April/May: Picnic Day, The Other Side and Car Maintenance

Some highlights from April and May this year:

April 26 was Picnic Day! Picnic Day is an annual event at UC Davis. It's a family-friendly open house of the entire university. Every department plans fun activities and demonstrations, from the English department to Entymology (insects).

Here, my friend Steph pretends to be a cockroach.

I grew up in Sacramento, and Picnic Day has happened every year for about a century. However, this was basically my first time going. It was so much fun! There are literally hundreds of things to see and do, and I honestly enjoyed every single one. In fact, the only sad thing about Picnic Day is that you have only one day to do everything, and you can't do everything. It would be like having a one-day pass to heaven: great, but not nearly enough time to see your loved ones.

From Picnic Day

The physics department had cool science demos. As a former scientist, I was a little jaded and didn't think these "kid" demos would be interesting to me. I was wrong. Each one was awesome! Here, I'm holding two phone books that have had their pages interleaved. (Some poor grad student probably had that job.) The idea is to try to pull the phone books apart: It's practically impossible! The TV show MythBusters actually showed this. (Click here for more info.)

I should have taken more photos. Two especially funny things we saw: a horse (artificial) insemination, and the Battle of the Bands with my cousin Beth. The former I won't try to describe in words, and the latter is eight hours of college marching bands duking it out. I wish I could just sit under a tree, bring a Nintendo DS, and just play video games for hours while listening to them.

Thank you, UC Davis! I look forward to next year's Picnic Day!

From The other side

May 2: Here is a photo of the Sacramento River from my car. And the person in the photo? Auntie Muriel. Seems ordinary enough. But I love this photo, because it's taken from the other side of the river.

You see, I'm now living again in the house I grew up in. And it's close to a park with a levee along the Sacramento River. I'd been to that part of the river, right next to the park, dozens of times. And each time, I'd look across the river and see the levee on the other side and wonder what was there. Sometimes I'd see people fishing. Sometimes I'd imagine making a raft, Tom Sawyer-style, and crossing the river. Or just jumping in and trying to swim it. (FYI, that's a bad idea. People have drowned in the river that way.) But I never went to the other side. I didn't know how to get there, and I didn't really pursue it.

Then one day I looked on Google Maps. And I realized that it was a relatively short drive to get to the bridge that would let you cross the river. Auntie Muriel was helping take care of Grandma that day, so the three of us got in the car and headed out for an adventure.

We had a quiet but scenic drive. As I learned in Minnesota, there's nothing like a river road. =) We crossed the river, worked our way back up, and eventually came to the part I was looking for: Where I could see across the river to the park I always visited. There are some concrete steps there, and it was like I could see myself on them, like I was looking across time back at myself. It was surreal and awesome.

In hindsight, I feel silly that it took me 20 years of driving to finally get to the other side. Then again, I've always been a late bloomer. =) And that chicken joke? I appreciate it a lot more now.

From Car maintenance

May 19: My friend Joe helped fix my car. Actually, we were just doing routine maintenance. I took this photo for two reasons.

One, I like the way the four circles are arranged. (They're a tire, a hubcap, the underside of a hubcap, and the air-compressor cable rolled up. Totally by accident!)

Two, I've had my car since 2006; bought it new. I'm not really into cars, and I can't stand how much people pay for them or try to make the outside shiny when it's a tool meant to be exposed to the elements. However, for the maintenance, we jacked my car up and had all four tires off at one time. My car looked so helpless, and I felt so bad for it! My baby!