mission accomplished

for the last several weeks iv'e chosen my pipette tips very carefully from the box near the fluorimeter in our lab. yesterday my diligence finally paid off. through the removal of 169 tips, and leaving 35 tips in their original positions, i managed to spell out my initials in the tips remaining in the box.


although enjoyable for a brief moment, and its image is captured in this photograph, this art project had a very short lifespan as i needed to continue with my experiment, thus dismantling my initials one pipette at a time. at the time of this posting the 's' is almost gone.

how'd you hurt your leg?

surfing.

school is in session

surf school, that is.

this past sunday some friends came down to santa cruz, and we all took a surf lesson from the santa cruz surf school. although we were a bit nervous, both about our surf skillz and of the dangers that lurk in monterey bay, we all had a blast. unfortunately, our wet suits had no pockets so there are no photos of the actual lesson, but it looked a lot like this.


we learned that surfing involves a whole lot more floating around on our boards and paddling to get into position than "hangin' ten." floating around on top of the water is a very relaxing way to spend an afternoon. paddling like crazy to catch the wave is not very relaxing, but very exhilarating. this is what the waiting looks like.


david got up on his first wave and made the rest of class think surfing is easy. it's not. marta got up to her knees a few times, but fear kept her from actually standing up.

here are some photos that we took. david and ginger model wetsuits for each other in front of the surf school.


after 2 hours of floating, swimming, surfing, paddling, and building up some muscle aches in the cold ocean, we all watched some rocky and bullwinkle while soaking in the hot tub at the surf school


we'll probably do it again soon. it was very fun. we'll probably also complain about muscle aches afterwards again. we're very sore.

spiffy new site

the good folks at blogger have produced a site that is a constant stream of photos that have been recently uploaded to blogger blogs. people are blogging about all kinds of stuff. i find it captivating.

check it out: http://play.blogger.com/

the not-so-crowded yosemite

this past weekend we weren't updating our blog because we were in yosemite national park. although it is best known for its huge granite monoliths, yosemite is nearly as well known for its massive crowds. the combination of the time of year (after school started), the location of our campsite (outside of the overpopulated yosemite valley), and our daily activity (hiking rather than dwelling in parking lots) afforded us a a visit to yosemite that felt relatively free of crowds, even if the park wasn't. we would definitely recommend the campground we stayed at and the trails we hiked to anyone looking to visit the park and avoid milling about with the masses. below are some photos of said campground and trails.

mixing up pulled pork and baked beans at tuolumne campground:



yosemite falls, dried up from summer drought, viewed from the four mile trail:



a bridge near the top of illiouette falls, on the panorama trail:



for more pictures and a better description of our trip to yosemite, please see the photo page of our website and click on yosemite.

blogging can be hard to do

until last night, when we posted a rather skimpy entry entitled "things we've taken close ups of (pt. 1)", it had been 13 days since our last post. while i realize that this sort of thing is inexcusable, especially if you want anyone other than your parents to read your blog, i must say that it is easy to let it get away from you. keeping a blog going is no easy task. it is a lot of fun, but it is also relentless. we've never been every day bloggers, but we like to try to get one in every couple days, or at least every week, but sometimes the business of livin' gets the best of our time, and 13 days goes by with out a post. sometimes we don't even realize how long its been because we have been dutifully updating our "photo of the week" and "music video of the week" on our website. this is no excuse, and we are going to do a better job of posting regularly. you can count on us. thanks for sticking with us during the lean times.

things we've taken close-ups of (pt. 1)

granite

labdabearvallad

(a.k.a. labor day bear valley adventure)

this past weekend we traveled from our home in santa cruz to a small cabin in the bear valley. that's high sierra territory. we were joined by chris, olivia, and casey. it was awesome.

here is a map of where we went, in relation to where we live.



tree huggers in calaveras big trees state park. we held hands the whole time.


we climbed high on a ridge above alpine lake, and became inspired at inspiration point.


we kicked back and relaxed on the granite shores of utica resevoir.



a good time was had by all.