I am full of...

anti-oxidants! I saved seeds from last year's meals. Any heirloom tomatoes that were tasty had their seeds saved.

Next season is going to be even more. If mom doesn't get her act together and plant other vegetables, my tomatoes are going to take over the yard!

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

I took Dave and Murielle to this one year, when they still lived in the Bay Area. It was smaller then, and you could walk around and get close to the artists, except for the featured stage. It has gotten way bigger now. I heard some estimate of 400k people for sunday. That's a lot of bodies. The banjo stage field was a solid sea of humanity. I managed to find a spot in the "friends & family" section, next to a nice Swedish lady, married to a Brooklyn man, now living in SF near their daughter who plays the cello, and 6-yr old grand-daughter. The arrow stage attendance was not much smaller. The star stage was a younger hippie druggie crowd. The porch stage more folksy. That's my sweeping generalizations for today...

I took BART to civic center, and walked the 4.2 mi (according to google) each way. I figured it'd be good to get some exercise, if I'm going to sit and listen to music for hours. I ate a danish, a croissant, and a box of grapes. That's it. Almost healthy? And water, no soda.

Here's what I saw that I liked (I won't mention what I didn't like, cuz that's not nice) :

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=ALISON_BROWN_JOE_CRAVEN

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=BILL_EVANS_STRING_SUMMIT_MEGAN_LYNCH

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=EARL_SCRUGGS

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=RICKY_SKAGGS

California Academy of Sciences

NOT. We didn't get in. Mei drove her relatively new Impreza, nephew Wesley, mom and me. They handed out 25,000 timed tickets for the 9:30-9pm opening day and they were gone in a jiffy. So, we braved the traffic, a minor fender-bender, and the crowds..... for nothing. We ended up walking around the Strybing Arboretum for a little bit, then we went home.

One must think carefully about the cost-benefits of such freebies in the future...
Maybe I'll try again one of those wednesdays...
Maybe...

Personality Affects Dementia Risk

Ummm... "One Finnish study reported at the Chicago meeting suggested that single people are more likely to face a future with dementia than those who tie the knot early. A Brazilian study presented data that pre-existing health conditions such as high blood pressure..."

I'm doomed :-P

Mr. Youniverse

This is me?

http://youniverse.com/personality/feedback/db3224f899b6e7787727c6dc093df155

Mt. Diablo

I used to come here regularly, but today was my first visit this summer. During hot summer months, exposed to the heat, sometimes. During the winter months, slogging through the mud on the fire roads sections. This is the highest point in the bay area, and yes, I have seen the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra from here. The views are nice. Even if you have to put up with lots of cars at the summit because there's a road all the way up. Reminds me of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, where you climb through very different weather from the base to the top, and you can get a hot chocolate in the warming hut. One time, I took a California visitor hiking there (I was living in MA) and it was t-shirt sunny weather at the base, and hailing cold wind at the summit.

My usual route is from the Regency Drive entrance. As far as I can tell, the other entrances have a lot of hiking on fire roads. Exposed. Hot or muddy. Just not my idea of a walk in the woods.

Donner Canyon Rd. Herrington Loop Tr. Bruce Lee Tr. Lower Donner Cyn. Wasserman Tr. Cardinet Oaks Rd. Olympia Tr. Olympia Rd. North Peak Tr. North Peak Rd. Summit Tr. Bald Ridge Tr. Back Creek Tr.

Other nice options to make it longer or shorter... Falls Tr and Middle Tr on the ascent. Eagle Peak Tr on the descent.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=b943zvh.66yuvrmt&x=0&y=-j8ttp8&localeid=en_US

Under the Big Tent

If you haven't guess it already, that's my house under that tent. It's not an uncommon sight in these parts... termites are a big problem. The homes are all wood (earthquake).

Despite what I read on the EPA website, this fumigation thing is still a leap of faith, in both directions. It really does evaporate, because it's a gas and not a residue, like the old days. But that's provided you ventilate after treatment. And it's supposed to penetrate wood, etc. I hope the termites really are terminated. But that's all they'd be. Dead. This is just a temporary setback for those little critters. They'll be back. My house is too yummy.

So, after $$ and half the summer, I have an updated bathroom, a new door, a study area in the master bedroom, a well-ventilated crawl-space, new deck beams, a cleaned-up garage, and most of a dumpster's worth of trash hauled away.

Am I a Nerd?

SF Theatre Festival

I'm Worth Something!

How Long Will I Live?

Mill Valley and Stinson Beach

2nd Reunion at Disneyworld

10 years ago, we had a family reunion at DisneyWorld in Orlando, FL. None of the grandkids were born yet, so it was just us "adults". Dad was still alive back then, and able to do a fair bit of walking. I'll have to find some photos and scan them to put up here. Digital cameras were not the norm. We all had our hands up in a "touch-down" pose, so you might think "what's wrong with these people?" if you saw the photo album, but if you only saw individual photos, you might think we're almost normal. I remember going from ride to ride, with almost no waiting because Calvin & co timed it that good. There was the daily afternoon showers to soak and cool you off... I think it wasn't peak season, since we had no kids in tow.

We stayed at a house in Kissimmee. Super cheap. Clean. And we drove in a van to the park each day, except the day we spent at downtown Orlando at a museum. So, it was the 6 of us, plus the Taylors.

Fast-forward 10 years. Ben had the idea to come back to DisneyWorld for a 10th anniversary reunion. It's been 2 years since Dad passed away, and we have 5 kids wired up to do DisneyWorld, ranging in age from 8 to almost 2. Mary was the only kid that knew this was coming, because Murielle had to drag her along to AAA to book packages for the 4 households. Y'know... to avoid the daily "how many days til DisneyWorld?" none of the other kids knew. Due to school schedules, we went there during peak season. And we're splurging by staying at one of the Disney resorts, albeit one where you take their bus to the park, not the super-expensive monorail hotel. Still, it was so convenient because you can take the kids back to the hotel in the middle of the day to nap, or cool off in one of the pools. We had a "grand gathering" 4 adjacent rooms, and Disney park-hopper plus meal plan passes. Boy did we eat well. Their food options have improved tremendously. Kim did a lot of pre-planning to book us dinner reservations, and the one breakfast at Cinderella's castle. For the record: Jasmine is hot :-D

We did one late night, where the two older kids got to stay up past 1am to see the water theatre show. Surprisingly, they weren't that cranky the next day. I wouldn't let them stay up every night, though. One good day is luck. Two would be statistically improbable.

Aside from digital cameras, everyone had cellphones this time. Very useful to text message each other, since you can't really expect a group of 13 people to move enmasse all the time. We're all getting older by the minute. I don't think we'll wait another 10 years for a reunion of this sort. What new technology will we carry with us next time?


Here are some photo albums from various cameras:

murielle: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=113n4pqh.7hccgsn5&x=1&y=bhryet and http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=113n4pqh.5ua313m1&x=1&y=i1bl6p

kim: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2pl0kwn.6lg7uuu3&x=0&y=v9xllx

ben: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=3uzf8t2.5i15j4qz&x=0&y=-jcdygg

Mission Peak