About 3 days worth of pictures of the Galapagos and Quito

I know that this has taken me *forever* to do. But it's quite a process I tell you. But I've got some of our pictures from the Galapagos and Quito up here.

This is about 3 days our trip, and I apologize, because it's all wildly out of order. Of course, for most folks, I'm guessing the order is less important. Among the pictures I've put up, you can see things on San Cristobal, Genovesa, Isabella and Fernandina as well as our shots from Quito.

MLE: Milk at the Castro Theater

After going to the Legion of Honor, we headed back south and saw the film Milk at the Castro Theater. We both liked it quite a bit, it was very moving and powerful. It had special MLE-worthy significance to see the film right where it all happened.

As you'd expect, the line in the move of "first we'll take the Castro, then San Francisco, then etc." got a positive reaction from the home-town audience. :-)

MLE: Artistic Luxury at the Legion of Honor

This weekend, we visited one of two of San Francisco's fine arts museum, the Legion of Honor.

Even from the outside it's an impressive building, especially with the views to the north of the Golden Gate. The courtyard had some extremely colorful flowers, which was the sort of striking contrast against the stone of the main building that made you stop and take notice.


We went to see the exhibition Artistic Luxury, featuring the works of Tiffany, Faberge and Lalique.

The exhibition focuses on the three greats of decorative arts & jewelry and their displays at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. It was an excellent show, with a number of jaw-droppingly beautiful pieces. Stepho's favorite was a gorgeous Faberge star sapphire brooch (shown on the right), which I am now instructed to retrieve from the collection of Joan and Melissa Rivers. Right, then.

We also enjoyed seeing the rest of the Legion of Honor's collection. One painting that stood out was The Broken Pitcher, in which the girl had the most striking eyes. And we had a bit of luck, they were offering a small poster of this painting if you filled out a survey (which we did).

We'll definitely be going back to the Legion of Honor.

MLE: Tour of California

Thanks to a timely suggestion from Andy in Austin, we learned that the Tour of California was coming through San Francisco today. Monday's stage was Sausalito to Santa Cruz, which came across the Golden Gate Bridge and then along the beach on the Great Highway, coming within about two miles of our rental in SF.

We spontaneously declared this to be an MLE, to take advantage of the things happening in SF while we're here. So we got up early and took then N-Judah train down to the Great Highway, where we waited with many other soggy San Franciscans for the wet blur of the riders.


Before the riders, there were many police and other official vehicles, with lights a-flashing. A parent near us was heard to respond (after the umpteenth "is that them?"), "you'll know it's the cyclists -- they won't be blinking." We did get a good, if brief, view of the riders... there was a breakaway in progress, which was fun to see.



Then it was just a parade of team vehicles with gajillions of dollars of bikes on the roofs (though less than two days ago... sorry, Lance).


As Stepho said, the pros earned their money today. Despite our complaints of being wet and cold, we were able to quickly return back to the warmth of the house and fleecy garments.

MLE: Mountain to Ocean

This past weekend, we participated in one of the classic activities that causes some of the most acute cases of Bay Area snobbery - going from skiing in the mountains to walking on the beach all within the span of a day.

We were out in Truckee for the weekend - and originally we were concerned that the skiing would be crap since it's been so warm out there. But we were surprised with snow that actually was more like fresh powder, despite no precipitation for quite a while out there. Fantastic day on the slopes. Warm, sunny, no wind, really a perfect day.

After we drove back to SF, our bodies were cramped from the work on Saturday, so we needed a walk. We headed out to the beach and walked up and down a bit.

But I have to say - even though you *can* get to both places - probably the only person who can really take advantage of the beach side of the equation to the fullest is someone who surfs - because there is no way that anyone is going to get in that cold water without a wetsuit. Brrrrr

Most recent sewing project - blue jean throw

I just finished up this little project. In the process of packing up my clothes, I did a heavy purge. I decided to punt any blue jeans I didn't love. Instead of going to Goodwill, they ended up in this blanket. The loud fabric it is paired with is often from previous sewing projects.

My bee designed it for me. Basically, I'd cut out the squares and wanted a project ready to go for when I got up here to SF. I put super soft minkee on the back, and this is a nice and heavy sofa blanket.

MLE: Asian Art Museum and the 'Treasures of Afghanistan' exhibit

MLE = Mandatory Local Excursion. We have decided that it is required that at least every 2 weeks we go see something in the local San Francisco area. Museums, natural wonders, unique sightings, and the like.

First up - the Asian Art Museum.

We've been noticing that there are loads of ads around town for the 'Treasures of Afghanistan' exhibit. It closes next weekend before it moves on to other museums, so we thought we'd give it a look.

Naturally, in the special exhibit you can't take pictures. But the website is quite good at explaining what everything is.

Essentially these are treasures that were fortuitously discovered from the 1950s-1970s and then were hidden away in a bank vault that kept them safe from destruction over the past 30 years of wars and general badness in the area. Many of the items are from when Afghanistan was a major crossroads on trading routes - including the Silk Road.

Two thumbs up - if you are in Houston or New York when it visits those cities next, I'd recommend seeing it.

After that, we toured through the rest of the museum, which is also excellent.

A Ming vase, naturally


This is the chair I've decided to be carried in at all times


There were some Tibetan Monks - seemed fitting


Tom next to a big screen. This was in the Korean art section


Some fantastic silk embroidery on a garment. The figure is probably 2 inches tall

Getting our house ready to go

This is such a rotten job to do. To speak of it is easy - we're basically packing our clothes and our electronics, and everything else is more or less staying put in the house.

Ah, but it is so much more. Because Dave will be using our room, we're completely vacating the master suite. While we're excellent at purging our clothes, and not that much ends up in that area, it still takes forever.

Then there is the kitchen. Again, I figure I want to make this as pleasant as possible for Dave, so we're completely purging the fridge and the pantry. I'm leaving things like spices and all purpose flour, but for the most part, it's a total clear out.

And also, just to put things in order, I'm doing a top to bottom spring clean of everything. It's making the house look great, but is never any fun to do.

Total drudgery. And my feet hurt.

The Galapagos Islands are as cool as you think they would be

Backyard - end of day 2

The backyard is about 80% done. When I got home today, they had put in a lot of the sod, and the edging was all done. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it does make the back yard look really big.

You can see clearly the area that was our grassy area before - it's the section where the grass is darker green.

Landscaping progress

Some photos of the progress on the back yard. I didn't know that they were going to be starting Friday, so I came home that afternoon to everything being ripped out. Today, it seems they might get it all done - new edging, more grass.






And some photos of the front walk. This isn't quite done yet. We need to install the edging pieces (which we weren't sure that we were going to do), and some path lighting.

Rick Steves in Austin

One of my very favorite authors/TV show hosts came to Austin this week. He was doing a talk and book signing at Book People. The topic was "Travel as a political act." He spoke passionately for about an hour and a half on the mind-broadening power of travel, and how seeing other countries and cultures, we can both appreciate ours better, as well as discover other ways to improve.

It was a great talk - if anyone gets a chance to see him, I highly recommend doing so.

He also recently traveled to Iran to both visit the country and make a TV special. It is going to be airing on PBS starting in January. I can't wait to see it. He talked about some of the things he learned while there. Fascinating stuff.



It was a completely packed house

Meet Mr. Turkey

This is our very favorite Thanksgiving decoration. I think it's the hat that makes him wonderful.

Walk construction - Day 1

Noon on day one.

Finally re-doing our front path

Today we got some materials delivered to finally re-do our front walkway. We ripped out our nasty 70s vintage courtyard a few years back, and that is also when we did the primary part of our front landscaping. At the time, we elected not to do the front walk, because honestly, it's just expensive.

But finally, we've gotten tired of the remaining 'fast food restaurant' tile at the entry way to the house, and the crop-circles in the middle of the path. Besides, the current stuff just looks nasty.

Here are some before photos, as well as our very classy front yard, covered by all sorts of crap.