Photo of the Week (09/23/07)

Greetings from My Parents’ House in West Covina, California, USA!
Photo was taken on Sunday, September 23, 2007.

I must confess. I didn’t do much this week. The past month has been busy but I finally spent time reading mail and paying bills and washing laundry and… I even booked my hotel room for next weekend’s trip to Mexico for a wedding. I am heading south of the border… With an expired passport. At least my driver’s license is current.

A new law passed tightening passport requirements for international travel. A consequence was a larger than expected rise in passport applications, stretching the processing time up to 3 months. Because of the delays, the law was temporarily relaxed for land crossings only to the U.S. neighbors of Mexico and Canada. An expired passport was better than no passport. Disaster diverted.

Although I had read about the new laws and expected delays, I put off getting a new one. The government was in the final stages of issuing a new computer-chip-embedded passport. Also passports are valid for 10 years and I vainly thought about the picture of me that people would see for the next decade. Let me lose some weight first. In fact I wouldn’t mine reusing my previous passport picture. I look younger (I was younger). I should attend a Vanity Anonymous meeting. Hello, my name is Angelo and I am vain.

Can you tell that I am fluffing up this email? As for the photo, it was Sunday afternoon and I had not taken a single shot all week. I was at my parents’ house and racked my brain for ideas. Eureka, the turtles! They belong to my brother and, well, that’s all I got. I already admitted that this was an uneventful week. As the saying goes… Confession is good for the soul. And it makes you look younger too.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (09/16/07)

Greetings from the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, USA!
Photo was taken on Sunday, September 16, 2007.

This is my 10th photo of the week and I see a trend. Half (5) of my chosen pictures were taken on a Sunday, 2 on Monday, another 2 on Friday and 1 on Saturday. Nothing is from the middle of the week – Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. Despite my free time most of my more noteworthy activities are happening near or on the weekends. This week is no exception.

This weekend was the Taste of Newport, a three-day food & music festival, and this year was a milestone as I volunteered for the 10th consecutive time. Okay, my motives are not completely altruistic. I volunteer at the alcohol booths – selling, serving and, um, sampling.

There is more. Socializing with friends, drinking, people-watching, drinking, eating, drinking. Did I mention drink… um, music? This year the headlining performers were Huey Lewis & The News on Friday, Devo on Saturday, and Kevin Costner on Sunday. No, not a typo. Yes, Kevin Costner the actor.

The original plan was going to the Taste on Friday for Huey Lewis and Saturday for volunteering. I have gotten to know the event organizers very well over the years and found out that they were shorthanded on volunteers Friday and Sunday, so I offered to help out on those days too.

I caught most of the Huey Lewis performance, which was good, I completely missed the Devo show as I was working a drink booth far from the stage at the time and I left before Costner sang but heard later that he was decent. I already had a prior commitment elsewhere at the same time as his show.

A friend invited me to a Sunday evening mixer at the Aquarium of the Pacific that included access to all the exhibits. The place has otters, octopi, starfish, jellyfish, lobsters, sea horses, and much, much more. I had just been here a year and a half ago but this return visit was just as great. The aquarium has touching pools filled with sharks, stingrays and horseshoe crabs. I reached in, picked up a crab and discovered that it was “stuck” to another one. They were mating and did not stop despite my intrusion. Horseshoe crabs have existed for millions of years. I witnessed one of the reasons why.

Once again so many pictures of so many creatures and I must limit myself to one. I should start a website so I can post all the other photos. Which do I choose? The ice sculpture. It was next to the bar. Do you see another trend?

Angelo

Photo of the Week (09/09/07)

Greetings from Project Playhouse at Fashion Island Shopping Center in Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo was taken on Sunday, September 9, 2007.

In Project Playhouse, teams, typically sponsored by corporations, design and build special themed miniature houses, which are auctioned off for charity. What can you say about a community where parents are rich enough to buy their children custom-made playhouses for literally thousands of dollars with that money going to help the homeless? The irony is as subtle as a brick dropped on a foot. Me, sarcastic?

I must admit that the houses are amazing. The creativity, craftsmanship and detailing is impressive. This year the houses include a ski chalet, a Japanese teahouse and a diner with drive-thru. One house had a miniature ice rink for hockey. My favorite was the Hawaii beach cottage complete with surfboards. Thus it’s my photo of the week.

Before being auctioned off, the houses – fully furnished, no less - are displayed for several weeks at the Fashion Island shopping center. Despite the many excessive shows of wealth in Newport Beach and Orange County in general, the shopping center is not on an actual island. Prime real estate like that is better used for full-size multi-million-dollar waterfront houses. Those homeowners can buy the playhouses and put them next to the custom-made doghouses, which are just for show anyway - the dogs have their own bedrooms in the main house. As for the homeless…

Oh, ouch! I think that my sarcasm gland just burst. Gotta see the doctor now.

Angelo

Photo of the Week (09/02/07)

Greetings from the Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park at San Diego, California, USA!
Photo was taken on Monday, August 27, 2007.

Day 2 of the overnight trip to San Diego started with the morning spent on Coronado Island, home to Hotel Del Coronado, a resort with ocean vistas and a distinct architecture. The perfect weather practically required us to dine outdoors at one of the hotel’s cafés. This easily beats working in an office cubicle under fluorescent lighting on a Monday (or any day).

The afternoon stop was Balboa Park where I toured a couple of museums. At the Automobile Museum the motorcycles and cars were great but the building was more oversized repair shop and less dealership showroom. By comparison, the Aerospace museum was a palace. Unfortunately my camera battery was nearly drained. Before the camera shut itself off, I was able to squeeze out a few shots including the photo of the week- a Navy fighter jet on permanent display in front of the building.

Speaking of space, you would think that I went to bed early when I got home that evening. But sleep had to wait. Eclipses are common but a total lunar eclipse completely visible from start to finish on your side of the Earth is not so common. With a fully recharged battery in my camera, I took a series of photos of the gradually disappearing moon from midnight to 3:00 AM. It would take another 2 to 3 hours for it reappear but would be competing against the light of the rising sun. Meanwhile the fight against sleep is a war you always lose, so I went to bed.

Lastly, while stretched out in a lounge chair watching the eclipse, I saw a shooting star. Just two weeks earlier I also stayed up late and went to a semi-rural area to watch the annual Pleiades meteor shower. I saw a few streakers in an hour or so before heading home. A half-month later I see one from my own patio. It’s more impressive when you realized that I was in the middle of a city where the urban glow diffused from street lamps, etc. drowns out a lot of light from the night sky. The brightness of a full moon could also outshine a shooting star but the total eclipse took care of that.

One night, two rare celestial events. I should have made a wish on the shooting star. Drats.

Angelo