JBMoney 's Blog @ Bressler.org

Recently, our Family and the Baers (from SoCal) drove out to Safari West near Santa Rosa for a couple of days. About 30-45 minutes NW of Napa, we took our time getting there, stopping at a few wineries to kill time and relax before check-in.

Safari West is an 'African Wildlife Preserve and African Tent Camp'.  They have over 400 acres of open spaces, lakes, trees, dirt roads, and all that. They also have on-site lodging... big family size tents with all the frills (shower, sink, bed, electricity). I don't think there is air-conditioning and the space heater leaves a lot to be desired on a cold night, but there are plenty of blankets. No cellular service is available either (good).

Throughout the park are around 700 critters of roughly 80 species, including: giraffes, cheetahs, rhinos, cape buffalos, blue wildebeest, lemurs, gazelle, porcupines, zebras, and lots of birds. Many, if not most, of these are born at Safari West (most recently a new giraffe).

A highlight of Safari West is the three hour tour, part walk and part open vehicle ride around the Preserve to see the larger animals. The Preserve is divided up into a few large sections by necessity as some of the animals just don't get along all that well (apprently Zebras are rather mischievous). You don't have to spend the night at Safari West to take the tour, the public is welcome to make reservations for the tour alone.

In addition to the animals, the tour, and the accomodations, there is an excellent buffet lunch & dinner available (reservations required), a snack shop with sandwiches/salads, and the service throughout the Preserve is first rate. No sulking unhappy faces around Safari West. No surprise as it seems like a great job to have. I'd highly recommend Safari West for a family, or romantic,  getaway. Kids will love the critters.

More pictures here.

I've been tossing out PC-related junk over the last year.... obsolete keybords, mice, cords, etc. Anyone who's worked with PC hardware over the years has tales of the unbelievably inadequate hardware they used to work with... at least by today's standards.

External Data storage is one the most easily quantifiable areas of change with which to bring home how far things have come. When I started playing with TRS-80s at school we had cassette tapes and 5 1/4 inch floppy drives. There were also 8 inch floppies around. After that, the 3.5 inch floppy reigned supreme for many years, mostly available with 1.4MB of storage. Eventually the re-recordable CD became the standard with 600MB or more, then re-recordable DVDs with 4GB (4000MB) or more, and now any number of USB & Firewire devices are cheaply available. For less than $30, I can now carry around 32GB on a drive no larger than my thumbnail.

There was a short point in time though (1999ish),  between the dominance of the 3.5 inch floppy and the re-recordable CD, where the next big thing was not so clear. There were a series of portable external drives that were quite popular. In fact, some PC manufacturers (like Dell) bet on the Iomega Zip drive and let folks configure new PCs with an internal version (I have one of these). 

Pictured here are three drives Buffy and I went through during that time, the Iomega Zip (100MB), the Syquest SyJet (scsi 1.5GB) and the Iomega Jaz (scsi 2GB).  I don't miss them or the two pounds of cabling and power cables that you needed to carry around with them.

Jake Holmes, an American Folk-Pop singer dating back to the 60's, is sueing Led Zeppelin. Holmes claims to have written Dazed and Confused. In fact, he released the song on his 1967 album. Also in 1967, Holmes played the song when opening for the Yardbirds in Greenwich village. Yardbirds being the group Jimmy Page was in before Zeppelin. Page has always taken credit as the sole songwriter on Dazed.

After a listen, it sounds like Holmes has a rock-solid case but  I can't imagine letting something like this eat at you for 40 years.... and it obviously had. Page commented on Holmes' grousing in a 1990 interview.

10 years and a life spent mostly in alcoholism and bitterness... maybe... I mean we've all been there right? But 40 YEARS!?!

If successfull, the statute of limitations restricts Homes from recovering anything except royalties for the last three years. Still a tidy sum... but probably a scrap of what he could have been due.