Spitting Images

Here's Edgar's family. I've known the boys' dad, uncle, grandfather for a few years. Todos los buenos hombres! I just met mom with kids today. The Lopez family has doubled for me today. Sombrero agradables, ninos! Go Niners!

My Yard

I had the pleasure of working with a man who had season tickets to the San Francisco Giants. I bought a couple of games off him. Here's Ethan and I at "Pac Bell" Park. We beat the Phillies. The Giants were in the playoff mix till nearly the last week of this season. It was a fun game and a fun year to be a Giants fan. Next year we're going to win it all. Go Giants!

Holing Through

Yahoo! A hole through! Cheese.

My boys at the River

The river is a joyous place for me. Ethan and Bru like it to. Instead of street races Ethan decided the river would be better. Here at the confluence of the Yuba and the Downie, it was a little to cold for me to enjoy. I'm too old for a cold river. My boys splashed around for awhile.

Leaving town, we headed downriver to a more temperate swim for old dad. This early summer, I've been attracted to Jackson's Hole at Indian Valley - My first splashing "grounds." There, we broke out Ethan's new mask so that he could look underwater. Neat! Fish!

The warm heated me up to a mild sweat. Dive. The cool plunge was truly refreshing. Ahh.. Yuba!

E tu, Brutus?

Bru

Goading dog to show teeth (it's fun).

Digging Earth

Whether of earth, air, or water, one can have a connection with who they are. For I, it is the earth, as illustrated.

Mostly it is work or son. This is my life. Aesthtics say I should say more..

More Rocks! More Rocks!

Fish On

It was a warm spring day. Time for fishing. We gathered our rods, packed some snacks and drinks and drove up the mountain to the Gold Lake Basin. We stopped at Bassett Station for water and worms. I haven't fished in some 2o years, so the notion of Power Bait and Ugly Stiks are new fangled, but I'll give them a shot. My boy wanted to fish! The man at the counter in Bassett's recomended Sardine Lake. Lower Sardine it is!

I invited a buddy of mine who is an avid fisherman. Why he brought binoculars fishing, I wasn't sure, but I was curious.

We casted our loures and salmon egg bated hooks into the water. We worked our piece of shore line for some time without as much as a nibble. There were boats on the lake, some row boats, electric motor boats, kayaks.. most all of them blissfully floating along without much fish catching action. There was this one boat in the middle pulling brook trout consistenetly. My buddy, Jeff, pulled his binoculars and took a closer look. "Power Bait!" he exclaimed. Okay.. Power Bait.. "They're using power bait with heavy weights." The trout were at the bottom where it was cooler.
First cast.. fish! A few nibbles followed. A man and boy adjacent to us got a fish. Same method. Could it be a fish caching bonanza!? Not exactly. We caught one more. Both by Jeffie, the fisherman. Ethan and I tried, but we soon became bored - the snacks were eaten and we tried a few worms.. No luck. Time for a new lake.

We headed up the road for higher water - Gold Lake. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. The melt was intense. There were few fisherman. We searched for a deep spot, since it seemed to be where the fish were. Gold Lake to me looked shallow. We didn't find any deep holes and there were no fish jumping on the lake like Sardine, so we didn't stay long.

Heading down the road towards home, we stopped at Salmon Lake. There was still ice on the lake but no bugs. Fish activity low, but I did catch some good pictures.

We packed the fish in snow in an old tool box for dinner. We weren't prepared for traditional means for fish storage, but it worked.

We foil wrapped the trout in butter and herbs and threw them on the grill. Yum! We were hungry after our long day of adventure on the lakes. Ethan would not taste the trout. More for me.

Tank Room C

Rockhound

Rocks are wonderous objects. A collection of various sizes, textures and geological types are wonderful. Are rocks, I wonder, really that great?

Yes! For a rock hound.


Photographed and illustrated by a rock hound dad

A Leisurely Saturday

Destruction is much more intense than creation, but really not as much fun. My son and I spent a crisp sunny day in the back yard playing with Legos. What is traditionally an indoor activity we took outdoors for this Saturday afternoon. The occasional cloud broke the deep penetrating heat of the sun that warmed the wooden deck and old quilt where we set up our Lego play session. Ah.. warm sun.!.

Of late we have been building space and air craft. Ethan, my 7 year old son, is stimulated greatly with Legos, as am I. He's content making wondrous vehicles with standard Lego blocks which are demonstratively quite versatile given ample quantity, time and imagination. His flying craft reminds me of Jabba the Hut's vessel that glided over the sand dunes of Tatooine. I, on the other hand, am drawn to the smaller "speciality" pieces. There's a race car set that makes for great pieces for a space ship. I discovered a few pieces that rotate and interlock at ninety degrees. Very cool. Mine was more of a Y-Wing type spacecraft.

Soon the clouds disappeared and it became hot. Playing with Legos can make you sweat. I found an old table umbrella in the garage and we were soon comfortably at play again. Ah.. cool shade!.. We went through some minor modifications - my ship had no means of thrust and Ethan's ship wasn't grandiose enough. More pieces..more modifications.. "Hey Ethan, go get the camera." I wanted to record our creations. We took some pictures trying to blur the ship as if it was traveling very fast. Ethan wants to take more pictures, which makes me a little nervous, but he does okay with the camera.





I felt fulfilled with my "Y-Wing" and Ethan seemed more intrigued with photography than Legos, so I grabbed the ships. "Get ready to take a picture, Ethan." Click. He captured it! The
moment of the ecstasy of destruction.

Moto Scoot

Time to don my helmet. Winter is over. 75 mpg of pure moto-commuting FUN! Shooting the Alpine in the Santa Cruz mountains - awesome way to unwind after work. Beats a Prius on the funness of commute scale, hands down.

I bought my little 200 cc putt putt when gas was four dollars a gallon. The fuel savings essencially made the monthly payment. It's freeway legal (I ain't going on no freeway). I had it up to 60 mph with a tail wind, at sea level, on a cool day. Usually it's about 45 to 50 mph. It may not be fast, but I just like to putt around anyway.

This is my first blog. I'd like to thank the Frost brothers for the inspiration. Happy commuting, anywhichway you do so.