google maps

What's the deal with UPS not being able to find my house? Like i don't have four other roommates that have ordered stuff plenty of times. Like we didn't affix nice bright new numbers to the mailbox. Like any doofus with a computer couldn't view a satellite picture of my house. Those little mischevious fates: discount footwear I ordered does not save me the trip to pick it up after all.

Meanwhile it's lovely when a little annoyance is the only thing standing in your way. I revel in the calm after the storm at work. The calm before the storm is heavy with dread. The calm after the storm is like happy-friday-everything's-gonna-be-alll-riiight time. It reminds me of a song some former cult member friends of mine used to sing:

This whole world is screwed up
And we got no place to go
But I know
It's gonna be all right

Cuz I got my blessed brothers
And I got my beautiful sisters
And everything's
Gonna be all right . . .

Is that even right? Maybe my old friend Buddy is stalking me on the internet and can let me know. That would be kind of delightful in a way.

Arizona, continued

Opportunities abound:

Including the opportunity to see my little brother grow a full moustache and then keep it thoughout the wedding so it would be pictured for the sake of posterity. And of course the chance to see him find a good girl and make a commitment. My sis-in-law is a pretty down-to-earth hip girl. Also, she agrees that an amusing photo opportunity serves as justification for many things. A good match.


These are my nieces, again, as photographed by my older brother, their uncle. They are growing up and will have a little sister in a couple months. It is a cool thing to see my middle brother's family grow and increase. It is also cool to see the photographer of this photo enjoy being an uncle.

We had the chance to view some completely different natural scenes to what we are used to seeing every day in the eastern US. LCD is a big fan of the desert so he was excellent at humoring me when I was trying to identify plants and learn new ones. This photo is from a hike in Sedona among the red rocks. It seems to me that living in Sedona must be like living in a post card. Or a vortex (see post below). It was beautiful indeed.

This may be the real winner as far as natural wonders go. This was from us hiking a mile or so down into the Grand Canyon. It is in-de-scrib-able and it can not be captured in 2-D. But I tried anyway. I thought the foreground rock wall contrasted with the background canyon might give some perspective. If you click on the photo to see the big version you can see the people coming down the switchback, which are my people: My parents, my brother and sweetiepieface raising both arms in exultation. Exultation was called for on this expedition.

Vortex et al

This is my little brother with his new wife as they experience the female energy of a vortex in the spiritual power center that is Sedona, Arizona. As we learned by eavesdropping on the guy giving a tour to one or two people, the female energy in this vortex makes it a place of healing (male vortexes are for strength). I'm not sure whether you can sense anything from just seeing the photo, but according to the guy, your experience in the vortex is determined by how open your heart and mind are.

My batteries were dead on the actual wedding day. My recent trip also afforded all other kinds of great opportunities:

Like this time when my youngest niece began foaming at the mouth after an overfed rabid grand canyon squirrel had been gnawing on her leg.

more to come . . .