Coronado Beach (from left: Heather, Lexi, Ronda, Lacey, and Tally)

Lexi in the water at Coronado Beach

Stephanie and her friends (from left: Kinley, Steph, Ann, and Bryce)

Back after an extended absence...

Hi, kids. Much has happened. We've had many a visitor at the hotel Tinjum. As mentioned earlier, my sister Stephanie and her friends were here the last weekend of October, with a good time had by all. Steph sent me some pictures, so I'll slap those up.

Savannah (the wiener dog) turned 4 and her back problems seem to be getting better, so that's good.

Then,...Tally's sisters, Ronda and Lacey, our niece, Lexi (Ronda's daughter), and Lacey's friend, Heather all came out to visit from November 5 until November 9. We had a lot of fun and did a LOT of driving. Too bad it wasn't warm enough to go in the pool here. However, we did manage to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain (north of LA), on home-school day, no less. It was a blast. We went on this insane rollercoaster called "Tatsu". Basically, you get harnessed in with your feet dangling. THEN, they tip you so you're horizontal and then they proceed to defy all the laws of physics with you. A good time. Here's the link for Tatsu: http://www.sixflags.com/magicMountain/Rides/Tatsu.aspx

We also went to the beach at Coronado, which was beautiful, and to a very cool outdoor shopping mall in West Hollywood called The Grove (http://www.thegrovela.com/). I'll post some picks of Coronado.

I'd like to wish a certain wifey (Tally) a happy 29th birthday (today). I love you, dear and, just remember, you'll always be older than me. Ha ha.

This will probably be the last post for a while. I am headed out "to the field", which means that all of us medical personnel pack up some basic stuff and head out to the middle of the desert where the Marines we take care of are training. However, this time it's (painfully) for one month. Pretty much right away when I get back, Tally, the dogs, and I are heading home for Christmas.

Sorry, Bakke, no food pics. Maybe I'll put one up of an MRE (meal ready-to-eat) when I get back.

Long time, no post...

Sorry for the long absence. My sister and her friends were here two weekends ago (they drove down from ND!), which was a good time. I don't have any pictures, so I'll mentally channel the good times into this post. OK, so that probably won't work.

Anyhoo, Tally's sisters, niece and her sister Lacey's friend, Heather, are coming to visit this weekend, so we should have lots of fun pictures to put up. There will probably be one of me throwing up after going on crazy rides at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Finally, with the election craziness today, I saw an election quiz on MSNBC and wanted to put up the link in case any election junkies wanted to try it. The link is: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27487258/?GT1=43001

Have a good day and happy voting.

More dinner pictures...

OK, so Bakke wants the challenge. Therefore, I'm going to post a couple more pictures. However, he has the AeroGarden (http://www.aerogrow.com/), which is a cool indoor, herb-growing machine. I'll be honest: I can't compete with that kind of aromatic firepower. I'll try, though. Last night, we made this soup that we used to love getting at the Upstream Brewing Company in Omaha: Smoked Gouda and Blonde Ale Soup. Delicious. We had a little French Bread with Smoked Artichoke Bruschetta or Olive-Garlic Tapenade.

Tonight, I tried out the classic Coq au Vin (French for "Rooster in Wine"--ours was a chicken, not a rooster) with Rosemary Bacon Potatoes. I thought this tasted great, even though it turned out more purple than Barney, due to the wine I chose.

Dinner pictures...

In response to Andy "Emeril" Bakke's request, here is the recipe for the Mexican Corn Salad with Grilled Scallops:

Ingredients:

1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon minced red onion
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
8 small ears of corn, husked
Vegetable oil, for brushing
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon pure ancho chile powder
4 ounces cotija or ricotta salata cheese, crumbled (1 1/4 cups)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Hot sauce
12 large sea scallops
Lime wedges, for serving

Directions:

Light a grill. In a large bowl, toss the garlic and onion with the lime juice and let stand for 10 minutes.

Brush the corn with oil and grill over moderate heat until charred and just tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a work surface and cut the kernels off the cobs.

Whisk the mayonnaise and chile powder into the garlic, onion and lime juice. Add the cheese and corn to the bowl and toss. Season with salt, pepper and hot sauce.

Brush the scallops with vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill over high heat until nicely browned and barely cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. Spoon the corn salad onto 4 plates and top with the scallops. Serve with lime wedges.

I do it pretty much just like the recipe. However, I have no idea what kind of cheese that is, nor could I ever find it. So, I just buy one of the small ball-shaped packages of soft mozzarella and crumble about 3/4 of the package up over the hot corn. I think that works OK.

Elephant Seals

Pretty cool--elephant seals sunning themselves along the coast.

Herefords along the Pacific

I took these (I will only post one) for my dad, since we raise Hereford cattle back in Powers Lake. It was pretty cool, though, that there were these secluded pastures bordering the Pacific.

Pacific Coast Highway Photo

A beautiful, high overlook along the Pacific Coast Highway.

Yosemite Trip

We headed up to Yosemite this last weekend. Very beautiful, just like everything you hear about it. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures for several reasons: very crowded, pesky wiener dogs, didn't have a ton of time, and needed to get going since it started snowing. I had heard about the monstrous rocks El Capitan and Half Dome, but I didn't realize how big they were until I saw them up close. Since I didn't do the loyal Tinj blog subscribers any justice by whiffing on the pictures, here's the National Park link with pictures: http://www.nps.gov/yose/.

We were going to traverse Yosemite to the east side and stay in Mammoth Lakes, CA, which is supposed to be a really cool town with a great ski area (http://www.visitmammoth.com/). However, both reasonable routes were closed due to snow in the Sierra Nevada range. Expedia nicely agreed to cancel our room in Mammoth Lakes. Since we had already driven quite a long way, we decided we might as well go somewhere else cool. That magical place, it was decided, turned out to be the Monterey Peninsula, specifically Carmel, which is where we stayed. We got in late, and had to get going on Sunday because we had a long drive back, so once again, I was not coordinated enough to get pictures. Henceforthtowith, I will again link to a website: http://www.carmelcalifornia.com/. This is one of the neatest places I have ever been to. I ran down to the beach on Sunday morning (that's why there are no pictures of this--I didn't want to carry the camera while I was running, and honestly, I didn't realize what I would be missing). Very cool--big waves crashing on the rocky beach, beautiful houses, and, by the way, Pebble Beach Golf Course. From the public beach, look off to the North and you can see the course about 3/4-1 mile away. That's probably the closest I will ever get to that landmark.

We started our drive back by going on the Pacific Coast Highway, which was beautiful. I highly recommend this drive to anyone who ever has the chance to make it. I will post a couple of pictures from this drive. These include one of Tally, the dogs, and me; one of some Hereford cattle (that's what we have back in Powers Lake) in a pasture near the Ocean; and one of Elephant Seals sunning themselves.

We wound our way back partially through some of the vast California wine country. We didn't stop, but will be going back sometime, so stay tuned for that. Also, we did drive by a very cool place called "Hearst Castle". We didn't stop, but I looked it up when we got home (http://www.hearstcastle.org/), and I kind of wished we would have. Oh well, maybe another time.

Dinner tonight...

Just for Andy Bakke, who is always publishing pictures of his gourmet meals: here's what Tally and I had for dinner tonight. It was Mexican Corn Salad with Grilled Scallops. And, yes, Andy, I want a "Throwdown".

One more San Jacinto Peak picture...

Looking West along I-10 towards the San Bernadino Valley. The San Bernardino National Forest can be seen in the background. Just over the smaller peak in the middle of the photo, the Cabazon casino and the outlet mall (and probably Tally shopping there) can be seen along I-10.

Looking North (and slightly East)

Looking North (and slightly East) from San Jacinto Peak down on the large windfarm below. I-10 can be seen at the bottom of the photo. Highway 62 can be seen heading north to Morongo Valley (upper left part of photo). Yucca Valley can barely be seen in the upper right part of the photo, just over a mountain.

View from the Tramway Station looking east down on Palm Springs

Amber (Tally's cousin) visited and a little hiking

It was nice that Tally's cousin, Amber, could swing through the neighborhood to pay us a visit last weekend. Actually, she was in LA for a conference, then came up to visit us and another friend of hers who lives in the area. I have no pictures because Amber insists I get them through her publicist only, and I have not completed the necessary paperwork yet.

Because I (and the rest of the Marine/Navy people in our battalion) were stuck in the field (read: desert) two weekends ago, we got yesterday and Tuesday off. Since Tally was working, I decided to take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway (http://www.pstramway.com/things.asp) up to Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness. The Tramway is a rotating (360 degrees) car that can hold 80 people and takes you from an elevation of ~2600 feet up to ~8500 feet. It's pretty cool. Then, I decided to hike the 5.5 miles up to the top of San Jacinto Peak. With an elevation of 10, 804 feet, it's the second-highest peak in Southern California. Now, I may not be an expert hiker, and I haven't scaled the tallest peaks on all 7 continents like D. Little, but it was fun nonetheless.

Going to the field...

Nothing exciting to post. I'm going "to the field" today and will be there until Friday, Oct. 3. Basically, all the Marines are practicing the things they to day-to-day, so we just get to hang out and take care of any medical issues that arise.

I may smell quite ripe after it's all said and done, but that's OK, because next weekend will be fun, as Tally's cousin Amber is coming to visit.

In the meantime, I can only hope the Twins hold on for the playoffs and that 96-year-old Gus Frerotte's body holds up enough to give the Vikings a win over the Texans this weekend.

Potpourri

First of all, way to go Vikings. I don't get their game as the usual "noon" game out here in Cali, which is probably a good thing, considering they should now be 2-0 and atop the NFC Central, but instead are 0-2.

We went to see Jason Mraz in concert last night. Pretty good show. He only played about half the songs of his that I know, but that was OK. He and his band are excellent, and he is a wonderful singer live, which is something many acts cannot claim. Overall, Tally and I gave it 6.5 out of 10 cacti.

We decided it was time to get new dining room furniture. I have never had my own dining room furniture, so we have always used the set that Tally originally picked up at KMart when she got her first apartment. It was fine, but the chairs were pretty flimsy, and most of them had cracked. So, I got up early one morning, hooked up the mules, and went up to the great conifer forests of Northern California. The result was new dining room furniture by the end of the day.

Finally, I want to pass along a website that Tally discovered. I saved this for the end because I didn't want its pure and unabashed ridiculousness to envelop the prior sections of this post. The website is: http://www.yearbookyourself.com/. I have not played around on here yet, but basically, you insert your face into the "classic" yearbook looks from various decades. It's pretty funny.

Sedona and Grand Canyon

So...we actually did a little more travelling over the holiday weekend, since Tally hasn't started her teaching job yet, and I was off until Wednesday and noon. For those of you outraged at my five-day weekend, let me explain: You can thank the United States Marine Corps. On holiday weekends, they are very adept at turning nice breaks into huge breaks. All of the holiday weekends are either referred to as a "72" or a "96", meaning the number of hours the "liberty" is. Liberty in the military is time that you just have off--you don't have to burn any of your leave. Labor day weekend is a "96". I knew we were getting off at noon on Friday, so adding four days (96 hours) to that, I thought we'd be back at work at noon on Tuesday. However, apparently that was not enough of a break. The "96" must refer to the number of full days off, because we didn't have to be back until Wednesday at noon. Pretty cool, huh?

Anyhoo, after the Wienerschnitzel fiasco (see previous posts), we decided to go through Phoenix to stay in scenic Sedona and visit the Grand Canyon. I always pictured Arizona as pure desert, but that's not even close to the case. Much of Arizona is desert, but much of central Arizona is mountainous, with a lot of trees, and, of course, the northern part contains the Grand Canyon.

As I mentioned, we decided to stay in Sedona (http://www.visitsedona.com/). I had driven through it on my way out here. It is very scenic because of its mountainous terrain and because much of the terrain is very pretty red rock. I'll attach some pictures of the Grand Canyon and one I tried to take at Sedona (they may not show up that well).

If you've never been to the Grand Canyon, it's amazing. We only went for a little while, as we had the dogs and it was kind of chilly. I'd love to go back for a more extended period of time in the future to do some hiking, camping, and rafting. I'm not sure if I can talk Tally into all that, though. Hmmm....maybe if I tell her there's a Gap at the bottom with a good sale. Just kidding, honey.

On the way back from the Grand Canyon, winding down into the valley where Sedona is, we came across tons of people parking their cars along the narrow road. Many had their swimsuits on. There was a small creek winding through the canyon, but it was very shallow, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. I asked someone back in town, and they told me that they were going to Slide Rock State Park (http://azstateparks.com/Parks/SLRO/index.html). Apparently, there is a natural waterslide carved into the red rock.

On the way home, we wound up a mountainside and stopped in this cool small town called Jerome, AZ (http://www.azjerome.com/). It used to be a mining town, but has been reborn with a lot of cool shops, restaurants, etc. Very touristy, but cool.

Continuing up the coast...

On our way back home from San Diego, we decided to drive for a while up the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped for lunch at this cool place in Laguna Beach. We got to eat outside, and the food was really, really good. Here's the link: http://www.madisonsquare.com/ I had the Char-Broiled Hawaiian Ahi Tuna sandwich. It was great. I recommend you immediately go out to your nearest Pacific Ocean and catch some.

We continued up to Huntington Beach, where about a mile of beach is called the "Dog Beach". You can just let your dogs run off of their leashes and splash in the ocean. I'll tack on a few pictures from that. It was fun and everyone thought it was hilarious to see a 10-lb dachshund (Savannah) playing in the surf and getting swept back by a small wave.

Ready...Set...Don't Go!

Yesterday, we went to a wonderful gathering of true ridiculousness. There is a chain of fast food restaurants down here called Wienerschnitzel that serves hot dogs, etc. Each year, they have a series of races that are called the "Wienerschnitzel Wiener Nationals" (yes, you read that correctly--here's the link: http://www.wienerschnitzel.com/nationals.php). So, being the good dachshund owners that we are, we decided to take a little trip to San Diego for a qualifying event. Needless to say, our dogs did what was expected of them. One didn't make it out of the starting gate, and the other barely did. Oh well, it was fun just to see about 300 wiener dogs (and to get the two T-shirts that came along with it). Maybe next year Sophie or Savannah will come out on top with some high-altitude training and a call to Barry Bonds' trainer.

Hillary voters

Also, I just need to mention these ridiculous Hillary voters who just won't let go. Tally and I just can't get over this, and the media coverage of them. Sorry if any of you out there are big supporters of her--that's not the problem. You lost, now move on. I can't believe they would say they won't vote for Obama (i.e., they won't vote at all) or that they would actually vote for McCain. They're interviewing a crazy lady right now who is covered in Hillary gear. She ran a great, competitive race and advanced politics a long ways for women. That's great, but no other loser of a primary has been this ridiculous.

Angels vs. Twins, 8/23/08

Went back to good ol' Angel Stadium because the Twins were in town. This time, it was a night game, so it was much cooler and, thus, it did not impel overweight, middle-aged men to take their shirts off. Too bad the Twins blew it. I wish I would have taken a picture of Quinn's purchase of "super nachos" or "big league nachos" or whatever they were called at Angels Stadium. They sounded awesome, but was a bag of corn chips and some really, really salty nacho cheese. Otherwise, nothing too exciting. We're going to try to go to something this Saturday called the Wienerschnitzel Weiner Nationals (yes, I'm serious) this Saturday at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Stay tuned, as hilarity is bound to ensue.

Angels vs. Yankees, 8/9/08

So, as mentioned yesterday, Quinn secured some sweet seats about 10 rows up down the left field line for the Angels/Yankees game. It was a fun game, tons of home runs, and the Angels prevailed. It was pretty hot for Los Angeles-area, about 90 degrees, and we were sitting in the direct sun the whole time, so it was pretty hot. I'll put up a picture of Tally and I, one of Quinn and I, and one Tally took of her secret love interest, Derek Jeter. Despite a public outcry, I will not post the picture of Tally and I with the hairy gut of the large Hispanic man who was standing up shirtless behind us, heckling the Yankees bullpen. I swear, I'll make it up to you all.

Finally settled in Yucca Valley

Well, we're finally settled in. Tally and her mom got here last Saturday, so I came up from Camp Pendleton, where I have spent the last three weeks training. We now have most everything put away, and Tally and her mom did a great job decorating and cleaning. We have spent a lot of time in the pool, which is great. The dogs get worked up when we go down the waterslide, though--so much that they have each dove into the pool at various times. We're going to the Angels-Yankees game in Anaheim today with one Quinn Hough. I'll throw on a pic of the pool and our kitchen.

Made it to the Golden State

Well, I finally made it here. Not too much trouble. Had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. Passed the two hours it took to get someone out there by hanging out at the Coyote Flats Grill and Bar.

Got everything unloaded. The pool and waterslide are up to my standards--I'll have to post pictures when Tally and the digital camera get out here.

I'm now at Camp Pendleton north of San Diego on the Pacific coast for some training. It's going OK, but gets a little boring at times.

Moving

Well, we're in the middle of the never-fun process of moving. I'm taking off for Cali on Monday. When I am finally able to get back on the internet again, I'll update things.

How Smart Are You?

OK, wise guys: let's see how smart you are. This was on MSN.com today. These are apparently some of the questions from the test that people take to become US Citizens. I got 19/20--let's see you beat that. (Ewertz and my dad probably will.) Here's the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25461301/

Welcome to the Tinjblog

Hey guys, Tally and I just wanted to get something up so all of you can follow we and the dogs as we bounce around California. We'll try to have some good pictures and keep this thing updated from time to time.