Month: November 2014

On October 18th, NASA’s Ames Research Center held an open house to celebrate it’s 75th year. Unlike JPL, they don’t do open houses every year; I think the last one was almost 20 years ago (but don’t quote me on that). At any rate, Bruce got last minute tickets from someone at work so we decided to brave the crowds. Perhaps it wasn’t our smartest decision.

We skirted most of the traffic by driving to Google and riding our bikes from there — a nice jaunt down Stevens Creek Trail. I really can’t express just how many people there were, and the hordes were coming via all modes of transportation. Cars were being redirected back onto the freeway (after sitting in a long line of traffic) because there was no place to park. The bikes gave us quite an advantage, but clearly we weren’t alone — check out a tiny portion of the bike parking.

After a long wait in line — during which I felt the need to set straight a myopic couple behind us spouting misinformation about JPL — we made it inside to find even more people. I was reminded that this is why I never went to the JPL open house.

Anyway, we did see some interesting things, most notably the wind tunnels. This one is so giant I had to do a panoramic photo to get it all in.

We saw this one, too, and talked to one of the engineers about some of the logistics.

They also had a Mars yard type of place and a rover, but the yard wasn’t as good as JPL’s. I swear, this outing turned me into a total JPL snob.

I think the boys were really more interested in this giant pumpkin we saw once we rode back to Google.

This day definitely falls into the category of things I’m happy to have done … and happy to be done with!

The boys had October 10th off from school for a staff professional development day, so I decided to take them to Google for a lunchtime visit. Bruce and I realized they’d never seen all the Android statues, so we decided to meet there. (Not being an Android user, I didn’t know that they name each version of their software after a sweet. They have statues representing all of them outside of one of the buildings at Googleplex.)

It seemed like the perfect venue for a time-lapse video.

Then we headed off to the cafe for lunch.

Bruce has been working some pretty long hours lately, so it was extra nice to see him in the middle of the day.

On October 5th we participated in a Bike Palo Alto event, which promotes, obviously, bike riding in Palo Alto. They prepared three routes that highlight the bike trails and bridges around the city, and there were treats stops along the way. Finn didn’t come because he was at a classmate’s birthday party, but Ezra, Bruce and I joined up with our new friends the Aubins who recently moved here from Calgary. Ezra and their son Lucas have become fast friends. Most of my pictures are blurry because I took them on my phone which was attached to my [moving] bike. But here’s one of Ezra and Lucas on one of the lovelier trails.

The treat stops were generally healthy (oranges/bananas, water) and informative (route options and advice), but the best stop was at the Sweet Shop in Los Altos, where we got free frozen yogurt and admired their Little Free Library. Bruce had also made a fast friend — the Aubins’ oldest daughter Gabby.

There was another stop at a park, which gave the kids a nice play break. I had to leave from there in order to pick up Finn  from his party, but everyone else continued the loop.

I’m not sure if the timing was coincidental or not, but the next Wednesday was Bike to School Day. We bike to school every day so of course we participated. They made a chart to show how everyone got to school. Pretty good!

We spend a good deal of our afternoon time in the park adjacent to the boys’ school. It has some great spaces, including this climbing tree Ezra and his friend Lucas quite enjoy.

The boys also live in the cul de sac across the street, especially now that there are even more kids there — a total of seven, ranging in age from 4 to 12. Mostly they ride bikes and scooters, roller skate or play various ball sports. But seeing how this is the Silicon Valley, one of the neighbors (the Tsunamiball guy, Chris), made a hovercraft out of plywood, a shower curtain and a leaf blower. It was a summer project that sat just barely unfinished for a while, but in September it was completed and the kids couldn’t get enough.

Googlers are encouraged to do community service and there are have been a couple of opportunities since we’ve been here. We missed the first one — a beach cleanup day — because it was the weekend we traveled to SoCal. But we were around on September 20th for a cleanup of the San Francisquito Creek. We started in East Palo Alto with a bevy of other volunteers, many of whom were high school students doing their community service.

Altogether, the group cleaned up a lot of trash; this is just a fraction of it. I was shocked at the stuff that lined the creek bed.

It was a lot of walking for the boys, but a good experience for sure. And there were donuts, their favorite part.

September was a month for concerts for Bruce and me. I dragged him to both Passenger in Oakland (on his birthday!) and Better Than Ezra in San Francisco the following week. I think he had a good time.

Learning from the experience of standing up for long concerts, I chose to buy seats to Passenger and we had a great spot in the balcony. Our view was clear and the show was magnificent. What a performer!

Not so lucky for Better Than Ezra — it was a long night of standing — but as usual they put on a great show. They did an all acoustic set because their equipment truck had broken down somewhere along the way. Their manager advised them to cancel the show, but they borrowed some acoustic guitars and went on anyway. I’m sure glad they did!

They did some Journey and Elton John covers. Always entertaining.

As a bonus, Jamma came to visit and babysit for the Passenger show! My photos, the few I took, are terrible, but she really was here so I’m putting them in anyway.

The boys were clearly happy.

At my optometry appointment a few months ago, the doctor — a longtime Palo Alto resident — told me there were two things to do in Palo Alto that he wished he’d known about earlier. One I can’t remember but I know that we’d already done it, and the second was Foothills Park, a beautiful open space area available to Palo Alto residents only. Of course, the residents-only policy (reminiscent of San Marino’s policy for Lacy Park) makes me squeamish, but we figured what the heck, so long as we live here we might as well take advantage of it. We’d heard they have campsites available too, and we thought that could be fun for a close-to-home overnight, so we checked it out in September.

If there’s one thing Palo Alto does right, it’s their open space. The park is lovely, well-maintained but not too fussy. The camping area wasn’t great but there’s a lake, a network of hiking trails, barbecue area, and big open fields. Here are a few pictures. We’ll definitely go back.