I like pretty much everything Paula Wirth puts up on Flickr, but this afternoon I could do well with a dive like Scolari’s Office in San Diego. But, that’s probably because it mixes “office” and “cocktails” in the sort of way that has anonymous tipsters slipping photocopies of the alcohol policy from our HR handbook under my office door.

Eh, here’s to happy hour.

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What didn’t work out because of our problems with the hotel was our drive to Barstow to see Sandee’s friend Joanne.

I don’t know much about the town, but Wikipedia told me to look out for the original Del Taco, Rainbow Basin Natural Area (site not loading now, try this instead), Calico Ghost Town, and the old Solar One solar energy generating experiment. Along the road, however, is the the World’s Tallest Thermometer, in Baker, California.

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Treehugger alerted me to the rather surprising story of this light bulb, burning continuously since 1901. Yeah, at least that’s the story here, at the Centennial Light Bulb Committee’s website (a partnership of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department, Livermore Heritage Guild, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and Sandia National Laboratories).

The bulb is said to have been made by the Shelby Electric Company of Shelby, Ohio, and given to the fire department by Dennis Bernal, owner the Livermore Power and Light Co. The 4-watt bulb was first installed at the fire department hose cart house in 1901, moved to the fire station at First and McLeod, and in 1976 move to it’s current location as a “nightlight over the fire trucks” at the fire station at 4550 East Ave, Livermore, California.

Yeah, there’s even a webcam you can check.

It’s been recognized by the Guinness Book folks, as well as Ripley’s, though it does have some competition (a 1908 bulb in Texas is said to be still glowing). Fortunately, the city plans to keep nightlight on as long as it can. You can visit the bulb weekdays, 8 AM to 5 PM.

tags: 100 years, 4 watt, 4 watts, california, centennial bulb, durability, electricity, fire department night light, illumination, light bulb, livermore, livermore ca, livermore fire department, livermore pleasanton fire department, long lasting, treehugger, watts, world record

Jake Halpern’s Braving Home (also in softcover) easily took my interest. Here’s how John Moe described it for Amazon.com:

As a cub reporter at The New Republic, Jake Halpern earned the unofficial job title of Bad Homes Correspondent. Braving Home tells his stories of places where people really ought not live and the people who live there anyway. Halpern traveled to such inadvisable destinations as a bed and breakfast at the foot of an active Hawaiian volcano, a North Carolina town trying to recover from being completely submerged, an indoor Alaskan city, and an island in the Gulf of Mexico located directly in the cross hairs of numerous hurricanes. And while the places themselves make for interesting historical lore, the people who choose to stay and make their homes there form the real heart of the story. The doomed, it seems, get few visitors but have plenty of time on their hands. So Halpern goes out to meet them, crashes on their couches or guest beds and hangs out for a few days forming a one-man tourist industry. Far from being the kooks one might expect, Halpern’s subjects come across as normal folks, though significantly more resilient than most, who stay in their homes simply because, well, those are their homes. Halpern himself figures prominently in most of the stories and at times it seems like the young man is spending too much time navel gazing. But on each of the book’s five adventures, Halpern goes from wide-eyed visitor to welcome member of the community and in so doing demonstrates how, once you get used to it, any place can feel like home. Even if that it’s surrounded by molten lava.

Halpern visits homes in Princeville North Carolina, Whittier Alaska, Kalapana Hawaii, Malibu California, and Grand Isle Louisiana. Some of the homemakers are following long held family traditions, others are intentionally isolating themselves in their inhospitable environments.

Despite my interest in Halpern’s concept, I found it to be a mixed read. He goes looking for some deeper meaning or significance in the way these people cling to their homes, but largely comes up empty. People, it would seem, do inexplicable things. There are times I wished told me more. In Alaska, for instance, he could have done more to explain what economic activity sustained Whittier today.

Update… here are two relevant Wikipedia articles about Hawaii: Kalapana Hawaii and Volcanoes National Park. The Times ran a story that mentioned the Lava Side Inn last week. It’s With Vulcan as My Landscaper in the June 30 2005 Home & Garden section. If I was cool I’d give you an OpenURL link for this.

tags: braving home, danger, dangerous places, home, homemaking, jake halpern, lava side inn, underwater town, kilauea, hawaii, kilauea hawaii, grand isle, louisiana, grand isle louisiana, malibu, california, malibu california, princeville, north carolina, princeville north carolina, whittier, alaska, whittier alaska