The Junction of Highway 74 and Goodbye

Friends,

This has been a pretty big storm, but without the media play that the last received. Sure the snow was inconvenient, but the rain over the last few days has been unrelenting. Mix into that the already saturated hills and the denuded burn areas from the Cottonwood Fire, and now we seem to be missing a big chunk of Highway 74 just outside of Mountain Center.

As always, please read the Town Crier Breaking News blog for more details (without any sort of judgement about whether it may be a blessing to not have to go to Hemet) and if you're really bored, go take a look at the Press-Enterprise's wall-to-wall coverage (very short walls, btw).

We could lay some 2x6s across that chasm and be ready for the Monday commute—if you're really, really careful.

- bob

America's Very Cleanest Forest, Not Kidding

Friends,

Remember how I promised to get back to the "America's Cleanest Forest" subject a couple posts ago? My hope was to write a little something about the old Welcome to Idyllwild sign coming down and maybe work in something about how the new sign just doesn't bring the charming like the old one. I was even going to shoot a picture of the new sign to prove the point. I needn't bother.

In the 4th February 2010 edition of our very own hometown paper, the Idyllwild Town Crier, a new column by our resident historian, Robert B. Smith, lays out the origin of "America's Cleanest Forest." With permission, I'm offering it here because I love the story. The chutzpah of Idyllwild's patron saint, Ernie Maxwell, here seems unmatched. Enjoy!

Before Our Time
by Robert B. Smith

A clean forest...

Shortly before year's end, an icon disappeared from the corner of Highway 243 and South Circle Drive.

I speak of the former welcome sign, now replaced by a classy new version. Its weatherbeaten boards had seen better days, but like most old, familiar things, they have a history worth recalling. Fittingly, its key components now reside with the Idyllwild Area Historical Society.

Chief among those components was the proclamation "This is Idyllwild — Entrance to America's Cleanest Forest." I noticed it shortly after settling here permanently, and my first thought was, "how could you know that?" Does somebody survey the country's woodlands, evaluating cleanliness? As I became more familiar with our forest, by walking hundreds of miles back and forth along its trails, I had to agree. Compared with other regions I've traversed, the local trails did seem remarkably litter-free. But "America's cleanest?"

As far as I can reconstruct, the slogan was pulled from thin air in 1950 within the young Idyllwild chapter of the Izaak Walton League. That group was perpetually led by the ubiquitous Ernie Maxwell and had a permanent influence on the character of Hill communities.

Maxwell and his wife, Betty, arrived in Idyllwild in 1946 equipped with a love for the outdoors and an activist's bent. Once they founded the Town Crier late that year, it became a bully pulpit to proclaim their values, especially wilderness conversation from a fish and game enthusiast's point of view.

Ernie was automatically absorbed into the Chamber of Commerce, which has long aspired to fill the vacuum created by absence of any local government. There, he formed a Wildlife and Conservation Committee, which by autumn 1948 sought an independent existence.

On Oct. 12, 1948, a group of eight citizens met to form a "San Jacinto Mountain Fish and Game Club" to organize conservationists and sportsmen more effectively in developing the recreational potential of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa ranges. Led by Maxwell and USFS District Ranger Don Bauer, the group from its outset sought greater leverage on forest policy by affiliating with a larger entity. Their ultimate choice was to align with two groups, a newly created Riverside County Conservation Commission and the national Izaak Walton League.

The Idyllwild chapter, who called themselves the "Ikes," immediately attracted 25 members and grew within a decade to 118. Collaborations with the Forest Service, the Chamber of Commerce, the Boy Scouts, the Sierra Club, and the Fish & Game Commission got them into a wide variety of projects.

One was a "Junior Ranger" program at the Idyllwild School; another was the anti-litter campaign, for which they invented the "cleanest forest" slogan. There was a natural marriage between these two projects, and the Junior Rangers went about gathering up trash to fill the Ikes' scattered barrels.

The Programs eventually faded, and after many years the League chapter folded, but the slogan lived on, emblazoned on the old welcome sign at the main entrance to Idyllwild.

Squeaky clean.

Your pal,

bob

Happy Marmot Day!

Friends,

As you know, I've been railing against the idiocy of Groundhog Day for years and years (forty four of them? -ed Not quite, but nice plug.), but now that Alaska has got into the act of rodent-based Winter weather prediction festivals, I think we should just place a moratorium on the whole practice. After all, those kleine vrachtwagens vol van hondsdolheid as the Dutch might say, aren't slaving over a hot weather map every day like our dear Idyllwild Weather Clam. What do they know?

- bob

Happy February!

Friends,

Just wanted to drop you a little note wishing you a happy February. Yeah, I know, it's Monday and things haven't been working out for you today. The sink is clogged, the rain has finally leaked into that hole in your shoe, your cat has asthma, the budget you submitted is running a trillion dollars in the red...

But hey! It's can't be all bad, it's February!

- bob

And Tar and Feathers May Encourage The Chicken Dance

Friends,

Our state legislature and the capitol building that houses their bizarre efforts, should clearly be cordoned off from the rest of society. We can instantly rename the facility the Al Lowenthal Center for Severe Mental Health Disorders if you like, or just paint the whole thing black and turn our backs on it. Either way, these cats never fail to amaze (and depress). Here's today's story from the L.A. Times (they still print that thing? -ed Yup, but you better hurry.) that details the State Senator's idea to convince cities to reduce or remove free parking. As you know, parking encourages driving, and driving encourages buying and burning fuel, and that encourages THE DESTRUCTION OF EVERYTHING WE HOLD DEAR! OMG!!!1!!one!!

Big Al's premise is simple...

State lawmakers are taking aim at what some of them see as a menace to California's environment: free parking.

There is too much of it, the legislators say, and it encourages people to drive instead of taking the bus, walking or riding a bike. All that motoring is contributing to traffic jams and pollution, according to state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), and on Thursday he won Senate approval of a proposal he hopes will prompt cities and businesses to reduce the availability of free parking

So if you're not following the crazy, this proposal contends that driving also causes traffic, which is a lot like saying that combining bread, peanut butter and jelly causes sandwiches.

Tune your brain caps to 20 and please be seated. Al's not done...

"Free parking has significant social, economic and environmental costs," Lowenthal said. "It increases congestion and greenhouse gas emissions."

But wait, here's the kook graf:

"It's nice that we've been treated to this luxury," Lowenthal said. "The problem with free parking is it's not free."

Just like freedom!

- bob

As Easy As Pi

Friends,

We here at Jaunty Central love the Riverside Press-Enterprise. They make our lives easier almost every day. Sometimes we don't even have to write the joke, it just issues forth from their ink-stained fingers straight to our pixel-punished eyeballs. This is one of those times:



Editors. Who needs 'em?

- bob

Idyllwild Weather Clam Presents: Fact-Based Facts

[This Jaunty Weather Update is brought to you by the Idyllwild Weather Clam who is taking some personal time to knit a sweater this morning.]

Friends,

Our very own Idyllwild Weather Clam constantly checks all of the weather reporting agencies and when she stops laughing, becomes disgusted at how wrong most of them are. This morning, for instance, the Yahoo! Weather Widget for the iPhone (which draws from the notoriously dim Weather Channel who are currently reporting that it's 22°, which is also wrong.) said that it was a balmy 40° Fahrenheit at 4:30 this morning. The actual readings from the Idyllwild Weather Clam Mega-Skyview Ultra Doppler 8000 Super Computron in HD thing showed that the temperature was actually 26°. Quite a difference, and another reason why you shouldn't trust anything that you read at all, unless you read it here. (and it's written by a clam. -ed)

Your pal,

bob

Storm Watch 2010! Gravity! Edition!

Friends,

Just a quick note about ice on walkways: it's pretty slippery. C'mon, ask me how I know.

- bob

P.S. Brother, can you spare an elbow? And a hip? And some spinal joints in the neighborhood of L5 and S1?

Storm Watch 2010! Photo Blort! Edition!

Friends,

You may have heard that we had a little storm up here in the gateway to America's Cleanest Forest (more on that later). A modest amount of snow fell...


And now that I have a set of snow shoes, I don't get a lot of frozen, wet intrusion in the top of my boots. That makes getting nice shots much easier...


I found that this was important to get quick snaps before the next storm rolled in...


What better plan than to work from home last Friday? The roads weren't plowed regularly, but when they were, the ice sheet was exposed. Forget it, I thought. Time to light a fire and use my bandwidth instead of the failed network at the Festival of Dirt.


My DSL stayed up at this Secret Alpine Laboratory, but the genius monopolies of AT&T and Verizon combined to allow the big pipe at work to fail. Oh, and they decided to take the weekend off and got around to working on the problem today. Towards the end of the day, the connection came up but they didn't tell us. "Just figure it out yourselves. By the way, we really value you as a customer."

Of course they do.

- bob

Storm Watch! 2010! OMFG!!one! Edition!

Friends,

This storm thing has been pummeling Southern California for a few days now and it's been a joy. By joy, of course, I mean that we've seen everything you want to see in a winter storm. You want your hail? Squalls? Snow? Rock porridge? We've got it all.

We'll even have something that I've never heard before. I'll let the National Weather Service breathlessly blort it out in all-caps...

POST FRONTAL INSTABILITY WILL RESULT IN WIDELY SCATTERED SHOWERS TONIGHT...WITH SNOW ABOVE 5500 FEET. SOME RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS COULD BE HEAVY. PERIODS OF SNOW OR GRAUPEL ARE ALSO POSSIBLE DOWN TO 5000 FEET OR LOWER DURING HEAVY SHOWERS.

Graupel? What is this thing? Jewish wontons? No, dear reader, it's simultaneously more bizarre and more common. It's the balls of snow that seem like styrofoam rolling off your windshield. Weird? Not so much, but I'd never heard the term before. It's almost like we English speakers have hundreds of words for snow or something.

Chilly, but fun,

- bob

Sloppy

Friends,

A series of storms are set to pummel my little town (and to be honest, the rest of the state) all week, but I'm taking no chances. I've created a series of channels and ravines to divert water away from my back door, I've laid up enough wood in the house to last for a week, and I've had a chat with Mme. Puppy Dog about how the moisture falling out of the sky is harmless and shouldn't deter her from using the facilities. The latter argument has fallen on deaf but pricked up ears, which suggests to me that she cares that I'm speaking, just not that concerned with the content. Before you suggest that dogs are perky, bounding idiots incapable of recognizing human speech, why must we then spell out w-a-l-k and c-o-o-k-i-e? Yeah, I thought so.

So once again, in the consequence- and largely history-free mind of my dog, I'm to blame for this downpour. These storms, clearly, are my invention, having conjured my very own El Nino current in the Pacific, for as far as she knows, this hairless ape is all-powerful (I do control the light, heat, and food—my power knows no bounds), so why not the skies?

After we get our two feet of snow (!) this week, I'll think about letting it dry out for a while, but in the meanwhile, go outside and stop looking at me like that.

- bob

Two Sentences From A Book - The Chosen Edition

The Little Jaunty Players
- Proudly Present -
- From The Computerniks at Jaunty Central -
- A Pekl Of Such Mishegoss -
- You Should Know From Nothing -

It's Two Sentences From A Book!

"Say "Mazel tov! to a surgeon, dentist, etc., after the successful completion of a difficult operation. This congratulates him on his skill in performing what you now admit you knew was a risky business."

Such a problem you should never have.

Ask Your Doctor If Yaris Is Right For You

Friends,

Last weekend, the engine in my Tiny Racecar decided to give up on this whole starting and running thing about 150 miles away from my house. This earned it a trip on a flatbed truck to the local dealer there, and its keys dropped in a lock box. It also earned me the chance to rent an even smaller car—a 3-door Toyota Yaris, known to the rest of the world as a Toyota Aygo.

I can understand why they'd rename the car in the states, after so many unfortunate car names like Aspire and Charade, they must have thought that they'd be mocked for the aspirational "I go." Oh, and then there's this...

Enjoy the go, people.

- bob

UPDATE: The comment system doesn't seem to be working at the moment. If you have left a comment, please be patient while I try to figure out what the problem is. Thanks.

UPDATE II: Word from the dealer is that the fuel pump was kaput. Happened kind of suddenly, didn't it? Does this kind of thing actually happen without warning? I wouldn't have thought so...

Planet? No, It Just Kinda Happened.

Friends,

Yesterday, NASA and JPL announced that the Kepler space telescope had discovered five planets outside of our solar system. This is good news if you took JPL in your Fantasy Number of Planets league and good news for folks already tired of this year's cold weather. According to astronomers, the planets range in temperature between 2,200 and 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. No more shoveling the driveway!


Sure, the telescope's mission is to find planets that we can move to when things get too dicey here (I'm moving to the planet where playing Hip Hop or rap is a capital crime), and the announcement seems a bit apologetic for finding screaming hot planets Kepler 4b through 8b first, but I'm thrilled by the news. It's the first step in the "too hot, too cold, just right" triumvirate, and at the rate they're going, we'll be moving off this rock by 2012.

Well, you'll be moving off this rock. Right?

- bob

Happy Brand New Year That's Better Than The Last One!

Friends,

We here at the vast Jaunty Little Media Empire wish you a happy, healthy, and joyous New Year. We're planning interesting things for the new year while continuing to provide the same middling level of mild entertainments that you've come to expect from this hot mess. That's our our promise to you! (which you can take to the bank, once it has emerged from bankruptcy protection. - ed)

Your very best pal in the whole wide world, bar none,

- bob

Jaunty Dumptruck O' News: Nigerian Wiener Bomb Update

Friends,

I haven't been paying attention to the news over the last few days, but returned to learn of 23-year old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane over Christmaswith a package of plastic explosive attached to his, um, package. Sure, the passengers did a heroic job of halting Mr. Abdullanutjob's attempts to correct the problem of his bomb not properly blowing up his crotch, but the Secretary of Homeland Security spent the day on the Sunday chat shows saying that "the system worked"? I suppose Secretary Nepolitano has a point, if the system now consists of malfunctioning devices and passengers needing to forcibly subdue terrorists to save their own skins. It appears that there's now no need for TSA in this new system, which is good if they're going to increase security to such an extent to close this particular barn door.

Heckuva job, Janet.

- bob