Family Blog

Grandpa and Harrison

April 23, 2024

Harrison and I had a fun play date. Grandma was at her Pilates class so we were having a "guy's day" - at least for a few hours. I loved it.

Here photos of the total solar eclipse and a video we took (be patient on the video the best part is on the end). We travelled to Vermilion Ohio to view the eclipse and show Jan where I went to Jr. High.

Made an end grain cutting board for Sami

October 22, 2023

I tried my hand at making an end grain cutting board. I used maple and cherry. It turned out pretty good in spite of a few slips of the router on the juice groove. I made it for Sami as a house warming gift for her new apartment.

Welcome Harrison Edward Villalpando (our grandson!!!)

September 20, 2023

Sara gave birth to our first grandchild today. Harrison Edward Villalpando was born at 10:50pm weighing in at 7lbs 3.1oz. and 19" long!

Tucker's 13th Birthday today (that's 64 in dog years!!!)

June 10, 2022

We celebrated our dog Tucker's 13th birthday today. We bought him a "Pup Cake" and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Married 35 years to my best friend

July 12, 2021

We celebrate 35 years hitched today. I feel so blessed to be married to the most beautiful girl in the world

Our Little Girl has Graduated

May 8, 2021

Our youngest has graduated from Loyola Marymount University with Magna Cum Laude honors! We are so very proud of her and love her to bits. She is planing to teach 2nd and 3rd graders, and we know she will be successful because she is an amazing teacher. While student teaching she has had nothing bu…

Read more 🏷 Sam

More tinkering

March 26, 2021

I've been tinkering again since it's too cold lately to go out in the garage and do my woodworking. I've been exploring all of my smart devices in the house to figure out how I might be able to do them better. I got into a thing called home assistant which is a program that runs on a raspberry pi in…

Read more 🏷 Ed

Two Eds are better than one

February 22, 2021

Just playing around. I put my iPhone on a tripod and made this. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Read more 🏷 Ed

So much for this year not sucking

January 10, 2021

We are all very heartbroken. Our dog Tess developed inoperable cancer and we had to put her to sleep tonight. (actually, I am writing this on the 19th, I was too sad to post it that day). She was the best dog we've ever had. Due to Covid restrictions, we had someone from Hearts and Halos come to our…

Tinker time again

August 28, 2020

I've discovered that this pandemic has given me lots of time to "tinker". Some people like to do puzzles, some like to read, some like to watch tv. I like to build things, either out of wood in my wood shop, or using electronics and microcontrollers. This time it's the latter. I wanted to take pic…

Read more 🏷 Ed

I Love You

July 12, 2020

I want to wish my beautiful wife of 34 years a very happy anniversary. Jan, you are my heart and my life. I love you forever

Mom’s day gifts

May 10, 2020

We tried to do the best we could for Jan on Mother’s Day. Sam made a weight holder out of plywood and dowels. She did a really good job. I bought her a pilates reformer. She has been spending a lot of time working out, and with the gyms closed she has to do it via Zoom with her trainer. In addition …

Day 53 of Stay-At-Home

May 5, 2020

Well Happy Cinco de Mayo !!! It would be a lot happier if we wouldn't have to deal with this pandemic. I shouldn't complain. I am retired, and don't need to go to work to feed my family. I really feel bad for those that can't work and are having a hard time making ends meet. I keep praying every d…

Corona tree

April 6, 2020

This branch from a coronavirus tree fell from the sky and landed next to our pond. I know there’s no such thing but the little nodules on it sure looks like a coronavirus

Corona virus has us staying home

March 21, 2020

Thank God, all of us are currently healthy. We are staying in our home in order to stay that way. It is really hard, especially since all of our loved ones are not in one place. Jan, Sam and I are hunkered down in our home and Sara and Brandon are in their home. Our only way of spending time togethe…

Keeping busy

February 12, 2020

I’ve been interested in getting into woodworking lately. I find pleasure in making things and this seemed like something that could keep me busy in my retirement. At least in those days between our travel adventures. I figured the first thing I should make is a workbench. It took longer than I ant…

Read more 🏷 Ed

Playing in my workshop

January 6, 2020

Just putting' on my shop apron and grabbing my router and having a good ole time building my own workbench.

Read more 🏷 Ed

Fun at Christmas Dinner with the Julianna's

December 25, 2019

We had fun with the Julianna's after Christmas dinner. We had a Reddi Wip launching contest. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Wet day after

November 29, 2019

We had a very rainy Thanksgiving this year. The Sun came out the next morning and heated up our fence which was soaked the night before. It created a very steamy look. Your browser does not support the video tag.

OC Fair 2019

July 14, 2019

We did our annual visit to the Orange County Fair. I was expecting it to be really hot but the weather was quite nice. We looked at the farm animals, I took a picture of a pig's butt (just something I do) and we ate greasy fried food. And of course there is the traditional pig races. Your browse…

Happy Anniversary

July 12, 2019

So happy to celebrate our 33rd anniversary with my beautiful bride. We had dinner at Admiral Risty's in PV. It is an iconic restaurant with really good food which, unfortunately, is closing its doors on August 17th. We had a wonderful dinner and reminisced on all the good times we've had throughout …

Smart Sprinkler

June 12, 2019

We have been having trouble with our landscaping not getting properly watered. We had a 15 year old sprinkler controller, and I was afraid it would quit working while we are gone on vacation. I justified that it would be cheaper to buy a new smart sprinkler controller than to replace all of our new …

Read more 🏷 Ed

Ovens and drawers

June 8, 2019

I took over some of the cooking in the kitchen while Jan was down with her foot surgery. I had always hated the fact that our oven would not heat to the set temperature and it was impossible to read the temperature on the display because it had gotten so dim. I always had to turn out all the lights …

Read more 🏷 Ed

Out with the old ...

June 1, 2019

Another page turns in auto ownership. I have sold my Honda Ridgeline and bought a Ford F-150. The Ridgeline served me well, and I did love a lot of its storage features (that awesome trunk under the bed), but it was time for an upgrade. I liked the looks of my Ridgeline, but Jan's old boss Larry sai…

Read more 🏷 Ed

Setting up camp

May 4, 2019

We are setting up camp after arriving at Joshua Tree. We stayed at Sheep Pass campground. I had a hotel in town which was ok but I wish I had camped out with the rest of the group. I didn't really know anyone, so it was a little awkward at first, but they were all friendly. Another guy was shooting …

I'm tinkering again

April 10, 2019

I've been tinkering again. I am preparing for a weekend photo shoot in Joshua Tree at the beginning of May. I've signed up for a class through Creative Photo Academy which is associated (and located next to) Paul's photo - a local photo shop. We will be learning astrophotography in one of the best …

Read more 🏷 Ed

Finally a break in the rain

March 26, 2019

Today is a warm sunny day in So Cal. It sounds strange but this has been rare of late. We have had a very rainy winter this year, and it probably isn't over yet. This is what it looked like last week.

Proud of our Sami girl

March 19, 2019

Sami was initiated into the National Honor Society Tau Sigma at LMU today. We are so very proud of our little girl. It is so exciting to see her live her dreams.

Read more 🏷 Sam

Happy St. Paddy’s Day

March 17, 2019

Hope you all are having a fun and safe St. Patrick's Day. We enjoyed some Irish stew and Guiness oatmeal bread all made by me! I had no idea I could cook. I think I will surrender the kitchen when Jan is back on her feet though - cooking is too much work.

Pi day

March 14, 2019

Well, I made my first pie on pi day. I made a blueberry pie from a recipe I found (probably should have made a Raspberry pi, but then I would have had to have it do something). It turned out a little tart, but everyone said they liked it. A small spot of sugar on top should do the trick I think.

Read more 🏷 Ed

Rain day

March 6, 2019

Another rainy day. I opened the window so they could look out at the rain.

Our little girl is grown up!!!

January 28, 2019

Our little Sami girl turned 21 today. Where the heck did all the time go. It seems like just yesterday that she was four years old and pretending to be a teacher. Now she's twenty one and still wants to be a teacher. I guess I should have expected that. We plan on taking her to Las Vegas next weeke…

Read more 🏷 Sam

SpaceX launch

October 7, 2018

We went to the beach tonight to watch the SpaceX launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was really cool and the first stage actually landed back at a spot near the launching pad. This is a shot Jan took with her iPhone after first stage separation.

Disneyland times two

September 30, 2018

We went to Disneyland this weekend. We spent two days - the first day we went to the Disneyland resort and the second day we went to California adventure. We spent the night at a local Holiday Inn so that we can get an early start the next day. It was a little crowded as usual, but we still managed …

I got my Apple Watch

September 21, 2018

Well I finally got an Apple Watch. I know what you're thinking. Why would a Apple fanboy like me wait so long to get the watch? Well I wasn't able to wear it at work and it didn't make sense to buy one and leave it in my car all day. Now I am retired, and I have no such restrictions. I didn't do t…

Read more 🏷 technology

Learning to Improvise

September 19, 2018

I decided to replace the tiny old range hood we had over the stove. I got the biggest one I could find that still fit in the space over the stove. My main problem was that the cooking area is all brick enclosed and there is no access from the top or the sides and I had to install it by going strai…

Read more 🏷 technology

Automation is sublime

August 28, 2018

I had created a php script to batch upload photos. I use it to upload vacation pics after I have had a chance to ?Bart? them. The script looks at files in a directory called ?load? where I have moved them using ftp and saves them to the images database with the path pointing to my images directory.…

Sara Villalpando

August 27, 2018

Well I finally changed my daughter's last name in my contacts. Man that was really hard!

Crossing the bridge

August 1, 2018

We are in Vancouver on vacation. Our house sitter is guarding the dogs (I'm sure they aren't guarding her). We went to Capilano Suspension Bridge today. It was lots of fun. Jan got stung by a bee and it really hurt for a long time. She managed to enjoy the hike anyway. I plan to add more details to…

My web server

July 29, 2018

I mentioned my web server before but I have never posted a picture of it. The little white box is the web server. It is a raspberry pi and the black and blue box is a solid-state drive out of a laptop. Originally I just used a thumb drive but it wasn't very fast so I decided to go with a solid-stat…

Read more 🏷 technology

The Wedding

July 14, 2018

Sara & Brandon's wedding was amazing!!! More to come on a special page soon.

Sara & Brandon

July 14, 2018

Sara and Brandon were married on July 14th, and the wedding turned out fantastic. It was an amazing wedding and the bride looked amazingly beautiful, but I am kind of biased I have to admit. The wedding was held in a venue called Verandas in Manhattan Beach. It used to be a restaurant long …

The Wedding is in two days !!!

July 12, 2018

Your browser does not support the video tag. Jan is all excited!!!

Countdown to wedding

July 11, 2018

I can't believe my little girl is getting married this Saturday. Everything seems to be going by so fast. Well stay tuned, I'll post again after the ceremony.

Retired

July 7, 2018

Well Jan and I are finally retired. Jan retired on June 29th and I retired on July 6th. For Jan they held a nice pizza party at the Topsoil yard with all the workers and customers in attendance. It was a really nice affair and Ron Murakami took pictures. After I retired on July 6 we all went to Ba…

Retirement luncheon

June 26, 2018

The gang at work just gave me a retirement luncheon at the local burger joint called Hopdoddy's. We had lots of fun telling stories and complaining about work. I told them that I would be thinking about them while I'm sitting on a beach sipping my mai tai. I've only been there a year but they seem…

Read more 🏷 Ed

Scarface

June 10, 2018

We went to another one of Denny's barbershop shows last night. This one was called ?Scarface? and was put on in a warehouse where an artist lives. They converted it to a speakeasy from the 20s. The photo below is of one of the barbershop guys who is dressed up to look like the man from monopoly. Boy…

Bootstrapped!!

May 12, 2018

I finally did it, I updated the website to use the Bootstrap 4 framework. Thanks again to the podcast Programming by Stealth with Bart and Allison. Now this site looks good on any device! I may have a few cleanup items (like adding a carousel to the main page), but it looks really good in my opinio…

Read more 🏷 technology

Lompoc Wine Festival

April 21, 2018

Jan and I joined Larry and Chris Murakami at the wine festival for the weekend. They stayed at flying flags in their motor home and we stayed at Pea Soup Anderson's hotel. We had a fantastic time cooking out at their motorhome and couldn't believe how much that place is changed. Lots of new cabins…

Yard update

April 17, 2018

We are getting a landscaping makeover. We are revamping all of the flower beds and also replacing the lawns with new sod. Not trying to go drought tolerant or anything, just basically doing a "nuke and pave" approach. We are trying to get everything cleaned up and looking nice while we are still pul…

The road to retirement

March 21, 2018

Well today's the day that I met with my boss and told him I was planning on retiring at the end of June. He was sad and said that he wished I could continue on even on a part time basis. I told him that I decided I want to retire completely and start traveling with my wife who is also retiring at th…

House painted

March 9, 2018

Well the outside of our house got painted. The guys we hired (Evans Painting) did a fantastic job. We went with a darker color brown called Tree Branch with an even darker trim color, Turkish Coffee.I'll post a picture tomorrow when there is enough light.

Added RSS feed for blog

March 3, 2018

I added an RSS feed to the blog to see if I could do it. It seems to be working ok, but I'm not sure yet that I have gotten everything correct. The feed can be gotten by going to https://www.edtobias.com/rss.php.

Read more 🏷 technology

My cat took down our website

March 2, 2018

Our new cat Tori loves to play with wires. I do believe that will be her undoing one day, but without me knowing, she unplugged the ssd drive that was connected to my Raspberry pi web server. I don't know how long the site was down, but I'm going to have to "cat-proof" my system.

I’ve made fire !!!

February 9, 2018

I wanted to move my website from my home Macintosh to a web server on a raspberry pi. And I actually did that. I got my raspberry pi and I installed Apache and PHP and MySQL and got it up and running. You are viewing this from my Web server being run by my $35 raspberry pi. I have now made fire !!!

Watching the Super Blue Blood moon with Sara and Brandon

January 31, 2018

This morning I got up real early and Sara and Brandon and I went to Hilltop Park in Signal Hill to look at the Super Blue Blood moon. I took the picture below with my iPhone, but I also took some pretty good pictures with my DSLR - I just haven't processed them yet.

Our Baby is Engaged!!!

January 7, 2018

Our baby girl Sara just got engaged!!!! Her fiancé, Brandon, proposed at Crystal Cove this afternoon. We met them for dinner at George's Mediterranean in Long Beach to celebrate. We are so happy for her and so proud to have Brandon as a son-in-law

Merry Christmas

December 24, 2017

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and we hope you and yours are safe, blessed and happy this holiday season.

Cool toys

November 22, 2017

I just found a cool toy at Bed Bath & Beyond (the store does have some cool stuff). What I found was an attachment for your sink faucet that lights up using three colored LEDs. The cool thing about it is that it requires NO BATTERIES !!! It has a miniature hydroelectric generator inside the housing…

Knee trouble

October 12, 2017

I took Jan to the Torrance Orthopedic and Sports Medice group this morning. I got my thumb joint worked on there a month ago. She may have a torn meniscus and a inflamed bursa. She got a X-ray and a cortisone shot in her knee (lots of pain!). She is scheduled to get a MRI on Monday. We are going to…

Jan's Birthday!!!

October 12, 2017

Today is Jan's birthday, but her age is classified and you don't have clearance. We both had to work today, and her friends from work (and Sara) took her to Martha's in Hermosa Beach for lunch. She had a great time and got a few nice gifts to boot. We had dinner at Stacked restaurant and waited fo…

Sam made me breakfast!!

September 27, 2017

I woke up this morning to find my daughter Sam cooking in the kitchen. She made me banana macadamia nut pancakes FROM SCRATCH for my birthday!!!! I love that kid.

Solar Eclipse Day!!!

August 21, 2017

Today was the solar eclipse. I had purchased a set of five pairs of special glasses from B&H photo so everyone in the family could watch. Everyone also shared with their coworkers since the eclipse occurred at 10:21am on a Monday. Below is a picture captured by Sam, and a screenshot of our solar pan…

Happy July 4th

July 4, 2017

I want to wish everyone a very happy fourth of July. We live in a wonderful country made up of the strongest most caring people. I feel honored and proud to celebrate our heritage

New iMac

June 15, 2017

I just got a brand-new 27 inch retina iMac. The old 2007 iMac finally bit the dust. It lasted a good long time and served me well. The new shiny is very fast and very cool looking and I am very happy

Working at Raytheon

May 25, 2017

Well, I have started my first week at Raytheon. It was nice having a two month break from work. It kind of simulated what retirement would be like. I used to worry that I wouldn't be able to handle retirement, but it is not has hard as it looks.

My brindled dog

April 29, 2017

Tucker has such a beautiful brindled fur coat.

Butterfly Breakfast

April 26, 2017

It looks like the butterflies will have a good breakfast today. The milkweed is looking very tasty.

Wine tasting

April 22, 2017

We visited The Avensole winery in Temecula and had a winetasting there as well. This place was absolutely beautiful. Jan and I shared a winetasting between us which involves six different tastes of wine. A taste is about an ounce of wine. We ended up buying a bottle of their red that goes well…

Holidays are over

January 8, 2017

Well, the holidays are over. They go by so quick. We take Sam to the airport today to go back to Tempe for her spring semester at ASU. It sure was nice having her home over the break. Sara and Ed spent the last week sick in bed with a horrible virus - not a great way to start the new year. We hop…

Super moon

November 14, 2016

I got up early today to photograph the super moon over looking the lighthouse. I also took some time-lapse photos of a bike with flashing rear lights. This is fun, but I need a lot more practice

Lunch with Sara

September 27, 2016

Sara and I went to much for my birthday. We went to the Cheesecake Factory in Redondo Beach. I had a really good time and she paid - which felt kind of weird. I'm the dad, I'm suppose to pay. Sara is very thoughtful that way, and I really enjoy going to lunch with her. I want to start doing it more…

Moving Sam to ASU

August 10, 2016

Well we are moving Sam to ASU to start her college education!

Read more 🏷 Sam

Sam's teeth

July 23, 2016

Sam had all four wisdom teeth pulled yesterday. She has been on the couch all day. Her jaw is still pretty sore.

Forging the river

July 3, 2016

This is Jan forging a river on horseback in Montana. I don't know about you, but I am impressed!!!

Rodeo Time!

June 26, 2016

Heading out to the stampede rodeo in Cody Wyoming

Father's Day

June 19, 2016

I have been having a wonderful Father's Day so far. We went to Schooner or Later for breakfast (2hr wait!!!) we then came home and I opened my gifts (lots of great clothes for our upcoming trip to Montana). And later we plan to go to the movies and dinner.

Tracy's wedding

June 4, 2016

We had a really good time at Jan's boss' daughter's wedding in Solvang this last weekend. We finished off our stay with a tour and wine tasting at Firestone Vineyards. The landscapes are very pretty there. I captured this with my iPhone.

Sam's prom

April 22, 2016

Sam had a wonderful time at her senior prom. She looks so pretty - I'm sure she was the prettiest girl there, but I'm her dad and I'm a little biased. (one could say Too biased)

Read more 🏷 Sam

Happy Easter!!

March 27, 2016

I hope everyone is having a very happy Easter. I hope you are spending your day with loved ones and enjoying a good meal and good times. &#x1f430

Finished stage 1

March 11, 2016

I finally finished the CRUD pages (Create, Read, Update, Delete). Now I can more easily update the blog.

Programming

March 4, 2016

I've been listening to a podcast by Allison Sheridan and Bart Busschots which is called "Programming By Stealth (PBS)". So far it has been teaching CSS and I have learned quite a bit. On my own I have taught myself PHP web programming. I have since revamped my website (where you are now) using PHP a…

My Photography

March 3, 2016

I am considering documenting my progress toward getting better at photography. I'm trying to do it in an organized way by focusing on specific areas of photography, one at a time. It's a little nerdy but I created a mind map identifying the various areas of photography that I would like to impro…

Recent Posts

Topics