Overheard

On the streets of Palo Alto. One guy talking to another outside of the gelato shop, referring to a dog on a leash.

"Oh, that's an unusual name. Where does it come from?"
"It's my favorite 13th century Persian poet."

What can you say to that?

Bog Post

Keeping with longstanding Harris blog themes of sports and fashion, I thought I'd point you at this article about a sport I never heard of before: bog snorkeling.

To complete the race, contestants must swim two lengths of a 60yd (55m) muddy, water-filled trench using flippers but no recognised swimming strokes.

If there were some gators in there, it would make for an interesting spectator sport!

Modern Roach Coach

The other day I met someone in the elevator who suggested we have lunch at an Indian food truck across the road a ways. She said she had heard it was really good. It turned out to have a line about a half block long waiting to order! Standing in line, the guy in front of us told us how he had come across from the neighboring town to eat there that day. "Seriously!?," we asked. "Oh, yes, I follow them on Twitter." Not being an aficionado of Indian food, I can give you this review: It was okay.

I had heard about the phenomenon of micro-foodie mobile vendors popping up in the city, but I didn't know it was a suburban office park sensation. Now via the terrific NPR iPad app, I also saw this article you might find interesting.

Central Coast

Last weekend Dara and I took a road trip down to the central coast, staying in San Luis Obispo. The SLO acronym is appropriate, but that was just fine by us. Cal Poly makes it a college town, and it has a cute and busy downtown area with lots of restaurants, some of which back up on to the tree lined creek. The temperate SLO is flanked on one side by the hot wine country near Paso Robles, and the foggy coast on the other. On one day, we drove up the coast to Morro Bay, then up to the tiny town of Cambria, across through the wineries toward Paso Robles, and back. On the next, we went down the coast past AJ's old hangout of Pismo Beach, across to the even tinier town of Los Olivos, on to the Disneyland-like atmosphere of Solvang, and back. On the last day we had a glorious, warm, fog-free, convertible-top-down ride up the coast highway, stopping for lunch at Nepenthe and thinking of Mom's visit. Back home now, trying to plan another adventure. Pictures on Flickr, and I posted a video of the otters we saw in Morro Bay above.

If This Is Tuesday, This Must Be...

Last week I went on a week-long round-the-world trip. Not a method of world touring I recommend. Twenty-two hours of flight time to get to Bangalore, with a stop in Frankfurt. Two days in Bangalore, then eleven hours of flight time to Beijing via Singapore, and a couple of days in Beijing, followed by a twelve hour flight home. Somewhere in there you lose a day, so you work six days but can't find one of them. Maybe that's an argument for going the other direction around. Hmm.

I had not been in Bangalore for five years, and at the rate it changes, that was a very long time. The rinky dink airport with a couple of luggage carousels opening off to a big banyan tree surrounded by traffic had been replaced by a gleaming international airport. The traffic was worse than before, which is hard to believe, but the monsoon season had cooled things off.

I was delayed in Singapore when they had to replace the plane. It had been struck by lightning, so I wasn't complaining. Still, I knewI was not on United when Singapore Airlines actually told us what happened, changed gates, provided free food and drinks, and personally delivered a printed letter of explanation and apology to everyone while they were waiting.

Beijing's general orderliness is a contrast to Bangalore's high energy chaos. Newspapers in India are also full of energy compared to the government-controlled ones in China, but the countries share some of the same problems associated with high economic growth -- most visible in traffic. Since in Beijing they can just declare whether you're allowed to drive based on the last two digits of your license plate, the clever people there are just working around the problem by buying multiple cars.