7 posts tagged “winter”

The sundews I bought a few weeks ago at California Carnivores are finally starting to open up.  With the low morning sun, they really live up to their name.  Here's a few shots of the newly unfurled leaves.

Started talking to they guy at Blue Bottle Coffee about the strange and wonderful coffee aparatii they have set up at their new shop on Mint Street.  They have a line of round glassware with coffee siphoning through it, a technique apparently created in Kyoto about 30 years ago.  Then next to those, a large clear case with two large globes of water that filter through some pipes to a set of 4 columns of packed coffee.  I was told that it takes 8 hours for the water to fully drain through the system and create a pot of coffee.  I'm not sure where this technique comes from, but I applaud the complexity!

Sarah snapped a picture of me sampling some of the Kyoto-siphon coffee in a small beaker:

I found a strange new flower growing out of my African Violet pot this morning...

I took a trip to the Tower of London last week, which I was very excited about.  I had always heard stories about the tower, prisoners, torture, daring escapes, great robberies, ghosts and the Crown Jewels held locked up tight.  When I imagined the Tower of London, I thought of something like this:

A tall imposing tower, unscalable by thieves a tight lockup for treasonous queens, a resting place for the wealth of the British Royalty.  However, it seems that I had been royally confused about the whole issue.  First of all, the tower part of the Tower of London, isn't just the single tower you see above.  Its actually a small fortress with four towers at each corner:
Second of all, there is a whole set of a buildings that surround this inner tower and two walls that ring the whole complex:
This green area used to be a moat, filled by and connected to the Thames river.  Finally, the Crown Jewels are stored in one of the buildings that surround the tower and are not actually inside the tower.

So the whole complex is still pretty impressive and I really enjoyed my tour, but its completely different than what I had imagined.

Oh and the Crown Jewels.  This was probably the only let down.  You enter the building where they are kept and queue up in a line that makes 4 loops back and forth through a room, getting closer to the front.  At the front of the room is a video playing the coronation of one of the queens.  After this room, you queue through three more room just like this one.  Each shows some some other aspect of the ceremonies that involve the Crown Jewels along with video of a slowly rotating example of one of these jewels.  It isn't until after all this that you get to a room where the main crowns are held.  In this room you must get on a moving walkway that takes you by each glass case at about 1 mph.  After that are a few rooms of bejeweled clothing, gold serving platers, etc.  Somewhat interesting, but I guess I was expecting some kind of pirate chest affair, with gold and jewels spilling out onto the floor.

The tower itself currently holds an armory museum and I guess at various times was an armory:

Outside the tower, but within the walls are the ravens.  These large birds hop around like they own the place, and apparently they are given full liberty.  Supposedly someone had said/decreed/prophesied that if the ravens ever left the Tower of London, that the Monarchy would fall.

However, other sources say that the legend is recent and that during one of the world wars the ravens were absent with no ill effect to the Monarchy.  Still though, the birds are kept and given full run of the place.  Oh and their wings are clipped just to be safe.

Also in the courtyard were a large collection of cannon lying around, 'gifts' from other countries.   Some of these gifts were given in peace and some were just taken.  My favorite was an elaborately decorated cannon held up at one end by some kind of sheep-lion chimera.  I'm not sure if any artillery unit could wheel this into battle with a straight face.

Finally, the outer wall of the Tower of London had a lot of interesting turrets, towers and gates.  In particular Traitors Gate

which is a water entrance right off the Thames.  Originally it was built as the private entrance for one of the kings but later it became the primary gate used for prisoners to be held at the tower, which is how it got its current name.  The lore surrounding this gate was too diffuse for me to have created any real preconceptions, but I have to say, it lives up to feeling and flavor of the Tower of London as I had always envisioned.

I went to my friends Sasha and Lindsay's house this Sunday for their annual gift exchange.  As always, there was an enormous selection of things to eat and drink, and as always, there were vicious gift fights.  This year's exchange was "Borat" themed, so fake moustaches were handed out at the door, and one of the gift challenges was "Draw a Jew or Pamela".

I tried to get pictures of all the gifts, but some people were so excited that they couldn't keep still and made the photo all blurry.  Still, I think I got 90%.  Note that these are in semi-random order.  Sorry about that, its a problem I'm trying to work out...

As a kid I was always interested in how things were built.  I liked taking apart my toys, I liked watching construction vehicles moving around dirt, wood and metal and I always liked the "Picture Picture" on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

For these reasons, I've been really enjoying my ride to work every morning down 3rd St.  Almost the whole length of the street has some kind of construction going on.  Here's a few shots of cranes I took the other day:

The sun rose right behind this smoke stack this morning and made the steam comming out of it look like fire: