Allan's Photoblog
Is this a coyote?
[ Ed.: I can’t figure out how to get Sandvox to work with cropped Photos for OS X images, so I can’t zoom in on the figure in the center. ]
After having lunch off campus, I started driving back to work when I saw this “dog” in a front yard. We have coyotes in the area that sometimes make off with small pets. Ours is a Doberman, so there’s no real worry on that score. But there was something really weird about this. I think of coyotes as sort of like wolves or shepherd-type dogs in shape, but this looked kind of matted, gray, and ugly. I see now where the chupacabra myth comes from.
Was it some sick dog? Or a weird breed of dog? Looking closely, I can see no collar, so it isn’t owned by someone, likely. Is it a wild dog? Or a coyote-dog hybrid?
Eventually, though, after looking at many pictures of coyotes, I figured out that it’s a coyote with a very bad case of mange.
Birthday, and Beach camping
W and I spent the weekend at Jalama Beach, camping out with his troop. It’s the year-end “relaxed” campout with no hikes, sign-offs, or other planned activities (mostly). The state beach has restrooms, a restaurant, a convenience store, and showers. All that’s required is to show up, set up your tent, and relax for the weekend. Only two other people from W’s patrol showed up, but we were joined by a sole member of another patrol and his dad late Saturday afternoon. (W and I had driven up Friday night, and our patrolmates had driven up with another group as well.)
For both Friday and Saturday night, the winds were horrible, distorting our tent so much that by the second night I had to tie one of the rainfly tie-downs to a heavy rock. Sand got into our tent both nights.
We did have a planned dessert contest, wherein each patrol had to cook a dessert for Saturday dinner (and, presumably, dinner to go with it), and the scoutmasters would judge the best dessert. W and I had experimented with stove-cooked Pillsbury cinnamon rolls topped with banana slices cooked in a homemade maple syrup. The hard part was cooking the cinnamon rolls on a stove. An oven has much more uniform heat, and cooking on a stove could easily result in burning the bottom surface. The hard part, then, was to slowly at low heat, in a cast iron skillet with parchment paper, and constantly look for burning. W did it for well over an hour and got through two tubes of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. The other scouts applied the frosting, and then we set them aside. Then we cooked spaghetti for dinner. After dinner, W cooked up the banana and maple syrup topping.
I tasted the first cinnamon roll concoction, and I commented to our crew that “the bananas really make this.” Later, when the scoutmasters came by, one of them commented “the bananas really make this dessert.” And during the announcement of the winners, the other scoutmaster commented “the cinnamon rolls were cooked in a Dutch oven to perfection.” Okay, we didn’t use a Dutch oven, but since we had the only cinnamon roll dessert, it had to be us.
Unfortunately for us, the crew that cooked apple dumplings won. (Luckily for my pride, none of the cobblers cooked in Dutch ovens won. I had commented to one of our scouts that we wouldn’t be beaten by cobblers in Dutch ovens, because, although they’re a scout favorite, they’re too safe a choice. I thought we were much more creative.)
Also on Saturday, a dad brought us to some of the rock formations at the beach and showed us how we could take some of the easily-removed stone plates and crumble them to look for fossils. We found plenty, including one very good specimen of a fish fossil. I think I found bugs or plants.
Finally, we did eat twice at the restaurant, for Saturday breakfast and lunch.
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J had a joint birthday party with a school friend today, at an indoor go-kart racing place in Burbank. I joined in the dads race. Not all of the karts went the same speed, and I clearly had a slower car, by a bit. I was driving with the accelerator floored most of the time, and I never touched the brakes, but I got lapped at least once. Really, I was driving so hard my tires were squealing around the corners.
One thing that bothered me was how tight the steering was. My arms are still sore from driving around those S-curves and the main hairpin turn.
The third photo above is of me.
Backpacking Trip
I forgot to mention a backpacking trip W and I took with his Boy Scout Troop on March 12-13, though photos have been up on Flickr for a while. The trip was to Bear Canyon, with the trailhead only a short drive from La Cañada and Pasadena. The planners had chosen that location in part because it was so close to Pasadena that W and I would be able to return quickly to Pasadena and then go to Covina to do his Ad Altare Dei Board of Review, with me sitting on another board. I’m very grateful to the troop for accommodating our BoR.
The trip was billed as an intermediate-light backpacking trip, but on the way back, I found myself exhausted. Although the altitude was below about 4000 ft., there were a couple of big elevation changes which, though fine for a hike, were pretty rough on me with a 25+ pounds pack on my back. Plus, on the return, I lost my footing on the trail at one point and fell hard on my coccyx and almost injured my leg. My leg was fine, but my coccyx is tender to this day.
Another notable bit of the outing was the presence of L., one of W.’s friends from school and one of the original members of his patrol. So many of his patrol from his school have drifted away from scouting, but I think L will stick it out to Eagle. He recently achieved Star, so I’m pretty sure he’s here to stay. I’m less sure of some others who are still nominally a part of the troop.
Oh, and I got to try out our new Jetboil backpacking stove. It heats water way faster than other backpacking stoves I have.
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Oh, yes: All five of my scouts passed their Ad Altare Dei Boards of Review.
Hawaii Vacation 2016 Day 7
Our last day before returning home. Hsuan got poolside seats and “reserved” them with towels and other belongings, and we all had breakfast at the buffet. Again, we really enjoyed the pools, but I kept an eye on the clock. Hsuan checked us out of our room before noon while the boys and I brought our (already-packed) luggage to the car before returning to the pools. Around 3:30 PM, we left the pools, got our traveling clothes out of the car, and went to the departure lounge (sometimes called a hospitality suite or hospitality center, for guests with late departures) to shower and change.
We got to Lihue airport two hours before our departure to Honolulu, and from Honolulu, we flew back to LAX.
Hawaii Vacation 2016 Day 6
Our last full day at the resort. Again, Hsuan went down for seats poolside, and W and I had breakfast while J joined her. We made a big effort to enjoy the pools today, and we returned to Eating House 1849 for dinner again.
Hawaii Vacation 2016 Day 5
Today was another day spent entirely at the resort. Because we had a couple of reserved cabanas at the lagoon, all four of us had breakfast at the buffet, and we took our time getting down to the pools.
Not much else to say. I napped a good while in one of the cabanas, but otherwise, we enjoyed the pools, the waterslide, and the lazy river.
Dinner was at the Eating House 1849 at The Shops at Kukui’ula. W and I shared a number of pupu plates (“island tapas”) for our entrees, while J had the keiki short ribs, and Hsuan some butterfish.