Recall hiking Coarsegold Canyon?

Two years ago today we hiked Coarsegold Canyon in the Angeles National Forest and found a 12-million year-old fossil!

All those millions of years ago, that part of California was a lush delta flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Then a volcano blew, burying the area in ash. The fossil we found (and I still have it!) is of a leaf that was covered in that ash, called volcanic tuff.

You helped me dig through some of the white chalky tuff and then took a break to enjoy some freeze-dried ice cream I brought. See the picture on this page!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our expedition!

Recall going to the beach in Ventura?

One year ago today we went to one of your favorite places - the beach in Ventura!

Your sand toys were packed away in a storage shed, so we went to the Target in Ventura and picked up some new ones. There was the standard bucket and a couple of shovels but also a plastic truck and airplane.

Then we stopped off at the Busy Bee Cafe to enjoy a fun lunch of burgers and fries. It's a 1950s-styled diner in downtown Ventura that has been around since 1963, which was the height of the surf craze in Southern California.

From there, it was off to the beach! We played in the sand, on the playground, and even stepped into the ocean water just a little bit. It was a beautiful day with temps in the mid-70s! It was a beautfiul day because I got to spend it with you!

Here's a whole bunch of photos from our day at the beach.

Bubble time on our get-together

I had so much fun playing bubbles with you this past weekend! You made some really cool-looking ones, as the photo to the right attests.

You've always like making bubbles (Well, who doesn't unless you're a moldy grump?). When you were a baby, I'd make them for you, and you'd try to swat them.

Later, when you were three or so, I purchased a "bubble gun" for you - it was like a squirt gun, except you hooked a bottle of bubble solution to it, and when you pulled the trigger it blew out bubbles!

Here's a few photos from "bubble time"!

My email to you sent on March 2, 2013

Here’s a copy of weekly email sent to you on March 2, 2013, in case you don’t receive it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing today? I’m doing fine, though I miss you like crazy! I had so much fun with you get together you could bring the Batman puzzle that was in it, and we could make it together. I’m also glad you enjoyed the candy. Grandma wasn’t feeling well on Friday, so she didn’t have a chance to make her Easter cupcakes for you, but she promised to do so for the next time we get together, which is in four weeks on March 29.

I’m also very happy that you liked the dragon Hot Wheels set and the cool cars to play with it. That was neat how the cars would go down the ramp on only one set of wheels where the dragon had “bitten out” the roadway! I shall have to look at the toy store for a race track like the center has.

What adventures are you taking your toy archer and ninja on today? I bet they will battle a very dangerous dragon. Make sure to feed the dragon whole wheat so that it can’t breathe fire – then you’ll be able to capture it for the zoo!

This week may be the last you’ll be able to make snowmen this winter. The weather is supposed to get very warm this week – warm enough to make the snow melt. When spring and the snow melt came while I was in school and about your age (well, a little older), we used to make dams out of the runoff and the remaining snow. Here’s a newspaper column I once wrote about it.

Making the eggs in school with the balloons and plaster of Paris sounds like fun. Do you next get to paint the eggs?

Have you read any good books lately? I have. I recently read “Bunny’s Easter Egg” by Anne Mortimer. It’s about a bunny rabbit who looks a lot like your new stuffie, Soccer. After a long night of hiding Easter eggs, the bunny rabbit can’t find a comfortable place to sleep. Will Bunny be able to go to sleep? You’ll have to find out be reading the book. I bet it’s in your school or city library.

Before I go, I just want you to know that I have not received your emails for the past eight weeks or your report card (via email or by giving me a copy on Friday as requested in last week’s email). Please have your mother resend your emails and your report card.

I love and miss you very much! I look forward to reading all of your resent emails, as well as your response to this one, and to seeing you again no later than March 29.

Love,

Dad

 

Advice on goals and adventures

I read a great quotation today from the famous American author Mark Twain: "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover."

I found this to be so true, Kieran! As I look back upon the places I've been, the accomplishments I've had, and the adventures I've gone on, I don't do so with any disappointment, even if I did not necessarily achieve what I wanted to there and with the people I knew at that time. I learned from such experiences, and given what I knew at the time and the skills I possessed then, I did the best I could.

If I am disappointed at all, it is that I have not yet been to some places, that I have not yet achieved certain goals, that I have yet to experience various adventures. There are many great places yet to see in life, many wonderful dreams yet to be realized, many fantastic explores yet to be undertaken. There perhaps are more places, goals, and adventures than I have years left to fit them all into!

So live life to your fullest, my son. Never sit back and wait. Once you havebeen somewhere, have achieved a goal, and have completed an adventure, move on to the next one and keep striving - in doing so, you will be thriving.

You won't be disappointed that you did!

My forensics experiences in school

As a preschooler, you always liked to play act and participate in plays whenever we went to theater programs at the library or at any of the many great places we visited (especially Disneyland). That you weren't much afraid of speaking in front of others doesn't surprise me much!

Why? Because when in school I often participated in speaking contests. During high school, I was in debate and took part in a number of FFA and other agricultural speaking contests.

Once I got to college, I competed in intercollegiate forensics. You give speeches in front of others and then judges decide who gave the best one - you or your competitiors. I excelled in speeches that you had to make up on the spot; they were called extemperaneous and impromptu speaking. My college also had an honorary forensics society - Delta Signma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha - of which I was president!

Maybe one day you will go out for forensics or theater, too!

My favorite book about spaceships

You might have gathered from all of the astronaut and space stuff I always purchased for you and all of the cool space and air ports that we visited when together, that I really like spaceships! That's why today I'm sharing with you the cover of one of my favorite books.

It came out in 1977 or so, and I begged my mom to order it for me. It was called "Starlog Spaceships" and had pictures of cool spaceships that appeared in movies and TV shows. It also included a little information about each one.

Why did (do?) I like spaceship so much? Well, I grew up at the time when we were trying to reach the moon, so rockets and spaceships like Gemini and Apollo (and then the space shuttle) always were on television. My favorite TV shows were "Star Trek," "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Planet of the Apes," and they all had spaceships in them (Or did I like the shows because they had spaceships in them?).

One of your favorite books as a toddler was "Spaceman Sam", which was about a little boy who pretended when he got up in the morning that he was in a spaceship! It had all of these wonderful tabs that could be pulled so you could pretend you yourself were running the spaceship just like Spaceman Sam. I still have the book and can't wait to show it to you!