Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

The Monterey Herald has taken a lot of flak this week for a headline in last Monday's paper. It read "Cop killer was depressed, struggling." Apparently several people read this and thought the Herald was somehow justifying or excusing the actions of that guy in Oakland who killed four police officers last week. I didn't see it that way at all. Making an observation is not the same as making a judgment. Making note of the killer's mental health hardly constitutes an endorsement of his behavior. What I saw in that headline was not an excuse, but a warning that mentally ill people aren't getting the help they need. An ounce of prevention or intervention might have kept four Oakland police officers alive.

One of those knockoff phone books landed on our doorstep a few days ago. It's the one called "Valley Yellow Pages." I don't know whose valley they refer to, but we're on a peninsula here. Phone books usually have a nice photo or illustration of the community contained within its pages. At first glance, this one has a nice photo of the Pacific Grove shoreline. But somebody with no sense of scale decided to blend in a separate scene of seals and sea gulls perched on a rock. The result is a rocky shoreline with seagulls larger than the trunks of mature cypress trees. I think Valley Yellow Pages should lose their right to use Photoshop.

I hadn't intended to drag a PG&E lineman out to my house at 9:00 at night. It was Friday, and I noticed all of our lights were flickering again, as they had been for a little over a week. I kept making mental notes to call PG&E during the day, but since the lights weren't on during the day I kept forgetting. Friday night I figured I would call PG&E's 24 hour service center and report it, thinking they would look into it the next day. Much to my surprise, they sent someone out almost immediately. The repairman was a very friendly guy. After introducing himself he shut off our power, got in the bucket on top of his truck and rode it up to where our service line connected to the pole. After working for about 30 minutes in the night air he came down and said the connector had worn out and he replaced it. He said we were good for another 25 years. Wow. I hadn't expected such prompt and courteous service, but I was certainly grateful. When our lights came back o

In my January 31st entry I discussed hearing occasional loud explosions around Seaside which leave no trace that they ever occurred. There was another one last night, also around 1:30AM. The police scanner indicated that it was somewhere in the eastern portion of Monterey in the vicinity of Casanova Street. I still suspect pranksters. If anyone else is hearing these things, please leave a comment below. With enough eyes and ears maybe we can help solve the mystery.