John & Anne Wiley

2010/11/01

Spooks

Filed under: Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 05:22

A year ago we were in New Orleans. Yes, for Halloween! Since that town knows how to party through grief (including the ghosts of Katrina) it was of course the experience of a lifetime as we shared in a post then. Here’s a snap of the scene.

9788 New Orleans in 2009

9788 New Orleans in 2009

This year we’d thought about going to Isla Vista as we had in 2008, for another flamboyant if more mellow celebration. Instead though, we downshifted another gear to just cruise some neighborhoods and Altered State Street. On the way into town I snapped this black cat sitting between carved pumpkins, so motionless we wondered if it was part of the decorations. When these kids arrived, it instantly transformed from menacing to coy and everyone delighted in the interaction including the old couple watching from their car. For a moment, the kids completely forgot about candy.

3067 Black Cat

3067 Black Cat

On the street downtown, small kids who’d been collecting candy from merchants had mostly gone home for dinner and the older revelers were coming out. We wondered about the story behind the nun’s adjusted habit, because she was quite proud of it and got the others to pause and pose.

3094 Nun & Friends

3094 Nun & Friends

I’ve sent other pix to Edhat and will probably post at least one on my Photo Page, but here’s a last one from our drive home through another neighborhood. This whole area for several blocks was alive with families and groups of teens enjoying some elaborately decorated homes. You can’t tell at this size, but the car in the driveway is belching “smoke” and is filled with mangled “bodies.”

3105 Hood Decor

3105 Hood Decor

2010/10/31

Into the Sunset

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 03:46

We flew to Santa Paula for a visit with friends today, and saw some fun stuff along the way. It started immediately with this crisp view from the airport past UCSB to the Channel Islands.

3034 SBA UCSB CI

3034 SBA UCSB CI

The sky was clearing from an overnight storm, so the mountains were hiding their heads trying to sleep late. That’s “upper” State Street across the bottom, and our “voting” bridge over Stevens Park just left of center.

3036 Upper State to Mtns

3036 Upper State to Mtns

You remember: every time we drive across it going to/from town, we pause the conversation to feast our eyes in both directions and then vote on the best view. North toward the mountains usually wins, but today it would have probably been South toward the islands. Beyond Summerland there’s a polo club condo where we recently saw horses chasing a little ball. Today was quite a contrast.

3046 Condo Polo Cars

3046 Condo Polo Cars

Looks like antique cars, this is only about a quarter of what was on the field, and it looked like they were still setting up. A bit further East, on the beach near Carpinteria is a place locals call the Taj Mahal. I’d never noticed it until a mention and photo on Edhat, and I’ve sent them a different version of this photo asking for more info.

3049 Carp Taj

3049 Carp Taj

I didn’t get photos of the old planes we saw during a stop in Camarillo, including a B-25 that looked really cool flying. I sent Edhat a photo of the sunset in Santa Paula as we prepared to take off for home.

3050 SZP Sunset

3050 SZP Sunset

Sure was a lot of fun in three hours!

2010/10/28

People Power

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 23:39

Politics is amazing. Our work with the Citizens4sbcc group trying to save our Community College has been more intense lately. For one thing we’ve attended several events and fundraisers.

2846 Montecito Fundraiser

2846 Montecito Fundraiser

This fundraiser Anne is surveying as we arrived, was at a posh ocean view estate in Montecito. Beyond the pool is a lower level with magnificent rambling tea garden. Behind her is the sprawling mansion, and you can get a small glimpse from this later photo looking back up the yard.

2851 Uphill

2851 Uphill

The campaign has a decidedly uphill quality to it right now, as the incumbents go for broke. They’ve hired (with taxpayer funds) a campaign consultant, and are investing thousands in misleading ads and opinion pieces. The negativity of their approach is overwhelming! The thing I find particularly discouraging is their use of “doublespeak” (accusing our candidates of the despicable things their campaign is actually doing). I celebrate that they have their own opinions, but get upset when they espouse manufactured “facts” that are exactly opposite of reality. sigh…

Some of the events we’ve attended have helped refresh our hope and resolve, like this fundraiser (for a Parent Child Workshop, not our campaign). It’s a large group of parents and children working together on Parent Education, that was in one of the programs Anne supervised as SBCC Director/Dean.

2924 1/3 of a Fundraiser

2924 1/3 of a Fundraiser

Two thirds of the event is beyond this frame to the left and right. At the right is a live band, and to the left is the close-to-100 year old ranch with more action. It was so heartening to see the Carpinteria community pulling together working on the future of our world: raising conscious children. I hope when these kids grow up, the era of dirty campaigns has passed and we can focus on peaceful coexistence.

We went over Montecito couple of days later while taking a friend on his birthday flight, so I snapped this aerial view of the now quiet estate we visited in the first pix of this post. From above where political tactics don’t show as well, you can better see the beauty of our world.

2992 Montecito Estate

2992 Montecito Estate

2010/10/27

Once Over

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 02:40

We flew again today, though it was just once “around the pattern” (staying close to the airport). We left home just an hour too late due to tracking new lows in the SBCC incumbents’ dirty campaign (glad the four challengers have kept to the high road, and we’re looking forward to their improvements in SBCC community relations once elected). Anyway, by the time we got to the airport, the wind had shifted and picked up. As we drove in I saw the wind sock standing straight out and wondered how Anne would do with flying. We already knew winds had changed (though not how much!), but had decided to at least check on Tripp’s new tire (the old one had developed a small de-lamination of the tread in our last landing and we’d already been thinking about replacing it).

3027 Hope Ranch Shore

3027 Hope Ranch Shore

We did talk about it, and she decided to come along even though I offered to go around once first and see if it was turbulent. After standing by Tripp to watch another small plane take off, I found that Anne had been watching closely too. Since I was comfortable to fly in the gusty wind and it was it was to be short, she decided to join me. Offshore it was pretty smooth, but closer to the mountains we hit a few lumps. Before our landing a few minutes later I did one low pass over the big runway (parallel to the mountains) to practice crosswind technique, and it was fun to feel confident I could’ve easily landed if needed. Gusty winds like that are less enjoyable on a long trip, so we were glad to just be flying for a few minutes. Since I wanted to get this photo though, I continued on and turned offshore for this before turning again for a gentle landing toward the mountains and thus into the wind.

Now we feel all mellow from just that brief flight, and we’re about to enjoy another slice of the delicious bread Anne made with Nancy’s help (maybe she’ll post something about that).

Tasty Homemade Sourdough

Tasty Homemade Sourdough

2010/10/26

Quick Upgrade

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 19:09

Only $60 for triple the drive space on my Macbook, so with the original drive nearly full from all our photos I finally went for it. Only took 15 minutes to make a “clone” backup of the original drive, install the new one, and another half hour or so to clone everything onto the new drive. So easy, and everything worked perfectly once these steps were completed. With one exception: my email didn’t work. Turns out my email app has been “improved” with features that made it choke and die on a larger but otherwise identical drive. It’s finally working again (and better in some ways), so enough whining. 🙂

Yesterday we took a friend flying for his birthday, so I’ve been spreading words & pix around (see links to Edhat & my Photo Page at the right). Here are a few more that I saved to put here to mark my return to Cyberia.

2962 SBCC & Harbor

2962 SBCC & Harbor

In case you’re wondering, yes another focus of my attention lately has been the “C4” movement to elect Haslund, Blum, Croninger & Macker to replace the incompetent SBCC Board of Trustees incumbents (see http://citizens4sbcc.org/). I didn’t think about disk drives at all during this flight, but did think about our candidates when flying past this beautiful campus of the college we loved even before Anne’s work there. She once had an office in one of the two buildings at the right end of the grassy area on the left.

Heading back to land at SBA after our tour of SB & Montecito we got an unusual routing from ATC that put us high over Ellings Park, so I snapped this.

3012 Ellings Park

3012 Ellings Park

Just out of frame to the right is where paragliders launch. They fly across a road to soar back and forth along the bluffs at the Douglas Family Preserve, named to honor Kirk Douglas and son Michael who matched the large number of donations from the community to buy and save this popular open space. Many locals still call it “The Wilcox” as it was known before. Just below it is Arroyo Burro beach, very popular with locals. Many still call it “Hendry’s” as it was known before. When we first moved to SB it took a while to find places due to this dual naming system. 🙂

3015 Santa Cruz Island

3015 Santa Cruz Island

After we passed over the beach and turned West along the shoreline toward the airport I snapped this view of the stunningly clear islands. Wish the camera didn’t somehow show haze we didn’t see, because this was so beautiful we talked about flying out to tour the islands.

OK, so now that I’m back maybe soon I’ll post more pix from the flight to SD and flights since. Also might be fun to share some from the recent C4 events we’ve attended like the one at Diandra Douglas’ estate (once home of Michael). After the election we’ll need to take another long trip to celebrate having more time!

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