Nathaniel and I, after reading most of the menus on Broadway in search of a hot dog, stopped at The Patty Shack [Yelp] on Main St. Having enjoyed Tijuana Dogs at Fremont’s now-defunct Juan More Taco, I was pretty excited to have a local source for bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Nathaniel enjoyed his corn dog; he’s torn between the Shack’s better product versus Ben Franks’s location beside the train tracks at Whipple.

When Dina and I moved to California, the first plant we bought was a dwarf kumquat. We planted it in an oak half-barrel, which, as an alleged byproduct of the wine industry, was another novelty. It survived years on our apartment’s porch, the move to our small house, and years more on the driveway. I couldn’t, however, resuscitate it from a summer of neglect caused by a renovation project.

So, at the end of the past summer, we bought and planted a new dwarf kumquat. And waited.

This morning, Benjamin and I went for a walk downtown. (7.36 km total, according to the phone.) On our way out, we noticed these two fruits on a limb of the tree. It’s a small first crop, but it won’t be long before I’m making kumquat-lemon marmalade again.

We went on the Marine Science Institute‘s cruise today, which was in part to celebrate World Oceans Day 2010. Part of the cruise involved sampling the bay floor and a short trawl with a net. (All animals caught are returned to the bay later in the day.) Ben got to hold a juvenile leopard shark.

They assembled this machine this week, but haven’t fired it up. The pipeline runs right behind our property, so I expect we’ll hear the crunching of treads and a large motor (or more than one) fire up early in the morning soon.

When you’re digging a miles-long trench, there’s a clear axis of work. And it looks like they’ll be removing the road surface soon.

There are a couple of major construction projects in Redwood City. On El Camino Real, the block between Broadway and Brewster is being updated, as part of the multi-county Grand Boulevard project. This excavator was standing sentry on the Broadway end. Closer to our house, a new high-pressure water line–part of the Hetch Hetchy system that supplies San Francisco–is being installed, which requires its own host of excavators of all sizes.

Benjamin, who’s recently become an enthusiastic chess player, got to face off against the chess playing robot:
Ben attempted a Scholar’s Mate, was stymied, and then had to go on defense; I suspect he’s been winning at school with that one.

Nathaniel and I were pressed against the barriers to see the lightning demonstration:
Cool.

At an event where most exhibitors have made or built something physical, I must comment that a purely virtual or computational exhibit underwhelms.

Two days' worth? Here?

I think we’ve had two evenings with short snow—without accumulation—and one significant hailstorm—with accumulation—in eleven years here. Intriguing.

We arrived late enough that, after setting up camp, it soon became too dark for even a short hike. It’s been cool on the Peninsula this fall, and it felt cool in the morning. We were all grateful when, with temperatures between 30 – 40 °F (0 – 5°C), Dina made oatmeal for breakfast.

One of the first things I noticed—and probably evident from the use of the flash in the above picture—is how dimmed the light on the forest floor is. The cool, dim environment appears to let some pretty sizeable mushrooms thrive; this specimen’s cap is about 2.5″ (63 mm) in diameter, although apparently there are bigger species around. The ribbon-like growths show a bit of élan.

Ben captured an interesting diffracted view of the forest around us:

Out of the dimness, we drove down to Año Neuvo State Reserve, and worked off a little energy in our walk out to the dunes and possible elephant seals.

As we walked, I watched a raptor maintain a position for seconds at a time, presumably as part of its hunting method. Here are three frames, over a total of 8 seconds, from a fair distance away.

The mating season for elephant seals doesn’t begin for a few weeks yet, so that apparently makes these early arrivals juvenile females that won’t actually participate directly.

We explored Pescadero State Beach and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, but the formation revealed at Pebble Beach between the two was striking. Apparently, the ocean (and already pulled pebbles) knock out other pebbles and slowly widen the sockets.

We went back for another crisp evening and chilly morning at Butano, revisited a few of the sites on Friday, and headed back—with a detour through Gilroy to sample a bit of Black Friday—in time for a dinner at home.

Photos taken with a Panasonic Lumix LX-2 and with a Canon PowerShot S2 IS.