Dad and I headed up the Reagan Library tonight for the 4th try at the launch of a Satellite atop a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 100 miles to our east. Fortunately the weather cooperated this time, and despite being a bit cold, the launch went off without a hitch.

Don’t miss the 4-day old baby elephant! In my wife’s words, “So little and cute.” It’s all relative I guess.

Nothing as dramatic as last year, but there are a lot more fires this time around and it really does seem like the whole world is on fire here. We’re not in any danger so don’t worry about us. Closest fire was Sunday – about 3 miles away, but moving the other way. Hopefully the wind will die for good this afternoon and they’ll start getting a handle on these over the next few days.

It was a busy spring, and it’s been just as busy a summer. I’ve finally posted some of the promised pictures. I’ve still got about 1300 pictures from France and Germany to go through, I’ll get those up asap. Enjoy.

Rose Bowl Fireworks Show, Pasadena, CA.

Thanks to a friend of ours, Katie and I got to got to a L.A. Clippers playoff game on Sunday night. Of course, I took the camera, so here are a few shots from the game. The Clippers took game 4 to tie the series 2-2. The shots are grainy because I was using the long lens indoors with no flash, so they were all shot at 1600 ISO.

A weekend in Death Valley, from 282 feet below sea level to almost 10,000 feet above. All of the pictures are now up. I’ll try to add a neat GPS-track map of our whole trip tomorrow.