2/23/08
During his delivery to Adams
& Chittenden Scientific Glass, Atlas driver relaxes--waiting
for Mike from-the-office to help--after an empty hydrogen six-pack
fell off his delivery truck. Mike from-the-office says hydrogen
stored in these cylinders in pretty safe. Later over a beer, Chris,
owner of 900 GRAYSON, remarked "That's good to know. I mean
it's not like they make bombs out of the stuff or something."
I'd like to thank Tracy and
Morgan for their help processing this photo.
Driver is blonked-out for
privacy.
Claudia, I'm told that the
project behind Byron's received permits, etc some time ago, before
the most recent chazari.*
*junk
"Year of the . . . Rat parade for stormy
S.F." writes Steve
Rubenstein of the San Francisco Chronicle.
"It's about to be the
Year of the Very Soggy Rat.
A whole bunch of giant rats
were getting gussied up - and raincoated - inside a San Francisco
waterfront warehouse Friday, preparing for their star turns aboard
decorated floats in the Chinese New Year parade this evening.
With a monster storm heading
for the Bay Area and only hours to go until parade time, float
designers were reinforcing and weatherproofing their fanciful
creations. It was time to batten down the rats.
Black tarps were being fastened
to engine housings. Waterproof tape was being wrapped around wires.
Extra staples were being stapled into bunting, streamers, plastic
flowers and just about everything else that wasn't nailed down,
which was plenty."
"About the House: Some Notes on Building
a Fire" writes Matt
Cantor in our Planet--in the fireplace, that is.
"William Wharff: Architect, Civil War Vet
and Mason" writes
Daniella Thompson.
"The Masonic Temple
at 2501 Bancroft Way was built in 1906. Of all the architects
who resided in Berkeley during the first four decades of the 20th
century, the one who received the most coverage in the local press
was not John Galen Howard or Bernard Maybeck but William Hatch
Wharff. And only occasionally was the press coverage related to
his profession.
Neither a classicist nor
an innovator, Wharff was a practical builder who incorporated
the prevailing idiom of the day into his designs. His four designated
Berkeley landmarks Carlson Block (1903) at 3228 Adeline in Lorin
Station; the Masonic Temple (1905-06) at Shattuck and Bancroft;
the Pfister Knitting Mill (1906) at 8th and Parker; and the F.D.
Chase Building (1909) at 2107 Shattuck blend into their surroundings
rather than making individual statements."
Our Byron emails
This past Thursday February
21st, United States Jump Rope All-Star Team member Billy Jackson
made a guest appearance in my classroom. I've attached a few photo's
from the visit. Also more information can be found at my Double
Dutch program info site: http//:3dprogram.blogspot.com
Byron
2/24/08
"Writer strips the Twinkie of all its secrets:Man
overcomes nature, 'vice president of cake' to learn snack's origins"
reports Suzanne Bohan in our Times.
"When Steve Ettlinger
donned a hard hat, a head lamp and emergency breathing equipment
before his alarming descent 1,600 feet into Wyoming mine shaft,
he wondered whether his quest to find the natural sources of all
39 ingredients in Hostess Twinkies'had gone too far.
'As a food writer, I'd really
gone astray," he told a crowd of about 100 Google employees
earlier this month at the company's Mountain View headquarters.
To complement the author's
talk, chefs at Google prepared organic versions of Twinkies for
the event, using locally-raised or procured products to make the
almond-flavored, cream-filled pastries.
Ettlinger traversed the country
and hopped the globe, touring plants, mines and refineries to
find the actual origins of the almost unpronounceable ingredients
used to make Twinkies. His young daughter's puzzlement over a
strange-sounding one called polysorbate 60 listed on her ice cream
bar label inspired his quest, which led to
the publication of his book, "Twinkie, Deconstructed."
The hardcover version was released last year, and the softcover
book is due out on Feb. 26.
'This is a terrific book
that really opened my eyes, and I don't know of another book quite
like it,' said Michael Pollan, the Berkeley-based best-selling
food and nature author, most recently of 'In Defense of Food:
An Eater's Manifesto.'
Although Ettlinger chose
Twinkies for his in-depth exploration on food additives, he's
quick to point out that the book is a treatise on processed foods
in general."
Hostess Twinkie's ingredient
list:
Enriched bleached wheat flour
[flour, ferrous sulfate, "b" vitamins
(niacin, thiamine, mononitrate (b1), riboflavin (b2) folic acid)],
sugar, corn syrup, water, high fructose corn syrup, partially
hydrogenated vegetable shortening (contains one or more of: soybean,
canola or palm oil), dextrose, whole eggs, contains 2 percent
or less
of: modified cornstarch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium
acid
pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch,
corn flour, corn dextrins, mono and digylcerides, polysorbate
60, soy
lecithin, natural and artificial flavors, soy protein isolate,
sodium
stearoyl lactylate, sodium and calcium caseinate, calcium sulfate,
sorbic acid (to retain freshness), color added (yellow 5, red
40).
May contain peanuts or traces of peanuts.
Google alternative recipe:
Organic cake flour, sugar,
organic cream, organic butter, organic
eggs, organic milk, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract,
almond
extract, baking powder, cream of tartar, salt.
Healthy alternative recipe?
Maybe Richard of Eight Street's
thought in some way applies to original Twinkies. "You gonna
die of somethin'."
"Two arrested in Berkeley Marine recruiting
center protest"
reports our Times.
"Two people were arrested
Friday after they encircled police during a protest of the U.S.
Marine recruiting center, a
police spokeswoman said."
"Aerial spraying plan has foul odor to
some:State insists pesticide is safe, but many residents, city
leaders aren't so sure"
reports the Times' Kristin Bender.
"Aerial spraying will
begin in the East Bay this summer to combat the light brown apple
moth, but already residents and city leaders are protesting the
potentially harmful move because of concerns about health effects.
Spraying of the pesticide,
called Checkmate, is expected to begin in the Bay Area in August
and could continue for five years over San Francisco, parts of
San Mateo and Marin counties, and Oakland, Piedmont, Albany, Emeryville,
Richmond, Berkeley, El Cerrito, and El Sobrante."
2/25/08
Berkeley, California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Berkeley is a city
on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in Northern California,
in the United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities
of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany
and the unincorporated community of Kensington. The eastern city
limits coincide with the county line (bordering Contra Costa County)
which generally follows the ridgeline of the Berkeley Hills. Berkeley
is located in northern Alameda County.
Berkeley is the site of the
University of California, Berkeley, the oldest campus of the University
of California system, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
Lawrence Hall of Science, Space Sciences Laboratory, and Mathematical
Sciences Research Institute, which are on the campus grounds."
more here.
West Berkeley, Berkeley,
California
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"West Berkeley is generally
the area of Berkeley, California which lies west of San Pablo
Avenue, abutting San Francisco Bay. It includes the area which
was once the unincorporated town of Ocean View, as well as the
filled-in areas along the shoreline west of I-80 (the Eastshore
Freeway) including, mainly, the Berkeley Marina.
Ocean View began as the name
given to a stagecoach stop established by former sea captain William
J. Bowen along the Contra Costa Road (today's San Pablo Avenue)
sometime during the early 1850s. The name was applied thereafter
to the settlement which began growing up between the stop and
a wharf built at the foot of what is now Delaware Street. Ocean
View was included in the incorporation of Berkeley in 1878 and
thereafter was known as West Berkeley. Ocean View was also, briefly
(1908-9) the name of what is now Albany, California, just north
of Berkeley. Ocean View was primarily an industrial, working
class community. The name derived from the fact that the Pacific
Ocean is visible through the Golden Gate across San Francisco
Bay from the site.
The main east-west thoroughfare
in Ocean View was Delaware Street. In later years, it was
eclipsed by University Avenue. The main north-south thoroughfare
was San Pablo Road (initially called the Contra Costa Road), today's
San Pablo Avenue. One of the earliest buildings in Berkeley was
an inn at the stagecoach stop called "Bowen's Inn",
located at what is now the northwest corner of San Pablo Avenue
and Delaware Street. The wharf at the foot of Delaware Street
began as "Jacobs Landing", named for its builder and
proprietor, James H. Jacobs. The wharf was improved and enlarged
with the help of Zimri Heywood, the proprietor of a lumberyard
at the wharf, which was then renamed "Jacobs and Heywood
Wharf". Lumber, soap, hay and many other goods were transhipped
from here. Ferry service was established between the wharf
and San Francisco in 1874. In 1876, the Central Pacific constructed
its new main line, part of the transcontinental overland route,
along the shoreline. A passenger and freight depot was built at
Delaware Street. This was replaced in 1911 by a new depot at 3rd
Street and University Avenue which still exists, although it is
no longer in use as a depot."
italic mine
to be continued
Meeting of the Planning Commission
February 27, 2008 North Berkeley Senior Center
7:00 PM 1901 Hearst Avenue
Action items: Matters
for discussion and possible action.
9. West Berkeley Increased Flexibility Tour. (Report attached).
10. Downtown Area Plan. EIR assumptions for land use and height
and a "feasibility study" of
buildings of different heights. (Report attached).
11. Density Bonus. Recommendations of the Joint Density Bonus
Subcommittee. (Report
attached).
12. Election of officers.
information items: Action
may be taken on any information report at this meeting if any
Commissioner requests its placement on the agenda as an action
item.
13. Comments on DEIR for the Helios Energy Research Facility from
Dan Marks, Director of
Planning, to Jeff Philliber, LBNL Environmental Planner, February
8, 2008.
14. Memorandum transmitting eminent domain reform legislation
on the June 3, 2008 ballot.
italic mne
a color rendering of the
zoning map that appears in my original copy of the West Berkeley
Plan
(streets are also
difficult to read in the original)
west-Berkeley is made up
of six (6) different zones
"A camel is a race-horse designed
by a committee" Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky (attributed)
2/26/08
Before 8AM yesterday, I reported
that a body of a man was found on Harmon and California. And that
apparently shot elsewhere, he collapsed next to an auto.
This morning Kristin Bender
and Doug Oakley of our Times report "Berkeley:
As city's second homicide of the year is investigated, officials
are concerned about a rise in crime.
As detectives investigate the second homicide of the year, city
leaders are considering asking homeowners to foot the bill to
put more cops on Berkeley streets.
Police on Monday were investigating
the killing of Brandon Terrell Jones, a 29-year-old Berkeley man
who was shot just before midnight Sunday. Police said Jones was
gunned down in the 1500 block of Harmon Street between Sacramento
and California streets.
Police said Jones was shot
multiple times and transported to Highland Hospital in Oakland
where he died a short time later.
Berkeley Police Lt. Andrew
Greenwood said nearby residents reported hearing multiple gunshots
beginning at 11:50 p.m. Sunday.
'Officers, who arrived on the scene within three minutes, found
the victim suffering from multiple gunshot wounds,' Greenwood
said.
Greenwood said detectives
worked through the night on the case, but had not made any arrests
late Monday. A motive was not released by police Monday."
"Greenspan negative on US economy" reports BBC NEWS.
"The former chairman of the US central bank Alan Greenspan
has warned that US economic growth has stalled and a quick recovery
is not likely.
'As of right now US economic
growth is at zero,' he said, adding the longer it stayed this
way the greater the risk of a deep recession.
Wall Street giants Goldman
Sachs and Merrill Lynch have both forecast that the US economy
will contract in 2008.
The US Federal Reserve has
said 2008 growth will be between 1.3% and 2%.
The forecast, made last week,
was half a percent lower than the Fed's previous estimation.
The gloomy outlook was blamed on falling house prices, reduced
bank lending, turmoil in the financial markets and higher oil
prices."
2/27/08
A film about Marvin, "Marvin
Lipofsky: A Journey in Glass" will be shown in France at
the International du Film sur L'Argile et laVerre, April
5 and 6.
"Berkeley NAACP chief draws fire for comments:Branch
members say they did not authorize statements critical of police
after woman was fatally shot"
reports Kristin Bender of our Times.
"The Berkeley branch
of the NAACP said Tuesday that its president acted inappropriately
when he issued a statement last week saying the sole intent of
the Berkeley police is to kill any African-American they can.
. . .
Two police leaders -- Henry
Wellington, president of the Berkeley Police Association, and
Shira Warren, president of the Berkeley Black Police Officers
Association -- flatly rejected Jackson's statement.
'While we respect (Jackson's) rights to an opinion, his statement
has absolutely no basis in fact and is without any credibility
whatsoever,' the police union letter said. During this difficult
time for the community, these remarks were needlessly inflammatory,
it said."
full story
Excerpts from one of the
email I've received
"Dear Mayor Bates, .
. .
I am informing you that my company will no longer do business
with any of our current suppliers located in the Berkeley,California
metro area. . . . I am informing all of my contacts,
associates and patrons that we will no longer do any business
of any sort with anyone living in the Berkeley area. . .
. We, and I personally, are going to recommend that they
ALL along with us boycott your city, its purveyors, suppliers,
and businesses and CHARITIES of every kind. . . . "
And, Kristin Bender and Doug
Oakley of our Times report "Hotels,
theater, restaurants have seen cancellations, with hostility from
opponents of military branch cited.
"People who are angry
at city leaders for their anti-military stance are taking it out
on businesses -- canceling hotel and restaurant reservations as
well as theater tickets.
They are writing letters
to the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce outlining their plans to boycott
the city.
And they are steering clear of downtown shops because the weekly
anti-war protests have become increasingly volatile."
Harold Lawrence emails this
New York Times obituary.
"Morton J. Savada, 85, Seller of 78-R.P.M.
Records, Dies.
Morton J. Savada, who lined
the narrow aisles of his store in Midtown
Manhattan with nearly a quarter of a million 78-r.p.m. records,
offering devotees of King Oliver, Ma Rainey, Artie Shaw and Benny
Goodman the chance to hear the original sound of nondigital
discography, died at his home in Harrison, N.Y., on Feb. 11. He
was 85.
The cause was complications
of lung cancer, his son Elias said.
For more than 30 years, starting
in the mid-'70s, Mr. Savada's second-
floor store, Records Revisited, at 34 West 33rd Street, was a
haven
for die-hard collectors of those rather fragile records, which
were
popular in the first half of the last century. By the 1950s, the
mostly 10-inch disks, with one short tune to a side, had been
largely
supplanted by 45- and 33 1/3-r.p.m. records; and now, of course,
LPs
have been pushed aside by compact discs.
The signs marking sections
of Mr. Savada's store included Jazz, Big
Band, Latin, Country, Broadway, Vocals, Instrumental, Spoken Word
(including comedy) and Rarities. The shelves were 12 feet high,
and
the aisles were barely as wide as the shoulders of a shopper.
Each of
the records remained in a paper sleeve, often the original.
'It was packed tight, so
you didn't turn around fast in those aisles,
and there was always the great smell of old paper - the sleeves,'
one
regular customer, Rich Conaty, said on Tuesday.
Harold, a friend, was manager
of the London Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and was one
of the several people responsible for Mercury Living Presence
LPS--arguably, the great American classical label. He is also
a writer and you can read him variously in Journal
of Recorded Music 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
LP collector and friend,
Nick Despotopoulos emails
Hey,
3 million LP's/45s/78s
300k CDs
collector insanity taken
to the ultimate extreme : http://thegreatestmusiccollection.com/index.html
and
the eBay listing(just
ended - will be relisted)
2/28/08
David Snipper on hazarai,
an email sent after breakfast at 900
Greetings Ron
When I was a young lad in
L.A. there were frequent family gatherings. They always included
lots of food and drink. At the end of the festivities, a few individuals
tended to lurk around the table(s) nibling and picking over the
remains as the table(s) were being cleared for a game of
cards. As the cards were being dealt they would casually ask for
some peanuts or crackers to nosh on with the schnaaps during the
game. They were laughingly described as hasars, who could and
would eat all the left-overs. We refered to them in later years
as the family gargage disposals. I think the closest english
equivalent would be pig or hog.
Which all lead to the meaning of hasarai. Anything suitable for
hog or pig feed, stuff normally thrown out, left-overs, about
to become garbage, etc.
This is not your Funk and Wangalls definitive translation,
just a very fond but slowly fading memory.
best of the day,
David
Eric Hoffer
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 May 21, 1983) was an American
social writer. He produced ten books and was awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in February 1983 by President of the United States
Ronald Reagan. His first book, The True Believer, published in
1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim
from both scholars and laymen.[1] This book, which he considered
his best[citation needed], established his reputation[citation
needed]. He remained a successful[citation needed] writer for
most of his remaining years. . . .
Hoffer's working class roots
and "intellectuals"
Hoffer drew confidence and
inspiration from his modest roots and working-class surroundings,
seeing in it vast human potential.
In a letter to Margaret Anderson
in 1941, he wrote
My writing is done in railroad
yards while waiting for a freight,
in the fields while
waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch.
Towns are too distracting.
Hoffer also took solace in
being an outcast, believing that the outcasts have always been
the pioneers of society. He did not consider himself an "intellectual",
and scorned the term as descriptive of the allegedly anti-American
academics of the West. He believed academics craved power but
were denied it in the democratic countries of the West (though
not in totalitarian countries, which Hoffer understood to be an
intellectual's dream). Instead, Hoffer believed academics chose
to bite the hand that fed them in their quest for power and influence.
Though Hoffer did not identify
with "liberal intellectuals" and often criticized the
radical ideology of many activists of the New Left, it would be
wrong to characterize Hoffer's thinking as "conservative".
Rather, his structural approach to analyzing and understanding
mass movements and their ideologies often led Hoffer to consistently
nonideological positions. As he said, "my writing grows out
of my life just as a branch from a tree." When called an
intellectual, he insisted that he was a longshoreman. . . .
Full article here.
2/29/08
new parking in Potter Creek
for Meyer Sound, on Heinz just off San Pablo
a Bob Kubik photo
"Council May Face State in Court to Stop
Moth Spray" reports
Judith Scherr of our Planet.
"The state secretary
of agriculture failed to convince the Berkeley City Council Tuesday
night that aerial spraying of a pesticide to eradicate the Light
Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) is either necessary or benign.
With the support of some
five dozen anti-spray constituents packing the meeting room, the
council voted not only to join neighboring cities in statements
of opposition to the spray, but also to consider going to court
to prevent the state from moving forward with plans to spray Bay
Area counties in August."
"Zero-interest loans make homes affordable" reports Tom Lochner in our Times.
"In a season of bad
news for many homeowners nationwide, there's a happy story on
San Pablo's 16th Street, where the Khettavong family recently
moved into a renovated, three-bedroom, two-bath house.
And they didn't do it with
a mortgage that could backfire on them in a couple of years.
The Khettavongs -- Deneisa,
Paul and their son, Mark -- got help from San Pablo's First-Time
Homebuyer Program, which can help low- and moderate-income homebuyers
with a 30-year, zero-interest second mortgage."
"Wine Country economy in sour times:Upscale
area known for its vineyards and estates is experiencing a
plunge in housing sales and prices" writes the AP's Evelyn Nieves
For many residents of this,
one of the most picturesque valleys in the world, life is still
a bowl of grapes. But beyond the vineyards and stonewalled estates,
times are shaky and the future is unclear.
Tourists sipping their way
up the 30-mile valley from the city of Napa to Calistoga may never
see this other Napa Valley. But the celebrated Wine Country is
proof that there are few places in the nation left unsmacked by
the housing crisis. Beautiful Napa is experiencing foreclosures,
plunging housing prices, unheard of drops in home sales and the
nervous sense of foreboding that has spread across the country."
Eternally useful
links
In our rainy season you can
find more information about our current weather conditions than
is good for you at www.wunderground.com
Want to see weather coming
in, going out, beautiful sunsets, and much, much more? Check out
http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/
This very hip site was in an email from reader and contributor,
Tony Almeida. Read Tony's Jimi Hendrix story on the only page that routinely gets
more hits than Scrambled Eggs.
Richmond
Ramblers' motorcycle club member, Cliff Miller emails A very
useful link
If you ever need to get a
human being on the phone at a credit card company or bank, etc.,
this site tells you how to defeat their automated system and get
you to a human being within a few seconds.
http://gethuman.com/us/
Markets
is not just a reference for Berkeley-Hills radicals with 1.5 mil
homes and considerable portfolios.
Our Planning Department is
here.
Our Berkeley
PD Site with crime statistics and more is here.
Crime Log
for 94710 is here
This site is NOT affiliated
with Berkeley PD.
Take time to report
crime!
All reports
of crime-in-progress should first go to Berkeley PD dispatch--911
or non-emergency, 981-5900. THEN make sure you notify EACH of
these City people.
The contacts
are below:
Officer Andrew
Frankel, Berkeley PD - 981-5774 AFrankel@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Angela Gallegos-Castillo,
City Mgr Off - 981-2491 agallegos-castillo@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Ryan Lau,
aid to Darryl Moore - 981-7120 rlau@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Darryl Moore,
City Councilman dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us
More
Scrambled Eggs & Lox, here
and
Stories about Berkeley and stories about recorded-music
are at
Journal of Recorded Music 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
ronpenndorf@earthlink.net
The original owner
of all scanned material retains copyright. The material is used
only to illustrate