Today's demonstrations effectively shut down VTA's Light Rail today. This made for a difficult commute.

This is another example of something I planted and have no idea what it is.

I think this is an alligator lizard. It appeared in the office this week.

The lizard has a new home in someone's back yard, outside of the office.

The columbine is starting in my garden.

This is today's flower harvest.

Fuschia & passionflower.

I'm skipping the Power Tool Drag Races today. In 2003, I was attacked by a leaf blower with a trumpet on top. .

I don't know what these guys were doing wandering around the tracks.

On Monday, a teenager had a seizure in front of me as we got off CalTrain. She had her friends with her and she came out of it in under a minute. I didn't wait for the ambulance to arrive. Her friends seemed to doing all the right things. I saw the same group again on the train on Thursday. Seizure-girl seems to have recovered OK...at least enough to be back on the train on her way to school.

Fuschia in my garden.

My favorite soap now has a mermaid character named Siren.

I was worried that the wisteria would not survive the transplant. It seems to have survived just fine.

Today is Sunday. I'm going to plant tomatoes in my garden and then rest and read the Bible. How's that for a wholesome Sunday activity?

I made another pair of bed socks.

This is part of my plumbing disaster. This seems to have been resolved without the use of a jackhammer. In some ways, I'm relieved. In others, disappointed. Digging up the concrete floor with a jackhammer might have been interesting. It's probably for the best that jackhammers were not required.

My friend picked me up at BART and said "you have your camera, right?" I said "of course" and then we started talking about things...until we turned the corner and conversation stopped. This sculpture-in-progress had appeared over night.

This is one of the several hundred bulbs I planted last fall. Now I have no idea what it is.

The garage is being cleaned.

There's a new dog at work.

Today, I gave out my first Flying Spaghetti Monster tracts to another VTA commuter.

This looks like a blue tribble but it's actually a tissue box cosy.

This is the first green tomato of the season.

Today's baking was an experiment with some fancy artisan flour. A friend gave me 2lbs of StoneBuhr flour. The resulting bread was something like a hard crust dinner roll. I'm used to bread with more whole grain flavor. I think I'll stick to my whole grain (usually rye and wheat) flours.

I tried another experiment that turned out better. I'd made a spinach salad with a sesame-ginger-citrus dressing. There was extra dressing so I used it as a marinade for chicken and then put it on the grill. This experiment turned out much better. I'll be repeating this one.

More from my garden...

VTA had yet another issue when my morning train stopped to reboot. Eventually, everything started working again.