Amazing news of Chinese glasnost - today's televised
press conference between Presidents Clinton and Jiang.
I have finally seen blooming jacaranda, but I've come to the conclusion
ain't many such tress up here in my section of the valley. Down in San Jose,
where I was living last year, they must have much more. I bought fruits of the
local trees today, dropping by the C.J. Olson orchard store, right on El Camino
in Sunnyvale near Trader Joe's. There I learned the difference between the two
types of yellow cherries - Royal or Queen Anne, and Ranier. The former are
slightly darker and not so sweet - you can see a difference when they're
side-by-side. I got the former - all three (these two and of course Bing) where
$3 a pound there, the lowest it gets. Theirs are great cherries. I hear it's a
bad cherry year due to el Niño - unexpected May rains made many of the
cherries swell up & burst. Does seem like Safeway's only had mushy, tasteless Bings.
NPR reported tonight about increasing harvests of and demand for "bush meat" in Africa
and the danger to Gorillas and Chimpanzees, and how this outrage isn't reported by the
American media because they don't want to air footage of acts of savagery involving our
closest cousins in the animal kingdom.
While truing my rear bicycle wheel I snapped & replaced a spoke (on the
easy side). That leaves one final spare. But I've gotten the wheel acceptably
round, for one of its age. Ominous creaking noises are coming from up
front; I bet the next problem's going to be there, nothing can be done
due to the rusted-solid spoke structure. Idea: replace the
front wheel first, thus delaying the rear gear cluster decisions,
rather than replacing both at once.