Motorcycling?

Isn't that what this blog is about? I realized that I haven't even been on my bike for the better part of three weeks. I used to ride every single day. Heck, there was a 6-month section of my life when I didn't even own a car. Let me tell you how well I can pack a week of groceries on a bike some day.

I have started to realize that the reason for my riding less and less is due to my sinus problems. I don't know if I have allergies or something else entirely, but it's not fun and I don't want to ride.

I think I'll have to change that soon. I've been toying with the idea of selling my Ducati and fixing up my old bike. I seem to have more fond memories of that bike—even though I put my money down on my Duc a year before it came out. It sure is a pretty blue!

Snow Day…

It's not too often that we get actual snow out here in Tucson—at least not down in the city. But this morning, after 2 straight days of rain, we woke up to this.




I realize it's nothing special for those in cold climates, but it's a lot of fun out here.

A Day at the Zoo…

Lindsay and I spent a beautiful Superbowl Sunday at Reid Park Zoo here in Tucson looking at all the animals and plants. I know I'm not supposed to like zoos, however I think they have a lot to offer people as well as overall health and caring for animals in this world. This zoo is known for its anteaters but has many other very fun animals. The otters were probably the most fun followed by my favorite the Jaguars. They are black but you can clearly see their spots when you get up close to them.


They have a couple of walk-in aviaries and I spotted this little guy waving hello! He is a spoon-billed somethingorother. Kind of looked like a flamingo in the trees.


These two parrots were squawking about and I caught them in the middle of an agitated argument.




Lindsay fed the giraffe a couple of little biscuits and was astonished at the amount of slobber this guy put out. Yuck! They have such beautiful eyes though. But long blue tongues!

Thank You Cards…

Just wanted to share the latest cards that I made for Thank You’s for the holidays. Some of you will be seeing these in the mail shortly! I sure enjoy making them and wish I had more time to gather with friends and family to do scrapbooking and card-making.

Without further ado I give you these—by the way, you can click on an image to see it bigger:




Most of the tools I use are papers from K&Company, based out of Kansas City. I have a sneaky suspicion that they are former Hallmark designers. But that’s just my theory. Apparently, most scrapbook companies are founded out of Salt Lake City, Utah where there is a large Morman population. Their faith holds family history in high priority and scrapbooking is just one of the ways they use to document it. The “thanks” punch is from Around the Block.

I make most of the embellishments myself—cutting the shapes out of the paper. I don’t really like to buy embellishments, because I know that I can make them. However, I did buy the little lanterns for the chinese lanters cards, but made the larger ones. My favorite embellishments are ribbons, though I have little of those in these cards. I’ve been playing around with wire additions to my latest round of cards, but it takes forever to glue. I always use plain old Elmer’s Glue-All.

I have two goals in my illustration career. First, is to create illustrations for a Scrapbook company. K&Company is high on my list. Guess I’ve got to just throw them some designs and see if any stick. Second is my loft goal of working with Pixar. I watched a documentry last night on the founding of that studio and it reignited my dream.

New Year's Resolutions

I always make a few silly resolutions every year, but this year I'm making some that I really plan on keeping.

1: I will refrain from reading any reader-posted comments on AOL, CNN, or any other site where people are constantly rude and abusive.

2: I will learn to enjoy my meals more, rather than horking them down like Emile in Ratatouille.

3: I will no longer work on my vacations. I need to disconnect from work.

That's pretty much it. We aren't spenders, buyers or partiers, so no real worries there.

Christmas in Colorado…

It was a wonderful week in Colorado this Christmas Season. After flying in on a quite turbulent day in Colorado (the morning after a wreck at DIA!) and braving the cold Colorado weather, Lindsay and I are back in Arizona, where it is 72° today. It took us a little over 13 hours to get home and it was cold the entire way with the coldest weather and most snow being in Santa Fe, NM. We came through Hatch, NM right around sunset and it makes me want to go to their chili festival this coming Autumn.

Christmas Eve, I set up the dining room table with a centerpiece of floating candles and greenery with Mom's china and stemware.


Christmas dinner we had Spiral-Cut Ham, fresh green beans, potato casserole, fresh Hawaiian roles, home-made carrot cake, cannolis, and lots of cookies and other sweets.


And I thought it was supposed to be kids who couldn't sit still!


Friday, we got to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, formerly the Natural History Museum and see the always stellar dinosaur exhibit. Lindsay and I used to go down there to draw all the animals when we lived in Colorado and it's been over 10 years since I have been.

Arizona Winter Sunset

Christmas in the Desert…

While we don't go very overboard with decorations at Christmas time, we do a nice little desert tree laden with glass ornaments in some very unique shapes (Egyptian Casks? Motorcycles? Winnie the Pooh? Yep on all three). We then finish it off with Chili Pepper lights and lots and lots of cactus and desert motifs.



The finishing touch is a Mexican blanket we bought at a local roadside stand. Oh, and the tree is only 3.5" tall. I've had it since college and I see no point in not using it.

Kids!

I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!
Kids!
Who can understand anything they say?
Kids!
They a disobedient, disrespectful oafs!
Noisy, crazy, dirty, lazy, loafers!

Ok, just so you know, I actually like kids and the above is from the musical “Bye Bye Birdie.” But can someone please tell me if I'm being overly annoyed?

Every afternoon, my neighbors kids play not in their own yard, but in mine. They run up my hill, down my sidewalk (the one to the house, not at the street) then onto my driveway. Then they run back and repeat this about 40 times all the while on scooters, rollerblades or some other form of rolling shoe. Invariable, one of them falls and biffs it and a session of screaming and hollering ensues. Luckily, it appears there is ether a baby-sitter or older sister with them. I haven't had to scoop one up off the concrete yet.

Here's what bothers me most. Ever since this family moved in, the mother has treated me like something she scraped off of her shoe. We used to talk to her husband, a real nice guy, but not a lot of control over his family. The mother goes from the house to her car, nary saying a word. When we've been out there, she's looked at us, mostly me, like I've got horns. I have a little theory that she's a very jealous woman. See, her husband came over one afternoon and exclaimed that he thought it was so cool that I ride a motorcycle. Oh jeeze! I can only imagine how that went over. That was about 2 weeks after they moved in.

Let's see. Their kids walk on my fence in the back yard, a 4ft. tall concrete wall that has a wash behind it, they've tried to literally walk into my house because they lost something in our yard, they tell us we're heathens becuase we drink coffee and tea, hmmm... that's all I can think of right now.

So … becuase her kids are tearing around my yard, don't you think it would be the polite thing to do to introduce yourself to the person who may be rescuing your child when they fall and hurt themselves?

Well, this weekend I'm getting some planters and barricading my walkway. If that doesn't stop it I guess I'll have to just talk to the adults.

Thanks Giving

Lindsay and I got to fly out to Birmingham for Thanks Giving this year. Neither of us are happy fliers; he doesn't like takeoffs, landings or pretty much anything else and I really don't like takeoffs. I get so wired up just before we start – sort of like a build up of anticipation. I used to get the same way before riding my motorcycle too – but once I got going, everything was fine.

Anyway, after a long day of travel we arrived in Birmingham to a nice pizza dinner at Lindsay's parent's house. That was followed up with Thanks Giving pie and a movie for the night. Thanks Giving day, Lindsay and I slept in until 10:30! I couldn't believe it. We never sleep that long at home. I helped in the kitchen with all the sides while the boys watched movies (I think it was Godfather of all things!) in the other room.

Friday we got to go flying out at the R/C field with Lindsay's dad. Lindsay crashed a plane in the pond beyond the airfield and I could barely control mine. I swear I'm not that dumb, but those controls are pretty difficult for me. I kept turning my control the wrong way. Luckily though, we were hooked up to a trainer with his dad and I never crashed my plane. We spent Friday and Saturday night at his brothers house. That was fun.


Saturday, we went to the Barber's Vintage Motorsports Museum to see all the bikes. There wasn't a lot of new things to see, but it's always a cool place to visit. Saturday night we went out to eat in Five-Points which is a downtown intersection in Birmingham. It's a neat place with a lot of neat little shops and stores. We're not much of "clubbers" though, so we kind of just called it a night before 10.






We caught a matinee of the new James Bond flick Sunday; excellent movie, though I do have one complaint. Too much close-ups of the action. I would have liked to see the camera pull back a little here and there as the herky-jerky camera messes with my equilibrium a bit. Also, much of it took place in the desert, and since I live in the desert it didn't feel as exotic as the last one.

Monday we headed home and just like every trip I take, Tuesday saw me laid out with a big strong head-cold! Darnit! Also, I completely forgot to take Mr. Happy on our trip – I was so mad at myself all week about that one.

Happy Thanks Giving all and thanks for a great vacation!