ForbesOnTech

When Life gets in the Way of Blogging-- Dog gets Real Sick

Sorry for a lack of posts. For the last five days I’ve been stuck in the excruciatingly boring details of getting my Mother’s house ready to list with a realtor, sorting through 57 years of familial detritus stored hap hazardly in Mom’s garage, and making multiple trips to Azusa from my own private remodel hell here in Escondido.

            But wait, there’s more. I noticed that my dog was losing weight starting last week when he refused a piece of breakfast bacon. On Sunday afternoon I got Perro ready for a family gathering celebrating Ma Forbes’ 90^th birthday. As I put on the dude’s Sunday-go-to dinner vest – a stylish bright green halter that covers his sides and back--I noticed that I had to reef it in two extra notches to make it fit. And then during dinner, I saw Perro decline two tasty pieces of corned beef that seemed to magically make their way to the side of a chair upon which my older borther, St. Chuck, was sitting.

            Perro not scarfing table scraps?  No way, Jose! “Something’s way wrong her,” I thought.

            And then Perro starting puking Monday just before I left to came back to Escondido. I call our vet from my car and the vet says “come in first thing Tuesday morning.”

            I do and put Perro on the scale where I discover he’s lost about two pounds.  That may not sound like much, but in an 11-pound dog the weight loss is as noticeable as it is alarming.

            So I spent all day Tuesday worrying about the dude while he was getting a stem to stern survey by his vet.

            I picked Perro up seven hours later and the vet sends home three scrips, none of which he wants to take. The vet also says, try to give him some baby food. If you’re a parent, you;ve experienced the joys of a child that’s determined not to try another spoonful of processed meat food product from a baby food jar. Perro plants his butt on the floor, plays dodge-the spoon with baby food veal product on it and locks his jaws.  What do I get for my efforts, disgusting stains on my shirt and pants and a strident “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” from the once mighty Perro.

            That was yesterday. Today I got him to eat about a half-bottle of turkey before he realized he was openly cooperating and locked his little jaws shut.

            The good news is that I think he’s back on the road to being his normal little jaunty self.

            My life, it’s not much, but it keeps me busy.

            Meanwhile, I’ mabout four weeks from getting my bedroom back, which will put an end to my life in my den here on my little mountain top in rural northern San Diego County.—Jim Forbes 03/19/2008

Confessions of a Curious Gold Prospector

    Retirement should be a period when you freely explore whims, dreams and interests that you didn't have time for during your working life. I try to keep busy. For example, I fish, I read two books a week and I garden. But I also use my time to explore.

     And nothing defines my need to explore more than the search for Gold.  I"m not a gold bug -- someone whose life is consumed by the need to accumulate or dream of amassing 22 carat finds.  But rather I view gold prospecting as a natural outgrowth of my love of and passion for California's quite palpable history.

     My interest in gold was fueled as a youngster by two key figures in my life; a maternal grandfather, William K. Sele, and a paternal Uncle, Mont A.Forbes. Both men were literally towering figures whose keen eyes looked at gold not from the perspective of its potential wealth, but rather it's impact on society and locale. My grandfather was a wildlands surveyor who learned geophysics, geology, geometry and trig from his children's text books. But more important he was an extremely curious man, a trait I share and which he encouraged. He also knew as much about where you might find gold in and near mountains as any geologist I've ever met.

     My Uncle Mont was a science teacher who taught me what conditions had to be met in order for gold to make its way to the surface--where it's called "placer gold." Uncle Mont was a hard taskmaster and very logical. Without realizing it, I learned that gold finding is a process of reasoning and most of all observation.  In other words, it's an activity that's physically and mentally challenging.

     So, when I'm out fishing up on some Sierra stream or creek, or up on my beloved San Gabriel River's East Fork, I spend a lot of time looking down at a stream bed, or using my field glasses to look at geologic formations on the sides of mountains looking for auferious "tells" signalling potential gold finds.

     The one thing about Gold is that you need to know where to look for it. First, it's heavy enough that even in small quantities, it will settle at the very bottom of gravel or sand pockets, most often against bed rock. Gold can and will make it's way into crevices in rocky stream courses that trap solid particles during seasonal flood cycles. digging out and washing material from those crevices--  called "sniping." is an effective strategy for finding placer gold flakes or small nuggets.

     My favorite gold "sniping" tool is a long handled ice cream soda spoon that I have modified by sharpening its outer edges to make it easier to excavate caked mud tpacked into crevices that had been submerged during a river's flood stage. I scoop out the detritus ands dump it into a one gallon Ziploc bag. When sniping you need to pay attention to the excavated material. If gold is present, you'll begin to see color as you empty the crevice. If you're real lucky, the amount of color you find will increase as you near the bottom of the crevice. If the crevice has caught nuggets, you'll find them at the very bottom. I wash the material when I"m satisfied I've emptied the hole.

     I've emptied more river crevices on the East Fork of the upper San Gabriel than I care to admit and done the same on the south Fork of the American and on Bear Creek in Northern California.  I don't make money looking for gold, but I've come to appreciate some of the dreams and realities that continue to shape California. Oh I've also caught a mess or two of mighty fine looking rainbow and brook trout while I'm scouring a stream course for gold. And that's just as satisfying to me as finding a few tiny nuggets.

The allure of gold in all its forms or promises is what continues to fuel the hopes and dreams of many Californians. And looking back, the process of being an observer and reporting on the search for "golden dreams" was more emotionally satisfying to me than ever finding shiny minerals.  But the gold is still out there and I still smile seeing entrepreneurs hunt it down in all it's forms. Jim Forbes, wistfully on 12/08/2007 from a rainy mountaintop in rural California.

Southern California Wild Land Fires and How my Buddy Perro Came Into My Life

    I spent part of the weekend at MaForbes' house in Azusa, but set off for my home in Escondido at 9 a.m. expecting to pull into my little mountaintop home by 11 a.m. I normally make the approx 100-mile drive on autopilot.But with the song Samba Pa Ti serving as a harbinger the Santa Ana winds were blowing at about 60 miles an hour. Looking out to my left at Mount Baldy in the San Gabriel mountains, I made the big swooping southbound turn onto I-15 for the final 65 mile reach to Escondido in my ever so efficient Prius.

     With about 60 miles an hour of wind pushing the Prius down the freeway I was confident the remaining two dots representing "fuel remaining" was more than enough to see me down to Escondido and up the private road that serves as my path to civilization. As i punched th on/off button in front of my garage I noticed that I was down to one dot but t hat I had run 448 miles on about nine gallons of gas. I really do believe the Santa Ana winds helped a lot with my mileage for the trip home.

     Opening the back door of the Prius to free Perro the road dog, I noticed his nose working overtime and watched him quarter the sir to get an firm bearing that something he could smell, but which I obviously missed.  He gave two soft sighs and one whine. At first I thought he may have detected a coyote in the yard. But then what he was concerned about became quite obvious to me.

     What got my attention was a big ass Lockheed P3C Orion converted into a borate bomber flying overhead at bout 2,000 feet. I put Perro down and watched the bomber make a climbing turn to its base about 60 miles to my east. I could heard the pilot change the propeller pitch on the four big turboprop engines as it climbed out.

     For attack bombers and their lead aircraft to fly low over my house means the fire is nearby, either on the edge of the Cleveland National Forest or on the fringes of th two neighboring towns, Ramona and Valley Center.

     Wild land fires are something that as a Southern California boy, I'm completely use to.  It's been four years since the last big fire down here the air tonight is heavy with the smell of burning manzanita, scrub oak and tangy chaparral. I suppose, the smoke is what's made my buddy Perro nervous tonight. Before I adopted the dude, he was feral for several years, hanging out with other free running chihuahuas in an old avocado grove. Perro lost his home as a result of the last big fire down here, but he gained a really first class new home in the process where his dorky owner gives him one big beef rib bone once every two weeks and lets him snuggle in the covers at night.

     As the fire surges and is turbocharged by Santa Ana winds tonight I think of my first week here in Escondido when the mountains that frame this little hidden valley were full involved and numerous avocado and old citrus groves went up in smoke. I remember the styrofoam packing boxes that floated down from the sky and littered the floor of my small stone fruit orchard the morning after the packing house went up. And I remember finding the two hose packs, fireman's nozzle and hydrant wrench sitting on my lawn near the fire hydrant. The same day i woke up to the message of self sufficiency i also volunteered as a dog walker at a local park to help exercise the 100-plus dogs that had been rounded up and captured by the local animal control department.

     I took a sandwich to the park for my lunch.  the second dog I walked was this little waif with huge fluffy ears and a studly walk. He was underfed, untrusting, and quite independent. i fed him most of my sandwich and shared some bottled water. I decided right there in the park that I had to have this homeless dog.

     It took him 30 days to become available, but the minute the pound called, I raced down to adopt the little dude and when the clerk asked me what i wanted to name him I happened to look up at the sign in the hallway directing people to the dog kennels. the sign said "Perros adoptable" and I instinctively said "Perro."

     The clerk laughed "good name" and added "someone named the last chihuahua cross we adopted out "Dee-Oh-GEE."

    "Perro", what else would a southern California boy come home to retire from Silicon Valley name an 11-pound Chihuahua? The fire is about five miles away tonight but Perro isn't worried. he has his own pillow on my bed where he's safe and comfortable, but very alert --Jim Forbes 10/21/2007

Lordy, I Needed That--Back from Vacation

    There's nothing like a short vacation to get you back on track. I've been up in Sacramento since the middle of last week doing nothing more important than wandering around residential neighborhoods, marveling at beautiful wood houses framed by old trees with fall leaves erupting in glorious hues of yellow, orange and red. I love Sacramento. it's a little city that wears a big heart on its sleeve.

    It's not just Sacramento's tree lined residential streets that keeps me in love with the city. It's also  the noise and excitement of state capital government and associated quirkiness. One of my lasting images of Sacramento is that of a well fed cat, perched on its haunches at the entrance to the State Senate. The cat has a well deserved reputation as a mouser and is a fixture around the statehouse. While Sacramento has the trappings of a cosmopolitan city, it's never lost its down home, work on the crops,  then get them to market feel.  The Capital  cat is just one of several images that helps to keep everything real here.

   Every time I visit Sacramento I feel like I've come home from a long trip. It's a great town in which to be a reporter, writer or artist.Wandering around "J" street I couldn't help but glance in the windows of art galleries and editorial offices nestled into brick buildings built to withstand the repeated ravages of floods and fires that shaped this city's architecture in the 19th century.

     Lost in my vacation dreams, walking beside the rail road tracks that go past business buildings, art galleries and coffee houses, it's not hard to imagine being a young reporter here, living downtown and working at any of the several upscale publications that have established themselves in Sacto. If you exercise your mind as you walk a six block square pattern, it's very difficult not to imagine five or six story ideas you could pitch at an editorial budget meeting. Jack London or Ernest Hemingway would have found a lot of rich material here.

     I also look at Sacramento with a fisherman's eye. The health of its two rivers-- the Sacramento and the American, is getting better every year and the state is doing a lot to encourage new generations of anglers to get a line wet in waters that are renown for producing consistent limits of fish that repeatedly snap leaders after stealing bait or hitting a flashy lure.

     And speaking of fishing, the organizers of the Salmon Festival and the employees of the California Department of Fish and Game Nimbus hatchery deserve special mention for the annual Salmon Festival, which attracts tens of thousands of attendees every year to watch the first trickle of giant Chinook (King) Salmon jumping up the fish ladder on their one and only spawning runs. As a fisherman I really enjoy watching little kids crowding each other for vantage spots where they can see big hens and roosters resting before the begin their journey up the ladder. There was only a small trickle of fish this year but the full tide of the annual Fall run is pushing its way up the Sacramento now from San Francisco Bay and the frigid Pacific.

     The high point of my short vacation was spending time with my godson and his parents in Rescue, CA. I  took the boy out shooting for the first time, blasting away at innocent pumpkins, resting on a dirt ledge in wet forest compost. He went through about 200 rounds of ammo in my trusty single shot plinker before we cleaned up the area, packed the tarpaulin and headed back down US 50 to their house where my daughter, the Lovely Miss Amanda was waiting.

    I haven't seen Amanda in a long time. She's 23 now and all grown up. I miss her a lot. It was a hoot to sit down and catch up on her life. She's working and going to school and I try hard to respect her privacy.   It's a blast to see my daughter as a young adult. But the news the rocked my world was that she may be fast approaching a point where she's ready to begin writing about something that could be a good book. Amanda and I have talked about this before and I've tried not to be pushy.

   Her sub-plot reminds me a little of John Krakauer's tale of death on Mount Everest. The back story is how obvious signs of a child's mistreatment can be lost in the hustle and flow of Silicon Valley. And how those signs could have been predictors of the brutal murder of two sisters, and their mother by a deranged father.  Should my daughter, who was in her late teens when the signs first manifested themselves, have broken her promise of confidentiality? How did the system let my daughter's friend down at nearly every point where it should have intervened? How could a father slaughter two daughters in Silicon Valley, where houses start at one half million dollars, and where attendance at upscale private schools is seen as mandatory dream for teens moving up the social ladder?

    If Amanda researches her book, she's in for a long ride.  I think she's got a good idea for a book and I'm looking forward  to reading what she writes.

    Well, Amanda is off for a well deserved vacation in Italy and I've had my days off. I got the best coming home present any one could ever ask for last night at San Diego International Airport-- a little 11-pound Chihuahua frantically wagging his tail when he spied me walking out to the car. Crazy dog kisses.  I'm home, back on my little mountaintop here in rural northern San Diego County. Jim Forbes10/15/2007.

Babysitting a Six year Old Grand Nephew Now-- Three Sheep and a 10 year Old Next Weekend.

I'm in full blown baby sitting mode this month. Today I kept tabs on Master Morgan Smith, the six-year old shadow  of my favorite nephew, Deputy Loobers who lives in Oregon.

For some reason, I had totally forgotten what fun a high energy boy can be.  We went grocery shopping with my 89-year old Mother, so I got to use him as a scout, going on ahead of us for chips, vanilla ice cream, cat food and the like. The shopping experience normally takes about 45 minutes. Today, than ks to our personal shopping tornado, we were in and out of Stater brothers in 25 minutes.

Not bad. I even managed to intercept the two stealth attempts at getting candy into the shopping cart.

It cost me a subsequent trip to ToysRUS where even I agreed that a remote  control copter with coaxial blades was a good thing.

Unfortunately, after five hours of attempted flight my Chihuahua was so tired he slept the whole way home from Azusa to Escondido and is now snoring with his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth on my pillow in the bedroom.

Next week I'm going up to Rescue, CA, for the weekend to baby sit my 10 year old godson, AJ Young and his three miniature sheep. I'm sending my fishing gear ahead via UPS and plan on buying some food dye when I get to Raley's in El Dorado Hills. Everyone needs a trio of pastel dyed sheep roaming around a vineyard.

Babysitting, staying connected to the freckled red head that still lives deep inside of me. Besides, I think there is a limit of fall run rainbow trout with my name on them finning around Lake Fuller, 40 miles from Rescue.  Jim Forbes, with a small tired dog on 10/01/2007.

The Pioneers Come Calling-- I Babysit (Therapy Bills to Come Later)

My pioneer family’s red Ford F250 Conestoga pulled up my hill and into my driveway this weekend. It wasn’t the whole family, just my two favorite expedition scouts, my nephe Deputy Brandon and his six year old doppelganger, Morgan.

            When they get out of their pickup it’s as if you can hear a deep voice rumbling across my place on the mountain top “Lt the fun begin!”

            And so it has. Beginning with the sudden stop they made coming up my driveway to ask “is that a huge coyote curled up sleeping in the field?”

            “yup, that’s the  big female coyote who’d been stalking my little dog , ‘Sr. Perro most of this week.’”

            They were amazed to see a coyote within two miles of a city. I wasn’t.  Unless I catch her hiding in my fenced backyard to ambush and eat my beloved, but very wary, 11-pound Chihuahua, I’m not going to hunt her down and take her out. Nephew Brandon doesn’t understand my reasoning so I tried to ‘splain it to him:

Coyotes do what coyotes do. I live in their territory so I have to accept some ground rules (my cats are indoor cats, not furry fleeing protein. My dog has his own door in and out of his fenced backyard. He knows what to do if he wants me to go out in the back yard with him at night.

Surly coyotes showing Lip raised, pointy fangs accompanied by aggressive growling, laid back ears and a ready-to-pounce posture is not acceptable within ten yards of me.

Getting caught stalking my little doggy in his back yard is grounds for a sudden, .17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire brain-evacuating headache).

After explaining my rules about carnivorous wild things to Brandon and his doppelganger I pointed to a mound on my orchard floor where a small blonde and taupe furry head had just popped out of the ground.  They were still glancing at the mommy coyote so they missed seeing one of the two adult weasels that have wiped out every gopher that moved to a mountaintop this summer. That ended the parade of wild things so we settled in to a day of visiting interrupted by high speed ATV runs on my up and down the half-mile inclined driveway connectings my house to suburban Escondido.

The high point of the visit was going out to dinner. My nephew mentioned that he liked a restaurant we visited last year and it’s signature bucket of spiny lobsters, shrimp, crab and chicken. Off to Oceanside Harbor we went.

            Rockin Baja Lobster is one of my fav places to eat. The food is not approved by my or anyone else’s cardiologist, but it’s tasty and fresh. Besides, crab is the perfect meal for a tiring, inquisitive 6-year old boy having a very late dinner.  When you’re six, you can dismember a crab using primitive tools, have crab all over your face, make crab burritos with fresh tortillas and no one says a thing to you other than “”having fun?”

Grunting like a miniature caveman is acceptable.

Things to do with a six year old to stay amused and on top of your game:

1. Use crab legs as finger extenders at the dinner table.
2. Crab legs with pointed ends are good for getting the attention of a silly uncle or stodgy dad at the dinner table. They also make good, but very funny pointers.
3. Build a spud canon.
4. Experiment with Spud canon propellants. Yes, I know hair spray is for amateurs, but the local drug store is open 24 hours.
5. Make sure you do not tell the six year old you’re babysitting that the secret ingredient to good spud canon propellant is a high performance oxidant such as oxygen.
6. Make experimental ammunition for your potato canon.
7. A spud can be enhanced with a pointy carrot sabot. But, the spud has to be appropriately scored so the bright orange carrot breaks free.
8. A carrot sabot, buried pointy end down in sand is “pee in your pants funny.”
9. Secret “boy” things and pacts need to be sealed with spit.
10. Backyard metallurgy is a lost art and very much of fun. It is possible to melt enough pennies with a cigar lighter to make a tiny copper hatchet using a wax sand form
11. Tiny copper hatchets made in a back yard do not hold an edge for very long.
12. the word “hatchet” sounds a lot like “hat shit” which is a funny sounding and inspiring as a practical joke. 
13. Don’t get caught performing practical jokes.
14. if Caught: deny, deny, deny , but first practice look deeply hurt but angelic. ( working with a mirror helps).
15. To make better tiny copper hatchets you need a stronger metal.  Adding a little nickel from a melted nickel to the next batch of melting copper makes bronze.
16. Entire civilizations were built by bronze toolmakers. 
17. A bronze tiny hatchet defeats a tiny copper hatchet in back yard battles.  “The rule book says so.” Is an acceptable answer to “why.”
18. Finding a fast snail for snail races is important and takes a lot of observation and life experience.
19. Flinging the snail race loser with a flinging stick is fun, but not very sportsmanlike.
20. Naps are important and you can “win” napping contests

Some Uncles never grow up.  Guilty as charged.  Jim Forbes, in rural northern San Diego County on a rainy 09/28/2007 morning.

Life With a Little, Observant, Dog-- Notes on Senor Perro

The best parts of my life today are little routines:

Spending 45 minutes in the evening on my glider on my front porch watching the sun set over the Camp Pendleton coast--, my little dog, Senor Perro, tucked against my right hand side with his snout laid on my thigh as he cautiously sniffs twilight breezes. Tonight, he took a deep breath and instantly alerted, popping up and giving a ferocious chihuahua growl to enemies real and imagined. he heard and smelled the two coyote pups in my front lawn-- about 35 yards in front of my porch-- long before I heard their footfalls in my lower garden. It's behavior like this that makes me laugh and appreciate my 12 pound chihuahua all the more. Nothing escapes his attention and he's just as attentive to the sound of the UPS truck whining it's way up my half-mile driveway as he is to the presence of the infrequent coyote or weasel. Spending time with Perro on the front porch in the evenings helps me understand how this little dude made it two years as part of a ferral pack in an old avocado orchard in north Escondido. He doesn't miss much.

Night time with Perro-- I go to sleep long before Perro does, but we do have a routine.  I go back to my bedroom, turn on the TV and watch a show, and he trots in, jumps on the bed and walks lightly over to the nightstand. My part of the bed time gig is to make sure there are two milkbone biscuits in his favorite flavor on the night stand. He likes the beige colored biscuits but will take a green one if nothing else is available. Even a studly little chihuahua apparently has some standards.

Perro is my first dog. I use to travel too much to have a dog as a pet, so I settled on cats. Perro gets along famously with my cats and enjoys his daily hallway races with the youngest of the feline overlords.

When I first met Perro as a volunteer dog walker during the great Escondido fire of 2004, I had no idea I would bond as thoroughly as I have with this Dude. He makes me laugh and I've come to think of him as a fractious 10 year old boy. And yes, when Perro and I make long road trips, I do talk to my dog and he does look at me like he's interested in what I say.

Ahhhhh, life with a little dog is very good indeed. Jim Forbes, Escondido, CA 08/23/2007

Bait too Big, Dog too Sick, Trip to Fuller Lake Gets Nixed

This was to have been the week when I make one of several annual pilgrimages to my favorite trout fishing spot in the entire world, Fuller Lake, off of Highway 20 between Grass Valley and Truckee, in northern California.

Before I was scheduled to leave for Fuller, I wanted to test my luck with the Fishing Gods by taking my best friend,  McDoo,out fishing in San Diego Bay. Launched the boat --making sure the drain plug was firmly in place, parked the truck and treiler, and motored out o Everingham Brothers Bait Barge in Mission Bay, where I traded a crisp $20 bill for a four-pass half scoop of lively bait. the guy on duty on the barge apologized and said they only had sardines. "What the hell," I thought to myself, "Bait is bait" so I cast of the barge and motored to one of my favorite inshore halibut fishing spots. McDoo gave me on of his Arturo Fuentes Special cigars, and we filled the aiar with a thin blue haze of finely cured Domincan cigar tobacco and proceded to bait up.  Lots of nibbles, but no fish coming into the boat. " What the hell," I said to  McDoo emptily "the bait is morer active than the target species."

Eventually, I got hiotr that slammed my pole into its holder in the back of the boat, pulled up my bait when I realized the fish hadn't tyaken the hook. I took a close look at the 7-inch sardine, which had the rake marks on its side and was missing its tail, all good signs of a feeding Pacific halibut.

I rebaited and the bites stopped. Evenutually I came to the conclusion that the  bait was too big and may have been scaring away the fish we were trying to catch. how about that?  the bait was too big and was scaring away the fish! T"hat's right up there witgh being told by my grandfather that the reason the fish weren't biting my dry fly was that I "wasn't hold my mouth right."

yeah, right Gramps, I believed it too.

            Back to Fuller. I   spent most of last week anticipating the trip up to Fuller. Two of my fishing scouts who hit this little known lake pretty regularly fed my anticipation by telling me of their quick limits on  evening bites and even went so far as to send sending me pictures  of the 16- to 18-inch rainbows they ‘ve been catching for the last two weeks using nymph and deer fly pattern flies tied on 14 and number 16 hooks and fished from float tubes about 200 yards up from the face of the dam that forms Fuller. I had my Prius serviced earlier this week and had made plans to overnight at a friend’s house in Rescue, CA, before heading up Highway 49 to Grass Valley and hooking east on Highway 20 to the turnoff leading to Fuller.

            But Mother Nature smacked my plans right down just before I had planned on leaving. First, my buddy and constant companion of the last four years had a bite on his flank that got abscessed. As if that weren’t enough, one of his anal glands abscessed as well. so, off to the Vet I went, sickly Chihuahua in tow. Nearly $200 later, Perro came home and I decided to fly part of the way to San Jose, to meet with someone, have dinner before heading off to the Gold country and getting a line wet at Fuller Lake.

            Alas, Senor Perro was not doing well, So I flew back home Sunday, to be greeted by wild yipping, considerable lap running and lots of doggy kisses.

            It’s still amazing to me how a waif Chihuahua hybrid, scooted his way into my life, licked me into submission and quickly created the pack of his dreams.

            My kids are all grown, and Perro has become a surrogate child. I’m not ashamed of it in the least. I’m just an old man with a small dog; ”Un Viejo y perrocito” as they say on the shores of Tripoli or the Halls of Montezuma, I forget which.

            So my fly rods are back hanging on the garage wall, my spinning outfit sits ready to answer the call at a moments notice, and I’m determined to make it to Fuller before Aug 10, come hell or highwater.

            But for now I have a couple of projects to complete using my best of breed X60 tablet convertible notebooks.

Just trying to live up to the logo of my glog, “Mobile computing, organic gardening and occasional fishing strategies.”

            Sometimes you catch fish other times you get hooked by something unexpected. It’s all part of life on a little mountaintop in rural northern San Diego County, four years removed from Silicon Valley and an equal amount of time being a member of a pack, led by a small 11-pound hybrid suffering at the moment from an abscessed butt.—Jim Forbes 07/07/2007.

Yellowtail Fin Into Town on Warm Water--Hurray!

I thought I'd go out for a putt-putt in my boat this morning. So.......... I get up before sunrise, hook up my Panga to the back of my 4Runner and head down I-15 to the Harbor Island boat ramp. I push my boat into the water, tie off to the dock, then run to go park the Toyota and trailer someplace where it won't be stripped down to the axles when I return.

The parking lot was unusually full, loaded with massively manly pickups attached to two and three-axle boat trailers. I lucked out, found a handicapped spot locked up and jogged back to the boat.

Off to Everingham Brothers Bait Barge quick as a flash and I realize I'm fourth or fifth in line. Time for a quick shot of coffee as I make sure my bait tank is filled and the new pump is still working. All is fine as I inch forward in idle, tie up to the barge and pull out $17 that I've set aside for a half scoop of fresh wiggly sardines. The transaction takes seconds, and I make sure the deckhand knows there's a deuce (a two-dollar bill) in the folded money for him. four passes for a half scoop is a great deal in my book, so I warp my boat away from the barge, slowly idle away, then shove the throttle forward until my outboard is humming along at about 3,200 rpm. I"m out on the Pacific with minutes, my coffee is warm, the waves are only two feet high and 10 seconds apart and the wind is a calm 7 knots out of the west.

I trim the boat up, it surges forward on plane and I look at my watch. At about 18-20 knots, it's going to be a 55  minute run SSW from the harbor and pretty soon Point Loma is behind my back and I can see the tip of North Coronado Island in the distance.

I make North Coronado right on the hour, throttle down and notice that everyone and their fishing partner brother-in-law is playing hooky today and chasing the 62 degree thermocline, which has now reached San Diego. The arrival of the warm water is big news down here at the southwest tip of America, since it brings with it the annual schools of yellowtail, and farther out for people with bigger boats, albacore.

Since moving down here I've become hooked on thunnoid fishing. Having a 20-30-pound yellowtail hit your bait is about the most fun you can have with your pants on. And even better than that when the water gets even warmer, is hooking an appropriately named fish called a "Wahoo." but none of that compares to fighting a cow 100-plus pound yellowfin tuna, schools of which are still hundreds of miles away, down off the Baja California coast.

But everyone and their brother was down here at the Coronado Islands today. I mean the ocean looked like a boaters parking lot. Alas, i didn't ;and a yellowtail, although I did have two hookups. the boats besides me were landing 15-20-pounders so I'm encouraged that this could be the big season for me. I did land a nice legal barracuda, which is being Barbecued as I write this.

And that's the big news in my life right now: the yellowtail are here in San Diego waters, my boat is running and I'm ready with the correct tackle, a working bait tank and sharp hooks. Honestly, it doesn't get a lot better por un viejo y su perrito ( literally an old male "character" and his small male dog. Jim Forbes from Escondido, CA on 05/16/2007

Exploring Old California--A Retirement Todo List Item

In my second life as a still auburn-haired retired person I’ve tried to focus on recreational activities that keep me outdoors and which tap into my love of California history (including gold mining) and the development and infrequent abandonment of settlements.

            Poking around old building foundations is one of the things I really love to do. And I’m not very particular about this hobby. I’m just as happy looking for signs of abandoned civilization in the backcountry of southern California as I am up in the Gold Districts around and near Placerville and Auburn California. A small day pack is big enough to hold all of the “tools” I need for this hobby. Stuck inside I keep a water bottle I’ve stashed the night before in the freezer, a pair of lightweight field binoculars, copies of 19^th century county maps, a pocket knife, a paper notebook, pens and pencils for jotting down observations, my cell phone, some fresh fruit, digital camera, a first aid kit, and a collapsible water dish for my dog. With my entrenching tool strapped to the back of my 10-pound pack, I leash up the hound and head out. The “other” tool that has become an indispensable part of my kit in the last year is a $100 metal detector; I carry in my free hand.

            I normally begin my explorations by finding a promontory that overlooks the area I want to explore. By glassing the area below, I can get an excellent idea of where people may have camped, built 19^th century houses, or kept corrals.  Among the things I look keenly for are patches of vegetation with rough geometric shapes. It’s the verdant green and distinctly human influenced shape of these sites that I home in on. Most often they mark the locations of privies, and it’s at the entrance of these privies that you find artifacts—metal buttons, small denomination coins and maybe an old pocketknife or two.

            Once I’ve located the site of an old privy it’s not hard to locate house foundations or the places where pioneers erected their canvas house. Most often they are located about 100 feet away upwind and oriented with their fronts facing the rising sun. I use my metal detector to explore around the front and edges of a structure. The next thing I’ve learned to look for are two old tall trees beside or behind the structure. Once I’ve located them, I use my field glasses to look for thin notches about 10-20 feet up the trunks. Most often, the notches have been self-repaired by the trees, but once you’ve located the discolored bark you know you’ve hit the mark.

            The notches are the signs that the trees were used as anchor points for a clothesline. The ground under those settlers’ clotheslines is pay dirt for an amateur treasure hunter. It’s where coins that were left in pockets before wash day fell to the ground and were buried in the detritus of time. It’s those coins, rusted away pocketknives, old metal buttons and other things that I seek.

            I’ve located trash dumps on my explorations too, but I know enough about amateur archaeology to leave those for the day when I have enough time to map out grids and have the fortitude to haul in the wood and screening I need to correctly sieve old trash. Besides, on a good day about the most interesting thing I’ve found in old trash pits are: broken clay pipe stubs, trashed china and once a couple of bent spoons made of badly corroded, cheap, metal.

            I’ll never discover an American Troy, but I’m not shooting for that. What I’m doing is having fun outdoors and gaining a little better understanding of the immigrants and Californios who populated early California. Oh, and in my treasure chest is a nice collection of old buttons, small denomination coins from the 1850’s, 60’s and 70’s and about 20 cents in corroded Indian head pennies. And that’s on top of religious artifacts, old lead bullets carved out of trees and a broken lance tip from the edges of the San Pasqual, California, battle site, where about 150 California lancers soundly defeated the superior armed 1^st Cavalry regiment under the command of General Steven Watts Kearny. Those lancers must have been some bad ass dudes.

            The two things I do want to locate and explore are still at the very to of my list: 1. The location and layout of Leland Stanford’s first store on Coldwater Creek north of Placerville ( which is most likely now covered over by houses); and the site of the Indian village that became my home town of Azusa, CA. (I’ve looked for years or evidence of that site and the only thing I’ve found was a trash midden on the north edge of the old Foothill Dairy and some lodge pole sockets in ground that’s now part of the Azusa golf course north of 12^th street.)

            I may never find these sites, but for me the search is “another trip of a man and his small male dog “Viejeros: un hombre y su perrito”: Jim Forbes, un Viejo en Escondido, Alta California 05/16/2007.