Autobiography: I remember that we did not have air conditioning in elementary school. When it got hot we folded up paper to make a fan. We also folded a sheet of newspaper to make a HAT... and a four sided thing to tell the future... sort of like a Magic Eight Ball.

 I also knew how to fold a CUBE... I have forgotten everything I ever knew about paper folding... 

I remember Board Games. Risk, Chess, Monopoly, Parcheesi... and then years later when I got married we played Master Mind and my wife always won. 

I owned a Blacklight. And a Lot of Blacklight Paint... I painted the blades of a fan different colors and when the fan was spinning it created unusual colors due to persistence of vision... 

I remember owning a Transistor Radio. I listened to Giants Baseball Games. I was not the only kid who was a Giant Fan... as a Matter of fact, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival tells the story of how he wrote the Song "Centerfield" about his Childhood Hero Willie Mays... He also listened to Games on His Transistor Radio... 

I remember owning a Brownie Camera. It used Film and If you "forgot" to wind it between pictures you could force the camera to take double exposures... a very "Trippy" Effect... 


Then decades Later I took B&W Photography at Humboldt State University and we did the developing in a Darkroom. That's a wonderful experience because you do all that physical manipulation of film and holders and chemicals in total darkness while looking at swirling rainbow hallucinations... Even when I am not "ON DRUGS" I see a lot of checkerboard style patterns in the dark that dance. Then the same teacher taught us Photoshop the next semester... EPIC CLASSES...  That was the only time I used an Apple Computer. I knew I was "home" when it asked me if I was trying to upload a series of photographs in order to create an animated GIF... that was EXACTLY  what I was trying to do and It offered to upload all the pictures for me Automatically! For homework we had to design a WEB Based Store... and The specific Task was to show a product (A Coffee Cup) spinning around so the customer could see all sides... We worked in teams to do our projects and an Older student taught me how to create an animated GIF... That was a big Idea that our teacher had... We should teach ourselves Computer Science because after we graduate we were not allowed to ask the teacher questions... We should research the answers ourselves... 

Read More of My Autobiography at:
http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/03/growing-up-in-los-gatos-california-in.html

CATS! New Art using pictures of Our Cats... and Earth Art! "There's No Place Like Home!" ... WIND POWER Free Coloring Book Art. and an ALIEN FLOWER.

The Town House Motel in Chico has raised their price to $1000 a week. It Was HALF that BEFORE THE FIRE in Paradise. All the other Motels are SOLD OUT.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/town-house-motel-chico

YELP REVIEWS SAY:

Shame on you for charging 1000 a week!! People have lost their homes! And you have the nerve to gouge them! Not to mention the pictures on Yelp show the motel as a disgusting place. The bed bugs and filth is disgusting. I feel so bad for the people that have no place else to go. I hope you get fined!!

You should be ashamed of yourself!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Price gouging fire victims at $1000 a week????
That is unacceptable!! Time to boycott this place!
Shame on you, scumbags!!!!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don't even think about staying here. They have  violated the law by price gouging the Camp Fire victims, by raising the rates over 2 times as much!!! This is illegal, and if it were not, it is absolutely reprehensible!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I see that they doubled the price of the hotel rooms during a emergency crisis with the campfire and are now charging $1000 a week 
That's out rages price during an emergency I hope the DA does something about it

and about a dozen more like these... 

The Haven Inn of Chico is Sold out... No availability... I wanted to find out what the weekly rental price was... After Reading that the Town House Motel Doubled their Rates... The Rodeway Inn (Used to be the Budget) is also sold out. The Regency has no website.

...and my Favorite The Club Chico Motel is Closed... at Esplanade and East Ave it was where I first lived in the Late 1990s... I almost died there after setting the mattress on fire with a cigarette... but the Manager woke me up in time... pulled the burning mattress out of the motel room, put out the fire, put a new mattress in the room and said to not worry about it... hey, a paying customer is valuable and mattresses are free from the dumpsters when the College Students leave every spring. I picked one up years later for the back of my Ford Windstar Van.