Click on the photo for a larger view:

This is a famous alley in San Luis Obispo called Bubble Gum Alley. It’s actually really disgusting. People stick their chewing gum on the walls. Some places have inches of stuck gum, and people get very creative with writing and drawing in chewed gum. I took this picture with my cell phone so it’s not the highest quality. Click on the photo for a larger view.

Here’s a picture collage of Erin’s first 30 years, created by of her mom Judy:

For Erin’s 30th Birthday I took her for a romantic weekend getaway to the Jenner Inn, just north of Bodega Bay.

We stayed in the Fanny Jewel Room

Saturday morning we got up, ate our breakfast at the Inn and then headed up to Monte Rio for a canoe trip up the Russian River

Where we saw lots of wildlife, mostly ducks

Saturday night we drove up to Anderson Redwoods State Park for a concert at the Amphitheater in the Redwoods. The opening act was a group of 4 8th grade boys from Sebastapol playing Appalachian bluegrass. They were really the best act of the night. The main act was a brass band playing mostly swing music.

Sunday morning after breakfast we headed back to Pleasant Hill, stopping along the way at Goat Rock State Beach and also in downtown Petaluma for some shopping and coffee.

You can see all the photos from our trip on my Smugmug Travel page

Well, it would be difficult to find someone who’s been to a more spectacular wedding than the one put on by Paul Wilson and Cynthia Phinney in East Livermore, ME last week. The wedding was months in the planning and it all payed off.

Raphael and I were lucky enough to join a large group of Paul and Cynthia’s friend in setting up for the event Friday and Saturday.

Of course Paul would have to arrive at his own wedding in a helicopter!

Then, what’s a wedding without a little noise from a Browning 50 caliber?


Or a canon?


There were fireworks too. And lots of great food and dancing. For more pictures, follow these links:
Bryan’s Photos
Mike and Lisa’s Photos
Paul & Cynthia’s Wedding Website

Last night we went out to Gritty’s in Auburn, ME to meet up with a few old pals from high school.

I stumbled across this article while surfing the web yesterday. It’s one of those inspiring articles that makes you want to start taking action immediately. A few good points that I’ve taken away from the article:

1. If you never spend more than 99% of your income, you’ll always have more money than you know what to do with
2. If you always spend 101% of your income, you’ll go further and further into debt.

This seems obvious, but by presenting this as a difference of only 1%, you realize how important it is. Anything greater than 1% saved is fantastic, anything less than 0% saved is horrible.

What else will I do? I’m going to quit coffee. I’ve said this many times, and have actually given it up for several weeks at a time. But, I always find the social aspect of coffee brings me back. Plus, I really like have a coffee cup in my hand while I’m driving to work. I think there’s a solution here: Don’t drive to work! That’s a ways down the road. For now I’m going to try really hard to get off the caffeine train.

I’ve made a lot of bread-machine bread in my time (31 whole years!) but I never made it completely from scratch. It was fun to mix everything up, knead the dough and watch it cook. I’m not sure making one loaf of bread in a modern kitchen really benefits the environment. The oven is set around 400 degF for almost an hour, which must be a lot of energy. But, I can be assured that there is no high fructose corn syrup or nasty additives. And, I get to make bread, which is a skill that man has had (or should have) since forever and a day.

Last night as we were leaving a bbq up on the mesa in Santa Barbara, Anna and Oscar found a skunk and decided to give chase. Anna wound up with a decent coating of oily skunk stink across her face. It was really quite nasty and was my first personal dog spraying. She was spitting and drooling and her eyes were burning and watering. We washed her up with the hose and dish soap and let her spend the night on the porch.