Took a trip to the Leaning Pine Arboretum on Cal Poly’s campus. Its out by the sheep. It was really nice, even though I went mid-day some of the pics turned out not half bad. This would be a great place to visit for anyone who enjoys flowers/plants and there were tons of birds there, if not visible at least audible. It sounds like a jungle!
From the Leaning Pine website:
Collections are arranged primarily by nativity and feature a
diverse array of trees, shrubs, and other landscape plants
appropriate for California's Central Coast area. The gardens
display hundreds of unique and intriguing plants primarily
from the world's five mediterranean climate regions: Australia,
California, Chile, the Mediterranean basin, and South Africa.
The arboretum also has a New Zealand garden, a Dwarf and Unusual
Conifer garden, a Formal garden, and displays of cycads, palms,
and numerous succulents.
I’d definitely take a trip out there (sunset-ish would work best) and at least explore the gardens, its completely worth it.
Never taken photos with a group of people before – it was a fun experience. I will admit that I got easily distracted and talked more than shot, but it was a lot of fun. Its amazing how completely different everyone was, and we all got along perfectly fine.
I was heading out to lunch, passing through the Mission San Luis Obispo walkway and I saw this chunk of cement that someone had scrawled RIP on and propped up against the wall. Thought about it the whole time I was eating lunch and decided to snap a pic of it on the way back to work.
They had rope up surrounding the grass so I had to lean in sideways and try and focus without toppling forward, sort of annoying but it worked out ok.
Jen and I went out by the golf course and took some pics – trees with shade are a definite plus! The preggo belly is definitely getting to be large – growing a little Pongie looks like hard work!
There was a single flash camera left on full power, about 45 degrees.
Mom and Dad came down to visit this weekend, and they brought/cooked a TON of food! Yay! Nothing like comfort food to help you along while your wife is pregnant… that doesn’t sound right.
Jen wanted a pic of us before the baby came since we most likely won’t have a chance to see my parents until after little Pongie is born.
You can see from the shadows, flashes were camera left and camera right, about 30 degrees (i think) from us.
That’s right! Jen and I picked up a new TV last night. Now… to figure out if we can mount it above the fireplace or not. I’m pretty sure it will be fine right there.
The 27″ CRT television that Jen got me 9 or so years ago has served us well, but I think its about time for it to leave.
Teletubbies are just going to look SOOOO awesome on this! I wonder if they have Teletubbies on Blu-Ray…
We drove up to Prunedale today and met Mom and Dad, then caravan’ed to San Jose – dropped the truck off at Mike and Mary’s, and then met Gene and Kristine for lunch. Had a little coffee afterwards then headed back home. Quick little day trip, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
Stopped in Santa Barbara for the CygNet dinner party. It was good, drunken times. Well… not for me, I ran around and took pictures of everything. And they let me!
Here, Chris Smith took the camera from me. I am flanked by Mike and Chris here (from left to right). Good times, good times… there were hula dancers, their male equivalent, and a dude tossing around a fire baton. He set his can of kerosene on fire… THAT was interesting.
All in all, it was a great time between The Getty and this (the food was tasty) I had an excellent day. My only wish would have been that Jen could have come along with us.
This year’s annual CygNet party included a trip to The Getty followed by an awesome dinner banquet in Santa Barbara.
Chris and I spent almost the entire time there wandering outside taking pictures of the scenery, architecture (amazing) and random things scattered around the grounds.
I was worried that it would be a horrible day for pictures as it was pouring rain the entire bus ride down, but as soon as we arrived the clouds broke and the rain stopped. It ended up being perfect weather for strolling around and taking pictures.
I found out that admission to The Getty is 100% free. Parking costs $10 per car, and the food court has normal-priced food. Its amazing, the only tourist-type place that i’ve been to that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to visit. I definitely would recommend this visit to anyone! And I only barely touched on part of the photography exhibit!
Took a nice trip up to Tahoe for a snowboarding weekend. Marcia was gracious enough to let us use the cabin, so we all had a nicely affordable place to stay.
We had a bit of a conversation trying to figure out who was going to get chains, if anyone had 4WD, etc. when Mike and Mary offered to let us use the truck to get everything up there (sweet!). The truck worked out perfectly and had plenty of room to hold all of our stuff as well as all the people we were carpooling with. I believe that I broke the brakes though. Well, they need to be replaced. I think. I don’t know.
Du, John, and Zack had never snowboarded before so Dave, Phil, and I took them out to Heavenly on Saturday and showed them the ropes. Not bad, they all had it down by the end of the day. Just three of us went to Sierra at Tahoe on Sunday. We finished and made it back in time to watch the Super Bowl.
Much Rock Band and Wii gaming was done, as well as alcohol consumption. What a great weekend!
Thanks for taking the pic, Du.