One of the vehicles in a Nintendo 64 game is called Velostar. I wonder if there's any connection to this car?
Clouds over the mountains.
Yes he will?
Bejeweled.
My favorite staircases, slowly having the building built up around them.
I hate the jerks who cross the double-white lines to the carpool lanes. This is the first time I've seen a cop right there to get him.
The Kiss arena football team has season tickets for only $99. They're not great seats, but I wonder if it'd be fun to watch.
The mountains over windmills on the way to Palm Springs for the House of Delegates for optometry.
A bunch of motorcycles.
A palm tree farm in Palm Springs.
Another one.
Candi was going to make copies, but she had trouble, so she called me and asked if I could. Thankfully I had the files on a USB drive and there was another FedEx Kinko's open until midnight since this one was closed.
While I was there printing, I laminated some notes for photographs I keep in my camera case.
The hotel we stayed at. Friday morning I got up early to go to Joshua Tree to watch the sunrise; the only other people up at the time were the pool cleaners.
Sunrise.
Weird spiky plants in Joshua Tree.
Sundog.
A benefit of staying in a nice hotel: the shampoo is really nice. A drawback of staying in a nice hotel: the bathroom is pretty big and the towels are way over there.
Candi with our flag.
Walking in.
Rick talking.
Hilary.
A panel on health care.
Barry.
Miles.
I wanted to go up to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, I was in meetings too late and missed it. However, Candi wanted to see it as well, so we both went up right before it closed.
The view on the way up.
The lodge at the top.
There are trails in the back, but it was too dark at night and they were going to be closing soon anyway.
There was a restaurant and a buffet.
The dining room.
I didn't see any squirrels up to feed.
A movie theater.
Stuffed animals.
Going back down. The tram bounced every time we went by one of the towers.
We were in the second-to-last trip down of the night, so it was pretty crowded.
Candi on a tram outside.
Saturday morning I was planning on sleeping in, but Candi said she wanted to go to the Salton Sea because she saw pictures some woman had taken of it the day before. I said I'd be up for it but only if we got there for the sunrise, so that's what we did. We missed the first turnoff we had planned to use, so we went on the second one instead. It worked out perfectly; there was a little stream, some birds, and a big tree.
Birds.
Tree.
Stream.
The stream was narrow enough we could jump over it.
Afterwards we were pretty hungry, and we found this restaurant called Sloan's nearby.
German pancake, like Ogii made.
The French toast was amazing.
All kinds of fruits and nuts.
Another palm-tree farm.
A view from inside the hotel.
Back to meetings the next day.
Gotta keep track of who's speaking.
Asking for AOA-PAC donations.
The treasurer speaking.
The full HoD.
There was a big discussion on how much the California Vision Foundation, which gives free eye exams to needy people, was costing the California Optometric Association.
A component of the optometric oath.
Voting.
Lots of edits to a bill.
The new COA trustees being sworn in.
Senator Ed Hernandez, OD.
The LACOS society members in attendance.
Passing of the gavel from COA president to COA president, with Hilary as one of the past presidents.
Our society listening to a discussion.
Students in attendance.
Hilary's pins.
I won a Young Optometrist of the Year award. I knew it was coming a few seconds beforehand because the official photographer for the COA wasn't going to be around for the award ceremony, so she asked me to take pictures there. The COA executive director and I were at the front-middle table during the ceremony, and when they announced this award, he asked me for my camera.
My award.
I dropped my cell phone perfectly face-down, and the screen cracked quite impressively. Thankfully it's still usable, and after making a few calls, it sounds like my credit card should cover the cost of replacing it for $200.
Sunday morning I volunteered at California CareForce, a free clinic for needy patients. I thought it was bad getting up before sunrise for it, but many of the patients were there even earlier to get in line.
The mountains lit up from the sunrise behind me.
The line of phoropters.
I thought there would be a lot of doctors there, but it was mostly students. That meant I mostly double-checked their results when they had a problem, but when it got busy, I'd jump in and see a few patients completely to speed it up.
The double rows of chairs on the right were almost completely full most of the morning, but by early afternoon we were done.
Finishing up the last few refractions.
This station was for checking ocular health with slit lamps.
And this one was for checking intra-ocular pressure.
Zachary Shore, one of the students from Western university, took some pictures, too.
Waiting for health checks.
Checking near vision.
Me seeing a patient.
Visual fields.
A cute kid running.
They had equipment to make lenses on-site and be ready in a few hours.
And lots of frames to choose from.
Ah ha, finally got a $10 in change.
CicLAvia, where they shut down the road for only bicycles.
Another Prius Plug-In, with the carpool lane sticker and the plug-in logo (non-plug-in Priuses don't have the two little prongs on the "Hybrid Synergy Drive" logo).
It's kind of annoying behind behind this slow-moving guy on his bike, but he's just trying to make a living.
Ogii and I went to Koreatown for dinner. I'm not a fan of whole fish, though.