So it's that time, I'm headed out on the road for a few months. I need someone to sublet my room while I'm gone. Do you wanna try to the city out for a few months? Or are you in between places? Or maybe you know someone who is?
The room is $700 a month. It has a twin platform bed (that means you can store stuff underneath), rockin' stereo with a turntable, a drafting table, huge closet, a nice chair for your visitors, and an amazing view. There is also a small stoop outside the window that you and a friend can chill on and enjoy a nice view of San Francisco and Oakland from. You'd share a bathroom with an awesome lady named Lana who likes to make collages, paint, and has a huge chalkboard painted on her wall for you to leave funny notes and doodles on. Josh lives above you and shares that bathroom as well, but isn't home much.
The best part about this situation for you or your friend is that I'm totally flexible on when I come and go. I want to ideally leave sometime in August and be gone for about 3 months. I really just need to find someone awesome for this couple of months, so I'm kinda flexible on everything (including rent). You name the dates!
Please let me know if you or someone you know (and trust) is interested!
Room for Rent
Gold Digging
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It's real. Nearly 82% of the gold mining in the United States happens in this area. It is land that is sacred of the Shoshone tribe. They have been trying to fight against companies like Newmont Mining for nearly a century in order to prevent further development of mining. The tribe signed a treaty in the late 1800's in order to share the land with the US government as a form of peace keeping. Apart of this treaty said that mining would be allowed, as the US government viewed this the most important use of the western land. At the time, mining was performed by hand, with a pick axe. Nearly 150 years later, companies like Newmont, have adopted the open pit mining and cyanide heap leaching techniques to obtain their gold. Environmental affects are vast, causing contamination of drinking water and acid rain. The mines themselves are a couple miles wide and over 1,000ft deep. I have a feeling it will be really difficult to see them close up, but I have to try.
1991 Chevrolet G20
It's got a little over 84k miles on it, a few wiring issues, but a great motor and new transmission. I've already driven it from Valencia, CA back up to San Francisco, down to Santa Cruz packed full of people, and home to Petaluma a few times. It's a tank! The V8 definitely loves to guzzle gas. But it's roomy, with 4 captains chairs and a nice bed in the back. This will definitely work.
Joliet, IL
From "Disarming the Prairie" by Terry Evans. This is a must see place. I can't find any more info on it then what I quickly read in the book of the same title that I saw yesterday. I wanted to buy it, but I had ran out of money. The outskirts of the mid-size town Joliet, IL are littered with ruins of old WWII facilities. Most of them have burnt down or fallen down, but some remain. Thinking of these landscapes in cloudy weather makes me tingle a bit.
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Flint and Detroit, MI
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Flint and Detroit are both in Michigan. When I hear about Michigan, I think about closed factories and abandoned buildings. This is how the media, throughout my life, has portrayed it. I've heard crazy things about nature taking over abandoned buildings in Detroit. That damn Michael Moore has got so much to say about Flint. Oh, and it's weird to me that California and Michigan are the only two states with two cities in The Top 10 List. Richmond and Oakland are a lot closer to each other, but Flint and Detroit are also close. Okay, maybe it's a looser connection that I thought. I need to get out of bed.
Smithfield Packing Company
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Located in Tar Heel, NC on Highway 87, the Smithfield Packing Company is capable of slaughtering an estimated 32,000 pigs a day. It is the largest slaughterhouse in the world. There are a few facilities within a few miles of each other, so I decided to show the satellite map. I can't imagine the smell. I'm on a hunt looking for slaughterhouses right now. They have an enormous ecological and environmental impact. It may provide jobs, but it fuels a disgusting and an unnecessary industry. The length of the Wikipedia page on the company is weird too.
I've also added a full map of the trip at the foot of this here blog.
Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities
Congressional Quarterly Press has released their rankings for 2008:
- New Orleans
- Camden, NJ
- Detroit
- St. Louis
- Oakland
- Flint, Mich.
- Gary, Ind.
- Birmingham, Ala.
- Richmond, Calif.
- North Charleston, SC
The Salton Sea
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This lake is barely over 100 years old and was created as a result of an unusually large snow melt from Colorado and high rates of precipitation in a single winter season. So why the salt? Salton was a salt mining town until it's flooding in 1905. High levels of bacteria created infections that would wipe out large number of fish in the 1980s and 1990s. This eventually caused botulism to become rampant in the area and began killing off birds as well. It's now littered with abandoned shelters, including a hotel/resort that was built in the 50s or so and failed, and corpses of countless animals.
Balitmore
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I looked at a van today for the trip. It was a 1991 Chevy G20 Conversion. It seemed to run well, but's definitely got a few isssues. I'm not sure I'll end up buying it. Although, the current owner did send me some photos of a his road trip to Mexico that he made in a few months ago. I can't tell if he's being serious or just wants to get rid of the van.
Anyways, back to Baltimore. I meet a gobs of kids from this place here on the west coast. They all seem to be great people. I need to see what has sparked a desire to move all the way across the United States to get away from it.
Gilrich, TX
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When hurricane Ike ravaged Southeast Texas in the fall months of 2008, the peninusulas that hug the West and East Bay that surround the larger Galveston Bay were nearly wiped clean. At some points the land on the eastern Bolivar Peninsula is less than 2 miles wide, leaving it no match for the super charged sea and fierce storms. Destroyed ports, docks, beach house, small store fronts, and sea side restaurants. A must see.