Just a little something cool to celebrate the end of November.

[via Aquaticslide]

I wasn’t completely sold in the concept going into Thanksgiving dinner, but last night’s buffet experience at the Treasure Island in Vegas has completely sold me.  No cooking, no cleanup.  Ten members of the extended family, including my brother who flew in from Salt Lake City around a big table eating all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes, plus chinese, seafood, pizza and cotton candy made it a great time for everyone.

And just in case our own family couldn’t supply enough drama, there were the hundreds of people at the tables surrounding ours adding to the evening entertainment.  Highlight of the evening: the waytooskinny blonde Asian chick who upchucked her first course but stayed at the table as her dinner companions kept fetching her more plates.  Gotta admire the professional staff who brought her a tub without batting an eye – that’s when you know a buffet really, really, means the meal is ‘all you can eat.’ 

Still enjoying the weekend.  Spent the Black Friday away from the malls, but took Diego and Spinner to the beach to stretch the legs and see some new sights.  Boulder Beach at Lake Mead might not be a great surf spot, but it allows us to keep with the family tradition of always hitting the beach on vacations and Diego had a blast chasing the birds.

Yep, y’all are some of the many things we’re giving thanks for this week.   Thanks for spending some time here, thanks for adding to the conversations and thanks for being in our lives.

Now we’re off to Vegas for a couple of days to see if all this thanking leads to some positive karma at the roulette wheel.

California’s Legislature went to state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown recently seeking relief from a future pay cut and on Thursday received an unwelcome surprise: An 18% reduction for lawmakers and other elected state officials can begin next month instead of a year from now.

Really hard to be sympathetic for a bunch of bureaucrats making six figures when they whine about an 18% pay cut after they’ve driven the state into the ground.  Who do they think they are?  Banking executives?  At least banking execs got their employers a federal bailout – what have California’s so-called leaders done for the people they serve?

The L.A. Times article quoted above has the details, but the money quote was from the S.F Gate:

Murray, the Citizens Compensation Commission chair, said the Legislature may now regret raising the issue.

“In hindsight, it might have been better to let sleeping dogs lie,” he said.

The commission made the pay cuts last spring because 193,000 state employees have been forced to take three furlough days off a month to save the state money.

All kinds of things  running through my mind as I watch this.  Musings on how much of photography is being in the right place and the right time.  Recollections of kayaking out and snorkeling with the seals and sea lions and otters in Monterey Bay. Amazement at the shots Paul Nicklen got on this adventure.  And a bit of reconsideration about what was going on in Pongo’s mind when he’d bring me live geckos when we still lived in Togo.  Did he really think I was “useless” when I didn’t know what to do with his gift?

[via Towleroad]

Meep.  Meep.  Meep.

(more…)

Pretty unproductive this afternoon due to a cable outage wiping out the landline, broadband internet and the cable TV.  DVDs and the Blackberry kept me from curling up into a fetal position, but not much work got done.  Not that much would have with no courts, law library, post office or banks open, but I like to think I would have tried.  I was tempted to just go swimming and blow off all the pretenses of work, but I respected the scheduled off day from the gym, and hope my arm respects the decision and continues to heal.

You know what they say about idle hands though, so while following a twitter conversation ably engaged by The 17th Man and others, I was introduced to the Screaming Viking blog, a swim blog with two great recent posts touching on one of my pet peeve issues here.  The internets are abound with the stories of people who don’t swim and don’t get speedos (little-s, the small suits, not big-S, the brand).  One of the all-time most visited posts here (after the image of my prostate), was a post three years ago about some local high school water polo players suspended for wearing their team uniforms (speedos) to a school pride event.  SV’s posts were both more positive: local swimmers donning pink suits to show their support for breast cancer awareness, and a problem favorably resolved with some race officials thinking the swimmers were wearing two suits and being too modest.  They were both great posts, and especially with the post on the pink suits, it was nice to see that a swim team could show some support for breast cancer awareness and wear the suits of their choice without getting a bunch of suburban prudes’ panties in a bunch.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Just pulled out my copy of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta for a little lunch reading. One must remember (though not necessarily the movie).  Happy Guy Fawkes Night y’all.