Day By the Bay

This posting is SF Bay Area local stuff:

The Magnificent Human Body

“The Universe Within — The Human Body Revealed” is an amazing exhibit of just that. The Chinese have figured out how to “plastinate” actual human bodies, and the exhibit is stunning. Just about all aspects of the body are on display. The musculoskeletal system demonstrated by real bodies frozen in action, cross sections of real skulls, and — what just stopped me in my tracks — it looked like a lacy see-through Spiderman suit, all bright red, the cardiovascular system, hanging in a glass box. The body’s intricate blood transport system, all the veins shown without the bones or muscles or organs, just this body-shaped network. Not just spectacular, but a revelation, magnificent!

It’s just what’s there. What we’ve been given to work with, and I came away after an hour or so there marvelling anew at the beauty of the human body. Picture taking was forbidden so of course I took pictures, hiding behind columns so the guard couldn’t see me. At the Nob Hill Masonic Center. www.theuniversewithin.org

Muscle function

Doorway on California street as I walked back to my truck from the body exhibit

Great Travel Gear

Royal Robbins has got, for my needs and aims, the best travel clothing and accessories of anyone, including Patagonia and REI. Pants, shorts, shirts, travel towels, passport holders. Their stuff is in numerous stores, but best is to go to headquarters, at 841 Gilman in Berkeley. https://www.royalrobbins.com/

8 Megapixel Mini Camera

I went into the photo shop* Saturday to decide between two Canon mini cameras I’d been studying, the 7 megapixel Powershot S70 (which shoots RAW files, and a lens that opens up to 28 mm) and the 7 megapixel PowerShot SD500 Digital Elph. After much deliberation and consultation I got an 8 megapixel Olympus Stylus 800, which does not shoot RAW nor have a 28 mm lens, but has a huge bright screen, seems to have made a breakthrough in shooting in dim light, has a bunch of other great features. I haven’t started to use it and it’s too new to have been reviewed by DCRP.com. I mention this because there seems to be a new generation of small digital cameras and the three cameras above are worth checking out.

*Keeble and Shuchat on California Avenue in Palo Alto, a fabulous huge all-digital camera store

The Had-to-throw-this-in Dept.

(off the web)

Return of the Swine

Surfers alert: I may have been one of the last people to find out that KPIG and its irreverent DJs are back, with their non-top-40 lineup of rock and roll, blues, country, Hawaiian, blue grass, good-feelin’ California music. It reminds me of the non-commercial, play-it-from-the-heart feeling you used to get from KSAN in the ’60s. On AM no less. 1510 AM, from Santa Cruz County. (It seems to be off the air after 8 PM.)