De Young Gallery

My second day in the USA. Emily, Greg and I went to the Toyota dealer in Palo Alto to pick up their (semi)-new Camry this morning and, having returned it to their Mountain View apartment, we headed off for San Francisco  60km up the bay. Although cold, it was quite a nice day in the sense that the sun was shining, and lots of others must have opted for a day out as the freeway was busy. We headed to the De Young Museum / gallery in the Golden Gate Park for lunch, a part of SF I'd never previously visited, although I've been to the city many times over the years. The lunch was reminiscent of the one I had with Rebecca and Max last year at the Tate Modern - delicious. We sat outside in the sculpture garden amidst items like the safety pin, field of apples and synthetic rock attached.

Then Greg headed off to see some down-under friends who lived nearby, while Em and I toured the museum's contents. The main attraction was the Olmec art dating from c.1000 to 400 BCE. This was a blockbuster exhibition a bit like the Terracotta Warriors at the Art Gallery of NSW reported earlier in these pages - and from a similar period of time. Of course, they could not have influenced each other because the Olmecs were in Mexico (pre-Mayan) and the Qin Empire unified what is now China. That said, there were amazing similarities in the types and qualities of artifacts shown in the two exhibitions, and some big differences. Most notably, the Olmecs were stone masons rather than working with china and terracotta and there were some huge stone heads or other body parts on display carved into blocks of granite or other igneous material. Anyway, the exhibition was just as instructive and interesting as the earlier one and very enjoyable.

After visiting that part of the museum, Emily and I took a lift to a viewing platform on the ninth floor of the administrative block alongside to see SF from above. The attached picture show the wonderful view the greeted us all around: from the Presidio to the north (with the pylons of the Golden Gate Bridge poking up above the hills); to the coastal scenery of Marin County to the north-west; to the city centre lying eastwards; and across the science museum to the south.

After soaking up the views we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at displays of American art and we were the most interested in quite a large collection of modern art. Some of it was difficult to understand and seemed more or less pointless; other items often had little point, but were exquisitely executed with great skill and aesthetic quality: sculptures, furniture, photographs, and paintings in a wide variety of materials. It was all quite entertaining and, indeed, we ran out of time before the gallery closed. Exiting the building was quite a shock - it was cold! Rather than stand around awaiting Greg's appearance with the car, we headed into the gardens separating the science museum from the De young, and especially to a dude standing on a plinth. It turned out to be Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and amateur poet who wrote the Star Spangled Banner in 1814. I first encountered this Baltimore citizen three years ago when visiting Fort McHenry at the entrance to Baltimore's harbour. His poem, which became the US National Anthem, was penned to celebrate the defeat of the British navy at that time and we heard a rendition at the fort. Greg eventually turned up and we sped home to Mountain View amidst the gathering dusk. All in all it was a good day.

AS

Em's New Home

We took a trip to look at Emily and Greg's new abode, which they have just signed up for in Santa Clara, near San Jose in the southern end of the San Francisco Bay area. In case you hadn't heard, she and Greg moved here 3 weeks ago as Greg's new job is with Google in the Googleplex at Mountain View. I'm here for a conference in Monterey about 75km away and conveniently I'm staying for a few days with them before and after the meeting. However, I'm staying their temporary home in Mountain View. They'll move here in 2-3 weeks after the ship docks with their container-load of furniture!

I attach a couple of pictures of their home, which is in a nice area close to school and shops. Don't ask about the rent, which is a sore point. Alas, Silicon Valley has escaped most of the US recession for the obvious reason that it is still the world's high-tech engine-room. We've sailed past endless office blocks owned by the leading names in technology.

My trip is probably the first of many, with three planned for 2011: now, July and Christmas. I must head off now to pick up (not metaphorically) their new Toyota Camry and visit some of San Francisco's art galleries. It's only 10.15 on Saturday morning, but confusingly 5.15 am on Sunday morning back in Oz.

By the way, the new home has lots of space and, if you'd like a quick visit to SF and ask nicely, they may be able to help reduce the cost of your trip by asking you to stay a few days. Better be quick though. I imagine that list of visitors is likely to lengthen quickly! Don't bother trying right now, however, unless you're a masochist! The forecast today is for temperatures in the 3-9C range!

AS

Garden Party

I was invited by my local MP, Tony Windsor, to a garden party today at his home 'Cintra', just south of the little township of Werris Creek. That's about 170km south of Armidale, so that made for a long return trip of getting on for 340 km. Dot was to accompany me, but unfortunately had an engagement in Canberra. So, instead, I took a family friend, Jane Stening, and she enjoyed the outing considerably.

Tony is one of our excellent independent MPs representing the 1x Federal and 2x State seats in New England. The conventional parties are unrepresented! And the independents are hugely effective in defending our regional interests, extracting policy concessions, and raising the tone and quality of debate on key issues. I also see eye to the other Tony on many policy issues and have helped him and our State independent, Richard Torbay, retain the seats at many successive elections.

The pictures show Tony, and his wife Lyn, welcoming us and then he giving us a brief speech on aspects of federal politics. Mostly we talked among ourselves as we had a lovely barbecue lunch, though I also discussed several important policy isues with Tony. The demographic was on the loder side and distinctly prosperous. Most of the men, though not me of course - I'm a contrarian, were dressed in R M Williams outfits and Akubra hats (or similar) as befits millionaire owners of farm properties.

Tony's homestead, Cintra, has been beautifully landscaped over the years by Tony himself. He constructed lakes, timber decking, barbecue areas, paths, rock walls and so on - as pictured, rather like Winston Churchill did with Chartwell. By the way, it was hot today, but very pleasant travelling in our new well air-conditioned RAV4. Armidale reached 30C and Werris Creek an estimated 38C.

AS

Cyclone Yasi again?

The two weeks of >30C weather have screeched to a halt and today we only reached 15C. However, we've been looking forward to some wet weather after hot dry conditions browned the landscape. Alas, we were not looking forward to the torrential downpours greeting us today. It started raining at noon and five hours later we've had around 70-80mm, or three inches for those mired in imperial measures.

Buried in there was some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen - the kind that yields 25mm (=1 inch) in 5 minutes or less. Our garden is flooded and looking at the met office real-time rainfall maps I'd say there's a mass of water to come. The source of the rain is interesting. It's being fed by a jet stream in from the remnants of cyclone Yasi, the biggest storm to have hit the east coast of Australia in living memory, which takes us presumably back to c. 1920. The tropical low pressure system it became ended up in flooding Alice Springs! and now the rain-bearing cloud still swirling in central Australia is being syphoned off to our 'benefit'. So the rain we had to today part originated in the southern ocean and partly neat Vanuatu in the Coral Sea.

Oh well, I off to look again at Dumaresq Creek which I'd guess is now at its highest flood level in years. There will not be much damage because Armidale's flood-plain is all parkland - excellent foresight and planning.

AS

Cyclones (or Hurricanes)

Remember hurricane Katrina or Cylcone Larry a few years back. The former flattened New Orleans and was a major catastrophe, and the latter hit far North Queensland between Cairns and Innisfail, but with much less damage. Both were category 5 storms.

Well, Cyclone Yasi is just about to hit between Innisfail and Cardwell to the south and it's also category 5. But this storm is huge ... huge. It's roughly twice the size of Larry in diameter and the central windspeed is reported at 290km per hour (180 mph). Compare that with some of the winter storms lashing the English Channel or the North Sea. My guess it's several orders of magnitude higher. The storm is likely to flood much of tropical Queensland north of Rockhampton - itself on the tropic of Capricorn and this will mean that almost the whole state - an area this size of western Europe - will have been subject to flooding.

The picture shows, courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology, the storm and its eye clearly and I'd estimate its diameter at about 1500km!

This summer is becoming harsh even in little old Armidale. We have now had more than a week of >30C temperatures and as I was driving our car around this afternoon its external thermometer was registering 34C (93F). And don't forget that my home is similar in altitude to the summit of Mt Snowdon. It's also very humid and I can hear thunder as I type. This is the hottest summer in two decades, but bearable.

AS