Violence in schools and elsewhere

The shootings today in Connecticut, while an unspeakable tragedy, should not be unexpected when one considers how many guns, especially assault weapons, are in the hands of private citizens many of whom are mentally unstable and deranged.  There is no need for such weapons to be in the hands of private citizens in the first place.

The underlying cause of today's problems however is a more difficult one to address.  We live in a violent culture with violent movies and TV program and the young and unstable like to imitate and unfortunately where is often a lack of parenting.  Either one or both parents are missing from homes to help guide their children and even then some of them may have violent criminal backgrounds and are unqualified to be even be parents as they are going to be unable to give the proper guidance for difficult times and problems. They may even encourage violent actions to solve problems.

I totally encourage a total ban on assault weapons in the hands of private citizens but we also need better education and mental health programs to ward off future massacres such as the one today.

Paperwork over load

Weren't computers supposed to help eliminate a lot of paperwork?  Well, I suppose it would be fine if I did not get behind in processing F/S but as it stands now I might burn out the motor on my shredder with all the paperwork that I need to run through it.  Before I retired it was simple.  If I got behind I could load up my briefcase as I was heading into the office and dump things into the secure shredder bin in the office.  That worked out fine but since retiring I have gotten lazy and that causes all sorts of problems here at home.  Grrrrr.....

Beautiful Saturday

Not especially warm (62°) at 1 PM but very pleasant AND there is no cold wind blowing in from the ocean.  (Well, I probably jinxed us with that statement.)

Only 13 days until the opening of the Summer Olympics in London.
Les Miz at the Orpheum Theater in August.
Only 178 days until my next trip to Thailand.

In the meantime there will be two days in Sin City next week.  Wheeeee....
This is primarily to see Ka' at the MGM Grand but I will have lots of time to wander about
and see other things, do other things.

So happy to have cleared out most of the Milk Weeds cluttering things out back. Still have a few unidentified weeds and hope that the Weed-B-Gone spray will kill those off. Those huge Milk Weeds were something else however.  They were almost like something out of a sci-fi movie as they took over the back deck.

Another restaurant?

Well, the trend continues in saturating this city of San Francisco with as many of the trendy places that you can.  The latest is yet another La Boulange, the not so French restaurant which has just opened its latest iteration under the Emporium Dome at Westfield of all places.  That used to be a nice place stop and relax while shopping or before going to movie upstairs or whatever.  But no, we now have the umpteenth Boulange restaurant in the city.  Did we really need another one??  What are they trying to do?  Outdo McDonalds in numbers?   Bleaaaaah......

Oh my aching back...

Spent two hours cutting up some variety of milkweed which had overtaken the back of my unit and threatened to snake itself over to and in the door. Still a little more work to be done but at least I got the bulk of it out of the way...FINALLY! The old Cala Foods site has really become a beehive of activity this week. On the street level parking side they have removed some windows. In the area of the old circular ramp on the California Street side they have poured some concrete around what I thought was going to be an elevator shaft. Now I don't know what that is going to be. On the Californian Street side they dug rather big hole in the sidewalk and placed something in it...something to hold electrical equipment? And inside the lower level they have reinforced the main floor with at least one I-beam plus other metal parts. Can't wait for Trader Joe's and CVS Pharmacy to open there but I have no idea when that will be.

What the __________?

Either it is this city or my age or this neighborhood but things seem like they move too fast here.  I am worried that one day I am going to be witness to a horrendous crash at some intersection near me as motorists drive too fast on city streets.  As a pedestrian I was almost hit by a Lorrie's Airport Shuttle Van recently that was coming up Leavenworth too fast.  Fortunately I was able to jump out of the way and fortunately he stopped but unfortunately the driver was an asshole who just grinned at me as if it was a big game.  He offered no words of apology or regret of anything.  Now I wish I had had the foresight to take down the van number and report him. 

And that is the way it is here in San Francisco...everyone does their own thing and to hell with anyone else.
Sometimes I wished I lived somewhere else but it is a little easier dealing with the weather here (no extremes of heat or cold) but the damn hills are wearing me down physically, that and the incessant fog and wind.

Even this apartment building is too much at times.  I realize that the poor construction ("paper thin floors and walls") permits sounds to leak into adjacent units (even adjacent buildings) but is there any reason why it can be so quiet up until about 10 or 11 PM when  bada-boom, bada-boom starts which makes it difficult to sleep.  What's with people these days?  One of the most restful nights I have spent recently was in a small village Northern Thailand where all I could hear were the crickets.  Oh, if only that were the case here but then I grew up in an apartment house near Boston in which one could not hear their neighbors.  Too bad they don't build them like that anymore and too bad people don't respect their neighbors anymore.  As for music, well, those were the days of Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Vaughn Monroe, etc. so there were no loud crashing sounds emanating from stereo systems.  In fact, those things did not exist either.

Am I living in the past?  Well no but it was a damn sight easier to get along with people then and I have many fond memories of that era.

Would I like to return to the Boston area?  Yes and no.  Yes if only to experience the seasons once again and warm weather in July and August when it supposed to be warm.  No because I no longer know anyone there and family, such as it was, has either passed away or moved and I was never close to them anyway.

The logistics of moving are almost insurmountable now.  Too much stuff to move for one thing. 

Well, Scotty, beam me up or over or wherever including this apartment and everything in it.  Or, maybe I should do like my mother and step-father used to do.  Just move and sell the furniture and buy new stuff at my destination.  That would simplify some things.

On another matter, the Supreme Court did the right thing this week by upholding the current health care law but I fear that the Supreme Jerk of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, will try everything in his power to rescind the law.  And why should he care? As an elected member of Congress he has a great salary and great health care coverage so he apparently has no problem saying: "Let them eat cake".   He has already said publicly, "Let them die".  WHAT A COMPLETE ASSHOLE!

Arab Holocaust

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has got to be the modern equivalent of Adolph Hitler as he slaughters his own people and is showing no mercy despite pleas from the world community.  How much longer will the holocaust go on?  Some people are calling for the U.S. to arm the rebels.  That sounds nice but would probably be the one event to push the country into total civil war.   And as the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, this would be the last thing we need at this time.

The solution, if there is one, is a total commitment from our Allies but how to get war weary countries to intervene is a vexing problem and in this case Russia is not on our side in this conflict which exacerbates the problem.

It is this sort of thing which makes watching the news on TV so depressing.   I used to be a news junkie but now most of the news seems bad and that includes the violence in the U.S. with murders, single and multiple, on the increase.

Where will this all end?

March Madness

I hate basketball especially when it pre-empts many of my favorite TV programs and especially so soon after having many of those programs in re-rerun status.  Whoever thought of this plan must have been mad.  Even my two movies from Netflix last night were re-runs.  Gawd, I am jinxed!

Return and research

Having been back home a few days I am puzzled by my research on-line today concerning the climate in Thailand as well as other matters I already know about.  Haven't I had enough for now?  I really need to think about going somewhere else next year.  That would be easier if I had a partner who shared the same values I do but that does not seem possible now.  Jeff, who was the party guy, and Richard, the intellectual, were soul-mates who cannot be replaced, especially at my advanced age.  LOL

Morning after the day after

Well, my head is still in a fog, so to speak, and I am still finding it difficult to do everything needed to get back on a normal footing at home.  I wonder how entertainers who are always on the road handle these sort of situations.  This almost makes me want to never go on vacation again.  I guess short ones will be the order of the day in the future, that is, if I am to retain whatever sanity I have left.  At least I got my suitcase back in the closet plus an older and smaller one out (for eventual donation).  My laundry basket is full and the stack of financial paperwork is overwhelming.  Winning the lottery about now would be great.  LOL

Home Alone

Well, after 10 plus grueling hours in the air, I arrived home, tired, but not sleepy.  It is now 9:35 PM PDT and I am ready to got out to see what has changed but of course I won't do that until tomorrow. My ears are still popping but hopefully this White Zinfandel and a good night's sleep will rectify that situation.  And thanks Tim, for your message.

Night all...

Downtown Blues

Guess I just find downtown SF too depressing lately.  For one thing, it is too crowded...too many people in too small a space, etc.  Hopefully my fourteen days in Thailand soon will help in unwinding and getting my act together.  This is my favorite wintertime vacation place but nine hour flights are getting very tiresome, at least in coach.  First class or business class might be better but who the hell can afford those fares?

New projects of interest here in the city are the extension of the T-line Muni Metro line into the Central Subway,  the completion of the remodeling of the Metreon with the opening of Target later this year and closer to home will be Trader Joe's and CVS Pharmacy's move into the old Cala Foods building at Hyde and California.  BTW, that Central Subway project is in its earliest phases of construction but tunneling may actually begin by the end of the year.

Then there is the new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers to be built in Santa Clara.  SF sure screwed up on that one especially with so much land available at Hunter's Point including access to the Bay for which ferry service could be launched for games as it is for the SF Giants at AT&T Park.  Also, with the new Muni T-line running down Third Street to a point fairly close, it could have been extended into Hunter's Point for access to and from the games.

Sometimes I think that officials do not look at the big picture here.  Are district elections the reason with each supervisor involved with his or her own fiefdom.  If so, let us go back to citywide elections ASAP.

Oh, this is too much to think of early Sunday morning.

BFN

Life in the City of San Francisco

I have grown very tired of this city during the past 37 years of living here.  It used to be a neat city and it still is in many ways but after traveling the world and seeing other things and how life could be if the government had a spine and would enforce its laws, I get very frustrated with this mess of a city.  The benevolent dictatorship of Singapore is a perfect example of a very well run city...no filth and garbage on the streets, a well run and efficient mass transit system, people not standing in doorways and or on corners smoking pot, no stinky and smelly homeless and beggars on the corners looking for a handout.  Even in the less efficiently run city of Bangkok I do not find such problems either.

Guess I have just burned out on this place but I am too old to move anywhere else now and could not afford it anyway.  Moving across town is hard enough but moving across the country or to another country would be next to impossible.  Oh well, at least I have enjoyed my stay here and have many fond memories and now must make the best of a bad situation here.

Still here...

Haven't done much with this site recently as there have been too many other things on my mind.  Guess part of it is due to sheer laziness but after a ten day trip to Singapore I am reminded of what a chaotic and dirty city San Francisco is, as if I needed to be reminded, and now I am home again to bums, beggars, homeless people, and doing the "poop-shuffle" as I avoid stepping in or on dog or even human excrement.  Harvey Milk's "pooper-scooper" law has done little good.

Sure, this city has its charms, but street life is not one of them.  Public transportation if greatly lacking also.  There is also modern and innovative architectural designs which the NIMBYS in this town would never allow so most everything is rather dull.  NYC is much more interesting in that regard.

Then there is the crime rate.  While it may not be statistically any worse than many U.S. Cities, one does not feel safe anymore here especially at night.  Unfortunately city officials are too timid to do anything about it and all sorts of people from the "hood" (wherever it is located) come into the city to rob, steal, and cause mayhem.
Guess I would prefer to go back to the idyllic life of my childhood if possible.

And now we have the Republidiots conducting debates on who to have as their presidential candidate.
There should be a national primary and a direct vote but those controlling the purse strings in Washington are not about to let that happen.

So what is one to do?   Certainly there will be no changes in this country in the near future and perhaps not in the distant future also.  It's very discouraging to say the least.

This could drive a person to drink and probably has on more than one occasion.