May 2011 Archives

Cactus Candy

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cactuscandy1.jpgThere aren't too many things growing in the desert but cacti certainly do flourish here. And some of them are even edible like the prickly pear variety pictured below.

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There's a small company in Phoenix that makes Cactus Candy with juice from prickly pear cactus



They sell these delicious treats in a cool retro looking box with an original design from 1969. The sugar coated jelly candy is very yummy, tastes like, well... cactus LOL and looks like this:

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Cactus Candy Co. manufactures this candy right here in Arizona and they can be found here.

On the Beatnik Path

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The First Third by Neal Cassady and The Town and The City by Jack Kerouac.

Neal Cassadys unusual upbringing in and around Denver in a captivating novel in which he becomes sharer of a way of life where the rugged people prevail. And this might actually tie in with Kerouacs elaborate novel of the  Martin family in the New Hampshire town of Galloway near the Merrimack river and their descend into New York City.

Graphic Confinement

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Muni_Graffity_01_med.jpgsome final snapshots from my trip to San Francisco.

LOL California - it's cool how the seats and windows were kept all clean.

Here on muni route 49 serving van Ness Ave.

One cool thing is that you can check location of the bus in real time and get the info sent to your cell or you can check bus location on Google maps.




Ahhh, Progress...

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LIFE_Mar_17-1941.jpgSo I came across an advertisment for air travel in LIFE magazine on Google Books . Since I've just had the trip to San Francisco it's interesting to check what's been goin on.

Here's what I paid:

Base Fare $173.02
+ Excise Taxes $12.98

This brings it up to the advertised fare of $186.00 for roundtrip.

Additional fees:
+ Segment Fee $11.10
+ Passenger Facility Charge $13.50
+ Security Fee $7.50

This brings the total up to $218.10.

In 1941 the fare taken from the advertisment amounts to $42.10 for one way and $75.78 for roundtrip. Accounting for inflation this would correspond to $1,152.00 today.

In 1941 the flight time was 4 hours 30 minutes and for my flight the distance was covered in 1 hour 55 minutes.


Windfarm

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somewhere in southern California. There are several wind energy plants in CA with 11.6 percent of all electricity  coming from renewable resources such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and small hydroelectric facilities. Large hydro plants generated another 9.2 percent of electricity.

Here's an interesting overview of Californias total power generation by source type. CA_power_02.png (source here)

As I was leaving

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silhouettes_01.jpgSan Francisco silhouettes of people caught my eye.


America.

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Flag_StatueOfLiberty.jpgHere you can find the text of President Obama's remarks on Sunday night announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, as released by the White House.

This is

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the end of the continent.
There is no more land.

A couple miles out at sea the pacific and north-american plate meet in a sliding boundary the San Andreas Fault.

North- and Southside

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From the northside of the Bridge you get a nice view of the city and you can make out the dome of the Palace of Fine Arts in the right of the picture.


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And all the way back with another view from south-west of the Bridge.

Across the Bridge

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This is south tower with height of 500 ft (152 m) above roadway. It is separated from north tower by 4,200 ft (1,280 m) which is also main span of the Bridge.

Load on each tower from its main cables is 61,500 tons and weight of both main towers 44,000 tons.





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The Golden Gate Bridge has 250 pairs of vertical suspender ropes that are spaced 50 feet apart across both sides of the Bridge. Each suspender rope is 2-11/16 inches (2.7 cm) in diameter.

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Halfway across both main cables come nearly all the way down to roadway and you realize how massive they are with diameter of 36 3/8 in (0.92 m.)

Each main cable is comprised of 27,572 strands of 0.192 inches (4.8 mm) diameter wire.

Total length of galvanized steel wire used in both main cables: 80,000 mi (129,000 km.) That's more than 3 times around our planet!

You can find more details at goldengatebridge.org.

On the Bridge

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Golden_Gate_Bridge_01_med_01.jpg
it was pretty windy close to land and the whole structure was vibrating quite a bit. The overall construction is really quite elegant, no fancy ornaments but simple trims.

Golden Gate Bridge

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not quite there yet, but check out the surfers in the lower right. Damn, the water temperature must be only 50's, even with a wetsuit way too chilly.

To the Golden Gate

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From the Palace of Fine Arts it's about a 2 mile walk along some parks to the Golden Gate. Here a picture taken from Marina Green, somewhere here (37.806206,-122.434988.)

Palace of Fine Arts

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A landmark in San Francisco, the Palace of Fine Arts. It was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.













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It was actually pretty impressive walking through this monumental structure on account of the confinement created by the columnar bands around the center palace.






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Photography

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