Orca pictures

Okay, just so you don't think I was too spoiled, this is typical of the views of the orcas that I got from the boat I was on (it was still pretty cool, though):



Now here are some better pictures (I'd credit the photographer, but I'm not sure who it was):

Easter and comings and goings and Wiggling

Easter on the island was a new experience. We couldn't find our Easter decorations and baskets, so we had to make due with what was about. We dyed eggs Saturday night, and the Easter Bunny dutifully hid them around the living room. Instead of Easter Baskets we had Easter Mixing Bowls, but the Things didn't mind.

One of the yacht clubs holds an Easter egg hunt in town. They hide plastic eggs full of candy and one Golden Egg with some bigger prize (I think it's something like $50). The younger kids were on the beach this year, and the older kids were up at the playground and 'amphitheater'. Both things had a great time and found lots of eggs. No Golden Egg for us this year, though. It was a beautiful day. We went down to the beach and ran around. The Things did go into the water some, but it was pretty cold, even for them. We did have one 'tragedy' when Thing2 knocked over his bubble mix, but all in all it was a lovely day.

We also had to say goodbye to Thing1's friend Y (you remember Y from a previous post). His folks decided to start a move back to Alaska, so they cast off into the, well, I guess sunrise, since this is the west coast.

Easter, of course, means Spring Break for the school kids, and the LRSH closed its doors to give Ms. Barney a well-deserved rest. We took the opportunity to go over to LA for a weekend and see the Wiggles in their latest roadshow. We stayed in a hotel so the Things got to swim in the pool. We also stopped by the bookstore so our voracious reader (Thing1) could re-load.

One last note on the topic of comings and goings: Tuesday, I arrived at work to find a group of students hustling down to the dock to hop on a boat. It seems a pod of orcas had been spotted just off the island, and they were going to have a look. So I hurried down and asked if I could tag along. Twenty minutes later we could see dorsal fins and some tails flipping out of the water. A few times we even saw flukes. One of the students took some pictures. I'll try to get some posted, although I don't know how good they are.

Captain Doctor Uncle Bill

A few weeks ago, I attended a Limited Captain's License class. This means that I received sufficient training for me to be eligible to get a license from the state to carry passengers on a boat up to 5 miles from the coast of Catalina (thus the 'Limited' part of the title). The University suggested I take this class so that I will be able to take students in a boat, since undergrad students (since they pay tuition) are considered paying customers if we put them on a boat. At least that's my understanding of the situation, which may not be entirely correct.

Anyhoo, I passed the class with flying colors (93.3% on the final!) and I knew the knots (bowline, clove hitch, square knot, cleat tie). We learned to set off emergency flares and which life preservers needed to be aboard. In order to actually get the license, however, I need to have 60 days where I spend at least four hours in a position of responsibility on a boat. Now I don't know if you knew this, but I do bioinformatics. Not too much computer work needs to be done on a boat. So I'm now constantly looking for excuses to go on a boat.

Coincidentally, one arose yesterday. The island faculty (J, K and myself) went 'over town' for a non-existent faculty meeting (that's another story). I helped cast off, and acted as look-out on the way over, and Captain K let me drive the boat on the way back. Don't flinch, most of the trip was accomplished by an on-board navigation system, but I am happy to report that I did not collide with 1) the sailboat in the harbor, 2) Ship Rock, and 3) Bird Rock, and I did manage to hit the dock gently enough for it to be considered docking (barely). And I helped moor the boat afterwards.

I was very proud of myself (naturally), and thus I have decided that my nieces and nephews must now call me Captain Doctor Uncle Bill, instead of just Doctor Uncle Bill.

Speaking of nieces and nephews, congratulations to the Nokomis Boys Baskteball team for being runners-up in the Illinois Class 1A State Championship, and especially Coach Steve (my brother-in-law) and his son Wade, a senior and co-captain on the team.

P.S. Go Duke.

A visit from the king

This past weekend was the dedication ceremony for the George and MaryLou Boone Center for Science and Environmental Leadership. This was a Big Deal. A ferry was chartered to bring all the celebrants over from the mainland. University President Sample was there (which meant the event was handled by a special team from Events Planning), Dean Gillman was there. Out-going Wrigley Director Tony Michaels was there (as was incoming Director Donal Manahan). The Wrigley Board of Trustees were there. George and MaryLou were, of course, there. And Bob and Betty Plumleigh brought along their friend King Nebuchadnezzar.

Since this was a Big Deal, and since the Plumleighs and the Boones are old friends, and since Bob's business is importing very nice European wines and liquers, he had specially commissioned a Nebuchadnezzar of Drappier champagne. The Boone Center is itself a very impressive sight, looking very much like an Italian villa dropped in the middle of the Wrigley campus, but I've never seen anything like a Nebuchadnezzar of champagne. They served glasses of champagne to the ~250 guests and there was still about 1 1/2 gallons left in the bottle. After the ferry returned the VIPs to the mainland, the staff had a jolly time finishing off the champagne (pictures withheld by request of their families).

In all seriousness, though, the day could not have gone better. (Well, Duke could've beaten Carolina that evening, but that's totally unrelated.) The weather was beautiful, the channel was calm, the island was beautiful, the grounds were immaculate, everything happened on schedule, maybe not enough sunscreen was used, but really it was a wonderful event. We hope to fill the Boone Center for years to come with Science and Environmental Leaders.

I'll add some photos to this post soon.

Spring preview

I'm not trying to rub it in or anything, but as I said in my last post, the weather is turning nice, and with all the rain we got, there are many flowers in bloom on the island. This Sunday we took a walk down West End Rd to look at and photograph some of the flowers. Think of this as a bit of a spring preview for all of you still suffering through gray slush.

Click on the picture for a larger version. I scaled all the images down to about 800x600 for two reasons: 1) so they wouldn't take too much time to download (for those of you with slow internet connections), and 2) the photography really isn't worth a higher resolution.

Disclaimer: All botanical identifications have been made by a microbiologist, and are therefore incorrect. (Sweetie did help, so they are all now identified at least as "plants".)

Rosemary bushes outside our front door:


Some variety of wild geranium, also growing in front of our house:


Gazania:


Wild roses:


One 'ice plant' variety:


A larger variety of 'ice plant':


Oxalis (wood sorrel, only this variety is huge):


More geraniums:


Tiny poppies:


Indian paintbrush (for Grandmother Bloecker):


The tree on the side of our house always looks spare, but produces these lovely purple flowers:


When I see a picture like this, I can't believe we live here.


Hope Spring arrives for you all soon!

A day in the life...

So I thought I'd go through a typical day here on the island. Mornings start with the Things waking up around 6 or 6:30. Sweetie and I aren't up until 7, so the Things watch TV or play video games until I stumble downstairs. Breakfast is usually something quick - toast or cereal - and then Thing 1 and I head down to school. If it's not rainy/muddy, Thing 1 will ride his bike (see video below - thank you Aunt N for the helmetcam). I walk. Most days, I catch a ride in to work with my friend John, who lives over by the lab, and needs to drop his kids off at school.



The first thing we do upon arrival at the lab is check our mail. Since there aren't mailboxes at the houses in town, all our mail is delivered to the lab. Or, if the roads are muddy, nothing is delivered.

John and I are currently sharing an office: two desks, two computers, two laptops, two filing cabinets, a full-sized refrigerator, and a small coffee maker. On warm days, we open the office door to let the breeze in. Around noon, most people at WMSC go back to town for lunch. I tend to go up to the dining hall. On nice days, I sit out on the patio to eat. (And most days are nice.)

School gets out at 2:20 (except on Thursdays when it ends at 1:30). Most days, Thing2 goes down with Sweetie to pick up Thing1, and they play at the playground for a while with one of Thing1's friends (let's call him Y). Y lives on a boat. Thing1 had a sleepover on the boat last weekend. Apparently, it was a lot of fun.

If it's warm, and not muddy, John and I sometimes take a walk around 2pm to refresh our brains and get some exercise. We hike up the ridge, passing by the lab webcam. Around 4:30, most people finish up work at the lab, and head home. Some walk the two miles for exercise, some carpool in the EV's (electric vehicles), and some ride ATV's.

I get home just before 5pm and play with the kids some. Sweetie makes dinner, and I do the dishes. Thing1 does his homework, and Thing2 distracts us all. After a little more playing, the Things brush their teeth, get into pajamas, and we attempt to keep them in bed long enough to fall asleep.

Repeat.

It's raining pretty well right now. The island is saturated enough with water that even a small rain will turn the roads quite nasty. The other day we actually had to catch a shore boat over to the lab because a van full of construction workers (the guys working on the water tower) got stuck going up the hill out of town. I'm wondering if I'm going to be on a shore boat tomorrow as well.

On a brighter note, it looks like our cell phone service is back on. So feel free to call whenever you like! In addition, they're done trimming the trees in Avalon. I don't think I wrote about this yet. The road into Avalon (Stagecoach Rd) is lined with mostly eucalyptus trees. The fire last spring damaged many of them, so the Island Company hired a company to come out and trim. For a month, the only road into Avalon was closed daily from 7:30am to 1pm, with one window from 9:30-10 when they'd allow people through. Needless to say, this made getting groceries even more difficult. But that's over now! And in about another month, we'll get daily ferries again. Hurrah!

Holidays, travels, and storms

It was a busy holiday season. Like I mentioned in my previous post, we spent Christmas here on the island. It was even quieter than normal in town. A serious challenge was to get Christmas gifts to the island in time for the big day. We had some rain the week before which delayed shipment of a number of packages we were expecting. Christmas Eve we hung the stockings by the front door (with care), and left milk and cookies under the tree. Christmas day the temperature was close to 75. The Things ran around outdoors in shorts (when they weren't playing with their new Gamecube or board games or Legos). It was definitely different that other Christmases we've had, but it was fun.

Later that week we left for the East coast. On top of a trip to visit Grammy and Grandpa Nelson, we finally sold our house (hooray!) and had to get the remaining items out of the garage. Our flight out of LA was delayed by 1 hr, but Southwest held our connection in St Louis. We arrived at BWI at about 1am, and still had to drive to Delaware, finally getting to my folks' place at 3am. (Which really was only midnight California time :) ) Fortunately, we didn't have to go down to Maryland until Monday. Sweetie and I drove down, met the new owners (very nice people), took a load of stuff to the dump (well, refuse transfer station), and sold our station wagon (back down to two cars!). That evening we had dinner with a former colleague of Sweetie's. The Things stayed with Grammy and Grandpa and Aunt Naomi and went to the Brandywine River Museum (quite an adventure in GPS navigation, as I'm told).

It was cold in Delaware (20-30), and we now have little in the way of warm clothes. The Things enjoyed seeing Buster (formerly our cat) again, whacking the ice on the fish pond with sticks, and spreading toys all over the living room. Too soon it was time to return. It's an odd thing, but now the sight that makes me feel like "whew, we're home" is not the house, or the island, but as we drive south on the 110 and come over the rise and see the field of cargo cranes at the Port of LA.

Traveling on the ferry in the off season is like old home week. There's rarely anyone you don't know (or at least have seen around town) coming across to Two Harbors. So it's very friendly, and then when the ferry docks, many other people you know are waiting on the pier for the people on the boat, so it's a very social time.

Too soon we were traveling again. We were just getting adjusted to 2008, when news of the tragic death of Sweetie's 19-year-old nephew arrived. And it arrived in a typically screwed-up island way. Workers had been scheduled to sandblast and paint a water storage tank near town. It happened that the tank was right next to the local cell phone tower. So they cut power to the cell phone tower so the workers wouldn't be 'irradiated'. All cell phone coverage on the West End was out for a month. So when Sweetie's mom tried to call, she couldn't get through. She had to leave voice mail on my work phone to let us know. Then I had to drive back into town to tell Sweetie and bring her back to the lab so she could use a land line to call back. It was horrible. A trip was quickly arranged for us all to go to the services. The one bright spot in this terrible weekend was that the Things got to see and play with their cousins. We'll miss you Taylor.

Finally, I'd like to say that the rainy season is really living up to its name this year. So far in January we've gotten more rain that we did all last year. I'd like to thank those who have sent email inquiring as to how we've been doing in all this, and I'd like to apologize for not answering those emails. We're doing just fine, so far. Mud slides are not a danger where we are, and the biggest problem has been worries about whether the road to Avalon will be open for us to get groceries or get to Cub Scout meetings or catch a ferry. We have had some limbs down in town (stupid eucalyptus trees), and last weekend an 80-ft yacht was blown so hard it dragged its anchor, crashed into two other boats and then wrecked on the shore. I'll try to post a picture of that. It's impressive.

So that's a bit of a catch-up on doings here. I'll try to be better about posting more frequently, but most of you know me well enough to know how likely that is. :)

Next up: Doings at work, etc.