Through The Ages

Labor Day Travels around NorCal

This labor day weekend, my mom flew to San Fran to visit us! We decided to make the most out of our last long weekend before school really started. On Thursday, we went to down town San Fran and rode on the historic trolley cars. We had dinner at Fisherman's Wharf.

Romy on the F-line trolley in San Francisco

We headed out on Friday in the bus from Oakland across the Bay Bridge. . . except we almost didn't make it over the bridge!!!! There was bumper to bumper traffic (since we left during rush hour) and all of a sudden, as we were approaching the middle of the bridge between San Fran and Treasure Island, we heard a huge and scary 'klump bump thump' from the transmission area. WTF!? So Romy stopped the bus in the middle of the highway traffic on top of the bridge! To make this worse, we were on an incline (since we were on the section of the bridge that lets boats go under it) and the e-brake was malfunctioning. So I had to put one foot on the brake, while Romy went under the bus. I kept my foot pressed down hard on the brake pedal, otherwise the bus would roll over Romy! So he got under the bus, all tucked under so that nobody would run him over on the highway. This was scary in itself, not to mention what he discovered under there. . .. . the driver's side half-shaft just fell off somehow on the transmission side! Thats the shaft that connects the transmission to the rear wheels. Its a mystery how it fell off. He also discovered that one of the ball bearings from the CV joint rolled out, but luckily it didn't roll far! It was still under the bus! So he shoved it back in, and then re connected the shaft to the transmission (part-way). It was messy, with all the grease getting all over, but we were able to drive away after about 15 minutes or so. It was a long 15 minutes. But we had a great view!!!!

We exited right away as soon as we crossed the bay. We parked somewhere in down town San Fran, and Romy continued to reconnect the shaft properly. The threads got screwed up because of what happened, so luckily we had a tap of the correct size in the tool box, so Romy re-tapped the treads and screwed the shaft in securely. There were no problems after that.

The fog was rolling in. It was actually pouring in between the slot between the mountains at the Gold Gate Bridge. Approaching the bridge, you couldn't even see it! When we got on the bridge, all you could see was 5 feet ahead of the bus. In fact, you couldn't tell you were on a bridge at all. The tall towers and suspension wires were within the thick stream of fog. It was like driving through a cloud.

Once in the north bay, we got on Hwy 1 towards the ocean. It was getting dark now, and remained foggy the entire way to the Sonoma coast, where we camped at Sonoma Coast State Beach in the Noreaga Dunes campground. We got site #18 for the night. The fog was creating a mist in the air that hit your skin and made you shiver! It was so cold! But inside of the bus it was warm, and when we woke up, the fog slowly retreated to the ocean. We had coffee and breakfast in Jenner, a small town a little ways up Hwy 1 from the campground. The coast was lined with cliffs, and large rocks jutted out of the water near the coastline. At Jenner, there was a river which fed into the ocean, creating a calm pool area. There were seals swimming and playing in the water!

A seal swimming near Jenner on the Sonoma Coast

We then continued driving north, along the cliffs and mountainous rocky coast. We stopped along the way at some beaches and scenic places. We had lunch on a cliff-top where we pulled off of Hwy1. The sun was warm, with a cool breeze off the water. We cooked ramen noodle soup. It was spicy flavored (really spicy).

Jenn and Romy and the bus on the Pacific Coast

Our goal was to reach the Avenue of the Giants. This is the area where Hwy1 joins Hwy101 in the Coastal Mountain range. This area has a lot of coastal redwoods. Avenue of the Giants is actually the old Hwy101, before they expanded it. It is a 32-mile stretch that runs along side the new Hwy101, but it weaves through old growth redwood groves, and literally lets you drive right past the giant redwoods. There are nice campgrounds all along this route, and we stopped at the Giant Redwoods RV Park in Myer's Flat. We made it to the campground around 6 or 7 pm, just with enough time to shower and make dinner (chilli and hot dogs) before it got too dark out. We didn't have wood to make a fire, so we just had some beer instead.

Camping in Myer's Flat at the Avenue of the Giants

The next morning, we woke up and drove to the northern end of the Avenue, and made our way south. Along the route, we stopped at some tourist attractions, like a redwood burl which was hollowed out to make a 20 ft high small room (it was once used as a gift shop). There were 3 drive-through sequoia trees, and even a "one-log cabin!" We didn't see the one-log cabin, but I assume its a hollowed out redwood or sequoia log that somebody made into a cabin. We also went to Humbolt Redwoods State Park and walked on a trail around the Founder Tree. We walked past trees over 300 ft high. The trunk diameters on some trees were over 12ft wide! Their circumferences were over 30ft around! It was a little breezy, and the tops of the trees were swaying slowly back and forth. It was softly snowing pine needles and other 'leaf litter.' Mostly is was quiet except for some creaking and birds. And it was like standing in a room with cathedral ceilings, except you were in a forest whose canopy was about 160 ft above your head. Below 160ft, there were just tall 'slender' trunks of the redwoods.


Humbolt Redwoods State Park trail at the Founder Tree

My mom in front of a huge sequoia tree near Legget, CA

That afternoon, we headed back south, back home. The ride back was a little boring, because we took Hwy101 the whole way, instead of the coast. But it was quicker. Once we got to the Golden Gate Bridge, it was all clear, so we stopped for a few pictures before crossing it. We happened to cross it on the last day before they hiked up the toll to $6! On Monday, it was really hot out, so we headed south towards Santa Cruz on Hwy 1. We went to the beach. It was windy, but we found a pocket of calm behind a dune. We all got partially burned, but the next day we were tanned. That evening, we grilled dinner in our backyard. Yummy yummy burgers!

My mom in front of the Golden Gate Bridge

Getting Ready for School

A picture of where we live (we are in the right half of the duplex).

This past week has been strangely busy. Even though there was not much going on, we had to get a lot of 'stuff' set up for school. Most importantly, I had to get funding! Romy has a "GSR" position, which stands for graduate student researcher. When he was accepted to Berkeley, he was offered the position, which pays for tuition and fees and also for health insurance. On top of that, it pays about a $1600/month stipend while in school. Pretty sweet!
Unfortunately, when I was accepted, I had no such luck. They accepted me with no guaranteed funding source, basically meaning that I would have to pay for grad school on my own. That adds up to about $12,500 each semester! Big bucks! Good thing that there are a few ways to go about finding money at Berkeley.
First, you can find a lab which has funding, and is willing to pay you to start doing research (like Romy). Second, you can be a teaching assistant for a course, meaning you get paid to teach a discussion section, grade papers, tutor, etc. Third, you can look for and apply for fellowships and scholarships. I decided to try for all of these options. For the past two weeks I've been looking around and talking to professors who might have open positions in their labs, or need teaching assistants. I've also been looking for fellowships and I'm starting to apply (a long and grueling process).
I got lucky with the Bioengineering department. I happened to go check to see if they had any teaching positions left (thanks to Romy's suggestion), and they did! I also applied for teaching positions in the Mechanical Engineering department, and although they were a bit slow because of the overwhelming amount of work that they do in those offices, they also offered me a position to teach just yesterday. As a graduate student at Berkeley, you are only allowed to work 50% of the time, and study the other 50% of the time, with a total of about 40 hours per week, like a full time job. So I have two teaching positions that are each 10 hours/week, and 15 credit hours of registered classes. That only adds up to 35 hours/week, but that is the minimum, and I'm pretty happy about that.
This semester I will be taking 'Intro to Continuum Mechanics,' 'Advanced Fluid Mechanics I,' and 'Teaching Mechanical Engineering.' I will be teaching 'Intro to Biomedicine,' and 'Intro to Computer Programming for Scientists and Engineers.' They are both freshman level classes and should be pretty simple and fun to teach. The two teaching positions will pay for half of my tuition and fees, plus health insurance, plus a stipend of about $1600/month while I'm in school. So I only have about a $4000 bill for school this semester, instead of $12500. And Romy has absolutely no bill at all.
It turns out that one of our stipends will end up going towards paying rent and utilities. The other stipend will go towards gas, food, and other stuff like traveling or having fun on the weekends. Maybe we will even have a little bit left over to save, but I'm not sure at this point.
-Jenn

The Winchester Mystery House

Yesterday, we went to see the Winchester Mystery House. It is a house in San Jose, CA. And it is very interesting because of its oddity. Mrs. Winchester owned the house, and she has an unusual story, and so does the house.


Rooftop of the mansion.

Mr. Winchester was the president of the Winchester gun company (not exactly the right name of the company, but whatever). The company made a very popular gun in the wild wild west and was a very good seller. So Mr. Winchester made a lot of money. He married Mrs. Winchester and they lived on the east coast. They had a child, but it died early on of a rare disease when the child was only 6 weeks old! Then, not long after, Mr. Winchester died as well. His wife was left all alone, and inherited all of the company and its wealth. But she was so depressed, and it got to her head.

She was a superstitious woman so she felt as though she was cursed. She want to go see a oracle, or medium, whatever you want to call it, and the man told her she was being cursed by all of the spirits that had been killed by the gun that made her family so rich. The oracle instructed her to appease the spirits. The only way she could do that was to move west, and to begin construction on a house which would never be completed. So thats what she did. She moved to San Jose CA, bought an old farmhouse and began renovating it. The renovations never stopped for as long as she lived, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The house got so huge that it became a mansion. Then, when she ran out of room for building, she tore down sections of the house, just to rebuild them again to keep the construction going! At one point it was 7 stories tall, but during the 1906 earthquake, the highest towers fell over.


A window in the floor. Maybe it was a skylight? Or maybe she was crazy?

The earthquake was really strong, and it even made a fireplace in one of her rooms fall through the floor! That caused one of the walls to shift, which pinched the door shut and trapped her in the room! The servants took a long time to find her because the house was so huge, but they had to pry the door open with a crow bar. The mark of the crow bar is still on the door.


Crow bar mark on the door.

After the earthquake, which she thought was some kind of curse (again) for spending so much money on her house, she decided to close off the front, where she spent the most money on, never to be opened again for the rest of her life. She spent a lot of money! She made about $1000 A DAY from stock in the company. She spent about $9000 on a ball room when at the time it cost about $3000 to build a whole average house! She would talk with the spirits every night, and even ring bells in the bell towers at midnight and 2:00am every night. She never took the same path to her bedroom at night, hoping she would confuse the spirits so that they couldn't follow her to sleep!


The bedroom Mrs. Winchester died in.

Well, she built and built and built until her death. She died in one of her bedrooms in the night. It was a really weird house. After the tour inside, we went outside to visit the gardens.


A view of the gardens from the 4th floor.


An old wooden stove in the kitchen.


Mrs. Winchester's grand ballroom organ.


Spiderweb glass windows looking out to the garden.


The freakiest picture of them all! Is that a ghost or spirit caught on camera!?

Grilling Burgers on our Patio/Garden

In the past few days, we've been working on the garden in back. First, we assessed the soil quality. It looked pretty bad and very very dry. It was so dry, it was as hard as a rock, like a sheet of cement was there instead of dirt. It was even the color of cement! So we said, we have to go to Home Depot and get some tools to break up the soil and start making it good to garden. There were already two old rose bushes growing back there, and they survived without watering for about a month before we got there, so maybe the soil was salvageable.

After our trip to "The Depot," we were ready to get to work. We picked the hottest day, unfortunately, so breaking up the soil was even harder (although when I say hot I mean 80s). But watering the soil while breaking it up worked well, and we realized that the soil was good underneath the top hard crust. It actually retained a lot of the moisture we put into it while breaking it up. The rose bushes were infested by some crazy green plant with white tubers. It looked at first like green onion, but it lacked the deep green color and the stem wasn't whitish at the base. But it had long finger-like whitish tubers underground. It was stubborn as hell to pull out. There were multiple green tuber plants around the rose bush, which went wild, and I suspect they were slowly killing the old rose bush, taking its nutrients away to make so many tubers! At first I thought they might be good to eat, like potatoes or something, but I got so angry at them after more than half an hour trying to pull all of the tubers out, that I though, 'screw eating them!' Now I'm afraid of the tubers. What if they will grow into more green tuber plants!?





Once the soil was all turned, we went back to The Depot the next day to get some plants. We tried to pick plants that were either native or didn't need to be watered a lot. So we found some baby Italian Cypres trees for $5 and some golden evergreen shrubs (also for $5) and some native Rosemary, and ivy. I also cut some succulents from the front of the house, and planted them in the back for ground cover. We also bought some California Red Poppy seeds and Morning Glory seeds and sowed them in the soil. Hopefully they will germinate soon! Romy found a weird looking Elephant Foot Palm, and he couldn't resist buying it. We planted that in a pot and put it on the patio.

We celebrated the end of all the work in the garden by grilling some burgers on our patio. Mmmmmmm they were good!

White Walls Are Blah

So I decided to make our white walls apartment look more colorful! I got an idea a couple of months ago to hang huge fabric panels to add color to the room. I originally wanted to use Marimekko fabric (from Finland), but in a recent trip to IKEA, I saw a few fabric patterns which I thought would match the living room furniture, and they were much much cheaper. First, I had to think up of a way to make a frame, so that I could put the fabric panels on them like a canvas picture. So we ended up going to Home Depot for some wood. I got 8 ft sections of pine, which were about 2X1 inches thick. Then, when we got home, I measured out a mathematical proportion to make four frames, all different sizes, which would hang side by side. Then it was back to IKEA to actually purchase a few patterns of fabric, and then it was back to home to begin constructing the frames.

I attached the wood pieces together with wood screws, but first, Romy drilled holes where the screws would go so that the thin wood wouldn't split. Some of the frames didn't turn out exactly square, but they were good enough. That in itself took a whole evening. The next day I cut the fabric and ironed it really well so that there would be no wrinkles when the fabric panels hung. Next I cut out 4 sections of fabric large enough to be wrapped around each frame and then I stapled the fabric to the back of the frame.

It was a lot harder than I thought. You had to stretch the fabric as you stapled it. And I didn't have a staple gun, so I hammered in each staple by hand! This took the whole morning with no power tools. Then, Romy helped me hang the panels up in the living room. I think the look great! I love the colors! It wasn't expensive at all. The wood was $0.89 each, and I used 6 pieces for the whole set of panels. The fabric was between $1.99 an $7.99/yard, and I used about 4 yards total for the set. Then you add in the price of some screws and staples, and the whole thing was under $30.

Here are pictures of the process:


The finished fabric panels hung up in our living room.


First I tried to match the fabric with the colors already in the room.


This is the back of the panels. You can see how I stretched the fabric over a wood frame and then stapled it in place.


This is the front of two panels. They look better from the front than the back!