Circle of Life

28 March 2010

San Diego Bay

24 March 2010

It's a crazy week! I'm attending two conferences, a meeting on "Air Pollution and Health" in San Diego and a special symposium on indoor air chemistry at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco. Ingrid and I flew to San Diego Saturday morning so I could participate in board meetings of the American Association for Aerosol Research (the sponsor of the SD meeting).

After attending the SD conference on Monday during which I presented a research paper, I flew to SF so that I could present a research paper at that conference at 8:30 Tuesday morning. I then flew back to SD arriving Tuesday late afternoon so that I could attend the rest of that conference!

On my trip from SD to SF and back, I had several "small world" moments. At the San Diego airport, I saw our friend from the East Bay, Karen, who had been down visiting her father. Then, as I was waiting to board the plane, one of the deplaning passengers was Dane, a professional acquaintance from Sacramento. (Okay, not so surprising, he was coming to the conference.)

Then, as I was riding BART to Oakland, at one of the downtown SF stations, Brett, a research collaborator and former student boarded my car.

The final incident was the most peculiar. Shortly after I boarded the plane in San Francisco, the young woman seated next to me nudged my arm. "Excuse me, I couldn't help noticing your name on your boarding pass. 'Nazaroff' was my maiden name," she said. Convinced that we must be at least third cousins or something, we spent ten minutes recounting our respective family histories.

Although we couldn't connect the dots, there was definitely a link. She's of Molokan heritage and grew up in Santa Rosa but now lives in San Diego. Her grandparents came to the US from Kars via Mexico, which is not so different from my own family's story.

I didn't have a lot of time to enjoy San Diego this week. But I did manage one long walk with Ingrid along the waterfront. We made it to the Midway aircraft carrier and saw "The Kiss," a giant statue commemorating the end of WW II and San Diego's connection to the armed services.

Along the walkway are a large series of whimsical "street tree" art pieces; the middle three photos show a few samples. The one just above with the double helix is known as the "Chemis-tree."

Castle Rocks in the spring

19 March 2010

Charlie and Lulu are visiting the East Bay from New Jersey. Charlie gave a high-profile seminar at LBNL on Thursday and next week is participating in an American Chemical Society Conference in San Francisco.



On Friday, I took the afternoon off and the four of us went for a hike at Castle Rocks park in Walnut Creek. We stayed on a low-elevation trail and did an "out and back" walk that covered about 7 miles. It was a nice outing, topped off by dinner at Rivoli.



The most remarkable aspect was the great amount of water along and across the trail. After the third or fourth crossing, Lulu gave up trying to balance on slippery rocks and just plowed through the wet patches. Although Charlie and I persisted in trying, we both slipped at one place or another and got our feet wet. Only Ingrid, with her walking sticks to help, managed to stay completely dry.

Tomales Point

14 March 2010

Tomales Point is this amazing little peninsula that juts out into the Pacific Ocean from the northern portion of Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County north of San Francisco. Daniela was home for a short spring break and wanted to do a big nature hike over the weekend, so we four -- Ingrid and Alexis included -- headed off Sunday morning. The drive is pretty, but it's a bit of a schlep, 60 miles and about 90 minutes because much of it is on windy country roads.



Eventually, we parked at the Upper Pierce Ranch historic site and started the northwesterly walk out to the tip of the peninsula. The distance is advertised as 4.7 miles each way; it turned out to be closer to 5.5. The sky was cloudless but just a bit hazy. The temperature was perfect for hiking with two layers of long sleeves.



There are very few trees; just an occasional stand of cypress with some eucalyptus weeds. But the hills are covered with vegetation, ankle height for the first half of the hike and then waist high for the rest. Lupine wasn't quite in bloom, but there were lovely purple Douglas irises and phlox.



About halfway out, we encountered a weasel on the trail with a dead animal -- perhaps a gopher? -- in his mouth. His prey very likely outweighed him, which slowed the weasel down enough so that I could photograph him. That was a treat! Alexis found a bright green frog just off the trail. And there were numerous tule elk wandering around at a distance from us.



On the return, we had planned to stop in at the Bovine Bakery in Point Reyes Station for some tasty pastries, but we were too late and had to make do with some less exciting snacks from the upscale market across the street.

Spring Flowers

6 March 2010

In Northern California, spring is in full bloom! All of these flowers are in our yard.

Crocus:


Grape Hyacinth:


Camelia:


Sweet Pea: