House of Burgess

Homemade air filter

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:37:56 -0800

The lightning fires we've had here caused me to work for eight days straight as well as almost pass out while trying to walk two blocks to the grocery store. As a result, I took a day off two Wednesdays ago. While I was recuperating I saw a link to a video by the good people at UkiahValley.tv about how to make your own homemade air filter. I had been looking at scraping some money together to buy an air filter as there seemed to be no escape from the toxic haze that seemed to permeate every nook and cranny of the county. Being that I had very little money, I was glad to see the greatly reduced cost of building my own.
The contraption basically consisted of a box fan with an air conditioning filter taped to the back. The idea, of course, is to use the fan to draw the air through the filter and expel the clean air out the other side. When I went to the Home Depot I found that all the smoke-rated filters that fit the back of the box fan (20 by 20 by 1) were sold out along with every other size. When I went to Friedman's on the south side of town I encountered two other smoke-weary individuals who had seen the same video I had and were trying to assemble their own as well. The only size of smoke-rated filters they had left were the 12 by 20 by 1 and a few other odd sizes. I decided to wing it and buy two of that size and stack them side by side to cover the entire back of the fan with a little left sticking over.
Almost two weeks later the fan is still going and the filter on the back has gotten increasingly discolored and disgusting. I'm pretty stoked by this if for no other reason than we're not breathing whatever is turning the back of filter a sickly yellowy-brown color into my lungs.
Sure it could be a fire hazard, but I'm happy to risk it to avoid smoke inhalation.

Vacation -- all I ever wanted

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:43:54 -0800

Starting in a few minutes I will be on a vacation for the next week while my mom and brother are in town. They planned on coming a long time ago, you know, before the state was burning to the ground. I'm frantically trying to think of things to do with them while they are here as most of the activities I had on the agenda were outdoors. I keep seeing on the news how the air supposed to clear by the weekend, but I'm guessing they aren't talking about Ukiah, at least not for a while. Whatever the case it will still be nice to see them. For that time I return you to the capable hands of a seasoned action reporter to tell you about the fires near you.

F is for 'fire' and also for 'fail'

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:57:11 -0800

Well Rob gets a big 'fail' for the fire coverage you all were subjected to over the past few days from me. I sincerely apologize for the quality and amount of information you all have received from my stories. If you live in Ukiah right now all you can see is the big cloud of smoke and with no vantage point it looks like the county might as well be burning to the ground and my terribleness as an information resource hasn't really helped allay any fears. The information we've received is spotty at best only because resources are so strained and most fires aren't even being attended to, but that's really no excuse for the job I've done.
I feel like crawling into a smoldering pile of redwood needles right now because I misheard Sheriff Tom Allman at the press conference he gave yesterday to the board of supervisors. 8,500 acres are burning, not 85,000. That information was on the website all through last night and on the front page today.
(insert string of expletives directed at myself here.)
Again, I'm sorry.

Hooray for California

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:35:09 -0800

I don't get up early unless I absolutely have to, but today I was actually thrilled when my the alarm on my cell phone went off at 6:15 this morning. Suffice it say that a civil rights milestone is enough to get me out of bed.
I really feel everyone in California on either side of the gay marriage debate should have been in attendance at 8 a.m. this morning at their local County Clerk's office. Unless you've been to a same-sex marriage ceremony you really don't know what you're talking about. And I got to attend ten of them just this morning. (But strangely, not one drop of bubbly was served--foiled again!)
When I saw the looks in the eyes two consenting adults making a legal commitment to each other during the ceremonies, I saw nothing but love--and for me that's what it boils down to, finally being able cement their bond. This whole ridiculousness about this leading to marriage between humans and dogs (as thankfully thankfully deposed former Sen. Rick Santorum once famously said) and the downfall of mankind blows away like the paper-thing argument it is when you're actually there experiencing it.
One of the couples in attendance was married by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004. That marriage was rendered null and void afterwards, so they had to get married once again today. It just strikes me as odd that you would have to reassert your commitment to your every time someone outside your relationship says it's not real. Of course I guess the silver lining to that would be double the ceremonies, double the gifts--so there's always that party bonus.

Not so Fun(ny) Games

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:07:54 -0800

Ash and I wanted to relax with a movie last night because it was kind of a stressful day for both of us. There wasn't really anything we were dying to see at the RedBox self-serve movie dispenser at Safeway, but we decided to take a chance on a "Funny Games." It was listed as a horror movie and the concept sounded vaguely like the plot of the "Saw" series, which I am a fan of.
Turns out, that's not really what the movie was about at all.
I won't be spoiling anything by telling you this, but the plot revolves around two soft-spoken, psychotic blond-haired blue-eyed Nazi poster boys who proceed to pick off every member of a well-to-do waspy family on vacation, starting with the dog. As it is made clear within 10 minutes of the film's start time, they aren't going to make it and almost the entirety of the nearly two hour frustration-thon is the slow decent into this.
"I wanted to wring Haneke's neck—a reaction he no doubt would have taken as a sign of his movie's success," wrote David Ansen in his Newsweek review of the flick. "Haneke, you see, means this exercise in cinematic sadism as a critique of the typical way Hollywood movies exploit violence on screen and turn the viewer into a bloodthirsty consumer of cheap thrills. It's this moralistic finger-wagging—scolding us for lapping up what he's serving—that makes 'Funny Games' so infuriating."
And infuriating is the exact word I began applying to this movie while I was waiting for it to finish. Don't get me wrong I am not a prude, I just didn't see the point behind making a movie where the main characters have no chance of making it and never do. The movie is shot extremely well and after having a few hours to digest what I've seen I think I understand what he's trying to say. It doesn't mean I enjoyed it or will ever want to watch it again. Honestly the entire could have begun and concluded in the space of a short film as most of the run time is taken up by the real-time squirming of the embattled family. Yuck.
My favorite Coen Brothers movie is "The Big Lebowski," but I'd still have to say "No Country For Old Men" is their masterpiece. I was haunted by "No Country" and it will be a long time before I revisit again, but I've seen "Lebowski" probably close to a hundred times and it's still a welcome guest to my DVD tray any time.
Well done does not always equal fun.

My first crime story

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:26:44 -0800

On Monday I was the only reporter in the office, so of course that's when the sheriff's department released four press releases. All told, I wrote six stories, three of which had my byline, and took the centerpiece picture. Overall, I think I had a pretty successful day as the only mistakes in the stories I wrote, as far as I could tell, were that I accidentally said "Ukiah Valley Fire" responded to a blaze in Talmage instead of "Ukiah Fire" (my bad) and the word "seized" was misspelled in a headline I didn't write.
I still get nervous when I have to do action/crime reporter Ben Brown's job when he's gone, but despite my fears I think I have gotten a little better at it over time.
One of the first times I had to cover for Ben I was doing the calls before I went home. This entails running through a list of phone numbers and asking if anyone had anything to report. When I called the California Department of Forestry's Howard Forest Willits Grade Dispatch they told me that three divers had been rescued in Westport and that an additional diver was not recovered until the next day. Here's the two inch story I submitted for the Daily Digest on Page 2 that day:

FIRE AND RESCUE
RESCUE -- Three divers were rescued at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday near 33000 N. Highway 1. The three divers were stranded on the rocks with an additional person in the water in Westport behind Highway 1. CAlFire, Westport Fire, US Coast Gaurg (yes, that was how I spelled it), Ft. Bragg Ambulance and Mendocino Ambulance responded. Workers were not able to locate the fourth person, but the person was located Thursday.

I went home that night thinking I had nailed it. How wrong I was.
When I got to work the next morning, this is the headline and first paragraph of a story that appeared on one of the section fronts of that edition of one of our rival papers:

Abalone diver's body recovered
Oakland man 7th fatality off Mendocino County coast this year; 2 companions rescued
The body of an abalone diver was recovered Thursday afternoon after two divers rescued at the scene the day before returned to pull their companion from the ocean.

Whoops.
Let's do a rundown of what I screwed up on this, shall we?
1) This is probably the most important thing. The person at the CDF station used the word "recovered." As I sort of implied that the guy made it in my account of the event, I obviously completely misunderstood the meaning of this word when I heard it.
2) "Coast Gaurg"? I don't have a spell check on my computer for some strange reason, but I still think this is a bit of a large oversight. To be fair, I was terrified as I was typing this and slipping two keys to the right of the "D" key on my keyboard is at least conceivable.
3) Apparently, I added another rescued diver. I honestly don't know how that happened other than I heard it wrong or was told it wrong.
Whatever the case, at least you can't say I misunderestimated (as George W. is wont to say) the rescuing power of our local first responders.

I feel your pain

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:11:26 -0800

Can you feel it?
In case you haven’t noticed, things have been better.
And I’m not even really talking about the economy. So, I won’t bother mentioning the crippling cost of gas we’re all facing while Exxon Mobil reported a record 2007 profit of $40.6 billion. And I definitely won’t waste any ink telling you that in the time it took me to write this column the federal government has spent as much on the war in Iraq as I would earn at this job in a decade. And I certainly wouldn’t waste your time rehashing the fact that citizens of the Czech Republic were recently outraged as a visit to the hospital now costs them $1.85 while 20 percent of Americans, including myself, are uninsured and currently operating under the “Don’t Get Sick Plan.”
No, I’m just talking about just people I know. In my entire life I’ve never had so many of my friends and family just not doing very well all at the same time. One day my mom throws out her back (she thankfully recovered a few days later) and the next I hear that someone else I know got picked up for shoplifting.
And I’ve noticed I can feel these bad things happen before I actually hear about them sometimes too. And I’m fairly sure I’m not crazy.
The day actor Brad Renfro died in Jan. I was on my way to work when I put my MP3 player on random and the first file that popped up was a song the soundtrack of one of his best films, “Bully.” As I pulled into the office parking lot I thought about how much I liked this song and that movie and how I should watch it again sometime. Not two minutes later I was at my desk reading about his passing.
A few weeks prior to that one of my friends from back home barely survived after he shot himself in the head. I almost never remember my dreams when I wake up, but the night it happened I had a series of incredibly intense dreams about suicide by rifle. I woke up the next morning to buzzing of my cell phone. When I answered, one of our mutual friends came on the line and told me what had happened and that he was on the way to the hospital.
I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. I’ve heard interviews with both twins and long-time spouses say this before when talking about them simultaneously feeling it when their loved ones died. I can’t say for sure whether or not this is a spiritual phenomenon or a scientific one we just haven’t figured out yet, but I totally believe in it one way or another. Just because we haven’t been able to explain it yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I mean, it wasn’t until the last century that we figured out the double helix shape of DNA, made the atom bomb and cured polio. Who’s to say we won’t make some kind of breakthrough in this field one day too?
I just hope when this black cloud lifts off of all of us I’ll have my antenna up for when something really awesome happens to someone I know.

The day after

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:19:31 -0800

After Hillary Clinton's un-concession speech last night, I found one of the best descriptions of her campaign by Dahlia Lithwick of Slate Magazine:

"Unfortunately, I kept thinking of that Gilligan’s Island episode in which Ginger acts out an excruciatingly long and melodramatic death scene. You keep thinking her every last gasp is really it. But then she keeps rolling around and twitching because she’s been peeking through her fingers all along and knows you’re still watching."

At this point I think it's entirely possible that the Clinton campaign will continue into the second year of Obama's presidency.

Differing levels of sorrow

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:08:45 -0800

Tonight is election night in Mendocino County and the gods that control the U.S. presidential race seems to have taken note of the timing and finally declared Barack Obama the winner of the Democratic nomination on the same night. Hillary Clinton, apparently living in an endless self-delusion of her own making, seems to think that if she holds on long enough, she could still be the nominee, provided something terrible happens to Obama. (She basically said as much last month.)
I do understand that running for president is extremely stressful and I know I could never do it. I also do feel bad that again there will be only men on the ballot in November, but when I step back a bit, I realize my sympathy only runs so deep for the current senator, wife of a two term president and a millionaire a hundred times over.
"More than 300 million Americans living at this hour will never be president," wrote George Will in his May 18 column. "They will never even be senator from New York. That office is not chopped liver."
It's the same way I can't feel too bad for rapper Nas when people shake their heads with sorrow and say that his first album "Illmatic" was so good that no one will ever stop comparing his future releases to it. I guess I feel sort of bad about this, but then again he did get to make arguably one of the best rap albums ever made and then build a 15-year-long career based on it.
And judging from the jewelry I saw him wear in his last video, he's not ready for food stamps just yet.

Upcoming Rob events!

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:47:22 -0800

At 11 a.m. Saturday I'll be on KMEC being interviewed on Jin Gwang's show "The Compassion Network." According to the Web site for the show, its focus is on: "speakers who commit acts of kindness locally and globally." I'm not sure I'm exactly qualified for this, but I'll do the best I can. I did open the door for someone while I was shopping the other day and once I gave some change to a homeless man while I was student teaching in England, so I guess both those combined would equal global and local acts of kindness.
To tune in, turn your dial to 105.1 FM (in the Ukiah area) or you can listen in on-line during the show by clicking on: http://www.kmecradio.org:8200/live.m3u
Incidentally, from 9 p.m. to question mark on Thursdays on KMEC you can hear my coworker Zack Sampsel tear it up as co-hosts "Surprise Valley," a program dedicated solely to the band Widespread Panic. You can hear it live during the show by clicking on the link above, or you can listen to archives here:
http://www.kmecradio.org/p/surprisevalley/
Also, the following will be featured on page five of Thursday's paper. I hope you can make it at some point next month to check it out:
For the entire month of June, the main dining room of Schat’s Courhouse Bakery and Cafe in downtown Ukiah will play host to a seven-piece art collection entitled “N. California” by photo artist Rob Burgess.
The collection will specifically focus on landmarks and distinctive locales throughout Northern California including, among others, the Ukiah Theatre sign on State Street, Fort Bragg’s Pudding Creek Trestle and the wood animal carvings which guard the entrance to the Discovery Inn.
Using only a six mega-pixel digital camera and an outdated version of the Adobe Photoshop, Burgess used the computer program to manipulate and enhance his photographs to create his own distinctive style.
Many of the pictures used for the show were taken with the help of he and his girlfriend Ash’s long-haired dauchund Spikington Fool-for-Love Cartwright during their daily walks around town.
Each of the 24-inch by 36-inch pieces hanging on the walls will be framed, signed and numbered. Only 200 of each will be produced in their original form.
Meanwhile, smaller, signed, un-numbered reproductions of the pieces will also be available from the artist upon request.
Schat’s Courhouse Bakery and Cafe is located at 113 West Perkins Street in Ukiah and is open Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturday from 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For a preview of pieces available at the show and more, Burgess can be found on the web at www.flickr.com/robburgess.
For more information on the event, Burgess can be reached by e-mail at robertandertonburgess@hotmail.com.

Apparently when they say 'local' I guess they mean within the United States.

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:42:46 -0800

The process of moving to California was one of the most stressful things I've ever done in my entire life.
Not only was there the burden of moving all my worldly possessions from one place to another, (which I've done at least once per year since I was 17,) but this time Ash and I were doing it across state lines and over thousands of miles with two whining animals (our dog Spike and our cat Willow) in tow. Then, of course, we broke down twice, once in Colorado and again in Nevada, before nearly running out of money in Reno, Nevada (and if I never get back to the world's biggest ashtray which comprises that hell on earth it will be too soon.)
But the one thing I didn't expect to be annoyed by were the radio advertisements when I got here. When I lived in Indiana I sort of assumed that certain businesses were local and others were national. I thought I had this pretty well locked down until I moved out here and saw California adverts. I was shocked to learn that both J.G. Wentworth, structured settlement and annuity-buyer, and the Shane Company, which is apparently based in Denver and is the largest privately held jeweler in the United States, were not, in fact, based in the Hoosier state. I had no idea. For some naive reason I thought that since the owners of these two companies come on air and talk to the people directly during their commercials and then listed the locations of local stores that they were Indiana-based.
And here I thought I had a friend in the diamond business.

Strike that, reverse it

Sat, 24 May 2008 14:04:40 -0800

This morning I was at Jensen's Truck Stop on North State Street meeting with the local chapter of the Christian Motorcyclists Association. On my way back to my car I saw this bumper sticker attached to the tail gate of an old white truck:

What really struck me about it was how organic the feeling expressed in the modification of the bumper sticker was. We've all seen incendiary bumper stickers from time to time of varying degrees of quality, but the raw, unadulterated feelings expressed in the scratching out of the word "support" got to me. Whether they bought the truck with this already on it or they put it on themselves, they felt strongly enough to leave the rest of the sticker on there while only removing the one word. It makes me wonder what the last straw was. Or when.
Or maybe they're just too lazy to remove the whole thing.
Or I guess another option is that someone passing by modified it for them.
Whatever the real story is, it certainly raises more questions than it answers.

It's been a long time

Thu, 22 May 2008 18:21:58 -0800

Sorry for the absence, loyal readers. I've been up to my ears in work and I don't see that letting up any time soon. In the editorial part of the newsroom, we generally have three reporters (Zack, Ben and Me), a photographer (Sarah), an assistant (Chris), our features editor (Richard), our Sport Editor (Anthony) and at least one of our editors (Jody and KC).
But tomorrow and Saturday, it's going to be a bit more bare bones.
Ben is leaving for vacation for a week in Texas and Sarah will be gone for ten days to exotic locales like Puerto Rico and New York. Friday and Saturday are Zack's weekend, so he won't be here and KC will be gone even longer on medical leave.
So that means for the next two days I will be the crime reporter, the features reporter, schools reporter and our only photographer.
So let me just say that if you have any capers planned or if you're scheduling a giant car wreck, just hold your horses, OK?
I've already got enough to do.

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:14:04 -0800

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court acknowledged that its homosexual citizens were, in fact, real people.
I’m as excited about this as anyone, but it took this long? Really?
It’s staggering to me that it has taken our country 221 years since the Constitution was adopted to acknowledge in only two coastal states that humans that are attracted to members of their same sex have the right to marry the person that they love.
But I think I’ve worked it out. At least partially.
The same day the news came I covered the ensuing celebration jumping off at the Ukiah Brewing Company. Afterwards, I heard one of the only dissenters of the day grumble that they were upset and “just wanted to hide somewhere.”
And of all the reaction to the news I heard or read that day, that is the one that has stuck in my head.
It stayed with me because I think that one statement sums up the entire divide between the two sides: It’s not just that opponents casually disagree with same-sex marriage, they view it as an attack to their very way of life.
“There is no issue today that is more significant to our culture than the defense of the family,” stated James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, in his book “Marriage Under Fire.” “Not even the war on terror eclipses it.”
Because of course, out of everything, that’s our most pressing concern. I wonder how the victims of terrorism would feel about their deaths being eclipsed by an expression of love by two consenting adults.
“I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one,” said Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican in 2006, a year before he was identified as a client of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey's prostitution service in Washington, D.C.
But how does same-sex marriage equal the downfall of modern civilization, you might ask?
“It will undermine the traditional relationship between men and women,” said Dobson on the October 6, 2005 edition of the Focus on the Family radio program. “The family is destroyed. That is the foundation for Western civilizations, and I tell you it will bring the destruction of this nation and many others if we go in that direction.”
I’m not sure that’s how it works. Now if they are advocating forced gay marriage I’m with you. Consider me the anti-forced nuptials candidate.
“Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms,” stated a portion of a sarcastic forwarded e-mail I received some years ago entitled “10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong.” “Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy or longer life spans.”
I’ve always sort of half-expected the world to end in my lifetime (nuclear war, zombie uprising, what have you) but I’ll be shocked if it has anything to do with two dudes kissing after saying “I do.”

(To my that imports me?)!

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:47:39 -0800

One of the catchiest songs I've heard in a long time is Pitbull's "The Anthem." I've been playing it pretty regularly for the past few weeks, but I've become intrigued by the songs two Spanish verses (the middle one is in English.) I have no problem getting down with a song I don't understand, but since I have taken three years of Spanish in high school and have actually visited Madrid, Spain, I've been trying to pick out pieces of the song that I can understand.
This hasn't been going well.
When I was forced to constantly use the language when I was in Europe my skills were much stronger than they are now (which is to say, they were still pretty weak.) But I've been out of practice ever since so trying to decipher entire song stantzas has been nearly impossible.
That's when I went to freetranslations.com.
I've used this site many times over the years with varying degrees of success. The site is good for small assignments like single words or ever entire phrases, but longer blocks of text it's almost useless at. Knowing his going in, I still tried to copy and paste the verses from the song into the translator. Here's what the first verse came out like:

Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black one this rabid one, the wants your azucar and your you are not given her That dark one this tasty one and when your touch it she goes crazy Mommy the black one this rabid one the wants your azucar and your are not given her That dark one this tasty one and when your touch it she goes crazy Mommy that basket what wants the black one? (To my that imports me?!) I what want is that lunatic (you give him give him lunatic) Mommy that basket what wants the black one? (To my that imports me?!) I what want is that lunatic (you give him give him lunatic)

Yikes. I think I get the general idea (or do I?) Just for fun, I decided to try to translate this new English text back into Spanish back into English using their translator once again. The result was something that was almost the same, but slightly more forceful-sounding ("wants" has been changed to "need" and then later to "desires"). Here's what came out the other side:

The mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black Mommy, the black one this rabid one one, the needs their azucar and their you is not given That darkness a this tasty one one and when their sound she goes crazy Mommy the black one this rabid one one the needs their azucar and their they are not him given That darkness a this tasty one one and when their sound She goes crazy Mommy that basket what desires the black one? (To my that imports me?)! I what desires is that lunatic (you give he gives him lunatic) Mommy that basket what desires the black one? (To my that imports me?)! I what desires is that lunatic (you give he gives him lunatic)