Saturday, January 29, 2011

Chi chi chi le le le vs. USA


Last Saturday we loaded up the car
stopping along the way to pick up
our friend Jen.

For this futbol match,
we were a house divided.
Z donned his USA jersey
& I was loyal to my beloved Chile.

Of course, none of the major players
were present from either team,
but it was still a great match.




17 minutes in, and one of Chile's
coaches is already ejected.

Looks like someone lost a contact.


Chi chi chi le le le! Viva Chile!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

USA answers the Chile goal with a PK.




Pastor(s) USA!

Z made me touch Teal Bunbury
(who scored the US goal).


Jeff Larentowicz chats with fans
& Matt Reis, goalkeeper for
the Revolution.

So the end result was officially a 1-1 draw.
But I maintain that Chile won for 3 reasons:

1. More yellow cards.
2. Coach ejected from the game.
3. Our goal was not from a PK.

Therefore, Chile wins by way of
making the match more interesting.

Viva Chile.

tweet tweet

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A walk in the park

Recently I went with Z
to a large park on the outskirts of town.
While he was off running
like a billionty miles,
I took a long hike with my camera.

This particular park is interesting.
It has ponds, paved trails,
a disc golf course,
a lake, mountain bike trails,
a soccer park, hiking trails on the bluffs,
& lots of wildlife.

Attached to the park is CALM,
a small zoo that mostly houses
creatures native to this area,
but lots of migrating birds & other
various animals tend to visit the area, too.

In addition to the CALM animals,
the park is home to hundreds of cats.
Evidently it is a popular place to
abandon felines, but don't worry;
there is a group that comes every
evening & leaves them dishes of cat food.









There are also large numbers of peacocks.
Definitely not your typical park.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Place holding

Obviously it's been a little while
since I've posted, so I apologize.

At least three times I have started
sorting through photos to post
& then gotten distracted or called away
for other things.

Unfortunately
I don't have much time this morning,
either, so I'm posting a couple
of new photos
to hold you over until my next big post,
hopefully soon!


Thursday, January 13, 2011

ALA Midwinter @ San Diego

This past weekend I was happy to
experience my first ALA Midwinter conference.

Going to conferences can be expensive, but
I took advantage of registering with the student
rate before I graduated.
Since the conference was in San Diego,
I drove down & stayed with a college friend, Jessica,
who lives pretty close to the convention center.

It worked out perfectly.

I started out the conference with an author panel.
It was a fascinating discussion; I especially loved hearing
David Levithan.

A view from the convention center
as I looked through my registration packet.

When I wasn't busy with conference discussion
groups & meetings, Jessica took me to explore
a bit of San Diego & La Jolla.

It was so awesome to get to catch up with her
& see more of Southern California.






Back at the conference, one of the highlights
was an afternoon with
Nancy Pearl & Neil Gaiman.
Afterwards I took my copy of
The Graveyard Book
to be signed & got to chat with @neilhimself
about his upcoming episode of Doctor Who.
Total nerd euphoria.

I love these bike racks.

Inclined moving walkway at a grocery store.
Offspring of an escalator & airport walkway?

After one final discussion group,
I snapped this photo on the balcony of the
convention center before heading back up to Bakersfield.

The job center offerings, networking,
participating in discussion groups,
sitting in on committee meetings,
catching up with old colleagues & professors,
author events, and of course all the free books
made ALA Midwinter a really great experience.

Now I'm back to the job searching!

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Beyond the backyard


I often photograph my backyard
(see above),
but I thought I'd share a few things
that caught my eye recently
in the downtown area near my house.












I'm also sharing this post over at Outdoor Wednesday.