Always Look on The Bright Side of Life...

Do do do do. Do do. do do do do do do...

Last night Matt and I went to see Spamalot starring John O'Hurley. It's based mostly on Monty Python's The Holy Grail and featured full-on Monty Python humor with a side of political jokes and gay love.

Parts of the play were hilariously, laugh-out loud-really-loudly funny, but parts were also boring. Of course, it was well past my bedtime, so maybe I was just asleep. It's hard to tell. We got the cheapest seats, $30, in the corner of the balcony. Funny thing - the whole balcony was full, while the mezzanine had lots of empty seats. Couldn't even see the Orchestra.

We also had the meanest usher ever. She wouldn't give us two playbills because I had the nerve to ask for one instead of waiting. She proceeded to give everybody else as many playbills as people, until someone tried to take a playbill from the stack. Then you only got one. She also made sure that the entire party was present before letting them sit down. And she forgot her watch, so she had to ask Matt for the time. The first time she asked kind of nicely. The second time she said, "Excuse me, I need to get the time from you. I forgot my watch." I'm pretty sure if you're going to be such an anal, brusque usher, you'd better bring a watch.

Then on the way home, in the wee hours of the night (about 10:30) we got accosted by a very drunk man at the bus stop who had ripped out some flowers from across the street and brought them over to us, for Matt to give to his pretty wife, because his boyfriend was in Europe doing something and it was killing him. And, how do I get home? And, here, take some money. After we got on the bus, he proceeded to pound on it over and over again as it pulled away. Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure he kissed me on my forehead, I hope he got home okay.

Ah, the joys of standing on corners.

I'm not sure if I'd recommend the play. Maybe if it was only $20. It was hilarious, but so are the movies. So you could just rent one.

Point Reyes in the Rain

Today was my last day at Point Reyes, so I picked up lunch at Perry's, a tasty deli, and headed up to the Giacomini overlook to eat lunch in my car in the rain. It was so peaceful and green and really made me want to go camping. I guess the city is overwhelming me a bit.






In the second picture you can barely make out the tides in what, as recently as when I started this internship, was pasture land. It was nice to see the beautiful results of restoration.

Driving through the redwoods today, I also felt guilty that I have not yet taken Matt to see Point Reyes. It really is gorgeous. Now, I just have to learn how to explore it while avoiding poison oak and ticks. I can handle rattlesnakes and scorpions, but this is unknown territory for me.

If you visit the Bay Area or Northern California, I highly recommend stopping by Point Reyes.

Recommended: The Little Chihuahua

We just visited a cute little "Mexican"/burrito restaurant, The Little Chihuahua, based on a coupon in Green Zebra and the fact that they offer a fried plantain and black bean burrito.

Said burrito may have been the best burrito ever. Why don't more people think to put plantains in burritos?

Way better than the taquerias we have been to in the Castro. If you come visit, you should ask us to take you to the Little Chihuahua.

ASU Challenges

This one's for you, Sun Devil alums. (Although I cordially invite Wildcats to participate as well.)

ASU is developing something really cool, and I'll just let them speak for themselves:

ASU is unveiling the Challenges Project, an ambitious initiative that aims to identify the most pressing local and global issues we face as world citizens, determine the crucial work being done at the university on each one, and invite everyone—alumni, students, faculty, staff, the public—to help the university tackle them head-on. It’s a way of magnifying the impact of the university, by asking people to pitch in and work on issues that concern them the most....ASU hopes alumni and others will go to the site between now and May to identify the issues they’re passionate about. Later this year, they will be able to return to the site to volunteer to provide expertise, serve on a panel, work on a team, donate resources, or serve as an advocate for problems identified and selected to be part of the initiative with the public.

Read the rest of the article in ASU Magazine and visit the website to suggest an issue. I, of course, plan to be involved in something water-related. Although many people like to make fun of public universities, and especially Arizona State, for the quality of the students and the education, I have excellent things to say about my education there, especially after I left engineering. In addition, I think the university is working to tackle some awesome projects, especially in the environmental realm, from the school of sustainability to a master's in alternative energy. I believe the university is truly working on many issues that matter. Let's join them!

Recommended: Cliff's Variety

I have finally discovered what life was like before Target and Walmart. Welcome to Cliff's Variety, the Castro's store that has it all, and at reasonable prices! Who needs to take a train to the suburbs to go to Target when one can walk down the street to Cliff's and pick up kitchen gadgets, tools, gardening supplies, toys, art supplies, and liberal baby clothes? What a fantastic place!

I have always loved Target, and hated Walmart, although I have known all along I should be supporting the stores that big boxes drive out of business. Now I have such a store to support.

Before I even discovered Cliff's I was telling a friend that I loved San Francisco because you could do everything without ever going to a chain store. In our beloved Castro, we have restaurants, coffee shops, the Castro theater, a flower shop, book stores, PO Plus, and so much more. We have a phenomenal cookie shop and a chocolate shop that sells tasty organic peanut butter cups. And now Cliff's. What more could a girl want?

Boys and Girls

Check out the recent post, by invitation only, on the Cocktail Party Physics blog. Sexism in not only religion, but also science. A topic near and dear to my heart, as always.

P.S. My birthday present turns out to be a boy. If I still buy pink things, will my sister acquiesce to my nuttiness or to social conformity? To be continued...

Chihuly Updated

I finally put up pictures from my DBG post on Picasa.

A Day at the Museum

www.calacademy.org

Most people who know me understand that I am not a museum lover. I am too bored to read the signs, I would generally rather be outside, and I don't want to pay the exorbitant prices to get in. Hell, I sat outside in the park in front of the Louvre and waited there for my sister rather than go in. I am a strange bird. (I did enjoy my recent visit to the DBG, however.)

At any rate, I have been super excited about the new California Academy of Sciences. I have heard much about it, largely because it was designed by Renzo Piano and constructed sustainably, featuring a green roof, loads of recycled materials, gray water, and more. However, it is also awesome. It features a 4-story rain forest, a large climate change exhibit, an aquarium, a planetarium, and penguins!

[Like many other veggies I suspect, I struggle with the ideas of zoos and aquariums. However, all of the CalAcademy's penguins are captive hatched, so they probably couldn't survive in the wild anyway. And I have heard multiple stories from NPS staff who took aquatic specimens to the Academy for a variety of reasons - animals that had to be moved during restoration, ocean creatures brought up when they removed a nasty old net. So I think, that overall, the ability for a child (or me!) to touch a starfish and discover wonder and awe of the natural world, is probably worth it, at least in this case. I totally understand how one might disagree though.]

Anyway, I'm rambling (as usual). Matt's office party involved a trip to the CalAcademy, to which I was invited. After spending a 40 minute commute, partly standing on a crazy, out-of-control bus, I arrived to meet them at the museum only to discover that they were running very late. After threatening to go home (because I'm terrible like that), I decided to wander across the Music Concourse to check out the deYoung Museum as there was a Maya Lin exhibit I wanted to see anyway. So I spent $18 and 1.5 hours in a whirlwind visit to an art museum. (Actually a long time for me, as I got through the Uffizi in just 30 minutes.) I would even go back. There were fantastic photographs, Hudson River School paintings (influential in the establishment of National Parks), an amazing Asian Art exhibit, and crazy outfits by Yves Saint Lauren (thanks so much for letting women wear pants!). Also some Chihuly pieces that definitely did not look as pretty without the cacti next to them, as I suspected.

Then off to CalAcademy with about an hour before closing time. No time for the rainforest and planetarium, as the lines were too long. We checked out the green roof, the aquarium (yay fuzzy starfish!), the climate change exhibit, and the penguins (really stinky!). We plan to buy a membership so we can go back repeatedly and drag all our guests there.

I highly recommend both museums, even for museumphobes like me. I think even non-science geeks would enjoy CalAcademy. Some day I hope to work there.

Just Visited: Chihuly The Nature of Glass

My more cultured family members suggested we go check out this exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden over Thanksgiving weekend. The artist, Dale Chihuly, apparently has "revolutionized" the art of handblown glass. Some of you may be familiar with the ceiling sculpture at the Bellagio?

I will say, straight up, that if I saw these pieces in a standard museum setting, I would have thought they were quite gaudy. However, mixed in with the beautiful desert plants, the exhibit was really pretty fascinating. It's certainly not something you would see every day.

Tickets are 15 bucks and require advance reservations, and there are people everywhere. But if it's a nice day, I would check it out.

Recommended: San Francisco Toyota

So, I guess along the lines of "Only in San Francisco," I also have "Not in New Mexico." I have not received good service anywhere in a long time, so I wanted to give props to the good guys at San Francisco Toyota Service Center on Geary. (Not that anyone who lives in San Francisco reads my blog. Maybe one day.)

Shortly after Matt first got here, we were driving into town from my house in Marin, and as Matt braked for a stop light, his seatbelt abruptly detached from the side of the car. As much as I like to make fun of Matt for braking way too hard way too early and giving me whiplash, only to glide slowly into the light, I'm pretty sure that seatbelts are supposed to be designed to hold up, especially during such sudden braking. Alas. We happened to be about two blocks from Toyota, so we pulled right in.

The service advisor took our car into the garage very quickly. We had no idea they were going to fix the problem right away, so when a mechanic suggested we go inside and get a hot drink, we complied. And what a fantastic coffee and hot chocolate machine! So tasty! By the time we got our drinks, the car was ready! No charge! (And they swear the seatbelt won't fall off again...)

A week or two later, after several hours at the DMV, I ended up with an extra license plate with nowhere to go. And I was told that I could receive a $100 fine for driving without a front license plate, even though my car didn't even have screw holes on the front bumper! Wanting to avoid paying more money (after the DMV, the smog test place, and a street sweeping fine sucked up a bunch), I figured I would stop by Toyota on my way home and ask them to put on my license plate. I pulled up, a mechanic grabbed a drill and some screws, and I was out of there. No charge.

I wonder what kind of service you get when you actually pay money?