Music Christmas Eve

Music
Originally uploaded by pipilo

Susan and Scott picked up where they left off after touring Europe for a while. Scott's been gone for 4-5 months and Susan for 2-3 weeks. It's nice hearing their music again. As usual, Susan has made the house beautiful at Christmastime.

CC Lane

We drove around Christmas Card Lane yesterday evening. Crowds of people were walking around looking at the lights and displays. Many of the old favorites remain, but a few new ones have appeared. These are three of my favorites.

Hotel Del

Hotel Del
Originally uploaded by pipilo

The Hotel Del Coronado is always a great place to visit around Christmas time. We go to see the huge Christmas tree that they have in their lobby. One year it was decorated all with teddy bears; another year it was a wizard of oz theme and once it was all band instruments. This year's tree was nothing to write home about, but we enjoyed the trip anyway and loved walking by the ocean in front of the hotel, where I got this shot with my D70. It's Christmas time but everything seems faster now and we're all too busy.

Lights

Lights
Originally uploaded by pipilo

Christmas lights at Balboa Park. Matt, Jess, and I visited the park for "Christmas on the Prado." We like to call it that, even though the actual name has been switched to "December Nights." The event is huge and we parked quite a ways from the Park, walking in and out amidst swarms of people. The park is all decorated in Christmas lights, with vendors, singers, dancers, and people packed all about. The museums are all free too for these two evenings. We didn't visit any of the museums, or buy anything. It all seemed too crowded and commercial compared with the last time we went, when it seemed more traditional and charming. Still, we found some good stuff, including the international houses and, of course, the lights. As we were leaving, we passed a parade of singing women led by a girl with a wreath and four candles on her head. They were walking slowly and ceremoniously. Pretty nice.

Father & Daughter Trip

Father & Daughter Trip
Originally uploaded by pipilo

Susan and her Dad on their way to meet Scott in Europe, so he can show them around some of the places he visited during "Euroterm," a great program put on by the art department at Scott's school. After our week in Maine this past August, Scott has visited Iceland, England, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Holland, and Germany. Susan and her dad will visit England, France, and Italy. She's been to Europe once, in high school, and Bob is enjoying his first visit to the continent. We'll be anxious to hear their stories and see their photos when they return just before Christmas Eve.

After Dinner

Lots of resting and sleeping after our Thanksgiving dinner. Friday was much of the same.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner for six. Guests (Bob and Gabi) arrived at 1:30ish and we ate dinner soon after. Unfortunately, only Matt and Jess wanted to look at the camera, and they gave up before I took the picture shown here. Bob made the turkey, as usual, and it was cooked perfectly, as usual. Gabi (Susan's friend from work) brought her dessert of raspberries and whipped cream with crispy meringue.

Hidden Park

Today's walk was on the botanical trails along the north side of the Wild Animal Park. I never knew there was so much to see back there. These are a few of my favorite plant shots from the afternoon. A few more photos from my 2-hour walk are on flickr.

Bayside

Took a walk around the southeast side of Coronado Island around sunset a couple of days ago. Starting at Tidelands Park and walking north is a great way to see the San Diego skyline and the bay. These were some of my other favorite sights.

Fry Day

Probably not our best meal idea ever, but it was fun to use the deep fryer on various fruits and vegetables. We tried a bloomin' onion with creamy dipping sauces; tempura-fried zucchini, avocados, mushrooms, yams, and potatoes with a sweet/salty dip and soy sauce;and sweet-fried bananas. My favorite was the fried mushrooms. We had rice on the side. Again, not our best idea, but definitely tasty. Perhaps it's time for a salad and citrus day, or week.

Torrey Pines Sunset Walk

Torrey Pines Sunset Walk
Originally uploaded by pipilo

Photo from last weekend's walk in Torrey Pines State Reserve. Probably the last decent exercise I've had in a week, and it was just a short walk. Too busy. Need more time, better priorities.

Casa de Pico

We visited Casa de Pico for Matt's birthday courtesy of Susan's dad. I had a wonderful turkey mole tamales meal. Jess had shrimp and guacamole quesadilla, Susan and Bob got salads, and Matt had combo #1. (Nobody got "Tacos Victoriosos!", which is my dad's tradition favorite.)

We're thinking that this new location almost beats the former one in Old Town San Diego. They've done a nice job isolating the outdoor patio from the rest of the Grossmont Center shopping mall, and it's just as colorful. The parking seems to be less hectic and closer (although it's still no picnic), and it's easy to get to. Most importantly, the food is just as good or better. It's some of the best Mexican food in San Diego. We've probably been to Casa de Pico nearly 100 times over the past 27 years, and it's never disappointed us. Most of the people from both of our families have been here and it remains the "must go" destination in terms of San Diego cuisine for visitors from the east.

We've had perfect San Diego weather this weekend. 75-80 degrees with a light wind and blue skies. It really doesn't get much better than this.

Min Sok Chon

We went to Min Sok Chon for dinner tonight. Actually, Susan wanted to avoid trick-or-treaters, and we all wanted to take Matt out for dinner, even though we already went to Sombrero's with him for lunch on his birthday. We also want to celebrate Matt's birthday with his Grampa and plan to do that tomorrow for lunch. It's all rather complicated. Nevertheless, we had a very nice dinner tonight for about $50.

The Office

I found a great photo project on flickr.com a while ago and signed up to participate in it. Everybody was supposed to take a photo all at the same time to commemorate the anniversary of the first picture of earth from space. Unfortunately, the project was a bit disorganized and has bits and pieces all over flickr, facebook, and some other site.

My plan was to find a great spot in San Diego to take my photo, but it turned out that my computer was being repaired (after months of troubles) and the tech person was right in my office working and talking with me about the repairs. So, at 3:00, the time when everyone was supposed to be taking their "One Click One Pic" I just walked outside and took some photos of my office, which is in the little trailer just south of the science building at school.

I love large-scale photo projects. I uploaded the top photo here as my contribution. It seems that several other people took photos all at the same time yesterday, but most were unclear as to where to post them.

Kayaking

An afternoon of kayaking on Fiesta Island in Mission Bay. Bailey loved riding on the kayak, but didn't help much with the paddling. She liked to jump off to meet whomever was onshore when we got close enough to our destination. A dinner at the original Rubio's capped off a very nice and relaxing afternoon.

Late Afternoon Beach - West Coast

Matt, Jess, and I decided to do a "photo shoot" at our west coast beach in the late afternoon a couple of weeks ago. These are a few of my photos from Torrey Pines that evening. We each uploaded our "Top 5" to a shared gallery on flickr.com.

Late Afternoon Beach

Late afternoon is the best time on the beach in Maine. The sun is setting behind you, the ocean starts looking metallic, people are leaving. It's one of the most peaceful times I know. These moments have renewed and sustained me throughout the years.

This year, Scott brought his guitar down to the beach. It was nice listening to his sounds wafting over the waves. These times in Maine go by way too fast.

Soft Tofu Soup

Jess made another fantastic meal of soft tofu soup, fish cakes, and brown rice. I cooked some vegetables, but we really didn't need them.

Mussels

Jess and Matt made some sauce for the mussels using Sriracha, mayo, and masago, then garnished them with more masago and a few green onions. It was sooo good.

Here's the link to the recipe they followed. http://www.theseasonedwok.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=47:appetizers&id=88:baked-mussels&Itemid=111 Although it says it's a Japanese dish, I've been told by at least two reliable sources that it's Korean-style mussels.

Mammatus Clouds

A couple of weeks ago, on the 5th, we observed some rare mammatus clouds east of Rancho Penasquitos. We had two cameras but the batteries in both were dead, so we just got these cell phone photos.

Both photos show the anvil structure above the pouch-shaped mammatus lobes. These clouds are poorly understood and there are many theories as to how they are formed, but they're usually associated with sharp gradients in temperature, moisture, and wind shear.