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.

The Monterey Peninsula Toy Box has launched a new feature, a Town Square forum where folks like you can get together and chat about issues of the Monterey Peninsula, rate local businesses, or just shoot the breeze. I decided to start a forum because I have always wanted to make my website more interactive. In looking around I realized there are no longer any truly local discussion forums available anymore. The Monterey County Weekly had one, but they've since dropped it in favor of comments on individual articles rather than an open discussion. The Herald has one, sort of, but it's mixed up with a national forum making local topics hard to locate. So it seemed like a logical step. We now have an on-line forum run by a local webmaster for local residents. I intend for the Town Square to be a friendly place where each member shows respect for others, even when they disagree. The Town Square is off to a slow start, but you can help. I invite you to go to forum.montereypenins...

I opened the newspaper one recent morning to find an obituary of a good friend. It was not a good way to start the day. From 1996 to 1999 Don Nivling and I worked together providing audio/visual services in a local hotel conference facility. We became close friends and we stayed in touch. In 1999 he ditched the rat race and became self-employed as "Captain Connector," a superhero to Monterey Peninsula residents who needed help setting up and learning how to use today's modern home entertainment equipment. Don looked and sounded like a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and a reformed hippie. But what I enjoyed most was his intricate cultural knowledge spanning everything from 1970s exploitation horror movies to the finer points of classical music. Don taught me how to set up a champagne quality home theater on a beer budget (his words). He was a master of employing used electronic equipment that others had tossed aside for assembling thundering home entertainment systems...

At about 1:30 AM on Friday night, er, Saturday Morning, I was working at my computer when BANG! I was jolted out of my seat by an explosion. It sounded like a building blew up. Scared the crap out of me! It wasn't the first time I've heard such explosions, but it was by far the loudest and closest. Now, you're thinking, this has happened before???? Things are just blowing up???? Why isn't this in the newspaper???? To answer these in order: 1. Yes. 2. Apparently not. 3. Because these explosions leave no trace that they ever occurred. I've been hearing these loud explosions in Seaside for several years now. They are few and far between, about once or twice a year, but they're as loud as artillery fire. They almost always occur late at night, and they seem to be happening all over the city. Sometimes they sound very close, as the one did last night. Other times they sound like they're on the opposite side of town. After hearing this one I turned on the p...