These are pictures you just wish would get lost. Oh God! It's Dad and his stupid blog again. Now what the hell? So, young man. Exactly what kind of job do you have? Humph. I've seen some goodweddings. This sure ain't one of 'em. Oh man! Would you get a load of her dress! Lockwoods and Woods react to Jean's singing. Ooom. Douche with Listerine and you'llnever offend!!! Yes he's cute. And he's all mine. Why yes, I'd like a gumdrop. My God! A perfect high "C." Mommy! Make them all go away. Why yes. I am related to a... Continue reading

Signs in public parks can reflect issues particular to the community. And they provide insights into the workings of the minds of the officials who put them there. Take this sign, posted in Alice Keck Park in Santa Barbara. It deals with the environment. Why do we need this sign? Would you avoid Alice Keck Park if it was missing? "Gee, Honey. I don't know. Do you think they use pesticides here?" Immediately across the street we have Alameda Park. This park sure as hell isn't pesticide-free. Earl here, running the world's largest lawn mower, don't have no truck with... Continue reading

Every day, seven days a week, a grizzled old man pulls into the Jardin in his pickup truck, carrying two snack carts in the bed. He sets them up in front of the Parroquia (church), and two family members sell fresh fruit and expanded styrofoam munchies to tourists and townspeople alike. Every evening he returns and picks up the carts. His vehicle is a familiar sight around town. It's not pretty, but it's a paragon of extreme repairs. What you do in Mexico when something breaks is you fix it. You don't throw it away. When your pickup truck breaks,... Continue reading

I listened to soft Spanish being spoken around me in the plane to León and felt a little teary. I looked down on the fields, so like the irregular English countryside, the antithesis of the insipid rectangularity of the Midwest. A lone mountain appeared; atop it, the statue of El Pilipa. Must be Guanajuato. After a month in Santa Barbara and three days in Houston, we were near the end of our journey. —§— Our driver, Manuel, picked us up at the airport and drove the camino sinuoso to San Miguel. As he left the airport parking lot, the smell... Continue reading

It was one of the great moments of my life. And surely it was The Great Occasion of Sam's and Kip's lives. The park was beautiful. The guests were beautiful. The wedding party was particularly beautiful. The bride and groom were almost too beautiful to look at. The ceremony was moving. I didn't get to see the procession because it started, by design, while I wasdriving Samantha to the foot of the aisle in a convertible. I somehow managed to remember to walk around to the passenger side and open the door for her. Then I walked her up the... Continue reading

[The morning of Sam and Kip's wedding, and I have a little downtime, so I thought I'd squeeze in another couple of posts.] I found this object in the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens. What is it? I've never seen a sundial like this one—a very clever design that surely must have been known in Isaac Newton's time and probably much earlier. But it's not the kind of thing we science students got to study in the 20th Century. It's all new to me. The dial itself is about 15" in diameter. It's made of brass. The gnomon (the fishtail shaped... Continue reading

Like Santa Monica or Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara enjoys a warm, sunny climate and a progressive-minded body politic. Which as a matter of course, attracts a substantial population of homeless people. As long as you're gonna not have a home, why not not have it in an upscale community? This couple is dining alfresco. A breakfast picnic. Nothing like a cup of coffee under the morning sky. Or a cup of whatever it was they found in those trash cans. Life is good. Continue reading

This is the last day before festivities start, so I may not post for awhile. The families of the bride and groom—at least four families, ('cause we're Californians)—will meet tomorrow morning for breakfast. Then we'll do the ritual last-minute frantic running around, doing all those things left undone, that ought not to be left undone. Rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner will be tomorrow night. Saturday morning will be spent practicing mild hysteria. That afternoon, we'll hold a minor 20-minute ceremony followed by five hours consuming vast amounts of mind-altering fluids and a couple of soft drinks. As the official FOB,... Continue reading

Santa Barbara streets are lined with beautiful old trees. They are one of the city's defining characteristics, and they create a pleasant ambience. Seems like every other street has its tall trees. Ancient roots crawl over curbs, making Santa Barbara look much older than it is. While the huge old Magnolia below is not a street tree, the city owns the park it's in. Makes Jean look like a Hobbit. Trees like this don't happen by accident. They are the result of decades of careful pruning. The tree pictured below is one that has been recently pruned—and, I might add,... Continue reading

This here is the Arlington Theater, a Santa Barbara landmark. Mission revival in style, the building fulfills a function never imagined by mission-building padres. The theater shows movies and presents live shows. Look at that ticket window. Arches beckon within. I'd like to post a photo of the interior, but we didn't go inside. I recall from a previous visit, the remarkable ceiling inside. Around the periphery, silhouettes of the Santa Barbara skyline are backlit. The ceiling itself is indigo, with pinpoint lights set into it in the exact pattern of the night sky. You can make out all the... Continue reading

In his marvelous OC Weekly column, Ask a Mexican, Gustavo Arellano responds to a reader who asks, "Why do Mexican women dress up to go to the swap meet?" He writes, "It's classy, it's sexy and it's a thousand times better than the plague of middle-aged [gringas] shopping in sweat suits, spaghetti-strap tank tops... and other clothing items pulled from their slutty daughter's closet." Mexicans are among the most well-groomed people on earth. From the time they're babies, they're primped and dressed to look their best. Beauty parlors, called esteticas, are everywhere, and most are small and informal businesses. No... Continue reading

Heretofore, this impending wedding has been little more than the subject of rumor. Now, however, things are getting serious. The government is getting involved. Kip is taking the written test. Here, Sam is displaying the Marriage Instruction Manual. Being her father's daughter, she of course won't read it. The Department of homeland Security requires the swearing of an oath that the parties are not members of a mosque, do not know the whereabouts of Osama Bin Ladin, and in fact don't even like Moslems. Aawww. Aren't they cute. Sam is checking to see if Kip's heart is actually beating, not... Continue reading

OH HONEST TO GOD! I bet their food is "beanerlicious." Continue reading

Where in the world can you find good restaurants right on the beach? Santa Barbara is one such place. The Brown Pelican could not be built today. Various special interest groups would hang it up in legal challenges for decades. The California Coastline Commission would never allow it. But many years ago, someone bought a little beachfront lot just above the high tide line, in a declivity in the near-continuous line of coastal bluffs. They built a restaurant when regulations were few, and today, the place is grandfathered. The lot is worth tens of millions of dollars, but only its... Continue reading

It's all about money. In Mexico, there ain't much, and what there is, is controlled by about a dozen families. Only recently have ordinary Mexicans earned enough to be able to buy appliances. Like washing machines. But they can't afford to pay very much, which dictates certain design constraints. Lupita here (who could cut back on the tortillas if you ask me) is walking away from a couple of washing machines. They look like the ones my mother used in the '40s, except they don't have wringers (the proverbial ones that tits get caught in). These are portable washers, that... Continue reading

Oops. Somehow I managed to publish these pictures without writing commentary. So I'm reposting them with some explanation of what they're all about. A Senior Moment. Some of you will understand. —§— All day long people walk through San Miguel de Allende selling stuff. Theirs are not lucrative careers. This woman makes and sells dolls. Her entire enterprise—manufacturing, distribution, advertising, selling and finance—operates right here on the street. She is a fixture; I see her almost every day. She's not happy that I am taking her picture. Her right hand is descending, at the tail end of a "go away"... Continue reading

In choosing where to live in Santa Barbara, you're faced with an tough decision. Beach? Or mountain? The beach offers salt air breezes and recreation possibilities. There is, however, the problem of privacy. All kinds of riffraff are allowed anywhere, in the water and on the land up to the mean high tide line. One way to avoid the trespasser problem is to buy a house on a bluff. You want this one? Bring lots of cash. I'm guessing at least $15 million. Scratch the beach. It's for the nouveau riche anyway. The mountains on the other hand, have a... Continue reading

(Warning: This post may not be as exciting as watching mud dry.) The adobe brickmaking project at the Santa Barbara Presidio is proceeding nicely. (See September 16th.) The bricks have been tipped up onto their sides to present more surface area to the air. They're much dryer and harder. There's many more of them, too. They look big. I think maybe 1' X 2' X 4". I wonder if I could lift one. Or if even the Parks Department guys could. Naah. They'll probably use a forklift. Or a Mexican. Continue reading

Mercados are collections of small vendors gathered together to create a market. We have several permanent mercados in San Miguel—permanent in that they occupy actual buildings. We also have smaller, more informal mercados that essentially are collections of tents or tarpaulins. Mercados usually consist of food sellers, although clothing, DVDs, toys, and other things are also sold. Most of the goods on display are typical of what you and I might find in U. S. supermarkets: bananas, tomatoes, eggplant, jicama, chayote, piñatas... OK. Not all of it is familiar to Norteamericanos. We who have lived in places like California where... Continue reading

In Santa Barbara, everybody loves the beach. The clean white sand, the shallow warm water, the palms, the spectacular mountain views—it's the perfect place to kick back and get a little sun. Beachgoers are bent on relaxing, playing, having a good time. So what better place than the beach to remind us that there is a war being fought, one in which American teenagers are dying—teenagers who should be sailing these little boats instead. A group of Gulf War Vets have built more than 2,000 crosses, each carefully lettered with the name of an American soldier killed in Iraq. They... Continue reading

Jean's nephew Matt Fish , cellist and composer, and his wife, Margaret, drove up from Los Angeles to visit and help us consume $150 worth of raw fish. These are two of my favorite people, and it's always a pleasure to eat vast quantities of sushi with them. Matt and I stayed up until midnight, monopolizing the conversation and paying shamefully little attention to Margaret and Jean. The next morning, we walked over to the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. This utterly gorgeous building was built in the 1920s in the Mission Revival Style—a hallmark of Santa Barbara. The courthouse surrounds... Continue reading

Can you even call it "Handicapped Parking" anymore? I've been away from American culture so long, that out of ignorance, I'll call it Handicapped Parking, hoping you'll forgive me if I'm using a term now considered offensive. The Park Service appears to be making a concerted effort to provide facilities for the handicapped. At Sequoia National Park, several parking lots once available to all are now reserved for handicapped persons only. Here's a photo of the lot near the General Sherman Tree. It's huge. Non-handicapped persons use a new lot a mile farther up the road and have to walk... Continue reading

The Visitors' Center at Grand Canyon National Park is a mob scene, consisting of intense Europeans with walking sticks plummeting down the Bright Angel Trail, Japanese tour groups posing in front of the gorge, Chinese gamblers from Vegas posing in front of the restrooms, and overweight American families buying tee shirts. Not so at Sequoia National Park. Visitors are drawn to its more famous neighbor to the north, Yosemite. If you want to go to one of our great National Parks, and you don't want the crowds, Sequoia is a good choice. You run into even fewer visitors during the... Continue reading

I'm making this trip to Santa Barbara because I am the FOB—the Father of the Bride. I have enormous responsibilities here. All eyes will be upon me as I walk the bride down the aisle. I will have to say something both humorous and profound at the reception. I have to write checks. Somehow, I got it into my head that I also would be a central figure in planning and preparation for the wedding. The other day, at breakfast, I was thoroughly disabused of that notion. I was the sole male at a table with, from left to right,... Continue reading

We drove for hours. We wandered half-lost through county roads near Hanford: Born-Again Christian navel of California. We passed body shops and tractor dealers with fish on their signs. We passed billboards that said, "Abortion is Murder" and "Get Us Out of the UN!" Finally we found our destination. Doesn't look like much, does it? But wait a minute—the building doesn't the kind of All-American design you'd expect in this part of the country. Those hip roofs. Those sashed exterior panels. That roofed entry gate. Yep. This building is Japanese. We've reached the Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese... Continue reading