Hi All. As most you know California is my home. Japan is also my home although I’m never sure if it’s my second home or my first home. I really don’t think it makes much difference, as I love both of them.

Both homes to my thinking have a natural beauty unsurpassed by any other home in the whole world. I’m sure there are those who will disagree with me when it comes to their homes and that is the way it should be. I ask though that you agree with me until I’m out of ear shout range.

I have been to many countries in my lifetime and each have a beauty of their own. I have climbed the mountains of just about every country I have ever been in. I have seen the valleys of just about every country I have been in. I have traveled up some of the steepest canyons ever seen by man and have been in some valleys that have never been seen by man until the day I saw them. Okay so maybe not, but I like to think that I was the first there.

I look at the World and I know that it would not be the way it is if not for volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, ice ages and the occasional asteroid impact. There is no beauty in violence yet it is violence that has created the beauty in the World that we see today and still is this very moment.

Do you know that the Sierra Nevada’s were 1000s of feet higher then they are today and that they are still rising? Erosion has worn them down to what they are today. You can see most of that erosion in the Great Valley to the west.

Did you know that Mount Diablo in the Bay Area is the fastest growing mountain in the Bay Area? Of course you do. Jim Berkland has told you before and so have I. A thrust fault and not a very big one at that is lifting it up. I’m still trying to figure how in an area that is surrounded by strike-slip faults a thrust fault has been able to sneak in. However even if I do, or don’t find the answer I don’t think it really matters. It is there and there is nothing I can do about it one way or the other. I doubt that I would even if I could. It seems to me that is the way it should be.

My time here is getting short. My task is just about finished and soon I will be called home. I’m at peace with myself and with nature that surrounds me. I have learned to become tolerate with people and to accept the way they are. I think of all the things in this World that I have had to do that was the most difficult thing for me to do it was to accept people the way they are. I don’t like people, but neither do I dislike them. I just accept them for who and what they are. Each and every one of us has an impact on that which is around us. I hope it is a good impact that I have made. I hope you can do the same. Take Care…Don in creepy town