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More from Big Sur [PhotoTravel]

I'm back home and sorting my photographs again, and can't resist displaying two more from Big Sur. On Sunday I continued south. After a delicious but expensive breakfast at Nepenthe, I stopped at the Henry Miller Library, just south of Nepenthe, and spent a happy hour browsing among the books and pictures. The staff there were very friendly (hi, Magnus!) and we indulged in discussion about the implications for personal freedom of the development of the internet (I have a fairly pessimistic view, along the lines articulated by Scott McNealy). On the way out I noticed the sculpture to the right, which I found intriguing.

After a beautiful ride along a misty coast the land opened out and I drove among the blue pools of lupine I mentioned before. The beaches there revealed a scene initially like a WW1 painting with bodies of seals scattered as far as the eye could see, but stopping and looking showed them to be the model of contentment and tranquility.

posted at 9:11 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Friday, May 23

The Enemy? [WebTech]

I like John Porcaro's summary of part of our enjoyable conversation on Wednesday. I should add that when I refer to a "hitler youth" element I wasn't attacking Microsoft - I have encountered it in many of the corporations where I have worked and I believe it is a natural stage in the development of a successful technology product. Windows, Java, Linux and OS/2 all have their band of unthinking advocates who believe there can be no flaws in the technology they love and that the alternatives are fatally flawed and developed by fools who are blinded to the truth.

posted at 10:19 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Thursday, May 22

Wednesday, May 21

(Text) Field of Dreams [MetaBlog]

How does one penetrate the 'inner circle' of weblogs? I've been writing this for many months now (with a few gaps recently, but mostly consecutively) and I suspect I am not part of the mainstream, even if I am blogging in a store lobby in Seattle via WiFi (a sure indication of commitment, no?). I link to other bloggers, but I'm not sure that's enough, Robert (and I have an RSS feed, Doc). The world of blogging is not one big happy family and the fact I am not part of the factions seems to have something to do with it too.

And maybe my design is lacking; the blogroll is on a seperate page, and my low-power ISP doesn't let me run a comments system or track referrers (maybe I have a vast audience & don't know?). I'm not willing to sink to the level of linking Winer and Searles just to improve my Whuffie (well, maybe just this once). Maybe blogs in framesets are a big no-no. So suggestions & discussion welcome - gentle, now!

posted at 10:21 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Tuesday, May 20

Monday, May 19

That Condor Moment [PhotoTravel]

I just spent a delicious weekend touring Big Sur, largely without a plan. I made a last-minute reservation at the Big Sur Lodge (which I would recommend - cabin accommodation in a forest setting, and no TV, phone or cell coverage...) and went down there Saturday morning. The room rate includes a pass to the local California State Parks, so I headed south in the sun in search of beauty. I'd read that there were condors being released over at Pinnacles as part of a re-introduction programme so I set my heart on finding some and started planning a hike in the Santa Lucia Mountains.

A few miles south of Essalen, a small crowd of people gathered under some short-ish fir trees made me look up and spot the fact that four of the trees were topped with an unwieldy un-Christmas fairy. Perched awkwardly atop each tree was a scruffy but huge Californian condor. Each of them was busy, well, being a condor and ignoring the fuss and traffic underneath. What they lose in the prettiness stakes they gain in being big and impressive and as you may guess, I now have a large collection of condor portraits. I especially enjoyed the swoosh of wings as one decided to look for a larger tree further along the road.

Heading further south, I stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and walked to look at McWay Falls. The waterfall descends from a hanging valley to strike a perfect yellow sand beach in a perfect cove with perfect azur-blue water. It's all kept this way by being off-limits to anyone without the power of flight, so walking around the cliff top several hundred feet above the beach is a little like C.S. Lewis's description of hope (he talks of "an island glimpsed" as a metaphor for hope in A Pilgrim's Regress - an achingly beautiful but inaccessible beach seen from above must come close).

The walk along the cliffs was also my first glimpse of seals for the weekend, and the mix of the colours, warm spicy woodland smells, warm air and peaceful sounds finished the job of detaching me from computer industry politics for the first time in ages. The whole countryside was awash with flowers, and further south near San Simeon there were huge blue pools of lupine in the fields.

I could inflict further photographs on you but I suppose I should stem the self-indulgence! Also included in the weekend were beaches littered with basking elephant seals, misty vistas at dawn and dusk, meals at Nepenthe again and interesting conversations with folk musician Chris Skyhawk (who ate next to me there) and with the staff of the Henry Miller Library. I finished the journey in San Luis Obispo, which I think deserves another visit some time.

So there you have it - thank-you for tolerating the indulgence! I think I found the very best of California this weekend, and after an early morning call drenched in politics again today I wish I could find a way to immerse myself in it for longer (for ever?), despite the slight sunburn.

posted at 6:43 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |