Sunday, February 25, 2007

TRASH @West: Garden Waste

Now, it's Garden Waste turn.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

New kid on the block

Someone has thrown a hat in the ring: Living in Tracy. Let's welcome the new guy!

Apropos blogging, I have to ask, what is up with this affinity to the Blogger? It's the worst blogging serive among the majors. Most especially, it's the worst in its spam reaction policies. They allow splogs to proliferate, leading to blogspot.com URLs being blacklisted. In the same time, they take down good blogs for no good reason, Google-style. When I started Tracy Today, I knew that it was bad, and I wanted to experiment with it using a secondary blog (my main blog is at LiveJournal). But in Tracy, we have only one blog which is not at Blogger: DavePaker.com (he is a sophisticated blogger with his own vanity domain). A strange statistic indeed.

{Update: There was one girl with an LJ account, but she moved on when she entered a college away from town.}

Recycling guide

City of Tracy seems to be aiming to put this blog out of its misery. They inserted a very nice recycling guide with this month bill, which has the alternating recycling schedule, ready to be put on your fridge. No more clicking to Tracytoday.blogspot.com in the middle of the night for Tracy Residents!

The message section of the bill also mentions that the county HHW facility at 7850 South R.A. Bridgeford takes motor oil. I keep forgetting about it, but I really need to get rid of all the old motor oil I keep. I'm going to check that place out and see if they can take old antifreeze, brake fluid, etc.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Delta College Plus and Minus

Well, it's more minus than plus, but Delta College administration has decided to implement a "Plus Minus System" after all. Grades will become more fine grained, with B+ and A- where plain A and B were before. This is sure to hurt students who actually studied, because they have to compete at the very top, and it's nearly impossible to get A under the plus-minus system.

If a student is a some kind of activist who does not care about grades, it's probably not a big deal, and in fact may help by stratifying the failing students further.

Oh well, I never liked that cesspit of a college anyway. The question is, what alternatives residents of Tracy have now. There's not much: MJC, Las Positas, and going upscale, into UOP, etc. I know someone who commutes to SFSU (not a very admirable instituion either, but it's a specific Master's program not easily found elsewhere.).

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

TRASH @West: Recycling

Sorry for the delay... Didn't feel all that well, although I used up the freshly emptied garden waste bin already. Darn trees drop too much leaves.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Fair weather today

Today is the first day when I opened windows in the house. At 16:00 it's 22degC (about 75F), the street is warmer than the inside of the house.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Car in the canal

I saw the work crew, cop cruisers, and the TV van from the freeway at noon on Saturday. Tracy Press is reporting. Apparently, the driver is dead. He did the right thing, let the car flood and got out, but the early our's darkness, hypotermia, and strong current conspired against his luck, which is too bad. I agree with a commenter that it wouldn't be too bad to extend the railing at the spot. It should not be prohibitively expensive.

Trader Joe location

Regarding Brian's comment, Trader Joe's in Livermore is right off the 580 on Tassajara, behind the McDonalds and Baker Square restaurant.

When leaving, be very careful: there is no turn on red to 580. There are three signs on poles around the place and I saw cops catching people there.

Next closest Trader Joe that I know of is in Antioch, but the road is not a freeway, so there's an opportunity to sit in a traffic jam behind a farm tractor. Not to mention all the street lights. So you'll burn twice the gas going there.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Grocery Outlet

Apropos Amadeo's comments in the previous posting, someone who I know said that Grocery Outlet is a chain which sells expired groceries. I do not mean "occasionally sells", but rather "sells nothing but". Apparently she went into one elsewhere, so she does not want to visit it in Tracy. Weird. Perhaps I should investigate.

TRASH @West: Garden Waste

Yay, the Garden Waste week. I've done my clippings this Sunday.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Charles Shaw wine

I am just back from Trader Joe in Livermore, with a bottle of red Charles Shaw (I think it's a merlot). I do not drink spirits myself, but reports are that the stuff is pretty good. And it's ridiculously cheap: $1.68 a bottle. You can't buy a soda for that much. But here they have grown actual grapes to make it. Amazing.

Crime keeps coming in

Some guy assaulted my daughter at Stockton campus of Delta College an hour ago. She escaped with minor injuries: abrasions and bruises. He got away with her ancient iPod Mini but, strangely, not the vallet, so she kept her license. She does not want to report this to the campus police, because it's a pointless hassle.

Stockton had 4 slayings in just January of this year. I have to wonder what is wrong with that city?

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

TRASH @West: Recycling

Woops, forgot to post the marker.

Friday, February 02, 2007

LLNL Site 300

The Site 300 manager sent a letter to all Tracy residents, apparently. It explains what they do there, how they ensure environmental safety, and other such good stuff. Nice, but I am afraid that it's a wasted effort.

Why do people talk trash about Site 300? Basically, we have two broad categories: a) those who fret because they are ignorant, and b) haters of all things military. These two sets are by no means exclusive. And Tracy Press is only happy to publish anything "controversial", especially with a local bend.

A variation of group (a) is well known to anyone who knows elevator from rudder. They buy houses near airports, then complain about the noise (and even file lawsuits). In the case of LLNL, the situation is burdened with ignorance and hysteria pumped by the group (b). The depleted uranium serves as a convenient scarecrow here.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Lloyd Levine: please choke and die

As anyone who follows Tracy Today knows, I'm a major proponent of efficient lighting (Google will provide links into archives). I won't say that I am a proponent of CF (Compact Fluorescent) bulbs specifically, because I find plain fluorescent light to be of a better quality quite often. I have an 11W modular light from IKEA above my desk, and it's terrific. The color is pleasing, and it does not start up dim whem the house is cold, as CF bulbs do. I happen to know it because I installed 5 CF lights about three years ago. So yeah, better lights are here, hurray.

Nonetheless, Lloyd Levine, "a Democrat from Van Nuys in Los Angeles", made me livid with anger when he introduced a new bill to outlaw old-style light bulbs. I do not need some asshole from L.A. telling me how I should live.

The same news article mentions that Mr. Levine is a well known troublemaker: he also made a law for supermarkets to accept plastic bags for recycling. He obviously wants to deplete our water resources. What kind of morons live down there to elect him? I am not happy with my SoCal neighbours, indeed I am not.

{Update: There's a good post about CF bulbs at Instapundit [link]. I am not happy linking to that guy, because he's a jet hater, but oh well. Just read about the bulbs :-).}