Went to The Tumbleweed Cafe today, a small local sandwich/coffee/dessert shop in the next town over (population: 500 - that's five times as many as in our town - LOL). The sandwiches were fresh and delicious and the ice cream desserts were HUGE. (That meal was eight hours ago and I'm STILL not at all hungry.) Managed to get in a few shots of course - the first one is the face inside a wrought iron sun welded to the back of one of the chairs, the second is a high window on one of the walls - ooooooh.

If you're at all concerned about what's happening with the RIAA and streaming internet broadcasting, there's an excellent Metafilter thread HERE with a lot of good angles discussed and many questions answered, especially by a lawyer working on the actual cases. It's all so nuts, I hope it all collapses under its own weight. BLEH!
posted:11:54 AM | link |

This orchard of nut trees (maybe walnut) is along the route we travel to get to tom's house. Actually, there are a lot of cherry orchards closer to our house that also had a ton of wild mustard growing amongst the trees, but by the time I got back there with my camera, most of the wild plantage had been mowed down. But that's okay, the nut trees make for an especially brown, sticklike, barren contrast to all the lush yellow. Spring in this part of California seems to rush itself like it just can't wait anymore and February will do fine thank you very much.
posted:8:28 AM | link |

The Blur Building - An inhabitable cloud whirling above a lake. Now under construction for the Swiss Expo 2002. Cool!
posted:8:53 AM | link |

A few more photos from the trip to the Monterey Tide Pools:

Listening to the radio this morning, they had a piece about how people aren't as embarrassed about admitting they've had cosmetic surgery anymore. They interviewed a doctor who said, "There isn't the stigmata around it that there used to be." STIGMATA? Do you really want to have surgery performed on you by someone who doesn't know the difference between stigmata and stigma? ROFLMAO!!!
posted:8:47 AM | link |

Yesterday we got together with our friends Jill and Tom and, on Jill's suggestion, we drove out to visit the Monterey Tide Pools! The weather was perfect - overcast and cool but not raining (rain is good except when I want to take photos outside - LOL). Jill showed us how to turn over the rocks and find the little crabs lurking down there. I have more photos to post, but I'll start with three - I've never seen such bright aqua coloring in the wave swells before - it was breathtaking!

I sent my URL to an old friend yesterday so I'm putting up this entry as a test to see if he actually made it here. *grin* The password is... "eesagramufabitz".
posted:7:58 AM | link |

This morning I decided that our Abstract Weirdness site needed a new flash animation as it's been pretty quiet there for a while. So I tuned into my alter ego ("forkflinger") *grin*, and created an animation called "space" (~330kb). Have at!
posted:12:35 PM | link |

I took this shot through the glass at a local fast food establishment. A little while after I took the shot, a manager type person came out and accosted a group of young teenagers who had just arrived after school. She told them that a customer had complained about them using bad language. I didn't even notice if they did - the only thing I noted was that they were a little boisterous and laughing a lot - all to be immediately suspect, of course, and reported, lest life get too lively and strange. (Last time we were there, we had just missed an apparent frakas (sp?) where they called the cops on a group of kids hanging around, for what reason we didn't know.)

When I was in high school, my friends and I always hung out in fast food restaurants - it was the only place we could sit for a while and afford anything - walking through malls got boring quickly, and when you're in upstate NY in the winter, there aren't a lot of other options, particularly 'outside'. And since one of our friends was allergic to pets, most of our houses weren't available either. We only got scolded once, and that was a mistaken assumption on the part of the complainer - mostly we just laughed really loud - we weren't intent on any kind of destruction or anything. *sigh*

Anyway, my wish is for every group of kids had a place to hang out like the Foreman's basement in that 70's show - LOL. Even with my allergic friend, we often ended up at my house, sitting around the kitchen table - my parents didn't mind the noise so much. After my father died, my mom really enjoyed the company and often sat and laughed with us too. And then, of course, there was fridge access - mom kept it stocked with soda and american cheese slices - what more could you want? *grin*
posted:9:59 AM | link |