Flaster

"'It is easier for a person to conquer everything else than to conquer oneself.' At first I thought I had found a truth, but when I looked behind the notion, I saw that it was only its utter falseness that gave it any semblance of truth" These are the kind of thoughts one can achieve through the laser focus one has while going 9 miles down an icy 7% grade Rocky Mountain pass, in -5° weather with no heat... read more

Mon, Nov 10th- For my drive from San Francisco to L.A., muthafuckin crazy castles. Yesterday, I toured the Winchester mansion. 160 rooms of early century crazy, executed with 24-7 carpenter support. The story goes that Sarah Winchester felt, due to her husband and only child passing away suddenly, that she was haunted by the victims of the Winchester rifle, and the only way to escape or appease them was to build a maze-like house, and continue building until the end of her life, which would also be prolonged by the building process. The story also goes that the mansion was laid out like that, with doors and stairs to nowhere, because Sarah weas in no way trained as an architect. I thing the truth lies somewhere in between. Layout aside, it is a lovely Victorian mansion. ... read more

Nov 7th, Day 2: Gonna drive on through, with a brief stop at the prehistoric gardens, and get back on schedule for... what, a petting zoo with a baby tiger? Hell yeah. I'll even wait a half hour until you open. For such a small personal zoo, they had quite a bit of space and animals. But it was nice to see the staff have personal relationships with all the animals. The lioness and tigress were very playful, playing hide and seek behind rocks and logs. I checked, they were being playful, not hunting me. Not that it couldn't be both. The baby bears were nice and playful, but at one year old they were already way too big to play with humans. The three cats I got to pet, a tiger, a bobcat, and a ... read more

Editor's Note:Whoops. I have greatly overestimated the capability of my netbook and smartphone. I will need to make some adjustments, by which I mean coffee shops. Also, my smartphone will not do GPS without a WiFi connection, supposedly, so things might get interesting.I'm not too worried about getting lost or not being able to find things, there are maps and road signs. Always have been.... read more