When you wake up Sunday with an hour less sleep, and it’s still dark and cold, keep playing this until you feel better.
Or if you’re really old, you can play it and reminisce about the Summer of Love.
Category: Reminiscences
From the misty corners of my memory
What the Funicular?
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s characters shared a tender “La La Land” moment inside an Angels Flight cable car. The real-life Angels Flight is decidedly less romantic. The funicular railway travels 300 feet up Bunker Hill at a thirty-three-degree angle from downtown Los Angeles. Traveled, that is.
The funicular cable cars originally opened in 1901 and ran until 1969. It reopened in 1996, then closed in 2001 after a fatal accident. It has operated off and on since 2010. It suffered a derailment in 2013 and has been out of service since. The trash and graffiti were not visible in the movie scene, purportedly filmed without the knowledge of the L.A. utilities commission. Angels Flight is being renovated and will supposedly open again by Labor Day… not like the Fenelon Place Elevator that has been in continuous service since 1893.
Next time you are in Dubuque Iowa, after you’ve eaten your loose-meat sandwich and breaded pork tenderloin, find your way to Fourth Street and take an excursion on the Fenelon Place Elevator. Don’t worry, the trip will not cause you any digestive distress; it’s a gentle ride. Former mayor and former state senator J. K. Graves built the incline railway in 1882, for his private use to transport him between his home at the top of the hill and his bank downtown. Two years later, he took passengers at a nickel a ride. In the midst of a recession, Mr. Graves gave the newly-formed Fenelon Place Elevator Company the franchise to use the track’s right of way.
It now costs $3.00 round trip for the 296-foot ride up the 189-foot hill. At the top you’ll have a panoramic view of downtown Dubuque and the Mississippi River.
Vancouver Welcomes Trump
Vancouver British Columbia was a welcoming place during the 2010 Winter Olympics. I was fortunate enough to own a residence there at the time and to be there for some of the festivities. The streets were alive day and night with people from all over the world; Walking through the crowds downtown one heard many languages spoken. Vancouver welcomed the world and the world savored Vancouver’s beauty. I no longer am a part-time Vancouverite. I may have got out just in time.
Recently the shiny new sixty-nine-story Trump International Hotel and Tower officially opened, a few blocks away from the no-longer-mine condominium. The Holborn Group, led by Joo Kim Tiah, from one of Malaysia’s richest families, owns the hotel. The Trump organization licenses the name to the hotel operator and handles reservations. A petition demanding the Trump now not be allowed has more than 50,000 signatures.
About a hundred anti-Trump demonstrators greeted Eric and Donald Jr, who came for the ribbon cutting. Vancouver mayor, Gregor Robertson, did not attend, stating, the Trump name and brand “have no more place on Vancouver’s skyline than his ignorant ideas have in the modern world.” City Councilman Kerry Jang called the hotel a “beacon of racism … intolerance, sexism and bullying.”
Being Presidential
Pundits have largely applauded the President’s address to Congress, praising him for being “presidential” and sticking to the Teleprompter. We have a new standard for judging our leader. Simply not going off the rails during a speech now is the measure of success. (Editorial comment: Exploiting a grieving person – at her most vulnerable – is truly despicable.)
Here for comparison, here are excerpts from previous presidents.
Infrastructure Report
One afternoon in downtown Spokane, I came across a spectacle I had not seen before. A truck was stopped in the middle of the street underneath a railroad viaduct. The box-van lorry was wedged tightly between the pavement and the underside of the train overpass. The driver was deflating tires in a frantic attempt to create enough clearance to get his vehicle out. I learned this was regular free entertainment for Spokanites.
Spokane has several low-clearance rail viaducts in the middle of town. There are 
enough truck drivers who don’t read or don’t believe the yellow signs displaying the height, or don’t know how high their vehicles are, to keep the locals amused. Amused that is, except for other drivers caught up in the resultant traffic back ups.
Click here to read about more fun infrastructure examples.
A note on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge aka “Galloping Gertie”:
Pre-licensing classes for insurance licenses invariably use this to illustrate the importance of doing business in an ethical manner. Providing insurance coverage for sizable projects typically involves multiple insurance companies. For example, General Insurance Company, was at risk for $1 million of the total risk. Afterwards, they ran advertisements with a picture of the check they wrote for the claim.
Not so pleased was Merchants Fire Assurance Company, whose agent collected $70,000 premium and kept it, not telling the company he had issued a policy. After all, what could happen to a brand-new bridge. Merchants was surprised to learn they were on the hook for $800,000, their share of the loss.
Pliny the Younger… and More
After twenty-plus years in northern California’s wine country, I recently returned to Oregon. I got out just in time. (In time for ice and snow in Portland.) Five years of drought has given way to rain, lots of rain, bringing landslides, flooding and washed-out roads. When I arrived in Sonoma County, its transformation from a richly diverse agricultural area – apples, cherries, pears, prunes, hops – to wine grapes was nearly complete. I watched as most any bare patch of ground was planted with vineyards.
The recession in 2008 brought new planting to a halt. Sonoma and Mendocino and Napa and Lake counties were awash with unsold premium wine. The recession’s upside was several years of cheap wine made with blends of exceptional-quality grapes. Which brings us to the current time and a different type of diversification.