I added Lalo Schifrin’s “Enter the Dragon” score to this with some minor editing to the original post.  It’s amazing how this music goes with anything. I used it before for a work video I put together to show how to regrip too. It makes it much more interesting.

Subtitles were also an addition. Click on full screen to be able to see the subtitles better.

I dedicate this video to The Bean and FG.

Enjoy.

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Cabrillo Beach is a historic beach located in San Pedro, California. Cabrillo has two separate beach areas.  It is also home to a few famous landmarks, namely the 1.75 mile Los Angeles Breakwater which ends at the Angel’s Gate Lighthouse, the recently restored Cabrillo Beach Bathhouse, and the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.

We had just visited the tide pools in Laguna Beach a couple weeks earlier and realized he really liked seeing the wildlife in the water.  Laguna Beach had the anemone police out so we couldn’t touch anything but this time Cabrillo Beach was unpatroled…

We made it to the parking lot and parked in front of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.  The tide pools are on the ocean side of the breakwater/jetty.  After a short walk about a quarter mile down we arrived at the tide pools.

There were tons of anemones everywhere.  We showed Skyler how you can gently push down on the anemone it would squirt water.

While looking around and exploring Skye found two large spiral shells.  We took a picture of them since we are not allowed to take anything from the beach.

We had a nice time at the tide pools, the water was beginning to return so we had to pack it out of there.  We’ll have to go back this summer when it’s a little warmer.  More photos at my photography website, CounterPointPhotography.com

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Rose Parade 2010

Is there a better way to start off the new year than to go to the Rose Parade?  There might be.  But this year, there was no better way to celebrate the new year than to head down to Pasadena, California, and find a spot on the parade route. One of Skye’s students was able to get us up-close and personal seating on the parade route with excellent parking.  This helped out so much, especially with Skyler.

The night before we set and packed the car so all we would have to do is get up, get Skyler dressed and head out the door.  Skye’s Mom and Step Dad were coming too so they were going to meet us at 5:30am when we were set to head out.  Nicely everything went as planned.  Before long we were already in Pasadena and could see the crowds of people.  The GPS didn’t help much since as you got closer to the parade route the more we found barricades blocking off streets.  We had  a printed out map for where were were to park so I just used that.

We found the parking.  It was a block away from the Pasadena City Hall and about half a block away from the parade route.

The reserved seats we had were across the street from the post office and on the street.

This was the view we had of the parade.  We actually were sitting on the street level as the floats passed by.

The floats were impresive, the crowd was respectful and everyone had a great time.  We saw Oscar DeLaHoya hanging over a balcony behind us and Jack Hanna on a float.  Now where else can you say that but at the Rose Parade?

Skyler loved watching the bands, especially the drummers.

It was a cold, early morning but we all had a great time!  What really impressed me was the fact that we could actually smell the flowers on the floats!  Pretty cool.

Here the link to all the pictures from the Rose Parade.

Rose Parade on CounterPoint Photography

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Well my wife, son and dog just got back from our daily evening walk around the neighborhood and my adrenaline is still pumping.  It’s still pumping not because of our meandering walk, but more so for the run-in we had with a neighbor, and I use neighbor in the sense that this person lives in the neighborhood.

Here’s a little back-story to what lead to what occurred this evening.  Recently I decided I needed to loose weight, get more active and live a more healthy lifestyle.  The past few years have been wrought with the stress of a nightmare remodel and the happiness of our son Skyler born.  My lifestyle had changed with the times becoming sedentary and day-in-day-out hum-drum.  It was now time to change that.  I started a diet and increased my activity.  I now get up every morning at 5:30 and go for a 1 mile walk with our dog Luigi, I go for a short 10 minute walk at lunch when I can and another 1 mile walk with my wife, son and dog in the evening.

Mind you, when we moved to this neighborhood one of the best qualities that we loved about living here is the neighborhood.  All the neighbors wave and say hi to you if they are going for walks or playing with their kids in their front yards.  Skyler is part of the Ticatica Kids Club.  Ticatica is the name of our small street.  We know the neighborhood gossip lady, and are luckily on her good side.  We’ve been invited over to our neighbor’s houses for USC football games or the occasional cigar in the backyard.  Ole, one of the few remaining original owners in his late 80′s, lives at the end of the street.  He keeps an eye on the street for everyone walking down the street shirtless in San-a-belt baby blue cut off pants that are pulled up two inches above is belly button.  He speaks of stories of World War II and shoots the trespassing skunk that get too close to his backyard.  All in all it’s really a nice quite and safe place to live.

A couple of months ago our neighbor, Al, from across the street, warned us about a little chihuahua that chased him and his 3 year old grandson up the hill.  A few weeks ago we found that dog.  On my route there is a street called Kiska Drive.  On this street there live two dogs with short man syndrome.  The worse of the two is a stupid chihuahua.  We have been chased a few times by mindless dog, when one time, about a month ago, the dog chased Luigi and me with Skyler in the hiking backpack up the street when the owners saw this, piled into their car and raced up the hill to get him, all the while you could hear the father yell at his daughter and his daughter yelling at her father about the dog.  She jumped out of the car, swooped up the dog and returned to the car yelling, “It’s because he hates you too.  That’s why he runs away!”  No apologies to us, but it didn’t matter, I  just turned and kept going up the hill thinking to myself I don’t need to be a part of this.

This brings this story to about two weeks ago.  Evening walk, Skye, Skyler in the stroller, Luigi and me, we were walking up Kiska Drive.  The dogs were out.  I’ve had enough of this.  If the dog were to even get near kicking range of Skye, Skyler or Luigi, he was going to know it.  Normally I am a peaceful, animal loving person, but when an animal threatens my family it’s a different story.  I walked over to the front door the whole time with this ‘Rat’ dog snapping at me.  I rang the doorbell and the 9 year old daughter answered the already wide open door.  I firmly said how this was not the first time this has happened with their dogs barking and trying to attack my dog while we were walking on the street, the next time this happens I would call animal control.  She picked up the dogs and put them inside and closed the door.  Problem solved, so we thought.

This evening’s walk.  We turn the corner on Kiska Drive and low and behold the little rat dog was out and going after Luigi.  The rat dog’s mother was out and noticed this going on, she came over to grab the dog but the dog kept barking and charging Luigi.  I was pushing Skyler in the stroller, Skyler was watching from the safety of his stroller, Skye had Luigi on the leash and Luigi was trying to back away from being attacked by the psychopathic rat dog.  The owner finally grabed the dog, no apology, and headed back to take the dog in, as she did she stopped and turned around to say, “Are you the ones who yelled at my daughter and threatened to call animal control?!”

Mind you, we hadn’t even said anything to this lady so for her to assume this was a pretty big leap.  I told her, “I warned your daughter that this dog is always out and tries to attack us when she is out.”  Obvious enough since the rat dog just did it again.

At this point she through out a few swear words, told us to call animal control, cussed us out again and headed back inside.  This is where it got worse.  Her husband walks out of their backyard and starts yelling at me.

Snapshot picture at this momment: I’m pushing our two year old son up the hill in the middle of the street trying to cross it, Skye is walking Luigi on the sidewalk across the street and this gang banger husband in a wife-beater tanktop and tattoos is coming after me.

“Hey F**ker, you want to start something?!”  I think he repeated that a few times as I ignored him and kept walking up the hill.

“Hey little Sh**, I’m talking to you!” was another thing he said, (hey at least my diet’s working huh?)

I took a mental note: cell phone is in my left pocket, we are in public, if anything happens I can’t drop the leash to Skyler’s runner/stroller because we are on a hill.  I stopped and squared up.

I really don’t remember much that he said, I was trying to stay calm as he went off on being mister macho, ape man.  He was basically pissed off at me for telling his 9 year old daughter to keep their dogs inside.  Apparently his 9 year old daughter embellished the story of what happened saying that I yelled at her and threatened her and scared her.  I refreshed his memory of the time they drove up the hill to pick up their dog from chasing us and he began to calm down, realizing he was in the wrong.  Skye stepped to help ease the pressure of the conflict.  I apologized if I scared his daughter and also stated that his dogs scare my 2 year old son so I am just protecting my family.

He finally backed down, hopefully realizing the whole story.  I offered my hand and he shook it, turned around and he walked home.

It is surprising to me how people can get so angry at something so small that the first thing they want to do is go beat someone up.  This was the closest I’ve been to getting my ass kicked since I was bullied in 7th grade by a red-neck 8th grader.

When we got home, there was a part of me that wished I pulled a Bruce Lee meets Chuck Noris on this looser but what good would that have done.  Skye tells me we did the right thing, and I know we did.  It makes me think how lucky I am.  I have a family who loves me and a family I’d do anything for.  This poor looser guy yells at his daughter, probably beats up his wife and his dogs don’t even like him.  I feel sorry for that a-hole.

Note to self: Kiska Drive is now off the route.  I need to expand my loop to 1.5 miles anyway.  Kiska Drive Rat Dog Man is a still an A-hole.

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Dinner at Gasho's

Saturday started off a little late. It was nice to sort of sleep in. Because of the time change Skyler wasn’t getting up until 8am. That was pretty cool, only thing about that is that we had a late starts in the morning. This morning Skye had some errands to run with Charlanne, so Skyler and I headed to some random park. It wasn’t the best of parks but it served it purpose. When we got there we were the only ones there. By the time we left there were like 10 other older kids running looking for trouble. A few days earlier we had bought Skyler a sand pail and shovel from Target. I brought that with us to the park here so Skyler could play in the sand box. There were kids that were circling us like vultures because they wanted to play with Skyler’s sand toys. Mind you, these kids weren’t 2 years old or 3 or even 4 years old. They had to have been at least 8 or 9 years old. At one point, one of the kids tried to reach for the pail and I said, “I don’t think that’s yours.” That made him back off to regroup.

Skyler - Cold Spring Harbor

Soon after that Skyler was done with the park and so was I so we got back in the car. It was hot so we headed to the mall. When we got to the mall there was a little carnival set up in the parking lot with the usual cast of strange “carnies” manning their stations. We walked around but there was really not much for Skyler to do so we headed into the indoor mall. We found a smoothie stand and ordered a peach smoothie. Skyler loves those. He pretty much finished the whole thing.

On our way home we drove past a White Castle. Skyler had fallen asleep in the backseat so I pulled into the drive-through. I ordered some sliders. Those things are greasy, but good. I think a couple of greasy sliders every couple of years is all right.

Skyler looking for a rabbit

After the nap Skye was free for the rest of the day. We decided to drive up to Cold Spring Harbor. Charlanne had told us there was a fish hatchery up there that one of her patients goes to with her boys. It was only about 20 minutes away but seemed like it should be farther. We drove though the town and it reminded me of Vermont.

We found the fish-hatchery but it had just closed. The parking lot was connected to an old church that sits on a large pond. We decided to walk around and check out the scenery.

Skye and Skyler at Cold Spring Harbor

As we walked up to the side of the church there was a very nice sight. Canadian Geese were swimming around the pond as a mother and daughter looked on. The mother had to have been in her late 80s or early 90s, the daughter in her 60s or 70s. There were just sitting on a bench looking out over the beautiful, picturesque landscape; it was such a nice memory being made for them.

Skyler at Cold Spring Harbor

We walked around the fed the geese, chased a rabbit and Skye and Skyler found some old Easter eggs. It looks like the church must have had an Easter egg hunt and not all of them were found, until now…

Skye and Skyler - Cold Spring Harbor

We had a dinner reservation at a Japanese steakhouse called Gasho’s where we were to meet up with Charlanne’s Mom, Ruth and Step-Dad, Neal. It was a restaurant like Benihanas, where the cook cooks in front of you. There was some minor drama involved when we got there but things worked out and we had a nice time. It was entertaining.

Skye and Skyler - Cold Spring Harbor

We came back to the hotel. Had a swim in the pool and went to bed.

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Skyler's New Drums

Here is a short video of Skyler when he first saw his new drum set for his 2nd birthday. He really loves them. Even though it’s for a 3 year old, the next day he had figured out how to use the bass drum pedal. Enjoy!

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A couple of years back when my wife was pregnant she was driving on the freeway in the rain.  The Yukon driving in front of her slammed on the breaks which made Skye’s car collide with it.  The nose of the Sebring is much lower than the bumper on the Yukon so it slid under and bent the frame of the Sebring.  The Insurance company  called it a total loss and now we were in the market for a new car.

During this time we were neck deep with our remodel debockal.  We need to find a car and we were set on keeping a convertible.  Through many negotiations and driving from dealer to dealer we finally settled on a private seller in Naples near Long Beach.  Long story, short, we thought we bought a good car but ended up having more problems with it than we had anticipated.  You can read about one of the problems here.  Skye was way overdue for a new, SAFE, car.

It sure is pretty.

Here is a nice little side note: as we were signing the documents for the car we realized it was June 24th.  Exactly 9 years ago was when I proposed at Café Piccalo in Long Beach.  Time flies.  It doesn’t seem like 9 years!

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http://www.gethuman.com/

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There has always been that marketing/sales quote. “If a customer receives good service he’ll tell 1 other person, customer received bad service he’ll tell 10 others.” I’m out to change that in this post.

This week I was pleasantly surprised. I feel, especially with today’s economy, customer service is a differentiating factor I have come to place more weight upon. If I am going to spend my hard-worked money for a product or service there are a few things I expect: knowledge of the product or service that is being provided, mutual respect and a fair price. That being said, the first two criteria can influence the third. Earlier this week I took my H3 in for service. I took it in the Cerritos Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Hummer Service Center where I met Robert D. I was having a “Serv 4WD” in the DIC light up and then go away occasionally. I was due for an Oil Change so I thought I’ll take it in to get the 4WD serviced. I feel, had I taken it somewhere else, I would have had to pay for an oil change and a 4WD service and still not have solved the problem. It ended up being electrical and not a 4WD problem. Nice catch on Robert D’s part to diagnose the problem instead of treating just the symptom.

So here is my plug for Robert D. <plug> If you are in the Los Angeles/Orange County area and need to get your Hummer or any other GM vehicle serviced take it to the Cerritos Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Hummer Service Center, ask for Robo or his real name, and you won’t be disappointed. He knows what he is doing, doesn’t talk down to you when explaining some basic things and a pleasant cool guy.</plug>

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