If there’s one gift that won’t wind up in a landfill in three months, it’s pictures of the grandkids.

We spent the last day of our four-day weekend at Muir Woods with Andrew, Jeri and the girls. After a hike through the breathtaking redwoods, we stopped at the Pelican Inn for fish & chips, bangers & mash and a few pints. A delicious way to end the holiday weekend!

Yes, I’m still taking pictures, and Kelly is still volunteering at Xenophon, where we get to hang out with the nicest imaginable kids, horses and volunteers. Wonderful.

The normal state of affairs as up to eight birds jostle for a seat on one of the two perches.

A couple of these buggers probably eat half of the seed I put out.

Anyway, I had no idea how pretty doves are until I saw this shot.

I mostly prefer birds that live outside to those that will live indoors with us – forever, it seems.

Here’s one I shot through the living room window.

My favorite shot from Lhotse’s second birthday party.

I’ll admit it – I’ve been spending time on Facebook in the last week. (OK – I’m a little slow when it comes to adopting certain technologies.) I’m conducting a little research to see why this social networking site is so popular. What’s that? 200 million active users??? I’m slowly beginning to understand its appeal. It’s dead simple for anyone to “publish” their thoughts and whereabouts. It’s easy to share images and video clips. Grampa can see the latest image of the kids, we can all see what our friends ate for dinner. Long-lost friends can be located – and then (thankfully) just as easily removed from our Facebook feeds forever.

The question I seek to answer concerns the value of time spent on Facebook. I’m sure I have the world’s greatest friends and am subscribed to all the right groups, but still, less than one entry in twenty posts leads me to anything memorable or worthwhile. The rest of the time is well, I won’t say “wasted”, but something close to that. Sort of like the time spent watching YouTube Featured Videos – 20% entertainment, 80% annoyance.

Another problem with Facebook can be blamed on Twitter culture. Too much of Facebook content consists of 140 or fewer character rants or blurbs. Facebook and its ilk have sucked a lot of blogs dry as ex-bloggers now devote too much of their time to sharing iPhone snapshots of their pets.

Whenever I hear something described as the latest craze in social networking I’m reminded of the CB radios we all had to own in the seventies. We all loved imagining all those other CB’ers clinging to our words as we revealed the location of the smokey in the westbound lane. What power! What fun! Eventually though, CB channels became “intolerably noisy“, and the fad died out.

So, is Facebook a fad? Yes, but it will be supplanted by something similar. Intolerably noisy? Guess that depends on your friends. Does this sort of application have a role in the workplace? Most definitely!

Bottom line? Would I recommend Facebook? Yes, actually, I would! For most people – especially those who never will have a blog – it’s better than nothing.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Lhotse. She’s growing up fast.

Andrew caught this fantastic shot of Sophie and Ursula on their first visit to Disneyland.

thedude and Kellster like the shot so much that we made a magnet out of it and hung it on our refrigerator. That’s saying quite a lot, because like at least nine other people on planet Earth, thedude also hates refrigerator magnets!

As you know, thedude and Kelly volunteer some of their time in support of an amazing organization called Xenophon Therapeutic Riding. Last night we attended their annual fundraiser. The Xenophon Gala is always fun, and this year’s event was no exception, as you can clearly see from the photos.

Please visit the Xenophon web site to view the rest of the images.

Xenophon Therapeutic Riding was featured on a local news channel last night. This is the organization Kelly has been working with for a few years. They do wonderful work with children and horses. Watch the video now!