Last Saturday called for a ride to the desert, the Devil's Punchbowl, the San Andreas Fault, and points in between.

Another trip to Chantry Flats on a Wednesday when I played hookey from work. It was just too nice out as you can see from some of the pictures.

Another cloudy and cool day, in fact it snowed on us when we were up near Mt. Baldy in Ice House Canyon. After being chased from the hills we stopped at the main restaraunt in town and gorged on chili, background chatter, and roaring fires in the fireplaces.

On a cloudy and cool day, Conrad and I took off to Clairemont and the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens. They specialize in local plants and admission is free. Check it out

Easter! Celebrating life and spring nubileness (is that a word?)

Conman and I took the Sunday and the Jeep and drove up into Asuza Canyon. My first thought was to hit the OHV area and show Conrad some 4-wheeling. The line to get in though drove me away. Instead we continued on to where they have the road closed another 2-3 miles further up canyon. We parked and hiked up the road another mile or so before cutting down to the river and some ruins.

Conrad and I, feeling recovered from our respective illnesses and drawn by the spring-like weather, headed for the hills. In this case Big Santa Anita Canyon now that the road to Chantry is open again. This picture is taken near first water.

Do something good for yourself. Do something good for others. Do SOMETHING. GO to Amazon, pick up this book and read it. This is an awesome book written by a man who does just that: He does good. Learn about responsibility and commitment, learn about facing fears, learn about waking up to your life. About opening up to the possibilities... There is nothing wrong with you. Really. Check out the website and have fun! The book: Unleashing the Warrior Within by Richard Machowicz The website: www.bukido.com

Reuben came down slumming to our neck of the woods to sacrifice money to the Mouse House. We managed to pull him away from pin trading long enough to go to dinner at the Guadalajara Grill complete with a mariachi band and dancers. I love this particular picture of Sheila and Lorelai. Items of note: the meal that comes in the big lava stone grindy thingy is super yummy, mariachi music doesn't need microphones, keep all extremities away from Kellen's mouth, Reuben, Alex and Reuben family are sweet, fun wonderful people. Looking forward to the next get together where everything audible is not overcome by brass instruments.

The Goddess was away for a Zen Intensive so the C-man and I went to the Huntington to check out the progress on the new Chinese Gardens. The trails and the water features are all in. They still need to build the buildings including the tea house. It's coming along nicely and it's been fun to mark the progress with frequent trips. For a while now I've been trying to get the perfect bamboo picture. I refuse to set it up and want to "find" it somewhere. I'm looking for something that evokes the same kind of feeling I've seen in traditional watercolors. This particular batch the depth of field on my poor little digital camera tripped me up. I played with the colors and such a little to try to salvage something. You be the judge. Which one do you think is my favorite bamboo picture?

Uncle Ed, organized a trip for us and C-man to take in the newly re-opened Griffith Observatory. It was beautiful and of course full of spacey goodness and people. It's been years since I've been there so I can barely remember what it was like before the remodel. It's quite nice now. There is a decent gift shop and a cafe. It isn't completely finished yet as there were a number of exihibits that didn't work and they have "misplaced" the pegs that the big pendulum would knock over. I offered to run down to home depot and pick something up but they deferred.

Just a bunch of misc pictures taken so far in November. I love this picture of the C-man.

Pictures from the work Halloween dress up. I ended up getting second place and the guy who got first only got first because he had 5 different costumes. Quality over quantity says me.

Flea ran across this picture in her virtual travels and I just love it.

Ran across these characters for fear on about.com. Seemed appropriate.

Halloween 2006. I'll have more pics tomorrow, but this is my costume for today.

Wow. One of C's magazines had an article about this park down in Escondido. After reading the article and viewing some of the pictures he informs us he really wants to go and see it. It's called Queen Califa's Magic Circle and it's in a bigger park called Kit Carson Park. Apparently a french woman named Nicci De Saint Phalle created this exhibit with her own money and donated it to the city. Pictures really can't do it justice. It's awesome.

The Goddess was playing with C's legos and noticed that the people parts fit quite well on her finger.

The Goddessa picked up some cool shiny makeup at the LA County Fair and when she started playing with it I started playing with my digital camera. This particular image was taken with my finger over the flash.

dscn2576.jpg (JPEG Image, 2048x1536 pixels) - Scaled (45%) The Goddess picked up some cool shiny makeup at the county fair and while she played with the maekup, I was playing around with my digital camera and captured this shot by holding my finger over the flash. There are other along the same line.