I thought I’d take a small break from posting my Australia photos to participate in Photo Friday this week, where the topic is Technology. This is an oil rig off the coast of Huntington Beach, during sunset—a very familiar view for me.

Oil rigs are a commonplace sight here in H.B.—they are everywhere. They dot the parking lot of the courthouse, the neighborhood in empty lots next to expensive houses, the bare lands next to the ecological reserves, and every imaginable open space. I could be paranoid, but I never drink the tap water here; I never liked the taste of it, and I don’t like the idea of all the oil pumping in the vicinity of the water pipe system. Silly, I know, but I buy bottles of water and drink Lipton green tea anyway.

I saw a promo on CNN for a story about our dependence on oil and about how the cost of gas could easily go up to $8 a gallon in a few years. That’s a scary vision, even though I hardly drive any more. I also saw a story on Brazil, about their sugar cane industry and about the ethanol they get from it; they invested in a new energy system two or three decades ago, and now they are completely free of imported oil.

It made me realize just how old our technology is here in the states. Very, very old. We could have had electric cars a generation ago since the technology existed even then, but we’re only just now getting into hybrids. And all because the oil, car, and tire companies didn’t want to lose even a tiny bit of their business. That’s why L.A. no longer has the great light rail system for public transit that they once had in the ‘5os. They were somehow convinced to buy busses instead.

Yep. Technology. And so I posted another photo of the oil rig.

This view is partly why I went to Australia in the first place.

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