Monkeys!

Last week we went to go visit my brother in LA. On the last day we were there we went to the Santa Ana Zoo which has a lot of monkeys. The had an exhibit with gibbons which were constantly chatting. If you watch the video you can hear them quite distinctly.

The life without a child

Well my daughter is gone for the week going up to the family reunion. Ed and I are having the dilemma on this Saturday morning of what to do. Quite honestly I can not remember what we did before we had Elara. Everyone says to enjoy it but its a sad truth that are lives are not as exciting with out a toddler running around.

It Lives...for now

 With a little bit of elbow grease and a new protein skimmer for Father's Day, it appears that my reef tank is starting to come around. The coral to the left is called an open brain. The coral below the brain is called a cup coral. These two corals require a lot of calcium and good lighting to grow which I hopefully have both of them in quantity. The Coral on the bottom is called a toadstool and it is primarily photosynthetic.

Cookies...Mmmmm.

The other day, my daughter was snoozing away in her crib and typically there is no way to tell what she, or anybody else for that matter, is dreaming about. However, this go around it was quite evident. Before I woke her up she was mumbling in her sleep which she does from time to time. Usually when she talks it is nothing more than a bunch of gibberish followed by one or two intelligible words. I did the same thing when I was learning French. Before she woke up she produced a sentence of gibberish followed by, "Cookies...Mmmmm." There was little doubt as to what she was dreaming about.

Yes, I gave her a cookie when she woke up.

How Times Have Changed

I was looking though some of my previous pictures from a vacation I took in Tucson (yes there are things to do in Tucson, so no comments how boring the city is) and I came across this picture of my daughter climbing what appears to be some piece of metal in the desert. While I should have used a wide angled lens, what this picture actually depicts is my daughter climbing one of the sliding doors that covered a Titan class nuclear missile. I find it interesting how times have changed so much in the past 30 years that what was once a top secret military Cold War facility that was designed to counter attack a nuclear strike from the USSR is nothing more than a climbing toy for my daughter.

The picture to the right was exactly what my daughter was climbing over. While at the Desert Museum the next day I talked to an elderly man that was stationed at this facility in the 60's. I asked him how the war head was transported to the facility and it was interesting to hear the tale. There were two convoys. One convoy consisted of tanks, truck, enough armed personal to occupy a small country, and fighter jets in the air. In one of these truck would be the supposed warhead. The other convoy was nothing more than a 57' Chevy owned by a local farmer that was contracted to deliver food for the facility from the local farms. In reality and with no notification to the farmer his truck carried the warhead and the military convoy carried the food. After all, who would ever think to attack some beat up old truck cruising down the road thinking that there was a warhead in its bed.

Got to love American ingenuity!

Shoe's?

For the past few months Elara has had a fascination with shoes. She loves all shoes, all styles, and all colors. There have been plenty of tantrums when Elara was not allowed to get a pair of shoes. She has also been going around the house wearing mommy and daddy's shoes, which has resulted in many lost shoes. Today Elara was able to put on her shoes all by herself! Ed had put Elara down for her nap and took off her shoes. When I came home from work I got Elara out of her crib and lo and behold Elara had her shoes on. They were not on the correct foot, but she was obviously very proud of her little achievement. You got to love the joy of a toddler.

It's Back!

Hello All,

It is back for no particular reason other than people want to see pictures of my family and that no one has anything better to do than look at this blog. So here it is, a complete remodel and geared a little more towards pictures than long drawn out essays.

To begin with I have posted a picture of my daughter, Elara, at a beach in LA.

Enjoy!