july hike: picnic and fireworks at shoreline

june slipped away without hikes.

i'm counting the july 4th fireworks watching as my july hike. the fireworks were at shoreline park and we parked 2.5 miles away and hauled our picnic stuff over there on foot. it was a great sidewalk hike. we had picnic on the golf course, right outside the yellow line enclosing the pyrotechnicians. we played card games, endured a bit of the evening chill, and watched all 300 and more fireworks -- one of our friends brought a little radio so we could hear the pyrotechnician counting. i'm not so keen on the idea of celebrating 4th of july, but the fireworks were majestic and the picnic was great fun. we walked back after the show and gloatingly passed about 2 miles of traffic-jammed cars.

that was the 4th, which still counted as the beginning of july, but in the blink of an eye, a third of july is almost gone. should i panic? or should i stay calm? -- is there a choice to make?

commencement

for those of you who aren't on facebook, i did my "walk-through" at the departmental commencement last weekend. i was also recruited last minute to be the doctoral student speaker -- it appears none of my 7 fellow graduates wanted to do it for various reasons. i thought 3 minutes would be easy, but it wasn't. i scribbled my last lines while i was walking from the car to the commencement site. and the speech took 6 minutes, although i heard it didn't feel long. phew. all done now. parents were happy and proud; lots of photos were taken.

photos from my camera and a friend's camera are on flickr.

if you haven't seen, my commencement speech is here (click thru to youtube if you need to see the scripts -- it's in the video description on the right):


now i move on back to dissertation writing! woohoo! yeah....

if anyone's been missing my scooter...

scooter says hi! we're currently at mile 4909.4, which, incidentally, is a rearrangement of the same digits from the very first scooter mileage picture. this loyal ride has been with me for 2 years now. (the last one was with me for a little over 2 years before being stolen - i hope this one has better luck!)

May hike 2: Skyline Ridge revisited, with parents

took parents hiking for the first time on memorial day. we went to skyline ridge, where i hiked on my birthday last year. it was an easy hike and they had fun. we started at noon and went to the alpine pond and horseshoe lake. didn't see many turkey vultures hovering the valley, and i missed the frog croaks that made the horseshoe lake sound so serene last time -- i'll have to revisit it in the late afternoon some day.

May hike: the dish (no photos)

this morning after taiji class i took a hike at the dish. i had wanted to do that in April, when the foot hills were lushly green. it is still mostly green up there now, but patches of beige appear here and there. beautiful views of the hills and the bay. would have been nice if i had put a memory card in my camera. i even undid my belt in front of a puzzled-looking middle-aged man to fit the camera case onto my waist... but camera told me no memory card when i was ready to take the first picture.

perfect day for hiking -- overcast and slightly breezy. the trail was full of pairs and groups of chatty women. strollers and double strollers. squirrels in the middle of the road who apparently weren't aware of human existences. not exactly the kind of peace and quiet i needed - i missed my completely lonesome birthday hike last year.

off path near the big dish, there was a big tree, and two dead tree trunks. i sat on one and buried my face in my arms for a while. the past two weeks have been very draining. mother needed more emotional management because of a minor health issue and her resistance every step of the way during what could have been the simplest clinic visits and medicine routine -- we're fine now but the process was rather frustrating. aside from that, i was inadvertently entangled in what should have been other people's personal drama which, if i could tell, would intrigue the inner detective in everyone. an unexpected love interest that was unexpectedly miscarried. and it's been 3 weeks since my job interview and i haven't heard a word (they had told me it would take a while so there seems no point asking...).

i wish i could get away for a couple of days but i guess short hikes will do for now.

oh, and my butt hurts from this hike. oy - lame....