Back in San Diego after six days and five nights in California’s Central Coast.

Lots of beach time.  Some serious kayaking in Morro Bay.  Some very serious eating in San Luis Obispo.  Even some ridiculously over-the-top shopping, including a Jake Early seriograph for the living room.

Want proof?  Photos are slowly getting posted over in the gallery.

Randy’s texting me his impressions on today’s mineral water spa treatment in Boston.

Diego would be texting me from his spa if he had thumbs, gloating about how much prettier he feels when he gets his dew claws done.

I’m just hanging out ripping out the old caulking from the master bath.  Right now I’m think about what that’s done to my hands (paint thinner?  you’re soaking in it dear), but I wasn’t when I started typing this post.

Maybe I’ve been neglectful of y’all, truth be told I’ve been having a great time and was just a tad busy to drop back by.  I tried to do a ComicCon post, but I think I’ll let the photos and their captions tell the story for me.  We had a great time and the photos prove it.

Since then there’s been lots of work.   And a new living room set, with photos forthcoming once the lamps arrive and the new print gets back from the framer.  And Randy starts school again next week, which has left me crashing on the website his kids use for homework and collaborative projects (their very own little child-safe wiki), bringing it up to spec from last year’s feedback and expanding into a few new areas.

Then today a very nice federal judge all the way up in San Francisco said some very nice things.  Lots of them actually, written down on 138 pages.  Hopefully that will lead to us being able to attend more fabulous gay weddings at some point in the future.  Everyone should have the right to be a Party B.

So yes, even though Randy’s up at UCLA for the week, Diego and I are doing the happy dance tonight.  We’re having a good life.

Saw in the server stats this morning that this photo of Randy and the wonderful John Barrowman is now the ninth most viewed photo in the local gallery here at Howling Point. Out of 1367 posted photos, this is the first non-sports photo to crack the Top 10.

Randy met the actor who played Captain Jack Harkness (not to mention “Lead Tenor” in The Producers) at the 2009 Comic-Con.  I stood several feet away with the camera and tried not to be too jealous.  Hopefully they can rekindle their relationship at Comic-Con this year, which by the way starts in only 27 short days.

One week ago today, thirty or so very good friends and family gathered at The Linkery in San Diego to celebrate Randy’s 50th birthday. The people at The Linkery outdid themselves with great service and great food, and while the Big Five-Oh is easy to poke fun at (and there was a ceremonial presentation of Spinner’s first AARP card), the rapidly-marching-to-death jokes were kept to a minimum, and as far as I could tell a great time was had by all.

Very early the next morning we left Diego and the Great Basil Forest in the care of a wonderful housesitter, and set off for Hawai’i.

In hindsight we’d redo the itinerary. It seems ridiculous in hindsight to fly 21 minutes from San Diego to LAX, then sit on some very uncomfortable seats at LAX draining the batteries on various portable devices for three hours until our flight to Kona. We could’ve driven to LAX in less than two hours, and still left home at least 90 minutes later than we did. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… As for Delta – I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything but a hop from here to the Bay Area, but $25 to check a bag and no food except a bag of peanuts on a five-hour flight? Ohmygawd you’re cheap bastards and you’ll get no linkey-love here.

Once we got off the flying metal deathtrap though, life was renewed. I suppose for Randy it was like how Logan’s spin through carousel should’ve been. Hours of people reminding you of approaching mortality, more hours trapped immobilized in a sealed metal tube, then whoosh…PARADISE!

In our first two hours on the Big Island we swam in the ocean, swam in the resort’s pool, then had mango daquiris and kalua pork quesadillas at the hotel’s poolside bar.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: we shopped, we ate, we swam, we bodysurfed, we paddleboarded.  Lots of details in the photo captions over at Vista.

Yes, I got injured a couple of times, but it was all still absolutely worth it.  I got stung by a jellyfish or something, but I got stung swimming the water portion of the Ironman course in Kona.  I beat up my ankles on some silly rocks, but I did it body surfing at Magic Sands on the Big Island.   I suppose I should mention the dead brain cells from several rounds of Mai Tais too, but that doesn’t sound nearly as butch as the swimming and bodysurfing.  Would it help if I said they were flaming Mai Tais?

We visited palaces and churches and archeological sites and generally behaved like gawking tourists we were.  Spent lots of time sitting on the seawall just watching local life: the triathletes and open-water swimmers, the locals playing, the outrigger canoe clubs, the birds and crabs doing their things.

We had a great time.  The vacation was way too short.  Probably wouldn’t have come back but for the grim realities of modern life spelled out by Quicken, even given my responsibilities to appear in court this Tuesday.

The flight home was relatively uneventful: same tin-can of death, same lousy service, still no love for Delta.  Diego not only survived, but seemed much better after five days with the housesitter than he’s ever seemed after any time at all in the kennel.  The Great Basil Forest is thriving.  After 36 hours the mountain of laundry finally seems surmountable.  I’m back and I accept it, happy or not.

- Randy, the husband, also known as Spinnerdude, is celebrating his fiftieth birthday today.

- I found out last night that I won an Honorable Mention ribbon at the San Diego County Fair for a photo I took back in February 2009 of a Cal Poly SLO – Navy Academy rugby match down at the Del Mar Polo Grounds.

-  Today is Friday.

Randy and I took my Exhibition of Photography entries over to the Fair Grounds this evening.  I am now officially an Exhibitor for the 2010 San Diego County Fair.  It only took a few years of talking about it to actually get around to mounting up some prints and actually entering some shots.   Technically I guess I won’t know if my photos will actually be seen by anyone for a few weeks, but I still got Exhibitor passes and invitations to the Artists Reception when I dropped off the photos, so I’m an Exhibitor, even if I might end up being an unseen Exhibitor.

Yeah, it terrifies me that next month I could be at the Fair listening to other people discuss my work.  They’re good shots, but for nine years here I’ve been able to be a little bit of an Exhibitionist while not actually meeting very many of you.  People who don’t like what I do don’t tend to hang around, with the result being that the sites can serve as a bit of an ego boost with the occasional criticism easy to dismiss, if not outright delete.

On a mostly unrelated note, Diego was with us and got to go out on the Del Mar Racetrack due to the lack of adult supervision at the drop off site.  He looked every bit the thoroughbred out there, even if the chances of him being retired to stud range from slim to none.  Just thinking though, that maybe if we saddle him up with one of the bobbleheads and sneak them back out there we’ll have our photo entry for next year.

Psyched for an alumni fan boy weekend. Randy will be out of town being judgmental, but I’ll be spending Sunday down at Mission Bay cheering for Cal Crew. Once again the very cool local Cal alums are hosting a tent and it should be as good as ever, despite the city’s paternalistic attitude about alcohol on the beach.

I missed last year due to an opportunity to head to Vegas (and watch Randy be judgmental), but definitely looking forward to heading back down this year. It’s always fun to watch the Bears win.

All the good holidays get seasons, so I’m happily and guiltlessly extending my birthday into a season this year.

Yesterday Randy rode the Flightline zip line at the Wild Animal Park.  I got a couple of photos of the preparations, but nothing from the ride itself.  My hands were too busy to work the Canon and the wind grabbed my helmet cam right after launch and repointed it at the sky.  Still the experience was a complete blast, and we broke down and bought the photos of the day taken by the zoo’s photographer.  Randy put some of those up on Facebook, and some more might make there way over here in the next few days.

I spent today with some overdue humiliation and exercise.  Swimming alone has been good for me, both physically and with the meditative aspects.  I’ve been feeling a bit stagnant lately and kinda hitting a wall, and have been looking for a way to avoid my tendency to become complacent.  Spent the morning getting beaten up and feeling old at a coached workout with a local masters swim team, Different Strokes.  Had a great time and should join if I can prove to myself I can commit to their schedule.

The birthday season is scheduled to wrap up with a grand finale Thursday evening at a showing of Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.  The tickets were generously funded by my parents’ birthday check, and thus makes the perfect finale to this year’s Season of Chuckie.

So far the busboys’ teachings have proven correct and the bannister slide into 2009 has been splinterless.  Enjoyed the Rose Parade, had a great Penguin Plunge, and as soon as we finish loading the car we’re heading up to the Central Coast for a few days.