This is a dump of pictures from April. Most did not make it onto the blog, but in case anybody wants to look at them. The titles make sense to me, but there are typos and misspellings, and I don’t guarantee that the titles make sense to anybody else. They all are creative commons, however, so if anybody wants to copy a picture to use on his/her own blogs, these pictures are available.
Springtime
We are back home in Virginia and we have evidently missed spring, at least late spring. It is now summer. The leaves are all out. Today was hot & humid, mostly humid, at least compared to the cool weather we had when I was last here a couple of weeks ago. It will get more or less cooler again. May is a pleasant month; we usually don’t get that oppressive heat until late June.
I went to see Alex just before I left for California. We went to the arboretum in Harrisonburg, but I never wrote a post or posted the pictures. It was a pleasant spring day. I am posting the pictures today, but they are a couple weeks out of date.
The Shenandoah is one of most pleasant places on earth in the springtime. The picture on top I-81 that passes through the valley. It is a busy truck route, that carries much of the goods along the East Coast. The trucks make it a hectic drive sometimes. They are bigger than the cars and they know it. The middle pictures are flowering trees in the arboretum.
Above is the pond on the arboretum. Below is a pocket park in Arlington. It is near the place where we first lived when I joined the FS. It is just one block of green, enough to give kids a place to play and provide a nice space for the neighbors.
Below is the lawn in the park. It is a “real” lawn with clover and some weeds. I like this better than the chemical lawns so common around malls and new developments. The Chesapeake Bay is polluted with run off. They blame farms and farms do contribute, but at least they also produce something. But it is just wrong when we use chemicals and fertilizers to create perfect lawns. This one is better all around.
El Camino Real
The Spanish established a road, El Camino Real or the royal road, from San Diego to San Francisco to connect and supply their missions and forts. Today I-5 and U.S. 101 follow the route and we drove along both today on our way from San Diego to the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.
The route is marked with bells suspended from question mark shaped pipes. These are good promotion and the reason we noticed that we were on the route.
I originally rented a Chevy Cobalt and I used it to drive up to the botanical garden mentioned in the last post, but it was such a crappy car that I took it back to Alamo before I picked up Chrissy. Chrissy always said that she wanted to drive a convertible, so I splurged and surprised her with one. It was fun to drive in the convertible on the coastal highway and we look forward to more fun when we drive inland to Joshua Tree National Park.
Below is Chrissy with the car.
The coastal highway goes through some beautiful county. The part I like the best is the oak savanna. I think they call them oak woodlands out here. The ones along the coast tend to feature California live oak. They are similar to oak openings in the Midwest, but the California hills are more majestic, especially when set against the Pacific surf. The park-like widely spaced oak forests make a truly pleasant environment. They are maintained by frequent low-intensity fires and are endangered when fires are too carefully prevented by humans.
Above is an example of the oak savanna/oak woodland biome. Below is the road ahead north of San Luis Obispo.
Peaceful Seas & Dark Waters
I understand why so many people are fascinated by the sea. Its moods can change in such rapid and interesting ways. As I watched for just about a half hour, I saw it go from gray and calm to bluer and wilder. Finally near sundown it became the wine-dark sea of Homeric description, as you can see on the pictures.
I was lucky enough to get a little cottage on the Pacific instead of staying at the hotel. The trade off is that I have to walk up to the mock embassy. Of course, that is also one of the things l like about being here. So I guess there is no trade-off, unless you count not having Internet access. This is why you are reading this post a few days after I wrote it. This is the off season for these cottages. I would not be able to get a place here otherwise. It is also unusual in that the beach in almost deserted. There are not many places along the Southern California coast where you can look out over an empty beach.
The ocean is primal and powerful. It puts your troubles in their proper place. I watched the sundown yesterday and today. I guess it is good that I don’t live here. I would probably eventually go blind from this sort of contemplation. I have four nights down here on the shore, until I have to move back to the regular hotel. I don’t suppose it will hurt me in that short a time.
As a Midwestern landlubber, I didn’t see the ocean until I was twenty-three years old and I am not sure that really counts. I flew over the Atlantic Ocean from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, so I only saw it from very high up. I didn’t actually touch the ocean until a year later, when we drove down to Florida. I managed to convince some of my friends to go down. My motivation was to pick up Chrissy, who was down there with her elderly aunt. My first ocean touch was in the Gulf of Mexico in Bradenton, Florida. I was surprised at how clear it was and how salty it tasted.
My previous experience was with Lake Michigan. It is really not that different. Lake Michigan is too big to see across too and there are some ocean areas that look a lot like the Lakeshore. The Baltic Sea near Gdansk, for example, reminds me a lot of home. Maybe that is why immigrant from that area moved to the shores of the lake. The lake doesn’t get such big waves as the ocean can, but there are lots of times when the ocean waves are no bigger. The big difference is the lack of salt and the lack of tides. This means that it tastes different but also that trees and plants can grow much closer to the edge of the lake. This gives it a different aspect.
I find the ocean attractive but a little scary. I walked a short way into surf to get the picture up top and I was paying a lot more attention to the setting sun than to the oncoming surf. I was surprised by a wave. It didn’t knock me down, but I did get a little wetter than I expected. The sea has power. My mind drifted wildly to tsunamis. I suppose the chances that a big wave will sweep me and my cottage off this beach are very small, but … I am writing this in the middle of the night. I just came in from looking out over the dark sea. There was some light provided by the almost half moon and the man-made lights in the background, but mostly I could just hear and feel the ocean. Suffice to say that I didn’t walk close enough that I could fall off some unseen edge or in range of an errant waves that could reach out and pull me down to Davy Jones’ locker. Lots of things seem possible in the middle of the night that look really pretty dumb when seen in the light of day. But it is dark out there for now.
Pacific Sunset
I watched the sun set in the Pacific. It seems to drop so fast and be so close. I almost thought I could hear it hiss as it hit the water.
Below is sunrise on Lake Michigan last September. I suppose the latitude and the time of year make a difference. There is a much longer twilight time farther north.
Alex Update
Alex still has some headaches and body aches and it is hard for him to concentrate, but he seems to be doing okay. I will drive up to Harrisonburg to see him later today and bring him home if he is still feeling bad. This will create some troubles for his classes, since papers are due and exam time is here, but I think he has a valid excuse. His attack made the Harrisonburg papers, although they didn’t mention him by name, so he has some credibility
There is an interest health care debate permutation, however. Alex has only a few days left on our insurance, since he turned 22 last month and he gets a month of grace time. We have signed him up for insurance, which will take effect on May 1. So he will go into eight days of non-insurance. Even when he gets the insurance, it has a high deductible, so we may end up paying a lot anyway.
The irony here is that if he had been in an accident, if someone had hit him with a car, he would probably had everything paid for by the insurance of the driver. He would probably get an extra pay out for pain and suffering. Or if the authorities had acted inappropriately he would have been in line for a huge compensation. But since he was the victim of random but deliberate violence, he is just on his own. Well, not on his own since we will take care of him, but you get the irony.
If I accidentally hit a pedestrian while riding my bike, and he sustained injuries similar to Alex’s, I would probably have to pay damages to include the actual medical costs, plus pain and suffering and probably punitive damages. But if I successfully avoided the crash and the guy fell into the hands of a thug who beat him, he would get nothing.
We have created a system where an honest citizen must fear lawsuits even for things he doesn’t directly control and a legitimate victim of deliberate violence can expect nothing. Violent perpetrators w/o significant assets can pretty much get away with anything from the civil point of view and even from the criminal one. We are also more likely to take seriously a bent bumper on a car than a bump on somebody’s head.
Hate Crime
We got a call last night that Alex was in the hospital in Harrisonburg and would be soon having a CAT scan to see if he had any damage to his brain. He was transferred to UVA hospital in Charlottesville. We drove through the early morning darkness to get him. It is not good, but it looks like he will make a full & rapid recovery, fortunately, although he will have some scars and will be in pain for a while. We hope follow up exams find nothing new. The story that we learned between that call and now is troubling. I don’t know if I have all the details down right, but let me try.
Alex was attacked by six young men in what evidently was an act of random hateful violence. They hit him over the head by a beer bottle, so Alex doesn’t remember much about the attack. What we learned came from witnesses, the police & the perpetrators themselves.
Alex remembers someone running past him and then he was on the ground being kicked by six guys. What happened, according to witnesses, is that these guys wanted to beat somebody up. Their first victim was the guy that ran past Alex, but as they chased him they decided Alex would do just as well. So one of them hit Alex with a beer bottle from behind and the others joined in the beating. The original victim called the police, who were already in the area and quickly arrived; this and bystanders scared the perpetrators off before they did lasting damage.
The police told Alex that they caught the guys who did it and that they would probably be charged with felony assault. Alex and the running kid were not the only ones they attacked last night. This was not a simple case of drunk and disorderly. These guys were looking for someone to hurt. They didn’t know Alex; they didn’t try to rob him, ask him anything at all or even look him in the face before smashing him over the head and commencing the beating. The motivation was simply atavistic hatred, based on nothing, nothing at all, maybe a lust to do violence.
How do you deal with someone who wants nothing from you except to do you harm? We look for motivations. We might feel more at ease if they had tried to steal Alex’s wallet or if we could discover how he antagonized them in even a trivial way. But there is no comfort there.
Chrissy is staying with Alex in Harrisonburg tonight and maybe tomorrow to make sure he is okay. Espen had been up there visiting one of his old HS friends who also attends school up there. He didn’t know about Alex until we told him this morning. I drove back with Espen and we talked along the way. It seems the block party got out of hand generally. People were throwing beer bottles.
Espen and his friend headed toward his friend’s dorm room and Alex went toward his, which was only a short distance from where he was attacked. Unfortunately for Alex, his dorm was right in the middle of a place where lots of rowdy people were gathering and Alex had to walk through the crowds. Fortunately, the police were there too and that is probably what ended up saving him from a more severe beating.
The cops interviewed Alex. They took pictures of his various injuries and examined his bloody clothes, but he couldn’t tell them much that was helpful, but there are lots of witnesses and the perpetrators are evidently talking. I am interested to see how this case plays out and I want to learn more. I don’t know anything about the perpetrators and I will admit that I am more than a little angry at them for hurting my boy. But I think there also is a rational argument for making sure this does not get passed along. I don’t think the attackers are hardened criminals but the kind of hatred and violence that went into this attack is dangerous. It is not something we can ignore or forgive. Letting the attackers too easily off the hook would do them no favors if the lesson they learn is that what they did is no big deal. It is something we have to confront.
Spring has Come to Washington
Spring has arrived in Washington. Some pictures are included. Above is the Capitol seen from the NE corner. Below is the Jefferson Memorial.
Below is the Lincoln Memorial. Lots of people have come to see old Abe.
Below is the Washington Monument through the cherry trees.
Below is the path along the Tidal Basin.
A Cherry Flavored Fleeting Beauty
The cherry trees are in full bloom. It is hard to recall that snow was on the ground just a few weeks ago. Some pictures are included with the post. The picture at the side shows the bread line from the FDR Memorial. I went down to the cherry trees and visited Roosevelt on the way back.
Cherry blossoms are precious because they are ephemeral. We know that they will not be there for a long time and we have to enjoy them while we can. We revel in the passing and should not wish the moment to linger beyond its time. They are beautiful precisely because they will not last.
We try to preserve too much. A report this morning on NPR talked about people worried that the world of the Mario Brothers (Donkey Kong) was disappearing. They want to preserve and protect the classic world of games. Just let it go. We should let a lot of things go. Let them become stuff of memory and then let them slip quietly into oblivion. Nothing lasts forever.
I was reading a book called “False Economy.” The author talked about dead-end strategies and how some things just don’t make it. The example he used was the panda bear. Besides being cute, they don’t have much going for them. They eat only low nutrition bamboo, which they evidently cannot properly digest, so they have to eat a lot but don’t get much bang for the bite. Mating is a chore they don’t enjoy and on those rare occasions when they do muster up energy and the urge, there is a good chance nothing will come of it. What is amazing is not that they are endangered but that there are any of them still around at all. A less cute animal would have gone the way of the dodo a century ago. But pandas have a constituency. People cried a few weeks ago at the National Zoo when the Chinese took their panda back.
I remember seeing them at the zoo. Well actually, I am not sure I saw them at the zoo. They don’t move very much. You could just put a fur there and claim it was a panda and nobody would know the difference. They are an evolutionary dead end. People have perhaps hastened their demise, but didn’t change the direction. I tried to think of why it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t.
BTW – The pictures are much bigger scale. If you want to see more detail, you can go to the source and look at the bigger versions.
Alex & Mariza
I drove up to Harrisonburg for Alex’s birthday. He is doing okay, but is still having some loneliness problems. We didn’t do anything extraordinary, mostly talked. We did go to lunch and supper together and went got a few necessities at Walmart. Lunch was at Kyoto, one of those Japanese steak houses where they do the grill show with the food.
Mariza’s birthday was a couple days ago. She came down from Baltimore for it. We had some cake, but we aren’t very big on the party things.
I wrote the birthday stuff last year and nobody feels comfortable about too much recent information being divulged. There is a kind of declassification period that must be respected.
Suffice to say that I am proud of the adults they have become and I enjoy their company, but I miss the children they were. These are the times that I feel that most acutely.