Wandrin Blog

How come most of the world's democracies vote on Saturday? Not the USA. By the mere fact that the election is held on Tuesday disenfranchises many of the working voters. Sure. They can vote absentee, but wouldn't it be more convenient to hold elections on Saturday.

Romney claims to be an astute businessman. To spend almost $50 million of personal wealth on the race to become President, there must be a hefty return for that investment.

The voters don't want specifics.... Straight forward populist messages from Huckabee and Edwards are ignored in favor of those offering "hope" or "change". The front runners mention the problems. Rarely do they offer solutions since they know legislation is required for any change.

Grass roots politics... Isn't that what democracy is all about. It appears that the national political party still selects the presidential candidates. When some states didn't follow the rules from the national party bosses, those state's delegates will be disallowed at the national convention.

The process for selecting presidential candidates has also changed over the past 200 years. Perhaps it is time for a morphing to a different process. A few suggestions; Reduce the electioneering time; Have a single primary; Have a runoff election; Have a final election from the top vote getters after the runoff. And while making changes, get rid of the Electoral College.

Okay. Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I will turn on the radio to see what has developed in the last 24 hours. Actually I will go for a walk. A walk reduces stress.

Final note: I am sticking with my previous prediction... Obama and McCain as the finalists.

This is a collection of stories written by Jenkins covering several years and adventures across the earth. Well written prose describes the life of this adrenaline junkie. Not only an adventurer, the author interweaves the required balance of life (and death) with family and friends.

This was a revisit to a book that I had read several decades ago. This current read meant more since I had done some more recent exploring of the Grand Canyon -- mostly along its south rim and two six mile round trip hikes into the Canyon.

Fletcher walked the length of the Grand Canyon inside its boundaries. This early 1960s two month journey was a solo tour to through the Canyon "museum" from the ancient strata at the bottom dating to one billion years ago to modern day river rafting. The author's well tuned prose takes the reader on the journey to enjoy the beauty and solitude of the Grand Canyon.

Colin Fletcher died in June of 2007 at the age of 85.

The hike at Sweetwater Park was a wonderful break from the urban world where I am parked. As I hiked farther into the park I noted the evidence of last fall's fires on the charred hill sides with the new growth of very green grass.

This open terrain appeared to be great territory for birds. There were hawks, flycatchers, sparrows among others. The greatest presence of birds were geese. They were "grazing" on the new green growth. Although all were grazing together as one large group, upon taking flight they seemed to be different groups. Before taking flight from the feared predator that I may have been, they moved in groups on the ground independent of each other. What made one group take off while another stayed and watched as I walked by.

In spite of planes on final approach into San Diego, the nearby freeway and the housing on distant hills, this walk was what this body and mind needed.


Primary season... It is only January. With November ten months away, daily election coverage and polls will be plaguing the the media for months to come. Perhaps the Party conventions will prove interesting for a change with some back room deals for the final nomination to lead the ticket into the elections of November. Personally, I could do without this soap opera.


Economic Stimulus...The 2008 recession may not be the same as the 1930s depression, but at least the the US citizens received something from the money pumped into the economy via the Civilian Conservation Corp. (Which the Republicans have been criticizing ever since.) This time, there is no return for the 150 billion.

Since I paid no taxes, there will be no check in my mail. The good part is that I didn't pay taxes; that meant I wasn't working.

From this cynic's bottom line: It is all about votes this November. Will any legislator vote against this -- other than Ron Paul.


Check political spin at: FactCheck.org There are other sites that do similar fact checking, but I like FactCheck.

Sweetwater Park was the destination for a hike. There was the bakery sign in Sunnyside. I couldn't pass it up. It had been far too long that I had a cinnamon roll. I should have forgotten the urge.

The cinnamon roll was labeled "Apple Raisin Cinnamon Roll". There may have been four raisins in the five inch diameter, two inch high roll with an equal number of apple pieces. Cinnamon flavor was impossible to detect.

There was no balance in the flavors of this piece of "sweet bread." Not good enough for my standard to deserve a rating. Too bad there wasn't a homeless person nearby. It would have kept me from putting it in the garbage.

An excellent biography of Jackson's birth to his death. Jackson was a young boy during the American Revolution. Its war campaigns fought in his neighborhood impacted his family and kin and helped to form some of Jackson during his adult years. His military success led him to the political positions at several levels and eventually to the Presidency. As the President he had little use for the Supreme Court or the US legislative bodies or other opinions that didn't agree with his philosophy. Acting almost dictatorial, he pushed US expansionism and the eviction of Indians via the Trail of Tears.

This is an excellent history of turbulent times as the US experiment in democracy develops in its early years.




More books read in the recent past...


Far Appalachia by Noah Adams

Author returns to his ancestral Appalachia and explores the small towns and its people along the New River.



Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do it by Geoff Dyer

Funny and entertaining as the author travels the world and continues to look for something...



Running to the Mountain by Jon Katz

The author has a mid-life crises and buys a mountain home where he spends time with locals and spends lots of money making the home worthy of its mountain view.



Snowball Oranges by Peter Kerr

Forsaking Scotland, the author and family head to the Spanish island of Majorca where they buy a small orange farm with some very old buildings. This is an entertaining story as the family accustoms themselves to a life of making do with what is available on a small island with a complete cast of unusual characters.



There were several others which I couldn't get past the first chapter.

Mexican dining all day on Friday.

It just happened. Working around respective busy (Huh?) retirement schedules, it was the only day for Sheila, Phil and I to arrange a trip to Cafe 94 in Potrero. This little out of the way place was almost an hour away and thirty miles over a hilly and winding road (motorcycle riders love this road) through the fire scarred and charred countryside from last fall's fire. Cafe 94 has an extensive menu including some great breakfast choices. The chips and salsa were outstanding. We all enjoyed our respective lunch choices from fish tacos to huevos Mexicana.

To top off the day, dinner at another Mexican restaurant was Gabe's choice to celebrate his upcoming birthday. Along with Vanita, Gabe's sister and mother and their spouses, I joined them at Ortega's on University. An upscale and chic atmosphere where the prices were a lot higher. Once again the food was excellent. For a smaller meal, an appetizer quesadilla was my choice. The house Margarita was excellent.

Today was a good day not to eat until I had hunger pangs. It was late afternoon before that happened.

Football... I hadn't paid much attention during the season until I found that Green Bay was in the final running. Green and cold (make that gold) flow in my veins from my early life in Green Bay. That would make me a Packer fan.

With the prediction of cold weather for Sundays game in Green Bay, it reminds me of the Ice Bowl of 1967. Tomorrow's prediction is cold, but not the 13 below of 1967 with a wind chill of 48 below.

Here in San Diego, I will watch tomorrows game on TV inside the Wandrin Wagon. Hopefully, it will be a back and forth game to keep my interest. One sided runaways are not fun to watch.

With high tides and swells to match, it was a great day for the surfers along San Diego coast near La Jolla. Waves cresting and curling. Surfers riding across the face of the wave. Oohs and aahs from the shore bound audience.

One surfer had the experience of the wave braking and curling over his head and then emerging from the end of the curl. That caused an applause from some of the audience. Didn't catch that event, but here are others.

No way to anticipate this problem. A higher than normal checking account balance usually indicates expensive problems could be expected. Not true this time.

Ice cubes that weren't -- ice cubes. That was the first sign that I had a problem.

Hoping it would go away, I ignored the problem. Later that evening, I realized I did have a problem. The temperature in the freezer compartment was 40 degrees. It was too late to do anything that day so I bought a bag of ice home to provide the old fashioned "ice box" method of cooling the refrigerator section.

After considering what to do with the freezer contents, I decided to just toss those mostly thawed perishables. I could have done a lot of food preparation and even more items for a refrigerator that had no room. And I also would have had a weeks worth of left overs to eat.

Two days later, the refrigerator (and freezer) was working once again -- with ice cubes. Of course, I was poorer as a result of the experience.

Just another pot hole in the life of the nomadic explorer.

I try to avoid politics in these blog entries, but this time I couldn't help myself.

It appears that the candidates for President are running for benevolent dictator. Where are they going to get all that money to do all the things they promise to the primary and caucus voters. Right. They can't do it without the US legislative bodies enacting laws to make it happen.

What these candidates are doing is nothing more than proving to their respective parties that they are electable. When they have proven that, the party will back them with the money that is really needed to get them into the President's office.

For all the talk of change by all the candidates, does anyone really believe anything will change as long as there is this "me versus them" attitude in the US legislatures. Don't forget about the power of large US corporations to influence policy and legislative acts.

Speaking of change. I wonder what the tag line will be when finally getting into the real politics after the conventions later this summer. Remember the Republican party's "compassionate conservatism". What did that mean anyway.

My predictions for the finalists are McCain and Obama.

After posting that single photo for 2007 in a recent entry, I was chided by some readers for not posting more of my favorites of the thousands that were available. It was not an easy task getting it down to twenty. I wasn't going to try for ten. So after spending more time in front of the computer, I created a gallery of favorites from 2007. First I eliminated most of the "post card" shots. It was still a difficult decision in paring the numbers down even further. Picking the one flower photo was a lengthy decision. In the end I tried to include a representative sample of a range of photo opportunities that I find fascinating.

After reviewing the thousands of photos from this past year looking for that one "WOW" photo, I finally gave up and selected this one photo as a summary photo for 2007 -- Wandrin is about exploring the road ahead.

Subtitled "Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey", this ranks as an all time adventure travel book. After past reads of Theodore Roosevelt biographies, this was certainly a change. However, the personality of Roosevelt continues as a major player in this adventure.

After his defeat in his latest bid for the Presidency of the US, Roosevelt headed off to the jungles of the Amazon in South America to follow an unexplored river called the River of Doubt. A challenge for all those on the expedition as they faced disease, starvation, countless rapids, stone age tribes and intergroup squabbles (including a murder), the group emerged two months later to the world's disbelief of the accomplishment.

From materials from many sources, the author creates a great adventure with descriptions of the history, the geology, the flora and fauna of the jungle through which the expedition passes. Once starting down the river, there is no way to put this book down. A fantastic journey.

Yesterday was a day of looking back checking out where I've been. Today I look forward. What do I see. A photo says it all; the future is looking into the fog.



The best part are the surprises of nomadic exploring.

Wishing you a pleasant and exciting time in 2008...