2002

Gordon and Valri’s houses at sunset. At least they’re not covered in snow yet. Wish I was there. But now that I see Karen out on the dock looking cold and wet, maybe it was better that I stayed home. But then again, Charlotte still looks great fishing off the end of the dock. I don’t think she caught the big pike this trip. I heard that Charlotte (senior) has been very busy with her paintings. I think a few of these are touchups of some stuff that Valri was working on as well. ...

Charlotte and Valri make it to their parents house, where there is never an end to the gardening that needs to get done. These shots are in front of Valri’s house. Of course you’ve got to get down and dirty to do a quality job. Charlotte always looks so happy up north. Of course I wish she was home with me and the kids, but I’m always glad to see her happy. She’s not quite a true yooper, but she tries. ...

The last time I went to one of these was back in the 1980s. Man that was a long time ago. I happened to spot a great coupon in the Metro that said the faire had moved from Novato to Casa de Fruta. I figured with it being a whole lot closer, the kids would have a great time. It was actually a great location and not too crowded for the first few hours. By the time we got out to the jousting area, it was a mob scene in a hot dust bowl. I managed to get a few shots of the action before I was forced to flee. ...

I think Charlotte took these pictures as part of our refinance. Time to lock in those low rates yet again.

Charlotte is very happy now that she’s got her computer all to herself. The kids and I used accounts defined under Windows XP and would switch as needed. Most of the time I would be competing for time with Charlotte. Now each of the kids have their own computers and everyone is happily clicking away in each of their rooms. I finally made the switch over to my Mac, so Charlotte is on her own. She sure looks happy.

That old boating fever keeps coming back. I caught wind of a boat show in the area and decided to make a day of it with the family. The NCMA boat show was held in Jack London Square in Oakland. The show had both indoor displays and a large number of boats in slips. It was a beautiful day to be outside and around boats, and I had never been to this area of Oakland before. It’s a great area with lots to see and do. ...

I’ve been to quite a few places around the world, especially Europe, but I was really looking forward to my trip to Rome. I was headed out to Italy for a standards group meeting for the Open Mobile Alliance. I won’t bore you with what went on at the meetings, but unfortunately they chewed up most of my free time. I did manage to get a full day away to check out the city, but of course it had to be raining that day. Who really cares about getting wet anyway. ...

While I was in Rome for the week, Charlotte tooks the kids up to the San Francisco zoo with their cousins. I hear that they’ve rearranged things quite a bit since I was last up there. Charlotte went for our usual secret parking spot close to an entrance, but they closed that gate. Sounds like they’ve done a great job on the new layout. Guess I’ll have to take the whole crew up again sometime soon. ...

I hadn’t seen my uncle Jeff and aunt Eileen in such a long time. When Eileen called me to say she was coming to Santa Cruz for a dog show, I tried my best to talk Jeff into coming as well. To our great pleasure, even Ari came along. Eileen has got quite a travel setup for her three dogs Mary Jane, Luther, and Lacy. The kids loved hanging with the dogs, though Abby seemed a bit overwhelmed with the sheepdog pack that came to town that day. Here Gabe can’t take his eyes off Mary Jane. ...

There’s this beach north of Santa Cruz and just south of the Pigeon Point lighthouse that we call sand dune beach. It’s probably our very favorite beach in the whole area. It reminds me a lot of the beaches back on the east coast. It has towering grass covered sand dunes, a long walk to the water, and not a whole lot of people. It’s become a bit more crowded lately since they built a classy campground/lodge nearby. ...