Oh my blogs have gotten away from me...sorry guys. The tree in our backyard is a Brugmansia -- I believed crossed with "Candida" -- according to the website I looked it up on. My Mom and Steve and I (lo these many weekends ago) asked in a local horticultural shop. The man there was right about the Brugmansia, but WRONG about the Bottlebrush. My favorite trees on SF's streets are indeed called CRIMSON BOTTLEBRUSHES and you can look them up to see how cool they are. Mom -- you were right!! Whatever weird pine the man suggested did not have any kind of flowering appendages at all...
It was a busy weekend this weekend, with Leslie and I having quite a bout of bad transportation luck -- due to slow buses, miscommunications, our own ignorance about the numbering of SF's piers, and all out crowds and confusion, it took us about 2 whole hours just to get to Red Bull's Flugtag on Piers 30-32 Saturday. Flugtag is basically Redbull sponsoring people to create "flying" machines which they then pilot off a ramp 30 feet up from the water, and whoever gets themselves the farthest wins a pretty sweet cash pot -- $7500! The second and third placers get cash prizes too. Leslie and I got there just in time to see the last two teams go, the very last one being the winner, so at least we got to see that. The winners created a human catapult -- with one guy seated at the lowest end and four pullies attached to the highest end. His four friends then held on to the pullies and jumped into the water, thereby yanking the catapult down and sending the man 61 FEET!! It was hysterical (they were wearing kilts no less) and fortunate that we saw it.
The night before we had time to kill before the 8:30 showing of Kill Bill, so we ended up exploring Yerba Buena Gardens and Center, and boy is it beautiful at night. Really thoughtfully constructed waterfalls involving well placed rocks, artful use of surface tension, carved spouts...all lit up and set up so that you can sit right at the edge. As you can imagine, it was teeming with young couples, but they proved unobtrusive. -_~
I am in love with swimming at night right now -- it somehow gives me more energy to swim when it's dark and cold than during the daylight hours.
That's about it here -- me and my team are otherwise having a great time at work, and Halloween should prove quite fun this Friday, as the Castro is the hotspot for revelry and Fred is joining me out here. I'll be sure to let you know how THAT goes!! Happy Halloween and drop me a line, you people!
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Last weekend, my mom and Steve were here -- it was great fun. They flew out on a Thursday and I was able to meet them Friday afternoon, show them the place, and then wander about the city with them. (I heartily invite any of you who can swing it to come out for a long weekend -- both Mom and Steve report that it was shockingly easy to manage. You just need to cough up the cash for the plane tickets, and otherwise you're welcome to stay with me.)
As is often the case, in showing them the city I learned a lot about it myself. For example, I took them to see the Sea Lions down at Pier 39. For those of you who have been here around 1989 or earlier, you honestly have no concept of how they've taken over one part of the bay. Apparently the earthquake of '89 changed something -- the theory is that it most likely changed the underwater lay of the land such that it changed the migratory paths of herring schools -- and brought a massive bloat* of Sea Lions to the pier. (*"Bloat" is the term for a group of hippos. I don't know the term for a group of Sea Lions, so bloat seemed fitting. ~_-) When I brought my mom and Steve to the pier, there happened to be a woman there who worked at the Sea Lion hospital in Sausalito and was here checking on the local population and answering questions. Thus I learned many things about Sea Lions -- for example, the herring/migratory/earthquake theory mentioned above. Nearly the entire population of s.l.s gathered at the Wharf was male, as well, since right now is birthing season and all birthing age females would be in warmer waters doing so. You can tell gender when a sea lion is lying on its back (which they do quite a lot -- coming back as an s.l. would be just as ideal as coming back as a cat -- lots of lolling, sunbathing, snuggling, and general loafing going on -- that is if you don't mind the sharks...) but you can also tell because males develop large sagittal crests (imagine an oversized lobe on their foreheads) after 4 or 5 years and grow larger in size. Females also tend to be slightly blonder in color, though when they're wet the colors are pretty indistinguishable. There were lots of BIG boys out there, but also a bunch of yearlings, who all look way too small to be weaned (but that's probably just by comparison to their 1,000 lb counterparts -- literally) and provide an added element of cute out there.
Anyway, at some point these sea lions discovered the bay, and as you may recall from news in years past, proved quite a menace to fishermen, but also to boat owners -- the flimsy docks they put up that mere humans can strut around on proved no match for whole bloats of one ton big daddies, and within no time the sudden confluence of sea lions literally sank the docks! There was a lot of debate over what to do with them -- to get rid of them or not and how -- but in the end a compromise was reached by creating huge sea-lion-sturdy floats towards the opening of the bay, which they took to immediately. Occasionally, an errant sea lion will still rest his girth on a boat dock (the woman told us that this is rare, sea lions are group-oriented, and only one that is very ill or has recently been in a doozy of a fight will stray off alone to recuperate) and the boaters are provided with large human shields which they literally hide behind to shuttle the sea lions off the dock. This is both to provide them protection from sharp canines and to keep the sea lions from getting acclimated to humans -- keeping a bit of fear and natural distrust there maintains an important boundary between shared space and unmanageable nuisance.
For the most part, the sea lions lie there and soak up the sun; they literally climb over each other like steam rollers searching for the right lions to squeeze between for a nap; despite the snooziness, a moment of silence is rare, especially when a boat wake comes through and rocks the docks, and also because the odd male will get territorial and chase interlopers off "his" dock, until the sun proves strong enough to lull him. When the sun is too strong, a sea lion will appear to be lazily waving at you, but really they are "thermo-regulating," that is, by sticking a flipper up they create more surface area for the wind to catch, and this cools them down.
If it sounds idyllic -- and it is -- in the bay sea lions have hardly any natural predators -- except for the horrific creature known as a cookie-cutter shark. These are so named because they swim up to prey, grab a piece of flesh and spin (!), leaving a perfect circle shaped scar.
Anyway, that's my report on Sea Lions -- I have more to tell you about my backyard garden, but I have things to do in the meantime. ~_-
As is often the case, in showing them the city I learned a lot about it myself. For example, I took them to see the Sea Lions down at Pier 39. For those of you who have been here around 1989 or earlier, you honestly have no concept of how they've taken over one part of the bay. Apparently the earthquake of '89 changed something -- the theory is that it most likely changed the underwater lay of the land such that it changed the migratory paths of herring schools -- and brought a massive bloat* of Sea Lions to the pier. (*"Bloat" is the term for a group of hippos. I don't know the term for a group of Sea Lions, so bloat seemed fitting. ~_-) When I brought my mom and Steve to the pier, there happened to be a woman there who worked at the Sea Lion hospital in Sausalito and was here checking on the local population and answering questions. Thus I learned many things about Sea Lions -- for example, the herring/migratory/earthquake theory mentioned above. Nearly the entire population of s.l.s gathered at the Wharf was male, as well, since right now is birthing season and all birthing age females would be in warmer waters doing so. You can tell gender when a sea lion is lying on its back (which they do quite a lot -- coming back as an s.l. would be just as ideal as coming back as a cat -- lots of lolling, sunbathing, snuggling, and general loafing going on -- that is if you don't mind the sharks...) but you can also tell because males develop large sagittal crests (imagine an oversized lobe on their foreheads) after 4 or 5 years and grow larger in size. Females also tend to be slightly blonder in color, though when they're wet the colors are pretty indistinguishable. There were lots of BIG boys out there, but also a bunch of yearlings, who all look way too small to be weaned (but that's probably just by comparison to their 1,000 lb counterparts -- literally) and provide an added element of cute out there.
Anyway, at some point these sea lions discovered the bay, and as you may recall from news in years past, proved quite a menace to fishermen, but also to boat owners -- the flimsy docks they put up that mere humans can strut around on proved no match for whole bloats of one ton big daddies, and within no time the sudden confluence of sea lions literally sank the docks! There was a lot of debate over what to do with them -- to get rid of them or not and how -- but in the end a compromise was reached by creating huge sea-lion-sturdy floats towards the opening of the bay, which they took to immediately. Occasionally, an errant sea lion will still rest his girth on a boat dock (the woman told us that this is rare, sea lions are group-oriented, and only one that is very ill or has recently been in a doozy of a fight will stray off alone to recuperate) and the boaters are provided with large human shields which they literally hide behind to shuttle the sea lions off the dock. This is both to provide them protection from sharp canines and to keep the sea lions from getting acclimated to humans -- keeping a bit of fear and natural distrust there maintains an important boundary between shared space and unmanageable nuisance.
For the most part, the sea lions lie there and soak up the sun; they literally climb over each other like steam rollers searching for the right lions to squeeze between for a nap; despite the snooziness, a moment of silence is rare, especially when a boat wake comes through and rocks the docks, and also because the odd male will get territorial and chase interlopers off "his" dock, until the sun proves strong enough to lull him. When the sun is too strong, a sea lion will appear to be lazily waving at you, but really they are "thermo-regulating," that is, by sticking a flipper up they create more surface area for the wind to catch, and this cools them down.
If it sounds idyllic -- and it is -- in the bay sea lions have hardly any natural predators -- except for the horrific creature known as a cookie-cutter shark. These are so named because they swim up to prey, grab a piece of flesh and spin (!), leaving a perfect circle shaped scar.
Anyway, that's my report on Sea Lions -- I have more to tell you about my backyard garden, but I have things to do in the meantime. ~_-
Thursday, October 16, 2003
This work week has been pretty smooth, so I've been concentrating my attention on birding. If you are not at all interested in birding, don't bother to read the rest, since it reads like a backyard ecology grade school report!
I am definitely an amateur "birder" these days, especially since the move to the West Coast has brought in a whole new batch of things to identify. For starters, in Auburn at our hotel there are tall thin decorative pines that attractive an entire flock of what I believe are Brewer's Blackbirds, who make wonderful "chuck chuck" noises and are fun to watch swirl and settle, swirl and settle. In looking up these birds I learned how to tell the difference between the ubiquitous European Starling and Blackbirds -- Starlings: often speckled, often irridescently greenish/purpleish, plumage looks a lot rougher, dark eyes, yellow bills; Blackbirds: clean, smooth, black plumage, less noticeably irridescent, generally yellow-eyed and black billed. They are often larger than Starlings too.
At the deli where we eat our lunch, there is a single brownheaded cowbird who is missing his foot. (He has his leg right down to the ankle joint, just the actual foot is missing.) He gets along just fine amidst the sparrows who frequent the deli, and ultimately I realized that since cowbirds are "brood parasites" -- meaning the parent cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds' nests and leave their young to be raised by "foster" families -- that this cowbird most likely was raised by these sparrows.
I've also been introduced to the Western Scrub Jay, which is in the family of blue jays -- it's got that lovely blue jay color, but it has a grey "vest" and no crest, and a dashing white stripe above its eyes. On my road trip I was exposed to Steller's Jays as well, which look exactly like a standard Blue Jay whose head has been dipped in black ink up to the neck. They are quite eye-catching.
Finally, while lazing in the hot tub my coworker and I noticed some gulls soaring inland. Everyone expects gulls to be closely tied to the sea, but they love lakes and ponds just as much, and as scavengers can survive quite nicely in open grasslands (and often, parking lots!) too. Out here, though, the gulls are most likely California gulls, and in hearing of this and deciding to find out what differentiates them from the East Coast Herring Gull, I was surprised to find that Gulls go through quite a variety of plumage before hitting their standard grey and white. In fact, even for experienced birders, it is hard to tell the difference between varieties of immature gulls, which start out almost uniformly brown and go through the entire spectrum of speckledom before becoming white and grey. The best way to tell gulls apart is when they're in their adult form; the Herring Gull has light eyes (i.e. yellow) and pink legs and is generally slightly larger, while the California gull has dark eyes (i.e. they look uniformly black) and yellow legs.
Back in San Francisco, I have had the delight of exposure to two new kinds of birds: Cormorants, which are sleek black birds who literally dive underwater for fish; and black-chinned hummingbirds (who frequent our back garden), whose males look much like Ruby-throated hummingbirds (i.e. emerald green coat, whiteish/grey bellies, and beautiful rich purpley throats) except that the b.c.hummers have a slight strip of black above the violet, while the rubies don't. The only reason I'm confident that I saw a b.c. hummer is that Rubies stick to the East Coast and Black Chinnies stick to the west.
I am definitely an amateur "birder" these days, especially since the move to the West Coast has brought in a whole new batch of things to identify. For starters, in Auburn at our hotel there are tall thin decorative pines that attractive an entire flock of what I believe are Brewer's Blackbirds, who make wonderful "chuck chuck" noises and are fun to watch swirl and settle, swirl and settle. In looking up these birds I learned how to tell the difference between the ubiquitous European Starling and Blackbirds -- Starlings: often speckled, often irridescently greenish/purpleish, plumage looks a lot rougher, dark eyes, yellow bills; Blackbirds: clean, smooth, black plumage, less noticeably irridescent, generally yellow-eyed and black billed. They are often larger than Starlings too.
At the deli where we eat our lunch, there is a single brownheaded cowbird who is missing his foot. (He has his leg right down to the ankle joint, just the actual foot is missing.) He gets along just fine amidst the sparrows who frequent the deli, and ultimately I realized that since cowbirds are "brood parasites" -- meaning the parent cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds' nests and leave their young to be raised by "foster" families -- that this cowbird most likely was raised by these sparrows.
I've also been introduced to the Western Scrub Jay, which is in the family of blue jays -- it's got that lovely blue jay color, but it has a grey "vest" and no crest, and a dashing white stripe above its eyes. On my road trip I was exposed to Steller's Jays as well, which look exactly like a standard Blue Jay whose head has been dipped in black ink up to the neck. They are quite eye-catching.
Finally, while lazing in the hot tub my coworker and I noticed some gulls soaring inland. Everyone expects gulls to be closely tied to the sea, but they love lakes and ponds just as much, and as scavengers can survive quite nicely in open grasslands (and often, parking lots!) too. Out here, though, the gulls are most likely California gulls, and in hearing of this and deciding to find out what differentiates them from the East Coast Herring Gull, I was surprised to find that Gulls go through quite a variety of plumage before hitting their standard grey and white. In fact, even for experienced birders, it is hard to tell the difference between varieties of immature gulls, which start out almost uniformly brown and go through the entire spectrum of speckledom before becoming white and grey. The best way to tell gulls apart is when they're in their adult form; the Herring Gull has light eyes (i.e. yellow) and pink legs and is generally slightly larger, while the California gull has dark eyes (i.e. they look uniformly black) and yellow legs.
Back in San Francisco, I have had the delight of exposure to two new kinds of birds: Cormorants, which are sleek black birds who literally dive underwater for fish; and black-chinned hummingbirds (who frequent our back garden), whose males look much like Ruby-throated hummingbirds (i.e. emerald green coat, whiteish/grey bellies, and beautiful rich purpley throats) except that the b.c.hummers have a slight strip of black above the violet, while the rubies don't. The only reason I'm confident that I saw a b.c. hummer is that Rubies stick to the East Coast and Black Chinnies stick to the west.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
This week we hit the world's most annoying roadblock: Quality Control. My team rocks, first of all, and further, we set up an assembly line system that means we QC each other by default anyway, but we still have to go back and "double check" piles of work...it's frustrating when you strive for excellence and yet pay for the sloppiness of people you don't even see or know. >:(
That aside, this week has been easy socially and moving rather quickly. And Mom and Steve fly in tomorrow night, which should be fun -- both showing them "my" San Francisco and learning their history with it too. Ghirardelli, here we come...
By the way, if you have never heard the noise a Cowbird makes, you should see if you can find it somewhere. It's fascinatingly different from other birds; it sounds more like a water drop than a chirp.
That aside, this week has been easy socially and moving rather quickly. And Mom and Steve fly in tomorrow night, which should be fun -- both showing them "my" San Francisco and learning their history with it too. Ghirardelli, here we come...
By the way, if you have never heard the noise a Cowbird makes, you should see if you can find it somewhere. It's fascinatingly different from other birds; it sounds more like a water drop than a chirp.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
