And Yet More Cali Adventure

I have a lot of pictures I took, here's the third (or fourth???) installment.

I love this fountain just as you come in, its like a wave, it cycles from one end to the other.
Since I'd received complaints, I had to find one with Naomi's head in it :Þ



There were a couple of interesting lighting fixtures, these are planter-light fixtures around these cypress trees out front. Cool, huh???
The first lights I noticed were in "A Bug's Land", which I thought at first were crickets, but it finally came to me, they're fireflies with lampshades on their butts!!!

512 Redo

The first time I went to California Adventure a couple years ago I noticed the building with the address "512" prominently displayed. I have no idea what is inside this building, its not open to the public, but I thought that it was very cool that it is one of the only places there that had an address prominently displayed!!! They have repainted the place since (top pic), I think it looks a lot better, even though it doesn't quite have the right colors.

More from California Adventure

I took a lot of pictures at California Adventure. Figured I'd share a few more here.


When we first got there, I had to pay for the parking. The window on the driver's door has always been a little hinkey, but this time it didn't come up. I had to do a little surgery on sexy to get the window up. Hell of a way to start the day. It did get better from there.







I love the way this picture came out, with both boys looking away and me looking dead on, with the heavy shadows.

Possibly more to come...

My Cali Adventure

Took the family to Disney's California Adventure yesterday. It was a lot of fun, although if I were to have to choose between Disneyland and California Adventure I'd go for Disneyland in a heartbeat. One plus to California Adventure is that they have a few places that actually serve alcohol!!! We had dinner at a place that has an extensive wine list, and bought a $23.00 bottle of zinfandel. Both my wife and I agreed in retrospect that a second bottle of wine might have been in order.

The place is kind of a rip off for younger kids!!! A LOT of the rides have height requirements that kept they youngest off them. The first ride that we went on was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a nicely themed free fall ride. I'd never given it a thought, but my boys have never seen an episode of Twilight Zone!!! We had to take turns watching the younger and riding with the older boy, and by the time that I got off the ride with the older boy, he'd pretty well memorized the intro!!! We were relating plot lines of various episodes to him on the way home, and he was fascinated. I downloaded a couple of episodes, and he enjoyed them. Funny how it can go from common knowledge to obscure in one generation.

I had gotten fast passes to the river rafting ride they have there, Grizzly River Run, around 1:00 PM, but it wasn't valid until 6:40!!! Wouldn't you know, by the time they were valid it was overcast and cool out, and the regular line was almost a walk-on!!! I rode it twice, and got fairly soaked.

The last ride that we went on was "Soaring Over California", a very well done hang gliding simulator with a hemispherical screen. The first time we'd gone there my wife didn't get a chance to ride it, but she was able to this time. It's really one of the better rides there, with the line to back it up!!!

I asked the younger what his favorite thing was, and he said "the ride on the tram" (from the parking lot to the entrance of the park!!!)

The Scorpion and the Turtle

Here is an old parable that you probably have heard before, but I think it bears repeating. I just read Pank's most recent post, and it caused me to think of this story:

A scorpion, not being able to swim, asked a turtle to carry him on his back across a river. "Are you insane???" exclaimed the turtle. "You'll sting me while I'm swimming and I'll drown."

"My dear turtle," laughed the scorpion, "if I were to sting you, you would drown and I would go down with you. Now where is the logic in that???"

"You're right!!!" agrees the turtle. "Hop on!!!" The scorpion carefully climbs on the turtle's head and they embark. Halfway across the river the scorpion gives the turtle a mighty sting. As they both sank to the bottom, the turtle cries out:

"You fool!!! Now we will both surely die!!! Why did you do that???"

The drowning scorpion replied "It's just my character."

People can change their character, but they have to really want to, and what I most often see is that most people aren't sufficiently motivated. Go into your relationships with your eyes open; if you can accept the way the other person's character is and look past their shortcomings, go ahead. If you cannot, you should distance yourself from that person.

Bob's Bus

I told Bob not to park the short bus in the 'hood, yo!!!

Voices Out of Africa

Image stolen from HERE

The following is the latest communication from my parents on their trip to Zimbabwe, Africa. My mother wrote it very well, and its full of great adventures, so I hope they don't mind me posting it here!!!

Happy Easter to you all. We are now at Chidamoyo Hospital for the remainder of our stay. Our hostess, Kathy, sent us to Victoria Falls because she was uncertain if she would need to have foot surgery. As things turned out, she began to have severe pains in her abdomen and had 3 hernias repaired while we were vacationing. The pain started while she was out at the bush mission hospital in Chidmoyo. She had to be taken back to Harare on a mattress in back of a pick-up truck.

Yesterday we came out to the hospital with Kathy laying in the back of the pick-up. We caravaned with 2 students. Dad drove the 5-speed pick-up (right hand drive). Not too difficult until you see the condition of the road for the last 52 kilometers! Narrow, very rocky, some parts very dusty (we were following), and it was HOT.

So we're way out in the toolies. It's a 4 hour drive from Harare where she has her flat. But she considers Chidamoyo her true home. She is the only missionary and the only white person working here. The hospital has 80 beds, but isn't very full right now. Last night after we arrived, a mother brought a 4-month-old baby who hadn't been nursing. The doctor is gone right now, and none of the nurses know how to inject for an IV to feed the infant. The baby seemed barely conscious. Kathy inserted the IV, but knew there wasn't much hope. Last night the baby died.

We stopped on the way here for Easter services yesterday and last night the resident pastor led a service here outside in the hospital courtyard. The services are for the people who work at the hospital, the family members who are staying in shelters while their patient is being cared for, people from the area, and any ambulatory patients.

Today dad ran wiring for a satillite radio into Kathy's office at the hospital. He climbed a tree a couple of times. One of dad's "assistants" was amazed that he climbed with his shoes on. The grandkids would be proud. He probably fried his scalp while standing out on the roof as he and 2 "assistants" worked to get a stable signal. I, on the other hand made cotton balls from a big sheet roll of cotton.

About our vacation time. We spent three nights in Victoria Falls. I got in a lot of bargaining time, haggling with the vendors over souvenirs. Probably could have gotten even better deals, but it was hot and miserable in the stalls. It is just like it used to be in Mexico, but with much more intensity. There were so many people, mainly men, trying to get me to buy there wares. Dad was quite amused at it all.

While in VF, we rode an elephant for about an hour. We got to feed our elephant afterwards. Got pictures! Dad managed to get very saddle sore. Two big nasty abrasions above his buttocks from rubbing on the saddle.

We also "went on a lion experience". We took a long walk with the lions. There were 3 young ones. About 2 years old. It was so great. We were able to pet them, take photos, etc. We each carried a stick in case they got out of hand. One lady was nipped on the back of her leg, but no broken skin. We went on an evening cruise on the Zambeze River and saw hippos, too.

There is a restaurant in VF called "the Boma Place of Eating" where they served all of the traditional foods of Zimbabwe. We ate Impala meat, warthog, ostrich, and even had a worm. A party of people sitting next to us all did the worm-eating thing together, after which one of the girls promply barfed by our table.

We took a tour of the town with one of the vendors we met while haggling. We really liked him. He showed us his partially-completed home and took us to the old peoples' home. There are decent shelters for them to live in. We took pictures of many of them and they were thrilled to see themselves in dad's digital camera. We also took a couple of vendor's addresses to mail back finished photos. They love to have their pictures taken.

We left VF and drove 200 kilometers to Hwange National Park where we were meet by an employee of The Hide and driven back into the bush. The Hide is a really nice place where we stayed in our own tent hut and we had guides to take us on game drives. We could go on every drive if we wanted. They had drives from 6am-8am, 9am-12pm, 3pm-7pm, 9pm-10pm or later (one night we got back at 11:30). The guides were very knowledgeable about animals and plants. We saw a nice variety of animals: lots of zebra, lots of impala, baboons, velvet monkeys, warthogs, elephants, lots of small mammals, lizards, beautiful birds, and one night we found the lions! We were treated royally in camp had great breakfasts, lunches, teas, and dinners. They washed and ironed our laundry. That is, everything except our "smalls" (undies). You can only push it so far, I guess.

One of the guides was certified to take us out of the land rover and approach animals. He carries a rifle and a side arm for safety. Walt and I went after elephants twice. We followed one of them into to trees. He did a couple of mock charges toward us, then he finally trumpeted. That was a thrill. That night we couldn't go with Andy (the certified guide) so that some newcomers would get a chance to approach. Andy located the same elephant and they approached it again. This time he did about 6 charges. When he got back to camp, Andy was pretty shook up. We also tracked some sable way out on the savannah around sundown. It is so beautiful there!

Well, my loved ones, it's time for me to sign off. Lunch is ready. God bless you all.

Where???

"Now where could dad have hid that other egg??? He said it's in plain sight!!!" The egg hunt was a lot of fun... for me, at least!!! I wonder if he's gonna color all his eggs bright yellow and orange colors next year???

I'm thinking about that bisquit crust pizza that Granny mentioned now... I made a good deal of extra sauce to use with English muffins, but now I'm thinking that way instead. I need to get the specifics on that recipe, but I think it sounds fairly straightforward. There used to be a pizza place in the mall I used to work at that had pizza with thick, doughy crust like that, and it was GOOD!!!

Looks like a lot of people got some good photos this weekend!!! Serenity has posted a couple of real nice ones, and Granny had a winner up today, too. I took several others on Friday, took over 100 in all. Forgot to make mention that you should click on at least the first picture on that post to see it full sized, you can actually see the thickness of the raindrops falling down.

I finally updated my wallpaper page on Saturday. It has been a few weeks since I've changed it, but with Granny and Serenity's permission, I think I have inspiration for weeks to come!!!

Happy Easter, Part 2

Happy Easter

Gotta start to coloring those eggs soon...

The Deluge

The meteorologists kept predicting rain for today. I didn't really think it would after the last couple of days of clear skies and warm temperatures. When I came home last night it was still so warm that we left the front door open until after 9:00. Before I went off to bed, however, I peered out the window to see if perhaps fairies had placed a ring around the waxing moon. There was no ring to be seen, but instead low clouds racing across the face of the moon. Indeed, it was raining when we left out today. Taking a page from Granny & Lilly's playbook, I took along my camera to see if there was anything that needed its picture taken. I was soaked several times throughout the day, but I got some good pictures, I think.



Here is a shot of a most unique lamp post. Not especially good looking, but crazy looking with the pigeon deflections coming out from the top!!!

You can't tell from the picture, but these are wild parrots. There are large flocks of them, and they are quite noisy as they fly about.

We had been heading back, but the freeway on ramp was blocked by a disabled car and a tow truck. We got turned around, and made a stop at a park along the arroyo.

It didn't rain all day, the sun was peeking through for a good part of the later half, but it came down good several times in between. We made a homemade pizza with a corn meal crust when we got home, the perfect dinner for a rainy evening.

Don't Be Hate'n on the Monkey

Just a Tiny Kiss

Here's one of those things that you never really think about. I had never heard the likes of it before I read a story about it in the paper the other day. Apparently there are two different Kiss tribute bands made up of midgets. Tiny Kiss and MiniKiss. (Actually, Tiny Kiss is three midgets and a 300 pound woman, this just keeps getting better and better!!!) Well, looks like there is a feud between them, you can read about it here. I wouldn't have thought there was such demand for Kiss midget cover bands!!!

Where Does He Get This Behavior From???

That would be my firstborn, up the loquat tree...

The Rose

Signs of Spring

It must be spring. I received my annual notice from the fire department about brush clearance. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't appreciate their concern. It's just a pain in the ass having to comply with all their regulations, under threat of being fined. A little bit of rain every few weeks, with days of sunshine in between, and my yard gets very lush and overgrown. The other day I was trimming back, and my wife spotted a rose in full bloom on the vine-like plant coming over the wall from my neighbor's yard. It took a little doing, but I managed to get it for her. She took this picture of me, it came out way trippy looking I thought. Blogger isn't letting me upload right now, though, so I'll post it some other time... provided I remember!!!

Can You Blame Me???

Look at the ass on you!!!

How the fuck can I pass on you?
Here's some pictures of the little hottie who so inspired me to compose the post, "Seduction".

The first time I ever heard Lil Rob's "Bring Out The Freak In You" was when I first got in and turned her key. She's all that, yo!!! I did a review on Epinions about her, starting out with the first paragraph of that post :Þ If you didn't read the comments to that post, I also sent a link to it to Mazda's E-mail feedback, and they replied "It certainly sounds as though your Mazda MAZDA6 5-Door is meeting those expectations so far! We sincerely appreciate your enthusiasm. Moreover, we hope you enjoy many more pleasurable miles driving in your Mazda MAZDA6 5-Door! Zoom-Zoom!"

Another neat little perk is that this is equipped with Sirius satellite radio. Its been added on, and its way over towards the passenger side, but its pretty cool!!! I had always been of the opinion that why would you pay $10 a month to listen to music you could download and burn onto a CD, but after having it for a while, I can see the attraction. There's a station for music from the decades 50's to the 90's, a station for both classic and current hard rock and alternative, a Stones only station, a couple comedy stations.... and many others from genres I'm not really so much into!!! One of my favorites is channel 16, The Vault. I checked out their site, and you can sign up for a free three day online trial, so if you like listening to music on your PC, there you go!!!

Granny's Groove

This was in the paper the other day. Guess everybody knows now!!! Makes you wonder, huh??? Where do you go to get one of those???

Africa

My parents took off Monday evening for a trip to Zimbabwe, Africa.

The flight ends up being 40 hours!!! 20 over to England, a four hour layover, then 20 more hours to Zimbabwe!!! That's almost too long to be flying.
They are going down for three weeks altogether. They are going to be volunteer assistants at a hospital down there for something like 10 days. One of their friends did this a while back, and ended up midwifeing a birth. My mom is hoping to be able to do the same. I hadn't realized that part of the reason they are doing volunteer work like this is to be able to claim it as a deduction on their taxes!!! Very clever. Did I ever make mention that my dad made a second trip down to New Orleans??? I'm thinking not.
They are going to visit a game park and Victoria falls while they are down there, too. I purchased a 512mb memory card for my camera last weekend that I loaned to my dad. He has two more, as well as a gig and a 16mb and 128mb. Hope he fills 'em all up with good pictures!!!

Oh yes, speaking of pictures, I should note that these are from Dimijian Images. Great pictures!!!

Who Else Did I See at Disneyland???

This is the train that Walt Disney had in his back yard. I took note of the name, isn't that what Serenity sometimes calls Lilly??? See, it wasn't just the chickens that made me think of ya!!!

Pank Says...

Look who I saw at Disneyland!!!

Seduction

She was a real looker. Not flashily overdone, but smartly and sexily dressed down in an understated way. The type who might not turn a lot of heads, but once you got a halfway decent look, she would keep drawing your eyes back to her like a magnet. I think a lot of it was the color she was clad in, an eye-popping scarlet hue that clung to her every curve like a second skin. Not a tiny little thing, but perfectly portioned with delicious curves.

Something told me that she was mine for the taking (albeit if for only a short time), although I wasn't sure who was actually taking who. I drew close to her and my nostrils were filled with her scent, subtle and clean. Her voice was surprisingly low toned, a deep, husky but decidedly feminine voice, like honey over gravel. "Come on, big boy, take me for a spin..." she seemed to purr. Who was I to refuse??? We both knew what we wanted.

Her radio was on, playing Lil Rob's "Bring Out The Freak In You"

Let's get N-A-S-T-Y

Get ready for a nasty time

All the nasty things we can do

I wanna bring out the freak in you

Let me bring out the freak in you

I like seein you

Can't help but think nasty thoughts about me and you

All them nasty things we can do

Let me bring out the freak in you

There's somethin I see in you

I definitely see me in you

Doin what nasty people do

Can you blame me? Look at the ass on you

How the fuck can I pass on you?

Classy lookin freak, nasty attitude

I just have to be havin you

It must be like heaven just to handle you

The only thing I could think: Damn, she even has her own theme music!!!

To look at her, you would think she was the quick type, but she was full of delightful surprises. She wasn't going to leave me hanging, but was fully prepared to take me all the way, but on her own terms. As we began moving together, I thrilled to her touch. She felt as good as she looked, and she looked even better up close like this. It was as though we had a low level telepathy going on between us, she went exactly where I needed her to be at the very moment she should. We were on our way, and eager for the time that was to come...

Zoom zoom....

And yet ANOTHER Monkey Experiment (or) “Why Do We Do That?”

In my searching for information for the Shock the Monkey post, I also came across this monkey experiment. I think this is my favorite of all that I found. I think it shows a lot about not only monkey nature, but human nature too. If you've ever been in a company where they have some stupid thing they do (and who hasn't???) you will appreciate this.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, all of the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be attacked.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not? Because as far as they know, that's the way it's always been done around there.