[CN] – Dealing a setback to opponents of California’s high-speed rail, a judge denied a lawsuit claiming that the $68 billion bullet train project violates restrictions imposed in the bond act approved by voters. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny did not say that the project...

If you drive around the city of Gilroy, you get the idea the folks here are very proud of their town. It is the garlic capital of the world, and I’m sure if I looked for it, I could find some of that famous garlic ice cream. Today there seems to be an undercurrent of dissatisfaction. Like many other...

Short trip to Sacramento and a visit to the California Railroad Museum and Old Town Sacramento. I didn’t know the original streets were raised due to river flooding in the 1870s. I’m still not convinced the fill wasn’t just so much BS running downhill to the waterfront from the Capitol building. The...

Well it looks like El Niño started the music and has started to dance a little. Isn’t it great that the weather guessers got it wrong for yesterday and today? How about the cooler temps? My GPS tells me I’m sitting about 34 feet above sea level. A little over half a mile away is the levee for the...

El Niño, we hardly knew ye. You came in as the strongest and biggest bad guy promising untold riches and help, but you really haven’t done much of anything. In fact you’ve not done much more than the folks we send to Sacramento to work on our other problems. The one good thing about you is –...

Assemblyman Scott Wilk introduced Assembly Bill 1866 on Wednesday to allow voters to cancel the High-Speed Rail Project and redirect those funds to vital water projects such as storage and conveyance, as well as desalination. “The $68 billion Bullet Train is the largest public works project in the...

The incomplete and growing list of reasons to have a high-speed rail system in California, in no particular order of importance: 1. “Europe and Asia have them, and we should, too.” Remember when we tried to use that reasoning to go to a rock concert our folks had already said we couldn’t attend? 2....

Up here in Yuba City, I decided to have lunch at a Sonic Drive-In. I’d forgotten just how those many years I lived in Virginia and Kentucky had affected me. When asked if I wanted “sweet or un-sweet” tea, I almost couldn’t believe my ears. I nearly checked my GPS to make sure I was north of the...

Watched a biplane crop duster this morning. Nearby orchards were being sprayed. The pilot had to fly the plane under some high-voltage electric lines. You know – those lines with the big steel towers. It was a great show. As the sunrise awakened the upper Central Valley, a low fog hugged the ground...

Cue music: “On the Road Again.” Or is it another song, “The Long and Winding Road?” Whatever the song, the journey has started at last. So it was from Acton to Bakersfield and now in a little town called Nicolaus. I’m just about 35 minutes north of Sacramento on Highway 99. I’ve been following...