March 6th: The drone my brother gave me for Christmas is sort of feeling neglected. It's a nifty toy, but I have to get a lot better with the controls to be able to fly it in crowds without banging into stuff and/or other people. It's been too cold to enjoy practicing outside, but I keep thinking I'll get around to that soon. That white plastic jar in the background is full of coffee grounds and eggshells from Virginia's kitchen. I like to bring them home and then add them to my plot as a soil amendment.

      

Happy Holidays from us!

Dec. 25th: I was surprised to find out my brother gave me a drone for Christmas.

      

November 14th, 2016: Cranksgiving was yesterday. Cranksgiving's a scavenger hunt type game. The idea is to turn in as much food donation to charity as you can carry on your bike. At the beginning they give you a page of places to shop, grocery stores as near as half a mile and as far away as ten miles. It's competitive, with prizes for the winners in categories such as speed, cargo hauling, and other. You could help your score a lot by doing things like doing selfies with sharks fans (25 lbs. food credit on your score). The net effect was a bunch of bicyclists buzzing around the area buying all the pasta, canned chile, and tuna fish. It all turned into a huge volume of stuff in a coffee shop. A great time was had by many. I didn't take many pictures because I was really busy moving forward my teams (Virginia and I) score. That was my big food donation to charity for the holidays. Here is a picture of our bikes taken just before we headed from the last store to the finish line.

Not long before the November 8th election: I'm working on that "How to vote?" question. California has a record 17 voter initiatives. Figuring out how to vote feels like being a legislator. Here is a cheat sheet if you're wondering who cares about what:

So far I'm yes on 59 and 67; no on 65. Yes on V in Mountain View. Jill Stein/Baraka Ajamu (Green Party) at the top of the ticket. Mourning the lack of Greens on the lines of other races and blaming top two for that.

      

October 13th, 2016: I installed this sticker on my beater bike and took the picture while listening to public radio. They said "Bob Dylan just won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature." Yup. I saw him live here in Mountain View. Too bad it was back before I got good with my camera. I'd have taken pictures like I did when the Dixie Chicks came around if I could have. It's still true that Helium is an inert gas.