Sly Park on New Years 2009

Sly Park on New Years 2009, originally uploaded by /k.

Since there is so much snow this year (it's been unseasonably cold in NorCal this year), we only had to go up to Pollock Pines for the dogs annual trip. Rachelle and Kelly brought Lucy along this year.

A Month of Travel, All Within The Country

Sorry it's been so long between posts, but I've really, really liked seeing that moose head picture on the top of my blog.

It's been a long two months of travel (October and November) and for once I haven't even left the safe confines of the US of A. After coming home from my sister's wedding in mid-October, I visited Santa Cruz, Honolulu, Disneyland (SoCal) and Las Vegas:

• Honolulu

  Honolulu was nice. I was there for a company junket and it was only for four days, but Hawaii is still Hawaii.
  
  
  
  Shelley and I hadn't been to Hawaii in about three years and really enjoyed ourselves -- mostly doing nothing.




• SoCal

  Later that week, we had to go to another junket -- but this time for Shelley's company. I was dreading going to this (as it was at Disneyland) but it turned out pretty damn good. Weather was cool and the park was mostly empty.
  
  
  
  
  Shelley got to meet the Incredibles.
  
  
  
  
  And we snuck out of the company festivities on Sunday to go down to the coast. This is Newport Beach just at sunset.
  
  




• Vegas

  Just a week after getting back from SoCal, I was off to Las Vegas for a week to help run a training conference for my company. It was friggin exhausting, but I did get to go to a subzero bar (Minus 5 Experience).
  
  
  
  
  Yes, this was a complete waste of money. And yes, that is Elvis. But I think that is the point of Vegas.

I've just got back from Chicago and Columbus this week, which rounds out my travel for the year. I'll try and get those pictures up this week.

Moose

Street Moose, originally uploaded by /k.

Overall my blog is a mixed bag. Sometimes it's personal stuff, occasionally geeky stuff but mostly it's just travelogues.

But on some days, it's just a picture of a guy in a Moose costume giving me the "hang loose" sign while he passes out flyers on the streets of Honolulu.

1000K

I forgot to post this back in August, but I recently passed the official "you're too old to still be doing this" mark for business travelers:

While this does get me Premier Executive status for life, I am disappointed that they no longer name a plane after you at 5 million miles. It really takes away the motivation.

Amy's Wedding

Amy's Wedding, originally uploaded by /k.

Two days of flying back to Ohio this weekend resulted in Shelley and I seeing my younger sister married (and my niece Grace).

More photos on my Flickr page.

SF Commute

SF Bay Ferry, originally uploaded by /k.

I've been commuting into San Francisco quite a bit lately and the 2.5 hour drive into the Bay Area has really started to grind on me. It isn't really the distance, but the lost time and hassle of driving. So I am experimenting with ways to regain that lost time this month. The first one of these was the BayLink Ferry, which goes across the San Francisco Bay from Vallejo to the Embarcadero on the SF waterfront (near Fisherman's Wharf). As the video below shows, it's a pretty nice trip and only takes one hour. Along the way, you get to see Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island and the SF skyline. However, that's only half my journey since Vallejo is one hour from my house. I may try taking the Capital Corridor (Amtrak) later this month.

My Summer Vacation (2008 Edition)

As I mentioned in my last entry, I actually did have a large number of half-assed half-done posts from this summer, that hadn't progressed enough to be posted. Instead of trying to finish them, here they are in their half-baked glory:

• I bid farewell to my goat neighbors. This made me sad, as the goats were much more lively than the horses. And they used to continuously screw with their owners whenever they weren't promptly fed (which is often with my slackass neighbors). As a tribute to my goat friends (of which I nicknamed mama, runt and rowdy), I present to you my favorite video of rowdy the goat:
  
  



• I became a professional photographer:

  Hi /k,
  
  I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released second edition of our Schmap California Guide:
  
  Arco Arena
  
  Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

  Sadly, this photo sucks. And it came from my old Treo mobile phone.



• We endured high winds and epic wildfires. For a few weeks in June/July, it literally looked/smelled/felt like the entire state of California was on fire. And being near a large body of water, we got to see a lot of the firefighting preparations first hand:
  
  



• The summer was not completely without travel. I had to make a quick swing through Asia to present at our fiscal year kickoffs, which basically meant that I flew for about 10 hours every other day for one week to present for 1 hour total. However, this did leave some free time which I was able to fill. Below is a picture of the Sapporo Beer Station, which is on the Sapporo Beer Headquarters grounds in Ebisu-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
  
  
  

I am sure there were a few others things along the way, but this should bring you up to date.

Shibuya Dawn

Shibuya Dawn, originally uploaded by /k.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It's certainly not because I've been busy -- in fact, just the opposite: I didn't travel much over the summer at all. And because of that, I got lazy and have about 7 half-baked blog posts in my editor. So I am going to try a different tack and just post quick ones for a while.

Here is today's bit of Zen. It's a stop-motion video from my hotel room window of the sun rising over the Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo. I made it with iStopMotion and my MacBook's isight.

Goats

Goats, originally uploaded by /k.

It's goat season again here in El Dorado county.

Every year, when we move from the wet winter to the dry summer, fields of grass become super-combustible fire hazards. Unfortunately, it is not cost effective to mow and then remove the dead grass, so a cottage industry of shepherds rent out their goats and kids (baby goats) to munch on the drying weeds. It seems like a win/win, especially to my dogs who like to watch them.

I caught this group deforesting the back side of Wild Oaks park, but my next door neighbors (the caretakers of Whitey and Brownie) have also rented some for their pasture. You can't see him, but there is also a sheep dog (goat dog ?) somewhere in the pasture guarding over them.

if case you are thinking about it, it appears http://goatcentral.com/ is the place to call.

Moment of Zen

Circular Quay, originally uploaded by /k.

After a terribly busy week here in Sydney (it was truly twelve hour days almost all week), I got early on Saturday to take in Circular Quay with a bit of quiet.

This concludes my quick to trip to Australia. I'm just throwing things into my bags to catch my flight back to Los Angeles and finally NorCal.