scarrjaw

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

So I replaced the front door of my house last year with a new one.. The new one has a glass window while the older one was solid wood. Now while i walk down the hallway on my left there will be the door, with my reflection combined with the outside, I almost always see it, like a figure out of the corner of my eye. I know it's my imagination playing tricks on me. I know I'm probably catching my own visage for a brief second, yet its an amazing moment that constantly gets me. I don't believe in gods or monsters other then those mankind invents, ghosts or otherwise.. Yet the rush of someone or something caught in a fraction of a second looking in the door window excites my imagination. Some creature screaming silently caught in another dimension hoping to escape its torture and claw its way into our world, trying to catch my vision long enough to break its curse and free it into our realm. It makes me think of the above poem and smile. I might not believe in ghosts, anal obsessed aliens or two thousand year old undead hippies bringing the Apocalypse.. but when i walk down hallway and there is that glimmer, that fraction of a second out of the corner of my eye.. but I dont look, because then the unnameable will be released to end the world.

Your welcome. :)

So today was fun. NO.. FUN!!! I got up, threw some guns in a backpack with some ammo and ear protection and jumped on my MV Agusta. Rode up twisty mountain roads to a gun range where I met some friends and shot targets, bottles n stuff.. with an hour of sunlight left I rode down highway 9 toward downtown Santa Cruz, for some hot coffee, then sauntered over to my favorite pub for a glass of wine next to a fire. On the ride home I snagged some red meat and cooked up some steak for Cindy and I. This is what I call a great day with no issues at all. I hope all my friends get these kind of days often. :)

San Mateo going to walk around and look at new two wheeled toys at the san mateo motorcycle show :)

So I rode over to Natural bridges, the Monarchs are there, but only in small numbers sadly.. and WAY up in the trees.. say about 100 feet from the viewing platforms. I took my good lens and got a couple oka shots from a good distance..



(A little sunset action)

I hung out for about an hour just watching.. those that didn't have a large lens were a bit disappointed.

I do so love all hallows eve.. :) I am amazed at people that mock or disdain the fun, they have grown up and out of flights of fancy and imagination.. and if hot girls need just this one night a year to dress in a way that makes them fantasize about being a total sex pot french maid, why would I complain?!??? Viva la catholic school girl! I personally will be wearing a sword just in case I need to fend off 2 ... nay.. 3 - Sexy nurses! I do hope everyone has a blast this Saturday, Instead of celebrating gluttony and commercialism, this is one of the last truly wonderful holidays that celebrates our dreams. I don't know about you, some of my dreams include a multitude of well filled cheerleader outfits. :)

So many pics.. and i keep finding hidden jems... I'll share a couple :)


(its a panorama so its wiiiiiiide)

My dreams usually are adventures, with few nightmares. If they are nightmares they usually have something to do with someone I care for getting hurt or in danger and me being helpless to save them. This pretty much goes back to my watching my father die. I've had few reoccurring dreams, pretty rare. I used to have have a dream when I was young where I was an Indiana Jones type character mixed with the game pitfall, basically using my whip to swing over alligators, rescuing damsels from quicksand, that sort of thing. These were when i was in my teens, video games being a pretty heavy influence. I have been pretty blessed with these adventure dreams, almost always on the lucid side, me enjoying the heck out of them. These new dreams I've had three times so far, and I have to say - they are some of the greatest Ive ever had. They seem more vivid every time I get one, I look forward to having another, I hope I do.

In the dream I'm on a Viking ship, working along side the vikings as they sing.. there is a ton of singing, so much fun it makes me smile thinking of it. The waves are huge, the wind fierce, the spray freezing, but as long as we keep rowing, as long as we keep singing, we keep laughing.. Did I mention the meade? A man walks the middle of the ship filling flagons of Meade, the sweet alcohol mixed with the inevitable taste of the sea, we pour it down our throats and pull harder on the oars only stopping when the lookout yells a sighting, we raise our oars and rush for our spears. Silence, stillness, our singing is gone, our concentration is intense as we wait for our prey to not surface for air, but to attack our ship. Silence from the men, the crash of the waves, waiting for the danger to rear its head, filled with scales and teeth. We are hunting Sea Dragons, giant sinewy creatures with no arms or legs, but long blue-green scales that jut out from its body, the scales collapsing along its length in a waving motion so they themselves act like individual oars that propel them at immense speeds though the ocean. The creatures have the ability to leap over the ship and snap up a viking up into their jaws dragging them into the water to die crushed in its maw before they have a chance to drown. A roar deafens the ears and a head the size of a small car leaps out of the water, grabbing an unlucky viking, biting through his leather armor, teeth stabbing him in he yells and flails his free limbs, I thrust a spear with a rope attached through the bottom of the creatures jaw, several vikings jam more in between the scales along its body and we loop the ends of our lines to the bow of the ship. The dragon lets go of the unlucky fellow in his jaws and slides back into the water, only mildly wounded, now angry and trying to extricate himself from the irritating barbed spears in his sides. The ship is yanked sideways, the ropes pull taut and we line up with the direction of the swimming leviathan. The vessel is dragged forward at meteoric speeds straight through the waves, slicing right through them. The hunt continues on for days, the wind and water freezing, the creature turning and attacking constantly in between pulling the ship hundreds of miles. We sing, we fight, we laugh, we carry on the Vikings and I.. I haven't actually finished the fight in the dream - It doesn't matter, we are fighting it and that's whats important. We win, the Dragon wins, I don't care, the cold feels good, the strain feels wonderful, the fight is to live for the dragon and I.

I find it interesting that after first having it I attended a biker/viking funeral. :) I hope i can have the dream again.. it never has ended though before I wake - I hope it never does. :)

So my fancy new camera a Canon 5D mark II decided to stop working 1 week into my large bike trip in july - that sucks.. but hey! It's under warranty, only a few months old! So when I returned I shipped it out the beginning of august to Canon in southern California.. a week and a half later they return it "Fixed".. I pull the camera out of the box and note that two of the buttons on the back DON'T WORK! So my 3K dollar camera goes back in the box, I call canon, yell at the morons that are used to only filling out forms and not use a brain cell geting them to send a new shipping label (It cost me 70 bucks to ship it to them last time with insurance, no WAY am I paying for that again!) So They have it for a week and after my badgering them to get it done they "Fix" it and over night it back to me - I get it back out of the box take a couple snapshots and it seems to be working. I jump on my motorcycle again and ride to Vegas and while I'm there I take photos.. and all the low light photos are FUCKING RED - not mild red, but RED BRIGHT MAGENTA RED. I get home and once again call canon.. I love the consolation prize - Well at least we will pay for the shipping! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MORONS ARE THESE IDIOTS?!?!? So I include a cd of all the wonderful RED photos (and before you photo geeks cry bad white balance, I am not a moron, Even in FULL AUTO the pics are RED, with a white balance cap on the pics it takes are PINK.) So last week I send it AGAIN TO CANON... it gets there Tuesday and I call several times.. no rushing these idiots to even opening the box early, I call up today.. and this is what i get from the >Expletive deleted< on the other end of the phone - "Okay sir it will cost you 210.00 to get the camera fixed"


Now let me tell you dear reader I am glad I was not there in person. I must say I was amazed. Now some companies have what I call "Infinite monkey syndrome". There is the old quip that if you take an infinite number of monkeys, put them in a room with an infinite number of typewriters and an Infinite amount of paper in an infinite amount of time you will get the complete works of Shakespeare generated by monkeys. This already has happened once if you think about it, only the monkeys evolved to Shakespeare, but I digress.. This Monkey Solution is how Canon deals with tech support.. They fill out forms, poorly, with only check boxes to fill out. Surely monkey would have no problem with check boxes?!?!?!

The Monkey on the phone was a nightmare to behold, stubborn and not ready to research anything into the past month without a banana from the slot. It wasn't until I got her boss on the line did I end up with any good answer, that their monkeys had filled out their forms wrong and had once again pressed the wrong button waiting for a banana to materialize out of the "You did good monkey" slot.
(great image ehh?)
So this evening I got an OKAY form:

We have received your mystic soul catcher for evaluation and repair. Based on our initial examination (and our time out to eat fleas off of each other), we will start the necessary repairs at no charge to you, Tarzan. You can expect the repair to be completed and returned back to you within approximately 7 appearances of the great sun god. There is no need to respond to this notice but please send bananas. (alright, alright - I edited it some)

Sooooo for the 3rd time in a month, lucky me, they will "Fix" my camera again. In a while maybe MAYBE they will fix it without my having to use quotes around the fix part. I will try to update this insanity as it evolves. (note I expect little evolution from canon)


Please begrudge my rant.. I am indeed at the end of my vine with this nightmare... I think I maybe should have added some fruit with the camera return this time, I still might get poo thrown back at me. :(

Saturday is my bday,Cindys is a week later, so we are celebrating both - my place at 7pm saturday!

Also - thought ide share a pic or two of Canada. :)

Pardon me, I have lived in California for 24 years - I love it.. but as museums go they kind of suck.. The bay area has like SFMOMA and a few others, but the Cleveland Museum of art could beat Moma and make it its bitch 10 times over. The ego of Californians have a hard time believing it.. Ohioans think of California as Hollywood,surfers and a place for gays - but Californians lump places like ohio as kansas (its not that flat here believe me, there were these big cold things called glaciers that carved out the great lakes and dumped hills and valleys all over here. They stopped teaching geography in California - way to complex. :) ) So anyway, let me share a little - They are undertaking a giant renovation so only 1/3rd of the museum is open, but that 1/3rd took is 5 hours to see. Rooms FILLED with Picasso,Dali and Rodan - Masters and art, they had sections open with Faberge jeweled art from artisans that made armor and guns for kings and emperors.




Cindy and Cupid and Psyche - I LOVE the look on cupids face. :)









I so want this table. :)




I've stared at this Picasso called La Vie (life) for almost all my life and I always get more from it.
I'm sure I bored cindy talking about my own interpretation but man this painting from his blue period is a true masterpiece.






So before you dismiss ohio as a place filled with cows and rednecks.. drop in and see an incredible place. In 2012 they open the entire monster place filled with Egyptian, Ethiopian Greek and Roman wings.. Amazing.. and get this.. its FREE.

So I had to put off leaving for my trip till Sunday. The good news its only for convenience, nothing major. I get to visit a good friend Jeff in aspen, ride hard and far.. no problem there.. just the heat and being away from my awesome girlfriend will suck. I will keep everything up to date here, posting more info as things change :)