My son's eulogy

  

My son, Nathan Jr,  passed away recently, unexpectedly.  We held a Covid compliant funeral and limited attendance wake in Charleston SC, where he lived for the last 15 years. Today, on August 30th, we had a zoom video conference for friends and family who could not travel to Charleston.  The following is what I said about my son, introducing the videos and slide show memorials:

Thank you everyone for coming today, and taking time out of your morning or afternoon, depending on where you are geographically.  Our son Christopher, as many of you have heard, unexpectedly died in his sleep the night of August 15th.  He was 33 years old.  He had a mild case of Covid back in June, but he appeared to get better after a few days.  We do not know why he died, as the autopsy was inconclusive, but the coroner is running more tests that should be complete in mid September.  We may never know exactly what took our son from this world, but we Do Know what a wonderful person Christopher was, and how many thousands of lives he touched in such meaningful, positive, caring, empathetic, helpful, compassionate, funny, inspiring, motivating, passionate, hilarious, insightful, musical, useful, intelligent, genuine, loving and kind ways.  His passing leaves an enormous singularity, a voracious black hole that is tearing at the very fabric of our hearts.

Our son Christopher was magnetic.  People were intrinsically drawn to him, and loved being around him.  His mother and I raised him, and it appears - from the 100s of FaceBook and Instagram posts, from the 100s of his friends in Charleston who loved him, and from the stories his childhood friends keep sharing with me - that we raised an amazing person, a good human, as my friends and former colleagues in Bangalore would say.  Over the last 2 weeks since his passing, I've lost count of the number of men and women who have told me

- I wouldn't have the job I have today, if it was not for your son

- Christopher built my first bike

- Your son helped me move

- I would not have stayed in school in Charleston and graduated if not for your son, because I knew I would not be able to be around him if I left

- Chris walked me home and made sure I got there safely when I had too much to drink

- Your son taught me everything I know about lighting

- Your son trained me as a bartender

- Christopher always listened to me; you always knew he authentically cared

- I could always count on your son when I needed help; I'd call him and he was always right there

- He always made me feel at home, and made me feel that I mattered

I always knew he was an exceptional person, but his passing has clearly shown me the countless lives he selflessly helped.  Our son inspired others, usually in positive, creative, productive, meaningful ways.  He led and encouraged and loved those who were inexorably drawn to him.  Much like my father, Chris's grandfather, his Dzia Dzia, Christopher loved engaging everyone in friendly & lively conversation. No one remained a stranger to our son for long.  Our progeny made everyone feel comfortable and welcomed when he was around them.  If you were having a bad day or having a tough time, everyone in Charleston knew they could count on Christopher to help them feel better, to brighten their day.  It was a gift he had, and he gave generously, warmly, selflessly.  For those of you who did not live in Charleston, or who had not seen Christopher very much since he went to college there, our son did not tolerate fools, bullies, meanness, hatred, or racism.  The inequality, brutality and injustice he witnessed first hand this year, as he and other peaceful demonstrators were needlessly tear gassed, shot at, and attacked in-and-around Marion Square across Calhoun street from where he worked at Big Gun, deeply upset our son, and he was struggling to find ways to make his community a better place for everyone.  

He was real, genuine, caring, confident (sometimes overconfident), fearless, fierce, and loving.  Whether you knew him as Chris, Christopher, little Uzbek, Casmir, Nathan Jr, C Papa, or Papa Prolowski, your life was better, enriched, for having known him.   There will never be another Christopher Joseph, but we all can continue to carry part of him within us, his indomitable spirit, on our journeys through life, putting our best effort forward, helping others, rooting for the under-dog, trying to be a good human, and make the world a better place for everyone.  

Losing my son, is the hardest, most difficult thing I've ever had to endure.  Knowing I will never hear his voice again, be able to hug him, play drums with him, travel with him, get a text from him, laugh with him, build and repair things with him, ride bikes with him, share books and music and art with him, trade dad jokes with him,  build sand castles and sand sculptures, walk on the beach and swim in the ocean or sail with him, open Christmas presents with him, see a concert with him, practice yoga or speak French with him, watch a Chicago team usually lose a game on TV with him,  enjoy a delicious meal and savor a good bottle of wine with him, change flat tires or oil with him, go to Costco with him, hike and rock parkour and climb mountains with him, sip a glass of fine quality whiskey with him, dance at weddings with him, watch Raising Arizona with him... these things and so many more, a lifetime more, are memories now.  Christopher would want us to all go on with life, doing the best we can, listening to and genuinely caring about others, helping the helpless, the little guy, the disenfranchised, assisting those in need.  So even though this is the hardest, most difficult thing, we'll do the best we can, as Christopher would want us to, would expect us to do.

Remember, Everything 45 Says Is A Lie

For American adults who are aware of politics, or follow election results and what happens in Washington DC after elections, 2017 has been a very bizarre, chaotic, inconsistent year so far, and it shows no signs of getting better.  I preface this with "American adults" because as kids, or even as teenagers or in my very early 20s, I really didn't pay any attention to what was happening politically in my state (Indiana and then South Carolina, both were led by Democrats back then) or in the nation's capital for that matter.  It was only after my son was school aged, and came home from parochial school during the Bill Clinton administration asking me 'why do people have abortions?' and 'what's a blow job?' that I began to pay more attention to who was running, why I should vote for them or against them, and what they might do once in office.

After we moved to Arizona in 2007 (10 years ago, yep), began this blog in 2008 at my friend Ron's recommendation, and then moved to California in 2012, I increasingly began to pay more attention, to filter out shrill voices, hyperbole, and nonsense, and embraced my own informed opinions about politics, our elected leaders, Congressional Oversight, and Constitutional checks and balances.  Visiting China, India, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Suisse, Austria, Australia, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, UAE, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and Scotland for work also helped my perspective to compare parliamentary systems, command economies, and different versions of democracies with various levels of transparency, corruption, effectiveness, and quality-of-life for their citizens.  While some of my friends, 1/2 of my family, and many visitors to this blog may not agree with my view points and positions, I consider myself to be better informed than most Americans, and at least as informed about about American politics as a citizen of any of the developed nations I just mentioned (most non-Americans know far more about American politics than the average American, by at least one standard deviation on the curve).

So with that preamble, as I was trying to make sense of the election last November, and the aftermath and consequences it has led to in the subsequent months, with all the "disruption" and "chaos", the illogical choices and downright stupidity that has been unearthed, I no longer try and see a pattern or a reason behind anything except for these following 2 principles:

1) Everything that President Drumpf says (Drumpf is his real name, he got from his father, just like all the seed money daddy gave him) is a lie, or at best, a gross exaggeration.  He is incapable of telling the truth, except by accident - give a million monkeys a million type writers, and eventually one of them will type out a coherent sentence or two.  He is a habitual liar (pseudologia fantastica or mythomania) who believes himself a "disrupter".  Facts, reality, and the truth have no influence upon his actions or what comes out of his mouth.  Think of Jon Lovitz on SNL, and the Tommy Flanagan character he played where he was incapable of telling the truth.  That's who 49% of America elected.  When Donald accidentally tells the truth, he still thinks he is lying, or that there's a thread of obfuscation in there somewhere but in his perspective, the person he is speaking to is not bright enough to figure it out.  Everything he tweets, everything he says in interviews, everything he says in public, it's all a lie, or a gross exaggeration.

2) While he didn't think he was going to win the election, and he is completely unprepared to be chief executive of a local water district much less the largest economy in the world with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, he HAS and WILL take full advantage of his unexpected position of power to enrich his own coffers, empower his family and friends, and rake in as much money as quickly as possible, before anyone figures out just how corrupt 45's executive branch really is.  He doesn't want Putin to be the only plutocrat to be worth 60+ Billion dollars.  Heck, 45 doesn't even have 1/2 a billion to his name, or he would have proudly shown his tax returns, like a 4th grader who signs his name for mommy and daddy to see "look what I signed!".  Mark Cuban, a real billionaire (+3 Billion, with a "B") estimated that Drumpf's worth is probably south of 75 million dollars, and perhaps closer to as little as 25 or 50 million when all is said an done.  Drumpf doesn't want to "Make America Great Again".  No, America was already great.  He wants to enrich his own family's wealth and the wealth of his friends.  That's why he's appointed such incompetent-and-or-corrupt heads of agencies who want to dismantle the agencies they run.

Keep these two things in mind, and you won't be confused or shocked or aghast at what you see or hear in the news.  I've found that they help me tremendously, daily, or even several times a day on some days.

45 doesn't care about facts, or science, or helping the little guy, or being a "populist", or what is right or wrong.  He cares only about his own image,  his own self aggrandized "brand", which has become synonymous with corruption, incompetence, made-in-China goods, bluster, and a longing for a return to the 1950s by Americans who enjoyed outstanding economic growth and social privileges in that era (and to everyone else who was a 2nd class US citizen or not in the US at that time, too bad; "get him outta here!").

Again, The Idiot Reveals Himself

Donald Drumpf met with Republican Senators today, and once again revealed how really stupid he is.

When Jeff Flake (who I never voted for while I lived in SC, but whom I am starting to have some respect for) introduced himself as "the other senator from Arizona, the one who didn't get captured", Drumpf told Flake "He would not win re-election this November"... to which Flake hilariously responded "I'm not up for re-election".

Donald, study that constitution you so blatantly & repeatedly state you love so much.  Senators have 6 year terms. McCain is up this November, not Flake. Duh.  It's called the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution, you moron:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures."

States Closing Interstate Rest Stops Trending

As I drove nearly 2500 miles across the United States on February 11th, 12th, and 13th, I found a disturbing trend in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina: closed interstate rest stops.  It got to the point that after the sun rose on the 11th, that I gave up hoping to find an open rest stop at which I could empty my bladder, and instead drank less water so that I could time my bath room breaks around gasoline refills, every 300 to 400 miles.  Yes, at 80 mph (most of those states the speed limit was 75 mph) that's every 3 and a half to 4 hours of uncomfortable, dehydrated, kidney stressing driving.

Taken, after the third time I found a rest stop closed along my journey across Southern Umerikah

Why does it matter if an interstate rest stop is closed?  Well, drivers like me, who were headed across country, don't get a chance to look around at the beautiful state for a moment.  There's no chance to stretch your legs, avoid deep vein thrombosis, or chuckle at a sign that warns people that rattlesnakes might be near, and to watch where they walk their dogs.  Seeing a closed interstate rest stops also sends several messages to the driver:
1) this state doesn't care about visitors, doesn't welcome them, and is not hospitable
2) this state doesn't care about infrastructure, and if they can't afford to maintain a simple rest stop, how bad of shape do you think their bridges and roads are in?
3) the legislatures of this state incorrectly believe that everything is better provided by the private sector, including things like imaginary free rest rooms, which typically don't exist, since most merchants want you to buy something from their store if you're going to use their rest room facilities (and me, see... I brought my own water, almonds, grass fed beef jerky, and macadamia nuts, so there was no need to stop and purchase snacks along the way; the focus was on maximizing driven miles efficiency, and not lolly gagging around to turn a 3 day cross country trip into a 4 day trip)

Now I guess, it is possible, that some states may have thought that they had "too many" interstate rest stops, and so they were reducing the number of them and trying to improve the remaining ones, to better serve the traveling public.  Possible, but unlikely, since in Arizona along I-8 and I-10, I found exactly 2 rest stops open. New Mexico, one at the border with 2 others closed.  Texas, along I-10, for 12 hours of driving, only 1 open rest stop.  Louisiana, only 1 (but I was driving late at night through the commonwealth, and wasn't going to stop anyways).  Mississippi and Alabama I did not stay long enough in to warrant any stops.  Florida had 10X more state troopers looking for speeders than it had open rest stops.  And my former home state of South Carolina, where I had lived for 16 years all-together since getting out of college, had been closing rest stops on I-85 and I-26 for more than the last decade, dedicating the funds that used to go to maintaining rest stops towards tax cuts for the upper 1% of the population.

Ironically, before I headed out on my cross country journey, I had thought (as I was falling asleep the night before) "maybe I should download an ap to show me where each of the interstate rest stops would be, to plan rest room breaks proactively?"  I am glad I didn't waste my time or data to do so, since such an ap would have been utterly useless, or grossly misleading.

Thanks Republican Legislatures, all (link here).  It's fantastic how you're looking out for the little guy, the retired travelers (oh, I saw & passed my fair share of people Much Older than me along I-8, 10, and 95 on my way to Charleston), and visitors to your states.  Awesome "first impressions" you're making.  Very progressive tax policies and how you apply those funds to up-keep your states.

I doubt Umerikah will ever wake up...  just a string of anecdotes, shouted out into the void, amounting to candidates like Trump, Cruz, Carson, and Rubio... gerrymandered into local districts paid for by Koch Industries super pac funding & analysis...  sad.

First NFL Season Without My Familiar

For those who used to play D&D when they were kids you know that a Familiar is a cat, or bird, or monkey, lizard, rat, or little demon or other creature who keeps you company, hangs around, warns you of danger, can even help fight off anyone who is attacking you, or at least prevent the attacker from surprising or ambushing you.  Our cat who succumbed to cancer last May was my familiar for more than 2 decades.  Dr Desert Flower's familiar was our charcoal gray cat that died of pancreatic cancer in 2013.  She often slept in the bed with DDF when I was traveling, snuggled up to her on the couch, and hung out with her.  Her older sister, our home's very first pet in our very first FHA starter house in Bloomington after renting in apartments for 7 years, was my familiar.  She'd sleep on my chest when she was younger.  And as she got older, she'd sit on the chaise lounge part of the sofa, reserved for her, at my feet, so she could demand petting and be close to her alpha male as it pleased her to do so.

During NFL games, when Da Bears were losing and Grossman, or Cutler, Orton, Chandler, Miller, Krieg, Kramer (man, the Bears have had some terrible quarterbacks who perform remarkably erratic & inconsistently) were spiking the ball because they don't know how to call a play-action pass, or throwing interceptions, or calling time outs because they are not made of the same material that a Manning, Rodgers, Marino, Staubach, or Elway were made out of... I would sometimes (frequently) shout loudly (and often in a disgruntled manner) at the TV, making a comment about my dissatisfaction at the terrible play I had just witnessed.  Meanwhile, Robbie Gould would consistently kick points up on the board, no questions asked.

When I would make a vociferously indignant comment, my familiar would LOOK at me, with a "WTF?" look... "can't you see I was lounging peacefully here at your feet? Do that again...  and I'm leaving, so you won't be able to pet me or bask in my glorious presence."  Invariably, another QB sack later, I'd let out another exclamation, and sure enough, my cat would get up and leave the room, finding a quiet resting spot.  This is the first season in 21 seasons, that she's not here.  We have a little box of her ashes with a sweet little cast paw print of her front paw - the one she'd hold up and out-stretch to you if you were not petting her enough - on the lid.  But her physical presence is missed.


I actually found a posting here, back in 2009, about this same subject:  http://justjoep.blogspot.com/2009/11/feline-disdain-during-vocal-nfl-retorts.html
Funny...  I used to drink cheap beer back then....  huh?

I try not to think about it...  and if I do think about it, to focus on the positives, and what a long and comfortable life she had being part of our family for more than 2 decades.  Writing this post, I think, is an attempt at catharsis... so that I can perhaps make it though the Fall and Winter without going into another severe melancholy... I don't know.  It's not just as simple as "get another cat", since I've found out I am terribly allergic to cats (9 months of allergy shots in 2008 didn't work) and there's no such thing as an entirely hypoallergenic feline.  And I don't have the time or patience for a dog, to have to constantly walk them and pick up their waste after them and keep them safe from coyotes and raptors.  You can't keep a dog exclusively inside, it is cruel & difficult, and it is against a dog's nature to remain completely inside.  And picking up the fresh warm fecal matter of a mammal is incredibly repulsive to me. "You get used to it" ... no, I don't think I would, just as "2 girls one cup", Mr Garrison's "glass bottom boat", and finding all of my neglegent neighbors' dogs' excrement on the corner of my yard near the side walk have proven to me that mammalian fecal matter thoroughly nauseates me.  Cleaning a litter box, every other day, when the litter has masked the odor...  that's easy.  It never involved me having to pick up warm poop with a bag over my hand.

Thanks, sweet kitten, for all of the happy memories.

My Dana Point Yoga Studio & Gym

DDF recently got a very nice job as director of research & development at a moderately sized bio-medical firm in San Diego, so we'll be saying good bye to the lovely environment of Orange County in the next few months after the house is sold.  As I type this late March blog post, I am sitting in my home's breakfast nook / drinking area that has glass on two sides and looks out over the back & side yards, where I can see all 8 hummingbird feeders, 3 hummingbirds drinking from various ones, and

an adolescent (and vociferous) mocking bird exploring one of the feeders under the white guava tree. The sun is setting behind the trio of king palms, and I am well rested after 90 minutes of yoga and 2 hours of stair running and beach parkour.  Started off the work day early, ended before 2pm, and made a bee-line for the beach.  4 and a 1/2 hours later I am feeling reflective and somewhat pensive.  The hummingbirds - who are chasing each other all around the 8 happy hour dusk feeders - are not pensive at all.

But I digress...  this post is supposed to be about my Dana Point Yoga Studio & Gym...  so we'll move onto the collection of photos I've taken in the last several weeks to help illustrate these abodes.  These are in contrast to the earlier locations I've illustrated here on JustJoeP, like Arizona Back Yards, Arizona Blue sky environments, Pool Sides, Group Pool Sides, Hawaii, Hotel Rooms (French Hotel Rooms, and Chicago Hotel Rooms), Mountain tops, grassy beach fronts (my first introduction to the Dana Point Beach) and next to Tide Pools.

There's usually lots of flowers and floral arrangements all around the studio & gym.  It's especially nice when laying on the yoga mat and looking up to see this brilliant coral tree, contrasted with the beautiful blue sky behind it - no gray pall here, typically.  Sometimes a California Phoebe comes up and proclaims his loyalty to K-Mart: "Cheap!  Cheap!" and then dives down towards the grass to snatch up some insect or another.  Other times an Anna's hummingbird male alights and flits all about the coral tree, claiming it as his.  Other times and ornery crow squawks at me: "get off my concrete pad!!!"  from one of the two symmetrical coral trees.   (I am fluent in Crow now, having observed them closely for 2 years in California)

My gym has showers...   which one can use to remove the sand from one's feet, if you've gone down to where the water meets the land.  People in wet suits frequently rinse off there - not something most gyms have (wet suits).

There's lots of very large whales who frequent my gym.  They're almost always on the move, and many times bring their small (10 feet long and a 1000 lbs...  if you call that "small") children with them.  Lots of grays, some sperm, blue, fin, and occasionally a humpback comes to the gym as well.   I wouldn't call them "obese", but they are very Big folks indeed.

And then you've got all the skinny white folks, who are always looking at food, but apparently never eating any of it.  They're down by the water's edge, gazing at their own reflections.  They're up on inclined slopes, tip-toeing through the succulent ice plants.

And there's those who try and hog all the equipment, and sing while they're doing so.  They don't sing too loud, even if they're trying to be fierce and menacing...  it's still pretty adorable.

And there's the flashy dressers...  in bright green & fiery red magentas.

There's a wide variety of equipment in the rock parkour area.  Big ones, little ones, solid ones, smaller ones that rock when you push off, sandy ones - but like most gyms, you have to be careful about those who don't clean up after they've used the equipment.  A little bit of Bird poop on rocks is still better than MRSA though, any day.

You don't have to have status to work out here... but there's lots of +$100K vehicles in the parking lot.

So I am going to miss my coastal gym that I've grown so fond of here in Dana Point.  It's a short 15 to 20 minute drive (if I get out of the house before the high school kids get out of class), and the parking is free, or nearly free.  The breezes are amazing.  The scenery, unparalleled.  Every Wednesday they do cut the grass and that makes it a little itchy...  - grass in Arizona was never really an issue as it was all burnt by the orange fiery ball in the sky.  I'm sure I'll find some kind of studio & gym equivalent in San Diego...  but Dana Point was nice while it lasted.

One Of The Saddest Sunsets

As frequent visitors to JustJoeP in the past would know, one of my friends and frequent commenters was Jason Corneveaux (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).  Jason's photography was stunning.  His scientific work was ground breaking.  His insights were forward thinking & technology embracing.  But Dr Desert Flower and I learned today of his untimely death, and the world is a sadder place because of it.  Our hearts go out to his wife and infant son who is now father-less.

Our home is full of Corneveaux photography, adorning our walls, which Dr Desert Flower purchased from her former lab mate & former colleague.  Jason was the first person to teach me how to use Google Maps to chart off-road hikes with way-points.  And he was one of the most interesting persons I've known.  We mourn his unexpected and untimely passing.

If Your Patio Umbrella Breaks...

If the string that lifts your patio umbrella breaks, sure you can spend $100 or $200 or even $300 to get a new umbrella.  But if you've bought a good one (as we did out 4th year in Phoenix, after the brutal Sonoran sun disintegrated our old South Carolina umbrella), and the material is still good, then it is easy to fix.

1 - conduit clamp, $1.50, Home Depot
1 - thumb screw, Ace Hardware, $3.50
1- wing nut, Ace Hardware, 15 cents

For $5.15 I saved our umbrella.  Sure, it doesn't have a "handy crank mechanism" to open and close it, and it requires 5 or 6 lbs of upwardly thrust force to push it up, but it works just fine.  I recycled the existing white plastic sleeve bushing that used to be inside the crank driven lower housing that used to raise and lower the umbrella before the internal string broke, and it makes for a nice friction surface.

Just gotta watch out for the spiders (or bats, as in my friend Ryan's case back in Snellville GA) that may have made the collapsed umbrella their home before opening... but that is the case regardless of if there's a working crank to open it or not.

Converting Guano Into Something Useful

I voted last Monday via absentee ballot, as I will not be in town next Tuesday to cast my vote locally.  Even though our democracy is extremely flawed, and special interests have bought and sold most politicians and the leadership of both the Democrats and the Republicans, I still feel that if a citizen doesn't vote, then they also need to 'sit down and shut up' if they disagree with anything that their government does, locally, in their state, or in their country.  If they've voted, then they have a voice - even if it is a very quiet one, muffled by millions of dollars of Super-PAC funds and billionaire robber barons who are manipulating the media and the electoral system for their own personal gain or promoting their brand of ideology.

Here in California, there's all sorts of online resources for sample ballots (like this one, here), and how to find out where to vote in your precinct.  Since it's a well funded Blue State (for the most part everywhere except Orange County, apparently) that gives more to the Federal government than it takes from the Feds, and it has a remarkably educated citizenry who are also motivated to try and show that government can do work that promotes the greater good, things tend to "work better here" than they did in Arizona, South Carolina, or Indiana, where Dr Desert Flower and I lived previously over the last 30 years.

But when it comes to the lesser known, "non partisan" races, for school boards, commissions, and judgeships, it is somewhat harder to discern what a candidate stands for, how they might vote, and to whom they owe their allegiances, their moral and political alignment.  Sure, one can individually Google every candidate and thoroughly research each race, but that takes time.

Luckily, one group of very angry, mostly white, mostly very old (retired), highly motivated and very vocal Tea Party affiliated Orange County California residents set up a website that helped guide me as to who I Do Not want to vote for: everyone they've recommended.  (link here) or the long link form, here: http://octeapartyblog.com/oc-tea-party-blog/

It was very handy to see broad generalizations and Made-for-Fox-News hyperbole right there, in black and white, published for all of those devotees who consider guano as one of the 4 basic food groups.  Here are some actual text excerpts from the idealogical (and illogical) page:

"STATE GOVERNOR
*Neel Kashkari (R) vs. Jerry Brown (D)
RECOMMENDATION: Skip this portion of the ballot! I vehemently recommend that folks skip this portion of their ballots! Leaving the Governor’s portion on your ballots blank this year, will send a very loud and clear message to the CA GOP that you’ve had enough of them pushing RINO candidates on us, especially for such crucial offices! Had the GOP and their progressive donor allies not steamrolled over the authentic conservative in the primary Tim Donnelly, this race to challenge Jerry Brown would have likely been much more competitive and Brown would’ve been forced to defend his atrocious record!"

Yes, Jerry Brown has an atrocious record.  He's brought the state out of the massively deep fiscal hole Schwarzenegger and the Republicans dug (just like Obama had to with Bush), and successfully launched an expanded California Cares medical website without hiccups (better than the Affordable Care Act did).  He's being a moderate & successful governor....   how atrocious!   Earlier this week, the OC Tea Party website actually called Kashkari a "Liberal Republican candidate" but they've since taken that wording down.  Now they are just urging voters to NOT vote.  Fools.

For Lt Governor, Treasurer, and State Attorney General, same thing:  "No Recommendation" - they hate both the candidates because they are not bat sh*t crazy enough to warrant a Tea Party endorsement.

Then...  for State Controller, they list this gem:

"STATE CONTROLLER
*Ashley Swearengin (R) vs. Betty Yee (D) (OPEN SEAT)
NO RECOMMENDATION Ashley Swearengin is said to be the new rising star of the state GOP, but she’s certainly not the rising star of conservatives! As the Mayor of Fresno, this woman is an ardent supporter of Jerry Brown’s bullet train and she refuses to rule out the possibility that she might even vote for Brown this November!"
WHAT!?!?!?!  She might compromise, seeking a middle ground, and work across the aisle to get the business of governing done, instead of pouting in her own sand box if she doesn't get her way 100%?  Unimaginable!!!!!

And then, on judges, this bat sh*t site was very useful.  One such example is here:

"JUDGES
*STATE SUPREME COURT: Goodwin Liu RECOMMENDATION: Vote NO
You may be surprised to know this, but Goodwin Liu was nominated by Obama in early 2010 and again in 2011 to serve on the ninth circuit court of appeals! He is a former UC Berkley Law Professor, who was so incredibly liberal, that even some Senate Democrats joined Republicans in blocking attempts to end their filibuster of him! Obama had to withdrawal his nomination, not once but twice! Even the liberal former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had reservations about nominating him because of his extreme views! Liu is a radical pro-abortion supporter, who also believes in an “evolving” Constitution! After a 16 month battle to keep Liu from the ninth circuit, Obama finally dropped his nomination. Shortly after that, Jerry Brown appointed him to our state’s highest court! I’ve pasted tons of info about Liu below! I strongly encourage you to vote NO on him!! This guy has no business serving on the bench! Vote NO on Goodwin Liu for re-election to the Supreme Court!"

Don't pay any attention to his legal record, his rulings, jurist prudence, or judgement... none of those things obviously matter if he has all that Obama all over him!!!  Focus only on ideology, and ideology only.  We get our way, or we don't vote!  Or maybe...  we take up those "2nd amendment remedies".  Guano.  Absolutely bat sh*t crazy.

But you know...   I should not be so hard on the OC Tea Party.  I can relate.  When I lived in South Carolina and Arizona, I knew I was always throwing my vote away when I checked the boxes for reasonable candidates who were opposed to Methuselah (McCain) or running against total Flakes, Brewers of terrible beverages, or total anachronisms who soon will be extinct as their telomeres continually shorten.  It's just a matter of time before the OC dinosaurs die out as well.

Ridiculously Resilient Ridge

It's been warm here in Southern California this week. 90 degree temperatures in April are not "normal", but it appears we all will need to start getting used to it from what I'm reading on the Weather Underground blog.

When we were living in Phoenix, I used to have a morning ritual where I went around the house opening up windows and the 9 foot tall front door (leaving the zombie-proof security screen door closed) to get cool morning air into the house before the Sonoran Desert furnace kicked in to raise temperatures into the triple digits around 9 or 10am.  With the recent Southern California heat wave, I've renewed this ritual in our Orange County home.  Weather Underground has a station that is less than a mile from my house, and is about 75 feet lower in elevation than me, so its temperature / humidity / wind / rain data is very local and relevant (KCALAGUN22).  The site's graphic temperature-over-time displays are pretty cool as well.

But what really caught my attention this morning was a story on the lower right margin with a hot link: California Drought/Polar Vortex Jet Stream Pattern Linked to Global Warming
Dr Jeff Masters (a PhD, all that book learnin'...  what does he know anyways) pointed out a very detailed paper by S.-Y. Simon Wang of Utah State University, published in Geophysical Research Letters entitled "Probable causes of the abnormal ridge accompanying the 2013-14 California drought: ENSO precursor and anthropogenic warming footprint" (link here).  I am sure Fox News devotees will decry and deny this as "junk science" or liberal elitist 'the sky is falling' chicken-littleism.  But actually...   the sky is not falling.  The "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" of high pressure is keeping any rain from falling, for long periods of time - significantly long periods of time from the geological record.

But what do I know?  I'm just a dumb old engineer that no one listens to anymore anyways.  Happy Thursday to everyone.

Dr Master's has an Excellent list of relevant links for further reading at the end of his article.  (applying that whole peer reviewed, verifiably tested accuracy, thorough & rigorous scientific method again...  instead of just believing what Rupert Murdoch tells him to believe)  If you want to completely depress yourself, and have hours of spare time to read them, browse through the long list.

This Doesn't Suck - Laguna Christmas

Spent a very pleasant Christmas day with our son.  Took a walk around the neighborhood.  Baked and decorated Christmas cookies as I used to in Indiana when I grew up.  Lounged around the pool in the 72F sunshine until the sun went down, and then sat in the 102F hot tub at dusk, grazing on 3 kinds of almonds, fig jam, Toscana cheese, wine, and beer.

Yes, I decorated the snow man, and gave the stegosauruses and allosauruses natural camo patterns in icing

Fist Bump Lions, Poolside

Now it is dark, and Dr Desert Flower is baking a delicious Trader Joe's ham - couldn't stomach spending $120 for a free range WholePaycheck organic ham - that we'll eat in an hour or two.  A very pleasant Christmas.

Yesterday, as a family we walked on the beach from Salt Creek to Strand to the Headlands Nature Preserver and back.  Along the way, we saw migrating whales - a mom and her calf from the size and shape of the spouts and flukes, probably Blue whales - migrating South along Salt Creek beach and Strand Beach.  We then came home to soak in the hot tub and enjoy drinks as a family before dinner.

No, I am not sad or disappointed that I didn't fly to 15F Chicago to visit relatives.  I do not miss the isolation and desolation of western Phoenix, and we feel far too young and lively to spend another Christmas in Palm Springs (as we did back in 2010).  We do miss our friends in South Carolina, but we do not miss the bigotry, racism, humidity, or lack of career opportunities the South Carolina Upstate had.  Southern California Christmas suits us.   It's really nice here, celebrating our first Christmas in our new home.  Come visit us.

Beauty & Brutality in OC

I was walking through a park at the top of a hill just a few blocks from my home here in Orange County on Monday evening at sunset, when I took this picture with my phone:

It was a lovely sunset on a cool evening, in the lower 60s, with almost no breeze.  I'd just finishing talking to my best friend Ryan on the phone who I've known for almost 35 years as I walked around the neighborhood.  We spoke about our mutual distaste for country music, why all proper dragons should have 4 legs while wyverns have just 2 (take note, Peter Jackson!), and then he had to bathe his adorable baby daughter before bed, and we said goodbye, when I clicked "end", and then took this image.  As I hit "SEND" to show Dr Desert Flower (who was still at work, down in the valley below) the sunset from the park near our new home, and finished "add from recent calls" I heard a vicious GRRRROWLING and RRRRREEEAR-HISSSSing over my right shoulder.

I usually walk with a quarter staff (actually, it's a buck a quarter quarterstaff, but I'm not telling him that!) to fend off any stray dogs, rabid raccoons, gang members or hooligans (when we were in Arizona) that I might encounter during a walk.  But Monday night I headed out sans-staff, so I was caught "off guard" and unarmed.  Through the dwindling twilight of dusk, I saw what looked like a big German Shepherd sized dog, attacking a black cat who was trying to climb a very large trunked tree.  The cat was putting up a Big Fight, but the "dog" had gotten ahold of at least one leg and shook it off the tree.  "Hey! Is That Really Necessary!?!" I shouted towards them, and began walking the 40 or so yards that separated me & the park bench from the vicious battle I was witnessing.  The cat broke free and headed rapidly towards me... 'probably a domestic house cat' I thought, 'who is seeking the protection of a human against its attacker'.  But it was too late.  The attacker pounced, grabbed the black & white cat by the spine, and SHOOK it violently side to side, the whole time the cat's crying out pitifully, now 20 yards from me.

'I could kick it, if I got close enough, but what if one of them is rabid and attacks me?' Rabies shots suck... but I had broken out into run towards the melee.  I'd seen my buddy Matt's German Shepherd mix dog named Spapoop ("doodads", upside down) shake a squirrel to death 20 years earlier as I looked on from his apartment balcony, and didn't want to see this cat suffer the same fate.  Then I noticed the "dog's" white tipped tail, its Really Big ears, and the grayness of its coat. This was a hungry coyote.  The coyote noticed me too, and having stunned its feline prey sufficiently by the violent shaking, it turned, cat-in-mouth, and bounded away from the approaching human (me) and down the steep hill, undoubtedly to its den to feed its cubs.  Sadly, I could hear the pathetic moaning cries of the doomed cat fading into the rustle of the leaves as the coyote dashed down the hill.  Having recently lost a 17 year old feline member of our family just a few weeks before, seeing this made me very sad at first.   Then I remembered naturalist Rudy Mancke from South Carolina, and how when he would see predator successfully take down prey, he would comment in his South Carolina accent "well there she goes, turning domestic house cat into coyote, it's how the food chain works".

I took a deep breath, and headed for home to go pet our 19 year old surviving cat.  Along the way I encountered a lady in her 50s walking a Very Alert, smooth & shiny coated, leashed German Shepherd down the path.  I asked her "do you see many coyotes here?".  She patted her dog and said "She's been telling me the whole walk up here that there's a coyote nearby."  I leaned down and petted the well behaved canine and let the dog sniff my hand.  The lady added "Usually right around this area we see a black and white cat..." ...I cut her off "Not anymore. That cat is being turned into coyote now, down the hill" and I pointed to where the coyote fled.  When I got home, I petted my elderly cat for a solid 10 minutes and let her bask in the attention.  We'll be keeping her inside.

I've Stopped Poisoning My Hummingbirds

As anyone who has visited JustJoeP in the past knows, I am a big fan of hummingbirds.  We had them in Phoenix.  We have even more species and individual humming birds who visit out yard here in Southern California.  I've doubled the number of feeders, and have enjoyed many a moment watching these tiny aerobatic creatures drinking just a few feet away from me.  Some would say I post so much stuff about hummingbirds sometimes that it is aggravating (but it's my blog, and I'll post what I want to).

So when I was in Target back in August, and I saw lots and lots of hummingbird food on clearance, I snatched it up.  I had been looking for a refillable hummingbird bottle to keep in the fridge, so that I would not have to waste a partial batch when refilling the feeders, and I was out of the dry crystals.  I bought a box of the concentrated bags, a large plastic container of premixed, and a moderately sized container of concentrate, thinking "this will last me about a month, at the rate we're burning through it currently".  Then I started to read about red dye toxicity, and some friends of DDF and I have a child who had been suffering from severe allergies until red dye was removed from their son's diet, and viola, he improved immensely.

Being the engineer husband of a human geneticist, I've learned to trust peer reviewed scientific literature.  NCBI is my portal into the world of scientific studies that are sometimes so complicated that it takes me 2 or 3 re-reads to understand what the paper is trying to say.  So before I dove into NCBI, I checked Cornell University's hummingbird page.  Cornell has a wealth of bird knowledge online, including graphic descriptions of many species, bird call wav files, and other ornithological reference material.  Cornell said (politically correctly) "Never add red food color to sugar water, and never use commercial mixes that have red dyes. Nectar in flowers is clear, and red food coloring may be harmful for hummingbirds."

hmmmm...  "Never".  Ok.  I began to suspect there's a reason to dig deeper.   So I began googling.

The hummingbird food manufacturers (like Perky Pet) have an all-out media blitz to say that there's 'no scientific proof that red dye hurts hummingbirds' ... and legally, they're correct.  No researcher has taken the time to do a longitudinal study on the 1-to-5 year lives of hummingbirds who consume a diet high in red dyed human-provided nectar, vs hummingbirds who drink only from flowers to get their carbohydrates.  First of all, it would be very difficult to do, and secondly, there's large corporate interests (Perky Pet / Woodstream, et al) who do not want bird enthusiasts simply making their own inexpensive sugar water (1/4 cup of sugar to one cup of water) when they could be buying it from a corporation.

An example of the "friendly reply" you get from Perky Pet's ROn O'Kane is here (link):
http://www.hummingbirds.net/dye.html
The editorial response to the PP reply is somewhat emotional...  logical and factual, yes, but also a little emotional, so I looked up more studies and factual websites, here (Wild Birds Unlimited), here (gentle world), here (National Geo), and here (snopes).  The more I looked, the more saddened I became... it was becoming increasingly obvious that I was not helping my little feathered friends by providing them with needlessly red dyed nectar, and I was probably poisoning them.  NCBI drove the final nails into red dye's coffin:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6636206

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6314928

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6132603

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22996819

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22482698

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20667460

Yes, those were rats or flies, and yes, the they were fed enormous amounts (up to 10% of their total diet) of synthetic red dyes, and they suffered from all sorts of metabolic and reproductive issues... but the "natural red dyes" like carmine are also used by the little creatures who make it to ward off predators and make themselves distasteful to predators.  So why lace it into hummingbird nectar when the hummingbirds don't need it, are not attracted to the nectar (they're drinking from the red "blossom", not the bottle with red in it that the humans fill), and other creatures (rats and humans) tend to not do so well when they ingest large quantities of the stuff?

With a heavy heart, I threw out all my hummingbird food, and poured the liquid down the drain.   I will use the empty containers (well washed out) to store refrigerated batches for short amounts of time between refills of homemade nectar.  But I will no longer be buying corporately made hummingbird food.  Instead I will be making my own.  Per Cornell University:  1/4 of a cup of sugar to one cup of water. No red dye.

My apologies to all the Rufous, Anna's, Costa's, Black Chinned, Allen's, Broad Tailed, and Lucifer hummingbirds whose tiny families I may have adversely affected in the past.  In the new house where we are moving next week, there are a wide variety of flowering plants, and a 6-blossom hummingbird feeder in the yard, to which my six other four-blossom feeders will be added.  Only clear sugar water will be used, going forward.  No more amaranth or carmine, or their synthetic variants.

Arizona Natural Hazards

Last Friday I was listening to KJZZ online, and saw a link to this at the bottom of the screen.  Very interesting stuff, if you are a property owner in Arizona.  It lists all the fault lines, active seismic zones, potential fire prone areas, flood plains (all of Phoenix), and major earth quakes.  It also shows a little bit of Southern California as well.  Very useful stuff.   I don't know if any other states have done this, but kudos to Arizona for publishing it along with FEMA.

http://data.azgs.az.gov/hazard-viewer/   (you may have to REFRESH this a 2nd time to get it to show on your computer)

Brave Little Lizard

A few weeks ago, I photographed this lizard on the wall, just outside out breakfast area to the West of
our kitchen.  It was mid day, and this lizard was busy doing "push ups" on the top of the wall, the same way the whiptail striped lizards would in Phoenix.  But the wall is just above and next to 2 large hummingbird feeders, and there was a buzz of activity all around the feeders, with adolescent black chinned males, fully grown Anna's males, and fully grown Rufous male hummingbirds vying, parrying, dog-fighting for who would dominate the delicious feeders - so much testosterone, in such tiny little birds!   The lizard was "not impressed" by these darting and speeding avian creatures, and actually, at one point, put his head over the edge, at WATCHED one of the hummingbirds, CLOSELY, as if to say...  "come closer punk, and I'll bite you, latch on, and have hummingbird for dinner".  Now, I have seen grotesque youtube videos of fully grown preying mantis devouring hummingbirds (no, I won't provide a link, it's too gross), but I'd never seen a small 5 inch long lizard attempt to eat a hummingbird, or even try to menace one...  until August of this year.

The adolescent hummingbird was keenly aware of the wall mounted lizard who was observing him, and he hovered, and chitted, and tried (ineffectively) to scare off the lizard from his vantage point about 12 inches above one of the feeders.  Eventually, after a few minutes, the lizard gave up and went about its way looking for easier & slower prey, but it was fun to watch while it lasted.

Welcome To Paradise

It is the middle of July here in Orange County, 4 miles away from the Ocean, about 5 miles from the
base of the largest mountains, the first summer I've ever spent in California.   The nights have been in the 60s, and the days have been in the 70s, sunny, with a light breeze.  The humidity is averaging between 20% and 40% most days.  We HAVE Run our AC for 3 or 4 days, usually in the afternoon on a day with little-or-no-wind, when solar heating has brought the inside of the house up to about 80.

When I compare this to July in Arizona, where it is regularly over 110F and the AC runs non-stop even at night, this is a much better quality of life.  When I hear from my friends in NY, SC, GA, IN, and New England about how hot and humid it is there in July, I cringe, and encourage them to come visit us here in California!  =)

We've got an extra body board... and the water is now averaging 72F down at Dana Point... come and visit, and I'll take you body boarding.  Send your progeny (who are old enough to feed and bathe themselves) and we'll look after them for a few days while they're here (yes, free room and board), and pick them up from the airport (20 minutes away) or train station (5 minutes away).

It's really a beautiful place.  We pay huge amounts in tax, but we are getting fantastic parks, traffic lights that work, roads without pot holes, rapid police response, a distinct lack of graffiti, prompt city services, nearly non-existent crime, delicious and diverse restaurants, breathable air, stunning landscapes, and an excellent quality of life.

Black Socks & Shorts On Clueless Californians

When I was growing up, men and boys wore black socks with trousers.  If you were wearing shorts, you might wear white socks that went up to your mid calf or higher.  If you were wearing sandals, you didn't wear socks.  It was "gauche", in bad taste, looked bad, and - as my mother used to tell me - the darker socks held smell more, and could not be bleached out and sanitized as well as white socks could.    So I went more than 4 decades not seeing any respectable man or boy wear long dark socks anywhere, except during a soccer practice, if the team colors required dark socks to be worn.  Any man who wore dark socks with sandals was an obviously clueless social inept.

Then I moved to California.  I guess, back in Arizona there COULD Have been long dark socks being worn but most Phoenicians wore their barrio shorts so low that they were longer than most girls' capri pants hems, so I never saw them.   But here in California, boys, young men, middle aged men, old men, fat men, thin men, guys of all ages and ethnicities and marital statuses are wearing long black socks with tennis shoes or sandals and short pants.  When did that become socially acceptable, or even a preferred way to wear socks?  I've seen it outside Sports Chalet, in malls, at gas stations, walking down the street, in grocery stores, at COSTCO, and even at the beach.

I will not embrace this silly trend of long dark socks with shorts of any hem, I will not like it Sam-I-am. I will not wear them near to dusk, I will not wear them on a bus, I do not like the looks of it, I think in fact it looks like sh*t.  Just as I have refused to wear shorts that extend far below my knee, or brown-bagged elastic waisted old-man pants, or over-priced Ed Hardy shirts.  I'll leave those to the sheeple.

Just when did this "fashion trend" begin, and who can I credit (or blame) for promoting the acceptability of such poor choices? What "personality" thought it was a good idea, and now so many sheeple want to be just like their icon?  Put some trousers on, a kilt, or wear lederhosen perhaps if you're going to sport dark socks in America. Wear dark socks with sandals, and you're demonstrating you don't understand the joy of wearing sandals.

Not Enough To Swallow

When we first moved here to Southern California, and I realized I was within bike riding distance of San Juan Capistrano, and being named "Joe" and having my relatives always PUSH the celebration of "St.Joseph's day" as a counter-weight to "St.Patrick's day" (in some kind of bizarre Reeguhn-esque ethnic tribal feud) I thought to myself: "I KNOW where I'll be this coming St.Joseph's Day! San Juan Capistrano!"  ...as you see, the swallows return to Capistrano every March 19th (St.Joseph's day) and leave every October 23rd (some other saint's day, I guess).

Since there's So Much hype about it - parades, bands, celebrities, etc -  I wanted to be prepared. When does it happen on the 19th?  Where's the best place to see it in SJC?  Just how many swallows are we talking about here?  How bad would the traffic be?

Well, since there's a Pat Boone / Ink Spots / multiple-cover-band song "When the swallows return to Capistrano" it made googling it a pain.  There's all sorts of "news reports" and promotional videos, one in which a male senior citizen says "there were so many swallows, they blackened the sky".  In this age of "video recording devices are everywhere" I was sure I'd see some kind of actual video footage of a mass of birds, large enough to blot out the sun.  Well, the closest thing is this:



...and in that video, you can count 12 swallows (13, if you count the swallow nest next to the beehive in the eave twice, since it's shown twice).  In other videos you can see a UCLA (some 30 miles from here) faculty office building's 4th floor being flocked to by swallows (and mudded, and pooped upon).  You can see someone's inlaw's home a "a few miles from SJC" being strafed and nested by dozens of swallows.  You can see poorly shot video of swallows "in slow motion".  But I have yet to find any actual footage of the San Juan Capistrano swallows "returning", nor "circling the mission twice and leaving for the winter" as the legend says.

Lack of evidence does not disprove it, it just makes it even less believable, and gives me so much pause as to make me not feel bad for avoiding SJC tomorrow.  I am sure there will be massive traffic jams into and out of SJC.  There's no shortage of entrepreneurs, marketeers, and hopeful capitalists trying to prey upon tourist dollars there.  Since I am feeling rather under-the-weather with some kind of congestive head cold, attempting to ride my bike up there and back is definitely out of the question tomorrow, and even if I did, I'd probably be run over by a out-of-town tourist trying to see a stray seagull or raven and hoping it was a swallow.   And since they are supposed to return "at dawn's first light" it would be a very chilly ride, on a busy Tuesday work morning, when I am already triple booked with simultaneous conference calls.

The video above (or link here) says that SJC Mission renovations and development have decreased the numbers of swallows that return, but 'have not diminished the festive spirit'.  Hazaah, hooray, how fun for you SJC.     =\  I wanted to see many dozens or hundreds or thousands of swallows, digesting every flying insect for miles around, darting to and fro...  but instead, a 1/2 dozen mud nests in the eaves it all you've got?  On the I-10 and 101 in Phoenix there were 100s of such nests on the west side of town's interchange - I used to see them all the time.  

I do not mean to disrespect SJC's swallows or the massive events surrounding their "legendary" return. But I'll be staying home tomorrow.  I am kinda glad my Uncle Joe (the same one who sends me funny emails often) is not coming to co-celebrate St.Joseph's day here tomorrow... we'd both be rather under-whelemed by the lack of natural phenomenon and over-whelmed by the much-to-do-about-very-little.

If any of my SJC neighbors have actual footage of hundreds or thousands of birds "blackening the sky" on March 19th (or any other time for that matter, in SJC), please feel free to share the link the "comments", and I will happily "eat crow" - but I doubt I will swallow.  =)

California DMV = OMG!!!!

So today I tried to go to the California DMV.    Sure, the CA DMV has a "make an appointment" feature on their web page.  But the "make an appointment" doesn't work in San Clemente, since they are closed until March 15th.   So I go to the Laguna Hills office.   I arrive at 1pm

1pm - I get in the line, that stretches around the building
1:45, I get a number "B121"  .. there is hope
2:45pm, I get notified that window #20 will see me
I need to register a 2011 Volvo a 2007 Mazda, and get my CA driver's license.   I got to window #20, and talk to Chinese Immigrant "William".   "William" summarily dismisses my application for a CA driver's license, because I do nor have not have passport or birth certificate.  My VALID AZ Driver's License (good to 2031) is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  No, I need my birth certificate or passport.   Ok....

He makes me pay for my $360Volvo registration, but won't give it to me because
a) it is not PRESENT to be verified (VIN # and mileage)
b) has not been CA smog tested (even though it is less than 2 years old)
C) the odometer cannot be verified
D) the "engine serial number" cannot be verified by a CA state bureaucratic
... okay, so I need to get it smog tested AND I need to have the CIN number checked.  Ok.   I am not a terrorist.

Then, "William" sends me out to "get my Mazda verified".    I WAIT 45 minutes, outside.  I pretend I am a "tomb of the unknown solider" enlisted man, and I pace, pivoting, 90 degrees, at each 8 steps, for FORTY FIVE MINUTES, waiting for SOMEONE to come out to check my VIN number, my mileage, my vehicle ID.   Finally, a nice lady from the temporarily closed San Clemente DMV office comes out to methodically check my vehicle.  "Are you pacing impatiently, or patently?" she asks me.  I reply, WITH SILENCE.     (Yes, I was VERY impatient after my THIRD Hour).

So I GOT THERE at 1.   Got my number "B121" at 2pm.  got called to "Window 20" at 3pm.   Got rejected for my DL at 3:10, and sent out to my Mazda at 3:15, where i waited  for 45 minutes, for SOMEONE to come out and verify my VIN number, mileage, and license plate.   Then, at 4pm, I go BACK IN to Window #20.   BUT no, "William" helped a a woman who had the appearance of a crack whore right before me to get a temporary tag and a handicap tag for her disabled boy friend who "can't walk".   I approach "William" who tells me flatly "I cannot help you, I spent too much time with the last person, and my manager will write me up, please go sit down".

So I go STAND next to the seats (where there ARE NO seats) and wait impatiently.   I talk to a 16 yr old and her mother who confirm that Once I take my written test, later in March, I get to wait FOR AN HOUR for the results of my written test.     It has now been more than 3 hours since I got to the DMV.

"William" finally calls me back up, it is 4:25 pm, almost 3.5 hours after I arrived.   He starts to process my request for registering my Mazda.   After 15 minutes William charges me, takes my money, then tell sme I need to go get an emissions heck.   I walk out at 4:30 with
- no new CA license
- no new CA registrations
- no new CA documents

I drove home (after spending $250 dollars at the liquor store, with no meaningful DMV documents in hand) and began drinking wine.   I am on my 2nd bottle.    I DESPISE CALIFORNIA's bureaucracy.   it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Annoying!!      Someday, I will get my Driver's license, and both vehicles registrations....          government interference and bureaucracy be damned.

Sometimes, I miss Arizona.