It’s been a few years since I set aside time to walk downtown LA just to take photos. With Sam in China for two weeks and the winter days short, Saturday the 14th seemed like a good opportunity. That and the new camera to shoot with (since last time). Unlike the last few times, I […]
NOLA
A few months ago my newly-retired mother decided it was time for her fifth trip to New Orleans. She asked us if we’d like to join. Although we hadn’t planned to travel again until 2020, we agreed to go for just a couple days since we’d never been. Unfortunately, my grandfather’s health took a turn […]
Last Shaw’s Cove of the 2019 Season
Every good fish story starts with a fire alarm. On Saturday morning at 5am a resident of our 73 unit building thought it would be a great prank to pull the fire alarm. As such, we got a late start on the drive south to Orange County. We didn’t get out on the beach until […]
Eosinophilic esophagitis
I waited for twenty years to hear that phrase. I blogged in the past about an eating problem I’ve had since college. Last fall it was “solved.” I didn’t write about it because I was playing the long game to see how the medication worked, whether I could get the photos from the surgeon, and […]
The Return of Shaw’s Cove
I’d been checking the conditions forecast throughout the week leading up to a possible Sunday trip to Shaw’s Cove. Conditions went from calm, low wave energy and low surf rating (a zero is optimal) to high energy and a 1 surf rating (not too bad, but could be iffy depending on wave energy). I almost […]
La Jolla 2019
Every summer Sam and I drive to La Jolla. Many times a rotating group of friends joins us. Half the time, leopard sharks join us too. This year, neither of them did. I had read reports of a massive influx of sharks two weeks prior to our trip and got really excited. Then, just a […]
First snorkel of 2019 season
Last Saturday Sam and I rolled out of bed, got in the little blue convertible, and drove to Laguna Beach. We stopped at the Pavillions on the PCH for beach food, as we always do, and then looked for beach parking. Sometimes we luck out and get parking pretty close to the stairs to the […]
Instagram’s unique approach to sharing content
<Sarcasm> Can we just take a moment to recognize Instagram’s superior commitment to helping content creators grow their following? Unlike Facebook, where only my friends see/discover my content, I’m glad Instagram created a tagging architecture that’s completely ignored by their homepage scroll and still only shows followers (Instagram’s version of friends). </Sarcasm> I kid, I […]
Fire in the hills
Although we’ve had the opportunity to watch the July 4th fireworks from our own property for many years now, we have only made the trek up the hiking trail once before. Armed with a better camera I wanted to try again. So, about thirty minutes before the start of the show/s we hiked up the […]
Thailand
On a Friday around midnight, we boarded our 15-hour flight to Hong Kong. After a 90 minute transfer in Hong Kong, we flew another three hours to Suvarnabhumi Airport, where Sam’s sister and brother in law picked us up. They immediately took us to an upscale mall only opened six months ago called Icon Siam. The […]