Humpbacks

Did a story published today on humpback whales visiting insanely close to Santa Cruz Harbor for Bay Nature's website. Started it yesterday at about 3 p.m. and finished it today at about 11:30 a.m. It's tough to turn around something that quick even if it's short.

I mean, wtf do I know about humpback whales. Wikipedia is a good orienting tool. And you just call the sh#$ out of people and try to find out what's up. Took a long time. Finally got a responsive, cool, knowledgeable dude. Whenever a story has one of those it's a big blessing.

I pitched the story because my housemate got back from kayaking with the whales in SC Harbor last Sunday. "It was one of the coolest experiences of my life," she said, which made me stop. I can only imagine, because humpback whales are the big showy ones that breach big time and do the bubble-net feeding and verticle lunge feeding. She said you could hear them singing as they came up to blow-hole and even when they were under the water, too.

After the whales, there were about 7 to 9 of them, did their rolling breaching, about 30 to 40 sea lions would surface after them, she said. And there were pelicans and dolphins - a crazy, live-wild aquariam action. Must have been miraculous - check out how big those whales are in the photo above, taken at SC Harbor a few days ago.

They were close offshore, because their winter migration south matched a nutrient-rich cold-water uprising that coalesced for whatever ocean current, wind reasons at the mouth of the Santa Cruz harbor. The nutrients fed phytoplankton, which fed plankton and stuff and then krill and then anchovies and sardines and other baitfish and then the whales.

Baby Niece

Went to drop off some chocolate to my sister-in-law, who fell and had a level I or II concussion, the evidence of which was extremely scary. Shed whole new light on the NFL situation. My brother and she have three kids. A girl, 6, a boy, 3.5, and a 5-monther?

They live in the Oakland hills, on the very top of one of them, near a cul-de-sac. The CEO of the Raiders lives in the cul-de-sac, and doesn't appreciate disparaging Al Davis half-jokes, according to my brother. Guess he was loved.

Everytime I go up there from the wasteland of West Oakland, it's glorious. You walk in from the street on the top floor and there's nothing but a Bay view and sky, Mt. Tam. Also there're little kids to play with. Held the little one, who just wants to stand and play at a plastic piano with no batteries. And she sits in your lap with those bowlegged baby legs that tuck up into the lotus position so easily. Her head at the perfect height for nibbling. Pretty cute.

Anyway, that's a blessing, at least.

Adios.

Shots in the Dark

Yesterday, Oct. 27, at about nine p.m. I left home for a walk down Linden St. to Lowell Park.


There was a thick darkness about, just a day after a new moon, only 1.7 % illuminated. At about 16th and Linden, I heard what sounded like 20 or so muffled, rapid handgun shots coming from up Linden. I wasn't sure, so I went to the middle of the street, which was illuminated there by a streetlight, and stared down for a few seconds. It was dark. There were no lights from where the shots came, no noise. Then I heard 15 more rapid shots, no noise, no lights, no cars. Then a bullet whizzed by over my head within about five feet and I jumped behind the building on the corner. It felt like the bullet appeared out of the black; staring down, it was a black hole, quiet.

I continued walking down Linden's sidewalk, keeping out of the street, to the park at 14th and turned around. On the way back from the park, before 16th, three dudes smoking in the dark of their front yard halfway-called out to me as I walked down the middle of the street. "Did you hear the gunshots?" I usually ignore people talking to me in my neighborhood because, as this story attests, it's shady. Prostitutes, crack fiends and dealers roam around. He had to say it three times, softly, as if giving me the opportunity to willfully ignore three shadowed figures in front of the house that has the most shady action in the neighborhood, occupied cars always parked in the street in front, people milling around, kids, women, dudes.

I said, excited, because it felt like a close call. "Yeah, did you hear that bullet come by? Somebody was going for it down there." He said, "Yeah, I was wondering where it came from." I told him it was from down Linden, and one of the other two said, "Yeah, it was West Grand, then." We kept talking for a few more seconds and then I left, saying to he and the other two, "Well, I'm going into the belly."

I kept looking and listening for the cops, but never heard any. About 15 minutes after the shots a cop car casually rolled up at 16th St. and turned down Linden toward the shots. I strolled down. One guy, about 30, in basketball shorts, house slippers and a white t-shirt stood in the intersection of 21st and Linden. His girlfriend?, a bigger black girl strolled up, and we all started talking, and then started toward the action, a block away. The girl was saying, "I was just frying some chicken ..."

Twenty minutes after the shots, the cops were just starting, quietly, mindlessly, it seemed, to flashlight the dark area on Linden St. just north of West Grand Ave. Four or five cops milled around the scene, their flashlights, sweeping the area with sharp, cool, blue-white crisp beams. Back and forth, back and forth. Gave the impression of ants swarming a fresh kill. I crossed the street to get a closer look, but as the police presence grew, and I knew I'd have to talk, I backed off, not wanting involvement.

The action centered around a bullet-riddled off-white Cadillac that barely was made out in the haze of a weak streetlight, a block-jump north. A cop finally, casually, started stringing up the yellow Crime Scene tape across Linden at West Grand. Not one siren had sounded to this point, and none would. Must have been premeditated murder: the second-darkest night of the mooncycle. Another day in West Oakland.

This morning, it occurred to me that that bullet that whizzed by from the black hole darkness of West Grand and Linden was likely aimed at me as I stared down from the well-lit intersection at Linden and 16th. I was in the middle of the street and staring down. But I was, according to Google Maps, a third of a mile away - a long way for a handgun bullet to travel. I think. Went to the scene this morning. It looked a long way to 16th, which re-confirmed my suspicion that that straightline bullet was purposely shot downstreet from 0.3 miles away, and not a stray from the car-bombardment. Who knows? Next time, I'm ducking no matter how silent, quiet, dark. After seeing the scene again, it is definitely too far to be aiming at someone. It was a stray.


This morning the street's open, as if nothing happened.

What's up, Sucka?

This will show the post-race photo of the Mount Diablo Challenge. Did the Mofo in 1:09.36. Hit my limit over and over. Could not have done it faster.


The winner did the 10.4-mile base-to-summit trek in 43 minutes. That's 14.5 mph! Uphill!!!!?? Don't think I hit 14.5 mph once. Damn.

A hellish ride

Another horizon photo from on high. This is from the summit of the 3,849-foot Mount Diablo that looms above the basin just east of the East Bay. ROAD MY F-IN' BIKE TO THE TOP FROM THE VALLEY BELOW.

And in the process realized that I'm maybe not a road-biker. Been doing it for several months and getting pre-proud I think. This was a test-run for the Mount Diablo Challenge on Oct. 2, where you have to do the 11.2-mile course from the base to the summit in an hour or less to get a T-shirt. That's AVERAGING 11.2 MPH UPHILL. I think it's impossible. I busted my a$$ today and did it in 1:15. There's no way I'm shaving off 15 minutes in three weeks, 'specially after eating some post-grueling-ride organic vanilla locally-made ice cream. The bomb. Anyhow, it will be humiliating to see people do the climb in an hour on Oct. 2 while I go dizzy, cross-eyed just trying to finish.

Mount Diablo is a scrubby, sunburned place. Don't know why it's a destination. The shaved mountain in the bottom-right of the photo above is a mine operation of diabase. Diabase is used, apparently, in roadbeds and concrete house foundations. Now you know.

Mount Diablo Challenge challenge

A byproduct of pain.

Doing the Mount Diablo Challenge on Oct. 2 and training for it. If you do the 11.2-, 3,000-plus-foot climb in less than an hour you get a T-shirt. I want that f@#%in' shirt.

The above photo was from today's ride on the Berkeley Hills' ridgeline. Grizzly Peak Rd. runs along its length. On the 18-mile ride I averaged 13.8 mph, but monitoring the uphill sections I don't know how averaging 11.2 mph UPhill for ONE hour straight is going to happen. That's fast, that's tough. If I had to guess, I'm averaging about 8 mph uphill, and I'm moving. My quads are burning and my left lower back is twitching. So, eff you Mount Diablo. Doing a dry run on the course on Sunday to even see if it's possible. Very curious.

Fading America and Basketball in San Francisco

The New Yorker's 9/11 edition was surprisingly macabre and navel-gazing. Maybe the naval-gazing wasn't so surprising; 9/11's tenth anniversary called for us to take stock. Is America in decline? In the bittersweet, twilight-filled "Coming Apart," George Packer recounts most of what reasonable Americans found so frustrating and painful in the last 10 years. The reasoning for the Iraq War was a complete joke. I remember, I was a student at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, then. The buildup to the Iraq War was mystifying to me. The whole thing felt trumped up, a complete reach, absurd. I thought the whole city of Austin would shut down with people pouring into the streets when America first invaded. I walked downtown to just be with the other mesmerized shellshocked masses and as I arrived, I sunk into a daze. Traffic was moving normally, life was going on as normal. I was heartbroken, sad, and something deep welled up that dealt with an understanding of what America was/is. It's still sad now.

Today I BART-ed into SF to play some outdoor basketball on the courts between Fell and Grove just west of Golden Gate Park. It's always nice to be in the city. And it's pretty sweet to not lose any of the two-on-two games, or games of 21. One other guy was pretty good. So there.


Post-bball view on top of Lombard Street, Alcatraz Island peaking through in the Bay. Touristic!