Author Archives: brahmwindeler

Walk This Way

For Mother’s Day, Jennifer wanted to take a trip to San Francisco to do some walks from the Stairway Walks and Historic Walks books that her mother left with us. We choose to explore the Pacific Heights neighborhood since we were unfamiliar with the area. As it turns out, there are a lot of old Victorian houses as well as large mansions in this part of town. It seems to attract a bit of wealth due to the terrific views of the Bay.

Yosemite Blues

My friend Rob reserved a camp spot in Yosemite for the end of April months in advance. When the time came to go, only Matt and I were up for the trip. Who can pass up a chance to go rock climbing in one of the best climbing destinations in the world? Unfortunately we didn’t get all that much climbing in. I took a spill on the second route of the day on Saturday… one that left me quite scraped up and bruised. Due to the small toe on my right foot turning purple and sending a sharp pain up my leg with every step, I decided to take it easy in the Valley while Rob and Matt hiked up the Yosemite Falls Trail on Sunday. If you look really closely at the later shots of Yosemite Falls, you can see them at the top. Just kidding.

Stanford Orienteering

Sandy and Leon invited Jennifer, Kaija and I to participate in a Bay Area Orienteering Club competition at Stanford on April 4th. While I didn’t get many photos of the event, I’m happy to say Jennifer and I placed first among the 4 couples that Sandy and Leon had invited, including themselves (we placed 7th out of 35 overall on the Yellow course). It’s rather ironic that Sandy and Leon placed last, too, considering Leon attended Stanford for several years while studying for his PHD. He claims he’s only familiar with the medical campus, but I’m not sure that’s a good enough excuse!

Smiling and Drooling

To appease the growing ranks of friends and family hungry for more photos of Kaija, here’s a collection of miscellaneous shots taken between March and May. Enjoy.In related news, she started crawling about two weeks ago and is already well on her way to walking. Many other mom with whom Jennifer walks with during the week call her the Super Baby, since she’s doing now at 6 months what their babies are doing at 10-11 months.

Birthday Tidings

My birthday is coming up. The big 2-9. Next year *gasp* 30! Where have my 20’s gone so quickly? It seems just a short while ago that I turned 21 (though that’s probably because according to my mom, I’m probably still 21… long story).That said, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the kind guestures that a few of my friends have made to recognize the event. My good friends Sandy and Leon treated me to dinner Wednesday night at one of my favorite Mediterranean restaurants in the area, Dish Dash. Then last night, when I went to see my friend Mike in a showing of Servent of Two Masters at Foothills College, he came out with a bunch of his acting friends before the show, gave me a piece of cake, and they sang happy birthday to me in front of everyone in the audience.So I just wanted to say thank you to the three of you. You’ve made my birthday already and it hasn’t even happened yet!

Reforming Gasoline

I came across an article on a mechanism that can extract hydrogen from normal gasoline, a process that could greatly increase the potential for fuel cell-based electric cars. The item, called a reformer, would allow for twice the efficiency of existing gasoline-based engines, produce half as much carbon dioxide, and would go a long way toward solving the fuel distribution problem. Current reformers are too large to feasibly be used in existing electric vehicles, and there is a 15-minute delay between refueling and producing enough hydrogen.

Stop the Deception!

Once again the Bush administration has backed an unscrupulous measure that will open the door to non-organic being sold under the term “organic”, this time through the USDA (who looks out for the agriculture businesses, not consumer health).Why? Items that are labelled with term “organic” are generally perceived to be more natural and pure and usually are sold at a higher price. The higher price is usually due to the fact that crop yields aren’t as good when pesticides and herbicides aren’t used. The reduced quantity is the trade-off for increased quality.Personally, I think this is bound to backfire. It could potentially dilute the term “organic”, thereby a higher premium will be difficult to charge. Judging by the crowds I see shopping at Whole Foods, the primary purchasers of organic food are also the successful, upper middle class and above that would potentially gain financially from the decision. They will have to choose between looking out for their own health or make an extra unscrupulous dollar.I doubt Whole Foods will back the legislation. Being America’s first national “Certified Organic” grocer, the one thing they have that makes them stand out from the rest of the grocery stores is the trust that its customers have in it to not sell them “unnatural” food. If Whole Foods loses that trust, it will have a hard time staying afloat.Considering all of the “business-friendly” reversals of existing policy that the Bush Administration has put into place, I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass a bill making drug dealing legal. I bet if the drug smugglers, dealers, and lords complained loud enough that the current law is hurting their business, the Bush Administration would open that market right up.

Developing Kaija

I haven’t posted in a while, so I thought I’d give a quick update. Kaija started teething within the past few weeks and has two teeth protruding from her lower gum to show for it. Very exciting news! The down side is that she’s been very cranky in the evenings when we lay her down to sleep. We’ve started to feed her real food, too. First it was rice cereal mixed with breast milk. Then is was pureed squash. We plan to introduce her to pureed green beans next.She’s also nearly crawling! She’s much more comfortable being on her stomach than she was in the past now that her neck and arm muscles are strong enough that she can hold her head up. At this point she can push her self up onto her hands and knees – sometimes even onto her hands and feet – and proceeds to rock back and forth on them. Once she figures out how to move one of those arms, we’re done for. We haven’t even come close to baby-proofing the apartment.Yesterday she also figured out how to roll from both back-to-front and front-to-back all by herself. Our little girl is growing up so fast! The next 18 years are going to fly by so quickly.