Dr. StrangeClothes

Oishi…

Or delicious for you non-Japanese speakers.

Natalie showed me whats up with last nights dinner:
Stuffed chicken.
Fried Eggplant.
Mozzarella and tomato salad.

It was so good I felt I needed to let everyone know. The cell phone photo does not do it justice.

And yes my wine charm is a pair of handcuffs

Don’t Call It A Comeback…

Call it a resurrection!

Teddy Ruxpin is back, and in a big way. COSTCO is selling the bears now. I remember this toy from many many years ago. If my memory serves me right he has a tape player in his back and talks to the tape sounds.

Needless to say, I thought this guy was dead and gone. But I guess he is back. I hope its been updated for this century and catches on again.

Chuck and his nuts…

First let me start by saying yes, I know its a crime to open other peoples mail BUT it was addressed to my house with no return address. So…

Today I got a package addressed to “Chuck Hoback” with my house address on it. I searched it for some clue of where to send it back to. Nothing. At last I opened it.

Inside I found a bright yellow T-shirt that says “I heart Chuck’s Nuts” and a note saying:

Chuck-
I saw this shirt and thought of you! Naturally!
I’ve been trying to call but I always get a busy signal???
Hope I make it out to S.D. this year so we can hang.
I miss you!
Heart- Ana

Hmm, I wonder who Chuck is and for that matter who Ana from NM is? I wonder if Chuck and Ana will ever retouch? I wonder if Chuck really does love his nuts? I wonder if I will order some nuts from Chuck’s Nuts now? So much to ponder on this random weird discovery.

Camp Red Cloud Mine

7 bumpy dirt road miles from the 10.

Found a old rusted out car.

I tried to take the bumper off… No luck.

Hiking to another wreck.

She guards that chair really well.

Tri-tip, Biscuits, Corn and grilled Tomatoes on an open fire make a fine meal.

First set of ruins we found, taken from atop a mountain we climbed.

Chimney for cookin ruins.

100 year old pick ax head I found.

Lex and Natalie did a little rock climbing…

…But just found a cave to hide from the sun in.

Family Photo.

You could actually see the San Andreas Fault.

Lex the tanker, taken at the 4* General Patton Museum.

Last Weekend…

It was quite a whirlwind. We were some busy busy people (and dog).

It started early Saturday morning when I went to a Physical Abilities Test for the Chula Vista Police Department. That consisted of a 1.5 mile run and an obstacle coarse both for time. These were pretty easy considering the O coarse was at the Academy. Pretty much my playground for 6 months.

I came home to Natalie stripping paint off the back doors. If anyone has seen our back doors you know they need some work. Well we are on it.

Saturday continued with Natalie going to volunteer at the San Diego Museum of Art. Lexie and I decided that since the rains the local streams will be high and to hike up Mission Trails to see them. That is when things started to get crazy:

Lex and I started our normal hike except that right off the bat the trail was a stream. As you can see in the photo below we litterally had to walk up a stream to even start the hike. We traversed the stream/river about 25 times in total. It was fun. We would lose the trail, cross the river and find one. Below are some pictures of how much more water there was since the last time we had been there.

Trail goes upstream.

Waterfall: Pre-rain and Post-rain.

Needless to say we (Lexie and I) were exhausted, dirty and wet when we got home.

Sunday started with Church, as every Sunday should. Then we went on adventure 2 for the weekend. Shooting at our good ole spot:

Again below are some pictures of the shoot… And the other parts of the day. Haha. We both started off great as great shots. We shot a bit of handgun then transitioned to the long gun. We spent a lot of time shooting and a deer (Xmas decoration we got on sale). We thought we were horrible shots. Nothing was happening… Then it flew up in the air. So we went to check it out. Turns out we are awesome shots! We had hit it a bunch of times but the .223 round goes so fast that it went right through the deer with out it budging. About this time we got a text message from Will saying he was stuck in the mud. We packed up, drove around the middle of nowhere for a bit and found Will. We pulled him out. That was fun. Then we took him to our spot, so his daughters could fire a few rounds after all that. I took advantage of the situation and fired a few too. I have always wanted to see what it looks like to shoot a gun at night. Now I know.

First shots of the day, Inset: My first 14 shots.

Pulled him right out.

We got drive through Mexican food and headed for home.
We unpacked the truck, ate our food, watched 24 and went to bed!

What a great weekend!

The Book Of Eli…

On MLK Day Natalie and I went to go see “The Book Of Eli“. It was a great movie. We both really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, all I can not really tell you about it with out giving a lot of it away. There is a pretty good twist. I can tell you that its post apocalyptic-ish. It is a bit Mad Max in the good ways. I recommend you check it out.

Your mission, if you choose to accept….

Lee led me on a surprise Anniversary mission this past weekend. I had no idea what we were doing until I read each card that gave me each step in the mission. First, we drove up to his mom’s house to drop of Lexie. Then, we headed to Long Beach, where we walked around The Pike and the shops along the harbor.

Lee tried chocolate covered bacon from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Long Beach Harbor

My next mission card led us to The Varden, a boutique hotel right there in Long Beach. After checking in and resting (and enjoying some cable, which is a luxury we don’t have at home), it was time for me to look at the next card. It led us first to a wine tasting in the hotel lobby, then down to P.F. Changs for dinner! After dinner, on the way back to our hotel, we walked by a Johnny Rockets, which is the restaurant we first got to know each other at. Of course we had to stop to have a milkshake.

The next day was the big surprise. I looked at my mission card, which told me to plug in an address into our gps. The name of the city was Acton, which I had never heard of! I was baffled - I had no idea where we were going. We drove out toward Lancaster, into the mountains in the middle of nowhere. We came upon a sign that said “Shambala”. As we pulled into the dirt parking lot, I realized that we were going to take a tour of an animal sanctuary! This particular sanctuary is for big cats that have been found in people’s closets, at roadside zoos, or given up by people who thought they could keep one as a pet but realized it was too much to handle.
Before we went in, I opened my present - a hiking pack!

At the Shambala, they have 63 big cats, including two of Michael Jackson’s tigers. We got a two hour tour, learning a lot about the animals and where they came from. Some of the stories were pretty sad, but it was great to see that now they have a place to live humanely.

The Shambala was started by Tippi Hedren, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Marne. She came up with the idea for it when she was filming the movie Roar. We were able to get really close to the cats, and one of the highlights for me was hearing the lions roar.

The even have a liger!

Ligers do not occur naturally because there is only one place in the world where lions and tigers could possibly cross paths. So, this liger was a product of the mating of a male lion and a female tiger probably for a private buyer. Ligers are bigger than lions and tigers, but their organs are proportionally small for their bodies. They usually have a shorter life span than lions or tigers. A cat with a tiger for a mother and lion for a father is called a tigon.

Going to the Shambala was a great surprise! The whole mission of the Shambala was to make sure these big cats have a good life and also to get the word out that trying to own a big cat is a bad idea. They should be left in the wild, not only for their own sakes, but ours as well.

Eating a picnic lunch at the Shambala.

He’s Back…

The Mikey Show returns to the airwaves on it’s new home FM 94/9!

A Hiking We Will Go…

Lee and I discovered Mission Trails Regional Park. Well, I guess we didn’t “discover” it, since we’ve been hiking Cowles Mountain for some time. However, we just recently started exploring it. New Years’ Day we drove out there in the afternoon to check it out. We were slightly overwhelmed since we weren’t familiar with the hike options, be we just parked and headed up on a trail. We found out later that it was the “Climber’s Loop” and led up to a place where rock climbers could practice on huge boulders.
The next day, we hiked the “Oak Canyon Trail” with our friend, Will. It was a good time of year to hike this, since there was water in the San Diego River and creeks along the way.

The Moiseves.

Natalie and Lex over a small waterfall.

Will and Lee chilling for a snack.

Dam. We are standing on a dam.