So I was minding my own business in the cemetery yesterday, straightening headstones and uprighting flower vases, and I kept hearing strange clattering and tooting noises to the South. I finally glanced up and saw a little railroad maintenance car, which I thought was odd, since our railroad doesn’t use railcars, it uses old vans with specially fitted wheels. However, I thought that it was entirely plausible that the railroad probably has a railcar or two sitting around, and I went back to minding my own business when I looked up again, and saw another one.

And then another, and another, and another.

I realized that my insatiable curiosity would only be satisfied if I went over to the site of the commotion to see what was going on.

When I arrived, this is what I saw:

For those of you who aren’t intimately familiar with the cemetery geography of Fort Bragg, the train tracks run right past Rose Memorial, and the cemetery was directly behind me when I took this picture. Literally; a friend’s grave was about 20 feet away from where I was standing. I hope none of the people in our garden of the dead had a problem with the Skunk Train.

I still feel kind of shy about photographing and talking to people, so I took another shot before I worked up the nerve to ask someone what in the heck was going on.

As it turns out, most railroads sold off their railcars at some point, to replace them with foolish looking vans with train wheels on them. The next time I see the Skunk’s van, I’ll photograph it. It looks like a total 1970s molester van, it’s awesome.

So, at any rate, when the railroads sold their railcars, people bought them because they thought they were neat. And people started fixing them up and decking them out, and pretty soon organizations like NARCOA arose. People get together with their railcars and make arrangements with railroads to go on excursions, and these guys came over from Willits with railcars from all over the country. There were a lot of really neat rigs; some were obviously custom, and others were clearly vintage, and everyone looked like they were having a jolly old time.

Some people even had pi!

Everyone was very nice and friendly, and it was neat to check out all the railcars. They were gathering by the cemetery so that they could cross town as a group, rather than holding up traffic for an extended period of time as they straggled through one by one. They were very efficient, with their own flaggers on board who moved into position to stop traffic to allow the railcars through.

I got this shot of the railcars moving out and then my batteries died. Despite the fact that I have spare batteries squirreled away in almost everything I own, I for some reason wasn’t carrying any yesterday. I trailed after the railcars until they hit the Skunk Train’s lot, and they went through the forbidden gate to the Mill Site, where Skunk stores its trains and whatnot. I thought about following them through, but I would have stuck out like a sore thumb the way I was dressed, so I waved good bye and resolved to come back on their way out to get more photos.

Alas, I missed the return trip, although I did get to watch the locomotive maneuver itself around the tracks; I think they stuck the railcars on the back lot so that the railcar people could wander around town, and so that the railcars would be out of the way of the real train when it returned. The railcars had to wait for the train to come back, since we only have one set of tracks, and the train came back earlier than I thought it would so I missed the grand departure. However, now that I know about the NARCOA site, I’m keeping my eye out for Fort Bragg excursions so I can get more pictures next time.

It just goes to show you that something marvelous and amazing really is always happening, even in sleepy little towns like ours. If I didn’t go to the cemetery occasionally, I would have totally missed this event, and I think that most people in town did. Wander around your hometown some day, and you might be surprised by what you find!

Basic Instructions is an excellent site which provides illustrated basic instructions for many of life’s important tasks, ranging from offering condolences to combating the silent treatment.

Wrongfully convicted prisoners who are exonerated on DNA evidence don’t exactly have it home free when they get out.

Some tips for dealing with police from an attorney in Colorado.

Rubber sidewalks aren’t just for public streets; if you’re installing a walkway of any sort, you might want to consider them.

The Washington Post profiles nuns, and looks at why there is an increase in enrollment at convents which continue to use the traditional habit.

Everyone’s getting in on the green revolution, including supermarkets. But can supermarkets really be green, or are they just gearing up to sell their own product lines?

WordRidden is my NaBloPoMo pick of the day.

I just finished reading The Good, Good Pig, a book about Christopher Hogwood, a pig who was kept as a pet by Sy Montgomery until his death from natural causes. I was actually reading it at the coffeehouse last night, and someone asked me about what I was reading, and she said “that sounds kind of boring,” after I explained that it was just about the life of a pig, not about raising pigs for slaughter or running a farm.

But it was anything but boring.

I don’t have a lot of experience with pigs; we never kept them, and I’ve only met a handful of pigs. I certainly don’t count any among my animal friends, although I have always rather liked pigs. Their earnest, cheerful faces and curly tails would warm even the coldest heart, I think. I read the book because I was interested in learning more about pigs, and about the life of one particular pig, and because I just generally like animal biographies since I am a sucker for a furry face.

Christopher Hogwood was an unusual creature. Montgomery and her husband adopted him when he was the runt of the litter, and they intended to raise him as a pet, not for food, since Montgomery is vegetarian and her husband is Jewish. Most pigs don’t live much longer than six months in the United States, because that’s when they’re mature enough to harvest; Christopher Hogwood lived for over a decade.

In addition to being a member of Montgomery’s family, Hogwood also interacted with his neighborhood, and it sounds like he acquired quite a long list of friends. In the final chapter, Montgomery talked about the powerful emotional effect that Hogwood had on the people around him; animals seem to have this magical ability to break through barriers which humans can’t, too inspire people or soothe aching sadness or remorse. Some of his fans described him as a sort of pig Buddha, teaching people to enjoy life and to take the time to be with people they love.

Pigs have been an important part of human life for thousands of years, and they are one of the more curious farm animals in our lives, since we keep them solely for food, not for milk or textile material. But pigs are also used to hunt for truffles with their extraordinary noses, and people once used them like hunting dogs to track prey, according to Montgomery. That little factoid was new to me, and I thought it was rather interesting, myself. People have a lot of misconceptions about pigs, which is rather unfortunate, because pigs certainly do not deserve their bad reputation; they are cleaner than many other animals, for example, and they are searingly intelligent. Pigs are great problem solvers and they also have an excellent memory; Montgomery wrote about several people who only saw Hogwood intermittently, but were still instantly recognized, for example.

I would highly recommend The Good, Good Pig. While Montgomery is vegetarian, she certainly doesn’t push vegetarianism on her readers, and the book isn’t a cleverly disguised polemic on why people shouldn’t eat animals. It’s just the story of a pig and his life and the people he met, and that’s it. It was interesting to get a small window into pig behaviour, and into what happens to pigs who are allowed to live out their natural lives. It’s certainly not going to stop me from eating pork, but it does give me a deeper appreciation for porcines. The book certainly doesn’t take long to read, and you might find yourself enjoying it immensely.

The book definitely didn’t anthropomorphize Hogwood, but it did give him a character of his own, and that character was interesting, dynamic, and sensitive. For people who haven’t interacted with farm animals, that might be surprising; while we think of our own pets as distinct personalities, I think it’s hard for some people to think that chickens and pigs and cows also have their own unique selves, and it was nice to see Hogwood profiled as an individual.

File sharing on college campuses has long been a favorite target, and Congress is proposing legislation targeted at college downloading. Many colleges think that this is unfair, since they actually fight copyright infringement far more than commercial ISPs do, and don’t get any credit for it.

Legalization of gay marriage might improve our state’s business climate, or so says the state chamber of commerce.

The writers’ strike starts to hit the film industry.

So much for fighting climate change in the third world; a number of wealthy industrialized nations welched on their promise to send needed funds earmarked for global warming to developing nations.

Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party have taken Australia’s elections by storm; prepare for big changes down under.

Here is a slideshow of pandas to brighten your day.

Vegan Chai is my NaBloPoMo pick for the day.

I went on my daily bike ride this morning since it was a beautiful, still, perfect sort of morning, and it seems like a lot of other people had the same idea, since I passed lots of bicycles and people and dogs playing in yards. I got a good groove going as I hit the Pudding Creek Trestle, and I wasn’t even deterred by the people who refuse to yield to a bicycle, standing stupidly in the middle of the bridge until I ring my bell arrogantly. It takes a certain kind of person to ring a bicycle bell, I think, and I’m not sure I’m that kind of person yet.

I cruised a little way up the haul road, basking in the sunshine and moseying along at a pleasant pace before deciding that I had gone far enough and turning around. As I approached the trestle from the North, a bunch of fleshy, meaty, heavy sort of men were standing in the path.

“Look at that fat bitch on the bicycle,” one of them said, his face contorting in an ugly way which I’ll kindly put down to the heat, rather than years of being a complete dick.

What an astute observer, I thought, sliding gracefully to a stop so that I could take some photographs and nodding at another bicyclist who was leaning up against the rail enjoying the view. It was hard to frame shots without people in them, since the beach was so busy, so I finally gave up and went for minimal people, rather than no people. It’s days like this that remind me I’m happy to live here, happy to be a fat bitch on a bicycle, happy to know that I’ll be sitting in the coffeehouse later with friends, nursing a hot chocolate and arguing about politics.

(If you’re reading this via RSS feed, you’ll need to click through for the photo slideshow below; sorry!)

Don’t forget, today is Buy Nothing Day! Go out on a walk, hang out with a friend, enjoy nature, and don’t buy anything!

Speechless is an excellent campaign jointly masterminded by the WGA and the SAG. Go check it out; it’s a bunch of shorts featuring major SAG talent.

Unsubscribe is a powerful new campaign from Amnesty International to get us thinking about torture.

Uncle Sam wants his signing bonus back from an injured veteran because he didn’t fulfill his contract. Because he was, you know, injured in the line of duty. I hope I don’t need to explain why this infuriates me.

Speaking of the Pentagon, the injured list is 20,000 soldiers short.

Changes in federal law have caused the price of birth control to go up at college campsus. Way not cool.

The Village Vegan is my NaBloPoMo pick of the day, because the recipes are fabulous even though the author is slacking on the NaBloPoMo goal.

I think I’m supposed to write about all the things I’m thankful for today, but I try to be thankful for things every day, as cheesy as that sounds, so I think I’m going to tell you a story instead.

My father and I have a long standing tradition of making a big Thanksgiving meal and feeding pretty much whoever shows up. Each year we’d have a different theme; at Greek Thanksgiving, I remember roast lamb, dolmades, and avgolemono soup, among other things. For Japanese Thanskgiving, we had sushi, miso soup, and tempura. We would haul our table out into the middle of the downstairs room at the Tin Palace, and we would cram the Czechoslovakian folding chairs in every which way, and inevitably a few people would end up sitting on the stairs because they couldn’t fit at the table.

All sorts of food would be spread out, ours and food brought by guests, and a lot of wine would be drunk, and jazz would be on the record player. We usually started eating around three or so, and the last guest would straggle out at 10.

One year, I had just learned to make pie crust, and we were making a traditional sort of Thanksgiving with turkey and mashed potatoes and all that goes with it. Now, I don’t like to brag, but I happen to think that I make a rather good pie crust. And most people seem to agree. Even in the early stages, I could deliver a deliciously flaky crust, and I was working on the crust while my father made pumpkin pie filling when one of his girlfriends dropped by.

Somehow, the conversation came around to pie, and she revealed that she was also making pumpkin pie, but she was using storebought crust.

Long-term readers and close friends can probably imagine what my reaction to this news was, as I was a food Nazi from a very young age. I delivered my scathing opinion of the situation while she blustered excuses, and my father ultimately soothed ruffled feathers by declaring that we would use the scientific method to determine whether or not people could tell the difference between home-made and storebought, and which one people preferred.

Ever a fan of the scientific method, I argued that in order to be truly effective, the filling would have to be the same, so that the tasters wouldn’t be distracted by filling differences. I also secretly believed that my father’s filling would be superior to anything that someone who uses storebought crust would make, and it might give me an unfair advantage. While I like winning, I don’t like cheating.

Furthermore, I said, we would need to hold a blind taste test to ensure that people didn’t respond to the visible differences between the crusts.

The girlfriend agreed to the terms, and she departed to let us finish, taking a tupperware container full of pie filling with her. She returned shortly before dinner, and the pies were carefully stashed on top of the fridge to await the pie-off.

As I recall, we had a lot of people and a lot of desserts that year. In addition to the dad, the girlfriend, and myself, we had my godfather, an assortment of woodworking students, my doctor and her husband, a few lawyer friends, and a handful of other orphans. All told, I think there were probably 20-25 people, and in addition to the pies of contention, the doctor had brought pecan pie while her husband made lemon meringue, the woodworking students contributed a huge batch of cookies, my godfather brought chocolates, and there was a mysterious coconut cream pie that no one would claim the credit for.

Over the course of dinner, my father explained the terms of the pie competition, and everyone agreed to participate except for a lone spoilsport woodworking student who said that he didn’t like pumpkin pie. This turned out to be convenient, as we could nominate him for the position of test administrator.

After dinner was cleared, the guests submitted to blindfolding while the woodworking student sliced up the pies and distributed them.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen someone eating pie while wearing a blindfold, but imagine it would be pretty amusing. Everyone was supposed to take a taste of each pie and then leave their fork on the pie of their preference before taking the blindfolds off, and most people had to enlist the woodworking student for help as they blindly stabbed the table or each other.

Once all the blindfolds came off, the table looked like a battlefield, with chunks of pumpkin pie everywhere and forks perched haphazardly on plates. The woodworking student identified the two pies, and the clear winner, as I recall, was the homemade, with a few people plumping for storebought. I spent the rest of the evening victorious and gorging on the lemon meringue, and I was pleased to note that all of the home-made pie was gone at the end of the night, while the storebought remained largely uneaten except for the small pieces we had cut for the pie tasting.

I was content with my pie victory for several weeks, until the girlfriend admitted that she had made her own filling from canned pumpkin, which rather soured the whole affair for me. As I had feared, my father’s obviously superior filling clearly tipped the balance, and despite my cries for a re-trial, the blind pie tasting was never repeated.

Someday. Some day.

Politics has always fascinated me, even at a young age, which is funny, because my father isn’t that into politics. He certainly follows it and he has opinions, but I don’t think he’s quite as passionate and invested as I am. Talking to him the other day about the current candidates, I got the sense that he has reached a stage of quiet hopelessness, and a total lack of faith in the political system, and I think that this is true of a lot of Americans. Those of us who remain optimistic about political reform still sometimes feel as though we are at the bottom of a tall cliff looking up to our goals.

There are a lot of things about our political system which bother me, and one of them is the fact that we basically only have two parties, and those parties are largely the same. It’s just that the Democrats play dirty; they waffle and pretend to support things and then quietly turn around and do nasty things behind our backs. At least I know how the Republicans roll, and they don’t pull any punches, but the Democrats are insidious in a way which really defies the imagination. I’m proud to say that I’m not registered as a Democrat, and I don’t actually know very many Democrats, when I think about it.

I’ve been trying to keep up with the debates and various public appearances of the candidates, and while it’s a bit early for me to make any sort of official endorsement (not that my endorsement really matters), I think I’m going to end up standing behind Kucinich. I’m also mildly interested in Edwards, but there are a few issues I would like to see him iron out before I can get too enthusiastic about him. Because I’m tired of being told that I should make choices on the basis of electability, rather than a candidate’s personal beliefs and his or her actions.

A friend recently told me that I should “vote for whoever you want in the primary, but you have to vote for the Democrat in the election.” And I happen to think that this is complete and utter codswallop. I think that people need to vote for the candidates that they can support in good faith, and that people should not be muscled into making political choices on the basis of fear. Fear causes people to make really stupid choices.

Basically, people are tricked into thinking that a vote for a minority candidate is a vote for a Republican candidate, and that’s just not true. A vote for a Green party candidate, for example, is a vote for the Green party; how could you possibly say that it’s a vote for the Republicans? Voting is an intensely personal and private act, and you shouldn’t let other people tell you how to vote; I vote for what I believe in because I have too much self integrity to make a choice which is predicated on fear, or what someone else tells me to do. If people were able to break free of fear-based voting, maybe our political system would change instead of remaining the same through administration after administration.

I will probably vote for Kucinich in the primary, and if he made it to the national election, I would vote for him then. I will not vote for Clinton or Obama if they make the national ticket, because I cannot, in good faith, support either of these candidates. I’ll probably write about why in more detail later, but in brief I think that both of them are sneaky little political animals who are way too focused on kissing ass and not focused enough on actually enacting clear, positive change. They’re both Republicans in donkey’s clothing, and if they are elected, we’re going to see the elephant in the room pretty quickly. (Sorry, I’ve been dying to use that line.)

If Kucinich doesn’t make the national ticket, and I don’t think he will, sadly, I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for. I think I would have a tough time supporting one of the Republican candidates, but, who knows, that might change. It’s highly unlikely, of course, because Republicans seem to be getting more conservative than ever, and I doubt that they will nominate a moderate. I think that the Republicans and I are pretty morally opposed, but if a candidate can set aside his or her morals, I believe that Republicans and I have similar beliefs about government, especially old-school Republicans.

I don’t understand how people can claim to support radical revolution in American politics and then vote for pussies. America, it’s time to grow some balls and stand up for what you believe in.

The Times reports on a bizarre and disgusting phenomenon at Jets games, in which men apparently delight in harassing women during halftime. I mean, more than sports fans usually harass women. I suspect that with all the talk this article is getting, this halftime ritual is about to be on the receiving end of a crackdown.

More party animals has a simple and clear mission: we need more party animals. No, not those kind of party animals, more political parties with actual clout in the United States.

In World War Two, soldiers in prison camps got smuggled Monopoly sets with real money! And maps! On pieces of silk! “More than a few of [the prisoners who escaped from German camps during the war] certainly owe their breakout to the classic board game.”

Bag of Toast is a neat collection of sketches and scenes with an awesome motto: “toast is so delicious.”

The interactive poverty map is, er, an interactive map of poverty in the United States. It’s also really excellent, so check it out.

Local crabbers have their panties in a bunch since out of state fisherman cheerily collected a massive crab catch to sell to seafood dealers in the Bay. Given that California crab fishermen aren’t fishing because they are worried that crab may be contaminated with oil…I think they have a legitimate reason to be grumpy.

Putting Out Fires is a fun NaBloPoMo site.

My favorite holiday is rapidly approaching.

Thanksgiving, for me, has it all. You are expected, nay, obligated, to make massive amounts of food and eat with people you enjoy seeing. To eat almost to the point of immobility and then lounge around, making occasional trips to the kitchen to pick at things. This year, my father and I are making b’stilla, which doesn’t involve turkey, but it does involve delicious. We’ve always been fans of ethnic Thanksgivings, in triumphant defiance of traditional mores about turkey. One year we did a Japanese Thanksgiving, for example, and the next year we made Greek food. This year, apparently it’s time for the cuisine of Morocco.

So I was sort of saddened and surprised when I logged onto the Time this morning and saw an article about “coping” with the holidays. We have reached a sad state as a society if we view holidays as something to be coped with, rather than something to enjoy and revel in. Maybe I don’t have a hard time with the holidays because I’m not afraid of voicing and acting on my preferences. Indeed, I am notorious for this, but I don’t really see it as a problem. Why shouldn’t I be vocal about what I enjoy, and why should I stand idly by when things I don’t like are happening, whether these things be abuse of prisoners with the assistance of my tax dollars or being around people I hate?

There seems to be this general social expectation that people will spend the holidays with their families, whether they like it or not, and I personally call bullshit on that. I spend the holidays with people I like, and damn the torpedoes. I happen to rather like my father, and I’m excited to be spending Thanksgiving with him since I wasn’t able to last year, but I also enjoyed last year’s Thanksgiving, where I got together with a bunch of friends and made a lavish meal and ate it.

We may be born into families, but I don’t think we’re obligated to like them. I think it’s safe to say that if you don’t like your family, your family probably isn’t a big fan of you, either. Why inflict the experience on yourself when you could enjoy the company of people you actually like? Yes, it might ruffle some feathers, but I think it’s worth it. If you think that the holidays are hateful and stressful because of the environment you spend them in, then don’t subject yourself to that environment. Break free. In the end, everyone will be happier. “Coping” is bollocks when you can be having a good time.

Now, Christmas I don’t like so much, because of the commercialism. I don’t really give Christmas presents, and as a result, I don’t expect them. I wish that the holiday was more about spending time with people, and less about counting your gifts and seething because you didn’t get what you want. I usually spend Christmas with my father as well, and we usually cook something excellent and hang out by the fire discussing politics or what have you, while my friends and associates hang out with their families. I also traditionally spend Christmas eve with my other family; my best friend since childhood and her parents, and we usually have a blast making cookies and watching bad movies and saying hello to people who drop by.

I see people with these tormented family relationships and I wonder why they let their families torment them. People should just grow spines, and either abstract themselves from the “family celebration” or speak up about issues which bother them. If you don’t like the fact that your aunt criticizes whatever you put on your plate, say so. She’s not being polite, and she should be corrected. If you wish that your cousins wouldn’t feed your dogs treats because the treats make them sick, tell the cousin to stop. If you hate your family, gently inform them that you will not be able to make the annual holiday gathering, and tell them that you hope everyone has a good time. Because you certainly will be.