Soft Tofu Soup

Jess made another fantastic meal of soft tofu soup, fish cakes, and brown rice. I cooked some vegetables, but we really didn't need them.

Mussels

Jess and Matt made some sauce for the mussels using Sriracha, mayo, and masago, then garnished them with more masago and a few green onions. It was sooo good.

Here's the link to the recipe they followed. http://www.theseasonedwok.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=47:appetizers&id=88:baked-mussels&Itemid=111 Although it says it's a Japanese dish, I've been told by at least two reliable sources that it's Korean-style mussels.

Mammatus Clouds

A couple of weeks ago, on the 5th, we observed some rare mammatus clouds east of Rancho Penasquitos. We had two cameras but the batteries in both were dead, so we just got these cell phone photos.

Both photos show the anvil structure above the pouch-shaped mammatus lobes. These clouds are poorly understood and there are many theories as to how they are formed, but they're usually associated with sharp gradients in temperature, moisture, and wind shear.

Bike to the Beach

A few hours after I went for a 2-mile run in the neighborhood, Matt and Jess suggested riding our bikes to the beach. Fortunately, much of the ride is downhill, so, with an offer by Susan to come down with the bike rack on the car and drive us back, I readily agreed. We had a very nice ride. Perfect temperature, a light wind in our faces, and a relatively empty bike path. We arrived at Torrey Pines North Beach just in time to see the sun drop into the ocean. After enjoying the beach for a while, we rode back to Roberto's for dinner and called Susan to come get us. When we got home, Matt fired up the jacuzzi. We soaked in the heat and gazed at the stars late into the evening. Susan saw a shooting star and Matt saw a satellite. We're all planning to learn more about what stars we're seeing up there, as most of it (except Jupiter) was quite unfamiliar.

La Jolla & Old Town

We took a nice walk along the cliffs in La Jolla this evening, then drove down to Old Town to find someplace for a late dinner. The waves were pretty high so lots of surfers were out on the water. We enjoyed watching bodysurfers catch 6-8 foot waves near Boomer Beach in La Jolla. Matt and Jess stood pretty close to the edge as we attempted to take their photo with the waves breaking behind them. The middle photo is the best one I got. After a nice drive throught La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach and the Sports Arena area, we ended up at Cafe Coyote in Old Town. They've got some of the best hand-made tortillas in town. We didn't wait in line long, though. The meal was great too. I had tortilla soup and salad. Susan had some cilantro chicken flautas. Jess had a carne asada plate and Matt had carne asada with shrimp, one of his favorite restaurant meals in San Diego. Even though we finished eating around 10:30 pm, Old Town was very active, shops and restaurants were all open and people all over the place. Too bad Scott had to miss playing tourist in his hometown. He's over in Europe trying to enjoy himself in some dusty old cities where the buildings are crumbling and they can't even find a good Internet connection... Poor Scotty...

Walking & Hitting

We took Bailey for a nice walk at Black Mountain Park, then drove down to Canyonside Park to find an empty baseball diamond so we could hit some baseballs. Bailey loved the walk, then enjoyed running around at Canyonside fetching balls for us in the outfield. Jess hadn't done much hitting before so this was pretty new for her. Matt hit just about everything I threw at him, especially the faster pitches, which he laced into the outfield. I managed to get the bat on a few of Matt's pitches as well. On one of my hits, the end of the bat followed the ball out to the shortstop position. It was an old "Cal Ripken" autographed bat that the kids probably used over and over in Little League and when they played baseball in front of the house.

Little Italy

We drove down to Kensington to see the movie "Earth Days" yesterday afternoon. It's an okay movie. Seems it could have been more positive and faster paced. I kept waiting for it to "pick up" but it never did. The subject is important: a history of America's environmental movement, as awareness of pollution and ecological damage built up during the latter part of the 20th century. Reliving the enlightenment of the 1970s and the evil backtracking during the 1980s was painful at best, but the story needs to be told and understood.

After the movie, we drove west along Adams Avenue into a beautiful sunset. Matt has some great photos and movies of the drive. We ended up in Little Italy, found a parking place, and walked around a bit until we ended up in Filippi's. They always have some of the longest lines, so we ventured in to see why. The line moved quickly through the deli/grocery store in the front part of the restaurant, and we ended up on the patio on the north side. The menu is dominated by pizza, and included antipasto, spaghetti, and other Italian fares. We ordered pizza as that seemed to be their specialty. We enjoyed the vegetarian special and "the works" which had pepperoni, sausage, tomatoes, and onion. Pure tasty tomato sauce (not too spicy) and real cheese were the highlights.

Soccer

Mens soccer lost 1-3 today, yet they seemed to be dominating the game. They put lots of pressure on the opponent's goalie, got several shots on net, kept the ball in their opponent's zone, but could only put one ball into the net. These are a few of the close ones. In the top photo, the opposing goalie made a great dive, but missed the ball as it crossed in front of him and flew just outside the post. In the bottom photo, our players (in white) are all over the net, but the ball went just over the net. I stayed for only the first half, as I had a chemistry lab to teach. A couple of my students were on the team, so they arrived a bit late for lab, but that was okay. They still finished it on time.

Labor Day BBQ

Over the weekend, Jess and Matt did some research on the web to find an excellent marinade for chicken and shrimp on the barbecue. They also learned that it's good to soak the wooden BBQ sticks in salt water overnight, so that don't burn and can add a little flavor to the food as it cooks.

Fortunately, the weather was nice enough (sunny and not too hot) so that we could have our Labor Day dinner on the patio. Susan made macaroni salad, I put a green salad together, Matt and Jess grilled up the shishkebobs. Susan's dad came over and we had a great meal together.

Scott's Travels

 
Scott's in Florence, Italy, today after a few days in Venice, an overnight in Paris, a week in London, a week in Spain and Portugal, and a day in Iceland. Seems like he's having a nice time out there. We follow his blog, facebook, and emails, along with blogs and facebooks of several of his classmates on Euroterm. Any information is good information, and we're always thirsty for more.

Here he is smoking a candy cigarette in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, a few weeks ago.

Mom

Matt got out his telescope last night to view Jupiter and its four Galilean moons: Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and Io. We were able to see all four moons, as well as the horizontal bands around Jupiter. The spot wasn't visible; it must have been on the back side. Here's a website that helped us identify each of the moons.

According to the website, Callisto was on the far right, Ganymede was on the far left. Io and Europa were closer to Jupiter, respectively, on the left side. Matt's telescope inverted the image, so everything was on the opposite side. My camera shows the direct view.

I took a few photos with my digital SLR camera. This one shows Jupiter as the bright spot. The two small spots right next to it are probably the two outer moons, while the bulge on the left side might be the other two, which were quite a bit closer to the planet, from our point of view. I don't know what the other bright objects are. The view was far better through Matt's scope. We may look into buying a few connectors that would allow us to take photos directly through the telescope with our camera.

Backyard Woodpecker

This woodpecker was climbing all over our pine tree in the back yard a few days ago. We don't see many unusual birds, but this is one of the more interesting species. I think it's a Nuttall's woodpecker.