Hawaii for Thanksgiving

I just returned from spending Thanksgiving in Hawaii. About 10 of us from Sacramento went over there for the week and a great time was had by all.

There were lots of memorable moments – snorkeling with the turtles and the multitude of brightly colored fishes, visiting the most southerly tip of the US, marveling at the delightfully warm and balmy atmosphere while minutes later suffering under what seemed like the most oppressive heat and humidity (I don't know how the atmosphere or my body's reaction to it can change so quickly). The most wonderful thing, of course, was being there with a great group of friends – my thanks to all, especially Bill and Cathy for coming up with the idea and for providing us with the impetus to do it.

One of the most interesting things we did was to visit the top of Mauna Kea – this majestic volcano in the middle of the island is some 13,796 ft above sea level. It’s a relatively short (couple of hours) drive from sea level up to the top and the road is not at all bad (just a few miles are unpaved). Of course, it is quite cold up there – there was snow on the ground (not a lot, but at certain times of the year you can ski there) and the wind was howling. It was a nice change from the tropical temperatures we had been experiencing down at sea level. On the top of Mona Kea are a cluster of telescopes from various institutions from around the world (the UK are there with an Infra Red telescope). It makes for quite a surreal landscape – the lunar landscape of the volcano, the surrounding mini-calderas, and then the collection of brightly shining telescopes.

The most significant telescope is the Keck telescope – actually there are two of them and at 10 meters in diameter they are currently the largest reflecting telescopes on the planet – quite impressive. I guess I had heard of the Keck telescopes, but what I didn’t realize that they were named after the project's financial sponsors, the Keck Foundation who are the heirs to the Superior Oil Company wealth. It’s always nice to see the oil industry doing some good (for a change).

Here is me at the top of Mona Kea.

And here is me just a few hours later, frolicking (not quite) in the surf down by the ocean.

And finally if anyone wants to view more exciting photos of the Hawaii trip, follow this link to my SmugMug gallery.

A cool exhibit at SF MOMA

I was down in San Francisco at the weekend and I visited the SF Museum of Modern Art. Lots of the usual stuff hanging from the walls, which is all very nice, but there was one more unusual exhibit that was quite interesting - a car sheathed in ice.


So they have a specially constructed refrigerated room that keeps the temperature down at 11 degrees F, and inside they have this ice covered thing that barely resembles a car at all until you peer in side the shell to see the seat and steering wheel or when you look underneath and see the wheels.

The car is, or perhaps was, a BMW experimental Hydrogen fuel car that is now sheathed in an interesting steel mesh which is then covered with ice. The whole idea is to make you think about effect our cars and our driving them has on the environment (driving -> increased CO2 -> global warming -> less ice - I suppose). I don't think that you are supposed to think about the environmental impact of having a room perpetually at 11 deg F for months on end - or perhaps you are?

Anyway, it was pretty cool in more ways than one. The SF MOMA even had a supply of blankets for you to use to keep you warm while viewing the exhibit.

Here is a video about the project.

Lucy Kaplansky

So I went to see Lucy Kaplansky perform last night. She has been around the folk scene since the 70's but I first came across her when she did a track on that excellent 60th birthday tribute to Bob Dylan, A Nod to Bob.

Anyway, she was talking a lot about family and it turns out her father, Irving Kaplansky, was a relatively significant mathematician - chair of the Maths Department at the University of Chicago. He was also a somewhat accomplished musician who, among other things, wrote a song using the first 14 digits of Pi for the melody (mi, do, fa, re, etc)- she sang it - it didn't sound bad. He also invented an mnemonic for the first 15 digits of Pi, namely - "Boy, I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after all those lectures involving quantum mechanics". The number of letters in each word corresponding to a digit of Pi - 3.14159265358979.

Why I should find that interesting is a testament to the sad state of my life.

Scott Amendola Band

Saw some nice jazz last night - the Scott Amendola Band.

A fine San Francisco Band with one of my favorite guitarists, Nels Cline. It seems that Nels plays in the Scott Amendola Band, and then Scott plays in the Nels Cline Singers and the sound is somewhat similar - they probably just take it in turns to whose name is on the bill.

The end of a never ending job....

Probably everyone who has been around me this past year has heard about my disastrous construction project at the house – a replacement of the driveway and back yard patio. Well after 15 months it might be over.

It all started innocently enough back in the summer of 2006. I had some plans drawn up for re-landscaping the back yard which entailed remodeling the patio. As my 50+ year old driveway was cracked in places, I decided to replace it at the same time. The company I engaged had done some good work for a friend and they seemed professional, so I thought I was alright. However from the very start it all went wrong – they did work sporadically and dragged things out over 2 months or more and when the work was complete the quality was pretty shabby.

I of course made the blunder of all blunders by paying most of the $15,000 price tag before I inspected the work closely (you aren’t supposed to walk on concrete for a while, so I wasn’t aware of all the defects until later – but still how stupid of me to pay before making sure I was satisfied). Anyway, all parties recognized that it was a bad job, the company that laid the concrete blamed the materials, the concrete materials company blamed the guys that laid it, and I was left holding the bag.

To make a long story short, I got nowhere by myself so I complained to the California State License Contractor’s Board. They looked at things and arbitrated a settlement which at the time looked great for me - they would tear out the entire project and redo it. Well that work finally started in August but things again went wrong. Since there was no money in the job for anyone (they had already been paid) there was no incentive to complete things so over the last 3 months I have had sporadic work done and I have been given every excuse in the book. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong – they severed the phone cable to the house, they broke my neighbor’s sprinklers, they left me without a driveway for months! For the last month I have had the job 3/4 done, but pouring the last section was being put off again and again.

My patience, which had been unbounded, finally broke this week and I threatened legal action if the job wasn't done this week. This appears to have gotten through to them and yesterday evening the final pour was made.

Note that I said evening, I came home from work to find everyone working on the final drive section. However, this was 6:00 in the evening - it was going to be dark in an hour. Sure enough as darkness fell they were still working, with a truck pointing its headlights down the drive. Someone went to get lights which then turned out to be defective and so they went on a search for bulbs. Finally at 10:30 they applied the finishing touches and it is finished!

So it has been since August 2006 to the end of October 2007 that I have been without a backyard. I can't say I have missed it really - life is a lot simpler without a yard - very low maintenance.

As for the concrete company, he informed me that he is now out of the business - I was his last customer. He is a victim of the downturn of construction in the area. That's why downturns are good - it weeds out the people who shouldn't be there in the first place.

A Doc Watson Concert

Last night I went to the Mondavi Center, the fine new concert hall in Davis to see Doc Watson – a guitarist who is now in his 80’s and still performing. He is one of those legendary figures in the acoustic guitar world, having developed his own distinctive finger-picking and flat-picking styles in the middle of last century. He is now an old man and is stooping and a little frail, but he was in good voice and his playing was still good. Though, I think even he would admit, not as good as in his prime.

A strange thing happened as I was picking up my tickets. I bought them on the internet, and arranged to pick them up at the hall (in the US they call this “the Will Call” – a strange name that I never quite got, but it is just one of those quirky American English things - there are more here). There was a long line, and when I get to the window, I gave my name and the lady pulled what should have been my ticket. However when asked to confirm my address things didn’t match. Meanwhile, I hear someone a couple of windows down having the exact same problem. He was also Steve White, he was being asked to confirm what was in fact my address. So we switched windows, and all was well.

I suppose Steve White is a fairly common name, but two of us picking up tickets for the same concert at the exact same time – now there’s a coincidence.

Entry into the USA

On my way back from the UK the other day, I happened to peruse the questions that were asked on the visa waiver form for UK residents entering the USA. There's a strange mix of questions that I am sure raise some eyebrows amongst the applicants. Still we as Americans can rest soundly in our beds knowing that we are weeding out the ‘bad guys’ as they try to gain entry to the country. Question C is particularly good, it asks the applicant:

"Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?"

That's how we catch them - those unsuspecting would-be terrorists check the wrong box and the authorities swoop in!

I wonder how many people have responded in the positive to this question. The other questions were similar – things of a nefarious nature that you would never own up to if you wanted to come to the USA.

At least now there wasn’t any question about membership in the Communist Party. I seem to recall in my earlier visa applications for the US there was a question about this, and presumably if you answered yes, then you were in for a lot of trouble.

Who is Oded Behr anyway....

Thanks to my friend Janet for pointing me at a site that uses face recognition technology on an uploaded photograph to try and determine which celebrities you resemble. So I had to have a go and apparently I have a 752% match with Oded Fehr. I had never heard of Oded Fehr before (he apparently is an Israeli actor), and I am not sure that I resemble him, but, on the bright side, at least I more closely resemble Oded than Cameron Diaz who only comes in at a 63% match.

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

The rest of the Yosemite Weekend

Following our trek up Half Dome, the remainder of the weekend was a little less punishing. Starting off with Sunday Brunch at The Ahwahnee. This has to be one of the highlights of any trip to Yosemite. The Ahwahnee is a spectacular Arts and Crafts style hotel in the valley floor, and its dining hall is just a wonder to behold. If you can’t affort the $400 or so room rates, then the Sunday Brunch allows you to soak in a bit of the atmosphere at a more modest cost.

A piece of trivia about The Ahwahnee is that it was used for some of the indoor shots of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", the exterior shots being from another famous hotel, The Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood. Oh and the Queen stays there when she is in the valley.

George, Steve, Mike in the Ahwahnee post Half Dome

Brian and Allison - 5th Wedding Anniversary

After the excesses of Brunch, we then drove out to Wawona (the south entrance to the park) and paid a visit to the grove of giant redwoods there in the Mariposa Grove. What wonderful things these trees are. Much more impressive than the coastal redwoods.


We were staying in the tent cabins in Curry Village. While this is not the wilderness experience by a long way it is quite a nice atmosphere and I like it a lot. There are some 500 or more tent cabins and they are all full during summer weekends. There are people moving around and making noise at all times of the day and night. If it isn’t the late arrivals, or the early departing hikers, it’s the people shouting at the bears as they do their nightly pass through the camp looking for food. Apparently this year there have been a lot of bears in the valley and it seemed like there were people shouting and screaming at them all night on Saturday. I didn’t get up to investigate, though I wish I had now.

Here are some more photos from the trip (same ones from the previous post).

The Half Dome Hike

This weekend a few of us went down to Yosemite with the intent of climbing to the top of Half Dome. The main impetus for the trip was the celebration of our friends’ Brian and Allison's wedding anniversary (they were married on top of Half Dome 5 years ago by yours truly who became “vicar for the day” in the Universal Life Church – now lapsed, very lapsed). Of course, most of us also had a secondary reason for the trip, namely, to see if any of us, after 5 years, were still capable of making the ascent.

After a shaky start (getting 7 or 8 people to the trail head at the same time is a little like herding cats), we were on the way in near perfect conditions - a little hot, and a bit smokey from the forest fires, but good enough. This year being a dry year, the so-called Mist Trail up the side of Vernal Falls was as dry as a bone so the going was good.

The Half Dome ascent is an epic though grueling hike – some 17 miles round trip from the valley floor, with nearly 5,000 ft of vertical gain. It is topped off with a very exposed and very intimidating scramble up the last 500 or 600 ft aided by wire cables strung over the back side of the dome.


The hike is extremely popular and the Park Warden estimated that in excess of 500 people made it to the top on the same day as we did. The climb up the cables over the last section to the summit is not for the faint of heart with near vertical drops to the valley on either side (two people have died there this year – somehow slipping off the cables to the valley below). Because the last section on the cables is pretty much a single file exercise everyone is slowed to the pace of the slowest person and given the wide range of skills up there this can be quite slow and tedious (it took us almost 1 hour to cross that section). This is a frustration to many of the fitter and more impatient hikers causing some to take risky and, in my opinion, unnecessary maneuvers outside of the confines of the cables. That's how accidents happen - very scary!

After 6 grueling hours of hiking, we finally reached the top. I must admit I was pretty fatigued at that point - it would have been nice to have a nap - but no, we had to get down before it got too dark. So, after a brief rest, we started on the way down again. Since it was towards the end of the day, there were fewer people coming up the cables so traveling down was a lot quicker (just as well, as you don’t need to spend time looking down and contemplating what could happen if you slip).

Going down is faster and takes less effort, though it is potentially more damaging to the body. The stone steps alongside Vernal Falls are tall and steep and particularly punishing on the knees - I don't think we were built to do that sort of thing. Nevertheless, we all survived and we were all still walking upright at the end. The whole trip took almost 12 hours with the last mile or so being finished in the dark. The pizza and beer in Curry Camp were never so inviting.

Here are some more photos of the trip.