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...

Our dear friend Marty Kreloff painted this portrait of us. Tonight's the unveiling at Roberta's 2nd Annual 50th Birthday Party.

The Stardust fades...

October 31st was closing night for the Stardust, the casino of the movie _Casino_, once the largest resort in Las Vegas, now slated for the wrecking ball. Last month, Josh and I went to an event there and I snapped a few for posterity...

Click the image for a slideshow!

Stardust

Tony Bennet at the Hilton

We saw Tony Bennett at the Hilton on Saturday night. He's 80 years old and has a stronger voice and better chops than ever before. Holy cow.

 
 
  

Cool Logo Products!

Check out the Cool Logo Products now at our Cafe Press store.

We're now official.

Aircraft Ignition and the Rod Run

Josh's younger brother Alex is visiting. We went downtown for a celebration of internal combustion.

Aircraft Ignition and the Rod Run

Oct 7, 2006 - 36 Photos

Summer Snaps 2006

Kernville Summer Snaps 2006

Aug 6, 2006 - 33 Photos

Here in reverse order are snapshot slideshows of summer and fall in Kernville. Just click the pic and enjoy!

Autumn 2006 Snaps

Autum 2006 Snaps

Oct 1, 2006 - 14 Photos

Visit from the marsupial

Stella did not approve of this opossum outside the kitchen door. The opossum did not approve of Stella.

Beep beep

We do have a pretty enjoyable back yard. This roadrunner didn't pose for long, but he posed!

An even better Great Blue

This one's with the telephoto adapter. I sure wish I had as good a camera as I do binoculars for this sorta thing.

Birds of the day

Today we've seen the great blue herons, an osprey (amazing to see them hover), and a red-tail hawk being chased by a dozen or so dippers, apparently offended by the hawk's presence and appetite for dippers. 

A great blue

A great blue heron fishing right in our back yard. We see several of them every day flying up and down the river; this time of year they spend more time standing around here. I wonder if it's because there are fewer people around? They seem pretty shy; this guy fled when he noticed me sixty feet away.

Back in Kernville

We're back in Kernville for a couple weeks -- this coming weekend is Turkey Vulture Festival, the next will be the Rod Run. 

And another slide show -- this time Josh

Alaska 2006 -- Josh's Highlights

Sep 15, 2006 - 64 Photos

Check out the slide show

Alaska 2006 Selected Favorites

Sep 6, 2006 - 62 Photos

Hmm

Roberta's been working on a photo essay. I think I'll do the narrative to that instead of a retro-log.

Day 1

OK, now that we're back, I'll tell the story of our Alaska trip, perhaps a day at a time.

Day 1, Thursday, Aug. 23. We get picked up 6:30am or so for a 9:45 flight. This "three hours lead time at the airport" rule is best served by ignoring it, but I have trouble doing that, so we get there early. We had the clever idea this time to reduce our luggage count and use One Big Suitcase. Suggestion for future travellers: don't do that. We get to the airport and discover that our bag is overweight (a risk we assumed might happen) and that we had to redistribute the weight. What the hell? We figured we'd be able to just pay an extra tariff or something; no such luck. So we redistribute. In the course of the redistribution, I drop the now-70-pound suitcase on my toe. Broken nail. Ugly. Painful. Ow.

But we got on the plane OK, and it was an uneventful trip, the best sort. At SFO, we dither around a bit and then find the guy to show us the way to the bus to the ship. Turns out there are four couples on the bus (for the first stretch), and three of them lived at some point in the town of Monroe, Washington. Pure coinkydink.

We get to the ship. It's an odd looking critter. Built in 1991, it was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. Same guy who did the Pompidou Centre in Paris. The ship? Well...it's a really dumb design. There's no place to stand outside on the front of the ship! All front views are enclosed, and what's worse, the glass is treated with some real crappy ultraviolet blocking stuff that also blocks a lot of the view. What's more, there's no classical promenade around the ship. Dumb design. There's a reason Princess is retiring the Regal Princess next year; it's just not a very good ship.

Anyway, we make our way to our room, and discover, unlike everyone elses' room, ours is closed and locked. So we stand around for a half hour while they find someone with a key. For all the grousing we might do, this was the only instance in the entire cruise (not counting one ill-advised foray to the hamburger bar) that we got anything other than excellent service from the staff. (Oh, and not getting our luggage delivered until late that evening; if they'd just told us that often luggage takes several hours to make it to the rooms, we'd not have been so pissed. It does seem to be a running joke among the entertainers.)

Back

Sitting in SFO now, waiting for plane home. More later.

No beverages including shampoo

Greetings from on board the Regal Princess, en route to Juneau.

I don't know if we'll be able to post any pictures en route; connectivity is slow and expensive.

As we prepared to board the flight to San Francisco, the gate agent explained the new rules to us, including "No beverages including shampoo."

comments

ok, so I'll deal with the spam and anyone who wants can leave comments. Damned spammers.

Cops in Bakersfield

A few weeks ago we were in Bakersfield, doing the Costco-Trader Joe's run. I was feeling crappy; Roberta was driving. Suddenly we notice a police car with his red lights on. Roberta pulls over, of course. The cop walks up to the window, and says, "I notice that your Nevada registration tag reads 04. That means it's expired." I said, "Take another look. 04 is the month." He walks to the back of the car, then comes back and says "Oh, I see the 2007. Thanks for the education." and walks off. We were quite amused.

We're back in Las Vegas now...we've got some more interesting stuff to post, but first we need to wake up.

Grr. Webcam 1 is screwed up -- tilt is stuck in a real low position. So I've repositioned it and disabled pan and tilt. Sniff.

Smoke above the water

There's a fire burning in the mountains above the south side of the lake. Pinatubo sunset, Kernville style.

We've decided we need to make the "comments" section only for registered blogspot users; we were getting spam comments, several every day, far more than any comments anyone else was making. Sorry about that.

Our favorite sign

Cows are pastured on the steep hills above Kern Canyon. This sign says it all.

Webcam 3 has moved

We've moved Webcam 3 so that it now has a good look up the canyon. The top right position points to a local landmark called "Yellowjacket"; off in the distance is Baker Point. This camera's is almost out of range of the wireless connection, so reception may be spotty.

Racing snake

This is a California Striped Racer, Masticophis lateralis lateralis . I think this is a juvenile one -- adults can be four feet long.