We took another stab at the apple town of Oak Glen this
year - bringing Danielle, Kathy and Drew Ogier with us. The weather
got worse as we approached this 5000 ft enclave abutting
the San Bernardino Mountains. Eventually the rain
started
and stayed most of the day. No matter, we explored
the farms, orchards and apple stands in the area and
made the most of our day.
Once again, a fun night was possible by our friend Lyz - who happens to
work for Tim Disney. They worked
long and hard on a film last year, and we got invited to
the Paramount Studios movie lot to see a preview. Cast, crew and special guests only. We sat in the back row of a special private
theater - the seats where like full blown lounge chairs.
Nice!
American Violet was filmed in New Orleans.
Visit
Lyz's website to see about her trip down there while
working on the movie. She was there for a long
while - months as I recall. Making a feature film
is incredibly hard work as you'll see if you visit her
site.
We wish great success for American Violet. Tim and his
team (Uncommon Productions) did a great job. We hope they can negotiate a
distribution deal so you can see it at a theater near
you.
Oct 18th - Birthday Time. October holds many birthdays in
Virginia's family.
Typically there's a single party for everyone's birthday
- this year it was at Tommy's place. Birthday's
include Virginia, Virginia's Mom (also Virginia), Lizzy
and Tommy (although his is in September). I got
Virginia a cool mp3 player she had been hinting at.
We had a great time, and had some more quality time with
the new baby - Elise. The picture above includes:
Elder, Lizzy, Virginia, Song Yuen, and Virginia holding
baby Elise. The video is a snippet of
Grandma Virginia holding the baby.
Oct 23rd - Riders on the Dirt
We took a day and drove up the coast to
Pt. Mugu State
Park. The park stretches from the beach,
deep inland to the mountains. Great biking trails
connect all throughout. It was a gorgeous day, and
Virginia did fantastic on the trails. I know she
was wishing to be on her horse (KK) for some of the
steep sections :) We stopped to watch some
surfers on the way home.
Home Improvement Update
Yes - I know that I've not posted pictures of my latest
project since last March. This new batch
encompasses work done through the summer, till the end
of October. In that time I've done so much work -
it seems like some of it was years ago.
The electric wiring was a long process. I had to
redo wiring that was already installed. Also add more to
connect the new sets of outlets, switches, light boxes
and ceiling fan.
Todd Bruner gets major kudos for
helping me wire up the final connections and being
available for general electrical consultation.
Also thanks to Dick Messer for his help getting the new
window installed.
The other dreadful process was hanging the drywall in
the new office and laundry room. The ceiling was
the absolute worst - even though I used a drywall
lifter.
It was a very busy summer. Virginia and I
sacrificed weeks worth of Sierra trips we normally would
have taken, but you can see the results of our
work below. We are totally craving to get back on
the trail next year!
