plant dreaming deeply

friday, april 9, adam, sergio, kurt and i loaded up the suv and and began the five hour drive to carrizo plain national monument–a narrow, undulating plain, west of Bakersfield. wildlife viewing and wildflower displays and the areas cultural and geological attractions make this a popular springtime destination. measuring about about 10 miles wide and 45 miles long. elevations range
from about 1900 feet in the soda lake basin to about 2500 in the elkhorn hills. the plain is framed by the temblor range which
maxes out at 4,332 feet, and to the west by caliente mountain at 5,106
feet.

Birds Sighted (4/9-4/11)
Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens)
American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
Common Raven (Corvus corax)
Plain Titmouse (Parus inomatus)
Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Parus rufescens)
American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
European Starling (Stumus vulgaris)
California Towhee (Pipilo fuscus)
White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)
Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta)
Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)
Lesser Goldfinch (Carduelis psalitria)
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)
Great Horned Owl (Bubo viginianus)
Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
Cliff Swallow (Hirundo pyrrhonota)
Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
White-tailed Kite (Elanus caeruleus)
Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsoni)
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
California Quail (Callipepla californica)

Wildflowers Sighted (4/9-4/11)
Tidy tips (Layia platyglossa)
Broad-leaf filaree (Erodium botrys)
Freckled milkvetch (Astragalus lentiginosus)
Larkspur (Delphinium recurvatum)
Graceful Owl’s Clover (Castilleja densiflora ssp. gracilis)
Common Monolopia (Monolopia lanceolata)
Munz’s Tidy-tips (Layia munzii)
Hayfield Tarweed (Hemizonia congesta)
California poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
Sky Lupine (Lupinus nanus)
Miniature Lupine (Lupinus bicolor)
Lacy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia)
Thistle Sage (Salvia carduacea)

      
title: transit
description: cormorant in flight
location: walnut creek, ca
                
                     

                                                             
title: grass and light
description: it’s all there in the title
location: san francisco, ca

            
title: view
description: spring grasses in lime ridge open space
location: walnut creek, ca
               
                               

                   
title: dark forest
description: i wish i were there
location: arnold, ca                                     

after ten beautiful, clear and crisp fall days, a group of us hikers headed to the east bay to catch a view from atop mt. diablo. boasting the farthest and most expansive view from almost any peak in the world–"hey, yeah, lets check that view out"–we saw no further than the haze painted hillsides would let us.  a misty white envelope–haze, smog, fog, whatever–blanketed 360 degrees of surrounding scenery. beautiful nontheless. the sun, however, beamed down brightly upon us–trudging uphill-all 3,400 feet uphill. 

we began our ascent from the north entrance staging area at the mitchel canyon trailhead. following mitchell canyon road we wound our way up (switchback, switchback, switchback) to deer flat (more switch backs) and from deer flat rd. we made a last trudge (switchy, switchy) to the summit* above juniper campground.

a quick lunch and then turned around and came back the same way–we made it back to the cars with no light to spare.  14 miles and i was the only complainer. everyone kicked my slow ass on the trail. no surprise there. kurt–damn it, i remember when…

ciy of lost angels. what THEY say–about the smog–it is no lie. not a fan. on a more positive note, there are birds of paradise planted throughout the downtown area. beautiful, bright–purple, violet, orange–peeking out from every lushly landscaped corner. i really have no desire to ever go back there.   

hyatt lake a.k.a. "paradise"

august 4, 2005–back for more–the sierra. a three night and four day romp through the emigrant wilderness. my guide was a seasoned veteran, having hiked this particular stretch of wood at least once per year for the last twenty-five. our destination: hyatt lake. our route: west fork of cherry creek, through cherry canyon, over the saddle, and down yonder into hyatt lake (the second patch of trees northwest of the saddle). we followed duck markers and meandered our way around great granite boulders. we rested beneath the greatest of these–finding relief in the cool shade of their shadows. each relief boulder was also a marker along our route which denny ticked off with glee as we caught our breath. one of these–the halfway marker–denny spoke of with apprehension, a slight tremble to his voice, "the jungle". in "the jungle", mosquitos could eat a person alive should they spent too much time trying to navigate through it’s dense green soup of ferns and fronds.

hyatt lake is a beautiful oasis in a granite desert. the water is pristine and catching fish was almost too easy. we made camp (a site that had been set up by denny the year before) and i recieved the grand tour. click here to see photos of the lake and sorrounding areas, including cherry canyon, the west and east forks of cherry creek, hyatt lake, and misc. bodies of water east of the lake.

hmmm, I wonder if shanna is out of a job?  well, it is  still not a time  machine–but it is a start.

Scientists Mess With the Speed of Light
by Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Fri Aug 19, 4:00 PM ET

Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light.

Or is it all an illusion?

Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together. Now a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland is controlling the speed of light using simple off-the-shelf optical fibers, without the aid of special media such as cold gases or crystalline solids like in other experiments.

"This has the enormous advantage of being a simple, inexpensive procedure that works at any wavelength," said Luc Thvenaz, lead author of the study detailing the research.

Using a technique called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering, the researchers were able to slow down or ratchet up the speed of light like the gas pedal on a car. They succeeded in reducing the speed of light by almost a factor of 4 (although that’s still plenty fast at 46,500 miles per second), but even more dramatically, the team was also able to speed up the speed of light. (Read more.)

for denny–thank you for showing the trail to paradise. 

1. Woman Promotes the Right to Go Topless
Robert Salladay, Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2005

SACRAMENTO — As a Ventura County public defender, Liana Johnsson has handled many life-changing cases, but her biggest public crusade these days has been going topless. For months, Johnsson has been fighting to allow topless women at California beaches and parks, and now the issue has made its way to the Capitol.

A group of lawyers, at Johnsson’s request, has asked the Legislature to make topless sunbathing legal, saying the ban is the last criminal sanction that treats women differently than men. The new movement has urgency: Because of a December court ruling, Johnsson and other attorneys contend, women convicted of indecent exposure could find themselves listed as sex offenders under Megan’s Law, alongside rapists and child molesters.

"At some point, men’s breasts became liberated and women’s didn’t," Johnsson said Friday. "This is the only thing left that men are legally allowed to do and, for women, they have to register as a sex offender. The real issue is there should be equal protection under the law." (link to article)

2. Majority of Americans Would Rather Die Than Take Their Clothes Off 
By Dru Sefton, The Seattle Times, May 26, 2002

Add “public nudity” to the nightmare scenarios associated with terrorist attacks. A new report by a disaster-planning expert confirms what others have said: In the event of many biological or chemical attacks, removal of victims’ clothing is one of the most important and effective means of decontamination. (download .pdf)

3. Topfree equality is a small but growing social movement in parts of North America. The goal of the movement is to give women and girls the right to remove their clothing above the waist in public wherever men and boys can do it (e.g. at a beach, swimming pool, or park). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

4. Naked World   
   by Spencer Tunick

Long Thought Extinct, Ivory-billed Woodpecker Rediscovered in Big Woods of Arkansas
Multiple sightings, video footage show bird survives in vast forested areas

Brinkley, Arkansas—April 28, 2005—Long believed to be extinct, a magnificent bird – the ivory-billed woodpecker – has been rediscovered in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. More than 60 years after the last confirmed sighting of the species in the United States, a research team today announced that at least one male ivory-bill still survives in vast areas of bottomland swamp forest.

Published in the journal Science on its Science Express Web site (April 28, 2005), the findings include multiple sightings of the elusive woodpecker and frame-by-frame analyses of brief video footage. The evidence was gathered during an intensive year-long search in the Cache River and White River national wildlife refuges involving more than 50 experts and field biologists working together as part of the Big Woods Conservation Partnership, led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University and The Nature Conservancy.
http://www.nature.org/pressroom/press/press1880.html

New Monkey Species Is Found in Tanzania
By CORNELIA DEAN Published: May 19, 2005

Two teams of American scientists, working independently hundreds of miles apart in Tanzania, have identified a new species of monkey, the first new primate species identified in Africa in 20 years. The highland mangabey is the first new species of monkey identified in 20 years. The newly discovered monkey, a tree-dwelling creature, is about three feet long, with long brownish fur. It has a crest of hair on its head and abundant whiskers. Unlike other Lophocebus mangabeys, which communicate with a "whoop gobble," the new species has an unusual "honk bark," the researchers said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/science/19cnd-monkey.html?ex=1274155200&en=
e6100c9ab0579d93&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

i like the details. in a leaf, flower, stone, rock, life. the
colors, the lines, textures, and well, the details. what color palette makes up this leaf? click here or on one of the images below to have a look.

               

saturday’s desitination: big basin. i used to live in ben lomond so i had a pretty good idea of what to expect–but there were a few surprises along the way. on the way down, just driving along the 1, gazing out onto the open ocean i see them. GREY WHALES! breaching–yes, breaching i tell you–out of the water. amazing. truly one of those moments. A M A Z I N G. no boat necessary. and they were so close to the shore. i still can’t get over it.

this all went down about a mile north of the pigeon point light house. 11:00 a.m. tide was out. sky overcast. no rain. what: grey whales on their annual migration. click here for more information about grey whales and their migration routes.

big basin was beautiful. the berry creek falls were much larger than what i had expected. 10 miles round trip. five hours in and out. wildflowers everywhere. here is a link to the big basin web site: www.bigbasin.org/trailsberrycreekfalls.html.