Thanksgiving 2008 take one

I woke this morning (actually Thanksgiving morning) to the smell of a smorgasbord of pies baking in the oven, crashed out on my mom’s couch, my nephews Corbin and Mason were sitting on the floor looking up at me. “Uncle Sean, you snore!” Yup, I’m home.My mom’s a restaurant owner, she did own a dine in place up in Seligman, a small town on Route 66 but sold the place a couple of years ago to

The Beast is Gone

Back in 2000 when I was taking my sabbatical from the Navy and working as a mechanic, I purchased a 1989 Diesel Suburban. I had a lot of tools and wanted something I could load everything up into that had an alarm system and got reasonably good gas (in this case diesel) mileage. She served me well but I admit that she did break down several times when I really needed her. Went through 2

"Tagged" as a "Bookworm :)"

One of my favorite Soldiers Angels Kathi tagged me as a bookworm (or as she says "who is the most voracious reader I know!". Guess that's saying a lot. The rules are: Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences. The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL!The

Chestnuts roasting over an open fire..

…well in a toaster oven anyways. The bride has taken on upon herself to show me all of the best of the local area around San Jose. The other day we went on a cruise along Skyline Drive. It’s a road that goes along the ridgeline of the Santa Cruz Mountains in a twisty and heavily wooded path, beautiful and definitely scenic drive. So we’re driving along through these huge trees intermittent with

The Mystery Spot

Saturday, the bride and I drove down to Santa Cruz and she said she wanted to bring me to the Mystery Spot. I thought she meant someplace to surprise me but instead, we went to “The Mystery Spot”, touristy place located just inland of Santa Cruz, California. According to legend, it’s a circular area of gravitational anomaly that is 150 feet in diameter. Supposedly, there are changes in gravity,

The worst sound ever

I drove up to San Jose last Friday and one of my ways to pass time on long cross country drives is to catch up on friends on the phone. Why waste all of that time. I was on the phone with Wendy from Chromed Curses when I suddenly hear a squeal though the phone and a crash and she says, “I gotta go, someone just rear ended me!”, I said “Bye!”. A couple of hours later, I call her to make sure she

Road tripping San Jose and some thoughts about Veteran’s Day

I’ll be out of town hanging out with the bride this weekend but I wanted to put a post up with a few thoughts on Veteran’s Day before I left. I served all throughout the 90’s without really thinking about what it means to be a veteran. It was peace time and being in the military was just another job with a lot of travel perks and interesting people to meet. The only weapons I saw were at the

Remember…Remember

That the fifth of November is always my birthday.I’m actually doing a somewhat political post, since the election is over, I'm not going to sway anyones vote. As a pretty middle of the road guy, I admit, liked both candidates and choosing between the two of them was a bit difficult but in the end (well 3 weeks ago) I mailed in my vote. I liked that they didn’t seem lean heavily one way or another

Knott's Berry Farm Veteran's Day Tribute

Don't forget, from the first of November till Thanksgiving, all Veteran's and one guest can get into Knott's Berry Farm for free, addional tickets can be purchased for 15 bucks. It's a great deal hands down, just make sure you try out the Silver Bullet, it's much more fun then the silver bullet that I give out. Ask any of my Marines. Details of the Tribute can be found here. I'm going to see

Before the Sun

We rose and showed up at 5, just the 7 of us on this bonding exercise and drove down to the pier. We went on a charted trip with H&M Landing, military rate 55 bucks.The sunrise off the ocean that morning was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in years. But I’ll let you see for yourselves.Below is my favorite picture of the dayWe pulled out past Cabrillo and went north a short ways right off the