apteryx wa

uncle sammy's bday in charleston

congratulations kari and justin

new art

andrey roy

mike dutton

curbside giveaway

now we have a piano...

we went go-karting

(left) will, josh, della, tyson
(right) nick, nicole, hayden
(absent) alison

i will be reading on saturday

this is catskiing

i realize it's a little late, but...

congratulations jeannie and derek

better late than never

here is a shirt i just custom-upgraded today. it's a tribute to hunter s. thompson blowing his brains out. the buttonholes were hard to figure out. and i don't know how long the cotton decal paper is going to last. which makes me think it might be time to finally look into screenprinting. i was walking around the neighborhood today - looking for a black t-shirt to cut up and sew on another black t-shirt to cover the current graphics, which i found, by the way, at goodwill - and i saw a screenprinting shop. which just reinforces my opinion that every normally-out-of-the-way shop we need is within a few blocks of our house. there are two record player repair/retail shops, two typewriter repair/retail shops, a mac repair shop, a few fabric shops, an auto parts store, a cheap oil change place, a respectible auto repair garage, a gilded-age second-hand store, goodwill, the AAA store, a second-hand bookstore, a massive copy/fax center (they have a couple printing presses, too), a day spa, a post office, an art supply store, and certainly some others i'm not thinking of because these are the types of places you never think of. and all this is in addition to the de-facto neighborhood assortment of restaurants, cafes, gas stations, laundromats, parks and grocery stores.

we make things

the arty (art + party) was fun. the night began with some painting, card-making and a bit of sewing. the evening progressed with popcorn garland and paper snowflakes. after midnight, some astounding pipe cleaner creations began to appear. my dad (hi dad!) always told me that nothing good happens after midnight. but he obviously wasn't talking about making ornaments out of pipe cleaners.

christmas comes to our living room and kitchen

yesterday we bought this tree and this awesome light-up snowman. i guess i should clarify that i was the one who picked out the snowman. but i think tyson is on board with the idea. his pensive expression in the living room photo is actually a look of quiet contemplation and admiration. mmmm, yes, the snowman does look happy to be living on our counter. yes, i think this arrangement will work out just fine.

continuing with the holiday merriment, we will be hosting a little art party next friday. so if you're a friend in the bay area, please join us on december 7 for our xmas arts and crafts evening.

request #2, sort of

this is the art-room.
jamey's painting and my painting are friends.

requests

we are taking requests now.

request #1: kathy wants to see what our apartment looks like.

here is a picture from my camera phone. this is what you would see if you walked through our front door right now.

i've become a bay area writer

the harvest

we're pretty sure it's impossible not to have fun in napa. last saturday we woke up at 5:30 and commenced mogging for the harvest at moulds family vineyard. and it was great.

retail-speak

if you wished to transcribe della's name in crate and barrelish, this is what it would look like.

seriously. every type of their glassware has a different human name.

above is the della, the karin and the watson.

i feel bad about this

so will calls me up the other day and asks if i want to go test out his new speargun in his parents' pool. it was too intriguing to refuse so we head over to the asian market to buy some live carp, where naturally it takes a while for will to explain he wants them to fill up his backpack with water and take the fish away alive. during the confusion i notice a tank of sturgeon and decide a bigger fish would make an easier target so we get one of those as well. then we head down to woodside, suit up and throw the sturgeon in the pool. i don't think it liked the chlorine because it didn't swim much. it was very unsporting actually. but it still took us five shots before we finally got it. then we unloaded all the carp at once and continued.

we were planning on cooking the fish but the cookbook said it would take a "culinary master" to make the sturgeon palatable and that carp wasn't much easier. so we ended up murdering the fish, which felt terrible. it was also a little self-loathing when an ex-board member of PETA rode up on his horse to drop it off at the livery next to the pool while will and i are despearing fish, hacking their heads off with a hatchet, reloading, gulping some beer and jumping in the pool for more.

and i bid you adieu

so my plan to make a wig out of my own hair didn't work out. i wanted to have a 80's newscaster type wig made so I could wear it to meetings at work and whenever i go to the bank. and maybe even to the doctor's office. definitely to the dentist's office. anything serious really. the mechanic.

but it didn't work out. it turns out it costs thousands of dollars to have a custom wig made. so now i have to go to the bank with my own damn hair. which is now short, by the way. and unnewscasterly.

one word: aviators

west indies / virgin islands

we went on a cruise as july turned into august.

della and i got us a kayak and paddled out to sea.
but we came back to snorkel with turtles and sip caribbean cocktails.

yellow-headed welcome home party

this fall/spring while we were in new zealand, my mom was busy planting a whole field of sunflowers. we arrived in kentucky just in time to see the results.

road trip

we took a short roadtrip with my parents to southwest colorado and visited durango, mesa verde, silverton, ouray, the royal gorge and colorado springs.

cliff palace, the largest cliff dwelling yet discovered in the united states

rainbow paint on the side of a shop in silverton

the royal gorge bridge, the worlds highest suspension bridge over water

on the bridge, looking down just over 1,000 feet

weekend in fairplay

upon arriving in denver we spent the weekend in fairplay where della was able to meet some of my high school friends. we did some hiking up in the higher altitudes and roamed around a motorcycle rally back in town. della and elizabeth also went to old-timey southpark (the same one made famous by the cartoon), and i did some shooting with derek, justin and kevin.

hiking around near kite lake, one of the highest maintained campsites in the national park system at 12,000 feet

the valley and old mining trail which brings you in to kite lake

eating an apple at the motorcycle rally

homecoming

we're back! we planned a long layover for our arrival in san francisco and wound up going to napa, santa cruz and harry potter before making our way to denver. napa was great as usual; we sipped wine and beers by the pool, hit some golf balls (poorly), had a great meal and finished off the night with some cigars, a soak in the hot tub and a nice fire. della did her first outdoor rock climbing on the way to santa cruz, then we hung out on the beach and enjoyed another fire before getting rousted by the cops. then we spent a night in the city and toured some neighborhoods before waiting in line for harry potter.

but we missed some friends while we were there so we have to go back soon to make up for it...

above, i'm not sure who the artist is for these wooden sculptures in an abandoned industrial landfill near albany/berkeley in the east bay, but they're pretty impressive.

day 19 - shanghai - july 7, 2007

maglev train to the airport