Summer 2009 – Page 8 – Not Your Average Engineer

August 6, 2009November 15, 2021

NASA Ames, Fioli Gardens, Inverness Yacht Club, Monterey diving, Santa Cruz caves, and some flying

Over the weekend Sondy and I ventured northward to the south Bay. We stopped in at NASA Ames to visit Alex in his native habitat on Friday morning. Fioli Gardens made for a nice lunchtime stop. The afternoon saw us in Point Reyes visiting Sondy’s old stomping grounds. Saturday I accompanied Alex and Laurren for some exciting dives in Monterey. On Sunday I reconnected with Sondy in Santa Cruz for some caving adventures and a little flying before we headed south for LA once more.

Alex showed Sondy and me his work area. It was deep inside a nondescript government building at Ames.

This device cools whatever happens to be strapped to the end of it down to a temperature very close to absolute zero.

Alex’s workspace and the RTG design he’s been playing with the last two years.

Hangar at Moffett Field.

A “small” wind tunnel at Ames.

MythBuster’s faked lunar landing site.

The 80×120 foot wind tunnel. The size of this thing is hard to comprehend until you stand next to it.

It’s REALLY big.

One small step for an intern…

Inside the fake lunar landing.

Driving under the wind tunnel.

Just an old Titan I that they happened to have laying around.

Sondy demonstrating the emergency rocket exits.

I thought this was a good idea at the time…

Shoot! They already took the payload out.

Huge fan blade hub.

Old U2 spy plane hanging out by the wind tunnel.

1/3 scale model of the Space Shuttle formerly used for testing in the wind tunnel.

Underpass at the supersonic wind tunnel.

A big valve in the supersonic wind tunnel.

Those little placards at the base are about four feet tall.

Hangar 1. It’s huge!

Cheap airplane for sale. Needs some work.

At the Fioli Gardens. The gate through the wall into the garden.

In the more formal part of the garden.

Nice swimming pool. Too bad they didn’t let us swim!

Nice and shady.

New fruit trees.

The mansion attached to the gardens.

The Lexus was anything but a pocket rocket.

After Fioli, we decided to head toward Point Reyes where Sondy grew up.

A happy rainbow tunnel!

The Inverness Yacht Club where Sondy learned to sail and where she taught others how to look good on the water.

Little boats for young sailors.

Sondy helped a girl stow her sail.

The guy in black is the current head instructor.

Sunset above Mountain View. This is looking out toward the sea.

On Saturday Alex, Lauren, and I went out to Monastery Beach for some diving. We decided to check out the north side of the dive site and do some deep dives into the trench.

Descending into the depths.

A fish. The fish on this side were all super tame and let us go quite near them.

Alex was a wee bit narc’ed when we went below 100 feet.

On the first dive we went down to 130 feet.

Lauren checking something out.

Alex takes a picture.

A jellyfish.

Alex got all roided up between dives.

CRAB!

Alex said the crab was pretty strong.

Some very strange egg pod we ran into. Each little head is a different creature.

A fish that was trying to hide.

A big fish that I played with.

A bride and groom rode by as we doffed our gear.

The natural arches in Santa Cruz.

Sondy sporting the latest in caving fashion accessories.

My equally awesome caving helmet.

At the car with the caving crew.

The cave entrance.

Inside the cave.

Sondy practicing how to drive stick.

At Joby, the company that invented the Gorrillapod. They are also doing other much cooler things.

Joby kittens.

If you drink a kitten, it helps reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

Old prototype.

After we left the caving crew, Sondy, Henry, and I went flying in a Cessna 172 out of Watsonville.

We took off and were up, up, and away!

The fog was starting to creep back in so we had to scramble back to the airport.

Henry executed a wonderful landing.

Our trusty airplane and confident pilot. If only homeland security knew that he is British!

July 30, 2009November 15, 2021

San Francisco Weekend

Having been driven mad by the insanity that is Los Angeles, I decided to go to San Francisco for the weekend to visit Sean, Katie, and Jennifer. The yucky sick feeling and constant sweating of Los Angeles was soon replaced with the cool glory of clean and foggy San Francisco. Two days later I headed back south to the misery of LA.

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At the 24 hour donut shop near Sean and Katie’s apartment. It was 1am and we needed sugar.

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I chose a chocolate maple bar with cream filling. They put in a bunch of hot white sticky cream while I waited. 0724092332

OMNOMNOMNOM

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Back at the apartment enjoying a martini before calling it a night.

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The barber shop around the corner from the apartment where I got my haircut.

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The donut shop is down the street from the barber.

Having breakfast near Sean and Katie’s house on my first full morning in San Francisco.

Crazy cubic modern museum building that seems to have landed in the city.

JEWS ON VINYL

Looking across a cool courtyard toward the MOMA

There’s that crazy cube!

We found Waldo on the roof of a building across from MOMA.

Entrance to China Town.

Cable car tracks!

Cool cathedral on top of the hill.

Fog trying to creep back into the city.

Cable car museum

Some of the big flywheels underneath the street in front of the cable car museum. They redirect the cables to the engines that power the whole system.

The cable car engines doing their thing. Each of the four lines has its own cable and motor combination.

Part of the maintenance shop.

Tension wheels. They keep the cables taut. They’re setup on local springs to keep constant tension on the cables. As the cables stretch past the local spring limits, the wheel assemblies are moved further away from the engines.

Cable car going by on the street.

Another cable car.

Walking through a tunnel.

A Google map dot on Monk’s Kettle.

The San Francisco Mission.

Inside Monk’s Kettle.

Jennifer decided to join us at this point.

Waiting in line for pastries.

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A sign outside the bakery. Bender likes advertising.

The fog rolling over the hills.

Castro Street. It was very colorful there!

Fuzzy-wuzzy bunny cuteness attack near Castro.

OMG FOGPOCALYPSE!

We decided to go up to Twin Peaks to check out the fog. San Francisco is just through the fog bank.

It was even raining a little at the top of the mountain.

I was very happy to be in the fog!

The next morning we went to the California Academy of Sciences. Across the street is the de Young museum.

Cal Academy has an albino alligator.

Looking down into the California coast aquarium.

The outside of the rain forest biodome.

An entire chunk of rain forest was transported from Costa Rica and plopped down inside the big glass sphere.

The bottom level contains a flooded rain forest exhibit. Beneath the water is a big glass tube that people can walk through.

The top of the dome. Natural light is supplemented with electric. Fog machines provide the humidity.

Looking into the tube under the water portion of the exhibit.

Looking into the California Coast exhibit.

Sting Rays doing their thing.

The de Young across the mall from Cal Academy. We decided to go up the tower.

Fog bank sitting at the edge of the coast.

Looking toward Twin Peaks and Cal Academy.

San Francisco University is located near the basilica in the right middle of the photo.

Before I said goodbye to Sean, we went up to Twin Peaks again to see it in good weather.

On one of the peaks they were shooting a Bollywood movie.

Downtown San Francisco.

The Golden Gate bridge peaking through the fog.

Before I left town I made a quick stop to pick up Jennifer and found myself out at the Golden Gate Bridge.

The bike and hiking path goes under the bridge! So cool!

The fog decided to come in and pay us a visit.

Yes, these signs (and phones) really are located all along the bridge.

At the Legion of Honor Museum / World War I Monument. Across the street and to the side is also the Holocaust Memorial.

In front of the Legion of Honor.

The golf course at Land’s End.

July 22, 2009November 15, 2021

Mount Wilson Observatory and Hiking

On Saturday Jesi and I ventured up the Angeles Forest Crest Highway to go hiking on a nice little trail and to see Mount Wilson Observatory. At the trail head we loaded up our water bottles and camelback before descending down into the canyon. The trail was partially in the cool shade and partially exposed along bright white granite outcroppings. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a hike with so many people before. We couldn’t walk more than a minute or two without running into another group. That’s the price you pay for hiking within easy driving distance of Los Angeles.

Gearing up at the parking lot. This is the highest lot and what is used when the lower three lots are full. Yes, there were a whole bunch of people hiking the waterfall trail!

Even in a supposed wilderness area they have power lines in California.

Looking down the canyon. We hiked down it a mile or two and lost maybe 1000 feet of elevation.

The waterfall at the bottom of the trail. There were other trails that went further into the “back country” of the mountains. We decided to turn around so that we could get to the observatory before it closed to visitors for the day.

An old car embedded in the riverbed. The nearest road is a couple miles upstream.

At the huge parking lot for the observatory.

The top of Mount Wilson is also used for a whole menagerie of radio and TV antennas. One must wonder what sort of radiation those antennas are putting out.

Solar observatories peaking over the trees.

The 150 foot tall solar observatory built about 100 years ago. The external structure is completely detached from a hidden internal structure. This allows the outside to sway and move in the wind while holding the inside completely stationary so that there is no deviation in the mirror adjustments.

One of six small telescope installations that are ganged together using a complex system of mirrors on tracks. This allows the six small telescopes to become one HUGE telescope for the purposes of whatever these telescopes are imaging. This system was installed fairly recently.

The 60 inch telescope. At one time it was the largest telescope in the world. Now it can be rented out by the public for star parties and amateur research. You and up to 25 of your closest friends can rent it out for a whole night for about $1500.

Walking in the direction of the 100 inch telescope.

The 100 inch telescope. This became the biggest telescope in the world when it was completed around 1918. It’s still a big telescope by modern standards.

Looking at the telescope inside the dome. It is aligned vertically to create the minimal amount of stress on the delicate mirrors.

An old chair sitting on a platform 10 or so feet above the ground.

The 100 inch telescope is designed with multiple layers of covering. Each has an air gap between it and the next layer. This helps keep the mirrors inside cold and regulates the temperature without the need for air conditioning.

The 150 foot solar telescope through the trees.

The Los Angeles basin. Such a huge place full of way too many people!

The 100 inch telescope peaking up above the treetops on top of Mount Wilson.

Storms brewing over the desert and mountains to the north.