"Happiness is an organized closet." That's the headline of my receipt from the Container Store. I do like Santana Row in the end.

There went 27,000 marijuana plants down the drain in Sonoma. Woops.

"Lantos had assumed his committee chairmanship [of the House Foreign Affairs Committee] just a year [ago], when Democrats retook control of Congress. He said then that in a sense his whole life had been a preparation for the job." A sad time for our representative Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, to pass away of cancer.

Am I just too old-fashioned or hippie? Some of these "money-saving" suggestions from NYT are great; others make me sad. Desert local retailers? Is this how globalization has trickled down to the average American?

From dad -- The scary side of fog: 100-car pileups.

If you're looking for a harrowing real-life scare this Halloween, look no further than the moving experience of four firefighters who narrowly escaped death in the SoCal inferno.

the 40th summer of love

50,000 gathered in GG Park to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the summer of love. Too bad I missed both the original and the commemoration. It sounds like there was a great crowd. "San Francisco police said the gathering proceeded harmoniously, with no major incidents reported. 'Just nothing but love,' police Sgt. Mark Im said."

In Cali, a house made of straw will spare you air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, allow you to have European deep-set windows and doors, and it won't kill you during the Big One.

salty intrigue

I only saw the Salton Sea once on the way to Death Valley or some other SoCal destination, but I never forgot it. It's vast enough to be mind-boggling, but not so vast that one simply views it as an ocean, as I did on the shores of Lake Michigan. I could never figure out the story behind this body of water, but thanks to a CNN article and Wikipedia article (Wikipedia includes articles on all sorts of things you wouldn't find in other general reference volumes), I finally understand.

The Salton Sea, completely below sea level, was created in 1905 by accident. Its water supply is unintentional and artificial. Its lowest point is only 5 feet above the lowest point of Death Valley. Sometimes thousands of dead tilapia wash up on its shores.

For a while, the Sea was a resort area. Google Maps shows the extensive network of streets built for the Salton Sea. Most of them are empty. (Is my inner photographer screaming to get out there right now or what? It sounds even eerier than Pleasure Beach or Doel.) The sea just got too salty.

Like the Hoge Veluwe, this man-made environment has become essential to many kinds of wildlife. And there are many who are trying to save the sea. There is also thirsty San Diego trying to get at the water that feeds it.

Utterly fascinating. I can't wait for the 3,000-page report due to be released to the public shortly. Well, perhaps I'm being facetious. But I've just found out that a random thing that's always intrigued me is even more strange and otherwordly and controversial and important than I imagined. I wish I could take a couple months to explore and publish a book of photos. Guess I'll have to be content with looking for someone else's.

palm problem

I have a problem with palm trees in California. I love stereotypical images of palms at the beach, and in fact have created a couple of mock-retro ones that I'll try to post if I ever get around to turning on my internal/external hard drive. I have a purse and a bikini with palms, and it's totally for that Cali look. But I never liked the look of palms poking up all over California. They absolutely don't belong in San Francisco, although they line Herb Caen Boulevard and struggle by the new tracks in Visitacion Valley to survive the fog, and they hardly belong in SoCal. Our climate is temperate, but not tropical.

And it looks tacky.

For the first time, I've found people who agree. "'They don't provide the same benefits as the other, more leafy trees,' says Paula Daniels, a Board of Public Works commissioner who is heading up the planting effort. Their tall, bare trunks make them inferior when it comes to providing shade, Daniels said, and some experts believe their scant leaves make them less effective at trapping air pollution. And while sun-dappled palms lining a freeway may look good in the movies or on a postcard, Dunlap said people standing beside them can feel as if they are next to a telephone pole." So she's not worried about re-foresting SoCal with palms when plenty of native species are available.

According to one CS grad alum, the mega palms lining the main driveway into Stanford University cost about $100,000 to maintain each year.