Season's Greetings!

First of all, Nancy, Elizabeth and I want to wish you all a very Happy Holiday season!

Second I realize how ridiculous this post looks, being so late as it is. However I am invoking the convention that Christmas decorations can be up until a week following New Years. Perhaps that's weak justification but I've also been told that we can't make subsequent posts until this one gets done, so...

The picture heading the post is, of course, our Holiday Card for this year. Now before any of you start placing indignant, angry calls to PETA I have to tell you that this entire holiday greeting card thing was Nancy's idea. I think Charlie's electric blue wig gift gave her ideas...


I also want to parry any accusations of photoshopping. Nancy actually wore the hat in the photograph! And it wasn't the "quick-you-put-it-on-jump-out-of-frame-and-I'll-shoot" sort of operation I thought it would be. She actually posed comfortably for quite some time. Here are a few out takes (you can see she noticed the little mouse in the beard):

Ok, I did photoshop her to be in front of our tree – but the point is Nancy fully participated!

We went up to Petaluma – a town about a half hour to the north, in Sonoma County – to pick up a tree. I won't drag this out with lengthy descriptions, rather I'll just post the pictures...

There. Done. On to 2009!

Thanksgiving in Mill Valley

We have our first official, out-of-town visitors this week!
Elizabeth's father and sister, Cathy, flew in yesterday to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with us.

Yesterday was spent relaxing and preparing for today's dinner.


I'm not sure what they were doing here. Feel free to caption this one yourselves...


Elizabeth and Cathy then prepped the bird and baked the pies...



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This morning – Thanksgiving day – the women dressed the turkey and popped it in the oven. I wasn't familiar with the radical turkey technique of slathering the bird with mayonnaise, cramming it into a paper bag and shoving it in the oven...



While Elizabeth kept an eye on dinner Mr. Benson, Cathy and I went for a short hike around Muir Woods, a state park coastal redwood forest about 4 miles from here.





Fast forward to the meal's completion...
Evidently the mayonnaise/bag trick forms some sort of "self basting" arrangement. As strange as it sounds (to me, anyway) it results in a very moist, tender turkey. Add to that rosemary mashed potatoes, candied yams, spinach salad with blue cheese, candied pecans and cranberries and an amazing stuffing:


Excellent! An absolutely great Thanksgiving meal. Thank you Elizabeth... thank you Cathy. An awful lot of work went into the production of this dinner and it was all certainly very evident and very much appreciated!

Photo Essay – Windmills

I've got no news to report and Elizabeth has been hounding me to make a new post so I thought I'd just post some images from a recent photo outing. If you follow my flickr photostream you've likely seen these already. If so, go right ahead and skip this post – nothing new here.


These are from the Altamont Pass, near Livermore, CA. I've always found these tall, graceful sentinels interesting. Driving through the pass, the hundreds of windmills have an otherworldly appearance. They are silent from afar but rather noisy up close.


Two photographer friends and I drove out one evening last week to capture these. When we're mutually free we like to get together and explore an interesting local area to take shots, chat and exchange ideas.

Post Sydney Post

With the Sydney trip over two weeks in the past I guess it's time to bump it off of the top of the blog page.

Not that I have any worthy news to supplant it.

So I thought I'd just some pictures from one of our local hikes – Tennessee Valley – one that Elizabeth does once or twice a week. It's only three miles from our front door so it's extremely convenient and the trail head offers multiple hiking options, some more strenuous, some quite easy.
(I realize that I've posted pictures from this area before, but I was just out there last night for some sunset shots and, well, it's a slow news week...)

Sydney

Originally uploaded by meatyokra

Warning – this is going to be a long one.

Elizabeth had two Sydney trips this month, the loads were light, I had the free time – so we decided to take advantage and fly down to Australia for a power vacation.

Well, a vacation for me at least. She worked out and back. In sharp contrast, I flew first class both ways.


Not only is the service top-notch up front, the food is quite good, the seat fully reclines into a bed, there is plenty of room, a great selection of entertainment – this is more space than I had in my apartment in the Marina...

I mean I've never had this much control over my surroundings!

I have to really thank Elizabeth for rallying the morning we landed. Although she worked the all-nighter (with it's weak and ineffectual 3hr break), she managed to head out with me for a long walk around the city. Even though I did nothing but relax the entire flight I wasn't exactly fresh as a daisy; I can only imagine how exhausted She must have been.

We stayed at the Novotel on Darling Harbour (the hotel is in the back, left in this image).


Here is the bridge across Darling Harbour, towards downtown...


We landed first thing in the morning and immediately headed out, through downtown and towards Circular Quay, around which sits the Opera House. It's a tough building to photograph as I'm sure there is no place you can stand where this thing hasn't been shot a million times before – and in much better light.


The Rocks – an older, quaint part of town...


And the, rather San Francisco like, downtown area...


Of course it's not all "San Francisco" like, as our walk through the Botanic Gardens reminded us, what with all of the cockatoos, parrots and hundreds of large, grey-headed flying foxes (fruit bats).






After turning in (relatively) early and getting a solid night's sleep, we were well rested for day two: a perfect weather day for a hike. We did one of E's favorite local walks – Spit Bridge to Manly Beach. A short bus ride to the start of this 10K, light hike through some urban environments, some woodsy terrain – with excellent views throughout.

The weather could not have been better.






They tell me this little monster is a water dragon:


Our hike destination: Manly Beach. A popular beach, much like any other.



Of course we had to reward our hike with classic fish and chips... oh, and beer.


Al right – that's enough! If you've stayed with me this long I really ought to let you get on with your day. Unfortunately there are many more pictures where these came from... :-)

p.s. In addition to having an excellent time I came back with a much better understanding of what Elizabeth goes through on these. I can now see why she's so wiped out coming back from working a Sydney trip!