__________________________________________________________________ THE CALIFORNIA ACORN REPORT Selfie/Where’s Kim Jong-un? edition Volume 18 The Official Newsletter of the California Acorn Survey 20 October 2014 Walt Koenig and Jean Knops, co-directors Editor: Walt Koenig _________________________________________________________________________ SUMMER PARTY TIME Next up was the ISBE meeting in New York City. If As has become traditional, summer—defined as the you don’t know what ISBE stands for, tough. (If you time in between when I return to Ithaca from Google it, the first entry you’ll get is the “Illinois California after the breeding season and when I go State Board of Education.” Spoiler alert: that’s not back to California from Ithaca for the acorn it. You get to guess between the next several entries, survey—consisted of a host of activities celebrating which include the “International Society for the forthcoming acorn-counting season. First was the Business Education” and the “International Standard long-anticipated visit by our good friends Ben and Bible Encyclopedia.”) Two things stood out at the Cate, who came all the way from Carmel Valley just meeting. First was the attendance of Phoebe, who to check out what happened to the concrete acorns has transferred to Cornell as—drum roll please!—an they lent us when we moved here and to see if there entomology major interested in the Standard Bible was any truth to the story we’d been feeding them Enyclopedia! No wait, that’s not right—I meant in that we have jobs here. I’m not sure we convinced behavioral ecology, which is, after all, the vocation them otherwise on the latter point, but at least the of the rest of the family, with the exception of Dale, concrete acorns are still on our front steps and we who continues to pursue a career in the Dark Arts of did do our best to show off the local sights, which topology and combinatorics. are indeed lovely for those of you for whom a vacation in the Finger Lakes has never even crossed your mind. In the end, the most impressive show was the fireflies at dusk from our back deck, an exhibition that almost made up for everything else in the area being closed, apparently, we eventually concluded, in honor of their visit. The fireflies almost make up for the winters, and are certainly one of the wonders of nature, especially if you’re entomologically inclined, which, as it happens, is a direction the youngest member of the Family Unit appears to be headed. ê The Phoebster at the ISBE meeting in New York City having the time of her life talking with Bruce Lyon, an old friend from UC Santa Cruz, and Natasha, Eric’s Ph.D. student studying dispersal strategies of acorn woodpeckers at Hastings. They’re no doubt busy discussing the stunning plenary on preening behavior just given by the surprise celebrity speaker mingling in the background. In any case, it’s great fun having Phoebe get involved in the kind of esoterica that both her parents have wallowed in for the majority of their careers. Indeed, it portended what has thus far been a wonderfully enjoyable fall having her at Cornell All bee’d out and ready to partay: Janis, me, and Phoebs model where we irregularly run into her on campus. The the Dyce Lab beekeeping hats at the end-of-summer bash that latter is in fact more than occasional, since Phoebe Phoebe (who worked there for Michael, one of our more bizarre is, among other things, taking my Advanced Acorn and favorite NB&B grad students in costume behind the truck) Studies course. Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime and her coworkers hosted in August before the semester started. Not just one, but TWO honeys! 1 opportunity to spend several hours a week lecturing one’s progeny with total impunity! The second outstanding feature of the ISBE meeting, besides the symposia on “Business Education and Acorn Counting” and “The Acorn’s Role in the New Testament,” was the chance to visit with our friends Marty and Andy. We spent many a fine time with these guys in the old days when our kids were small and it was great exploring New York with them. I look forward to visiting them in Halifax where I intend to start their kitchen remodel, even though, as Nick Carmen and Marianne’s wedding in Malibu on 14 August. is traditional, I only plan on having time to complete We weren’t sure about the guy performing the ceremony, but otherwise it was an awesome event. The Lebanese acorn the first step of tearing out the back wall of their old goulash was especially amazing! kitchen. In honor of both that sacred event and the birthday of our friend Steve, both of which were in August, Natalia, Steve’s SO, arranged for us to have dinner at Suzanne Fine Regional Cuisine (9013 New York 414, Lodi) overlooking Seneca Lake. The dinner— we got the five course farm-to-table tasting menu— was excellent, and the entire evening was quite lovely. We were particularly impressed by the street sign (“JANIS LA”) Steve and Natalia picked up at the Bouckville Antique Fair the prior weekend and gave to Janis for my birthday. I can only assume that the “Janis Lane” signs were being sold off because the street was renamed “Acorn Lane”. In any case, while I’m off the subject, our Investigative A selfie with Janis, Marty, and Andy playing hooky in Times Reporting Team was recently shocked to learn that Square during the ISBE meeeting. Meanwhile, a missing persons announcement blazes from the jumbotron on the right. no state has “acorns” as the official state nut, a distinction conferred on almonds (California), Back from The Big Apple, we did our best to relax pecans (Alabama and Texas), and hazelnuts and celebrate our 27th wedding anniversary before (Oregon). Clearly this is an oversight that the heading off for a long weekend in LA where Bill California Acorn Survey lobbying department will Carmen and Karen Nardi’s son Nick was preparing need to work on rectifying in the near future. to celebrate his 0th anniversary. Bill, as you know, is the official drinks coordinator and Karen the legal counsel of the California Acorn Survey. Meanwhile, Nick participated in the 2007 survey and is working his way up to being the official documentarian of the entire enterprise. The wedding was fabulous; the Yaqui Acorn Dancers took everyone by surprise, as did the gourmet acorn casserole. Good work, guys! After the wedding, we did some antique shopping, took my stepfather Keith out to lunch, and spent an evening with our friends Brad and Louise in the new house they recently purchased, having apparently decided that the LA real estate market had finally Besides dinner, Steve and I celebrated our birthdays by attending the roller derby bout between the Ithaca reached its peak. Then it was back to Ithaca, in time BlueStockings and the Rideau Valley Sirens. Here’s a selfie (amost, anyway) for my birthday! commemorating the event taken while the referees debate one of the more contentious calls in the background. 2 Speaking of birthdays, we closed out the summer by Bill in front of travelling to Ron Mumme and Sarah Sargent’s house one of the th larger-than- in Meadville, PA, for Ron’s 60 birthday party. Ron, life sculptures of course, is one of the Founding Fathers of the at the 2014 California Acorn Survey, having had the dubious Burning Man distinction of going out with me back on that fateful Festival, day in October 1980 to count the first trees at where he goes every year to Hastings. Since then, Ron has gone through fine-tune his extensive counseling and hopes to get out of rehab in gin-and-tonic just a few more years. Keep up the good work, Ron! mixing skills in anticipation of the acorn survey. Photo mostly by Karen Nardi. The other irregularity was picking up son Dale at the San Jose train station, which I did in the minivan while Bill and Jean toured the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, near where we have a tanoak site. All went smoothly and we succeeded in reuniting for the celebratory Arrival Day dinner at the Noodle Bar in Seaside well before Ron at his 60th birthday bash in Meadville near the end of its 8 pm closing time. August, nostagically trying to hold back the tears as he brings out the prized photo of his long-lost twin brother, Kim Jong The next three days were taken up with the Hastings Mumme. Separated since birth, Ron still dreams of a reunion. count (year 35!), going through the stack of mail in Good luck, Ron! I’ll be sure to let you know if I see him. my office, and hosting a potluck for the fall interns, ACORNS ARE AWESOME DEPARTMENT which otherwise get shortchanged in the social activites department. Finally, on Sunday morning, The count season was delayed this year not only Jean and I piled into the red minivan and headed because of the class I’m teaching, but also so Jean south for Day 1 of the survey. could be home for his daughter Tilly’s birthday— payback for all those years when I insisted on being Janis suggested that it would be good to have at least one at Hastings for Phoebe’s birthday on 8 September genuinely nice photo in this thing and who better to showcase (The only year I missed was 1999—the year when a than our neighbors Ben and Cate, fresh from their East Coast visit? Ben’s a neverending inspiration for how to have fun in big lightening storm started the Kirk Complex fire retirement, while Cate is the quintessential hostess, constantly that burned 86,700 acres nearby.) As a result, it putting Martha Stewart to shame.