La Brea Tar Pits

Today was an interesting day at the La Brea Tar Pits. I had no idea Brea in Spanish meant tar... learned quite a bit today. The museum was also open and there were alot of skeletons that have been dug out of the tar, cleaned up and assembled to for which ever animal that fell into the pit. I was amazed that from 1913-1915, there were about 500,000 skeletons that were discovered... and that lions and saber-tooth cats once roamed California!

Mammoths were plenty back in the day. Some weighed as much as 10,000 pounds and could get stuck in just one inch of tar or asphalt as it's mostly called now.

The tar is not what usually killed the animals that were trapped. It was mostly exposure, dehydration and starvation that killed them. Then other scavenger animals would try to eat these trapped animals and also get stuck. The most common animal the paleontologists have found are dire wolves. Inside the museum, they had a wall of 400 skulls on display out of the 1600 skulls that have been found to date. Each skull was different in shape and size - there were some pretty big wolves!

I was surprised to see the level of the tar pit had gone down. You can see along the tar lake the recession is about a foot more shallow. What was even more interesting was that around the park there were coned off areas with tar coming out of the ground. The tar itself is not hot, but bubbles from the methane and H2S gas that is released from the ground. It kind of reminded me of going to Yellowstone National Park.

This is called area 91. It's an actual area that is used every summer to dig up more skeletons. You can see the flags where there are some bones. Usually, 3-4 squares are dug up every summer. It is a long process but also it's up to the museum funding and they can only afford 3-4 squares per year.

Back in the early 1900's, people would use kerosene to clean the tar off themselves since it's so sticky.

Also, in the park were these baskets of plants. I just discovered the word hydroponics a few weeks ago as I drove past at least a half dozen hydroponic/ aquaponic shops on a different route home from work. Curious as to what these shops were, I googled information off the Internet. Very interesting stuff! You don't even need soil to grow vegetables! In these baskets were various vegetable plants - tomato, various lettuce, squash, corn... perhaps this is the future of personal home gardening. The plants are put in gravel and water is constantly flowing to water these plants. At the bottom there is a basin to catch the water and a pump to keep recycling the water.

Vegas

As a celebration of passing my test, some friends and I headed out to Las Vegas. I have another huge test coming up and been having some difficulties trying to focus so Vegas was a good distraction and the plan was to return and buckle down for my next test, which is in a few weeks.

We ended up going to some casinos that I had not been to. On this trip, I ended up gambling alot more than usual. There were some slots that I had not seen or played before... maybe that's why I won!

We started out with a buffet at the Rio. I had seen it on one of the travel/ food channels and wanted to check it out myself. And yup, just like on tv, the buffet was huge! My friends convinced me to get this buffet special - all you can eat for 24 hours at 7 different buffets. So we definately ate and ate alot! With this deal, we ate lunch and dinner at the Rio... the only difference was at lunch there was peel your own shrimp and at dinner there was shrimp and crab. I had a great time eating crab for hours, literally! Then we had brunch the next day at Caesar's Palace. I definately liked the Rio better. Last time in Vegas, we went to the Wynn - and I think the Rio was even better than that as well.

 Crab legs galore - Rio Carnival World Buffet.

Fremont street. This was a neat place to go. The overhead light show begins at 8PM nightly and goes until midnight. Of course, we stopped at the Harley-Davidson booth to check out the t-shirts.

Caesar's Palace swimming area.

We finally found the Buddah shrine. We kept walking all over Caesar's Palace and it was outside the whole time! One of my friends said the Thai government asked Caesar's Palace to put the shrine on display. They even sent a government official from Thailand to Vegas to make sure it was assembled correctly and facing the correct way. I was surprised people knew where this was since we had such a difficult time finding it.

We stopped by the Bellagio for the water display. We though I had seen it twice last time, it seems like the shows are different. So we watched it again and I'm not sure if it was the same or not. Only the music was different. We were on the hotel side of the water so we had the trees partially blocking our view. Last time, we were on the street side and I took a video of the whole show.

Inside the Bellagio, there was a huge floral display. Ladybugs, snails, rows upon rows of tulips, etc.

The placard stated there were only 10 olive trees in the United States and 5 were in this room. But since it is trimmed for display, they do not bare fruit.

The 4 of us in the Bellagio lobby.

Also, in the Bellagio there was the world's largest chocolate fountain. Over 8 meters tall and circulates over 2 tons of white, milk and dark chocolate at a rate of 120 quarts per minute.

This time we mostly hungout in Planet Hollywood. I think we are covering Vegas a couple casinos at a time. We already have in mind what casinos we'll go to next time.

Carlsbad flowers

Had the day off today and decided to do a small road trip to see the flowers in Carlsbad. They usually bloom for about 6 weeks and I didn't want to miss out on it. There were lots of flowers, row upon row upon row.

Fields of flowers.

Some roses - there was a rose garden with a variety of roses. Most I've never heard of before and some of the colors were quite impressive.

Sunflower and a bee if you look close enough. There was a sweet pea area with many colors of sweet peas. I never knew they flowered with so many colors since I've only seen the white flowers. It was amazing. Plus, they had built a maze from the sweet pea fence.  

One of many roses - this is called 4th of July.

Yup, that one on the left is a flower although I'm not sure what it is. Some of the flowers looked like they were plastic and in the gift shop there were some plastic flowers that looked extremely real.

Even I turned into a flower...

It took a few moments to realize this was the huge flower flag that has been advertised as the largest US flag in the world made of flowers.

Here are the red and white stripes of the flag...

And here are the blue flowers in the flag...

This is an older picture I snagged from the internet of an aerial view of the flower bed flag. Quite amazing.

This is also an aerial view of the field of flowers. It's an older photo that was next to the history of Carlsbad flowers. Most of these flowers are cut and sold, some of the seedlings are sold off as well.

C Phase and Weekend Events

It sure has been a busy weekend! Well deserved too... I've been studying for my 'C' Phase test at work for the past week. Took it last Tuesday and passed! Although we are given 12 hours to complete the test, it took me almost 11 hours. Now, I'm studying for my QRB (Quality Review Board). It's scheduled for next month and we need to have everything we ever learned in the past year memorized... well, at least it's open game to the interviewers. So I've invited my 8 immediate supervisors and they will interrogate me on how well I know my job including procedures, emergency shutdowns, laws/ rules/ regulations, how a piece of equipment works, how I would isolate the equipment, etc. Definately much more difficult that going to the Soldier/NCO of the Month board while in the military!

We have these tests as competence training as well as formal operator training. In my area, there are 5 positions so once we complete the first job position, we'll have to start all over with the A, B and C phases as well as and QRB on the next job. With 5 positions, my area has a 5 year plan on making it to the first line supervisor's job. Idealistically, it is roughly one year per job but some people have taken longer - most people have taken longer due to not wanting to go to the next job and partially from the trainer being backed up in training so there is a waiting line on who gets trained next.

I've also been going to a chiropractor these past few weeks. It's a bit different going to her since she's also an applied kinesiologist. She's fixing my feet but also other things and says everything is related to each other. I just came to her to have my feet fixed - my feet are getting flatter and flatter. I thought I would give her a try first before a podiatrist. But since everything is connected, she's also working on knee, shoulder and back pains. And even more so, ever since I started working at the oil refinery I've been lacking sleep. As a result, along with stress my eyes have been twitching. I thought it was okay for a while that I just needed more sleep but now - well, lets just say it's a male dominated field and they think I'm flirting with them! Seriously... But I told the chiropractor about the twitching and she did some massage thing to my head amazingly the twitching has gone away about 90% of the time!

And the massage thing... that's an understatement. It's more like torture. It really hurts alot and told her so! She just said I could call her Dr. Pain... but I told her I'd call her Dr. Torture instead... and the sadistic thing is, is that she likes her job! It's a good thing this pain stuff is actually making me feel better. She stated it was better than her last job... while in school she needed some income so she was an autopsy assistant and got to drill holes in people's skull. I think I picked a really strange doctor.     :(

On the other hand, there is a foot bath available. It's recommended and part of the package you purchase. It's interesting. It's called ionic foot detox where you put your feet in this tub of salt water and the machine detoxes you. I wasn't sure if it was real or a hoax since there are several scams out there stating that this really works. There are 8 colors on the spectrum and each color represents various problems within your body. Everytime I go in for an appointment, I get a foot detox... so the first time the water was extremely colorful. The second time I wasn't sure if it was real or a scam so for 2 days prior, I ate bacon for breakfast... and sure enough the water turned black. Which means my liver is having a difficult time processing that bacon and of course, there were other colors present.

It is interesting to see. Although I'm still kind of amazed at how it works - or if it really is working. Part of the scam is there are various dyes in the probe and spits out the colors only pretending to work. Which I guess is why I ate so much bacon! I guess it does work I'm just not sure if I'm all the way convinced it is actually working... if that makes any sense.


Friday, April 16
Now you can see I needed a well deserved weekend of fun. Work offered all the employees tickets to see the grunions. Every year little fish called grunion swim up to shore from Santa Barbara all the way down to Baja Mexico to lay eggs. I'd never seen a grunion before and wanted to check it out. Grunion look similar to smelt and there are open and closed seasons to catch these fish. It was closed season when I went but I had heard grunion tastes like smelt - which I've eaten sashimi style growing up as a kid.

Literally, hundreds of grunion come to shore to lay egss. It takes 9 days for the eggs to hatch and they come to shore at the full moon when the waves are high and the eggs hatch right before the new moon high waves return to shore. If the grunion lay eggs any time before or later, the waves will wash all the eggs away. One female will lay about 3,000 eggs over a 2 month time frame.

Grunion are noctural - at least they come to shore later at night. We got there around 8PM and we didn't get to see them until midnight and later. They can remain out of water for about 20 minutes but by that time a wave would come up and return them to the ocean.

In this picture, you can see the female laying the orange colored eggs (fish on the left). The only people that could catch the fish out of season were the researchers. And even they had to follow the fishing rules... grunion can only be caught by hand - no nets, buckets. The researchers came from couple of Universities to finish their dissertation.

The female grunion come to shore and dig themselves into the sand. They will only lay eggs when males are present. If no males are present, the female will catch the next wave out and come back to shore and try again.

The female digs itself into the sand while the males will surround her and release their sperm, called milk. It sure was dark out there. I had to be alittle bit coordinated to hold 2 flashlights and the camera... one flashlight just wasn't bright enough. Most of my pictures turned out really dark like in the first photo.



Saturday, April 17th
A friend of mine and her kid have never been to a Renaissance festival. This is similar to the ones I've attended in Gilroy, while attending school in San Francisco. This fair was alittle more boisterous that I'm used to and alcohol was flowing. People dress up in old Rensiassance type clothing and vendors sell swords, battle axes, clothing, various foods, etc. It's kinda neat to go to if you've never been.

This guy was making thread to weave into a carpet.

Lots of people were present - this is the second weekend it has been open. Various food booths offered lots lots food choices.

They all liked to parade around together.

There was even a Queen that was carried in the parade.

And a jousting match and sword show.

My friend got caught as a chicken thief.

We spend the whole day at this event watching the shows, eating various foods - regular fair foods and checking out the vendors. Then as a treat, we all went to a close by drive in movie theater. A definate 'oldies' day!

Sunday, April 18

Can't say it was a great weekend unless there has been, yes, you got it - a bike ride! I realized in my procrastination in studying moments that I haven't really had a chance to ride my bike very much this year. Just alot of work and even more studying and finishing school course work. (Yes, they also have classes for us to attend as well - lots of training!) We followed Pacific Coast Highway all the way down to Dana Point then onto Ortega to a place called Tom's Farm. Leaving the house, there was a 20% chance of rain today but no drops actually falling on the ground; therefore, perfect riding weather! It was alittle cold along the coastline and I had brought all this extra warm clothing but didn't need it. It was my first time going from start to finish on Ortega highway with 30 miles of curves and twisties. There are two biker bars along the way and we usually end of stopping at one of them but this time around, we went straight through. With the perfect pace, no cars in front of us... what a ride!

Tom's Farm used to be a big biker hangout but not so much anymore. There are alot more families that attend. It's a large place but seems like on the weekends every parking spot of full. There are usually arts, crafts, snack shops, petting zoo, live band, a train that takes you on a ride through the property, a horse and carriage - a pretty neat place to hangout for the day. It's really hot in the summer months with little shade.

The ride started off with cool weather on the coastline and heated up quickly in the inland empire area. When we got to Tom's Farm the water fountain sure looked like a nice spot for a swim!

HD 105th pic

Isn't it amazing that sometimes you do something and forget all about it? Then get reminded of it and you realize wow, that was quite a while ago!

I was in the Harley-Davidson store the other day - yes, they were open on Easter. I took my neighbor and her kid with me for the Easter egg hunt. She had never hunted for Easter eggs before and was quite excited. Luckily, they were the plastic ones filled with various HD memorabilia, coupons and candy. The store even made breakfast - first come, first serve but they colored the pancakes various colors. The neighbor and kid were both too scared of the pink and blue pancakes to try any.

But anyway, couple of years ago Harley-Davidson turned 105 years old. At the time, I was a biker member of this store - meaning they send an invite to all their events. This particular event was to gather together to form the numbers 105 out of people. The HD store even rented a helicopter to take a aerial photo of us and submit it to the HD magazine. We were informed that we'd be emailed a copy and they were pretty sure it would make it into the magazine. Well neither happened and I forgot all about it... until Easter.

They have a lounge area where customers can just hangout. During the egg hunt, I just happened to see the photo and was actually surprised. So here it is two years later. Can you spot me?

I'm in the "0" third from the top on the left.

Kogi

Last night, a friend and I hunted down a taco truck. Not just any taco truck but the newest fad in SoCal. My friend's co-workers have been urging her to hunt down the taco truck because the food is so so so wonderful. I had a sample of a quesadilla before and wasn't too impressed but was informed it is not the same if you eat it the next day - it's better fresh.

By hunting down, I mean you can either drive around the neighborhood or you can go online and be at the designated location when they show up. They are tracked on GPS so you just type in the information and the blog will tell you where the truck will be.

I've been helping her house hunt and we happened to be in the neighborhood where this taco truck would be from 6-9PM. We got there at 530 - it was either go home and return or just wait 30 minutes. We waited and thankfully, we noticed there was a go-kart business near by and went inside to check it out. We didn't notice the truck had arrived until 607 and by that time there was at least 50 people already in line.

So this taco truck is so special because it's Korean food but fusion style - with Mexican food. So you have Korean ingredients like kim chee inside of a quesadilla or Korean spicy pork inside of a burrito or taco. Interesting concept. But the reason I was so interested was that after 3 months, 1 truck turned into 3 taco trucks and now a year later with business so successful, they will be opening a restaurant. The grand opening is this Wednesday. Amazing! What makes this food so special? I wanted to check it out myself and see what was so good about this food.

By the time we ordered and got our food, it took 1 1/2 hours. 730PM and there was still a long line behind us and more people showing up just for this food. Amazing! I really don't understand either. There were only a few people like us who ordered lots and left with a bag. But there were other people waiting just as long as us only for 2 tacos or a burrito. I don't understand why someone would wait that long for only a burrito or only a taco. And I still don't understand. The food was hot (temperature) versus left over and cold but I just was not impressed. My best friend asked me how we ended up standing outside of a taco truck for food that really wasn't that good, spent alot and froze outside in the cold wind. I really don't know but people really like it.