Last of the San Francisco Pictures

So, I think this is it for the San Francisco pictures. I finally got my album that I made on Blurb.com, and it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I think I'm a convert to the ready-made printed albums now. But anyways, there are from Muir Woods (well, overlooking Muir Woods), and our winery tour of Napa Valley, respectively. I may post on Monday or Tuesday, but after that, I will be in Botswana from October 1-14, so no blogging for me! Don't worry though, I will have months worth of pictures after that, I'm sure.

Spinning In Circles

So, for some odd reason, I feel like I am busy, busy, busy, but I can't actually think of anything that I've been doing. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. But anyways, here are some pictures to add to my busy-non-doingness.

These are some pictures from the National Zoo, which despite the fact I used to live like 3 blocks away from, I've only been to a couple of times. Someone asked me what my favorite animal at the zoo was, and I have to reply the arapaima fish, the bottom two pictures. Most people would pick the panda bears, or some other cute and cuddly animal, of which there are plenty, but I am fascinated by fish. They remind me of like some sort of molded plastic model of a gigantic prehistoric fish. They are over 6 feet long and so cool.

This reminds me of a funny story. So when asked for my phone number while out, I generally just put the other person's phone number in my phone, rather than give my number out. So this leads to some numbers which I have no idea who the person is in my phone. One time I was scrolling through my contacts and I came across Fonz. Who in the world would honestly go by Fonz? So this was a mystery for quite a while, until one time I happened to notice a bumper sticker, which also said Fonz. The lightbulb comes on! Fonz is not a some guy from an old tv show, but instead is Friends of the National Zoo. I had put the number in my phone on one of my visits to the zoo, because I had thought about volunteering. So much for all my good intentions.

Flying Away

So I'm one of those annoying people who always take pictures on airplanes. I don't know what it is, I just can't help it. The first picture is from the 10 person plane we island-hopped with in Puerto Rico (we were literally like 5 feet away from that propeller), and the second one shows my brand loyalty. :) I just thought it was really cool how the fin thing reflected on the wing.

Long Time, No See

So last time I lied, just a little. Someday soon, I really will get back in a regular habit of posting, but who knows when. Life has been busy lately, and I'm busy preparing for a quick weekend trip down to Austin in a week and a half for ACL, and then I'm back in DC for 2 days and then I leave for Botswana! So yeah, it might be like a month before I actually post anything real, but I will have tons of pictures, that's for sure. :) Anyways, this is a picture from Muir Woods, when John decided to play Moses.

Road Man No. 2

So I didn't realize quite how badly I had abandoned my blog, but it has been over a week, so I think that means today needs at least two posts. I just bought a new computer a couple of days ago (finally replacing my laptop which was stolen in March), and so I'm in the process of transferring everything over there at the moment. Once that's all up and running though, I should post more often.

Road Man

This awesome little man is on 17th St, a half block from the White House. I'm not sure why he's there, or who put him there, but he makes me smile at least weekly.

Color Dabbling

I normally don't do a ton of photo editing, but I was just playing around with a black and white picture that I had taken years ago when we lived in Clare, and it was kind of cool what all is possible to do.

Alcatraz

San Francisco Bay

The evening light over the Bay was wonderful. These were actually taken 2 seperate days.

Murals Near and Far - San Francisco Version

So murals are one of my favorite photo subjects, so of course I take the opportunity everywhere I go to take pictures of them.

Roughing It

So, to continue the theme of John's birthday, this year we spent the weekend at his family's cabin in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. He has been wanting to go for some time now, so this was his special birthday treat, considering I'm not too partial to no indoor plumbing. It wasn't so bad, but 3 days is definitely my limit.

My Mad Baking Skills

So these are old pictures, but just bear with me here. Last year, John's birthday happened to fall on 7/7/07, so we decided to throw him a 7th birthday party, complete with pin the tail on the donkey, Sega Genesis, party favors, party hats, the whole works. As the pièce de résistance, I decided to try my hand at making a themed cake, and John chose Donatello, of the teenage mutant ninja turtles. So, after browsing the internet for pictures, I spent the day in the kitchen making the cake. It was going well, until I decided the cakes were cool enough to take out of the pans, and I flipped them over. "What in the world are those round white things?" I wonder. Turns out, doubling a cake recipe isn't necessarily a good thing, as it means the eggs are much less likely to get mixed into the batter. So instead of a deliciously moist, beautiful chocolate cake, I had a deliciously moist, beautiful chocolate cake with a couple of fried eggs thrown in. Luckily, I was able to sculpt them out and it tasted just fine without them.

Flowers, Con't

So I realized I had a picture of the actual garden from yesterday's flower pictures, as well a few other good ones, so I might as well post them as well. Enjoy!

Flowers, Yet Again

Since it's completely uncharacteristic of me to go this long without posting any flowers, here you go. These were from a garden that John and I wandered into a couple of streets over from Lombard Street.