Seen this morning in front of the La Jolla Farmers Market, parked in a red zone:
Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category
Inconsistent
Sunday, May 17th, 2009Brodozers
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009I spent several hours today standing at the corner of El Norte Parkway and Elm Street in Escondido as a course marshal for the Amgen Tour of California. Today was the final stage of the eight stage (plus prologue) race that started in Sacramento.
While I waited hours for the brief seconds of each pack of cyclists to pass, I decided to amuse myself by taking pictures of all the ‘brodozers’ that drove by. A brodozer is a pick-up truck that has been jacked up on shocks with huge noisy tires. They are a particularly nasty form of transportation. They are a big middle finger to the environment and are driven by young males in a very aggressive manner. One of my scariest moments on a bicycle was due to a brodozer in East County San Diego. This county is infested with brodozers, and Escondido is particularly bad.
Below are 16 of the 17 brodozers I was able to capture. There were many that passed before I had inspiration, and others I missed. It’s interesting that white is the dominant color, and none appear to have been off-road recently. The seventeenth was the only vehicle I saw escorted off the course by the police. That brodozer needed to be told more than once by the police to get off the course. This tells you all you need to know about brodozer drivers.
Failed Socks
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009The hopes and dreams of these socks unfortunately never came to pass.
Let’s see how the the hopes and dreams of Obama turn out. I’m excited!
No More Tunnels
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
By far my favorite place to ride my mountain bike (that is reachable without driving) are the single track ‘tunnels’ that are typically reached through Peñasquitos Park (although they aren’t actually inside the park, they are on non-park city land). They are called ‘the tunnels’ because for most of their length they are covered by low bushes and trees just over head height. There are four of them that total a few miles in length and vary in technical difficulty. Until about a month ago, they were somewhat illicit and not patrolled, now they are very expressly illegal. During the rainy season I think it’s perfectly reasonable to close them. Muddy and wet ground is especially susceptible to erosion, and nature doesn’t need human help to erode the ground during the rainy season. The ditch my bike is pictured in above was fairly level ground the last time I was there, less than a month ago (*).
Pareidolia
Saturday, June 20th, 2009For a few months I have subscribed to Shorpy, a site that posts high-quality scans of historic American photographs. I save the ones I like, and I’ve set my computer to rotate randomly through them as my computer desktop picture. This morning I saw something I couldn’t ignore! Take a look at the photo below of the French Market in New Orleans in 1910:
What do you see just above and to the right of the wagon wheel? You can click on the image for the full view, or look at a zoom-in below:
It’s Che Guevara, of course! You can clearly see an eye, his beard, two nostrils and hat. He even appears to be sticking his tongue out. I am forced to wonder how his image ended up on a horse-drawn cart in New Orleans eighteen years before he was born. But clearly it’s a sign of something profound and mystical. Any ideas?
(Further reading.)
Posted in Commentary | 1 Comment »