Category: sactown

Black & White 6: Library

Leave a comment

One of the things I absolutely love about Sacramento is its library system. There’s 28 branches and two million volumes contained within the system. The library was, as was much of the city, funded by the leading citizens of Sacramento in 1857. The leading figures included Stanford, Crocker, and Huntington — three of the four robber barons of the Central Pacific, who built the west half of the Transcontinental Railroad.

But today, it’s become my haven. I’ve visited all 28 branches in the system just to say I did, but part of that was also because I like exploring new places. The best trip was when we went into the long arm of Sacramento County to visit the libraries in the Delta (Courtland, Walnut Grove, and Isleton). Weaving along the levee next to the Sacramento on Highway 160 is a beautiful trip and worth the drive.

Anyway, finding a way to photograph the library without any people in it led me to this picture, which is about half of the science fiction and fantasy shelves at my local library. Since this is my favorite section, I figured it would be appropriate. Look at all the books! Check the best and some popular print types from our company.

The online sodapdf now has a new features, you can convert your files anywhere. Check full details on their website.

I ♥ books and libraries.
Read marketing automation definition and get a useful knowledge about business marketing.

(LJ/Dreamwidth readers: The crossposter I use for both these services does not attach the featured image, so you will have to click through the link at the bottom of the post to see the image.)

Prior Entries:
Black & White 1: My Buddy
Black & White 2: It’s What’s for Dinner
Black & White 3: The Platform
Black & White 4: Chairs
Black & White 5: Staving Away the Darkness

The West is Big, y’all

44 Comments

There’s something Kevin Standlee​ said in a File 770 thread (it’s about halfway through the comment) that I wanted to do a little expounding on. Family and folks who know the area I grew up, bear with me, as none of this is going to be all that unusual to you. What I am about to quote came up in a discussion about whether Spokane was close to Seattle.

In my experience, a lot of people who haven’t actually lived on the US west coast think everything here is in the same place. Disneyland is just outside of San Francisco. You can see the Space Needle from Portland. And obviously everything in the same state is within a few miles’ of everything else.

Kevin knows what he’s talking about — he and I grew up in the same general geographic area, although that area is about 150 miles in diameter around my hometown. My hometown is a small Western city that has the distinction of being one of six control cities on Interstate 5 (the other five are all major cities you’ve probably heard of).

From my hometown, it is approximately an hour and fifteen minutes to the nearest state university. The next one is about two hours fifteen minutes. The other state university in our third of the state is about three hours away over a mountain pass. And my alma mater, in a major metro region that holds most of the sports teams we root for in my little city, is about three hours away, if you’re pushing it and not stopping.

And we’re big enough to be a control city — that’s the one the signs point to as the next destination — on the major north/south artery of the West Coast.

A couple other thoughts. I live in Sacramento now. A friend and I once drove from Portland to Sacto, getting out of the car once. It took us eight hours. Another time, I had to drive to pick up somebody in Los Angeles — the Hollywood area, to be precise. Mom and I left Sacto at 4:30 AM. We stopped for gas once and breakfast once, but we still didn’t make it to his place until 11:30 AM.

One last thought. California numbers its freeway exits by miles travelled, starting with 1 at the southern end for N/S roads and the western end for E/W roads.

The actual little town I grew up in, just south of the minor city I describe here, is exits 667 and 668 on Interstate 5. At that point, there’s still another hundred odd miles to the Oregon border.

The West Coast is big, y’all.

Heartache

4 Comments

The San Francisco Giants, my all-time favorite baseball team, said that they were going to have the trophy at their new Triple A franchise today, and that they would bring all three trophies. Having missed the stop on both the 2010 and 2012 trophies, I figured I’d go down to Raley Field and see them all.

After three hours in line (arriving when the gates opened, and looping around three sides of Raley Field), my sister and I had almost arrived at the gate when they closed them. Sure, I got a voucher for some Rivercats game. But it wasn’t really what I wanted. I mean, sure the Rivercats are going to be the Triple A franchise for the Giants starting this season, and I was probably going to go out to a few games.

But a Rivercats game is not the world series trophies for a team I have been following since I was a kid.

So I feel pretty miserable and awful right now — especially considering it’s pretty amazing the Giants had won three. To have to wait for #4 — a trophy that may not come for 50 years, as it took 52 years and three tries for the Giants to win their first in San Francisco — is a huge slap in the face that a Rivercats voucher isn’t quite enough to make up for.

And the fact that this event was the only event in the entire Sacramento Metro Area…yeah.

The Giants should have made this a longer event on a weekend. It would have been an awesome way to welcome their new Triple A franchise into the fold, and it could have been a festive day. It would have been good for both the Giants and the Rivercats. Instead, I’m left with a sour taste for both my favorite baseball franchise, and their Triple A team.

This wasn’t the way to do it, guys.

This blog isn’t exactly a big blog on the Internet, and I really don’t expect either the Giants or the Rivercats to say anything about this clusterfsck. But it hurts, in its way.

My sunset over Raley Field (the picture that accompanies this blog) feels oddly appropriate. It got retweeted by the Rivercats. At the time, I was so excited, but I thought I’d see the trophy at that point, too. So much for that.

[Sactown] Penguin Hauling

Leave a comment

Why get up and go downtown at stupidly early hours of the morning on a day I don’t have to work?

To see the penguin, of course!

It’s too bad this trip was to say goodbye to Endeavor. I may have more to say about the shuttle later, but for now, it’s enough to say, I saw this.

[sactown] mmm…root beer

Leave a comment

I can has all the root beer?

(Taken outside River City Brewing, which does have really good root beer. And also some excellent microbrews, I’m told.)

[sactown] State Capitol Building

Leave a comment

So, I’ve promised a friend I would start taking pictures of Sactown to show her. It gets me out of the office at lunch — most of these will be walking distance from work — and it lets me see a bit more of the city I live in. I’ll start the series with this shot, from last Friday, of the State Capitol building here in Sacramento.

I joke Sacramento is a company town. People look at me strange until I point out that the company is the State of California, and when the state hurts, everybody hurts. And it’s been really bad times for the State of California for years. We papered over a lot of it with the housing bubble, but eventually those things come back to haunt you.

That said, I love our state capitol building, and I especially love it this time of year with the Christmas tree in front.

This is my pocket knife

Leave a comment

image

Went to run a few items to the post office. Now, the post office in Sacramento is in the federal building, mere feet from the security guards manning the metal detector.

They wouldn’t let me take the knife in. I guess I could use it to go postal on the postal employees, but why?  Hell, my keys (which I am allowed to take in the federal building) would probably do more damage.

So I had to put it outside.  Also, their metal detector is sensitive enough to detect glasses.  Meh.

Security theatre sucks, as does paranoia.

There are times I really hate Christmas

Leave a comment

image

No kid should ever have to write a letter like this to Santa Claus.  Never.

(Seen in local postal annex.)

fogtown

Leave a comment
Fog townPhoto by retstak

The first fog of the year has come to Sacramento, shrouding the skyscrapers in mystery. I had to get to work early, so I managed to catch them in that peaceful moment when it’s not night anymore, but it’s not really day yet either. It’s perfect.

[tftc] Attack of the Quack

Leave a comment

[Fifth in an occassional series about things I see on my commute.]

Today, on my way home, I get up on the freeway, and a couple vehicles in front of me, I see a truck. It looked like this:

Hmmm, says I, it’s a Duck truck. Now, I don’t root for the Oregon Ducks, but they play in the same league as my beloved Cal Bears, so it’s still nifty to see. I begin to wonder if it might be the equipment truck. I decide to overtake and I snap one more picture of the side of the truck as I go by:

Keep on Duckin'!Photo by retstak

It made me laugh. So I asked over on Addicted to Quack, an Oregon sports blog, about what that truck was. And sure enough, my guess was right. You see, the Ducks played Tennessee in Knoxville on Saturday night, and the afternoon commute hours today were just right for the Ducks’ equipment truck to be passing through Sacramento on its way home to Eugene from that game.

I wonder if Cal has a similar truck?

Apocalypse Sacramento

Leave a comment

Greetings from Sacramento, where the apocalypse seems to have begun…

(No, not really. Just playing around with the solarize feature on my phone. And yes, I like that skyscraper a lot. And yes, one of these days I’ll have something substantial to say that isn’t a post with a picture.)

majestic

Leave a comment

Fiddling around this morning with the phone and discovered how to set the camera in black and white mode. I kinda like this — there’s a solemn majesty in it.

As an interesting compare and contrast, here’s a color photo of approximately the same scene I took just prior:
Skyscraper in colorPhoto by retstak

Yah, I think I like the black and white one better.

baseball and a status update

1 Comment

God, has it been nearly two weeks since I bothered to update my blog?

Ah, here, have a picture:

I took this at the Rivercats game last night. It’s the first time I’ve been out to Raley Field, and, while the Cats sucked rocks through a bendy straw last night, it was a perfect night for baseball, especially as the sun started to set. For those of you who don’t know, the Rivercats are the Triple-A affiliate of the Oakland A’s, and the stadium is just across the river from downtown Sacramento. (That gold bridge on the left? That’s the Tower Bridge, which crosses the Sacramento River, and is generally one of the two things used to as icons to identify Sacramento. The other is, of course, the State Capitol building.

Anyway, just letting folks know I live. I’ll have more to say later.

The day I was a superhero

Leave a comment

Yesterday, on my walk between the parking garage and work, I found the following juxtaposition of signage:

The chalked message up close, so you can read it:
What the chalked message said...Photo by retstak

It was one of those moments where I just had to pause for a moment and laugh (and of course, take a picture). Somebody has a sense of humor in this town, and it’s those sort of wonderful serendipitous moments that I love very dearly. So yesterday, I walked past the message, head held high, as I obviously was a superhero. Only superheroes may pass. The sign said so. Thus, by passing it, I must have been a superhero, no?

I wasn’t a superhero today. We had a spectacular light show and plenty of rain last night, and the chalk was washed away. Mundanity returns. So sad.

dangerously cute

Leave a comment

The nice people at the county remind us that it’s time to get Stormycat her rabies shot and license again. They sent us a postcard. It contained the following vitals:

Name: Stormy
Sex: F
Color: Calico
Breed: Pitbull

I guess that’s dangerously cute for you.