Archive for the 'Travel' Category

Meet the juvenile black swallowtail larva (I’m pretty darned sure). This little guy looks like a piece of bird pooh for a reason.

Specifically, it is employing feces camouflage. By resembling a bit of bird poop, the caterpillar makes itself look singularly unappetizing during the vulnerable first part of its life.

And by “little guy”, I do mean little. This worm was exactly 3/16ths of an inch long — just about 5mm long.

No, really, about the size of a grain of rice.

That leaf? It is the end of a parsley leaf.

I was wrong. This is not a swallowtail larva. It is most likely of the Brush-footed butterfly family (Nymphalidae). Swallowtail caterpillars of this size look very similar — similarly bird poop like — but do not have spines.

It is amazing how quickly they grow. Within only a few days, that little pooh-pillar turns into a rather stunning green worm that will grow to up to 2″ in length.

Not so coincidentally, the caterpillar features a new defense mechanism. When harassed, it sticks two bright orange antenna out of its head that stink horribly.

Even without the antenna, the caterpillar’s head is really quite striking.

I tried to get a shot with the antenna sticking up, but discovered that the caterpillar seems to fairly rapidly learn that any particular stimulus is not threatening and will stop wasting energy defending against harmless “attacks”.

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In the forest, the various bugs common to the leafy undercover were waking up, too.

This is a red velvet mite (Trombidiidae).

They play a critical, if slightly surprising, role in the health of the forest. Namely, the larval stage is parasitic and effectively controls populations of locust, grasshoppers and other plant destroying insects.

As adults, the red velvet mite is a ferocious predator that will take out mites and insects many times it size. In particular, the mite seems to favor insects that eat bacteria and fungus.

Thus, the mites help ensure that fungus and bacteria remain abundant within the forest and, by doing so, help ensure that the decomposition process remain high.

While the red velvet mite is related to chiggers and ticks, they do not bite humans and are quite the sociable little bugs.

I have no clue what this bug is other than “beautiful”.

It has gigantic jaws for its size, clearly designed for biting and ripping.

The bug really is that brilliant color of metallic blue. Even more amazing, the bug flew a few feet and landed on a tree. When the sun strikes it at a different angle, it turns a gorgeous metallic green.

Unfortunately, it moved too quickly for me to snap a photo, but I’ll definitely be keeping a lookout for these on our next visit.

More bugs on the click-through….

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We are in Florida for Easter, visiting family.

Roger, of course, captured a couple of toads and a frog within the first 5 minutes of being here.

On closer inspection, we have found that there are tons of critters in the area.

This was a lizard that Roger caught on the back porch. We let it go and watched as he hopped from branch to branch for a bit.

Beyond this photo — my favorite — I also snapped a neat photo of the lizard on saw grass and another of the lizard walking on a bit of tree branch.

There is a bit of a swamp in the backyard, so this really isn’t much of a surprise.

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On Sunday, we headed down to the Claysville Store in Claysville, Missouri for lunch.

Claysville is an old rivertown that was pretty much defunct until recently. The Missouri river is huge and the “river bottoms” it flows through is even larger — miles wide. While decades ago Claysville was a bustling town where cargo was transferred from river to rail, the river shifted such that it flows almost a mile away from the town now.

Out of the outright stupidity that was the death of the railroads in the United States has come one gem, though, and it is breathing new life into river towns like Claysville.

Specifically, the Rails to Trails program and the creation of the Katy Trail. The Katy trail passes right by Claysville and, like many other river towns, a business or two has sprung up to serve the bikers and hikers that pass along the trail.

In the case of Claysville, it is the Claysville Store. Owned and run by a family in the weekends — in their spare time — it has become quite the hot little lunch spot.

On Sunday, they open at 12:30. We showed up a little before noon and drove around the bottoms for a bit. We returned at 12:10 and a couple of customers had arrived. By 12:30 the parking lot — the lawn in front of the restaurant and the shoulder of the road across road (gravel) — was full.

Reservations only for this particular hole in the wall on the weekends. However, they are happy to fit in a handful of hikers/bikers off the trail.

Upon sitting down, they bring tea, lemonade, water, or soda and a big plate of piping hot fresh cooked biscuits. Delicious amazing biscuits that really need no butter, but are definitely even more delectable with drippy buttery goodness.

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Just some random notes…

I’m staying at the Hotel Adante. Good bandwidth and a nice walk to Moscone. Bandwidth is not via wireless, though, as each room has an ethernet port and they have free ethernet cables at the front desk. Airport Express is quite useful for sharing that connection..This is actually the second time I stayed here for WWDC, the first being my first year as an Apple employee in 2003.

Interesting neighborhood. Once block in the wrong direction and it can be a bit dodgy. One block the other way and it is incredibly pricy. Some amazing food in the area, though.

Speaking of, I ate dinner at Bordobudur this evening. Excellent fresh authentic indonesian cuisine for a very reasonable price. Had delicious grilled salmon with bean sprouts. Highly reccomend the place.

Had a fairly amusing encounter on the way to Moscone this morning. Ran into a dude begging for money near the conference center:

beggar dude: Spare some change?

Me: Don’t have any.

bd: Would your answer change if I asked you in Objective-C?

Me: If I had change, it would…

That had my laughing out loud, but for reasons beyond the obvious contextual humor. Shortly after WWDC last year, I took on the role of engineering manager of the Objective-C team (which explains the relative quiet around these parts over the last 10 months or so).

So, yeah, that was pretty damned funny. If I see the dude again, I’ll definitely give him some change.

I did find him again. Gave him a buck and had a pretty funny conversation about the whole thing.

Start of day 3… brushing teeth with Tequila again. Mmm… Pura Sangre Blanco. I really need toothpaste. After rolling out of bed, grabbing breakfast and checking out of the hotel, we strapped all of our stuff to the van and headed to Tequila Espolon. Good-bye to the Hotel Santa Barbera — if you ever go to Arandas, it is an awesome place to stay.

Tequila Espolon is located on the outskirts of the town of Arandas in the middle of huge fields of Agave, mostly their own. Espolon is a delicious highlands tequila, with the aged product carrying through hints of mocha/caramel and an excellent spice. Excellent, solid product. Beautiful bottles, too, with embossed metalized labels.

Definitely a worthy addition to any bar.

Read on for a photo tour of Espolon’s tequila making process…
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I have decided to break up the daily Mexico trip posts with a few short posts of particular standout events, photos, discoveries, or — in this case — foods.

This mind blowing dish was served to us by the fine folks at Tequila Herradura. It is freshly made Guacamole with Chile Peppers topped by freshly cooked Pork Rinds.

Yes. Pork rinds as a carrier for the best Guac I have ever had.

Delicious. Best served with excellent Tequila, of course.

From Cazadores, it was back to Tapatio / El Tesoro de Don Felipe for a tour of the facilities. El Tesoro is the export label for what is known as Tapatio in Mexico. Sort of — there are other differences mainly due to the legal requirements of exporting into the American market versus the tastes of the Mexican market. El Tesoro is available in Mexico, but with the old school labels.

El Tesoro de Don Felipe’s products are all delicious, crafted with great care. Unlike just about every other Tequila distiller, El Tesoro products are distilled down to the target ABV. For others, the cask ABV is typically higher than the bottle ABV and de-mineralized water is added upon de-casking, right before bottling.

We visited the bottling line at El Tesoro while the team was bottling the very delicious El Tesoro Anejo. It was mesmerizing to watch. Here is a group of people from teenagers to one of the patriach’s family all working together as a team — as an extended family — to ensure that the right amount of an excellent product was placed in every bottle.

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I woke up today to discover that I didn’t have any toothpaste. That was OK — I just brushed my teeth with Puro Sangre Blanco. Works fairly well and leaves your gums feeling all clean and tingly.

Once we herded the cats into the van, we headed to Tequila Don Nacho for a tour and tasting. Tequila Dan Nacho is a small to medium sized distillery that mixes traditional brick ovens with more modern stainless steel double distillation processing. It is actually a very young distillery that is owned by Ignacio Hernandez Gutierrez, known as Don Nacho. While the distillery is young, the family has been growing Agave for many decades and their Agave has an excellent reputation for consistently high quality.

The holidays are the busiest time of the year in the tequila industry. As such, many distilleries shut down for a period of time in October / early November or they will shut down in January. During this time of rest, repairs and upgrades are made.

There is a significant amount of infrastructure associated with a distillery. Beyond the fermentation tanks and stills, you have ovens or autoclaves for roasting, a masher or extractor for pulling the sugars off the roasted agave, and a water processing and heating plant to drive it all. As steam is used in many parts of the tequila making process, distilleries typically have a steam plant and water conditioning plant on site.

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I’m back from a tour of nine tequila distilleries in Mexico. I have a boatload of pictures and notes, much of which I’ll post over the coming days.

Pictured above is the tequila and tequila related products that I brought back. From right to left:

• Empty oak barrel with a generic label and a heavy char on the inside. Will be used for aging my own tequila.
• Bottle of Arette Reposado with Arette shot glasses and lime/salt holder.
• Bottle of Rey Sol. Absolutely amazing aged tequila. Sublimely delicious.
• Two bottles of Herradura Antiguo Reposado. Perhaps the best lowland reposado made.
• Two bottles of Tapatio Anejo. This is El Tesoro’s mexican-only product. Great anejo.
• A bottle of a Tapatio / El Tesoro product that has not been named, does not have a product specific label, and isn’t on the market yet. Amazing product– we had the honor of tasting it with Carlos and Lilianna .
• A 1994 bottle of Pura Sangre Anejo that we found in a liquor store in Guadalajara. Got it cheap.
• An Arette flask full of Arette Anejo.
• A sampler pack of Partida Blanco, Reposado, and Anejo.
• A personalized barrel like the other within which I will be aging Tequila.

Next time, I’ll take a larger set of luggage. I passed up a lot of good deals.

Nope — didn’t pay duty. I took the recommended approach of declaring everything quite honestly, targeting around 4 liters of tequila per bag, and being polite on the way through customs. Didn’t look twice at the amount of tequila and were far more interested in my barrels (though not even that was terribly interesting).

The import duties are really aimed at busting people carrying stuff through for distribution. Someone bringing back a couple of gifts and a handful of obviously different stuff to add to a collection isn’t the targeted group.

Ugh. I brought home more than Tequila. Feels like a rabid weasel is trying to crawl through my stomach. I’m having an Alien moment today. Ouch. Now I have a 100.5 fever. Bath time — and you know I’m sick when I sit in the tub for a while.