Middle bit with plants

All rested from the day before, we decided to head up Table Mountain. We took the easy route.
I didn't manage to get many pictures that would be of general interest to anyone while I was up there, but the view was spectacular, and I wish I'd had more time to explore, but because of schedules and plane flights, the trip up was a quick one. I never made it to this beach either.

After we rode back down to the parking lot, we headed towards Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. People talk about the botanical gardens in New York, and impressive as they may be, I've never been to a botanical garden like this one. The setting alone raises it to a whole other level. The gardens nestled right up against Table Mountain, and with you back to what bit of the city you can see there is no reason to believe you aren't in Eden. We arrived in the late afternoon and stayed until they practically kicked us out. I suppose that's what happens when you get 3 biologists on a field trip to see plants. I don't know many of the names of what I photographed, but I will fill in what I do know. No idea what this is.
But this is a Fire Lily.
And I think we all know what this is.


Don't be fooled. These are ducks.

See what I mean about being Edenic?



I'm pretty sure these next three are Proteas, which are the national flower.




Smutspad: Less racy than you'd think.
After exhausting ourselves at the gardens, we headed back to our crash pad, the Daddy Longlegs, which is a pretty cool place to stay, considering that each room is done up by a different local artist.

And I slept and dreamed of being in a peaceful field somewhere.

Whales tomorrow folks, so stay tuned.

Early bits with zebras

The first few days of Africa were spent in a conference, so not much to report there, unless of course you want to hear the story about the tribal leader that interrupted our meetings making claims that we could have cured HIV/AIDS a long time ago and that we were trying to keep his people down and steal their riches. There you go. Non boring highlight of the week. One of the nights of the conference is always a fancy dinner, so this year it was off to Stellenbosch for dinner in a tent.
Dinner consisted of the craziest buffet I've ever taken part in, with all kinds of tagine dishes and crazy vegetables. Good stuff really, but too dark to photograph, so you'll just have to trust me. Following dinner we were treated to a traditional dance-off, proving that movies like "You Got Served" are nothing short of culturally accurate.




Everybody wins! Time to gather round the fire barrel.
One of the main features of Cape Town is Table Mountain. It's basically a big mesa, with a flat top you can walk around on. Because of it's proximity to the ocean, clouds gather at the top of it quite a lot. The guidebooks led us to believe that the locals call this the "tablecloth" of the mountain, but empirical studies proved inconclusive on the matter. Seeing the cloud cover spill off the top and evaporate is a cool effect, especially considering how low the mountain is and how close to the clouds you get.
After the conference was over, we had about 5 hours with some of our colleagues to explore Cape Point. The drive down was fantastic, and we freaked out when we saw a whale as we were driving along. Turns out we shouldn't have freaked so much, since whales are about as abundant as rats in Cape Town at this time of the year. More on that later.
Arriving at Cape Point.
Cape town has some of the most amazing flora. Much much more on that later.

This is Cape Point, which is one of the southernmost points in Africa. To the left of here is the Cape of Good Hope, which I'm sure we all learned about in school. Couldn't find a good pic, though, so you'll just have to use your imagination or come to my apartment some time.
One of the professors I traveled with convinced us all to take a hike out to the farthest point they will let regular people go. It was seriously windy, to the point of feeling about a gust away from ending up in the drink. It's an amazing feeling once you are there. I almost felt like I was at the tip of the world. All I could see was ocean and cloud and this golden haze caused by the lowering sun hitting the mist. I've rarely been to a place where I've felt the grandeur of nature more than I have there. If you've got $2,500 or so laying around, there's no reason why you shouldn't go to Cape town.

Looking back up towards Simon's Town.


Remember those Zebras I saw before? Here's a few more.
OK, enough of that. Amazing plants tomorrow, I think.

Finally...

...I'm getting around to posting about my Cape Town trip. Took me long enough.
Obviously this is London, not Africa. We (I) decided it would be nice to break up the journey with a 22 hour layover in London, so after arriving at Heathrow and spending most of the night awake in a Japanese-style pod hotel in the airport, we took the Tube and arrived in Westminster around 8 AM. The whole place was dead (it was a Sunday morning), but that made for some good light and some nice pics.


Looks like I got beat to this shot. Who knew?


"Whitby & Co., for all your 3D pince-nez needs."


To our surprise, there was some kind of half-marathon running that day, so we followed them all the way down to Buckingham Palace.
I'm not going to lie, the palace did not impress. But considering our final destination, I took an interest in this column. And considering its beauty, I took an interest in this gate.


A little bit of Autumn before I headed off to Spring.
At some point, we ended up on Bond St. where I found this little work of art on the way into someones car park. It made me chuckle and I thought I'd share.
I love 747s. I have I mentioned that I have a scale model of the prototype on my bookshelf at home? And that I've seen it in real life? So, naturally, I was excited to see the specimen that was going to help me add a third continent to my passport.

More to come soon (pics are uploaded already, so I've got no excuse).

Who doesn't love a dunk?

Maybe it's March Madness. Maybe I just like dunks. But this could be really fun, and I'm keeping an eye on it. It's got potential.

Obamacket? Can I do that?

Pres. Obama has BYU going to the second round. I sure as heck don't. But it's pretty cool that he's got a bracket going. Check it out.

#302 - Beatles Musings

- Of the 3 versions of "Let It Be" that I've currently got in my collection:

• The album version is the one where I wish they'd open the solo section up a little more for George.
• The single version is the one I grew up hearing.
• The naked version is by far the best version.

- "Here Comes the Sun" and "Good Day Sunshine" will always be associated with my hometown Oldies station playing one or both of them on sunny days. For a kid that grew up in Seattle, that's an association with a really good feeling.

- "When I'm Sixty-Four" made me want to learn the clarinet, so I guess you could say The Beatles were one of my early musical influences.

#301

McDonald's really has started skimping on the hot fudge in their sundaes. Lame.

#300

I've been buying music again and I'd love to tell you more about it. But, looking over what I've bought, I realize that long conversations about it would be pretty much ground already covered, except for maybe two things. First, I've really liked the new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion. It's a bit what I'd imagine Brooklyn would be like if it woke up one morning and decided to become Africa. Check it out, if you're in to that kind of thing. And second, the new War Child compilation Heroes is pretty decent. Basically, a bunch of stars (David Bowie, Iggy Pop, et al) chose artists to cover one of their songs and if you buy it the money goes to war affected children. Needy kids nonetheless, I wouldn't go as far as to buy the whole thing ("Search and Destroy," sadly not that good). Here's what I would recommend though:

• "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"/Beck
• "Heroes"/TV On the Radio
• "Straight to Hell"/Lily Allen
• "Transmission"/Hot Chip
• "Do the Strand"/Scissor Sisters

The Scissor Sisters track is the standout of the bunch, at least for now. I could see it getting some playtime at a house party or two.

Oh, and this is post #300. I originally thought about doing something bigger than this, but why bother?

Dunk

Whether you're a basketball fan or not, this is ridiculously cool.

The devil's in the details

You know how when you go to natural history museums they are usually filled with things like this?
Turns out at the American Museum of Natural History, if you pay attention, it might be a little more interesting.



Jeff and I both had the same thought when looking at this diagram - the Japanese invented Lucha Libre.
Beads are nice, but I wanna know where Mandarin keeps his rings!

Time on Hands

I may not have a Valentine, but I've sure got one of the most organized iTunes libraries you'll ever see, and that warms my heart almost as much.

This is why...

I was going to post a glib one liner about how I'm still disappointed that it's "Hall and Oates" rather than "Haulin' Oats," but then I came across this blog posting from the New York Times. I could go on and on about how the system is backwards (and it is), and how hard it can be at times for a scientist in an old field to accept the work of a scientist in a young field, but that would be boring. Let me just say that the way the system is set up now (at BYU, the head of one of my labs paid an electricity bill to the school from his grant money, even after the school took ~50% of his grant money before he got it) makes it real hard to be a prof. Trust me, this is reason #1 why I don't want to go in to academia.

Where am I going with this?

My musical life can be divided into two distinct parts. Part one is trying to grow my Jazz collection (140 albums plus odds and ends). Part two is everything else (roughly the same size plus tons of singles).

These two halves are at odds with each other.

The first part is well thought out, organized and makes me incredibly dull during conversations about music. I know what my next purchases are going to be and why. The second part is a scattershot collection of bits and pieces. Strange explorations and dead ends with a few good strong veins of interest. However, it appears that I'll always be that guy who signals a band's change from cool to corporate. I'm just waiting for Pitchfork to block my IP address.

So, what's the point in telling you all this? Well, I've got $13 in iTunes credit, and I'm open to suggestions. Here's a list of recent purchases to get the ball rolling:

Singles
Human - The Killers
E-Pro - Beck
La Mer - Charles Trenet
Ready for the Floor - Hot Chip
Ophelia - The Band


Albums
Parallel Lines - Blondie
In Ghost Colours - Cut Copy
Let it Die - Feist
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

2009's got an early candidate

Proving yet again that nothing can't be done with Legos.