California

by Paul Winter

This web site was primarily created to explain Why Doctors Can't Prescribe the Better Medicine. The rest of the web site, such as this page are interesting, but nowhere near as valuable as my information on alternative cancer treatments and simple prevention.

After I graduated college, I traveled around the states with a swimming teammate, Willie. When we got to California, I knew I wanted to live there forever. About a year later I got a job with Hughes Aircraft and moved to LA. I rented a one-bedroom furnished apartment on the second floor right accross from a park. It cost $145 a month. The balcony outside my door was directly over the deep end of the pool. I always had a nice high-dive entry.

LA was my base of operations for eight years, but most of that time I lived overseas. Once, while in-between assignments, I needed a new passport. It took threats from three managers to make me take the photo, but at least I was Earth legal afterwards.

During my times in LA, I worked out on the beach at Santa Monica. The highbar there was one of the best I had ever used. Since the horrizon at the beach is so low, being ten feet up in the air felt more like 90. What a rush.

After seeing the world I returned to LA one last time. To the land of sunsets that just get better and better.

OK you cleaver types that's right, in LA the sun sets in the ocean. I was working graveyard shift trying to learn programing by looking at a printout of the F-15 radar code. Needless to say that that didn't work, but I got to watch the sun rise every morning and then go body surfing till my arms fell off. Below is an unbelievable photo of myself tubbed. You can just see my hand sticking out of the tube and my fin is visible inside the top part of the wave. Getting tubbed is when you are riding the wave but you are inside the hollow part that waves sometimes make when they throw water out in front when they break. It is the ultimate place to be, but to have someone get a picture of it is amazing good luck.

A friend of mine took the nevt shot, but Judy never used a 35 mm camera before that day. I had reluctantly allowed her to try and get some shots of me when I went out . But, I was only being nice; I never thought she would get even one good shot. Shooting surfing of any kind is very difficult and body surfing is the most difficult of all. You need to use a telephoto lens and tripod both of which complicate things. I told Judy a few basic concepts about shooting surfers such as aiming the camera where she thought the surfer is going to be. Then, you have to wait till the surfer enters the frame and push the cable release early. How early? Good luck.

When I came out of the water, I found that Judy had shot the whole roll. I tried not to be annoyed; I figured it was a completely wasted roll of film. When I got the roll back from the processors I was in shock. There before my eyes appeared great shot after great shot. Judy went on to win awards for her pictures. Well, she had a great teacher {:^) Actually, I'm not bad at pushing the button; my photos have hung in local galleries and some people have actually exchanged money for them. My real claim to fame is that Ansel Adams looked at one of my photos in a little gallery on the coast and actually didn't toss his cookies.

So here are the real sun sets.

Where is that pesky sun anyway? Ah, there it is.

When I first returned to LA, I stayed at a special little motel, in room number three. The great thing about room three is the separate bedroom and the views. This is the living room/kitchen area evening view. Notice how the wires compose a balance and symmetry rarely achieved by linemen in other countries.

The night view from the bedroom was ultra LA with lights as far as the eye could see. I would make my bed so my head was at the foot and I could look at all the lights as I fell asleep.

When my boss at that time asked me where I was staying, I received a shock. I told him it was just some dump (I didn't want to give away the secret of room three.) When he pressed me I thought I better not make a big thing out of it and since I already told him it was a dump he probably wouldn't tell anybody about it. So I told him the name of the motel. He looked at me with surprise and said, "oh, room three."

Another thing about that motel: you could walk down to the beach and get sunsets without telephone wires:

Although, LA has some surprising culture:

LA was no place to settle down. How about Tahoe? At least Tahoe has a story:

When I lived in Germany and wanted to go skiing, I would sometimes stay at a hotel where Dave lived. He was an American climbing guide and ski instructor/patrol liaison. He liked to ski Kitzbuhel so he tried to get his day off to correspond with my visits. I always skied Kitzbuhel when I could. Dave was the best skier I had ever seen. He eventually went on to prove himself, but that's another story. I liked rugged terrain skiing and could rarely find anyone willing to ski with me. In the seventies few people skied off the packed slopes, but the steep and deep was what Dave and I lived for.

For miles around people could see us bounding down cliff areas near the tops of the mountains. I am sure that any Americans that saw us must have thought, God, these Europeans can ski!

One late afternoon found us near the bottom of the valley but miles away from the town where I had parked my car. Dave wanted to take the bus but I convinced him that we could go up one more time and just traverse the lower portion of the Hahnenkamm. "Just traverse right across the whole mountain."

After much climbing around ravines and very little traversing we found ourselves skiing in the dark with sparks visibly shooting from our skis because we couldn't see the rock encrusted bare spots. We were hungry but all we had was a small piece of chocolate which served as our dinner. We finally came to the bottom of a chair lift that started part way up the mountain and went to the very top. The lift structure had a map on its side, but the sky was overcast, making it completely dark. I took off my skis and got on Dave's shoulders so I could get close enough to read it.

The map was ten feet wide but, unbelievably, the town where I had parked my car was not even on the map. What made matters worse was that the map indicated we were at a dead end. The only way out without skiing through the trees was the lift, which would not start again until the morning. Skiing through the trees is something Dave and I both love, but the Austrians graze their cattle on the lower parts of the mountains during the summer, so you have to keep an eye out for barbed wire fences. To ski through woods on an overcast night was madness if only because branches were so hard to see. Throw in the barbed wire fences and it would take a miracle to come through unscathed.

Unfortunately we had no choice. We couldn't wait until morning because we were both dressed in light clothes so we could ski hard without getting overheated. Also, I had come down with my friend Maria, and had told her that we would be back at my car around 4:00.

We entered the woods at 5:30 and started skiing. The dips and bumps were undetectable and I would sometimes find my knees in my face or my stomach in my throat, but neither Dave nor I fell. Suddenly the miracle happened. Dave pulled an instantaneous stop and stared at his boots. I stopped behind him. Four inches above the snow and just in front his skis was a single line of barbed wire. His ski would have gone under it and he would have experienced a fall I doubt he could of skied away from. To this day I find it hard to believe that he was able to see that little piece of wire. He was amazing.

Soon after the wire incident we came upon salvation: a logging road. All we had to do was ski down the nice, smooth, gently sloping logging road to the main road and hitch a ride. Dave went first, I followed. Suddenly he disappeared. One moment he was there, then he vanished. I kept skiing and noticed a black spot in the road. When I stopped and looked at it, it looked back. It was Dave. He was in a large hole right in the middle of the road. He was having trouble getting his skis free. When we got him out, his skis were OK, thank God. That was something to celebrate. When you run a pair of skis into the side of a hole that you are not prepared for, breaking a tip is a common result.

We started out again with Dave still in the lead. At one point I noticed that the road curved for no apparent reason. I decided to cut the corner. As I skied off the road, the unpacked snow felt heavenly under my skis - but it didn't last. Suddenly I was falling. I had skied right off a cliff. Below was a pile of rocks made by the same river that had cut the cliff. I spun around in the air and grabbed for the wall of the cliff. The unpacked snow I had gone through had slowed me down or I would have traveled too far out. I managed to get a hold of the cliff wall after falling only a few feet and glued myself to it. I hung there trying to imitate a suction cup while I yelled my head off for Dave. I thought that any move would cause me to fall off the wall, and it was only a matter of time before I would lose my grip. It had been years since I had done any climbing and I had lost the "feel" that lets you know when you have a good grip and when you are about to slip. Not to mention that climbing rock with skis on is impossible. I hoped Dave would hear me and come back before it was too late.

Dave can be incredibly calm sometimes. His head appeared over the edge of the cliff. Looking down at me, clinging for dear life, he smiled and said, "Just traversing, Paul?"

I was talking very quietly now, afraid that one more yell and I would slip, " Dave, old buddy, give me your pole. Just be a real nice guy and give me your pole."

"I don't know, Paul, I think these are those newfangled poles where the handle comes off if you catch the other end in a bush or something. Let me just pull on it a while to make sure it doesn't come off."

"Daaaaaaaaaaaave!"

Now I realized that Dave was an expert climber and had assessed the situation and realized that I was not going to slip at all. He was just getting back at me because, after all, this was all my fault. He finally reached down with his pole and pulled me up. I noticed my life had become a little more precious to me.

We skied down to the road without further incident. The first car picked us up and we had a surprisingly warm reunion with Maria, despite being three hours late. She said that she would have been frantic if I had been alone, but since Dave was with me she thought we would eventually make it back. Dave just smiled and said not one word about traversing.

When my work was over and it was time to leave Europe, I took a couple of months off for a final drive around the Old World. One of my stops was Dave's hotel because I wanted to get his stateside address. They told me he had left months ago and they didn't have a forwarding address. I was depressed, I really liked him a lot. He was an amazing, sensitive, considerate guy. One of a kind.

Five years later I flew to the Tahoe area with a friend to check out the skiing since I was considering the San Francisco Bay area to settle down in. We found a motel that had kitchenettes, then went to the supermarket. I was walking through the produce section going back to my friend. I had an avocado in each hand and visions of guacamole in my head when a man walked by me and nodded. I nodded back because he looked familiar, but then I remembered that I lived in Japan. How could I know anybody around here? Unless they were a long lost friend. After a moment it came to me whom he looked like. I said to my friend, "Remember that story I told you, about being lost in the Alps? That guy over there looks just like..." I turned and pointed in his direction and saw that he was pointing me out to a woman that looked like the singer at the hotel where we met so many years before. I remembered her clearly because both our instruments of choice were left handed 12-string guitars. You don't find many of them around and she was pretty special too. Sure now that it was Dave, we had a great reunion and tore up a few Califorina mountains.

Eight thousand miles from our fateful traverse, our paths had crossed once again. The chances of that happening are astronomically small. It was great seeing them again, but I couldn't live in Tahoe and make the kind of money I had become accustomed to. I settled in the San Francisco Bay and made the big engineering bucks. The Bay area had some great sunsets (OK I'm a sunset nut):

If you live anywhere in the bay area, you probably know where this place is, but just in case, here is a close-up:

When I first settled down, I was still a bit of a motor-head. I tore apart a Mustang and started to try and figure out where all those parts went. If you like puzzles, I recommend car craft.

I pulled the engine, but let a local speed shop puzzle over it. When I got it all back together, it ran backwards. In parking lots, I was unbeatable. The interior came out beautiful with real wood and sheepskin everywhere. Of course, I can't find that picture. One of my friends said it looked like a caveman's car. I liked that, but I don't think she meant it as a compliment.

As soon as I settled down, I wanted to fulfill an old dream: a piano. I searched the newspapers for an old upright. People thing grands are so cool, but the sound in an upright comes right at you. You can feel the sound of an upright much more. The one I found turned out to have a special spirit. The first day that it arrived at the foot of my bed, I ignored it because of some pressing projects. That night I lay in bed stricken. Voices, I was hearing angry voices coming from the piano. I'm not making this up. I realized I had a real problem on my hands, but some how I fell asleep. The next day, I compounded the old girl and played her for hours. She had a great sound and I fell in love with her. That night, for the first time in my life, I woke up laughing. I looked at the piano and said you and me baby, we'll be fine. That was the last time I put a piano in my bedroom.

That apartment I rented had a second bathroom that I turned into a darkroom and my photography really took off. Life was good. I moved twice since then. Can you find me now?

The first move was to Mt View where I had a garage to take my toys apart. This is Bruiser having his fuel gauge changed into an oil temperature gauge:

One of the best/worst things about my Mt. View condo was it's proximity to Moffett Field. You could sit on the roof during airshows and get pictures like:

Yep, that's all for now.

One Final Mystery Uncovered

I don't sell anything, but I found black and white proof that the National Cancer Institute (NCI)) falsified their test results of a safe cancer/viral treatment. NCI gets $2 billion of our tax money each year until they find a cure for cancer, so finding the cure would be the end of their comfortable jobs. That might explain their duplicity. If you:

Have trouble getting rid of any kind of viral infection (like I used to)
Want to be safe from cancer
Want to treat cancer

this may be the most valuable information you ever read: The Cancell Home Page.

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