Baghdad By The Bay: San Francisco

My First Citizen’s Arrest

Well, today was one of those days where you think everything will go down pretty easy. Think again. I’m on the N Judah heading toward Caltrain and at the Ballpark these girls who were together in a group got on and one other girl also go on. The lone girl pulled out her iPod that one of the three other girls immediately snatched. The lone girl in her 20’s was pleading for them to give it back. Now here’s the odd part. The three girls who took the iPod were no more than 15 and maybe combined they all weighed what I do. So I stand up and walk up behind the lone girl and ask her, “Are these girls bothering you?”.

The response from the three girls was “Shut up motherf*cker or I’m going to mace you” and she pull out a can of “something”. I begin thinking of the line, “So are you feeling lucky punk?”. The lone girl says to me, “no it was my fault, don’t worry about it.” Her fault? she’s pulls out and iPod and it gets taken from her that doesn’t sound like it’s here fault.

So now my next response from the three girls is, “What are you gonna do now?”

My response? “I’m going to come over there and beat the three of you down if I have to unless you return her iPod.”

OK, what am I thinking here? That could be mace, it could be pepper spray, hell it could have just been WD-40 for all I knew, but even that would sting if it go shot in your eyes. So I’m standing there thinking what the hell am I going to do and the two of the three girls give back the iPod and headphones with a, “We was just playing with you.” I sit down and unfortunately the girl with the “Mace” walks up to me making me stand up and shoves the can up to my face with the line, “I should just mace you motherf*cker!” She puts the can down quickly and I can’t tell what the hell I’m dealing with until she starts to bring her hand up again. At that point I grabbed and twisted her wrist so that if she sprayed whatever this was she’d get it not me and kicked her leg out from under her grab the can with my free hand.

I took a step back and noticed that the streetcar driver had stopped the train at Caltrain and wanted to know what was going on. At this point the girl gets up and runs at me to attack me. I don’t want to punch a girl that might only be 15 so what did I do? Yep, I maced her. Then her two friends  freak out and come at me after watching their friend get maced and what happens? I maced them as well.

So now we have three girls writhing around in pain on the ground while the train operator comes over to give me a hand. I called 911 and told them we had an attempted robbery by three girls with a can of mace and that we’ll need you and paramedics immediately because they got maced. The two others who were on the train and saw the whole thing said they were glad I did it, but what if I had gotten maced. We all waited for the police and paramedics to come. It turns out it really was mace and not pepper spray and the police took the can and depositions from everyone there. The train operator said he had noticed something was going on, but wasn’t sure what even before I got involved and was starting to call it in when it all went down and the best part was, this all happened within two city blocks.

Was this a smart thing for me to do? Probably not. I mean if I had gotten maced my eyes are bad enough already and add to that the fact that I would have been beaten down by three 15 [maybe] year olds. I guess I’m just a good guy at heart, but don’t expect me to be going out and buying a Batman outfit anytime in the near future. I’ve done my good deed for the day and I’m done.

Marijuana as a commodity

Marijuana, the crop of the new millenium

I’ve been seeing a lot lately about California making marijuana legal and taxing it in the same sort of way it works in Amsterdam.

Personally, I think this is a good idea. Everyone knows that California is the biggest pot growing place in the US if not the world and cash it’s bringing in is in the billions of dollars. Yes, it is a drug, but so is alcohol and vicodin and valium and all the other prescription medicines out there that. Yet if your company drug tests, none of these will keep you from getting a job, marijuana on the other hand, will.

Historically from what I could find there has never been anyone who has died of an overdose of marijuana [leaving out the possibility of them being stoned and crashing their car]. Alcoholism has killed thousands of people an when you mix in the people who mix alcohol with prescription drugs the numbers jump up even more.

We have medical marijuana clinics now and that makes it easy for people to get a card and get marijuana for it’s medicinal value. These are more of a minor blip in the marijuana cash crop business. Now think about this. If it becomes legal and taxed large companies would jump in and set up farms that would end up producing more marijuana as less cost which would overall end up dropping the price to offset the taxes placed on it. This could overall make it cheaper to purchase than it would to try and grow it similar to common vegetables like lettuce.

California needs cash badly and when you have a billion dollar industry that if legalized and taxed could turn into a trillion dollar industry I firmly believe that California would get a good boost to it’s economy. Not just from sales, but think of all the people who would come as tourists just because they could purchase marijuana legally. This would obviously boost border towns that usually need some help, but it would also boost the economies of metropolitan areas. Which would also help increase the hotel and restaurant business as well. All this would help to bring back the economy in California which while being the 8th largest economy in the world, has some of the worst marks in our school systems.

Urban Gardener: Week 7

Week 7

I know I’ve been a little busy and haven’t put in an update, but here it is. As you can see the green onions have all died. I don’t know what happened, but they just died. Over the weekend I’ll be pulling out the peat pellets and planting the remaining seeds and see what happens. The peat pellets have been a bit of a problem outside overall.

The initial peas that were planted had a nice little harvest last night to try as appetizers last night with dinner. I’ll be putting in some spikes to hold them up over the weekend as well as spiking the second set of peas. These were all very high yield peas which shows some promise for the future. They had said they didn’t need to be staked as they were a variety of English bush peas, but I think the staking will help.

The Mesclun lettuce I first planted has taken off and I found I had to cut back some of the plants that were actually beginning to flower. The newer Mesclun hasn’t taken off as well, but I’m sure given a few more days they’ll pick up.

As you’ll see down below, the tomato that I had all but given up on has started to bear fruit. We’ve got two small tomatoes at the moment and I’ll see what I need to do the make them turn from green to red. If you have any ideas let me know.

 

peas

Urban Garden: week 4

week 4

Well this week was kind of interesting because of the heat wave that hit us. I had to water a lot more because of it, but the tomato in the background there wasn’t doing so well and has perked up a bit now that it’s hotter.

The mesclun on the left we did a small harvest on last night and it had a nice spicey taste to it. We’ll have to see how well it comes back and for how long we can keep cutting it and having it grow back. I’ve never heard that before, but I’m willing to give it a try.

The oldest planted peas have only one pod so far, but I haven’t seen much in the way of growth and they don’t like hot weather too much. Because of all the concrete in our backyard the temperature actually hit 109° two days ago which is the highest I’ve seen in a long time. Luckily it’s started to cool off a bit so things are going back to normal.

My Urban Garden, Week 3

Week 3

So I’ve decided that every Sunday I’m going to take a picture of how my garden grows and share it with all of you. Last weekend we harvested some of the lettuce for my hamburgers and while good, I still think the shoots were a little young as they were well, kind of tasteless. Since then though the salad has grown back with a fury.

The best news is that on the heirloom peas growing on the far left we have our first pod forming so all will be good. I expect more over the next few weeks, but it seems like we won’t be getting enough to actually cook, but we should at least have some that we can all eat fresh off the vine.

You’ll also note that the other later trays have the green onions taking hold finally and the new lettuce that has sprouted up is starting to grow well. The new lettuce was planted much thinner than the first so it will be interesting to see who this fares. These were also a somewhat different mix of seeds so I’ll make sure to keep you updated on their flavor.

My Urban Garden, week 2

Week 2

So I’ve decided to keep the urban garden an ongoing thing. Here’s todays shot and you can see how the peas and lettuce have really grown in the last week.

The green onions have finally taken hold and we have new sprouts of mesclun lettuce coming up on the far right. We also have blooms starting on the peas and tomato so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.

Currently SF is having some warm weather and our backyard is up to 85°. This is mostly because of the fact that the backs of the houses in the Sunset have shingled concrete that absorbs the heat and radiates it back so it’s getting warm out there. 

Not sure yet, but we’re thinking of harvesting some of the lettuce to go with my SF gourmet hamburgers I’m making tonight. Stay tuned for details.

Harry O Menswear

Harry O Menswear

When you need clothes and I’m talking clothes that give you THAT look you need to make a trip to Harry O Menswear at 124 Second Street in San Francisco. 

I got my first suit from him 15 years ago and it still fits and looks brand new to this day. Harry O is the greatest guy I’ve ever met and has some of the finest Italian clothes available. Everything from classics to modern. Harry is the Godfather of fashion for men in SF.

Now here’s a little tip for you. When you go to his store tell him that Eric from baghdadbythebaysf.com sent you and he’ll give you a good discount on anything you purchase. I’ll guarantee you’ll be going back to see him again.