The park provides trails for hiking, bicycling, horseback riding, and backpacking. It contains a tennis court. It has a staging area for non-gas powered model airplane and kite enthusiasts to play with their toys. Finally, it has a small picnic area equipped with picnic tables and barbeques for up to 25 people. That area is ajacent to a huge California bay tree. Bay tree leaves could be used as a flavoring in food and are reputed to be an insect repellant. Last but not least, a majority of the Park’s facilities meet those standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Confucius once said: “The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills”. As a place full of hills, a number of plant communities and wildlife habitats exist in the park and open space preserve, including the famous bay tree mentioned earlier. Even during summer, trees provide enough shades for people to enjoy. The preserve is also home to many wildlife species (see the pictures listed below).
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The highlight of the preserve is Deer Hollow Farm, a working farm with a cow, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, other animals, and an organic garden, as well as numberous turn-of-the-century ranch buildings. An additional attraction is the restored Grant Cabin, furnished to represent living conditions in the late 1800s.
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The farm is an amazing place for kids to experience the Nature. A lot of families come to the farm during weekends for a picnic around the farm barn complex. Kids are playing together, happily.
Filed under: Camera, Photography — Thomas at 7:43 pm on Monday, February 12, 2007
I bought mine from amazon and got it just before last Thanksgiving.
At 7.6 ounces, the camera is light weight and compact, fit into a jacket/shirt pocket. It comes with a nice bright LCD display (see the image below). I like the black color, which gives me a more professional feeling. There are two major reasons behind my purchase:
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OIS (Optical Image Stabiliser): It works very well. OIS level 2 gives me sharp pictures when the shutter speed is as slow as 1/10 second. Compare the following two shots by yourself.
OIS level 1
OIS level 2
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16:9 Wide Angle: It is actually slightly wider than 28mm. Read the discussion thread. With the camera, I could record diagrams from white board, and shoot pages of documents in minutes. Here, I took a cover shot of the latest issue of American Photo magazine with slow shutter speed at 1/10 second.
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Battery life is decent, 300-shot for a fully charged battery, which is not bad, considering the fact that LCD is always on for each shot due to lack of view finder. It takes less than 2 hours for a full charge. There is also a tiny button at the right hand side of the LCD display for people to quickly adjust picture parameters, such as aperture.
As a consumer level camera, it is slow to write pictures to SD memory card, especially when RAW is enabled. It is not that useful under ambient lights when ISO 1600 is required.
I will end this blog with a picture of yellow leaves that I took last fall. I’ve made it painting-like.
Filed under: Cooking, Life — Thomas at 11:41 pm on Sunday, February 11, 2007
From COSTCO, buy a bag of Salad Mix, a bag of dried blueberries, a bag of pine nuts, and a bottle of olive oil. Return home and mix a bowl of salad within a minute. Don’t forget to add vinegar and salt for better taste.
This is just the basic setup. Add some exotic greens, such as flat-leaf parsley, or radicchio. Add carrot, radishes, caramelized onions or celery roots. Consider sliced apples, sliced pears, or dried cranberries as fruit. Replace pine nuts with pumpkin seeds, or shaved almonds. Walnut is also a good choice. Meat people could add chicken, fish, or cocktail shrimp to complement the dish.
