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August 12, 2007
A City of Wonders
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| I'm proud to be the first Norcal blogger
to post something from the big city, and even more proud that it was part
of an effort to improve Chico. This weekend I was able to take two big steps forward in my campaign for Chico City Manager. Using my contacts from the electronics industry I was able to get a deal on bumper stickers and lawn signs from China. I snapped a photo of the boat coming in with my delivery (above). It would have been a smaller boat, but I piggy-backed my order with the city's printed copies of the Bidwell Park Master Management Plan. Unfortunately my 175,000 pieces of print media did end up with some translation errors, but I think I can still use them (see below). In addition to checking on my election material I also scheduled a tour with the City Administrator of San Francisco. We covered a lot of ground and I learned a lot that I can apply to Chico's management. |
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| San Francisco managed to reduce green house
gas emissions and cut fleet costs for the city police department by switching
over to electric vehicles. Above is an image of the kind of vehicle currently
being used by the SFPD. Although this particular image is more of a celebrity
sighting. That's SF Mayor Gavin Newsom driving his city vehicle, which
is the same model as the police use. Although that's not his wife with
him, and he wouldn't look at the camera, which was kind of weird. There are also plans to add ladders to these electric cars and convert the fire department over. |
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| Edwin (SF, City Administrator) also discussed
parks and playgrounds with me. Having helped with the Caper Acres Nico
Project I was interested in ways to build affordable yet unique play areas.
In San Francisco they've moved toward using all sustainable products in
their new green playgrounds. Edwin and I stopped by a very popular new
play structure (shown above). It uses all recycled or natural material which is easier to maintain and uses fewer petroleum products to manufacture. I particularly enjoyed the surfacing which resembles sharp haphazardly strewn ocean rocks. In fact the main park play structure looks a lot like a half dozen randomly placed logs. But I was told they've been engineered for pure fun. We can learn a lot from San Francisco, and I hope Chicoan's are open-minded to the possibilities. |
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| I know a lot of my readers are interested to know if I ran into fellow blogger Dan Nguyen-Tan in the city. I did not, although I did look for him. I hope that puts to rest any more rumors of Dan not living in Chico. There's no real evidence to suggest he moved from Chico quite a while ago and never mentioned it on his blog. And being a board member of a San Francisco neighborhood association doesn't qualify as evidence, so don't bother googleing it. After all, I'm on the board of a Southern California youth group, the Compton Crips, and that doesn't make me from Compton. Tru-dat, yo! | |||||
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Nobody. It is a common copper ore called Chalcopyrite, a link below describes it. |
Posted by Lon at August 12, 2007 07:58 AM
Comments
CI Challenge: Bidwell Moss and Butte County Lichen growing on Geologically significant Basalt?
Posted by: Gregg Payne at August 12, 2007 10:09 AM
I was joking about the endangered moss. It's a satellite shot of somewhere. Maybe Marin?
Posted by: Gregg Payne at August 12, 2007 05:19 PM
Looks like the seashore, perhaps a closeup of rocks or gravel on the shore. Given this post's content, I'm betting it came from SFO whatever it is.
Hey did you know "green man" at Chico Beat appointed me to "reverend status"?
Bless you all.
Posted by: Anthony at August 13, 2007 07:41 AM
Gregg,
It is neither moss nor an overhead of Marin.
High Priest of the Burning Gaia,
It is not a close up of gravel on the shore,
although it it a rock, or possibly an ore,
while Gregg had feared it may be seen from space,
it's much more likely to be part of a race.
Lon
Posted by: Lon at August 13, 2007 08:07 AM
Is it gold?
Posted by: L.A. Simpson at August 13, 2007 11:09 PM
actually i'm thinking iron pyrite, "fools gold"
Posted by: Anthony Watts at August 14, 2007 08:47 AM
Alright,
You guys were both close. But...
I'm calling this one. It is a common copper ore called Chalcopyrite. The image I used can be seen here (but I cropped it to fit 100x100 pixels, and to be harder to determine what it is).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_extraction
Lon
Posted by: Lon at August 14, 2007 09:47 AM
Well at least I got the pyrite portion right.
Posted by: Anthony Watts at August 14, 2007 10:06 AM
You crack me up. Not sure I can keep up with all of your references, but you definitely crack me up!
Posted by: Laurie at August 17, 2007 10:08 PM