Oops, we did it again

Yet again Redwood City has effed up in its efforts to revitalize downtown and gotten into legal trouble.

This time, a judge basically told the city to start over again in its environmental review of the downtown plan, which calls for 12-story buildings, thousands of apartments, etc. This is a few years after the city had to write a formal letter of apology and post a plaque in honor of their victims in a case of overzealous eminent domain seizure.

I need to go to the dentist

Philanthropy

It's not often I truly envy the super-rich; I ride my bike past their houses two or three times a week and gasp and gawk; I drove my dream car for a few years. But what really makes me dream is the foundations; what good could I do with, say, five hundred million dollars?

I got to thinking about this when I came across this article about Andy Grove, while I was doing research about the funders of the non-profit I just started working for.

Friday the 13th: Blame someone else day.

Apparently today is Blame Someone Else day. Of course, for some people, every day is Blame Someone Else Day. But I'm not naming names today.

Water water...um, nowhere

I am reading this amazing book called Cadillac Desert (see left) about the history of water, or the lack thereof, in the American West. It starts, naturally, with the Owens Valley water grab by Los Angeles in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is truly incredible the lenths the went to -- and are still going to -- to get water to Los Angeles, which is essentially in a desert. Basically, they took water from an agricultural region -- the Owens Valley, east of the Sierras -- and brought it to the San Fernando Valley to make it an agricultural reason. That may be oversimplifying it a bit, but thousands of people died and many more than that lost their homes and livelihood along the way. And Manifest Destiny kept most people in power -- all the way up to the White House -- from questioning the moral and financial soundness of these plans.

I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, which is sizeable, and so far it's very readable and I recommend it. If you have limited reading time, though, at least get it from the library and read the introduction.

I would cancel my HBO if it weren't for Flight of the Conchords

and Big Love.

Replacing Bob Costas with JOE BUCK?!? Just to clarify, HBO didn't fire Costas or anything -- if that were the case, I actually WOULD cancel HBO. He left to go to the new MLB network.

HBO executive: "Let's replace the Greatest Mind of Our Generation with a total tool."

Color

I am obsessed with color. I have a ridiculous number of nail polish bottles. And I am well on my way to painting every room in my house a different color. First there was the deep-red hallway:



Then our bedroom:


Then the back or "sun" room (the pic doesn't do it justice, but it's butter yellow):



And this week I finally got to paint a room my favorite color:



Oh, I've also painted one wall in the boys' room yellow, one red and one blue.

G'day!

Technology is cool: we just did a video chat with Linda, who is in Sydney tomorrow afternoon while we're in Redwood City this evening!

I'm also glad we'll probably be going to Sydney in their winter, because Linda said they have humidity there in the summer. Blech.

Finally, we're still looking for a house swap, so if you know anyone who lives in Sydney and wants to spend some time in Redwood City... "Climate Best By Government Test"!!

Mmmm...coffee?

So it's been, what, six months since I started trying to get off the pop?! At this point I'm drinking one or two a day. Most of my caffeine is coming from FRS and, yes, coffee. We do have a coffee maker, which in the past had only been used by guests. I actually had to read the manual to figure out how to make coffee.

I have an actual plan: one a day for a couple weeks, then one every other day. And at the end of the month, I'm done.

Joshua Tree

I've busy with my mother-in-law in town, who enabled us to go to Joshua Tree last weekend, sans kids! It was awesome, and I highly recommend it.

I'm also painting the bathroom purple, attending my second Restore Hetch Hetchy board meeting tomorrow, and trying not to get my hopes up that kitchen remodel is still on...

Oh, almost forgot -- I got a new job, too (fundraising, PR at a non-profit).

The latest from RHH

Great article on Restore Hetch Hetchy in the East Bay Express.

In related news, did anyone else find it ironic how Diane Feinstein was going on and on about that painting of Yosemite Valley at the post-inaugural luncheon?

"just put down the food"

Linda turned me on to MeMe Roth, an anti-obesity activist. Her attitude and arguably extreme views piss people off, but it's because she herself is so pissed that we're slowly killing our children.

I'm also enjoying Dietribe, even though it's yet another freakin reality show.

Best announcers: Vin Scully. Oh yeah.

Vin Scully is clearly, obviously, the best announcer of all time. Any list like this that didn't put him at #1 would be have absolutely zero credibility.

Of course, Bob is in the top 10, so that's good, too. But this guy at #31 is a total douche bag.

Fun at the old ballpark

Suspension of disbelief

You really need a lot of it to watch 24 this season, if the first four hours are any indication. Let's see... Tony is not dead because of ...some kind of... injection? And U.S. air traffic control, water plants and electricity are all behind one firewall? OK. And that's just scratching the surface.

Speaking of 24... you really need to be at least as far to the right as Joel Surnow to put up with living in the Midwest if there's nothing else stopping you from living in California.

More miscellany

We really need to go here soon...

If you put a glass bottle full of liquid in the freezer, set a timer to remind yourself to take it out.

Ew!

This year I will...

Everyone knows resolutions don't work. So this year I thought I'd try something a little different: a new monthly resolution, x12. Here's a draft:

January: eat fewer processed foods (see "now reading" at left)
February: completely stop drinking diet pop
March: cut way back on sugar
and so on...

We'll see how it goes.

Yo-yo-yosemite!

This weekend I learned that chains are a pain in the ass.

And even though Yosemite is gorgeous in the winter (and the crowds are largely contained), it's better to go in the spring or summer simply because the days are longer, and there's no point after dark.

I also learned that my kid doesn't like snow.

Breathable air = fascism

There is so much hilarity in this Mercury News story, I envy the writer who had to work on Christmas Day to produce it.

Critics say the new law is government run amok.

Miller, the firewood seller, said he is particularly offended by the air district's complaint line, which allows people to report on neighbors. "That smacks of Marxism,'' he said.

...

Vince Noack, a retired contractor from Santa Clara, said: "I think this damn law is absolutely criminal. It's going to put hundreds of firewood people out of business at a time when the economy is already falling apart.''

As a young man in the U.S. Army, Noack said, he landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and helped liberate two Nazi death camps. "And now I can't even light my fireplace when I want,'' Noack, 86, said with a sigh.

Galen Mitrzyk, a Palo Alto resident, said he agrees with Noack. "This man put his life on the line fighting fascism,'' said Mitrzyk, 53. "He has a right to burn a fire.''

Mitrzyk, who once worked in marketing for Hewlett-Packard, has been battling the air district, arguing that the new law is unconstitutional because fire is a key part of pagan rituals.

Mitrzyk, a neo-pagan pantheist, performs a fire-gazing ritual in his backyard in which he builds a small fire in a chiminea, a freestanding fireplace. He said the day he performs the ritual is based in part on the full moon, and if the lunar calendar happens to conflict with a Spare the Air alert he's going to start the fire whether the district likes it or not.

So. Many. Toys.

These boys of ours got a ton of presents. The tree was surrounded by gifts, many of which generated an obscene number of twist ties. Arthur's big present (the only thing actually purchased for him by his parents) was a big, realistic fire truck made by a company called Bruder. I bought it at Talbots Toyland, the greatest toy store ever and one of the local businesses you should definitely support: free gift wrapping; free storage of the gift until it's time to give, in case you have spying eyes to worry about; and their prices are equal to or better than Toys R Us or Amazon. And they have all kinds of high-quality products NOT made in China.

Those Germans know how to make a toy fire truck, lemme tellya. And NO twist ties! Just slid right out of the box. I'm assuming this is because the Chinese toys would bust apart on the boat ride if they weren't lashed to their boxes. Not the German toys. Beer, birks, Beamers and toys. Good stuff.