Santa Monica: it’s something you hear about in movies (a number of movies have been shot there over the years). As a kid growing up in decidedly unglamorous South Africa, it was just as mystical and unattainable as Never-Never land. Yet, here I was, in down-town LA, winding my way through traffic on the right-hand side of the road, intent on soon arriving at this fabled place. We’d just been on a ride through Beverly Hills and Hollywood Boulevard and were about to make a stop at the place we were looking forward to the most. Santa Monica is famous for a few things: the beautiful beach, the pier sporting a large Ferris wheel and the beautiful Californian sunsets on the pier.
Ellipse
Firstly, I should mention that this post involves some boring, geeky mathematics. Geometry to be precise. In da Vinci’s day, Euclidean geometry was the pinnacle of intellectual pursuit and you will find a great many interesting geometric shapes coded into his artwork. Shapes that now have conspiracy theorists practically frothing in delight.
For most of the drawing in this post I will be using something called “Scalable Vector Graphics” (SVG). You will only be able to see the cool animated images here if your browser supports SVG or you have the Adobe SVG plugin. Firefox supports SVG natively.
Red Rock Canyon
Shortly after visiting the Grand Canyon we took another long tour out into the Nevada countryside. This time, we were headed just a little West of Vegas to a place called “Red Rock Canyon”. As the name suggests, Red Rock is known for its colourful rock formations. The image on the right was taken by Sarah and it has to be one of my favourites. It’s not just because it shows my best side, either. I love how the red, green, yellow, brown, blue and white all draw your eye out to the vast expanse of countryside. This place was just as formidably beautiful, if not as breathtaking as the Grand Canyon.
We’re all a little bit crazy
It’s a common platitude used by health professionals, but as often is the case with platitudes, it’s true. In particular, we could probably all be diagnosed with a couple very mild forms of “personality disorder” at any given time. Why? Well, we all have a personality, don’t we? A disorder only relates to the degree these traits affect our lives.You see, we all have coping mechanisms we use to get by in the world, little techniques that have served us well in the past, things that we are good at, things that work. This is normal and these behaviours form a part of our personality (outgoing, shy, aggressive, passive etc). It’s only when these behaviours get in the way of our daily functioning that they are classed as a “disorder”.
Need for speed
It may come as something of a surprise to some of you, but I have only been driving for around a year now. This time last year I was, rather embarrassingly, frantically working on getting my drivers license so that I would be mobile when I came out here to Texas. It makes sense that since most of my driving time has been spent here in the US that I have started driving like a Texan. The long straight roads and flat expansive spaces lend themselves to high speed. So, it’s not uncommon for people to be doing 10 miles per hour over the speed limit: 80 in a 70 zone, 70 in a 60 zone etc. This is the story about the time I got caught…
By any other name
Someone asked me recently “why do your parents call you ‘Bean’?”. Well, that’s a whole other post in and of itself, so I thought I could elaborate a little. “Bean” is a nickname of mine, one in a long line of many illustrious nicknames I have had over the years.
Continue reading By any other name
Bath
Today I did something I haven’t done in a very long time: I took a bath. No, don’t look at me like that, it’s not what it sounds like, what I mean to say is: I had a bath rather than a shower, as I normally do (regularly, with soap). I can’t remember when my last bath was, but it must have been at least 6 years ago, before I turned 21, because at around that age I moved into a place with no bath and never went back. It’s funny, I assumed that when I stopped bathing it went out of fashion the world over, but that’s decidedly egocentric of me, it just went out of fashion for me.
So, why did I take up this alternate approach to personal hygiene and (perhaps more pressing) why do you, gentle reader, absolutely have to know?
Cajun style Gator Tail
“Look, it’s Razzoo’s” Stephen exclaimed as we were driving home on the 635 “are you hungry?”
I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. I was a little hungry and he certainly seemed excited about it. “It’s Cajun style food, really good” he enthused. He’s quite proud of his Cajun heritage.
As we neared the colourfully decorated restaurant he quietly warned me “you know I’m ordering fried gator tail, right?” I grimaced.
My only regret was that I didn’t have my camera on me. This shot, to the right, was taken on Stephen’s phone. For those who are curious, it tastes somewhat like chicken, but with the texture of fish. This was just the appetiser, though, we were soon ready for the mains.
If there was one word I could use to describe Cajun food, it would be: flavourful. Every single thing on my plate (with the possibly exception of the purely decorative lettuce leaf) was boldly flavourful in its own right, even the bread. They are not shy about salt and spices.
Most cultures have some aspect to their food that is somewhat bland. Even Indian or Thai curry usually comes with a large helping of bland rice. you can rest your palate on. There was no such culinary respite here. Every mouthful was a powerful taste.
Grand Canyon
One of our more memorable moments in Vegas was not actually had anywhere near sin city, nor even in the gambling state of Nevada, but rather over a hundred miles east to the Grand Canyon.
In hindsight, I was just a little overenthusiastic with our booking. The day we arrived in Vegas, I booked our tour to the grand canyon for the next day.
We awoke bleary-eyed to the sound of our wake-up call and dragged ourselves through the width of the Luxor over to the furthest entrance to the Excalibur. After waiting for the last remaining passengers to hop on board, we took a quick bus ride to the location of our tour bus. Sarah and I sat at the back of the bus and got comfortable for the approximately 4 hour drive from Vegas to the canyon.
Texas Giant
On Sunday, I went to a place in Texas called “Six Flags”. All-in-all, it’s just one more very expensive amusement park. It was quite a pleasant, humid, Texas afternoon. It was overcast, though, so the sun didn’t interfere too much with our enjoyment. Stephen (not me, the other one), I quickly realised, doesn’t have a high tolerance for roller coasters, so I ended up going on a couple of rides on my own.
Perhaps the most fun ride was the famous “Texas Giant”. When built in 1990, it was the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world (that’s right: wooden roller coaster). I was foolish enough to try catch a video of the experience. Too late, I discovered that a wooden roller coaster makes for one very bumpy ride. Please enjoy the video. If you listen carefully, you may hear the occasional expletive escape my lips.