California

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Back in April I went to California with my parents to attend my Great Aunt Barbara’s funeral in Monterey.  The whole extended family came to attend.

Near the cemetery there was some sort of a Tea Party protest going on.  It was tax day so I suppose that’s why a few hundred people were out.  Interestingly enough, out of several hundred people, I saw no one that was any other color than white.  Certainly in the greater Monterey area, this group of people was not anywhere close to representative of the population at large.

At the San Carlos Cemetery.

The green thing and brick are covering the hole that my great aunt ended up interned within.  Just behind it is where my great grandmother is buried.

More tea party people causing a minor traffic jam.  I wonder if they realize that the road they were protesting next to and the sidewalk they were standing on was paid for with tax dollars.

Driving along the coastal road between Pacific Grove and Caramel.

The mini van we rented for the trip.

At the memorial service.  Great aunt Barbara is in the little package next to the flowers on the table.  The paintings on either side of the table are hers.  She was an artist her entire life.

Cousin Hamilton getting ready to preside over the burial.

The cemetery guy was very nice and quite helpful.

Some of the crowd in attendance.  Lots of family, some of Barbara’s friends, etc.

Getting ready to roll in the mini van.

At a late lunch after the funeral.

Hamilton, my grandfather, and my grandmother.

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Before I returned home to Oregon I decided to take a quick detour to Tomales Bay for a sailing excursion with a friend from working at JPL. I also crashed a yacht club party while I was in town. This was actually the second time that I visited the yacht club and bay over the summer. The first time was about a month prior.

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Sondy shoving us off from the dock at the yacht club.

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Ahead full!

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I’m on a boat!  I’m on a boat! Everybody look at me cause I’m sailing on a boat!

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Midway out on our sail some of Sondy’s friends motored up alongside and handed across a beer using a net.

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A cute little sailboat chugging up the bay.

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On a beach where we stopped to walk around for a bit.

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I took a turn at driving.

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Then I got demoted to crewing again.

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Cleaning up the boat and getting ready to put it away.

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We sailed in the Blue Bonnet.

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It sure is beautiful out on Tomales Bay.

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During our last night in San Diego we went north to the Pacific Beach area to enjoy some food, booze, and a nice sunset. Jon even managed to swim in the ocean!

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During our time at the IDETC09 conference we had some time to wander around town. While there are a lot of good bars in San Diego, there are also a lot of tourist traps. We were able to find most of the good ones and stay away from the bad. Here are a few photos to prove that we were there.

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Mike enjoying some late night food.

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Jon up to his usual tricks.

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Justin, always the photographer.

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Anthony joined us for a bit, too.

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Outside our hotel on the way to the conference.

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Trains crossing the street.

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The train stopped and backed up.  Then it went forward.  Then stopped.  Then backed up.  After about 15 minutes it finally got out of the way and let people cross the tracks.

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Some people actually tried climbing between the cars and engines!

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In San Diego I attended the 2009 IDETC conference. It was at the convention center. Here are a few snaps of the center and a few things around the center.

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Thunderheads east of downtown San Diego.  The Padres Stadium is peaking around behind the hotel in the background.

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A fun railroad crossing that we enjoyed on multiple occasions.

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Some huge yachts were parked outside the convention center.  One was the BMW Oracle Racing Yacht.

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Dr. Ge, formerly with OSU and now with the NSF, talking with Dr. Paasch.

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Undergraduate poster session and graduate student feeding time.

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Mike loving the tram ride.

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The tram went from ground level to the second floor.  It was supposed to be for disabled people but it seemed to be more of a tourist attraction.

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Our hotel is somewhere off in the distance.

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Crazy architecture in the conference facility.  It’s a series of tubes!

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I need to get out to Bodie, California for a visit. It’s a ghost town north of Mono Lake.

September 20, 2009 | Please leave a comment

On the first full day of presentations at the conference, Sarah and Mike gave their talks.  The combined OSU group migrated downtown after the end of the reception to a bar called The Old Pro where we had some fun with a mechanical bull.

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Jon and Mike slept in while Sarah and I went to the conference.

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Sarah’s presentation went over quite well even with the funny slide error.

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Outside at the evening reception.

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Matt, my new post doc best friend.

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Rob gets ready to ride the mechanical bull.

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He stayed on quite a long time!

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Matt riding the bull.

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He didn’t make it as long as Rob.

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Sarah taking her turn.

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Redwood Hiking

While the other grad students slept, I slipped away to go hike in a magnificent old growth redwood forest near Santa Cruz. Big Basin Redwoods State Park is an excellent place to walk among ancient giants. Perhaps the stands and groves in this park aren’t as impressive as the northern forests but this park is not without its charms.

Aside from a nasty bee sting, the hike was wonderful. I walked about six miles in three hours. The majestic trees slowed down my progress significantly. It is very difficult to pay attention to the trail when one is constantly looking up.

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Last weekend was an uncharacteristically laid back affair. Instead of a crazy adventure, I went up to Fresno to visit with my grandparents. While there, I also took a quick detour up to the mountains to visit Camp El-O-Win, an old Girl Scout camp now being transformed into a separate non-profit organization. This was the camp where my parents first met on a blind date. My father was a forest ranger and my mother was a camp councilor.

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This is the creek side of the dining hall.  My grandfather was sitting out there watching the fire.  We made hobo packs in the coals.

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Looking upstream on Dinkey Creek.

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And downstream toward the old camp footbridge site.  In the near future the bridge will be rebuilt.

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The infirmary.  My grandparents stayed in the room downstairs.

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Looking down the side of the dining hall.

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The second story door leads to the room where my parents first met.

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In the camp kitchen.

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Our hobo pack assembly area.

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The main dining area.  The garage doors were installed a number of years ago to turn the building into a mountain lion shelter.  (I kid you not!)  In the event that a mountain lion is spotted in or around the camp, a horn is sounded and all of the campers come running to this building.  The doors are shut and thus the kids can scream their hearts out while the lion stalks back and forth outside.  I don’t think it’s ever been used in practice for this purpose.

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One of the camp units that is currently in use.

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Some cabins on the bottom side of the camp.

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Old Native American grinding holes.  Acorns would be ground with stones in these holes to make acorn flower.

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The site of the original road bridge across Dinkey Creek.  The bridge was removed sometime between the teens and the 40s.  Most likely the metal went into one of the war efforts.

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Bits of metal still poke up from the rocks.

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On the far side of the creek.  These are board floor tents that are currently not in use.  Until the foot bridge gets replaced this side of the camp is too hard to access to be used by campers.

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The camp water tank.

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The spring box sitting up on a hillside filled with oak trees.

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A rather large mountain lion track near the camp tank.  It was a few days old.

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As I was driving back down out of the mountains I nearly ran into a herd of cows grazing in a meadow.  The cows think they own the place!

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Sometimes I see strange things around Pasadena.  For instance tanks, art cars, oodles of deer wandering through lab, and funny license plates often greet me on a daily basis.

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This was on I-210 eastbound near the Hill Street exit.

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At JPL we have quite the deer infestation.

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A doe and her fawn near some outside seating at JPL.

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This was a strange art car on Arroyo going toward Highway 110.  It was rather post-apocalyptic.

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A license plate as seen at JPL.

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