Phutu...the home life...

8/26/2005 I've been plugging away at a few things since I came back from my hike. Dory and her mom took Bryce down to Monterey overnight giving me the two days that I should have been hiking all to myself. I spent almost a whole day wiring my large oak tree and listening to the second half of Harry Potter on CD. Wiring bonsai can take quite a long time when you are working on a tree that has a hundred or more branches; but listening to Harry Potter made the time fly by (not that I wasn't enjoying it anyway.) Then I spent a day cleaning up and arranging the garage. I had been working around a huge pile of junk for quite a while. My neighbor Shane, after he finished and sold his project house, dumped a bunch of stuff right in the middle of the garage with a promise that it would be gone in under a week. Two months later I decided that I might as well rearrange it so that it was out of the way until he decided to retrieve it.

I've been doing a lot of bonsai activities, including traveling to shows and workshops. I feel like I might be getting a little obsessed, but I don't care. The three of us went down to Modesto last Saturday to attend a demonstration given by Katsumi Kinoshita, a well know bonsai artist from Monterey. It was a fun afternoon. I also took Bryce over to the bonsai garden in Oakland on Thursday to do some docent duty. I've done docent duty once before, but never with Bryce. It was a challenge to take care of him and greet people at the same time...luckily Thursday afternoons are a slow time in the garden. I took him around and described all the trees to him so that he could start learning about what I'm sure will be his favorite hobby =wink= =wink=. I put in a new bonsai stand which you can see on the right hand side of the top photo; I wanted to put the oak tree on its own stand since it is quite large. In the process I freed up enough space on the other benches that I can now get a bunch more trees!

Bryce and I have gone to a bunch of new parents group meetings. I find them kinda funny. In all four cases I have been the only father in the group; and in all four cases the mothers have all told me how there are "always" other fathers there...something doesn't quite add up. Still, I find it interesting, it's a good way to get out of the house for an hour and it's good for Bryce to play with other babies and to get into different environments.

We bought a backpack so that I can take him hiking. But I've been so busy doing photo research during the day that I haven't found the time to go hiking. I am hoping to go at least one day next week...of course that's what I said last week. I'm a little concerned, because I can't keep his hat on while he's in the backpack and he can't wear sunblock. So, my only option seems to be to carry an umbrella. It's not so strange really, but we'll see how it goes. I haven't decided whether or not to cover it with Mylar which will reflect all the light, or to just use it as is and be relatively safe.

With everything that's been going on I haven't really gotten much done on the stairs in the last couple weeks. I don't have a ton of time to get it done since the building permits expire at the end of September. I did manage last Sunday to the balusters on one side of the stairs, but I still have the other side and the porch to do, then a bit more painting and a tiny bit of trim and I'm done! Hopefully I'll manage it in the next couple weeks.

8/9/2005
8/1/2005
7/20/2005
7/5/2005
6/17/2005
5/27/2005
5/1/2005
4/15/2005
4/5/2005
3/24/2005
3/13/2005
2/5/2005
12/28/2004
11/29/2004
11/3/2004
10/2/2004
9/10/2004
8/23/2004
8/8/2004
7/21/2004
7/2/2004
6/8/2004
5/4/2004
4/20/2004
3/28/2004
3/10/2004
2/10/2004
1/15/2004

To reach entries prior to January 2004 click on one of the older entries on this list and scroll down to the bottom of that entry.

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