Mud Bugs!!!!!

Several weeks ago now Emily and I met up with some chums and feasted on crawfish, aka crawdads in pike county. If you're ever in San Francisco's Little Saigon portion of the Tenderloin neighborhood, I suggest popping in at "Red Crawfish" for some Cajun-Vietnamese fusion. I highly recommend the watermelon juice.

Here's Emily getting her eat on.

Big Basin Camping Trip

I had also started a blog post about Big Basin! I'll go ahead and post it now even though Casey beat me to the punch:

To celebrate the visit of Erik and Joe to our fair land, we brought them to Big Basin State Park. Despite Joe's luggage being lost, we managed to put together a pleasant little camping trip. It was a beautiful weekend to be under the Redwoods, and we managed to grab a campsite far away from the cars, bathrooms, screaming children and piles of vomit. On the first day we explored the nearby area and visited some crappy waterfall, which you can't even see in the background. That's how crappy it is.

We found a big tree to investigate, while Eric sizes up the situation:
We successfully fit it the tree (almost. Sorry, Erik)
Erik discovered his love for touching water:
and his love of walking sticks! Here he is on day one, showing off his majestic walking stick before Casey's tragic whittling accident:
Here we are enjoying food and good company at our campsite. Note the remains of the glorious walking stick after Casey attempted to whittle it into a pointier walking stick. RIP.
On the second day we saw some real waterfalls, not like that crappy one from the first day:
Another beautiful waterfall!
Casey climbing the side of the waterfall and looking very glorious:

By the end of the trip we became much better at standing in trees:


Thanks for taking the pictures, Dipa, and thanks to Joe and Erik for visiting us!

Camping at Big Basin Redwoods State Park

A few weeks ago we gathered a large crew and headed down to Big Basin Redwoods State Park ( California's 1st state park) for some camping. We had a great time with good food and good company, etc.

I told Emily that we might see a waterfall or two on the hike. She didn't believe me!

Here's a good portion of our camping team taking a breather at a waterfall. Dr. P is trying to hike up it! What the ?.....

A photo from a distance of the highest waterfall in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Berry Creek Falls.
For a little while, we thought Emily had caught beaver fever when she tried to dam up the creek with this redwood tree. She seemed fine later, though.

JB Visit!

My old friend JB came out to the bay area for the American Chemical Society National Meeting. We had a great visit, and we learned a lot about science.

Here, JB is relaxing between sessions at a tree on Potrero Hill near Chris's apartment.

Emily and JB throwing back a few at the Pioneer Saloon in Woodside.

Cancer Cat-astrophe!

Recently I found a scabby lump on Elsie's neck. Once the scab came off we realized that what I previously thought was a tiny wart had grown into a good-sized tumor. I brought her to the vet, who was able to immediately aspirate it and diagnose it as a mast cell tumor. The vet removed it during her lunch break and the pathology report was optimistic that it hadn't spread (but still a 25% chance of recurrence). Our little cancer survivor was back at home the same day and pretty unhappy about the whole ordeal:

Casey was very concerned about Princess Meowkins (no relation to Mr. Meowkins)
But after a few days there was no discernible effect on appetite for cat food (side note: Elsie has lost almost 2 lbs in the past year due to diligent dieting!)
or snuggling:
Hopefully this is the end of the story!

Pizza. Pizza Party.

The flavor of eggs can vary greatly depending on the diet of the chickens. Casey and I have grown weary with these egg-flavored eggs. What if we could have pizza-flavored eggs? Awesome, right?

Actually we got a frozen pizza from Safeway that had obviously been thawed for days (weeks?) and refrozen so that when we cooked it, the meat was rancid (WTF Safeway!). So we passed it on to the chickens and they had a sleepover pizza party!

Even the new chickens got some pizza!:

Yosemite Trip with the Crablab

While Californians are horrified to hear that people actually live in cold places (like Wisconsin), they simultaneously love, love, love to go up into the mountains and hang out in the snow. I guess it is really exotic for them. I got rid of all my winter stuff when I moved here, only to find that I now have to borrow jackets and gloves from Californians.

So...president's day weekend, Casey and I went up to Yosemite with a bunch of people from my lab and rented a house together. It was pretty fun, but since it was the most crowded day of the year for skiing, we went showshoeing instead. We went out a bunch of miles to some point where you can see the valley. Here is a famous rock, maybe El Capitan?

It was a long way down!
This I know, it's half dome! (taken from the parking lot at the ice skating rink, which was pretty lame compared to the lakes in WI)

Here's Casey, our intrepid leader, pointing the way to unexplored territory!

Here's me at Hech heche dam (where the bay area gets most of its water). Jokes about peeing in it abounded!

No pictures of Eric and Dipa in this post. I'm sure they will be relieved.

Thanksgiving Reminiscence w/ Drs. U and S

The previous post brought back fond memories of Thanksgiving 2009 which we spent with E and D in beautiful Oakland. It was a totally awesome time. We prepared a super feast including lentils-cured pork products super dish, roasted capon, super fancy green bean casserole, cookie-cake-pie, coors lights, and probably some other awesome stuff that I can't remember. Here are a few photos.

A sampling of the spread. Some dishes are under aluminum foil or have yet to be prepared.

Brett Farve is salivating over that capon. It was that tasty!

Cookie-Cake-Pie

Oddly, I didn't photograph any of the attendees of this super party. But, I was able to find this old picture of our hosts at another holiday. Here's Dipa dressed as Jane Goodall and Eric as Don Draper from Mad Men.

Oysters!

A month or so ago (if everyone hasn't already figured this out, every post is about something that happened at least a month ago) we headed up to Tomales Bay with Eric and Dipa to gorge ourselves on oysters. First we stopped at Point Reyes for some sundries. We got cheese, bread, wine, salami, fruit, and olives. Dipa tried a fresh olive straight off the tree. Apparently they were as gross as everyone always says. I didn't confirm this.

When we left the bay area it was rainy and cold. This really worked to our advantage, as Hog Island Oyster Company was totally empty on a Saturday when usually one would need a reservation. Plus, it was really nice weather up there. Here we are in front of the bay by our gorging table.
We shucked our own oysters (maybe 5 dozen total? I don't even know), and even tried grilling some. They were more poached in their own juice. I was surprised by how much I liked them prepared that way.
Then we headed to Point Reyes state park but the lighthouse was already closed for the day. So Casey chased some deer and we ran around on the bluffs.


It was really windy at the top.
Then we headed back to Oakland for some beer and pizza!

Kirk's Dikdik

While it isn't well known, kirkburgers are traditionally made with the savory meat of the Kirk's dikdik, a small antelope found in eastern and southwestern Africa. Here's a photo of one I took in an exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences museum.

Kirkburgers

Last month Casey and I took a break from work one weekend and headed to Kirk's Steakburgers for lunch. We've tried to go for dinner twice and have gotten turned away because they close at 8 and don't like to bend the rules even a little. It was pretty crowded even at 1:30 on a Saturday. We each had a delicious Kirkburger. They have an extensive condiment bar, but be careful as the Miracle Whip is not labeled and can easily be confused with mayo.

I don't know what else to say. Kirkburgers!

Rainy Season

Lately it has been raining a lot here. They say we've been experiencing a "Pineapple Express", which means it rains a lot. The rain brings out interesting mushrooms and the banana slugs.

Christmas with Team Dykhuizen

This year we headed out to the midwest for Christmas. First we went to St. Paul to see my family, then headed to Illinois to see Casey's family. We had a great time seeing family and eating lots of food! Here are my nieces, Greta and Miranda, opening Miranda's new YoGabbaGabba Keytar. Pretty cool.

2/3s of Boy Team taking a break from rocking out.
Marta and Erin and Mimi enjoying some new presents!
Thanks everyone for a great visit!

engagement trip

Well, Casey and I finally decided to tie the knot, so we headed up to Mendocino to celebrate. I rented a little apartment on the beach where we could make dinner and hang out in the hot tub and then sit by the fire and play "Friends-Scene it!".

Here we are drinking a bottle of champagne, courtesy of Chris. It was a damn fine bottle of champagne, if I do say so myself (thanks again Chris!).

We took a stroll through a park by the beach and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Here's Casey exploring a hobo cave we found on the beach.
Nearby was a naturally occuring Hobo tunnel. Cool!
Who loves cats?
Casey loves cats!