Araucaria araucana tree
There’s an araucaria tree on California Ave near Blake’s place. It’s native to the Andes mountain range in Chile and Argentina. One of my favorite evergreens.
Sunrise over California Ave in San Francisco this morning
Denver Botanic Gardens
The Denver Botanic Gardens has a cool slab of bricks they light up at night, so I strolled up there to take some pictures of it last night. Here are a couple of them with 9 second exposures to get the traffic as well.
Non-Photo of the Day
Bristlecones
Yesterday Kristi and I drove up to Mt. Evans, a 14,000+ high peak that looms over the Denver skyline only about 50 miles away. I think I recall reading it’s the highest road in the U.S. Regardless, it’s one of the highest. Here’s a shot eastward from the drive up. Way off in the horizon is Denver, but you probably can’t see it in this photo.
The trees in the foreground are bristlecone pines. I’ve read that the oldest living tree in the world is a bristlecone pine somewhere in the White Mountains in California, which are east of the Sierras. They’re crotchety, gnarled old trees that don’t get very tall due to the high altitude at which they grow.
Yarrr matey, look at me, I’m an old bristlecone pine.
The old pines have lots of interesting whirled grains. See, e.g.,:
Near the Mt. Evans summit, we saw my old friends, the mountain goats. They were just chilling on some rocks above 14,000 feet in freezing, windy weather.
Along with drinking Coors Light, this Mt. Evans drive is a great way to get a quick taste of the Rockies if you have limited time. So anyone who visits and wants to taste just how cold these mountains are…let’s crack open a Coors Light and drive up to Mt. Evans.
The Itis
Every father relishes sharing barbecued ribs with his son for the first time. Evan had the Itis on Sunday afternoon, so Rolla gave him some ribs. Have a look at these heart warming photos, in which father and son share a special moment together.
Catfish Cake
We celebrated Kristi’s birthday this weekend in style with a Catfish Cake, which I had custom made at d Bar Desserts in Denver. They did a great job, although it was a little tough to tell that the catfish is swimming in the Mekong River (which it is). Great paint work on the catfish skin. It was so realistic that when cutting through the fondant, Kristi was slightly disturbed as she felt as if she was really cutting up a catfish.
Bernard…
Great stuff – Kwame’s dad Bernard Kilpatrick decides to just skip out on a deposition. His lawyer claims he didn’t know he was supposed to be deposed, in spite of the fact that his lawyer previously filed a motion to quash the deposition subpoena. If you know enough about the depo to try and quash it, doesn’t that mean you should also know whether the granted or denied the motion to quash? Apparently not in Kilpatrick-land.
Article here.
More barrel aging
With Joey Schlitz’s arrival in Denver, barrel aged beers are starting to make their way from our basement into our refrigerator. Pictured below is one of the greatest barrel aged beverages of all time – Firestone-Walker 10th Anniversary blend, brewed once back in 2006. Seated next to the FW10 is Alesmith Imperial Porter, brewed once back in 2007, as well as the barrel aged version of the Alesmith porter. Will be interesting to conduct a side-by-side comparison of the two.
Behind the Firestone 10 is a gallon of milk, presumably milked in 2010.
Barrel aged
Andre and Emily came over for dinner last night and gave us an incredible barrel aged house warming gift: a barrel full of barrel aged products.
Mmmm…barrel aged cabbage…
The whole barrel-aged spread:
Emily is always trying to gank my North Coast Old Rasputin glass, which was the inspiration for her painting of Rasputin, who appears in her work to be furtively eyeing the hidden glassware. It was only appropriate that we open a barrel aged Old Rasputin.
