Well, you knew there was gonna be some more sunset pictures…

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Because I never get sick of the view from the house where I grew up…

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Even though you can only see a small slice of the San Francisco bay, because of all the trees…

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And even though I can get a better view by walking or driving to some places close by…

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But I was tired last night, so I just did the usual view from the deck and the upper level of my mom’s backyard.

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And I am going to try some new stuff with the camera while I am here… but I do have lots of other stuff to do also, to help out around the house, because my mom is like 94-years-old… oh, and we are going to talk about the view… and a big tree…

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And these stupid power and phone wires…

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Uh, I’m pretty sure that isn’t a cat…

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As I was getting ready for bed last night, I walked by the big picture windows leading to my mom’s backyard. I saw movement, and assumed it was the semi-feral cats my mom and my younger brother, who lives with her, feed… but it wasn’t.

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I know, raccoons look cute… but do not mess with them.

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I was just feet away from them, and they were unperturbed. You might think that a raccoon will run from you because you are so much bigger. They won’t. They will look at you with a ‘what the heck do you want?’ look on their face.

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I do like the way you get to experience nature where I grew up. The Berkeley Hills, and my home town of Kensington, are still very much a part of nature. There are lots of trees, and wild, overgrown canyons running down the hills. So you get deer and raccoons and wild turkey wandering down the streets.

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But you should leave them alone too.

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I will start sniffing around for some Bay Area adventures tomorrow…

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I am too tired right now. I got about four hours of sleep last night. See you in the morning, people!

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Okay, is that high fog or low clouds???

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Well, I am back visiting my mom in the Bay Area again, and I did my ‘getting up insanely early to miss the Los Angeles and Bay Area traffic thing’ again. I just have a few pictures I took, as the sun came up over the mountains North of LA.

I have always wondered about the actual, technical difference between clouds and fog. Is fog just low clouds? And if you find fog in a mountain pass, is it fog, because it is at ground level to you, or is it clouds, because it is far above sea level? I passed this fog bank/altitude-challenged cloud bit of fluffy stuff near the pass at the top of the mountain, and it was hovering midway between the top of the mountains and the lake in the valley floor. This just makes it more confusing.

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Then I took a couple of quick photos of the sun coming up from the rest area in the pass, before descending and doing the long, lengthwise drive up the Central Valley of California once again.

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Now I have one more question for you. What do you want to see while I am here? I mean, this is an interactive blog. A partnership, if you will. So if you like the flower and dog and sunset and city view pictures I usually end up taking, that’s fine. But if there is something else you want to see or know about the Bay Area, I might just try to oblige you.

Posted in My travels | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Get sucked into my blog…

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I am on a road trip. Take this opportunity to poke around in the old stuff down there… but be sure to bring some rope, water bottles, a snake-bite kit, a map, compass, hatchet or machete, and some matches.

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A tiger, a gorilla, me, my daughters… random photos, that would be a good title for this post…

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I am just clearing out some of my photos, in preparation for something I am doing tomorrow, so here is the last picture I took of the tigers when I went to the San Diego zoo with my little buddy, Olivia.

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And a picture of my daughters, taken some time ago. If you look carefully, you might spot some of my tikis.

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Uh… okay… a selfie I took on Maui, during our second honeymoon adventure.

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And a selfie I took last time I was in the Bay Area not so long ago, which is funny, because that is where I am going again tomorrow!

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Another zoo picture, and I am sort of proud of that one.

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My daughter, Jessica, and I, at the renaissance fair, taken last year in Arizona when I went out there to visit her.

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And my favorite picture from her wedding… see, I am doing the ‘Wallace and Grommit’ happy hands!!!

 

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I really need to make myself this shirt…

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The very last photos of my daughter’s wedding… you know… unless you want to see what the place settings looked like or whatever…

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There I am, with Jessica, doing the daddy/daughter dance. We danced to a song I used to sing to her when she was little. It is called: The Dippy Doo song, and I wrote it. I mean, I write songs with real words, you can hear and see them by clicking the button in the top bar called something like: My Original Song Videos. But this one just has the words dippy and doo repeated over and over to a catchy little tune.

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A friend of mine helped me record the Dippy Doo song with awesome musical tracks that swelled until it was an entire orchestra. He even made my voice sound better. When Jessica was little, she would stand on my size-15-feet while we danced. She did that again. It hurt.

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Obviously, the best part of the Dippy Doo song is the dip at the end of each verse.

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They even gave me a microphone during the toasts. Jessica asked me in advance to write something down, so I would’t just ramble. I did. And then, I went off script…

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Hey, we all knew it was going to happen. And I am good with words, and everybody loved it. In fact, some older gentleman from Jason’s side of the family said it was the funniest thing he had ever heard at a wedding.

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I took a photo of the professional photographer, while she was taking this photo of me. I still think my pictures of that day are almost as good as hers… except hers have more me in them. (Thanks again, Kristina Adams Photography!).

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I still don’t understand how this little girl became this beautiful young woman…

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But I am glad she did.

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And I’m glad I got to help.

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Sometimes, you just have to blog in a pirate hat…

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Posted in Pictures of me, stuff about blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

In Montana, it is legal to defend yourself against assault with a difficult question…

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Also, I had to use that picture again, because that is the best Photoshopped selfie ever!!!

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