macenable

Up A Tree

I like climbing …

… mountains, trees. The blue at the bottom is my little backpacking tent. Eagle Spring Camp at the top of Mission Peak is an ideal place to spend a moonless night.

Botts’ Dots

Street department recently added 32 (why does it say 23?) to mark the lanes and provide tactile feedback to drivers:

Named after Elbert Botts, a Caltrans engineer, botts’ dots are round nonreflective raised pavement markers, made of ceramic or plastic and fastened to the road with epoxy.

(Hint: Click on the above image to stretch the view.)

Grocery Cart Etiquette

This afternoon in Safeway’s parking lot, a young lady loaded groceries into her car, left her grocery cart right behind my car, then drove away. I don’t know what to make of this:

I ran up with my camera. She must have seen the flash and heard me calling after her, but she just ignored me.

Cold One

Ice on the car windows; had to scrape off. Uncomfortably-low temperatures in the Bay Area this morning.

Downtown Willow Glen – Summer & Winter

… Peet’s coffee shop in the abstract!

Breaking News!

Tree found on side after storm. Must’ve been busted by a mighty gust

Twister the Parakeet

Quite the singer, but not very social. After his clipped wings grew back, wants nothing to do with us. Likes to fly around the room in circles!

Odd that parakeet Twister’s only english spoken is “What’cha doing?” Similar to Twitter’s “What’s happening?” Are we in cosmic wormhole?

California Sunset

From the parking lot of Race Street Fish & Poultry Market on December 7, 2010

Halloween 2010

Trick, or Treat the Hot Pink Pumpkin!

In the front yard, a wood-burning chimenea to warm us on a cool night.

Smart Meters

Called such because the spike in amount of your monthly bill will make you *smart*.

Very straightforward installation, about 10 minutes. Almost plug & play.

Electric starts from zero, and cycles through several readings including current consumption and total.

Gas retains the current reading.

Unfortunately, the readings mean diddly-squat because now we’re paying twice as much per month!