The Grand Canyon’s Colorado River was thundering . It was the renowned June 1983 season, gushing at one of its highest flows ever; 60,000+ cubic feet per second. That’s some serious roaring whitewater. It generated huge, towering, tumultuous, treacherous, rapids.

But on the paddle boat, raising a few eyebrows, some teamwork skills were a bit lacking.

Lets backup a bit for some context. Some years ago, my dear friend and World Class whitewater river guide, Alan Williams  arranged a Grand Canyon river trip for his family and invited me to join in.

(I refer to the brilliant, thoughtful, strikingly handsome*, athlete Alan Williams from Pacific Grove, not the extra-plush Malaprop spouting Carmel development goofapottamus.)

Such a rare and eagerly anticipated treat. Continue reading →

Fasten your seatbelts.
Because

‘Oh…Mostly because we can. Now do you want to get your car registered or not?’

I’m going to tell you a true story — that you simply won’t believe.

For context, you may be familiar with the theme of how the California Department of Motor Vehicles (“The DMV”) has a reputation for gigantic wait times; lines that similar to Mountain passes – take literally hours to traverse. And that’s when you make an appointment. Its worse if you don’t have an appointment, and you get scolded.

Along with staff so overworked, they barely have any sense of humanity, let alone a sense of humor.

Well, I am here to report the unbelievable. Continue reading →

Eiger, North Face

Tall vertical rock faces are simply – supremely powerful. I don’t mean a few hundred feet. I’m talking the world’s biggest vertical rock faces. Some more than a kilometer straight up.

Any ordinary person can climb a mild grade trail, or even the world’s steepest residential road.

Not many are drawn closer to the biggest rock faces. Most are content to see them from a comfortable distance. To most they inspire fear.  To others they intrigue – to climb it, to fly from it, to fly around it. To land on it.

Ultimately they satisfy a deep core emotion.

Vertical Granite Faces (in no particular order):

I define a vertical rock face as one where a stone thrown from the top will not bounce off or away until it has dropped the full height listed here. “Near vertical” is a bit looser.

Yosemite’s famous Half Dome rises 4,700 feet above the valley floor and has about 2,000 feet of vertical granite. Continue reading →

What Mountain is that ?

Ok — What’s the world’s tallest mountain ?

Did you know a correct answer to this depends on your definition ?

1. Do you want to know what point is father from the center of our Earth? Continue reading →

Had a marvelous flying adventure recently – two soaring flights on the magnificent, breathtaking, Morning Glory of Northern Australia.

Morning Glories can be hundreds of miles long. They are the rarest of five types of soaring and only happen reliably in Northern Australia.(1) Pilots are often understandably addicted to soaring them for their majesty, beauty, and near magical smoothness. Notably, after communicating with the few world Morning Glory academic experts, in my opinion only two people can reasonably explain how they work. The best is a terrific pilot from Cairns named Geoff.

This is my view under my right wing as dawn first peeks over the tallest Morning Glory wave cloud which is hundreds of miles long. It is swooshing towards me from ocean over the Gulf of Carpentaria. I soared this one for some 40 miles – over Crocodile Dundee outback – and Giant Saltwater Crocodiles. Continue reading →

(c) Copyright 2018 David Dilworth

I relish puzzles. My parents gave me books of them when I turned five, to keep me occupied while we drove cross-country. As they told it – I’d finished them all by the second day.

However, solving puzzles to start a car is not my favorite. I’m happy to leave those to Sherlock Holmes, Mensa, car thieves, or anyone else. Which brings us to the so-called “Smart”car.

There are a lot of pleasant benefits with a “Smart”car.
They are darn cute, lots of people smile and wave when they see it – kind of like driving with a happy puppy hanging out the window. Indeed, they are so short I really have (legally) parked it straight in to a tiny parking spot – rather than parallel to a roadway. Also the cars get good, though not amazing, gas mileage, and (if you like this sort of thing) it feels like driving a Go-Kart, particularly over undulating, curvy roads. Continue reading →

This is an exciting, sincere narration of an event by a captivating humorist: Daphne Wynne Nixon

Gray Wolf – Similar type and pose to Daphne’s Sighting,
Courtesy Calif. Dept Fish and Wildlife

A very bright, outdoor painter, who has a track record of finding cool  stuff no one else has noticed for centuries (she found California’s missing Mission), Daphne believes she met a Wolf in Carmel Valley this February, at a distance of no more than 30 feet.

Daphne’s observation is very difficult to dismiss because she regularly sees and knows well her local coyotes, bobcats and even mountain lions walking through her yard.

The nearly full moon was out and her outside yard lights were blazing in the animal’s face. She could easily compare the wolf’s size with her Siberian Husky Ziggy, who at one point was only about 15 feet from the wolf (Ziggy was on a leash).

____________________

Cheese so Hard I could barely Scrape Dust off of it

My enjoyment of Parmigiaheno-Reggiano cheese, more often known in America as “Parmesan,” is a bit above average. I’m slightly hesitant to admit how sometimes I enjoy it all by itself.

Today I found a sizeable block of Italian Parmesan cheese waiting in my refrigerator. Was excited about using it on a new pasta sauce experiment.

However, apparently it had grown tired of waiting a few months for me. The Parmesan had turned hard; brick hard. It was so stoney I could barely scrape off a few shards with a sharp cheese grater or a butcher knife. How hard was it? I’ve sculpted statutes from Cararra marble that were easier to chew.

Shame to waste what should be good cheese, so I turned to the web and found – nothing. Even WikiHow was worthless. The only advice was useless: Shave it, dab it with vinegar, put it in soup. Those aren’t solutions – those are what to do after you give up.

I wasn’t about to give up with a simple solution simmering in my mind.  Continue reading →

Bill Kampe-Insistently Harming Your Public Interests

There’s a frighteningly large (and mostly secret) debt that you will have to pay to live in Pacific Grove due to years of horrible politics. This article about how it happened is researched and written by a Pacific Grove resident, a highly respected lawyer, and verified by one of the smartest people to ever serve Pacific Grove: Councilman Daniel Davis.

It is a story about how local government employees gigantically inflated their pensions by deception and bullying enough elected officials to get this approved – however illegally it was done. Before you buy a home in Pacific Grove, you might ask your realtor to officially disclose to you – “how much will this cost me over the next 10 years?”

What realtors are not required to tell you is how the City Council has been cutting everything else to the bone to pay these outrageous costs: Cutting Library services, Recreation, Planning, etc. One Council led by the disgraced Mayor Cort even gave away our beloved Museum.

Every Pacific Grove resident owes thanks to John Moore for painstakingly following this issue and trying hard to fix it.

___

“Genesis of Pacific Grove’s Excessive pension costs and debt“

by John Moore

This is a brief out-line of how Pacific Grove arrived at its ruinous pension cost/pension debt condition: according to its latest financial report, it now spends about a quarter of its budget ($5-million dollars per year) for pensions (including pension bonds and payment to Monterey as part of the fire service contract). Continue reading →

Ever heard of a Tates Compass ?

Originally alleged to work only in the Southern Hemisphere as it points South instead of North – it inspired the saying — Continue reading →

Eiffel Tower – Courtesy Wikipedia

Some years ago, a splendid, incisive article about the French culture appeared in a coffee table magazine written by an American woman who’d lived in Paris for 20 years or so, having married a Parisian and raised children there.

Having lived in Europe myself, including a couple dozen moons in many marvelous regions of France, and having the pleasure of meeting dozens upon dozens of fabulous French folk in their native habitat, I was rather eager to learn of her far more experienced wisdom on it.

With sharp insight, she addressed the American misunderstanding that the French are rude to Americans. Roughly, (wish I could quote the article exactly, but it is filed inscrutably away in some folder in storage) she explained: Continue reading →

Fire Makes “Change”

You want to “change” the world?

Whoa. That’s frightening.

George W. Bush changed the world . . . acclaimed worldwide for making our world worse. In a horrible way. Continue reading →

This is a scream – with a deadly serious message.

Continue reading →

Excellent Backup Drive – Western Digital Passport 1 to 4 Terrabytes for $54-$110

To help make your life easier and maybe a bit more fun – here are some pretty good products that I use and recommend – that can help make your life better.

If you buy something through this web page it will provide a few dimes to help reduce costs to run this “free” website.

And it won’t cost you a penny more to buy them through the links here. In fact, because of my extraordinary shopping skills to find you and me the highest quality products at the lowest prices – they may save you considerable money over their life span – all the while making your life easier.

Best wishes,

David Continue reading →

“I do not use environmental concerns in my decision making . . . 

and I never will.”

Casey Lucius — Eco-Fraud “I do not use environmental concerns in my decision making – and I never will.

The five of us who heard this politically absurd declaration were stunned nearly speechless.

While Pacific Grove grows or collects some wonderful environmental protection advocates,
somehow the town seems to attract more than its share of carpetbagging Eco-Fauxs. Sadly, LA’s Sandy Kauffman and Stockton Developer Dan Cort come too easily to mind. Continue reading →

Here’s a photo essay of the overwhelming (hand-made) “Signs of heart-felt appreciation” from local folks for the men and women fighting Big Sur’s terrible Soberanes Fire in July and August 2016.

Fire Fighter Sculpture

I found more than 100 signs on Carmel Valley Road alone. Some are elaborate works of art, some small, some huge, some clever, and one is a sculpture of a fireman. Some thank those who have saved animals and the helicopter crews.

From simple to snazzy, be advised the sheer volume and sincere sentiment might inspire tears.

Continue reading →

Fire Plume from Carmel Valley Airport Aug 8, 2 pm
Looking South-East

Big Sur’s Soberanes Fire Plume 2016 from Carmel Valley Airport – Aug 8, afternoon 2-pm

This smoke plume is blowing in a new direction: much more East than South-East (the direction the whole fire was advancing in general up till now).

The plume poking up on the right looks to be from the Los Padres Dam area.

Frighteningly, the low cloud of smoke just to the left is from just downstream, apparently in the Prince’s Camp / Cachagua valley – where a lot of people live.

There apparently is a backfire set in that area.

Continue reading →