Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday celebration at Moseley Family Cellars

Erin Murphy at Moseley Family Cellars in Redding CA Yesterday evening, Erin and her friends attended the Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday celebration at Moseley Family Cellars, at their location at 1300 Market Streeet in Redding.

Celebrants partook of Jambalaya, King’s Cake, and other traditional Mardi Gras foods, paired with Moseley’s Chardonnay and Zinfindel. And served with New Orleans style jazz and zydeco in the downtown Redding tasting room.

“Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler” (Let the good times roll!)
Erin Murphy at Moseley Family Cellars in Redding CA Erin Murphy at Moseley Family Cellars in Redding CA
Erin Murphy at Moseley Family Cellars in Redding CA

Erin Murphy at Moseley Family Cellars in Redding CA
Aaron Rader, Erin Murphy, Mimi Moseley, and Marty Moseley celebrate in Redding
Erin Murphy at Moseley Family Cellars in Redding CA
Joe Baker gets the baby in the cake.

If you can’t actually be in New Orleans, wine tasting in Downtown Redding offers an alternative. Moseley Family Cellars is located across from Old City Hall Downtown, and can be reached at (530) 605 4222.

LED suited snowboarder

You may have seen it, but I had to share it here. It’s beautiful.

Glowing Man HD from Jacob Sutton on Vimeo.


The Ski Park looks pretty nice today, although there is no night skiing tonight. Had to post this webcam snap to make up for the drier one I posted earlier in the year. This looks like good Spring skiing.
Skip Park Feb 21
And here’s a recent terrain park video from earlier in February:

Pleasant winter days in Redding, and this awesome Ski Park is just about an hour away. That’s Really Redding.

Video of a quick motorcycle ride up Buckhorn

Ran across this interesting video the other day. Highway 299 is the road from Redding to the coast. The Buckhorn Summit is characterized by some tight corners along the mountainside. This rider strapped a video camera to his bike, and went for a fast ride.


For years, I drove this road weekly. Going back to when there were one-lane bridges in Trinity County on 299. The road is much better now, but Buckhorn can be a challenge. Before you try a fast ride, just be aware that the road is particularly unforgiving. Misjudged corners can easily become fatal errors. Not only that, but you never know who, or what, you’ll find in your lane as you go round. You feel lucky?

Subway style highway graphic puts Redding on the map.

Map of ReddingClick on the Info button to enlarge the map. An ingenious and useful graphic design for visualizing getting around the country.

From Redding, it’s an easy hop on the Green Line to the Red Line, and then a straight shot to either San Francisco or New York. Or stay on the Green Line for either San Diego or Seattle. Nice.

Brilliant design work by Cameron Booth. Thanks for putting Redding on the map.

Redding connection to Vostok

Redding musician Craig Padilla recorded lovely, evocative, longform organic/electronic music in his studio on West Street in Redding. Vostok was one of his major works. It went on to become his highly regarded release on the artist-run Spotted Peccary label. Lately, Vostok itself has been in the news.

Vostok by Craig Padilla
You can listen to some of Vostok at the link. Hard to believe it was 10 years ago!
Redding Musician Craig Padilla
I was teasing Craig that the low droning sound that is heard on the recording was only Russians drilling on orders from Vladimir Putin to get him a really cold glass of water.

Look up

Dancing clouds. Took these shots yesterday as today’s light rain front moved in.
skies over redding
Sometimes you look up and realize there’s a show going on.
sunny redding skies
clouds above pie tree in reddingLike somebody fingerpainting on the deep blue skies of Redding.

The Buddha lamp

Buddha LampThis lamp was once the valued possession of my now departed mother-in-law. She’s gone, but the lamp remains.

It’s been on a journey, as various relatives tried to find a place for it. None seem content with it. Now it’s at my house.

I don’t believe I’ve seen other religious icons made into light fixtures. The Buddha seems to have taken the transformation in stride. Still, it’s certainly not very dignified.

Nobody seems to want the lamp, yet we hang on to it for purely sentimental reasons.

Ironically, Buddhists have something important to say about that kind of attachment. From Wikipedia: “The Three Marks of Existence are impermanence, suffering, and not-self. The doctrine asserts that because things are impermanent, attachment to them is futile and leads to suffering.”

Admittedly, the human suffering here is insignificant. But there it is. We either suffer with the Buddha lamp, or suffer with idea of discarding grandma’s parlor light from the house in Summit City. And along with it, a part of her in our memory. Our attachment to the impermanent is the source of the anxiety.

And so the Buddha lamp offers illumination, with both warm light and insight.