Way back in October, Rigel, Spencer and I took Akasha to a Pumpkin Patch to pick out our Halloween pumpkins. Being a whole year older than our last visit, Akasha was much more involved in the choosing of pumpkins.

Rigel and Akasha

Akasha Found her Pumpkin!

Tags: friends,photos
Categories: friends, photos
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It’s been a little over a month and a half since my coworker Jason came into work and shot himself. I’m still really mad at him, and I still have random flashbacks to those intense moments. I know I will never forget that day, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive Jason, or even think kindly of him, but what I can do is remember one of the things we did bond over and that is scones. Jason was a great scone baker and I loved talking to him about the delicious scones he brought in from time to time. The recipe is below.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks cold, unsalted butter
1 cup buttermilk
grated zest from one orange
1 cup dried cranberries
parchment paper

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425º F

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda & salt in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add butter and work with pastry blender until mixture resembles rough cornmeal. Add zest, cranberries, and buttermilk, stirring just until liquid is distributed (do not over-mix!)

Make a ball out of your dough and place it onto a lightly floured surface. Press dough down in a rough circle about 1/2″ high. Cut into triangular pieces and place them onto your parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Brush with melted butter.

Bake at 425º for 10-12 minutes.

Tags: cooking,recipes
Categories: recipes
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As anyone who took AP US History from Mr. Cortopassi can attest: Alexander Hamilton was a snake and the Federalists can be blamed for almost everything.

Mr. Cortopassi is my favorite teacher of all time, and it is in his honor that I am posting this epic video of playwright/performer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance at the White House’s Evening of Poetry of the first song off his forthcoming rap album “The Hamilton Mixtape.” Yes, that’s right, he’s writing an entire hip-hop album about Alexander Hamilton. Evidently along with being a money-hungry federalist snake, Hamilton was an OG.

Tags: random,videos
Categories: politics
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This weekend, the Phoenix Theater hosted one of the most well organized, super fun shows featuring a slew of bands from the heyday of Sonoma County punk bands. Since I am so much younger than my friends, there was an element of feeling like I was at someone else’s reunion, but it was a lot of fun to be there, and to see so many people and bands that I’ve heard stories about for years.

Mickey and the Big Mouths were my personal highlight of the show. I thought they sounded great, and I had a ton of fun taking photos and testing out my new 24-105mm lens.

The full set of photos is here.

Tags: bands,events,music,petaluma,shows,the phoenix
Categories: events, friends, photos
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On our way to Placerville to check out the Gold Bug Mine, Mike and I drove through Sonoma and had to stop when we saw the town square filled with gorgeous classic Cobras (many of them original Shelby’s). The cars were all gorgeous and in beautiful shape. Mike told me that there are probably under 300 Shelby’s left in the world, and we saw a great many of them in Sonoma, so even though the Sonoma route took longer and I got us a little bit lost, it was a fortuitous detour.

Categories: photos
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