Southern in SoCal

25 Questions about the Holidays

2011-12-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things happening around Casa de Hall right now... stay tuned for some big announcements soon. Things are so busy, in fact, that I am worried we won't be posting much. I thought I'd do this quick meme about the holidays to share a little about how Jay and I celebrate.

25 Questions: Holiday Style

Eggnog or hot chocolate?

Eggnog! Especially now that Jay has a great recipe of his own. And you haven’t lived till you’ve lived through Duk-Nog.

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

When Santa dropped off his gifts, he left them under the tree unwrapped. Gifts to/from family are always wrapped.

Colored lights on tree/house or white?

We use colored lights – some people think they are tacky, but we love them.

Do you hang mistletoe?

Nope, plenty of kissing at our house without it!

When do you hang your decorations up?

Typically within a week after Thanksgiving.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

Jay makes a wonderful roasted duck with apricot glaze, and I love the fresh baked rolls.

Favorite holiday memory as a child?

Christmases with my grandparents – that was the best. My grandma had an ornament that sang like a bird, I was obsessed with it.

What is on your Christmas wish list?

Sanity, and some peace and quiet in our lives.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

No, we never do, unless we go see family on Christmas Eve that we won’t see on Christmas Day.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

With eggnog in hand, listening to Christmas music, wearing a Santa hat. We have a tradition wherein we get an ornament from a place when we travel there, as a souvenir. Then when we decorate the tree we can reminisce about our memories of that trip.

Snow? Love it or dread it?

To be fair, since I’m from Georgia, I’m not a snowy day kind of girl. I detest driving in the stuff. But I don’t mind it otherwise.

Real tree or fake tree?

I have always liked the ease and convenience of a fake tree, but Jay loves real ones so our last tree was a real tree. No tree this time around. Maybe next year…

Do you remember your favorite gift?

My doll Dorrie. She was as tall as me then, and I thought she was beautiful. My mom kept her put away since she wasn’t really for playing with, and I still have her now. As far as playing-with toys, probably my microscope or my robot-controlled cat. Both have clearly played a role in shaping who I am now… a scientist with a beloved pet cat…

What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you?

Time to relax and enjoy Jay.

What is your favorite holiday dessert?

That’s a hard one! Every year I usually make a dessert called Chocolate nemesis, but to be honest I love the Christmas cookies we bake even more.

What is your favorite tradition?

Watching Christmas Vacation with Jay and decorating the tree, and receiving Christmas cards. I love to hear from far-flung family and friends.

What tops your tree?

Jay insists on an Angel, but I’ve always liked stars.

Do you prefer giving or receiving?

Both! I love to select and give gifts, it’s especially wonderful when the person really enjoys their gift. I’m really big on giving “useful” gifts – things that I know someone will use. But when I receive a gift, it makes me feel very loved to know that someone thought of me and took the time to select something that they thought I would enjoy (that includes gift cards – that means you took the time to think about what places I enjoy shopping, and also gave me the gift of spending a lovely afternoon shopping for myself).

What is your favorite Christmas song?

Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

Candy canes, yuck or yum?

Yum!

Favorite Christmas movie?

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – Jay and I watch this together every year, and every year we laugh just as hard.

What do you leave for Santa?

Homemade chocolate chip cookies and bourbon.

Do you have a Christmas morning tradition?

Just opening gifts!

Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall?

This year I did a little bit of both.

Christmas letter or Christmas card?

Christmas card – I try to send them out every year with a picture. This will be the first year I don’t have a picture. We just had too much going on at once.

Halloween in West Hollywood

2011-11-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

This year I finally talked Jay into accompanying me to the Halloween Carneval in West Hollywood. It is one of the largest Halloween celebrations in the world - several hundred thousand people attend each year. Technically the Carneval lasts until 11 pm, but when we finally got tired and left at midnight, there were still thousands of people there. The main reason I love it is that watching Hollywood have an excuse to dress outrageously is amazing - the costumes are all carefully planned and executed for the most part. The entire night was punctuated by "Hey, check that one out, it's _____ from ______!" or, "Wow, that costume is AMAZING!" So this post will be mostly pictures of a few of our favorites from this year.

First, Rock, Paper, Scissors:

A little known fact- in the 16 years Jay and I have been together, I have only beaten him once at Trivial Pursuit and once at Rock, Paper, Scissors. In Trivial Pursuit he has an amazing amount of sports trivia and useless bits of information. In the case of Rock, Paper, Scissors he claims he can read my mind.

Then we saw Jessica and Roger Rabbit... such a lovely couple!

Beaker was inspirational to me. One of the reasons I became a scientist. Who says the Muppets aren't educational?

It's also fun when people get a group of friends together for a theme. This group dressed as the officers from Reno 911. Jason yelled out, "Hey Officer Dangle!" and they all immediately posed for him.

Remember watching Inspector Gadget? We sang the theme song for 10 minutes after we saw this guy.

Then another incredible cartoon memory, I got my picture made with He-Man and She-Ra! I loved watching those two cartoons after school.

Perhaps my most swoon-worthy moment was when I spotted Westley from the Princess Bride. Jay told me to go ask him for a picture, but I just blushed and stammered. So Jay shoved me onto him. I ask him if he would mind getting a picture with me, and he replied "As you wish." Damn, I almost fainted. He even had the voice.

A really neat costume we saw was Russ from Up.

I'd like to end with one of the funniest costumes we saw that night. I wonder if she ever found her dog?

Magic Mountain Man 5K Race

2011-10-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

One of the goals Jay and I have every year is to run at least 3 races. Usually these are just 5K, but I'm hoping than one day we will participate in either a 10K or even a half-marathon. I may even harbor a very quiet dream of completing a triathlon one day (a very small one, mind you). With the events of this year, we have missed most of our usual races. But things have thankfully become more quiet in our lives, and I decided to try to cram all our races into the last 3 months of the year.

This weekend we headed to Castaic, CA to run in the 5K portion of the Sport Chalet Magic Mountain Man race. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning and drove to Lake Castaic. The race benefited the Challenged Athletes Foundation, a cause that Jay and I were happy to support. We arrived just in time to get our bibs, our goody bag, shoe timers, and get warmed up.

Neither of us has trained in the last month. Normally we try to set a training schedule, and we had been running a 5K a couple times a week working on our time and endurance. In the last month, we haven't run at all. So this course ended up being more challenging than I at least was prepared for. Jay is a natural athlete; he kindly stayed with me during the race. He was actually running circles around me at one point, supposedly to encourage me. We finished the race in 37 minutes - I'll take a 12 minute mile considering I hadn't even laced up my running shoes in 4 weeks!

The photo below we took immediately after we finished. Yes, I'm aware of how handsome my husband is, even after running 3.2 miles! The beautiful scenery really helped me get through it - I was so happy to be in such a beautiful setting, with the strength and health to get through a 5K race with little to no preparation. It made me feel very grateful.

Happy 9th Anniversary!

2011-10-05T10:18:00.001-07:00

Happy anniversary sweetheart! This has been a tough year for us, but we are getting through it together; just as we always have, and just as we always will. I love you!

What it really means to be Southern in SoCal

2011-08-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

This is probably the first time in years that we have updated the blog more than once in a 2-day period. Don't get spoiled.

As many of you know, I love to cook, and having lived and eaten in many parts of the U.S., my cooking has many influences. I have a fair amount of family from Mississippi and Louisiana, and have always enjoyed Cajun and Creole food, especially the gumbos and stews that are so prevalent along the Gulf and bayou country.

When you combine that with being Southern in SoCal, some pretty cool things happen...

(click on photo to embiggen. I can say embiggen if I want to, dammit!)

It's amazing what you can make with some red wine, a few tomatoes, okra, catfish, oysters, and mussels. And a bay leaf, salt, and creole seasoning. That's one hell of a stew!

Who's comin' for dinner? There's plenty more red wine!

An Unwelcome Awakening

2011-08-02T18:15:00.000-07:00

Wow! Has it been a long time.... we've had an extremely busy Summer 2011. So busy in fact that I am months behind in posts. I will try to remedy that soon. Here are some of the high (and low) moments from May through July:

May: The McArthur-Wilson clan comes for a visit! We had so much fun with our favorite Canadian family. I wish they were back already- Galen and Raynham at Disneyland is my favorite amusement park visit EVER. The very next week we headed to Georgia to visit our family there. Jay's cousin Robert was married, and it was a fun wedding. The rest of the visit was not so fun - my Aunt Faye and Jay's mom have both been very ill. Jay's mom has gotten much worse rapidly, and my aunt had been told her cancer was terminal. We found both of them to be declining much more quickly than we had anticipated.

June: Our friend Helen received her PhD, and she and her husband Alias, along with their lovely sons, came into town for her hooding ceremony. It was a lot of fun to get to see them, though Jay was in Chicago for business. I visited the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA with my friend Gil, and then was called back to Alabama. My Aunt Faye passed away 6 hours after I reached her.

July: Sid and Joyce came out for a visit! They drove cross-country, and we spent the weekend touring the central coast. We visited Hearst Castle, saw elephant seals, and spent an entire day at Solvang. Jay spent the next weekend in TyTy with his brother, visiting his mom. She is decidedly worse, which has been a hard thing for all of us to accept. The next weekend we headed to Great Falls, MT for our niece Ashly's wedding. Jay was the official photographer, and we so enjoyed visiting our family there.

So you can see our lives have been a bit of a roller coaster these past few months. Up then down, back up again. Just maintaining our work schedules and keeping the household in some sort of order has been about all we can handle lately. It's been a busy and difficult season, but visits from our friends and family has really helped us keep our spirits up. Thank you to all who have made the trip out and shared time with us - it means so much, and has been so needed. I'll try to get some pictures up soon!

But onto the title of this post. Early this morning (sometime around 5 am) the fire alarm in our apartment building went off. These fire alarms are LOUD, obviously for a reason. Jay and I practically catapulted out of bed, and began scrambling madly for shoes, and of course Meow. She was panicked, and that panic increased when I pulled out her hated carrier. That carrier means vet visits and kennel stays, and she associates it with trouble. She sprinted behind the couch, I tried to corral her, and she dashed beneath our bed. She wedged herself between a suitcase and a box of stored clothing, refusing to come out. Jay declared that she would be fine, and that we had to leave. If needed, we would send a fireman after her. He had scouted the building quickly while I chased the cat, and could find no smoke nor flames. We headed outside to the lawn with all our neighbors, and waited for the fire department to arrive. And waited. Jay finally called emergency services himself. At one point, he looked down at me and realized I was wearing my rain boots. "Why do you have your rain boots on?" he queried... just as the sprinklers turned on. Somehow in the back of my mind, I remembered that the lawns get watered around 5:30 or so, and grabbed my boots to keep myself dry. Jay however got soaked. Combined with a very rude and early awakening, he was in a foul mood. The fire department finally arrived around 5:40, turned off the alarm, and let us back inside. The alarm was apparently a fluke, and I'm happy to report that Meow does not appear to be deaf after her long exposure to the loud siren. At least she can still hear her food bowl being filled from two rooms away.

El Matador Beach

2011-04-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

(Click on the photo- the picture will look better in a new window!)

One of the great things about living in California is the beaches. And yes, while it is some people's idea of a good time to lay on the beach and turn into a lobster, whilst getting sand in your nether-regions, and all of the other things that people associate with a big, barren expanse of terrain next to un-potable water (both due to salt content and occasionally pollution), the bottom line is that a lot of the year it's just too damn cold to do that. Who wants to swim in 65 degree water, when it's 63 degrees outside? Really? Yes, I know kids will. But kids are weird. We all know that. I used to be one. I know.

With that said, the beaches here are absolutely some of the most beautiful in the world, and El Matador, in Malibu, is no exception, though it is actually quite exceptional. I couldn't stop myself. Sorry.

April and I found ourselves in Malibu this past Saturday, and after attending a quick hike to Solstice Canyon with April's AWIS chapter, we grabbed lunch at Dukes, and then spent the afternoon at El Matador, just hanging out and enjoying the view.

See the starfish above? He was just hanging out, too. The rock this dude(ette?) is so attached to was about 100ft out in the water, and the size of a cow. That makes this animal close to 8 inches across!

And the Brown Pelicans were up to something. This is just one of the flocks that were migrating north. We saw no less than another 10 groups as large as the one above, and another dozen that were smaller. I guess they are heading north for sex and/or food.

Anemones are pretty easy to find. Just locate a large rock near the water, preferrably one that always has water pooling around it. Now look at the side of the rock, just at the base. See? Anemones! Get it? "See" anemones? Yeah.

California Rock Crab

Playful water

The photo above is of the same rock that the star fish is hanging onto. As you can see the tide level changes pretty quickly here. We were there for an hour or so, and were able to enjoy the tide at its highest point, and watch it recede.

Cormorants, probably, watching the mercury surf

I took this photo as we were walking back towards the stairs that lead to the parking lot on the bluffs over the beach. Sunset makes for a great time to be at the beach!

Where has the time gone?

2011-03-28T14:22:00.001-07:00

October 5th will be both our 9th wedding anniversary, and also the 4th anniversary of the day we moved into our apartment in Mar Vista. We have lived in this apartment longer than any other place we have lived since we moved in together. It's really strange. We honestly never expected to come to California, until a few months before April came out here to meet with PJ. Now it's been home longer than anywhere else...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-18T14:51:00.001-07:00

My St. Patrick's Day started off without much luck, I have to say. My bus was 45 minutes late, and I had a lot I had to finish up. But when I arrived, I found that a leprechaun had visited me, leaving behind his little hat and some "gold" chocolate. That perked me right up!

After a great seminar on job hunting with a PhD (it's getting time for me to move on from my post-doctoral training) and a good Pilates workout, I was ready to head home.

Jay had more Irish goodness waiting for me in the form of Smithwick's Ale and homemade corned beef with cabbage. As an appetizer he'd picked up some Dubliner cheese, and boy did Meow and I enjoy that! Meow is a very particular eater of cheese (she likes feta, strong cheddars, and gouda, but dislikes swiss, goat, american, and brie). Afterwards we walked down the street to McDonald's. Neither Jay nor myself had ever tried a Shamrock shake, so we shared a large one. I'd say my luck mostly comes from marrying Jay!

The Ice House

2011-03-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Jay and I have been extremely restful (lazy) the past two weekends. With teaching, travel, and Jay being very sick, keeping on top of just regular life has been exhausting. We're behind on pretty much everything! But we had made plans for this Sunday, and so we actually ventured out of the house.

Jay and I have been taking Pilates reformer classes for the past few months. We both enjoy them a lot, and it keeps us from being completely out of shape. One of the other regulars at our studio, Shannon White, was doing a stand-up comedy routine at the Ice House in Pasadena. We headed out on Sunday to Pasadena to visit the famous Ice House, and watch an evening of 12 comedians doing 10 minute routines. The Ice House is located in downtown Pasadena, which is a charming area north of Los Angeles. We have only visited a few times, and usually not for very long. On one memorable visit, we were there to decorate a float for the Rose Bowl parade (Jenny, I'm looking at you!). On this trip, we just relaxed and had a nice evening of laughter. If you ever get an opportunity to visit the Ice House, we highly recommend it!

Meow gets a bath

2011-02-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

Most of you have perhaps met our feline companion, Meow. We've had Meow in my family since she was a wee tiny kitten being fed with an eye dropper. I told my sister over and again, "Do not get attached to this kitten. She is not remotely likely to survive, she was taken from her mother far too young." Well, that loud tiny kitten did survive, and she came to live with Jay and I when she was around 8 weeks old (I should mention this was without Jay's consent or knowledge, but that's a tale for another day). Meow has been with us now for 12 years, through 3 cross-country moves, graduate school, and marriage. She's lived in Georgia, Massachussetts, and California. She's visited San Antonio, TX, the painted desert, and the Grand Canyon. Over the years, our little girl has become quite the dumpling. Hey, she's a spoiled house cat, it's part of life! But one downfall to this is that she cannot quite reach the more delicate parts that a cat needs to keep clean, if you catch my meaning. So about every other week or so, she gets a bath. To be fair, she is extremely good-natured about the whole thing, right up until she has to be dried off. Then, she hisses and the claws come out. I finally decided to let her "drip dry" so to speak. I wash her, then wrap her in towels and hold her in my lap till most of the water has been absorbed off of her. During this time, she licks her paws and complains about her recent experience. It's really quite funny, and while we didn't capture it on video, Jay did take some pics. I'm laughing in all of them, because each time Jay tries to get Meow to look at the camera while she's licking her paws, she proceeds to complain bitterly. Poor kitty. But she smells so nice!

MDA Muscle Walk

2011-02-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

This weekend was a very nice mix of busy and relaxing. We went for a run on Friday night to cap off our week. Lately we've been jogging at the UCLA track in the evenings. It's well-lit and very convenient to the lab. Saturday morning we were up bright and early to attend the Muscular Dystrophy Association Make a Muscle Walk at Studio City. Jay's office had formed a team, and we walked two laps through the CBS Radford studios. We got to see people building sets, and some of the city scenes used in various TV shows. We had lunch with our friends Dan and Gretchen at Mexicali Cafe and did a little window shopping. That afternoon we relaxed at home, as Jay continued planning his camping trip with Rob that is coming up this weekend! We ended up visiting Santa Monica where we had dinner at Real Food Daily. It's a vegan restaurant my friend Jenny introduced me to - so very yummy! Sunday we had our Pilates class, and followed that up with errands and sushi for lunch. It was a nice, busy weekend. Hopefully our team photos from the walk will arrive soon, and will be posted below!

The owl you saw...

2011-01-25T11:06:00.000-08:00

is a great horned owl! He was lovely, you can guess his species based on the lovely stripes of his feathers and the tufts at his ears.

We had a nice, low-key weekend. We had dinner with some friends in Hermosa Beach (they have a lovely beach and pier area), then spent some time getting our apartment tidy. Jay's cousin Robert and his fiancee Tia are coming for a visit, and we want the place to looks it's best!

Hope you are all well, and having many grand adventures.

Devil Canyon Hike

2011-01-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

On Saturday Jay and I headed up north to Chatsworth, CA where we planned to hike Devil Canyon. The trail is well-known for its sandstone canyons and a year-round stream. I was hoping to see some interesting wildlife, and Jay wanted to get some good pictures. I think we were both satisfied! The trailhead would've been impossible to find if not for the friendly assistance of a fellow walker we ran into. The trailhead is now buried behind a new subdivision full of luxurious McMansions. Once we located the trailhead, we found that the trail itself was not maintained. We had to do quite a bit of "bushwhacking" and hiking in the stream itself. The trail was verdant, with plants growing even on the canyon walls.

Here is a shot of the canyon walls, and the blue sky above.
And here is a shot of the sun onto the stream below, where we entered the canyon.

But I mentioned wildlife, and we found some creatures! Along the trail, we heard frog croaks echoing off the walls. Some patience sitting next to the rocks beside the stream brought out the frogs, a local species called Pseudacris sierra. There were tons of the little guys around!
We also saw a parasite called a horsehair worm, and lots of snails attached to the stream walls which I think may be an invasive species. The best of all, though, we spotted on the hike out. An owl, snoozing in a tree waiting for the sun to set so he could begin his hunt. Would anyone like to guess the species? I'll post the answer later this week!

Meow's Cat House

2011-01-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

When Meow stayed at the California Cat Center, we noticed that her favorite spot was the privacy tent that was provided for each kitty. It's a spot they can go curl up and hide, and inside is a sheepskin/fur pad to keep them warm and comfortable. Meow loved hers so much, that we bought her one to take home. She stays in it quite a bit, napping and hiding. Beware of putting your hand too near... she will defend her little home! I've been moving it around the apartment for her, and right now it's at the foot of our bed. I just thought I'd post a picture for you all of my cute girl napping in her new tent!

Welcome to the New Year!

2011-01-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011! We had an extremely busy 2010, and it looks like this year will be the same. We spent the holidays in San Antonio with Jay's family, and had a wonderful time. Our new nephew is beautiful, and just as advanced as Darren had told us. He quickly figured out "scooting" when we arrived, and tried several times to wrangle Uncle Jay's camera. Another budding photographer in the family.

I continued my annual tradition of getting sick during the holidays. I was sick at Thanksgiving, right before Christmas, during Christmas, and then sick for New Year. Jay and I rang in 2011 with me asleep on the couch, taking decongestants. He woke me up 20 minutes before midnight, got a New Year's kiss, and then we were both asleep by 12:30. Party animals, I know. I stayed sick at work, and finally caved on Tuesday and stayed home to nurse a sinus infection and 100 F fever.

While I am back at work and feeling much, much better, the congestion has remained, leading to this fun conversation at the lab with my bay mate Chris. Chris is hilarious, and has had to put up with quite a bit of my silliness. But this exchange was a classic. I had gotten a baked potato for lunch from the Greenhouse at Ackerman. Chris was apparently unaware they had a baked potato bar there, and when he came into the lunchroom, he said, "Hey, where did you buy a baked potato on campus?" I stared at him a moment, and then asked in a very puzzled voice, "What the hell did you just say to me about pink bananas?" Yes, I was still experiencing that lovely sensation of having a bucket over my head. My ears were ringing the entire day, and Chris did not miss an opportunity to bring up pink bananas.

Decking the halls

2010-12-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

This holiday season is looking to be one of the busiest yet - and yes, I know I say that every year! I have my Christmas spreadsheet updated, but until I get this fellowship off my desk at work and submitted, I will feel like I am treading water, barely keeping my head above the surface. To help get me into the Christmas spirit, Jay and I decorated our apartment this weekend. For the last few years we have not had a Christmas tree. Jay has always wanted a live tree, and I've always been much too practical to consider it. I decided to give in this year and see how it goes. Meow has calmed down considerably since her kittenhood, and so is unlikely to knock the tree over and break every ornament (this is what she did her first Christmas). So on Sunday we trekked out to the Home Depot tree lot and picked out a 7 foot Noble fir. We tied it to the top of Subaru in the falling rain and drove home, where Jay trimmed off the extraneous branches and we got it into the apartment. We drank eggnog and played Christmas carols while we hung our ornaments and lights, and put out my growing nutcracker collection. We collect ornaments during our travels so that we can reminisce about our trips and happy memories while we trim the tree. Here's Jay in the midst of draping the lights, complete with eggnog in hand!

And here is our nutcracker collection.

Our stockings are hung, our advent tree is filled with chocolates, we have lights in our windows, and snowglobes and holiday tins line our book shelves. Now all I have to do is finish the Christmas cards, buy all the gifts and wrap them, and get them in the mail! At least I have this lovely tree to keep me motivated and in the spirit.

Crazy Chinatown Bus Stop Lady

2010-11-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

I have an update on my crazy bus commutes. Perhaps you thought I'd run out of stories? No worries, L.A. has an unending number of odd personalities to document. This one is one of my favorites, as she never disappoints.

Some of you may remember that in February Jay and I attended the Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown near downtown L.A. I didn't write about it then, but that was when Crazy Chinatown Bus Stop Lady got her name. Jay and I had parked at his office in downtown and planned to take the bus to Chinatown for the parade to avoid crowds. As we were waiting for the bus, a woman with long, stringy, dyed-black hair and white roots, nicotine-stained teeth, and bright fuschia lipstick smeared over face and teeth approached Jay. I can't remember how she started the conversation, but Jay politely responded to something she said. I could've told him that was his first mistake. She kept talking to him, louder and louder, in a screechy terrible voice, despite the fact he was now clinging to me and trying to ignore her. I finally rescued my poor polite husband by suggesting we give up on the damn bus and just walk to Chinatown. It couldn't have been more than 5 miles at the most. Relieved, he agreed and off we went.

Ah, but the story doesn't end there, otherwise why would I be writing this post? A few weeks later, I was riding my usual bus into the lab. I sit down behind a woman with long, stringy, dyed-black hair. She was muttering to herself, and I thought I recognized her.... surely not, why would someone from downtown be on MY bus? Then she made a phone call, and sure enough, that screechy loud voice rang out. Oh my word, it WAS crazy chinatown bus stop lady! I sat quietly, not moving, hoping she would not recognize me. She didn't - I think she had been more fixated on my handsome hubby than me. As we approached her stop, rather than pulling the stop cord she begins screaming out, "This is my stop! Back door! Back door! Let me off the bus!" She continues screaming this until she is off the bus, despite the fact that no one is blocking her way and the bus driver is patiently waiting.

As it happens, I have encountered her several time since then. She is always very loud, with a voice like nails on chalkboard, and she is always overreacting to some imagined situation on the bus. I always know she will put on a show. For instance, this morning. I get on the bus, and lo and behold the only available seat is next to crazy chinatown bus stop lady. So I stand. As we approach the stop at Westside Pavilion, the local mall, she begins. She starts by screeching, "The bell's not working, it's not working!" as she slaps the bell cord vigorously. But anyone who rides the bus regularly knows that the bus ALWAYS stops at the mall. It's one of the timed stops on the route. So the bus stops, as it always does, and she begins shoving people aside, screeching, "Let me off the bus, LET ME OFF THE BUS, I need to get off the bus, BACK DOOR, BACK DOOR, stop the bus!!!" Total fruitcake. She always gets off the bus with no issues, but can't seem to stop herself from panicking at the thought of possibly having to get off one stop away from her intended destination. Ah, crazy chinatown bus stop lady. You are insane.

Yep, another weekend in wine country

2010-11-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

In the interest of improving my blogging rate, some posts will remain picture-less. I mean, it honestly has nothing to do with being a photographer's wife who never seems to get to even look at pictures he's taken much less ACTUALLY get something to put up on the blog.... yes, the whole cobbler's-wife-never-has-shoes syndrome. Moving along.

We had planned this weekend back in September, and I had been looking forward to it ever since. We drove up to Solvang on Friday night, and spent Saturday and Sunday with our friends Alias and Helen and their adorable little boys Elijah and Jason. On the drive up Friday we stopped and had dinner in Santa Barbara with our friend Linda. Linda is one of our favorite people, and dinner with her is always a lot of fun. She picks delicious restaurants, and the conversation is never dull. This evening we dined at a place called Elements. If you are ever passing through Santa Barbara and are looking for a quiet place for dinner with great wine, drinks, and food, this is one to try. The atmosphere was relaxed, the wait staff attentive and friendly, and the food was delicious. It was a harbinger of what was to come for the rest of our little trip.

We arrived very late Friday night at the Kronborg Inn in Solvang, where we have stayed before. As chance would have it, we were booked into a room right next to Alias and Helen and the boys! It even had one of the connecting doors, which meant when the boys were put down for the night Helen and Alias could hang out in our room and we stayed up late chatting. But I am getting ahead of myself. I heard little voices bright and early Saturday morning, and Jay and I got up and headed into town where we had breakfast at the Greenhouse Cafe. The latte and coffee were fantastic, as was the meal. We then headed off to meet with our friends at the Los Olivos Grocery where we buy fresh bread, cheeses, meats, and fruit for a picnic at whatever winery we end up at. Jay and I selected an loaf of olive bread, fresh figs, a smoked cheese, and prosciutto. Then began the wine tasting.

Our first stop was Curtis Winery, and they had their late harvest Viognier, which is the closest one can get to an ice wine outside of Canada or Germany. We bought one bottle to put aside for Christmas, and also picked up a chilled Rose for our lunch. We are members at Curtis and so also picked up our November shipment. We then ended up at Fess Parker, where we had our lunch. Fess Parker has an enormous rolling lawn perfect for children to run and play, and the boys did just that. They were even joined by a neighbor's Jack Russell terrier who helped them chase after their soccer ball! Helen and I continued playing outside with the kiddos while Alias and Jason tasted inside. On this stop, Jay picked up a Syrah for our Christmas dinner in San Antonio, which he claims is one of the best he's ever tasted. I am looking forward to trying it!

After the boys' naps that afternoon we had a 6:00 reservation for dinner at Los Olivos Wine Merchant Cafe. That dinner was soooo good! I honestly cannot remember what Jay had, but Helen had the risotto and I had the pumpkin gnocchi, which came in a parsnip cream sauce sprinkled with pomegranate arils and parmesan cheese. Excellent. We split a bottle of zinfandel, and for dessert I had the best creme brulee I've ever eaten, Helen and the boys split the Chocolate Scream, and Alias had the Apple Honey Tart. What a wonderful dinner it was, and the boys were very well-behaved. We were stuffed and exhausted, and after an evening of conversation we all headed to our beds.

The next morning Jay and I had breakfast at the Solvang Restaurant, where we finally tried Aebleskiver, a Danish delicacy. We wandered into the Antique Center as we always do, then met with Helen and Alias and the boys to walk town a bit more. Jay and Alias tasted at the Mandolina tasting room in town before we left, and this time Jay brought home a Pinot Grigio. I drove us home while Jay finished reading the latest Robert Jordan book in the Wheel of Time series. We got back in time to tidy up and buy groceries, then get ready for another busy week of work.

We now have 40 bottles of wine at home and are in desperate need of friends to help us drink them... anyone up for a visit?

Halloween in West Hollywood

2010-11-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

Greetings! This has been the worst year of posting to Southern in Socal that we've ever had - probably because this has been one of the busiest. I'll try to improve that!

Jay recently went out of town to spend some time with his dad and brother. The three met in Florida to watch the shuttle launch, originally scheduled for this Monday. Due to repairs the shuttle was not launched and so they missed it, but Jay did get to hang out with family, which was the more important part of their trip.

I stayed home to mind Meow and generally keep the household running. Per my usual habit, I stayed very busy! On Saturday I attended a cook out at my friends' house in Echo Park, and on Sunday I decided to go to West Hollywood with Gil and Alex. The West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval is the second largest event held in Los Angeles, even bigger than the Oscars. I've heard a lot about it, mainly about the crowds and outrageous costumes. It seemed very much like something one should see in their life, so off I went!

I dressed as a flapper (a bit of my costume is seen in the picture below) but I forgot my camera. Early in the evening I handed out candy to our annual Trick-or-Treaters, and got dressed. We all had dinner at Sunnin in Westwood before we headed off to Sunset Boulevard. The drive was very slow due to the street closures and large number of people trying to get to where we were going. But eventually we made it, and spent 3 hours just walking the streets and taking it all in - and it was amazing! The amount of time, effort, and thought that must have gone into many of the costumes was amazing. I speculate that at least some of the attendees work in the entertainment industry and perhaps had access to some Hollywood prop houses and costumes. Certainly at least some make-up artists were in the mix, because they were flawless! Some of the more amazing costumes came from Tron, there were some incredible mad hatters, and perhaps my favorite were the people made up as though they were Mexican day of the dead dolls.

This picture was from Gil and Alex's camera, if I get some additional ones I will post them here. Gil dressed as a ghost, and Alex as a homocidal ram. He got a lot of attention! Everything I am wearing I already owned, except my headpiece, which I bought at a Halloween store for $12.00. Not too bad for a frugal Halloween costume!

Happy 8th Anniversary!

2010-10-05T08:55:00.001-07:00

Happy 8th Anniversary! You still make me laugh more than anyone I've ever known. I love you!

Camping at Lake Cachuma

2010-09-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Jay has really been wanting to get out of Los Angeles lately, but we've been busy, busy, busy. Since this month is my birthday, we decided to celebrate by finally taking a weekend out of town. We headed to Lake Cachuma just north of Santa Barbara for a couple of nights camping out, and remembering that there are stars in the sky. We drove up on Friday evening, and set up camp. We got up Saturday morning bright and early, and hiked around the lake. Jay took lots of pictures, and that afternoon we took a boat tour of the lake with a state naturalist. She identified many of the local bird species for us, and though we hoped to spot a mountain lion we only saw rabbits and deer. That night was more marshmallow roasting and relaxing by the fire. Sunday we broke camp and headed into Solvang where we visited our favorite Danish bakery for breakfast and went to two of our favorite wineries before heading back to Los Angeles. Below are a few of the pictures I took while we were hiking along the lake Saturday morning.

Here is Jay pictures.

IKON Company Picnic

2010-08-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

This has been a terrible posting year. I realized today when I got an email telling us how many times we get clicked that no one has been reading... well, that may be because I've not been writing! I've been working a lot, and I kept feeling that I should post pictures of our Europe trip before I did anything else. Well, lots of things have happened since Europe, and while I am planning on getting those pictures posted (check back this weekend), I thought I'd let you see what has been happening in the meantime.

This weekend we worked a LOT. Not just at the lab for me, but also on sorting through our pictures from Europe, selecting, printing, and framing a few for the living room. I've also been trying to get my journals up to date, and work on AWIS events. Also on Sunday the IKON company picnic was held at El Dorado Park West in Long Beach. The day started with a softball game, LA people vs. Irvine people. LA lost, but Jay managed to get some softball time in. He even slid into 2nd base and was FILTHY. He loved it! The picture below is Jay on 1st, right before the big slide.

We then headed over to the picnic area where everyone was lining up for yummy picnic food. I miss grilling out, so I was very excited to get my hands on both a burger and a hotdog. There was also potato salad, watermelon, chips, drinks, brownies and cookies. Yum!

It was great, because the sun actually showed itself. This has been an especially cold and gloomy summer here in SoCal, with the temps remaining in the 60s and the marine layer hanging on throughout the day. Meow and I really miss the sunshine! Poor kitty was so cold this weekend that she cried until I made her a nest and tucked her into bed. This is where she stayed while we were enjoying the picnic.
Notice the pale pink ears and nose. It's a good way to judge her temperature. When she's freezing they are pale white, and as she warms up she gets pinker. So she's finally getting comfortable when I took this shot.

Meow's two-week spa getaway

2010-07-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

Before I begin telling you guys about our recent European vacation, I wanted to let all you feline fanciers out there know what Meow did while we were away. Jason and I know who you really want to read about on this blog!

I was very anxious about leaving Meow for 17 days. We've never been away for so long before. The longest trip we've taken without Meow lasted 10 days, when we drove cross-country to Montana. We boarded Meow at that time with a vet near our house. When I picked her up, I was handed a towel and the staff wished me good luck. Meow had been moved into the laundry room, where no other cats were around, and there was a big sign on her cage stating "DO NOT TOUCH MEOW." Food was poked through the bars. It was terrible, and I felt terrible for what she must've gone through. Guilt plays a big role in my life, and I prefer to avoid it whenever possible.

The first thing I did was tell Jay I could not in good conscience leave her for that long, and so I would fly home early while he stayed and enjoyed himself. In an effort to deal with his cat-crazy wife, Jay said the fateful words: "I don't care how much it costs, we will find a solution that you can live with and we will enjoy ourselves in Europe. You will relax, and Meow will be fine." I then began researching potential options. The list was:

1) Have a friend check on her. Well, we were going to be away for a while, and Meow wouldn't get as much attention as she likes, and honestly, who likes us that much?
2) Hire a pet-sitting service. Again, she wouldn't get a lot of attention and if an emergency (say major earthquake occurred) no one could get to her easily.
3) Have someone stay in the apartment. Everyone I ask was allergic to cats.
4) Find a good kennel. Well, this didn't work out so well last time, but in LA you can find some snazzy kennels. We toured several, and as soon as we walked into California Cat Center I knew we'd found Meow's home away from home.

Firstly, she wouldn't have to stay in a cage. She could have her own suite, with no other cats around. The suites had plenty of sunshine, personal water fountains, futons, floor-ceiling scratching posts, bay windows for napping, and flat-panel televisions at cat eye level that played 24-hour catnip TV. Catnip TV, by the way, consists of reels of squirrels, birds, mice, etc. for the cats to enjoy watching. There was an hour daily of "people"time where Meow interacted with staff, and an hour of daily birdwatching wherein a cage of live finches was provided for her to watch. There was also a kitty aerobics room full of enrichment activities and she could have her own food and toys present. All this for a mere $100 per day. Did I mention we were going away for 17 days? And now you know the true meaning of crazy-cat lady.

Meow didn't pitch any tantrums when I dropped her off, she just hid beneath the futon. No meowing, no crying or wailing. I left a 2 page description of her various habits, likes, and dislikes, along with what her usual meows meant. Jay dropped by about half an hour later to drop off some additional food and toys (she brought her own towels, fur mice, feathers, wet and dry food, cat nip, and some grass to nibble on). Jay said that she was still very calm, and meowed to the staff when they called her by name.

While we were away I emailed with the staff, and they responded with updates about Meow's stay at the center. They called her a lovebug, and said she had an "adventurous spirit." I was even sent photos. The one below shows her in her "privacy tent" where she could nap or hide as she felt.

The plate next to her head is her dinner that night. They essentially brought it to her in bed. I was beginning to worry that Meow wouldn't want to come home... and I was right. We landed in LA about 7 pm on a Saturday night, and arrived at the center at 9 am the next morning to pick Meow up. As soon as I entered the room, she looked alarmed and tried to hide inside her privacy tent. I pulled her out, and Jay put her in the carrier to go home. She didn't cry until we were walking out, and I imagine it translated into, "NOOOOO, my finchesssssss, my catnip TVVVVVV! Whyyyyy?" She didn't speak to us on the ride home, or for two days afterwards. Yep, she had definitely raised her standards while we were away.

Happy Father's Day! We went to the beach.

2010-06-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, has it been a while since you heard from us or what? Well, if it's any consolation we missed you guys as well. Our lives have been extremely busy this past month, and we've got lots of blogs we need to write to get you caught up. First we went for our first trip to Europe. We spent 17 days exploring Amsterdam, southern Germany, Paris, and Rome. As soon as we returned home, I hopped a plane to Georgia where I attended a four day workshop and visited family. This was officially my first weekend home in over a month. To celebrate, we did nothing! It was so nice.

Before we get to the details, a happy father's day to all those great dads in our lives. While my grandpa passed away 11 years ago, I miss him and appreciate even now all the wonderful things he did for me. Jay still has his dad, and his brother is expecting his second child tomorrow. And to all our friends - believe me, we don't see how you guys do it! But you do it well.

Today we biked to Venice beach (home of surfers, the famous muscle beach, and the boardwalk you see in all the movies). We spent the entire afternoon napping in the sun, watching surfers, or reading. Here's Jay below, enjoying the sunny afternoon and getting in a little relaxation. I hope you guys had a happy and restful father's day, and we promise to be posting pictures from our recent travels soon!

Golden Beet Tatin and Meow's Amazing Vet Visit

2010-04-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

This is really two posts in one, but I am behind in posting and need to catch up! The first part of my post is about a dish called Golden Beet Tatin - it's delicious, and easy, and a fun way to work beets into your dinner. I once believed I didn't like beets, but now I can easily say they are one of my favorite vegetables. The above recipe is from a blog called Closet Cooking that I read regularly. We started by roasting golden beets we bought at the Farmer's Market in Venice, then sliced them and placed them in ramekins. Over that we poured the red wine and honey gastrique:

At this point, I topped them with phyllo dough I had on hand in the fridge, and normally they get popped in the oven for about 15 minutes. But our oven was, unknown to us before we began, broken! So Jay microwaved the beet and gastrique mixes, and fried the phyllo dough topping. Below I am adding the phyllo sheets one by one. (You can also get a preview of my new haircut!)

We also sauteed some fiddleheads to go on the side:
It turned into a lovely dinner that we enjoyed immensely, and altogether (since we had pre-roasted the beets the night before) it only took us about 30 minutes. The beets still have a nice firm texture, and the smooth tartness of the goat cheese against the sweetness of the beets and gastrique is delicious!

But enough of our cooking, onto the real story. Meow's vet visit this week. I was once a dutiful kitty owner, taking Meow into her annual vet exams for shots and other assorted affronteries. But she is an absolute terror, and after moving away from our last excellent vet, Margo Golden, I neglected to take her. I could go on with the horror stories, but I'll just remind you of our previous post called Meow's first illness. We thought she was dying, but she fought off a vet and two techs. When she was brought in a second time they just put her entire carrier in a box, gassed her, then took her out for her exam. The screaming and fighting just tears my nerves apart, and I am a basket case when I take her to the vet.

I took the afternoon off work and met Jay at home. We got Meow into the car after dragging her from beneath the bed, crying piteously, and shoved head first into her carrier. She cried forlornly all the way. When we got to the clinic, the first thing I spy is two cats in the waiting room. Trouble with tails. But... she ignored them. She stayed quietly in her carrier while we waiting, no hissing, no growling... I am terrified. Clearly the cat is plotting something. It's at this point that Jay decides to take off to run an errand and left me alone with my nerves and the hell cat. Thanks, honey. So into the exam room we go.

The vet enters with Meow's chart, and I notice that written on the top in big red letters is: WATCH OUT. Her reputation precedes her, and the first question the vet asks me is, "So, when does she freak out?" Well, usually she already has. He has to give her a distemper vaccine, and decides to try it alone. So he dumps her out of her carrier onto a towel, and instead of exploding in a fluff ball of teeth and claws, my little cat curls up and mews. Mews! The vet petted her, and she didn't even hiss. Then he decides to get bold and weigh her, so he picks her up and puts her on a scale. She doesn't fight him, she doesn't do anything. She just sits on the scale and watches him. We discuss her diet, her habits, any unusual behavior, etc. and he then gathers her scruff and injects her quickly. This elicits a little hiss, but no swipes or howls. He then makes up a little bed for her in her carrier, and she walks back in. That's it. No howls or cries on the way home, no fights, nothing. All that nervousness wasted. Maybe Meow has turned over a new leaf with vets? Or, more likely, she plans to have them let down their guard so she can really do some damage next visit...

Sunday brunch in Topanga

2010-04-14T22:22:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Jay and I were given reservations to Sunday brunch at the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon. They serve a very California brunch, in a very California atmosphere. Brunch consists of a raw bar (for the raw foodists), a vegetarian bar, a pescatarian bar, and the omnivore bar for those who eat everything. The food was all delicious, and there was a lot of it! We also had mimosas.

The restaurant was once a church, and there were beautiful stained glass windows throughout. But most of the dining options are outdoors, on a terraced hillside that leads down to a small stream. We were seated on the terrace just above the stream, and of course there was new age flute music piped throughout the seating areas :). Little tables were tucked everywhere they could find a spot, and the whole thing was actually very charming. Some areas were covered in tents and swag, as you can see in the picture below:
We had a fun time watching the kids play around the stream while very well-dressed parents (most of the moms in 5 inch heels) tried to keep them from falling in.

Topanga Canyon State Park is just a short drive up the street from the restaurant, and it is one of our favorite places to go mountain biking. We drove to the park after brunch and changed from our dress clothes to hiking clothes, and headed out across a meadow. We hiked this time, going on new trails we hadn't yet explored. It was a perfect day for it, and Jay, my shutterbug, took plenty of photos.

He hasn't downloaded those pictures yet, but maybe I can convince him to post some of the newts if they turn out nicely! That's right, newts. We were hiking down into the canyon, where we ended up following a little brook:

When we came to one shaded spot, I noticed a quiet, relatively deep pool near some rocks. I came over and was peering intently, wondering if I could at least spot some tadpoles. It was then a pink creature with four legs and a long tail swam up towards the surface from the leafy bottom. I was flabbergasted - this was far too large to be a tadpole, unless we had been invaded by some giant frog species! I called for Jay. He tried to take pictures, as the bottom of the pool turned out to be home to several of the newts, and although it was difficult to count them (they are extremely well hidden) I think there were at least six, and likely more. They turned out (upon google inspection) to be California newts, and it was their breeding season, thus they were living a few months in the seasonal stream pools where they had been born. We didn't touch them, which I am glad of since they excrete tetrodotoxin. You have to ingest it to die, but it is extremely potent and there was no place to wash our hands well. I know me. I would've wiped my mouth on the hike back and died somewhere on the trail.

It was a fun and relaxing Sunday, and we were very happy to have spotted such an elusive little creature as the newt. I hope all of you have had some nice relaxing weekends as well!

Just to clear the air...

2010-04-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since we have posted. And the usual excuse still applies: "we're really busy!" Blah blah blah.

Anyhow, I wanted to make this post real quick:

Occasionally we will put political stuff up here, and I know that there are people that read our blog who are on both sides of the Health Insurance Reform debate.

Frankly, I haven't seen so much dishonest, scare-tactic B.S. in a long, long time, than I have seen from the extreme Right Wing, than is being spread in regards to this reform.

http://my.barackobama.com/WhatItMeans

Go here to get a more clear picture of what's really in this. And yes, this will be the "optimistic" view, but it's really pretty accurate. I have read about 900 pages of the legislation, and skimmed through all of it.

Yes, there are problems. It doesn't do enough to limit insurance companies costs, and federal subsidies will probably be higher than estimates. Yes, the plan will probably cost more than is being estimated.

But there are also parts of this legislation that haven't been reflected in terms of likely cost reduction:

Reduced administrative costs for healthcare providers by reducing uninsured non-paying patients. If more patients have insurance, they will have a significant reduction in bad debt from patients that can't pay. Simple stuff. Just like any business, the cost you charge for your goods and services has to have enough profit built into it to cover the losses. That means that your Doctor bill, or Hospital bill, has a certain amount that is built into it to cover the expense of non-paying patients. Therefore, your insurance company covers that cost. Guess what? You and your employer, for the majority of us who have employer-based insurance, then end up footing the bill. So for those of you that are complaining that you shouldn't have to pay for someone else? Guess what? YOU ALREADY DO! It's just like any other business. The cost you pay at Wal-Mart covers the loss that they have in stolen merchandise. It's really exactly the same thing. So by reducing this lost revenue and the expense of debt collection, cost will be reduced.
Preventative Health Care services- The same people that go to the emergency room when they are sick and then can't pay, have basically no access to preventative health care. By having access to this, the average person will be healthier, and make better healthier, decisions. Oh, and by the way, they won't be clogging up the emergency room when they have access to a regular physician! This will drive down cost.
More patient and Doctor control over your health care decisions- The bottom line is that this legislation has, to a limited degree, taken power away from the insurance companies, and put it back in the hands of physicians and patients. Less limits on coverage. No ability to refuse coverage due to pre-existing conditions. No lifetime caps on payouts. The false information that is making any claims that the government is getting in between you and your Doctor is patently false. The opposite is true.
Strengthening Medicare/Medicaid- Contrary to what is being said, these programs are not being robbed. And I want to point out that Republicans have been screaming for decades that Medicare needs to be more efficient. That's happening as part of this legislation. But Republicans are trying to claim that Medicare is being raided, when what is really happening is what they have called for for a long time: Making Medicare more cost-efficient!
Better for small business- The vast majority of small business won't be penalized. If your employer doesn't have at least 30 employees, they are basically exempt from the penalties. It's really only employers with more than that who get hit with a big penalty for not offering health insurance. And if you work for a small business that doesn't offer you health insurance, the federal subsidy will bridge the gap. And that will make it much easier for small businesses that aren't large enough to offer insurance, to be more competitive! Say thank you! BTW it really pisses me off when people complain about this one- if our ENTIRE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS BUILT ON THE CONCEPT OF EMPLOYER-BASED INSURANCE- then shouldn't there be some provision THAT REQUIRES EMPLOYERS TO OFFER INSURANCE??? Seriously, it's really that damn simple!
It's not going to bankrupt the country. The bottom line is that there are at least 30 countries that do a more efficient, effective job of providing healthcare than the US does. And don't thing that just because it's the US that we're the best. Sometimes we're really not. And we really suck at making sure that everyone has access to healthcare. And we shouldn't.
It's not going to bankrupt you- Do you make more than $200k per year? Really? That's awesome! Thanks for helping provide healthcare for the single mother that works for the pest control company in your town, that's too small to afford to offer insurance! She really appreciates it! And she also works for a living. Oh, you don't make more than that? You make less than $150k combined? And YOU work for a small company that can't afford to offer Health Insurance? Well, You're welcome! You're healthcare costs just went way down!

Summary: While it's not perfect, (and oh btw why doesn't the republican party help address the costs by working with the Dems on improving the controls?) it's a very solid start.

Comment away! But be reasonable.

St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

Despite the expression on my face in the picture above, I am very pleased it is St. Patrick's Day. Happy felicitations to all our friends! I remembered to wear green today, and Jay and I are celebrating tonight at home with some Irish ale and potato bread for dinner. A quiet evening, but very relaxing which is just what we need.

Hope you all are drinking a toast to Irish eyes today!

Golden Dragon Parade in Chinatown

2010-02-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

This weekend Jason and I finally paid a visit to old Chinatown here in Los Angeles. This month is the celebration of Chinese New Year, the year of the Tiger. The Golden Dragon Parade was on Saturday, and we headed down. We got to enjoy lots of floats and dragons. Below are the gates that mark the entrance to Chinatown from downtown LA.

Here is a video of the fan dancers:

There were several types of dragons I saw. There were short dragons that consisted of two people, longer dragons that were many people covered by the dragon's head and body, and long dragons carried on poles. The video below shows the short dragons as well as the long dragon on poles:

We were exhausted but had a great time. But my day didn't end there. Jay headed home, while I met one of my workmates to see a performance of the Los Angeles Ballet. They performed three separate pieces by Balanchine, called Serenade, Kammermusik #2, and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #2. The performance was at the Freud Playhouse at UCLA. We had a wonderful time, and thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

I hope you all had a fun weekend as well! Hopefully this week we will also find the time to post pictures from last weekend when we attended the Scottish Festival and Highland Games at the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

A rainy weekend in Solvang

2010-02-07T18:18:00.001-08:00

This weekend was more rain here in Los Angeles. The winters here are incredibly mild, with temperatures rarely dipping below the 60s. It is however the only time it ever rains. So we decided to get away for a little trip to Santa Ynez Valley, where we visited one of our favorite spots, Solvang, CA. We arrived late Friday night and stayed at the Kronborg Inn and slept in till 9:30 the next morning (I remember when 9:30 was early...). We headed into town and had a light breakfast at one of the Danish bakeries, then visited a few of the stores. One of them was the Book Loft, a used bookstore that also houses the Hans Christian Anderson Museum. Here's Jay browsing for books, and a shot of the entrance to the museum:

We also popped into the Solvang Antique Center, which is full of some of the most beautiful (and expensive) pieces I've ever seen. We try to visit every time we go, just to drool over the unusual and rare furniture, jewelry, paintings, and other items. Afterwards we popped into the Mandolina tasting room to sample some of their lovely wines.

Solvang is full of little shops, most of which we've never even been in. It's also surrounded by wineries and beautiful scenery, also most of which we haven't visited yet! We often visit Gainey Vineyard and Curtis Winery, and we always stop at Bridlewood Winery. Normally we picnic on the beautiful grounds at Bridlewood, but because of the rain this time we headed to Buellton to have lunch at a place called Pea Soup Anderson's. Jay loved the split pea soup and sausages we had for lunch....

After our delicious lunch we headed to Bridlewood where we sampled wines and picked up several months worth of wine club shipments. Yay for wine club! Bridlewood is lovely, and here are a few shots of the tasting room and the grounds:

We then left Solvang and headed back to Los Angeles, but stopped along the way to take pictures and have dinner with our friend Linda in Ventura. Jay was taking a few pictures when we dropped the D300... oh sad day when the lens is broken! There was much lamenting over the accident. Lucky thing the Nikon repair center is close by!

The view of Santa Ynez Valley from Vista Point:

And the intrepid photographer just before the tragic accident:

Europe is in our future...

2010-01-28T10:04:00.001-08:00

Okay, so that probably reads like we are moving.

Again.

To Europe.

Well, we are not (at least not yet... Who knows what the future holds, right?). We are, however, in the planning stages of a trip we will be taking this year. Many of you who read this blog have been across the pond to visit, to live, or for your own birth, so we thought it would be a good idea to reach out to all of our wonderful friends for suggestions on places to go and things to do. As of right now we are planning to be in the following places for at least a few days:

London
Dublin area
Glasgow area
Amsterdam
Southern Germany, Ramstein specifically (couple hours southwest of Frankfurt)
Northern France
Somewhere in Italy

So if you have a favorite spot in or near one of these places, now's the time to let us know!

Thanks everyone!

I'm dreamin' of a warm cabin...

2009-12-31T19:39:00.000-08:00

So Yosemite at Christmas is amazing. And Cold. Cold like Canada...

We arrived Christmas Eve, and spent the night at the Wawona Hotel. We took a quick walk at dusk across the way from the hotel, in a meadow covered in snow, with a great big moon overhead. It was cold.

But inside it was fantastic- warm and cozy with a big fire roaring and crackling in the fireplace, Christmas carols being sung by the piano, and warm booze being consumed. Yum. After a great dinner, we hit the sack so as to get an early start Christmas morning, snowshoeing at Badger Pass.

After the drive to Badger Pass, we got on the snow around 9am, and took a walk with one of the Rangers, and learned a little bit about the area of the park where Badger Pass is located. We covered around 3-4 miles, mostly on trails, but took a detour towards Summit Meadow. We didn't make it. It was cold.

We left Badger Pass around 2pm, and headed to Yosemite Valley for dinner. And oh my freakin' crap what a dinner it was! It's called Bracebridge Dinner. Take the time to check out the website. This was one of the coolest things that we have ever done. Indescribable. 4 hours long. Never boring. 8 courses. 2 bottles of wine. Not a single partridge in a pear tree. And not cold.

So on the 26th (happy birthday to me!) we did some more snowshoeing, this time at Crane Flat, northwest of Yosemite Valley. We spent a few hours there, and were able to go to Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias.

Here we are at the Tunnel Tree. It was cold.

We spent that night in Curry Village, located in Yosemite Valley. We stayed in one of the heated canvas tents, which is really better described as a one-room wood cabin with canvas draped over the wood... It was actually pretty warm. Until we had to pee. Then it was cold.

So when we got up Sunday morning to head home, it was snowing like a sonofabitch. Apparently sonsofbitches snow like hell.

We took this photo of the Merced River as we were driving out. For reference, the snowflakes are as big as a baseball. Don't believe me? Just click on the photo. Told ya!

We left this guy behind.

Happy New Year everyone!

Hectic holidays

2009-12-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

Things have been hopping around the Shiflett-Hall abode. Jay has been working doubly-hard to land some lucrative deals (we have some big travel plans for next year) and I've been writing a review that is due to the publisher in early January. And, of course, it's the holidays! I try to manage our holidays with a spreadsheet. I've been keeping a Christmas spreadsheet since 2004, and I find it's the best way to keep up with addresses and gift lists. I know exactly what everyone got last year, so that great gift idea doesn't get sent out two years in a row. This year Jay helped me do a mail-merge with Excel and Word, and I printed out all our Christmas card envelopes. We've managed to purchase, wrap, and ship all our gifts out, send out our Christmas cards (with pictures), and last weekend we hosted a holiday get-together at our place! It was a lot of fun, and this weekend marks our relaxing weekend. My friend Jenny and I are hitting up the spa, and that evening Jay and I are attending the ballet. I will of course have pictures! Today's picture is a poor exhausted cat, who has been expending a tremendous amount of effort to help us wrap gifts and address cards. She has been endlessly patient (except for the whining) while I ignore her to take care of all the extra things that I've needed to get done. She, for one, is especially glad to have her humans back to doing what they should do - pet and love her! Just look how lonely she is, napping in the sunshine in her recliner, no one there to give her any attention...

Pickling!

2009-12-06T16:34:00.000-08:00

Ever since we started shopping at the Farmer's Markets, we've lamented how many lovely fruits and vegetables we DON'T get to eat. There is only so much fresh food we can consume in one week. During one trip I bought an enormous amount of basil for a $1.00. We have dried several bunches of herbs that we didn't get through during the week, but our dried herb collection was stuffed full. So I decided to make some pesto and freeze it. It worked out really well, and I mentioned to Jay that we should start buying lots of fresh stuff and canning it. Well, we decided to give it a whirl. This weekend, we made our first ever batch of pickles. Jay made spicy dill pickles, and we are anticipating how wonderful those pickles will be in just a few weeks time.

Here I am, helping Jay poor the pickling vinegar over the packed jars (those are to the right in the picture). They look beautiful; Jay put in onion, dill, peppercorns, and dried peppers. I bet they will taste as yummy as they look. We'll keep you posted!

Canada Got Me Drunk

2009-12-02T19:52:00.000-08:00

Jay and I have been busy bees, and it's only December 2nd. We've gotten most of our Christmas shopping wrapped up, our annual Swiss Colony order has been placed, and we are doing our holiday cards this weekend. We're also hosting a Holiday Happening cocktail party this month with our friends here in Los Angeles.

Since we've been so busy, we decided to order dinner in tonight. We had sushi and watched an episode of the muppet show, as you can see.

This is one of our favorite ways to relax. Good food delivered to our door or picked up on our way home, giving ourselves a rare day off in the kitchen. Jay is an excellent cook, and I am passable. Every week we make our menu and buy our groceries. This is a great way both to eat healthfully, as well as to keep within our food budget. We save a lot of money by eating at home, and we rarely eat out. Cooking together is a great way to connect at the end of our busy days apart. But sometime we just want to crash, and today was one of those days. Los Angeles is home to some excellent sushi restaurants, and we love sushi. So we stopped on the way home. Our Muppet Show DVD was waiting in the mailbox. And as you can see, Jay was hoisting a glass of nice, dark Trader Joe's Special Ale. Which has a 9% alcohol content, and I ended up quite tipsy on less than a glass. Turns out it is made in Canada; those insalubrious Canadians. One of the many reasons I love them so (big I love you out to my family in Canada, Drew, Jo, Galen, and Raynham)!!!

If you ever get a chance to drink in Canada, I highly recommend several wineries in the Niagara Valley, and you should especially try the ice wines. I would love Jo and Drew just for introducing me to ice wine, but I love them for many other reasons besides. And now you all know that I get sappy when I drink.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T03:05:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to remind myself, and all of you, how fortunate we are. I know it's almost become cliche to post/email/text message a generic "we have so much to be thankful" message, and it's usually grandiose, how great our lives are compared to the rest of the universe, how thankful we are for our soldiers, etc.

Now don't for a second get me wrong. I agree very much with most of the "stock" commentary. There isn't a week that goes by where I don't think about our forces overseas in danger, or that I hear about children in poverty in a 3rd world country, and I am thankful for what I have. But to me it misses the point. It's easy to say how thankful you are for those kinds of things. You damn well better be.

What about the little, mundane things? Or the things we appreciate for a time, but then quickly forget? Or the ones that we really, really appreciate, but don't always remember just exactly how much?

My 85 year old grandmother gave me a photo album a few years ago- with photos from my childhood, as well as some of my dad and grandfather when they were young men. I scanned all of them just in case something ever happened to the album, and came across them on the computer the other day.

I had pushed it to the back of my mind, almost forgot about them. But I will likely run across them every year or two for the rest of my life. Generations of my family will have the chance to see them. That means a lot.

April and I were able to run in a 5k race Thanksgiving morning- it raises money for a local charity. I am lucky to be able to help, and not need to be the one in need. I am thankful that I can help others.

So many of you, friends and family alike, mean a tremendous amount to me, and to April. Our wealth of people that care for us is so very deep, and for that I am thankful. But if all of you turned your back on me today, I am thankful that April would still be at my side.

Now don't get me wrong- in private she would use any means necessary (really, anything...) to figure out what I managed to do to turn all of our friends and family away, and make me fix it, but she would absolutely stick by me.

For that I am thankful.

Now all of you need to stop and really, truthfully, take a hard look at the person in your life who fills that role for you. Here's a hint- you would walk through hell with them and share your canteen. Probably give them the last swallow.

Do they really know how much you value them?

Time to make sure...

Major projects

2009-11-24T22:07:00.000-08:00

I just hit send on the email carrying my newly written draft article to my principal investigator. She has given me a great opportunity, but it required a lot of my energy and focus, and I'm not sure it will be enough. The joys of life as a scientist, I guess. At any rate, this is where I've been parked for the last few days; in front of my laptop surrounded by outlines and articles. It's a good life, and one I enjoy. I get paid to make discoveries and learn.

But Meow has been feeling ignored, and the laundry has most certainly been ignored! As have a lot of things. I'm glad to be getting back to normal. And that includes getting some pictures posted!

We visited Jay's mom and attended a wedding in early November. Those pictures are up next. And then this week we have the 2009 Long Beach Turkey Trot (no, I haven't been training) and Thanksgiving, all of which will be getting a post. Whew! I've missed you guys.

2009-11-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

Long time, no post... sorry! Things have been busy, busy, busy around our Los Angeles casa. I'm writing a review article, a major draft of which is due on Wednesday. And Jay just can't be bothered to post. So we'll be back after Thanksgiving, with more pictures and exciting stories about how much we work. Till then, I leave you with this recent exchange:

Scene: Our living room, watching the AMAs. Enter Meow stage left. She starts crying and staring at the couch.

April: Meow, stop it. Just get up here!

Meow: Meow! Meow! Meow! Meow!

April: (Patting sofa) Meow, get on the couch if you want to!

Meow: Meow! Meow! (Hops up on sofa and curls up next to April.)

April: I don't understand why she has to be invited up on the sofa every time she wants to sit with me. She's a cat. Why doesn't she just get up here?

Jason: She's a vampire. She has to be invited. I don't understand why you never see the obvious.

Sequoia National Park

2009-10-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

So the Sunday after Kings Canyon NP, we were in Sequoia NP.

Big. Ass. Trees.

Okay, so there's more to it than that, but it really begins and ends with the Giant Sequoias that dominate the northern end, and higher elevations, of the park.

To the left you see April standing in front of a small stand of the giants. She's the little blue speck at the bottom of the photo...

This was taken at General Grant Grove, which is at the northernmost point in the park.

In the photo below, I am standing on the trunk of a fallen tree. Most of the fallen trees have been down for 50-80 years or longer. The wood has a very high concentration of tannic acid, making it very resistant to the parasites that cause bad breath and gingivitis...er, that's not right, is it? I guess it's the parasites that would normally cause the wood to rot.

So after seeing the the Grant Grove Saturday morning on the way into Kings Canyon, we headed south to the Giant Forest, aptly named, on Sunday. This forest of over 1,600 acres, contains more than 8,000 of the giant trees, and has more than 40 miles of hiking trails. We will definitely be back to enjoy them!

So as soon as we arrived at the Giant forest and began the walk down to see the General Sherman tree, we encountered a mother Black Bear. See below as she high-tails it off the trail. They tend to get the heck out of dodge when the rangers show up...

Here is the General Sherman tree. The damn thing was too big to get in one shot- the photo to the right is a composite of four shots...

Just to emphasize how massive these trees are, here is an outline of the base of the General Sherman:

After checking out the General Sherman, we went to Crystal Cave. It's a 30-minute drive at 10-15mph to get there, and then a 1.5 mile hike to the cave, yet there is still a lot of visitors that make the trek. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot at the trail head, it began to flurry a little bit. It was very strange to see snow again after almost 4 years away from MA, but it wasn't cold enough (yet) to stick, and it made the hike to the cave feel a bit like hiking in the foothills of the Appalachians in the fall, back in Georgia.

From the trail:

Stellar Jay

The tour of the cave was about 45 minutes long, and was worth it- we are hoping to find a geologist or cave scientist that can maybe get us into one of the other 250+ caves in the park that are off-limits to the public...

Marble Hall

So as you can see from the photos, we had a great time and saw some cool stuff for such a short trip. We intend to get back there next spring for sure, and do some serious camping and hiking. It's less than 5 hours away, and is worth it for a weekend trip!

-j

King's Canyon National Park

2009-10-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

For our anniversary, we decided to get out of L. A. for the weekend. We headed about 5 hours north to Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park. Jay had booked a room for us at Montecito-Sequoia Lodge in Sequoia National Forest. The lodge was a fun place. It is used as a summer camp for children part of the year, and still retains a lot of that atmosphere. Meals are included in the room rate and you eat in the dining room buffet-style. We met quite a few interesting people during our stay! The only downside to our trip was that we knew we wouldn't have enough time to do all the things we'd like - another spot to add to our list of places-we-must-return-to! That list is growing as quickly as our list of places-to-visit-someday. I'm going to break our trip into two parts, King's Canyon on Saturday and Sequoia on Sunday.

We left Los Angeles on Friday afternoon and headed north on the I-5 to Bakersfield, where we picked up CA-99. This is where our directions went bad... I knew there was a road the lodge had advised us not to take. That road is CA-245. But somehow, that's the road we ended up on. I know that the curviest road in the U. S. is supposed to be in San Francisco, but I wonder if they considered CA-245 for that designation. It is incredibly curvy, and climbs over 2000 feet during your ascent into the Sierre Nevada mountains. Jay was driving, and he got car sick. Not a good sign at all! It was late and very cold when we finally arrived at the Lodge. We headed right to bed to get an early start on our day. When we woke up that morning, deer were grazing next to the pool outside our window. It was cold at 6000 feet, so we wore our parkas and hats and headed further north into King's Canyon. Our first stop was to see the General Grant tree, pictured to the left. The Sequoias are not as tall as the Redwoods we saw in Yosemite, but they have much more mass. Their size is difficult to convey in words, and actually quite difficult to take in even when you are standing next to them. They are truly majestic trees.

We spent some time exploring the sequoia grove before we headed further upward to the top of King's Canyon. We stopped to get a quick picture of the two of us together:

The scenery descending into the canyon was amazing. The road takes you right between the sheer rock face of the cliffs. We stopped many times to enjoy the vista on the way down. Our first stop at the bottom of the canyon was Boyden Cavern where we stopped for a tour. There are many cave systems within the parks, and most of them, like Boyden, are marble caves. Most are also not accessible to the public, to retain their scientific and ecological value. Jay got lots of interesting shots in the cave. The little girl standing next to him we think was German; she LOVED the cave, especially when we shut the lights off to experience total darkness. We also had an excellent guide who told us all about the discovery of the cave, and the different formations inside the cave. Another nice aspect was that it was warmer inside the cave than outside!

We then headed off for a hike in the Zumwalt Meadow to Roaring River Falls. We covered around 6 miles or so to the falls then back, and headed out to do the meadow loop. That loop took us beside Roaring river, into a grove of trees ringing the meadow, then over a boulder field back to the bridge. The grass on the meadow was turning gold, and the only sounds we heard besides our foot fall was the wind in the trees and the flow of water. So peaceful, and a wonderful way to start our anniversary weekend. To the right is a view of the meadow from the boulder field we crossed.

We then headed up to Panoramic point for an amazing view of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We got back to the lodge just in time for our dinner, and collapsed into bed at 7:30. Whew!

I'll post more about our weekend once I get my hands on Jay's pictures! He always takes much better photos than me!

Happy 7th Anniversary!

2009-10-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

Happy 7th anniversary! It's been a wonderful year for us both, full of friends, family, and national park vacations. In fact, we celebrated this weekend with a trip to King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Stay tuned for pictures later this week.

I still remember how happy I was the day I married you. That day was the beginning of a life together, and while I doubt we had any ideas about what really lay ahead, we've faced all of them together.

I love you, and I can't wait to see what our next year brings.

Tammy's California Adventure

2009-09-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

Well, the blog has veered into the political lately, and I think it's time to get back to talking about what we've been up to. The big news around here, besides all the babies this year, is that my mom came for a visit! Tammy hasn't ever flown before, and my dad's illness kept them from making the trip to Massachusetts while I was getting my PhD. So she had her first plane ride, and her first vacation since before my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away two years ago, and so it was really past time for her to have some fun. And I hope she did have a good time, because I know Jason and I really enjoyed her visit. She flew in on Monday afternoon and we spent that day making lasagna together and going to the mall. On Tuesday we headed down to the Santa Monica Pier and more shopping at the 3rd Street Promenade. This is my mom at the entrance to the Pier:You may notice the diet soda in her hand. She was absolutely appalled when she got to my house and found out that all we have to drink is water, and the only snacks we have are fruit and vegetables with some granola bars. She tried to make herself some sweet tea, but we didn't even have granulated sugar in the house. I guess we've really embraced the healthy lifestyle more than I realized! She was so happy to get to buy a soda. She was a good sport about taking the bus and walking everywhere too!

I took Thursday off of work and we spent the day in Hollywood. We visited Grauman's Chinese theatre (where you find the hand and foot prints of the famous in the sidewalk out front), we walked Hollywood Boulevard to see all the stars, and had lunch at the Disney Soda Fountain next to El Capitan theatre. We also visited the new Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. It was a blast, and honestly the figures are very lifelike. You are allowed to touch them, and they encourage lots of pictures. It's the closest I've come to spotting a star since I got here...
But Friday was the day my mom had been waiting for. Universal Studios. We were there when they opened, and we stayed till they closed. We rode pretty much everything in the park and took the studio tour. My mom wasn't crazy about the Simpson's ride, but she loved the Mummy. Here's my mom and I at the entrance:
We had a blast. Saturday was her last full day here as she flew out early Sunday morning, and we spent the entire day at Long Beach. Unfortunately, Jay's memory card for the Nikon D300 pooped out on us, and we have no pictures! I can tell you we did the Ghosts and Legends tour at the Queen Mary, and visited the Aquarium of the Pacific. We had dinner at Parker's Lighthouse where we saw a sea lion playing in the waves. It's really a shame about the pictures, because it was a lovely evening. And a great visit! My mom is an old pro at flying now, and we both hope to see her again soon.

Good-bye Patrick Swayze

2009-09-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

When I was 11 years old, the movie Dirty Dancing was released. I didn't see it until I was 12, when my aunt gave me a video cassette tape of the movie. My mom didn't speak to my aunt for months after that; she complained that all I did that summer was watch Dirty Dancing. And I did. Every single day, I watched Dirty Dancing, practiced the steps, and wished I could dance that well. That was probably when I realized how much I enjoy dancing, and it's only been for short periods since then that I haven't been taking some form of dance class. I also developed an enormous crush on Patrick Swayze. I still love the movie, the music, the dancing, and I still have a crush on Patrick Swayze. Not because he's handsome and moves like magic, but because over time I think he showed himself to embody a lot of the ideals I held for a person. He was married to his wife, Lisa, for over 30 years. He seemed modest and idealistic, doing films he wanted to do because he liked them, not necessarily because he was trying to be the biggest movie star in Hollywood. He did the work because that was what he loved to do. I also admired how strong he stayed throughout his fight with cancer. I admired him, and I feel for his wife and mother, and I'm so sad that I've lost my first crush. I think Jay will be getting lots of extra love today, because I'm so grateful we've still got our 30 years ahead of us.

Photos from Jess & Tom's Wedding

2009-09-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

So it's been nearly two months since Jess and Tom's wedding, and I have just now uploaded some of the photos that I took. How does that happen? Anyhow, here they are.

For those of you expecting prints and a DVD, it's in the mail. Seriously, it is. No, really!

From Jess & Tom Wedding

Jess and Tom exchange vows

Jess with her Dad walking down for wedding photos

From Jess & Tom Wedding

Jess with her Mom

From Jess & Tom Wedding

Fun with Cake

From Jess & Tom Wedding

The new bride & groom with Dad

So the wedding was a great time, and even though it means that Jess is now in Germany for a few years, we wish them both the very best. Starting a life together is tough, a lot of work, but the most rewarding thing you could ever do.

See you two in Germany next year!

-jh

Health care reform

2009-09-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

I am someone who is lucky enough to have insurance. Despite this, insurance often refuses to pay for routine or necessary medical care, and I have to pay out of pocket. My husband has had to go without insurance, because we could not afford to pay private premiums. We had to hope that he didn't get hurt. My father's insurance was canceled as soon as he was diagnosed with cancer. My mother's insurance covered him briefly, then she was fired because she had to take time off work to care for him. Without the help of Emory University, we could not have paid for his care. In spite of this, my parents lost their home and could barely afford to pay their bills because of the overwhelming debt that ensued. THEY WERE BOTH EMPLOYED WITH INSURANCE COVERAGE WHEN HE WAS DIAGNOSED. My sister and her children cannot get health coverage. And I have had many friends who have been refused insurance because of "pre-existing conditions." As someone who has worked intimately inside the medical industry, while many doctors and nurses are very caring and do want to do the best they can for their patients, they often have to fight the insurance companies themselves to do what they know needs to be done. I have seen single-payer health care in action in Canada on many visits I have made, and IT WORKS. I am not afraid to pay more in taxes to get our country out of debt and provide assistance to those who need it. Our health system is broken, and badly. Why have the best doctors in the world, when none of us can afford to see them? For me, this a very personal issue. I believe that health care reform is critical for this country.

-April Shiflett

8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage

Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.

Learn more and get details: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/health-insurance-consumer-protections/

8 common myths about health insurance reform

Reform will stop "rationing" - not increase it: It’s a myth that reform will mean a "government takeover" of health care or lead to "rationing." To the contrary, reform will forbid many forms of rationing that are currently being used by insurance companies.
We can’t afford reform: It's the status quo we can't afford. It’s a myth that reform will bust the budget. To the contrary, the President has identified ways to pay for the vast majority of the up-front costs by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse within existing government health programs; ending big subsidies to insurance companies; and increasing efficiency with such steps as coordinating care and streamlining paperwork. In the long term, reform can help bring down costs that will otherwise lead to a fiscal crisis.
Reform would encourage "euthanasia": It does not. It’s a malicious myth that reform would encourage or even require euthanasia for seniors. For seniors who want to consult with their family and physicians about end-of life decisions, reform will help to cover these voluntary, private consultations for those who want help with these personal and difficult family decisions.
Vets' health care is safe and sound: It’s a myth that health insurance reform will affect veterans' access to the care they get now. To the contrary, the President's budget significantly expands coverage under the VA, extending care to 500,000 more veterans who were previously excluded. The VA Healthcare system will continue to be available for all eligible veterans.
Reform will benefit small business - not burden it: It’s a myth that health insurance reform will hurt small businesses. To the contrary, reform will ease the burdens on small businesses, provide tax credits to help them pay for employee coverage and help level the playing field with big firms who pay much less to cover their employees on average.
Your Medicare is safe, and stronger with reform: It’s myth that Health Insurance Reform would be financed by cutting Medicare benefits. To the contrary, reform will improve the long-term financial health of Medicare, ensure better coordination, eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies, and help to close the Medicare "doughnut" hole to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors.
You can keep your own insurance: It’s myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors. To the contrary, reform will expand your choices, not eliminate them.
No, government will not do anything with your bank account: It is an absurd myth that government will be in charge of your bank accounts. Health insurance reform will simplify administration, making it easier and more convenient for you to pay bills in a method that you choose. Just like paying a phone bill or a utility bill, you can pay by traditional check, or by a direct electronic payment. And forms will be standardized so they will be easier to understand. The choice is up to you – and the same rules of privacy will apply as they do for all other electronic payments that people make.

Learn more and get details:
http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck
http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck/faq

8 Reasons We Need Health Insurance Reform Now

Coverage Denied to Millions: A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million non-elderly adults – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years or dropped from coverage when they became seriously ill. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html
Less Care for More Costs: With each passing year, Americans are paying more for health care coverage. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have nearly doubled since 2000, a rate three times faster than wages. In 2008, the average premium for a family plan purchased through an employer was $12,680, nearly the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job. Americans pay more than ever for health insurance, but get less coverage. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/hiddencosts/index.html
Roadblocks to Care for Women: Women’s reproductive health requires more regular contact with health care providers, including yearly pap smears, mammograms, and obstetric care. Women are also more likely to report fair or poor health than men (9.5% versus 9.0%). While rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are similar to men, women are twice as likely to suffer from headaches and are more likely to experience joint, back or neck pain. These chronic conditions often require regular and frequent treatment and follow-up care. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/women/index.html
Hard Times in the Heartland: Throughout rural America, there are nearly 50 million people who face challenges in accessing health care. The past several decades have consistently shown higher rates of poverty, mortality, uninsurance, and limited access to a primary health care provider in rural areas. With the recent economic downturn, there is potential for an increase in many of the health disparities and access concerns that are already elevated in rural communities. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/hardtimes
Small Businesses Struggle to Provide Health Coverage: Nearly one-third of the uninsured – 13 million people – are employees of firms with less than 100 workers. From 2000 to 2007, the proportion of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-based health insurance fell from 66% to 61%. Much of this decline stems from small business. The percentage of small businesses offering coverage dropped from 68% to 59%, while large firms held stable at 99%. About a third of such workers in firms with fewer than 50 employees obtain insurance through a spouse. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/helpbottomline
The Tragedies are Personal: Half of all personal bankruptcies are at least partly the result of medical expenses. The typical elderly couple may have to save nearly $300,000 to pay for health costs not covered by Medicare alone. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction
Diminishing Access to Care: From 2000 to 2007, the proportion of non-elderly Americans covered by employer-based health insurance fell from 66% to 61%. An estimated 87 million people - one in every three Americans under the age of 65 - were uninsured at some point in 2007 and 2008. More than 80% of the uninsured are in working families. Learn more: http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/inaction/diminishing/index.html
The Trends are Troubling: Without reform, health care costs will continue to skyrocket unabated, putting unbearable strain on families, businesses, and state and federal government budgets. Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance - projections suggest that this number will rise to about 72 million in 2040 in the absence of reform. Learn more: http://www.WhiteHouse.gov/assets/documents/CEA_Health_Care_Report.pdf

Fine, just smoky

2009-08-31T11:58:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update for everyone who hasn't called us. The fires have not reached us, and it's not likely they would! We can see the enormous wall of smoke from our place, and we can certainly smell it, but no fires are putting us in danger. We're just trying to keep our breathing healthy since the air quality is terrible right now. We will be helping with recovery efforts as soon as things are under control. But we are doing fine.

Venice Blvd. Farmers Market

2009-08-30T19:38:00.001-07:00

One of our favorite things about living in Los Angeles is the ready access to local farmer's markets. Because California is mostly abundant farm land that supplies much of the agricultural needs of the U. S., we can get almost anything grown locally. One of the nearest farmer's markets to our apartment is held each Sunday on Venice Blvd. Pictured above is the scene this morning after we biked there from our apartment.

Jay is very careful about selecting our produce. He does a lot of the cooking for us, and he loves the fresh ingredients. We usually have to eat our goodies pretty quickly so they don't spoil, so Sunday evenings often finds us making casseroles, soups, and other dishes to eat during the week. Our food doesn't spoil, and we have something healthy waiting for us when we get home from work during our busy weeks.

I love how colorful all the vegetables are; it makes eating healthfully that much more fun! We try to make our dishes as colorful as possible, and often when something catches our eye we will try to find a way to incorporate that food into our dinner. The peppers and eggplants above were so beautiful we had to bring some home with us. We will be having a stir fry with those lovely peppers this week! Jay also brought home some fresh green beans that we steamed tonight with carrots to go with our Ahi tuna steaks. (Meow approved of the tuna; not so much the veggies.) Another fun thing is the number of new vegetables and even fruits we have tried. I have no idea what those things above are; they didn't make it home with us. But we will often be adventurous when we spot some new and interesting food. I'm not showing the entire market; there's a D.J., nut vendor, flower sellers, and fresh food stands dotting the entire street. We enjoyed a fresh-squeezed lemonade while we wandered the stalls and debated what we would have this week. It's a fun way to spend our Sunday mornings, and the bike ride there and home ensures we get some exercise! Now remember, eat your vegetables this week! We certainly will.

Glacier pictures, days two and three

2009-08-17T22:04:00.001-07:00

The second day of our trip we started out by going fly-fishing on the Flathead river. Our guide's name was Rob. Luckily for us he was a very patient and knowledgeable guy! He showed us the ropes, and then took us to the best fishing spots. Jay managed to hook both me and a fish, so he was obviously getting the hang of setting his hook (Rob had to use the pliers to get the hook out of my hand, luckily it was NOT barbed). I, however, while getting plenty of nibbles, did not catch anything. But I really loved being out on the river and trying! Below is Jay about to back cast.

After spending the morning on the river, we headed into the west entrance of the park for more hiking. This time we headed down the Trail of the Cedars to Avalanche Lake. Below is a shot I took during the hike through the forest. The views were amazing, with enormous trees and mountains, and Avalanche Creek running busily next to us. On this hike we ran into a mule deer - almost literally!
We reached Avalanche Lake after about 3 miles or so. The lake is crystal clear with the beautiful green color provided by glacier flour carried by the melting snow from above. The lake is surrounded on all sides by steep mountains carved by a Pleistocene glacier long ago. Stunning. Jay took a panoramic of this one, maybe I can convince him to post it! We met a little chipmunk who found a bit of cracker at Jay's foot, decided he must be a god, and followed him around the lake while we explored. Cute little bugger. Jay got his picture, he was too fast for me! Below is the lake:
We headed east along Going to the Sun road this time, and stayed at the Rising Sun Motor Inn that night. The next morning, sadly, was our last in the park before we headed back to Great Falls for the wedding. We took a morning boat tour of St. Mary's Lake. Below is one of the pictures I took from the boat window:

Our boat captain was an avid hiker, and described many longer hikes we would like to take when we return one day. I highly recommend Glacier. Besides Yosemite, it is almost indescribable, and is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I'm a big National Park fan though, and I guess it shows!

Glacier pictures, day one

2009-08-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to downloading the pictures from my Canon powershot SD790 IS. These are not nearly as good as the pictures that Jay takes with his Nikon D300 (he has a lot more resolution and skill than I do) but I thought they could convey some of the beauty of the park. The only problem I had with this particular trip was lack of time. I love long hikes and camping, and we didn't get to do either. Just short day hikes (5 - 10 miles) and fly fishing. The fly fishing was awesome, even though I didn't actually get any fish on my hook! Lots of nibbles, but setting the hook was something I was having trouble with. Here are a few shots below:

Jay at St. Mary's Lake just after we entered the park. We took a short 3 mile hike to Baring Falls, pictured below:
From there we took Going to the Sun road to Logan Pass. Here we hiked all the way through the alpine meadow to Hidden Lake. We hiked through the snow (Jay is below) and saw plenty of animals, including big horn sheep and mountain goats. The goats you could usually smell before you saw! That was a full day, and we headed back to Glacier Park Lodge where we stayed.

Another busy L. A. weekend

2009-08-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

I had meant this weekend to be one where I got caught up on long-neglected housework and just rested, but that just doesn't seem to be a possibility in our lives! As soon as Friday approaches, about a dozen plans present themselves to us and the next thing I know our quiet weekend at home has turned into circus trips, museum visits, afternoons with friends, and enjoying a new restaurant. What a wonderful life! We really live a charmed life, and have made so many cool friends.

So, on to our weekend: Jay finally got a replacement printer for his photography work. He had an enormous wide-format high-quality photo printer that got trashed in the wreck. Our insurance was enough to cover a computer and our furniture, but that was it. Since we also had to buy a new car, there was no way we were going to be able to replace the printer. Now, 2 years later and after much hard work and planning, Jay has his new baby! It's so large (30 inch by 12 inch footprint) that we had to move our computer into the spare bedroom. We spent most of Saturday cleaning out and reorganizing, and now we have a functional office. We got rid of a lot of clutter in the process, and that makes me so happy! We even got to squeeze in a trip to the Container Store, and now my gift wrap and all my cards are perfectly organized. It's enough to give a girl with OCD like myself an organization orgasm. So happpyyyyy! Not that any of you were probably interested in hearing that, but darn it I just cannot contain my joy.

That evening we had dinner with several of Jay's friends from Ikon. Stephanie Wong, a sales rep that Jay often spent time with, is going to graduate school to become a high school guidance counselor. We wanted to give her a good send-off, and I think we succeeded. We met at their former boss's apartment off Le Brea Ave. The building was built in the 1920's, just before the depression hit. The architecture and art deco touches were conserved by the building's current owner, and the apartment is stunning with wood paneling, old tile work, preseved hard woods, even the old ice box is intact and used as storage in the kitchen. We walked from there to a restaurant called Amalfi. Another great restaurant here in L.A. We had shots there called chocolate cake (so yummy) and they had my favorite wine, a riesling from Gainey Vineyards. Jay had the gnocchi and I had smoked salmon fettucini. We had a lot of fun, and didn't get home until 3 am.

That meant we slept in, and got up just in time to make it to the 1 pm start of the Dodgers vs. Braves. Jay got to attend two of the Braves games here, which made his week. We enjoyed Dodger dogs and caramel popcorn, and I got sunburned BIG TIME. Good game, with the Braves winning the third out of four games. We ended our evening back home where we ordered in Indian food, watched True Blood, and swore to finally have a quiet weekend, "next week." Yeah, I'll believe it when it happens!

A big gap

2009-07-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've let an entire month go past without a single post! Now that I've learned how to post pictures, I feel like I'm not living up to my potential to post without any. But we've been so busy we haven't been able to download any photos and process them yet!

This past month we have had quite a bit of travel, and I'm looking forward to telling and showing you all where we have been and what we have been up to. Our first trip was to Hamilton, Ontario in Canada to visit the wonderful McArthur - Wilson clan. Andrew and Joanna are among our most beloved friends, and it had been far too long between visits. Visiting with them is like visiting home, we always feel so relaxed and welcome. Galen and Raynham are both taller, cuter, smarter, and even more charming than ever. They hold such a special place in our hearts.

After this relaxing interlude, we headed to the wilds of Montana for a week. The first part of the week we got to enjoy Glacier National Park. It has been by far one of our favorite parks. It is full of stunning vistas, and we tried to take in as much as we could in three days. I got to fulfill one of my major life to-dos when we went fly fishing on the Flathead river. We hiked somewhere around 20 miles in 3 days, and there was still more we both wanted to do.

From Glacier we headed back to Great Falls, where Jay's family was awaiting us. We got to spend some time with our grandmother, dad, step-mom, and brother and sister-in-law when everyone gathered for our niece's wedding. Jay and I have been flying Jess (our niece) in for a week-long visit with us every summer for the past 7 years. This is the first summer we haven't had her with us. It has been exhilirating watching her grow into a beautiful young woman from a little girl. This year she graduated from high school, and decided to get married. She and her new husband Tom are moving to Germany as I type this post, where Tom is stationed with the Air Force. While we feel that she has grown up far too quickly to suit us, we love her and wish her much happiness. We have already decided that next summer we will be heading to Germany to see her. So watch out Jess, you haven't gotten rid of us yet!

Between all of this we have both been very busy with work. I got an NIH NRSA award that will fund the next 2 years of my post-doc, and Jay has been working some lucrative deals in the business world. At least I assume that's what all those phone calls, emails, business meetings, and so on mean. And then there is the usual work associated with travel, we are behind in laundry, house work, shopping, you name it!

In fact, some of our friends have had children in the last month without me getting a single baby gift in the mail! A big welcome to the world to Lily Fox and Amelia Lerch - I am looking forward to many pictures. But no worries, I still have another 5 children on the way to buy gifts for... wow, the world is really growing!!

Home Sweet Home

2009-06-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Jay just returned from a business trip to Georgia where he took a little extra time to visit friends and family. Meow and I missed him a great deal, and were so happy to have him back home with us! Our little apartment seemed very big and empty without him here.

When we first moved into our apartment, I had promised a post showing it off. Well, we've been here almost two years, so we'll call this better late than never! We live in UCLA housing in a neighborhood called Westdale. It's about 5 miles from UCLA, and is on 3 public bus lines. A very pricey neighborhood, and we probably couldn't live here if we didn't have the university to subsidize this complex. I'll have to ask you all to excuse the clutter and any messiness - I didn't clean up, I just snapped some shots while I was making dinner tonight!

Our apartment is a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom just around 900 square feet. Since it is just Jay and I, it's actually a good size for us. A little tight perhaps since we were downsizing from a house in Massachusetts and a much roomier apartment in Athens, but still cozy rather than just too small! We live on the second floor. The kitchen, dining room, computer nook, and living room are just one large area with the two bedrooms and bathroom towards the back of the apartment off of a short hallway. Many people live in this complex upwards of 5 years, and they take the time to paint. We just left the walls the white they were painted when we moved - we'd had quite enough of home renovations by then, and needed the break! Below is our kitchen and dining areas:
The computer nook is tucked neatly on the other side of the sink in the above photo; the living room is where I took the picture of the dining room. A couch and chair separate the dining room and living room from one another, but I left them out of my shots. Below is the computer nook and living room:

That leaves the bathroom and two bedrooms. Well, I won't show the bathroom. It's pretty standard stuff :). One bedroom we use mainly for storage, and it has a desk though we never work there. Jay camps out in his recliner with his laptop, and I work at the computer nook or the dining room table. The other bedroom, of course, we use for sleeping. To the left is one view of our "office." We use it mostly as storage. The wall to the left of the desk is covered in shelves. In front of this I hung a closet rod (12 feet) and hung 4 curtains from IKEA to hide them.

Almost all the furniture is from IKEA. Since we lost most of our furniture when I overturned the truck, it was the most affordable option we had for a mass purchase. The shelving there is fantastic, we had tons of options that fit our spaces and budget.

Well, there you have it! Our little pad. Which, by the by, is always open to friends who wander out here to the west coast. We only have an inflatable bed, but the company is pretty good! And we have an excellent wine selection :)!

The Getty Villa

2009-06-03T22:20:00.001-07:00

Whenever we have guests visit, we always, always take them to the Getty Center off the 405. It is one of the most amazing examples of architecture I have ever seen. The view of the city is absolutely incomparable. There is also, of course, the art. But this post is not about the Getty Center. It's about the Getty Villa. The Getty Villa is the original J. Paul Getty Museum. When the collection outgrew it's home, the Getty Center was built. The Villa was completed in 1974, and now houses the antiquities portion of the Getty collection. It is modeled after the partially-excavated Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, that had been buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. While it is free to get into both museums, for the Villa you must make a reservation ahead of time as admission is limited. Below is a photo of the entrance to the Getty Villa.
We arrived and had lunch, then dove head first into the collections. There are many pieces from the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan civilizations, some more than 5000 years old. They were all breathtaking. The artistry and craftsmanship is unbelievable, and we took hundreds of photos. Below is a photograph of one of the most famous statues in the collection, of Herakles (Hercules). The floor in this room is a recreation of one from the Villa dei Papiri, and is composed of over 7000 individual marble tiles.
The photo below is of a fountain that is based on one uncovered in the "House of the Large Fountain" in Pompeii. Any detail that couldn't come directly from the Villa dei Papiri was taken from other Roman villas of the time. This fountain is covered with colorful tiles and seashells, and on each side you can see the greek theatre masks.
J. Paul Getty was adamant that the gardens be as accurate as possible, right down to having a working herb garden as would be found in a true Roman villa. There are two main outdoor garden areas in the Getty Villa, the inner Peristyle and the outer Peristyle. Where you see a statue, there had been a statue found in that spot in the ruins of the original Villa in Italy. Truly remarkable! Here I am standing in front of the pool in the inner Peristyle. In the original villa, the pool in the outer Peristyle was 4 meters deep and likely contained fish that were raised for the household to consume.
We spent about 5 hours in total combing through the myraid collections and examining the gardens. There is so much more to learn! You can easily get overwhelmed in a single trip. Afterwards we drove to Ventura to have dinner with Jay's workmate Linda. Linda is a fascinating woman. She lived in Turkey for a little over 20 years, and has had so many experiences in life! Dinner with her was wonderful, we were incredibly well-entertained. As you can imagine, we were exhausted and enjoyed a Sunday of doing absolutely nothing at all. I leave you with a dark image of us in the Atrium of the Villa. Behind us is a little pool. In a true Roman Villa, the atrium was open to the sky and this small pool collected rain water that drained into a cistern below. This water was then pumped throughout the home, so that the Roman nobility could enjoy running water. Nice! I also ask my friends out there to note that my husband's hair is getting a little too out of control. Please feel free to mount an email campaign encouraging him to get his hair cut. I beg you.

Another trip to wine country

2009-06-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

This post is an update on what we did two weekends ago. About 2 hours north of LA (you can take either the 101 or the PCH) you can head away from the coast through the San Marcos pass in Santa Barbara. Through the mountains you will be in the Santa Ynez Valley. This area was made famous in the film "Sideways," though to be honest I have yet to see the film. We often make the drive up for a day trip just to get away from LA. The above photo is taken in the car as we drive up the PCH. It was quite overcast that day, which is normal for this time of year in southern California. It's called "June gloom." It's gray and chilly, and I do not recommend visiting this time of year. You will miss the normally wonderful weather we have here otherwise. As you can see, the southern coast here is gorgeous.

We now have a routine for our trips. We start with a wine tasting at Curtis Winery on Foxen Canyon road. The whites here are fantastic! We buy a picnic lunch at the Los Olivos Grocery, and then head to Bridlewood Winery. Bridlewood is a picturesque place, and since we are members we can picnic on the grounds here near the lake. We usually do a tasting here, where the reds are our favorites.

Following our tastings, we head into the town of Solvang. Solvang is a Danish settlement, and the architecture reflects that. We often browse the world-famous antique store (cannot afford a thing in it) or visit the Hans Christian Anderson Museum tucked away on the top story of our favorite used book store. We always get a coffee and pastry at one of the many Danish bakeries in town! Below is a shot of the Solvang windmill.

It's a relaxing and fun retreat from the urban life of LA. We often head to Solvang with friends and stay for dinner.

ACS Relay For Life

2009-05-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends,

April and I have decided to take action against cancer by participating in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life event right here in my community. Relay For Life is about celebration, remembrance, and hope. By participating, we are honoring cancer survivors, paying tribute to the lives we've lost to the disease, and raising money to help fight it.

As many of you may know, we have both lost many family members- I lost both of my grandfathers to liver cancer, and my mother is currently undergoing treatment- the second time in fifteen years- for lymphoma. April lost her grandfather to lymphoma, and her grandmother to cervical cancer, and her grandmother's twin sister is currently undergoing treatment for a tumor in her leg.

Cancer has taken the lives, or threatened the lives, of loved ones of all of us. Please help support us in this important cause by making a donation. It is faster and easier than ever to support us by making a secure, tax-deductible donation online using the link below.

To donate online now, click here to visit my personal page.

Whatever you can give will help - it all adds up! We greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on our progress.

Sincerely,

Jason & April

PS If you would like to mail a donation, please make your check payable to: American Cancer Society

Fighting cancer can be easier than you think
Especially when you participate in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life. Visit http://www.relayforlife.org/relay/findevent to locate an event in your community today.

Double Your Money
Many employers offer matching funds programs. Most of these programs match contributions dollar for dollar, and some will even double or triple the amount of your gift. Please inquire with your personnel/HR department to complete the paperwork required to get your gift matched. Visit our Matching Gifts page for more information.

Fight Back
How does the money you raise help fight cancer? In so many ways! The donations you collect enable the American Cancer Society to fund cutting-edge research, provide up-to-date cancer information and education, advocate for all people to have access to critical cancer screenings and follow-up care, and offer free programs to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

Questions? Contact Angela Baca, Online Chair, at: relaylongbeach@gmail.com

Renaissance Faire, revisited

2009-05-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

As I sat down to write this post with Jay, an earthquake happened. It is the first one Jay has been able to feel. As usual, I got dizzy. Meow was perfectly calm the entire time, and in fact sat with me, purring and licking until she decided a nap was more interesting. According to the quake data, it was a 5.0 and lasted around 30 seconds. Not fun. The epicenter was about 2 miles south, 3-4 miles east.

On Saturday, Jay and I went to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Jay had attended last weekend, and bought me a beautiful costume. This costume, while lovely, involved a corset and that really took some getting used to. Jay's costume was extremely creative, and he pieced it together with things he had on hand and a couple of items from Target.

We had a wonderful time wandering through the faire, bowing and curtsying to the nobility. We even spied Queen Elizabeth I several times, including sitting with her court.

We ate at the vendors (the required turkey leg and beef ribs) and spent quite a bit of time watching performers. There were singers, dancers, comedians, and many talented musicians. We watched part of the jousts and toured the tourney camp. We also bought some new pottery pieces for our collection. We spent 6 hours at the faire, and left exhausted, dirty and very satisfied. We will be back for more next year!

AWIS Cal Tech Science Writer's Panel

2009-05-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Last night Jenny and I attended a Science Writer's Panel held at Cal Tech in Pasadena, CA. It was co-sponsered by AWIS and the Cal Tech Post-Doc Association. The speakers were fantastic. We had Greg Critser, Dave Zobel, and Jorge Cham. For those of you who do not recognize the name, Jorge Cham writes the Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) comic strip.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php
Everyone I know of in graduate school and post-doc positions loves these comics. He really manages to capture life in academia, and all the ensuing chaos. It was really a lot of fun to meet Dr. Cham, who is a very nice and funny guy in person. I immediately managed to wrangle the position of assistant for the night, helping him out with selling his books before and after the panel talk. I ran the credit card machine and took money, while he signed books and chatted with his fans. Afterwards, he posed for a picture with me and gave me two autographed books. In one he drew a sketch of Jay, and dedicated it to my "sugardaddy" and in the second he gave me a reference for future job searches: Swipes really well. He has a really good sense of humor, and I had so much fun!The above photograph was taken by Sophia Tsai, another AWIS member, of Jorge Cham and me with his latest volume of PhD comics. Thanks so much, Sophia! The entire panel at CalTech was a lot of fun. I have to say, the AWIS events just seem to get better and better.

Adventures as of late

2009-05-12T11:47:00.001-07:00

Well, I haven't got any pictures to put up with this post, but I thought you might like to know what we have been up to recently. Following our visit to Joshua Tree National Park, we had a wonderful dinner with our friend Justin Widener. Justin was a labmate of mine in the Duk lab, and we both worked on TLF. He is now a program manager for Merial, and was here on the West Coast for training. J-dawg, it was awesome to see you again! I really miss that guy.

We also attended a play here in Hollywood. Plays are very numerous and popular here, as sometimes you can catch famous actors or actresses getting in some stage time. The play we went to see was called "Photograph 51" after the piece of data taken from Rosalind Franklin's lab and used to develop the structural model of DNA published by Watson and Crick (they did not acknowledge that they had taken her data until after they were awarded the Nobel prize). It was at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, and Jay and I really enjoyed it. Jay was very involved in drama while in high school, and also during the one year of college he bothered with. I think that we will be attending many more plays, and the Fountain theatre was one of the most intimate settings I have ever been in.

Last weekend I attended a conference in San Diego, Women in Science and Technology. It was awesome, especially because I got a lot of ideas about what I want to do next in my career. I am usually a big planner, with the next 5-10 years of my life detailed out. That has fallen by the wayside since I finished my PhD and started my post-doc. There are a lot of options out there, and I have had a difficult time deciding where I want to go next. Jay is such an open and supportive spouse that no doors have been eliminated based on where he wants to live or what he wants to do (although he is very keen on me going overseas for a while). At any rate, if any of my friends are not current members of AWIS, I encourage you to join and take full advantage of their networks and education offerings. It has been a real boost for me.

Since Jay was left on his own for a couple of days with no one but the cat for company, he made lots of plans with friends. He started Saturday off with a trip to the Renaissance Faire here in LA, and I really wish I had pictures to show you! Don't fear, we are supposed to return there this weekend so I can explore as well. After the faire, he went to see Star Trek with a friend, and then out to dinner. We both crashed pretty hard on Sunday!

Joshua Tree National Park

2009-04-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Jay and I headed east for a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park. We had been looking forward to seeing this park for some time, and since the desert flowers and cacti were blooming this seemed like a great time. The trip takes about 2 hours from Los Angeles, so we left early around 8 am. The picture above is of the Cholla cactus garden. The spines of these cacti appear very soft, but if you brush against them they will release dozens into your skin. They will penetrate quite deeply, and are painful to remove. This is just one aspect of the park, however, we found the landscape within the park is amazingly diverse.

This is just one example of some of the rocks and outcroppings we saw. Since this was a day trip, we didn't spend any significant time exploring any one area. We hiked through the cacti gardens, climbed several large rock formations, figured out what exactly a Joshua tree is, and drove through the geology trail. We are looking forward to a longer trip when we can discover some of the oases and abandoned mines.And here we are, resting atop one of the walls we scaled at Hidden Valley. There were some very serious rock climbers there, we only climbed the smaller ones! The weather was fantastic, sunny and in the high 60s. Later this summer the Mojave will be sweltering. We ended the day with dinner at the 29 Palms Inn, and drove back to Los Angeles.

This weekend was much quieter. We hung out around Westwood Village (UCLA), then Sunday we visited the Venice farmer's market and did our chores. Jay is washing dishes now!

I actually did it. Really!

2009-04-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

New Photos!

From Horse types

Go Here to see more! I have finally uploaded a few, and will have more up soon. And this time I mean it...

:)

Happy Birthday Jake!

2009-04-05T18:48:00.000-07:00

Today is my best friend's birthday. Jake has been a very important part of my life for a very long time. Any friendship you can measure in decades is special, but Jake is really an amazing woman. Happy birthday!!

Bruin 5K for Mattel Children's Hospital

2009-04-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

We ran another 5K this weekend, our second one so far. We have a goal to finish at least 2 more 5K this year, and do at least one 10K. Today's 5K was to benefit the Mattel Children's Hospital here at UCLA. It was conveniently located on campus, but we had to be there before 7 am; hence the grumpy expressions! We did a great job running the course, right up until the end when I got a bit ill from not eating anything before the race. Doh! The celebrity host was Dakota Fanning. We saw her, but didn't take any pics. Sorry celebrity watchers; living in LA has made us cynical I guess.

World Baseball Classic Semi-Final

2009-03-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

What a busy week this has been! I had an emergency root canal on Friday, and while that sounds terrible, the toothache was much worse than the procedure. I spent most of Saturday running a fever as the last of the infection was killed off by antibiotics. By that evening I felt well enough that we had dinner at The Counter with Alias and his adorable little boy Elijah. Sunday was our big day, though, as we attended the Baseball World Classic Semi-final held at Dodger Stadium. It was the USA vs. Japan, and it was a great game. Unusually enough, it was a chilly and gray day here in LA, but the fun and excitement of the game was worth it. We got to enjoy our roasted peanuts and hot dogs much earlier this year, and see some great ball. Japan won, and then went on to clinch the world championship the next day against Korea. Here we are above, in our baseball gear, freezing but happy!

Things I hate

2009-03-18T10:36:00.001-07:00

This dream:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/students.png

Meow's ego

2009-03-16T16:16:00.001-07:00

I know we have not been posting. Between the trips to Cancun, Georgia, Lake Tahoe, San Diego, and San Antonio the start of our 2009 has been frantic! I promise to post some pics of our travel soon, and tell you what we have been up to. In the meantime, our friend Jenny discovered what Meow has been up to in her abundant free time. First she got her own Facebook page. Now she really is trying to take over the world! I think it is time we started spending some quality time with her.

http://www.obeythekitty.blogspot.com/

Maybe the most exciting moment of my life...

2009-02-01T01:36:00.000-08:00

Meow's first illness

2009-01-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

Meow is in the midst of her first real kitty illness. She hasn't eaten or drank since last Saturday, and has been vomiting. Last night Jay and I took her to the vet here in Los Angeles. It took two vet techs, 4 towels, and a vet to draw blood and give her fluids. That's my kitty... sick as I've ever seen her and still willing to kill someone. She seemed to be better that evening, but today is again lethargic and refusing to eat or drink. We are wating for test results right now, and may be making another trip for x-rays (she wouldn't allow any examination or even her temperature to be taken last night). I will keep everyone posted, but if you are trying to reach us and not getting any replies, we are very busy taking care of the wee one.

UPDATE: We went back to the vet today (Thursday) where they sedated her and did x-rays, physical exam, gave more fluids, an anti-inflammatory shot, trimmed her nails, and shaved around her tail. She has been prescribed an appetite stimulant, but will be force-fed if necessary, starting tomorrow. All labwork and x-rays look normal, so we can't figure out why exactly she is not eating. She has eaten some on her own today, so we really, really hope we don't have to syringe feed her. That will be very painful. For us.

Stuff

2009-01-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know. We know. It's been slow going with the updates. We have been busy. Yes, I know. So have you. And you still find time to update your blog. I get it.

Anyway, here's a quick update:

We made it through the holidays well (see happy new year Post) and have launched into 2009 at full speed. April is doing well at the lab, and work is going well for me also. We spent 4 days in Cancun in early January on a w0rk trip. That was nice. We spent a day in Solvang/Santa Ynez with Helen, Alias, and Elijah last weekend. That was also nice.

We are planning a trip to Georgia in Feb. to visit with family, as I have not been back since we moved to California. Mom's cancer treatments are going well, and are actually almost done, and she is excited about seeing us. Actually I am looking forward to getting back, even though it will be rushed, hectic, and stressful with not enough time with anyone. But that's how it goes, right? Any time with family is worth it.

Our travel schedule is quickly filling up this year. We really want to get to San Antonio to see my brother and his wife and her kids. We figure we should probably meet them! I plan to call him tonight and see when a good time to come would be- likely end of March for us.

We are also heading up to Ontario to spend some time with the McArthur-Wilson clan. We cannot wait! It's been too long between visits.

In addition, our niece Jessica, in Montana, is graduating from High School and getting married this summer. We have to figure out the schedule for those two events as well.

We are also anticipating doing some camping this summer in the amazing parks in Cali- Yosemite, Joshua Tree, etc., etc., and need to make those plans, too.

So hopefully I can actually post some pictures soon. No promises. You know how I am with promises on this blog...

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Jason, Meow and I send our best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year to all our wonderful friends and family who are scattered around the globe! We love and miss you all so much. It means the world to us to have so many precious people in our life, who go out of their way to keep in touch with us and share their lives with us.

We have had a very busy first year in Los Angeles, and to celebrate the start of another year we are having some of our friends here over for a true southern New Year's dinner. Jay is busy making black-eye peas, greens, roast pork loin, and a baked pear sweet potatoe casserole. I made brownies, and the wine and cocktails are chilling. The only thing to make it better would be to have all our friends and family join us!

The Nutcracker

2008-12-29T19:27:00.001-08:00

This year Jay and I attended the Nutcracker. This is something I have wanted to do for a very long time, and hopefully we will make it a tradition for future Christmas celebrations together. As you can see by my collection in the picture to the left, I have a bit of thing for Nutcrackers! The ballet we attended was performed by the Los Angeles Ballet at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. The hall was beautiful, and the ballet was magical. It was a wonderful evening, despite my poor husband's cold!

Jay was sick, but a very good sport. He even posed for pictures for me before the ballet began! Isn't he handsome?

He made me pose also, despite my pitiful self-inflicted haircut. Please just disregard this picture.

Some of the dancers posed for pictures following the performance. From the left is Marie, danced by Melissa Barak, her prince, danced by Peter Snow, Clara, danced by Lilit Hogtanian, and the Nutcracker, performed by Erik Thordal-Christensen. They were all incredibly talented!

Christmas baking

2008-12-29T19:11:00.000-08:00

Every year, one of the traditions Jason and I have is baking cookies. This first started with my college roommate, Danielle. I am very happy to continue this tasty tradition. Now, Jay helps me bake the cookies and we distribute them to our co-workers. This year we made brownies, orange-cranberry bread, linzer bars, peanut butter gingerbread, and others. Jay also made a roast for his office Christmas party.

Jay is cooking his very tasty roast...

While I am mixing the peanut-butter gingerbread cookies and other assorted goodies.These cookies are chilled, then rolled out and cut into shapes before baking. Lots of fun!

Turkey Trot

2008-12-02T22:34:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving this year we had planned a large dinner at the home of our friends Alias and Helen. Because several pies were involved, Jay wanted to workout. On Turkey Day. So, I signed us up for our first race, a 5K in Long Beach, CA called the Turkey Trot. The race started at 9:30, so we showed up bright and early to pick up our numbers and our T-shirts. This is Jay in his number, looking very handsome if I do say so myself!

I ran also, and here I am in my number. As soon as we started the race, Jay had to stop for a bathroom break. I waited for him, and when we began running again he promptly took off like a shot and left me. He waited further down the beach, and we finished the race together. We crossed the finish line at just under 40 minutes, holding hands! It was a great way to start off the holiday. The race raised over $120,000 for local charities, and had over 4500 runners. Below is a shot of the crowd at the start line:

We then headed home for a nap (Helen had banned all grumpy people from attending dinner), cooking, and then a great time with our hosts and friends. Thanks to Helen and Alias for hosting the event, and to Gil, Alex, Jenny, and Dan for the wonderful food and fun! We hope all our friends and family we couldn't be with also had a great Thanksgiving. And congrats to my Aunt Faye for surviving her bout of appendicitis and emergency surgery.

Tales from the bus, part deux

2008-11-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

We have had a lazy few weeks, not doing much besides working and cleaning the apartment. The fires are again quite bad, but we are out of harm's way. Besides all the smoke in the air and trying to help those who were affected, we have not had any problems. So I thought I would give you another sampling of bus stories.

I've had two "screamers" in the past few months. The first one was panhandling as I got on the bus. Since Jay was kind enough to get me an iPod, I mostly just listen to it to drown out all the crazies. So I didn't realize at first that he had ask me for money (rather, mumbled at me for money) so I sat down in the seat across the aisle. He was dressed all in black, eyes dilated, and rather scruffy. As I sat down, I pulled out my cell phone to text Jay and let him know I was on my way to work. The dude immediately started screaming at me, "Are you calling your f*@%$in' credit card?!" over and over again. I kept ignoring him, and he finally got off a stop or two later.

The second screamer was on a trip home. I again was wearing the iPod, but the battery was dead. Nevertheless, it makes me more comfortable ignoring people when I have it on, so I was wearing it. I had sat in the first seats on the bus, near the driver, facing forward. Dude gets on, and starts an argument with the bus driver, since he does not have the fare. The drivers here are incredibly patient, and will often let you ride without fare if you give a good sob story and aren't obnoxious. While obnoxious, the guy was flashing a hospital ID bracelet and claiming to have just been discharged minus his wallet. Okay, bus driver lets him on. He sits in the seats directly in front of me, however these seats face to the side and he can turn and look at me. Which he does. He then begins a very loud rant about being forcibly admitted to the hospital, but he told "those f*@%ers he was not staying, he was leaving," etc. The story continues at the top of his lungs, profanity included, the entire time he is on the bus, which isn't long because the bus driver put him out a few stops later. A lady across the aisle then slides into the seat next to me, and all the way to my stop proceeds to complain to me about people on the bus who cannot behave, and try to make you listen to them even if you don't want to. Yes, I am still wearing my iPod...

Today's dude was at least funny. He showed up at the bus stop this morning, singing at the top of his lungs. When someone looked at him, he screamed at them, "Yeah, I know I'm off-key! I've been off-key all my life, motherf*@$er!!" He didn't get on the bus, luckily, he went into the McDonald's, still singing. I don't know if they threw him out, as the bus appeared just moments later. Always something on public transportation!

Happy 6th Anniversary!

2008-10-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

Today marks six lovely years together. It is hard to believe that it has been that long since we marched down the aisle. I am looking forward to seeing what the next six years has in store. Love you sweetie!

Why we appreciate our friends...

2008-09-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

I know that some of you may be feeling a big neglected - believe me, we feel like we have neglected many of our best friends. It has really been on my mind lately, and something that I feel terrible about. While I don't believe that there is any excuse that forgives this behavior, I hope that you all will continue to be patient with us while we get through what looks to be another overly-eventful year.

We just found out that Jay's mom has a very serious illness, as does my aunt. My family has still been struggling with the loss of my step-father and uncle, and Jay's family has been plagued with very serious health problems among other things. We have both been over-worked and overwhelmed with living 3000 miles away while all these things are going on, and adjusting to the first year of a post-doc life has not been easy for me or for my poor husband. We have been so fortunate to be able to attend the weddings this year, and see many people as they come through, but there are others who are very dear to us that we have not seen or spoken to in quite a while. Please know that we love you and think of you all very often, and hope very much that we will be back in touch soon.

I think the last three years have been the most exhausting and eventful of my entire life thus far, and things just don't seem to be slowing down!

Wine Country

2008-09-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

There are some real perks to living in Los Angeles. (Of course, there are some real downsides too, but since we don't have much choice right now, let's focus on the positive, shall we?) Two of my favorite things involve, shockingly, food and alcohol. First, the food.

The farmer's markets here are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Jay and I try to go at least every other weekend. And there are two within biking distance of our apartment. We can pick from an enormous variety of produce, free-range chicken eggs, homemade cheeses and breads, sausages, flowers, soaps, etc. One of our favorite stalls is that for Avila and Sons, Farms. They bring dried fruits and nuts. Have you ever had fresh almonds? We can't eat them from any store again. When we do, we look at one another sadly and lament. What generally happens is that we end up eating seasonally. Right now the stone fruits and squashes are ripening and coming to market. Soon the root vegetables will be back, and then we will begin to see the winter fruits and vegetables. The variety is just incredible. I could go on and on.

And now, the alcohol. Good god, wine country. I have found some of the California wines to be utterly stunning. We have had one trip to Napa (if you go, visit Arger-Mertucci Vineyards). About a 3 hour drive away is Santa Ynez Valley (just see the movie Sideways). We visited two weeks ago with our new friends Helen and Alias, and their toddler son Elijah. We visited Curtiss Winery and Bridlewood, then headed into Solvang for visits to the tasting rooms there. The white wines at Curtiss are Rhone varietals, and they are so delicious. We are wine club members at Bridlewood (excellent Syrahs) and at Gainey Vineyards (Riesling) and get bimonthly shipments of wine from these wineries. Now, every night involves a glass of wine and relaxing with my hubby. (Lately this also involves watching an episode of the British sitcom Greenwing. Bless Helen for introducing us to it.) Oh, the vino.... it makes even writing grants seem somewhat relaxing.

We will post some pictures of our picnic at Bridlewood once we get our computer up and running again!

This really says it all...

2008-09-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

A busy LA weekend

2008-08-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Well, we said goodbye to our last houseguest early Friday morning. I headed into the lab at 6 am (yes, you read that correctly) to finish up a hydrogenosome prep that had to be completed before 5 pm. Now, just so you know, the organism I work on produces hydrogen along with some chemicals very similar to putrescin and other nasty smelling molecules. So I spent my Friday mostly gagging. Jay headed into his job in downtown LA, and by Friday night we were exhausted. But we didn't take any time to relax, oh no, not us! We were off and running on a busy weekend full of fun stuff.

Saturday morning found us fighting the crowds at the university laundry room. We won (probably because I had Jay as backup. I've found that the annoying Russian guy won't even meet my eye when my hubby's around, much less yell at me) and got four loads of laundry washed and dried and the apartment cleaned out. Back to pre-guest status. That afternoon we headed out to Hollywood to meet Dan and Gretchen for a baseball game. We took the train to Anaheim (there is some public transportation in LA) where we had great seats for the Angels vs. Twins match-up (thanks Gretchen!!). We got back to LA at about 1 am and I got my first view of Sunset Strip at night, as it is meant to be seen. The place was packed, the lines for the Rainbow Room and Whiskey-a-Go-Go were around the block. There were huge limos everywhere, and probably lots of famous people whom I would never recognize. We also passed a private bash in Bel Air that, as it turns out, was attended by such as Christina Aguilera that night. Sadly, we couldn't even sneak in through the back servant gate :(. I guess post-doc status does not immediately mean you are A-list.

The next morning we missed the farmer's market so we could go to the California ScienCenter. The ScienCenter is currently hosting BodyWorld3, and it is leaving soon. I have wanted to see this exhibit since I first heard of it. For those of you who may not know, it is an exhibit of plastinated human bodies. Yes, real human bodies. All the bodies on display were donated with this knowledge. Many people find this disturbing, because they are posed. In this exhibit, most were posed as atheletes of some type, either acrobats or gymnasts. The exhibit hall was absoutely packed with people. I loved the exhibit and found it fascinating. Not surprisingly, I was especially interested in the exhibits that showed the diseased states. I would be really curious to see specimans that contained parasites, but I imagine the ick factor involved in that would really turn off the public. At any rate, we both enjoyed it, and I personally thought that the bodies were treated in a very artistic and non-degrading fashion and had no problem with any of the ethical concerns that others have brought up. In fact, I recommend it to anyone who wants to be inspired to take care of yourself. I felt so encouraged to take care of this fascinating body that we all have.

Afterwards we went home and absolutely collapsed on the sofa. We're exhausted and ready to get back to what passes for normal around us.

Yeah, I know. It's been almost two months...

2008-08-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

So we have been busy, okay?

Since the last post April has been back to the MBL for a week to set up BOP, and I was there for a couple of days. July 4th weekend was pretty lazy, one day at the beach in Malibu, bust mostly just sleeping late and doing nothing. We have also been up to the Bay Area for Mike Cipriano and Rose Mill's wedding (it was great fun) and a day in Napa with Shanda and Patrick (also tremendous fun, we will be back!)

I have taken many photos, and I will get them online this week. Next week will be very busy, my brother flies in from Texas on Thursday for the weekend, his daughter gets here from Montana on Friday, and she will be here all next week!

More to come...

Pictures From Yosemite

2008-06-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

From Birds

Steller's Jay near Yosemite Village

From Yosemite May ...

A great photo taken by a total stranger!

From Yosemite May ...

Red Giants...

From Yosemite May ...

April about 8 feet from the base. This is one of the smaller Sequoia that you can get close to.

From Yosemite May ...

Standing at the base of a fallen giant.

From Yosemite May ...

El Capitan. There are three or four groups of climbers on the face in this photo. The next photo is a close-up that's about dead-center of this one.

From Yosemite May ...

It's crazy enough to do this in perfect, warm weather. It was rainy and around 40 degrees f this day.

More to come!

I'm gonna get a cool scar from this one!!!

2008-06-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

From Rob visit 2008

From mountain Biking in Topanga Canyon with Robert. It goes all the way up my leg and my hip, too! You can't really see it on my leg because it's covered with dirt...

More Pretty

2008-06-09T19:40:00.000-07:00

From Scenic Landsc...

If you notice the kinda diamond-shaped bands of color around the sun, it's a chain-link fence that I was shooting through. click on the link to see the album where there is a pic of the fence.

Aww, Nuts!

2008-06-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

From Rob visit 2008

This is an example of the nuts used to hold the screws (propellers for you land lubbers) on the Queen Mary, which although it never had a cruise in the Pacific, is located in Long Beach, CA. Makes sense, right?

A funny piece of trivia: The QM moved more than 750,000 military personnel during WWII. Her speed and capacity are, in many ways, still unmatched to this day. There are many people that are convinced that without the QM's ability to move Service men and women, that WWII may have lasted several more years and cost countless more lives. She served as an ocean liner for two more decades after WWII.

However, when Cunard, the company that owned the QM was looking to retire her from service and exploring their options from potential buyers, there was only one British company that even made a bid to purchase her. And they were going to disassemble her and sell her for scrap.

So much for nostalgia, eh? Or even a sense of historical importance...

The Year of West Coast Weddings

2008-05-29T14:36:00.001-07:00

I just want to say that it is very convenient that we moved to Southern California just before everyone decided to get married out here! We are very indebted to our friends for throwing such fabulous parties and giving us great reasons to get out of LA and travel.

Firstly, a big thanks to Luc and Melissa for kicking things off (and setting a hell of a high bar) with their gorgeous beach-front wedding on Isla Holbox in Mexico. We had a wonderful time exploring the Yucatan Peninsula.

Secondly, thanks to our newest newlyweds Rachel and Mike. Their nuptials at Yosemite led us to the park for the first time. What a beautiful place to be married! Again, we had a really good time.

And next up, Mike and Rose who are getting married just outside of San Francisco. We would've been up to visit anyway, but thanks for speeding things along! We are looking forward to exploring the Napa/Sonoma Valley wineries and celebrating your big day.

We are really happy that we will be able to have shared these special times with you, and that may not have been the case if we hadn't decided to head out this way! Just think of the airfare and wedding gifts alone.

Yosemite, First Impression

2008-05-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

OK,

So it was 40-50 degrees and raining all day today, and the clouds were hanging low ang gray overhead.

But this is still one of the most breathtaking places that I have ever seen.

More to come, with pics.

Wedding pics (finally)

2008-05-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

From Melissa Luc W...

So I have finally managed to upload some wedding pics to Picasa Follow the link below the pic above to check them out. I plan to upload some more shots from our trip later this week.

It's been a while...

2008-05-11T12:44:00.001-07:00

Since our last post, I have spent a lot of time in photoshop working on the photos for Luc and Melissa's wedding. The whole experience in Mexico was great, and it was a lot of fun being able to take the photos for their wedding. Luc set up an FTP site, and it took several days to upload all 12gb of photos that I took, and Melissa said it took them quite a long time to go through them all!!! But I think that they were pleased with them. I hope to post a couple online this week sometime.

April and I just got our new bikes, and went to Topanga Canyon State Park yesterday for a 2-hour ride in the mountains. It was really challenging, but at the end of the trail, you have an AMAZING view of the Pacific Ocean from the top of the Santa Monica Mountains. It was really hazy, and I left my camera in the car, so you will have to wait till next time for pics.

Now that we have bikes (compliments of my employer!), we are riding them everywhere, and it will really cut down on how much driving we do, esp. on the weekends. It's really easy to get around on our side of town on a bike.

Anyhow, more to come, with some pics. I am sure that April has some "crazy bus people" stories to post.

jh

Chicken Pizza?

2008-04-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

From Architecture

April and I are back from Mexico, and we had a fantastic time. The scenery was amazing, Holbox was a sleeply little island, and Luc and Melissa's wedding was perfect.

Above is El Castillo at Chichen Itza, an amazingly worthwhile place to go see. It would be worth flying to Cancun for a weekend just to go see this place, and I was told that there are several other sites that are must-see. Anyhow, I took about 900 photos, and I will be very busy editing the wedding photos for Luc and Melissa so that they are ready when they return to the states. I'll share a couple here for you to see.

Coming Soon...

2008-04-09T23:04:00.000-07:00

We have just returned from the Yucatan and will have an update of our trip up soon, as well as new photos uploaded to my photo site.

I will say that we had a fantastic time, Melissa and Luc's wedding was amazing, and I took close to a thousand pictures...

Just another pretty photo

2008-03-24T22:40:00.000-07:00

Fort Yargo State Park, Winder, GA

From Scenic Landsc...

Near Athens, GA

Who needs Italy?

2008-03-24T22:27:00.001-07:00

From Scenic Landsc...

For those of you that don't already know, Venice California, home to the famous Muscle Beach, was actually originally named for it's sister city in Italy. A very wealthy man purchased the current site of the city, and after considerable excavation, managed to create a series of canals and waterways similar to its namesake.

Alas, it was a big disaster. Nobody wanted to live there, and the mosquitoes were pretty bad. By the 50's most of it was filled in, and the area went downhill pretty quickly.

However, this story has a happy ending. A few years ago (don't know how many) the canals underwent extensive renovations, and about 3 miles of them are open now, and they are lined with million dollar homes about the size of a Volkswagen Van.

Seriously, it's pretty cool to see, and if you find yourself in LA, it's a top-5 thing to see as it's walking distance from Venice beach.

Lewd Behavior

2008-03-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

We Spent Valentines Day weekend on the Central Coast, north of LA, in Santa Ynez, and in Santa Barbara.

This Girraffe from the Santa Barbara Zoo was feelin' the love...

2008-03-05T11:11:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the delay in posting, guys. We are having some internet problems at home, hopefully those will be sorted out soon. I am busy writing fellowships, and Jason is busy selling office equipment. We will hopefully have a post up soon about our first trip to Griffith Park here in LA, as well as our recent trip to Solvang, CA in the Santa Ynez Valley. Our big exciting news is that we are planning a trip to Isla Holbox in Mexico for the upcoming wedding of our friends Melissa Lerch and Luc Rainville. We are so excited that we are going to be there to share this incredible time with them!

2008-02-05T23:13:00.001-08:00

Did you vote today? We did...

Adventures from the Bus

2008-01-28T13:11:00.000-08:00

The sunshine has returned! I am so pleased to see the sun streaming in through our blinds in the lab. We have fabulous full-length windows to take advantage of the lovely southern California sunshine, that all of Los Angeles has been missing lately.

This also seemed to stimulate the crazies, particularly those that ride the bus. I will have to do a longer post sometime on some of my earlier adventures that include such notable characters as "please-part-my-hair" man and the spitting girl. Today's adventure involved Mr. "I'm on something really scary right now" Man. I got on the very crowded Culver City 6 bus, hoping to make it in time for the Monday 9am meeting. I noticed that this guy was staring at me, which caught my attention because most people don't even seem to notice my existence. Lo and behold, as the bus empties, the only available seat is next to him. I sit down. He says, "Hi. I'm starting my first day at my new job today. It's running servers. Linux servers. For a .com. I don't have a degree or anything, I've just been doing this for a few years. I'm not into the whole, you know, classroom scene." Or a close approximation thereof. He asks if I am going to work, (I am), where do I work (UCLA), are you a teacher (no, a scientist), what kind of scientist (biochemist). Now, here's where things went down the road to psychodelicdom. He asks if I invent drugs, like psychodelics, cause he likes them, but they FREAK him out. They are really scary. But he likes them. He has never once met my eyes, and now he's starting to get really animated. I freaked and got off at the next stop, wishing him luck on his first day...

Bad Weather Goddess?

2008-01-25T13:34:00.001-08:00

I'm beginning to feel a little suspicious. I recall that in Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there was a rain god who did not know that he was in fact a rain god. He just spent his entire life miserable, being followed by adoring clouds of rain.

I have noticed that every time I move somewhere, the weather goes straight to hell. I recall Cape Cod setting both snow and low temperature records while I was present. I visited Alabama just in time to experience the first snow storm in close to a decade. And now the weather in normally impervious-to-all-things-unsunny Southern California has turned cold, wet, and dreary.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/01/25/california.weather.ap/index.html

So, my guess is that I'm a lightning rod for bad weather (pardon the pun) or perhaps Meow has some sort of cat power to conjure up good feline snuggle weather... maybe the Egyptians were right about the cats....

I love Photoshop!

2008-01-19T12:29:00.000-08:00

I spent about 3 hours using photoshop to merge 6 photos together to create the panorama above. I am going to print it out and put it in at 32" wide frame. I wanted to make it 4 feet high and 12 feet long but April reminded me that we don't have a wall big enough.

Oh well...

Political Commentary

2008-01-18T10:22:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry, but this is funny.

And I'm probably going to vote for her!

Rest in Peace Ernie Cockrum

2008-01-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

Ernest (Ernie) Cockrum, April's Great Uncle, died due to complications from Heart Surgery friday. Uncle Ernie was 75 years old, and he will be greatly missed. He is survived by his wife, Fay, who is April's grandmother's twin sister.

April will be traveling to Alabama for a few days to help her Aunt in her time of need. Please keep April and Aunt Faye in your thoughts as they deal with this great loss.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced at this time.