Cairns, Queensland, Australia

2009 November - Australia, Sydney, Cairns from jim on Vimeo.

Video slideshow of our trip to Sydney and Cairns, Asutralia. Places visited included: Sydney, bondi beach, the entrance, australia reptile park, cairns, green island, hartleys crocodile park, kuranda, daintree rainforest, harbor bridge, sydney opera house, darling harbor, sydney's china town, start city casino, bird world, butterfly world, trinity beach. Special thanks to Dad, tita Alma, Cha Cha, Reese, Puka, and Gucci.

Holy Crap
just before sunset, fruit bats 2.5 feet wide descend upon downtown Cairns.
They fill the sky with screeches.
They all go after the mangos.
They're silent flyers,
But when there's 100 of them in the sky, its like your in a vampire movie
Its hard to believe they stay in those same trees during the day, you just cant see them.

9/20/2009 Sunrise Lakes, Yosemite, CA

Started the weekend with a goal of hiking a 14 miles round trip hike to Clouds Rest. But it was a bit longer than I expected. And I was lugging around a 45 year old co-worker who was close to vomiting. No offense to Pete, but faced with the possibility of dehydration, and hiking in the dark, better to just cut it short today. The beautiful thing is wherever you go in Yosemite, there is always something new to be seen, new people to meet, and great places to swim. Glad to have this place in my backyard.

Here's my buddy Pete jumping off a twenty five foot cliff. Not bad for a 50 year old. I chickened out. It was one of those things where, the more I stared at that cliff, the more I freaked out about jumping.

Great America, 3 point shootout

Won the son a yoga ball from Great America.
I owe it all to Mully (Chris Mullin).
Funny thing is.....I think it feels better to win a prize for my kid than to hit a game-winner.
Maybe because I've never done the latter.
I love this game.

9/2009 Ultimate Frisbee Music Video

09/2009
I decided to attach a camera on my head to film our saturday morning outings playing ultimate frisbee. It was OK besides the fact there was no footage of me making spectacular plays. You'll just have to take my word for it. Old school 90's AFI punk seemed a good fit for the video. Hope you like

Outside lands festival, San Francisco, Pearl Jam

Karaoke with son. Outside Lands festival. San Francisco. Pearl Jam. Betterman

Hike to Mt Tallac with my dogs

Video of my hike with the dogs up to Mt. Tallac. Dogs arent allowed on alot of popular trails in Yosemite so I researched and found this trail in S. Lake Tahoe. Ranked a 10 by kevin gong's hiking page (http://www.kevingong.com), this hike was indeed a sight to see. Its about 5 miles and 3100ft gain to the top and there are views of the great lake tahoe basin and desolation wilderness. On the way up, you pass by beautiful cathedral lake, an alpine lake with bolders a and granite surrounding the water. I would have went swimming if it was a little hotter. Great hike...

Trip to Yosemite with the homies, Tuolomne Meadows

Great trip besides the altitude sickness. This video should provide some insight on the ongoings at camp. Glad to have the same group going every year. They're always up for the torture of the wilderness.


A bear ran thru the outside boundary of our campsite and scared the crap out of everyone. Everyone was panicked but I kept my calm. I just jumped into the minivan.

Trip to Kernville to visit the Mauers

Jenny and Luke on the trail of giants

Kristina and Ella next to a fallen Sequoia
Group shot: Kodi, Jen, Luke, Ella, Kristina, Elizabeth, John

Luke's 3rd Birthday

2009 Luke 3 year old retrospective video from jim on Vimeo.

This is a music video made up of Luke's 3rd year. Lots of scenes including the beach, camping, dog boarding (not a dog torturing technique, bye the way), falling, stumbling. Pretty soon he'll get to old for these videos. "Enjoy them while they're cute", is what other parents tell me. One thing will never change, he'll allways be my son...right!

04/2009 Lynams Visit the Bay Area

These are pictures from the Lynams visit to the Bay Area

this is luke hitting his 1st homer at pac bell park. I kinda feel like a bad parent because he's been to more giants games than a's games. We're an A's family and thats that. Its just that our buddy gives us giants preseason tix and luke digs the slide there.

Skipping rocks at Shinn Ponds, Newark, CA

Mom and Reyes' come over for dinner

Mom and the Rayes visit for dinner on a friday night. Luke plays well with girls his age. No fighting. No possessiveness.

shuttle launch - cape canveral florida

these are video's and images of the shuttle launch on 3/14/09. There are only a few launches left because the US is building a new rocket. Meanwhile all US space projects will use Soviet rockets. This is the first one I've seen live. I was about 14 miles away from the launch site so I didnt see very much. The video I posted is pretty accurate. I didnt expect to see the side rockets jettison away from the main rocket, but you cold clearly see that from the ground. Its amazing how many floridians go to watch the launch. It took us 3hrs to get back to orlando from cape canaveral, which was mainly due to backups at the toll booth. I'm glad I could witness one live....it was a great experience

Disneyworld: Epcot, Hollywood, Magic , Blizzard Beach

Us being pirates


More pictures with the French family. The Hollywood tower of terror was a great ride. Its one of those free fall rides. The build up is great. Disney does a great job of scaring you before you even get to the scary part.






Here we are with the French's. We met up for half of the vacation.
Luke and Jenny are in Bruce's mouth and between Mater & Lightning McQueen.
Marisa is with Jo Jo Circus



these images are from the Disney all-star resorts hotel. They are essentially little apartments with 3 story statues of Disney characters outside. Pretty intimidating.


Here's Luke playing a harmonica


wrestling in the room


Luke on the water slides
there was a great slide there called Team boat springs, where 6 people could go on a raft.
They even let little 32 inch tall Luke on

Blue Springs, Wakaiwa Springs

Blue springs. This is an opening to an aquifer that you can go to and swim in and snorkle in. Pretty nice in the pictures but also nice in real life. The water stays 71 degrees and blue all year long, so when its too hot you can cool off in it and vice versa. I've posted a diagram of an aquifer for educational purposes

Theres Luke and me innertubing the aquifer. Floridians think that aquifer water is cold, but us Californians think 71 degrees is JUST RIGHT

This is Wakaiwa springs aquifer which the state of Florida has made into a pool, with ledges for diving, playing, and everything

Mom and Son

Disneyworld Florida: Animal Kingdom

Here's Luke being shy towards Goofy, but goofy decides to go after him anyways. As you can see, Luke is resisting eye contact..

Can you believe that ball costs 60$

Forget it. I can make one at home..

This movie below shows some monkeys in the middle of the park. Surprisingly, there wasnt much noise from the rollercoasters. The baby monkey looks like he's going to fall at any time, but he just keeps hanging on

This one is of me and Luke in front of the tree of life. Its a fake tree with an auditorium at the bottom and designs of disney characters carved into the bark.

The next picture is the best attraction in the park. Luke is still too small to go on it, but what an interesting ride huh?

Some snapshots from our trip with the Domholts to Truckee

I had just sprained my knee so I had some extra days off afterwards.



The snow was horrible. It was the first time I was glad everyone was going as slow as possible on the road.