Codornices

After a jet lag driven early morning wake up, Zoe and I drove up to Codornices park this morning for some swing and jungle gym time. It was a little cold and damp, but she descended several slides, went on two swing sets, and climbed the play structures.

We walked through the tunnel that I used to run and yell through as a child (We did a little stomping of our own, of course), and into the Rose Garden. Although there were not many roses in bloom at this time of year, Zoe seemed to enjoy it, but was more focused on picking the tiny leaves of shrubs and collecting them into piles than looking at roses. When I inquired why she would do such a thing, she replied that it was for the cats and dogs to eat (in French). From there, we drove up to the Botanic Gardens in Tilden. Here, Zoe gathered some fallen sycamore leaves for various family members

before insisting on being carried on "Daddy shoulders", which I can never resist.

Later on, we picked the sole passion fruit from the vine that I planted next to the parental house


In other news, a few months ago our Macbook Air broke -- a hinge cracked in half, separating the display from the CPU, and severing a wire. Of course, like most IT departments, work refused to buy any kind of Mac, and instead offered a piece of garbage Dell. Having used both Dells and Macs extensively, I can say that the higher end Dells make fine Linux workstations, but as far as a productivity tool for science, the Dells (running windows, at least) are a poor substitute. Anyway, I gave up on the idea of actual support from our IT department, and just on a whim brought the Macbook into the Apple store in Emeryville. Despite the computer being way out of warranty, they happily accepted the computer and repaired it at no cost. I also got to fondle some iPads, which I initially thought were useless, but now covet. Yes!