The Road Less Traveled

Spring has sprung!

2009-03-24T23:54:00.001-07:00

One of the signs that spring has arrived in full force is that my freesias start to bloom.Their bold colors and sweet scent just make me smile. I just wish there was a way to keep them going year-round.

There's also a non-freesia bulb that's blooming. I have no idea what it is (obviously I have a short memory here). The only problem is that I don't remember what exactly it is, not that it matters . . .

Richard Lewis Kolm (1935-2009)

2009-03-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, February 28th, my dad died. It doesn't seem like two weeks ago. It doesn't even seem real sometimes. A week ago, on March 8th, we held a lovely memorial "service", which more than 100 family, friends and colleagues attended. It meant a lot to me - to all of us - that so many people shared their memories with us.

I thought I'd share some of our memories with anyone else who might be interested.

- Richard Lewis Kolm Obituary (ANG Newspapers, March 6, 2009)
- Richard Lewis Kolm Biography (written by mom and shared at the memorial, 23.7Mb pdf)

My brother, Brian, and I sorted through and scanned lots of old photos which we posted around the chapel. I turned a handful of them into a slide show. Here's the video, via YouTube:

It was originally set to "Blue Monk", which Gene suggested.

Bri and I also stood up and talked about our own memories of dad. Here is approximately what I said:

One of the things I've been doing the past few days is sorting through more than 40 years worth of family photos. It's brought back so many happy memories – family trips, parties with family and friends, and the activities I did as a kid.

There aren't as many pictures of dad as I expected, though, probably because he was usually the one holding the camera. And when I think about dad, that's often how I remember him – with a camera or video recorder in his hand.

And while he didn't even make it into every roll of photos, he was always there. He was supportive of all my various extracurricular activities - even though I'm not sure he was really that interested in swimming or ballet or soccer. I could always count on his support.

Dad and I did share many interests. He was interested in science, and always encouraged me to study science myself.

His stories about his college days helped me decide to attend UC Berkeley. He made sure I was well prepared for that too - I'm pretty sure I was the only Freshman in my dorm who already knew the California Drinking Song.

We also shared an interest in history and genealogy. We spent a lot of happy hours researching and compiling our family history. That's a project I plan to continue.

Of course in some ways we're really different. Dad liked to plan and organize, while my style is to do things haphazardly and at the last minute.

But he's always been there when I needed a helping hand, sometimes even before I'd asked for any assistance. He helped me build school projects, was with me when I bought my first car (my only car), and he would even jump right in and do dishes when he came over for dinner.

I admire how honest and responsible he was. Just as an example: when I was in elementary school he wouldn't help me sell Girl Scout cookies in his office. That's because he was a manager, and he didn't want to do anything that might seem like he was putting unfair pressure on the people who reported to him. I found that annoying at the time, but now I really respect that.

And, while he was very hard working, he always made sure he had time for us and for the things he enjoyed doing, like traveling and train watching.

I don't recall ever hearing him being spiteful or intentionally cruel.

I'm proud to be his daughter and I miss him very much.

The last line is really all I wanted to say. And I still have trouble reading it.

Thanks to everyone who has been their for us over the past few weeks. And thank you for being part of dad's life.

Photos, top to bottom (click for larger image):
- Me helping dad build the deck (1968)
- Off on a family trip (1973)
- Me and dad on a hike at Lake Tahoe (1977)
- Getting my PhD (1997)
- Mom and dad in New Zealand (1992)
- Dad, me, Gene and Brian (Christmas 2008)

Snow!!!

2008-12-17T20:31:00.000-08:00

It's been raining off and on for the past couple of days - gloomy and damp and altogether yucky. But lo and behold, about 7pm tonight the temperature dropped enough to turn the rain into that white fluffy stuff. Well, actually sort of damp and sticky, rather than fluffy, but still better than rain. It's kind of hard to remember that just two weeks ago it was sunny and 75 degrees.

Snow! I love it!

There are a couple more photos on my Yucaipa blog.

Tags: yucaipa, snow

Last Crop of the Year

2008-12-14T15:29:00.000-08:00

We had a chilly rainy day yesterday, followed by almost-freezing temperatures over night, so I wasn't particularly surprised to find that all my basil plants had turned brown when I checked on the garden this afternoon. I decided it was time to harvest what was left of the peppers and tomatoes in my vegetable garden.

The peppers will be fine, and I'll probably toss whatever we don't eat this week into the freezer anyway. The tomatoes, on the other hand, may not be particularly tasty. I'll leave them out on the counter to see if they ripen any more, but they may be as ripe as they'll get. They probably aren't any worse than the artificially ripened tomatoes that you get in the supermarket.

My sugar snap peas, on the other hand, look like they are loving the nippy weather. I can hardly wait until there are enough pods to eat.

Home Again

2008-12-08T14:14:00.000-08:00

So here I am, home again. It feels like I brought a piece of New York City with me, since the temperature right now is only in the 50s, instead of in the 70s like it was the day before we left. I may even turn the heat on tonight.

I haven't unpacked yet, because my suitcase didn't make our connecting flight in Chicago. It should be delivered some time this afternoon. That's no big deal, really, except that the refrigerator is bare, and I can't go out to the supermarket until my luggage arrives.

Overall it was an excellent trip. We didn't do everything that we wanted to, so we'll just have to make the trip again sometime.

Day 5: Herald Square and the Empire State Building

2008-12-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

Our last stop was Herald Square. The flagship Macy's department store had an elaborate holiday display that put a sort of whiz-bang mad scientist twist to the season. But Macy's wasn't our goal, the Empire State Building was, and so we headed down 34th street to find the entrance.

Getting up to the observation deck on the 86th floor is a bit like queuing for a ride at Disneyland. No, it doesn't have animatronic tableaux or cheesy music, but there are maze-like paths roped off to follow (fortunately pretty empty Sunday morning), and you are offered additional opportunities to spend your money seemingly at every turn. I wanted to carry a sign that said: no, I don't want buy a special map, or rent the audio tour, or watch the NYC virtual tour, or have a photo taken in front of a green screen (with the backdrop added in later), or buy some expensive souveniers.

We did eventually get up to the top without emptying our wallets, and the view was spectacular. I didn't stay outside that long, though, because the temperature was frigid - and on the south side of the building the winds were fierce.

That's my "I'm very cold" face.

Looking downtown towards the Financial District.

Looking uptown towards Central Park.

Puffed-up pigeons with the Chrysler Building in the background.

Did I mention it was windy?

A fitting end to our trip to NYC!

Day 5: Rockefeller Center

2008-12-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

Our flight was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, giving us all morning for a last look at Manhattan. We decided to head back over to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree in daylight and watch the skaters.

Day 4: Dinner in Little Italy

2008-12-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

One of the things that's awesome about Manhattan is that you can walk down the street in Little Italy shortly before 10pm and have your pick of different restaurants - and you don't have to worry about being turned away because they are about to close. Eating any time - that I love.

Anyway, Erin recommended Da Nico's for dinner, so, not having any other specific goal, ate there. We each started with a large antipasti plate - Gene's with portabello mushrooms and mozzarella, mine with prosciutto, salami, and cheeses. Those went down surprisingly easily, and then we had our main courses - Gene had a pork chop in spicy sauce, and I had orecchiette pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe. We ended with a cup of coffee and fried dough on the house. Then we strolled down Mulberry street, looking at all the festive Christmas lights (Little Italy goes all out!) in the gentle snow flurries. Perfect.

Day 4: The Met

2008-12-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

At brunch David had strongly suggested that we visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art if we had a chance, so we decided to do that before dinner. Fortunately the Met is open until 9pm on Saturday night, so we didn't have to race Uptown before it closed.

We ended up being there for almost 3 hours, and saw only a tiny fraction of the collections. The variety of works there is really incredible - parts of medieval churches, 18th-century nativity scene, an entire Egyptian temple, sculptures and artifacts from ancient Greece and Babylon and China, and paintings and other works of art from Europe and the US to the present day.

We could have spend days looking at it all, but focused most of our time on the Nubian temple of Dendur, which was given to the US by Egypt to save it from the flooding upon completion of the Aswan High Dam; and the musical instruments collection, which had thousands of years worth of musical instruments from from all around the world. In between we saw some of the Asian art, Egyptian art, the armor collection, bits of and, shortly before the Museum closed, the European art collection, including the late 19th/earthy 20th century French art - Degas, Picasso, Monet, Braque and colleagues.

It was both overwhelming and exhilarating to see so much in such a short time. And in a move was obviously meant by nature to keep me in a cheerful mood , it was snowing a wee bit when we left the museum.

More to come . . .

Day 4: Brunch with Sciencebloggers

2008-12-08T12:45:00.000-08:00

Our only scheduled event for Saturday was brunch/lunch with Sciencebloggers at Hundred Acres in Greenwich Village. I had a great time meeting GrrlScientist and David Ng (who was in New York to perform at a science comedy show) and the other Scienceblogs people. Anyway, the food was great there - how can you go wrong with donuts with a warm chocolate dipping sauce and eggs benedict with salmon? - and I was glad we hadn't filled up on breakfast.

We headed back to the hotel for a rest - Gene napped and I blogged.

ETA: GrrlScientist has posted some photos.

More to come . . .

Day 4: Ground Zero and Canstruction

2008-12-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning we headed Downtown to Ground Zero. There are covered fences all along the WTC site, with short stretch open for viewing. At the moment, there really isn't much to actually see. If I didn't know differently, I would have thought it was just a large construction site. There is a simple list of names of the "Heroes of September 11, 2001". And that's it. There is a also an artist's rendition of what the site will look like once construction is completed. It would have been nice to learn about what had made those I suppose we would have learned more if we had visited the nearby museum.

We continued on to the World Financial Center, a sort of shopping and business center across West Street from the World Trade Center site. There they had the winners of the annual Canstruction competition, in which the competitors - teams of students, architects and engineers - make sculptures out of canned food. When the exhibit is over, the food will be donated to local food banks. The sculptures remind me a bit of pointillist art, because up close they appear as stacks of cans, while from further away you can see the design as a whole. The winner of the competition is a representation of a Giant Panda ("CANda") made from about 4500 cans of tuna, 1000 cans of Amy's Organic Soup, and 200 bags of brown rice.

More to come . . .

Mapping NYC

2008-12-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

I've made a Google map showing where we stopped during our trip to NYC. It's embedded below, but if you are having trouble seeing it - or want to see the full size version with the list of locations - click this link.

View Larger Map

Day 3: The City from Brooklyn

2008-12-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

On a previous trip to New York, Gene had walked along the Brooklyn Promenade and wanted to go back to see the view of the city. It's a short subway ride to the Brooklyn side of the river, and then a few blocks walk down to the base of the Brooklyn bridge. The view from there is spectacular, with the whole brightly lit skyline and bridge laid out in front of you. After admiring the view for a while, we walked several blocks down along the water to the Brooklyn Promenade, which gave us a higher vantage point - and slightly different angle - to see the city. You can even see the Statue of Liberty off in the distance.
After we had seen our fill, we returned to Manhattan and decided to walk through the East Village. It's a busy area near NYU, with lots of restaurants - especially Indian ones, it seemed - and bars. We had a beer at the Thirsty Scholar, but were hoping to hear some music. The bouncer told us that there wasn't really any live music in the area, and that the place to go was Greenwich Village. We figured it wasn't too far to walk, which was true, sort of.

Let me make an aside to all you thinking of coming to Manhattan: wear walking shoes whenever possible. My shoes were comfortable, but definitely not meant for miles of walking. I didn't have blisters or any serious foot pain, but my feet were really tired by the time we got back to the hotel. After this night, I just wore my sneakers. But I digress.

So we ended up back in Greenwich Village, which was very lively. What is totally awesome is that just within a few blocks there are a couple of dozen choices of places to enjoy live music or comedy. From what we could hear from the street, some was better than others, but there was a fantastic choice. We ended up at a place called Kenny's Castaway, where a very young looking band was playing reggae music. We stayed and listened (no dancing on my tired feet!) until the end of their set, then headed back to the hotel.

Day 3: Dinner in Chinatown

2008-12-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

So, Friday night we decided to mix it up some and head to Chinatown for dinner. Erin at Scienceblogs gave us a few recommendations, and we decided on Joe's Shanghai Restaurant. It's a popular crowded restaurant, where you share the 6-seater tables with other diners. The good thing is that there is a regular turnover of seats, so we didn't have to wait for too long.

Joe's is famous for their soup dumplings, which are just what they sound like: steamed dumplings filled with soup. Well, not soup exactly, but a small pork ball and flavorful broth. They are a bit tricky to eat without dripping the broth all over the plate, but worth the effort. The rest of the meal was pretty good, although not as interesting as the dumplings.

Day 3: Central Park and Whitney Museum

2008-12-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

Friday morning was chilly and a bit overcast, so we bundled up to head towards the Whitney Museum via Central Park. The park has kind of a stark beauty this time of year, with the largely leafless trees and browning grass. One thing I hadn't realized was the size of it. Sure I could see that it's 50 or so blocks long, but I hadn't really put that into context. We strolled for a while and only saw a fraction of it. The sun finally came out completely and it was a brilliant day.

Our goal was the Whitney Museum of American Art, for which we had tickets. The museum wasn't actually open yet when we arrived there, so we wandered a bit down Madison Avenue looking at the fancy shops, and decided to find a place for lunch. We settled on the Viand Coffee Shop. I had a big piece of spinach pie (since I had been feeling a bit vegetable-deprived) and Gene had a salmon burger. It was tasty and filling after our walk.

We then headed back to the Whitney, and spent a leisurely couple of hours browsing the collection. The Alexander Calder exhibit was especially interesting, with 3-dimensional wire portraits, moving sculptures that anticipate his famous mobiles, and an entire circus-worth of performers. The circus characters were meant to be in motion, but the museum simply showed Calder's movie of them in operation:

More to come . . .

Day 2: Physics and Jazz

2008-12-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

Thursday evening, we had tickets to a public talk by theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin at 92YTribeca. 92YTribeca has a cafe and a display of comic art on the walls.

Levin's talk was based around the question: "Is the Universe Infinite?", but she touched on a lot of basics of cosmology, including the Big Bang, expansion of the universe, and higher dimensions. She did a great job explaining the science in basic terms, but I honestly still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that there is nothing - no space, nothing - outside our universe (not to mention 10-dimensional space). Her last slide showing a mushrooming of different universes off of a big blob of space-time was both weird and wonderful.

After the lecture, we decided to get some dinner, so we headed to Greenwich Village near a place with live music Gene had read about. We ended up eating in a cafe/diner-type place, which was tasty, but not particularly exciting. The bar turned out to be too crowded to sit down in, so we decided to move on. We had seen a sign near our hotel for a place with live mid-week jazz, with no cover or minimum drink purchase, so we headed there. The jazz trio was OK, and the cocktails were $16, so we sipped ours slowly while listening to the music.

After the set was over, we decided to head over to Time-Warner Center at Columbus Circle. In the atrium there is a pretty holiday display, with lighted "stars" that change color in time to the music playing over the PA system.

Our goal was Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, which, despite it's horribly corporate sounding name, is a nice club associated with Jazz at Lincoln Center. After hours the Stein Brothers Quintet play for a minimal cover charge. They were excellent, and it was a nice way to end the night.

Thus ended Day 2 of our trip to NYC.

Day 2: Butterfly Conservatory

2008-12-06T12:48:00.001-08:00

The second special exhibit at the AMNH we visited was The Butterfly Conservatory, which is a hothouse full of living butterflies.

Part of my winning swag was a little Flip Video camera. You can see our efforts below - Gene shot the film, I edited it. The focus isn't always perfect, but it did an OK job. That's me at the end with a butterfly on my shoulder. I was standing very still, so as not to spook it, but, as it turned out, it wouldn't fly away even after I shook my shoulder. One of the docents had to gently lift it off before we could leave.

More to come . . .

Day 2: AMNH

2008-12-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

I'm obviously having too much fun to regularly post, so here we are, still back on Thursday - day 2 of our trip. The biggest part of our day was spent at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The main entrance on Central Park West was flanked by two pine dinosaurs holding wreaths, a nice sciency way to decorate for the holidays.

We actually started our visit at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which is a large glass building with a Death Star-esque sphere in the center. The sphere is actually the Hayden Planetarium, where we saw the Cosmic Collisions show. What I learned: our galaxy is a spectacularly violent place.

After the show we wandered through the rest of the museum, which houses an extensive collection of reconstructed dinosaur fossils, stuffed animals form around the world and probably lots of other things we didn't have time to see.

To be continued . . .

Day 2: Central Park West

2008-12-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

On Thursday we had tickets to the American Museum of Natural History. They weren't until 11am, so we decided to walk to the museum along Central Park West. There had apparently been some event along there Wednesday night as well, because bleachers were being disassembled and confetti was being swept up. We didn't head into Central Park at all, except to visit the Imagine memorial to John Lennon across from the Dakota.

Day 1: The Groove

2008-12-05T07:08:00.001-08:00

The night was still young, so we hopped onto the subway and headed to The Groove, which I believe is in Greenwich Village (why doesn't our map have the neighborhood borders drawn in?) They had a great R&B cover band which I believe was called "Off the Hook". We hung out there a while, had a couple of beers, then headed back to our hotel.

Thus ended our first Day in New York.

Day 1: Times Square and City Lights

2008-12-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

After ogling the Christmas tree for a bit, we headed around Rockefeller Plaza where NY City's finest were ~~hanging about~~ guarding the entrance to to the tower. We then headed towards Times Square.
Pictures can't really capture the scene. So many moving lights - sort of like Vegas, only it's all advertising. And there are dudes selling "Rolexes" and "designer purses" along the street. And so. many. people. I love it, although I did feel a bit overstimulated just walking through through the square.

More to come . . .

Day 1: Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Center

2008-12-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

After eating such a big dinner, we definitely needed a stroll, so we decided to head down 5th Avenue. It felt exhilarating - not just being out in the fresh air, but there being so many people walking down the street just after 9pm on a Wednesday night. It did seem a bit strange that there were so many cops standing around. And the fact that there were barriers up in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral seemed a bit odd - maybe there had been a protest? Of course if we had read a newspaper or turned on the TV before dinner we might have had a clue: they had just lit the Christmas tree in front of Rockefeller Center. When we arrived, there were still big crowds on both sides of the street, so we joined them ogling the pretty lights.

We also enjoyed looking at the Christmas window displays. Of course all of the jewelry stores had removed their wares from the windows, but the department store windows were all decorated. The windows at Saks, which is across from Rockefeller Center, told the story of Mike the Snowflake, who dreamed big and became a big success by believing in himself - very uplifting. There were also hippies and dinosaurs, which apparently embody the spirit of the season. Or something.

More to come . . .

Wednesday: Dinner at Trattoria Dell'Arte

2008-12-04T14:54:00.000-08:00

After freshening up and taking a brief nap, we were ready to head out again. Dinner was arranged for us at Trattoria Dell'Arte, an Italian restaurant that is right by Carnegie Hall and just a few blocks from our hotel. The last meal we had had was a breakfast sandwich at the Denver Airport, so we were definitely ready to eat.

The decor was a bit anatomical (but not unappetizing), with giant lips on the wall, and famous Roman noses on the napkin ring.

The food was delicious, I don't think it was just our empty stomachs talking. I started with the "Artichokes all Giudea" which are fried "Roman Jewish Ghetto style" - no breading and with a squeeze of lemon juice. Gene started off with the prosciutto di Parma and mozzarella. We both had veal as our main course - my veal scaloppine marsala had several kinds of mushrooms and shaved black truffles. So good. A tasty bottle of red wine and we were happy eaters. We skipped dessert and just finished with a cup of coffee. I'd go back if there weren't a million other restaurants I'd like to try.
More to come . . .

Arrival in New York City

2008-12-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you all remember that I was the lucky winner of the Scienceblogs.com Millionth Comment Contest. The grand prize was a trip to New York City, with museum tickets, meals and meeting science bloggers thrown in. So here I am in Manhattan, having a ball, and taking lots of photos. I'll be posting a few over the next few days.

Day 1 - yesterday - was mostly taken up by travel from SoCal to New York. There were no significant delays, and, beyond the general annoyances of cross-country travel the trip was uneventful. United Airlines seems to be nickel-and-diming us travelers, charging $15 for a checked back, skipping free in-flight food (not even peanuts) and upselling at every chance (I had to click through 2 upsell screens to print out my boarding pass, for example). Anyway, we landed safe and sound at La Guardia and caught a cab to drive us to our hotel. The trip was supposed to be 8 miles, so I figured about 20 minutes or so. Those of you familiar with New York City rush hour traffic are probably cracking up at that idea. I think the last mile alone took 20 minutes.

Anyway, we arrived at our hotel, the Moderne, which is conveniently located in Midtown Manhattan. It's got a modern-a-la-the-1960s with boldly painted walls and pop art decor. Our room isn't huge, but it's got what we need - a bed, a desk, WiFi internet access and a TV. And I was excited to find a big basket of swag from Seed Media and the scienceblogs.com science bloggers. Very very cool.

Thanks to all the science bloggers for selecting such great stuff.

"Being the Change" T-shirt (which I'm modeling in the photo) from ScienceWoman and Alice Pawley of Sciencewomen
"zuska says: Don't make me puke on your shoes" T-shirt from Zuska of Thus Spake Zuska
"Science commons" T-shirt from John Wilbanks of Common Knowledge
"A Blog Around the Clock" clock from Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock. He also sent copies of the 2006 and 2007 The Open Laboratory blog science writing anthologies.
A mug with molecular structure designs from Sandra Porter of Discovering Biology in a Digital World. There are a several magnets with molecular structures, which I suspect are from Sandra too.
Astronomy: A Beginners Guide to the Universe from Steinn Sigurdsson of Dynamics of Cats
A signed copy of The History of Psychology from Greta Munger of Cognitive Daily
Worlds of Their Own: A Brief History of Misguided Ideas: Creationism, Flat-Earthism, Engergy Scams and the Velikovsky Affair; Evolution Vs. Creationism and a "Honk if You Understand Punctuated Equilibria" bumper sticker from Josh Rosenau of Thoughts from Kansas and the NCSE.
The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson from Martin Rundkvist of Aardvarchaeology. The note says it's "The best novel written in the Swedish language".
Drug Monkey sent me a CafePress gift certificate so I could order a DrugMonkey mug. Extra awesome because I don't have to carry it home in my luggage.

If I missed anybody, I apologize! Also, most of these items can be purchased through Amazon.com or Cafe Press - once I have more time I'll link them up, in case you are looking for a nice geeky gift.

There was also some nice ScienceBlogs.com and Seed Media stuff, including a tote bag which it turned out I desperately needed because my purse I brought along is much too small.

More to come . . .

(And a big shout out to Seed Media's Erin Johnson who made all the travel arrangements, and met us at the hotel. Great job!)

Bee Nice

2008-12-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

I was playing with the macro settings on my camera and caught this busy bee collecting pollen. That particular shrub is actually full of bees, hopping from flower to flower.