East Cliff construction

East Cliff is getting a makeover, and I'm not real happy about it. 

When I moved to Santa Cruz over three years ago, I drove around the town looking for places to live. Before I knew anything about the local vibe (very heavy) I discovered that I felt much more comfortable on the "East Side" than the "West Side", so I found a place to live near the ocean on the East Side. The West Side of Santa Cruz is more gentrified than the East Side. Now, it seems that the city/county/state are going to "improve" the East Side. 

The plans are to put in sidewalks and make better access points to the beach, and probably try to make traffic flow "better."  The charm of EC is that it's kinda grungy. Kinda organic. I think that the makeover is going to end this. 

I was riding around the neighborhood today and noticed that someone else shares my feelings and decided to express them more succinctly. 

Greta in the garden

Adria's garden is going off - it is exciting!

I was watering early this morning, before the heat kicked in, and took some pictures.

Adria is making more and more space for veggies in the backyard garden. She built up this bed last week and put these starts in. Peas and chard I know for sure. And I think there's celery in there somewhere. 

Greta, posing. 

Great, posing, more.

lessons from the mat, day 1 - Sat, Aug. 15

Don't muscle it.

On the mat: If I can't maintain conscious breath during my practice, then I'm muscling it. 

Off the mat: I was reminded not to muscle it when I was pulling the garden hose out of the spool that holds it. It jumped off the roller and got jammed. Instead of slowing down and backing up, I muscled it and jacked up my thumb.

Rio Del Mar beach cleanup

I met Adele and Melody (I work with them) at the Rio Del Mar beach today for a beach clean-up. In total there were eight of us. 

Combing the beach with five-gallon plastic buckets with a Save-Our-Shores bumper sticker slapped on them, weaving in between blanket-bound beachgoers, focusing on the sand, talking nonsense, and calling out what we picked from the sand with gloved hands or those extenda-reach-grabber-things. 

I don't know why beach clean-ups are so ripe for one-liners, but there were a couple that made me laugh (just like this one a few months ago at Panther Beach - http://clayton-ryon.blogspot.com/2009/04/give-hoot-dont-pollute.html). I short-handed  a couple of the one-liners into my little notebook that I carry with me most places I go. 

ONE-LINER #1:

As she was dropping a ketchup packet, fireworks, and a beer bottle cap in her plastic bucket she called out "I just found a ketchup packet, fireworks, and a beer bottle cap!" Someone down the beach shot back "Now THAT sounds like a fun night!" 

ONE-LINER #2:

As we were moving down the beach, we hit a non-littered patch. I took the down-time as an opportunity to read the list of items that were pre-printed on the card the organizers give you to tally the most common items found on the beach. 

On the two-sided card

under the heading "PERSONAL HYGIENE"

two lines below "CONDOM"

just above "HANDI-WIPE"

was "NEEDLE/SYRINGE." 

I called out, "Has anyone found a needle or syringe?" 

A couple of people immediately replied 

"Not yet!" 

Optimism. 

We removed over 11 pounds of trash from the beach.

"You remember the things that you love"

A couple of weekends ago, Adria and I spent some time in Tahoe with her family to celebrate some August birthdays in her family. 

Here's a pic from the biggest night - about 20 people - family and friends and a couple of next-door neighbors who crashed the party - gathered for Amber, Claude, an

d Adria's birthday celebration.

One day we rented a pontoon boat, a.k.a party boat, to tool around Lake Tahoe with the family. Here's Oscar, chillin' Miami Vice style, caring not a lick about the thunderstorms over his shoulder. 

A view from the shore of Lake Tahoe...

Greta, hydrating after a good hike...

Sharon and Greg - don't they look so wise in this photo? I think it's the hands...

Oscar and Sharon, helping prepare pad thai with some goofball in the background...

Greg and Sharon, Brian and Danielle, Oscar and Amber...

Me, preparing my new favorite dessert that my brother turned me onto after a visit to Houston...

Adria and Claude on beautiful hike to an alpine lake. Claude to Adria on the hike: "You remember the things that you love." 

the week in pictures

Here are some pictures I took this week:

Iced-tea in the garden on a hot summer afternoon. Yep, that a mint garnish. Homegrown.

Gardening tools...

Tomatoes are almost ready...I've got my eye on this one. After I showed Adria this picture, she commented, "It looks so industrial." That gave me an idea for a short-story about the life in gardens that we don't see. 

This is the view of the smoke from the Lockheed fires from just outside my office, on my bike ride home this week...
Another shot of the smoke mixing in with the clouds on my ride home...

A walk in the redwoods, two minutes from Adria's front door...

Some Greta portraits. She is quickly working her way to the top of the list of "Best Dogs Ever"...


Wild blackberries ready for the pickin'....

halfway through Kentucky, almost to Guatemala

A few big "bike" wins recently.

I crossed the 2,000 mile mark for this year.

That got me thinking, "I wonder how far from Santa Cruz that would get me if I rode in one direction?"

That's halfway through Kentucky, almost to Guatemala, nearly to Hawaii, and just into Alaska.

Second, I crossed the 1,000 mile mark since tracking my mileage in April for Commute for a Cause (http://www.commuteforacause.blogspot.com). I'm raising money for this great non-profit organization by donating .10/mile for every mile I ride, and accepting donations from others, as well. So that's about $100 for them.

Another win...I had a seven-day stretch of car-free living last week. Having a vehicle is a nice option for supporting myself, and I'm truly happy that when I wake up in the morning and run through my options on how to get to work, or how to run errands, or how to have fun, that "driving my truck" is the last one to pop into my head.