Winter fun in Summit County Colorado!  As we watched from the living room window over the course of a week, Lake Dillon froze.  We also got out for a little skiing.

Tags: colorado, ski, summit county

  Woke up to a beautiful morning on a day that’s predicted to get hot.   Nice to ride by Crystal Springs reservoir where it is often more than five degrees cooler than the surrounding areas.

Tags: bike

In keeping with the mission of this blog to give a glimpse behind the scenes,  here’s a blooper of a video on my new trading web site, www.truthaboutmacd.com  .  The funny bit is at the end of this 75 second clip.

Tags: Humor, MACD, video

A friend just asked me about music for his new mp3 player. I mentioned iTunes but in the end pointed him to Amazon because the music there is already in mp3 format.

Amazon also has a bunch of free mp3 downloads:
Amazon Free Music Downloads

Not to be too cheap about 99cent songs, but when you think about these little gizzies holding 1,000 songs, why, that’s $1,000!

Tags: music

I’m fascinated by this amazing group Perpetuuum Jazzile doing thunderstorms with their hands and a nice rendition of the old Toto hit Africa. Have a listen:

Tags: music

We gathered at Henry Coe State Park yesterday to show our support for California State Parks.  

Two television news crews reported on the scene.    What I have to say is that these lands are a public trust run by the state government.   They are not an asset that can be closed or sold off.    The $15 vehicle license fee is a fine way to offset the costs and if other compromises are needed so be it.   But closing 80% of the parks is neither a reasonable nor effective solution to anything and would be a huge violation of public trust.

Our mission of taking a photo for the SOS Weekend campaign complete, we set off  hiking to see some sights, soothe our souls and get a little exercise. 

More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackieannpatterson/

Tags: Henry Coe, State Parks

The budget committee voted to remove General Fund support for state parks.  Yikes! 

That means that incredible lands like the photo shown above may be closed to public access which deprives us all of two benefits:  1. Access to affordable, wholesome, uplifting fun at a time when families may not afford other recreation and 2. Erodes the protected status of these precious open spaces.

The good news is that there is an alternative to sitting back and letting our wild lands be taken from us (and I fear eventually turned into some form of development):

The budget committe also voted to recommend a new State Park Access Pass which would give a year’s unlimited access to state parks for $15 per vehicle — an outstanding deal!  This proposal needs to pass a final vote of state legislature.   Please nudge your representative - click here for an automated form.

Then reward yourself by visualizing your last fun trip to a CA state park…either hiking, camping, or maybe a beach.  Better yet, treat yourself to a visit to a state park this weekend. 

(Photo Credit: Montana de Oro State Park - California Poppy by docentjoyce)

Tags: State Park, State Park Access Pass

Henry Coe State Park is a rare and precious combination of wild lands on the doorstep of a major metropolitan area.  Its been one of my favorite places since a backpacking trip deep in the park when a rottweiler-sized cat came down to the stream across from camp to get a drink…and ran once it realized people were about.   Watching the big cat drink was a wonderful sight to behold — and not one I’d particularly expect to see at park headquarters.

Unfortunately, our access to Henry Coe State Park is threatened by the CA budget crisis withdrawing funding for state parks.    I’m not only concerned about not being able to use Coe — I’m also worried that a closed park is less likely to be preserved as it becomes an easier target for development.

SOS is an organization committed to keeping our state parks open.   They have called for a show of support for the parks in the form of visiting a state park sometime on the weekend of June 20-21, 2009 and taking photos of ourselves with banners for a video they are producing.

I plan to be at Henry Coe State Park Headquarters to take the photos and I want you to join in.   Everyone is welcome for the photo.    

Henry Coe State Park HQ is off 101 near Morgan Hill, 60mins from Redwood City. Click for general directions.  Click for google map  The HQ has restrooms and drinking water available.

If you want to be photographed with a sign, you can print your favorite of the signs on the SOS Weekend page.    If enough people RSVP by Thursday 6/18 to say they’ll be there, I’ll have a larger banner made up.

If you would like to coordinate carpools, feel free to leave comments on this post.   Please understand that this website is open to the public and I won’t necessarily know everyone who comments.   I’m already in a carpool down and will meet y’all there.

We do plan to hike after the photos.    If you’d like to hike too, please bring water, decent shoes, snack/lunch and your sense of personal responsibility.  This isn’t an organized event, but I’m happy to have new friends and acquaintances share the trail.

Hope to see you Saturday!

(Henry Coe photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nkinkade/)

Tags: Henry Coe, hike, State Park

While at the LA Trader’s Expo, I stayed in Arcadia.   Now melded into LA, Arcadia used to be its own distinct town on Route 66.   I spent one evening walking around and marveling at Arcadia’s most surprising residents:  hundreds of wild green parrots.   Parrots are not natives of the region and no one knows for sure how they came to roost in Arcadia.   Rumors has it that a fire in a pet store decades ago prompted the release of a few parrots and nature took care of the rest.

I also came across an intriguing example of the great melting pot on the Pacific rim:  on El Dorado St (a Mexican name), is a drive-in diner (a US thing), featuring bento boxes and sushi (a japanese food).   

Tags: arcadia, parrot