My cousin had a 3 day visit this past weekend. We hadn’t seen each other in 20 years, so it was great to see each other and get to know each other better. Friday we spent a long day exploring LA, Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Venice, including the Walk of Fame and La Brea Tar Pits, the Boardwalk, and more.
Saturday, we got up at 3:30 am, and by 9 am, we were pulling into Yosemite. Visited the giant Redwoods, then went to Glacier Point for the views. Stuart and I …

The Green River, through Desolation and Grey Canyons, is a gorgeous trip, with amazing scenery, camping, and fun rapids. I kayaked it over 6 days this year, and had an amazing time. A great time following in the footsteps of Powell on a spectacular river in one of my favorite areas of the world.

The Middle Fork of the Feather is described in the classic CA paddling guidebook as “This is it! The Middle Fork of the Feather River is the best wilderness self-support trip in California.”  It is one of the original “Wild and Scenic ” designated rivers.  Class V and 3 days.  I’d seen photos, and read other trip reports.  I was excited to give it a go.   Flows looked good, and the plan was Memorial Day weekend.
A few days before, my neuropathy was acting up, making my foot numb, and I …

The East Fork of the Carson flows with the melting snow, and heads east down the Sierra Mtns, into Nevada.  It’s a class II+ run, but moves quickly.  We did a trip a few weeks, with the great folks from Current Adventures (http://currentadventures.com) who do lessons and trips all over northern california.  (full disclosure, I work for CA some).  We tagged along on the trip.  The rapids were fun, the scenery was great, the food was yummy, and the company was wonderful.  Highly recommend trip.

We were going to my friends wedding (congrats Sara and Brett) in Northern California, and met up with our friends Paula and Erol and their gorgeous baby.  We didn’t do much, ate lunch, walked around, had frozen yogurt, and ate crickets.  Pretty mellow.  But super fun.  We miss them and wish they lived closer!
After that, we went to the wedding, which was gorgeous and fun, with several of my MBA classmates present.  Good food and dancing. Sunday we slept in and then went to a car museum.  Amazing cars.  Explored …

Brush Creek, a tributary of the Kern River in CA, is one of the most incredible stretches of whitewater around. It drops about 450 feet per mile, but is suprisingly managble. Lot’s of fun drops in the 5-20 foot range. Big fast slides. It’s just so good it has to be experienced. I did a bunch of runs over a few weekends in May, and even stopped to take some pictures.

When I announced my move back to southern california, more than a few of my outdoorsy friends offered a mix of sympathy and concern.  Los Angeles is famous for many things, but it takes a connoisseur to know about the amazing recreational activities beyond the beach.
For my first full weekend back, my old buddy Greg invited me to go backcountry skiing with he and his lovely girlfriend Marilee.  I gladly accepted, though I rarely ski anymore and it’s been years since I climbed a mountain.  But that was the plan …

We enjoyed an awesome last minute trip to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. Kim got certified to Scuba dive, and we enjoyed diving, snorkeling, caving, eating, and visiting archeological ruins. Another great vacation.

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under …

I think it’s done.  If you find anything weird, please let me know. For many, many years, my (now our) website has evolved and changed, but if you went back to old stories, you’d get little glimpses of old designs. I’d never really done a complete overhaul. I’ve been working on WordPress for a few different projects for a while, and very impressed, so i decided to update this site to run on WordPress. Whew. It turned out to be a big project, especially with some of …