Posts from — October 2009

Albatross chick dead from plastic consumption-Midway Atoll ©Chris Jordan

Midway
Message from the Gyre

“These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.”

~cj, October 2009

(Reproduced from www.chrisjordan.com)

This guys work is incredible, please click here to check out his web site.

MONTARA makes #6!

Over the last couple of years I have been building custom made Cajón Drums for myself and local musicians. Each drum is unique with one-off hand painted designs, click the link below to browse an electronic brochure of some of my work.

April Vargas

A San Mateo County resident for nearly 40 years, April Vargas has lived in the coastal town of Montara since 1983. She is a local business owner and an active member of the Half Moon Bay/Coastside Chamber of Commerce. April has had a passion for community issues since college and has always worked to protect the quality of our lives here in San Mateo County. She and her partner of 22 years, Jeff Olson, purchased their Montara home in 1993. Shortly after, she became locally active and was appointed to a committee created by the County Department of Public Works to update local road standards and address flooding and safety concerns.

In 1995 when the Devil’s Slide section of Hwy 1 was closed for over 5 months due to landslides, [Read more →]

Grey Whale Cove bare butt cheek visitors beware!

State lets parks crack down on nude beachgoers.

I know it’s not been open long, and wrinkles are still being ironed out, but I am curious as to the publics initial opinion on our latest addition to the coastsides restaurant roster. I have heard many different experiences and thought it might be interesting to do a quick straw poll.

I can’t believe it, there has been yet another Devil’s Slide related fatality! At the time of writing the cause or circumstances surrounding the man’s death are still not clear, I’m sure events will unfold in the next few days. I called the abandoned car in to the Sheriff at 9.10am this morning on my way to work, I had seen the car parked in the turn out near Grey Whale Cove Sunday lunchtime and got suspicious when it was still there on Monday morning. So some of the reporting is a little off fact-wise in these links, but here are the HMB Review and SF Gate reports.

The Fourth Street Experience at Montara Lighthouse

Montara has many talented and creative inhabitants. Among them are Mike McCall (right) and Mark Kostrzewa (left) individually talented musicians, collectively known as ‘The 4th Street Experience‘. You can catch these guys performing their live acoustic set all over the coastside. But right now they have 10 Montara Life questions to answer…

How did you guys meet and how long have you played together?

We first met at the local gym, Coastal Lifestyles, back around 2000. At that time, the term “12oz curls” meant something. We started jamming and playing music together about 3 years ago and have been “gigging” together since July of 2007.

What style of music do you guys play?

We classify it as “creative acoustic”, since there is really no other description for music that spans many different styles. How else do you describe a set list that includes latin music, brazilian music, blues, bluegrass and slide guitar? A lot of our songs are original compositions by one of us. We have a great a great classical style player (Mike) and a strong slide guitar player (Mark). It’s an unusual combination of music styles that works great in a live environment. [Read more →]

This long list is the CHP Traffic Incident Log from this morning through lunchtime starting with the Devil’s Slide fatality early in the morning over 70 collisions, and this is just in the Bay Area. Shocking…

Golden Gate Communications Center No Time Type Location Area 2379 2:02PM Traffic Collision – Ambulance Responding SB SR29 JSO IMOLA AV W Napa 2378 2:02PM Traffic Collision – No Details NB US101 JSO CAPITOL EXWY San Jose 2377 2:02PM Traffic Hazard – Debris/Objects SB I280 JSO CITY COLLEGE PARKING LOT San Francisco 2376 2:01PM Traffic Hazard ARKANSAS ST AT MADERA ST Golden Gate Communications Center 2374 2:01PM Traffic Collision – No Details WB I80 JWO CARQUINEZ TOLL PZ Solano 2373 2:00PM Traffic Collision – No Details NB I280 JNO NB I880 San Jose 2369 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Property Damage EB I580 JWO RICHMOND BLVD Oakland 2368 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Ambulance Responding EB I580 JEO TOLL PZ Oakland 2366 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Property Damage NB E WASHINGTON ST ONR TO SB US101 Santa Rosa 2365 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Property [Read more →]

So the predicted storm hits us, it rains hard and the wind blows. All hell breaks loose, sadly a person dies and people are trapped in cars in a nasty head on collision on the slide, this road has claimed so many lives. To add to the misery our power has been out for hours, I’m stuck at home gridlocked in with no power, only a few bars on my trusty iPhone to communicate to the outside world.

Explorer – Just Outside San Francisco, a Wild Coastline – NYTimes.com.

Looks like we made it in to the travel section of the New York Times.

A good and wise friend of mine first used the term ‘obsessively self obsessed’ to describe a rude and thoughtless automobile driver. I think the term perfectly describes many people in today’s society. Take for instance the SUV driver parked directly in the middle of the red fire lane Linda Mar, Pacifica. He would have to be blind to not see the bright red paint on the curbside, sipping his Red Bull waiting for the wife to come out of Starbucks. Even though there were plenty of legal parking spaces available to use less than 15 feet away, he thinks he is special and different from everyone else, he is obssively self obsessed. I think this term sadly describes too many people in our society today.

Redwood carving of the moon takes shape.

I was given a fantastic slab of nicely figured redwood by my neighbor Bill, first thought was to turn it in to a side table. On reflection it was way too thick and heavy for that, so I thought why not have a crack at carving something? This is the biggest project of this sort that I have attempted, it seems to be turning out OK so far, I’ll post again when I have a little more done. No idea what to do with it afterwards, hang it on a wall maybe?

Recent graffiti at Montara Beach parking lot

I don’t like graffiti. But… I found this sort of amusing and misguided all at the same time, the person(s) who spray painted this concrete barrier is obviously referring to the recent accident where 24-year-old Jesse Garcia drove over the edge of the slide. They may be friend or family or just a citizen with an opinion (and no sense of civil pride). From what I have read this would not have stopped the guy going over the edge anyway, he apparently was speeding in dense fog. Next time please try writing to Cal Trans with your suggestions rather than make an ugly piece of concrete even uglier. But hey, don’t stop caring.

Against the Grain – A MCTV Production. Check out this local production.