It also turns out to be a very interesting place to get inspired and find some good reading - due to the high self-selection going on for folks who are artistically and literally inclined.

So with child-like anticipation, we arrived at the Academy an hour before it opened. The building is a masterpiece in play. Aquariums float between floors, viewable from above and below. The roof is alive with millions of native plants. Photovoltaic cells are embedded in the awning providing electricity.

The interior is dominated by two large spheres. The planetarium and a huge tropical rainforest terrarium. If you were ever a kid and imagined building a larger and larger terrarium, this was as close as you could get to perfection. With one caveat. As a child I made several failed attempts at setting up a balanced ecosystem. It always ended up being top heavy with predators, of course, since children want lots of cool reptiles and not so much plants. But with this much room, I was a little sorry to see how transparent the life-support of the terrarium was. At the least, it was a teaching moment lost. I wish the museum would have workshops where kids try to create a balanced ecosystem and watch it crash – it certainly imparts both a sense of fragility of the planet, as well as a respect and understanding for some of the less sexy life that serves as the foundation of the food chain.

Nevertheless, the tropical forest globe was wicked. You ascend a spiral staircase to move up through the canopy, and eventually exit to the living roof. Here California native species extend on several acres of roof, giving the building an appropriately mild profile. I love the contrast to this building, contextually grounded in the living park, and its neighbor, the DeYong museum, which makes no apologies for its Judeo-Christian orientation of domination over nature.

From the living roof you take an elevator that plunges you below the rain forest terrarium until you are blow the aquarium that serves as the floor of the rain forest. So you can look up, through the water column, and see into the forest.

The museum also has a terrific discovery room where kids can touch materials and learn. They have an excellent hominid collection and really, provides an extraordinary array of specimens for kids to get up close to.

I was really impressed with the amount of time and space and thought that the museum put toward the explanation of evolution. Several exhibits detailed the specifics of the evolutionary process and the outcomes, including one that used Galapagos tortoises to explain the island effect. Not too long ago, the New York Museum of Natural History had an exhibit on Darwin, in which it did a horrific job at explaining to children the idea of evolution, the mechanics, and the evidence. Here however, the displays were really well thought out.

I can’t wait till Theory is old enough to take her. I did see, as we were exiting, that there is a room set aside for ages 0-5. So never too early to start!

I decided to get a commute bike in the Dutch style.  There are a couple of great designs out there including Jorg and Oilf.

I ended up getting the City Bike by Gary Fisher.  I have always wanted a Fisher mountainbike since I was in college.  But this is a radical departure for a Fisher.  

The bike is a 3-speed with an internal gear hub, so no derailleur.  

The one thing I really don't like about the bike is the braking mechanism.  If you pedal back it brakes like a cruiser.  Problem is, at lights I often pedal back to balance to say on the pedals and not I actually have to take my feet off of the pedals and stand.  The brake also does not seem very responsive.  At some point, I think I am going to look into seeing if I can get disc brakes put on.