Albuquerque museum's

I found this parachute retarded nuclear bomb at one of the museums there. I promised I would only use it as a deterrent if I could take it home. With Iraq being so screwed up, I figured the axis of evil needs a new third member or we'll have to start calling them the duo of evil.

This second picture is interesting. Look at the grass. It's astro turf. All over the city I noticed it being used in this way. Cheaper than watering it I suppose.

Old stomping grounds

Sunday we went to the old downtown center and visited some museums, ate some good mexican food and just hung out. We went into an art gallery and found some paintings by a friend of ours from Alamogordo, Penny Simpson.

Albuquerque

Pulled into Albuquerque Friday afternoon and was glad to be done with driving. We stayed busy the rest of the weekend. Went on a hike and saw all the snow I want to see this year.

Cross country trip

On Wednesday we said goodbye to Angela and loaded up Tyson's toyota for three days of fun! Looking at nothing for 10 hours a day is mind numbing. This is why these are called the flyover states. I've also put sonic on the list of places I will never eat at again. We did stop for food in a town in Oklahoma that had a huge sign proclaiming it was the hometown of the American Idol winner of 2005. Kelly something or other. I bet she's happy to be out of there.

Driving the flyover states

Just returned from a great trip to see my Daughter Angela in Virginia, then drive with my son in his new car from Virginia to Albuquerque. They both drove out to Dulles in lousy (snow) conditions to pick me up around 3 in the morning. I then spent a few days there trying to keep up with them like I was 21 again. ( I couldn't) Angela has a great bunch of friends including her boyfriend Ernest and roomate Jen. It was fun meeting them all and pretending I was blending in. I did get carded at a bar which was sweet, but it was fairly dark in there and the waitress almost apologized after looking at my license. : (

I'm off......

I'm off to the mainland tomorrow for a visit with my daughter in Virginia and a cross country drive to New Mexico with my son. Should be a great time. Looks like we're going to miss all the storms which is good. Ciao.

Video's

I know a lot of people enjoyed those standing wave surf video's but I'm too ignorant to figure out how to post them without permanently imbedding them in the template like I have been. So the links are here and here

North shore small wave surfing

Today we went to Waimea beach and got to watch something cool. The beach sits at the base of a valley which has a small stream running through it. Due to wave action, sand gets pushed up into a large hill in front of the stream each winter. This creates a natural dam that the stream water collects behind for months which is about 20 feet above the level of the ocean. Every year some one digs a trench through the sand, releasing millions of gallons of fresh water into the ocean. This produces a standing wave which is perfect for body boarding and surfing. When we first walked up these kids had just a trickle of water moving through a trench about a foot wide. They had obviously been digging all morning. Within 20 minutes it had turned into a roaring torrent. It was amazing to watch how fast it grew and ate away the banks. It all lasted about an hour before the water slowed down but it was fun watching the surf action.

Pesto

I planted a few basil plants a while back and in this climate they grew enormous. So, Marianne and I decided to try and make pesto with them last night. Very simple to make. The ingredients are,

4 cups of fresh packed basil leaves
half a cup of olive oil
a big chunk of romano cheese
handful of pine nuts
pepper

Put it all in the blender and jam it down with a wooden spoon. The key turned out to be adding more romano cheese. The salt in the cheese made it taste good. We cooked up some pasta and chicken to try it on. Mmmmm. Turned out great.

My new favorite song of the week

Being old and bitter, no music I hear on tv or the radio these days is worth a damn. So in my never ending quest for something to listen to while I workout, I stumbled across this band. Check out their video. It looks homemade but I haven't heard anything with this much energy since...hmmm, maybe never.

Our friends Jim and Kimberly and their kids are in town for Kimberlys Korea mid tour. It's great seeing them again. Here is a picture I stole from them from their hike up diamond head. It shows the east side of Honolulu with Wakiki beach in the center of the frame.

0ne of the seven wonders

My big project last tuesday was building a pyramid in the sand with our friend Jim. I've always liked digging in the sand and using real shovels it's amazing how quickly this was built.

I planned to be entombed in it when I died but the ocean washed it away that night.

Posting problems

Having trouble posting pictures right now. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? Does it depend on the frame rate? Here is a link to a video of some punk on a skateboard marring up city of Philadelphia property.