blueslugs.com

For the Thanksgiving holiday this year, we decided to explore San Mateo County’s section of the Pacific Coast. Dina settled on Butano State Park as our base, which is mostly made of a redwoods-forested canyon, south of Pescadero and on the western slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. We arrived in the late afternoon, having taken CA-84 through Woodside to San Gregario, and then heading south on CA-1.

We arrived late enough that, after setting up camp, it soon became too dark for even a short hike. It’s been cool on the Peninsula this fall, and it felt cool in the morning. We were all grateful when, with temperatures between 30 - 40 °F (0 - 5°C), Dina made oatmeal for breakfast.

One of the first things I noticed—and probably evident from the use of the flash in the above picture—is how dimmed the light on the forest floor is. The cool, dim environment appears to let some pretty sizeable mushrooms thrive; this specimen’s cap is about 2.5″ (63 mm) in diameter, although apparently there are bigger species around. The ribbon-like growths show a bit of élan.

Ben captured an interesting diffracted view of the forest around us:

Out of the dimness, we drove down to Año Neuvo State Reserve, and worked off a little energy in our walk out to the dunes and possible elephant seals.

As we walked, I watched a raptor maintain a position for seconds at a time, presumably as part of its hunting method. Here are three frames, over a total of 8 seconds, from a fair distance away.

The mating season for elephant seals doesn’t begin for a few weeks yet, so that apparently makes these early arrivals juvenile females that won’t actually participate directly.

We explored Pescadero State Beach and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, but the formation revealed at Pebble Beach between the two was striking. Apparently, the ocean (and already pulled pebbles) knock out other pebbles and slowly widen the sockets.

We went back for another crisp evening and chilly morning at Butano, revisited a few of the sites on Friday, and headed back—with a detour through Gilroy to sample a bit of Black Friday—in time for a dinner at home.

Photos taken with a Panasonic Lumix LX-2 and with a Canon PowerShot S2 IS.

It’s past ten o’clock in the evening, but it’s still 88°F—31°C—and there’s little to no wind. That means the back office is a little too hot to be comfortable…

I’ve been wrapping up our tax returns, running reviews and reviewing an actual paper copy. One document (well, two) that I couldn’t find were the bills from the California Department of Motor Vehicles for the car registrations. But I was very pleased to find that they have an online retrieval system to help you find your vehicle license fee (VLF) for 2004 – 2006.

I bet I filed the registration bills in a “special” folder… which I’ll find in August.

Bloglines again suggests the week is shaping up wetly:

Courtesy of bloglines.com:

It doesn’t look like I’ll be packing away the downspout extensions or the portable sump anytime soon…

Most Saturdays, Dina and Benjamin head off to swimming lessons. Nathaniel and I are left to our own devices, which means we go for one of two kinds of walk: a walking walk, where Nathaniel walks, and a seeing walk, where Nathaniel gets pushed. This week, Nathaniel expressed that he wanted to see trains on the walk, which meant a seeing walk.

We headed east towards the Redwood City Caltrain station. On the way, we passed the most recent arrival in Redwood City’s gradual approach to Seattle-class latte infrastructure:

We walked through the station, intending to cross the tracks and visit a couple of the construction sites downtown. When you’re nearly two years old and focused on being an expert in trains and trucks, seeing a truck that can ride on the rails is perhaps mind expanding:

The renovation of the Old San Mateo County Courthouse—now home to the San Mateo County History Museum—appears to involve extensive work on the columns:

Finally, we walked back to the station to see the 10:41 Northbound train,

wheeled into Peet’s to grab a cappuccino, and sipped our drinks—Nathaniel is usually prepared with a travel flask—as the Southbound 26 pulled in ten minutes later. Two trains (and a “train truck”) spotted, we headed home.

Nathaniel has keen vision; we often see mourning doves on the power and telephone lines that pass by the front of our house and he is happy to point them out. And occasionally, a raucous crow will perch in one of the nearby trees or atop a pole shouldering the local lines. But a couple of weekends ago, he was quite insistent about the novelty of the bird upon the pole’s top:

A good catch: this was the first Merlin I had seen in any of the neighbourhoods we’ve lived in. (I once watched a red-tailed hawk eat a dead pigeon on a corner ledge of MPK17 a few years back, while I waited for a printout one Saturday.)

The little raptor was good enough to stay in place long enough for us to take pictures from a couple of points with a couple of cameras. The above, the best of the lot, was taken with our camcorder (Canon Optura 200) in photo mode—the 10 × optical zoom was essential, and it’s still not a great shot.

Ben and I biked to GeoKids and then I carried on to the Menlo Park campus yesterday, perhaps in honour of Canada Day. Ben was pretty happy for the first few miles, but I suspect was bored by the time we made it to downtown Menlo. (Google Maps has the distance at about 5 1/2 miles, although our route was longer—but on bike-friendlier streets.)

Dina took a photo of us setting forth from the driveway:

(For Peninsula readers, the main roads we used were Virginia-to-Woodside-to-Alameda de las Pulgas-to-Avy-to Santa Cruz. There appear to be some neighbourhood roads that we can use to skip Woodside—California Highway 84—and make the route safer still.)

When we’re not looking at the fast cars, we notice other changes on our drive between Redwood City and Menlo Park. Based on coverage in the San Mateo Daily Journal, it looks like one of the independent groceries in Redwood City closed in April—confirmed by the empty parking lot just off the intersection of Fifth and El Camino Real.

The closing was at least partially due to the arrival of Whole Foods a mile and a half north, although it appears that the location itself was an issue, as that intersection is an informal spot for day workers to wait for possible job pickups. But this kind of change is the flip side of new arrivals to Redwood City—some independent businesses will need to make difficult adjustments.

I’ve noticed that my driving habits have changed since I found out that the ugly building on El Camino in Redwood City was going to be a Ferrari Maserati dealership. Even during the construction phase, I found myself driving in the slow lane and hoping for a long red light. It turns out that the beautiful new dealership is the largest in the world with a waitlist for new cars. Once you own one, you can participate in Ferrari’s own racing series. The next event is May 13-15, 2005 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Nevada. There’s also the Rally of Wine Country in August. I’d have to say that with our new Starbucks, Whole Foods, and now Ferrari Maserati dealership, Redwood City is becoming more interesting.

I strained my back last Thursday which showed that, while my basketball reflexes return, they do so to an older body. On the drive home, I watched a grey squirrel fall out of a tree—perhaps a twenty foot drop—and kept the car still as it limped to the grassy sward nearby. My weekend was spent chasing children of suddenly superhuman speed, and realizing that I, too, am an aging squirrel.

The semi-official election results for San Mateo Country have been posted. For the two elections we were watching at blueslugs.com:

• In the county, Ira Ruskin (D) [37,877] defeated Steve Poizner (R) [29,833]. This margin is substantially narrower than other state or national elections in San Mateo County. These results need to be added with the contributions from the portions of Santa Clara County that make up Assembly District 21; results from the California Secretary of State suggest that Ruskin will win the district.
• Measure Q was defeated, with 10,214 votes for and 12,109 votes against.

There is also apparently questionable telemarketing behaviour associated with the pro-Q side. And jra links to another no-on-Q blog, which describes a reaction to the “real pictures” mailing similar to my own.

(I’m a little puzzled why none of these blogs are popping up on Google yet.)

The other day, I noted some interesting politics in Redwood City/San Mateo County. The Economist isn’t covering this race, but is covering the U. S. Senate race in Oklahoma, and that the total spending there has been 3.8 M$. So the Poizner–Ruskin state assembly race in California and a Senate race in Oklahoma match up on absolute dollars. (Oklahoma has 1.9 M registered voters, so the per-registered voter amount for the Oklahoma race is about 2 $, or a little over 1/8 of the amount in our local race.)

On the Measure Q side, we received another two pro- mailings. One suggested looking at what was purported to be new facts on the measure, but is just a new domain registration pointing at the original site. I poked around, though, and found the following:

This is a classic graphical evasion: the coloring of the “marinas and open space” is green, suggesting grass. But note that marinas are actually on the water and, perhaps more importantly, the graphic does not separate out internal roads or parking. It would be difficult to find a common California definition of “open space” that includes roadways. If we look elsewhere on the site, we find

A very different assessment of open space, and one that raises questions about why this factor is being emphasized so strongly. I await the next mailing.

Although the major political news stories surround the U. S. Presidential Election, we’re having an exciting time in Redwood City, with the Poizner–Ruskin race for Assembly and the contest over Measure Q, which would approve the proposed Marina Shores Village along San Francisco Bay. Not being a citizen, I can’t vote. Moreover, I’m probably hopelessly idealistic about various behaviours, so I’ll just note some interesting aspects. (And this article covers no aspect of the fall television season—I’ll communicate my disappointment separately.)

The assembly race is of an interesting class: active new money versus established state party. As a result, our afternoon post regularly contains one or two mailings, as both sides can afford a direct mail blitz. Reading the mail, we find

• Bay Area influence: Mr. Poizner is downplaying his party association and emphasizing his moderate (even left-wing) credentials, while Mr. Ruskin’s signs clearly identify Democratic affiliations.
• Political celebrity appearance: San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom, carelessly signed some Democratic machine-authored support letter and then denied personal involvement, which threw confusion into the race, as both sides offered differing interpretations of the letter.
• Money: Current total spending on the race is about 3.7 M$, split 3 M$ – 0.7 M$ in favour of Mr. Poizner. That’s roughly fifteen dollars per registered voter in the district.

Meanwhile, we have a measure to approve a new development, accompanied by zoning changes, at the bayshore: Measure Q. Evaluating the measure’s impact is complicated: there is no recent analogous development in Redwood City, so it’s difficult to acquire any insight into how the various urban systems would accomodate such a large development (especially when spread over multiple decades). The pro-Q site is low on detail, and has nothing that compares to this effective page from the anti-Q organization. The latter is a strong example of effective argument presentation on the web.

(I should note that Redwood City Water Utility Services publishes a “City of Redwood City Public Works Services Water Utility Services Periodic Customer Newsletter” (usually bi-monthly) which periodically (every other newsletter) reminds us that Redwood City is 10% overdrawing the fresh water from the San Francisco system. So local property owners are highly aware of water-related issues.)

(I should also note that my commute is along U. S. 101, which would be the highway most impacted by this development, and that that commute uses the interchanges adjacent to the development itself. Oh, and that I worked in traffic systems and am a bit skeptical that the additional trips impact is as mild as presented: it’s just as likely that 50% of the new residents will work in Santa Clara.)

The pro-Q side has been effective at press release–article conversions, but that perhaps is revealing Peninsula media outlets’ actual capacity for investigative reporting. The pro- side sent one mailing that was poorly received in our household: the card presents an array of headshots of officeholders endorsing the measure but, when so many politicians agree on something in America, even I know money is a more likely influence than any sincere, shared analysis. I’ve noted before, with some excitement, how Redwood City is changing, but Q hasn’t shown itself to be well-enough structured an argument to suggest it’s aligned with those other changes.

Based on the construction and openings going on, I suspect Redwood City must have crossed some critical threshold in terms of average income or population. We’ve gone from one Starbucks and one Starbucks counter (at Safeway) to three standalone stores and two counters (one in Target). (I suspect that there’s a law of Starbucks to be formulated here.) Whole Foods has started renovating the former Albertson’s at El Camino Real and Jefferson Avenue, while Trader Joe’s is building a new store just north of the Redwood City–San Carlos border. Pasta Pomodoro and T-Mobile have opened new sites as well.

It looks like everything should be ready by mid-fall. A year past that, the downtown cinemas should open (which will be one of the few Peninsula theatre complexes within easy walking distance of the San Francisco–San Jose Caltrain line). If there is restaurant development to match, Redwood City could be a very interesting small downtown in two years. But right now it’s changing enough that I’ll be driving to Menlo Park a lot less often.

Had a brief moment of suburban excitement: Dina, Nathaniel, and I were on our way to an afternoon appointment when our driver’s side rear tire blew out. On the soon-to-be-five-lanes-wide U.S. 101 South, in East Palo Alto. Busy.

Nathaniel will turn a week old soon, so he wasn’t much going to be much help; Dina had to stay inside the car with him. The AAA estimate was forty-five minutes, so I jumped out and decided to learn how to change the tires on our wagon.

The kit included a fold-up reflective safety triangle, which I put about five yards behind the car. That made me feel about one and a half times safer, since the cars were whooshing past about 10 feet behind me. I positioned the jack at the little arrow on the undercarriage that showed the jacking position. The car raised fairly easily, and I was on to worrying about whether I could generate enough leverage to loosen the lugnuts. The tire iron, at ten inches, seemed short, but I was able to break the tension on the bolts with a bounce on the iron at 90 degrees, despite being buffeted by the occasional semi or panel van.

I pulled off the tire and slid it into the included protective tire bag (an oversize plastic garbage bag) and installed the puny limited-use spare. We ended up being only ten minutes late.

(Quiet kudos to Saab for an excellent set of tire changing tools, indicators, and instructions.)

We recently uprooted our home office, transplanting it from a bedroom in the front house to the room attached to our garage. With the garage building at the back of the lot, I now have a clear view of the yard. Tonight the sensor lights tripped and I had a good staring exchange with a pair of raccoons. The Redwood City raccoon is no Arctictis binturong, but these two were rudely healthy and (I argue) nonplussed to be both illuminated and observed. (I’ll skip over any rivalry with the various, large-lunged cats who’ve decided that the side of our house is the neighbourhood’s romantic nightspot–the healthy trash around here guarantees a champion’s diet to any raccoon with a bit of motivation, making him or her more than a match to a typical kitty.)

Since I now have prime suspects for last summer’s tragic shredding of Ben’s inflatable swimming pool, I’ll see if I can get a picture of these two in the coming weeks.