Cranial Activity

This past summer was a good one for seeing cranes! Back in May I visited the International Crane Foundation for the first time. They are one of the few zoos that has all fifteen species of cranes on display. Also, they do a lot of great work getting Whooping Crane population numbers back up. Here's a picture of their enclosure for the Whooping Cranes where one crane was always on the nest while the other was looking for food.

Later that summer I was in Montana. While walking in a field near Anaconda with some family, we disturbed three cranes who immediately took flight. The red heads, black wing tips, and white bodies indicated that these were three more Whooping Cranes! The only thing I can't figure out is the brown splotches on the back since adult Whooping Cranes are pure white. So I believe that these are young cranes, still with some of the brown coloring from their younger days. Any crane experts out there?

Birds do it

One of my grandmother's great joys in her last few years was watching her hummingbird feeder.  They still keep it well fed up at the farm, and the birds still love it.

Most of the pictures I took of the Red Ruby Hummingbirds were on continuous shooting mode, which captures about five shots per second.  Of course, what goes in must eventually come out.  The following frame captures a quick event, a Hummingbird lightening its load.  This did not appear in either the preceding or successive frames, so I now know that a Hummingbird can do it's business in under 0.4 seconds!

Ken and Jean's Wedding

The month of May was full of travel for me!  Right after I had submitted my grades, I flew up to Wisconsin to see my uncle Ken get married.  Jean is a wonderful woman, and I wish them both all the happiness in the world. The wedding was held at St. Mary's Church in Briggsville.

After the wedding, everyone headed over to Maggie Mae's Barn for some great food. Maggie Mae and her band provided the entertainment at the reception.

Weddings are an excellent way to reconnect with family that you haven't seen for a while, and this was no exception.  In fact, I met and got to chat with folks and relatives whom I hadn't seen in decades.   Perhaps the highlight, though, was the wedding cake: a miniature replica of Clover View Farms.

Southern California Renaissance Faire

Last Sunday I attended the Renaissance Faire that's about 20 minutes from my house.  And what a faire!  These folks have clearly been doing this a while.  The layout is like a giant snake--so every single stage, shop, and eatery is on the path from the entrance to the joust.  They have an NC-17 stage where I spent most of the morning replenishing my levels of bawdiness.

The Belles of Bedlam

Then it was off to watch Jack the Dagger do some impressive knife throwing.  Yes, that blurry grey thing in the middle picture is the knife.

I ended the day by watching the final joust, which was excellent as well. Lots of fighting on both horse and ground. Altogether a wonderful way to spend a day!

Catalina Island

California continues to amaze me.

Prior to coming to Claremont as an undergrad, what I knew about California I learned from TV and movies:  San Francisco is hilly, Napa Valley has great wine, and Hollywood is full of movie stars.  That's what makes my new discoveries of the gems that lie within California all the more exciting.  

Avalon Harbor viewed from above

One such gem is the Channel Islands.

Those who pay attention to such things probably have heard of them already.  A long ago getaway for movie stars, places such as Catalina Island grew up on the twin pillars of their beauty and mild inaccessibility.  Today it is still a gorgeous place to visit, with many plant and animal species that only live on one or more of the Islands, and a wonderful harbor lined with shops, restaurants, and the occasional candy factory.

I went there for the first time with my Mom, who was visiting during her Spring Break.  One very exciting thing to do is to take one of the semi-submersible undersea tours:  the next best thing to scuba diving.  We saw loads of fish during the tour, including the easy to spot Garibaldi.

Garibaldi fish in the ocean

The Island ethos of tourism with conservation was put in place by the Wrigley family, and the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Gardens is a great way to see many of the plants (and animals!) that only grow on Catalina or other Channel Islands.

Mark and Tam in from of a Catalina Mahogany Tree

The trip back is also a lot of fun.  The jet ferry takes about an hour to cover twenty miles of open ocean.  Pelicans and seagulls like to follow the wake churned up behind the boat.

Pelicans accompanying the ferry ride back

Universal Studios Hollywood

I hadn't been to Universal Studios Hollywood since I was an undergraduate in college.  What a difference sixteen years makes!

When I last visited with my brother, the Studio Backlot Tour was the only real ride, and even that was very different from any other theme park in the world.  The rest of the day you could spend watching stunt shows and other performances, but there were no roller coasters or other big rides.

Since then (like that other theme park), Universal Studios Hollywood has brought over the best ideas and rides from their two Florida Parks.  The result is a great way to spend a day.  It's still a lot lower key than a Disney adventure--which isn't a bad thing.  The Backlot Tour is still the gem in their crown--and with recent updates including a ride through the 3D jungles of Skull Island where Kong battles dinosaurs it is still a favorite of mine.

Yep--he's still terrorizing Amity Lake

This time I went with my Mom, who was visiting during her Spring Break.  I splurged on the "Front-of-the-line" passes.  These helped a bit with the lines to the attractions, but their main benefit was the extras you receive with the shows.  Most of the shows had a short Q-and-A session with the actors where they describe some of the behind-the-scenes parts of the show.  Lots of fun!  Also, there are nice reserved seats for these shows, so you don't have to worry about getting there too early.

Meeting the cast of Terminator 2:3D

Pepperdine

Last week I gave a talk in the Natural Science Seminar series at Pepperdine University.  Located on the hills above Malibu, they have a spectacular view of the Pacific.

The view from Pepperdine

The invite came from Tim Lucas, who got his PhD from Duke in 2006. I had run into Tim a few months earlier at the Joint Math Meetings in New Orleans. The talks at Pepperdine run from 12:00-1:00. So I gave the talk and then we headed out to their cafeteria (with big windows opening on to the ocean.) A great way to spend the day.

ElecTRONica

The movie Tron came out when I was 10, and (in between Star Wars sequels) quickly established itself as my favorite movie.  

Almost 30 years later, Tron legacy has his the theatres, and the Disney marketing machine is in full swing.  Hooray!

In California Adventure, that means the southwest part of the park has been turned into ElecTRONica.  After night falls, a DJ spins up and the End of Line Club comes to life.  Even more fun, they have recreated Flynn's Arcade--complete with all the working video games I loved as a kid.  Sure, there are lots of ways to play those old games nowadays, but nothing beats the thrill from dropping a token (and they are all 1 token to play) into a cabinet, then dropping it again in to the other slot because one slot isn't working, and then flying that ship/lasering robots/blowing up monsters until the cows come home.

Disneyland at Christmas

I love the Disney parks.  They at once appeal to the small child in me, and to the Operation Research trained adult in me--so many people moved efficiently through so many queues--it brings a tear to my eye.

This was the first year that I hit Disneyland at Christmas (Disney World I'd been to before).  The park is transformed by wonderful lights, but even better, the Haunted Mansion now becomes The Nightmare Before Christmas (go Tim Burton!) for a month.  As one of my all time favorite movies, I'd been looking forward to seeing that for a long time, and it did not disappoint.  Everything about the ride is transformed, from the opening line to the final entreaty to return.  The detail and number of things to watch for is amazing.

Decked out to the nines in giant icicle lights, Cinderella's Castle doesn't look half bad, either!

Yosemite in winter

This was the second time that I've been to Yosemite in winter and it was equally gorgeous this time around.  I was there four nights altogether with my folks and the weather was scary for a while but in the end cooperative.

It rained the first day out, but by the second day that had turned to a lovely snow that blanketed everything.  The morning hike to the Lower Yosemite Falls was about as far as you would want to go with that much snow falling.  By the next morning, the sun was shining on all that snow, and made every glade and meadow into a beautiful tableau.  First we took an early morning tour with a photographer from the Ansel Adams Gallery, then headed off to Mirror Lake.

That night we saw the Bracebridge Dinner--a combination seven course meal and medieval Christmas pageant.  It was wonderful, great performances and amazing food.  This took place in the main dining hall at the Ahwahnee Hotel, a grand fixture of Yosemite Valley.

The next day the sun was again out, and we headed up to the overlook for Vernal Falls.  That proved to be significantly steeper a hike than to Mirror Lake (although roughly the same distance) and so by the end of the day we were happy just to stay put for an hour and try to get some sunset pictures from the middle of the valley.  By this time, though, the clouds had rolled in, and fog enshrouded all the major sights.

So the next day we took to the higher elevations, leaving the valley and heading to Tuolumne Grove, where some of the Giant Sequoias stand tall.  These trees can live to be thousands of years old and are very impressive up close.  The clouds continued to linger throughout the day, although the sun peeked through more at sunset this time.

Our final morning in the valley the skies cleared and the sun shone full force on the Upper Yosemite Falls, giving a wonderful rainbow across the water.  El Capitan and the tunnel overlook were also clear as a bell, and made for a great final few hours in Yosemite.