rambling ants

Saw an ant exhibit at the new but temporary digs of the California Academy of Sciences. Beyond their usual excellent collection of fish, amphibians and reptiles (much better displayed as well ) -- they now have several colonies on display: our californian argentinians; harverster ants with piles of seeds, and munching larva; honey pot ants, with matrix like storage facilities; industrious leaf cutters in a tremendous variation in size; and two army ant colonies (they had one previously but it was decimated by beetle larvae that had been transported in with the colony). Liz was making fun of me for being so enthused.

Had a nice walk the other day. The old CAS is nearly destroyed. This is my favorite picture of the machinery they had about:


I like this one too (from the central freeway):


There was a beautiful sunset as well:


As a final note: Adobe bookstore has an awesome art installation/rearrangement of books by color:

Blue Skies again

The weather had a turn around this weekend, and we had some nice blue -- if somewhat hazy skies. The haze was a little odd though, from dolores park you could not see past the city to the bay as you normally can.

Read the Kite Runner. Great book. Easy read. Sad on numerous levels.
Saw Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and thought it so-so. Rewatched Rushmore thinking I had not seen it before. Better, but as good as the raves it gets? Not sure.
Still reading Wilson's Consilience.
Am going to attempt to read the King James Bible. The intro was a fascinating lesson in bibilical history which I'd been wondering about recently (how different for instance is the Jewish bible from the Christian bible (turns out, beyond the new testament, the order is different, and there are some additions and subtractions of books) )
Finished Prince of Persia the Warrior Within which wasn't so bad once you turned down the sound and got used to (and could ignore) the annoying voices of characters one had to fight.