Jan 27 2012
Helping Rodrigo take down the Christmas light tree that we made last December took much less time than it did to create it. The last vestiges of Christmas 2011 are now gone. For our efforts we were handsomely rewarded with an amazing home-made pasta and garlic bread dinner that Sylvia had made.
Jan 27 2012
Had a really good Zoo excursion with my photo gal-pal, Heather. First, we got super lucky with finding all three Malayan Tigers (momma and two large cubs) all nestled in an alcove by a viewing window. (I’m hoping I got at least one good shot out of the forty that I took of them.) Also got some cute shots of Lily, the Red Panda, a drove of munching Visayan Warty Pigs (one standing inside its feeding bucket), a couple of thrusting, grunt-filled tortoises doing the nasty dance, a performing Trumpeter Hornbill and Red-tailed Cockatiel, a sleeping Rhinoceros and a curious Giraffe, all before sitting down to lunch, which today was surprisingly good stir fry chicken breast with rice and vegetables and was had at the Hua Mei Café which used to be known as the Canyon Café. I truly believe that was the longest sentence I have ever put to digital paper. After lunch I got some shots of a couple of Meerkats, two miniature goats at the Patting Zoo, a Fennec Fox and then finished off my visit with a bunch of poisonous snakes. Very full and pleasant trip all around. Yay for me.
( m e t a z o a n p i c s )
Jan 26 2012
Well here’s an interesting piece of French animation. I really like the gritty look of the film and the attention to sometimes bizarre details (e.g. the fly in the barrel). Overall I consider this really well done and a pretty cool find.
LITTLE TOMBSTONE – ESMA 2011 from Little Tombstone on Vimeo.
Jan 25 2012
Man, does it suck when the bathtub drain gets clogged. (And yes, I know that I need a new shower caddy.)
Jan 24 2012
Absolutely wonderful animated short.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.
Jan 24 2012
Went for a regular Tuesday walk at SeaWorld with my mom today and ran into some of the old Terrific Tuesday elderly walking group. We stopped and chatted a while about the efforts my mom and I are making to bring back the group in some form. At the end of our day we also ran into Mitchel who coincidentally was our Tuesday group organizer. Also talked to him about trying to bring the group back in some form.
Other than regular update pictures of the Manta coaster construction, today my photo mission was to capture out of the ordinary scenes that I hadn’t shot before. I planned on taking only a few pictures, but because I was specifically looking in unvisited corners there were things I had never noticed before. Felt a little bit like a first visit.
Jan 23 2012
In honor of today’s precipitous weather Walt Disney’s Jiminy Cricket (Cliff Edwards, aka “Ukelele Ike”) and the Wonderland Jazz Band sing the 1952 Gene Kelly classic, “Singin’ In The Rain”:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Jan 22 2012
Visited the Marston House Museum and Gardens with some family and friends for my very first time today. We spent a little time in the formal gardens, which didn’t quite live up to my expectations, before entering the residence. While the exterior of this turn-of-the-century craftsman-style home seemed a bit dilapidated and run-down in many areas, the inside, with its sixteen rooms and seven bathrooms, was clean and very well preserved. We had a one-hour tour of the two main floors, visiting the downstairs library, music room, living room, dining room, butler’s pantry, kitchen and six upstairs bedrooms (chambers). The basement and attic were not accessible. Saw many excellent examples of Arts and Crafts-style furniture and interior design features. Brett, our tour guide, was very well informed about the house’s history and presented everything in an interesting and occasionally humorous way describing many brilliantly thought-out features that were well ahead of their times. We never lingered too long in any one room and the hour went by very quickly. Afterwards my friend Rodrigo and I took to the various trails that ran up and down the sloping canyon just behind the house. Besides the grounds needing a little better care, the visit was a fun and educational one which I would probably do again.
( h e r i t a g e p i c s )
Jan 20 2012
For my final weekday-long hometown tourist adventure I took my mom down to Seaport Village and the Embarcadero by the San Diego Bay to walk around a bit on yet another perfect, sunny, SoCal kind of a day. We spent some time out at the end of the large concrete pier before stopping to watch a crew of fishermen offload some giant, beheaded swordfish and take them into a processing building. From there we walked over to the south side of the USS Midway where I took some pictures of a group of sailors under the “Unconditional Surrender” statue. Also spent time at the Bob Hope memorial before going into The Fish Market to buy some fresh rainbow trout for my mom and some thresher shark for me to bring home and make for dinner tonight.
( e m b a r c a d e r o p i c s )
Jan 20 2012
It’s been way too long since I signed up for another online social service so I was quite pleased today when my beta invites to TWO services were activated. One was for Twylah, which is a newsreader type aggregator for my Twitter account, and the other is Schemer from Google, which is a life to-do list with interconnectivity to my Google+ account. At this rate people will soon even know what the inside of my colon looks like. (It’s beautiful, btw.)
Jan 19 2012
Ended my Balboa Park tourist day with a hop over to the San Diego Zoo for a quick twenty minute visit. Walked in, took just a few pictures, picked up a Snickers for a growling stomach relieving pick-me-up and then sat down to snack and watch the flamingos just inside the entrance. That was it. Then I left. I did it because I could and it still counts as a visit.
Jan 19 2012
Continued my great day with some strolling around most of Balboa Park, from the Natural History Museum, across to the San Diego History Center with its library and archives, over to the California Tower by the Museum of Man, through Alcazar Garden, down to the Organ Pavilion, over to the House of Hungary, down to the Hall of Champions for the end of a luncheon put on for Governor Jerry Brown, who I just missed seeing (did run into John T. Reilly, president of Seaworld San Diego again), and then back up again to the reflecting pool in front of the Botanical Building, passed the Casa del Prado and over to the fountain by the Science Center. So lucky to have such a place as Balboa Park in an already beautiful San Diego.
( b a l b o a p i c s )
Jan 19 2012
Had a really good day today, which started with a couple of hours spent at the San Diego Natural History Museum. The main reason for my visit was to watch Sharks 3D, the final 3D movie they have that I needed to see. While some of the shots were truly incredible, especially in 3D, most of the scenes tended to drag on a bit too long. And the movie wasn’t only about sharks. They covered quite a few ocean species including dolphins, sea lions and manta rays. Each of those segments was about twice as long as they should have been. Watching a giant manta ray slowly flying through the ocean is really cool, but watching it swim by the same way about dozen times is a bit much. The 3D was excellent, most of the soundtrack was good, but the narrator was, I think, the wrong choice for some of the dialog they gave him to read (an Englishman trying to be hip with phrases like ” sharks are really cool”) and at forty minutes long there were times I was thinking they really needed to move the story along a bit faster. The movie could easily have been a comfortable thirty minutes. Before the movie started I was walking around trying to take pictures of some of the exhibits but I kept getting interrupted by a impish old female volunteer who was always repeating herself. She literally would tell me something about one of the displays, walk a few feet away, turn around, walk back to me and repeat exactly what she had just told me a few seconds earlier as if to make sure I heard and understood her. Lucky for her I’m more Dr. Seuss than Drs. House, Horrible or Kevorkian. After the movie I walked around a bit more talking pictures of the exhibits and trying to avoid Ms. Reiteration at all costs. Really looking forward to the Titanic exhibit coming in February.
( n a t u r a l p i c s )
Jan 18 2012
Walked around for about an hour in Old Town here in San Diego listening to my iPod and taking pictures before meeting up with my great friends Sylvia and Lannie for lunch at the Old Town Mexican Café. We chatted, reminisced and caught up with what’s been going on in our lives lately while enjoying some terrific Mexican food. After lunch we walked around for a bit after which they left. I walked around alone again (naturally, Gilbert O’Sullivan) for just a little while longer before heading home. It was a really good visit to Old Town.
( h i s t o r i c p i c s )
Jan 17 2012
Had a great trip to SeaWorld today. Started out as just a walking visit with us seeing a Bearded Dragon named Pancake, a Water Monitor named Clyde, a Two-toed Sloth, a Capybara, a buttload of Penguins, dozens of Sea Turtles, some Moon Jellyfish and a seven-armed Sea Star. Our visit then turned into a deli lunch at Seaport Maketplace (where I fed a seagull who must have lost a fight because its tongue was hanging out an opening in the side of its beak…gross), and then a public unveiling (where I got to chat with John Reilly, the president of SeaWorld San Diego) of the new ride vehicle for the Manta roller coaster that will be opening this May. We got cake slices and then a chance to see the vehicle up close. Next to the vehicle they also had a small tank that held two baby manta rays that guests could pet.
( s e a w o r l d p i c s )
