.: What’s Bruin :.

In a break from past Independence Days, Josephine and I celebrated at the fairgrounds again, along with our friends John and Gina and their son, Aiden. Past 4ths have been spent at other friends’ homes, going out for dinner, or watching television. This is the first one where we had no kids with us, each of them were doing their own thing. As with other empty nest type things, we forged a new tradition for ourselves.

4th of July - A New Tradition Kicking Off

John and Gina were originally going to have something at their place, but after all the fun we had the other day at the fair, we decided it would be more fun for all of us to do the fair, eat there, and enjoy the fireworks and KC & the Sunshine Band concert.

Even with satisfying any whim or craving for munchies . . .

“Homemade” Potato Chips

Aiden was pouty/whiny most of the day . . .

Waah

I celebrated the freedom that Josephine and I have to do what we want without the massive responsibility of caring for, thinking about, and placing above oneself, any small children. It’s a freedom that responsible parents don’t have when their children are small or not yet on their own. Though I sometimes still yearn for biological children and feel like I’ve missed out on a big part of life, I silently enjoy our freedom to go places and do things without having to consider the needs of dependents. Josephine feels the same way; she told me the other day when we were at the fair.
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Tags: 4th-of-July, Events, fair, Friends, Life

Ride

I had been to the fair only once before when I first moved to San Diego. At that time, I hated the fair, thought it was stupid. But this time around, it was a blast. I sure do appreciate a lot more now that I’m older. We really enjoyed looking at most of the exhibits. In fact, we had so much fun that we are going back on the Fourth of July, and our friends John and Gina are coming down to enjoy the fair with us.

The theme for the fair is inspired by the artist Wyland, who one of my co-workers raved about. I had no idea who he was. His art is mainly marine art, but he has a strong conservation theme. We walked through his exhibit first to see what all the hoopla was about. No big deal for me. I did enjoy seeing a live Bald Eagle. That bird is HUGE!

Wyland Art

Merry-Go-Round

Although I’m not much of an animal lover, I did enjoy shooting some pictures of the fair animals. I saw some very interestiing creatures, most noteworthy was seeing my first ever turkey and a ram with three horns and two big ones.

Three Horns

Big Cojones

We ended our fair visit with dinner at the Turf Club and a Kenny Loggins concert that I mentioned in a previous post. I am looking forward to the Fourth.

Tags: Events, fair, Life

Kenny Loggins via Motorola RAZR phone camera

This is one of the few shots that I took from the concert last night. I had put my camera back in the car before the show because there were signs around the Grandstand about no cameras and how equipment would be confiscated. I was irritated. Once the show began people had all kinds of point and shoot cameras and flashes were going off.

Afterwards, I asked one of the security members if we were alllowed to bring camera equipment into the show. They said just the cheap stuff, nothing telescopic. But we’re going to the fair again for the 4th of July and this time I am bringing my camera into the show. Don’t know how close I will be, but I figure they don’t even search what you bring into the show and I really don’t think anyone will care.

Tags: Events, fair, Kenny-Loggins, Photography

On July 1st, Josephine and I are going to the Del Mar Fairgrounds to attend the annual San Diego County Fair. I bought a Dinner Package, which includes admission to the fair, parking, dinner, and floor seats to the Kenny Loggins concert. We are seated on the floor in Section 2 in the 7th Row, pretty cool. I’m not a big Loggins fan, but Josephine likes him a lot. Dinner will be so awesome after a full day of walking around the fairgrounds. It should be delicious!

I’m looking forward to a fun day and taking lots of pictures. Because of my camera gear, I will need to get a Photographer’s credential also. That is way cool.

Tags: concert, Del-Mar-Fair, Events, Josephine_Bruin, Kenny-Loggins, Life, Music, Photography, summer

Memorial Day Barbeque

Good food and friends. Remembering the vets, supporting the troops, and enjoying our freedom.

BTW, I need to remember to stop down on the f-stop. I’m not quite used to shooting with lenses that are larger than f/4. I wanted to be able to avoid the blur on the sides of the shot since there are two people there. View the slideshow.

Tags: barbeque, Events, Food, Friends, Life, Memorial-Day, Photography

Finally finishing my roundabout of the static displays, I returned to our seats with Josephine’s help from getting me reoriented to our seats’ location so that I could catch the tail end of the morning’s “pre” air show show.

B-1 Bomber Taking Off

B-1 Bomber Roaring Overhead

Although I had to go back to our car in the parking lot to get our fried chicken lunch during most of the flight of this classic air support fighter, the A-10 Thunderbolt.

A-10 Thunderbolt Providing Air Support

A-10 Thunderbolt Landing

Although this aircraft is not pretty to look at, its takeoff was so awesome. The C-130 Hercules is a semi-huge transport plane that can take off on a short runway. Its afterburners are so awesome. Unfortunately, I missed out on the photo opportunity to take a shot of them.

C-130 Hercules Taking Off

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Tags: aircraft, Blue-Angels, Events, jets, Marines, military, Miramar-Air-Show, Photography

Among my meanderings through the static displays, I found a couple of familiar friends, like the US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon. I remember it from my ROTC days. It’ hard to believe this plane is still in service. It has defended the skies and preserved freedom for over 20 years.

USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon

Another oldie, but goodie is the Navy’s F-14 Tomcat. At least, I think it’s an F-14. Perhaps we need to ask Tom Cruise if he remembers what one looks like.

Top Gun: Riding on the Mighty Wings of an F-14 Tomcat

Well in addition to climbing up some stairs to look up close at the F-16, I also got a great view of the cockpit of an AV-8B Harrier, one of those fighter jets that can take off and land vertically, as well as hover and fly sideways. Pretty cool.

Cockpit of the AV-8B Harrier

The view of the instrumentation panel is nice too, though I can imagine that actually sitting in the cockpit with all the gear on and stuff you have to do would be pretty uncomfortable.

Instrument Panel of the AV-8B Harrier

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Tags: aircraft, Blue-Angels, Events, jets, Marines, military, Miramar-Air-Show, Photography

Check out my UCLA Homecoming photo album and slide show.

Tags: Announcements, Events, football, Homecoming, Photography, quick_links, Sports, tailgate, UCLA

Waking up to some early morning drizzle and low clouds was not very reassuring. Neverthyeless, I began my two hour trip to UCLA today to meet up with my son. Our destination, the Rose Bowl for the homecoming football game against Oregon State. (Beavers are such a lame mascot.)

I planned to purchase an iPod USB power adapter in the student store with Tony’s student discount. Unfortunately, we had to wait in Starbucks for a couple of hours since the student store opens at 12:00 PM on weekends, which is kind of lame, especially on game day when people and alumni are probably on campus early before the game to stock on cool UCLA gear. But very rarely do I get a chance to hang out with my son for an extended time while he is at school so I didn’t mind at all.

We made our way to the Rose Bowl soon after 12:15 with the power adapter in my possession. I saved a whopping $2 with the student discount. But it was well worth it, avoiding the heavy crowds at the local Apple Store here.

It was an interesting drive to Pasadena. We hit bits of that wonderful LA traffic from time to time, especially while on the 110 Freeway northbound. But we actually made it to the Rose Bowl in about an hour. Parking was a cinch since we were getting there so early about three hours before kickoff. Our goal: a Tailgate Party sponsored by the South Bay Bruins.
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Tags: football, Homecoming, Pourpa, Sports, UCLA

Post content based on the first group of “100″ pictures (actual number = 84)

I woke up very excited, to be going to the Miramar Air Show for the first time, even having lived in the San Diego area for the last 18 years. We had originally planned to leave early, so we could get on base before the crowds. I had intended to drive my truck which has the DOD sticker on it. However, after packing our lunch, snacks, and drinks, I realized that it would be a very uncomfortable ride in the truck and decided it would be best to take the Honda instead. Besides, entering in as a normal spectator wouldn’t be so bad; I would get to experience the whole deal.

Arriving at the base a little before 8:00 AM, there were already scores of cars lined up along Miramar Way, waiting to get inside and park. Thank goodness we didn’t leave earlier because it would not have mattered whether or not I had a DOD sticker. Everyone that morning was pretty much lining up to go to the show. Our Premium Box Seats also afforded us to park in “preferred parking”, which was actually very close to the entrance and the flight line.

Bag Inspection Queue

So we waited in line for about 20 minutes. The Marines inspected Josephine’s fanny pack and my camera bag. Then we made our way to our seats. Since I picked them on the Internet, I knew we would be in the front row, not quite center stage. Those seats were “chalet”, that is covered under a tent, with unlimited food and drink for $80 a piece. No, we would be just fine with our $20 seats and bringing our own lunch. Josephine waited in our seats watching the morning portion of the show while I went and checked out the static displays of all the cool military stuff.

Josephine in the Front Row

The first cool thing I saw was this ad on an Army recruiting truck. Very appropriate. Modern-day heroes in my book.

Heroes

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Tags: aircraft, Blue-Angels, Events, jets, Marines, military, Miramar-Air-Show, Photography

I took over 600 photos at the air show on Satuday. I’m going to try to process about 100 photos per day if I have the time. So I’ll be uploading them to Flickr iteratively over the next few days. Here is the slideshow.

Tags: aircraft, Blue-Angels, Events, jets, Marines, military, Miramar-Air-Show, Photography

Another little earthquake hit near San Diego just a few seconds ago as I’m writing this. Thankfully, they are more of an annoyance, and not like the earthquakes in South Asia!

Update: The quake hit off the coast of San Diego, about 29 miles south southeast of San Clemente Island.

Tags: earthquake, Events, quick_links

Really weird. On the way to work this morning, as on every morning, I was listening to KOGO news on AM 600 for traffic and weather reports. At the end of a short news segment at about 7:09 AM a man’s voice (other than that of the news broadcaster) came on the air and repeated: “F**k you,” over and over again.

That was really bizarre. After the next brief news segment, a different person gave this apology/explanation:

We apologize for what happened at the end of the last broadcast. We didn’t want that to happen. But sometimes those things happen.

It’s not much of an apology or explanation for the Linda Blair-like outburst on public radio.

Tags: bizarre, Events, KOGO, Linda-Blair, public-radio, strange-events

Moving In

Tags: CoolPix , Events, family, Pourpa, UCLA

The Transporter 2 was most likely the last movie of the summer that Pourpa and I will see together in the theaters before he moves back to UCLA. It was pretty darn good, a lot better than the first one. This one had lots of action and fight scenes in it. The only cheesey thing about it was that some of the action scenarios and stunts were somewhat not believable.

An extra bonus was our pre-movie meal at Mr. Taco. I had my favorite, carne asada burrito, while Pourpa had a shrimp burrito.

Tags: Events, family, Food, Movies, Pourpa