Planned Cities are vastly better than unplanned cities. The Joy of Columbia Maryland, Almaden and Scotia, CA and Reston, VA

I Lived in Columbia, Maryland and Almaden, California. I worked in Reston, Virginia and have visited Scotia, California.

Columbia is an example of a truly outstanding design. It is based on small "pods" of homes and businesses that are interconnected by bike trails and roads. Every home is within walking distance of stores that sell basic necessities. This becomes crucial during snowstorms when all the roads are undriveable. Designed by James Rouse. It is home to the Merriweather Post Pavilion concert venue in Symphony Woods. Across the street is a Shopping Mall and Lake Kittamaqundi... sail boats and canoes for rent. Columbia is home to Howard Community College and Hobbit's Glen golf course. Yes, he planned for everything... and it's all within biking distance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia,_Maryland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Kittamaqundi
http://www.merriweathermusic.com/

Almaden: During the 1960s IBM built a disk drive factory in the rural farmland near San Jose, California. Then they build homes for the employees, a golf course and a swim and racquet club. They believed that they could attract a higher quality employee if the living conditions were ideal. It worked. The concept of a the database was invented there. One of those truly epic ideas...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaden_Valley,_San_Jose,_California

Reston was a city built by Robert E Simon. Note his initials in the name of the city. Located near Dulles Airport it is a popular location for corporations. It is easy to fly into Dulles and take a taxi to a meeting. Having an airport close by was convenient for shipping our finished products to the customers. I worked for a defense subcontractor and Reston is close to the Pentagon and Washington, DC. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston,_Virginia

Scotia was built for the employees of The Pacific Lumber Company. Their plan was to harvest 1% of the trees every year and plant a new tree for every one harvested. That "100 year plan" was designed to ensure that there would be work for the mill employees forever. In a hundred years, the new trees would have grown up and be big enough to harvest again. Sadly, Charles Hurwitz used junk bonds to do a hostile takeover of the company, cut down all the profitable trees, looted the pension fund, hid the money in Texas and then declared bankruptcy. Now the company has been purchased by the Fischer family and they have returned to sustainable logging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotia,_California
http://www.jailhurwitz.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Fisher

There is a lovely coloring book of The Headwaters Forest.
Link: http://www.jailhurwitz.com/pdfs/hfcb_cover.html

On a personal note: If you and your friends drive over Blossom Hill Road from Los Gatos, California at night and you put Pink Floyd's "Division Bell" CD in the stereo... when you crest the hill and can look down on the sparkling lights of the city of Almaden... the band sings...

The grass was greener The light was brighter With friends surrounded The nights of wonder

 it's all true and a really emotional experience...
You see, it appears that the lyrics describe what is actually happening... Cosmic...

I had the blessing of attending many rock concerts at Merriweather Post Pavillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merriweather_Post_Pavilion
The Grateful Dead played there Six times while I was living on the east coast and I went to all six shows.
One night there was a thunder and lightning storm at dusk. Torrential downpour... all the power went out and we were treated to a drum duet played by Bill K and Mickey Hart. It appeared that they were incorporation the thunder into their music. A traditional tom-tom fill is "da da da, de de de, du du du, boom". They used the flash of lightning to predict when the thunders boom would sound...

As a special blessing, half the audience on the lawn area went home... That solved the overcrowding problem. The rest of us stayed and danced in the mud.

Sadly, the audience forced management to prohibit the Grateful Dead from playing there. One time there was a concert near July Fourth and the members of the audience set off too many fireworks after the concert. Since it is possible to buy rockets that fly up into the sky and explode in South Carolina (not too far away), that year there was a danger of setting Symphony Woods on fire. Oh Well... it all worked out because about that time the Grateful Dead became really popular and needed RFK Stadium to satisfy the demand for tickets.

CITY OF THE FUTURE!(lyrics)

we are living in the city of the future

all of us have hi-tech jobs...

we don't give a dam about unemployment

that only happens to low tech slobs

be a nurd!

be a nurd!

I'm a high-tech wizard

BE A NURD!

They used to laugh @ me

when I was in high school

the social in set was so very proud

but now when those people

are searching thru the want ads

they say "I want to be one of the 

computer crowd

be a nurd

be a nurd

be a high-tech wizard

BE A NURD!

a song I wrote... after seeing the movie "Starstruck" a silly Australian Musical... 

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IMMIGRANTS MADE SILICON VALLEY... Sure, All the Famous Names in High Tech are White Men... BUT... Behind the Scenes... People From All Over The World Came Here... AND BUILT A MIRACLE.

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniac, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, William Hewlett, David Packard, Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, Robert Noyce, Jack Kilby, Thomas Watson, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, William Shockley, Herman Hollerith, Alan Turing, John Von Neuman, Charles Babbage, Fibonacci, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell...  If You Don't Recognize any of These Names... Just Google Them! and be Thankful that Great White Men Created Electricity, Computers and the Internet!

HOWEVER... At INTEL... Tadashi Sasaki was a Japanese engineer who was influential in founding Busicom, driving the development of the Intel 4004 microprocessor... Engineers Vinod Dham and Rajeev Chandrasekhar were key figures on the core team that invented the 486 chip and later, Intel's signature Pentium chip. 

I worked In Silicon Valley in 1976...  

When I was working at System Industries in Santa Clara, California (1976) the owner of the company (Dr. Edwin Zschau) went to Japan to learn how to run a business.

They were doing very well in comparison to USA companies and there was a lot of interest in learning why. So we adopted many oriental concepts and implemented them in our business. One thing was that we had a company song. We had a birthday meeting every month and we would all sing the company song.

Lyrics:
"System, System Industries, Here we go, Hand in hand. Solving Data Mysteries for the betterment of man."

We had many people from foreign countries working there. Immigrants made our company better. That was a universal fact of life about Silicon Valley... The brightest engineers worldwide came here for work. I had a neighbor from Nicaragua who came to work at IBM. And another Engineer I knew came from Germany at the end of WW2 to work at Lockheed. Very Common.

In my office we had: Dan Aragaki, Steve Wakasuki, Jesus Del Real, Benjamin Aragaki, Ming Leon, Ben Yamada, Aman Kawaja... and ME... and Out on the Assembly Line it was all Oriental or Hispanic Women... 

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So It Is Very Important to Allow Immigrants to Work and Study in the USA... 

The only way the United States can remain the world's most prosperous, powerful country is by embracing immigration. That's the inescapable conclusion from a new study published on Tuesday in the Lancet that predicts the world's population will peak far sooner than anticipated, and start shrinking before the end of this century.

There is, however, no guarantee that the US will embrace immigration, even to save itself. Domestic politics, currently inflamed by divisive nativist leaders, have turned immigration into a contested topic. A country that rose to historic heights of influence and prosperity by welcoming immigrants, is now led by a President who has weaponized the issue with unfathomable cruelty.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/15/opinions/global-population-decline-study-us-immigration-ghitis/index.html 

In reversal, federal government will allow international students to stay in the U.S. while taking only online classes. The repeal follows outspoken criticism from universities, legal experts and higher education advocates, who deemed the rules unfairly punitive for foreign students. 

Federal officials agreed to reverse the policy earlier Tuesday, federal judge Allison Burroughs announced at the hearing for a lawsuit filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week. National media outlets previously reported that the White House was considering scaling back the rule after blowback from dozens of universities across the country. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/14/international-students-online-classes/

Meetings with Remarkable Men - In Silicon Valley. Dr Edwin Van Wyck Zschau - President of System Industries. 

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/meetings-with-remarkable-men-in-silicon.html

History of Silicon Valley: Almaden - IBM's Successful Utopia. Near San Jose, California IBM built an IDEAL WORLD, Later, Silicon Valley was Built and The Light Rail Connected Almaden to The Rest... All the Way to NASA/Lockheed.

Far out in the farmlands south of town, IBM built a disk drive factory in the early 60's. They wanted to attract the world's finest talent so the built nice houses, shopping centers, a golf course, tennis club and swimming pool. This self contained utopia had everything a family could want... It is still there and functioning beautifully. Come visit sometime... it's wonderful.

Later, the entire city of San Jose became interested in computers. Silicon Valley was born.

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/almaden-ibms-successful-utopia.html

Great Movies: TRON and TRON Legacy. Science Fiction that takes us inside a computer to a Stunning Fantasy World. Computer Graphics Masterpiece... Partially filmed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the Shiva Nuclear Fusion experiment. 

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/09/great-movies-tron-and-tron-legacy.html

How to Game the FaceBorg AI AIgorithm - It's FUN - It's FREE - and Everybody's Doing IT!

I gamed the FaceBorg AI system by LIKING and JOINING QAnon Freakout Groups... and GOP Groups... It Worked! Now I Can Post my Opinion to people that don't already agree with me In Those Groups... and FaceBorg Automatically shows posts from Crazies! Allowing Me to Reply... #ArrestTrump #LockHimUp #InvestigateIvankaGate #ImpeachTheSCOTUS #QAnonSUXX

I also post a LOT on the Social Media Platforms Parler, Gab, "Truth" Social and Gettr... Those People are Mostly Insane and in NEED to READ My Words of Wisdom... 

I feel it's Almost Pointless to Post My Opinions to People that Already Think Like I Do... I want to Contact the Brainwashed TrumpNiks® and Help Them #WakeUP #NoticeReality #DumpTrump #RunawayFromTheGOP #LegalizeMarijuana #LegalizeMedicinalPsychedelics 

Play the Elephant Clicker Game - It's FUN - It's FREE - and Everybody's Doing IT!

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Exorcism at the US Capitol 1/3/2023. Surround the Building and Blow Whistles, Beat Drums, Dance, Chant. Burn Sage and Welcome the GOP House Members... 
https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2022/12/exorcism-at-mar-loser.html

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Viktor Bout... Russian Arms Dealers Bad! Ronald Reagan sold Weapons to IRAN and IRAQ at the Same Time. Eric Holder Sold Guns to Mexican Drug Gangs... Lockheed sold a Huge Pile of Weapons to Saudi Arabia so they could Commit Genocide in Yemen... Arms Dealers Bad? or only Russian Arms Dealers Bad? 

What really amazes me is an American Company Sold ANTHRAX to Saddam Hussein... Really! What POSSIBLE Justification Could there be for that? https://archive.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/2001/1022iraq.htm Type Culture Corporation of Virginia... 

The US provided less conventional military equipment than British or German companies but it did allow the export of biological agents, including anthrax; vital ingredients for chemical weapons; and cluster bombs sold by a CIA front organisation in Chile, the report says.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/31/iraq.politics

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and here are some posts that 

Google Has Chosen to Ignore... 

They are "Not Worthy" to be Indexed!

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Let's Lay Off Half of the Police and Refund their Salaries to the Taxpayer. Actual Crime is Down. What we have is Bored, Armed People with Nothing to Do... A Recipe for Disaster!

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/lets-lay-off-half-of-police-and-refund.html

Avoid hangovers forever by switching to marijuana... You DO NOT Have to feel like this ever again!

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Grateful Deadhead Tribute Webpage. Pictures and Tall Tales. Many thanks to all that made the Grateful Dead an American Miracle... Just remember, if our lives together were written as a fiction story, everyone would dismiss it as being unbelievable ... Yet it all really happened! ART, Poetry and MyStory...

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/grateful-deadhead-tribute-webpage.html

Here's an Amazing Video... of the Song US BLUES... with an Animation Funded for the Bicentennial by the US Government!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdPOAhBp2Ag

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Fire Tending Meditation: A Way to Focus Attention. When at the Rainbow Gathering in Utah 2014 I was given the opportunity. Here is what happened... READ MORE:

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/fire-tending-meditation-way-to-focus.html

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How to: !sretteL sdrawkcaB gnisU eciloP niarB koobecaF eht looF

How To: Fool the Facebook Brain Police Using Backwards Letters!

Facebook's Artificial Intelligence Program Looks for Forbidden Keywords...  And Refuses to Post Your Words of Wisdom!

The Trick is to Post What You Want to Say Using BACKWARDS LETTERS... and Include a Link to the Free Online Tool That Performs The Reversal...  LINK: https://www.browserling.com/tools/text-reverse

ANYONE CAN USE THE TOOL TO READ WHAT YOU SAID BUT... THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLEGENCE PROGRAM THAT ACTUALLY FLAGS FACEBOOK POSTS FOR CENSORSHIP ---> DOES NOT DO THAT! <--- SO FAR!

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2015/11/fun-with-potatoshop.html

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History of Silicon Valley: Almaden - IBM's Successful Utopia. Near San Jose, California IBM built an IDEAL WORLD in 1956, Later, Silicon Valley was Built and The Light Rail Connected Almaden to The Rest... All the Way to NASA/Lockheed.

Far out in the farmlands south of town, IBM built a disk drive factory in the Late 50s. They wanted to attract the world's finest talent so the built nice houses, shopping centers, a golf course, tennis club and swimming pool. This self contained utopia had everything a family could want... It is still there and functioning beautifully. Come visit sometime... it's wonderful.

Later, the entire city of San Jose became interested in computers. Silicon Valley was born.

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/06/almaden-ibms-successful-utopia.html

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Almost Everything that Has Been Accomplished Was Done by Great White Men... If you don't recognize any of the people on this list, just Google them... and be glad that Great White Men invented Google, The Internet, Computers and Electricity.

Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Edison, Nicola Tesla, Thomas Watson [IBM],  Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Gordon Moore [INTEL], Hewlett, Packard, Alexander Graham Bell, Marconi, Harley, Davidson, George Westinghouse, Goodyear, Firestone, Henry Ford, Lockheed, Boeing, Larry Ellison [Oracle], Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook], Larry Page and Sergey Brin [Google], Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales [Wikipedia], Julian Assange [Wikileaks], Singer [sewing machine], Jeff Bezos [Amazon], Lee Iacocca [Chrysler], George Eastman [Kodak], George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Sam Houston, Kit Carson, John Fremont, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Sean Connery, Ian Fleming, Sir William Stephenson [the real James Bond], Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Denver, Donovan, John Williams, Winston Churchill, Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Billy the Kid, Bill Wilson [AA founder], Wild Bill Hickok, Barnum and Bailey, Will Rogers, Roy Rogers, Hank Williams, George Thorogood, Steve Miller, Warren Buffet, Jimmy Buffet, William Shakespeare, George Orwell, Ed Abbey...

A Classic Example Of a Great White Man
Gregory Vanderlaan

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/09/great-white-men-did-you-ever-notice.html

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This Documentary Movie Really Helped My Family: "The Brainwashing of My Dad" - My Own Father Used to Scream at The TV and Argue A LOT. But I Used "Parental Controls" To Block The Fox News Hate!

Fox News Actually Causes High Blood Pressure and Is a Danger to Old People. ASK YOUR DOCTOR! 

The basic concept is to sell advertising by providing Eyes and Ears for corporations to sell their stuff. The technique is to cause anger in the viewers and people like that feeling... Especially anger towards other types of people... Like Racism, Sexism, hatred of Gays and Democrats... in order to sell stuff to repeat viewers.

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2017/10/great-movie-documentary-brainwashing-of.html

and in today's news:

KRYSTEN SENIMA Leaves Democratic Party: It's an Attention Getting Move... "Look at ME! Look at ME! I'm NOT Irrelevant! SEE? I'm being interviewed on CNN... Only IMPORTANT People Get Interviewed on CNN.. Proof that I'm Still Significant! All Those Rumors of ME being "Yesterday's News" are False! LOOK AT ME! I'M GBLT+Q! a Great Bacon Lettuce and Tomato plus Queso Sandwich!" https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/kyrsten-sinema-makes-history-first-bisexual-member-u-s-senate-n935816

and then Gigi Said: 

A Republican Congress. Will it attempt to write Bills and pass laws for the betterment of the American people?

No.

They will impede actual investigations by inciting chaos and inventing Fake investigations simply for reasons of vengeance.

They have been clear with their plans to do anything they can to attempt to protect a Criminal that has committed crime after crime without caring he's doing so in front of all Americans with no plans to do the job the constituents elected them to do. They have said they want to cut all benefits Americans truly need.

Pay attention America. Don't take my word for it. I've never asked you that. I've always asked you to open your mind and do your own research.

Republicans are lying and it's heartbreaking.

Gigi Alexander

When I Lived in Almaden we played "High Hopes" by Pink Floyd while driving over Blossom Hill Road.

"The Grass was Greener... The Lights were Brighter... With Friends Around... The Nights of Wonder... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jMlFXouPk8

My roommate was an original IBM Child growing up in that Utopia... I rented a room in the 1990s in an original Corporate House... He put that song on at just the right time so those lyrics came on when we crested a hill and saw Almaden. And Every Word Was TRUE...

Quicksilver Messenger Service - a San Francisco Trippy Hippy Band that is almost entirely Forgotten... BUT They Were Great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j92RqFP4CM
Have Another Hit of Fresh Air!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBvjXhUSUpU
What You Gonna Do About Me? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_inXx-J3nU
Get Together... Made Famous by The Youngbloods... 

I was lucky enough to See Quicksilver at Winterland, San Francisco with My High School Sweetheart... High on LSD... Sitting in the Balcony, Kissing... The Big Song of the Night was MONA... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjWGr-h8ETA

A Friend Named his Son Quicksilver: 

Biff Rose Said:

Gregory Laan writes..

"I don't know anything about your son"

BIFF: He was named after this huge name QUICKSILVER on the side of an 18 wheeler speeding down Hwy 101 to San Jose in a binding rainstorm..we were bound to slow down and get spalsed by this speeding truck and it made a loud noise on the rear windows and Diane the Huntress his MONKK mom said "Oh I know..we'll name the baby Quicksilver"

His main mometn cosmic-wise to me as Musci and Electricity was the day man landed on the Moon Juky 20th 1969..Diane the Monkee Goddess was 7 months pregnant and said "I only went with you to have a kid ...OUCH....I've always had a crush on VaDark Pykes...I mean VanDyke Parks..."

The "OUCH" was cuz Quick quick kicked her from within...and I coulda sworn I heard the voice on the TV nearby say "That's one small step for man and one quick kick for Quicksilver.."...Diane the MONKEE mom's own mother was Myrtle and Myrtle and I had a love affair that manifested in the birth of a song Myrtle's Pies whih I sang on the Smothers Bros Show and which you may hear on youtube.....Myrtle ran a restaurant and I ate free for a year..

..Through Emma Rose age 22 Quicksilver's kid and my grandkid HATE enntered the world...Dine the Monkee Emma's grandmother told the chile "Myrtle hated Biff".....I raise the evel of hate to just call it Monkee Pox...It is permanent as Emma included it in a creative writing essay she submitted when she was a Freshman at the American Univ.....

That happens a lot..I fall in love with my girlfriends' mothers....my next target is Black Ali out in Grass Valley unless her boufriend's taken her back if she's sobered up...ya never know the details till the skeleton is roughed out thru the Facebook Theatre I'm starting to run in the ground of all being....

It's a dicey situation...Black Ali's mom is named DICEY...Black Ali and Dicey were born the same day..July 20th..the day man landed on the Moon......ouch.

and I replied: Thanks! I Never Knew That!

Quicksilver is another name for the Element Mercury... and Is Mined in San Jose (my Home Town) - Near the Almaden Quicksilver mines are some lakes where Swimming is prohibited. My Parents took us there to go swimming and when I pointed to the sign... saying No Swimming... Mom Said "I think that whoever put up that sign was EXAGGERATING the dangers... because... we've been swimming here all of our lives and never got sick once." Mom Trained me to be Skeptical!

https://parks.sccgov.org/plan-your-visit/activities/cultural-venues/almaden-quicksilver-mining-museum

and then Bob Doran Wrote:

Man, that photo (down below) really brings back memories for me. Thanks Terry Finigan for another great post. Sometime in the early Seventies for maybe six months more or less, I lived right on the other side of that famous snag on Hwy 101 north of Trinidad.

I didn’t own a car at the time and hitchhiked back and forth to Humboldt State College, where I worked and went to school. The snag was a landmark for me.

It all started when I was living in Westhaven in a tourist court not far from Pee Wee’s Market. I was living with a woman, Maureen.

Our friend Rooter Russell was staying out in the garage/guest room and someone called him one morning. I went out to tell him there was a call for him wearing my birthday suit, which is what I slept in. When I turned to return to bed, I looked over to the cabin next door and saw the little old lady next door looking at me stark naked. Her jaw dropped and I guess she called the landlord because next thing we knew it we were told to find a new place to live.

It wasn’t easy on short notice but Maureen had an idea. We would buy a teepee. She had heard that you could make teepee poles by splitting a long 2x4 at a slight angle. The whole thing was partially inspired by my interest in Native American culture. I was taking classes on the subject and for some reason it all seemed like a good idea.

And this is where the snag fits in. There was a brand new campground that had just opened up just across and down the road from Patrick’s Point State Park (now known as Sue-Meg State Park). There were cabins you could rent that had been there for awhile. And the owners had done some work on the top of the hill and created a campground with spots for RVs or camping or whatever. We were the whatever.

They had a big bath house with hot showers and toilets and places to shave or whatever. We put the teepee right next to that. There were dedicated electrical plugs and running water for each site, so we had a place to plug in our tv and the stereo and a hot plate for cooking. For heat, (and sometimes cooking) we had an open pit fire in the middle of the room. I imagine I probably smelled like smoke all the time but since I often wore my long hair in twin braids (yes I was guilty of cultural appropriation), it went with my look.

Maureen had a car to get back and forth to town, but we were mostly on different schedules, so as I said, I mostly hitched to town. I was working at the Jolly Giant Cafeteria and cooked breakfast, so I had to get to work pretty early. So most mornings before 6 I would go through the woods right near the snag and go down to Hwy 101 and stick out my thumb.

After a few false starts figuring out the timing, I had a regular schedule and people who lived north of there would start picking me up. There was a Professor who picked me up and we had some good talks and there was a quiet millworker who appreciated that we were both working men.

It was not a bad setup in general, but there was a major snag: mold. Teepees are used by Plains Indian tribes, and not designed for constant wetness of the West Coast. Anything we did not pay enough attention to developed a coating of mold. After a typical winter we basically gave up on the idea. Mold chased us out.

And as luck would have it, the timing was right: a friend had a little Kit trailer for sale cheap, and we found a place to park it (with no rent) in a place where I had friends, a hippie dream called Moonstone. We took the teepee down and moved into the trailer there. A new chapter began.,But that’s a story for another day.

Here's a student movie made by Ray Manzarek at UCLA... Starring Ray... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcDersUJZg

Things I Remember Growing Up in Los Gatos - Hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains

I remember hiking in the Santa Cruz mountains behind The Novitiate. I often went with my dog, Prince, a toy collie on that trail that went all the way to Lexington Reservoir. I caught a terrible cases of poison oak by petting the dog. However, one time made me immune forever. I collected sprouted buckeyes and planted them in the backyard of our home on Bruce Ave and one of them grew up to be a giant tree. For years we collected the buckeye seeds and burned them in our fireplace. They POP at random times and that's fun when watching a fire. I also walked trails up and down Los Gatos creek from Campbell percolation ponds to Vasona to Lexington. It was fun to swim at Vasona. We would dive in from the dam and swim until the park Ranger approached in his boat. It was illegal to swim there and so we had to keep an eye out for the law. Another good swimming hole was the Almaden Reservoir. That one was supposed to be so polluted with Mercury that it was dangerous to swim there... However, Both of my parents and I swam there with no ill effects... Go Figure...

My dad lived in Los Gatos as a Jr. High School and High School Student and Mom was from Willow Glen [near San Jose]. Dad moved to Los Gatos to cure his Tuberculosis at the Top of the Hill Sanitarium off Kennedy Road. When I went to my Dad's Funeral at the Unitarian Church on Blossom hill Road I could see the "Top of the Hill" from the deck outback... I felt comforted in being able to see the beginning and the end of his Los Gatos residency.

In 1976 I went with my wife to Wine Tasting at the Novitiate. They were a major supplier of wine used in Communion Services. I remember that they had a cave used for aging the red wines that had a crack in the ceiling caused by the 1906 earthquake. They used giant redwood barrels that absorbed the wine and the outside was wet. The air in that cave could make you drunk from breathing the alcohol. Los Gatos is famous for Almaden Wine and Saratoga has Paul Masson. One of my in-laws worked at Paul Masson and another worked at Sebastiani. When we went wine tasting at Sebastiani they brought out the "good stuff", wines that were for family, not sold to the general public. Yes, it really was good quality. Especially the brandy.

We had really High Quality Public Schools in Los Gatos. In Elementary School at Daves Ave we were taught the "New Math". I don't actually remember how that was different than the "Old Math" but at least they were trying to help us learn. We studied the Spanish Language all through school. I didn't really get good at it until I was an Adult working at Radio Shack on Branham Lane. It's a comissioned salesman job and many of my customers spoke Spanish as their primary language. Yes, I got good when my Paycheck depended on it. Hector Sianez was the store manager and people from all over the Bay Area would drive to our store because we had the advantage of being Bi-Lingual.
We were taught Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Math at LGHS. A college prep curriculum... After I graduated from LGHS I went to Chico State for two years and the West Valley JC (an outstanding school to learn Electronics Drafting). One class at West Valley was scale model building. I took blueprints of a cabin my Dad was having built at North Shore Lake Tahoe and built an accurate scale model. I still have that model because Dad liked it and made sure it never got accidentally damaged.

I have actually fired a gun. Really! At Camp Campbell [YMCA Summer Camp] in the Santa Cruz Mountains we learned how to shoot targets with a .22 rifle. I enjoyed it. Quite similar to playing Darts or Archery. Another time I fired a large pistol at cans. ONCE. My dad's lawyer owned the pistol. It had a "Helluva Kick" and was really loud and scary. I've never actually owned a gun or had one in the house...

Camp Campbell also had a zip line. I got into a swing seat, jumped off the cliff and whoooooosh went down to the ground. At that time we were responsible for our own actions and staying safe. I suppose I could have fallen out of the zip line seat but I made sure I held on tight. BIG FUN.

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/02/things-i-remember-growing-up-in-los_28.html

http://gvan42.blogspot.com/2018/02/things-i-remember-growing-up-in-los.html

Free Art! #DumpTrump the #BerserkerPOTUS - Go Ahead and Copy and Paste At Will... Feel free to Pirate! My Mushroom Visions for Your Enjoyment... PLUS! "Do The Math" a Silly Science Fiction Story by Purple64ets

and then I was Reading Facebook... and Found These Posts about how Great it is to Ride the Light Rail Train in San Jose: TRUE!

SE Said on Facebook: I think the light rail system in Santa Clara Valley has done a pretty good job of extending to the areas where the tech companies are located, but people often say that light rail is a waste of money because most people would rather drive to work, and they complain that light rail is too slow, etc. I agree that most people prefer to drive to work, but I don't think it has as much to do with light rail being slow as the fact that most people like having their car with them during the work day so they can go places on their lunch hour and after work. I think the big mistake with the light rail system around here is the fact that they only thought about extending it to where people work, but they should have extended it to where people play. I've always wished I had the option of riding light rail to places like Santana Row and Valley Fair, because I hate dealing with parking at those places. But there is no other option to get there other than driving. If they build onto the existing light rail lines, they really should consider the fact that people want to drive to their jobs, but they want alternatives to driving when they go out to have fun. 

And on a related note, everyone - and I really mean EVERYONE - wishes we had a way to get to the beach without having to drive over highway 17. A long time ago, long before my time, there was a train. If only we had a train now, it would alleviate so much of that nightmarish traffic on highway 17 in the summer. Once again, we need alternatives to driving to the places where we PLAY, not so much the places where we work.

I Replied: I took the Lightrail to Campbell after the Grateful Dead Concert at Levi Stadium, Santa Clara. We were Packed in Like Japanese... Beyond Standing Room Only... Because after the Second Show... The Police wanted everyone to go away... or Go Home... and so... as we were Riding along... someone held up a phone and the entire car sang along to GODZILLA by Blue Oyster Cult... and once I Made it to the end of the line I slept outdoors behind a 7/11... No Expensive Motel room for me! Just a Quart of Beer and ZONK!

I remember Riding the Light Rail on Halloween... I took my Acoustic Guitar and a Mardi Gras Mask and pretended to be a Minstrel...  Singing Iko Iko... and Other Songs... That was a Great Party... The Train Runs Real Late and... If you get to the End of the Line at NASA, just get out and Get on another Train Heading to Almaden!

Another Excellent Memory was... When I was Living in Almaden in the Late 1990s. The San Jose Public Library had Free Internet Terminals and Before I Could Afford a Home Computer I went there every Weekend... There were 10 Machines and about 20 people that wanted to go online so... we sat in chairs waiting our turn... and the Other people in line Taught me How to Build a website... My First website was at Yahoo's Geocities... Yosemite/Trails/6803 and another one at Tripod... Both of those Platforms Have Vanished but someone copied and pasted all the Content into oocities... and The Internet Archive... and Yahoo gave us Six Months to Move our Words and Pictures to the FREE Microsoft Website... and then THAT one went out of Business... So I Moved Everything THAT WAS WORTHY to Google's Blogspot and Wordpress... and Published the Pictures and a Words on Facebook, Tumblr, Ello, Parler, Gab, Mastodon, Minds, Twitter, Linkdin, Liker, MeWe and DeviantArt... NO WAY will I Go thru the Trouble of Building a Website Just to Have it Vanish!  

At the VTA Transit Center: 

ANOTHER case of a Crazy Man With a Gun Killing People... Notice a TREND? A Pattern? Any SIMILARITIES to Yesterday's Crazy Man With a Gun Killing People? or Last Week's Incident? Got a Clue Yet? Outlaw Guns, Collect Guns, Melt Guns... It's Not Complicated... and Help Crazy People! https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/us/san-jose-shooting/index.html

FREE COLORING BOOK: Portrait of an American Indian Wearing a Headdress and Many Other Drawings - Print Them and Color Using Felt Pens, Pencils or Crayons... Make as Many Copies as You Like... Thanks! Gregory Vanderlaan

American Indian with Headdress

Find More FREE COLORING BOOK ART! 

at Google Image Search

using the Keywords: 

gvan42 free coloring book 

 

text art guy with a spiral lightning bolt background

https://gvan42.blogspot.com/2019/01/portrait-of-american-indian-wearing.html

"Do the Math" a silly Science Fiction story... 

During the early 1970's a gentleman and his wife were working in Palo Alto, California and he discovered the key to enlightenment. He published it as a book and became a leader of a religious group very popular with the high tech crowd surrounding Apple and HP. To put it briefly, the key is 01101011001110110100010001... and it went on like that for a hundred pages finally ending with the amazing conclusion that astonished the world and allowed the couple to earn a million dollars from royalties... 11010011100001110101100110.

A few years passed and the wife made a public statement: "While my husband is a fine fellow and a wonderful father to our children, I sadly must inform you that he is almost entirely wrong about the key to enlightenment. I have been doing the math and can state that there is a missing part... it is:10010100110001001011101110... and it went on like that for a hundred pages finally ending with the amazing conclusion that astonished the world and allowed the couple to earn another million dollars from royalties... 00101100011110001010011001.

And the people of the world did the math... and she was right... while each of the strings of zeros and ones by themselves showed part of the key to true enlightenment, if you add the two numbers together, they equal:1111111111111111111111111.... and it goes on for a hundred pages finally ending as you would expect... 111111111111111111111111111.

And THAT is how you "become one" with the universe.

~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~

One Reason the War in Iraq was a Good Idea. Ronald Reagan Helped Make Saddam Hussein President of Iraq and Saddam Turned out To Have Been a Bad Choice... True, We All Would have Been Better Off if Ronald Reagan Had simply NOT Created a Monster BUT... Once we Created That Mess, we had a duty to clean it up. Here is a National Security Study all about Donald Rumsfeld selling Weapons to Iraq... To Help them Kill Iranians... https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

It's Crazy that We Waste electricity Mining Bitcoins... all that electricity has to come from SOMEWHERE and a Lot Comes from Coal Fired Power Plants, Natural Gas, Nuclear... Making the world a Worse Place to Live... Every... FREAKING... Day! https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/05/25/bitcoin-mining-energy-elon-musk.cnnbusiness

SE Said on Facebook: I was just reading through a thread where people were discussing the possibility of making some of the outdoor dining parklets permanent after COVID is a thing of the past. The comments were as one would expect: some people were all, "Keep the parklets! Close more streets to traffic!" and other people were concerned about the effect closing streets has on traffic which now has to be diverted to other streets, and they were also concerned about all of the parking spaces which have been eliminated in order to make room for outdoor dining parklets. And of course, the ones who are in favor of keeping the parklets say things like, "Just take an Uber!" as if Uber is some free shuttle service. I really wish people would consider the fact that not everyone has the money for Uber. I realize that the Bay Area is known for money and extreme wealth, but there are plenty of people here who are struggling to afford the high cost of living, especially right now, because a lot of people have been out of work due to COVID. "Just take an Uber" is not an option for a lot of people. I have enjoyed dining outdoors under a tent as a novelty in the past year, but I think it's time to start breaking down some of those setups and open the streets back up to cars and parking again. Traffic is getting heavier as more people are going back to work, and traffic in the Bay Area is bad enough without blocking off streets. Those tents were never meant to be permanent, anyway. They have kind of a post-apocalyptic look to them, and they've served their purpose at this point, so it's time to slowly start breaking them down and going back to the way things were before. Most restaurants already had an outside patio anyway. Now that we can dine in again, whatever patios the restaurants already had should be sufficient. There is no need to block off anymore parking spaces or traffic to make room for tented outdoor dining.

I Replied: Since UBER is so Damn Expensive... I Always Think Twice about going anywhere... For Example: It's Sixty Dollars Round trip to My Doctor's Office but ZERO DOLLARS to Have a Zoom Meeting... I Question WHY I Have to Appear In Person... and Quite often We Took Care of Appointments on Zoom... Twice a year we Review IF the Prescriptions I Take are the Correct Dose and IF they are Effective... Well, That Requires a Trip to The Blood Test Facility but NO WAY does That Require a Personal Visit to My Doctor's Office... I Can Tell Him Verbally what my Blood Pressure and Blood Sugar Readings average... and we concluded that the Dosage was Correct... another place I Have NOT Visited is my AA Meetings... I Can "Go to a Meeting" on the Internet... AND... It's entirely possible that Those People Have Not Had a Vaccine and they Could be Infected... Why Go Breathe The Same Air? 

I Never Go to Restaurants since at my Old Folks Home We Have a Cook... and Every Meal is a Restaurant Meal... 

Music Video: "MELT the GUNS" - by Greg Vanderlaan - Feel Free To Record This and Make a Top Ten Record. Pass this On to a Friend... Chords and Lyrics Provided.

video is at: https://youtu.be/ml5ziDRoqcc

I read The Google News "FOR YOU" Page Every Morning... Since I've been Clicking on things I'm Interested in for 25 Years... Google Has a Really Accurate Idea of What I'm Interested in... and Serves Newspaper Articles from a Wide Variety of Newspapers, Websites, Twitter Accounts and Facebook Pages... Why would I want to Read What Some Editor at a Newspaper thinks is Important? On the Other Hand... If I Ever want to Line a Birdcage, Newspapers are the way to GO!

Skyline on Trantor
a World in the Book Foundation by Asimov
The Entire Planet is Covered By One Giant City

Remember: Science Works While Prayer Fails... The Coronavirus Vaccine has Reduced the Number of People Dying while... Faith... Did... Nothing... Look at India... all those GURUs and All that Death... Chanting and Meditation is Truly Pointless...

 

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