Fascination Place

We woke up this morning and Debbi said, “I smell something burning.”

Fortunately it wasn’t something around our house; rather, it was smoke blowing in from a fire in the south bay hills over 40 miles away from us:

The Summit fire has consumed about 3,100 acres, but is not spreading as rapidly as feared yesterday. Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Plageman this afternoon said that 20 homes have been destroyed.

And:

Shifting winds this morning blew ash from the fire away from Santa Cruz County and toward the summit and into northwestern Santa Clara County, where residents reported smelling smoke.

Santa Clara County public health authorities advised people who can see or smell smoke to stay inside and keep windows and doors shut.

At work I had to walk to another building for a meeting, and the central courtyard was filled with a light haze, presumably the smoke blown in from the hills. By lunchtime it had cleared out, along with the smell.

Wow, the rest of my Dad’s visit just flew by; I can’t believe I’m back at work already!

I put hundreds of miles on my car this past week, but that’s not really surprising; there’s a lot to do in the Bay Area - even on his third trip, there were still things he hadn’t seen before, and a few I hadn’t seen before - but most of it is widely spread out.

Following the trips to the coast and the Livermore wine country on Friday and Saturday respectively, Sunday we went to the A La Carte and Art festival downtown, which I think Dad enjoyed more than he’d expected. He picked up a few goodies, and reminisced with one of the vendors about making rubber band guns back in the 40s. After that we went to the Computer History Museum. I was sure I’d been there with Dad before, but he says not. But it’s always a terrific visit, and we got to see the Babbage Engine they have on display there (one of two in the world).

In the evening we drove up to San Francisco to have dinner with my cousin K, who coincidentally has the same name as Dad (well, okay, actually it was intentional). My other cousin, L, also lives up there, but was out of town. She recommended a restaurant for us to go to, though, so we went up with Debbi, picked up K, and had a fine dinner. I haven’t seen K in years - probably since I was in college; he’s quieter than I’d remembered. But the family resemblance among him, me and Dad is pretty clear. (Somehow we managed to completely forget to get any photos of the three of us.)

That was the first of three trips we made to the city (and that one was in Debbi’s car!). On Monday Dad and I drove up hoping to go to the Cable Car Museum, but there was absolutely no parking there. We thought about parking elsewhere and taking a (duh!) cable car there, but they were also doing some work on the tracks, so we decided to punt. Instead we drove over to Golden Gate Park.

So I have this amazing talent for forgetting that the museums in SF are closed on Mondays. Gah. Fortunately, there’s always something more to do. We went to the Japanese Tea Garden, and then walked through Strybing Arboretum. I see a little more of the Arboretum each time I go - it’s always fun to visit. This time around I learned that Monday seems to be watering day in the arboretum. Sheesh! After that we stopped at Ocean Beach to see the sea, and then I dragged Dad to Borderlands Books, which is fun to visit during the week since there’s plenty of on-street parking, for a change! I got some cuddle time with Ripley, their hairless cat, too.

Tuesday we went up again, this time to visit the Conservatory of Flowers in the park. I’d never been before, and I highly recommend it; it’s full of orchids and palm trees and other tropical plants, plus it has a room full of butterflies. Very cool. And it’s in a 19th century building, too! After that we went to the Musee Mechanique. Dad wasn’t so impressed with the Musee, and I’ll admit that I think their old location at the Cliff House was better; it presented its contents in a more historical order, whereas the current arrangement seems rather scattershot, even though it has more space for the exhibits. Ah well.

And as I said yesterday we ate plenty of food amidst all of this driving. We were usually pretty wiped out once we’d eaten dinner, so we had some quiet evenings at home, although we did watch the season finales of both Smallville (which I’m kind of glad I don’t watch anymore) and House (which I kind of wonder if I should watch more often).

Wednesday it was up early (well, early for me) to drop Dad off at the airport. On the way out of the airport, my car rolled over to 90,000 miles. I put another 60 or so miles on it in a failed attempt to spend the afternoon on the beach (it was far too windy, and the clincher was that the wind was blowing the sand into my face and hair). That was a bummer, and put me in a melancholy mood for the rest of the day. Or maybe it was the prospect of going back to work today.

Anyway, I had a great visit with Dad. I think I enjoyed our trip to the coast on Friday the most, although the Conservatory of Flowers was really neat, too. And of course it was just good to see him.

I’ll put up a few more pictures from his visit over the next few days, but for now I’ll end with this one:

This is pretty neat: Palo Alto Online has historical notes on many neighborhoods on the southern SF peninsula. For example, Castro City in Mountain View, or Loyola Corners in Los Altos, or Fair Oaks in Menlo Park.

Of course, my own house isn’t in a historical neighborhood. We’re newfangled sorts around hereabouts, I guess.

It’s strange that the former town of Mayfield hardly rates a mention. Mayfield used lie between Mountain View and Palo Alto, and it eventually was absorbed by the two other cities when it was outgrown by them. The southern half of Palo Alto was mostly Mayfield, and I believe California Avenue was Mayfield’s downtown, which is why Palo Alto effectively has two downtown districts. The now-defunct Mayfield Mall at the north end of Mountain View was named for it, and is the only location I know of which still bears the Mayfield name (though there may be others I just don’t know about).

(Second in an occasional series.)

The leaves didn’t finish falling from the trees until late this month. (A few trees still haven’t finished, but the ones around my yard have.)

Yesterday afternoon I sucked them up with my leaf blower.

(That would be yesterday, the day after Christmas.)

It took me a little over an hour, but then, I have a small yard. All I was really waiting for was for the leaves to dry off from the last rainfall so that most of them wouldn’t be sticking to the ground.

Snow? What’s that?

It has been a little chilly, though - highs in the low 50s. We’ve built a few fires this week. But it’s supposed to hit 60 over the weekend.

The jobs and culture are nice and all, but I maintain that the climate is the fundamental reason people live in the Bay Area in the first place.

Tonight we had a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in east San Jose. It was felt throughout the valley, although not by me, since I was running around on a frisbee field at the time.

Debbi says it spooked the cats quite a bit, and herself a little too. Subrata’s wife Susan says a few things fell off at their house.

Fortunately there seems to have been only minor damage from the strongest Bay Area quake since 1989. Cell phone voice service was out for us for a while, but data still worked, so I sent Debbi and Susan text messages that we were fine. I bet some hidden damage will be found over the next few days, but it looks like we got away with one this time.

Anyway, if you were wondering, we’re okay here.

The common wisdom is that it doesn’t rain in the Bay Area from April to November. Not so: Since I moved here in 1999 we’ve gotten a summer shower around the beginning of August most years. We got one this morning, for about 15 minutes, a couple weeks early. Not enough to alleviate worries of a drought, but still pretty nice.

Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll get another one next month.

What a cool story:

Since the summer of ‘76, Ron Leung thought his stolen 1956 Ford Thunderbird was “like the Roman Empire - history.” That is, until he got a call from Palo Alto police Thursday, almost 31 years to the day after it disappeared.

Now he’s eager to get the car to Palo Alto from Southern California, where it was recovered, reportedly in good shape.

Stories of mysteries solved years or decades after they occurred fascinate me.

It’s the weather, really. Well, okay, the jobs are nice, too, but the climate is the reason the Bay Area is so attractive to so many people. Sure, people come and go depending on the economy, but over time there are just so many people who want to live in a place with nice weather almost year-round, rather than deal with snow or six months or rain or tornadoes or humidity or mosquitoes or whatever.

Subrata called it the “eternal summer” the first year I moved here: Sunny days from April through October. The usual morning forecast is “cloudy in the morning, burning off around midday, high around seventy-something.” No, really: I hear this on the radio around 200 days a year. (Most of the rest of the days differ in that they’re either “high in the eighties”, or “chance of showers”.)

(In San Francisco itself, adjust for more fog and lower temperatures, except in September and October when it’s usually warmer.)

Last night I walked out of my building at work. It was still warm (we’re at the trailing end of a heat wave), but the smell in the air and the cooling breeze made me think that I need to get biking to work again.

This morning after breakfast I took Blackjack out on the back patio. I watched him carefully so he wouldn’t spot a squirrel and take off up a tree, but mostly he just wanted to sniff plants.

Several times this month I’ve remarked around 8 pm what a perfect evening it was. I’m sure we’ll have many more.

I don’t take full advantage of the weather the way some of my more outdoorsy friends do, but it’s relaxing just to experience it.

Until September, when I’m sick of it and ready for it to rain.

But even then, it beats humidity and mosquitoes.

The big news around here is the tanker truck which destroyed a ramp connector in the Macarthur Maze Sunday morning. Amazingly, no one was killed (although the driver was badly hurt). But the accident caused part of a ramp to collapse onto another connector, which is snarling traffic in the east bay (in the Oakland/Berkeley area). It sounds like traffic hasn’t been as bad as people had feared, but it may be only a matter of time.

Here’s a nifty PDF showing the vicinity of the ramp collapse.

Mom, Debbi and I drove along the lower ramp (from I-80 to I-880) last weekend when we went up to Berkeley - an unusually close experience, since I only go to Berkeley a few times per year. And of course Scalzi was up there on his book tour last week (I’m pretty sure he’s innocent, though).

I’m glad I don’t have to commute over any of the bridges. Modern bridges are a boon compared to the olden days (when ferries were the main way to cross the bay to and from San Francisco), but there are so many people in the area that the traffic grid is getting more and more bogged down. And there’s very little redundancy to deal with even partial outages like this one.

We need to do something, but what can we do?

And what happens when the next major earthquake hits?

I was sitting at the computer tonight when I felt like I was bouncing around a little. Nothing else in the room was moving, but I still wondered, “Huh, are we having an earthquake?”

Yep, we were. A 4.2 magnitude quake based on the other side of the bay. People out that way felt it pretty strongly. Ceej and Bill felt it too. A lot of people did, actually.

Although not as strong, the first earthquake I felt was more memorable. But Jon Miller on the Giants broadcast will do that.

An unusual way to mark my 8th anniversary working at Apple.