The busiest beach in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

with just enough room for me, a long piece of bamboo and a mystery photographer.

I just got back from a six-day "mini-moon"; more photos to come.

a picture for you

I'm not quite sure what this is about, but thought I'd share.

Things here are moving on... slowly. Went to see the immigration
attorney today and it looks like I might have conditional residency
before the end of 2008, which would be nice. Work is busy, my
promotion will make it more so, but in a good way.

Test

Some dude taking a photo of a tree.

Just back from a Thanksgiving in Fort Collins, where I took some photos of Terry Lake in Winter. Compare with photos of Terry Lake in Winter from a snowless last year.

Also have finally gotten around to replacing some framed photos in the dining room. I put up these ones from the Mission:

I've been busy on Facebook too.

My traveling pleasure! Imagine that.

Two sets of photos today (and finally). Been more busy on facebook than on here, and trying to figure out how to link the two. Anyway, in the meantime have a look at these from Bernal on Friday---crazy crane!

and these from the Mission on Saturday:

Today I got an extra hour to play with, at the expense of it getting dark at 5.30pm. I'll sacrifice the hour, thanks. Dark afternoons suck.

The photos from the wedding have begun to trickle in. Here's one of the microphone which Jackie snapped, with some couple getting hitched in the background.

So can you believe I actually made this? Starting from four crusty scraps of platinum? I melted and sanded and milled and annealed and milled and annealed and milled and milled and milled and milled and cut and filed and bent and tensioned and soldered and burred and ground and sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded and pre-polished and washed and polished and washed. It took five hours. It was great. Five days to go!

In other news, I took this down the road the other day.

Snapped this one driving around Sonoma, between Iron Horse and Healdsburg:

Not long now; per the wedsite...

Ten days to go, I guess, as of a minute ago. This last weekend we had a most gorgeous visitor to our house, and I got this photo:

There've been some pretty clouds over the last few weeks. We get really amazing clouds here sometimes... and now I think about it, an incredible variety.

Today it rained for the first time in, gosh, probably at least four months. It smells fantastic outside. First rain of the season seems early this year; I distinctly remember that last year the first autumn rain I saw at Google was on October 18th (it was the day that Sue left).

Everything's changing. Seasons, time, marital status, the global climate, my age, me.

It was a busy weekend. On Friday we went to see Guster in San Francisco:

On Saturday we met our minister to go over our wedding vows. On Sunday we picked grapes

and then went to Barndiva to choose food, sample cocktails and finalize the flower selection. Less than a month to go...

This one's from a few weeks ago up in Timber Cove. There sure were a lot of stars there.

Heading up to Healdsburg again today for final wedding preparations. Getting close now...

Last one from Vegas for a while. It was strange that they introduced the rule about only red cars being allowed. You get used to it after a while, though.

The look on this bloke's face makes me feel a bit odd about the "Ultimate Lobster Experience". Another one from Vegas:

Here's another one from Vegas. Come on, FATBURGER? Seriously?

Here's one I took a couple of weeks ago on our trip to Vegas.

At the Mandalay Bay we stayed in the largest hotel room I've ever stayed in (it reminded me of the one in Pretty Woman) but I still think that overall I prefer the MGM Grand despite its lack of an inland beach.

Isaac fun fact: did you know that there are more hotel rooms at the intersection of Tropicana Ave and The Strip in Las Vegas than there are in the whole of the City of San Francisco?

How's about them skies, ladies and gentlemen?

I'm becoming a huge fan of Twitter even though I can't seem to drum up the same enthusiasm in anyone else I know. Anyway, you can follow what I'm up to at http://twitter.com/isaach.

Taken a few blocks down the road on Harrison. Presumably the extra minute is for the new day's shift to get into position in order to leap out at your parked car.

Here's another pic from the Mission. Does this not look like an idyllic sixties scene? Am I just imagining that?

This last weekend Wendy and I "got away from it all" at the Timber Cove Inn up north. Little did I know when we went that included in "all" was the internet, cell phone signal, and basic hygiene... the hotel wasn't the most sparkly-clean you ever saw. On the upside, we had a room with two chairs and a little stoop and an ocean view. We also had sunshine and a whole lot of not much else. Is nice; I like.

This afternoon I was filmed for one of these. Since I couldn't remember ever wearing make-up before, I thought I'd ask them to leave it on when I was done so I could see what it was like. In a meeting later in the day someone asked me why I looked somehow different, cleaner, healthier, neater... obviously this stuff works!

I just posted this to the wedding site, so I guess I should put it here too. I present to you, the Happy Couple:

I took this in England a few months ago. May's a good time for pictures like this up North.

Wedding stuff accelerating apace now; yesterday met with "Minister Maggie" a celebrant candidate. Today making invitations. Tuesday meeting a photographer. Gosh, anybody would think we were organized.

This one's from a while ago in Healdsburg, the town in which we're getting married.

Another fifties-esque colorful shot from the Mission. This one's a couple of blocks from our house.

Year 1 at Google completed, if you can imagine that. Happy vesting to me, happy vesting to me, happy vesting dear Isaac, happy vesting to me.

This is one of the first photos I took with my new camera earlier this year. It was over in San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio.

This morning I got up and rode my bike to Tiburon , caught the ferry back to the city and went to the gym on the way home. I am a MACHINE! This afternoon much more relaxed: reading in the sunshine, pottering round the house, blogging...

I wonder why I bother. Why post my photos of the Mission when you can just go and explore for yourselves and see exactly the same stuff? That's really spooky.

The authorities are very organized in the Mission. No sooner has someone thrown a photocopier in the gutter than they're coming right round to mark it off with cones. What a place.

Also, wanted to share this sight from Mission Street itself. It's Monty Python's "Spam, Spam, Spam and Eggs" done Mission-styleee!

Less than three months to the wedding. We started a blog. And now that's out of the way we just need to sort out an officiant, flowers, photos, somewhere to stay on our wedding night... trivia, basically.

This photo below, which I took on a neighborhood bike ride on my birthday, has finally compelled me to gather up the Mission Colors and put them online. Do not adjust your set; this city is genuinely this colorful! What an amazing place.

Factoid #1: on June 25th someone landed on isaach.com having searched on Google for "crazy monky" (sure enough, I'm currently number 13).

Factoid #2: crazymonky.com is already registered :-(

I go past this sign each time I cycle to work (yes, I do cycle the 42 miles to work once a week). I've always meant to take a photo and post it here... because, well, who *doesn't* like to picnic next to the firing range?

So then July 2004 came along, and the frame with Borough Market photos was needing a new set. I put in it these nine from March 2004 in Denver:

which is where they are now, about to be replaced...

It's my birthday today, and I'm about to fly to London.

Going allll the way back to Fall 2001, a set of nine from Borough Market in London, where I lived at the time. I had these 2ft x 2ft on my wall when I moved to the States.

Taken last year up in the Wine Country:

In fact, not far at all from Healdsburg, CA. Where I'm getting married. In 124 days...

One day there were a monky. He was a crazy monky. His name is Isaac. He was from enigln and there were a girl monky. Her name is miss cram. She is from Colirdoe. When miss cram and Isaac bump to each other and they fall down together. They help each other and ther were boyfirends and girlfirends and they got mery and Isaac put the ring it miss cram finger. They were together now. Then miss cram did her hair do. It was a Rock hair. Finally, miss cram was a teacher and Isaac came to school to tech us airplane. The End

True story.

Been busy recently, with hardly any time to do anything. Today, though, finally got around to uploading my cars photos from last year. Trying something a little different, here's a fancy slideshow:

Also posted a bunch of photos from Mission Carnaval last weekend. What a very strange parade.

It's not from many places in the world you get a view like this

but from Bernal Heights in San Francisco on a May Monday evening you do.

Did I mention how colorful ths Mission is?

This week saw the launch of wendyandisaac.com!

The Mission remains as colorful as ever.

Wedding plans continue apace: I wrote a whole bunch of "Save the Date" cards this weekend, and Wendy went shopping for something to wear on our big day (I was considerably more successful than Wendy).

Matt's blog is compulsive reading; you should check it out.

Got that?

Midwestern zoos have a unique utilitarian perspective on the animal kingdom. I took this last year in Fort Collins, Colorado:

Of course, you're forced to wonder:

HUMANS
USE: ...

They're strict up in Napa.

Rob says:
    flaky ftp connections are so very irritating
Rob says:
    just thought i'd say that

Where else but the Mission? In fact, less than 100 yards from our house:

This last weekend Wendy and I volunteered at a "build day" at Wendy's school at the end of our road. Between us and the 400 others there we painted benches, mixed concrete, constructed a wicked climbing frame, erected basketball hoops, planted plants, cleaned classrooms, and painted a mural. "Neglected school yard blossoms into made-to-order playground", no less. It was altogether very cool, and kinda like the barn-building scene in Witness.

It's now 191 days to go until the wedding. Wendy's in Colorado with family at the moment, doing scheming and such... rumor has it she even tried on a dress or two today. Me, I'm just trying to decide which Google t-shirt I'll be wearing.

More Mission colors:

This week's wedding update: locked and loaded for October 13th at Barndiva. We were up there today starting on the arrangements, and even put down a deposit... yikes. I also took a bunch of photos while we were there.

Things are getting serious now. Exactly 200 days to go, and counting.

I'm going to put these in a "colors of the Mission" series, but for now you get to see them one by one:

Wedding planning is in full, although rather unstructured, swing. We decided on a venue in the wine country, which is (thankfully!) much more of a delightful place to get married than its baroque and unnavigable website conveys.

Also a date: October 13th, 2007. Stay tuned.