Time Portal Identification Made Easy

I added this Alley Portal in Menlo Park California

to my own Portal Life List, just last week

Even experienced Time Travelers may have difficulty recognizing a time portal when they encounter one. When is a train not just a train? How does a B.C.E. transporter differ from a run-of-the-mill station house? Which alleys lead to Never Land and which only provide the quickest path to the household garbage cans?

I recently caught up with Biding Mytime, a senior staff member with the well-known time travel service "Portal Pilots". Captain "Bide-a-wee", as she's known to her colleagues, who consider her a woman ahead of her time, was happy to share some of the characteristics that will help even a newbie observer, such as myself, spot a few portals to add their Personal Portal Spotters Life List.

The Captain was just folding up a report from maintenance when I entered the Portal Pilots Millbrae BART Station.

“Now look around you,” the good captain intoned with an expansive gesture. “From the outside, you might guess this place is nothing more than a metro station. But you’d be dead wrong!”

I studied the assorted time travelers waiting in the Comman Era (C.E.) terminal. Clearly this was not the typical Bay Area Rapid Transit station. A Roman matron was dangling a squalling toddler, who’d clearly traveled way beyond his comfort era, over the edge of the escalator hand railing. A medieval monk in the corner was chanting to himself, or maybe into his Blue Tooth device, while a surcoated devotee of Joan of Arc, clearly waiting for the next transport back to the crusades, engaged in a little light-sword practice in the corner. I moved gingerly away from the knights combat-zone-of-choice and offered to buy the captain a beverage.

Over a friendly cappuccino, latte, double foam, hold-the-pease-pottage Captain Bide-a-wee explained some of the spotters tricks she’s picked up over the years.

“It’s like this, Hon. Time friendly transport mechanisms abide by certain rules.” She wiped some foam off her metal breastplate, and took another long thoughtful swallow. “See first off, you gotta remember that time is of the essence.”

I nodded, trying to look like I was understanding the lesson.

Then she pointed to a large digital clock on the wall. “So you might think that would take you some where.”

I nodded again, actually thinking I was getting somewhere with my studies.

“So, is that clock a time portal?”

She snorted and choked on her drink. “Well of course, that thing is no portal.” She studied it for a moment, clearly turning over in her mind, the best techniques for instructing the utterly clueless. “Fair to say there are clocks that’ll get ya’ where you’re going. But that ain’t one of ‘em. And why? Can you tell me?”

I studied the large, ugly gray time piece in a bemused fashion. “No, I suppose it’s not-“

She thwacked one leather covered knee pad. “That’s right, Hon. ‘Cuz after you stare at that awhile, you can’t say you had a lovely time, can you?”

I agreed I could not.

“But this place, “ she pointed to the station walls. “Is a legend in it’s own time. So,” she turned one palm up indicating the obvious, “here we have an obvious portal.”

I took another sip of my own drink and considered her explanation. “I’ve got an old carriage clock at home. It doesn’t run anymore, of course, but I’ve always had a feeling about it.”

She thumped her cup on the counter and gave me a broad grin. “Now you’re thinkin’ straight, girl. That somethin’ that’s stood the test of time.” She unfolded, and spread out, the report she’d tucked into the capricious leather bag, tied belt-like to her waist. Now look-a here at the portal types our gals will be inspecting in the area this week.”

I studied the maintenance engineers list.

bridge

canyon

ladder

path

alley

creek

Standing Stones

cave

trail

painting

mirror

clock

train

station house

“How many Standing Stones do you find in the San Francisco Bay Area?”

She grinned and tapped her nose with a knowing wink. “You’d be surprised!”

I was just about to suggest I buy her another drink when the voice of the gate agent came over the loud speaker, announcing, “Time is ripe.”

The captain jumped suddenly to her feet with a clash of breastplate against the back of the metal counter, that resonated throughout the station. “Well, Hon, there’s no time to lose, time and tide wait for no woman. Good luck with the spotting. Just remember to take your own sweet time.”

A woman ahead of her time indeed! A few minutes later she disappeared through the doorway marked Time Flies, Staff Only. I was a little disappointed not to spend more time with Captain Bidingtime, but time, after all, is money.

Jane: Botanist, Lawyer or Chief Geologist?

Please click on the picture to enjoy the details

I found this lady in an antique store in San Luis Obispo. While giving back some new life to her photograph, I wondered about where Jane might be these days, and what she may have done with her life.

Don't you think she may have become a research geologist and done a lot of fieldwork in the Mojave desert?

Rank Sentimentality: Making Time Stand Still

Please click on the picture to enjoy the details

Thanks to http://barefootliam.deviantart.com/

for making this vintage clock face available in the public domain

Evening Music: Owls

Please click on the picture above to enjoy more details

The owls are always nearby on our regular post supper walk. We hardly ever see them, but we know them by their voices. I sometimes wonder what notice they take of us.

City Bound: Angels and Crocodiles (Part 4)

Please click on the picture for more San Francisco charm and Blue Angel Flight detail.

I wonder if everybody have one animal that really scares them, but secretly they find it kinda intriguing. For me, it's crocodiles. Crocodiles seem like a much bigger deal than alligators, which are equally deadly. l hunt crocs out at the zoo, the aquarium, and I tried to find one when I went to Costa Rica.

I pick up any any book or magazine with a nature story showing a picture of an innocent flamingo fluttering down, looking for her shrimp. You know the next picture, SNAP! My favorite Number One Ladies Detective Agency story is the one where M'ma Ramotswe - hey wait a minute. Maybe you haven't read that one yet. Go straight to your library and look up Alexander McCall Smith. Then sit down with a big cup of red bush tea and don't expect to get up until you finish the first book.

Where was I? Oh yeah, crocodiles.

The same urge that draws me to crocodiles likewise interests me in cities - not something I really want to be close to, yet so intriguing. As you may recall from the previous three episodes *, I took a day off and rode my bike to the train station and on up to San Francisco. From there I biked along The Embarcadero and eventually went on out to Fort Mason. The road from Fisherman's Wharf, past Ghirardeli Square, up and over the hill, was crowded with people visiting for Fleet Week. This event is a demonstration of the United States naval power, and an excellent military recruitment tool. Everybody had their noses turned skywards as The Blue Angels demonstrated their prowess. No doubt about it, their skills are awesome.

I thought about crocodiles a lot while I was watching those pilots.

* City Bound: Car Free to San Francisco (Part 1)

City Bound: Biking The Embarcadero (Part 2)

City Bound: The Ferry Building (Part 3)

City Bound:The Ferry Building (Part 3)

Pedaling up and around the Embarcadero took me to the Ferry Building. You can have your Coit Tower or Fisherman’s Wharf, this place represents San Francisco for me. There was a wooden Ferry House here since 1875. This building dates from 1898. It’s where people who worked in the city crossed on ferries from Oakland and Marin, to get to work each day. It’s also the place where anyone traveling across the country by train ended up. A few people still commute in by boat these days, but most drive.

When I stopped and locked up my bike here, I could hear some of the ferry goers from another era scrambling up from their benches and rushing through the doors to crossover the Embarcadero, out onto Market Street to work. A group of women walk past me, laughing and talking. The dark-haired one, Emily, is a telegrapher. Later on this morning, she’ll be in touch with her fellow op’ in Chicago, my Great Aunt Mabel. Once they finish their business with the transfers, they’ll chat on the wire about Mabel’s handsome new male-friend. Then Emily will instruct her chum to make the next move in that ongoing chess game they’ve been playing for a few weeks.

If ever there was a natural Time Portal, it’s this building.

Please click on the picture above to enjoy the beautiful details

To Be Continued

(Final Episode is Angels and Crocodiles)

City Bound:Biking the Embarcadero (part 2)

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It's got a reputation for hills, but San Francisco still has a good stretch of flat, bike'able streets. I swung out of the train station at 4'th and Townsend and headed out around behind the baseball stadium. From there I merged onto the Embarcadero. The old piers are on the water side, many of them have been gussied up as businesses and shops. Across from the water is the intensely downtown business district.

This guy thinks he’s working hard on his cell phone, but I see what I see.* This place has always reminded me of Toon Town.

Go ahead and click on the picture to take in a few more details. See what you think.

To Be Continued

* What's that you say? You suspect Photoshop CS4 had a hand in his headgear? Bite your tongue!

City Bound: Car Free to San Francisco (part 1)

Go ahead and click on the photo to fully enjoy the details of the rails. The bike car's the first car on the train and commands the best view looking north to the city.

I took Thursday off and biked over to the local train station to catch the 10:14. Like most romantics, my heart doesn't yearn for city sights. And at the same time, there's something awfully intriguing about the pace of totally urban life, for which I get a tremendous craving every once in a while.

I don't enjoy city driving. And there's no point in it when I've got a lovely wide tired, three-speed bike to companion me, and a train station that's a five minute ride from my house -ten if I stop and talk to a few neighbors along the way. Which I usually do.

Peggy had a bag of lemons out, so of course I stopped at her house too. One of those will come in handy when I make my London Loaf this week.

I made the San Francisco train with the necessary extra five minutes to convince the ticket machine it should accept my debit card, popped my pink cruiser bike on board, and settled into the bike car to listen to the clackety-clack back beat of the train starting up.

to be continued

Do Bee Do Bee Do: The Anti Quiltin’ Bee

Please click on the picture above

to enjoy the beautiful fantasy quilt detail.

“I love these digital quilts I’ve been making, “ I told my friend Marilyn. “No scraps, no batting and a whole lot less time.”

“Yea, but what about all the fun they used to have at quilting bees?”

She got me wondering if quilting bees were as charming and folksy as they look in the movies. Were they real pals’y kind of places, or was everybody looking to see if your stitches were small enough? Did people feel obliged to go even if they didn't want to, like Tupperware Parties, or were they heaps of fun? I 'spose it depended on where you were and who you hung with.

Trying to imagine what a fantasy quilting bee scene would be like, I wrote a little Objective-C code to enable me to travel way WAY back to the time of home made lye soap (have a good time washing that out of your eyes), barn raisings, and quilting bees.

Loading program into debugger…

Program loaded.

run

[Switching to process 14843]

Running…

Welcome aboard PORTAL PILOTS , serving the needs of the time travel community for over three centuries.

Customer LRS531957 PLANNING A TRIP FROM THE YEAR 2010 TO 1893

SO SORRY We are experiencing a slight disruption in service. You will be dropped off at the nearest portal.

PORTAL PILOTS apologizes for any inconvenience to your schedule.

While you're waiting for the next Time Portal to open up in the year ... 1977..., feel free to complete our customer satisfaction survey, and be entered to win a coupon worth five percent off, on your next PORTAL PILOTS trip!

Debugger stopped.

Program exited with status value:0.

My ipod battery is dead and I forgot my charger. (I can’t even remember if we had three pronged outlets back then anyway). What am I going to do here for a few hours?

Hey, the summer of 1977! I remember this! I had just finished up my junior year at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and was living and working with my sister in Yuma Arizona. She had gotten me a junior programmer gig for the summer.

Trisha had gotten roped into going to a Tupperware Party. Her best friend, with whom she volunteered at the “League of Women Voters”, was putting it on, so of course she was stuck with going. I was stuck too but, coming from one of the more alternative U.C.’s in California, I saw it more as a cultural experience.

The nice-lady who ran it showed us a fine new product. A hot-dog bun keeper for the freezer.

The two of us stared at each other in amazement.

“Because, girls, you know the problem you have keeping hot dog buns in the freezer. You KNOW how those darn buns stick together!”

Trisha and I were both thinking the same thing. Don't they have a big knife to whack them apart with?

We drank our carcinogenic diet sodas and after 30 minutes, figured we could slip on out while the others were playing some kind of game with clothespins and a laundry bag that we never did understand.

The nice-lady’s skinny backside was firmly anchored against the door.

“Girls! (toothy grin). Where are your order slips?”

We managed to mumble that we were not buying anything.

She gave us a look of amazement, tinged with horror. “But what about the hot-dog-bun keeper?” (I'm not making that product up.)

The nice-lady swiveled her head slowly back towards the rest of the group, who were now frantically scribbling on their forms amidst a welter of clothespins.

Trisha swung one foot around the screen door. I slithered through, and we lit out like two banditas into the badlands.

Signs of Fall:Pixel Paintin' Pumpkins

I spent much of my day working on creating and debugging self-review exercises in my quest to learn Objective-C. I really like writing and debugging code, but it's hard teaching yourself a new programming language. Over the last few weeks, I've figured out a way to make my self-imposed homework fun, by linking them to my art-journal. I've shared my experiences in this online piece, Reviewing Concepts: Time Travel for the Masses, a piece I wrote at my self-education blog.

I also took a little time to create another fantasy quilt and stencil an imaginary pumpkin just like Martha Stewart, or one of her hard-working staff, would. My pumpkin, however, is one I plucked off one of my old photos with the help of Photoshop. And of course every pumpkin needs a quilt of it's own.

As always, if you click on the picture above, you'll see a lot more beautiful detail.

First Signs of Fall:Quilts, Squirrels, Fighting the Good Fight at the Polls

Please click on this quilt picture for more beautiful details.

I wish I had this fall beauty to toss on the bed. It's a lot quicker stitching up a new quilt in Photoshop than on my machine. When I did make quilts, I loved appliqueing designs on top of other patterns.

It really is getting cool enough here in the San Francisco Bay Area for an extra light quilt. As romantic as chilly fall weather sounds in books, I don't actually miss it. Or the snow that can go with it. Our summer crops are all harvested - all three apples worth. My neighbors little boy ate the other five while they were still somewhat green. And he was quite welcome to them. He clearly found the idea that edible food was just hanging there within reach of his fingers fascinating, and it was a pleasure to see him munching them. According to his mother, they never made him sick.

The squirrels weren't too happy when those few apples disappeared. They had to content themselves with harvesting our cherry tree during the summer. We've never yet managed to beat the squirrels to the cherries, but we have options they don't have. We're fighting higher density building in our area. Where are the birds and squirrels going to forage then? I guess that's what happens when you don't get to vote. I'm going to reread those city council platforms really carefully before I go to the polls.

Pause for a SLO Sip: Drink your Milk (Vintage Style)

This picture, advertising a brand of milk I'd love to see in reality, is all my own work, except for the wonderful anonymous black and white cow. I wrote about how I found this great SLO moo drawing in a previous entry *. I'd still love to meet the person who drew this.

Please click on the picture to take in all the beautiful details.

(What I wrote when I designed the SLO SIP bottlecap)

* My daughter goes to school at Cal Poly Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California. She's a student in the Agricultural College. A polytechnic is run a little different than a run-of-the-mill university. Lots of animal husbandry classes and close work with bees and buds. The university store sells a selection of university farm product, but I'm pretty sure they don't have their own milk. However, I think this bottle cap would be just great for a big glass of SLO SIP.

The beautiful SLO cow picture I used to create this cap was drawn by an unknown Cal Poly student. One of my daughter's housemates found it in their rental house, and I rescued it from the recyling bin. I'd love to know whose work this nice SLO MOO is!

Pixel Packin' Mama

Please click on the picture to get a better view of the beautiful details.

These sunflowers are not my own photos. They are the work of designer Judy Shellabarger-Gosnell, creator and author of The Flying Chihuahua Blog.

Last weekend I went down to the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, to see the fusionwear sv exhibit my fourth prize winning design (!) was related to.

I saw lots of great exhibits while I was there and was particularly drawn to work by Sandra Hart and Gudney Campbell. I could see that they are as fond of using Photoshop as I am, and that they had come up with some techniques that I was itching to come home and try myself.

When I went to the gift store after enjoying the exhibits I found a book by these two great artists. It's combines aspects of how to use Photoshop Elements, along with ideas for design. I try hard not to snap things up in the gift store these days, but I couldn't resist Piecing with Pixels. This picture is the first piece I've created using these techniques and I can only imagine how much fun I could have creating other pieces and printing them on the printer fabric sheets, as the book authors suggest.

Present: Bridgeport Frog

My husband couldn't have brought home a better present than this* after ten days of field work in Bridgeport, about thirty miles from Mono Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Please click on the picture above to enjoy all the details

* He brought home the original photo, not the frog

First Signs of Fall:Feed The Birds

Super duper,

ORGANIC

bird feeders

100% guaranteed

Long Lasting

Hurry! Resources are Disappearing Fast

Please click on the picture to view more details of this amazing, offer

Kidhood Memories: The Eucalyptus

Please click on the photo of the Eucalyptus to see a lot more beautiful details

In 1967 I was a ten years old kid living in rural Arizona. We spent a lot of time outdoors. The house my parents built, with their own four hands, was a solitary dwelling. There were neighbors but we couldn't see them from where we lived. Though the holding my parents purchased and named “Lizard Acres” was only two acres of land, from a kids point of view we were the owners of thousands of open land. We ran wild in the unfenced high desert glory, screaming and yelling to our hearts content. We took regular excursions by foot and bike down the network of dirt roads that crossed the high desert around us.

Children played outside a lot then and nobody I knew had play structures. But we didn’t need them because we had plants, rocks and a vastness of dirt. There were great winds we called ‘tumbleweed storms’, that brought in piles of tumbleweeds. We built forts out of the big prickly branches. Our most favored play spot was the depths of a creek that ran only when the snow melted in the Huachucha Mountains. I found it particularly exciting to wade in the spot where it ran across the middle of the dirt road that ran past our house. It was softer there then the rocky stretch that actually crossed our land. We also had the impression we were less likely to step on the snakes and tarantulas we always had to be cautious of, when we turned over stones. I think now that they would probably have avoided the cold snow-melt water.

The job market for computer programmers dried up when the civil service contract at Fort Huachuaca wasn’t renewed. My father landed a new job in Southern California. Our new town was nothing like the rural fastness of Arizona. Houses were built close together and when my sister and I shouted out during our time together, my mother had to remind us to be quiet because we had neighbors living right next door.

Suburban life was exciting though. There with paved roads with buttons you pushed to inform the light signal that a pedestrian had arrived. (In fact I can remember learning the word ‘pedestrian’ the first day I started in my new classroom.) We could walk a long two blocks to a bus and arrive at a movie theatre or shopping mall thirty or forty minutes later. It was heady stuff for a sixteen year old and her ten year-old kid sister.

Southern California offered work not only to my father, but also my sister. There was a Baskin Robbins ice cream store with numerous flavors and, just as generous then as she is now, she bought me regular treats with the money she made baby-sitting.

I started to play indoors more often, but sometimes my big sister took me on a walking excursion. They were nothing like our wild rambles in Arizona but one day she took me to the edge of a golf course she’d found. Though we couldn’t walk on the manicured grass, we could hangout under the tall shady trees that ringed the course. Back in Lizard Acres the biggest trees we’d even seen had been the mesquites that grew along our creek. Here there were real tall trees that I’d only seen in books. The eucalyptus were my favorites. They had a lovely resin’y smell. Their bark peeled off and you could carry pieces of it home. Best of all, they produced sticky seed pods that my sister gathered up and carried home, where she strung them on a necklace using a heavy upholstery needle and carpet thread. The necklace smelled like heaven.

One of the reasons my parents had wanted to land a job for my father in California, was the system of affordable public universities. I missed my big sister terribly when she went off to U.C.S.D. in the fall of 1968. One day I found the eucalyptus pods she’d strung together and left behind. The sticky seed pods had each opened up in a chain of tiny feathery bloom, and the necklace still smelled like heaven.

First Signs of Fall: Rhus Diversiloba A.K.A......

Jump right in.

(while your at it, click on the picture for all the lovely itchy details)

Yes, the common name is 'poison oak'.

We love this stuff out here on the western edges.

My Kinda Commute