Report This

Photo By Tickledrop

I noticed this really cool shirt being sported by one of our city's local news coverage photographers at the Picnic Day Parade this year. What a nice shirt!

Steam Locomotive 844

Photo By Tickledrop

This dinosaur of a train, hailed as Union Pacific's "Living Legend," rolled through my town! I have had a fascination with trains since my youth when, for whatever reason, we always lived near train tracks. UP844 was the last steam locomotive built for Union Pacific in 1944. It was saved from being scrapped in 1960 and reserved for special services. Read more....

LONE TWIN

This has been entertaining.

Each day Gregg Whelan and Gary Winters set out from the E Street Plaza on their compact Brompton folding bikes for a five-to six-hour ride in and around Davis, collecting stories from the folks they encounter along the way. Each evening, they return to the plaza for a 5:30 performance that mixes the theatrics of a town crier with the more conversational tone of public radio storytelling. They are Lone Twin, a British duo brought to Davis by the Mondavi Center to perform "To the Century: 30 Days in the Life of Davis," in honor of the UC Davis centennial and this town's love of cycling.

Lone Twin started their ride Friday with a spin of the bottle — a water bottle that is. Said Winters: "We go by the fate of the bottle." On a large homemade map laid out on the ground, Winters spins his blue water bottle and whichever direction the bottle points, is the direction they take. Friday's spin sent them on a southeasterly route. The spin for Saturday morning would have them heading due east. They will fill in their map as they go, repeating routes if the spin of the bottle dictates. "It's a way of kind of building a map," Winters said. Their first public performance on Friday evening drew a crowd of about 30 to 40 people, some just passersby stopping to see what all the fuss was about.

The show began when Whelan and Winters zipped up on their bikes. Accompanied by music piping out from a portable speaker, the two related stories of their ride. "We were on the road today," Whelan said, "and we came up to a junction. We were trying to figure out who had the right-of-way, when a car pulls up next to Gary. We see a woman inside, and she rolls down her window and says, 'You look great!'" "We took that as a positive sign," he said. About five hours later, on their way back into town, said Whelan, they were passed by a car with four young men inside. Another friendly encounter? Not so much. "They yell, 'Share the road you clowns!'" Whelan said. "Which we also took as a positive sign," Winters said. "On Montgomery, we saw a couple in their mid-40s packing a car," Winters said. "So we stopped to talk, and they said they were going to get in their car, point it north and just see where they end up. They're going to drive for four weeks." On Second Street, he said, the duo passed by some road construction. "We saw a man digging a hole. He said he was digging for money. I'm not sure if he really was."

Once their performance was finished for the evening, they exhorted the crowd to return again and again and hopped back on their bikes, pedaling off toward F Street with Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" blaring from their speaker.

The duo will be in the plaza every evening at 5:30 p.m. and welcome fellow riders who happen to catch them on the road on Wednesdays and Sundays. Read more....

We need to turn up the heat

Tomorrow, AIG's executives are appearing before a House Subcommittee, and we've got a chance to give them a piece of our minds.

Sign a petition and submit a question for the heads of AIG? Or better yet, an idea for how we should get our money back? If you do before 5 p.m. ET today, we'll make sure it gets to the committee in time for tomorrow's hearing. Click below to add your name and submit your comment.

http://pol.moveon.org/aigbonus/?id=15751-15235950-Jjs1KOx&t=3

After you sign, please forward this to friends and family to make sure the outcry is impossible to ignore. The petition says:

"UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THE AIG EXECUTIVES WHO HELPED CREATE THE FINANCIAL CRISIS RECEIVE BONUSES. THAT'S OUR MONEY AND YOU SHOULD DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET IT BACK."

LEVI WINS!

LEIPHEIMER WINS 2009 TOUR

Levi Leipheimer (AST) wins the Amgen Tour of California for third straight year.

Lance Armstrong Bicycle

This is the specially designed bicycle made for Lance to ride in the Amgen Tour of California. I saw him ride it on February 14th in Sacramento for the Timed Trials. That night it was stolen from the team's bike trailer that was parked at their hotel. The bicycle has been recovered, but not before a new, specialy made to replace it had arrived on the scene. Lance says the only difference in the two are the words "Lance - Ride this one like YOU stole it."



The race continues today with Stage 6 Timed Trails heading out of Solvang. Good luck to all the riders!

Go Levi!

NEIGHBORS FROM HELL

A very unfortunate turn of events.

I understand now the difference of good neighbors, you know, those that come over and get to know you and become good friends over the years, and the not at all good neighbors, those that move in and become the new bullies kids on the block.

My neighbors, I'll call them C&C for now, moved in last spring. The day they moved in and while the moving truck was still in their driveway, the lady C came over not to ask, but to tell me to turn my music down. What the ?? What she didn't know was that the security screen door she knocked on but could not see through was hiding behind it a really cute and friendly, but not so friendly to strangers, female boxer. So she doesn't like the music and she gets the fuck scared out her by the dog. We are off to a good start. NOT.

Okay, I have no problem admitting that I love to listen to loud music. I do. It's something I love. And on that day I was playing Frank Zappa a little loud, but by no means loud enough to merit a complaint. It was about midday and I was shocked that she was at the door telling me to "just turn it down." Okay, I'm listening to Joe's Garage and she's telling me something right off the album. Hilarious. I couldn't believe it and could barely respond because I was really in shock, but I managed to blurt out four words, "Um, okay, but no." Well that was just the beginning of the harassment. I have since had the police called on me three times for noise complaints. Of course, all three times were during the day and I was found NOT in violation of our city's noise ordinance.

The weirdness doesn't stop there. Right after they moved in, and yes, after the whole thing about the music went down on move-in day, I gave them a plant and a baked goodie. As soon as I handed them to lady C, she as quickly as she could without dropping them, gave them to her husband and said as she walked away "I'm not a plant person." Yikes. How big is the stick up her ass?

Then this started happening and I thought I was tripping. They started controlling the parking spaces in front of the houses. Where there is plenty of room for three to park, they park in a way that only two cars will fit. At first I thought I was tripping on them too much, but no, I haven't drank too much koolaid. We live on a busy street and have driveway/garage parking along with street parking. No problems in the eight plus years I've lived here.

A couple days ago I leave the parking space in front of my house on the street to go to the store for ten minutes. I get back and the crazy ass went out and moved his tank back a couple feet so I could not park there. I was mad and wanted to know where they were coming from by doing that. I went over and knocked on their door. Of course, like the only other time I did that, they did not open the door. I went home and huffed and puffed to the family and settled into cooking and dinner. Well who was to visit me during that dinner? The fucking police. AGAIN! It turns out that they felt threatened by me when I knocked at the door. Give me a fucking break! I was again in shock. Okay. This guy is over six feet tall and I'm a small lady - 5.5 not much over 100. Are they kidding? Well the police sure didn't think so. I spoke with them while my young son stayed inside, yes, that's right, my young son. See, they are such cowards that they would rather send the police to speak to me than to speak to me themselves. What is that? I usually open the door when people knock on it and find out what they want, not call the police to say I'm being threatened. I mean really. Just speak to me if you have a problem with me. That's all.

I took the advice of the police department and called the mediation services offered by the city. The problem with that is it takes two parties to mediate and of course, they decline the offer. Fuckers. I did do a little research though and found out that the guy (mr control freak) is an over-educated shithead. A leading world expert in his field. Oh boy. I don't care who he is or what he has done. He's an asshole. And their house address is listed as the California headquarters the company that he is employed with. I think it's time to contact the company.

I know. You are wondering if there was anything I did to provoke this sort of behavior. I'm telling you, all I've done is be the same person I've always been. I have done nothing directly to them. In fact, it wasn't long after they moved in that the police first came. Believe me, after that I was done. I've never had that sort of thing happen. Never. All of my neighbors and I get along great. Until now. I hope they move, the sooner the better.