Odd Man Out
So the reason I was actually in LA was that some of Erin’s family, her grandma and aunt, were flying in for the weekend. As it was going to be Erin, her grandma, aunt, and 3 female cousins, I tried to set it up so that once Erin was with them I could run away and do something else. Me and six chics? Yeah, that’s a run scenario.
I failed. I did get recruited/drafted (happily) to take photos of the day. That was fun and made it less awkward for me. The conversation was overall very good, and it was a very good day. We all got to talk about some of the hard things we’ve all been through lately.
So the family images you are going to see over the next week or so are from that day.
El Circo Cheap – West Coast Style
I happened to be in LA a week or so back for about 24 hours.
It so happened that some friends of mine from Aloft Aerial Dance were in town doing some performances as part of their El Circo Cheapo Get Rich Slow Tour. So I, of course, wanted to stop by and take some photos. That’s where the performance images that will be appearing over the next week or two came from.
If you happen to be in Chicago I highly recommend you go see El Circo Cheapo. It’s worth the money, easy, and a really fun Friday night.
Ecovillage Tour
The following are a series of panoramics talking about my buddy Damien’s ecovillage, life in it, permaculture, sustainability, and how to make a kickin’ bathroom.
(There are some small issues, tiling to speed load times and low res previews while full res load and that kind of stuff. Just give it a minute to load and look around while you listen to Damien describe his ecovillage.)
Badwater, Rock Bottom
From Badwater, 282 feet below sea level, in Death Valley, California. It’s a surprisingly lively place, while also still being very desolate.
As usual with the panos, click on on them or here to actually see them in their full 360ness.
Rock Bottom, with some salt
Spent the day wandering around Death Valley on Friday. There was a cold front going through (it was only going to be in the mid-90s) and it’s probably the last chance I’d get to go for a few years.
These images are all from Badwater, the lowest point in North America, 282 feet below sea level. There was actually a little water there, not much, but some.
Olivia
Olivia is very proud of and loves her baby chicken very much. She made sure to show it to, and pass it around to all of us, us being Erin, Damien (in the background) and myself.
The three of us had gone to this location to see the landscaping, done in a style known as permaculture. The idea behind it is to capture the water, hold the water and use the water that comes onto the landscape and not to shuffle it off to a gutter as quickly as possible. The water is used to grow all kinds of plants, lots of them being fruit bearing and the like so that fresh food is available in the backyard.
The underlying idea is to create a connection to your immediate environment well also making it more sustainable. The other sneaky part of this was how it creates community. See, we weren’t there to visit Olivia’s backyard, we were there to visit a neighbor and family friend’s backyard, but the families had torn down the fence between their yards. It was one giant garden, one giant green space, one giant communal area. So while we talked to Erik, his neighbor’s daughter Olivia started to talking to us, and we got to know more of the community than just Erik. All in a backyard.
