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23 Oct 2005 -- North Valley Ever since Ella told me about it years ago, I've always wanted to go see the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. Its one of those places you see driving up I-5 all the time but never want to pull of and break momentum to go see.
Its not all that far, though, and Hilary and I decided we'd go make a trip of it to see what was there. While in that neck of the woods, we decided to drive through the World's Smallest Mountain Range, the Sutter Buttes, while we were at it. |  | |
 | Camp Pollock Fall Projects I got back into the swing of volunteering down at "Grandad's Camp" with more time in the fall and got in on two major projects that had been on the to-do for some time, finishing the orchard fence and demoing a doublewide trailer.
Good times. | |
Hank and Kim's Wedding My friend Kim from college sent me a rather unexpected invitation to her wedding up at her new home in Granite Bay. I gotta say, she's doin' pretty well for herself. Herein I do my usual awful job of photgraphing-while-celebrating. Heck, I barely have a photo of the couple. |  | |
 | Misc. Fall Pumpkins, Shower Doors, Shelving and Castle Dawe in a fall wrapup grab-bag. | |
1 October 2005 -- Engagement Party Cheryl and Molly were nice enough to throw us a engagement party, kicknig off the first of the wedding-oriented crises: establishing a guest list that wouldn't collapse the deck! A fine time and we were mighty honored to see everybody make it out. |  | |
 | 27-29 September, 2005 -- Wolfeboro, Part Four Well, so after helping Miles out by cutting down trees and expending extra amunition for a while, I came home and sat miserably in my cubicle for a couple of days before deciding screwit -- I still had vacation left and Miles was still up there.
They'd be doing closing and I'd never been around for that but it sure as hell would beat office time... | |
26 September 2005 -- Birthday Trip to Fairytale Town Now, when I was a kid I never got to have a birthday in Fairytale Town 'cause all my friends were down in the Bay Area where I grew up. Still, I made it up there a fair amount when I was a kid -- gramma lived just down the way in Land Park.
Since I grew up and moved back I would have loved to go back but never had kid accompanyment required for entrance.
But when its your birthday, who can say no? Just grab some kids with friends and demand entrance!
Much thanks to the Bryans for coming along and making it a special birthday. |  | |
 | 19 - 21 September, 2005 -- Wolfeboro, Part Three So when we last went up to camp, Hilary and I took Miles out to dinner at Alpine and we were talking about what we thought was going to be his last week and he said "no -- they're running fall camp this year. I'll be up here 'til October."
Now, to me, this sounded like a golden opportunity. Camp session on the weekend, nothing going on during the week and camp would be deserted but with all the facilities and amenities available. This sounded like an opportunity not to be missed!
I made plans right there and then to come up the second week in September though when I called, it turned out the next week would be better -- no kids, just guns and chainsaws. Hell, there wouldn't even be any other staff! | |
Summer Grab-bag Light Rail and quiet streets of the Sacramento Summer. |  | |
 | Almanor, The Final Chapter Well, after 33 years of camping, things came to what we pretty well expected to be The End of things for us with Lassen View Resort. They might be marginally open next year for seasonals and we might be able to swing the folks' RV but it wouldn't be entirely the same.
I mean, hell -- the Hamburger Hut is allegedly going to be REALLY closed... | |
20 - 24 Aug 2005 -- Alamnor (2/3) Another trip to Almanor, the last one we though as we headed up. Hilary and I had rented a cabin in June 'cause we'd always wanted to, but living close to the ground was keeping it real for James, Molly, Hilary, myself and various dogs.
James managed to swing one of the last spots for this coming Labor day weekend so more happy snaps of the lake most likely... |  | |
 | 13 Aug 2005 -- Boating With the Dawes Geoff and Jen regularly rent a boat and cruise the Delta and we were fortunate enough to be invited along with Henry on a multi-hour, multi-boat extravaganza racing along the Sacramento River, a first for all three of us. | |
6-7 August 2005 -- Wolfeboro part two So, we didn't go camping last time we went up to Wolfeboro and it left me feeling mighty sore about it. We tried to rope in folks on a couple of occasions but they kept dropping off and the date kept sliding. With the end of the camp season rapidly upon us (so I thought) we headed out for a nice weekend of camping. Turns out Miles is up there 'til October, so I might go and hang with him in mid-September. |  | |
 | 09 July 2005 -- Wolfeboro We originally had planned on going camping for the weekend but decided instead to just make a day trip of it when we discovered that it was Weblos Weekend. Not a bad time to be down, but not quite the solitude we like for camping in the Valley. | |
04 July 2005 -- Fourth of July I'd seen banners both this year and last for the Rancho Cordova 4th of July parade and fireworks spectacular. Now, we've generally got our own spectac-u-lar (and I'm generally too intoxicated to leave the house) but I'm always game for a parade.
Also, the photos Henry said wouldn't come out. |  | |
 | 24 June 2005 -- Base-a-ball! Just two days before my brother and his new bride were to head off to It'ly for their honeymoon they had a set of tickets to the A's-Giants series and invited us along as their guests. Good times, bad navigation ensue. | |
19 June 2005 -- Camp Pollock Work Project Hilary and I volunteered down at Camp Pollock, a camp named after my great grandfather. Damn it was hot. |  | |
 | Spring grab-bag Spring was super-long this year and everything was mighty green, including the pool. | |
Summer BBQ! Seemed like now that I had the Webber good and broken in and my bathrooms in a state of stability it was well past time to have some folks over to try out the venerated Peach Spareribs recepie... |  | |
 | 11 - 18 June 2005 -- Almanor, Part I Its the last year for Lassen View Resort so two things: first, H and I decided we needed to see what Cabin Life was all about and second I decided to make a serious effort to document 32 summers worth of camping.
One could argue that this whole online photo nonsense and the website itself is precisely about capturing these dissappearing moments, but that would be overly poetic for this hour on a Sunday.
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03-04 June 2005 -- James and Molly *Pollock* My brother went and made a proper woman of his better half, the former Molly Finnegan. Two days of feasting, drinking and wedding mayhem.
Oh, yeah, and lots of photos. [sniff] My little brother...all grows up and he's all grows up and he's all grows up. |  | |
 | 1 May 2005 -- Dog's Workers Holiday Raj was down in Coachella for the big music thing and needed some dog tending. Rubilu is always a good guest for the house as well as a positive motivator for all the things dogs dearly love, like trips out to Secret Spot | |
16 April 2005 -- Old Roommate Ski Day Geoff calls me up at perhaps the goldenest moment of the ski season.
He says: hey, wanna go up one last time? Huh, never would have thought I'd wanted to but after a month off the idea seems not so bad. Yeah. I'm in good condition, need a break from my so-called life and itching to carve notch #10 in my poles for this season... |  | |
 | 03 April 2005 -- Mather Vernal Pools Once again stirred by spring and the good natured gathering of my friends and coworkers H and I put on our mudder boots and prepared for some proper tromping around the former airbase in the name of horticultural enlightenment. | |
12-20 March 2005 -- Bormio, Italy
Hilary asked me to proof the newsletter she writes for the ski club back in January. In it was an announcement from the Reno club that they'd be co-organizing a trip to Bormio, Italy.
Now, after having just come back from Vico d'Elsa, Italy, one might think my ass both broke and out of time off. Amazingly I had over-budgeted both, leaving me flush to go back and fulfill a dream of mine stemming from my 2001-2 first-ever Italian trip, kicking it in the ALPS, y'all. Now, unfortunately, Hilary couldn't take any more time off so I was going to have to go stag or find someone else to go with. I started thinking...skiier, traveller, guy I've gone on adventures with without wanting to strangle...Dennis! |  | |
 | 5 March 2005
Holy crap! My two favoritist little boys on the planet both turned two this March and did they have a birthday? Oh yes, chilluns. Uncle Bill was sadly trailing his gotta-be-done-before-I-leave-the-country project and was a bit late, but there was still plenty of entertainment to be had.
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Feb 2005 -- Spring Cleaning
(updated 3/11/05)
After rounding the corner on year six on Snowbird way, some things just plain needed to get fixed, so here we are...
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 | Feb 2005
(updated 3/11/05)
Always a grab-bag of events in the early spring months. Nothing real exciting going on as we all kick back the flannel covers of wintertime, yet still plenty to do! Inside, processed cheese, the Superbowl, Second Saturday art walk and the hole into which went no less than ten bags of rock.
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Sacramento Museum Day, 05 Feb 2005
It was a wonderful spring day in Sacramento for the 7th Annual Sacramento Museum Day. We invited Hilary's Da' up for the weekend and made sure we begged off any further plans.
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 | Jan/Feb 2005 - First Roll of the New Year
So as some of you may have known I went to Italy for a little while and while I was there my trusty A70 slowly came unglued at the seams.
Anyway, by the time I get back I start trying to use my camera and the photos that come out are so unreliable that it doesn't even seem worth wasting my time to get a perfect shot only to get it home to unwind it and find it came out crap. Enter the A75. At $200 (OfficeMax), its clearly targeted at the stable, don't want any worries photo crowd. Its seems less likely to integrate with one's cell phone but all in all better designed. My primary concern at this point was getting a camera that I knew would work and take a reasonable beating and get some good photos in the end. I take enough pictures that my camera almost needs to be a commodity for how much value I'll beat out of it in the short time I have it. I realized that 2005 launches my sixth year of photography and while Consuela was with me for quite some time I managed to go through on average a camera a year. The first one lasted way longer than it should have, two lasted far less. One is just right but still allegedly in Walnut Creek right now. So, needed to reduce the cost/average of the hobby for a while and had been looking at getting the new line of 4 or 5MP models, but I realized that much past three its a waste of design for me. Occasionally I'll wish for a bit more detail, but those times are few. Anyway, long lame rant about cameras for a minute or two -- enjoy the "first roll." PS To Cannon marketing: including near-dead batteries is bad news. I coughed through only half the roll before the first set of factory brands burned through... |