After reading about cougar attacks and grizzly bear maulings I found myself completely unprepared for another kind of terror on the trails–the terrible flesh-eating Manzanita of Matilija Canyon. I was hiking through the thicket minding my own business when one of these vicious trees took a wicked 2-1/2″ bite out of my forearm. Interestingly enough…
Summary: A hike up one of the most scenic canyons with year-round running streams. The first two miles are an easy walk on even surface with two easy water crossings. After two miles the trail becomes increasingly difficult to follow, with lots of boulder hopping and scrambling beneath overhanging branches. Numerous pools and a double…
This weekend we went to Lake Hughes for a two day church retreat and I had the opportunity to try my hand at top-roped rock climbing. As you can see from this headless pic of my backside this activity isn’t one of my stronger suits. But it turned out to be a powerful application of…
How to keep your GPS suction cup stuck to your windshield (MeFi)
I found this dead harbor seal pup at the foot of a makeshift cross at Surfer’s Knoll in Ventura yesterday. Dead seals are fairly common on these beaches, particularly this time of year when algae blooms produce high levels of domoic acid, a neurotoxin that can kill sea mammals. Several groups are working to locate…
Available at Bernie DeKoven’s Deep Fun store.
MarkZen’s post at The Cleanest Line about the UK Little Big Voices conference brought to mind the Alloy 1969 conference (pictured above) recorded in the 1972 edition of The Last Whole Earth Catalog. Alloy was a gathering of “outlaw designers” who came together to hash out the realities and possible futures for intentional communities. Much…
The LA Times reports that Reggie the gator is back after an 18 month absence. A couple of things make this a great story. For one thing, Machado Lake is a 40 acre patch of marshy wildness in the heart of a hard-bitten Los Angeles suburb. It’s a nature story in the middle of an…
It’s been bad news for domesticated species this month. First we had the news about melamine tainted pet food. Next we had news that honeybees are disappearing, possibly because of cellular phone signals. But now there’s a bold suggestion from the Safe Pet Food blog that links these two stories, speculating that melamine might be…
Chris Jordan’s photography is stunning, subtle and clear…and absolutely mind bending. In his most current exhibit, Running the Numbers, he uses crystal clear images manipulated in such a way as to tell startling stories about otherwise meaningless statistics. For instance, what does it mean that 426,000 cell phones are retired every day? Jordan shows us…
Brandon Wirtz (the Greatest Living American) pointed me to this Xbox experiment. Armed with a power inverter, laptop, Samsung monitor and Xbox, he found that he could take advantage of Google’s Mountain View wifi stauration and play Xbox live in the back seat of a 2007 Jeep JKL. I would think that if you had…
This is getting pretty silly, but Brandon Wirtz is neck and neck with Stephen Colbert in the race to be the Greatest Living American.
I don’t know if I’d call him the Greatest Living American, I think that title deserves to be split 50/50 between Ben and Jerry. But if he isn’t the greatest living american, or even very nearly the greatest living american (because possibly someone else is the greatest living american) Stephen Colbert is certainly the pluckiest.…
Perhaps it’s because cell phone technology seems too good to be true. You can’t go more than three months without hearing a news report about how cell phones are a peril to our lives. First came the notion that cell phones cause brain cancer…a notion that has been declared inconclusive by science. Then there’s the…
Zeke Barlow of the Ventura County Star writes about a battle over funding between environmentalists and off-road vehicle users. The nub is like this: the Sierra Club wants more money set aside for hiking trails. CORVA wants the money used to keep Hungry Valley and other such parks open. Representative Darrell Steinberg wants to increase…
