I have not been to this beach in many years, so I was not sure what to expect, this is the first set of images from this mornings shoot.

All my images are created using $500 worth of gear (camera, kit lens, tripod, remote trigger and bubble leveler) I'm hoping to purchase a better camera for Christmas but my low end gear has forced me to really push my post-processing abilities.

If you are starting out, save your money where you can and concentrate on producing better images with what you have - those skills you pick up will stay with you as you out grow your equipment.

3 exposures process with Photomatix and post-processed with Photoshop and Lightroom

Date and Time of capture: 4/8/2024 from about 2 to about 5 pm EDT.

Location: Washington D.C.

Gear: Seestar S50 "smart telescope" equipped with a Seestar-supplied solar filter. Cavix LP-64 camera leveler interposed between the Seestar and a tripod.

This is a capture of a partial eclipse from my vantage point in Washington DC which is outside the path of totality. I generated this short video by animating some still shots of the solar eclipse of 8 April 2024.

(Note that the still shots are jpegs exported directly from the Seestar. Clouds intermittently screened the eclipse. This resulted in uneven exposure values between different images. I made no correction for that. Additionally, for some of the images, the Seestar camera seemed to have difficulty centering the target image.)

The iOptron stock levelers are too short for my location, with not enough range to compensate for angles.

This is my solution. Drill out the blind holes all the way through, then tap with a 10 x 1.5 mm tap.

Installed a padded leveler and alloy knob on stainless theaded rod. The plastic knob tightens down against the pier leg to lock everything in place and eliminate motion.

The large 80mm padded levelers installed on the Z 1.5" tripod.

A view looking up the boom from behind the crane.

An Automobile Patrol to ensure Order in the Camps.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

LEGO train table. Dimensions: 30" high, 3'x5' surface. I built three tables for my layout. 2x4 sides (a bit heavy in retrospect). Sleeves for PVC pipes in corners. Removable caps with levelers for the floor.

Update:

1) The levers on I chose are about 1/2" long. You might want longer "elevator" screws on the bottom if you need more leveling action.

2) the levelers will 'walk' themselves out of the inserts. I'd buy an extra box in case you lose any in tranport or at an event. The sleve will stay snug in the PVC, it's the screw/base that will unscrew itself.

Update 2:

1) caps don't come off very easily once weighted. Not a big deal but I didn't see them being such a snug fit

2) 3x5 size worked otu great for my minivan. Any bigger and I'd have to go to the roof.

Keeping with the camera meme in the theme, I present the balance bubble/leveler from my tripod. It is only possible because of the liquid in it.

Greetings from Luminous Soul Attraction Agency,

More to Mauritius: adventure activities await

Stunning beaches, diverse culture and rich cuisine – much is made of this nation’s sedate attractions. And for good reason – they are worth a trip in their own right. But this mountainous island, which bursts dramatically from the Indian Ocean, is also fecund with some exciting activities. Here are some to enjoy.

Climbing Le Morne Brabant: the ultimate high

Standing on the sublime beaches of Le Morne Peninsula in Mauritius’ far southwest, looking out over the peaceful azure waters to waves crashing on the reef beyond, you’ll be hard pressed to imagine anything more beautiful. Yet, after a couple of hours’ of hiking up the hulking mass of Le Morne Brabant mountain, which towers dramatically over the peninsula, you won’t have to imagine any longer – the views from its slopes are truly astounding.

The trail, which snakes up the back side of the massive monolith, starts with gentle paths through grasslands and indigenous forest before getting into some steep sections on rocky slopes – occasional ropes and advice from the guides help ease your progression up and down the latter. If you have limited mobility you can still take in some incredible views from the halfway point.

The first vistas available while climbing are actually behind you – turn around and you’ll get some amazing views north up the island’s west coast. Further on you start to catch glimpses of the gorgeous lagoon on the south side of the peninsula.

The high point of the hike is at 500m elevation, where you’ll look down over vast stretches of coastline, and see the kaleidoscopic collision of blue hues between the encircling reef and beaches.

Here, you’ll also find a large cross, which is dedicated to a group of escaped slaves who – according to legend – threw themselves to their death from the mountain in the early 19th century when fearing recapture. According to the story, the troop of soldiers coming up the mountain to reach them were simply there to tell them that slavery had been abolished and that freedom was theirs. The mountain thus got its name, which means Mournful One. Le Morne Brabant is deeply significant to island culture, and the history of it was the reason for it becoming a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2008.

Make it happen: Yanature is the only operator who has permission to bring visitors up the mountain. The three- to four-hour trips operate Monday to Saturday mornings on demand, departing at 6am between 1 November and 31 March and at 7am between 1 April and 31 October. Afternoon trips are possible year round on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Electric cycles: mountain biking with a boost

The hushed, hilly hamlet of Chamarel in southwest Mauritius has long been known on the island for its chilled vibe, superlative rum and exceptional food scene, but it’s now also becoming known for a novel new adventure: electric mountain biking.

A local company has imported a couple of dozen of the battery boosted bikes, and offer a rewarding tour in and around the area.

Far from giving you a free ride, however, the power system is designed to just give you a little help when you need it – some pedaling is still required! The idea is that the electric mountain bikes are a great leveler, allowing people of all fitness levels to cycle together. The fit can try to tackle the steep hills without calling on the battery, though be warned – thanks to the battery pack and motor, the bicycles weigh in at 23kg.

After some Mauritian coffee, the tour first takes the Chamarel Estate where you may spot Java deer – you will also visit the rum distillery. From there it's to one of the island's most beautiful sights, the Chamarel Waterfall, an incredible single-drop waterfall that plunges almost 100m into a beautiful ravine. Next is the Terres de Sept Couleurs (the Seven Coloured Earths), a unique rusting landscape of heaving hills surrounded by lush forests and a group of Aldabra tortoises. For lunch you'll cycle down to the coast to enjoy a meal in the fishing village of Baie du Cap. From there the route follows some sandy tracks through historical sites and past some of the stunning plantation houses from years gone by. Before finishing at Bel Ombre Sugar Estate, the tour takes in the 19th-century colonial mansion of Château Bel Ombre.

Make it happen: Electro-bike Discovery (electrobikemauritius.com) run the full day (approximately six hours) Chamarel tour most days, starting at 8.30am. Half-day tours are also available.

Seakarting: effortless aquatic adrenaline

In Grand Rivière Noire it’s now possible to rent a seakart to tour Mauritius’ mesmerising west coast from atop the Indian Ocean. What exactly is a seakart? Part jet-ski, part RIB (rigid-inflatable boat), it is a pint-sized two-person 100hp jet boat that quickly induces grins, giggles and bursts of laughter with each successive pull of the flappy paddle throttle on the steering wheel. When not blasting across the waves, look east to the staggering summit of Le Rampart, one of the island’s most dramatic peaks.

Make it happen: Fun Adventure (fun-adventure.mu) offer seakart tours ranging from one hour to a full day.

Helicopter tour: the big picture

If you’d like to reach the heights of Mauritius without strapping on your hiking boots, take to the skies on a short helicopter tour. Pilots cruise low over the fringes of the island’s reef, allowing you to look straight down through the clear waters to coral formations, before gaining altitude and soaring into the mountains. One of the most inspiring sights is coming face to face with the summit of Pieter Both Mountain – it’s topped by a massive balanced rock that resembles a human head.

Make it happen: Air Mauritius (airmauritius.com) operate reasonably priced scenic flights on demand. Depending on your budget you have a range of itineraries to choose from, which vary in length from 15 minutes to an hour.

Kite surfing: the perfect playground

Expert kite surfers the world over are well aware that the big surf and steady winds off the reef at Le Morne Peninsula make it one of the best spots on the planet to enjoy their sport. However, the sheltered shallow lagoon south of the peninsula is also arguably the best place for beginners to learn. And as experts abound, there is no shortage of top-notch instructors.

Make it happen: Yoaneye Kite Centre, Son of Kite and ION Club all offer lessons to kitesurfers of every level. The latter also rents equipment to those who already know the tricks of the trade.

Matt Phillips travelled to Mauritius with Tourism Mauritius (tourism-mauritius.mu). With thanks to Lux* Le Morne (luxresorts.com) and Angsana Balaclava (angsana.com). Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.

Mauritius is a beautiful place for awesome holidays!

I love this picture. It's me and my maternal grandparents. This was in front of their home on Chesnut Street, across the street from the railroad tracks. Mom said that during the Great Depression, they rarely ate supper without someone coming to the back door to ask for food. There was always a plate for them. Carl, my grandfather was President of a bank. One of my cousins told me recently that a portrait of him still hangs in he bank lobby. I think that World War Two and the Great Depression aged and exhausted him. This photo was taken about 1950 and he only lived a short time after this. I know him through the photographs that he took in the early 1900s. I think that at heart he was a very gentle man.

Looking back at some of the photos from this time made me remember walking home from school (First and Second Grade) across the railroad tracks and up the street to Gramma's house. She might be baking rolls and would give me and my friends a few warm rolls and chat with us before we walked the rest of the way home. Just such a different way of life then. I doubt if I passed very many houses on my walk home where the residents didn't know whose kid I was - who I "belonged" to.

*

I love this picture. It gives me a tactile connection to my maternal grandparents. This was in front of their home on Chesnut Street, across the street from the railroad tracks. Mom said during the Great Depression, there was rarely a supper without someone coming to the back door to ask for food. There was always a plate for them. Carl, my grandfather was President of a bank. One of my cousins told me recently that a portrait of him still hangs in he bank lobby.

I think that World War Two and the Great Depression aged and exhausted him. This photo was taken about 1950 and he only lived a short time after this. I know him through the photographs that he took in the early 1900s. I think that at heart he was a very gentle man.

*

“Here is the world.

Beautiful and terrible things will happen.

Don’t be afraid.”

~ Frederick Buechner

*

"if i can only recount

the story of my life

right out of my body

flames will grow"

Rumi

(via apoetreflects)

*

Love, too, a leveler, a dying all its own,

the parts left behind not to be replaced,

a loss ongoing, and every day increased,

like rising in the night, at 3:00 am,

to watch the snow or the dead leaf fall,

the rings around the streetlight in the rain,

and then the rain, the red fist in the heart

opening and closing almost without me.

- Stanley Plumly

from Variation on a Line from Elizabeth Bishop's Five Flights Up

[Thanks to Whiskey River]

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Where the City's Homeless found Refuge in Tents distributed by Brigadier General Greely, in Military Command in San Francisco

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Going to be some all new features added to this little jewel too!

Hanwell Nouveau Brunswick, octobre 2013.

hanwell New Brunswick, October 2013.

Thanks for stopping by and view this photo. The reason for posting this photo on Flickr is to learn so if you have constructive feedback regarding what I could do better and / or what I should try, drop me a note I would love to hear your input.

View On Black the way it should be seen!

-- Let the sound of the shutter always guide you to new ventures.

© 2013 Winkler

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IAPP Member: US#12002

3/8 drill hole w leveler and sleeve fit very snug. No glue needed. Cap can be added to PVC leg if needed (floor isn't level).

Interior view of the cap with the sleeve and leveler. No glue needed. This was a very tight fight.

Update: 5 events and the levelers are holding nicely. Nothing has craked, nothing has fallen out.

What all the cool boys & girls are using for installing road bridges. It mounts on the Notorious BBG.

What you see here is the BBG adapter, the FOG itself, its blade leveler and its adjustment knobs.

Monroe Load-Leveler Ad in Popular Science - September 1961

Quartermaster's Headquarters on the Outskirts of the City, showing the "Automobile Cavalry" ready to start for any service.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Imported entry-level table sold for a number of years. We no longer stock parts for it save for an unusually large number of remaining leg levelers and AC adaptors.

We are no longer in touch with the manufacturer, but a company called GLD Products now sells a strikingly similar table called the Arctic Ice, and Brunswick a similarly-similar table called the V-Force. We wouldn't be shocked to find that their parts will work in an old Arctic Star.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

C-channel main beam with angle-iron elements at each end sporting 4 grub/set screws for leveling the mounting beam independent of the leg levelers at each corner of the stand at floor level. These mounting beam leveling adjustments facilitate alignment of the lathe bed-ways to be co-planar to the concentric running of the lathe spindle. When the bed-ways are not co-planar to the lathe spindle, machining a cylindrical piece will produce a tapered cylinder. Being able to adjust the lathe bed-ways without getting down on the floor for the leveling feet adjustments eases the chore significantly (especially at my age).

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

PVC sleeves mounted to the bottom. I used this setup because I can lay the table down, or add legs. Table size is 3x5. Big enough for one train to run. With all three tables together I can run two trains comfortably on their own.

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Note down corner construction as on Coin foosball. Leg levelers instead of leg boots.

What to do when beavers threaten your conservation efforts?

Western North Carolina’s Kanuga Conference Center is home to a Southern Appalachian Mountain bog - one of North America’s rarest habitats. Bogs often home to rare plants and animals, provide important habitat for migratory birds and game species, improve water quality by filtering sediment and contaminants, and store floodwaters which helps decrease downstream flooding. They’re places we very much want to conserve.

Kanuga’s bog has seen the recent arrival of beavers. On one hand, they’re cutting down shrubs, which is a positive step as it allows more sunlight to fall on the plants managers want to thrive. On the other hand, their dams are making water levels so high they’re turning the bogs into ponds – eliminating habitat for the plants and animals that need the bog to live.

A solution? Install pond levelers –pipes through the beaver dams that help drain the pooled water down to a desired level and minimize the ability of beavers to detect stream flow – tricking them into thinking their dams are intact.

Recently staff from Kanuga Conferences, Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service joined a team of Haywood Community College students to install two pond levelers at the Kanuga Bog.

Keywords: Social bandit ; Sertão nordestino ; war of Canudos ; Cangaçeiro ; Lampião ; Maria Bonita ; Coronel ; Zé Baiano

A quick and not very detailed doodle, I'm getting lazy.

The cangaçeiros were bands of outlaws operating in the northeast of Brazil. The historian Eric Hobsbawm who studied the phenomenon of banditry under the sociological political profile, coined the term Social Banditism, and recognized the common aspects in the various forms that the banditism took on several occasions in recent history, bringing together the Italian Brigands, Luddites and Cangaceiros . The presence of oppressive structures, the lack of justice and the unequal distribution of resources have led to forms of disorganized rebellion in which gangs of rebels, although not constituting a revolutionary vanguard, and acting only for personal enrichment purposes, have obtained the consensus of the population that saw in them a sort of avengers and levelers.

The bandits brought damned lives, they were devoted to death, they had to buy or impose silence

and cover with violence, they were condemned to get a lot of money to buy at high price what they needed to live.

They were subject to betrayal, and they were perpetually pursued by teams of policemen, soldiers and bounty killers.

They themselves lived violent lives, and carried out heinous crimes. The main bands of Cangaçeiros were

very active in Sertão Nordestino between 1920 and 1940, when the police finally managed to break down the main bands

The lawns of the park affording haven for thousands. Some of the open-air ovens used can be seen on the curb.

Harper's Weekly May 19, 1906

The Human Drama at San Francisco

by Herman Whitaker — author of The Probationer

From the Contra Costa hills I saw a fiery cloud, miles high, rising over San Francisco. Eight miles away men were fighting one of the greatest fires of history without water. At the end of the first day word came that the powder supply was exhausted; later a supply was obtained somehow and for three days thereafter the sullen roar of the blasts went on unceasingly. It was a fine thing to hear: it stirred one’s blood, filled one with a sense of the indomitable resources that did not flinch in the face of the most fearful odds. Along the bay, San Francisco lay like a huge giant in a purgatory flames, —a giant tormented yet still unconquered. Above the roar and crackle rose his great voice, the growl and thunder of the blasts. And now that the smoke pall has lifted from San Francisco one may observe ruin so vast and complete that the mind registers only an impression of the common place. It is to immense, too comprehensive, to be appreciated until, after hours of wondering amid calcined brick piles, one returns to the flowers and gardens of Oakland across the bay. These Seem strange, unfamiliar; and so, by negation, appreciation is gained of the great lime kiln that was once a suburban city. Overlooking it from an eminence, the streets may be traced only by long brick piles that cross blackened and tottering walls. Closer inspection shows that this fire stone actually burned like coal : bricks are calcined, and cobblestones burned in places to sand and dust.

For duration, intensity, area, destruction, the San Francisco fire is one of the greatest in history: yet, when it is said, but half has been told. The quality it called forth— dogged courage, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness, sympathy, hope —equal it’s stupendous proportions as a tragedy. History records no superior instance of a stricken people rising superior to a calamitous occasion. To earthquake and fire the Californian turned and still turns a cheerful visage. Though, in these days, millionaires have become paupers and business men bankrupt, once he scarcely a sober face upon the street. For the buoyancy is general, or becomes sympathetic sobriety only when the wearer comes in contact with some mourner. Of these, of course, there are many, and besides those who perished by earthquake or fire are those who died of wounds or exposure. The saddest cases of all were those poor women who died while bringing children into the world. The second night of the fire 23 babies were born on the grass of Golden Gate Park. 11 other unfortunate women bore children out in the Berkeley hills. And of these mothers nine are said to have died. For this, no one is to blame: it was inevitable to the situation. Almost equally sad is the case of children who have been separated from parents by death or confusion. Under any circumstances, of course, sympathy naturally flows to the orphan, but how much more is it needed when the bereavement comes in such terrible form. What could be more awful than the thought of the helpless child wondering without help or guidance through the perilous streets of a wrecked city. In all of Oakland’s many relief camps these may be found, and today they are being gathered together by the Salvation Army and taken to Beulah Park. Besides such inevitable suffering the situation developed a tragic side. Always when calamity interferes with established order, the beast crops out in man, and that San Francisco escaped raping, incendiarism , assault, and robbery is due to the inflexible administration of martial law. Not only were looters shot on sight, but all others who persisted in defying authority or in any way molested the peace of the people. The following cases a typical example: Out towards North Beach a refugee camp was situated at the foot of some cliffs, which fact suggested to some Barbary Coast hoodlums the amiable sport of rolling rocks down upon the women and children gathered there. Warned by the sentry on duty, one man dared him to fire. The word had hardly passed his lips before a bullet took him through the heart. There was no more rock rolling.

The soldiers, nevertheless, knew how to be kind. They shared their rations with starving men and gave up their tents to women and children. They stood between the people and would-be extortionists, confiscating the stocks of merchants who unduly raised prices. An instance of this was related to me by an eyewitness. In one of the relief camps, a sergeant heard an aged woman saying that she had been asked $.75 for a loaf of bread that morning. “What!” he exclaimed; and upon her repeating her statement he marched a squad of men to the store she showed him, and began to distribute the stock among the crowd.

“But these are my things!” the grocery protested.

“You charged this woman $.75 for a loaf of bread,” the sergeant answered.

“But I can charge what I like,” the grocery protested; “get out of my store!”

Without answering, the sergeant went on distributing the stores until the angry man laid a hand on his shoulder, then he turned.

“Do you think we are joking?” he asked. Then, turning to his men, he said, “Take him out.”

They shot him against the walls of his own store.

It is creditable to human nature, however, to know that cases of extortion were the exception. On the second day of the fire, I myself made a tour of the Oakland groceries and found only one man who evinced a disposition to advance prices. If there were others, they were deterred by an editorial published in the Oakland Tribune that very morning. “Cursed be he,“ finished the indignant editor, “who at this juncture tries to trade on the necessities of his fellows.” It is lamentable that such a warning should have been necessary; yet when one contemplates the violence, suffering, and bloodshed which have attended similar catastrophes in the past, when one remember set under such circumstances wrongdoing is the rule instead of the exception, the conclusion is forced upon one that man has progressed far in humanity.

Concerning the pervading cheerfulness of which I have been speaking, no report of the situation would be complete without some mention of it’s humorous aspects. For instance the young man whose modesty overcame his fear of death. Running out into the street at the first shock, he observed two young women of his acquaintance leaning out of the window, and was so afflicted with a certain sense of his pajamas that he ran back into the building. Now closer observation or less scrupulous modesty would have shown him the folly of his act, for he was clad in the very latest fashion. Indeed men in pajamas impressed others more lightly clad very much as a tailored youth regards a hand me down. Then there was the dignified gentleman of my acquaintance who put sleeve links into clean cuffs, shaved, washed, and packed a suitcase before merging upon the street. But not until he had walked a block down Market Street did he discover his utter lack of trousers. On Nob Hill, the city’s aristocratic section, two well known society women were observed dragging a trunk between them: and surely panic is a great leveler, for just then a man with a vegetable cart came along, offered his conveyance and drove off with a star a fashion on either side of him.

After the fire had burned itself out, the humor evolved into a sort of grim practical joking. Soldiers and police pressed every man they could lay hands on into service for clearing the streets of bricks, wherefore many a sight-seer who had obtained a pass to cross the bay and see the sights remained to heave brick. One police sergeant remarked with a grin, “I’ve got a bank president, a traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railway, and a Chief of Police all in the gang. They didn’t like it at first,” he added, tapping his boot with the muscle of a long pistol, “but now they’re doing fine.” Then there was an English man, in immaculate traveling suit, parading ferryward with a suitcase. “But I can’t heave bricks,” he answered when impressed; but he did – five hours with that gang, and five with another which caught him further down the street.

Yet on the whole such things were accepted philosophically, and out of the tangle and trouble were born innumerable acts of sympathetic kindness. Late this morning I met a printer who, until then, had held steady employment. “Chucked my job,” was his answer to my question; “do you think I’d hang onto it while hundreds of married men are hunting for work?” And in an Oakland restaurant a similar case occurred. A man applied for work, and, when the proprietor refused, he said, “I must have it, for I have a wife and children to support.” Unwillingly enough, the proprietor repeated that he could not employ any more man, whereupon a waiter who was passing set down his tray of dishes, whipped off his apron and handed it to the applicant. “I have nobody but myself to look after,” he said; “take my job.”

These are but two instances from among thousands that might be cited, which go to show the quality of the public spirit. While the fire was yet burning, plans were being evolved for the building of a greater city. “Going to rebuild?” one hears constantly in the ferry, trains, and cars; and always comes the ready answer: “sure, just as soon as the ashes are cold.” A man was treated for burned hands at a local hospital because he could not wait for the bricks to cool. Cheerfully, bravely, San Franciscans are facing their problem, and their attitude may be summed up in the answer given me by a man this morning. He is 106 years old and when meeting him on the street, I put the question, “well, Captain, did you save anything?” he answered: “Only what I stand in. I’ve got to begin all over again.” Yet it must not be imagined that there is anything flippant about this attitude. The men who laugh and joke do so with the full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. This morning, Secretary Metcalf placed the property loss at $500 million and the jokers are the men who suffered the loss. Another misunderstanding should be avoided. The money reported subscribed is said to be sufficient to tide San Francisco over her crisis. This is not the case. Of the three million and a half that Congress appropriated, all but $300,000 is already spent. Indeed that is all of the appropriation which the relief committee of San Francisco has seen, the bulk of the appropriations having been spent by the War Department for provisions and supplies. The Rockefeller gift of $200,000 was handled entirely by the Standard Oil agents; and this morning Mr. Phelan, chairman of the Central Relief Committee, stated that many of the other subscriptions had not been paid. At the time of writing, the committee has only $600,000 to its credit, and most of this sum is preempted by debts already occurred. It should be distinctly realized that the business part of San Francisco has been swept from the face of the earth; that months must elapse before paralyzed business is reestablished, lines of trade reopened, and the great mass of laborers reemployed.

Six months is a low estimate for the length of time during which a quarter of 1 million of homeless and houseless people require assistance. It would be safer to say that a year will pass before all are reabsorbed into industry. At this juncture therefore it behooves every American to bestir himself for the benefit of San Francisco, which in the past has herself so often extended a helping hand to those in affliction. It would be dastardly to allow actual want to touch men and women who are facing bitter calamity with so brave a front. Surely this will not be. It may be safely be predicted that, once the facts of the case are clearly known, a generous response will meet all needs; so let there be no slacking in the good work. If this be rightly done, the San Francisco conflagration will be remembered not so much for its enormous losses of life and property, its vast areas of distraction, but rather because it furnished the world with proof that, in our time, “brotherhood of man” was not an empty phrase. The lesson it teaches is not that such and such a style of building is earthquake or fireproof, but that no calamity can exceed or quench the courage of man. As the Israelites of old were led to brighter and more beautiful lands by the clouds of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, so San Francisco’s mounting flames were landmark on the road to a greater humanity.

Seen here from left to right:

1) Nodal Ninja Auto Leveler

2) Nodal Ninja 5

3) Nodal Ninja 3

I received a beta version of the new Nodal Ninja 5 today. I received this pre-release version in exchange for some "work" I did at the IVRPA conference in Berkeley this summer with Bill Bailey, North American sales rep for Nodal Ninja, .

I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I can't wait to give it a whirl. Some of the new features include:

* Longer arms (about 40mm longer than NN3). This helps to accommodate larger cameras like the D3 or MK II, MK III, and cameras with battery packs. Larger lenses like 17-40mm or 70-200mm F2.8 can also easily be accommodated .

*Upper arm rotator with 15 degree “positive locks”. Locks can be disabled for other angular interval as small as 2.5 degrees, good for making high resolution mosaics.

* Supports up to 10kgs with positive locks, 5-7kgs without the locks.

* Very precise detent mechanism.

* As small as 10 degree stops in lower arm rotator are possible. Detent rings can be disabled on the fly without any tool.

* More precise rotator base with locking function.

* Angular increment of 2.5 degree in the rotators' markings, good for making high resolution mosaics.

* 4 rail stops for "remembering" camera and lens settings.

Check out the Nodal Ninja Website for more details or to pre-order one for yourself.

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

I sacrificed a socket extension for use on the jack stands. I used a bench grinder to cut off the end that attaches to a ratchet, so that it would fit into the drill chuck. I had a spare 3/4" socket, so this setup can stay intact in the camper for when I need it. I'll just have to add the cordless drill to our camping checklist.

For this season we added a BAL light trailer leveler, and with it needing the same size socket as the stabilizers I'll be able to use this setup to jack up the camper for leveling.

Doubly ironic that Dynamo divested their Shuffleboard products to create Champion... who then bought Valley-Dynamo years on down the road.

Before you ask, that was long enough ago that barely anything Champion currently uses works on those old Dynamo tables, it'll be stuff like leg levelers - definitely not scoreboard electronics.

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

What to do when beavers threaten your conservation efforts?

Western North Carolina’s Kanuga Conference Center is home to a Southern Appalachian Mountain bog - one of North America’s rarest habitats. Bogs often home to rare plants and animals, provide important habitat for migratory birds and game species, improve water quality by filtering sediment and contaminants, and store floodwaters which helps decrease downstream flooding. They’re places we very much want to conserve.

Kanuga’s bog has seen the recent arrival of beavers. On one hand, they’re cutting down shrubs, which is a positive step as it allows more sunlight to fall on the plants managers want to thrive. On the other hand, their dams are making water levels so high they’re turning the bogs into ponds – eliminating habitat for the plants and animals that need the bog to live.

A solution? Install pond levelers –pipes through the beaver dams that help drain the pooled water down to a desired level and minimize the ability of beavers to detect stream flow – tricking them into thinking their dams are intact.

Recently staff from Kanuga Conferences, Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service joined a team of Haywood Community College students to install two pond levelers at the Kanuga Bog.

Equirectangular photos panorama panoramic 360 180 www.puzzledreams.ro

Shot on location as part of the photowalk series in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Post-processing done in Capture One 20.

Camera: Contax 645

Back: Phase One P45+

Head: Arca-Swiss Core Leveler 75

Tripod: Gitzo GT3532LS