Happy Wanderer: My top 7 picks for best outdoor adventure

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HILLS NEWSPAPERS: NOVEMBER 28, 2009

When it comes to travel, it’s all about the list. The top ten this, the top five that…it’s almost daunting to pour through

dogsledding above the Arctic Circle

the minutia of must-sees as mentioned in books like 1,000 places to see before you die.

So here is a “bucket list” of real adventures – hand-picked by the Happy Wanderer over years of wild living leading up my recent hip surgery. These are not for the faint of heart. They are action-packed adventures for the daring and strong-boned and able.

  1. 1. Cage diving in the Farallones. In late fall, when the Great White Sharks come to feed on the convention of Elephant Seals off the Gulf of the Farallones, you can be part of the process. The trip calls for a hearty constitution as you travel by boat some 30 miles in choppy waters to this extraordinary marine sanctuary. Continue reading →

Town Crier: The bounty at my table

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MONTCLARION: NOVEMBER 27, 2009

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. With a hungry husband and a 6’4 teenage boy in my charge, I’ve come to realize this is more than an adage. So I want to publicly thank all the friends who’ve brought meals to our home during my recovery from hip surgery.

It brought tears to my eyes, the other night, when we sat down to yet another meal fit for a king. Lamb chops, tubule, eggplant, artichoke salad – even wine and home-made brownies. A dear friend had gone to all this trouble to show me how much she cared. She’d considered not just my needs, but those of my family, which has been stretched to the limits these last few weeks.

Night after night, the meals have been coming to our doorstep. Like Pavlov’s dog, we hear the bell ring and begin to salivate. And the parade of food never ends….the bubbling goodness of a spicy baked penne, the comforting combo of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, warm chickens and soups and salads and sides…and wine – my goodness the wine! Continue reading →

Town Crier: I’ve come to love my jaunty cane

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MONTCLARION: NOVEMBER 20, 2009

I’m not here to brag, but I’ve reached a milestone in my recovery from hip surgery. I’ve dumped the wheelchair and the walker, retired the crutch (by the fireplace), and settled on a nice little cane. It’s the sports model from Kaiser – with a sleek, curved design and enough power to go from zero to point-one mph in three seconds flat.

So I’m trying to come up with a name for my cane, which will be part of my persona for the next few months. Should it be a boy cane named Herb or Horatio, or maybe Michael? Or should I honor my girlfriends and all their support, with a female cane called Candy? Continue reading →

Becoming bionic – the tale of the titanium hip

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MONTCLARION: NOVEMBER 13, 2009

A lot has changed since we last got together. For one thing – I’m bionic. I’m home from the hospital with a perfectly-engineered part in my right hip – a titanium ball and socket that appears like a beam of light in my otherwise ghost-like x-rays.

“You have the cutest little bones.” I’m still stunned by the words that my doctor first shared in our post op visit. No-one has ever told me my bones are cute, or little. But then no-one has seen them from the inside out.

The 72 hours I spent in the hospital can only be described as a wild ride. Nurses coming and going – checking my vitals and giving me shots and dispensing more care than I probably deserved in a busy orthopedic unit. But I had the chocolate. Continue reading →

Hills cop turns to pedal power

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MONTCLARION: NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Nothing beats a beat cop on a bicycle. Just ask the seven suspects rounded up in the hills, recently, for soliciting

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Officer Maureen Vergara patroling the hills.

without a license. “It’s easy for them to duck and hide around here,” says officer Maureen Vergara. “But on the bike I can sneak up on them.”

Armed with her gun and handcuffs, Vergara rides her mountain bike around the hills at least once a week – responding to calls about door-to-door solicitors. “Their company is supposed to get a police certificate,” she says, but in most cases they don’t. They just hire a bunch of people and bring them up in a van to neighborhoods that seem “ripe for the picking”. Some of the solicitors have criminal records – outstanding warrants and drug violations and such. In almost every case, they’ve been hired without background checks. Continue reading →

The six Questions

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OAKLAND MAGAZINE:  November 2009

Who: Arngunnur Ýr, 46, of Oakland.

Photo by Ginny Prior

What: She’s a guide in her native Iceland, leading hiking tours in French, English and German, then returning to Oakland to capture the raw nature as a professional painter.

When: The tours take place in summer, when the sun never sets. Winters are spent in her Oakland studio working on dramatic landscape paintings. “They usually have around 100 to 200 layers of [oil] paint when finished, and the sheen of my work has an internal glow which radiates alluring, intense, luminous energy.”

Where: Tours leave out of the capital, Reykjavik, and highlight Iceland’s rare geological formations like glaciers, geysers and volcanoes. “I love explaining Iceland’s geological history. I know the dates of all the major eruptions, lengths of rivers, depths of lakes and ice sheets, heights of mountains, etc.”

Why: Even after 25 years of living in the United States, Iceland’s
raw landscape and intense weather are part of her character. “There
is something about the elements in the nature … so powerful … they
have such an impact on me.”

How: Her husband and two teenagers often spend summers in Iceland to facilitate her job and her passion. Her paintings are sold to collectors and featured in major museums. She will be exhibiting at Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco for three weeks starting Dec. 12.

Happy Wanderer: Hot air balloons spark flights of fancy

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CONTRACOSTATIMES.COM – October 30, 2009

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s the balloon boy. If ever a story captured our collective imagination –the recent balloon

odyssey in Colorado did the trick. And although the saucer-shaped aircraft turned out to be empty, it could very well have housed a boy, a baboon, or even something sinister like the Japanese bomb balloons in World War Two.

It got me thinking about ballooning, and my recent trip to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – the most photographed event on the planet. With over 600 balloons punctuating the sky, it’s easy to see why.

The carnival atmosphere starts before dawn. Under a blanket of stars, vendors prepare for the throngs of visitors making the pilgrimage to this sacred ballooning site in the shadow of the Sandia Mountains. The smell of burritos and corndogs permeates the still air and flickers of light pierce the darkness as the first shots of propane surge into the nylon envelopes. Continue reading →

Town Crier: What condition my condition is in

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MONTCLARION: October 30, 2009

What condition my condition is in…

The older we get, the more we like to talk about our conditions. Next week I’ll be getting a procedure called a hip resurfacing. Sounds like something you get in a car wash – but I’m talking surgery – involving a titanium cup and a cap.

Oh, the sins of my youth. Looking back, I realize I was a bit hard on my little hippy. I had some blockbuster falls on my right side – doing crazy things like riding bobsleds and rodeo bulls. Continue reading →

Town Crier: A promising life cut short

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MONTCLARION: October 23, 2009

I sent my son off to school, this morning, with his sports gear stuffed in his bag. But in another part of Oakland, a mother was grieving the loss of her young son. 20 year old Phat Vin Le was the victim of a drive-by shooting in East Oakland this month. His ties to our community came through his years of playing baseball in the Noll/Soll league. Reader Ron Ruma says a shrine near Phat’s house tells it all. “Amid the flowers and candles were such things as his photo from Tim Ryan’s 2002 NOLL/SOLL “Juniors” team, the Paw Sox, (and) some memento baseballs from prior years/games.” Phat was a young man with a bright future – who was driving home around dinnertime when he was struck by a bullet near his house. My thoughts and prayers go out to Phat’s family and friends. Continue reading →