Street party

New Year's eve in Pasadena. The parade route is packed with overnight campers. They've brought everything they need -- air mattresses, picnic tables, firepits. It's quite the party.

Seating for fifty thousand

A few days before New Year's Day, the main drag in Pasadena has every available parking lot full of bleachers and roped off grandstands for the upcoming Tournament of Roses Parade. It's a little weird driving by all the empty stands.

Elite Eater

Christmas Day, we hit the epicenter of dim sum in California -- Elite Chinese Restaurant in the western San Gabriel Valley. Ellen can sometimes be a typical picky-eater, but put her in front of dim sum, and she has to have absolutely everything. Here, she snatches a har gow (steamed shrimp dumpling) practically as it hits the table. Again, keep your hands and feet away from her mouth...

Mr. Pie Man, make me a pie

This place specializes in chicken pot pies. Nothing else. So very retro, so very yummy. I loaded up on some for our freezer.

Ladies who lunch

Stumbled across this little Old Town Pasadena "tea room." From a peek inside, it looks like the place for the estrogen-gifted to fuel up.

Lush

Can you believe this is the view from my driveway in late December? In the morning, I'm struck by how beautiful this place can be.

Jordan likes this post - confirm or ignore?

The greeting card industry desperately tries to keep up.

When life gives you lemons

Lemons. Lots and lots of lemons. They keep growing. Now we need to do something with them.

Fruits of my (non) labor

Pomelos and lemons from the garden. I'll be juicing these suckers for my patented Hanukkah party punch later. From tree to juice in fifteen minutes.

Four seasons all in a day

This is what passes for fall/winter in California. In December, some leaves finally fall down. Meanwhile, other trees are blossoming and the citrus is ripening. I'm very confused.

Bedtime story

Ellen still likes her books at bedtime. We've passed board books and Dr. Seuss for stories about little girls with serious princess complexes. Now who does that remind me of?

Keep your hands and feet away from her mouth

Let's just say that the rest of the family was a bit taken aback when Ellen requested the turkey leg. And then ate it. Beware of Carnivore.

Not the Brady Bunch

We've reconnected with our adult cousins (three girls with strange parallel lives to me and my two brothers), and now we get together the night before Thanksgiving. It's a great new family tradition.

Remember where we parked

The sun is rising as we arrive at the LAX parking lot, about to begin our trek to Chicago for the holiday.

In the shadow of the mountains

We live in a very different environment now. Here, the San Gabriels loom over a playground in Pasadena.

Wizard of DMV

Ooooh-kay, buddy. You and your Mercedes are the Great and Powerful Oz, parked in front of the donut shop here. Whatever you say.

Stargazing

A cool little iPhone app tells me what stars and planets I'm seeing in the sky. A particularly bright star overhead turned out to be Jupiter on this night.

Mmm, generically refreshing!

Outside the Pavilions supermarket, they have a machine featuring their own generic brand of pop, with the world's most halfassedly-changed brand names. Would you care for "The Dr."? Or perhaps some "Mountain Breeze"? There's always the simply named "Orange" or you could push the button for the wonders that await behind the "Mystery Flavor?" window.

Sand n' slides

We found a great playground in Pasadena. It's in a park that seems to host about sixty thousand kiddie soccer teams, each in their own neon-colored uniforms.

Mary Kay's uncle

Yes, it's the Pink Upholsterer van. You gotta problem wit dat? Who else gonna do your pink upholstery for you?

View from my driveway

Every morning, I go outside to get the newspaper. This is my view when I turn around.

Vanna presents...

Ellen is happy to show off our jack-o-lanterns, before she costumes up for the big night.

Dollhouse - State Capitol Edition

Across the street from my hotel is the dinky little Indiana State Capitol building.

Fairyland in Indy

At a conference in Indianapolis, one of the dullest cities in America. The Memorial Circle roundabout is sort of the centerpiece of the downtown area. At night, I was pleasantly surprised to find it lit up with Christmas lights and staffed by white gloved coachmen. Surprisingly charming.

Knobby little things

More strange fruit growing on our lawn. These turned out to be lychees.

We could open our own fruit-of-the-month club, like Harry & David. Anyone want to subscribe?

Golden hour

It's mid-October, and the sun is setting earlier every day. That's something I expect. But the air is still warm, the flowers are blooming, and the palm trees are ... doing their thing. I kind of like this part of living in SoCal.

Cult HQ

The center of the In-n-Out Burger cult -- the company store! It's actually on my normal route to work.

High roller

Arriving at 1 AM at my Houston hotel room, to find that this "art" hotel has upgraded me to a fancy ... make that ostentatiously ornate ... suite. Too bad I won't be here for more than six hours.

Flight time

Back in the air! En route to Houston (via Salt Lake City) to look at a database my university is considering. Arriving at 1 AM, leaving at 6 PM the next day. Seventeen hours on the ground.

It's a disaster when you run out!

Really? Yes, really. Apparently, this is the "everything" chip, the story being that all the spices got mixed up during an earthquake...

Fairly fried

The Los Angeles County Fair isn't quite as eclectic as the Minnesota State Fair, but at least the food is scary, in a familiar way. This place also offers a chicken sandwich -- in a Krispy Kreme doughnut, which is then dipped in batter and fried, of course.

Dem bones

OK, so I work at a medical school. I walk by the bookstore every day. They've decorated the windows for Halloween. However, the windows were already full of medical props and body parts. Can you guess which of these things are Halloween decorations?

As a button

Sometimes, I just have to take a picture because she's so adorable.

This was probably a day where she spent most of her time at preschool hitting and kicking the other kids.

Weird gravity

Get a bunch of little kids together and they form a herd. Here, at a mom's meetup, a bunch of kids who have never met each other sit obediently together and eat their lunch without fussing. Miraculous.

Catucopia

They just stick together like Lego pieces.

It's a Chicago thing

Sometimes, a man just needs to recharge himself at the wellspring of his soul. I found a Chicago dog place.

Strange fruit

Yet another mystery fruit is growing in our yard. Not avocado (an exciting first guess). Not papaya. Not guava. No idea.

Not in Kansas (or Minnesota) any more

They don't sell oysters at the farmer's markets in Minnesota.

News you can use

This poster outside the local grocery store gave me pause. That big fire is still roaring away in the mountains. This is today's map. The red line marks the "uncontrolled" border, which happens to be just a mile north of where I'm shopping.

Four (West Coast edition)

Celebrating Ellen's real birthday at preschool. No sweets are allowed, so the parents sponsor pizza parties. The kids now associate birthdays with pizza. I can't decide if this is a bad thing or not.

Safety first

It made me laugh. On every flight on this trip, whenever the safety spiel would start, Ellen would pull out the instruction card and "follow along."

Whiteout

This was Ellen's nursery, before and after. It's something I made for her myself. Should I feel bad that it's now a bland white cube?

Fixer-upper

I spent a few days back in Minnesota working on the house. It still sits unsold, after five months on the market. Besides doing some work to eliminate pet odors in the basement and some minor repairs, I had most of the interior repainted. The bedroom and living areas looked better with fresher coats of paint. We restored Ellen's room to white. That was a bit sad -- I had painted that room myself to turn it into a nursery. Now, that's all erased.

Four

Ellen celebrated her fourth birthday a few weeks early, with her family at the Wisconsin lake house. We don't really know anyone in California to invite to a birthday party.

After midnight

We're taking the red-eye to Milwaukee to visit the family lake house. Ellen is a seasoned flyer by now.

Blowing smoke

More smoke! This giant plume is actually from a backfire set to stop the progress of the wildfire. It still looks like someone is nuking the mountains.

Birthday pie

Rachel made me a Meyer lemon meringue pie. This is a great way to celebrate a birthday.

Smoke gets on my car

Ashfall from the Station Fire speckled my Prius. Every morning, there was fresh ash on my car.

Dr. Ollivander's

At Hogwarts, the boys and girls go to Ollivander's to get their wands. At my new job, the students go to the bookstore for their stethoscopes. I like to see Ravenclaw all dressed up in their black and blue scrubs.