OK, so Christmas is really actually finally done.  See, it's all here.

Kinda sad.

Lunch in the park.  It's not gourmet, but it's a nice break from recursively calculating gamma detector positions.

Chillin' with her gnomies...and old friend Steve Raines.
http://www.steveraines.com/

Wilson and Pinyon Ridge (P4614)

Mark and I scratched two more off the "San Diego 100" list today!
Sierra Club San Diego 100

Wilson and Pinyon Ridge are two peaks near our old stomping grounds at Culp Valley.  The trailhead is off a rugged, and I mean RUGGED, old dirt road.  Glad we had the truck!  After a late start, and 4 brisk hours of hiking in the cool desert wind, we had bagged our peaks!

Wilson Peak

Pinyon Ridge Peak

It looked to us (and the summit register confirmed) that including ourselves, only three people had used the trail in the last two weeks.  Some handy trail markers showed the way to Wilson Peak, while we had to do a little more bushwhakcing to get to Pinyon Ridge.  (Neither peak is actually on the trail.) We saw deer, coyote tracks, and far more birds than either of us expected.  We could see just about every inch of the Salton Sea from Wilson Peak.

Signing the Wilson Peak summit register.

Standing on Pinyon Ridge Peak

Mark's off-road face

Mark's truck on the "road"

And here are the details, for those of you willing to try it.  (Click on the images below for larger versions.)

More meandering than actual climbing

We parked at a signed pullout on Old Culp Valley Road

The hike turned out a little longer than we both expected

And... the finished product!

Someday... we'll do this to our own house?

Beautifying a military family's house in Escondido...

"It took a whole lot of dirt to clean the place up." -Sara

No caption required.

How to make $18 in 5 minutes.
1.) Buy a pack of cigarettes.
2.) Sit on the curb outside Union Station, with the full pack in your hand.
3.) Peddle your wares to commuters with nicotine withdrawal.

The very last ray of a very good day.  Thank you, LA, you were nice to us once again.

Green flashes are real (not illusory) phenomena seen at sunrise and sunset, when some part of the Sun suddenly changes color (at sunset, from red or orange to green or blue). The word “flash” refers to the sudden appearance and brief duration of this green color, which usually lasts only a second or two at moderate latitudes.

Sara took Eli up the mountain from our house today.  Eli hadn't been there in a while...and was clearly excited.
"Flowers!  My favorite thing!"
"Puddles!  My favorite thing!"
"Grass! My favorite thing!"
"Mud!  My favorite thing!"
...
Eli slept well that afternoon. 

"It's raining...I'm not going out there!"

Surprise!

When we do Los Angeles, we do it right!

There are lazy Saturdays, and then there are start-at-4:30am Saturdays. Today definitely falls into the latter category.  Let's see, there was: driving through a wintry, pre-dawn storm to get to LA, then an informal networking breakfast with the Producer's Guild Award nominees (you know, just Steven Spielberg, Brad Pitt, and a few others), a lecture on cartographic transformations at the Semi-annual California Map Society Conference, a rainy walking tour of downtown LA with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and then we accidently stumbled into a car commercial shoot, had a coyote encounter, ogled a Bugatti Veyron we found parked in the street in Hollywood, walked a ridgetop with panoramic views of LA just as storm clouds left the scene, ate Diddy Reese ice-cream and chocolate-chip cookie sandwiches on the UCLA campus, and then got to spend a quiet evening at home contemplating the breadth of what we just witnessed.  Truly, we live a strange and blessed life.  How does one even begin to take a day like this in stride?  I think I'm still in awe of what we just did.

A stormy day in LA.

Sara had breakfast with this "Spielberg guy".

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Can I come in?

A lecture on Non-Ptolemaic map projections

Mr. Coyote, of Griffith Park.  Noble beast.

Gentle!  Gentle!

The router is dead.  Long live the router.

Sara sent our old router out to pasture, and saddled up the new one!  All on her own!

We're gonna need a bigger credit card.

Mt. Israel

We checked off our 5th of the "San Diego 100" peaks.  Only 95 to go!



Bagged the peak with Sara, Mark, Dad, and Eli - who was clearly beside himself with doggy joy.

3.2-ish miles, I think.

Baby Shower for the new Huntley

Steve and Jen came to town for birthday celebrations and a baby shower!

All quilts must pass strict quality control...

Mary and Lesley

It's a boy!

OK, those are cute.

Is it a cupcake, or a cutecake?

Little clothes!

Spy devices.  Of course.

Does this pass the "soft test"?

Classics for the library

Guessing games!

Happy Birthday

You're 12,418 days old!

It's a pi-cake!

No, really.  How do you divide pi?

Your car is ready, sir.

Deliverance can be found in a bottle.

Pick your poison!

Next!

First limo ride, ever!