I highly recommend that all of those fellow disenfranchised men who thought bear411 was the only site where they could meet men of our ilk, consider just using the bearwww to increase the critical mass there, which is far more rational and just as potentially useful as bear411 is to meeting men locally and transnationally.

The moment I walked in, I struck gold (not grocery-wise)! What before my eyes did appear? A woofy fully-bearded man in a kilt — but it gets better! He was an EMPLOYEE. This is Castro Valley, a relatively conservative suburb near a working class suburb that I actually live in, although it’s relatively progressive compared to many parts of the world and the country. Then I started observing that some of the other employees were bearded and handsome and seemed to love working there, and I know one of them did a double take when he saw me. He was a ruggedly handsome, silver-haired foxy cub type and I felt coy when he seemed to followed me down some aisles with the excuse to sort some product, which required that he step away from his register. He was adorning shorts and spandex sleeves (which are pretty sexy). I had never seen attire like that before, but I suspect they were to keep his arms warm while still being able to wear a short-sleeved shirt to mitigate the draft as the registers are right by the automatic doors. It does get brisk in the evenings in California.

We made idle chit-chat and hopefully he noticed I waited in a longer line just to have him be my cashier. Among other things I said, “it looks like it’s fun to work here.” With all the creatively-pierced guys working there, and the metrosexual and gay guys who come in for their macrobiotic food, I can only imagine that it’s a hospitable place for flirtation, even if just an oasis outside of the Mecca of San Francisco across the bay.

Once in a great while, one of them will understand my humor and come around to realize that they are completely rude and should atone for their contacting me under those shady circumstances, but I won’t hold my breath for anyone who took the time to post a faceless profile and seek me out.

A few days ago I was asked for my email address so that one of these headless torsos could send me his picture. I had started off with my usual, “if your face is too fucking ugly to post and you’re too dumb to even post a private picture that you choose to unlock for me, you are not worth it,” but he was insistent that he could email his face to me (behind his wife’s back, no doubt).

So I feigned acquiescence by providing one of the creative addresses I come up with for these people and for my own amusement, assuming that they would get my point. This time I said:

“Sure! Go ahead and send them to yourmotherisawhore@closetfreak.com”

Would you believe he wrote back “sent”?

I saw my Aunt Sharren.  She’s the sweetest thing, but she wouldn’t let me take her picture!  We stayed overnight at her place and did some major catching up through breakfast the next day.  I hadn’t seen her since I was probably about five years old!  Fortunately we chat regularly online.  Our two little dogs got along surprisingly well.

The road trip back was the slow one, and it included lots of beaches, redwoods, gorges, sand dunes and lighthouses.  Besides spending several days in Seattle, we made stops in Portland, Astoria, Canon Beach, Florence, Port Orford, Eureka, Orick, Fort Bragg, Mendocino, Guerneville and countless other unmarked places on Highways 101 and 1, mostly.

I split up the galleries to consist of one with people and dogs and one that consists of views and vistas.

[Show as slideshow]

[Show as slideshow]

Unfortunately it looks like the video part of my expensive Nikon 5100 is going south, as did my photography portion of the camera several months ago. I’ll see if there is a way to increase the contrast and decrease the flushed areas of sand and sky that seem to blur a lot of the details in some of the videos.