strange organism

this past weekend marta, olivia, and i were picking blackberries in our neighbor's backyard, and we came upon this most unusual organism. unusual and beautiful i might add.

incidentally, our neighbors just moved here from mount horeb, wi. that's the home of the world famous mustard museum and poupon u.

10 years

my 10 year reunion is coming up. i can't believe it's been 10 years since these glory days....

total eclipse of the moon, not the heart

this morning at 3:47 there was a total lunar eclipse. here at the staple household we set our alarms and stepped outside to check it out. it was a clear night here in the santa cruz so we were able to get a wonderful view. here is a photo i took of the eclipse.


notice how you can't see the moon. that is because it is eclipsed.

ok, so my early morning, complete darkness photography skillz leave a bit to be desired. to the naked eye the moon glowed a deep orange color, but my camera picked it up as complete black. oh well, it was pretty nifty to look at, and well worth getting up for five minutes in the middle of the night.

conquering heros?

who is doing the scheduling for michigan's football squad? there first opponent looks a little suspect.

cheez-its don't grow on trees

or do they?
marta planted a cheez-it in the side yard and look at this lovely cheez-it tree that grew. one more old adage bites the dust.

on wisconsin!

sometimes we see people, or things, from wisconsin, or michigan, and we get pretty excited. it could be as simple as a person with a badgers shirt or a car with a "say ya to da u.p., eh?" bumper sticker, or as unusual as a giant barel of ginsing, but it always makes us feel all warm inside. the point is that the other day we saw a wheel of wisconsin cheese on the bottom shelf of the free sample cart at the store, and i took a picture of it.


happy cows live in wisconsin.

ocms at the catalyst

last thursday night, we saw the old crow medicine show at the catalyst, a sweet venue downtown santa cruz. the old crow medicine show is a group of lively and talented musicians who sound like they recorded their bluegrass and folk songs in 1927. in fact, old crow medicine show is one of dixieland's newest groups. it might be hard to tell in this video, but if you look closely, the lanky blond fellow 2nd from the right in the stone washed taper jeans and fringed black leather jacket looks quite a bit like a certain doodles mcscrodnals, esquire.

imagine the 17 seconds of this video stretched out over 2 and a half hours with pizza and cold beer. that's how the show was. awesome.




here's the pizza.

the land of sky blue waters (western annex)

oh, tahoe. you're not just for skiing anymore. we took a dip with a few friends in the refreshing tahoe waters a few weekends ago. it was glorious. but nearly as glorious was the staple stronghold on the shuffleboard table at tahoe city's pete and peter's. we held the table as consistent victors for 2 hours, finally leaving the table undefeated. the clear mountain air, good friends, and tahoe sunburn left us restored and rejuvenated for a solid four day work week. thank you high sierra!

juty duty

i got a summons for jury duty today. i'll keep you posted on how this works out.

life's so good

every state has a slogan to hook the tourists, making them appear to be the best tourist destination of all the 50 states. wisconsin's used to be "you're among friends," which felt nice and warm. like wisconsin. michigan says "yes, michigan!" less of a slogan and more of a response to a command from lieutenant michigan, but we like it anyway. recently we were in these two beautiful states as tourists. we said yes, michigan all over the beaches of grand haven. and when we reached the rocky shores of wisconsin via high speed ferry, we were among friends. imagine our dismay to find that wisconsin no longer promotes those friends as a reason to visit. apparently, now "life's so good" is the new slogan. we don't like it as much, but it does seem like life is pretty good in wisco. reed, one of wisconsin's newest friends, suggested "wisconsin; it's not so bad."


hopefully he dropped that in the suggestion box up at the capitol. i doubt they'll change it now, though, as it seems like they've got all the visors made.

our visit was refreshingly muggy, filled with the love of family and friends, and the constant threat of a solid midwestern thunderstorm. in grand haven with the staple family, we buried david in the sand, ate fricano's pizza, and indulged in some boardwalk ice cream cones.



plymouth with the scott family brought thunderstorms, hiking, and a visit to the famous eaa oshkosh fly-in.




we finished the trip in madison with reed and molly and their adorable new house. we met up with many good friends, visited some of the old haunts, and attended mark and carol's wedding.


it was awesome. please see our photos page for a more comprehensive photo gallery of the trip.