Yesterday was a relatively restful day, in that we did not spend all of it on our feet. Instead, we went for a scenic drive (there's something we haven't done in a while :-)) through Golden Gate Park, over the Golden Gate bridge and along route 1 to Stinson Beach. We had a bit of a late start, and saw the toll change from $6 to $4 while in line at ( Read more... )

The Fourth of July fireworks, postponed from yesterday, were well worth the wait: nearly 20 minutes of some of the best fireworks I've ever seen. I don't know the names of all of them, but my favourites are the ones that explode in different colours, float down a bit, and then explode again in golden showers. I kept on thinking of the lines from ( Read more... )

The weekend was slightly schizophrenic. For the first time in a while, the rain began in the early hours of the morning on Saturday, rather than in the afternoon, and continued almost without a break until late at night. As a result, we switched around our plans, and spent the day at home. We did a bit more packing (mainly ADC's clothes) and had ( Read more... )

..the last week with any sort of routine for a while, I think, since the second week of camp was cancelled on Tuesday. A and S were very disappointed, as they were looking forward to a marine biology camp - but I guess not enough people felt like paying that price for four days of camp. They thoroughly enjoyed Japanese art camp, though, coming home ( Read more... )

The weekend has been boiling hot, and spending Saturday on the Shenandoah River was a very good idea. We reached the rafting company at Front Royal around 10:30, and were on the river just after 11:00. We floated along until 15:30 - the Shenandoah was much wider and slower than the Jordan was when we went rafting there, and we got stuck at every " ( Read more... )

Not the country, Terry Gilliam's film, which ADC and I watched tonight. ADC has seen it before, but apparently the American (truncated) version, as opposed to the European (director's cut) we saw on Netflix. This was the first time I watched it, although I think I must have seen clips from it, as the first scene at the records department seemed ( Read more... )

We spent the first half of the weekend - Friday evening through Saturday afternoon - visiting our friends in Baltimore, KM and AM and their children IM, AW and CR. KM was instrumental in me being able to come to the US, as he sponsored my J-1 visa, and he and ADC have been friends from childhood (their fathers were postdocs together). IM and AW are ( Read more... )