Post Cards From My Cell Phone

Greetings From The Old North Church in Boston!

Or is it?

This past week I was on the road again and went to a place I had planned to go for a long time. I went to visit the Old North Church in Boston. This is the church made famous by Paul Revere. One if by land, Two if by sea. That church. The only problem was, I didn't go to Boston. But no fear. There is another Old North Church that is an exact replica of the one in Boston. It is located, of all places, in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park-Hollywood Hills. That's right. It is in the cemetery of the stars!

The church is located in a section devoted to freedom. They call it the Freedom Trail. Not only do they have the church there, but statues of George Washington and the other founding fathers, a freedom museum with a replica of the liberty bell, and the world's larges mosaic mural depicting the American Revolution. While I was there they were having a military funeral across the street complete with a 21 gun salute. It was a very fitting moment for my visit.

Addendum

The Bathtub

I just noticed the bathtub didn't make it to the last post. I had it in there. I had it in there many times. But this format that I post with hasn't been very media friendly when it comes to posting multiple pictures for the same post.
The Bathtub

Post Cards From My... Bathroom???

Under Construction

We have been working on remodeling our bathroom lately. This has been an ongoing job for the last two years since we had the great water heater flood. If you follow the blog you may remember seeing pictures of me demolishing it. Well, due to health reasons, Disneyland, and a whole host of other problems, we finally hired someone to come in and finish it. OK. I got it to the point that only professional help was seriously needed. Here are some pictures of the bathroom under construction. Make sure your hardhats are on.
This is looking in the door at the bathroom. Notice there is no more vanity. No more sink. No more storage cabinet. Even though it is nothing but bare walls and concrete floor, it looks a whole lot
better.

No Toilet.


The bathtub. It is new. It is bright. It is deep. Right now it has a plywood top and blue tarp cover so it doesn't get damaged. It will be very nice and comfortable when the bathroom is done.

This bathtub has two shower heads. Now you might wonder why it has two shower heads. I've been told that some people like to shower facing the front. Others like to shower facing the back. And some just can't make up their minds. This solves the dilemma.
The light that goes above the bathtub.
Why the light that goes above the bathtub is on the bathtub.
New lights in the vanity area.

Post Cards From My Cell Phone

GREETINGS FROM SACRAMENTO, CA

Two weeks ago I attended a conference in Sacramento, CA. I have been to Sacramento several times but never to the capital building. I'm not even sure if I had even been by it before. My hotel room was just a couple block away so I thought I would arrive early and take a walk over and tour the building.

It was getting kind of late so I hurried on over and entered the building, emptying my pockets at the security check and then making my way to the center of the building where the tours start. But as my luck would have it I got there exactly one minute after the last tour had departed; so I was on my own.
The ground floor of the original building houses the original governor's. treasurer's and state's offices furnished as they were over a century ago. Making my way to the third floor I found the galleys to the Assembly and Senate chambers. Since it was a Friday afternoon, of course there was not a thing happening when I was there.

When I left the building I decided to take pictures for my post cards. Now I have a fairly new i-phone and haven't taken too many pictures with it yet. I found this to be a challenge, since my pictures are self portraits, and unlike my other phones where you could kind of see what you were doing, taking a picture with the i-phone was done completely blind. It took several takes to even get a part of me in the pictures. I am sure that onlookers may have thought it a strange sight with this lone guy taking pictures of himself in front of the capital building. But it didn't bother me any, after all, this is California; and I was at the Capital.

As I was finishing up my pictures I heard someone shouting at me: "Bob, Bob!" I looked up and didn't see anyone I knew. I just saw this man and lady yelling and waving at me to come over. I had no idea who they were. I cautiously walked over to them, this is California you know, and when I got to them they asked me to take their picture for them. Since I worked at Disneyland, this was not any unusual request so I agreed and as I was setting up the shot I glanced down to my chest to see if I was wearing my Disneyland name tag. I wasn't. Turns out he was in one of my workshops a year ago and was there for the same conference I was attending. I have hundreds of people in my workshops from all over the state. I guess I don't remember every single one of them. When I finished with them, they thanked me and went on their way. As I turned to go the other way, another gentleman asked me to take a picture of him and his family. I did. When I was done, there was a line of people holding out their camera's waiting their turn for me to take their picture. I was there until it was too dark to take any more pictures.

The Adventures of Pyra Katt

What Is Wrong With This Cat?

Pyra Katt has started a new behavior. Yesterday she started chasing her tail. Now I have seen kitties chase their tails before but never with so much passion as Pyra. She only does it when I am eating at the table. I have not seen her do it any other time. What is really funny is she will chase her tail so much that she gets dizzy and can't walk without falling over.

She has had a ravenous appetite as of lately as well. She is constantly begging for food. But she has been getting fat lately so I have cut her back. I have divided her food out over four meals and give her a portion every four hours. But she doesn't like this. She thinks I am starving her. And apparently this new behavior proves that I am depriving her of her precious nutritional needs. It has obviously deprived her of her mental prowess and health. The vet calls it Krazy Katt Syndrome.

Post Cards From My Cell Phone

Catching Up

I know it's been a while since I posted regularly, but I hope to change that now that I have more time. One of my favorite columns was my Post Cards From My Cell Phone feature. This is where I snapped self portraits of me somewhere in the world and writing some fascinating fact(s) about that place. Even though I hadn't been posting, I created a few postcards to use but never got around to using them. So over the next few weeks I am planning to catch the reader up with this backlog of postcards. Please stay tuned. I have some fascinating places to visit over the next couple months. Hold on to your hats now. And make sure those seatbelts are fastened. Oh yea, and keep you arms hands feet and legs inside the vehicle and remain seated until we have come to a full and complete stop inside the station....

The Early Bird Gets the Worm!

Editor's Note: The videos contained in this posting are for mature audiences only. They are very graphic in nature and are not intended for young viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.

In Celebration of Spring, Bearded Dragons Makki and Gyis have awakened from their deep winter slumber and have begun life for 2010 in earnest. For those of you that may not know much about dragons, they brumate, over the winter. Brumation is kind of like hibernation, but it's different. They just kind of shut down when it's cold and start going when it warms up. During this period they don't eat or drink. But if you shine a light on them to see if they are awake, they give you a look that could kill.

To get an early start on spring, which starts later this week, Makki and Gyis got their first order of worms today. I tried shooting video of the event. But as you can see, Makki saw the camera and was at first camera shy. I tried dangling a worm in front of her, but all she saw was the camera. She didn't do anything until I dumped all twenty worms in front of her, and then she couldn't resist.

Gyis on the other hand wasn't camera shy at all. In fact, he was nothing but a ham hamming it up. Here you can watch him grab a worm and then look directly at the camera as he deliberately chews each bite and chomps down each individual worm.