On the way

Heading to big sur for our weekend camping trip, hosted by the bullens. It was a 5 hour drive.

The manly garden

These climbing ladders are made of #4 rebar. They're as deadly as they are rugged.

A sea of cars

On my drive in this morning

Beef bacon

Corned beef makes an excellent bacon. Amy's mad because I ate it for breakfast, lunch (corned beef and sauerkraut on rye) and dinner (hash) and used it all up. She fixed the problem by buying another $20 worth at Costco. She better be quick if she wants some for herself.
Apologies to my vegetarian east-coast lawyer type readers.

Our new babies

The mother bird scares easily, so i got another shot of the kids.

Trouble at the bel air

When we were in the parking lot, the chopper was circling. Kind of a nice neighborhood for so many cops.

Play doh

I think it's his elmo impersonation

Mr crabs

At the korean market

Dropping into berkeley

It's super steep on the hill. There was an awesome view of san francisco, but the trees kept blocking it.

The view

From just behind berkeley

San pablo reservoir

The backyard crew

Drew the irrigator

He helps aaron and julie with their water needs.

The terrace mystery

The hills around pleasanton are finely micro-terraced. What causes this?

Huffing the laffy gas

Well, not really. I'm using the daddy method to eat whipped cream with my waffle.

The new babies

The dove was scared off by our movement this morning and i caught a picture of the kids.

Our new guest

There's a dove that made the unfortunate decision to live in front of our house.

The day's haul

Hunting eggs

At nana's.

Excavation inspection

Drew points out a new squirrel dig.

Library dinosaur

He wouldn't pose with the dino last time. He's getting braver.

On the train

He's eating apple snacks

The goose

This is drew's new nemesis. It started hissing when we got close, so drew ran behind me. The goose was afraid of me, but it chased us as we walked away. It's like it was playing red light green light with us.

Milkshake

He wanted a sip

Watching the train

It's really loud

Stuck at a train

I took about 30 pictures while waiting to show drew.

Big palm

By my office.

Falling off

I guess he's a hard sleeper.

Climbing the chains

Finished boxes

I finally finished the flower boxes. The 2x12's were severely warped, which made the project more fun than normal. I also went for maximum utilization of reclaimed hardware, which meant that some of the bolts, nuts, and washers were extra fun to work with. The good thing is that I used all the 2x12's (4 of them), and only had to buy about $20 in bolt/nut/washer hardware to complete both boxes. I used 4 of the 8 4' 4x4's, each of which were cut into 3 pieces for the vertexes. This is what a naked box ended up looking like (the second one).

We put the first box in the corner of the yard. Amy worked hard preparing the soil for the box, which involved hand-tilling up the clay soil, and excavating a perimeter for the box, along with cute tiny little post holes for the posts. We placed the box, then started filling it with a sampling of the soil treatment stuff I picked up from home depot. It was essentially the same stuff I used to clean out of the chicken coop when I was young, chicken manure and rice hulls. We topped it off with a special blend of potting soils. Here, you see Amy admiring the box, ready to receive its bounty of vegitation.

Here's the finished box, full of nutrient rich soil after an irrigation. If you could see through the fence, you'd see the squirrels on the other side holding hands and dancing in a circle, excited for this fresh new source of soft dirt to bury stuff in.

Tipsy benz

These things look like they'll fall over on the first sharp turn they make.

Moon

The moon was bizarre last night, it looked like waves of windblown sand were passing in front of it. I don't think i captured the effect...at all.

The coolest site you'll see today

Check this out, it's called flickrvision.

http://flickrvision.com/

It uses google maps along with flickr users' location to show you where in the world people are uploading files. Click the 3d view for a real treat.

Edit: I should clarify, the coolest site you'll see today, other than this one.

Spring snow

Man the phones

I bet this phone hasn't stopped ringing since they placed the ad.

Flower box

Instead of frisbee golf, we made flower boxes last night. Well, not boxes, one L shaped planter. I cut the wood, amy did the excavation, and drew helped and supervised.

The Summer of Daddy has begun

Okay, I'll say it - standard time is for the birds. The year doesn't even start until Daylight Saving Time begins. I imagine some who depend on the sunlight to start their day might disagree with me, but they're wrong. Sorry. Anyway, since DST began on Sunday, that means that Monday was the first day we were actually able to enjoy the evening without it being dark by the time we get home.

I celebrated by dragging Amy and Drew out of the house after dinner. Amy insisted that it was going to rain on us, but I wasn't hearing it. The Summer of Daddy has begun, and we're all going to celebrate now, dammit. We went outside and Drew commented on how unseasonably warm it was. There might have been some clouds above us, but all around, blue sky was breaking through. It was going to be a great evening.

We went down to Sutter's Fort to spend up all the accumulated bread heels we had saved all winter on the ducks and fish. Amy is trying to show Drew how you break the bread up into little pieces so the little fish (carp) can enjoy it, but he just likes throwing entire pieces into the water.

Some of the bigger fish came right to the surface like sharks to hork down the tasty bits of bread.

Amy ended up thoroughly enjoying her evening, despite earlier protests.

Drew was still smiling, even after he'd thrown the entire bag of bread into the water.

There were some monster fish in the pond, one on either side of the bridge, and they were approaching 24" long. They were very timid, and hardly ever surfaced for pictures, so all I get is these murky shots of them hanging out beneath the surface. Their shy demeanor might be why they've lived to grow so big.

After feeding the fish, we took a jog around the fort.

Amy caught a blurry picture of the sunset on the way back home. It's hard to get a good picture when I'm hotrodding the new Camry. I should have taken a picture of the thermometer on the way home, it was after 7pm, and it was still above 70°F.

All in all, a great evening. The Summer of Daddy lasts a full 8 months, I'm looking forward to more evening adventures.

Spring cleaning

This was the weekend's accomplishment. We're taking back the garage from ourselves.

Playground cowboy

Farmer's octopus

We ran into this guy at the farmer's market this morning. He was fully alive, and huge. Drew was pretty freaked out, and i only managed to snap one picture. I didn't even come close to getting drew to put his hand in the water. The octopus was a bargain at $125 - half off.

Smashing!

Park squirrels are nice

We tricked a park squirrel to come up to us by pretending that a twig was food. When he found out he'd been had, he sheepishly scurried away and we had a good laugh at his expense. Drew initially told me to get my squirrel stick and get him, but i told him that we only do that to backyard squirrels.