Passports

We finally delivered our passport applications to the post office in Mountain View this morning. We don't plan on going anywhere but into Canada. Kind of ridiculous to have to pay $97 each to do nothing more, and with no greater security, than what our drivers license did before?
Dawn's computer needed a new hard drive so I walked over to Fry's Electronics, a few blocks away. Unfortunately, they are preparing to dig a big hole to build a new parking garage next door. Of course, "they needed my help". I watched the activity of driving the steel I beams for the retaining walls. It's neat to watch a forty foot beam be pushed in to the ground in about 30 seconds. When I finally had my fill of their work, I moseyed over to Fry's and picked up a nice 300GB drive for $89. Wow. What a change in drive capacity and cost in a year or so.
Lou and Dawn went down to San Jose State to register Dawn for next semester. Of course, they also visited many thrift stores on the return trip.

Haight Ashbury

Time for something different. Lou and Don went North to San Francisco today. We stopped on the way at Neil's Coffee Shop in MillBrea for breakfast. Neil's has good food at a good price. It's like the cafe's of old. We haven't been there on a Sunday Morning yet. Very busy place. We sat at the counter right in front of the grill. It's amazing how the four cooks and four waitresses worked in that time space so effectively.
We then continued up to Golden Gate Park. A nice place to visit that has free parking.


We walked out to a street faire in Haight Asbury. Interesting group of people. Nice Victorian houses.


We went back to the park and strolled the Strybing Arboretum. This is probably the best arboretum we've visited, and it's free. I like that, as you should know if you're a regular reader here. Lots of flowers, of course.

A couple of water features.

Stanford Arboretum Walk

Breakfast in the yard. All the refrigerator left overs made a nice omelette.
We went to a swap meet at Palo Alto High School. Nothing Lou or I couldn't live without. Dawn, of course, found some interesting books.

The Palo Alto High School Flea Market. Art at Stanford, a large roll of garbage. OK!

Afterwards, we walked onto the Stanford University campus across the street. Looked over the stadium reconstruction project. Stopped by the bookstore. Walked out to Lake Lagunita, a couple of blocks from the campus center. Lou and Dawn picked up a bunch of frogs here a couple of days ago to restock our yard. We then rode the Margarite shuttle bus to check out it's route. Dawn dropped by the Palo Alto Library book sale while Lou and I went to get the BarBQ LP gas tank refilled.
Our web server is still down. I'm looking for new hosting service that can provide the same features for the same amount. May be hard. Finding better service won't be hard at all.

Web Server Still Down

I started forming for the sidewalk but called it a day early, just because I can.
Still no website. I called the web host, RegisterFly. It shouldn't take this long to restore the server? They say they're rebuilding the server. So?? Where's my site?

More Concrete Work Ahead

Green House Before I cleaned up the side yard in preparation for sidewalk installation. It was a long day. Lots of junk to be moved. Empty pots and planters from the green house. Pruning the neighbors plants that found their way into our yard. Cleaning the gutters. Hosing down the side of the house and green house. It's nice to see it clean after many years of ugliness.

Plants On The Move

We moved a lot of the yard plants that were in large planters around in the rear yard. Bigger plants by the back of the house moved out by the new back fence. This includes the 10' tall avocado tree that Dawn planted a few years ago. When we like the locations, we'll plant them in the flower beds.
We tried out a new chinese buffet in Sunnyvale called Crazy Buffet. Odd name, very good food. I especially like the Hot and Sour soup. Best I've had. Lunch (M-F) is the best deal. Only $7.99 instead of 14.99, but you do miss out on the sushi bar an mongolian BarBq bar. No loss for use.
All my websites went down today. The server failed. I notified the hosting service.

A Day In The Back Yard

The arbor in the back yard. It is a wisteria but also has a lavender trumpet vine, flowers shown above.

Fountain flowers and a strawberry bush.

Dawn picking a berry snack and enjoying the reading yard.

The new fountain barrel replacement.


Back yard critters. Lou feeds the birds each morning which the squirrels also utilize.

Fence all complete. The gate lock was installed. The key for the lock fits all gates and the house key can open it but not the reverse. I don't like to carry a bunch of keys.