So coming back from the mainland today, following doctor and dentist visits, the Things and I were outside toward the bow of the boat (Sweetie was upstairs), when I saw some sort of thing in the water and the boat suddenly slowed down and veered to starboard. I saw a big disturbance in the water, and then further off to port three gray (I think) whales surfaced. I quickly grabbed the boys, "Guys, look, whales!". That first view was the best - head, back and tail. We saw spouting a few more times before they headed for the depths. It was my first real whale sighting - ever - and was intensely cool. Sweetie had been dozing off when we encountered them, but also got to see them. It was nice of the captain to slow down so we could see them.
We did see one other fin shortly after that, but it's unclear what it was. Might have been a porpoise (according to Sweetie). It was very black and about porpoise size.
Back on the island now with another trip to the mainland looming...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Another week on the mainland
I spent this week on the mainland. We had an atrocious crossing Monday morning. A storm had blown in over the weekend, and the seas were mixed and rough. We tacked up to Lion's Head before heading across the channel so we would be more in the trough of the swell. So the first twenty minutes or so was a lot of up and down banging. Then for the next hour it was side-to-side rolling. I had taken Dramamine, but some others on the boat obviously hadn't. Finally, we got in the lee of peninsula and the water smoothed out for the last twenty minutes of the trip.
Straight up to campus from the dock. I was attending the TEDxUSC conference. Some of you may have heard of the TED conference. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The organizing group gets top innovators in the fields and gives them 20 minutes to talk about something that will inspire and excite the audience. This was a first attempt at a satellite conference, and had a collection of innovators from USC and some of the speakers from the main TED conference on video. It was quite interesting and entertaining.
The rest of the week I was working out of my new temporary office on campus. There's an empty wing of office space in the building and the Chair said I could choose one as temporary office space. So for most of the week I was sitting in this otherwise entirely empty space - it was much like working on the island, in terms of being isolated from the rest of the department.
Thursday, Bonnie Bassler was in town for a seminar. She gave an excellent talk and I attended a dinner party in her honor afterward in which I had a nice chat with her and some other USC scientific bigwigs that I hadn't previously met.
Friday, Sweetie and the Things came over on the university boat. We got haircuts (the Things' first since Christmas!) and had Chinese food for dinner - ah the luxuries of the mainland! Saturday we drove up to La Brea and looked at the asphalt (not tar, as is popularly believed) pits and the Page Museum. What a cool place. Afterwards, we drove up Wilshire Blvd through Beverly Hills, just to see how the other 5% live. Then the Things napped on the way home. For dinner we got a delivery pizza and watched Redwall.
Today, I think we are going to go see Monsters vs Aliens (in 3D). Tomorrow, the doctor and the dentist!
Straight up to campus from the dock. I was attending the TEDxUSC conference. Some of you may have heard of the TED conference. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The organizing group gets top innovators in the fields and gives them 20 minutes to talk about something that will inspire and excite the audience. This was a first attempt at a satellite conference, and had a collection of innovators from USC and some of the speakers from the main TED conference on video. It was quite interesting and entertaining.
The rest of the week I was working out of my new temporary office on campus. There's an empty wing of office space in the building and the Chair said I could choose one as temporary office space. So for most of the week I was sitting in this otherwise entirely empty space - it was much like working on the island, in terms of being isolated from the rest of the department.
Thursday, Bonnie Bassler was in town for a seminar. She gave an excellent talk and I attended a dinner party in her honor afterward in which I had a nice chat with her and some other USC scientific bigwigs that I hadn't previously met.
Friday, Sweetie and the Things came over on the university boat. We got haircuts (the Things' first since Christmas!) and had Chinese food for dinner - ah the luxuries of the mainland! Saturday we drove up to La Brea and looked at the asphalt (not tar, as is popularly believed) pits and the Page Museum. What a cool place. Afterwards, we drove up Wilshire Blvd through Beverly Hills, just to see how the other 5% live. Then the Things napped on the way home. For dinner we got a delivery pizza and watched Redwall.
Today, I think we are going to go see Monsters vs Aliens (in 3D). Tomorrow, the doctor and the dentist!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Been awhile
Yes, it's been awhile since a post has appeared here. I've been caught up in trips over town (we've discovered a dentist), training, and grant writing.
So what's been going on, you ask? Well, spring is here in some sense because the flowers are all blooming. The Catalina Marathon was this weekend and we (as the LRSH PTA) worked aid stations, handing out water, etc to the runners and walkers as they passed. Our station was about here. After the last runner passed, we drove back up Big Springs Rd and over on Empire Landing Rd back to Two Harbors. The island is very green now, and we saw lots of flowers blooming (you didn't think I was going to get back to the flowers, did you?): Indian paintbrush, Shooting stars, other stuff Sweetie might be able to tell you what it is, etc. This is a good time of year to visit (hint, hint). On the downside, the weather has been overcast and cool. If it's going to be cool, it might as well rain, but it hasn't done too much of that. We're pretty dry for the year. I think we've had less than 10 inches since the 'rainy' season began.
We've been doing some work in the mudpit, I mean, backyard. The moisture softened up the ground enough that we could use shovels to dig it up, so we started terracing off part of the back slope to increase the amount of usable space. Now we need to get some retaining wall stone before the Things knock all the dirt back down. Sweetie has also been planting veggies and flowers in boxes. The lettuce is up and looks good. I'm not sure what else she has out there. We also finally got shelving for the shed. The space is much more organized now, and we even have room for MORE STUFF.
If you couldn't tell from the above, Sweetie is nearly completely recovered from surgery at this point. She's much more active than she's been able to be for quite some time, which is great. Although it was hard, we have no regrets about going through with it.
Midshipman is back. That's the boat that lost it's propeller on one of the trips over town. (Actually, looking back, I never put that story in the blog.) Well, anyway, it's back for our use. So we have been using it for my colleague and I to get over town (not in town or down town) to the graduate seminar he's teaching. This week was a great trip over. The water was calm and practically teeming with common dolphins. It wasn't one of the super-pods on the move, it was dispersed small groups over a very large area. For about the first half hour of the trip we would see them; occasionally one would jump; they would come zooming up to the boat and try to ride the wake (but it really wasn't big enough or fast enough for them). A very cool experience. We also saw what I think were some common murres, and some surf scoters. When we got into port, I'm not yet terribly skilled in driving the boat, and one of the waterfront workers had to yell at me before I finally (with his help) got the boat docked. The trip back was less fun. Choppy and without wildlife with the sun in my eyes. But I did do a great job mooring the boat. Yin and yang, I guess.
That's it for now. Happy submitted grants to us all!
So what's been going on, you ask? Well, spring is here in some sense because the flowers are all blooming. The Catalina Marathon was this weekend and we (as the LRSH PTA) worked aid stations, handing out water, etc to the runners and walkers as they passed. Our station was about here. After the last runner passed, we drove back up Big Springs Rd and over on Empire Landing Rd back to Two Harbors. The island is very green now, and we saw lots of flowers blooming (you didn't think I was going to get back to the flowers, did you?): Indian paintbrush, Shooting stars, other stuff Sweetie might be able to tell you what it is, etc. This is a good time of year to visit (hint, hint). On the downside, the weather has been overcast and cool. If it's going to be cool, it might as well rain, but it hasn't done too much of that. We're pretty dry for the year. I think we've had less than 10 inches since the 'rainy' season began.
We've been doing some work in the mudpit, I mean, backyard. The moisture softened up the ground enough that we could use shovels to dig it up, so we started terracing off part of the back slope to increase the amount of usable space. Now we need to get some retaining wall stone before the Things knock all the dirt back down. Sweetie has also been planting veggies and flowers in boxes. The lettuce is up and looks good. I'm not sure what else she has out there. We also finally got shelving for the shed. The space is much more organized now, and we even have room for MORE STUFF.
If you couldn't tell from the above, Sweetie is nearly completely recovered from surgery at this point. She's much more active than she's been able to be for quite some time, which is great. Although it was hard, we have no regrets about going through with it.
Midshipman is back. That's the boat that lost it's propeller on one of the trips over town. (Actually, looking back, I never put that story in the blog.) Well, anyway, it's back for our use. So we have been using it for my colleague and I to get over town (not in town or down town) to the graduate seminar he's teaching. This week was a great trip over. The water was calm and practically teeming with common dolphins. It wasn't one of the super-pods on the move, it was dispersed small groups over a very large area. For about the first half hour of the trip we would see them; occasionally one would jump; they would come zooming up to the boat and try to ride the wake (but it really wasn't big enough or fast enough for them). A very cool experience. We also saw what I think were some common murres, and some surf scoters. When we got into port, I'm not yet terribly skilled in driving the boat, and one of the waterfront workers had to yell at me before I finally (with his help) got the boat docked. The trip back was less fun. Choppy and without wildlife with the sun in my eyes. But I did do a great job mooring the boat. Yin and yang, I guess.
That's it for now. Happy submitted grants to us all!
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