I Got A Rock

Another Halloween, another year of no trick-or-treaters. At least not as of 8:00. It's almost time to start eating the "leftover" candy. Maybe this tradition is dying, because I have not ever heard or seen any kids walking around. Over the years, Halloween seems to be turning into an adults excuse to dress up in costume, go to a party and drink lots of alcohol - which is what I would have done last Saturday if I had not been invited to a camping trip. I am enjoying watching the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons, and this years show has a "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" theme.

I Voted!

I haven't mailed my absentee ballot yet, but I will tomorrow morning. I won't say how I voted, but I did skip some races and propositions that I was not familiar with. This ballot was shorter than some, and didn't include all those judges that you don't know who are. Now it is time to wait for the excitement of next Tuesday to see who the next president will be.

Sunset Photo Fun

I guess we did have fun Saturday night. Somehow, the host of the get-together and the one turning 50 this week, was not around for our sunset photo session. This was the best of the group photos.

The Camping Trip that Wasn't

What a bummer of a weekend. We met at our friend's house Friday afternoon and headed to Joshua Tree National Park driving in three cars, arriving around 3:30. We drove to the site we camped at last time to find every camping site taken. This was worrisome since this is usually the last of the camp sites in the park to fill up. So we drove to the next closest camping area, where we found two open sites, but they were small and not next to each other. We needed two since we had more than two cars, and were expecting three more cars on Saturday. Joshua Tree has about eight group of camp sites throughout the park, and after driving though the other three that were near by, we found that they were all full. This was not good. So we drove to the other entrance and talked to the range in the booth. He couldn't really do anything, but did agree to give us our money back and said there was an "overflow" site outside the park. By the time we arrived there, it looked like most of the site were empty, but there was a list on the range station with a list of reserved sites, and they were all reserved for two nights. We drove around and saw the sites with the reservations, and even though it was already 6 PM, only about 10% of the sites had people at them. We agreed to give up and go back to the Desert Hot Springs, where we ended up spending the weekend not camping, just hanging out and listening to music. On Saturday, two more people showed up, since we were celebrating a friend's 50th birthday, which is actually this Tuesday. I ended up leaving this morning and got home by the halftime of the Chargers game. After the game was over, I took a long nap because I didn't sleep well last night. Sleeping near the kitchen is a bad idea since that is the first place everybody goes when they wake up at five AM realizing they forgot to eat dinner and they are hungry.

Strange Noises in the Night

Last night I awoke from a deep sleep when I heard a strange noise. It sounded like a dog howling and then an "thud", as if something hit my house. I thought it might have been a dream, but I looked out a few windows and saw nothing unusual, so I went back to bed. Then a few minutes later I heard sirens, and could see flashing lights through the blinds. I looked out the window again and still saw nothing, so I went back to sleep. Later I woke up to the sound of a helicopter flying around. By this time I wanted to sleep, so I ignored it, but I knew something bad had happened. So I checked the Internet this morning and found the news story about a 21 year old woman who crashed her car into a tree just down the road from me. Unfortunately, she died. Her car also started a small fire and the road was closed most of the morning. I drove through that intersection this morning and saw no evidence of an accident. I expect to see flowers at the location soon. In fact, this stretch of road is lined with "memorials" where people have been killed. I'd say since I've lived here, at least six people have died in the four mile stretch of the highly traveled "rural" road. I think they should widen the road to four lanes, with a median and guard rails on the side. But that would involve cutting down eucalyptus tress, and the community would never approve of that, even those these trees will either catch on fire, fall over or kill someone.

New Garage Door Opener

Sometime last week my automatic garage door opener broke. At first it would still open and shut the door, but when the door closed, the door immediately opened again, so I'd have to unplug the unit and manually lock the door, making it a real hassle to come and go. Then the opener just broke. I saw fine dust falling from the cracks in the enclosure, so I disengaged the lever and started to open and shut the door by hand. Luckily, the door was light, since I had a new garage door installed about six years ago. For the new opener, I called the same company that installed that door, All Pro Garage, and they arrived this morning and had it working in 45 minutes. This door has the sensors that will prevent the door from closing if something, like a cat, is blocking the beam. As a bonus, I now have too remotes. For years, I've had only one and kept having to move it between cars.

This weekend I'm going camping in Joshua Tree National Park again. My friend, Chris, turns 50 this weekend and he planned this trip. The weather looks good, with a high of 85 and a low of 50 in the desert. I will have photos to post on Monday.

Loi and Van Wedding Banquet

Yes, I am rather tall in this photo. My friend at work, Loi, invited me and other co-workers to his wedding Banquet, which was basically the wedding reception. The invitation said the banquet began at 6PM, so of course I got there 10 minutes early. Loi and his wife were greeting everyone at the entrance and taking pictures. Because I was alone, the man on the right was added for symmetry. I sat at a table with other co-workers, and continued to sit as more and more people arrived. They finally finished the greetings around 7:30. There were so many people showing up, the employees at the International Seafood Restaurant 2 were setting up more tables. I'd guess there were over 300 people at the reception.

Around 8PM they began serving the eight-course meal. With each course, a large plate was placed on the lazy Susan, and we each took turns filling our plates with fish, rice, duck, soup, more fish and finally cake. During the meal, a live band was playing, the bride and groom made there way around the tables to thank all the guests, and the whole event was being filmed by a professional crew and many photos were taken. It was a fun evening and I thank Loi for inviting me and hope he and his wife have fun on their honeymoon.

42 Years and One Day

It took an alarm to wake we up at 8:30 in the morning after my birthday. Not because I drank lots of beer the night before, but I just like sleeping in. My brother arrived at 10 AM and we drove down to Seaport Village to the annual Mustang Auto Show. It is a small car show, and after 90 minutes we were ready for lunch, and ended up eating Greek food again. We thought about eating pizza, or Italian, to keep the theme of eating the food from the country we were traveling to the next month alive, but the pizza was New York style, which didn't seem right.

So I go back home and turn around and head to my friend's house. We meet up with Woody, who was happy to have his photo taken with John McCain at the Little Italy street fair. I did have a slice of authentic Italian cheese pizza there, followed by a few beers at The Waterfront. The evening ended with us, watching a documentary about the Ramones, which was very interesting, plus we drank some Italian beer - Peroni.

There is a theme in this photo - Stone beer. However, we did not eat at Stone Brewery because there was a 90 minute wait. So we headed to O'Sullivans in Escondido where I had a couple of Stone beers and a cheeseburger with fries. A very nice birthday dinner with my family. Earlier we went for a swim and exchanged books and mp3s. Tomorrow it is a car show at Seaport Village and then a street fair in Little Italy.

Cloudy San Diego

I went on my first hike in months this morning. The cloudy, cool weather kept me from getting too hot, but made for a poor view of San Diego from high atop the hill.

Mustang Fixed

All fixed and one day early! My car got repaired faster than my back. I have one more chiropractor appointment.

Now I have a four day weekend to enjoy, including a birthday on Saturday!

He Who Hit Me

So I guess I need to post a photo of the car that damaged my Mustang. I erased his license plate, and the photo of the driver to protect the guilty. It seems that the front bumper of a Honda CRV is more durable than my rear bumper, because there was no obvious damage to his car.

Blue Angels 2008 at Miramar

It isn't easy taking pictures of jets flying close to the speed of sound as they zip by with only brief view between the surrounding eucalyptus trees. For the 10th year in a row I get a free view of the Miramar air show, which is actually free for everyone, but I don't have to leave my front yard. Last year it was the Thunderbirds, but this your the Blue Angles are back. It is funny, they seem to fly the exact same flight paths every year. I can almost predict when the final plane will fly over my house at a 90 degree bank angle where I can almost see the pilot.

Washington State At UCLA

As you might have noticed, this photo is from a different angle from last week. We exchanged our season tickets to move over one section and up 15 rows so that we would be sitting closer to the UCLA section. However, we ended up sitting in the wrong section but had better seats (with backs - not bleachers), and, the Bruins won. With a 7:00 start, I got home around 1 AM. Luckily, my plan was to wake up in time to watch the Charger game at 10 AM, which I did. Now the Chargers have to make another second half comeback.