San Jose & Point Reyes Trip

Tagging along with my hubby's IAI regional conference, we spent five days in San Jose and another whole day at Point Reyes National Seashore. It was a relaxing mini-vacation for me.

Steamers of Pismo

Anchored atop the bluffs of Pismo Beach we stopped by Steamers of Pismo for lunch. Enjoyed their famous award-winning clam chowder and their panoramic view of the Pacific coastline offers unforgettable scenes of the historic Pismo Beach Pier.

Gathering with college classmates

I took the liberty of meeting some of my dear friends living in the neighborhood and had a hearty meal at 清真東來順. It's always a pleasure to get together with old friends and keep on chatting.

Double Tree Hotel at San Jose

This hotel was easy access, on & off freeway. It's so easy to drive into the air port because it's adjacent to the terminals. I'm so thankful that my car is equipped with navigation. It's mainly for business stay though. Nothing much to do nearby.

Winchester Mystery House

I stopped by it once owned by wealthy widow Sarah Winchester, who kept construction going on the 160-room Victorian mansion for 38 years. It was a cool house and it was interesting to see how this woman spent her money constantly building and rebuilding her house. I did the Mansion tour and the Behind the Scenes tour combo, plus the gardens. Amazingly, she developed and practiced many eco-friendly ways of conserving water and heat. But, is it worth $31 to visit?

The Tech Museum

An innovative and thoroughly modern museum, "The Tech" is an exploration of technology and how it affects our lives. Four major theme galleries showcase everything from robotics to earthquakes and satellites to Silicon Valley. I watched one IMAX movie "Destiny in Space" which gets me an exciting glimpse into the future of space exploration. With never-before-seen giant-screen images of the space shuttle in orbit and thrilling fly-overs of Mars and Venus, the film focuses on the partnership of humans and robots working in space, e.g., Hubble. I also enjoyed a nice talk from NASA speaker explaining the supercomputer being utilized there. The whole place was very innovative, and noisy too, being filled with field-trip children.

Computer History Museum in Mountain View

I took both 'Tours of Visible Storage' and 'Babbage Demonstrations' tours. There is a "storage" room that has display after display of some of the original computer systems, portables, video games, calculators ever designed. For many of us who watched the computer revolution grow, most of the displays will bring back reminders from decades ago. IBM and Apple's first computers, even Google's first server as well as tons of other systems (military/civilian). The Museum's newest exhibit, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 provides a chance for me to experience one of history's most unique and historically significant mechanical computing engines. The Baggage Engine weighs 5 tons and consists of 8,000 moving parts.

Santana Row, San Jose

This place is pricey. The overall experience is completely artificial with architecture that resembles a Hollywood set. The chess sets, the lounges under the trees, the architecture, the excitement level...it is all lovely. We only shopped at Burberry.

Filoli House and Garden, Woodside

"Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life."

Filoli is the last of the grand California estates to be created during the Golden Age of the early 20th Century and the longest surviving one. Designed and built between 1915 and 1917, Filoli is set against the dramatic backdrop of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Opened to the public in 1976, this historic site features a 36,000 square-foot modified Georgian residence and a 16-acre English Renaissance style garden. I took both House and Garden tours. The rooms that did impress me were the ballroom and the foyer with the staircase. The main draw here is the expansive Gardens. I have to say I was originally expecting to enjoy the mansion itself more than the gardens but found myself less interested in the house. It was perfect for me who just wanted to get out and lose myself in a vast garden for a day.

Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County (Land and Sea)

The story of Point Reyes is a study in motion--slow, continental transformations and sudden, violent jots that shake the earth; the rhythmic play of sea-spray along the coast; wings of birds flashing in flight; drifting shrouds of mist and fog; browsing deer who occasionally follow our movements with soft eyes; and the ebb and flow of Pacific tides. Exceptionally, we did see group of elks. It's a home to several cultures over thousands of years, Point Reyes preserves a tapestry of stories and interactions of people. Over 1,000 species of plants and animals can be discovered. A breathtaking place!

Embassy Suites Hotels, San Rafael

The good: Separate bedroom from living area, good breakfast as others have mentioned, nice wide doorways, elevators and auto doors at front. The bad: NOISY! - Sound echoes up from the atrium. Since we booked it through AAA/Travelocity and we were given a room way from the elevator. Lesson learned: next time you'd better off booking through hotel reservation.

Olde Port Inn, Port San Luis, Pier 3, Avila Beach

It offers a unique feel that stands out among Central Coast Restaurants. Great location, wonderful views of bay, neat inside, we sat at a glass bottom table that looks down through the pier into the water. But...the food was very very bad. Clam chowder was the worst I have ever had. A previous review said the food here was hit or miss, I guess we missed....

Enter the Dragon (Movie, 1973)

Enter Bruce Lee -- He's Still Alive and Kicking

``When the opponent expands,'' Lee says, ``I contract, and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit,'' he says, showing his fist, ``it hits all by itself.''

The picture is expertly made and well-meshed; it moves like lightning and brims with color.

The story is a bit reminiscent of James Bond's "Dr. No," with a renegade fiend (same white cat and minus one hand) running an island fortress and a spectacular school in "martial arts." Just as obviously, the three tough agents invading the place are white (John Saxon), black (Jim Kelly) and yellow (Bruce Lee).

On an adventure level, the performances are quite good. The one by Mr. Lee, not only the picture's supermaster killer but a fine actor as well, is downright fascinating. Mr. Lee, who also staged the combats, died shockingly at the age or 32 shortly before the movie was released. Here he could not be more alive.

But the most surprising moment comes at a point when Lee is forced to kill, and what sticks with the viewer is not his body in action but an extraordinary slow-motion shot of the emotion playing across his face.

No one could overstate the degree of Lee's international star power and influence. He honorably held his place in a line of great action stars.

Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth (Documentary, 1988)

Campbell discusses the need for modern myths that fit our changing world, people's search for a hero in their everyday lives, the role of love, romance and sacrifice in myth and in practice, and the concept of eternity in the context of various religions.

He touches on everything from Star Wars to cave paintings in the interviews and discusses the common threads between the world's three major religions. Although he had some misleading concepts toward them, i.e., Nirvana in Buddhism. He is a legend in the world of mythology and religion. Campbell has an eerie way of putting things into perspective. Definitely, his insight has transformed the lives of many people.

In the episode of 'MASKS OF ETERNITY', Campbell provides challenging insights into the concepts of god, religion and eternity, as revealed in Christian teachings and the beliefs of Buddhists, Navajo Indians, Schopenhauer, Jung and others.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Movie, 2008)

The Pevensie kids are homo sapiens children of WW II England, though they spend most of their screen-time (and alternate lives) in Narnia, where they are royalty. The children's realization that their last visit was 1,300 years earlier is moving, even poetic. "Prince Caspian" takes place centuries after the vanquishing of the titular witch in part one.

It is never quite clear, though, who exactly the Narnians are. They're definitely not a species or a race because they include leopards, badgers, dwarves (they're called "dwarves" in the credits, not "little people"), giants, rhinoceroses, unicorns and mice (many of whom are conversant in English) -- but not, as you may recall from the first film, tigers, wolves, cyclopses, miniature Huns or two-legged yaks, all of whom are unaccountably but virulently anti-Narnian.

Now it's Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes, with his indefinable Mediterranean accent -- more Spanish than Italian) who must return from exile to claim the throne, and although he's a Son of Adam (human), he's not a Narnian, he's a Telmarine. And we don't really know what that is, either.

The larger question remains: Why, really, do the Narnians need some anti-democratic, monarchy-loving European Son of Adam to lead them, to protect them, to fulfill their prophecies? Why can't the Narnians just lead themselves?

It's just too bad that the computer-generated bands of warriors grow tedious and conjure memories of The Lord of the Rings, which managed those hugely choreographed clashes more adeptly than any movie in history.

Though the movie could have ended a few scenes earlier, it is still a journey well worth taking.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (Movie, 2005)

Based on the classic children's series by C.S.Lewis, Narnia is an adventure in a fantasy world filled with talking animals, unicorns and centaurs who join in a climactic battle between good and evil. Its epic scope and elaborate battles will raise comparisons with Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, though the clashes are much less violent.

Two brothers and two sisters from the Pevensie family are evacuated from London and sent to live in a vast country house where they will be safe from the nightly Nazi air raids. Playing hide-and-seek, Lucy, the youngest, ventures into a wardrobe that opens directly onto a snowy landscape where before long Mr. Tumnus is explaining to her that he is a faun.

That's the charm of the Narnia stories: They contain magic and myth, but their mysteries are resolved by the determination and resolve of the Pevensie kids -- who have a good deal of help, to be sure, from Aslan the Lion. For those who read the Lewis books as a Christian parable, Aslan fills the role of Christ because he is resurrected from the dead.

The effects in this movie are so skillful that the animals look about as real as any of the other characters, and the critic Emanuel Levy explains the secret: "Aslan speaks in a natural, organic manner (which meant mapping the movement of his speech unto the whole musculature of the animal, not just his mouth)." Liam Neeson is commanding as Aslan.

Half Day at the Huntington Library

On a hot afternoon, we still couldn't resist being lured outside into the stunning Botanical Gardens. From the main buildings, lawns and towering trees stretch out toward specialty areas. 

The 12-acre Desert Garden, for instance, has the world's largest group of mature cacti and other succulents, arranged by continent. Visit this garden on a hot midday walk may be a little too authentic. In the Japanese Garden, an arched bridge curves over a pond; the area also has stone ornaments, a Japanese house, a bonsai court, and a Zen rock garden. There are collections of azaleas and 1,500 varieties of camellias, the world's largest public collection. The 3-acre rose garden is displayed chronologically, so the development leading to today's strains of roses can be observed; on the grounds is the charming Rose Garden Tea Room, where traditional high tea is served and it was packed. There are also herb, palm, and jungle gardens.

Opened in 2005, the Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science, a child-oriented center with dozens of hands-on exhibits to illustrate plant diversity in various environments. (These rooms are quite warm and humid, especially the central rotunda, which displays rain-forest plants.) 

There is an ambitious classical Chinese Garden "Liu Fang Yuan" (or Garden of Flowering Fragrance) which was opened in late 2008, set to be the largest of its kind outside China. Work on this will be underway for the next several years.

I believe we enjoyed the rain-forest plants most, which made us quite sweaty though. We'll try to visit art collections next time.

Chaos Theory -- Part 3 -- Chaos and Beyond

Chaos was the set of ideas persuading all those scientists that they were members of a shard enterprise. Physicist or biologist or mathematician, they believed that simple, deterministic systems could breed complexity; that systems too complex for traditional mathematics could yet obey simple laws; and that, whatever their particular field, their task was to understand complexity itself.

"God plays dice with the universe," is Joseph Ford's answer to Einstein's famous question. "But they're loaded dice. And the main objective of physics now is to find out by what rules were they loaded and how can we use them for our own ends."

Goethe wrote: "We have a right to expect from one who proposes to give us the history of any science, that he inform us of how the phenomena of which it treats were gradually known, and what was imagined, conjectured, assumed, or thought respecting them." This is a "hazardous affair," he continued, "for in such an undertaking, a writer tacitly announces at the outset that he means to place some things in light, others in shade. The author has, nevertheless, long derived pleasure from the prosecution of his task...."