Diana and I went out camping last weekend as well as visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We didn’t know if we’d be able to find a campsite as we hadn’t reserved any so we had a back up plan of just hanging out at the beach and then staying overnight at her Father’s. Sunday morning we got up packed the truck and headed for Santa Cruz and the Big Basin State Park. When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find out they did have open sites, it turned out a lot of them. We set up camp, went on a little hike in which we saw a small waterfall, then drove to Santa Cruz to walk through the mall and have dinner at a great British pub in Aptos. After dinner we drove back up to camp and went to bed. We got up early on Monday and drove into Monterey where we spent the day at the Aquarium. It goes without saying that this was awesome! Lucky us the aquarium right now has a juvenile great white shark in their largest tank, which we were able to see and perhaps take a picture of. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to see it, that it’d hang out in the back of the tank but a number of times it swam right up to and past the glass, affording everyone there a great view of the fish. I took some pictures but don’t know if they came out as flash photography was strictly prohibited. There were plenty of other things to take pictures of though! I went through 3 and a half rolls of film, mostly on jelly fish and otters but other things as well… I can’t really speak for Diana but I can tell you that I love the aquarium and could spend all sorts of time there, my only complaint was the penguin area of the aquarium was closed for remodeling and the semi-hordes of children getting in my view, we just so happened to arrive on home-schooling day. I think Diana had a good time… :). I fell in love with the entire weekend, the camping, the hiking, the shopping and the sight seeing, I hope our outing at the end of this month to Big Sur is as exciting!
Category: life
Wanted Readership… I got this…
I’ve been writing in this thing for two odd years I think… I have no readership. I think I’d like to have a readership but I’m even conflicted about this, I don’t know how I’d feel about just anyone stumbling upon what I’ve written, and I definitely don’t need or want their random, illogical, poorly thought out comments. I pretty much know personally everyone who reads this blog… Until a few days ago. I wrote a small blurb on the latest book I had finished, in this case it was Zecharia Sitchins’ second book, if you scroll down you can read the post. Isn’t it minuscule? That post required no thought whatsoever to construct and put up, yet that happens to be the one that grabbed some strangers attention, grabbed it enough that they had to comment on it… Read their comment. Apparently, and this is just a guess, it took them even less thought to reply to my original post than I put into it, no easy feat. Anyone want to coach me on how I respond to it? What do I say? What can I say?
I wanted readers, I didn’t know that to get them I’d have to attack their pet delusions in an off hand manner…
Getting Lost
After work last night I came home and ate dinner, it was delicious. Then I went on a walk with Diana. We decided to take a walk along the green belt in Northern Davis, we’ve walked there before, it is very nice, calm and cool at night. So we parked close to my old place (on Isla) and started walking. We paid no attention whatsoever while we walked. We were just enjoying the sights, our conversation, and the company of each other. We took about a half hour walk and then decided to head back to the car, in a round about way. In short, we got lost! For the record this isn’t the first time we’ve been lost in the Green belt, every time we go we get turned around. We came out on Anderson, but didn’t realize we had crossed under it earlier, so we took a right when we should have taken a left. We walked to the end of Anderson, stood there a while trying to figure out where we were and how we got there, turned around and eventually found our way back to the car…
This is a bad sign, as Diana said, “We’re not going hiking or camping unless we have topographical maps, compasses and can orient ourselves correctly.” Getting lost in our own town is one thing, getting lost in the wilderness is another! What is sad though is that I like to think that I know where the cardinal points are, that I have a good sense of direction, but everything around me tells me that isn’t the case! Oh, well, good thing we have maps!
I bought books!
So I had twelve dollars of credit at one of the local book dealers here in town, Bogey’s Books. This isn’t the best used bookstore in town. The owner doesn’t know where anything really is and he isn’t the nicest guy, definitely needs to work on his customer support skills. Diana and I (Hi, Diana!) recently found another local bookstore in town, right next to the Co-Op. Sweet Briar books, was a nice little bookstore, the proprietor of the store was friendly and helpful, she was able to help with all of our questions. The only trouble we had was with some dick customer who felt that he could say whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted. I wanted to use a brick on his head, Diana, always the wiser, dissuaded me. We bought a couple of cook books and then moved on…
Back to Bogey’s, I had 12 dollars of credit and I wanted to get as many books as possible. I originally had planned to pick up a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged but they only had a mass market copy that I wasn’t willing to pay 4.80 for. I ended up in their sci-fi/fantasy section, where I found a number of the books that are on my immensely long list of books to read, one of which I got for 50 cents! Score! I grabbed Foundation, Rendezvous with Rama, Wit’ch Fire, and Childhood’s End. I took them up to the register and he totaled me up, it came to 12 dollars and 70 odd cents. I had about 12 dollars and 60 odd cents in credit. He looked at me, I looked at him and he said good enough. I don’t know why I’m so excited about getting these books, my backlog only continues to grow. That list to the right, the one that lists maybe 7 or 8 books, is only the beginning of a very long list that has no real end in sight…
In other news, there is no other news for now! Of course things are happening but I’m not going to post them until something happens.