While in Sacto...

I met this kid...he's 33, so he's a kid to me, while I was eating dinner at the bar at McCormick and Schmits

His name's Chris Orozco. Life is so funny, turns out he grew up in Sonora of all places and worked at Dodge when he was about 14 or 15. Small world.

Anyway, he's a "professional" skateboarder now and guitarist for a Sacramento band called Machete.

Here's an interview w/the band some time ago. He goes by Roscoe or Rozco.

http://www.musicemissions.com/artists/Machete

They're apparently getting close to the "big time." I wish him luck!
This is his MySpace photo...he didn't look like this at the restaurant. He was fully clothed, but of course had on a sideways ballcap.

He was actually a really nice kid, smart and funny.

It's good to win!

I drove to Sacramento on Monday (what a wonderful way to spend a holiday!).

And attended the State Water Resources Control Board Tuesday, which decided the issue of whether the Kern River is fully appropriated.

I've been advocating for two years now to have it deemed NOT fully appropriated based on a court decision that forfeited some of an ag districts rights. The city has applied for the water covered by those rights and has vowed to run that water down the river.

Yes, for those of you who don't live in the glorious "Golden Empire," we have a big beautiful riverbed with NO water in it.

The city was up against formidable odds as several powerhouse agencies urged the state board to find there was no unappropriated water (even though they'd also petitioned the board to change the river's status and give THEM the water).

But in the end, the board found the river not fully appropriated. Yay! That's a big win in this process, HUGE.

It's also just the first step of a very long journey.

But the really cool thing is my newspaper had started a campaign to get people to write in asking the board to make this finding and more than 4,000 people did!

It was noted by the board staff during the meeting and apparently made a really big impression on the board.

I like to think I had a small hand in that.

So it's good to win!

President's weekend

Doing a little catch up because I was neglecting to blog for a couple days.

OK, Friday run on the tracks
3.17 miles
30:55 minutes
9:66 average
6:31 best
328 calories

And I got this pic of Bear Moutain with a jaunty little cap of clouds.

Saturday run

7 miles on the coyote run heading west along the river, well, the riverBED anyway.

No deets because the GPS conked out about 4 and a half miles into it....old batteries.

Here are Jack Jack and Chico Pete at the turn around.

Sunday run

6.24 miles - HILLS!!

1:13 hours (lame, I know)

11:51 average

6:32 best

716 calories burned.

Beautiful day!

Blue dicks!

You can't tell, but at the top of the ridge are hundreds of sheep. They were all over scarfing up the new grass. I ran into the shepherd and his dogs a little further on. Really good dogs! Mine, um...not so good...it was a little embarassing.
Then Sunday I began the process of trimming the olive trees which I've neglected far too long.

Here's the front tree, which I haven't gotten to yet.

Here's the back view of the back trees still waiting to be pruned.

And here's the one side I did get to. I know it looks awful, but I've done this before, you have to really cut them back hard or you'll have to retrim them in just a couple months.

But this was all I could do because I ran out of room in my green waste barrels!

Oh well, there's always next weekend.

Monday's run was a shorty on the tracks.

3.19 miles

32:52 minutes

10:18 average

6:48 best

323 calories burned