August 28, 2008
I love the Minnesota summer, and have been enjoying our neighborhood outings, with Brandy on her leash, and Emmett in the stroller. Jess sometimes rides her bike. But I’ve been pretty stressed out at work lately, so I was very glad for a break which we are using to head out to Atascadero, California via San Francisco. My brother is the Director of Wine Making at EOS Estate Winery, and we are staying with him and Kristin at their beautiful new house.
We caught a Sun Country flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul to San Francisco on the 15th at about 10pm. We got into SF at about Midnight, and to the hotel by 1am (local time). We were wiped out tired, but Emmett and Jess were perfect on the plane. Jess really liked flying, and Emmett only fussed for a total of about one minute the whole time!
The problems began at the hotel. We checked in fine, and got to the room, but Emmett would not sleep for anything. He finally fell asleep around 2:30am, but woke up at about 4:30am. We got a total of two hours sleep, and then I went and got the rental car from the International airport.
I picked up the family in San Bruno, and then we set off on the 101 heading north; our route was up across the Golden Gate, then down highway 1 along the coast to Watsonville. Turning inland, we would head through Salinas, stopping to pickup a few baby necessities, and then continue down 101 to Atascadero.
It was unfortunate and awesome that the fog was in, and as thick as it was. It was absolutely gorgeous, but the shroud of fog was enough to keep the tops of the towers hidden. We went across, stopping at the scenic viewing area, and then turned heading south. Going across again, we managed a few photos, and then we paid the toll, and exited onto Highway 1.
To be continued…
August 7, 2008
I’ve been bicycling most of my life (haven’t we all?)… riding BMX, freestyle, flatland, Mtn. Bikes with no/front/full suspension, and currently am riding a Trek that I’ve cobbled into a singlespeed (freewheel, not fixie… yet) ‘cross type bike. For the past several years I’ve wanted to build my own bicycle frame, but haven’t had the tools to do so (oxy/acetelene torch or TIG), but now that I have a TIG, I’d like to give it a shot!
After seeing this Excelsior Henderson race bike, I now had the inspriation to do so! I found a junk 70’s frame at my grandparent’s house for practice, and am hoping to get going on it once we get back from California in a couple weeks.
Here’s some more inspiration I came across from Zach Suhr for your perusal:
August 1, 2008
Somehow I had not heard about when this was happening this year, but I came across some excellent photos at this gallery.
Here are a few of my favorites:
This Excelsior Henderson just blows me away! I love the cast aluminum paddock stand too!
You might recognize this BMW from a prior post. It’s just as sexy now as it was then!
I’m happy. We have about two weeks before we leave to visit my older brother Nathan and his girlfriend, Kristin in Atascadero, California! We’re going to be flying into San Francisco, then driving down, along the coast for part of the trip. The recent fires around Big Sur kinda threw a kink into the plan though, but we won’t be downhearted about missing that part, we’re just excited to checkout their new house, and spend some time with them.
I haven’t been doing any work on the truck lately, I’ve been enjoying my new bike, and working on a couple of websites, one I hope to finish up tonight, if not this morning!
This weekend, I hope to start working on building a utility trailer for hauling the lawn mower/4-wheeler/motorcycle/etc., and hope to have it done, or close to it before we leave. I am hoping when we get back we’ll have enough money left over to buy a nice-sized cedar swingset for the kids. We might end up going with treated (they don’t use arsenic anymore, so it’s a viable option), but I’d really like to use cedar.
Finally, I’m thinking about going back to school to work on getting my associates degree, eventually working towards my Bachelors in Computer Science. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but just haven’t had the initiative. Lately I’ve been very blah at work, so I want to find something to spur me on in my career.
