Octobers outta' here!

A personal note of thanks to our moving crew of Jason, Matt, Wade, Marquel, Andrew, Jalen, Ida, and Carlos (Lavar and Natalie wanted to help, but they had to work) on Friday and Saturday.
Terri and I couldn't have done it with out your help and we are in your debt. As soon as we get settled in, we will be having a spagetti and stir-fry dinner in your honor--a small token of our gratitude.

We've spent a couple days in the new place now and it still feels like we are staying at an Extended Stay America, I keep looking out the window half expecting to see the highway. We are still in the same Greenhaven neighborhood so our bike rides on the trail and along the Sacramento river are still a reality.

Terri and I are excited about the opening of the new Freeport Regional Water Project. The FRWP is a pumping plant under construction still with completion scheduled for December. Terri thought that it was going to be a resturant, and I had it pegged for a fishing and recreation structure. From our vantage point on the bike trail it looked like the bridge of a giant tug boat. We were surprised by one of the construction workers who laughed at our ideas and said that the architect who designed it wouldn't like that we thought that his fish design would give us such an impression. Apparently the fish design can fully be envisioned while airborne and flying past it. As explained to me, while in the sky you will be able to see a huge fish with the accompanying bubbles and other under water motifs. The structure itself is really a pumping and diversion station made from a partnership between Eastbay Mud and the County Of Sacramento. (My grandfather worked and retired with EBMUD, and I can still remember the very cool Christmas parties that they gave for the employees kids after all these years now.) Some water will go to Central Sacramento projects and the station will deliver water to EBMUD customers during those emergency drought seasons. There's a pipeline that will run the water from Freeport through Tracy towards Livermore an then into the Bay Area. Pretty interesting stuff. I had asked the construction worker why the bay area folk weren't trying to do something in de-salinization of all the bay and ocean water that they had in abundance. I was surprised as heck, that they had. He stated that there was a plant opening in southern California Carlsbad, near San Diego. He said that he had heard that it would be cheaper to convert ocean water into a drinkable state than it would be to convert our own Sacramento river stuff. He and I both surmised, that it might because of the history of our water system with pestisides run off--and industrial chemicals--and even the gold mining from the rush periods that might make it a huge challenge--if not impossibility, to make Sacramento river water palatable.
Terri and I would like to get information on when the grand opening festivities will be. Should be fun. If you'd like to see more info here's a link to the Freeport Project.

WWW.Freeportproject.org