Riding the Rods

Got to do everything pretty much as I had planned in my previous post!!!
Only part I didn't get in was the stop off in Chinatown, but I did get this shot from the train...


This scale at Philippe's was the actual one that was used in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Feel it!!!

The Best Laid Plans

(Image stolen from Here, which is actually a very cool site)

Ah, plans for the day.... Woke up early, not hung over badly, just a little headache. Goody powder fixed that in a hurry. Momma is still in bed, who knows how she's doing. She got up to go pee and ask what I was doing up so early. I didn't have a good answer other than "I was done sleeping". There's about 3/4 of a margarita left in the blender from our Cinco de Mayo fiesta. Maybe I'll drink it in a bit, they were quite good and it seems a shame to waste it. Lots of ideas for today. We bought all the ingredients for some chicken chili yesterday. This will be an experiment, usually I like to use Heineken dark in it, but the store I used to get it from closed and I haven't been able to find it since!!! Guinness stout is going in this time, we'll see how that does. There's about two shots of tequila left too, that will go towards flambe'ing the chicken. After that gets going, I'm planning on taking the family on a rail excursion. I'm taking my camera along this time!!! I plan on going to Philippe's for lunch. I'm sure I've been there before, a LONG time ago, but not since I've become a fan of the sandwich that originated at that particular restaurant, the French dip!!! Something I did not know until I visited their site, the origin of the name is nebulous. It could either be because of the owner's heritage, the French roll that it was served on, or because the first person ever served one was named French. Interesting. I would like to make a stop in Chinatown, along the Walk of Fame, and at Universal Citywalk. We'll just see how much of that actually happens!!! Now, I'm off to get to cutting up chili ingredients so the whole house will smell good when we get home!!! And, possibly a little bit of margarita...

Cinco De Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo, Y'all!!! The irony of it is, all the Mexicans at my work who took Monday off to boycott have to work today!!! To start off the celebrations, my youngest and I had quesidillas for breakfast. Picked up a bottle of tequila and some limes and some carne asada. I have a funny reaction to the tequila, I get goose bumps like crazy just smelling it, and when I took a shot I got 'em down to my toes!!! It has to do with the time I broke my stomach pounding tequila in Tijuana. I've had a few. Happy cinco de Mayo!!!

A Day Without Mexicans

I was curious what it was going to be like yesterday. The illegal immigrants were desecrating Lilly's birthday by having their boycott and demonstrations. Last time they had one, I had jumped off the freeway in downtown to avoid the jammed freeway, and they had shut down the street that I usually take as my short cut, in Chinatown of all places!!! I took my camera along this time in case there was anything to see.

Turns out there wasn't. The day turned out to be a pleasant surprise for a lot of people. It took twenty minutes less on the freeway going to and coming from work. My place of employment had put out a notice that anyone who didn't want to come to work that day could take the day off, and make up their hours on Friday, so when I got there it was me and the one other senior machinist. Joe showed up around 9. I thought about setting up my camera and getting a picture of the three of us, but didn't. The plant manager came in for a while... he's an immigrant, I don't know why he wasn't boycotting... of course, he's legal and from Canada!!!

And the mexicans??? I asked around today. Not a one of them that I spoke to went to any rallies or anything. Mostly just stayed home. They talked to one protester on the radio yesterday who showed his ignorance by saying that you could see the economic impact of the boycott by the fact that the Dow Jones and NASDAQ were both down!!! Here's an idea, a one day boycott isn't going to work. If you didn't buy it yesterday, you'll be buying it today. How about a month or six months or something meaningful??? Show your economic strength!!! The crowd at the first rally was estimated at 250,000, and the second, church of child molesters sanctioned rally was estimated at 400,000, although several of those were probably carried over from the first one. In their press conference today they claimed two million, based on their own estimates.

I did see a van pulled over on the side of the freeway by several police cars, and the Latino woman and child being escorted back towards the cruisers, while the man was still up by the van with the officers. I have no idea what was going on there. Other than that and wide open freeways, I saw almost nothing firsthand. That was one of the main things that people were talking about, the open roads. That yellow journalism rag that I subscribe to, the Los Angeles Times, buried that story on the 16th page. If that is what its like when the illeagals aren't out on the freeways, then once again, I'm encouraging a month or longer boycott!!!

The Triumphant Return

My parents have returned from their Africa trip. We visited them today, and I copied several of the 1300 pictures my dad took while there. Here are a few of them


These wild yellow butterflies were migrating through.



So many of the pictures came out very nice!!! Reminder, if you didn't notice the mark, these pictures are copyrighted, so no stealing and selling 'em on the black market allowed!!! I think I've sized 'em down to where they wouldn't be much good for anything anyway.

An interesting thing, apparently someone my parents know saw my previous post of their letter and recognized it as being them!!! The lady they were staying with was surprised that people already knew of her triple hernia, and of course people knew of my dad's abrasions on his buttocks. Halfway around the world and gossip is still getting around!!! Least that my phantom reader could do is leave a comment or something.... don't let the word verification scare ya!!! If it were that big of a deal to me, I'd get one of those counters, too.

More for Lilly

(Inspired by Serenity's post)

Watch out for those "pricks"!!!

Smooth Hound

My dad scuba dived for as long as I can remember. As a young kid, 3 or 4 years old, I remember going to the beach with my parents and older sisters, and they would leave us on the beach for about an hour while they did a dive. Oftentimes we'd have a picnic lunch when they would surface.

At some point when I was young, probably around five to seven, my mom quit diving. The frigid waters were too much for her to bear. My dad had other diving buddies and dive clubs that he would still go out with. When I was around 13 I got certified for diving, and my dad and I would go out every now and then. I found the water to be chilling, too, but I endured.

One night we went to one of the southland beaches for a night dive, my first. The surf was very rough, and after getting suited up and backing into the ocean I lost my weight belt, and we had to abort the dive. A couple weeks later we tried a different beach. We had never dived at this beach, it had a rocky entry. It was much calmer that night. We entered the water with our dive lights and glow sticks going.

Under the sea at night was an ethereal experience. During daylight hours, the whole visible area would be lit with a greenish cast of sunlight filtering down. Without sunlight and only our flashlights and glow sticks illuminating the area, even in relatively shallow waters it was like being in a cave!!! The light cast didn't penetrate even to the surface, or much past the immediate area. It gave the feeling of being inside a cave.

On our way back to the shore, still under water, a shark entered into our field of vision. We were both coming straight at each other, and upon seeing him, my balls kinda crawled up. He wasn't big, probably about three feet, but still... out of your own element, face to face with a killing machine in its own element, it was chilling. Both the shark and ourselves turned to our respective right, and proceeded away from each other, out of our circle of light.

A little research once we got home revealed that what we had seen was a gray smooth hound, a bottom feeder and not any real threat to us. Still, seeing a shark in its own element while being out of yours, makes a lasting impression.

April Showers

This is the most lillies that I've ever had grow up!!!

I Love those crazy looking hollyhocks!!! I really don't do much at all to encourage these flowers to grow, they just come up on their own!!!

Forced Perspective

Heading down the street in the Hollywood Studios Backlot area of California Adventure, they have the end of the street painted like a continuation of the street, going off into the distance.

Here I am eating a frozen lemonade. Looks like I'm sucking a lemon, huh???

And, at night.

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...