Behind the studio is an old blue Datsun truck and just by coincidence, Christina happened to be wearing blue. The landlord stores it there because our rear parking lot is as big as our front parking lot, but not one person parks back there.

The above picture reminds me of a still from a Hitchcock movie. Love the feel of it in B&W.

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This is our Christmas card from 2003, the last time a serious amount of effort was put into a card.

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It was a blast and a wonderful quiet voyage and I look forward to going on another one again when we have some time.

One really cool thing that they had on the top of the ship was a giant TV screen where movies would play every night and serve fresh made popcorn made with real butter.

Christina looking over Port Everglades in Ft Lauderdale.

On the tender to Princess Cays.

I love bread.

I’m pretty sure that all of the palm trees were planted on all of the islands we visited. Apparently an island isn’t tropical without a palm tree.

My beautiful wife on St Marteen

I think I drank too much at this place in St Marteen. My head was pounding and I was really thirsty, but ran out of water.

Christina and an escaped gorilla. Or maybe it was Christina and her dad. I sometimes get confused by that.

Christina in the ocean in front of the Crown Princess at Grand Turk.

Just about the last people on the boat, we got my father-in-law to snap a picture of us before it left without us. We had some much fun on this trip and stopped at such wonderful places that I think we’ll go on the same exact cruise again, but take the kids. Should be fun!

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Visiting my grandmother was a little stressful, but we went down to one of the beaches in Ventura that I had gone to as a little boy with my family including her and watched my little boys flop about in the waves as we talked. She had always been a big part of my life. She was a big part of my eldest son’s life as well. When we were in college she drove 50 miles to watch Edmond one or two days a week.

I don’t think I’ll be able to get to Ventura to see her ever again so this was my goodbye. I don’t like this goodbye.

They have Rebel gas stations in Las Vegas.


Corbin at Dodger stadium. I hadn’t been there in 29 years. Still was awful.



Always pay attention to the details of what’s on the side of the trash cans at the Ventura park. This says that these 55 gallon drums were filled with apple juice concentrate from China for Tropicana. How fresh does your apple juice seem now?

Barbaba Ann Jensen. My last living grandmother. We called her Gram. The name eventually evolved into Grambo, a rough, tough fighting machine groomed specifically for destroying bad guys and making casseroles. She always tried to trick us kids into eating food that had ingredients in it that she claimed weren’t in it. I know a freaking onion when I feel it crunching in my mouth. She was in a good deal of pain and had a hard time leaving her apartment, but did venture to the beach and took us out to Andria’s Seafood, a local place that my family has gone to for years in Ventura.

Edmond, Christina and Corbin at a Ventura beach

Edmond at a Ventura beach.



I needed a few pictures of Vegas for a crazy project I’m working on so I surprised everyone in the car and drove there without anyone noticing until we got to the Nevada border. I suppose it was a good test to see if I could surprise my wife.



Most every Fry’s has a motif. Except perhaps the one in Plano. But I suppose that fits the personality of the city from what I’ve seen. I’ve been to a few. Burbank had a alien flying saucer sticking out of the front of it and had a 50s style alien invasion going on. Manhattan Beach had one that was a jungle and completely overgrown with bushes and trees. So I suppose it was fitting that Vegas had this. It was closed when we came by at 9:30 p.m. What the heck? I thought Vegas never slept.

We walked around Vegas for 4 hours with the kids to see the sights and shoot a couple of shots. I think it wiped them out. They never sleep.

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Last year I took my protesting wife on a Caribbean cruise and we had a fine time after adjusting to our kids not being there and we came back telling everyone that we were going to have to take everyone on a cruise and we had decided on reliving my childhood taking a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We though it would be a fabulous way for the kids to get into my mind and understand what kind of childhood I had and one of the few amazing memories I had told the about. We thought it would be fabulous, but it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be though I do have some fond memories.

My in-laws decided to come as did my mom and my friends Coral and Jeremy of Photograhy By Coral an Oregon based wedding photographer.

We flew to LAX and rented a minivan though we had planned on a standard size car. We had about 250 pounds of luggage, which I found out later was a good deal of stuff that we never even used nor needed. We drove up to Santa Paula, one of the few amazing gems near Los Angeles, but not in Los Angeles where it’s alone in a valley not really near anything and it kind of refuses to grow past 30k people. My grandmother had just go out of the hospital after have a tumor removed from her colon and we needed to visited her since we hadn’t seen her in some time. She was alright, but it was quite distressing to me to see my grandmother so physical dysfunctional though completely on the ball as far as her mind went.

A few days later we got on the boat and found our rooms.  We opted to stay in a room with a window which we haven’t done since.  It’s a mistake with our crazy kids who wake up at the crack of dawn; especially Corbin.  There were bunk beds for kids up above our bed and basically no where to sit except for the bed.  One night Corbin fell out of the bed and landed on me!  I was so freaked out for the rest of the night.  Sleeping was a nightmare.  The kids fought us until the last second at night for bed and wanted to watch cartoons as soon as they got up.

Mexico, why do you suck so much?  I hate visiting Mexico.  It was my plan to just enjoy the cruise and not get off the boat at any of the stops in Mexico.  But it turned out that Christina wanted to get off and experience the glory of Mexico.  We stopped in the same places as when I went in 1984 and nothing had really changed in 24 years.   We got off at all of the stops and wandered around on foot.  It was lovely weather and a good deal of the people were non-stop trying to hock something  as we passed.  I bought a Pepsi at one of the stops made with real sugar.  Yummy!

It was windy and cold on the ocean.   So windy it made me wonder why they even had outdoor decks.  Everything should have been all enclosed with windows and glass on the ceiling so you could look out but not feel the 40-mile-hour wind wiping through your hair.  Endlessly it blasted you and was surprisingly brutal.  The pools were way too cold except for the pools for the adults but the kids wanted to make the 6 deck hike to the deck with the pools to hop in, get cold, get out and want to go back to the room.  They had daycare where they would watch your kids from the morning until night which would have been wonderful if our kids didn’t throw a screaming fit at the very mention of it.  They hated the fact that mom and dad would have fun with out them and really were so loud that we just gave up.  We just weren’t going to get sleep.

Reliving a dream is hard.  I don’t really remember anything from the cruise except a whole plate of bacon, a ride in a Mexican bus, sitting in a special spot looking over the side at the ocean, and the most magical feticine ever.  Nothing was the same and it was a living nightmare except for the feticine.  It’s always the same.  It is always so good.  It’s why I scheduled another cruise in the fall to the Caribbean without the kids.  Ah, it will be lovely!

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