Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

The subject of the Monterey Branch rail line and the associated SURF bus transit project have been discussed for awhile now in local social media and news reports. For little historic perspective I am posting below a guest commentary I had published in the Monterey Herald back in June 2010. While it may be a little dated, most of what I wrote is still valid today. ---------------------------- For ninety years Southern Pacific's Del Monte Express carried travelers between Monterey and San Francisco. Although the train remained popular to the end, it was discontinued when Amtrak took charge of passenger rail in 1971. Almost immediately, efforts to revive the train began. In 1979, when SP abandoned the tracks from Seaside to Monterey, the cities acted quickly to preserve the line for the Del Monte's return. Using state transportation funds, they purchased the right of way to the wharf depot and formally agreed to keep it available “for future passenger rail service between Mont

It has gotten harder to call the police. The last few weeks I have made several attempts to report illegal fireworks to Seaside PD. We've always used the non-emergency number 831-394-6811 to do this, and our call would be promptly answered by a dispatcher who would take the information and immediately enter it into the system. Now one must jump through several hoops with no guarantee the system won't disconnect you before the report is made. And I'm getting fed up. Instead of having our calls answered by a human, a machine will answer, much as it does for every business you call these days. First it tells you that this number is not for emergencies, and if you have an emergency you must hang up and call 911. Then they say it again in Spanish.  Next, you are instructed to choose English or Spanish. Next it tells you that they're busy answering emergency 911 calls and implies that your non-emergency concern is an imposition on their important work. Then the voice asks

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 Trumpers), and that drives me nuts. Case on point: Haley promised that if elected she would eliminate the federal gasoline tax to reduce the tax burden on working class Americans. Moderator Dana Bash pointed out that the federal gas tax raises over $50 billion annually and is used build and maintain highways and bridges. She then asked Haley how she would pay for those things without it. Haley responded first by evading the question and talking about taxes in general. But eventually she got back around to the gas tax. She employed a classic Republican talking point saying the states collect the

The 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 named after her. As I heard the story, nobody wanted to put the name Schnitzer on the vertical sign, so it was decided to put the name of the city on it. That made perfect sense since many of the original letters could be reused. The sign was refurbished at a sign shop in Salem, and I was able to get close enough to touch it. I shot this photo in November 1994. I scanned it some time ago with the intent of putting it in my online gallery. To my dismay, the top of the sign was just touching the top edge of the frame. I needed to add some sky to make it fit in a frame without being cut off. I als

Puzzle #1 Who 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 thrice going through the time, effort, and expense of gathering signatures to qualify for the ballot that they'd want to give people a reason to vote yes, but they haven't. So what's the point? Prop 29 is a phantom measure with no visible means of support. Puzzle #2 I can't help but wonder if the abrupt conversion of KGO radio from a news talk station to a sports talk station with an emphasis on betting has some connection to Propositions 26 & 27 which are all about sports gambling. An attempt to drum up interest in sports betting before the election, perhaps? The bi

Why 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 band. KDFC began broadcasting locally almost six years ago. After a couple of years I began to realize that I had never heard any organ music on the station. Oh, now and then they play music that has an organ mixed in with other instruments, most notably Saint-Saens famous “Organ Symphony,” but never any pure organ music. What tipped me off was Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which is arguably the most famous organ piece ever written. I noticed that KDFC always played the 20th Century orchestral arrangement that Leopold Stokowski put together for the Disney movie Fantasia. Bach’s original orga