The Time Sink

This last weekend's 'day trip' was prompted by a field trip for Daniel's biology class: they were heading over to the central coast, and some portion of our thought processes ended up short circuited with the concept of, "The Condo Is Over There Too". ...and instead of being sensible and staying home and gardening and watching football (and the bare concrete kitchen floor) we decided to meet up with Daniel and one of his friends at the end of their excursion and spend the night in Cayucos.

Hmmm... It was about time to try a short trip to the coast. Most of our trips there involve days to weeks of time with large amounts of gear moved back and forth. ...and cleaning when we're ready to go (nearly a day in itself). Shelley and her family used to be able to spend weekends there; and even though her father and her brother also both take their families over (hence the cleaning), we've often thought about trying to make a short trip worthwhile for our bunch.

In theory paper plates and sleeping bags can take you pretty much all the way through a day or so. ...and while the water may be too rough for boogie boarding, the walks along the sand can still happen. Entertainment is a bit restricted, but I can get by without the Net for at least a day (with the proper medication) and the boys would likely have homework anyway. ...and there's the Disney Channel for Shelley <g>.

There were a few rough edges on this trip, but we did manage to work up a list of how things could work. ...and if we can find another spare weekend, we'll try it again.

Back to my roots, so to speak... I used to grow roses at my old house (seventy or so bushes in lieu of a front yard), but having kidlets pretty much aced out continuing that practice at this place. ...but I still enjoy working with roses and photographing them; it's just a matter of locating gardens and plantings within my typical walk radius.

One of my favorite places to photograph roses is just down the street; the lady there has about twenty plantings and a nice selection. Something is almost always in bloom. Last weekend I asked her if perhaps Brad and I could prune them this year in an attempt to improve their culture some. She was all for it and I came home Monday evening and pruned one bush to the more formal style that lends itself to long stemmed, healthy roses.

Evidently her message and my starting point didn't translate well to her gardener: I arrived home from work today to find over half the bushes just trimmed level about a foot off the ground. ...and no, that's not the way they should be pruned. I guess I'll give the guy props for removing most of the slash from the area, but the next few evenings and some of Saturday is going to be 'recovery work'...

Mid-week and I'm already ready to be ready to get ready to be ready to get ready for the weekend. ...and a new dishwasher. ...and pruning. ...and some computer time?

If any of the regulars from the Back Porch are dropping by this way looking for the T-3, it's simply not there this week. The place got snarled in a server/DNS/registration changeover where everything depended on everything else. ...and sometimes when things are set up that way? Well, the sequence just didn't happen as planned.

Update: we took one step back toward the old server, and our hostess caught things in time to post a T-3. Coolness...

Some feedback for the curious: The pics over on the photo blog this week, starting with Sunday's "Sunset flags" shot, were all taken last Saturday and Sunday in Cayucos and Morro Bay, California. "Sunset flags" was taken as a standard shot; "Monday's rose" was a macro shot; all the rest were taken with the 1.5 tele adapter (I won't call it a true telephoto lens) that is designed for the A2. That plays with the depth of field, but that's also part of what made some of those shots work.

"Foreshadowing" is 'different' in that the shot is taken from about one hundred feet away looking into a deeper portion of the ocean. I'm thinking the trough to crest on the center wave is about three feet; that allowed the late afternoon sun to actually pass through the wave top. The others are pretty much just straightforward shots. If anyone would like the exif info, just drop me a line.

...and it's going to be a "work day" today! We have a lot of catching up to do: there are roses to be pruned down the street, our own gardens to get some transplants dealt with, a new dishwasher scheduled in and the partridge's cage to be cleaned...

Well, this weekend thoroughly kicked my tail. Friday night was a sleepless night here so Saturday's dishwasher installation was a bit more of an adventure than planned. ...but that got handled and some roses were pruned and then we packed the gang up and went to a college basketball game!

Yep, a family night out. ...and one where the seats were great and the game was good (they lost by two points in overtime) and where we had a chance to just have some fun together.

Today marked the completion of the rose project and the start of Spring gardening around here. I got some transplanting started and then found a whole slew of bulbs that should have already gone in the ground (maybe this week?). ...and I managed to blade a bit.

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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