Matthew's web log

We had an enjoyable day touring a couple of local historic sites in the East Bay.  First up was the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial located in Concord.  The site is on the Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO) military base which makes it challenging to visit.  The hours it’s open are limited, but we were able to get tickets to the annual memorial which provided a great opportunity to visit the area.

While not very well known, Port Chicago was the site of one of the worst mainland disasters of World War II.  On July 17, 1944, munitions exploded and killed 320 men.  Back then, the military was segregated and African Americans were put into low level or dangerous jobs.  Loading munitions was dangerous work.  In the explosion,  2/3 of those killed were Black.

Following the explosion, some men protested the unsafe working conditions and were court marshaled.  They were defended, unsuccessfully, but one of the observers was Thurgood Marshall.   The event lead to the integration of the U.S. military.  In this case, the military was well ahead of the rest of the country.

The memorial service was informative and we browsed the site and the exhibits.

From there, we went to downtown Martinez for lunch.  Since we were in the area, we took the opportunity to visit the John Muir historic site, where he lived for part of his life.  That was also interesting as we were surprised to learn how well off he was.  We toured the large house and some of the surrounding farmland.

View the pictures from today:

http://www.sanjoseabrams.com/photos/PortChicagoJuly2013/index.html

The number of posts this year has been below the historical norm thanks to the absurd number of things going on.  Last week we took a break from our crazy lives to go visit our families back east.  We spent the first half in South Florida where my parents threw us an Engagement Party.  This let L’ meet a lot of the Florida contingent, me to see people I haven’t seen in years, and for us to see what pounds of tuna fish really look like.  Dad and and Shayo took photos of the event and they are posted in the album.  I apologize in advance if I misspelled anyone’s name or left out a caption (please let me know of any errors so I can correct them).

Thanks to Mom & Dad for honoring us:

 http://www.sanjoseabrams.com/photos/EngagementParty/

All of the Hawaii trip logs are now online.  I’ve uploaded the photo album as well (one album for the whole trip).  

You can use this post as a table of contents to jump to the photos or  trip report from a specific day.

 Day 1:  Rainbow Connection.  

 Trip Log

 Photos

 Day 2: Ring of Fire

 Trip Log

 Photos

Day 3: Rocket Man

Trip Log

Photos

Day 4: Here comes the sun

Trip Log

Photos

Day 5:  Hawaii Five-O

Trip Log

Photos

Day 6:  Don’t go chasing waterfalls

Trip Log

Photos

Day 7:  Walking on the moon

Trip Log

Photos

Day 8: Walking in a winter wonderland

Trip Log

Photos

Day 9:  Do you know the way to San Jose?

Trip Log

Photos

It's been challenging to have both free time and access to the internet, hence the long delay in an update. With only a few minutes today, this will be a very quick summary. I have detailed notes for a later posting (most likely after I return). Since I left off, I've visited the Scottish Highlands, Glasgow, Liverpool, Wales, Dublin, and Galway. It's been pretty action packed. Seeing the Beatles sites in Liverpool was fun. The Highlands were beautiful, with typical Scottish Weather. Wales was a surprise hit since I didn't realize we were stopping there and the town we went to was beautifully set on the water with a castle overlooking. Today was the Cliffs of Moher, a dramatic view over the ocean. In Dublin we hit Trinity College for the Book of Kells (a 1200 year old copy of the gospels) and the Kilmanom (sp?) Jail where political prisoners were held by the British. Okay, need to run to the bus…

During an enjoyable hike at Picchetti Winery in Cupertino, I took a few photos . 

IEEE GOLD organized a hike up in SF near the Cliff House.  I've been wanting to visit that area for awhile.  We didn't make it to the Cliff House, but the weather would have required a return visit anyway.  Here are the pics:

The Santa Teresa County Park in south San Jose had an activity this morning about birds of prey.  I have been wanting to visit this park and this was a good opportunity.  It's only a short drive and the weather was nice and cool in the morning.  As is becoming more and more common, I even ran into someone I knew there.  I took a few shots of the birds that were brought in from a local rehabilitation center and then wandered a bit around the park.  Here are the pictures.

Before celebrating July 4th, I stopped at the 7-11 Kwik-E-Mart.  

Photos from the store are here.

I've signed up the blog on Technorati.  I don't know what the result of this will be. 

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After a short hike (without the camera) on Sunday at Bayshore park, I returned after work on Monday to shoot some photos around the duck pond.  As expected, it takes a lot of photos to get even a handful of good ones.  Here's an album of my favorites:

http://www.sanjoseabrams.com/photos/BayshoreJune2007/