Taking pepper spray to bear country: Alaska Airlines lied in telling us to declare it in our checked bags

TSA confiscated it.
What a waste.

The U.S. Coast Guard should take over the incompetent inept bungling rude botched job of the fools at TSA.

News done right, right now: Wildfire just EAST of NAPA VALLEY, most tv media is Not talking about, was Raging Tuesday afternoon, just East of Vaca Mtns crest !!

Why the broad media silence?

They talk about the "south of Clear Lake " wildfire.

But not the "East,just next to NAPA VALLEY" wildfire.

Hmmm,,,

"MUDSLIDES on the road to YOSEMITE !!", july-august 2015, mass hysteria media, what do I do , my SF-Yosemite day tour just cancelled last minute !!"

Don't Panic.
There are 4 major roads into Yosemite.
So if the "western" along Merced River highway 140 is closed, a day a week or a month, there are other SF tour bus companies that regularly go on the long Yosemite day trip from SF via the more direct but less scenic highway 120, the "northwest" main access 2 lane road.

So you are in or near SF.
Your SF-Yosemite day trip,5hrs each way was just cancelled , for tomorrow !!
What DO You Do ??!!
If at a hotel, have the front desk and or concierge find you another company using highway 120 or even highway 41 from "southwest".  If you have a big enough group, hell, charter a minivan and stay as LONG AS YOU WANT IN THE PARK, the very best option.
Who wants to leave the Valley in April/May, after only "one hour"!!??
There are many charter bus companies with minivans and medium sizes buses, not just based in sf, itching for the work during terrible economy !!

If not at a SFbayarea hotel, call the SF VISITORS AND CONVENTION BUREAU, at Market x Powell, down in the Pit.

If japanese, call "myway" bus company, fast minivans but don't stay long enough in the park.

Most companies going all the way to YNP have a , say,10 seat minimum, cuz gate fee for a 45ft bus with only one passenger is still $300. (NPS skimming!!)  So keep calling different bus companies.
There are just ok ones and major wage theft ones.
But at this point you probably just don't care about fair labor  sf issues.

San Jose is just a bum hustle, and probably always will be. Mainly because it does not identify and acknowledge with gratitude it's community makers.

Like dr. Bill and Mary, major community makers in Lincoln Glen in the 1950s-90s.

San Jose doesn't even have strong effective , like 2%, rent control like SF.
But San Jose honors with a library , Gene Long, who was an invisible Principal at WGHS and also invisible where he lived , in Lincoln Glen, a few houses from me.

My dear Mom was PTA President so many times. And the Girl Scout Troop Leader. And started the nationally famous Investment Club of AAUW about 30 years ago. She and Dad gave so much to this part of SJ. Even $25,000 to ungrateful SJSU.

But SJ can't even computer time all the expressways and boulevards, like they keep saying they intend to do. For decades. Such lies.

San Jose is such a Huge disappointment. It has lot it's values and leadership.

President Obama is pro,,,FRACKING everywhere putting toxics in our Ground Drinking Water Historic basins, and pro-bankers and bank deregulation w/o a Glass-Stegal, and too long continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and pro-secret trade deal TPP that most say will hurt the USA, and pro a huge expensive military budget and neverending middle east wars, and pro ARTIC OIL DRILLING which is almost a certainty to leak.

But unable to get us "single payer" or "public option" or strong cost controls on USA medicine that the press says is "1/3rd waste".

Nor do ANYTHING to make our food safer.

This is NOT the person I voted for.

ADP mobile app: avoid the Mediocrity, and lack of Employee Respect

First,  no tutorial.
Wait, it is so mediocre, you don't need one.

Second,  ADP won't help Employees install or use their product of payroll time clocking. Who does ADP think they are !? "We only talk to contracted employers."

Third, it's trash.
Too slow.
Too crude.
Can't label "start shift" and "end lunch".
Incomplete, for Employee, time record!!
Can't correct.
Can't note.
Just "punch".

Fourth, I "punch" in on time, but it is so slow to "confirm", I am a minute late, every day !! And it is damn ADP's mediocre app fault !!

Yeah yeah someone is making $M off me using this inefficient crud my boss contracted for.

Is this the best ADP can do?
God help America.

Dear fellow Costco shoppers: beware of item 673 840, Jamaica Jaxx silk shirt, short sleeve from china

1- Now these shirts have an irritating hard thick neck label. Costco buyer should have nixed this design flaw!! Prepare to cut off.

2-thick white tape at inside collar seam is different and I guess ok.  So far.

3-Lots of loose threads under front left and right button placket. Very poor china quality control !!

4- Front button left and right button and eye plackets are not 3+ 2 sewn tacked down, so white underside shows !!  Again , very poor QC by Costco and china.

5- button eyelets are not well sewn !! Lots of loose unbound threads that catch on the button !! Again, very poor Quality Control by china and Costco !!

Google mobile Outlook for Hotmail in 2015 still requires that I fill my own "Trash" file, empty it, and WAIT for Google to finish, instead of scheduled auto-dumps at 3-6-12 or 24hrs !!

What a waste of my time.
Every day.
Google.

Wish some Environmental Group would red x mark every fracked with toxics well in a water table that will be short-sighted poisoned for centuries in California

How quickly we can lose something as precious as clean ground water.

Why the Huge media coverup in the SF Bay Area of the American company responsible for the huge "$1.8B", actually over $6B cost overruns and delays on the dangerously flawed , new Oakland Bay Bridge ??

Can't the media honestly spell F-l-u-o-o-r ?

Dirty local politicians too are probabltw behind this new/history coverup. Hmmm, which?

Is this the best that NPS can do? Have a Thursday June 18,2015 AP article in the San Jose Mercury News that "Aramark gets Yosemite deal". Isn't Aramark the Concessionaire-company that was kicked out of Muir Woods National Monument for it's very low pay Aramark employees , repeatedly and for months without adequate NPS supervision, caught by paying guests at the cafe USING A PLASTIC FOOD SERVICE GLOVED HAND TO PICK UP TRASH FROM THE KITCHEN FLOOR AND THEN turn around and HAND FOOD WITH THE SAME RISKY GLOVED HAND to utterly shocked , NPS park guests?

Is this the best that NPS can do, really !?

President Lincoln fighting  the Civil War set aside the first two pieces of Yosemite National Park in 1864, before Yellowstone "National Park" in the 1870s.

Yosemite is the park John Muir walked to , before it was protected, from dangerous 1800s Frisco.

Yosemite is the park Ken Burns made a great tv documentary about, with other "National Parks", not just county parks or garish roadside commercial tourist attractions.

Congress (ha!, those payola shirkers!) is suppose to accept or reject the NPS "deal".

All these rich, tax-shelter foreign countries hiding, big boasting,unethical forging thousands of signatures to make a buck, American corporations and busted Aramark is the best NPS can do?

Does the Sierra Club, Muir's legacy, and all the other US environmental organizations even care?

Who is hiding our recent history, forever?

Pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge sagging dramatically on its 50th birthday in 1987 are gone almost entirely from the internet.

The big nuclear modern US aircraft carrier that was stuck in the mud , for Days, between Treasure Island and SF is near impossible to find a photo of on the internet.

Videos of the 1989 ,7.1Richter ,45second "Loma Prieta" Santa Cruz earthquake should be in abundance, not scarcity, on the internet with all the pro media cameramen and video tourists in the SFBayArea.

There's a rat, maybe a govt torture rat, on the Internet is my guess.

Amtrak , from Emeryville to Merced , by train. And by bus to Yosemite Valley !!

The Amtrak staff are usually short-tempered and or rude.
Comes from running on rented freight bumpy tracks and alway always being late, for having to pull over for Every lousy freight train!!

Bad neighborhood.
So bathroom is "c" grade, often damaged and never cleaned often enough.

Always sit by LEFT WINDOWS of the train FOR BETTER VIEWS.

if you change seats on the train, say go upstairs, be sure to take your tiny white seat ticket with you. Or the mostly grumpy Conductors will enjoy berating you for something you can't be expected to know everything about!!

In Merced, again, SIT BY THE LEFT WINDOWS FOR THE BEST VIEWS UP THE MERCED RIVER HIGHWAY TO YOSEMITE VALLEY.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
1- The 2 hour, about $25 Valley Tour Tram Ride. Yes, there is the Free Valley Shuttle in $250k diesel-electric buses,  if you want to feel like a sardine. Maybe you remember the 'custom' badly made doubledecker open top buses of the 70s-80s that carried more people and were much more spacious and enjoyable public transit. And the whippy 3 car trams, again a flawed construction contract, but more fun than current boring expensive urban fleet.

2-Sometimes there is a Native California indian, the world famous basketweaver JULIA PARKER, at the INDIAN MUSEUM and VILLAGE, that most tour guides do not mention, unfortunately.
She is a National Treasure, in my opinion!!
Check out her WIKIPEDIA page.

3-Yosrmite Lodge cafeteria is just ok food for a visit, not constantly.   I get the spagetti or tube rigatoni pasta and meatballs, buy extra meatballs, and always ask for "extra sauce, please". And parmesan.
Or the cheeseburger.
Or the small pizza.
Or the ruben sandwich.
Sometimes the hot soups.
Again, NPS park policy prices are SKY HIGH and most of the food in the park is just "ok", with a few exceptions.

4-You may or may not on a sf turn bus or train-bus tour have time for lunch at the super expensive, fancy hotel, the Ahwahnee, but for some this may be a happier option.
I like early 7am breakfast at a deuce ,2 seat tiny table by South windows with GREAT VIEWS.  I also skip dinner here and eat at the Lodge Broiler Room-steak restaurant, then cross plaza to Lodge bar for a draft beer, and I'm good.

5-There are usually black (brown) bears in the middle of the valley eating grass and veg to fatten up after winter hibernation.
This DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD GO LOOKING FOR THEM IN THE TALL GRASS,,, WILD ANIMALS, VERY PROTECTIVE MAMA BEARS OF THEIR CUBS !!
IF you go hiking on a trail, you might want to wear a tiny bell on your daypack or person, just so you don't surprise a bear walking around a rock or tree.

6-IF you are parking your car or a rental car anywhere in the YNP, but especially the apple orchard lot at Curry Village and the May Lake High Sierra Camp paved Parking Lot,  I always (discreetly) powder my left and right side doors with RED CHILI POWDER, cheap if buy in bulk at a major city restaurant supply store, to keep the bears from peeling down both side windows and causing $ BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CAR DOORS DAMAGE OVER THE DECADES. Check before you go to see if YOUR car insurance covers bear damage in a NPark.
HUGE PROBLEM OVER THE DECADES. Many bears have been terminated. Too many.

7- Don't EXPECT to be rescued.
So don't do stupid stuff like rock climb, without a guide , gear and training.
Or jumping off bridges into the river. Rangers will yell at you, and can ARREST YOU  and take you before one of the scary imfamous "hanging federal judges of Yosemite", especially for fist fights and shop lifting!!
Nasty federal jail right in Valley.
Also EXCELLENT MEDICAL CLINIC !! in Yosemite Village, East of General Store.

8- Read some John Muir in the Valley he so loved.
He walked the first time from Frisco!!
There is a thin small brown booklet you can buy cheap.
The other MUST BOOK is the former $4, now $10,,, YOSEMITE ROAD GUIDE !!
Why NPS decided to retail gouge us on this essential book, priced so low for decades, is beyond Bureaucratic! !

9-RESPECT THE PARK, all over 1000 square miles of it.
Enjoy !!
Thanks , Teddy Roosevelt and President Lincoln !!

Dear fellow Costco shoppers: CAUTION on the 2 QUICE PIES from LA TERRA FINA ,#64 76 61

I bought a package and went straight home.
Put in frig and opened next day for breakfast.

Eye Appeal= C-D
Taste=C-D
Lasts how long?= LESS THAN A WEEK !!=F

Mine went BLUE MOLDY closed in the hard plastic and in the frig,,, in less than A WEEK !!

Costco has had Nancy's MINI QUICHES , which were fine.
And another so-so brand.
Costco buyers, you can do better !!

BROTHER INKJET PRINTERS are so far Superior to HPs !!

Why did we ever buy all those Epsons and HPs!!?

This j4420dw is AWESOME !!

What are you waiting for!?

DO NOT date a female Psychology Major in College !!

And you Thought You had problems, being single !!

Also, DO NOT agree to "be studied" with your signature, by a college Psych. roommate or classmate with only a smile, and not $50,000-$500,000!!
For without any respect or kindness they will in Psych.class rip you apart and give you an imagined personality black hole that will grapevine like kudzu all over campus for all your Years, then be read and re-read in a Psych. Dept Published report that you, sucker, will Never Ever have any access to !! Yes, I had an arrogant anti-social manipulative-bastard genius pull this one on me. Dorm life became,,, Hell. Heard of India's "untouchables"?

Again, DO NOT date female Psychology Majors at colleges regardless of their Sympathetic System charms and Para-sympathetic assets !! DO NOT.

But it's totally ok at Universities. Especially overseas Universities. The more distant and foreign the culture, the better.

(humor, some)

There is just one thing that might save the USA's experiment in a democratic republic: A Constitutional Amendment that all elected officials be 100% honest.

Our Founding Fathers had too high an opinion of themselves as the benevolent but wealthy landowners and White Male Voters and the depths of corruption men and women elected and duely Sworn on a Bible or Torah, maybe will for small sums like 30 pieces of silver or $50,000, will short-sightedly sink to.

In Burlingame, We've had a string of women Mayors elected by the majority of voters are renters and the majority of residents are renters, yet these  playing at virtuous Mayors serve the many apartment building landlords,some of which don't even live and vote in this town!, are against any type of rent control, and one will even tell you to your face how unimportant renters are in this tiny microcosm corrupted little burb of Burlingame.

Will have to ask the priest what the Christian penalty is for lying in your heart if not your word by falsely swearing on the Bible. Let's see,,, falling to a worse place and then falling again, after awhile, to an even worse place? Or maybe honing their deception in public duty by,,,?

And what is exactly the Oath of Office that is so easy abused for coin, lifetime pension and cabal botherhood?

SF and even LA and SJ have some sort of rent control.  Can you imagine, as just happened down the road in Redwood City, that your manager/apt bldg owner/slowly repair and almost never replace appliances property mgmt company told you today that "Your rent is going up $1000 more next month. Pay up or get out."?
Are we really still in the Middle Ages socially and in this regard legally !?

There is no way the USA should call itself a civilized Nation until this is immediately corrected. What will it take for all those comfortable non-renters to give a damn about those less fortunate ? Why are all religions so mute, like when the California state mental hospitals were closed and the mentally sick went to live on the streets ? Are their flocks that small and small-minded? Shame on every congregation that ignored that crisis then in state govt.

Maybe it will take the Pope to teach us all the proper value of greed in society.  And look at all the suffering! Can't or won't look, will you?

Yep.  Just frequent lie detector tests and a Constitutional Amendment of Government that is 100% honest.  A little word, but imagine the possible benefits!  I am really so tired and frustrated by all these got elected and forgot honor politicians. Aren't you?

Attention all Truckers, Bus Drivers and other users of AIR BRAKE BUTTONS !! Snap on hurts your hand every time, bad design, right? I invented years ago an AIR BRAKE LEASH out of 3' of REI 6-7mm kernmantle colorful cordage and I for decades have not had my hand spanked often,,, at work!!

Take your 3ft length of whatever rope you like,3 strand hemp twist or fancy kernnantle and tie a single fisherman's knot with the ends.
Move this knot to the 4-5oclock position.
At the 12 oclock position, pinch the loop and make an overhand knot just big enough to fit over your air brake button.

The overhand knot of the pinched together loop will keep the AIR BRAKE LEASH on the air brake button.
And the single fisherman's knot will be easier to grab than just two loose ends.
Really saves your right hand, all day long!!

I also invented the TWO HANDS MAP OF SF BAY.
And the 2 FACING LINES OF 6 AND 4 ADULTS IN A STRAIGHT LINE, ARMS OUTSTRETCHED, FINGERS TOUCH to show the max width (24ft) of our California coastal redwoods vs the max width (36ft) of our non-lumber California mountain redwoods. The tallest, use to be 400ft, trees in the World,,,96% cut down and still clear cutting!!
And the biggest trees in the World !! California also has the bristle cone pine, the oldest tree in the World !!

SF use to have a convenient free charter/tour bus parking lot at Pier 30 near the Bay Bridge for 50-250 bus to park "engines off". Now it's a paid car lot and there are 50-250 charter/tour buses circling SMOGGING UP THE Environment !!

Really Stupid.

Wikipedia post about the 1987 Golden Gate Bridge 50th Birthday Party, closed to cars, and "only flattened" by up to 800,000 sardined pedestrians is a FLAT OUT LIE !! All the local SF and Oakland newspapers clearly show the Golden Gate Bridge SAGGING IN THE MIDDLE. I was there.

Do not be deceived.
Wikipedia should be corrected.

It's like SF saying there is absolutely "NO VIDEO" of the recent Great 1989 and 45 second,7.1 Richter EARTHQUAKE.  Purchased and hidden/destroyed video, maybe. But nothing we want the tourists to see.

Recommend reading SAN FRANCISCO IS BURNING, since sf can not be honest. Corrupt Mayor then, City govt voting down high pressure water mains and hydrants, Army illegal involvement when only Governor can call out the and only National Guard, order citizens to not defend their homes that easily could have been saved from the flames, police and citizens and Army looting and sport shooting civilians on sight.

Wouldn't it be nice,,, and proper, ,, if Every City had in its Charter that it "MUST BE 100% HONEST WITH ITS ELECTORATE AND CITIZENRY. "
Period. Simple. Obvious. But overlooked, oops!

Imagine,,,
How different all levels of usa govt would be.