Fascination Place

One room at the Conservatory of Flowers is filled with butterflies. Well, “filled” may be too strong a term; in fact, when we first walked in and I saw a butterfly flitting away from me, I was disappointed that it seemed to be the only one.

Then I noticed one on the windows.

And another one.

And then I realized there were dozens - maybe hundreds - of them in there, but only a few were in the air at any one time. And they were all different colors and sizes. Very impressive!

There’s also has a case in which butterflies in chrysalis were evolving from their caterpillar forms, some of them having already emerged.

A few of the many colorful butterflies we saw:

Naturally, I highly recommend visiting the Conservatory if you have the chance. It’s great!

More photos from the Conservatory of Flowers. One of the far rooms (well, there are only five rooms, but still) mainly features water plants. As you can see from these photos, this room features some metal railings and artwork, which I presume are a century or more old:

In addition to orchids, this room contains quite a few pitcher plants, carnivorous plants hanging from a variety of pots:

There was also this oddity, which resembles a bird of paradise, but I’ve never seen one with the green fronds fanning out like this, so I’m not certain what exactly it is:

The Conservatory of Flowers is located in a late-19th-century building in Golden Gate Park, and is full of wonderful and fascinating plants. The building apparently has been quite resistant to earthquakes, except that of course it’s covered in glass, and that glass has to be replaced from time to time. (Still, this is less maintenance than some historic buildings require!) It re-opened a few years ago after a major renovation.

I took so many photos when Dad and I visited last week that I’m going to split them up into several posts.

As you can see, the Conservatory is a beautiful building with lovely grounds - and that’s without the summer planting being in place (or so I infer, from the strips of empty dirt amongst the grass):

(Click for a larger image)

The whole interior of the buildings is used for exhibits, by the way. I presume they store maintenance equipment elsewhere nearby.

There are orchids throughout the building, in different rooms with different temperatures and climates, and many of them were blooming:

There are many other plants, too, some of them more exotic-looking than others. I don’t generally expect spiny-looking plants like this one to be so colorful:

I don’t know what that last plant is, though.

Here’s a photo of Dad standing in front of the control console and some banks of hardware from the SAGE system at the Computer History Museum last weekend:

You can’t see the cigarette lighter on the console, which is a feature Apple somehow never puts in its iMacs.

Dad says he contributed to the SAGE project in some capacity back in the day, I guess on the software end. Whenever I hear about the SAGE project it always sounds like this big boondoggle which was obsolete by the time it was deployed, but nonetheless was maintained for decades thereafter.

Here I am in front of one of two completed versions of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, also at the museum:

Unfortunately it wasn’t in operation when we were there. It’s a very impressive aggregation of metal, though; I can see why Babbage was unable to complete it in his own era.

Some photos from our trip to Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve last Friday with my Dad.

These little guys kept flying up to us when we were in a shelter/information hut halfway to the viewing site, hovering briefly, and then flying away. Then they’d do it again. Eventually I realized they must have a nest inside the shelter, and they flew in and landed when we stepped out the other end:

One of the seals had tracking devices glued to her head and back, as you can see here. The docents told us that scientists shave their fur to glue these devices to them. Apparently they sometimes fall off on their own, though:

A few seals were wrestling in the water, while others were galumphing around the shore, like this guy (or gal):

But mostly everyone was asleep, basking in the sun, as you can see in the background of the pictures above.

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:

Apparently before he flew out, my Dad was told by my Mom that he’d gain ten pounds visiting me, since we always feed our guests extremely well. In that spirit, here’s where we chowed down over the past week:

Thursday:

• Gyros House

Friday:

• Main Street Grill: One of my favorite breakfast places. Just about the best coffee I’ve had in the area, not to mention great food.
• The Counter

Saturday:

• The cafe at Garré Winery: A surprisingly good menu for a cafe attached to a winery.
• Su Hong: My favorite Chinese restaurant.

Sunday:

• A La Carte and Art festival
• Universal Cafe: We went to dinner with one of my cousins, and this restaurant was recommended by another cousin. It’s a cut above the usual restaurants I eat at, and was excellent. Their frites (french fries) appretizer is huge!

Monday:

• The Original Pancake House
• Don Giovanni

Tuesday:

• The Original Pancake House (again): Dad liked it so much we went back and got different dishes.
• Ice cream sundaes at Ghirardelli Square
• Cascal: Our local tapas restaurant, which I’d recently visited for the first time.

Maybe not ten pounds’ worth, but that’s a lot of food!

Last night we were driving back from San Francisco (details forthcoming) when we spotted the moon a few degrees above the horizon. This was around 7:30, so it was still before sunset, and the moon was rising. We noticed that the moon was not quite full, with a little bite taken out of it at the bottom.

We wondered whether the moon was nearly full, or just past full.

I said, “There has to be a way to figure this out logically.”

My Dad said that this is an empirical problem, so he was doubtful we could reason our way out of it.

I said, “Well, we know that on average there’s more than one full moon per month, and so we ought to be able to figure out from that whether the moon rises a little earlier each day, or a little later. And if we know that then we should be able to figure out whether it’s nearly full or just past full.” I decided that since there’s more than one full moon per month, that meant that the moon was rising a little earlier each day, and that meant that that moon was not quite full.

About 20 minutes later I said, “The moon looks a little more full to me now, so I think I’m right.” Much laughter ensued.

I think my reasoning was a little off, mainly because what I really need to know is whether the moon rises more than once per day, and using “full moons per month” as a proxy for that is not right, because they’re not the same thing. Indeed, since our months are somewhat based on the lunar cycle, “full moons per month” is a circular argument. Well, sort of.

But it turns out I was right anyway, since the full moon is tomorrow.

Which goes to show once again that it’s better to be lucky than good.

• Wineries visited: 3 (Stony Ridge, Fenestra & Thomas Coyne)
• Bottles of wine purchased: 7
• Hours spent avoiding the heat: 4
• Current temperature at home: 80 degrees
• Looking forward to: It cooling off tomorrow.

A busy few days. But when aren’t they?

Wednesday I went to gaming. Lots of people are going lately, since Susan is expecting her and Subrata’s first child any day now. Maybe any minute now. And when that happens, I expect we don’t have regular gaming for months. Who knows how long? So I stuck around until after 10, and we played two games, both of which I finished second in. Which seemed perfect, since it seems like I usually finish second.

Wednesday night also marked the first night of my vacation, since Thursday afternoon my Dad flew into town for a week of mayhem. Well, really a week of driving around the area and seeing the sights and hanging out and talking.

Unfortunately (not that this is his fault) his arrival coincided with a heat wave which spent Thursday breaking heat records around the region. It broke 100 degrees in my city, and was uncomfortably warm until at least 8 pm. Ugh. We sat inside and tried to stay cool in my non-air-conditioned house, in which the temperature got up into the 80s even in the relatively cool downstairs. But eventually it did cool down. I was glad not to feel obligated to participate in Bike to Work Day - brutal!

Fortunately other things - like his flight - went smoothly. It’s been about 4 years since Dad last visited, so it’s good to have him out again.

Today was still very warm, although not as bad. We drove over the hills to Half Moon Bay and had brunch at the Main Street Grill, and walked around downtown. Then we bought some bottles of water and drove to a nearby beach where we walked along the lovely path atop the bluffs overlooking the beaches. There was a nice breeze, the waves were crashing loudly into the shore, and there were lots of people and wildflowers to watch as we went along.

Then we drove south along the coast, stopping at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, and then at the Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve, where we walked out a mile and a half to see the elephant seals who were nesting and lying in the sun along the beach. I’ve been there before, but not in nearly ten years. They’re pretty neat to see, but the hike out is moderately difficult, especially getting over the sand dunes at the far end of the trail. We made it, though, and learned a lot from the docents positioned by the lions. But we were beat when we got back to the car.

We drove back via Santa Cruz, where we stopped briefly at the lighthouse. It was a lot cooler in Santa Cruz than it had been farther north. We also watched surfers who seemed to be having an especially good batch of waves to ride - at least, compared to what I’ve seen other times I’ve been there.

We met up with Debbi and had dinne at The Counter, and came home to cooler weather, opening up the windows to get the house cooled down. As I write this, it’s down in the 70s outside, and it feels like the worst of the heat has passed.

Which is good, since it will be much easier to enjoy the weekend if we’re not trying to duck into air conditioning at every opportunity!