World Roamer

Monday Mailers

2011-09-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the participants on Monday Mailers, I had a mailbox full of treasure this week.

Neuroma, what fun

2011-08-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

Well, more foot pain in my left foot finally urged me to see the podiatrist before school starts. I was diagnosed with Morton's Neuroma. You can read all about it if you are really bored. It looks like a snake bit me though! Today it's sore from the shot, but I was told I could hike, bike, and generally cause mayhem.

Pelagic Birding out of Half Moon Bay August 14, 2011

2011-08-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

Pelagic Birding with Alvaro's Adventures out of Half Moon Bay August 14, 2011

We stayed in Redwood City on the 13th and left at 5:30 AM on the 14th to meet Alvaro et. al. at the Harbor Master Building in Pillar Point at 6:30.

We arrived early after I got a Reduced Fat Turkey Bacon Breakfast Sandwich at Starbucks. I took Bonine, because I’m a “better safe than sorry” pelagic birder. The ocean was calm with high overcast an good visibility in the harbor. We watched Elegant Terns, Western, Heerman’s, and California gulls, and Double-crested cormorants until we boarded the boat and signed a million waivers. Once everyone had signed, we were on our way.

We cruised several interior harbor jetties and saw several BLACK TURNSTONE and somebody saw Surfbird (or said it) but it wasn’t us as I intently searched the rocks to find one! We saw all three species of Cormorant and a few Red-necked Phalarope. Once we were away from the harbor mouth, we turned toward the beach and looked for, but couldn’t find Marbled Murrelet. As we cleared the wash rocks and headed for Maverick’s at Pillar Point, we saw very little and the boat came onto a northwesterly heading and was exposed to a 4 ft. swell with one foot wind waves. At this point, I was not feeling well, along with about half the people on the boat. Some had already “tossed their cookies” but I was just queasy. Jim Lomax was in the cabin looking green and remained there for virtually the whole trip. These wind waves increased to two feet as we made a two hour passage to a point 25 miles offshore and 9 miles due south of the Farallon Islands. The first hour and a half was really slow regarding birds. We were seeing lots of gulls, COMMON MURRES and a few PIGEON GUILLEMOT, NORTHERN FULMAR, RHINOCEROS AUKLET and a PARASITIC JAEGER while we were still inshore.

During this passage the overcast cleared and the wind picked up to 10 knots as we entered San Francisco County waters. However, at the northwest apex of our circuit as we passed over the continental shelf and the bottom fell away to over 2000 feet, we saw our first BLACK-FOOTED ALBATROSS of the day and our first of many humpback whales along with other birds. At this point, Alvaro and the captain decided to lay out a chum line consisting of Cod Liver oil, and fish carcasses, augmented with artificially buttered popcorn. We drove up and down this chum line. My stomach couldn’t take any more and I helped the chumming efforts. Gulls and albatross started to increase in numbers and we began seeing more FORK-TAILED and ASHY STORM-PETRELS. PINK-FOOTED and SOOTY SHEARWATERS were common in this area and were sprinkled with quite a few POMARINE JAEGERS and a couple of LONG-TAILED JAEGERS (which was a lifer for both of us!) More whales were feeding along this line as we headed south through the shipping lanes. That’s where the krill was and along with drawing whales, it attracts birds according to Alvaro and the captain.

The next hour and a half was spent repeating the chumming process and we added a few SABINE’S GULLS in brilliant plumage and a few distinctly patterned BULLER’S SHEARWATERS. We also got our best looks at COMMON and ARCTIC TERNS for the day along with more of the same birds close enough to see well without binoculars which was critical for me since every time I put the binos to my eyes the queasiness increased exponentially.

We made a big arc toward the southeast, recrossing into San Mateo County with the swell and chop at our back, so the only unpleasant part was when we slowed to drift through the chum lines. We didn’t really see any new birds but continued to get good close up views that the photographers were drooling over, as we recrossed the shipping lanes and headed for the coast about 10 miles south of Half Moon Bay. The wind began to drop off to a breeze and we spotted a couple more pods of humpback whales included two that were rumoured to be making an attempt at mating. They were pretty close to each other and breathing heavily. We were drifting close enough to notice.

As we approached the harbor we made one more pass close to the beach adding one COMMON LOON. Once inside the harbor five BLACK OYSTERCATCHERS flew over the boat. We tied up close to 5PM, and joined Alvaro, Jim Lomax, John Sterling, Dominik, the kid, Mosur, and a few others for a sunny afternoon beer. I was finally able to eat something so Bob and I shared Chowder with Fish & Chips. We were now at 51 for San Francisco County and 54 for San Mateo County.

We were so tired we went north on 101 instead of south for our hotel and wasted about 33 minutes of valuable sleep time! We still had some paperwork and planning before hitting the sack.

On our way home from Orange County where we saw the Lesser Sandplover

2011-07-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

County Birding Adventures

Another Adventure

2011-07-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

April 10, 2011

After seeing Paula Poundstone at Campbell Hall for my birthday present, my car needed a jump start. Campus police gave us a ride to the car, where Vanessa had been waiting in the dark. We made tons of phone calls, so Rebecca's relatives got to experience the adventure too! Finally, Love's Towing gave us a jump and we were on our way!

Find What Brings You Joy

2010-02-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

This is the last week for the card swap and I worked like crazy to get a Paris card for Rachel. Thanks to Kim Bailey Sanchez and her Paris stamps, I did it!

Favorite Things

2010-01-24T21:14:00.000-08:00

Wow! This weekend I decided to try something way outside of my comfort zone. It took bits of Saturday and Sunday to complete and wasn't looking too good for awhile there. I finally figured out how to use what I had to make a card. Here's what part of the work space looked like.

I chose to take some of the parts that I ended up with to make my buddy card for this week. The final card is on the left and the plain image is on the right. Melted crayon on wax paper is providing the stained glass look.

December Doings

2009-12-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

It looks like I'm only posting once a month here! I've been making cards and having fun while weathering the day to day challenge of working with Middle Schoolers.

Christmas Eve was great fun with my friends and their families and in one case pet. Several of us took off at 10 AM in the sunshine to hike up the hills of Ventura. I have never hiked to two trees and it was wonderful to experience this with such a great group of people. Once to the top, we could see the islands.

You can see Anacapa Island if you look carefully.

The gang at two trees. Check the Facebook pic for all the names.

Christmas Eve night was exciting as well. I dropped off Swing for Jack and was invited to dinner with the Lewis-Abriols. I had a great dinner of homemade minestrone with foccacia bread followed by homemade Snickerdoodles fresh out of the oven for dessert. Played with Jake until 9PM and then headed home.

Christmas day was full of fun with my friends and family. Breakfast at the Linders began the day. I even had a gift from Santa, how he knew I'd be there, I'll never know. I surprised some friends before heading home and making a few Christmas greeting calls. Steve treated me to Sherlock Holmes and popcorn at the Century 16. After welcoming Bob home from the islands we were surprised with a plate of homemade cookies from the Lewis-Abriols. What a wonderful day in my wonderful life!

Symmetry

2009-11-23T20:59:00.000-08:00

Well, it's getting to be that time of year when student attention is not always the best it can be. Therefore, I've got a symmetry project ready and waiting. This is the kind that students can pick up and work on whenever I need to stop an ineffective lesson. I'm uploading some of the past projects. I hope I get some good ones this year. Enjoy!

Halloween Wedding at Forever Hollywood Cemetery

2009-10-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

Today my youngest brother got married in an incredibly entertaining ceremony at Forever Hollywood Cemetery. Douglas Fairbanks could be said to have been in attendance as it was held on the Fairbanks lawn.

Crazy Hair Day

2009-10-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well this week was certainly interesting. We had Crazy Hair Day, Door Decoration Contest, and Costume Day. Actually the students did well with the academics, all things considered.

They designed doors for Red Ribbon/Halloween Week. They listened to my ideas and came up with their own. I'm all about empowering kids so gave them access to the supplies they needed and watched what they came up with.

The message states, "Don't do crack or I'll eat you as a snack."

Explorations

2009-10-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

After spending Saturday birding the Ventura ponds, I got out some binders with samples from classes I've enjoyed. I explored for ideas that use glitter for this week's card swap.

After finding some of my favorites, I chose to play around with collage from a Sandra McCall class. I needed some double sided backing much wider than tape, so I headed over to AJ's Scrap Shack. I got what I needed and Amy showed me some amazing glitter strategies! Call them for more information.

5777 Olivas Park Drive, suite "C"

Ventura, CA
Phone: 805-212-1099
Email: Sales@AJsScrapshack.com

The green part of the card is all glitter on two sided tape.

This photo shows the Be Creative™ Tape Sheets that I used for the backing with a collage piece shown from the back.

Weekly Craft Adventure

2009-10-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

After an all day birding trip on Saturday it was time for me to get my weekly card done. The challenge of the week was a card with eyelets or embossing. I've wanted to do a fall card with Judikins Four Leaves stamp for quite awhile. So, today was the day. However, what I wanted to do wasn't as easy as I thought. After several tries, I finally ended up with a few passable cards. Look closely and you will notice some problems I had making the cards. Here they are.

Cambria

2009-09-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Joan Decker, Sharon Chidester, and I went to Cambria so that I could get the "cookies of insanity" at Lily's.

After eating a strawberry scone and enjoying a hot drink at Lily's we walked around Cambria. At Deer Run I picked up a new toy. Later, I bought a bracelet.

Morro Bay Card Class

2009-09-26T17:05:00.000-07:00

Today was my initiation into teaching card making. You will be thrilled to hear that it was a success. It might have been nicer if I'd remembered to bring a camera, but luckily Lucille took a phone shot for this blog and sent it to my phone. It just required some new tech learning on my part to get it out of my phone! The cards shown are the design models, but the participants produced some amazing alterations!

Joan let me take photos of her cards.

Can Can

2009-09-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

Here is what I did for my buddy. Her goodies are inside. The top is stamped felt, the bottom band is a Mrs. Grossman's sticker, the paper is from a shop in L.A. County, the stamp has been in my collection for years and I don't know where it came from originally.

My New Stamp

2009-09-13T21:06:00.001-07:00

More art

2009-09-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

These were the first inchies I ever made.

Made at Jerri Sue's

2009-09-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

Girly Inchies

2009-09-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

My second attempt at inchies is done.

Inchies from my friends

2009-09-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

This was my first ever inchie swap. I loved making my hummingbird inchies and am impressed by everyone else's work. Talent galore.

Alcohol Ink

2009-08-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

These are some aluminum flowers that Jerri Sue used to show me alcohol inks. What a great technique! Too bad I don't have any.

Gracie is not my cat, she belongs to the neighbor, but thinks she lives here.

Exploring in San Bernardino County

2009-08-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

I've been visiting Jerri Sue in Phelan and having a good time. We've been stamping, cutting, chatting, and learning new things.