wow.. my blog has been neglected again!  It’s been pretty hectic end of the year.  I will try to fill in -

I volunteer at a local no-kill kitty shelter.   With the open house coming up I wanted to have a photo book ready to sell as a part of the fund raiser.  Unfortunately, the printing didn’t come in on time, but the book was completed with photos of kitties and some of my drawings.

By the way, at the open house, I met Tricia Helfer (most known for her role as No.6 from BSG) who has designated her charity to our organization.

We had a very early flight. The snow had stopped, but the plows were not out yet at 4:30am. Our flight was delayed 2 hours – 1 for crew rest, (they must of had a crazy day yesterday) and another for de-icing the plane.

Our connection was at Dallas Fort Worth, which is a frick’n city in itself. We must have sprinted like mad men for about 10 min. just to get from gate D7 to C2. We made our flight within minutes of shutting the door, but our luggage did not.

We went from 27F snow, to AC in the shuttle bus at Burbank airport. We got home okay, and found our kitty in the corner where we thought was unaccessible. This time, we had our friend come take care of him instead of boarding at a cat hotel.

To our dismay, the tree by our window was chopped ( you call that trimming??!) and the mail was not held despite our hold request. Our luggage did not arrive on the next flight, and we start the waiting game.

As I was just staring out the window, watching the birds feeding on a rainy morning, the rain turned into snow. Once it started to snow, it didn’t take long for the town to turn white.

We had our Thanksgiving dinner at Duncan’s dad’s house. We had a total of 14 family members get together. The spot light was all on Duncan’s great niece Taryn. She is a ball of energy and a adorable kid with all smiles.

The “adults” went to see the Mist after diner. I think it was a social commentary / character study in a monster movie setting. Wasn’t bad, just a cruel ending. Off course we were disturbed by the chatting couple in the theater for all 2 hours. Instead of saying something and getting stabbed or shot, Brandon opted for a refund. Good move.

It was over cast and snowy all day. Just like Rochester is suppose to be like.

There are more bagel stores here than there are starbucks.

We decided to check out the Memorial art gallery . Duncan had taken me there back when we were still dating, but I was a narrow visioned pure Engineer and don’t remember much. I definitely appriciated it alot more this time. They have a very impressive collection including Monet, Gerome, Bouguereau, and one of my favorites Sorolla! This is the first time I saw his originals.

Met up with a bunch of old friends at the usual hang out called the otter lodge. Our volleyball buddies, Duncan’s high school buddies, old friends.. most have turned into family man and they all flipped out their kids photos. We flipped out our kitty photo.. life goes on. I wonder how our life would have turned out if we never moved out to LA. The bar was VERY crowded.

Brian cooked us apple pancakes for breakfast.  We took the local route 5/20 back to Rochester. Along the way, we passed small towns along the Finger Lakes. One of them – Seneca Falls, had a really nice row of historical homes.

all theses small towns, factories, farmscapes, and the canal were attractive to me.

Back in Rochester, time seemed to run slower. We went to Duncan’s comic store, had lunch, went shopping from one end of the town to the other, and it was still 3pm.

At night, we went to see Darjeeling Limited at the Little theater. It’s an independent house kinda like the Laemle out here in LA.

After a yummy breakfast at the Inn, we headed out to Kingston. The Roundout creek runs through it, and the historical area along side it had cool buildings, tug boats, and a trolley museum.

We got lost after that which put us on a route with nice farm scape and towns full of Hudson valley atmosphere. We drove past an old house that looked like something right out of a Tim Burton movie.

Speaking of which, the real sleepy hollow is only about 20 miles south from here.
We got back on track and crossed the Hudson river on Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge (rt199) and then up along route 9G. Although most places were closed on Monday, we made several stops at historical landmarks

Clermont

view of Hudson river and the shore across

9G is a really nice scenic drive.

Olana is home to Frederic Church who is a famous Hudson River school painter along with Thomas Cole.

His house is situated on top of the highest hill in the area where you have a 360 view of the valley.

www.hudsonvalley.org
www.hudsonrivervalley.com
www.thomascole.org

It is such an inspiring place to paint, and I wish we had time for me to paint, but we were en route back to the western NY. We crossed the river once more on Rip Van Winkle bridge and headed back west.

After Albany, I90 basically runs along the Erie canal. We saw small factory towns and old locks along the way.

Tonight, we stay at Duncan’s high school friend’s house. He has a house right on one of the finger lakes.

I REALLY miss the New England/NY area.

A nice hike along a active stream with several falls along the way took us to Platteclove/seven falls.

At the end of the trail, we come to this water hole in a cave like setting.

In the afternoon, we drove out to the Berkshires. We met up with my college friend at Stockbridge which is where Norman Rockwell museum is. This was a great museum with lots of Rockwell originals. They also had a special exhibit on art of contemporary graphic novels.

Kathy is one of the very few friends I still keep on touch with from college. we had a fun night catching up, talking about the good ol times at WPI, gossiping about the other people we knew. After all these years, I don’t think we changed at all.

We went to breakfast at Jines with Duncan’s mom. Jines sits on a prime corner spot on Park Ave. This is the area we used to live in, and Park ave seemed to keep it’s vive with cool stores and restaurants.

We headed out east on I90 – destination Woodstock in the Catskills. The plan is to meet up with my sister’s family who will be driving up from NJ.
I90 cuts through NY state E-W. Syracuse was covered in snow, but the rest of the way was dry.

This is western NY state. At Albany, we headed down south on I87. To our surprise, the fall colors were still there. I later found out that the delayed fall foliage is due to rising level of carbon dioxide.
We stayed at woodstock inn which sits on a gorgeous stream.

My sister was there already, and her son is cuter than ever. I saw him 2 month ago in Japan, but looked suspiciously at us at first.

The colors were gorgeous. The town of Woodstock is lined with cute stores and restaurants. There were some remnant of hippie-ism, but mostly yuppies from NYC on a weekend getaway.

we are off to NY for Thanksgiving.

another dev. done for Halloween

belated post for Halloween -

first of all, I can’t believe it’s November already.. and further more that it’s still damn hot!

Today, we went to Fullerton to see the Leyendecker show. Amazing works. Wall full of originals from the Saturday Evening Posts and various ads such as Kellogs kids and men’s suits. So very inspired. I thought it was ironic that the show was called America’s “other” illustrator.
After a nice lunch at rutabegorz.com we continued on down to Santa Ana. At grand central art center we saw Basil Wolverton show. Duncan was heavily influenced by this underground comic artist. I got a sneak peak at the birds show in the next gallery room.

links related :

http://www.artstartdesigns.com/bird/birdbook.html

http://grandcentralartcenter.com/index.php

http://grandcentralartcenterblog.blogspot.com/

Apart from the exhibits, I really liked this whole Santa Ana artist village area.  Lots of historical buildings were converted to studios and galleries, preserving a nice inspiring atmosphere and space.  (Website at http://www.aplaceforart.org/)  The So. County gas Co. building, grand central art building, the plaza, just to name a few.

We wrapped up the day with coffee at Gypsy den – a great space with high ceilings, tall windows an curtains, and walls full of frames art.