When I was young, cokes came in 6 oz bottles and you could buy them at 6 for 25¢ from the Mobile Market, a renovated schoolbus that sold groceries to people in the suburbs of Washington D.C. Then aluminium cans came in to being. I was in my early teens and was very excited about this technological advance in beverage containers. These, I believe, brought in the 12 oz coke. For me the 12 oz coke became the standard.

But, now that I am becoming diet conscious, one of the new ideas in that field is serving size: we tend to feel that whatever is put on the plate or the glass is how much we should ingest. But actually if you ingest slowly you'll find that you are satisfied before the portion is used up. Its very hard for me to stop at that point, even tho I am now eating or drinking more from habit than desire. Can you leave 1/2 a coke in the can and toss it? I can't.

In Europe they serve cokes with a slice of lemon. Here's one I had in Lisbon (most likely) while my sweetie had a strawberry pastry and we watched the mimes and tourists in the enclosed square.



In Europe this spring I was introduced to a variety of smaller cans, in metric sizes. I had the 300 ml coke and the 187 ml coke (this odd size deriving from wine bottle sizes I think). Here, there was a "California compact" can a while back, which I think was an 8 oz can but I couldn't bring myself to buy them - nor could anyone else I guess because I don't see them any more. What I do see is the 20 oz coke or the 32 oz coke, and sometimes as a last resort if there are no 12 oz cokes I'll buy a larger one. Always a mistake.

Recently I have found small bottled cokes at the Peg House on 101. They are 6 or 8 oz, I can't tell which, and they are not too big and not too small, they are just right. Maybe its the nostaliga of the bottle, even if the town of origin is no longer cast in the bottom of the bottle. Ask for them at your store.

As Bo Diddley so wisely said, "You can't judge a book by looking at the cover." Here's the latest iteration of that lesson that the universe has sent me.

I'm in Ukiah again. In the old days I seldom had cases in Mendocino county, and those that I did have were resolved quickly. But that was then, this is now, and now Mendocino county is in turmoil about medical marijuana issues and I have lots of cases here - and I have to stay over in Ukiah for hearings frequently. Which is where I am now.

Last night Patrona's was open. Faithful readers will recall that I like Patrona's. For desert I ordered the blood orange cake. I expected it to be, well, blood orange, in color. Nope. It was grey. If you saw this piece of grey cake next to the piece of apple pie or the danish at the convenience store, you probably wouldn't have bought anything to eat there at all.

I've always been adventurous as an eater (although faithful reader, you probably recall my chickening out when I had the chance to have scorpion on a stick in China) so I put my fork into the grey cake, dipped it in the whipped cream, and popped it into my mouth. Incredibly delicious. Not a grey crumb remained on my plate when I left Patrona's.

http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist1/d1tmc

Will lead you to traffic cameras, in various locations, mostly updated hourly. The new Confusion Hill bridge construction is updated every 15 minutes.

More later, I'm in Ukiah. Patrona's is closed. I ordered room service from Marino's Pizza & Ravioli. Not bad, but I usually don't order my dinner by the pound. I had 1/2 pound of beef ravioli, and 1/2 pound of marinated vegetables polished off with a lemon bar. They don't deliver alcohol so its Best Western provided bottled water to wash it all down. Yum.

Trips to Antarctica still partake of exploration, of something out of the ordinary, even for people who go on cruise ships. So it was not a surprize to find the Marco Polo displaying this banner as we prepared to leave Buenos Aires for the far south.



Being on an expedition, we had to have scientists, quite naturally, and we did. The captain called us all together and introduced us to our expedition geologist, naturalist, etc. The enrichment lecturers, or scientists, include Peter Hillary, son of you know who, who gave the most gripping lectures - but the bird expert stayed on the rear deck keeping track of species spotted as we went south and was to me the most engaging of our experts. Each day he recorded the species as they appeared - even as it grew quite cold he never failed to have a cluster of avid birders, some with elaborate cameras, gathered round him, their eyes and cameras following his arm as he pointed out a new bird.



South of Buenos Aires the population thins out, and you no longer have cities with all their pleasures and problems to wander through. Instead, you look for scenery and wildlife. The cruise ships stop at Puerto Madryn, Argentina, from which you can visit the nearby seal rookery by taxi, or the more distant penguin colony, by tour bus. This is the last port where the ship docks. All ports south until we return to South America at the end, are "tender" ports - ie you go ashore in lifeboats or zodiacs.



At West Point Island in the Falklands, we used the ship's lifeboats as tenders. This one is returning from dropping off the first batch of us on the island.


Further south we used the zodiacs as tenders. Here is how the Marco Polo looked as seen from a Zodiac at Culverville Island, in the Antarctic.

If the sea gets rough, you don't go ashore. I've been told that its a rare Antarctic voyage which is able to make all of its scheduled landings.



This zodiac in a storm at Half Moon Island, is returning to the ship with people evacuated from the shore after the weather suddenly got rough and caused the landings to be aborted. Most of us never got off the ship, this day, and those that did got to see why so few people live in the Antarctic.

There are no indigenous people in Antarctica. It is inhabited now by a few hundred scientists peopling the various small scientific bases that represent humanities slender foothold on the continent. This summer base is the furtherest north, thus presumably enjoying the most moderate climate of any of the bases. It is at Deception Island.



Both Argentina and Spain have bases here. I don't know which this is.

I've been on 5 of the 7 continents now, and the only place that looked like the image I had of it in my mind's eye was Antarctica.



Glaciers, and the icebergs that calve from them are mostly made up of blue ice, like this berg floating in Culverville Island's harbor. Below is the Chilean base at Paradise Harbor. Doesn't it look Antarctic to you?

There are between 17 and 20 types of penquins, in the world today. The number varies according to which authority you consult. We got upclose to two of them on our Antarctic trip.



This is a Rockhopper, a large colony of which are on West Point Island in the Falklands. The island is two sailing days north of the northernmost part of Antarctica. Below is a Gentoo, which we visited near the Southernmost point of our trip into the Antarctic.



We saw Chinstrap Penquins at Deception Bay, but even with the 18 power zoom, I couldn't get a decent photo of one from the ship. Deception Bay is not a landing stop, but I was hoping to see Chinstraps at Half Moon Bay, but a storm forced cancellation of our stop there.