Ready to leap...

I like the way this shot captures so much of Sophie's personality. Playful, yet pensive. A kitten, yet a mature cat.

Artsy, distorted, matted reflection ...

Grey day in SF, getting late, looking around the house for something different to shoot. I took a couple of pictures that had some reflection in them, and then started looking around the house even more as a meme.

This shot is actually on the top of our covered cat box. The reflection is of the porch light through the window above the door.

I like the subtle color and light levels of distortion of the reflected picture.

I think this would be a good meme...

My idea is photos showing where you were at that moment -- you know, pictures showing GPS lat and long. Now, you can plug in my lat and long and see exactly where I was when I took the picture.

Cheating, but cool...

OK, this picture was not taken today. In fact, this picture was SO not taken today, that it may be the oldest picture I've ever had.

This picture is of Nancy Sayers McPherson and her husband Samuel McPherson -- aka, my Great Great Grandparents. My mom passed this picture on to me today -- it was one that she recieved from a cousin who is working on the family genealogy.

There are a bunch of other pics on the the flickr page

Oh yeah, just to make sure that I'm still posting a pic a day on they day I took the pic ...



The coastal range mountains from a friends house in Pacifica.

Ziggy gettin' biggy!...

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Our little boy is starting to get SO BIG! He looked up at just the right time, and I snapped the lucky shot.

A note on the seal: I didn't see him today, but that's because I didn't get close to the bay. One of the guys that used to work for me said that he saw the seal leave the mud flat at high tide, so it may not be as bad as we thought. I'll look in the morning and let everyone know.

A pacific harbor seal in trouble?...

This guy has been sitting on a mud flat outside out office (just west of the Oyster Point Marina) for 2 days now. He'll raise his head from time to time, but he hasn't moved from the spot, so I think he may be in distress.

I called the Marine Mammal Center's Stranded Marine Mammal hotline (415-289-SEAL) to see if they could come down and take a look at it. I hope he's ok.

Funky stand of trees...

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I love the randomness of this stand. It's random at multiple levels, almost fractal-like. The branches have random patterns, the needles have random patterns on the branches, etc.

Looking over the last 85 pictures I've noticed that I do a lot of landscapes. While I can't promise, I am going to try to take more action, portrait, and artsy stuff.

Beer Can Chicken

Tonight, I gave "Beer Can Chicken" a try. Slid lemons and garlic under the skin, shoved a beer can (actually, it used a special pan that simulated a beer can) into the cavity of the chicken to stand it up, then cook it over indirect heat on the grill for about 2 hours.

Very moist and flavorful... I'll do it again.

What's playin on my radio -- is a reflection of me?

Looking for a picture while I was out today. It hit me that I was listening to a song from the late 60's. This is a song that I always seemed to relate to -- but usually from the point of view the person talking to the old man. This time, I was pretty sure I was listening as the old man. I'm certainly not "24 and there's so much more"...

Rainy day -- concentating on composition...

I liked this shot for a number of reasons. It has nature and man-made; near, far and very far; grey, green, brown, etc.

This is taken just south of the airport, along the "public shore" of SF Bay.

Thousands of chances ...

It was a beautiful day here today. We had gorgeous blue skies. We even went into the city *TWICE* today.

The camera, however, never made it out of the house. I forgot to grab it this morning, then I had to put it on the battery charger at lunch, and then I forgot to grab it again when we went to go pick Clemmy up.

As a result, you get a close-up of a flower in my back yard, taken after dinner (around 8:00pm).

Gettin' some air...

This is Zoe -- a min-pin in our Thursday night "Puppy Social". The fence is nearly 4 foot high. This is one high-flying puppy!.

A nation mourns...

Had to cheat on this one. Blogger was having picture issues, and I was afraid I wouldn't get posted in time to make my "pic a day".

This is the flag on the Main Post of the Presidio. You can see the tops of the towers of BOB (The Big Orange Bridge, aka The Golden Gate Bridge) in the background.

The flag is at half mast (as are all other federal flags) because of the horrendous happenings in Virginia.

I whole heartedly support this gesture of national mourning, though I wonder, where is the period of mourning for all of the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, and Coasties killed in the line of duty in middle east? Regardless of how you might feel about the war, these men and women are heroes fallen in the service of the US, and we should NEVER forget their sacrifice.

At any rate, the sight made me tear up a little. I have a son in college, and Davis, CA just isn't all that far away from Blacksburg, VA.

I've decided that I really don't like baths...

Today was grooming day. Our mobile groomer is mere days away from having her baby, so we got two last groomings out of her before she popped.

This was Ziggy's first professional bath, which he did not seem to care for. Based on his reaction to water, I'm thinking he's part cat.

If you thought that the xB was too small...

When I tell people that we have a Scion xB, they often say "oh, I wouldn't like that, it's too small -- you can't carry anything in it".

In actuality, the inside of this car was designed by some sort of magician, because it is clearly larger inside than out. The headroom is amazing (I'm 6', and I have at least a foot of headroom in the drivers seat -- the back seat isn't that much different).

When you put the seats down, you get a fairly incredible amount of carrying room. We purchased a love seat from a friend tonight. They kept saying "it won't fit in your car, so we'll need to use our truck to bring it over". My feeling was "we'll see".

As you can see, it fit. I had to tie the back down a little, but the love seat rode just fine.

21 years old...

Today was Clayton's 21st birthday. As we did with Andy, we gave him a bucket with 21 "airplane" bottles of booze -- everything from Tequila and Gin to Bailey's and Kaluha.

We also went to one of the local Indian casinos in the area to experience one of the other "joys" of turning 21. Clayton won on something like his 5th slot pull (it was a nickel machine, and he won, I think, $12). The bonus picture below is him with his voucher.

A really GOOD picture of me...

Really, one of the best pic's I've ever taken.

I call it "Self Portrait in a Darkened Room with Flash"

Some flowers...

Some flowers in our good friend and dog sitter extrordinaire's garden.

Tonight was Yappy hour, and we had a good time with shish-k-bobs and some really good cheese, plus great conversations with Shura's other clients, plus her dad and step-mom.

Long exposure at night ...

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This is actually a very interesting picture.

The camera is mounted on a tripod, capturing the minimal light provided by the few stars and the lights from the school and beyond the park.

The really interesting part is the way that the stars have shifted during the long exposure. By "long exposure", I'm talking around 1 - 1.5 seconds. The fact that those stars (the top half of Orion (see the belt) and Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky) moved that much during that 1 to 1.5 seconds is a testament to just how fast the earth is moving. In the moment, it's hard to see that the stars move at all, but this proves not only that they do, but how fast they do.

A mathmatician with some star charts could probably tell you exactly how long the exposure was (measure the distance between the stars to get an idea of the focal length, then measure the shift and divide by the known speed of the earth's rotation), but I know that I only counted to 1 and was on my way to 2 when it closed.

Sprinklers and wind...

Interesting visual of the water vapor being carried on the wind.

It almost looks like the grass is on fire.

Teaching the puppy manners...

This is not nearly as bad as it looks. These guys play like this all day. When Ziggy crosses the line, Clem breaks out the teeth and official "big sister" growl. Ziggy usually backs off, and if she doesn't, he gets a nip.

Flame in glass...

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Flames make for interesting pictures. Yes, I know, this makes me sound like a pyromaniac, but I'm talking about candle flames, not warehouse-insurance-fraud flames.

Anyway, the light of the flame reflected and refracted through the crystal is visually interesting. Even the minute crack in the glass comes through.

The grass...

Now to be fair, the picture makes the lawn look much worse than it really was. And, to keep perspective, my lawn is all of about 40 square feet. But with all the rain and fog and cold weather, I just didn't seem to be able to get out there and cut it.

Rest assured, it is fully cut now.

At the top of my "Friends" section on the left hand side of the blog, you'll see a new entry -- Dan's Discourse. Dan is a good friend of ours who brings a unique and fascinating viewpoint to his blog. He's a middle school vice principal and fellow propeller-head geek. He's also incredibly funny.

My foray into martinis

We had some very good friends over tonight. John is a huge fan of Martinis, and so I attempted to make some.

Mine did not come anywhere near the quality of the ones that John and Michael have served me in the past, but I don't think it was too bad for a first effort.

I liked the textures on the glass, the surface of the gin, and the lighting behind the glass.

Clemmy's patented one up ear

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Our sweet girl, with her signature one ear up.

You gotta love this.

Oakland Airport BART Station

Came home from San Diego today. I rode BART from Oakland airport, and while I was waiting for the train, I took out the camera and snapped a couple, including this one.

Looking out the window at night

Not feeling well tonight, so did this simple pic outside my window with no flash.

Sorry -- maybe better tomorrow.

Old Town San Diego

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What the heck is it about Old Town, San Diego. I can't seem to come to this town without visiting it (the sole exception being on a cruise last year).

We got out from class a little early, so I took the train down to Old Town to take some pics.

This one is the quintessential San Diego image -- Spanish style architecture, palm trees, and a Mexican style market.

More pics of my visit to Old Town on the Flickr page.

Looking up

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OK, first, let me say that I did not REALLY get a tattoo. Just an April Fools Joke in case anyone didn't get it.

Now, today was Encryption, which, to a propellerhead like myself, was great. I soaked it up, and thus, did not need the evening review so much. That in mind, I grabbed the camera and went for a stroll in the Marina Park next to the hotel.

Lots of pretty decent (for me) pictures -- see the flickr page to see the rest.

I liked the composition of this one the most. I took it outside the hotel looking though the pigeon shield up the face of the building.

New Tattoo...

I got really hammered last night, and hit an all-night tattoo parlor here in San Diego.

The guy that did it told me he can fix the name, but I don't know what it will look like when it's done.

I'm in SO much trouble...