Henry Cowells Redwoods State Park

To help support California state parks, I bought a membership which came with 7 free entrance passes to state parks.  One thing I was surprised to find was that you have to pay to go into a park in California.  As a result, many of them seem a bit vacant compared to the teaming number of people you will see at a state or county park in Iowa.  It seems that Parks, like public libraries, should be available to everyone.

Only a stone's throw from Santa Cruz, is Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.  Seeing a grove of redwood trees should be on everyone's bucket list.  It is truly an amazing thing.  The trees can live to be 2000 years old, that puts you back to when Jesus was a teenager.  I had my picture taken in front of the cross section of a tree at the entrance to the Redwood Grove Trail, a pleasant 20 minute walk.  The tree it came from was stated to be 1000 years old.

As you walk among the redwoods, you look up up up and strain your neck and eyes to see the tops of these aged botanical giants.  They are regal and silent and can grow to a magnificent 300 feet in height.  The forest floor is cool in stark contrast to the paved parking lot you park in when you arrive.

The sequoia sempevirens, everliving redwood, is another name for the coast redwood.  Tannic acid in the bark gives it a cinamon color.

  

Art is in the Air: Watsonville, California

"Did you need me for anything," she asked?
"No, I'm going to play golf."
"In the rain?" she asked.

I had a golf date for 9 am who didn't show up, probably because it is cloudy and sprinkling out.  But I'm from Iowa, and one subtle difference I noticed since I moved out here is that Californians are a bit shyer when it comes to getting rained on.  So, I was the only one playing golf out in the sprinkles today.  

I discovered this nice little miniature golf course here on the campground.  It's eleven holes, not nine, or eighteen--eleven.  It is not one you should drive out of your way to get to.  It has lots of leaves strewn on it and has been patch-worked with occasional repairs.  But it is clear that the person who designed this little miniature golf course had a sense of humor and wit.  Here are the names for each hole and my success in pocketing the balls over a two day period.  The score cards are no longer distributed so I do not know the official pars.

                                                   5/15     5/16
Hole 1, The Zig Zag:                  6           7
Hole 2, Happy Choice                7          6
Hole 3, Shady Rock                   6          6
Hole 4, Easy Up                         2          4
Hole 5, The Left Bank                2          4
Hole 6, (sign missing)                2          3
Hole 7, The Right Bank            2          2
Hole 8, The Tight Square          5          4
Hole 9, The High Low              3         3
Hole 10, Almost Square            6          6
Hole 11, The Final Stretch        3         2

TOTAL                                  44        47

My favorite hole is the High Low which is a split-level arrangement wherein you putt the ball into a hole on the upper level, it rolls down a three foot chute aimed directly at a hole on the lower level.  Your ball then pops over, around, or out of the second hole.  I showed some consistency with this one.

The reason I know this course was set up at least a decade ago is because so many of the names have a "THE" in them.  This game and the signs were obviously made before the age of illiteracy, I mean the age of Texting, LOL.  The signs and the names were made up in a time when more people had fun and less people were there to nix them and say something like, "hey, if we REMOVE the "THE" from each title, it'll be faster and cheaper to make the sign.  I'm just kidding.  I love the age we live in.  It's an absolutely great character builder / destroyer (two sides of the same coin!)

It is from this campground that I was driving when I discovered a magical place and made a video of it to enter into a short film festival.  Two days ago, I finished the video of this beautiful sculpture garden located in Watsonville, California (Garlic Capital of the World--yes GARLIC).  I actually made two videos so one can enjoy it in two ways.  That's how much I thought about this place, and the artists of Pajaro Valley, California that the place introduced me to.  When you read the locations where these artists abide, take into account that Watsonville, California and Santa Cruz, California are two very different landscapes--one has lovely, green, rolling hills and farms, and the other has crashing waves, sparkling harbors, and Surfers.


Art is in the Air
Sierra Azul Nursery and Gardens





         

A Pleasant Saturday in San Jose (California)

On a sunny Saturday in San Jose, I happened to run into a great art gallery located on The Alameda.

The lobby looked strikingly similar to the entrance of a beauty shop and the lady looked up and asked if I wanted to see the exhibit.  "Yes," I said.  She replied she would go in and turn on the lights.   

The gallery was situated below a beauty salon. The lady was connected with the salon which explained why she had little to say about it beyond asking me if I wanted to see it.  It was early yet, and I had the whole place to myself.

The gallery did not appear to have a name.  The artist was a Vietnamese man named Trieu Hai Dao, and I had the most enjoyable time looking at his artistic creations.   

A binder sat on a table in one room of the gallery showing me a glimpse of other artwork by the artist, photographs of exhibits he had held in the past.

San Jose has great art, at least  I like what I've seen.  I've seen wonderful southwestern ceramic patterns on the side of a bridge on Santa Clara Street, and wonderful sculptures on 5th Street across from the Civic Center.  I've visited the San Jose Museum of Art when the early photography of Ansel Adams was featured, and I've been delighted by the displays of handmade books I found once on the 5th floor of the downtown Martin Luther King Library.  Yes, I think that San Jose can be called a good city for the arts.  

What I like about Trieu Hai Dao's art is the calmness I feel when I look at it.  His art--at least the paintings and sculptures I liked the best--were large, solid, and colorful.  Some of his work seemed "cosmic"--featuring outlines or shapes of humanoid figures, and creatures, and bright balls that could be planets  or suns. I tend also to be attracted to art of an "organic" nature"--paintings and sculpture with lots of soft curves and gentle grays and browns, which his was. 

Walking around the gallery on The Alameda was a visual smorgasbord.  The natural lighting, the synergetic arrangement of the pieces, the maturity and quality of the art work made for an outstanding experience.  Unplanned and unexpected, it made for a pleasant Saturday in San Jose. 

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Related links:

Dao Hai Trieu website - http://www.daohaitrieu.com/

"San Jose artist Trieu Hai Dao's retrospective shows 40 years of art," San Jose Mercury News, October 28, 2010, mercurynews.com

"Trieu Hai Dao Art Exhibition: a pleasant day in San Jose," You-tube video, by Dollydharma, 8 min, 4 sec, April 17, 2013

"Trieu Hai Dao Rose Garden Gallery," You-tube video by Neopsyph, 2 min 8 sec, October 16, 2010

 

 

 

 

 

Trieu Hai Dao Art Exhibition (below Ayjere Salon)

1345 The Alameda

San Jose, California

NASA Updates at the Sunnyvale Public Library

Last night I attended a talk at the Sunnyvale Public Library about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's planetary projects.  These "NASA Mission Updates" occur on a regular basis.  This was my second one.

It makes total sense to me that these would take place since Moffett Field and NASA Ames are located just down the road a ways.  In fact I watched the Endeavor shuttle float over the Sunnyvale Community Center (to be laid to rest along with the rest of the shuttle program) last September (2012).

Mr. Eric Norris, a volunteer "ambassador" to the public for NASA comes to speak on a regular basis.  Some people in the audience were regular attendees as it turned out.  He provided a somewhat casual but entertaining discussion of some of NASA's programs.

It turns out that the third rover on Mars "Curiosity", which landed on Mars, August 5, 2012 , is doing fine.  Because it is on a two year mission, they are taking their time and being sure that all instrumentation is in good working order.

The previous Mars rover "Opportunity" was sent up on a 90 day mission to collect data from Mars.  It has now been crawling slowly around the MARS surface for ten years.  Some of the data collected by it suggested that water once existed on this distant planet (though it is our neighbor, revolving around the sun slightly further away than earth.

Curiosity has a drill connected to it and it goes around drilling holes in Mar's surface to obtain samples to send back to earth. Data collected recently verified that water once existed on Mars, and not only that, but that it was non acidic water, in a form that biological organisms similar to earth's could have consumed.

The other interesting thing I learned about the rovers was that Curiosity is run on nuclear power.  It has Plutonium 238 in it.  So does Voyager I which is a rocket that we sent to collect data from four planets while they were in a rare alignment.  Voyager has now travelled 115 astronomical units which is 115 times the distance of the sun is from earth.  Voyager is about to reach interstellar space which is the same as saying it is reaching the heliotrope, the area where our sun will no longer have an influence which they are also calling interstellar space.  This will happen sometime this year.

The other thing I find fascinating is how they get these rovers to land on another planet.  When I watched footage of "Opportunity" and "Curiosity" land I was in awe.  NASA designed "Opportunity" to bounce around like a big rubber ball, and Curiosity used a combination of parachute drag, vertical thrusters, and cables.  Still, it is great fun to watch them.

OPPORTUNITY LANDS, version 1, version 2 - Interestingly the bouncing ball bounces differently in Version 1 and 2.  Still, you get the drift of how it happened.  High praises to Opportunity, NASA tends to anthropomorphize their rovers, for it was sent on a 90 day mission to mars and has now been up there 10 years!

CURIOSITY LANDS - this is animated but extremely cool, as NASA published it and has installed little commentaries to explain what is happening as it happens.  Love it!

Remembering the Corvette Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, NY)

Corvette Hall of Fame

aka Corvette Americana Hall of Fame, 

aka Corvette Hall of Fame and Americana Museum
(4580 NY Hwy 28, Cooperstown, NY 13326, Hartwick Seminary)

Corvette Hall of Fame and Americana Museum
Cooperstown, NY
1992-1998

In referencing the Corvette Hall of Fame (1992-1998) in my previous blog post, I was subsequently motivated to do a bit of online research on the museum.  I was sad to hear it is now closed.  I just want to acknowledge my fond memory of this unique and wonderful museum which I visited many years ago.  At the time that I visited, it had a Corvette from almost every year that the car was made, minus only two.  Before now, I also did not know much about the curator of the museum, Allen Schery, who appears to have degrees in History, Anthropology, and Archeology.  For him, building his Corvette Museum was a dream and a passion.  This museum should not be confused with the National Corvette Museum of Bowling Green, Kentucky (built in 1994).  If you click on the pictures below, you can read the enlarged newspaper articles that provides a nice description of the museum that no longer is.

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Curator: Allen Charles Schery: 

Mr. Schery now lives in Los Angeles, California.  Some biographical information is provided on a web page for Walt Whitman High School, Huntington Station, NY.  

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   ART; Very Hot Wheels Find a Parking Place of Honor, by Marshall Schuon,  New York Times, August 28, 1994.

   "Corvette Hall of Fame and Americana Museum,"  In Hall of Fame Museums, by Victor J. Danilov, 1998. 

   Corvette Hall of Fame Museum Capitalizes on Cooperstown Name, by Bill Rice, The Daily Gazette, April 29, 1995.

   Corvette museum a wonderland of cars and time, by Gail Shufelt, The Daily Gazette, May 5, 1996.

   Corvette Museum Reaches the End of Its Road With Sale, by Bill Gates, The Daily Star, May 22, 1998.

   History Was Driving Force Behind Corvette Museum, New York Daily News,  SunSentinel.com, May 22, 1994.     

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An excerpt from Victor J. Danilov's book, Hall of Fame Museums: A Reference Guide, 1997:

Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

Located on Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History has just been placed on my list of all time favorite museums.  I visited it on a Thursday afternoon and absolutely loved it.  I spent about 90 minutes there and though it had three floors, it was not overwhelming in the number of galleries available to browse.  Right now they are featuring a program called "Work in Progress" which describes the intermediate state of some of the exhibits still being set up.  These exhibits remain through March 17, 2013.  

Odd as this may seem, I liken the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History to the giant ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) in Toronto, and the little Corvette Americana Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York (1992-1998).  What these three museums have in common is a magic that moves them beyond being mere collections of artifacts.

Years ago, I was visiting the ROM with some friends from Iowa and while gazing at a glass display case in the prehistoric dinosaur wing, I happened to bend down and look closely at a miniature model of a tree.  Through the branches of that tree I saw a complete scene of some pre-historic cavemen which I never would have seen had I not peered so closely at the display.  The scene added so much context to the display and was so clever that I have not forgotten it to this day.  I was similarly awed by the Corvette museum in Cooperstown.  The museum was the brainchild of a former professor of cultural anthropology (Allen Charles Schery), and he did more than line up  32 corvettes in a building.  He put the corvettes on a time line and placed each corvette in a setting reflective of the time period in American history.  Both museums were really fun to walk through.

The first thing I liked about the Santa Cruz MAH was its centrally located winding staircase and the mobile hanging in its center.   It was constructed by students of the Tannery Art Center.  Little models of everyday items hung on strings in interesting ways.  At the top of the mobile was a huge brain.   After some reflection, I realize what that was all about; they were displaying the odd assortment of images one might find inside the thoughts of the human brain.

The second thing I really liked about this museum was the History Gallery.  It had several wonderful displays with the most dramatic photos of people (some life-size).  Combined with mood lighting and strategic placement of objects of the period (such as farm instruments or a barrel of lime stone), the curators of this museum created a very effective feeling for the place or time period they were talking about.  Plus, I learned a bit more about the history of Santa Cruz County.

For instance, after many drives up and down Highway 17 between San Jose and Santa Cruz, I have wondered at least a dozen times how there came to be a street called Santa's Village.  With it's dearth of snow and holiday decorations, I had never pictured California to be very "Christmas-y." But one of the display cases in the HISTORY GALLERY had postcards and ads and even a children's book portraying the once famous amusement park that existed for 21 years in the Santa Cruz mountains.

I also spent a few minutes in the Barn Raising Exhibit.  It was a rather sparse room with a hay barn and some photos and a small video explaining about timber framing.   It appears that a hay barn is going to be rennovated on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus.  Barns are a staple of the midwest farm and I was drawn to and appreciated the items in this exhibit.

Another great part of this museum was the Mary and Harry Blanchard Sculpture Garden up on third floor.  It was outside on a mezzanine where you could get fresh air.  The sky was blue and the sun was beginning to set.  An interesting fountain sculpture hung from the back wall.  But the best part for me was the standing sculptures, about a dozen, all massive and organic in nature.  The biographies of the artists were provided on laminated sheets and I was surprised and pleased that one of the sculptors (Daniel Rhodes) was a native Iowan!

The fourth thing I loved about this museum was the Thomas Campbell: Work in Progress Exhibit.  There was a big tape crossing the entrance to this room so I thought at first the area was closed for construction.   But when I peeked in, I saw that two guys were painting on two different walls and it turns out they were the artists of the exhibit.   Within the room was a small cubby hole with two seats where you could also watch a video of what they had done.

As I said before, I now count the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History as one of my favorite museums.   It is one of Santa Cruz's coolest places.  It is not overwhelming; you can take a casual morning or afternoon to visit it.  Right now, there are free admission tickets for the whole family on the local library website.

  

Lace Museum, Sunnyvale, CA

Today I visited the The Lace Museum in Sunnyvale, CA located not that far from the Sunnyvale Public Library.   The museum was located in a small strip mall in a rather unassuming building and the inside was no bigger than a private drugstore.  But it contained a lot of interesting and educational displays about the fine craft of lace making and one of the four ladies working at a large table in the center of the room was kind enough to give me a tour of the place.

The museum is run by volunteers and relies mostly on donations, gifts shop sales, and the classes on lace making it offers.  The ladies sitting at the table in the center of the room appeared to be working on their own lacing projects.  My tour guide, Eleanore, explained to me that The Lace Museum was once located in Mountain View, about 5 miles away and the original museum was founded around 1981.  Then they moved to Sunnyvale and it has been in the present location for 18 years.  Eleanore herself has been practicing the craft for many years and has even travelled overseas on several occasions on behalf of her craft.  She was very knowledgable about all of the items in the museum, and took occasional breaks from the tour to help the ladies on their projects.

The museum contained several small and large samples of beautiful lace items.  Large pieces were hung on the walls, and smaller ones were in display cases.  There were three glass display cases lining the wall on the right as you entered.  There were two large cases with horizontal sliding doors that also contained many beautiful samples.  Most of the lace in the museum was white, but a few samples were black or beige.   Some of the lace came from overseas--Belgium and France seemed to have a reputation of having fine lace.

After my private tour, I browsed through the little gift shop.  It offered books, bookmarks, lace pieces, kits, and other knick knacks.  As museums go, this was a very specialized one catering to a small group of enthusiasts.   The collection was well- organized, well-labeled, and interesting.  Knowing very little about the art, I especially liked the educational displays.

The Lace Museum
52 South Murphy Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA  94086
408-730-4695
www.THELACEMUSEUM.ORG

A Manicure in Morgan Hill, California

I had parked the car and was walking toward the movie theatres when my eye caught the window advertisements of the #1 Manicure and Spa in Morgan Hill.  On a whim, not having any idea of what a "manicure" entailed, I entered and inquired as to the price of a basic.  The Vietnamese man grabbed a menu from a stack of about ten menus and showed me my options.

I learned that for ten dollars I could get my nails painted with one of the numerous colors I saw in nail polish bottles lined against the wall near the front of the shop.  

Mr X (not his actual name) seemed reluctant when I selected a glittery purple paint to put on my nails.  He had broken English and I could not tell what I was doing wrong: whether I was selecting something inappropriate for my age, or something totally out of fashion, or perhaps it was my hiking boots that made him wonder why I was there at all.  After repeatedly pointing at my choice, however, he finally accepted it and we moved on.

When I first sat down, I looked around and saw three other customers.  Two women were seated along the wall sitting with their feet in a foot bath getting a pedicure.  A third woman was sitting at a small table like the one I was at, also getting a manicure.  Mr X and I chit-chatted in the beginning.  I learned that he used to work in the field of electronics, installing cell phone chips but for the last two years, he worked at this spa.

I also learned that he was very adept with the instruments and had a gentle touch.  First he had me dip each hand in soapy water.  Then he dried them.  Then he filed my nails with an emory board.  Then he took a metal tip and removed the dirt from under my fingernails.  I was a bit embarrassed about that since I don't usually have DIRT under my fingernails. Around this time, he also applied a dab of lotion to my hands.   Then he took a block and buffed the top of my nails.   Then he took another device and gently scraped the top of the nail.  Then he took odd shaped clippers and clipped away tiny pieces of jagged skin above my nails.  I was beginning to realize there was more to a manicure than just brushing on some paint.

Then he buffed again.  Then he applied a clear undercoat on the nails.  As he finished with one hand, I placed the other under a dryer.  There was a small warm dryer sitting on my right and a tiny round fan that blew cool air next to my left hand.

Then he put a layer of color on my nails; it was purple.  I dried each hand again under the dryers.  Then he applied the glitter.  After another brief spell with my ten fingers in front of the fans, I was sent to the front of the salon and placed both hands under a black light for ten minutes.  That was the last segment of the manicure.  It had taken about 45 minutes.

I looked at the finished product and loved it, and I don't think I've ever felt more a sense of being "groomed."

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After watching some episodes of Big Bang Theory, I got it in my head to jump on the internet and look up VLBA.  It stands for Very Long Baseline Array and it's basically a set of ten radio telescopes that work together to create a very powerful astronomical instrument that is more sensitive than any single telescope on earth.   I found out that they have renamed it Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) after the man who first discovered radiowaves in 1933.  Mr. Jansky was working at Bell Labs in New Jersey.  He was investigating the possible effects of storms on telephone communications.  In setting up an antenna, he discovered unique signals from distant storms, nearby storms, and a third signal of unknown origin coming from the vicinity of Sagitarrius in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.  The New York Times published an article about the extraterrestial signal.  Jansky wanted to set up another antenna to further investigate the signal, but Bell Labs did not want to spend money on something that did not pertain directly to the business.  Jansky was removed from the project, and died at the early age of 44.  Some say he might have received a Nobel Prize if he hadn't died so early.

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I thought this was an interesting article.  First, because I had such a strong desire to go work for Bell Labs after I graduated from the university with my psychology degree.  I sent them job applications a couple of times because I knew they hired psychologists to help design man-machine systems/ human engineers.  Cognitive psychology and human engineering had been an interest throughout college.  I also found this article interesting because one of the ten radio telescopes belonging to the VLBA is located in North Liberty, Iowa only a few miles from where I used to live when I lived in Iowa.  On a couple of occasions, I had visited the North Liberty radio dish and chatted with one of the guys who worked there.  The gigantic 280 ton ear actually rotated on pedestal so they could aim it.  He offered to take me up onto the platform sometime.  I wrote an article for the North Liberty Leader newspaper back then about the VLBA, because I don't believe many of the local people knew what amazing instrument was sitting in their own back yard.