This weekend evolved (devolved?) into one wherein I've been well ahead of my minimal apartment and bill-paying duties, with a sudden surplus of time, and living as I am now downrange in the People's Socialist Democratic Republic of California, well behind enemy lines and having been TDY here for a full year now.
For anyone wondering, secretly or openly, what would prepare someone to contend with moving from the Midwest to California for a job in these Latter Days, I would recommend you read the following.
I find myself serendipitously with a surplus of time to 'assassinate'.
For me, California is a sort of love / hate thing. "But the weather is so bitchin', Dude."
Yes, it is. And today is proof in certainty of that. Off-shore flow has boosted the temperatures and removed the Summer chill you find in more windy parts of the Bay Area.
Aviation types know this as CAVU.
Locals call this 'Delta Weather', wherein you sail up the San Juan or Sacramento Rivers into the Delta, anchor, and party until you can not party any further, or are arrested; this is not competitive 'sailing weather' on the Bay.
Locals call this 'Delta Weather', wherein you sail up the San Juan or Sacramento Rivers into the Delta, anchor, and party until you can not party any further, or are arrested; this is not competitive 'sailing weather' on the Bay.
So, driving to one of my routine watering holes, I noted that under the 'law of infinite probability', several songs suddenly sequenced into rotation on my legacy iPod (plugged into my car's USB feed) that I had not heard for decades. Seemingly, by divine providence.
The one song that tripped my trigger was Def Leopard's 'Gods of War' from their Hysteria Album. Driving West on CA-4 in my Honda Fit (32 mpg hammer down, 40 mpg if you drive like you are in Wisconsin - which I'm not), I suddenly flashed-back to when I first arrived in the Bay Area, way back in March 1989, when I left a rockin' job at Rockwell Autonetics in Anaheim working as a Manufacturing Engineer on the PeaceKeeper Strategic Ballistic Missile, to take a job with a boutique Aerospace & Defense company in Concord California (right before peace broke out, the Berlin Wall came down, and Congreff and Bill Clinton extracted a well-deserved 'peace dividend'),.
At the time, I had a collection of motorcycles, and not much more. My Alpha bike was a 1987 Suzuki GSXR-1000R, trimmed in blue and white.
I would explore the roads by swinging a leg over the Beast, and taking various back-roads to find interesting places.
The One place I latched onto early on was to take the McEwen Road exit to Port Costa. The destination is the Warehouse Cafe.
So, I detoured to vector to the Warehouse.
As I sit here, it is an anachronism which has not appreciably changed in the 30 years since first landing. A unique place. One of my all time favorites. It is a place where bikers, yuppie scum, professionals, sports fans, and all manner of humanity; they all get along.
You can sit and watch the ships travel on the river, and the passenger trains pass by, from an establishment that was a warehouse in the 1870's, and now is a Class I dive bar today.
This is one day I'm enjoying immensely. Old Friends are good thing.
I would explore the roads by swinging a leg over the Beast, and taking various back-roads to find interesting places.
The One place I latched onto early on was to take the McEwen Road exit to Port Costa. The destination is the Warehouse Cafe.
So, I detoured to vector to the Warehouse.
As I sit here, it is an anachronism which has not appreciably changed in the 30 years since first landing. A unique place. One of my all time favorites. It is a place where bikers, yuppie scum, professionals, sports fans, and all manner of humanity; they all get along.
You can sit and watch the ships travel on the river, and the passenger trains pass by, from an establishment that was a warehouse in the 1870's, and now is a Class I dive bar today.
This is one day I'm enjoying immensely. Old Friends are good thing.
