Spring in California

After some early Spring rains, the weather has become quite nice.

There are wetlands, with walking trails, just down the road from us. Last time we visitted them we both got hayfever, but now that the pollen has settled down a bit we might visit them again.

Wayne, from work, has recommended some local hiking trails, which he has given us maps for. We will have to go walking one of these weekends.

This weekend is the Memorial Day long weekend (Sat, Sun, Mon). Sean was on call on Saturday and Sunday, but today we are planning on having a look around. Hopefully there will be a parade in downtown.

6 June 2006

Well, haven't we been spoiled. 04/05/06 (4/May/2006 for the world, 5/April/2006 in the US) and 06/06/06 all in one year.

We saw this poster in San Francisco.

We didn't know it at the time, but the poster is for a movie. Having seen another poster for it at a cinema, it turns out to be a remake. The kind of remake that is probably best served on DVD.

It will be interesting to see how they fit pyrotechnics, a car chase and a haunted house together this time.

New scrapbook pages!

Here are some more scrapbooking pages for you to enjoy.

Californian Mosquitos

We found the Mosquito on the left in the bathroom. It was huge. West Nile virus is present in California, so you have to be careful of mosquitos.










Also, I was surprised to find that followers of the evil cult of Scientology freely walk the streets in search of followers here. Just another risk to be aware of in California.

Makers Fair

We went to the Maker Fair a couple of weekends ago with Dan and Tanya, who are fellow Aussies. It is a big tech fair featuring robotics, computers, music, lego, electronics and lots of nerds.

While we were there we had a photo with the MythBusters, saw a fire engine (that shoots fire), bumped into autonomous blimps, patted a giant robotic giraffe, ran into Andrew "Bunny" Huang and generally enjoyed ourselves.

There were lots of stands with exposed circuit boards, roughly made cases, bits of robots. Everything was functional and undertandable, with little marketing gloss or covers to hide the internals away.


Microsoft had a stand offering $10,000 to whoever came up with the best idea. I think it had to be for a product. Anyway, I had no ideas to pimp so I passed that up. It was noteable that their stands were all shiny and business like, in contrast to most of the fair.

Among the coolest things at the fair were:

• Butthole Bear
• LED bike spokes that make pictures as you ride
• Meccano Difference Engine

A day in San Francisco

We had an Aussie visitor recently, so we took him for a whirlwind trip around San Francisco. First we decided to take a cruise around the Bay. The cruise lasted for about an hour. In that time we went passed the Sea Lions, headed out towards the Golden Gate Bridge - where we stopped right under it, then passed Angel Island, then onto Alctraz and back towards the Sea Lions again.


The above pic. is a view from the top of the most curviest street in the world! We laughed all the way down! I can't believe how zigzaggy it is. You definitely can't speed down this hill.




Sean and I standing at the lookout towards the Golden Gate Bridge. It was freezing up there as the fog was rolling in and the breeze had a chill in the air.

Redoing my Scrapbook Album

I'm redoing my scrapbook album.
Here is the first page that I completed. I'll put more pages up as I go.

-Louise

The Mystery Spot

The Mystery Spot is located in the Redwood Forest not far from Santa Cruz. We visitted it recently and came out feeling very disorientated and displaced. It was truly an unusual experience.



Our guide demonstrated his point of gravity. In other words, we all had a strong lean on us compared to the house.









Above pics: We had to stand opposite each other to demonstrate that even though the ground is level, the person on the right is taller! Sean decided to grab the spirit level to prove his point, as usual.


This is Sean just standing on the table!







This is a Banana Slug. Pretty amazing considering the colour.



-Louise