Saturday, December 30, 2006

Our New Neighbor



From Norm! Las Vegas Review Journal Gossip Column:

THE SCENE AND HEARD

A spy tells me the west-of-the-Strip mansion Michael Jackson has settled into is a 10-bedroom, 11-bath, 20,000-square foot private estate owned by San Francisco real estate mogul Luke Brugnara, who earlier this year tried to buy the Crazy Horse Too topless club. The never-lived-in palatial home features full-sized basketball and tennis courts, and a 3,000-square foot master suite with a 2,000-square-foot closet.
(Review-Journal)

As it turns out, that house is across the street and one block east of us. Can't wait to see how this all turns out...

One of our favorite Las Vegas bloggers has this to say about all that.

We're getting popular, but we need to improve these numbers

Bull Run Bridge & Tunnel Authority popularity

Friday, December 29, 2006

Mureta's Antiques

One of our very favorite places in San Fancisco is Gary Mureta's store. It's a tiny place on Fillmore between Washington and Jackson, filled with treasures from old SF estates.

Some San Fran Snaps

We were in San Francisco in November and I just now got around to posting these photos, including our visit to the new downtown mall.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Shapshots and Slideshow

Thanksgiving in December


We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our friends a couple weeks late. No traveling on that most traveled of holidays...

Ron had planned a clambake, but the clams from James Store seemed more like bait than bakers, so it was a shrimp appetizer instead. Judy mashed up potatoes, Kim made dressing, Tysun marshaled the brussels sprouts, Susie baked up broccoli.

April made green bean/mushroom soup/fried onion casserole in celebration of our roots and Mike and Pat composed a salad. I baked a turkey to golden perfection, Terry carved it like a pro. Deb baked a chocolate flourless "Roberta Cake" that was too marvelous for words.

We washed it all down with the wonderful no name Siraz made by Marrianne's friends and after dinner, the musicians among us filled the house with pickin' and singin'. A perfect evening!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Rain Fishing

A little weather didn't stop these guys..

Raindrops!

A series of storms have passed through the valley.

(And I was able to work around one of the uploading problems, but my usual favored way of posting pictures is still broken)

Software, feh

I have some lovely new photographs I'd like to put up but we're using a beta version of blogger that seems to have some problems right now...

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

First snow

We woke up to this wondrous site -- first snow (for us, anyway; I think there was a dusting a week before we came.) Don't we have a nice front yard?

Friday, December 08, 2006

Stella

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Quiet pool with dipper

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The river is running about 250 cfs right now, barely enough to make a ripple downstream of the house and the rapids right out the window have a very hushed rushing sound.

There's supposed to be some rain, and maybe snow down to 4500ft this weekend. I suspect if that's the case, the last of the leaves will fall...

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Winter River

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Country justice

We're in Kernville for a week or two. Late last night, we heard a couple of canines making all sorts of barky noises right near the house. We were of course curious; I got out my Night Vision Binoculars (new toy!) and finally spotted what turned out to be a couple of coyotes who seem to have treed something. Roberta assumed it was a raccoon. Coyotes noticed us and bugged out. This morning, Roberta goes to see what it was -- and there's a dead coon there. We shoulda waited for the doggies to carry it away...