Exploring the World

A long, long time...

2008-07-25T16:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been quite some time since the last blog post! Just a month less than a year, and so much has happened. We've moved again, into some really beautiful country south of Santa Fe, the cats and dogs grew up... George got eaten by an owl. :(

At risk of having to write a retrospect of the last year I'm just going to call it closed, put up a couple of highlight pictures, and then try to get back to posting here on some sort of regular basis.

2007 / 2008

Cute New Kitten and Nuclear Warfare

2007-08-29T00:14:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a pretty eventful week, and I'm finally getting back into a swing of posting here, so....

Last Wednesday we added yet another kitten to the family, bringing us to three cats and one dog. The new kitten is Princess Zia. She is a bit older than Squeaky George and Nano Buddha, and she is a good older sister. She cleans them and takes care of them and is the only one that can stand up to Alfie so far (he is a bit nuts, dragging them around by their legs...).

On Friday we went up to the hot springs at Jemez Springs. We spent the night a bit north of there, and the next morning went to Los Alamos for breakfast. Now, if you don't know about Los Alamos, in their own words "Los Alamos National Laboratory helps to ensure the safety of the nuclear weapons stockpile and reduce the threat of terrorist attacks on our homeland.". And, there is a town, but it is all about the lab, so you can't really tell the difference. There are guarded gates to get into the town, and nothing going on there at all as far as I can tell. We went to a diner (not the one in the pictures - that was too scary!) that was OK, but the people generally looked old and wrinkled and pretty unhealthy, and there ways a sign next to the door that said "Do You Have Cronic Beryllium Disease? Survivors may qualify for benefits."

I can't really explain how terrifying it is - the other pictures that are posted are only 20 miles south - it is in an amazingly beautiful spot. And yet, we are still plugging away at making sure we can blow up the entire planet and pollute it with waste that is indisposable. The Rio Grande is polluted with radioactive toxins that are a result of Los Alamos. The ground water where we live (which we put into a pond, a garden, and a swimming pool) are contaminated. We live nearly 100 miles away.

There are shirts in Albuquerque that say "Iraq 0, Albuquerque 2000" - that is the count of nuclear weapons in each place. In fact, if every city in the US was a country, Albuquerque would be the third most armed country in the world. I don't mean to rant, I guess I just find it entirely disturbing that the people of our nation let this happen.

So, anyway, life is good, the family is well, we are taking time out of busy lives to visit beautiful and scary places...

Los Alamos

Settled In Albuquerque

2007-08-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

So, again slow to post, we have found a great house that we are renting in Albuquerque and have a couple more new additions to the family. Aflie is growing up super quickly (compare the pictures below to the ones in the previous post!), and two days ago we went to the animal shelter and got Squeaky George and Nano Buddha, our two little black and white kittens.

The house is great, and my next post will be some reasonable pictures of the house and the yard post touch up. For this post, though, I thought it would be fair to show the before, so the after would be more impressive. In proper South Valley style (thats a bit like saying Wikel style) we had a car, a stove, a good bit of trash, and even a large non-working bus (we kept that for studio space) when we moved in. There was an empty plastic shell of a pond, and a chicken coop with a couple of inches of poo, not to mention two dozen eggs that must have been ancient - I threw one and it literally exploded with a bang (no liquid, just gas inside) which alfie helped himself to and our carpet paid the price. I also think they may have caused temporary insanity in him.

What else... The house came with a weight set so both Jo and I are going to be super strong, Alfie's ears went from droopy to straight up (documentation in the new kitties album below), we got a great bed (that was the one bit we were missing - otherwise we got a free couch on the street, and one that came with the house, as well as a coffee table, desk, a couple of chairs, and a banged up old table in the back yard that we are using in the kitchen)...

Here are the pictures of the house. Notice the coyote fence (sticks tied to a chain link fence) - that is our improvement. Also, not pictured are tons of amazing rocks, crystals, and petrified wood pieces that are all over our back yard .. we thought we'd save all the good bits for the next post for contrast, because, this house is awesome!

New House

And here are the pictures of the cutest kitties on the planet...

Brand New Kitties

Hopefully I'll be posting more often now that we are settled in again.

The Whirlwind

2007-07-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

So, it has been quite some time since I posted a blog, and things have been crazy (which is why it's been so long since I posted). Since I last wrote, Jo and I drove up to Seattle and back down the Cali coast, going through Yosemite and Big Sur - an amazing drive. When we got back we barely spent a week there before we decided that LA wasn't our place. The cost of living was just too high, and we were falling behind on payments and just not making it, and it didn't seem like the trade off of staying there was worth the stress.

So, we packed up once again and headed back east to New Mexico. We had liked it coming through on the way to California, and the cost of housing here is so much cheaper, and so we are now in the process of looking for a place to stay somewhere between Albuquerque and Taos.

More exciting than the move, though, is that we met a new friend and now are taking care of a six week old, gorgeous puppy named Alphie. We found him in a little art town half way between Albuquerque and Santa Fe called Madrid.

Alphie

Eventually I'll be updating picasa with pictures of all the journeys we made (especially the big sur trip - we have some crazy pictures, like when we saw about 70 seal lions all sleeping in a pile on the beach!), but for now I'll start off with some pictures of the drive between Santa Fe and Toas around sunset. The sky here is simply amazing.

Road to Taos

Free Stuff and Recycled Art

2007-05-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

One of the primary things that we've been doing since moving to Venice is...

well...

collecting trash!

Yes, that's right, walking around and collecting other people's discarded stuff and using it to furnish our house and make art on! In the last couple of weeks we've found a couple of couches, a coffee table, a bunch of plants and trees, a desk and office chair, plastic containers for plants and the dirt to fill them, a couple of filing cabinets (one for my files, one for the deck to hold gardening supplies), some pots and pans for the kitchen, and numerous boards to paint for Jo, including four giant framed pieces of veneer. We even got a free boogie board so when we go out surfing (Jo has started to come with me and learn to surf!) we can both have floaty things so one of us doesn't have to swim.

There are a couple things in the pictures that weren't free (the lamps at the top of the bed, and the bike, were bought with money that was given as wedding presents.) but in general we've had outstanding luck getting our whole apartment furnished on little to nothing. We even have a whole bookshelf of books that we got from a bookstore that closed down, and the bookshelf was in a back alley.

So, check out the new apartment, and if you live in a city, learn when trash day is and walk around outside the night before - you might just be astonished at what you can find that way!

Free Stuff

Time passing and more wedding pictures

2007-05-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

Time is really passing very quickly these days, settling into a new home and trying to sort things out. And we've been bad about taking pictures - it makes a lot of sense taking pictures on special trips, but when you are just around home and living life as normal I always forget to take a camera.

Two days ago we went up to visit Freckles in Topanga, and that was fairly sad. I forgot how much I missed her, but it was a good reminder of what a gift she was to me. And then yesterday, we went up into Malibu Canyon, and it is AMAZING up there - I am going to make sure we go back soon and get some pictures, because it is just a stunning place - it reminded me of the Lord of the Rings (and therefore I guess, New Zealand) with huge mountains, beautiful cliffs, and a small river running through it all. We found some white sage growing and brought it back to make a smudge stick for the house.

We did get some pictures from the wedding back, and here are some of them (us doing the hand fasting, exchanging rings, and generally loving each other):

More Wedding Photos

A Little Update...

2007-04-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't been posting too much to this blog recently, and I really haven't been taking too many pictures to put with posts either. We are still getting settled out here (seems to take forever) and then I had my wisdom tooth out (mostly healed now) and we had to process Jo's paperwork (filed, and she gets to stay until they make a final decision, which will hopefully let her stay as long as she wants!).

My cousin Janet visited this last weekend with some friends who came out to see the taping of the Ellen show, and we got to go out to lunch with them, so that was good (she did get some pictures, so if I get my hands on them I'll post them here eventually).

Mostly other than that it's been working, playing music, some surfing, and a little political work.

Todays speciality:

There's a real chance next week to change the course of the catastrophic war in Iraq, and I joined a campaign calling for an end to military operations and a negotiated diplomatic solution to end the war. Check out the email pasted below.

-----------------------------
Dear friends,

The nightmare in Iraq worsens daily. It's make-or-break time -- but next Thursday in Egypt, we could start to turn the tide. Because on May 3rd – for the first time ever - top US and Iraqi leaders will meet with Iran and Syria plus international powers. They can agree on negotiations to end the war -- or escalate their bloody conflict.

Avaaz is launching a major advertising and text-message campaign inside Iraq this week to bring Iraqi voices to this decisive meeting . As citizens around the world, let's join our voices with theirs to end this war -- sign the petition calling for negotiations and a withdrawal of US troops here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_new_plan

To make sure we're heard, we'll hand-deliver our petition to the leaders' conference in Sharm El-Sheikh on May 3rd, and project Iraqi text-messages on to a huge wall near the US Capitol building in Washington.

Thousands of Iraqi Avaaz members have supported our N.E.W. plan -- for all-party "Negotiations", "Empowering" international mediators and the responsible "Withdrawal" of US troops. Please read the personal email below from Khalid, an Iraqi Avaaz member. Khalid and our other Iraqi members need a show of global support from the rest of us. The campaign is already supported by over 75,000 people as well as key international experts -- let's gather a massive, united voice of Iraqis and citizens round the world to tell our leaders to do the right thing in Iraq:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_new_plan

With hundreds of thousands dead and 4 million made refugees, just criticising the US government for this catastrophe is not enough. It's now the responsibility of all of us to help save Iraq, and the only solution is a political solution.

Khalid Jarrar and his mother Faiza Jarrar have been wonderful supporters of Avaaz in Iraq. We asked Khalid to write a message to Avaaz members, here's what he emailed us yesterday:

alright:)
feel free to edit it if its too long.
and just for the record, i am not a drama queen, these were written for real, and tears in my eyes are my witness...

Dear AVAAZ,

I want to introduce myself, and tell you a story, but i don't know how to start, and where to stop.

My name is Khalid, i am an environmental engineering student and i am 24, but this is the least important to know about me, what's really important for me to tell, and for you to know, is that I am Iraqi, and that I have a deep, deep wound in my soul, that has been bleeding for over four years now.

Iraq, my soul, is bleeding. And i had to leave it against my will, because of the incredibly bad security situation that led to me getting kidnapped and my family paying a huge ransom, which made me leave immediately after i was released in fear that i would be kidnapped again. I left Iraq one month before my graduation and had to come to Jordan, which made me lose two years of my university time and life, but even worse, made me lose the company of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

I had to travel, leaving Iraq behind me, to live like a refuge, one of a million other refuges, in a country of less than five millions people, that already has its own financial problems without needing our additional burden to add to it. I am an Iraqi refuge in Jordan.

Since I left in July 2005, things have exponentially deteriorated in every possible aspect, now people hardly get 1 hours of electricity a day, they have water problems, regular lack of gas that its prices multiplied about 20 times since the war. Let alone the main and real problems of the actual presence of an occupation that is leaching on the country and causing the destruction to its people, unity, sovereignty, infrastructure and economy.

Iraq is the loving mother, that gave birth to thinkers and builders, people that enriched humanity with their contributions in all aspects of life, people that their civilization accumulated for over 7000 years till now.

Iraq, the noble wisdom, the land of the two flowing rivers, the land of the mosques and churches, is in crises, and needs your help.

yes. it needs your help.

Iraqis need the support of the world, of every human being that believes in the values of justice and peace, of every person that cares about the judgment of history on what the world did when Iraq needed its support the most. Iraq, needs your voice, to support the voices of its own people, to help remove that injustice, and help it rise up again and stand on its feet.

Help us demand to give Iraq back to Iraqis, and to prove to the future generations once more, that occupations don't last, that occupations are wrong, and that the will of people is invincible. Help us clear to them that our hearts and minds, our values and sense of justice, are stronger than any tank, battleship or rocket. Help us by singing AVAAZ petition that will be presented to the politicians discussing the future of Iraq security, help by asking your friends to do so, let our voices be louder than the roars of weapons and the madness of greeds, help us, sign AVAAZ petition now, let our voice be heard, support Iraq today, and once the last occupying soldier leaves iraq, and once we rebuild our country with out own hands, we will reciever you in Baghdad, and you will see the love and gratitude competed by nothing but Iraqi hospitality. Together we can prove that our brotherhood is strong, together we can prove that our bonds are real, I can see that day coming, really soon.

Khalid

Click below to join Khalid in telling US, Iraqi and international leaders to do the right thing for Iraq:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_new_plan

With hope,

Ricken, Graziela, Paul, Tom and the whole Avaaz team.

Avaaz.org is a global organization with almost 1million members all over the world. Our goal is to use technology and the internet to make the values and view of the world’s public opinion heard by global decision makers on important world issues.

For the Love of Baywatch!

2007-04-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

So, short and sweet, I went out surfing today, and the waves were massive (8 to 10 feet). What I didn't know was that there was a severe warning about rip tides. I paddled out, got destroyed by the waves, and then paddled back in. Changed spots, and started paddling out, and found it amazingly easy to get past the breaks. However, I didn't stop there. I just kept heading out to sea. I got a little worried, and started paddling for shore, but after about 20 minutes of solidly heading for shore and only getting further and further out, I was pretty tired and a bit worried.

Hooray for the California Coast Guard, who came and picked me up in a motor boat, dropped me off in a better break where there wasn't a rip tide, where I was finally able to catch a wave (one of the biggest I've ever caught actually) and take it to shore. I was so tired I couldn't even be bothered to stand up, but I did get the body surf ride of a lifetime.

Even for not getting to surf really and finding the whole experience a little scary, I find the ocean ultimately relaxing...

Headed Home

2007-04-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

So, on day three (Easter) we woke up and headed to the pool. We swam for a while and then got in a sauna, and then swam some more, and then went to the hotel's restaurant which had a HUGE brunch buffet for Easter that included eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy (one of my all time favorite foods), fruit, cheese, salads, fish, shrimp, and meats, make your own waffles and omelettes, desserts, and tons more - it was a little overwhelming and excellent.

We then headed west again, and stopped at the sand desert that is on the California / Arizona border that I don't know the name of but is referred to as The Great American Sahara.

The Sandy Desert

What a place - it is really incredible the variety of ecosystems that are in a couple of hours drive from LA. We wondered around some, and then tried to take a back road that we saw on a map and proceeded to get our car badly stuck in some really soft sand. It was a funny scene - the two of us walking through the mid day desert sun with only a half a gallon of water, and standing by the highway trying to flag down a truck for help. Lucky for us the second person that stopped had a truck and a tow line and we managed to get out of there in a little less than an hour...

We headed north to the Salton Sea, which was amazing, and you could barely see the difference between the water and sky (the way it looks in the pictures is really how it looked!) The sea is a sad story, which you can read about at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea.

The Salton Sea

After we left there, we headed up to Palm Springs and went to a little Thai restaurant for dinner, and then headed home...

The Honeymoon Day 2

2007-04-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

So, we woke up Saturday in Ajo and drove down to Organ Pipe National Monument. I'm a bit of a failure, as I don't have a single picture of an Organ Pipe Cactus. The cactus you see in our photos are Saguaro, organ pipe have many more stems growing from one base.

We drove about 20 miles into the park and took a hike up to a rock arch - it was a fairly long hike, but beautiful.

OrganPipe National Monument

When we got back from the hike we were pretty tired, so we headed north and drove towards home. We got to Yuma, AZ, went out for sushi, and got a hotel room for the night.

The Honeymoon!!

2007-04-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

So, to continue on with our conventional wedding, we went on a very traditional honeymoon.

We left on Thursday night at about midnight on a whim to get out of the city. We looked at a map of the US, found the only place on the whole map that was hotter than 80 degrees (even LA has been mostly mid sixties and cloudy for a while now) and headed that direction. Destination: The Sonoran Desert, Arizona.

We made it to Gila Bend at about 5 AM, and got out of the car to look at the sun rise. The view was so weird that I can't even explain it - the sky was astonishing, the mountains were shocking, and flat out in the middle of it was what looked like a crazy factory (I later discerned that I believe it was either a copper or manganese mine). Behind us was an airport with two camouflage jets sitting there.

Gila Bend

I'm going to ramble for a bit here, but honestly, the desert is a crazy place. A huge part of the land down there is an air force base, and it is where the military tests crazy jets, it is where Chuck Yeager and company used to fly the supersonic jets and break the sound barrier (i.e. "The Right Stuff") It is some of the most beautiful land in the country, and is generally trashed by miners, cattle farmers, and anyone who thinks they can make a buck off of it with no care for how much it damages the land because so few people are out there that no one ever complains.

Anyway, we decided to get out into the wilderness, and headed west into the Sonoran Desert National Monument. We hiked around in the desert and hills there for a while, and stopped by some train tracks for lunch. We found some great little hooks that used to hold the tracks down that are shaped like J's which we thought was appropriate for Justin and Jo getting married.

We then headed west further, and eventually came to a town called Mobile. Back to my previous rant, this town had mountains that were landfills - several of them, just giant landfills a mile outside of a "National Monument". I think they were designed to look like the desert mountains, but they didn't do a very good job. Jo and I found a random road and pulled off on it to head towards what looked to be a beautiful mountain range, but were stopped by a sign saying no trespassing due to it being Native American land. Where we stopped was unbelievable - pictures below.

Mobile, AZ

After some further wondering around, heat and lack of sleep started coming over us and we decided to head back to Gila Bend. We found a restaurant (click here to check it out) which was the only place to eat in Gila Bend, and had a menu I wished I had stolen, which essentially explained how this guy had "owned of a plastic factory and a manganese mine" and had been selling the manganese ore to the government for making bombs, and became friends with Eisenhower and some of the NASA folk because of it, and then got involved in the space industry and had a lot of signed pictures of him with astronauts. Wierd.

We then headed south towards Organ Pipe National Monument (the Organ Pipes are another type of cactus) and got to a town called Ajo where we found a great little motel that rented us a cabin for the night.

Oh, and we succeeded in our search, as it was hot as hell and we both nearly got heat stroke!

Wedding Day

2007-04-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

So, Jo and I are now married! Our wedding day was really beautiful. After hanging around the house all morning pretty much freaking out, we drove up the Topanga Canyon (listening to EMF on the radio, for those who are interested) and met Kasahangli, our witness, and Leslie, our "wedding officiate" and hiked up to Eagle Rock.

The walk was a little longer than Leslie had anticipated I think, (it is a little over 2 miles). When we got there there were some people who, when Kasahangli told them there was going to be a wedding, took off, and we went up to the top of the rock for the ceremony. Kasahangli had some rose water that she sprayed everything and everyone with, and we proceeded to do the ceremony. The ceremony was really amazing and touching and ... not even really sure I can write about how it feels to stare into the eyes of someone you love and tell them that you want to spend forever with them.

We did a Celtic hand fasting using Freckles' leash and a piece of lace that Jo had had since being at Double Edge.

There was a guy sitting a little way down the rock meditating that we hadn't really seen, and when we were pronounced married, he clapped and it was really very touching and funny that a complete stranger had been sitting there witnessing us getting married.

We went out to dinner at a place called The Inn of the Seventh Ray which everyone told us we should check out, but in the end it was a pretty freaky new age place (for those of you who think I'm a freaky new ager, you can change that to absolutely terrifying). It did have great food, though, and we got to sit outside by a stream and listen to frogs.

Wedding Day

Kasahangli took photos during the ceremony that we don't have copies of yet, so we've included the ones we have from before and after, and will add the others later.

Held Up By The Police in a Bank

2007-04-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Funny thing today. Went to the bank across the street (I just opened a bank account there, an had gone in to change my PIN number on my debit card), and as I was standing in line waiting, police burst through the door with armed assault rifles, looked around confused, saw a security guard and called him over. They yelled at him saying someone had tripped the armed robbery alarm, and then had a long chat with the manager while they disarmed their shotguns.

The guy in line in front of me was funny - he just saw the cops burst through the door and said "I'm out of here" and rushed out the other way. I just stood there and waited for someone to help me change my PIN...wierd.

Topanga Canyon

2007-03-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

So, this is going to be quite a blog post. I don't even know where to begin, so to start with I'm going to tell you a little about where we live. Venice is on the ocean in Los Angeles. (This is just a little education for those of you unfamiliar with what LA is really like) Almost straight east about 15 miles is the city proper, with skyscrapers and stuff, and a little north of that (6 miles) is Hollywood - and yes, it is a massive city. Hollywood is in the hills (you may have heard of the Hollywood Hills), and if you go far enough west on Mulholland Drive (some of you may have seen the movie...) you get into what are called the Santa Monica Hills.

About 5 miles north of where we live on the PCH (Pacific Coastal Highway) is a little road called Topanga Canyon Road, which goes up into the Santa Monica Hills, and about two miles up there is Topanga Canyon State Park.

We first went to Topanga a couple of weeks ago and got some free Jade plants that we'd seen on craigslist to help us start our future deck garden. Already we were taken by the beauty of the place - especially amazing that we can get there in 10 minutes if we don't go at rush hour. Topanga State Park is actually in the city limits of Los Angeles, and is the largest nature reserve in the world that is inside a city.

Two days ago, Jo and I walked up to a place called Eagles Rock in the canyon. It was breathtakingly beautiful - you can see the ocean and the mountains and everything. So, big event number one (this is the good news) ...

I asked her to marry me and she said yes. It is a little far out and hard to wrap my head around, but simply fantastic as far as I can tell. We came home that night and made the chocolate cake pictured below - Sugar, Wheat, and Dairy free...

I didn't have a camera with me that day, but we went back up there today and I got some pictures just so you can get an idea of what the place is like. It is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately (this is the bad news) ...

The reason we went to the canyon today was to bury Freckles, my family's dog of sixteen and a half years. I put the last picture taken of her in today's album. She has been fairly sick for some time, and we aren't sure what the real issue was, but the general belief among vets and us was a brain tumor behind the right eye. We had been trying all sorts of different medicines, and also had more recently put her on pain killers because she had stopped eating, and that got her eating again (about two weeks ago) and then she stopped eating a couple of days ago and got very bad and wasn't standing up much and was clearly in pain, and we took her today and had her put to sleep. It was an incredibly hard decision to make, but in the end it felt nothing but right.

I know this might be too much information for some, but really this is for family and friends who knew and loved her, so I will add that it was clear it was her time - she put up no resistance to the vet or an injection (rare form for her - she hates shots) and closed her eyes and was gone within seconds.

We found a beautiful spot in the canyon (not in state park territory, just out in the country) and buried her (you can see Jo kneeling down next to her grave in the pictures of her burial rock).

So, no matter how you look at it this has been an amazing couple of days. Things beginning and things ending.

Topanga Canyon

The New Pad

2007-03-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of days into staying in the new place and it is really just great. I went around and took some pictures today - some of my favorite features - the fireplace (doesn't really work, but nice), the little box in the wall in the entry hallway, and the bathroom skylight. This is really great - it is an open window in the bathroom that goes into a shaft straight up to a skylight - it opens up the room and brings in a great light. The porch is also nice, although we are still working on it (trying to gardenify it a bit, already have grass that freckles has figured out and is using so that is good).

For the freckles followers reading this, she is doing really well. She actually got fairly sick once we got out here, and wasn't really eating or walking for a couple of days, and had a really bad nose bleed. We took her to see a vet friend (I work on his website that you can check out at http://lbah.com) and he gave her some antibiotics and painkillers, and she is almost totally back to normal now.

The prevailing theory is brain cancer behind the right eye, and there isn't much to do about that, but it appeared to have gotten infected, and the antibiotics have pretty much stopped the bleeding, reduced the swelling, and she is running around again..

New House in Venice

Settled in CA

2007-03-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

So, we've been in California for well over a week now, and so much has happened. I don't have pictures to prove it, but we stayed at a friends house for about 9 days while we looked for apartments, and we found this one apartment that really worked for us. We managed to get it, and it is wonderful.

It is in Venice, CA. It is about 9 blocks from the beach, and in a really interesting cross section - on the corner of a very, very cute street that is only a walking road in one direction and has beautiful houses and a garden feel, and a major highway type street with mostly chain stores and power lines and traffic. You can walk 100 feet in any direction and feel like you are in 3 or 4 different lands entirely.

It is an easy walk to the beach, not to mention a beach with amazing surfing waves beyond my wildest dreams, to downtown areas, and to quiet neighborhoods. So far I am loving it here - my whole life feels different - maybe because of the location, maybe because the location has come from some serious changes in myself.

If dreams come true, this is something I've been dreaming since I was about 10 years old and looking at surfing magazines like they were porno. And, at the heart of the music industry, and beautiful weather - I really can't complain.

Tonight I watched An Inconvenient Truth with Jo, who hadn't seen it, and it prompted me to finally get LifeStyleZero.com up and running and online. I hope if you haven't checked it out yet and signed up, you will.

Hopefully in the next couple of days we'll get some pictures of where we are now, the new pad, the new place.. sunsets are beautiful here.

Be well.

Grand Canyon and Headed West

2007-03-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning for sunrise. It was chilly, but we took a bunch of blankets and sat on the edge of a huge cliff and watched the sun come up. I think that I may have finally found my true religion - sun worship.

For the most beautiful place on the whole trip, we didn't take a lot of pictures - mostly because we were just too busy being in total awe (plus, photographers way better than us have been there and made some incredible books if you are the kind of person with a coffee table).

We took a bus up to the rim and walked down a mile and a half portion of a longer trail just to go down into the canyon some and get an idea, and we decided that we absolutely have to go back and hike there for longer as soon as possible - it is simply amazing. If you are reading this and you haven't been, and it is at all possible, get there in your life - that is all I can say about it.

We had dinner at a little restaurant, and completely out of money decided to try to get to California since it was a little cold to sleep outside. We managed to get $10 out of an ATM, and had a full tank of gas and some change, and headed west in the true style of "California or Bust".

We ended up having to count out the change at a gas station in the hills outside LA, and made it early Sunday morning to Huntington Beach. We slept on the beach for a while, and then headed to a friends to stay while we look for a place out here..

Made it!

Grand Canyon

Driving to the Grand Canyon

2007-03-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

We left Holbrook today and decided to take the long road up through the painted desert and the Hopi reservation on the way to the Grand Canyon. First thing in the morning we drove through the petrified forest - ancient trees that have turned into the most beautiful crystal...

Petrified Forest

Then onwards and upwards into the painted desert - which was a long drive, but beautiful, and we caught an absolutely amazing sunset. The sunset colors didn't really capture, but again an amazing moon - two days out until full moon.

Painted Desert

We pulled into the Grand Canyon after dark, and it was late and really cold, but we stopped to look at the canyon in the moonlight. Then checked into a lodge for the night..

The Gila Cliff Dwellings

2007-03-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

From Silver City we went north to the Gila Cliff Dwellings - some old native American cliffside apartments.

Gila Cliff Dwellings

It was a pretty long drive up, so that is about what we did today, and then drove north as far as we could, to a town called Holbrook. We caught a beautiful moonrise on the way up.

Moon and Sunset Leaving Gila Cliffs

Into the Desert

2007-03-01T00:50:00.000-08:00

So, after leaving Albuquerque, we headed south. Originally we had thought about going west, but we decided to go see the Gila Cliff Dwellings, so we went down towards Silver City. The Lake Valley Ghost Town was also on the way, and we stopped and took a look - it was an old mining town that had pretty much been abandoned a long time ago, but a couple of residents had stuck it out until more recently (see porch with tricycle). We wondered around even though it was closed, and got in a little trouble with a park ranger, but he was nice enough to spare us a ticket for trespassing!

Lake Valley Ghost Town

On the way to Silver City the Sunset was absolutely amazing! And we had to get some pictures for those back in the UK to prove that, yes, you can actually buy guns until 10 at night every day of the year except Christmas right in your neighborhood Walmart!

Road to Silver City

Arkansas to Albuquerque

2007-02-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

So - I haven't posted in a couple of days - just having too much fun I suppose. We left Arkansas and headed west. The drive was insanely windy, and at one point we even saw two trucks that looked like they had blown over off the road. We thought about heading all the way to Albuquerque, but it took longer than we thought so we stopped for the night in Amarillo, Texas where we stayed at the cheapest hotel we could find which was oddly shaped like a castle.

Jo had some romantic ideas about the Wild West and wanted to see cowboys in a bar, but we went out on the town and after we managed to find a way to get past a huge train that was blocking most roads we went to a couple of bars which were really disappointing - mostly frat boy looking types listening to bad music.

Next day we came into Albuquerque where we stayed with our good friends from Q-Staff - an ensemble theatre in town and owners of the Winning Cafe - a great place for breakfast if you are ever in town. They were remodeling an apartment, and we stuck around town for a couple of days getting work done, helping out with the apartment, and heading up to some hot springs to sit in warm water. We even took freckles up and she went for a swim.

From Arkansas to Albuquerque

It is now Wednesday, February 28th, and we are about to head west again - to Flagstaff, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, and then our final destination for this trip - Los Angeles, CA.

To Arkansas

2007-02-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

After we got bored of Memphis we took off west on the I-40 (old route 66), which we will stay on the rest of the trip. Headed into Arkansas, the land of Jesus and Sex Toys. Found a little Best Western and holed up. We actually decided to stay today too, and have been working most of the day to catch up on travel time.

Life on the road is funny, because mostly you see a lot of road.

To Arkansas

Goin to Graceland

2007-02-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

So, we got in a little late but went down to Beale St. and listened to a band play for a while. Then we decided to spend the night in the Heartbreak Hotel - the only place that would really make sense to stay in town. They didn't let dogs in, so we repeated the Mardi Gras trick and threw freckles in a bag and took her in. We picked up some really amazing glasses downtown that you can see on Freckles in the pictures below - the boa was from Mardi Gras.

Today we woke up and went to Graceland to visit the home of the King of Rock, which was a little smaller than I would have expected, but I guess there was no real precedent for rock star back in those days. Afterwards we went downtown so Jo could ride the trolleys - she really loves street cars! They were pretty cool, though.

Memphis, Heartbreak, and Graceland

Drivin that train, high on cocaine...

2007-02-21T18:01:00.000-08:00

So, left Louisiana and headed up to Memphis. Not much to see on the way, but we got hungry mid day and pulled off at an exit in the middle of nowhere - Vaughan - and drove until we found an old gate that had fallen down that let us get in behind some buildings.

What a fortunate turn - as it ended up being an old Casey Jones museum - totally abandoned and run down, but a neat piece of history. Some of you might know the Grateful Dead song, or Jo says there is a bar in London named the Casey Jones. For the story, check out http://taco.com/roots/caseyjones.html

After lunch we played some mandolin and ukulele on the porch, and then when the mosquitos got to be too much we took off.

Headed to Memphis

Leaving New Orleans

2007-02-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

We left New Orleans late yesterday (Mardi Gras Day) and drove out of town - pretty much just crossed the bridge and found a hotel. We're headed to Memphis - some pictures just for the record.

Leaving New Orleans

Happy Mardi Gras!

2007-02-21T07:19:00.001-08:00

Happy Mardi Gras!

Yesterday we pretty much took the day off, relaxed a bit, got some work done. Towards the end of the day we decided to get ready to head out, and we packed our stuff up and got a hotel room downtown so we could be close to Mardi Gras, and then ready and packed to go.

We originally got two nights, but the hotel was a Days Inn that should have been called Crack House Prostitute Hotel. I can't even begin to describe the horrible conditions in this place. The air was bad, you couldn't open windows, there was no ventilation, no trash can, the rooms were dirty and smelly, and the people there were disgusting. Horrible men, dirty prostitutes, blood all over the elevator floor.

Literally the kind of place where you are afraid for your life - not nice at all (and pretty expensive for all that!) I got some pictures of the pool, one of the nicer parts of the hotel. We packed up the car in the morning and checked out - no two nights for us, and Jo took a tram car back into town (they wouldn't let me on with freckles) and I took a cab and we met up at the parade and just walked around the French Quarter all day looking at people. In the afternoon we got tired and went back to the car and headed north.

There was a great response to the Jesus freaks (see the parade photos for some good Jesus Freak Shots) and we got a picture at the end of today.

Mardi Gras Day

The Beginning of Mardi Gras and a Lost Dog!

2007-02-21T06:52:00.001-08:00

So, Mardi Gras is going in full swing (or pre-Mardi Gras depending on how you look at it) and parades abound. We got tipped off to go check out Endymion on the 17th, and Bacchus on the 18th. I got some good pictures of Endymion, but then, lo and behold, we came home and Freckles had gone missing!

We left her in the yard hoping she would enjoy the sun, and we blocked off the gate, but we didn't think about the fact that in New Orleans there is open space under the houses, and she could just walk right under the house to escape.

I can't even express how it felt to have her go missing. Being apparently on her last legs in any case, the thought of not knowing what had happened - if she was dead or just wondering around, deaf and blind, lost, missing us was HORRIBLE! We looked all over, crawling under houses, walking blocks and blocks in the cold, to no avail. Going to bed was a nightmare!

The next day we got up and made signs to post around the neighborhood - the mood was terrible. We walked out the front door to post our signs, and there was a guy standing right in front of the house. We asked him if he had seen a lost dog. He asked what kind, and we told him a small cocker spaniel. By a miracle, he said "Oh yea, my friend has her!".

We went over to see his friend, who had just come back. He was one of the nicest people I've ever met, and was just so happy that we came to get the dog. He said "I knew karma would work - I don't even know what karma is, but I knew it would work!"

His daughter had been playing in the street and seen freckles running with a pack of street dogs (guess she still does have some life in her) and thought she was cute so took her home. They took care of her and fed her, and she looked great and happy to see us.

Needless to say, I didn't leave her at home again, so I took her to Bacchus which made getting pictures almost impossible as I had to carry her most of the time through the crowds. Later on we found a Mardi Gras bag and I put her in there which ended up working out great.

We went down to Bourbon Street after Bacchus, met some real crazies, and did a little shopping for the relatives.

Pre Mardi Gras Parades

Other than that we've generally been drinking a lot of wine, watching parades, sleeping, doing a little work in between...

New Orleans - Still a Mess

2007-02-19T08:37:00.000-08:00

Some pictures of our block we stayed on in New Orleans a year and a half after the flood. I said it was shocking and amazing. A local woman said she could think of some other words for it.

New Orleans Wreckage

PA to New Orleans

2007-02-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

So, we finally got out of Scranton, under deep cover of snow, and drove around Pennsylvania all day trying to escape without hitting closed roads. It was almost evening when we got out of PA, and we decided just to gun it to New Orleans, and drove over night and got in late afternoon on Friday. We found a friend and moved in to her place and are resting to recover. It's still cold here.

Leaving Scranton

Moving Out of Ashfield

2007-02-13T06:22:00.000-08:00

So, in a crazy series of events...

We went to Elmer's (the best breakfast on the East Coast if you are around Ashfield, MA any given morning) and Nan - the owner who moved up from New Orleans - said we should head down to Mardi Gras. Jo's face lit up - she wanted to go! Nan said we could stay in her place, and it seemed like an idea. I had been thinking about moving to California, and I thought - well, maybe if we are going half way anyway, I might as well just go (this is on Saturday). So, on Tuesday, I've packed everything I own into storage or my car and am heading off to a big party and then a whole new world of living somewhere else.

This is a pretty big transition for me, seeing as I've mostly lived in the Pioneer Valley since 1995, and is both terrifying and pretty exciting. We had a gorgeous sunrise on moving day, though, and I don't think we forgot anything TOO important. My parents came out to help move, which was super nice of them, and we are off.

We drove all day, and it started to snow towards the end of the day, so we holed up in Scranton, PA. The snowstorm was actually massive, and we have ended up staying a full day longer in our little Scranton Hotel.

Moving Day

Flight Back from California

2007-01-29T06:03:00.000-08:00

So, flying home from California, back to Western MA. Took some shots in the sky. What a strange planet.

Flying Back from CA

Film and Zero Emissions

2007-01-27T00:55:00.000-08:00

So, today was more or less uneventful, and evening rolled around, and I was wondering what to do, so I looked up movie theaters close by and the closest one was only playing one film, Pan's Labyrinth.

Wow, wow, wow. All I can say is go see this movie. Amazing. Great. I was told that this film got a 20 minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.

On the way home, riding my trusty skateboard, it finally dawned on me that I am a crazy lone skateboarder. As much as it may seem like a skateboarding culture here, people do it for fun or sport more than transportation. Which led me to look further at what I did tonight, which was to go to a movie .8 miles from where I am staying. Maybe a 13 minute walk, a 7 minute skateboard, a 4 minute bike ride, or, if you live in LA...

A 12 minute drive and an 8 minute parking job, probably leaving you with still a good 5 minute walk. And sure, you don't get sweaty, and you look cool (???), and you don't have to juggle your popcorn with your skateboard as you try to sit down and not kill anyone around you, but...

At what cost? Anyone seen An Inconvenient Truth? My god. Talk about amazing movies. People look at me like I'm a little nuts riding down the bike lane on Sunset Blvd on my skateboard (some people even honk at me - a little in a threatening way - as if I don't deserve to be there) but there isn't a bike in site.

All the while, though, I feel something good inside - that I've made it from Van Nuys to LA to Santa Monica to Marina Del Ray all on skateboard and train and eco-friendly bus (the fleet here runs on compressed natural gas - or at least some of it does).

And I thought, there must be other people out there doing this. And hopefully, doing more than this! And I want to know what you are doing to lower carbon emissions, so, I've create a place where people interested in moving towards zero carbon emissions, zero waste, and zero damage to the earth can post their attempts at doing so.

Check it out at LifeStyleZero.com

If you are on that path, start a blog there, and let us know what you are doing!

Justin

A Blog Competition and a Little Recording

2007-01-25T23:15:00.000-08:00

So, I joked with my mom when I started this that I was going into competition with her, as she has been faithfully posting to a blog (or in her case, a sailing log) nearly every day for a year. She gave me a hard time because I haven't been posting, so I thought I'd put something up here for the world to see.

I've mostly been working these last few days, but did get a chance to go into a small recording studio called "in fidelity recordings" and do a bit of recording of some of the material I'm working on right now. I figured I might post some, but I'm not too happy with the end quality of the mix, or maybe my own voice just annoys me, so I'm going to do some more work before I put those out here. Overall it was a pretty good recording experience, though. I think I was just being a bit ambitious going for four songs in about six hours.

No pictures to speak of, I guess my mom is right - to date I'm definitely losing this competition!

Getting to the Beach

2007-01-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

What a couple of crazy days.

Yesterday, I decided to try and rent a car in LA - up in the Van Nuys area. I tried to get there, and printed out maps of the train and bus routes, and ended up there fairly successfully. When I got to the car rental place, though, they told me my credit card was declining.

Now, I only use a debit card (meaning that I can only spend money I have). But, it should act like a credit card, and I had the money in the bank, so I called the bank and they said there was an error, and I needed to run it like a debit card not a credit card. Well, you can't actually rent a car on a debit card, only on credit. You also can't pay cash - amazing - I couldn't pay these people anything to give me a car, and I couldn't guarantee them that I might be able to pay them later on a credit card because of a computer error.

So, I wasted all morning trying and waiting for my bank to fix it, which they didn't and then I got fed up and decided I was going to get to the beach car or none.

I took the train back to where I am staying in northern LA, and did some internet research on bus routes to the beach. I found what seemed totally reasonable, and I went down and bought a cheap skateboard for a fraction of the price of a car rental to get between bus and train stops.

I got the train to downtown LA, and then started looking for the bus stop. I skated all over LA trying to find it to no avail, and amazingly, the only people on the streets are homeless, crack heads, or too busy to talk to you (that is, me).

I ended up buying a homeless guy who couldn't use computers a train ticket - on his dollar, mind you(the ticket system is computerized), helping a homeless alcoholic in a wheel chair pick up his drink he'd dropped that fell into the street (he was the one that finally got me to my bus stop) and then waiting at a bus stop with a very nice brother and sister who were coherent and entertaining and selling crack to the homeless, probably around 16 or 17 years old, for almost 45 minutes. Meanwhile there was a prostitute with a big gold cross on a chain around her forehead and a totally insane homeless woman who was dancing in the street yelling at cars having a fight about how the crazy one was being too loud, and the 16 year old crack dealer was telling me that "these people must be trippin!"

I saw a truck drive by filming a movie - they had the hood ripped off and a camera mounted over the engine facing into the truck, and a guy in the passenger seat with another camera, and a whole crew in the back. I wish I could have taken pictures, but I didn't feel like i was in the right area to pull out a digital camera.

The bus finally came, and I got on and tried to read my book (You Shall Know Our Velocity!) and managed to do so until a woman who was very nicely dressed, having fancy designer bags, and also two small suit cases got on the bus and started talking to herself. First she was just muttering, and then talking about how someone had shot her up in the ankle five times and it hurt, and then finally (thankfully right before we got off the bus in Santa Monica) started yelling about how he was a murderer, and he killed people. Another crazy of the hippie variety made the comment that, yes, that is what murders do, they kill people. Someone else said "thank god she waited until the end of the line".

It took me about 20 minutes on skateboard (with a big backpack and guitar) to find my hotel. Trashy place, so I walked down to the beach, and called a different place (the one in the photos) to get a reservation for the next day. I made it, though, and got some good January beach time in, skateboarded down to Venice and hung out there some, swam in the ocean, rode a roller coaster on the Santa Monica pier (lame, lame, lame...) and saw Babel (wow). Pictures of after I made it are below - the panorama is from the 2nd day hotel (far left) to the beach...

Santa Monica and Venice

Quite a two days.

Work in LA

2007-01-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

So, after years and years of working online and telling everyone that they should get a blog to promote their stuff, I finally got around to getting my own. At this point I'm a bit schizophrenic with websites on all sorts of different topics across the internet, and introduce the blog, a place where I can just babble about whatever is the thought of the day and everyone I don't know can read all about it.

Today's thought of the day? LA. Jo asked me to send her some pictures because I told her I was staying right above Sunset Blvd, so I did my ingenious best and came up with this:

January in Los Angeles 2007

I came out to work on some top secret web projects and maybe do a little promotion of my music in the mean time. The place I'm staying is somewhere on the map of google earth at about 34° 5'6.28"N 118°16'35.36"W if you are a big enough geek to look that up.

Well, that is really all I have to say for now.