Jan 02 2012
After visiting my brother and his cats, my mom and I stopped by an actress friend of ours who recently broke her ankle while walking her dog. Luckily her boy friend had just returned from a trip to take care of her while she can’t walk. Bella, her dog, is finally starting to warm up to me and kept coming over to me to be petted. She was a rescued animal from an abused home and is leery of males.
Jan 02 2012
Went over to my brother’s house with my mom tonight so we could deliver some lentil soup that my mom had made. Plus, she really wanted to play with the cats that she has fallen in love with. Unfortunately my nephew is still out of town and my niece was out with friends so we didn’t get to see them.
Jan 02 2012
Went to visit an old friend today who I had heard was quite sick and staying at a rehabilitation home. His condition once I saw him shocked me fairly deeply. It reminded me very much of how my father looked just before he passed away. That was rather uncomfortable, especially since he couldn’t respond to me at all. I did run into two of his old, early Comic Con friends, and that was a nice surprise getting to know them. The three us sat and chatted about Richard and about life stuff. It was definitely both a good and bad experience.
Jan 02 2012
Came across this super-tiny guy crawling around my bathroom cabinet this morning. I had to get my jeweler’s loupe just to see that it was a jumping spider. After completely disturbing it by jamming my giant electronic eye into its world, I set it loose in our backyard, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.
Jan 02 2012
Started off my day by watching the 123rd Tournament of Roses Parade. Since from the very beginning it’s been a tournament rule to never have it held on a Sunday, it was moved to today. I kept flipping channels to either re-watch a particular float I liked, to avoid commercials or sometimes to view the floats instead of the bands. I tend to like the animated floats the best.
Jan 01 2012
The kind of fog that’s been creeping in every night for the past few days.
Jan 01 2012
A nice surprise on this first day of the new year was an unexpected visit by my good friends Randy and Michaelle, along with their two kids, while my sister was also here, confabulating with my mom. They didn’t stay very long, but it was a pleasant disruption to our evening.
Jan 01 2012
2012 started with a bright, sunny morning. (Since I slept a bit later than usual, it was after all the dense fog had burned away.) The morning delivered some terrific French toast casserole that Sylvia had started the night before. After topping it off with some creamy, brown sugar and cinnamon paste with some walnuts before baking, she, Rodrigo and I sat down to a delicious breakfast, as it should be when greeting the new year. We played around with Lilo and Stitch in their backyard for a while before I finished off the first day of the new year at home.
( f o g a n d t o a s t a n d d o g p i c s )
Dec 31 2011
So my last day of the year started out innocently enough, with me finishing up some uninteresting, non-blog-worthy tasks. That was until I went down to Sylvia and Rodrigo’s house in fog-encased Chula Vista. We watched a couple of episodes of “Mad Men,” and then had pizza for dinner while playing a few rounds of Rummikub. Then we watched the “Red Bull: No Limits” live, world-record double jump that happened here at Seaport Village, with Levi LaVallee on snowmobile and Robbie Maddison on motorcycle. They both set their world records without any mishaps. Then we sat down to watch a couple of movies on Netflix before midnight. We first watched “True Grit“ with Jeff Bridges. All three of us loved it. I thought it was very smartly written and very well acted by everyone. A very believable movie. We followed that with “Limitless“ with Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro. I’m really starting to like Abbie Cornish, ever since “Sucker Punch.” She may end up on my island. All three of us really enjoyed this movie as well. Also well acted by everyone. After midnight we putzed around for about an hour before heading off to bed, with me upstairs in the studio, saying good-bye to what seemed like a very active year. I am honestly looking forward to what the new year will bring, starting with a buttload of new calendars.
Dec 30 2011
A delightful duet posted by Zooey Deschanel on her YouTube channel. This is a perfect year-end two-part harmony with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Dec 30 2011
On our walk from the Auto Show to Seaport Village, we passed by a huge ramp set up for a New Year’s Eve attempt at two simultaneous world-record jumps over water at the Embarcadero. Sponsored by Red Bull, one will be by Levi LaVallee on a snowmobile and the other by Robbie Maddison on a motorcycle.
Dec 30 2011
Enjoyed my annual attending of the San Diego International Auto Show at the Convention Center downtown by the bay. This year I was accompanied by my friends José, Rodrigo and Archie. All guys…huh. My focus, as usual, was not on the cars normal people would buy every day. That’s boring. I was aiming my camera at the more exotic, classic, playful or obscenely expensive vehicles, as well as some of the more famous TV and movie cars. Unfortunately this time there were no electric bikes for me to ride around on and get dorky pictures of. We finished our horsepowered adventure with a tourist-dodging walk over to the Seaport Village food court where we all ate some delicious gyros sandwiches from Jerry G. Bishop’s Greek Islands Cafe. While there I got to watch two harbor seals horsing around very close to the walkway. Fun way to end a fun day.
( v e h i c u l a r p i c s )
Dec 29 2011
After finishing up my Zoo visit, I walked “next door” and spent about two hours at the San Diego Natural History Museum, including watching the exceptionally well-done 3D movie called “Sea Rex: Journey to a Prehistoric World.” As is with almost all the movies I’ve seen at “The NAT,” the 3D was amazing and the movie was very educational. It is a little long at forty minutes though. I also finally took my time checking out their latest exhibit called “Skulls,” which consists of a large collection of various specimens of the museum’s own skulls that they use for research.
( c r a n i a l p i c s )
Dec 29 2011
What was supposed to be an extended last visit to the San Diego Zoo for this year turned into a limited, shortened, crowd-dodging, iPodless and relatively unremarkable excursion. Although, I did pass some cool animals walking around on leashes (a leopard and a wolf) and it was a beautiful and sunny 7o degree day, and I was at the San Diego Zoo, something that billions o’ people can’t say but wish they could. There was a large contingent of college football fans, tourist holdovers from yesterday’s Holiday Bowl between the Texas Longhorns and the California Golden Bears. Lots of orange and blue shirts today. I spent my time visiting areas I normally don’t walk to and because of my adventurousness it was the first time I’d seen a Turkmenistan Caracal. So I’ve got that going for me. Oh, and all my shots were on the wrong white balance setting.
Dec 28 2011
Once again, more Christmas decorations (some of my favorite photos so far) than actual cat shots, although two of the cats finally did some wrestling while I took photos. My last night tonight. Or is it?
( f e l i n e p o s i t i o n s )
