Here's another picnic area thief. A little punk bird called a Stellar's Jay.

I went to that job interview today. They have a very nice facility there, with a little zoo out front that houses mostly native animals. The Bobcat lazed away the day in the sun. The Raven flew down to the fence near me and proceeded to methodically tear apart a cardboard box. The Golden Eagle huffed in an antisocial manner and hopped to the far side of its enclosure. The interview itself went well, and the three people conducting it seemed happy with my answers. It was conducted in a little room under assault from a window washer who forcefully sprayed water at the windows from the outside, creating a bit of a distraction. The problem I encountered was that the benefit package wouldn't cover Jen or Willow. They said I could add them on, but at a cost of course. I think the extra expenditures combined with the 45 minute commute (more during rush hour, I'm sure) make this a job that I'm probably not going to pursue. Too bad though, because it's a cool place. Maybe another time, under different circumstances... I'm still going to see if I make it to the second round of interviews though. Just to see...

Still sick. I think I have bronchitis.

G just called to tell me that the Dax benefit made $1400. He's a little closer to having what he needs now. I'm glad.

Here's a picture of one of the opportunistic Ground Squirrels that patrol the picnic areas, waiting for things to drop to the ground so they can ravenously devour them.

Whenever I'm outside in a park with a bunch of kids I dread hearing the words, "hey look at this weird balloon I found!" It always turns out to be a used condom. We were at the top of an Oak-shaded hill today, at a trio of benches and a jumble of lichen covered rocks called "Inspiration Point," when the least well-behaved boy in the group said the fateful words. I told him to put it down immediately, which he didn't because he's not well behaved. After he put it down, he picked it up again because that's the kind of boy he is. While this was happening, his brother, who knew what the dusty little piece of rubber was, was laughing. After all was said and done, I think the boy picked it up three times before it finally sunk in that it was something that he really didn't want to be touching.

Well, I guess it is evidence that somebody found some inspiration up there. Probably not the kind of inspiration the person who named it had in mind.

The creek at Alum Rock Park is full of interesting little critters. We found a Dobsonfly larva, Mayfly larva, Predacious diving beetles, Backswimmers, Sculpin (I think), and best of all, a couple of large Giant Water Bugs (aka "Toebiters" - don't wade around here without shoes) with egg cases on their backs.

By our camp table, a grumpy lady and her kids were feeding the Ground squirrels, which really isn't smart because they carry various diseases and feeding them just enboldens them. It's because of people like this that the damn things tried to eat my tablecloth yesterday. A couple of the kids in my group asked her to stop, and she told them to mind their own business, so I went over and asked her to stop. She basically told me the same thing. At that point, I let my kids chase all the squirrels away. Problem solved. Rude, ignorant people begone!

I'm still feeling kind of sick. My chest hurts from coughing, and my nose has been getting really stuffed up at night. Each cold I get leaves the door open for the next one as it goes. Maybe if I actually stayed home from work and rested I'd get better. I can't afford to do that though. There are some drawbacks to being poor.

The weather is still pleasant, but it's supposed to get hotter towards the end of the week. Just in time for my job interview. Yay.

Still sick. Now, in addition to the cough I've developed a stuffy nose. This never used to happen. I guess it's one of the hazards of working with kids...

Friday's benefit for Dax raised some money, but I'm not sure how much. The venue was damned hard to find, thanks to the incorrect Yahoo! map directions. M and I got lost enough to end up driving along the harbor road in West Oakland. I careened over a speed bump without seeing it, causing a nearby, evidently bored security guard to shout "Idiot!" at me. Seeing an opening, I promptly turned around and asked him for directions. The help he gave was vague and incorrect, but I guess it was helpful in the end because we managed to find the venue.

The inside of the venue resembled a construction zone, with junk lying all over the place. Sort of like the outside, I guess. Hours later, after much plugging and unplugging and lifting of tables and various other bits of equipment, the show started. At that point there were more musicians there than audience, but that is mostly because the first act was Moe!kestra, which for the evening consisted of roughly twenty individuals spaced somewhat evenly around the inside perimeter of the space. Moe conducted them through a rousing improv set which was very enjoyable even though the theramin player had wandered off somewhere and only remembered to come back about halfway through the set. Next up was Barely Human Dance Theatre with some nifty soundwork by G and all sorts of other oddness. French Radio followed. Jim's contact miked bicycle wheel was fun, but they suffered various sound problems throughout their set. We followed them, and also suffered numerous technical glitches. The sound in the space was pretty awful. Drew closed things out with a DJ set which got some people dancing. I was so tired at this point that I wasn't paying much attention. Oh well, it was fun anyway. The main thing is that money was raised for Dax.

The next day M and I went to see Land of the Dead, which I must say I thought was really cool. There's just something about zombie movies. Especially George Romero zombie movies. Okay, there were a couple of corny lines in there, but overall a worthy follow-up to the first three films.

I started another week of camp today, and it's a drama camp. I've never taught this one before, and I've never taught in the park it's being held at either. The kids are mostly pretty cool, and seem to be creative in various ways. There are a couple of smartass types, but that's to be expected. I saw lots of animals too. Driving in this morning, I saw rabbits, deer, and truckloads of squirrels (they would later try to eat my tablecloth). During camp we found a baby Kingsnake, which was pretty cool. Afterwards, I went on a hike up to a lookout point from which I could see the whole South Bay. I'm not sure if I'll take the group up there though. It's kind of far and the trail is really exposed to the sun. I saw a Whiptail crossing the road on the way up. You know it's hot when you see Whiptails.

The Dickens doesn't believe me that there are rules against going outside without pants. She is now in her room. Sigh.

I still have a cold, and I'm getting kind of annoyed at the fact that every night at 12:41 I am awaked by an uncontrollable coughing fit, despite repeated ingestion of various cough-reducing medications.

I'm almost done with the second week of summer camp. Tomorrow is the show up in Oakland. I also plan on going to see the new George Romero film this weekend. Yay!

At left is a Red-eared Slider from the sag pond near the hostel. It was a bit snappy, no doubt because we interrupted its lazy basking with our net.

At the top (because they've monkeyed with the system and it seems that now I have less control over where I can put the picture, but then again if I took a little time I could probably figure it out but I'm rambling and you've probably forgotten that this is a parenthetical aside here...) is a crayfish who was also less than happy about being caught. Both animals were later released, even though they are non-native. It's amazing how many of the little plants and critters around here were actually introduced through human activity. Oh well. The kids had fun anyway.

I've got a persistant cough and possibly a fever, but I've been stubbornly going to work anyway. Being out under the trees is very healing. Walking along a creek looking for aquatic insects may also be healing, but the jury is still out on that one.

Now, one day removed from the longest day of the year, the evening sun is painting the wall behind the computer yellow, soon to fade to a dirty orange and then to nothing. Jen is trying to get Willow to sleep in the other room. It will probably be peaceful here for about another minute, since the older kids are due back at any time.

Here's a deer.

Happy Summer Solstice! I was thinking of marking the occasion somehow, but I'm in a kind of creative slumber at the moment. Probably because of all this extra sunlight or something... These holidays used to be more important to people, back before we all became so disconnected from natural cycles; back before the invention of electricity and automated factories and cars and planes... the list goes on.

I guess something to think about today is that the natural cycles keep quietly cycling along underneath, inside, and around all of the clutter our lives are filled with. We should all go out and appreciate a cycle. Have you hugged a cycle today? Perhaps a bi-cycle? They go both ways.

As for myself, I'm sometimes struck by the nutrient cycle. Everytime I walk in the woods I'm amazed by the sheer volume of plant detritus on the ground, and by the myriad organisms that consume it (The F.B.I. - Fungus, Bacteria, and Invertebrates), turning it into rich soil which in turn nourishes the trees and other plants so they can grow tall and strong and drop loads of new detritus on the ground... and on and on and on.

Humans who compost know this well.

Jen and the kids got me a toaster and some shorts for Father's Day! Now I can toast things without having to wedge down the lever with the kitchen scissors. Now I can wear different shorts every day! Very good!

I hope nobody got spray on mud for Father's Day. I read an article about this stuff - apparently it's for wanna-be testosterone junkies who desire to appear like they take their SUVs offroading and cross-countrying rather than fess up to the shameful reality they actually inhabit - the one where they drive their large, tough-looking vehicle to their job at the bank or grocery store or wherever.

Nobody would actually buy this stuff, right?

Wrong. Apparently the guy who thought it up is having trouble keeping up with demand. The apocalypse is coming.

Before the apocalypse gets here though, I've got more science camps to teach. Today, I spent a lot of time eating the yummy cupcakes that Jen made (not the horchata ones that she originally intended though - apparently the stuff goes sour if left out overnight. c'est la vie) and rehearsing for the show next Friday. Tomorrow I start teaching a camp called Creek Week, which should be fun because we get to explore creeks. That's always fun.

Okay, The Dickens is yelling at me for some reason, so I have to go now...

Clouds are gathering and it's cooling off outside. Bliss. No tsunamis happened last night. It's always interesting to stumble on a breaking news story before anybody has any real information. Kind of exciting, really...

M, G, and I rehearsed for an upcoming benefit show for Dax Pierson today. The event is taking place on Friday the 24th at LoBot in Oakland and it would be good if everybody who reads this goes because it's for a good cause. Dax is a very cool guy.

I'm also saddened to report that sometime O.A.C member H had a death in the family this week. His feline companion Sutekh, aged 14, passed away after an illness. I remember being bitten on the nose by Sutekh while visiting H in Manhatten, and I remember it fondly. His passing leaves a void.

Think of cats tonight...

Still warm. There's something just plain disagreeable about being sick when the weather is sticky. I thought I was getting over this cold, but this seems not to be the case. Jen's still feeling pretty awful too.
At least there's a bit of a cool breeze coming through the window now.

I applied for another job today, just because it's similar to my other jobs and has benefits. Benefits are important. I'm not sure if I'll get it or not, but having three jobs already takes some of the pressure away from any job hunt.

With all the care of an archeologist, I entered the garage today and dug down to the purple, plastic, elephant-shaped pool languishing there in the gloom. The girls had fun splashing around in it. Of course, they have fun splashing around in anything.

Speaking of splashing around, I just read that there's a tsunami warning for the whole California coast. I think I'll go check and see if there are any news updates...

The two men behind the curtain are m s Waldron & j b Haynes. They sure know how to make a mess.




In addition to making a mess, they created pleasing noise for around an hour. And it's not often that audience members are treated to live carpentry. How nice.

I got home early enough to almost get a full night of sleep. Today, beneath a warm sun, the first day of the summer camp season commenced. My group consists of 8 kids because the ninth, even though she was signed up for the camp, is still in school this week. Despite still feeling vaguely unwell, I gave it my best and we had fun. I invented a new game called "save the Earth" which involves me bouncing a rubber Earth super ball as hard as I can so the kids can run after it. Whoever gets if first saves the Earth. I love my job.

We spotted a Soft-shelled turtle in the reservoir too. How non-native! Still, it was kind of cool to see it.

Willow's most recent project involves moving all of the dirt from one side of the walkway to the other. It is ongoing, with no completion date in sight.

Jen really got nailed by the cold currently circulating through the family. She's got a really bad sore throat and an ear infection. This particular illness also comes with eye goopiness. The left one. The girls are slightly goopy too. We would all dearly love to curl up in bed and do little or nothing, but this is never ever possible, so we get up and drag ourselves around the house scrubbing and picking up things the kids have carelessly flung here and there.
I've got the milder version myself. Just a mild sore throat and one of those headaches that only becomes noticable when I bend over. Oh, and phlegm. Despite this, I still did a couple of birthday parties today. I broke a beaker at the first one, and arrived at the other one without the gift bags I was supposed to bring. Maybe I should have stayed at home. Then again, between the two parties, I got tipped sixty bucks and got to eat homemade samosas (very enjoyable), vegetable pastries, cupcakes, and cookies.

I was just trying to get The Dickens to calm down so she would go to sleep, and she shouted, I DON'T WANNA HEAR YOUR STOWY PAPA! Willow keeps popping out of bed too. The boys, not to be left out, are furtively playing with flashlights in their room. I have these little fantasies where everybody happily gets into bed at the end of a long day, like sailors battening down the hatches... (hold on, there's some sort of loud thumping coming from the other room... okay, I'm back. Of course they denied everything) As I was saying, I wish bedtime wasn't like pulling teeth from some large, unwilling carnivore.

The cool weather spell has broken. The hot weather has taken over.

Here's a picture of the Pueblan Milk Snake. In the last couple of weeks, both The Dickens and Lexy have had their pictures taken with it for some sort of school reason. It usually hides under its water dish. The girls like looking for it. Willow shouts, "snake! hide!"

Over the next month I'm going to be working in three different parks. This coming week I teach a camp called "Science Sleuths" at Vasona park, then it's up into the redwoods at Sanborn park for a week before going to Alum Rock park in East San Jose for a week. It's kind of funny in a way. To reach Sanborn park I have to drive through some pretty affluent neighborhoods (the kind where the mansions have gates with callboxes and the calls are answered by hired help) and to reach Alum Rock park I have to drive through some pretty impoverished neighborhoods (the kind where the cars all look worse than mine, which is saying something). I'm not sure where I was going with this post, but I'm sure it had something to do with the inequitable distribution of wealth.
We're geographically a lot closer to the wealthy neighborhoods here, but financially a lot closer to the impoverished ones. I'm not sure where I feel less comfortable.

It rained today, which was nice. There are still dark, brooding clouds outside, and a cool breeze coming in through the windows. Hard to believe it's a third of the way through June.

The apocalypse won't be sudden. Instead, it will advance upon us in small, barely noticable increments.

Yesterday I went to a six hour ProjectWET (Water Education for Teachers) workshop at the water company offices down the street. It proved to be interesting, and I have a few new ideas that will be useful at summer camps and again later on when I'm back teaching outdoor school groups during the fall and winter months. We even got to walk around an inactive percolation pond, which differs from an active one in that it hasn't been drained and "scraped" within three years. Apparently sediment build up hampers water percolation after awhile.

The demonstration of what an aquifer looks like was pretty cool. I'd read or heard about this one before, but seeing somebody do it was enlightening. It's so simple, really. All you have to do is get a clear water pitcher and fill it with large rocks. Next, get everybody to agree that it is full. Prove them wrong by pouring some gravel over the rocks. Again, get everybody to agree that the pitcher is full. Prove them wrong by pouring some sand in. Full? No. Pour some water in. There's always room in the spaces between. This illustrates perfectly how aquifers store water. It is also a perfect tool for time-management workshops. The rocks represent the priority tasks, those that must be done. The gravel, sand, and water are those that can be done if time permits. It shows how it really is possible to find the time for more things. Feel like a member of the 21st century yet? Good. Manage that time. Find ways to stuff more activities into your day...

Today I went up to Alum Rock park to learn some trails and visit the visitor's center in preparation for teaching a week of summer camp there later this month. Nice park, although I wish I'd been informed that they'd moved the entrance since the last time I'd been there. Oh well.




This little alcove contains a mineral spring. Mmmm... the lovely smell of sulfur.




Gazing out over the South Bay, I realize that the damage doesn't look so bad from way up here. Except for the ever-present haze of course.

Lexy just called Nate a "pisspot wiener boy," which has just got to be one of the funniest things I've heard all week. We both tried not to giggle as we reprimanded him for insulting his brother.

I just finished reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and was quite impressed. I guess the fact that I managed to find time to quickly read a whole trilogy in the space of a couple of weeks should say something about the page-turnability (hey, I made up a word!) of these novels. I like the anti organized religion stance found within as well. Pretty cool for trilogy aimed at young adults. I had originally thought it might be fun to read them to Lexy and Nate, but after finishing them I think I'll have to wait until they're older. Lexy would be too disturbed by the children-in-jeopardy threads that run through this and bind it together. The ghosts and some of the other revelations would probably send him over the edge as well. Too bad though, because I'd really love reading this out loud.
Apparently some christians want these books burned. Typical. Don't agree with something? Set it on fire! A little extreme, I think...

In the real world, today we went to that rat pizza place for The Dickens' 4th birthday party. I chased Willow around for two hours as she visited all of the different arcade games and little coin operated vehicles again and again. All of the whirring and beeping and mechanized voices of the machines provided a backdrop of sensory overload that kept gnawing at the base of my skull like a persistant parasite. Willow didn't seem to notice. She didn't actually seem to be interested in playing or riding anything either. Just running. The Dickens got to hug the rat, and everybody ate the limp, tasteless pizza and the cake with the 150% sugar content. A couple of hours later we escaped back into the sunlight.

Rented some DVDs to watch tonight. Waiting for the little people to descend into slumberland.

Oh, and I've started posting photos here. Check it out.

Today I went on my last long hike of the school year. I'm looking forward to working summer camps later this month. It will also give me some time to step back and take a breath. During this breath, I plan to make some new, laminated cards to go along with the games I play with my classes. At the moment, I'm still using either hand-me-down cards, or non-laminated ones that I made up quickly. I've been busy cutting out pictures from the stack of calendars that I've amassed over the years. Soon they will be turned into various game and solo-hike cards for me to use over the summer and into the fall.

And here are today's pictures. A small Pacific Giant Salamander found hiding under a large log. It moved pretty quickly for a salamander...




And a large Banana Slug, folded neatly in half for convenience.

Yay! I puttered around and got my comment thing fixed. Not that I get a lot of comments, but what the hell...

I did my last night hike of the season tonight. Not that it was actually at night. The 7 to 9 window lets in to much sun this time of year. Add to this the fact that we still aren't allowed to let the kids do solo walks in the evening and you get a much different experience. I doubt our resident Mountain Lion would actually eat a kid anyway. I read somewhere that people taste pretty nasty. Especially if you think about all of the junk most people eat.

We are what we eat, I guess. That means most kids are lunchables. Overly packaged and shot full of preservatives. Yuck.

Oh, and the Tarantula likes me again (see picture from three weeks ago). I guess he forgot that he was mad. Spiders have such short memories.