Maybe next year I should spend actual Christmas in San Francisco. It’s the Christmassiest place on the West Coast, I’ll wager.

I’ve trekked up there with Beaumark three times during Christmas Season, and it’s a wonderful tradition that I’d like to keep up, It really gets me in the Christmas mood, and this time was no exception.


( Read more... )

I haven’t el-jayed much in 2013. Life’s been a bit of Reduction in Stuff Happening, and overwhelmingly a massive and fun project that has me sort of wallowing in the past while the present crumbles all around me. Is it fiddling while Rome burns, or just a harmless pursuit while the nature of my life radically changes?


( Read more... )

Time once again for my traditional Year-End El Jay Wrap-Up, where I post the first couple and last couple of sentences from each of my entries during the previous year, for a snapshot of my year on El Jay ( Read more... )

From April till Now, I’ve been consumed with one big project. It’s caused me to miss a lot of my life, especially from July onwards, when construction began in earnest. I started writing this entry in September, when I thought it was nearly over. I was wrong.

( more )

The trip to Hana was a fantastic adventure, and an amazing window to the wonders of Maui - many of which still await my return. But at 14 hours, it was by far the most epic thing we did in Hawaii. Even so ... my favorite adventure was the day spent at sea, and under it. A day with fun strangers and a happy crew aboard a nifty catamaran. A day ( Read more... )

The phone call came the day before our excursion was set. Wade Holmes and I had exchanged a few emails, but we’d never spoken before. I’d decided, after my extreme research efforts, that a guided tour along the fabled Road to Hana would be better than trying to find things ourselves. Wade’s tour specialized in out-of-the-way and off-the-beaten- ( Read more... )

I found I didn’t sleep much on Maui. We’d get to bed around 10 or 11, and I’d routinely wake at 4 in the morning. Five hours just seemed to be enough, and for a week straight. It was a tad annoying, but the lone nice perk was the nighttime view from our lanai.


( Read more... )

Hawaii Hawaii Hawaii - I’ve heard the ukelele siren song for so damn long it’s almost an unfulfillable fantasy by now. But the islands have called to me for decades, and I was thrilled when Beaumark planned to take me there for my birthday in Twenty Twelve.


( Read more... )

Time once again for my traditional Year-End El Jay Wrap-Up, where I post the first couple and last couple of sentences from each of my entries during the year, for a snapshot of my year on El Jay (and, for the first time, with photos ( Read more... )

A Merry Solstice Christmassy Photo JournalOnce again I was off to San Francisco for a repeat of San Francistmas, the getaway I’d love to take every year to get me in the Christmas Spirit ( Read more... )