The Beav

There's a couple of things going on in this post: a book report of Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, thoughts about sardines based on the recent NPR article I heard today, and a broader look at Monterey & Fort Ord.

Cannery Row is the street in (New) Monterey, California that in the 1940's was the processing locale for sardines, tuna, and other things like squid. Steinbeck's novel is set after those plants have basically ceased operation. The book isn't about the fish processors, their workers, but about the people that inhabit the area around it. I don't know if I will be able to go to my book club meeting about this book, if I can then I'll know a bit more about the book. Bottom line - read it!

I think I've only had sardines from a can once, but since then not so much. Sardines were over fished, but they've recovered now, the season is pretty tight so they may be tough to get. A short recipe in this NPR article sounds really good! Because they're small they don't have the high mercury concentration that tuna might because of their place on the food chain.

I love Monterey! I spent many weeks out at Fort Ord doing range recon and sampling groundwater. The most fun thing was hiking around the different ranges with Charles Luckie, Tom Ghigliotto, and another guy whose name I can't recall, to do what's called range recon - going around by foot through the scrub brush, previously burned areas, and poison oak to locate exploded ordinance. Because Fort Ord is being transferred over to the city or the state the lead contaminated areas need to be cleaned up, the lead being from bullets soldiers had shot at targets in those range areas way back when. But, working with those guys was great, I laughed so hard at the jokes they'd make, and have a great time hiking around. Their nickname for me was the "The Beav!"

Luckie with the GPS backpack and Tom stretching one morning.


Long run of conveyor belts to move soil out of a range for off haul.

The other thing that I did at Fort Ord is PDS or Passive Diffusion Sampling, in the picture below you'll see a coworked re-attaching a PDS bag to a rope that will be lowered down into a groundwater well. Those wells were scattered all over the base and were monitored on different schedules (ie quarterly, semi-yearly, etc). That was fun too!


Justin about to send the PDS bag back down the well.

One of the other things I would do is: bike around in the back area of Fort Ord on the paved roads that had been open to cyclists. That was a great spot to do hill work. I went one night out by myself, everyone (Luckie, Tom, and the other guy) had warned me not to because mountain lions would jump out of the trees and take me off my bike. I thought that's bull and went out anyways, I had charged up my bike light but it still conked out, I kept going a little ways, but was too freaked out so I spun hard back to the truck. Luckily there was a full moon out!

Cannery Row is now a tourist spot with different shops and a really awesome aquarium! Monterey also has a fun art scene:

Blown glass.

A lot of nights after doing range recon or sampling were spent at the English Ales Brewery in Marina, just north of the Base. Some good strong micros!