On Our Block Here in Alameda: Let There Be Light?

Last December my friend J visited form southern California. While he was here, a couple idiots out joyriding in the early hours rounded the corner of the nearest intersection too wide, skidded out of control, and slammed into his car, side-swiping it and plowing into a car parked in front of J’s.

Read Full Post »

Just Another BART Altercation

Last night I saw this large, balding guy follow a short man onto the BART train, hollering at him. When the short fellow tried to laugh it off, the balding guy got right in his face, aggressively laughing back, mocking him as his head bobbed up and down. 

Read Full Post »

The Wee Hours & the House of Geriatric Pets

I’ve had insomnia for years. Our old German Shepherd dog, Ernie, has perhaps learned this. He certainly monitors me closely enough.

He no longer merely approaches me during the early hours, between 2 and 4 a.m., but he has devised signals to roust me. Including scratching vigorously enough to rattle his collar. More recently, he has taken to smacking his lips.

I know, you wouldn’t think it would be that loud, would you? But just try and get back to sleep in the quiet, dead of night with a big dog going smack, smack, smack.

Read Full Post »

Comcast and My Lost Emails

I sent an email to three friends about baseball. I got a reply from one of them, C, and in reading his message I noticed that he was answering an earlier reply from another original recipient, my friend R. But I had never gotten the earlier message from R, even though C had hit reply to all and his message clearly showed my e-address in R’s earlier message.

Concerned, I called Comcast. In explaining to the Comcast customer support technician what had happened, I offered to forward the message that clearly showed R’s earlier response, which never had arrived in my inbox. He gave me an email address and I forwarded the message. And we waited.

Read Full Post »

The New Bay Bridge

Twenty-four years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, we finally got a new bridge to replace the damaged eastern span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. It’s pretty, despite SF Chronicle architecture critic John King’s dismissal.

Here’s the new span next to the old span.

 

Read Full Post »