July 2006 Archives

A few weeks back we wandered up to Calevaras County with my parents. We stayed in a nice little time-share condo in Angel's Camp. It was pretty nice, that time-share thingy. Better than I expected anyhow.

Samual Clemens (nom de plum, Mark Twain, yes that guy who wrote about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn) apparently stayed in Angel's Camp for a few months on a personal pocket-mining adventure. He wrote a story about a jumping frog which was based in Angel's Camp. Now the town is a living, breathing tourist shrine to Mark Twain and the Jumping Frog's he made so famous.

There's even now an annual Frog Jumping Contest. Yap. They call it the Frog Jumping Jubilee. They put the frogs on a launch pad in a circle, then try to get them to jump in any direction. The one that jumps the farthest wins. I'm not making this up!

All in all, we had a good time. We went up to the Big Trees forest. We went to the Stanislaus river. We wandered around Angel's Camp and Murphy's and Columbia. We saw a play. We went wine tasting. We descended into the Moaning Cavern. We ate, drank and were merry.

Pictures ensue:


The Pine Cone of DOOM!


Big Pine Cone, Big Pine Cone Maker


Topher Viewing Trees


Mom Hiding in Trees


Serene Making the River Look Good


Father and Son Getting Ready To Empty Them Barrels


Mom and Dad Slightly Tipsy


Serene in My Hat Va-Va-Va-Voom!

Last weekend I accidentally gave a chubby Mexican kid who couldn't put more than 2 words together at a time $10 in quarters to play a video game in a laundrymat because his curvaceous mom was wearing a low-cut top. It's ok because the quarters weren't mine.

Serene laughed for about 20 minutes then gave me a big snuggling hug that made me blush all the way up to the top of my bald head. I think she likes doing that, but I haven't figured out if it's because of the bright red blush or the snuggling.

. Topher

Ight, this just kills me. Are you ready for this? Heh heh.

Yeah, so, in this one building I frequent there is a conference room with a VLW (Very Large Whiteboard). On that whiteboard are all kinds of boxes and squiggles with little blurbs that must be significant to somebody scrawled near, around and over them. Standard fare for a VLW, don't you think?

Yeah, so, splattered over all of this scrawling are 20 or 30 post-it notes stuck to the whiteboard with more scrawlings on them. Yes, post-it notes stuck to the whiteboard.

And of course, just to add that finishing touch, a nice "Do Not Erase" in the middle.

Ha! That kills me.