is parasitic to other fish. They will live as young juveniles in fresh water rivers for 3 to 7 years before swimming out to sea where they will spend another 1 or 2 years maturing into adults.  The female will lay over 100,000 eggs once she has survived her upstream swim and created a nest.  After which she and the male will die.

Now, so you do not think the Native Americans traded something horrible with Josiah and his party; Pacific lampreys are an important ceremonial food of American Natives of the northern Pacific Coastal area.

We stopped at a natural swimming hole that is created at a curve in the river by a small tributary.

The water is an amazing turquoise green in color and flows at a sedate pace in this area. 

There is a rock a few feet from shore and a deep hole on the other side. Posted are No Diving signs.  There was a small bit of white water just out of sight but we could hear it further down river.

Not far from here we stopped in an emerald forest of redwoods. The moss is what made the entire area look so magical and green.

Next week…. A drive through tree…..