Beautiful, early morning fog, one day into my short house/cat-sitting stint for the neighbors. This is the milky view towards the canyon behind their house. Took a couple of hours to burn off and become a gorgeous, sunny day.
Nov 23 2012
Hangin’ With The Tapias
Had a much-needed afternoon of distractions with the four Tapias in Chula Vista. It began with a great lunch from Los Panchos followed by a Starbucks run for my usual tall, decaf, Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel. We stopped to briefly harass the Vander Schuurs before taking a leisurely drive along by the South Bay bike path at sunset.
Los Panchos
Shredded beef chimichanga
Starbucks with Stitch
Lilo being a dog
South Bay bike path
Chula Vista sunset
Nov 22 2012
Thanksgiving 2012
Had our annual most-of-the-family Thanksgiving get together at our house. This time the food was generously provided by my older brother and his family members, instead of my mom having to make most of the dishes, and it was a lunch instead of a dinner. It was all really good.
Next year, for the benefit of all family members with eyes, I’m going to wait until the fog/clouds roll in before taking an outside group shot.
Nov 21 2012
Oily Change
Using a donated coupon from my sister, I took our car to get a free, long overdue oil change at, for us, a new and nearby auto mechanic. Meant to ask what the building used to be because it sure doesn’t look like a typical auto repair shop, especially with the tiki on the roof of the office.
While waiting for the service I walked over to a Toys-R-Us a couple of blocks away to check out what kinds of models they had. I’ve been in a real model-building mood lately. I walked in with high expectations, ready to be overwhelmed by the assortment of plastic planes, trains and automobiles, but was crushed to learn that they don’t carry models any more. Everything is either pre-built remote-controlled vehicles or Legos. There’s something really wrong with this. I was really disappointed.
It was a slow, moody walk back to the mechanic.
Nov 19 2012
Peeping Lizard
Came across this sleek alligator lizard staring at me through my bathroom window. At first I was a little uncomfortable, like when a pet sees you naked. It whistling at me and waving a dollar bill didn’t help either.
Nov 19 2012
New Roar To My Mac
I finally upgraded my iMac from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. Once I knew I could run my main apps in the new operating system I decided to take the $20 plunge.
The downloading and installation went off without a hitch, as I expected. Spent a good chunk of the afternoon familiarizing myself with the new features that I had only read and heard about. It won’t take me very long to adjust to the new way of computing, but what is taking me a while to get used to is the scrolling in the opposite direction. Too many years of doing it the same way on too many computers.
Love the Notification Center, especially since Growl notifications stopped working with the last update to Snow Leopard.
One huge unfortunate that I did not expect was losing every single Stickies note I had written and saved. Luckily I had an fairly recent Stickies Database I could open in TextEdit and copy into the newly created database, but I still lost a few recent notes.
And I can now finally take full advantage of iCloud and all it’s syncing.
Plus, one of the main reasons for upgrading to Mountain Lion was so that I could download and begin using iBooks Author. I have so many ebook ideas I’d like to create from all my photos and then put online in the iBookstore.
Should be a fun next few days and weeks.
Nov 17 2012
A Tapia Kind Of Day
After my morning RV adventure in Poway, I drove down to Chula Vista to spend some quality time with Rodrigo, Sylvia, Stitch and Lilo. Our hanging out involved a Starbucks run to try their annual holiday-time drinks, enjoying some fantastic stew that Sylvia crock-potted for lunch, a shopping trip to Sam’s Club, and ordering amazing pizza and potato skins from La Bella’s for dinner while watching Disney’s “Brave”.
Pretty darn good day.
Starbucks time
Holiday drinks
Lilo placing her order
My Caramel Brulée Latte
Tandem ten-speed?
Home-made stew
Oven-baked biscuits
Relaxing at Sam’s Club
Waiting for Mama and Papa
Picking up the pizza
La Bella’s pizza
Bacon and cheese potato skins
Nov 17 2012
RV Drop Off
Helped my neighbor, Liz, drop off a rental RV that she and her roommate Tammy used to bring Tammy’s mother out from Arkansas. Liz drove the RV and I followed in their van. We dropped it off at a rental place in Poway on a beautiful morning which began with a brief and refreshing downpour.
While there I walked around and came across some colorful, stored carnival rides, neither of which I would probably ride. Also, inside the rental office was a 1998 Tomorrowland Coke machine from Disneyland that the owner won in a raffle. Cool discoveries.
When we got back Liz bought me some Krispy Kreme donuts for helping out. Nice. And worth it.
The RV and the van
Toward Hwy 52
Northbound on I-15
Poway exit
Why did they make a blurry sign?
Our drop off destination
Cruise America rentals
Cruise America rentals
Stowed carnival ride
Stowed carnival ride
Disneyland Coke machine
My just rewards for helping
Nov 17 2012
Rainbow Of The Double Kind
Saw the most incredibly bright and full double rainbow that I had ever seen in my life this morning. Because of the angle of the sun directly behind me and the small rain shower directly in front of me, it created perfect circumstances for a stunningly vibrant sighting.
It started out as a long, three-quarter arc behind Mt. Soledad. But slowly, as the rain shower headed straight for me, the rainbow brightened, doubled, became an entire half-circle and moved in front of the mountain. And because the shower was moving very slowly, the rainbow lasted for about twenty minutes before the rain finally hit us and the colors faded into nothing.
The rainbow was so huge that this image is actually eight overlapping vertical photos combined together.
Except for the small bit on the right that is hiding behind the trees, I can honestly say that I have seen and captured the perfect rainbow.
Nov 16 2012
Photoshopping A New World
I virtually attended a free, live online presentation by Stephen Burns, an Adobe Community Professional and head of the San Diego Photoshop Users Group, entitled “From Imagination to Digital Canvas“. Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for half of the one and a half hour tutorial but still, I learned some new tricks I look forward to implementing if I ever decide to work in 3D.
Nov 15 2012
Koala Hangout
I was part of a San Diego Zoo Google+ Hangout this evening where the Zoo’s ambassador, Rick Schwartz, presented research findings and answered questions about his recent trip to study koala conservation on Bee’s Island, Australia. There were four of us in the hangout: Rick, Matt Steele, the moderator and Zoo’s Social Media Planner, and Victor, a long-time friend of Rick’s. Another friend of mine, Michelle, who, along with her son, Dylan, enjoys the Zoo at least as much as I do, if not more, and who writes a terrific blog about her adventures at the Zoo with an emphasis on animal conservation, was also supposed to also participate but she unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute for health reasons.
For me the hangout started out a bit rough with the words to my questions becoming jumbled in my brain before they even had a chance to come out. After the second question I began to settle in a bit better. One friend told me I fidgeted too much. Another friend told me my voice was too high. I embarrassingly agree with both of them. I felt awkward and uncomfortable at first and probably should have practiced a little ahead of time. I’ve had plenty of video chats, but they were all very informal and with friends I talk to every day. This time I needed to be more “professional”, which I kind of failed at. Plus I was bizarrely aware of total strangers watching this live. I’m sure I’ll do better the next time. I already have my backdrop setup ready to go. That I did practice.
After we went “Off Air” Rick and Matt stuck around with me so I could get all the questions I had prepared answered. I had sent all my questions to Rick in advance so he could be ready. For that portion I was casual, relaxed, not fidgety, deeper voiced and more myself. Figures.
Still, I had fun and hope to do it again.
Rick answering my questions, post hangout
Radio tracker
Koala in a tree
Koala found
Rick’s support images
Victor
Rick Schwartz
Matt preparing to go “live”
My refined setup
Nov 15 2012
Mami’s Quarterly Doctor Visit
Took my mom for her regularly scheduled three-month checkup with Dr. Romero. Her blood pressure was good, there were no changes to the few medications she takes, and she got her flu shot. Overall it was a very positive visit.
Dr. Romero is really good with her. He is patient, really takes his time and listens to her stories.
Thornton Clinic in La Jolla
Muzakless elevator ride
Short wait in the waiting room
Examination Room 11
Dr. Romero and my mom
Flu shot cuteness
Nov 14 2012
Prep For Tomorrow’s Zoo Hangout
Had a setup rehearsal with Matt, the San Diego Zoo’s social media guru, for tomorrow evening’s live Google+ Hangout with Zoo Ambassador Rick Schwartz. This will be his second such online get-together since his return from studying koala conservation in Australia.
There will be many watching, but only three of us interacting with Rick and Matt, one of whom is Michelle (she has an excellent blog), a zoo-loving, photographer friend of mine. The entire hangout will be available later on the Zoo’s YouTube channel.
The first picture shows my cluttered area and simple backdrop setup. Have fun snooping all the detritus. (Yes those are pirate skulls, peanut m&ms, scissors hanging from a finger, Zoo cups and Toy Story toys. And no need to worry, those medicine containers do not actual contain prescribed medication.)
The second image is just a screen capture of our hangout rehearsal. The backdrop worked pretty well, I think.
I’m really looking forward to this live video chat.
My life...and escape
Chattin' with Matt
Nov 14 2012
Photo Drive, Part Two
Went over to Fry’s today to finally replace the second external hard drive that I use for my photo storage that had failed recently. I doubt I will ever buy another Iomega drive. They were my two most recent external drives and they both went bad much too soon. For a short while I thought I had lost many of the photos I had taken since 2005. Many of the tens of thousands of photos.
Luckily I was able to spread my photos across some other drives including my iMac just before the second drive died. I replaced one of the drives real quick but for a while I only had one copy of all my photos. I hate having only one copy of all my photos.
But now I’m backing up my main photo drive and all will soon be a lot less stressed in my digital world and my iMac will finally get back all that hard drive space it gave up for storage.
Fry’s in Mission Valley
Selection of hard drives
The one I brought home
A nice pair
Nov 11 2012
Barcoding Biodiversity in Costa Rica
I attended a free one-hour lecture at the San Diego Natural History Museum last night. With the title “Biodiversity Development: The Path to Conservation of a Complex Wild Land” I wasn’t sure what kind of presentation to expect. All I knew was that I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures.
Even though the graphic artist in me who has spent years creating speaker support graphics cringed at the way a lot of the slides were presented, it turned out to be a really fascinating and educational presentation.
Introduced by Dr. Michael Hager, President and CEO of the museum, Dr. Daniel Janzen presented his information in a very casual and friendly way. Dr. Janzen is the Kyoto award winning Technical Advisor of the Área de Conservación Guanacaste and president of the Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund in northwestern Costa Rica.
His presentation covered the main aspects of his many years of attempting to catalog and restore the biodiversity of the area with a heavy emphasis on barcoding the DNA of the 350,000 species of plants and animals living in that small region of Costa Rica and on educating the local population, especially the children, on the importance of the bio-conservation of all the species along with their habitats.
He showed slides of butterflies that looked almost identical, that nobody would be able to tell were different species, unless you looked at the barcodes of their DNA. He used tiger conservation as an example of how saving the tiger is meaningless unless we also save its habitat. He showed many images of school children eager to learn about respecting the biodiversity of their lands and of the importance of conserving it. He also showed the mass deforestation that began after WWII, and how it’s slowly but steadily returning to its native state in the protected areas.
It was a truly eye-opening lecture that I was very glad to have attended.
The NAT in Balboa Park
The Kaplan Theater
Terrible photo of Drs. Janzen and Hager
Post-lecture meandering
My iNaturalist-ings
My Flickr Photostream
