We're criminals? Or: Our Holiday Weekend

July 5, 2011 4:11 pm

Saturday morning, Kyle got a phone call from someone in our ward—while out running, he and his wife had passed a yard sale with some nice-looking baby furniture. Since he knows we're expecting our first, he called us to let us know. So Kyle and I head on over, and it's this changing table and crib, about a year old but in very good condition. Also a complete bedding set and mattress, all for $150 (we were told (and completely believe) that it all originally cost them $1,000). We hemmed and hawed for a bit, mostly because we don't currently have room for baby furniture and because it's white (we would have preferred a wood finish), but decided to buy it. I mean, it's cute, it's in good shape, and we saved a ton of money! So we drove to the ATM for some cash and paid for it, which just left getting it home. Of course, nobody we knew had a truck was around, so we rented one from Lowe's (this went much more smoothly than on previous occasions). Of course, unloading at the apartment was tricky, with just Kyle and me to do it, and getting the crib into the office was even trickier: there's a weird corner you have to turn, but we managed it by tipping the crib on end and taking the closet door off its hinges. So now our office is almost unusable due to the baby furniture taking up all the free space, but whatevs.

We spent most of the rest of Saturday recuperating (did I mention that it was 90-something degrees while we did all this?), and Sunday wasn't too exciting, either. Well, except when Kyle told his mom about our find. Of course, being a year old, it's a drop-side crib, so we knew it would have been recalled, but we just got on the manufacturer's website and ordered the kit to convert it to a static-side crib (it's already an extremely safe design, but they're now sending us a couple of brackets that will completely immobilize the moving side)—no biggie, right? Well, Kyle's mom informed us of something we had not even suspected: it is illegal to sell or resell recalled items! I knew retailers could no longer sell these cribs, but I didn't think it applied to garage sales. So maybe we're a little bit criminal. We're still not concerned; this crib seems to have very good workmanship, and we can't even figure out how this particular mechanism would fail anyway. We've decided we're okay with it.

Monday was, of course, Independence Day. We went shopping at the mall for some shirts for Kyle that afternoon, but that still left us with a fireworks dilemma. Sadly, Livermore canceled their fireworks display this year, so we had to find somewhere else to go. We headed up to San Ramon around 7pm, expecting to spend a couple hours walking around their fair-type-thing and be all ready for fireworks at 9:30pm. Well, we got up there and parked and started walking around, only to discover that there was no fair-type-thing, only a row of concessions. So we walked around a bit more, then bought some very tasty kettle corn and found a spot to sit. For an hour and a half. All we'd brought with us was a deck of cards, and we realized we don't know any games to play with a deck of cards except War (dismissed by Kyle as the most pointless game in the history of ever) and various iterations of solitaire. So I played solitaire while Kyle went back to the car for a second blanket (despite being blazing hot that afternoon, it was cooling down fast), and when he got back, Kyle showed me a magic trick. I pretty much guessed the solution right off. [Kyle's Note: "...guessed the solution right off" might be overselling things; I'm not that bad at this simple magic trick.]  Anyway, the fireworks finally started, and it was a really good display. We both had a hard time getting comfy, but we still enjoyed it a lot. All in all, it was a great holiday weekend!

Oh, and we've also been informed that I don't look pregnant in the recent pics on this blog. Don't worry, I am:

July 1st, 24 weeks
July 1st, 24 weeks

Anniversary Weekend Part 4 - The Ocean

July 2, 2011 10:27 pm

On Sunday, breakfast was Eggs Benedict, but we opted to switch out the poached eggs for scrambled instead and to skip the Hollandaise sauce.

After packing up and checking out we headed to the ocean. We stopped on a roadside pullout which was a cliff overlooking a beach. As I mentioned in the Part 2, I like taking long exposure shots. This was my first chance to try it out on the ocean though. I took a whole lot of 'em, here are the best (remember you can click on the images to view them larger).

I got these long exposures by using a neutral density filter and a polarizer to cut down on the light.  I also used the smallest apertures I could.  Even so, the exposures were a little bright, but I was able to get things worked out pretty well by using RAW images.

15 sec - f/40.0
15 sec - f/40.0
15 sec - f/40.0
15 sec - f/40.0
5 sec - f/16.0
5 sec - f/16.0
20 sec - f/32.0
20 sec - f/32.0
10 sec - f/22.0
10 sec - f/22.0
13 sec - f/32.0
13 sec - f/32.0
15 sec - f/32.0
15 sec - f/32.0

Here's that scene with a regular shutter speed:

1/60 sec - f/20.0
1/60 sec - f/20.0

I really like these shots.  It was sunny, but the wind was blowing and it was a little chilly.  So we wrapped up in the blankets I keep in the trunk.  We sat on that cliff watching the ocean and taking pictures for about an hour.  It was Jess' favorite part of our whole trip.

Once we finished we got back in the car and drove down Highway 1 for a little while.  Jess really wanted to get down to a beach so we stopped at Doran Beach.  The water was cold.  Very cold.  But it was sandy, unlike CT beaches.  I didn't bring the camera with me so we don't have any pictures, but we walked down the beach for a while before turning around.  It was nice, but the constantly blowing wind seems to give Jess a headache.

After that it was time to head home.  It was very nice to get out of town and spend time in a more secluded part of the state.  A last peaceful hurrah before our world is up-ended by a baby in a few months.

Anniversary Weekend Part 3 - The Horticultural Gardens of Doom

7:24 pm

After lunch in Sebastopol we headed to the Sonoma Horticultural Nursery and Gardens.  Sadly, the gardens appear in need of many days hard work by a few dozen people to return them to their (presumably) former glory.

The paths were overgrown.  And most of the property was just in disrepair.  But that kind of created its own interest.  A lost garden disappearing into the wild growth.

We wandered around for a long while being somewhat entranced with the state of the gardens.  I eventually thought to get the camera out once we were deep into the property.  We found a little picnic table in a small clearing with a fountain.  The fountain is overgrown and non-functioning.  It probably was a really nice spot to stop for lunch back in the day.

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Here's the path away from the fountain.  If you look closely, the left-hand side has two stone boxes with a tree in each.

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Here's another stone box with a tree in it.  There's an old sign next to it which I assume is supposed to identify the species.

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As we walked along we found this bench.  The ends of the bench are wagon wheels.

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Here's another random little table thing with nice lion statues.  Again, it seems like at some point it was a really pleasant piece of property to walk around on.  However, on several occasions the paths were so overgrown you could barely see them and we had to stop and find new paths due to massive spider webs reaching across.

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This tree was actually pretty cool still.  The branches hang down to the ground and create a little covered area underneath.  Jess is sitting on a nice little bench there.

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It's too bad that it's fallen into disrepair.  It would probably be a really nice place again if a few dozen people spent a bit of time pruning, cleaning, raking, fixing, etc.  Sadly, as it is, it kind of seems like the kind of place where a serial-killing gardener takes his victims and buries them.  They should at least be capitalizing on this ambiance with Haunted Gardens during Halloween.

Up Next: Part 4 - The Ocean

Anniversary Weekend Part 2 - Armstrong Redwoods

5:29 pm

On Saturday we slept in, of course.  But the Inn at Occidental is prepared for this and serves breakfast until 10.  The entree for the day was Pecan Caramel French Toast, very tasty.  After breakfast we headed out to the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve.  It was, as you might expect, a bunch of trees.  But they are, you know, big....and tall....and old.

We only did a fairly short "hike" (let's be honest, it was walking along an almost completely flat and cleared path).  It started with a stop at a labeled cross-section of a tree which lived from ~948 until ~1906:

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Along the way the path goes through the Burbank Circle.  Apparently, when a redwood is damaged, or dies, offshoots from its roots/stump grow.  This naturally creates a circle of trees around the base of the dead one.  Eventually the dead one decomposes away and leaves a clearing within a circle of trees.  There's enough time for this to happen since the trees live to be 1000 years old.  So, we rested on the benches in the Burbank Circle.  Here's a picture looking up from the center of the circle (it looks more circular if you're really there looking around):
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A very large amount of the ground in the woods is covered in redwood sorrell (not to be confused with clover).  If it gets too warm (like when the sun is hitting it directly) it folds up.  This spot was in the shade so the leaves (I guess they're leaves?) are spread apart.
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Here's the two of us standing against the cross-section of a fallen redwood.  They're big trees.
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As we were heading back along the trail to the parking lot we spotted a banana slug on a post.  They're silly-looking things:
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One of the things I like to do with our camera is to take either really quick exposures or really long exposures because you get to see things in a way you can't with your eyes.  Here's 15 seconds of walking through the woods:
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There's something kind of interesting and ethereal about it.
We like the redwood forest.  It was quiet and shady.  It'd be really fun to go camping up there sometime.  Once we finished up we headed into Sebastapol.  We stopped for pizza at Mary's Pizza Shack, which was pretty good.  The food was needed and Jess needed some time to recover from her first bout with car-sickness.  The roads were a bit windy and up-and-downy.
After lunch it was on to see the Sonoma Horticultural Gardens and Nursery.  We concluded that they would now be better named the Horticultural Gardens of Doom.  So stay tuned.

Anniversary Weekend Part 1 - Occidental

3:45 pm
occidental_map

Last weekend we took a little vacation to celebrate our 2-year anniversary.  We booked a room at the Inn at Occidental (in Occidental, CA).  It's a tiny little town west of Santa Rosa.  The town has a population of 1,115.  It's up in the "mountains" (for lack of a better term) surrounded by woods--nice and quiet.

There was a fish-eye-view mural on the side of a building, it really does show pretty much the entire town, excluding most of the actual houses:

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The Inn was very nice.  They have about 20 rooms.  When we arrived they had music playing in our room for us (a CD Jess ended up buying).  The room had a Jacuzzi tub with some silly rubber ducks in it.  The ducks had trouble staying upright when actually in water.

A hot breakfast was included and was served in their dining room on the bottom floor of the main building.  They had a fixed menu each day, but were very accommodating to any desired changes.

Coming up next: Part 2 - Armstrong Redwoods, Part 3 - The Horticultural Gardens of Doom, Part 4 - The Ocean