Yesterday was a new kind of adventure for me, the Mrs. and I went on a “field trip” with our daughter and her 5th grade class to Portola Redwoods State Park in La Honda, CA.
The school the wife and daughter teach at is big on what they call “Outdoor Ed.” and they do lots of camping trips and such for all the classes but all that got derailed during the Plague Years (our daughter’s first year of teaching was the year /they/ shut everything down), so this was her first overnight camping trip with a classroom of kids.
We (the Mrs. and I) didn’t go for the overnight – both of us are working today – but more as logistics support. The Mrs. volunteered us to cook dinner for the troops, so we headed up the mountain with a ton of food, firewood and all the accouterments to throw down a nice dinner. And of course S’mores! What camping trip with kids would be complete without those?!?
As you might imagine, this wasn’t exactly a quiet, peaceful trip to the woods – not with roughly 20 5th grade kids running amok, some for the first time in the woods.
You can hear the wild 5th grade varmints in the background, swimming in the creek and having a blast!
Nonetheless, the park is beautiful, and the drive in was spectacular. The kids were happy and our kid managed to make the trip a success for her kids, so mission accomplished!
Some babies sprouting up…Our great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren will still be watching these beasts grow!
I’ve spent more time in the woods in 2024 than in the past decade and it is doing me a WORLD of good. I highly recommend it, ESPECIALLY if, like me, you spend most of your time glued to a desk and/or computer screen!
Thankfully my new job gets me a ton of outside time now, and that’s been great. But making a conscious effort to embrace the outdoor world as well as making it part of our fitness routine, has been life changing.
Spring is in the air, summer is right around the corner, get out there and hug a tree! Watch some birds. Laugh at squirrels gettin’ squirrely! Your body and soul will thank you!!
Thanks for stopping by!
The creek is still running, a rarity for late Spring in California!!
My new job is VERY different from my old one, although there are a great many similarities. In an odd way, it was the skills I learned as a youth and young man working in “the Trades” that got me several Director titles, but the higher I went up the ladder, the further away I got from the very things that put me there in the first place!
When I took my first facility manager job, back in the late 90’s, the entire crew was me. Sure, I had HVAC contractors and electricians come in from time to time for big jobs, but the day to day work was very hands-on. Plumbing, electrical, carpentry, drywall and painting, roof repairs, data systems – you name it, I did it. From there, every new place I worked had an in-house crew for me to manage and while I still did some actual hands-on “real” work, my time was spent more and more on accounting and payroll, HR issues, ordering materials, dealing with bureaucrats from all levels of government, permits and performance reviews… blah, blah, blah. I had no ambition, desire or frankly, talent for any of that stuff. No love for it, certainly. At my last job, I don’t think I picked up a tool more than once or twice in 6 YEARS!!
Now it’s a whole new world for me and I found that I had to re-gear. My new role is a big mix – I still “manage” and I do a lot of customer service type stuff – meeting with clients, working with the sales people and such, but I also get to be hands-on again, which has been fun. I’m not actually building, but I’m the guy to go in “after the fact” and take care of the little detail things that may have been missed during construction.
The tools are basic, BUT since I’m going into high end, finished homes, I need to be neat, organized and clean. At the same time, I need to be very mobile, and more-or-less self contained. And still be able to carry my laptop and some hard-copy files with me… An unusual situation for me!
This was the only tool bag I found that had a laptop sleeve in it, decent reviews and didn’t (completely) break the bank. I’ll run it for a few months to check it’s performance and do a product review down the road if warranted.
First, I did a necessary mod to the bag. I do this with just about everything – I don’t believe I was born to be a billboard… If companies started making QUALITY products with NO visible labels, I’d be a customer for life, but I digress…
Now that the bag was ready, I needed to get my tools easily identifiable, since I work with a dozen tradesmen and things tend to disappear in those type of environments. Not that they’re dishonest, tools just have a way of getting mixed up and disappearing on job sites – ask me how I know! I used to engrave my initials on all my tools, but this is hard to see from across the room, or if something gets dropped into the bottom of the wrong tool box…
Once the paint dried, it was time to get loaded up! The paint isn’t pretty, it’s for positive ID purposes only. I just made sure to mask off all moving parts and anything that might mar a finish if it rubbed up against something.
Those are gonna be hard to miss!
Now, as an aside, this here would make a pretty good “homeowners” tool kit. Nothing fancy or complicated or expensive. A few of these items I had lying around (and if I’m being honest, I could have filled out this entire kit from what I already had, but I didn’t want to spend half a day digging through my ministorage unit to find it all!) and there are a few items not yet in the bag (battery drill and bits and a few other odds & ends) but what you see in the pic will take care of the vast majority of “simple fixes” around the house and excluding the bag, I don’t think I spent more than $200… And honestly, I probably won’t use more than 50% of the contents the majority of the time. I believe in being prepared, but I also don’t want to lug 40 pounds of unnecessary tools around with me all day, so I may scale this back once I get into the swing of things.
In my old life I was used to having a large toolbox at my side or a fully loaded van and a massive tool bag of specialty tools for whatever trade I was in at the time, so this is a little weird to me!
But in this new life, I think this is gonna be just what I needed!
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself…
Now I just need to figure out the whole “mobile office” thing… While I never liked being “tied to a desk”, not having one at all (or power or wifi or the usual accouterments of office life) is another challenge in and of itself!
The Mrs. and I turned lemons into lemonade today when we couldn’t take our planned camping trip.
We hit Hwy 17 to Felton, CA and took a trip to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Only 40 minutes away from home, yet it’s like stepping into another world. Stunning, just stunning.
The pics do it no justice!
The feel of the air in the Redwood Grove just feels different. You can breath better in there, I swear. You can feel it in your lungs, on your skin… It smells better. It smells like the real world in there. Pictures can do it no justice, and neither do my meager words.
We hiked around a bit, it was by no means a strenuous, adrenaline inducing hike. We walked around 2 miles through these magnificent, ancient trees and then parked it for a while on a little bench and just ABSORBED the atmosphere. Not to sound like some dirty hippie, but places like that are just transformative to me.
After our time in the woods, we continued south to Santa Cruz, our old stompin’ grounds. We had a nice lunch at Ideal Bar & Grill, right between the Boardwalk and the Santa Cruz Wharf. Don’t let the tourist trap location fool you, the food is fantastic there. Not terribly expensive, especially considering it’s right on the beach. AND you get to watch a nonstop parade of weirdos strolling by while you dine! What’s not to love?!?
After a slow, leisurely lunch, we took a stroll down the Wharf. We dipped into Marini’s to satisfy the Mrs’ sweet tooth after lunch which is always nice. This candyshop has been there since 1915 and is always fun to visit. I’ve only been going there since about 1972, but it never disappoints!
Below are some other fun sights from the Wharf…
This one is for my buddy Dio!
The famous Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
Sure, it’s no campout, but it’s been a great day and it sure beat hanging around the house watching movies or some such.
So glad Spring is upon us and the outdoors are inviting once again!
Today we were SUPPOSED to be heading out on a weekend camping trip, however the roads to our campsite were wiped out during the last “unusual” rain storm out here in California.
Disappointed? Yes. But since the Mrs. and I had already scheduled a day off, we decided to keep it and just roll with it… Who doesn’t appreciate a 3-day weekend?
We’re just gonna bop around and see where the winds lead us.
First weekend after the new job and it was a lot of fun, if short!
As mentioned in my previous post, we started off the weekend Friday night in San Francisco with the #CandlelightConcerts which was a great start!
Saturday we (the Mrs., the Kids and I) made our way to Downtown Los Gatos for their annual Wine Walk, which was much nicer than last year. Primarily because it was less crowded and the missing patrons seemed to be from the douchebag and party tramp camps, so it was much more subdued and easy going, with perfect weather to boot! We finished up our walk at a nice Asian noodle place on Santa Cruz Ave. I can’t recall the name off-hand, but it was delicious and we’ll certainly be back for more!
After we and the Kids parted ways, the Mrs. and I had a “date night” and went to the foot spa for a little relaxation. After all the miles I put on my feet during the week, this was a welcome respite! Once sufficiently relaxed, we stopped off at the ice cream shop by our house and indulged is some hot fudge sundaes! It was a darn near perfect day!
Sunday morning I went and picked up my Pops and we went down to Kelly Park in San Jose for the annual VW show. My parents had the first VW I ever rode in (and would later drive) and a love for VWs is something my Pops and I have shared for decades. Between us I believe we’ve owned 7 VWs over the years, just really great cars since forever!And I’m not sure I won’t own one again!
After the car show, I had to make a run to Felton, up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and ordinarily on a Sunday the traffic over the hill would be treacherous, but I somehow lucked out and zipped over there in about half an hour, again in perfect Spring weather! If you’ve never been through the Santa Cruz Mountains, I HIGHLY recommend it. It is truly gorgeous out there!
Once I got back from the Felton errand, our daughter came over and we had a pizza and watched a really bizarr-o documentary.
And just like that – poof – the weekend was over!
Then I got to come back to beautiful Portola Valley to a great job!
Last night we had a new experience. The Mrs. found out about this thing called “Candlelight Concerts” and got tickets for us and the kids to attend “A Tribute to Queen” in San Francisco.
I kept asking her questions about it and she didn’t know really anything about the event other than music in a candlelit setting. I asked, “where did you find out about this?” and her reply was “I dunno, on the interwebz somewhere?!?” So we went in totally blind, but it turned out to be a really cool experience!
The event wasn’t in a musical venue, in fact it was in some weird art gallery on Market Street, the “International Art Museum of America”.
Long story short, it was just what they said it was, a concert by candlelight. Maybe 100 or so people in the audience. A string quartet played essentially Queen’s greatest hits along with a few classical pieces thrown in for good measure. It was pretty mesmerizing. The arrangements of Queen’s songs for the quartet (2 violins, a viola and cello) were outstanding and the musicians were top notch.
I don’t think I’ve ever ventured outside “rock concerts” on this blog, but I am actually more musically diverse than you might think… I’ve seen a number of symphony performances, some opera (which honestly was for the Mrs., it’s not really my thing), a bunch of jazz shows… my tastes run wild and free! But I do absolutely LOVE a string quartet. We even had one play at our wedding nearly 35 years ago. I understand that is a popular thing now, but back then people thought we were weird for doing it! Bottom line, I love music like I love air and water. A talented musician on pretty much any instrument (aside from the accordian and bagpipes) makes my soul sing!
They didn’t allow pictures or video during the performance so I don’t have any to post, but since it was so dark they wouldn’t have come out on my crummy phone camera anyhow…
Overall, I would say it was a GREAT experience and I would certainly do it again. If this sounds interesting to you, go check out https://candlelightexperience.com/ and see if the have an event near you. They claim to have performances in over 100 cities, so you might just find something up your alley in your neck of the woods. I can think of a thousand worse ways to spend an evening!
One last thing I must add… I know I’ve talked a lot of smack about San Francisco in these pages, but I have to say IT HAS BECOME EXPONENTIALLY WORSE over the last few years. Last night was the most disgusting, vile, trip down SF streets yet. We were parked only about 4 blocks from the venue and in those four blocks were were dodging crap on the sidewalks – literally every 50 feet or so – and running a gauntlet of feral “humans”, the likes of which I’ve never seen. I’ve been disgusted many a time in San Francisco, but this was the first time I felt both disgusted AND unsafe. It is really a tragedy of “progressive policies” and those policies have turned a once great city into an urban wasteland. But that’s a story for another day…
Anyhow, disgusting human element aside, we really had a great time and I can wholeheartedly recommend #CandlelightConcerts!
Started the new job on Monday and the week has just flown by!
I’ve been loving it so far and I expect that this is gonna be a good gig for me, at least for the foreseeable future. Yes, I did take a pay cut for this job but the lack of stress more than makes up for it. If nothing else it will force me back into my frugal ways, which is long overdue. Having more than enough pocket money changes a guy, and not necessarily for the better! Probably a few less shows and long weekend trips in the coming year, but that is a price I’m willing to pay to stay out of the meat grinder!! Can you put a price on mental health?!?
In an odd turn of events, I’m back working at a site where I spent 5 years as the facilities Director, and it was the worst job I’ve ever had. Well, maybe second worst as I spent a couple years as a roofer some 25+ years ago, but I digress…
This place was TERRIBLE to be an employee of, but working for a contractor here is all good. No stress, no BS, no dealing with the health care regulations and all that entails, it is a night and day difference. And the cherry on top, the reason I stuck it out here for 5 years, is this place is GORGEOUS! 44 acres of beautiful scenery, wildlife EVERYWHERE. It is truly a spectacular place to spend your day and I feel beyond fortunate to have a landed a gig that puts me back here!
A couple of the residents.
Looking ahead at the schedule, it looks like I’ll be here through July at least, but according to the boss, they keep throwing new projects at him every time one finishes up, so I could be here for a long haul. Let’s hope!!
The lawn mowers!
Aside from the distinct lack of stress, I’m getting a good “workout” at work, which is a nice fringe benefit. The first day I clocked over 7 miles of walking, and the “easiest” physical day put me at just over 4 miles walked. Not too shabby! Five to six miles appears to be the average. Plus some lifting here and there, pushing some material carts around and such, it’s been good for the body, no doubt! And I’ve been sleeping like a baby. Better sleep than I’ve had in well over a decade! I haven’t woken up at 3am in a panic all week, which is a welcome change of pace, as it was happening at least 3 times a week at the old job…
Life can be strange sometimes. Two weeks ago I was overwhelmed by a sense of certain doom, and now here I am happier than I’ve been in I don’t know how long.
I guess it’s true, sometimes a change will do ya good! Even when that change is thrust upon you…
So, I found myself out of a job this week… Unexpected, and yet I’ve felt under the microscope for the last several months. Regardless of how much I did, regardless of the extra hours put in, nothing was ever good enough for TPTB. “So, you only completed 99 things today? What about that 100th thing?!?”
Word to the wise, if you want to keep your job, don’t tell the boss he’s being ridiculous when he’s being ridiculous. The ONLY thing coming from that is a nice big target in your back…
So this week I’ve been through all kinds of emotional crap, from bitterness to hostility, fear, self doubt…depression. It’s been a rough week to say the least.
To make matters worse, the Mrs. and our daughter have been on a Girl’s Trip all week, hundreds of miles and a few time zones away, so I’ve been left to my own devices and the voices in my head all week. Considering I’m my own harshest critic and my own worst enemy, this hasn’t been a good place to be. To say the least. I haven’t slept much or eaten much, but I DID completely avoid “the bottle” 100%. Now, I’m not much of a drinker – generally less than once a month, but dang! My old friend Mr. Jack Daniels has been calling to me repeatedly, especially in the dark of night when I couldn’t sleep.
Truth be told, I mostly hated my job. I was already looking around and putting out feelers, nonetheless getting sacked was a major shocker. I took my first “real” job (schedules and paycheck job) at 15 years old and I’m now 55 and I’ve NEVER been “fired” before. Still, I wanted it to be MY choice to leave that pressure cooker, not have it thrust upon me. I’ve been in essentially the same job, just at 3 different facilities, for 17 years and I’m BURNED. OUT. It wasn’t a career choice, it was something I fell ass-backward into all those years ago. And while I’ve learned a TON over the years, I have gained no satisfaction from it and in a way wished I’d never gotten into this line of work in the first place. I never had any love for it. No paycheck is worth the constant, unending stress my job entailed, I was just too scared to try something new – even when it was strongly suggested by my Doctor due to stress induced health issues. Yeah, that’s right. Rather than find a new career, I just stopped going to the doctor for about 8 years!
But now the choice was made for me. And all the fear aside, I’m actually relieved in a weird way.
But then, something amazing happened. I landed a new job! I start on MONDAY! The beauty of it is that the new gig is essentially doing the ONLY part of my old job(s) that I DID like! And NONE of the crap that I loathed! No more dealing with HR issues, no more accounting reports, no more dealing with City, State and Federal regulations and all that entails, no more corporate bullcrap. I almost can’t believe it! It sounds too good to be true, but it’s a company I have a long relationship with, I know the owners and they do outstanding work that I know I’ll be proud to be part of. They basically created a new position for me because they desperately need help and they know what I’m capable of. I gotta say, that feels pretty good.
So wish me luck! Things will probably be a little quiet on the ol’ blog while I get my bearings, but never fear, I’ll be back! Hopefully, better than ever now that I won’t be on-call 24/7/365 while trying to stave off an ulcer!
And the cherry on top is that the Mrs. comes home tonight!! Oh, how I’ve missed her! Six days apart is a LONG time when you’ve been with someone for 35 years!
Have a great weekend y’all. Thanks for stopping by!
Not gonna lie, last week was rough. Ugly in fact. But Sunday was a beautiful day and we made our way up north to Filoli Botanical Gardens for the Spring bloom.
The Mrs., being Dutch, has a soft spot for Tulips and this was the prefect time to catch the tulips (and Daffodils) in their prime.
Filoli is a spectacular garden, just gorgeous from one end to the other. I’ve been to a number of gardens such at this, but I’ve never seen anyone do it better.
Not much else to say other than Hooray for Spring!! I’ll let the pictures to the talking from here on out…
Most of the best times of my early years were spent in the woods. Camping and backpacking treks were where I found myself, where I felt most at ease and at “home”. Then in my late teens I traded that all in for band practices, night clubs and recording studios. A stark contrast, I assure you.
I managed to get back out there every now and again but nothing like when I was young and gung-ho about it. Then came marriage and a young’en, getting involved in her school stuff, coaching soccer, trying to establish a career… All the adult stuff that nobody warns you about. And my time in the woods became a distant memory.
I’d been grousing over the last few years to the Mrs., that we needed to go camping “one of these days” and I even started gearing up for it since right before “the Plague” hit, but still we never made it out.
Well, finally, FINALLY it happened! As a Christmas gift, the Mrs. made arrangements for a stay in Big Sur, one of my favorite places in California.
A lot of people talk crap about California and Californians (and rightfully so, in most regards), but we have some AWESOME wilderness out here folks.
A perfect little waterfall 10 feet from our tent!
Now, full disclosure, this was more “glamping” than camping. Our accommodations was an “outfitters” tent, about 10′ x 12′, on a wooden deck, with a 10′ x 10′ porch with an awning. We had some minimal power and running water, and most exciting for these old bones, an actual bed! Super swanky digs for out in the woods, let me tell ya!
The sweet life right here!
Otherwise, it was like an actual “car camping” excursion. We brought in our food, cooked over wood fires, and just chilled out in the woods next to a quickly moving creek with a couple nice falls. It was HEAVEN!
Our time there was short, just Saturday afternoon through late Monday morning, but we ate like royalty, slept like babies and had the most relaxing 48ish hours we’ve had in a long, long time. It was absolutely glorious.
Our living room and kitchen…
While I fully comprehend that this was not a “real” campout, it was an awesome way to dip our toes back into the outdoors without sending ourselves into shock. And it was a great shakeout run to prep us for an actual real camping trip we have scheduled with the kids at the end of April. We did pretty great staying comfortable and well fed, but we learned a few lessons too that will make the next trip even better!
Now that I’ve gotten a taste for it again, I hope this becomes a regular part of our adventures, as I haven’t felt this good in years!
Special thanks to the Mrs. for getting outside her comfort zone and planning a trip that made this Boring Old Man feel like a kid again!
The Boring Old Man 