May 5th, 2007

   Spring hath sprung in the hills of West Hollywood... whatever "spring" is around here. More like "not as warm as summer".

There really are no seasons in L.A.

    We have "Summer" which lasts from April to December, followed by "Colder Summer" which lasts from January to March. It may rain during this period, but there's no guarantee.

    In four months we're moving to one of the most rainy and cloudy places in the country. Will we be happy, or go insane? This is the question we ask ourselves almost every day.

    Our answer, almost invariably, is: "We will travel to warm and sunny places during winter... a lot".

    This update covers the past couple of months...mostly random stuff that's been going on.

    Side note: we have a new and better point-and-shoot camera, the Canon SD700IS... it's awesome.

-Rob and Nicole

Rob interviewed at LucaArts in San Francisco. They flew Us up for the day, and we got to hang out in the city, have dinner, and sight-see a little.

Rob poses in front of a statue.

Nearby, security takes notice and begins to move in, weapons drawn.

After the interview, he paused to reflect upon things he said, and things he shouldn't have said. "Why did I have to keep bringing up the spandex-wearing dwarves with headlamps and clown makeup?"

Regardless of this and several other tactless blunders, they actually offered him a job.

Rob's mom and step dad came down for a visit and brought along his old teddy bear. He hasn't seen this guy for 20 years. We'll be giving it to our son in a couple months.

We visited Brian and Jen to give them a "Thank You" basket for the awesome baby shower they threw for us.

Ponch shows off his new "Rock Star Stud" shirt.

Rob channels his inner "Heath Ledger" for this commanding shot along Hermosa Beach.

Soon, a game of "long jumping" begins... Quicktime 1.8Mb.

Jen shows off her skip, hop, skip, jump method. Quicktime 2.4Mb.

Driving home from Brian & Jen's... (Nicole was driving)

Suzie and Hawk stopped in to join us for dinner on Thursday, and we took them to our new favorite restaurant: Celedon.

Rob shot some panoramas in Malibu one evening.

San Francisco would be an awesome city to live in, but we don't have any family there.

Then again, the Transamerica Pyramid is kinda cool...

Nicole can run, but she cannot hide from the new camera! It sees everything!

We hit "The Slanted Door" in the Ferry Building near the embarcadero center. This restaurant is amazing. Here is a glass of their tea.

Nicole tries out the appetizers.

We bought a new lens for the 20D. I's a 135L f/2.0... and it's the sharpest, cleanest lens we have. The teddy bear shot to the left was also taken with this lens.

Brian opens his Laffy Taffy present.

Dinner is served...barbequed artichokes, cheeseburgers, and other goodness.

"Stay back or I'll swat you!"

"Why I oughtta!!!"

"Don't hit me yet, I got sand in my eye!"

Brian goes for the gold...Quicktime 1.6Mb.

We checked out Celedon, a new restaurant on 3rd and Fairfax. It's got tapas servings, and the food is amazing.

One of our neighbors got a Lamborghini. He likes to rev it up for a while, drive down the street, rev it up, park it, rev it up, turn it off, and go upstairs.

He repeats this later.

Rob goes after "them bards!" quicktime movie 7mb.

Suddenly, a huge rogue wave crashed over him like a furious white mountain of watery fists, sending him hurtling through a vortex of swirling cold froth and gurgling sand, his tripod vanished, camera dashed to a thousand tiny plastic fragments. As he strained to lift his mouth above the angry foam for one last desperate gasp of air, another merciless crash slapped him down for the last time...to the blue-green depths, the unforgiving graveyard of mariner's tortured souls. Doomed to meet the quiet, patient, but insatiable hunger of crabs and worms...

Despite his encounter with the angry sea, he got this panorama shot of the Malibu shoreline.