It's the story...of a girl named Marci...

I can't believe that I'm 34 years old and I have never met a celebrity...before today. Yup, that's right, I spent the afternoon hob-nobbing with the celebs when I went to Agua Hedionda Lagoon's First Annual Celebrity Fishing Tournament! The main reason I went was to support the cause of protecting the lagoon, of course, but the other main reason I went was to meet Christopher Knight, a.k.a. Peter Brady. He was so nice! And he even remembered my name after a couple of hours of meeting other weirdos like me...actually, all the celebrities there were pretty nice. Hmmm...let's see...who else did I meet? Adrianne Curry was there (who is married to Chris Knight and won the first season of America's Next Top Model), but I won't be posting the photo that was taken of me and her together because me standing next to a supermodel is hard for me to look at. Also attending was Brett Cullen (who plays Goodwin on Lost), Christopher Atkins (who was the boy/man in The Blue Lagoon), and Marc McClure (who played Jimmy Olson in all of the Superman movies). There were other people there too - soap stars, mostly, that I didn't recognize. Anyway, it was pretty fun and I'm glad that I finally got to meet one of the stars of my all-time favorite TV shows. He even signed my program! Woo hoo!!!

Happy Birthday, Teddy Bear!

May 12, 2008 marks Teddy Bear's birthday, and he'll be 15 years old. At this rate, I think he's planning on living at least another 15 years, just to torture me. Happy birthday, my geriatric puppy!

It's not all about birds and butterflies...

It's also brodiaea season! Brodiaea filifolia, or thread-leaved brodiaea, is one of the several endangered species that I work with in my turf. It was a nice rainy winter, so the brodiaea is up and blooming. Some years it doesn't bloom at all, so it's always cool when the purple flowers open up and you can see where the populations are. These pictures were taken Monday, when I went to see one of the largest populations left in Carlsbad, on the La Costa Greens preserve. Enjoy!

We also saw tons of ground spiders. They usually hide down in the hole when they see you coming, but this bad-ass came up to see what I was doing as I snapped a few pictures of him.

Also, a couple of days ago I finally got my first view of El Salto Falls, on Buena Vista Creek in Carlsbad. It's a wonderful waterfall (very rare in the area) that has about a 40-foot drop. Native Americans have been visiting the falls for about 9000 years, and it's on their list of sacred places; you can't access the falls, but if you park at the northwestern corner of the Kohl's parking lot off of Marron Road, peek over the fence and you'll have a great view. Very cool!