Thursday, April 30, 2009

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

Sunday, April 26, 2009

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.


Wednesday, April 8, 2009

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.