tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39127816168506160982024-02-18T20:45:03.703-08:00Mr. Toy's Mental Notes<b>A journal of miscellany that falls out of my head</b>James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.comBlogger285125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-50177333236338533972024-01-11T00:15:00.000-08:002024-01-11T00:36:16.368-08:00Oh, Nikki, you're better at math than that. And then there were two.Earlier tonight I watched part of the debate between Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. DeSantis is a jerk, and I can't take him seriously. Haley, on the other hand is a smart gal, and offers some hope for bringing some level of sanity back to the Republican party. But she often dumbs things down to appeal to the simple-minded (mostly TrumpersJames B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-83771310203895941952023-11-19T23:15:00.000-08:002023-11-19T23:15:38.794-08:00Schnitzer Concert HallThe Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon is one of the latest additions to my online gallery. The theater was built in 1928 as the Paramount Theater, and the big vertical sign said as much until the early 1980s when the theater was converted to a concert hall. A woman named Arlene Schnitzer donated much of the money needed to refurbish the old theater with the condition that it be James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-60461432747388946602022-11-05T05:24:00.000-07:002022-11-05T05:24:22.292-07:00Three Political PuzzlesPuzzle #1Who in heck is behind Prop 29? The same measure was on the California ballot the last two elections. Both times it went down in flames and it is expected to fail again. But that's not the weird part. The weird part is that while the NO campaign has been reasonably convincing, there has been no visible campaign supporting it. Not this time nor the first two times. You'd think that after James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-87363361886006340762022-02-11T03:27:00.000-08:002022-02-11T03:27:06.320-08:00Why I'm suspending donations to KDFCWhy doesn’t KDFC play organ music? This question has been bugging me for a few years now. KDFC is a listener-funded classical music radio station based in San Francisco. With multiple transmitters scattered around Northern California, its signal reaches from the Monterey Peninsula up to Santa Rosa and beyond. Here on the Monterey Peninsula it can be heard loud and clear at 103.9 on the FM James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-90140669478063195272022-01-05T02:57:00.000-08:002022-01-05T02:57:50.585-08:00My very brief Betty White storyThe Monterey Peninsula lost three of our resident celebrities in the past month, Michael Nesmith, John Madden, and Betty White. I have no stories to tell about the first two, but I do have a very brief one involving Betty White.A few decades ago my mother and sister Liz were visiting from Oregon. We were having lunch at The Thunderbird, a bookstore/restaurant just outside Carmel. Quite suddenly James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-40425146048637373122021-08-21T02:16:00.001-07:002021-08-21T02:18:40.076-07:00The Ten Worst Songs Of The 1970sAfter years of listening to the local oldies radio station and the
‘70s music channel on cable TV, this list gradually formed in my
head. I know I'm not the first person to make such a list. Do a Google search and see how my list compares.The
Ten Worst Songs Of The 1970s
10.
Space Oddity -David Bowie (1972)
An
amateurish, inaccurate, dystopian interpretation of America’s space
program.
9.
James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-56710890045393091922021-06-25T02:16:00.005-07:002021-06-25T02:55:26.413-07:00The Trump DemandmentsNot long ago the Republican Party was the party of Christian family values and The Ten Commandments were, or so they claimed, core principles of their political beliefs. Not anymore. In the era of Donald Trump the Republican Party’s Christian values have been thrown out the window and replaced by unwavering loyalty to one man. Instead of following The Ten Commandments Republicans now blindly James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-46743134035495051172021-06-12T01:43:00.001-07:002021-06-12T01:43:14.784-07:00Who has access to your phone records?There has been much ado in the news the last few days about Trump's DOJ getting access to the private phone records of at least two Congressmen, their staffers, and their families. The data reportedly came from Apple Computer. I have a question that nobody else seems to be asking. Why did Apple even have phone usage records of these people? Apparently Apple had complete records of James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-59020700516007299072021-06-09T01:24:00.000-07:002021-06-09T01:24:16.713-07:00Lookit, It's A Radial!Today I'd like to share the story behind one of my favorite aircraft images.
It was a case of being at just the right place at just the right moment. It was August 1997 at the California International Airshow in Salinas. The plane is a Martin 404 converted for executive use and painted in the colors of the former Pacific Air Lines.At airshows there are usually lots of people around the planes James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-27290379465757630072021-06-06T02:29:00.001-07:002021-06-06T02:36:02.788-07:00A message to my e-mail subscribers.As I mentioned in my last post, Google's Feedburner service will no longer be sending automated e-mails to my subscribers (all four of them) to let you know when I've posted a new Mental Note.The next day someone named Karolina added a comment suggesting I try switching to Follow.it to replace the Feedburner service. Normally I might have dismissed this suggestion as spam, but since I had few James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-80075825508137050992021-05-31T02:58:00.001-07:002021-06-01T00:10:51.142-07:00Mental Notes gets a makeover, plus a few announcements.One year and one week ago I announced the makeover of my main website, the Monterey Peninsula Toy Box. That massive project took me a full year to complete. Last week I decided that this blog deserved an update, too. That was a much simpler task as it merely involved selecting a new theme from a list and a few days of tweaking colors and fonts and such to my liking. My aim was to give this blog aJames B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-8810248433950460942020-07-17T01:45:00.000-07:002020-07-17T01:45:13.074-07:00Jon Wizard recall effort is political censorshipThere is a petition drive now underway to recall Seaside city councilman Jon Wizard. The effort is being spearheaded by two former Seaside council members Helen Rucker and Darryl Choates, both of whom have conservative political leanings. Wizard tends to be more on the liberal side of things, and has openly supported the Black Lives Matter movement. In the interest of full disclosure Wizard, James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-91730095827429104342020-05-24T01:33:00.000-07:002020-05-24T01:33:38.358-07:00My website got a makeover!I haven't posted any Mental Notes for about ten months now. That's because I've been busy. I started a project one year and three weeks ago. I thought I'd have it
wrapped up by Labor Day. Nope. But I should be done by Thanksgiving.
Nope. Christmas, definitely! Nope. But now I can finally announce to the
world that it is finished. I have completely rebuilt my website, The Monterey Peninsula ToyJames B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-88048510335010068222019-07-20T23:19:00.000-07:002019-07-20T23:19:18.235-07:00An idea to help save Big Sur
“OVERTOURISM IS KILLING BIG SUR.” A banner was recently hung on Bixby Bridge with that message, but was quickly removed by Caltrans. A little over a week later that same message was painted on the pavement of the viewpoint overlooking the bridge. Caltrans cleaned it up within hours.
While I don't condone vandalism, I sympathize with the message, and it did help drive home the point. Big James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-11548319568696775382019-03-27T23:47:00.000-07:002019-03-28T00:06:42.732-07:00Consider The LilyMy online Photography Gallery and Picture Shop had a bit of a makeover this past week, so it seems like a good excuse to tell the story of one of my favorite floral images.
In Carmel, California at the Church of the Wayfarer, there is a Biblical Garden featuring plants mentioned in the scriptures. I have often gone there in the spring and summer to see what's blooming. One foggy August day inJames B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-75484566386396997722018-12-30T01:20:00.000-08:002018-12-30T01:20:21.719-08:00Moviegoer plays Superman.
This happened 40 years ago this week.
It was late December of 1978, I was 19
and working the snack bar at the Elsinore Theater in downtown Salem,
Oregon. For those not familiar, the Elsinore was built in 1926 and
had a seating capacity of about 1,350 spread on three levels. The
main floor had about 700 seats or so, a luxury loge section on the
mezzanine level had another hundred, while James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-17896421838035000922018-10-28T00:51:00.000-07:002018-10-28T00:51:55.019-07:00The Measure J Deception
Until a few days ago, I thought I knew
what I was going to say about Measure J, which relates to a public
buyout of our privately owned water utility California-American
Water, or Cal-Am. Based on what I had been reading about it in the
local press, I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to
know about it. But now that I've had a chance to read the complete
text of Measure J I find James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-72642886925844018982018-10-26T18:15:00.001-07:002018-10-26T18:15:35.298-07:00$1,000 gas tax?
State senate candidate Rob Poythress
has been running attack ads against incumbent Anna Caballero on local
TV. In one ad Poythress criticizes Caballero's support for the 12
cents per gallon gasoline tax increase which took effect earlier
this year. Poythress claims this tax increase is costing motorists
$1,000 a year.
Seriously?
Let's do some math. $1,000 divided by
12 cents per James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-63395089394830209312018-04-12T19:11:00.001-07:002018-04-12T19:11:05.580-07:00"OK Google," stop recording everything I sayWhile setting up my new Google Plus profile, Google asked me to do a "Privacy Checkup" in my security settings. I did and learned that Google has been recording every word I ever said using my phone's voice recognition software, used to type text messages, "OK Google" requests, and other functions converting voice to text. (NOTE: it was NOT recording phone calls or anything I typed with my James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-76116398941188890562018-04-10T17:04:00.000-07:002018-04-10T17:04:56.299-07:00Congress behaves. Really!I watched about an hour of the Mark Zuckerberg Senate hearings on C-SPAN this afternoon. It was the least partisan discussion I've seen in Washington for a very long time. Democrats and Republicans alike treated Zuckerberg with respect and their overall attitude was "We've got a problem, let's work through it."
Sigh.
If they can take that approach to social media, they should be able to James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-36627007020644543382018-03-25T01:13:00.000-07:002018-03-25T01:13:20.597-07:00Star Spangled DC-3I'm going to try something new here today. I have generally kept my Mental Notes separated from my photography. Not for any particular reason, it just sort of happened that way. Oh, I have a link and slide show widget in the sidebar pointing Mental Note readers to my online Photography Gallery & Picture Shop, and occasionally I have used some of my images to illustrate a blog post, but never James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-53490144453893247722018-02-21T19:09:00.000-08:002018-02-21T19:09:03.540-08:00That damn gun problem.
Judging by their reaction to every mass
shooting in the last twenty years, it is evident that gun rights
activists aren't willing to lift a finger to help curb the violence.
Quite the contrary, they go to great lengths to explain through
twisted logic why common-sense gun regulations “won't solve the
problem.” Their unwillingness to even try suggests that they're
content to let the carnage James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-67914532000521341402018-02-15T00:31:00.000-08:002018-02-15T00:31:31.578-08:00Trump's Infrastructure PlanTrumpty Dumpty's infrastructure plan is a fraud, and here's why. For
most of our lives road and highway projects have been funded 80% from
federal money and 20% from state money. Trump's "plan" reverses that
formula so that the feds only put up 20% and the states must pay 80%. In
Trump's fantasy land, states will have to find four times as much money
in their highway construction budgets James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-16509279140430712262017-12-30T23:41:00.000-08:002017-12-30T23:41:16.291-08:00Fake PresidentDonald Trump says that CNN, the New York Times, and pretty much every other mainstream news organization are "fake news."
In November 2016 CNN, the New York Times, et al reported that Donald Trump was elected President.
In January 2017 CNN, the New York Times, et al reported that Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.
If CNN, the New York Times, et al are fake James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3912781616850616098.post-37339720315039247902017-09-11T00:18:00.000-07:002017-09-11T16:02:41.093-07:00A Watery War of Words
I recently caused a commotion in the
Monterey Herald's letters section. On Tuesday August 29th
the Herald printed a letter from Michael Baer of Monterey expressing
his disappointment with the Mayors' Water Authority, specifically
their apparent inability to bring Cal Am's ever increasing water
bills under control. So far so good.
Then in regard to Cal Am's proposed
desalination plant James B Toyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00453735455065132664noreply@blogger.com0