Last week Mary got me a new camera body, the Canon EOS 40D, to replace my old Canon EOS 10D. The 10D is still working, but the shutter is starting to stick. The 40D has higher resolution (10.1 mega pixels), faster frame rate (6.5 frames per second) and a larger LCD (3 inch) among other things. It comes with a longer life battery but is compatible with the batteries I already have for the 10D. It also uses the same CompactFlash cards as before and of course is compatible with my EOS lenses.

I haven’t done a lot of shooting with the new camera, but I’m pretty happy so far. I’ve taken it out to my normal haunts like Don Edwards and the “Magic Fence” (where I took the shot of the burrowing owl on the left) and I even brought it along to Mission Peak this past weekend. The resolution improvement is quite obvious and I feel like the focus is a bit faster, though it’s still a challenge to capture sharp images. One of these days I’m going to have to break down and start using a tripod.

I’m still trying to figure out what the next phase of my career is going to look like. I had more or less given up on the green technology field since I just can’t seem to find much that matches my skill set. However, after Al Gore’s speech last week about moving to 100% carbon free energy in 10 years, I’ve become somewhat reinvigorated. I blogged about it on GreenValhalla titled Al Gore’s Challenge to America. I’ve even started getting involved with the We Campaign by writing to elected officials and the local newspaper. I’ve even submitted a form to become a volunteer and applied for a job at the parent organization, The Alliance for Climate Protection. Don’t be surprised if you get an email from me asking you to get involved!

It looks like the “Falcon Season” in downtown San Jose is coming to an end. By this I mean the young falcons are flying well and starting to explore further from City Hall. Soon they will fly off never to return. Mary and I spent a lot of the weekend downtown trying to get in some last views of Mercury, Meyye (pictured on left) and Cielo before they move away. We saw some exciting games of tag between the siblings, and some pretty impressive flying overall. If we get really lucky maybe we’ll get to see a mid-air food transfer or even one of the young falcons on a successful hunt. That would be a great end to the season. In addition to the photos in my gallery, I’ve posted a few videos on YouTube.

In addition to the falcons, we did our usual hike up Mission Peak on Saturday. I think my knee is getting a bit better. It hardly hurt at all coming down and hasn’t been very sore the past couple days. On Sunday we took Mary’s dad out for Father’s Day with her mom and brother. We went to Outback and I had a really good NY Strip. I haven’t been eating much red meat lately, so it seemed especially tasty. Nick went to Boston for the weekend and we picked him up from the airport this evening. We all went out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. As usual, I ate too much.

Every once in a while, I find myself lying awake well into the night thinking about a wide variety of crap and just not falling asleep. This is one of those nights. So rather than lie in bed waiting for Morpheus to take me into the world of slumber, I decided to blog for a while. I’m not sure this will help me sleep, but there’s a very good chance that if someone happens upon this post in a similar state, it should put them right out!

Earth Day is tomorrow. Well, not the “tomorrow” that starts in a couple hours when the sun rises, but the tomorrow after that, namely April 22. As usual, it has crept up on me and I have not made any plans. I suppose there will be some events in the area on Earth Day, and perhaps on the weekend to follow, but I’ll just have to take it as it comes. Maybe when I finish with this blog I’ll search the net for useful stuff to do for Earth Day, though I would prefer to go to sleep.

Even though I haven’t been blogging regularly, I did make a few posts on my green blog. One post was about the California Clean Tech Open 2008 Launch event and the other was a video I ran across from Al Gore: How Dare We Be Optimistic. The video is Mr. Gore’s latest presentation on climate change which runs about 30 minutes.

The San Jose peregrine falcon eggs (from Carlos and Clara on City Hall) haven’t hatched yet. It’s getting to the point where a few people are starting to worry, but I think they’ll pip soon (if they haven’t already). I waited until the last minute to do taxes, but with my recent income record (or lack there of), they were pretty quick to complete. I was also on call for jury duty for the US District Court, even though I had just been on call for Santa Clara County in February. Apparently since I was never called in for the county, I could not get out of the US District Court duty. Fortunately, I wasn’t called in for that either. Of course that just means I’ll get another summons in a month or two.

As advertised, I’m really not saying much of anything here. I guess that’s not so different from any of my other posts. At least I usually try to post a few pictures, but I haven’t uploaded any recently. Oh well, maybe next time. Good night (I hope)!

It sounds like Earth Hour last week was fairly successful. As I understand, some cities had more than double the electricity reduction as they were hoping for. As for Mary and I , we turned out the lights at 8pm sharp. We had a rechargeable battery powered fluorescent lantern, but we just sat and chatted in the dark for about 15 minutes. Eventually we cheated and went out to eat. Hopefully this event managed to raise some awareness that will start to carry over in to every day life.

On Saturday, Mary and I started the day with our usual: I played hoops and Mary went hiking. For lunch we made some chicken with Jamaican jerk marinade. It was pretty good. In the evening we went to an event called The Gospel Zone at a church in downtown San Jose. The event was a combined concert of the Hope of Glory Mass Choir (picture on left) from the Maranatha Christian Center and the Low Ding Zone from the Bay Bells (a handbell ensemble). I have seen the Hope of Glory choir before, and I enjoy them very much. They sing with such power and control. I had never seen a handbell ensemble before, though it is pretty much what you would expect, a group of people ringing bells by hand and playing music together. Low Ding Zone is interesting in that they only play the “big bells” of middle-C and lower (see the picture on the right showing Mary and one of the larger bells). They were interesting, but over-powered by the choir.

On Sunday Mary went for another hike and I did a bit of work. In the afternoon we headed towards downtown for lunch and coffee. In the evening we went to see a professional lacrosse match between the San Jose Stealth and the Portland LumberJax of the National Lacrosse League. I had heard about the Stealth a while ago, but had never been to a game (nor had I been to any lacrosse match before). This league is indoor (the Stealth play at the HP Pavilion). There is also an outdoor league called Major League Lacrosse. The game was pretty entertaining, but in the end the Stealth lost to the Jax 12-10.

It has been a while since I’ve managed to blog. I’m not sure if I’ve been too busy or too lazy. Maybe a little of both. The only real news in the last few weeks was my brother Mark coming out for a visit. He was heading to a sales meeting in Southern California and came out early to spend a few days in the Bay Area. The weather wasn’t the greatest, but we did manage to visit a few places.

One trip was to Ano Nuevo State Park to see the elephant seals. Ano Nuevo is a little north of Santa Cruz. It is one of only three places on the California mainland where elephant seals breed. During the breeding season you can go on docent led walks out to the breeding area to see the big bulls, mothers and pups. There were hundreds of seals on the beach when we were there, but only a few pups so far. Unfortunately it was quite foggy, so visibility was limited. For more pictures, see my Ano Nuevo gallery.

Some of the other places we visited include: Stanford University, Santa Cruz, Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks (at night) and Point Reyes.

Other than that, Mary and I spend much of our weekends sleuthing for peregrines. There are quite a few peregrines popping up in the South Bay these days. A few have been spotted in the San Jose downtown area, including Clara (pictured on right), last year’s nesting female, as well as at least two different males, known as Carlos and Salvador. Jose, last year’s male, has not been seen since he left town last summer. We often see peregrines in and around Don Edwards NWR, including a juvenile. Other notable falcons in the area are Taylor and Montie.