Happy Birthday Ammy!!!

She can't see this at the moment because she is gone on a road trip. Having a great time I'm hoping and scattering a few Random Pixel cameras as she goes.

And while Ammy and Rick are away Nym and I will play. Kevin is being wonderful and is giving living with my cat a try while Ammy is away. He isn't on any medications yet, but we have over-the-counter Claritin on hand just in case.

Having Nym in the house during the day is really nice. The house doesn't feel as lonely. I should be here a lot this week since I'm really working hard on getting the photography business website up in the next few days. That's a reminder that you need to change your bookmarks over to http://blog.phoenixfeahter.net

In other news, we had a great weekend. Ammy had a birthday party on Friday which was lots of fun. Saturday Kevin and I did stuff around the house, picked up Nym and saw Shrek 2 which, while nothing like the first Shrek was really fun.

Sunday we slept in and then went into the City to meet up with Ali and Mark. We took a walk up to Coit Tower with them and a couple of their friends from high school. Then as their friends headed out on the road we hoofed it all over the city. Seeing the sites and taking pictures.

Throughly exhausted the four of us to BART up to Berkeley where we had Baja Fresh for dinner. With our energy replenished we headed over to see the Dido in concert. The show started late and was a bit short. But it was a great concert. I enjoy singers who tell you about how their lives effect their music.

Later that night, finally home, we collapsed in bed and slept the sleep of those whose feet know the San Francisco hills. So all in all it was a good weekend and I am projecting a good forecast for the week ahead. :)

So this is sort of a notice that my blog is moving. Change your bookmarks to http://blog.phoenixfeather.net

Not a big change, and not going to happen fully right away, but I wanted to give everyone time to make the change.

So what am I going to do with the phoenixfeather.net site? Well I'll tell you. I am in the process of opening a small photography business which is going to take over the main site. I hope to have the new site up and operational by the beginning of June.

In the meantime I will be slowly making the total change over of the blog to blog.phoenixfeather.net. Currently there is a mirror site at that address, so make the change!!

*grin*

Randompixel.com has been getting a lot of attention lately! Its so very cool. Last Wednesday it was listed as one of USA Today's Hot Sites and this week Kevin was interviewed by the San Jose Mercury(Registration may be required) for an article that appeared in the paper yesterday.

Kevin was even sweet enough to mention the Random Pixies: Ammy, Rick and I.

As sampled here, I have added two new wallpapers to the In Pictures side.

I'm also looking for suggestions about which photos you think would make good backgrounds! Thanks

I'm laying on the couch bored right now. Normally I'm really good at entertaining myself, but I'm at a loss right now. So I'm going to ramble a bit.

First off, on a odd thing happened yesterday. I very simply walked to the mailbox, just barely down the complex road. You wouldn't think something odd could happen in that short time span, but it did - it was a douple ganger day and they were stalking me.

My first clue was the caw I heard, I looked for the crow who made it and found not one but two crows so cuddly together they almost looked like a two headed crow. I know what you are saying... silly Rachel, two black birds is no big deal. It was just funny as I just looked down from the birds and found two orange cats having a hissy fit just below. I said odd, not life shattering, work with me here folks.

So then today was a good day. Slow kind of lazy start Kevin and I eventually decided to go on a walk with our cameras. It was a nice walk... we were out for quite a while and took quite a few pictures. We went all along Castro St and circled along down the Central expressway, did some back streets, visited Ranstorff Park and then wandered home.

I LOVE spending the day with Kevin. We have so much fun just randomly wandering and doing whatever. We have our moments (And I'm really sorry I've been a bit stressed and sensitive lately hun!), but it was a wonderful day and its a wonderful life having a partner like him!!!

Oh, so also I/we are really excited! Tomorrow we are getting the new Nikon D70 Digital SLR camera. Really Kevin is getting it, but he is a cool boyfriend and shares. We held it today when we went to pick up some batteries and film for Kevin's current SLR camera. It was so pretty. So we called to check on the status of the one we had ordered, and it doesn't look like we will have it for at least 2 weeks minimum. So we are going back to the store around the corner and picking it up first thing tomorrow. I'm oh so excited.

Anyway, I guess thats all the babble from me for now. I'm sure I'll talk about more important things soon, I have some ideas on the burner.

See ya later kids!

A long long day, but oh so good.

Kevin and I went to Berkeley for the day. He had an eye doctors appointment at 10:30 and we also had a dinner and movie party at Emily's (in Hayward) at 7pm, so it made sense for us to spend the day hanging out in Berkeley. Yay!! Always fun.

So Kevin let them put things in his eyes and when they were done we picked out new glasses for him. He's so very cute in glasses... looks so smart. And then the day really began...

We started with exploring campus. Well, exploring for me, not so much for him since he graduated from Berkeley. There is still a lot that Kevin hasn't shown me, and he is ever so excited about sharing. So we wandered around and took pictures. I was proud of myself as I randomly identified a tree from a picture Kevin had taken years ago. After a while we got hungry and shared a panini sandwich from the Musical Offering restaurant; which was followed by browsing through Hot Topic, walking the Berkeley streets and smiling a lot.

We paused to view and photograph two boys playing metal music on their violin and cello. The boys weren't more than 20 years old and related (they have the same last name). Called Judgement Day; we enjoyed their music as well as the ability to photograph them so we gave a donation and were given a CD in return.

Their music wasn't bad. Technique was a little bit lacking, but their style was good. A lot of potential here and even more important a lot of spirit! I wish them luck.

After that we went to the Berkeley Hat Store. This store is my weakness! While I can rarely justify buying a hat, I do love them ever so much. This time however was not about me. While I had fun trying a few on, there were no hats that called to me. There was a hat that called to Kevin though. Kangaroo leather, squishy and very very cool. We walked some more and enjoyed a beautiful day. I took a bunch of pictures, which will be going up soon!

After Berkeley, we went over to Karen's to say hi, drop off some books, borrow her bike and visit for a bit. We gained a Paul there and soon headed over to Emily's for yummy Chinese food and to watch the Miyazaki movie "Laputa: Castle in the Sky". Dinner was wonderful and this was a great movie, though I had a hard time staying awake at the end. It had been a long day and it was catching up to me (didn't go to bed till almost 2am the night before).

Home at about midnight I happily climbed into bed and passed out; exhausted in body and mind!

Kevin recently blogged about the possible flag burning amendment. I think the conversation about this has been good. However commenting there myself has gotten me thinking again.

I have always been somewhat out of politics. I was a little involved while in High School, however as time went on I got jadded and frustrated. I don't watch the news anymore because its so depressing. I figure if anything important happens, someone will tell me about it. I also have some moral issues with activism. I don't understand it or agree with most of the activist practices. I took a class in grad school called "Art in Activisim" mostly so that maybe I could understand this mindset. I still don't.

I realize that my lack of involvment in government is part of what has contributed to what I see as the current problems. If I'm not informed enough, I won't vote, if I don't vote, I'm not heard and I can't complain.

For the Last month or so, as I have gotten more and more frustrated with this country, and Kevin and I have talked about what it is I can do about it. I'm actually a little proud of myself already. I have already begun taking active steps to be a bit more informed, to understand something about what is going on and to ask more questions about what I don't know.

I just don't think that being informed is enough. I have the time to volunteer, and it would be a good way to meet people in this new place too. I have looked into some of it. Its that moral aversion to activism that seems to always get in my way.

So now I'm brainstorming. What I want to know is: What do you do to be involved in making a difference in this country? Or what is it that you would like to do if you had the time/resources you would need?