Relentless Inquiry

Flew down to San Diego on Friday night. Spent Saturday in planning meetings for what is going to become the Northern California Oceans Foundation (as soon as we get the rubber stamp promised on using the logo and name from San Diego Oceans Foundation). Am getting entertainingly intertwingled in the politics of the nascent Nor Cal chapter of California Ships 2 Reefs. Looks interesting. They need folks like me, too.

Spent Sunday at SeaWorld, saw lots of fun stuff, will upload to FlickR when not on a quasi-lame hotel wireless connection. Did boring old-people stuff for New Year's after going out to dinner and drinks with some of our diving friends who were here for the organizing meetings.

Today: rain, rain, rain. And still no truck. Both factors made sight-seeing more challenging than we felt like dealing with, so we napped and read books. Called Ford dealership repeatedly. Finally, at about 3pm, got news that it was ready. Truck's clutch replaced, with many associated parts, to the tune of about $1K. Ouch, especially since the same thing happened about 22K miles ago, at 60K-ish miles for the truck.

Talked with Mike about the intersection of sucky off-brand outsourced Ford manual tranny for the 4-cylinder Ranger, and some of his driving habits. He can drive stick, but is basically an automatic tranny kinda guy. In particular, things that don't contribute to long transmission/clutch life include shoving the shifter into lower gear while decelerating (before reaching slot speed) and routinely taking off from stop signs or in parking lots in second gear. Tried to be gentle about it, mostly succeeded, as he didn't get glum, angry, or upset.

Since we didn't get the truck physically back until almost 4pm, and there's still a high wind advisory and other nasty weather crap in the Orange County and lower ranges area, we will leave tomorrow morning (early!). Won't get the planned easy drive day of stop-offs along the coast, alas, but all told it could have been a lot worse.

Picked up Jared Diamond's “Guns, Germs, and Steel” on the way down here on Friday, as I was in the airport for a while and hadn't brought a book. Fascinating, not a quick-n-easy read: sentences densely bristling with meaning, even though themes repeat often. Feel something of a mix of resignment leavened with sprinklings of hope. This book should be required reading for any dreamer-reformer types. However, it's full of potential tools with which to craft a sustainable/greener culture and lifestyle IF correctly and carefully applied. I think. I'll keep reading. It definitely should be required reading for anybody who thinks we all ought to go back to truck farming and victory gardens, and live in scattered little enclaves in the countryside. I think the term 'critical mass' has never been so clearly depicted. More importantly, I think the book shows why a lot of current conservation efforts are 100% doomed unless they get on the economic bandwagon. But enough. More later.