Mar 14 2012

Spanish Village Sculpture Garden

The final portion from yesterday’s adventures for my mom and me was a quick stop at the Sculpture Garden inside the Spanish Village Art Center at Balboa Park. Some sculptures I found a bit unorthodox, but there were others that were just outstanding. Life-sized figures, made of either wood, terracotta, metal or resin, are exceptionally well done, and all by local artists. May stop here every time I visit the nearby Natural History Museum just to see if they have anything new to show. It may also finally make me check out all the other artist vendors in this colorful little Village.


Mar 14 2012

Lunch At The Zoo

After leaving the Botanical Building, my mom and I walked next door to the San Diego Zoo. Since I’m a member I got us both in for free. We mainly went to have a nice lunch together and possibly stop to see an animal or two. Our lunch was at the terrific Albert’s Restaurant, by far the nicest eatery at the zoo. My mom had a small Caesar salad and I had the Linguini Pasta with shrimp that was incredibly good. There’s a really nice waterfall that adds a pleasant, if a little loud, ambience to the outdoor eating area. After finishing lunch and a quick stop at the bonobos, our choice of animals to view on this visit were the Western Lowland Gorillas, appropriate since the restaurant was named for Albert, a four-month old silverback that arrived at the zoo from Africa in 1949 and who passed away in 1978. The old gorilla grotto where Albert lived was situated where the restaurant is now located. The gorillas this day weren’t very active, but they were still fun to watch. Any day you can have lunch at Albert’s and then watch a band of gorillas is a good day.


Mar 14 2012

Back To The Orchids

Made a return visit to the Botanical Building at Balboa Park in downtown San Diego, this time with my mom and my sister. Since my mom loves flowers, I mainly wanted her to see all of the amazingly colorful species of orchids that were blooming, but I think my sister took at least many pictures as I did when I first saw them a few days ago. I myself added quite a few more to my photo collection, this time taking some with my macro lens. I really wish they would have had the orchids identified so I could have titled them accurately. Afterwards we watched a couple of turtles swimming around in the Lily Pond before we headed out of the park.  Next visit will be for my mom to see all the Easter Lilies that will be on display.

( b o t a n i c a l   p i c s )

Mar 13 2012

The Most Astounding Fact

Wonderful video put to a TIME magazine interview answer by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, who was asked the question, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?”

Mar 12 2012

Surprise Calendar Addition

So, when I renewed my D23 (Disney) membership a while back I didn’t realize that they would send me a 23-month calendar as a gift. That makes 25 total that I need to change ever month now. Not complaining though. It was a nice surprise. Each month has wonderful concept artwork from various Disney movies and their calendars are always really high quality. Plus this one is good for two years.

Mar 11 2012

Time With The Tapias

Spent some time with my friends, the Tapias, playing with their fur-kids (Lilo and Stitch), discovering a juvenile alligator lizard with an impressively long tail, helping Rodrigo flush the pool filter, visiting Sylvia’s parents, running errands at Costco and Home Depot, rewarding ourselves with a trip to Starbucks, and then lounging and watching an entertaining “Eagle Eye” with Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan. All in all, a productively fun visit.

Mar 10 2012

Brand New Condor Chick For San Diego

A newly hatched California Condor chick emerged today under the watchful eyes of its parents, Shatash (mom) and Sisquoc (dad), as well as that of the San Diego Zoo’s Condor Cam. Pretty darned amazing that, thanks to Internet webcams, anyone in the world can witness this kind of event live. Sisquoc even pooped on camera, which wasn’t quite as adorable.

Mar 10 2012

Mami’s Taxing Day

Today I escorted my mom to a tax preparation help appointment. The organization is called Home Start and while they were all very nice and cordial, I didn’t leave with the greatest of confidence in them being able to help her. At one point there were three people trying to figure out her return. She came away owing the government a lot more than she was expecting. Good thing she went to church afterwards to try and forgive. Not sure it helped, though.

Mar 09 2012

The Titanic And A Crystal Skull

Met my friend Lannie and her kids at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park to see “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition.” Even though photography was not allowed I enjoyed it immensely. They took great effort to add as many stories to the artifacts as they could, to make the presentation a lot more personally relatable for the attendee. I’ve been lucky enough to see very similar Titanic exhibits at both the Queen Mary in Long Beach as well as at the Luxor in Las Vegas, but fortunately a lot of the items exhibited here were still new to me. The exhibit displayed dishes, clothing, jewelry, currency, kitchen pots, toiletries, glasses, and even pieces of the Titanic itself, including engine room machinery, a porthole, light fixtures, and a metal deck chair support.

Going in we were given boarding pass cards describing a certain passenger that we were supposed to be. At the very end of the walk-through exhibit you try to find the name of your passenger on a large, wall-mounted list and discover whether you survived the sinking or not. I was third class passenger William Arthur Lobb, a 30-year old engineer from Scranton, Pennsylvania who worked for the Lackawanna Railroad and who was traveling with his wife, Cordelia. Unfortunately, neither I, nor my wife Cordelia, survived the disaster. Bummer.

After finishing that exhibit Lannie wished to see the terrific “All That Glitters” gem and mineral exhibit in the basement. This was my third time seeing this one and we went through it fairly quickly.

Following that, I wanted to ask one of the staff entomologists about all the butterflies migrating through San Diego County right now. After a quick phone call from the front desk, down from the upper floor offices came Michael Wall, Ph.D., the Director of the Biodiversity Research Center of the Californias and Interim Vice President of Research for the museum. Had I not met him before I would have felt a little stupid asking him about some butterflies I’ve seen flying around. But luckily he recognized me and we had a nice chat. He couldn’t answer my question but asked me to try and get photos or videos and sent him an email with the images.

With no photography allowed in the Titanic Exhibit and having already seen the gem exhibit twice before, this was a record for the least number of photos I’ve ever taken at a museum. 24 total, inside and out. And that included a shot of a survey marking showing the museum’s elevation at 287.86 ft above sea level (which I thankfully left out of this gallery).

San Diego Natural History Museum
Fountain seating decoration
Old entrance to the museum
Exhibit banner
Museum atrium
Titanic exhibit entrance
Fossil Mysteries exhibit
All Things That Glitter exhibit
Cave with gems mockup
Mining car with rattlesnake
Crystal skull
New entrance to the museum
Exhibit flyer
Exhibit ticket
Exhibit booklet
Our Grand Staircase photo
Boarding Pass front
Boarding Pass back
Postcard
Veranda Café exhibit
First Class stateroom exhibit

Mar 08 2012

Fun And Frustration

To the delight of all us Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie fans, here is the first of five segments of a reunion documentary which aired in 2010. The two friends were brought back together on camera for the first time fifteen years after their final taping of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie.”

The fun part is watching them get along so well and seeing old footage of them performing way back when, but the frustrating part is the way this documentary was chopped into five bits, sometimes in mid sentence. Even still, it’s a joy for fans to watch.

Mar 08 2012

Palm Transplant

It took three days, but I finally got our two large, pot-busting palm trees (which my mom grew from seeds) transplanted into their final resting places in our backyard. Started by digging two holes halfway, filling them with water to loosen up the dirt, and then letting them soak overnight. Next day, after I dug, and then dug some more to get the holes deep enough to accept the big batch of roots each palm tree had, I discovered that there was a thick layer of clay that got even thicker from all the water I soaked the holes with. Hitting a buttload of various sized rocks also did not help in getting the holes deep enough. Finally got them transplanted and I have to say that they both look much happier for all the effort. There was one day when I did all this digging and moving under the watchful eye a squirrel just on the other side of our canyon fence. He’s hiding in picture #11.

The two larger palms to be moved
Palm one
Palm one outgrowth
Palm two
Palm two outgrowth
The relocation location
Partial hole one
Partial hole two
My spade and I
Sample rocks I hit
Squirrel!
Two partial holes
Me in a hole
Water in hole one
Water in hole two
First palm removed
Palm roots
First palm transplanted
Second palm prepared
Second palm roots
Second palm placed
Both palms planted
Newly planted palm one
Newly planted palm two

Mar 07 2012

Mr. & Mrs. Mourningdove

I was able to stealthily capture a couple of images of the two mourning doves that are starting to nest outside my bathroom window. They made many trips back and forth to pick up whatever they felt would make comfortable bedding for their soon-to-be offspring.

It always amazes me how animals just know how to do basic stuff without being taught, like build nests when it’s the right time, how to drink water, what correct things to eat, or to avoid some creatures while accepting others.

I sure hope everything goes well and I get shots of some cute chicks. And maybe some of the baby birds, too.

The cute couple
Their new home-in-progress

Mar 06 2012

My Tweet Value

So I came across this website called SNPros that puts a dollar value to Twitter accounts. Obviously I was curious to see what mine was worth so I input my Twitter handle and waited a few seconds while it did its appraisally thing. Came back with a respectable $54.80. Not too bad, I thought. Then I wanted to compare it with the value of a well-known Twitter celebrity, so I chose Felicia Day. That was my big mistake. I knew hers would be appraised much higher but I wasn’t prepared to be so completely crushed by her gargantuan popularity. Her Twitter account came back valued at $2,318,789.15.

The moral of the story? I’m worth .002% of a Felicia Day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a large me-sized hole to dig in the backyard.

Mar 05 2012

Same Gopher, New Hole

While gardening today (and by gardening I mean back-breaking, glistening-muscular-Fabio-torso preparation for a big, double palm tree replanting tomorrow or Wednesday) I was revisited by my old friend, the gopher. He didn’t stick around as long this time, but I was able to get close enough to get two shots. This is the better one.

(Ed. note: I wasn’t actually glistening.)

Mar 04 2012

Hungarian Phrase Book

On days when not much happens, I can always count on Monty Python to help me post something worth watching.

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