10/27/2005 I had a ten day vacation of sorts. Since my job is now to take care of Bryce and Dory took him to Michigan with her I found myself job-less. Seeing the advantage in this, I went on a couple short trips and took care of some things around the house.

Bryce is old enough that he is in need of a high chair. My mom still had the one that I used when I was a kid, but it was missing some hardware and was covered in grease and sawdust from being in my dad's shop for twenty years. I started cleaning it with some denatured alcohol which got off much of the grease. But on the tray there was so much gunk that after cleaning it with the alcohol I was still facing a sticky buildup. I took if over to my neighbor Shane's house; he helped me take Murphy's oil soap and steel wool to it. It took quite a bit of elbow grease, but after the cleaning and a coat of furniture polish, it looks great. I lightly cleaned the rest of the chair with the same soap and then added the same furniture polish to remove any remnants of my dad's shop from the old thing. To replace the hardware I started by going to a woodworking store, but after a snicker or two they soberly said that they hadn't seen any high chair hardware in years. Undeterred, I checked half a dozen online sources before I finally found one that turned out to have a store in Concord. I took the drive out there to pick up the hardware rather than waiting the few days for the shipping. It's not the best hardware in the world; the piece that attaches to the tray wiggles; but the bottom line is that it works. I also picked up a strap assembly; I had to sew loops on the ends and then stick the straps through the loops around the chair to secure it in place. All in all I am quite proud of it...one more piece of plastic baby furniture that I don't have to buy from Target or some other store.

Last Monday I took my first of the two trips; I went up to Lake Tahoe, stayed with my friend CT and went for a couple day-hikes into Desolation Wilderness. It was chilly, almost cold for much of the time, real fall weather. The Aspen trees were golden and made for a nice show as I hiked up out of a canyon into the main part of the wilderness. There were so many fantastic windswept Sierra Junipers up there that I could hardly walk from looking left and right so much. I took quite a few photos, one of which has replaced the foggy trees from Pt. Reyes as my desktop wallpaper. Every time I go on a hike like this I come back home with a brain full of ideas for my bonsai. It's so inspiring that I have far more ideas than I could ever hope to actually execute as bonsai.

My second trip took me to Bishop, California. My friend Aaron, from the bonsai club, accompanied me. Things were going fine until I got a speeding ticket for doing 80+ in a 65 zone. In my opinion it was a bit unfair, I was going with traffic and we were on a steep downhill; I just wasn't paying attention. The speeding ticket, leaving late and Aaron carrying a heavy pack all conspired to limit our initial hike to about a mile. Luckily, after that mile we encountered a walk-in campground which worked out well since there was a firepit and a table for our use. The firepit was key as the nighttime temperatures were in the mid 30's. The next day, awakened by the chilly air we started early and hiked a 13 mile loop. We had originally planned to break it up more, but even as one long hike it ended up being quite enjoyable. After a large diner breakfast in town on Saturday morning, we stopped at the Bristlecone Pine forest for a short hike, and then collected some wild junipers from a nearby area for bonsai use. Collecting wild junipers is the source for many of the very best bonsai in the world. I hope that the three that I collected will one day be quite nice...although they are all smaller than the typical collected material. Unfortunately, I don't know how much longer the forest service will be allowing people to collect. I hear that they were just served with an injuntion from a judge which has suspended all collecting activities.

10/8/2005
9/11/2005
8/26/2005
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


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