A Trip To Vasquez Rocks

I have mentioned Vasquez Rocks before and if you didn't see it, you can catch up here.

My Marine son and his girl spent a weekend celebrating their one month anniversary and one of the things he took her too...was Vasquez Rocks.
It is one of the easiest and hardest things to do. There are definitely areas where even I (the world's worst climber) feel safe and secure and so happy to enjoy the rocks and the views. Then there are other, more challenging parts of the park.

It's a wondrous thing for us residents and for special guests to see.

I am glad that he brought her up to Vasquez, to do something different and unforgetable. He made points with his girl, I am sure.


I want to mention that if in your travels you get to Vasquez, you really do have to watch out for snakes.

Public Servants Who Don't Follow Their Own Rules

This one came at us, out of left field.

We uplink the BBC World News 7 times a day at my TV Station. We make the show available to the entire PBS System, by doing this. The show comes in from England and we retransmit the signal (with the addition of our open and close) onto the PBS Satellite.
It's a complex piece of business that we have been doing for almost 2 years now. Most days, there is no real problem...

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee held hearings on Financial Reform and the Chairman of the Committee used the "S" word at least 4 times in the sound bite that everyone ended up using on the air, that evening. Being England does not have the "archaic" rules that we have, they aired the profanity as news and thought nothing more about it. We uplinked the show and promptly found out that those words had passed through their gatekeepers. We quickly ran to an edit bay and deleted the words for not only our air, but to give any stations that still needed it, another uplink. Unfortunately for us, that didn't help the East Coast stations that went live on the air with that show.

What gives a United States Senator the right to break the very rules that were put in place by the Federal Communications Commission? Both are parts of our Federal Government and the least this Senator can do, is is obey the Government's own laws.
We hold other public figures to that same rule (right Janet Jackson and Bono)?
Why not him?

Thanks so much for adding to our profanity misery, Senator.

Can we call you as a witness, when we end up in Court?

Yellow Anemones

I have a diving friend and he owns a Dive business. Last weekend they dove Catalina and one of his photos from that dive, was this one of Yellow Anemones. I really liked the colors and the profusion of life at the bottom of the ocean and decided to share it with my blog readers.

An FYI about anemones, they eat things like small fish, so they are not cute, in the sense of a flower being cute. These anemones are killers. :-)

In an interesting side note. Ken Kurtis has actually been to the bottom of the ocean around Catalina in the submersible, Alvin. I remember him editing the video at our station and getting to see the raw footage of what the bottom of the ocean looks like as they travel along. This was much more interesting, because you were not just getting the "best" 2 seconds of footage, you were seeing it all.

He's a great friend and a great diver (and a great Pledge host, back in the day).

Check out his bio and his web site, if interested. Reef Seekers.

Blessed Kateri A New View...And An Old One

A view of the new Church doors.

I love the dramatic look of the clouds in the windows and the tree of life on the wooden door.

It's a wonderful entry to the new Church space and so far I have not managed to showcase it.

This is the entrance that opens onto our plaza.

Our Church organizations have booths after masses and our breakfasts are over in the hall, our old Church building.




This statue is our first one, donated by the children of our Church.

Blessed Kateri has graced our old entryway, since we built our original Church almost 11 years ago.

This shot was on Easter Sunday and so she was decorated with an Easter Lily.

She is known as the Lily of the Mohawks, so it is so appropriate for her to have one.

St. Louis Arch At Sunset

My Water Post For Today.

I went to a Traffic Conference in St. Louis, Missouri in 1998.

Our hotel overlooked the Gateway Arch and of course, the mighty Mississippi. Over the space of 3 days we lived through much weather we are not used to, including a major electrical storm.

We West Coast dwellers were mesmerized by it all, especially being so close to the very large lightning rod across the street. :-)

I hope you enjoy the sun setting by the St. Louis arch.

It's well worth your time to see.

Hola! Mi Paco

Hola Senors y Senoritas.
Mi nombre es Paco. :-)



A friend at work had this terracotta statue at work and decided she didn't like it.

I looked him over and decided that he was kind of cute and that maybe I will put him by my pond in the backyard.

The only thing I wonder about him is why he seems to be doing the "hear no evil" thing with his hands.
In spite of that, he will take up residence and maybe I will even fill his jars with plants. We shall see.

He spent a day at my office and I decided to decorate him, while he graced my credenza. Enjoy.


Update: He seems too fragile to put out in my backyard, since it felt like a strong wind would break him. So I placed him in front of my fireplace with another terracotta piece I own. He looks good there and all I have to worry about are earthquakes...and Makenna. :-)

My Almost Favorite Dilbert Comic

This comic has been on my bulletin board for the past 9 years. As a person with a high pressure job that rarely allows me to take time off, it speaks to me on so many levels. I laugh and cry every time I read it, because it's so tragically true. (Do click the image, to read the comic)

I am coming off a year of almost no time off. I managed to take 3 days off in October and that allowed my husband and I to take a small vacation back in Washington, DC and New Jersey. This time, I chose my dates with care. I decided that we would HAVE to take some time off from pledging at our station (we have been pledging in both March and April) and that the month of May would be the place where that would occur, since we will be right back at it again, during June. I asked my boss for time off and scheduled a week...an entire week without work. Wow, who would have thought!
I haven't had 9 1/2 days off consecutively in gee, maybe years and years. :-)

More on the vacation to come, later. Just let me state for the record that I will not be hanging out the window doing my job, like in this comic.

We are Chicago bound, via Amtrak and there is no Internet connection there. Woot!



*For those who wonder what my favorite Dilbert comic is...let me just state that it was about Dilbert calling his bosses number early in the morning, to make him think he was working long hours. I still chuckle, thinking about it. :-)

Love Shines Bright

I must admit that I have not seen him so happy, in a long while.

My Marine Son (other son #1) came home for leave about a month ago and while he was here in town, he formally met someone who he had been conversing with via Facebook. They both brought other people to the meet (a smart move for both of them) and have been dating ever since. She has met his parents and me (an almost parent. lol)

She seems very nice and as I said at the top, he has not been very happy, especially when he was stationed in Pensacola over the past year or so. Now that he is here in California, he has more options and she is one of them.

I wish my other son my best and a special Happy One Month Anniversary to you and your girl, today.

My Sister

My sister has MS.

It has been a hard thing to deal with and being I am 3,000 miles away, I know it is no where near as bad as it is for her and her husband. There have been many times when I have wished she lived closer to me, so I could help make her life a little easier. Unfortunately, Los Angeles is one of the hottest places in the United States and heat is not a friend to people who have MS. I can't move and she can't move, so we stay apart.

Not to dwell on the bad things, today is to speak of the good things. For the past 3 or so years my sister and her husband, have participated in the MS Walk that takes place at Belmont Lake State Park. I once did a Water Post of that lake, if my readers remember.
She intends to "scooter" around the lake on May 2nd with her team, The Sunflowers.
The money raised, goes to her local chapter, so if you feel like supporting her and her team, please do so.
What I like about their website is you can opt out of getting notifications during the year. Some other fundraising webpages don't give you that option.

She just added her page on the main Sunflower page, so if you want to donate directly to her, her name is Martha.

We both thank you.

The Bedroom Is Now Complete

Here's how my new bedroom wall is looking now.

The area that was fixed was painted over the weekend.

We took my Husband's Grandmother's antique love seat and brought it over to the room and it looks just wonderful and fits just perfect.

I had finally broken down and purchased a frame for this painting of mine, about a month ago and we had hung it on the wall behind my bedroom door. It looks so much better on this wall.

My husband and I are quite pleased with how it all came out.

In good news for us, minus what we spent to have the work done, the only additional money we spent was for a drop cloth and a roll of painter's tape. That's it...we had the rest at home.

Oh and the cat has found that empty spot on the love seat.
We will see how that plays out.
Otherwise, another stuffed animal may make an appearance. :-)

Feels So Good

I was on the phone with my brother the other day and he commented that his middle son plays trumpet with the Marshfield High School Jazz Band.

He recently played a trumpet solo in a Chuck Mangione's composition, "Feels So Good".

He gave me the bread crumb trail and I checked it out. Unfortunately, since this post published, my brother has taken down the link to this performance. He put up the most recent performance on May 30th and you can hear it here on You Tube.

He told me it wasn't perfect, but he had done better then the first one. Hey, it's my nephew and that counts for something. I am glad I got to see it.

On a personal note, I can't believe how long his hair is, which you can see in the screen capture I did from the original video.

Saugus Iron Works

My Water Post For Today.

I have been to the town of Saugus, MA twice, once with my Dad and my family and once just my family.

We go there because Henry Mayo Newhall the man who began Newhall Land and Farming Company, back in the 1800's, was born there. When he moved out west, he named his adopted area of the world, Saugus, CA. This is where we live.

So, being good Saugus residents, when in the Boston area, we trek to the north and visit a place that is NOTHING like Saugus, CA.

This is the Saugus Iron Works. A glimpse of the past that is there for all to see.


Saugus Iron Works is there in Saugus, because it sits on a site by the Saugus river.
For those who don't know, Saugus means a sandy spit of land, in Narragansut Indian.

It's a cool place and due to the fact that it is on the Saugus River, it's a very quiet place to sit and watch the wildlife and river.
I remember eating lunch there at least one time. They have tables by the water.

I hope you enjoy the serenity of Saugus...three thousand miles away.

All About Doors...The Start Of A Home Improvement Project

My husband thinks that maybe he kicked a stone when he was edging our lawn last year. The result of that "possible" stone hitting our sliding glass door, was a spider web of broken glass on one of the door windows. It took us months to get our act together, as to what to do. Finally we contacted our house insurance and they went for replacing the entire door, rather then replace just the one side of a double pane of glass...with no guarantee of it even working. We got a company to come out and take care of it and within an hour or so, we had a wonderful new door. We knew our house needs to replace our doors and windows and so we asked these people if they were willing to do so. He said that he wasn't able to, but recommended a fine door and window company. We talked with the man and he gave us estimates on not only what needed to be done...but what we wanted to change.




My husband and I decided that the best way to check out the work from this company, was to have them do one of the windows, first. We decided to go with our dream change in our bedroom, as the experiment. Take out the window in the room and replace it with a sliding glass door. Then remove the small normal door and fill the hole in, so that the net result is that we would have a bit more wall space in the room. We gave the OK and chose what we wanted in the room and waited for the install day.


That happened on the Monday after we returned from Las Vegas. We had rain the night before, but for the most part, it held off drizzling, until the very end of the project and the workers could do what they needed to do. They tore out the stuff below the current window...moved the electric plug over toward my side of the bed (a good thing for charging a cell phone at night) and set up the new hole for the addition of the door. While this was going on, the other man was taking out that old swing door and filling in the hole. We have insulation and drywall, etc, so we should see a bit of a change in our electricity and heating bill. Then they added stucco on the outside and said they would be back on Wednesday to finish up.
When Wednesday came, they did the final finish on the inside of the wall, to give it that texture look that matches the rest of the room and a final coat of almost matching stucco. It's not a perfect color match, as you can see in the photos, but it's good enough for now. I am grateful for that, since I would like to replace all the windows, before we paint the house. We are currently painting the inside of the house, to get the new wall, to match the rest. It's drying in the photos you see.



The best part of the whole thing is that the room feels just so wonderful. We have been leaving the door open during the day and the cat sits there watching the world go by, at her level, no less.
We can see the pond running during the morning and evening and whenever we want, I guess. It's great.

Survey Time!

My Marine son says I do not post enough about how my "boys" are doing now.

It's survey time.

Do my normal regular readers feel that I post about my 3 sons enough?

Have I been neglecting them?

Just checking...

Oh and in news, my Marine son has a new girlfriend.

More on that at a later date. :-)

Umami Burger

I had the honor to go out to lunch with a colleague at PBS the other day. Since the man is a real In-N-Out burger fan, my boss suggested a place called Umami Burger. She said it was right down the block from where I work and so we took a quick stroll down the street to what I consider a not so good area, adjacent to where I work. There about half way down the street is a really nice upscale restaurant with not only inside seating, but outside seating. We chose the inside and sat down with the menu.
There are not many burger choices there and according to the website, the choices vary by location and time of year. I ordered a Turkey Burger and I totally expected a dry hockey puck. Instead, I got this incredible juicy turkey burger that tasted just like a hamburger. Not over salted or over seasoned. It was perfect, in my book.
I ordered some Sweet Potato Fries with the Roasted Garlic Aioli. It was a perfect accompaniment with the fries. Our other order had their house ketchup. I was happy with the Aioli, so I did not try it.

All in all, a great lunch and a feeling that this restaurant might help upscale this block section of Hollywood Blvd. Wouldn't that be nice.

I can't wait to try it with my Husband.