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They loved throwing rocks in the water.

He grabbed a stool from the bathroom for better cookie access.

From Wikipedia:

First Person View (FPV), also known as Remote Person View (RPV), is a form of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or Radio-controlled aircraft. The aircraft is flown remotely from a first person perspective via an onboard camera, fed wirelessly to virtual reality goggles. More sophisticated setups include a pan-and-tilt gimbaled camera controlled by a gyroscope sensor in the pilot's goggles and with dual onboard cameras, enabling a true stereoscopic view.

Maybe when I have some money to spare I will try this out. You put a video camera in a RC airplane and fly wherever you want while seeing the world from the perspective of the plane. The nicer setups have LCD goggles you wear and when you tilt/pan your head the camera in the plane moves the same.

Another great video:


My FPV Movie from Crash9 on Vimeo.

Click on image for larger version. This is very interesting to me. It's more energy efficient to take a bus than to walk (assuming the bus is at full capacity of course)! Looks like riding a bike is the way to go. Also, an SUV can be more efficient than a hybrid if it's full. Makes sense.

This is one of the more unique animals I've heard of in a while:

The barreleye, first discovered in 1939, has a see-through head and tubular eyes. On Monday, scientists said its eyes rotate and allow the fish to look upward through its transparent head. The barreleye is adapted for life in a deep-sea environment where there's no sunlight.

Hundreds of mushrooms appeared overnight in the bark of the nearby park.

Peanut butter, chocolate chips, peanut butter cups, peanut butter
chips, cocoa powder, ...

My cousin Alex playing the drums.

Jace and I created a cake today from scratch. Orange juice cake with
orange juice frosting and Nerds on top. It's fun to experiment.

A blog where an artist draws whatever his young daughter wants. She usually hates the results. Very entertaining. I like it when Jace is my art director but he always loves what I draw.

I'll be walking with a group of people from my company to support the National Kidney Foundation on May 9th in San Francisco. Please click here to sponsor me!

Update: turns out I have a wedding to attend on that day/time :( Sorry that I can't do this but feel free to donate to the event.

This phrase was repeated a dozen times on signs at a garden made by
Granada High School students. Go Matadors!

The creek was high in Livermore today.

Today I spent the day with Asha. We went on a 2 hour walk by a creek.
I threw her frisbee across the water dozens of times so she could get
nice and soaked. She also got to ride in a car with her head out the
window for the first time. She's sleeping now.

...and rice and sausage and...

You probably can't tell but they're red. Me and the boys made them.

On Saturday evening my mom and I were headed to San Francisco to see a play. I was talking to my mom about how my brother-in-law would be able to use his auto mechanic skills to help people who are broken down on the side of the freeway now that he is with the CHP. As I was saying those words my car lost power and I had to coast to the side of the road. I couldn't figure out what the problem was so I called a few tow truck companies until one of them came to help. The guy that stepped out of the truck was an old weathered man with a hook in the place of one of his hands. He walked over to look under the hood and quickly noticed something was missing. Sure enough, the mass airflow meter had fallen out of the side of the air intake pipe. He pulled out a roll of duct tape and reattached it and the car started working immediately. It cost $95 but it was worth it and my mom and I actually made it to the play without being too late!

The play was "Not A Genuine Black Man" playing at The Marsh. It's a one-man play by Brian Copeland who gives an account of growing up as one of the only black families in San Leandro in the early 1970's. He tells a very powerful story about the discrimination he faced, how it affected him, and how he was able to make it despite the obstacles.

I drove down to L.A. for a few days to see my friend Luis. It was his birthday and we got to see the Superbowl together and he's a Steelers fan so it was a fun game to watch.

Here are two pictures of the Camera Obscura at the Senior Center in Santa Monica:





Here are some pictures of the pier area of Santa Monica:







Luis practicing in a guitar shop:



A neat water fountain in Pasadena:



A cool old residential building in Pasadena:







I visited the Petersen Auto Museum. It was an incredible place with countless rare and unique vehicles on display. There was a significant amount of detail added to the environments the cars were in to make you feel like you were in the appropriate time period.





The oldest surviving aluminum Airstream:



Some of Steve McQueen's older motorcycles:



A prototype for a vehicle that hovered and had an atomic power source:







The vehicle that Eva Peron rode around in:



One of the oldest surviving UPS trucks:





I love the design of this old bread truck:





This old car is tiny and gets 50 MPG!









An electric vehicle hand built by someone in L.A. in 1897:





Prototype steam car:



Truck that ran on gases made from burning wood:



The central exhibit focused on early campers and travel trailers. Lots of wonderfully imaginative engineering:













A few wonderful hot rods:







This race car looks like it's smiling:















Kruschev's limo:



Herbie:



Green Hornet's car:



Car from Grease:



The villain's car from the movie The Great Race:



That's it! The museum was awesome and it was great to see friends and enjoy the bizarre 84 degree weather in February.