Tag: local

The Suit

I need to buy a suit, since I don’t have one. The next wedding, funeral, job interview, or trial I’m involved in will demand it. Ideally I’ll get married, go on a job interview and be turned down, come home and murder my wife in a bizarre psychotic reaction to failure, and be tried for the crime, and the suit will pay for itself.

I know friendly_bandit had good luck at Robinsons-May. Are there other recommendations for suit purchasing in Southern California, preferably in Orange County?

I’m going to buy the “all purpose dark suit” this time and it should be as near to all-weather as possible. No white sharkskin, seersucker, or heavy heavy wool.

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? (Costa Mesa mix)

There’s this Del Taco in Costa Mesa, California at Newport Boulevard and 17th Street. It’s open 24 hours a day. It’s near a couple of record stores, some bars, and Café Ruba, which is the coffee joint for unhappy teenagers.

So a lot of kids and young adults hang around this Del Taco and raise heck. It used to be a big straightedge hangout. For some reason it’s where fights happen in this town.

The drunk bro dudes at shorescrew.com have documented one pretty good Del Taco brawl for us: Del Taco Fight (page with embedded Quicktime video).

It’s almost identical to a fight I saw in fourth grade except everyone’s in their 20s and a vintage car is vandalized. Special attention to the really cool ape noises the guy in grey makes near the end of the barely visible second half of the battle.

Naval Security, South of Da Nang

Talked to Trout at length last night. He showed me some of his photos from Vietnam, including him looking 40 at age 18, various sandbags and weapons, and the view of the landscape south of Da Nang that he looked at from his guard post.

Bob's FaceI also saw the “welcome back” letter from Reuters giving him his job in Manhattan again, in March 1969. That didn’t last.

Bob saw a lot of stuff that stays, even now. Mostly kids. “Those little black-haired kids, I still see them.” He told me about an orphanage he and his partner went by a lot, run by a convent. They’d bring food over for the kids every time, huge quantities of stuff from the base. The French nuns would whack them on the head for looking at the teenaged girls, and everyone was delighted at the stolen food they brought.

One time they came by and everyone was dead and dismembered. The VC had made a point, as their guerrilla manual told them to. There were a lot of points like that made, and a lot of dismembered kids. After 30 years and lately, some happy pills Bob can tell that particular story without crying now.

Bob is LoveLater on he and his buddy were sent into the jungle, heavily armed but not uniformed, to “fuck shit up” within certain map quadrants. They were dropped by helicopter near some people who needed to be blown up, or by boat near some people who needed to find out how well our new night sniper scope worked. A lot of “heavy shit went down”, as they said.

But it’s the kids he still sees. When he got back to New York he didn’t last too long at Reuters. He got a job working construction because he’s a big strong guy who doesn’t mind picking up joists all day. And he drank for 30 years, and other things. By the time he came out west in ’75, Bob was in full swing as a PTSD poster boy. A lot of other “heavy shit went down” in those years.

Bob has some advice for guys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. “Paxil,” he says, “therapy. Happy pills and talking. Don’t drink, don’t smoke. It’s hard to really enjoy cocaine and heroin without a drink and a smoke. Mostly don’t drink. I spent thirty years drinking and denying, but the kids didn’t go away.”

Bob’s house up in the hills has roses and razor wire around it real tight.

california fog from space

tule

A thick bank of fog blankets California’s Central Valley. The fog is bracketed by the Cascades to the North, the Coastal Range to the West and the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the East. These high elevation areas are a vibrant green in this image, as they are home to the largest tree species on the planet. Coastal redwoods (Sequoia semperviren) are the world’s tallest trees, reaching over 112 meters (367 feet). They are mostly found in valley bottoms, where fog in the summer occurs on a regular basis and contributes to soil moisture. This particular type of winter fog, or Tule fog, occurs at night when the surface cools quickly; it happens during the rainy season and can persist for weeks. Essentially, all types of fog are clouds that are in contact with ground and can reduce visibility to as little as 3 meters (10 feet) or even to zero in extreme cases. Therefore it is not surprising that Tule fog is a major hazard to navigation and is the leading cause of weather-related accidents in California.

From Modis, which has bigger hi-res versions of that picture.

LIFE IN THESE HERE NOW UNITED STATES

Suspicious lamp prompts evacuation
A Huntington Beach homeowner saw the object in a garage.

By RYAN HAMMILL
The Orange County Register

HUNTINGTON BEACH — A report of a suspicious lamp in a garage led to a neighborhood evacaution today before the Orange County sheriff’s bomb squad determined that the object was harmless.

A Mangrum Drive homeowner called Huntinton Beach police about 3 p.m. after seeing wires protruding from the base and an unfamiliar light bulb, Sgt. Dave Bunetta said.

Police officers visually inspected the lamp before calling the bomb squad and the Huntington Beach Fire Department’s hazardous material unit, Bunetta said.

Residents within 300 feet of the house were evacuated for about 3½ hours during the investigation.

The house is next door to a home day care, which also was evacuated, and two blocks from Marina High School.

Kéan Coffee. Verdict: yum.

I’ve had their espresso two days running and it’s really good. Not just dark and bitter like Charbucks or the Diedrich chain. It’s strong and dark and a little bit sweet and really, really, really good.

I bought some beans and I just drank a whole effing pot of the decaf. I haven’t had just-roasted coffee this good in years.

Congratulations, Martin. This is some seriously good coffee. Now don’t screw it up this time!

Martin’s New Place

Kean Coffee, Martin’s new venture, is scheduled to have a “soft” (unadvertised) opening tomorrow. Mary’s managing the place, for those who remember the 17th St. Diedrich from 1997 or so.

Who’s going to be there tomorrow, and when? I was thinking I’d stop by in mid afternoon and/or late afternoon, maybe at 2 and/or 5.

Simulcast to

Revisiting Jump Out of Limo Woman Story

The autopsy report is out, revealing she was really drunk. The best details are about her date and his life of lame. Best quote:

He said in the interview that he was deeply in love with Rowe, and also still very much in love with his wife, Whitney Vincent, 22, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., and Lisa Atkinson, 21, of Placentia, whom he enticed into a string of car dealership thefts and persuaded to use her job at a private mail center in Orange to wire him a $25,000 money order.

Register story