A swarm of bees

I came home this lunchtime and just happened to take a look out back where the bee hives are and, lo and behold, a swarm of bees were hanging outside one of my hives.

This last winter has been disastrous for my bees. In the fall I had three healthy and productive hives and then slowly through the winter, one by one, they died off. I am not sure of the cause, but it wasn't like the prior years where hives just disappeared without a trace, this time there were lots of dead bees left over. Anyway, I cleaned up the hives and left them outside through the winter and then a couple of weeks ago I noticed some bees had occupied one of the hives. My good luck I thought, but now today, even more good luck, and we have another swarm outside one of the other hives.


I just checked this evening and they are still there - though they are now inside the hive where they should be. Perhaps I won't even need the 2 packages of bees I had ordered earlier in the spring. We will see if they stick around.

A New Camera

I just got a new camera - a nice new Nikon D90 with an 18-105mm lens.

I suppose I didn't really need another camera. I have a perfectly reasonable camera already but that one's only a point and shoot - I now have a single lens reflex - very cool. It is a great piece of equipment, but pretty complicated with so many controls and buttons. It will take me a long time to become comfortable with it.


Anyway, I took it out on the streets of Sacramneto this afternoon just to get a feel for it. The results never quite to live up to my expectations, but here's a link to the photos.

Pirates Cove 30K

Yesterdy was my birthday, so I thought I would celebrate it in relative obscurity by going out of town to run a trail run in the Marin Headlands. Alas it seemed like everyone knew it was my birthday (I blame Facebook) and so the event did not pass with the intended obscurity. I had birthday presents and birthday cup cakes before the race and a chorus of Happy Birthday as I crossed the finish line. Nevertheless it was a great day out and thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes.

Pam,Dianne and your truly

Pacific Coast Trail Runs are a group that put on excellent runs around the Bay Area. Pretty low key, but well marked courses and great aid stations. The Marin Headlands north of San Francisco are absolutely wonderful. Spectacular scenery with views of the Pacific Ocean, the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate and the city itself. Most of the time you feel like you are in the wilderness and then you pop over a ridge to see San Francisco, or Tiburon and you know you are pretty close to a major urban area. However, there’s not much flat ground around there, so the run was pretty arduous. We were either going up or going down; there was not much easy going.

It was an overcast day that was perfect for running, and the rain held off until after I finished. Here are some photos from the event.

Philip Glass Concert

Wednesday night I got to go to a concert by Philip Glass at the Mondavi Center in Davis. It was a nice selection of Mr. Glass's work from the span of his career. Some pieces were solo piano, some pieces were solo cello and some pieces were piano, cello and percussion.

I had great seats right in the middle about 10 rows back and it surely is fine to hear someone play a concert grand in a great hall like the Mondavi Center, not to mention the Cello which is one of my favorite instruments.

The cellist was Wendy Sutter a stunning women in her 40's who just so happens to be romantically involved with the 70+ years Mr. Glass. That aside, she was playing this beautiful Stradivarius Cello made back in the early 1600's and which has spent most of its life in the Vatican. You can read about it on her site, but what a history this intrument has had. Thankfully, Wendy Sutter's Cello, unlike Lance Armstrongs bike, did not get stolen in Sacramento.

I think it is time to revisit those Philip Glass movie scores - Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, The Thin Blue Line, Kundun. He has been quite prolific.

Tour of California - 2009

Today was the start of the Tour of California here in Sacramento. It was a pretty big deal, at least in the cycling world. This is the one of the best lineups of riders for any race on American soil that I am aware of. Of course having Lance Armstrong in his first race in the US since coming out of retirement and a hopefully clean Floyd Landis trying to re-establish himself with his new hip and new team helps an awful lot.


It was a little cool day, certainly for the spectators, but it was great to see these guys powering down the streets. Actually what was even more impressive for me was the motorcycle riders accompanying the cyclists. While the bicyclists just go as fast as they can and assume all will be clear in the road ahead, the motorcylists have to stay close, but not interfere in any way, while all the time on the watch out for errant spectators wondering into the streets - very impressive riding on their part.

There was a lot made of Lance's return to racing and there is a big media machine around his Livestrong organization. The scene around his team's warm up area was just ridiculous, with people climbing on vehicles, climbing up trees, just to get a glimpse of the man doing his warm up. The price of celebrity is a high one. Here he is in the photo below.


I actually got some half way decent photos after figuring out how to anticipate where the riders would be when my shutter clicked open. The first few I missed the rider completely and got the trailing cars.

The old guys go skiing...

This weekend we aged and somewhat decrepit guys went skiing up in Tahoe. While George and Dave skied more days, Bill and I were quite satisfied with two half days on the slopes. I did an afternoon at Homewood on Friday, and an afternoon and evening at Squaw Valley on Saturday. Quite enough for my old body. And while I used to relish the challenge of the black runs, these days I really enjoy the easier way down.

That being said we represented ourselves pretty well in the speed department. It's all about conservation of energy and if you avoid the turns and just point yourself downhill it takes a lot less effort. However, it's perhaps a little scarier as I am led to believe our bones are a lot more brittle at our age.


As you can see it was overcast and pretty cold, but nonetheless when the clouds cleared it was quite beautiful.


While there is very little snow up in the mountains this year (we are surely heading for a drought this summer), there was fairly good coverage of man made snow on all the runs. Homewood was nice but Squaw Valley was one impressive resort - I had never seen a 6 person chair lift before - they can move a lot of people up the hill very quickly. And RFID lift tokens were something new for me too - what is more, they seemed to work, most of the time.

Motorcycle Show

This weekend there was a Motorcycle Show in Sacramento, so being a motorcycle owner I thought I would drop in and see what it was all about. Of course, I am a BMW owner and the show was almost entirely Harley Davidson's and custom motorcycles - not the kind of bikes that appeal to BMW owners.


I just don't get the custom motorcycle thing - sure some of them are amazing feats of construction and they are perhaps wonderful to look at but they are not built for comfort and not for speed and there's no way they can be safe. Of course I admit, I was in the minority here. There was hardly a BMW owner to be seen; just noisy Harleys all over town this weekend (I don't get the noisy bike thing either - the quiet purr of my engine is much more appealing). And yes the bikes weren't the only interesting sights - the riders and their partners were equally 'interesting' but I am afraid I need to find a BMW show, that would be more my style.



More photos here.

The Sacramento Bee

Yesterday afternoon I got the opportunity to tour the production operation at our local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee.


We were shown the whole process from the bulk paper and ink coming in on one side of the building, the content being written in another part of the building, this content magically being transferred to the drums of the printing presses and then thousands and thousands of folded newspapers coming out at the other side.

The printing presses are huge complicated machines - lots of heavy moving parts moving in a very coordinated and precise fashion. The adjustment of the alignment of the paper in the press is measured in thousands of an inch - that's a pretty amazing tolerance for such a heavy piece of machinery. I was surprised to find out that the most modern printing press at the Bee was actually manufactured in England, in the Midlands, not far from my home.



The Bee is a strange name for a newspaper, I know, but it is supposed to reflect both the industriousness of the bee and the sting in the bee’s tail. You will probably not be too surprised to learn that The Sacramento Bee is actually the largest circulation newspaper named after an insect – how about that for a claim to fame.

The Infostat Christmas Lunch

Today was the Infostat Christmas Lunch. Yet again we went down to Il Fornio's in downtown - its becoming a tradition.


For this momentous occasion, it was certainly a terrible morning in the office. Just one of those days when lots of support calls came in and we didn't seem to be making any headway. This too shall pass. Happy Christmas everyone.

Pre-Christmas Dinner

Things have been quiet for a while. Not much to report - a trip to the UK over Thanksgiving but nothing memorable to report.

But it's now that time of year when dinners and parties abound. Last night we all got together for a Christmas dinner at Lucca's here in Sacramento. Ostensibly to wish bon voyage and Happy Christmas to Anna, who's going to England, and Jeff and Nancy, who are going to Texas.

Here we all are ....