As it turns out, I’ve got more than one Youtube channel, both of which are devoid of subscribers, thus however do I have more stuff to post here. Some of these are blasts from the past, but as a history teacher, I make no apologies. Looking back always helps us look forward! (Still gotta figger out YT.)

Charlie on fiddle, from one of Mary Lynn’s concerts at La Honda Elementary School…

Veronica vocals, at Louanne’s & Sharon’s wedding in Florida back in 2013…

I made this Bon Voyage slideshow for Elayna, my cousin Susan’s daughter, when she embarked on a semester at sea a couple of years ago. Sadly, Susan, born one day after me, died of cancer, and the father has not been around. Happily, Elayna is a buoyant, upbeat, and life-loving young lady. The first half are pix from Susan’s family, the last half from ours, with an emphasis on traveling the world…

Kind of a sequel to our world trip in ’15-’16, since we had not visited South America then, was a summer trip to Peru & Bolivia in 2019. As in Morocco, we went with Intrepid and had a great time. It was a particularly fun group of people who our kids connected with. This trip was well documented at the time, but here’s a summary slideshow I made not too long ago. (Sorry for the generic music.)

You’d think I’d make more videos, but I sorta feel like others do a better job, so I am more of curator than a producer. However, during the Covid-infected 20-21 school year we were asked to make bilingual videos for Back-to-School-Night. I’m including this because I was employing a kind of scrapboard look and in the background it shows the slideshow I made for the Pescadero Middle/High School website which I’d created (now replaced, much to my consternation). And it shows one of Google Classrooms, my blog, and the free online textbook I’ve been using for the last couple years (serendipitously featuring the Supreme Court chapter). Apologies for my Spanish…

This last video was too long for the actual Outride Bikes grant proposal (being over 3 minutes), so I put some of these clips on a slideshow. However, it does not show the clips from Greg Virgallito (jumping and riding a wheelie) and myself (see the slideshow). We got the grant and now there are 25 Specialized mountain bikes on campus for our students to use. No soundtrack, just the basics…

There’s more! As Recreation Director, I’m supposed to help put on a couple of annual events. For the last two years, the CLHG Easter Egg Hunt had been canceled due to Covid. Thanks to super-volunteer Corinne Poulson, the event was back and dozens of families showed up to enjoy the fun…

In my previous post, I featured some student art work. This batch shows the process in both the art room and the tin shed, and it features some supplements – Puente-sponsored art therapy, Dan Geraci’s metal arts, and some ceramics aided by local potter Tom Shuman. And there’s some shenanigans too…

A very random batch: First up, an event at Pie Ranch which features their new ranch house being rebuilt after the fires. There’s also part of a property that was purchased, a Scrabble game, more pix of the Daniel’s Nature Center, and Charlie looking scary (but happy?)…

Here’s an art batch: First up, Beauty and the Beast featuring Tristan Deacon. Then, some of Delma Soult’s artwork, the cool octopus sculpture on the Santa Cruz pier, and one by Lynette Vega. Then, a group of art pix from Kaiser hospital, some therapeutic. Finally, the ceramics shelves at school, kids exploring, and the results of our first commission, redoing the signs for the La Honda Fair! Enjoy…

Randomized: Hanging out with Mom, Kind Peoples, the rebuilt shelves in the PHS library, the visiting Mountain Lion at the end of the school year, the reorganized CLHG storage shed, and the San Mateo County recycling center…

More art: Redwood city, a poster by Alicia Ortiz, and some nature art – the last project for art therapy…

Amazingly, I kept these paintings from Françoise Gilot’s painting class during the summer of 1977. These were hers and I kept them thinking they might be worth something – and they might! Especially, now that I’ve learned she is still alive and over 100 years old. I might ask her to confirm that she painted them…

For this largest batch, our trip to Tahoe for a few days with Aunties Louanne & Sharon. I was able to kayak from Baldwin Beach to Emerald Bay and around little Fannette Island and the tearoom on top…

For this last batch, another CLHG event – the 4th of July Picnic. Again, we were coming out of Covid, and again, Corinne led the charge. Most pix are of the game winners and the tug of war, but I threw in a great blue heron at the pond, a striking flower, the cabin at our house, and a chart of the Wilder-McCrary Loop trail which I’ve been enjoying recently. Enough for now…

Thanks for your patience!

It’s been seven months since my last post and it is time to catch up, but there’s a catch: wherever you went, there you were, and you can catch that moment with some pix. For this first batch of random pix, we’ll start with a full moon (there have been at least seven!). Then, our house, some mushrooms strangely growing on the garage door, a little rusty red wagon in the woods, a kayak trip in the Pescadero Marsh, some animal tracks in the mud, and a heart at the Skylonda Trading Post. Enjoy…

The annual “Corazones” project in Pescadero during February (in honor of Valentine’s Day) was started by the art collective “Arte Motu” and continues to be an event. We held up our end on the phone poles in front of Pescadero High School with the following highlights from my spring semester art class (the last one, by Cinthia Vazquez was on display in hallway)…

A few months ago, I got my first ebike at Epicenter in Santa Cruz after doing the Wilder-McCrary loop which goes all the way around the UCSC campus. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, and I’ve been doing that and other trails thereabouts ever since. In this batch, I visit the kids on campus, explore ruins, the Baskin Engineering School, the Painted Barrels, and Pogonip. I threw in a few of local La Honda trails, including the planetarium with deer, and an interesting look at columbine flowers…

One fun find among the labyrinthine bike trails of the UCSC upper campus is the Buddha Shrine. Had to take more than one photo of this spot. Hope you can explore it in person…

This batch starts out with another challenge for the intrepid explorer: the abandoned airstrip on a ridge above Butano Canyon (lots of fire damage thereabouts). There are some tree, flowers, a koi pond at UCSC, and the old fashioned train up at Henry Cowell State Park…

ML & I did happen to swing up to Heavenly for President’s Week. In addition to the slopes, a Tahoe gallery…

I called this art project (the last public effort for the school year) the “Butterfly Effect.” The emphasis on Monarch butterflies was purposeful and perhaps political. Not unlike some of my students, they migrate from Mexico to the US annually. While we strived to create some scientifically accurate artwork, I encouraged some creativity as well. (Note: Chalo painting with two hands.) Flutter on…

In this last batch, we start with a project that both my Social Studies classes did in identifying bike riding issues around our campus (we just walked around and uploaded pix to this app made for the purpose). In addition to old wood, I took my old Mom to visit the kids at college. More pix of Wilder bike trails, etc., Santa Cruz, fairy house art, more flowers, the Daniels Nature Center pond, and another full supermoon. More coming in ‘22.2…