I love zoos in general (part of being a Zoologist by degree, I expect) (and yes, I have a Computer Science degree as well) (but anyways...) but the San Diego Zoo is one of my favorites. When I was living in San Diego, I wanted to get a job there - but I discovered that you have to have a Ph. D. to clean cages. So much for that.

I made time during the Internet2 trip to go over there. I got as close as I am ever likely to get to a Panda, saw a magnificent male Black Jaguar as well as several other large cats, and saw a neat show with an Arctic Wolf who howled for us very nicely, and that also featured a Cheetah that was brought in from the wild and was in the process of adjusting to his new environment with the help of his roommate - a very friendly dog.

I think my favorite part was the Skyfari Aerial Tram, which let me get a couple of good shots of downtown San Diego and Balboa Park. As I said, I like airborne views.


Click for the Flickr set

Unfortunately, by the time I got back, I had a raging headache and a sore throat, and I was worried I was coming down with something. As a consequence, I didn't get to have dinner with my friend Jopsy. :(

The conference has been very good so far, although I am sick and tired of meetings all day. Wednesday afternoon we got to do some more exciting stuff. We went to the UCSD campus where we got private tours of the CALIT2 facilities. The 4K and Persistent Portal stuff (described at the bottom of the CALIT2 link) was pretty frakking awesome. Also, I really enjoyed the Stereo Visualization stuff and the TeraShake visualization of a potential earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault that would affect both Los Angeles and San Diego, and a good deal of surrounding areas. Scary stuff. The data to do this used TeraGrid, a Grid computing framework, and generated over 43 TB of data in just over four days. Yeesh!

I took a bunch of shots over the past few days without blogging them, so here goes. Click on the pictures for the photo stream, as usual.

Shots of the Town & Country Resort, where I'm staying. It's actually very nice, with roses and other flowers all over the place, gazebos, benches, fountains, etc.



A few shots from the UCSD campus, including this stone bear:



Some nice fishies from the Birch Aqaurium, where we had our Gala Event, including this Queen Angelfish below:



I took far, far too many shots of the beautiful sunset over the Pacific as seen from the Birch Aqarium patio. This was a special treat.

I'm out in San Diego for the Internet2 Fall Member Meeting. It took all day Sunday to get there, so I only took one photo yesterday of the view from my hotel room balcony.



I will have to jump into that pool ASAP. Which is unfortunate for my hair, since there is NO HAIRDRYER in this hotel. I haven't seen a hotel room without a hair dryer in an age. This is going to suck.

I restrained myself from taking a bunch of from-the-airplane pictures since no one actually cares about those views except me, and the airplane window always dulls the effect. I just love airborne views for some reason. I always get a window seat and stare out of it a good deal of the time. I think it's probably that my dad is a pilot and I've always flown a lot, even once with him at the helm. I don't have his spacial awareness, motor control, or sense of direction, but I do share a love of the view.

I was asking some friends online recently what superpower they would have if they could have one. (I've been watching too much Heroes lately.) I would definitely want flight. I dream of flying all the time, and although sometimes it's frustrating, like getting caught up in some power lines or having to dodge things or whatnot, for the most part I'm really good at dream-flying. I realize this means feeling the urge to escape or a fear of commitment or something, but some of my most joyful dreams involve flying.

What would your superpower be?