Axial Tilt

Bailout for the Environment

If $700 billion was distributed to every US household for green technologies, each household could buy:
75 solar panels that produce 200 watts each
3 Toyota Prius
25 wind turbines that produce 3.4 kWh per day

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Now playing: The Rose Ensemble - Bogoroditse Devo, Raduysia
via FoxyTunes

Labels: economics, sustainability

One of my favorite songs.

100 Years - Five for Fighting

And the video is pretty cool too. I am so bad about popular artists, but I've just been realizing that Five for Fighting has done a number of songs that I really like. Perhaps I should invest in one of those new fangled "CD" things...

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Now playing: Harry Connick Jr. - My Blue Heaven
via FoxyTunes

Labels: music

Soneto V - You Are the Love of My Soul

Yo no naci sino para quereros;
Mi alma os ha cortado a su medida;
Por habito del alma misma os quiero.

Escrito esta en mi alma vuestro gesto;
Yo lo leo tan solo que aun de vos
me guardo en esto.

Quanto tengo confiesso yo deveros;
Por vos naci, por vos tengo la vida;
Y por vos e de morir y por vos muero.

Garciaso de laVega (1503-1536)

I was born to love only you;
My soul has formd you to its measure;
I want you as a garment for my soul.

Your very image is written on my soul;
Such indescribable intimacy
I hide even from you.

All that I have, I owe to you;
For you I was born, for you I live,
For you I must die, and for you
I give my last breath.

Labels: poetry

Lipstick is...

when you keep saying you're the change candidate and yet gave up your "maverick" street cred by sucking on the christian conservative teat to win your party's nomination.
repeating the same untruthyness about "bridges to nowhere" over and over thinking that saying something often enough makes it actually true.

On a related note and following the pattern we have come to expect from TRUE journalists, NPR has been one of the few news organizations willing to call McCain-Palin (especially Palin) on their blatant half-truths, misdirections, and outright lies. Here are two examples from yesterday's All Things Considered:

Eliminating Federal Earmarks No Easy Task:
"I championed reform of earmark spending by Congress," Palin said. "And I told the Congress, 'Thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere.'"
Bob Weinstein is the mayor of Ketchikan, Alaska, where the "bridge to nowhere" would have been built. He says that Palin never told Congress anything. He points out that Palin supported the bridge when she was running for governor. And, while she did eventually cancel the bridge after Congress pulled most of the funds, Alaska kept the federal money it received and used it for other projects.
Origins of Bridge to Nowhere Explained: This one explains why it's so important to McCain-Palin to keep having Palin lie on the stump everyday. McCain has a track record of being against the bridge since it first became public knowledge back in 2004-2005. Palin has a record of being for it until it was clear that they weren't going to get it. But she sure didn't turn down all that Federal money that came to Alaska anyway...

Can we put the nail in this coffin now?? They are trying to keep the focus off of real issues for as long as possible because it plays to the fears, prejudices, and self-delusion that has allowed America to keep voting against it's self-interest for the last 8 years. Obama wins on the issues and they know it. So let go back to talking about the issues.

Assuming that the press (with the very notable exception of NPR) can stop falling over itself to prove that it isn't attacking a poor, defenseless pit bull...

Labels: politics

Parsing Palin

You know I just wish this whole election things was over. It's been going on for two years now and I'm just tired.

But when the new girl on the block shows up and starts talking reform out of both sides of her mouth, it's just more of the same old shite that politicians love to wallow in.

Here are three separate resources about Sarah Palin; one about her supposedly sterling record of accomplishments in Alaska and two analyzing her half truths and distortions in her speech on Wednesday night at the convention.

http://www.andrys.com/palin-kilkenny.html - Written by Anne Kilkenney a resident of Wasilla, Alaska who has known Sarah since 1992.

NPR Parsing Palin's Speech for Facts

ABC On Obama, Earmarks, Palin Less Than Honest

Can we just jump to Nov 4 now. Please.

Labels: hubris, politics

Quotable

“Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”

— Barack Obama

It's just funny...

... cause it's true. :P

Labels: humor

Neurotic Much?

(via StumbleUpon)
How'd you like to read a blog where people from anywhere just post their little (or not so little) neuroses?

i am neurotic

Example:

I arrange my roommates and mine’s toothbrushes to the mood we are currently in. If we are angry, the brushes will not face each other. If we’re happy they will face each other as if we are dancing and laughing.

And many more frightening (going postal about "leftover" time being left on the microwave timer...) are your to peruse.

Enjoy.

Labels: random

Shameless Plug

Check out this site!

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/reb/806373169.html

And pass it along to anyone you know who's looking for a wonderful house for a reasonable price...

6.5 Weeks of Hell - Epilogue

This afternoon (not exactly sure what time) the house we've been wanting will slip away.

Last Tuesday, we learned that they had gotten 3 (!) offers over the previous weekend and were going to accept one of them. That meant that we had 72 hours (not counting holidays and weekends) to clear our contingency (i.e. accept an offer from a buyer of our current home and tie up the loose ends) or our purchase agree would be canceled. Since there weren't any offers in the pipeline, we basically knew that we wouldn't be able to do it. Oh well.

We both really loved the potential new house. But neither of us is devastated that we won't get it. It was just a possibility that we couldn't turn away from. We're still happy in our current home and would be happy to stay. After talking with our agent, we're gonna look around some and see if there's anything else out there worth pursuing. I mean the house is already on the market and stuff so the hard part is done. And if we don't find anything worth the bother, we'll just stay put.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and the well wishes. They have meant a lot of both of us. One possible future closes up, but there are uncountable numbers still waiting out there to be discovered.

Labels: personal

Creatures of Habit

Do you know this place
Do you know this face
Do you see the space I live in now
Well I've done my best,
But I failed the test
Cause I see the pain upon your brow

And we're all creatures,
Creatures of habit now
Creatures ..
Creatures of habit now

Did I say it wrong
Did I come on too strong
Did I pull the rug from beneath you now
It's a lame excuse,
But please don't confuse me
With a girl who does not exist now

And we're all creatures,
Creatures of habit now
Creatures ..
Creatures of habit now

We take, we pay
We leave, we stay,
We lick our wounds and start again
We live on hope,
We learn to cope,
Till the ones we've hurt come home again

So forgive me and come home..

And if I turn you wild,
If I turn you to a child,
With words so harsh they break your will
If I turn you back
to the darkest days
please believe me, that angry heart is still..

we're all creatures now

Judith Owen
From the CD - Mopping Up Karma

Labels: poetry

Greatly Disturbing

What is wrong with this picture? Perhaps zooming in will make it clear...

Since when did "sleazy" become an appropriate marketing term for childrens' toys?? I mean come on. This is just not ok.

Labels: stupidity

6.5 Weeks of Hell - Part 2

Part 2 - Why? For the love of Pete, Why?

Well, against all odds we decided to put our house on the market and buy another.

This isn't something we've been planning. You see, we love our house. We love our neighborhood. I haven't given serious consideration to leaving since we bought the place 7 years ago. It's taken a while but we've finally got it to a place where it's comfortable and functional and beautiful.

But we're bad about trawling the MLS for real estate eye candy. Recreational house hunting. Just seeing what's out there. Making wild plans on houses out of our price range. Real living-on-the-edge kind of stuff... And this time it caught up to us.

This beauty was built in 1859. Yes, that's 1859. It is, in fact, one of the oldest homes in St. Paul. It's on a double lot in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul and is set all the way at the back of the lot so it has a great sloping expanse leading up to the house from the street.

It was built and occupied by a prominent man of the late 1800s on a street that bears his name (and shall remain nameless until we are actually in possession of the property). All that remains of a 4 acre homestead is a quarter-acre, but compared to other lots in the neighborhood (or ours for that matter) it's huge. Room for fruit trees, large rambling gardens, a small green house, chicken coop, bee hives.... *MWAH HA HA HA*
Sorry, got a little ahead of myself there.
And down the west side of the lot is a string of heaven-knows-how-old lilacs. Easily 50+ years maybe 80+. Just gorgeous.

Inside it's in spectacular condition. Lots of dreadful wallpaper (I may have to live the historic ones, but I don't have to like them) but large rooms, upgraded systems, and non-upgraded systems that will outlive us all. Two levels of great detail and architecture. There's even a half bath under the main staircase!! (It's the white door in the left-most picture above.) How positively Harry Potter. And it's large enough for tall people like me. :)

All I can say is that it's a wonderful opportunity for us. A wonderful place full of possibilities. (Including a back section that could potentially be rented out. We'll start taking applications as soon as we move in, so get your references together.)
Now we just have to sell our lovely home in Hamline-Midway. If you know anyone who's looking, send 'em our way.

Labels: personal

6.5 Weeks of Hell

-a home improvement story in two parts-

Part 1

So I just completed another renovation project. This time it was so intense I couldn't even muster the energy to blog about it in progress. It took me about 2 years to recover from the porch rehab a couple of summers ago. This one was worse. So, let's start the beginning and bring you up to speed.

The house we bought in 2001 was a trash house. You can read all about that ordeal at this old page I wrote back in 2002 or so. Below is the only picture of the kitchen I could find from before. This is what it looked like when we bought the place. Now, we had done a few things to it in the interim, but you get the idea.

Anyway, on April 14th (yes I did write down the date for just this reason) we began taking the kitchen apart. The remodel was going to run on a tight budget so we were going to have to do most of the work ourselves with only a few experts for stuff I couldn't do (or do legally). Here's two pictures from about a week after that.

Here you can get a better view of the radiator under the sink. Such creativity abounded in this home. Everything had to be handcrafted to fit the situation. Anyway, demolition continued for a couple of weeks total and finally we had all the cabinets out of the way.

At this point Jacob start working on removing the wallpaper... or what we thought was wallpaper. After buying several different chemical stripping agents and having no luck, we determined that (in order to save money) the walls had been done with (wait for it...) contact paper. Ugh... Well no choice but to go get a steamer. And Jacob then spent several days doing the whole room. We got the cabinets and countertops ordered and called a plumber to come take out both radiators (the one in the back corner was going to be relocated). That pretty much brought the demolition phase to a conclusion. Let the rebuilding begin.First order of business was to recreate that wall. We kept the sink in the same place and decided to put in a passthrough so light from the breakfast nook windows would come all the way in. Thanks to Mark and his hunky friend Ben who came by to do some carpentry for me. But the award for most valuable construction worker goes to David for his expert dry wall mudding which only took about 6 times longer (and more mud) than he had planned on when he volunteered to help. That'll learn him. :)
The next step was putting up the beadboard (real tongue and groove stuff, not that crappy sheets of it). All the exposed walls would be beadboarded up to 5.5 feet (varying between 65 and 67 inches due to the undulating hardwood floor). Then the first cabinets started arriving. Jacob had the idea to use the beadboard above the upper cabinets as a kind of soffet. It was hard to figure out how to do it and do it well, but it turned out to be a smashing idea.

Here you can see things starting to take shape.
But we got held up for a couple of weeks by backups on the cabinets and countertops. We needed to make a change on each of those which sent the whole timeline into a tailspin. But it isn't like there weren't a million other things to be doing. So we kept moving forward on as many fronts as possible. All that new beadboard had to get primed. The ceiling had to have some touch ups. Priming in the breakfast nook. New light fixtures. Trim along the top of the beadboard.

Then, miraculously, the final cabinets and counters arrived on about the same day and PRESTO! Almost usable kitchen.

So the last big pieces were to get the walls painted and the flooring down. We didn't have the time or money to have the hardwoods refinished so we went with a non-adhesive vinyl so as to leave them accessible for future work. And Jacob picked a khaki-ish color called Elephant Watch. Don't ya love that?! Here's a taste of it.

Add in the floors, move the appliances back in, add all the final pieces or trim work, plus the rolling kitchen cart/island from IKEA and VOILA!!

Finished. At least to 99%. We could futz with detail work for the rest of our lives.
And I'm tired.

So the question that I know you're all asking yourselves...
"Why the hell would they do that to themselves right now?!"

The answer to that, my friends, will have to wait for tomorrow...

Labels: personal

Good Old Girl

Well, she's a good old girl.
We've been some long, long miles together
and thank the lord she never was the clinging kind.

But she's a good old girl.
We've had some fine, big laughs together
and I admired the way she almost read my mind.

Never talked no foolish talk.
Had no ties and held no rules.
Hell that good old girl and me, we ain't damn fools.

We never talked too much.
We didn't hold to conversations.
There's lots of things I could have told her I suppose.
But what I would want to tell that good old girl... She knows.
Sheriff Ed Earl
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

My car (Aly) turned over 200,000 miles this morning.

Labels: cars, poetry

I suppose it's nice to have my intuition validated, but still...

Hey there campers. Been absent because I have been way busy and haven't really had anything to say. But that changed this afternoon (the having something to say bit anyway...)

Here in Minnesota, we've had a spate of drownings of college guys over the last several years. Seems like every 4 or 5 months there's been another. They were all last seen leaving a party and when they were finally found dead washed up out of some river (usually the Mississippi) it was always attributed to either suicide or being too drunk and them falling in. Tragic and a demonstrable example of how bad binge drinking was in the state.

Frankly, I never bought it. Looking at all those missing posters and billboards that got posted for them, I always had this uneasy feeling that it was too many incidents featuring essentially the same elements. Well-liked, good looking college guys just suddenly go missing and end up in the river. Too coincidental.

Well now two retired NYPD cops agree with me. (Via Towleroad)

DETECTIVES: Chris Jenkins murder connects dozens around country

Seems that at least some of these incidents fit in with a series of murders that spans the country and goes back 11 years. The investigators have been on the trail since 1997. They have tracked down a number of clues that no one ever thought to look for before and have found elements that are the same in all the cases. For instance, at the places where the tortured and murdered young men were tossed into the river, a smiley face is left as a calling card.

Labels: evil

April 3, 1968

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

Watch and read the full speech.

Labels: civil rights

Gary Gygax - RIP

Sad news for any role playing gamers out there. News today that Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons (the archetype and root of pretty much every RPG out there today),
passed away yesterday morning about 1AM at his home in California.

All any gamer can say is that their lives would have been a lot less full of fun and friendship had he not done creative work equal to many traditional best-selling authors back in the 1970s when he created D&D. I know that Rick actually knew him. Me, I just know his work. And every Sunday night, me and the guys get together for another round of something he started 30 years ago. Thinking back to how much times like that have meant to me over the last 20 years or so, I owe the man a deep debt of gratitude.

Labels: games

Greening the Desert

Labels: sustainability

Blogger Play

In another move towards entertaining ourselves by watching the minutia of other peoples activities, here's something new from Blogger.

Blogger Play

When you go to Blogger Play, you get a stream of images that people have recently uploaded into the Blogger blogging site. You can adjust the speed and pause or go back. On the whole, not as entertaining as Wikipedia Vision but still an interesting form of meta-entertainment.

Labels: random

Sarah and Jimmy

Now see, Sarah Silverman is probably one of the most hilariously offensive comics out there right now. And she's been dating Jimmy Kimmel of late night talk show fame for about 5 years now.

Couple of weeks ago, Sarah was on Jimmy's show and debuted a video message to her beloved.
That little video was entitled: I'm F**king Matt Damon (NSFW due to implied language)

So this past week, Jimmy responded to the love of his life with this witty little rejoinder:
I'm F**king Ben Affleck (NSFW due to implied language)

The general concensus is that Jimmy's star-studded no-holds-barred response probably won the bout. Ain't love grand!?!

Labels: humor

I just LOVE my commute

What with all the snow yesterday, it took about twice as long to get home as it normally does. I passed 9 vehicles spun out on the sides of the road. And one of them was a tractor trailer. Listing mightily on the side of the embankment...

Oh! And then going down that hill just south of Lakeville these two gigantoid pickup trucks (yes Rick, even bigger than yours) about 50 yards or so in front of me started fishtailing all over the road and my brakes succeeded in stopping me a whole 3 feet from the bumper of the one that ended up back in my lane.

Fun times.

Labels: personal

Two Different Views of Fantasy

Just as an example of how flexible straw bales can be in terms of building your fantasy home. Both of these structures were built with straw bales. Obviously there are size, price, and aesthetic differences involved. Which one is your favorite?

How I Built My House for £4,000

The Last Straw

Labels: sustainability

"It comes out of the f**king ground!"

LOL...
Hilarious.

Labels: humor

What WOULD Jeebus Do?

I guess I like the Garden of Eden scene the best....

Labels: humor

Importing Trouble

Mark sent me this link the other day with the tongue-in-cheek subject line of "energy crisis solved." I know it was in jest, because he knows I'd likely go off on him for making such a suggestion in earnest. :P (You know I love you more than my luggage...)

Titan's Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth

It's really amazing what NASA has been able to learn about this moon of Saturn. And I'm sure that the prospect of all those hydrocarbons just laying around has oil people on Earth just salivating and investigating just how expensive it would be to get them here.

As if we don't have enough problems. Not only are we hells-bent on releasing all the carbon that has ever been in our own atmosphere back there and choking ourselves and everything else. But there is now at least the dim prospect of someone thinking of trying to bring carbon from off-world and REALLY screw things up. I can hear Al Gore's veins popping now.

Here's the deal. Hydrocarbons are a way of fueling ourselves right out of existence just using what we can gain access to here on our home world. Companies would much rather do something flashy like bring in more from off-world than do the hard work of weaning us off hydrocarbons altogether.

Let's just leave that stuff to power our science fiction, why don't we.

Labels: science, space, sustainability

Happy VD

We went to dinner with our dear friend ML on Valentines day at Cafe Biagio on University in St. Paul. Quite nice, I have to say. The beef tender loin/lobster tail I had was very nummy. They enjoyed Jacob's new favorite cocktail (the Nigroni) and a good time was had by all.

We also got a new picture of the two of us so you can see what we look like after losing so much weight. (I'm not thrilled with how I photograph, but I'll live.)

Labels: personal

Days of Future Past

Survival in Times of Uncertainty: Growing up in Russia in the 1990s
I think this is actually the first first-hand account I have read of what it was like to live through the great upheavals that paralyzed Russia and the other soviet countries after the fall of the USSR.

The crisis in Russia was as much ideological as it was economical. People had to let go of everything they believed in, in an unconsciously religious sense. The history of the last 70 years and beyond was completely re-written in my school books, with good guys and bad guys switched around by the time I was graduating from high-school. People found themselves in the midst of a national identity crisis, with their cultural background modified or erased and together with it their self-respect based on their country's achievement. While neither the "democracy" nor the "free market" constitute a truly robust ideology for the masses, people in the US have a sense of entitlement and believe in the superiority in their way of living. Therefore, one might expect some confusion and disorientation as their illusion of the USA as the "beacon of light" for the world collapses around them.

It's a really stirring narrative. A national famine was narrowly avoided courtesy of the "dascha" or small subsistence farm wherever they could be put. The currency failed - the author mentions how his college stipend that was supposed to cover a year's worth of living expenses was just enough to buy a chocolate bar. And on and on.

Russia is our only direct experience with the complete collapse of a way of life. We should probably be studying more about this.

Labels: future

Time killer for geeks

Mark sent me this link last week. I love these kind of selection games. Don't even have a name for it, unless someone can translate the Korean or Japanese kanji for me.

There are 8 things you can build. And each time you build something new it upgrades the things you built before based on some relationship. So the order you build them matters. Theoretically you're supposed to get all 8 things to their maximum level to win. So far I've been unable to get more than half of them there. (See image as proof.)
I think it's rigged. There are earthquakes that can break stuff if you build them too early or too late. And you only have 8 "turns" - once all the things are built it finishes whatever upgrades are called for then ends the game. Rigged I tell you!

Labels: fun, geek

Uh oh...

(Via Email from D.A.)

When you walk out the door in the morning and see this in the sky...

Just go back in the house, pour another cup of coffee, and stay there It probably isn't going to be a good day.

Labels: random

Ctrl+Alt+Del

If you haven't come across the Ctrl+Alt+Del comic online yet and you are a geek/gamer, then you have totally missed out! (The rest of the world probably is better off...) He's kind of foul and his sense of humor is utterly twisted. He's great!

This one came out of his archives. LOL! Yeah, sick and twisted. And he's been doing it for a long time so you can really see his artistic approach evolve since the beginning. Great stuff. Check it out.

Labels: fun, geek

REALLY Retro

So, once again, I found some really COOL stuff in the course of doing my job.

I ran across a year-and-a-half-old blog post from the Technology Integration Program at the College of William and Mary. Did you know that people have been converting old maps into Google Earth layers? And I mean OLD maps. Like 1700 and 1800 kind of old maps. Several maps from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection were imported and are available through the Featured Content area in GE. So these old maps are georeferenced to their proper alignment and wraped on the virtual globe.

Neato!

Labels: random

Checklist for the Day - Review

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

I did get the coffee beans and I did get a haircut.
But I only had a window of a half hour between when the caucuses opened and when I needed to be at rehearsal. And given the overwhelming turnout that MN experienced last night (~200,000 for the Democrats and ~60,000 for the Republicans) there's no way I was going to get anywhere near casting a ballot in that time. So I skipped it.

But Barack didn't really need me there anyway. The rest of MN progressives had my back.

Labels: politics

Dear Diary - April 13, 1997

I'm in Minneapolis. I got here Friday (4/11) afternoon about 4:30 and D.C. picked me up. I got to see most all of the grad students at the departmental seminar. Then I met C.O. and another prospective student at her place. We went there and had dinner, then watched a movie (Il Postino - wonderful Italian movie with subtitles). Then D. brought me to S.G.'s place where I'm staying. S. has a dog (Rodeo) and a cat (Jack) so I felt right at home.

On Saturday, I met up with with J.R., our guy from Apartment Finder and he drove me around to see a number of places. I pretty much knew that the Oak Grove Apartment Hotel was the place after I saw it. It was also called the Grand Oak Grove and J. would love it when he walked into the marble lobby. End of story.

That afternoon, D. picked me up and we went to a middle-eastern restaurant (Jerusalem - 15th and Nicollet) to see one of the geo undergrads do her final bellydancing show. After that we went to pick up her best friend Mike (more about him later) and went to an engagement party for two folks in the department. And it was a crossdressing party. lol I just told everyone I was there as a lesbian. There were several guys there in really bad drag and some of the ladies were dressed up in tuxes and such. It was really fun and a very comfortable way to meet so many people from the department. Although I will have a hard time talking to some of the with a straight face for a while... :)

Then today, I went to dinner with Dr. K's lab group to get to know them. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant on the corner of University and Western in St. Paul. Good food but very new to me.

That was the weekend I came up to check out the Geology department at the U of M. Ages and ages ago. And what an introduction to the grad students in the department!! At least I felt really at home from the beginning. I think I had kind of already decided that I would come here even though I was still telling myself that things were still up in the air. I guess that first encounter with them really had an impact on me. I work now with the C.O. I mentioned and when we got reacquainted, she was amazed that I remembered the night I spent having dinner and watching Il Postino at her place. She surely didn't. Having a journal account no doubt helped me cement the memory in place, but even before I went back through and re-read them, I still remembered.

A drag party, a bellydancing geology undergraduate, an Italian movie, and Vietnamese food. I guess you could say that those are the reasons I ended up in Minnesota...

Labels: diary

Adrift

So this morning I got an email from the coach of my softball team.
Apparently the Lonestars does not exist as a team anymore. Nice of them to let me know.

So now what? After 10 years on that team it's just gone.

Labels: personal

Checklist for the Day

Coffee Beans for Jacob
Haircut
Vote for Obama in the MN caucuses

What's your day look like?

Labels: random

Dusk at Sea

To-night eternity alone is near:
The sea, the sunset, and the darkening blue;
Within their shelter is no space for fear,
Only the wonder that such things are true.

The thought of you is like the dusk at sea --
Space and wide freedom and old shores left far,
The shelter of a lone immensity
Sealed by the sunset and the evening star.

Thomas S. Jones, Jr. (1882-1932)

Labels: poetry

This is part of your American electorate

This explains a lot about Shrub's two terms...

Labels: stupidity

Gulf Stream

(Image of the current velocities in the Gulf Stream - Wednesday, January 30, 2008)

I found this site the other day while doing legitimate work for an upcoming workshop on geoscience visualizations and tools. Pretty cool. Every day they post a picture of the current velocities in the Gulf Stream off the coast of North America.

Note that if something were to disrupt the thermohaline ocean circulation (the "conveyor belt" that has been so talked about lately) you would be able to see it in these images.

Labels: climate, science

YouBama

I heard about this on the radio this morning.
http://youbama.com/ is a collection of videos of folks talking about why they are supporting Barack Obama for president and why you should too.

Heading into February 5 (Super Duper Tsunami Tidalwave Tornado Hurricane Tuesday or whatever they're calling it now...) this kind of person-to-person communication is really important. It's the closest thing you can get to retail politics in a wholesale politics quasi-national primary.

So in case you haven't picked it up, I'm throwing my (negligible) weight behind Barack and his new vision for America. I can sum up why pretty quick:
1) We have someone with a vision for America and moving into the future again for the first time in about 30 years. And it's a compelling vision of bipartisanship and facing the issues that affect us rather than kicking them down the road for the next generation to worry about.
2) Whatever Obama might lack in "experience" can be made up by choosing good people to advise him.
3) Hillary is so polarizing that she cannot unite the political left. Many (including me) would find it very difficult if not impossible to hold our noses and vote for her if she were the Dem nominee. I for one wouldn't vote for any of the Republican candidates, but it does mean I would have to seriously consider a 3rd party or not voting.
4) Nothing will unify the Right Wing Nut Jobs (tm) like a Hillary candidacy. That's the one sure way of ensuring that the Republicans get another 4 years in the Oval Office.

"Choose. But choose wisely."
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Labels: politics

No one likes rejection

Australian girl changes blood group, immune system (via Yahoo News)

An Australian teenage girl has become the world's first known transplant patient to change blood groups and take on the immune system of her organ donor, doctors said on Friday, calling her a "one-in-six-billion miracle."
...
Brennan's body changed blood group from O negative to O positive when she became ill while on drugs to avoid rejection of the organ by her body's immune system.

This is really incredible. Can you imagine what factors were involved in such a complete transformation of a body's whole immune system? And that she didn't just die in the process is amazing.

Labels: random

Google This

Look away from the light!!!
(Via Google Earth Blog)

Labels: geek

Up to the Minute Wikipedia

This is cool. (Via aTypical Joe.)
Wikipedia Vision provides info on who is making edits to Wikipedia and where they are.

The little flags bounce around the world as a near-real-time picture of who's doing what to which Wikipedia records. Borders on voyeurism, don't you think?

Labels: geek

Dear Diary - February 12, 1997

Grad school is still up in the air. I have received several emails from the faculty at the University of Minnesota, but nothing official. I haven't heard anything from NCSU, University of Colorado - Boulder, or Cornell. J has basically decided that we'll be going to Minnesota. I guess what scares me is that it's such a big move and there is no family (not to mention how cold it is!). In Colorado, I'd have family - Bruce and Cookie. J, for the most part, has no one to lose, so it isn't that big of a deal to him. But I love my family and rely heavily on my friends.

How many things change in the course of 11 years. I mean it's not really that cold here. :)
It was a big old shock to uproot myself and move here, but in retrospect it was exactly the right thing. I was bound into patterns of behavior and habit that weren't helping me. Coming here blew all of those patterns out of the water. I have had to grow and change and evolve in ways I know that I simply would not have had I stayed in NC. Would I have if I had ended up in Colorado? No way of knowing. But who I am is a product of what has happened in the last decade of living in MN and if I had ended up somewhere else, I wouldn't be the person typing this post. Wouldn't it be interesting to meet those other people we might have been?

Labels: diary

Sonnet No. LXIV

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd,
And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage:
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded with decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

William Shakespeare

Labels: poetry

"G-rated" Sex Pic

Now this is just cool. (from Flickr via BoingBoing)

It's a long exposure picture of two people having sex. As the description on BoingBoing puts it:

"...a kind of erotic blur representing a great deal of energetic movement."

Love it.

Labels: random

NASA Image of the Day

NASA Image of the Day taken by the OSIRIS instrument on the Rosetta spacecraft as it swung by the home planet on the way to rendezvous with Comet 67P and accompany it on its journey toward the sun.

Labels: space

No such thing as a free lunch

See I knew that diet soft drinks were just bad news. (Via MPR.)

There's a new study out from the University of Minnesota which has shown a connection between consuming fast food and even diet soft drinks with an increase in risk for a precursor condition to diabetes known as metabolic syndrome. Here's a couple of highlights:

consuming 2 portions of red meat a day elevates your risk by 26%
drinking diet soft drinks is associated with a 34% increased risk

The soft drinks point is the one that I find most interesting. The study authors are not saying that there is an ingredient in diet sodas that leads to the condition. They don't have data on that particular issue. But drinking diet sodas is connected to the syndrome at least via associated behaviors like eating fried, fatty foods that are the typical fast food fare.
Now, it would be pretty earth-shattering if research did point out some direct effect of diet sodas on the march toward obesity. But frankly, diet drinks don't taste very good to begin with so why risk that. Incidentally, we've also cut out almost all regular soft drinks too because of the high fructose corn syrup content which is known to directly promote obesity.

My opinion for a good while is, all things being equal (no pun intended), give me plain old sugar rather than one of the artificial sweeteners. Better yet, how about sweetening with honey (except for that whole death-of-the-bees thing) or a plant based sweeter like stevia?

Labels: food

Polymath

n. (from the Greek polymathēs, πολυμαθής, "having learned much")
a person with encyclopedic, broad, or varied knowledge or learning. (wikipedia)

No, I hadn't heard the term either, but it is how people refer to the subject of a book I just started. Thomas Young lived from 1773 to 1829 and made impressive contributions to a vast array of areas of study. Here's a quote from the dust jacket that made it impossible not to buy it.

"Invited to contribute to a new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Young offered the following subjects: Alphabet, Annuities, Attraction, Capillary Action, Cohesion, Color, Dew, Egypt, Eye, Focus, Friction, Halo, Hieroglyphic, Hydraulics, Motion, Resistance, Ship, Sound, Strength, Tides, Waves, and 'anything of a medical nature.'"

Holy Rusted Metal Batman! I love this guy! (Not that way! Get your heads out of the gutter.)
I wouldn't claim the appellation of 'polymath' for myself (what hubris!) but I am definitely a generalist when it comes to areas of interest. One of the big reasons I didn't go on and get a PhD while I was in grad school - short attention span. But I believe that knowing a lot about all sorts of lines of inquiry helps one draw connections and analogies between seemingly disparate problems. And when you start thinking about Earth System Science which touches on basically every discipline there is.... Well it seems that polymathic people are the ones who are going to be able to pull together the threads of knowledge to figure out how things actually work.

The review will have to wait until I finish the book. I'll keep you posted.

Labels: science

Quotable

(As heard about on NPR's Weekend Edition and confirmed via the Telegraph.)

"I am monogamous from time to time, but I prefer polygamy."

Carla Bruni - girlfriend of French President Sarkozy

Labels: quote, random

Poem for 2084

My breath has become water.
Chokecherries and wild roses
grow from the ashes of my bones.

You who wake in human form,
healthy and vigorous,
above the root-shaped rocks,

take heart, evolutionary spirits,
many feared
you would never appear.

If the rivers and oceans
have begun to purify,
if the lead contaminated earth

has begun to heal,
if the mind has grown
less separate from other minds,

rejoice - call
your family and friends
to hear these words

of a dead poet:
gather rosehips for tea,
share bread with chokecherry jelly...

Joan Wolf Prefontaine

Labels: poetry

I heart Granpa Jake

Jacob's (paternal) grandfather, Jake, lost about $100 in the banking collapse of the Great Depression.

He was only a teenager at the time but had worked hard and accumulated the money. But his father made him put it in the bank. Not long after this, everything hit the fan. He was so mad that he up and hopped a train for Michigan and worked as a lumberjack when he was 16.

What's more, he apparently blames Herbert Hoover for the loss of the funds.
"And I haven't voted for another Republican since!"

Labels: economics

180 degrees

Some of you know this already, but I dad was a very large man. Back before his open heart surgery (quintuple bypass btw...) he was up over 400# and a couple inches shorter than me. He injured his knee back when he was young and his weight had aggravated it to the point that he had to get a replacement some years ago. He also developed Type II diabetes when I was in high-school or college. So, for my whole life, I've had one of the best motivators you can imagine to eat healthy and get regular exercise.

I've been basically pretty good about it over the years. I've gotten in the habit of working out over lunch (running, biking, weights...) and I try to eat well. But you know how these things go... I might have a busy week of meetings and work and can't make it to work out as much. And we are so busy in the evenings, that we may not eat dinner until 8 or later. So this summer when I got on the scale at the gym for the first time in a while I had a pretty remarkable shock in store. For the first time in my life, I weighed over 200#. 205# to be more precise.

I knew I'd gained weight. Kind of hard not to notice unless you are just not paying any attention at all. But... an all time high? A full 15# heavier than my last previous record?

But then (as they say) a miracle happened. Jacob's recovery from his back surgery became real this summer and he started really wanting to get rid of all the weight he had put on over the 3 years or so he was dealing with problems from a herniated disk. So, for the first time in a long time, we were both on the same page in terms of wanting to do something about our respective issues.

We started having salads or other light fare for dinner as soon as I got home from work instead of waiting. We cut high fructose corn syrup out of our diet about as completely as it's possible to do in today's food environment. We bought a used treadmill from a friend and Jacob has been hoofing it very regularly and I have rededicated myself to making time for going to the gym. Drinking lots of water to help keep the appetite under control. It really is amazing what diet and exercise can do. (Go fig...)

So as the geek that I am, I started graphing my progress. :) Now I didn't actually start right away, so I didn't capture the initial losses, but it's still pretty dramatic. I decided to keep track of my weight before and after the workouts so that I could control for water loss during the workout.

So yesterday, my post-workout weight was exactly 180#. Down 25# from my highest and I can't tell you how good that felt. Now what I've been able to do is really nothing compared to what Jacob has pulled off. He's down 50 or 60 # over a similar period. Granted, he was going from basically no activity all the way to regular exercise with a change of diet thrown in. But it's still been really inspiring to watch him do it. Together, we've been able to do what had been impossible for us to do alone. That's the best thing to come out of this as far as I'm concerned.

Labels: personal

Dino Mummy

Mummified dinosaur reveals surprises

This is pretty fantastic stuff. A 17 year old in North Dakota found a dinosaur fossil back in 2000. But this one was unique among fossils found to date. Apparently the dinosaur became naturally mummified before it fossilized. This means that...

"The creature is fossilized, with the skin and bone turned to stone. But unlike most dinosaur fossils, tissues are preserved as well."
"This includes large expanses of the animal's skin, with clear remains of scales."

That's right! They have mummified, fossilized skin from a Hadrosaur! How cool is that? There is evidence that this animal had stripes.
The other tissues that were preserved have recalibrated our understanding of how these things moved. And how fast they could go at full tilt.

Really fascinating article.

Labels: science

Tasteless Joke

A husband and wife were having dinner at a very fine restaurant when this absolutely stunning young woman comes over to their table, gives the husband a big open mouthed kiss, then says she'll see him later and walks away. The wife glares at her husband and says, "Who the hell was that?"

"Oh," replies the husband, "she's my mistress."

"Well, that's the last straw," says the wife. "I've had enough, I want a divorce!"

"I can understand that," replies her husband, "but remember, if we get a divorce it will mean no more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Infiniti or Lexus in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours." Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm.

"Who's that woman with Jim?" asks the wife.

"That's his mistress," says her husband.

After a few moments, she replies, "Ours is prettier."

Labels: jokes

Tightwad vs. Spendthrift

So all of last week, American Public Media (the for-profit arm of Minnesota Public Radio) was running a series of reports named Consumed that wove through all of the different shows that they produce. The aim was to look at as many facets of modern society as possible and evaluate how sustainable they are. Really interesting coverage.

One thing that caught my attention was a group that was doing research on why some people spend a lot and others can't bring themselves to spend at all. It turns out that fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) shows that there are different things going on in the brains of different people when they think about buying things. For some the pleasure centers in the brain are all lit up. For others it's the pain centers. This study says there is a continuum between the endmembers of Tightwad and Spendthrift and that most of the population is in between.

Find out where you rank.
Tightwad vs Spendthrift Survey

Labels: sustainability

Oil Drum-roll

Two articles over at The Oil Drum caught my eye last week.

1) Six steps to "getting" the global ecological crisis
This article is a simple primer to some of the major issues surrounding what happens when a population goes beyond its habitat's ability to sustain it. The author (tongue in cheek possibly...?) remarks that since there is still so much resistance to this kind of thinking, it must be because no one has explained the reality to them in sufficiently simple terms. So here's his effort to do so.

2) Net oil exports and the "Iron Triangle"
What would be your reaction if someone told you their calculations said that within the next decade the amount of oil available for export to places like the US would fall to zero? Currently, the US produces a minuscule fraction of the oil that is uses and buys the rest from countries that produce more than they use. Now, factors like increased domestic consumption and dropping production mean that there is less and less oil available on the market for export. Inevitably, where these two curves meet, there will be no oil available for export. It is a purely mathematical model, but it's an instructive one. And if things follow those lines, the disruptions (political and social) would be significant.

Labels: oil

Girl with sharp object

No, this isn't an example of every straight, geek-boy's fantasy life.

I got this link from a guy at last year's Living Green Expo who was selling European-style scythes and accessories. They are exceptionally light and easy to use. I even tried one out (although they were out of the model that was built for my height).

That a young girl can so easily make quick work of a field of grass (and do tricks too!) shows convincingly how powerful the right tool can be in human hands.

Labels: sustainability

Full Moon

The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight, has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Labels: random

In her own words - Sonya Tolstoy

(Via NPR)

22 May, 1902.

"I was lying in bed today, wondering why a husband and wife so often find a certain estrangement creeping into their relations. And why relations with outsiders are often so much more pleasant. And I realized that this is because married couples know every single aspect of one another, both the good and the bad. We do not like people to see our bad side and carefully conceal our bad traits from others and show ourselves off to our best advantage. With a husband and wife, though, this is not possible for everything is so transparently visible. One can see all the lies and all the masks and it's not at all pleasant."

I just found this stirring yesterday morning when I heard it on the way to work. Tolstoy and his wife communicated their most by reading each other's diaries apparently. That's a little weird. But then I guess it isn't really that different than posting a bunch of stuff on a blog the world to see, huh. :)
The NPR story about the marriage of these two people is really interesting. They really relied upon one another and still came to a rather dramatic and unfortunate end. And he died in a way that not even he would have written into one of his books...

Labels: random

Book Review - The Good Earth

Thus spring wore on again and again and vaguely and more vaguely as these years passed he felt it coming. But still one thing remained to him and it was his love for his land. He had gone away from it and he had set up his house in a town and he was rich. But his roots were in his land and although he forgot it for many months together, when spring came each year he must go out on to the land; and now although he could no longer hold a plow or do anything but see another drive the plow through the earth, still he must needs go and he went. Sometimes he took a servant and his bed and he slept again in the old earthen house and in the old bed where he had begotten children and where O-lan had died. When he woke in the dawn he went out and with his trembling hands he reached and plucked a bit of budding willow and a spray of peach bloom and held them all day in his hand.

This passage from The Good Earth by Pearl Buck happens very near the end of the book, but in one stroke it sums up almost the entire story. Its the story of a man who knows his strength, his worth, his very life spring out of the land he loves and works.

We follow the farmer Wang Lung from his late teens through basically the rest of his life. He starts a poverty stricken farmer and ends a prosperous man with land and more money than he knows what to do with and a large and constantly growing family. This transformation is accomplished over a lifetime and, while based in part on luck and chance, is so completely believable that one never questions it.

At turns earnestly focused on the nuances of life in early 1900's China and heart-wrenchingly telling the human tale of this man and his family, the book is simply a grand read.

There aren't many books that I actually remember reading in high school. And this is the only one I remember enjoying enough to want to pick it up again. And I was well rewarded for doing so. My adolescent self enjoyed the book, but simply did not have the experiences under his belt to really understand what was going on through much of the story. With another decade and a half of life to draw on, the story was so much richer and more nuanced than I imagined at 17. You simply can't understand the lusts and heartache of married life when you've never really even had a significant other. And you can't understand the pull your ancestral land has on your soul until you've lived a significant part of your life away from it.

Wang Lung is so much more real to me now. He is a generally good man with a soft heart and he makes terribly human mistakes. The one constant in his life is the land. The land his family has farmed for generations and the new land that he acquires through skill and luck. His worst periods are when he is cut off or has cut himself off from the land and he flails about unmoored. He knows love and lust and hate and disinterest. He is bound by the conventions of his culture and strains against the responsibilities he didn't ask for. He is one of the most human characters I know of in literature.

Labels: reviews

Al Gore and the IPCC Share the Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize 2007

Wow. I obviously don't run in the circles where these things are talked about, but I'm pleasantly surprised at the farsightedness of the Nobel Committee on this one. Resource Wars are likely to become the norm as climate patterns shift and people are competing for more scarce resources in places that have known bounty in the past. And like him or lump him, Al has done more than any other single person over the span of the last 30 years to try and raise the profile of what we're doing to ourselves. And the IPCC, for all it's shortcomings and political meddling is the only global body actually looking at this.

Labels: climate

Dear Diary - September 26, 1995

A called tonight with some disturbing news.

Apparently, somehow EP and TP have found out about me and have told some people back home. The bad part is that one of those people is KB and now she's broadcasting it to anyone who'll listen. "Spreading like wildfire" is the phrase she used. And in a town as small a Weaverville, it won't be long before someone in my family hears something.

This isn't the way I wanted things to happen. Of course I don't really know how I did want them to happen. But now I have to decide on some course of action. Maybe I could start with Matt. He's more likely to hear something first anyway.

I just don't want them to hear about it second hand. I've hurt other people by not telling them directly and it would be worse for them to get that news from someone else.

Outing is ... inconvenient.

Oh great mother of all understatements...

Next time: Family - Part 2

Labels: diary

i will wade out - E.E. Cummings

i will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
i will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
alive with closed eyes
to dash against the darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea girls
will i complete the mystery of my flesh
i will rise after a thousand years lipping flowers
and set my teeth in the silver of the moon

Labels: poetry

Music Plug

If you don't know about the Spaghetti Western Strong Co. then you really should. They do really great stuff. It always makes me think of really dark carnival music. It's like music you'd find being played in some saloon in a really serious western movie from a couple decades back. Haunting, kind of creepy, and altogether beautifully made. They write and arrange their own stuff and it's always multilayered and interesting.

I also did some back up singing for them last spring and they'll be releasing the new CD sometime soon. No I won't be getting any royalties or anything. :) I just think this group is great and you should hear them.

On their website they have some free mp3's you can download to hear what they sound like. It's definitely worth it.

Labels: random

Wanting Memories - Ysaye Barnwell

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
To see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.

You said you'd rock me in the cradle of your arms.
You said you'd hold me ‘til the storms of life were gone.
You said you'd comfort me in times like these and now I need you.
Now I need you...
And you are -
gone.

So, I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
Since you've gone and left me, there's been so little beauty,
but I know I saw it clearly through your eyes.
Now the world outside is such a cold and bitter place.
Here inside I have few things that will console.
And when I try to hear your voice above the storms of life,
then I remember all the things that I was told.

Well, I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
Yes, I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
To see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I think on the things that made me feel so wonderful when I was young.
I think on the things that made me laugh , made me dance, made me sing.
I think on the things that made me grow into a being full of pride.
I think on these things, for they are true.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I thought that you were gone, but now I know you're with me.
You are the voice that whispers all I need to hear.
I know a "Please", a "Thank you", and a smile will take me far.
I know that I am you and you are me, and we are one.
I know that who I am is numbered in each grain of sand.
I know that I am blessed,
again, and again, and again, and again,
and, again.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me
To see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.

Lyrics to Wanting Memories
Excerpted from Crossings (1992) also by Y. Barnwell

Labels: poetry

African or European??

(Via Yahoo News)
Migrating Birds may "See" the Earth's Magnetic Field

Once again, nature is so much cooler that we thought.

A study out of Germany has found evidence that structures in the eyes and brains of migratory birds enable them actually see the Earth's magnetic field and that this is behind their amazing ability to navigate over the vast distances they travel.

It just brings home how little we know about how other species (hell, other people!) perceive the world around us. Dogs "see" more with their nose than with their eyes. Snakes taste the air with their tongues. Sharks detect fish movements by sensing the electrical discharges in the fish's muscles. Really, birds being able to see something as elusive as a magnetic field is just another variation on the theme. But it's still pretty damn cool!

Labels: science

San Diego Mayor

You may have already seen mention of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' emotional press conference announcing that he was going to support that city's resolution in favor of gay marriage. If you haven't seen the video, you should. This is a California republican who two years ago said that he supported civil unions or domestic partnerships but not marriage. The press conference video shows the raw emotion of his agonizing over the decision whether or not to veto this resolution.

I know nothing else about the man or the politics in San Diego. But this powerful moment shows that it is possible for people to see past the hide-bound ideology that they have embraced in the past and move forward into a more progressive future. That is a very good thing.

Labels: hope

Dear Diary - December 18, 1994

So this post is going to be surreal in that the diary entry mentioned in the title will never actually make it onto this page. You see, this particular entry is full of so much mentally running in circles, thinking in contradictions, adolescent schlock that I just can't bear to put it in electrons.

"Let me sum up..."

I had my first boy crush
Didn't know what to do about it
Swirled around in my own head for a week
When I finally grew a pair and talked to him about it he said he'd just gotten together with another guy...
"If you'd only said something a week ago..."

Blah blah blah.... Yack. You can imagine the mental contortions that generated...

No, the important part of this diary entry is this tiny little afterthought.

PS. Came out to J today.

Oh the irony. J and I had been absolutely the best of friends for several years. I knew and liked to hang out with his parent when he wasn't around. I was basically adopted as his brother. We're still friends even though we live in different states and don't talk as much as we should. This huge sharing of myself with such a good friend rated a POST SCRIPT in my diary??

In a way I can understand (almost). It was kind of anticlimactic. He took it in stride and nothing really changed in our relationship. We were still great friends and we still did all sorts of stuff together. He was even a little happy. His sister had been asking him if he was gay and now he could deflect that by telling her about me! LOL

Still, in the flush of new experiences and feelings, I had let those important things slide out to the periphery of my thinking. That kid who was in the process of coming out had a lot to learn and wasn't starting off very well. Sometimes it looks like he never did learn to keep the right perspective on things.

Next Time: Family

Labels: diary

Song of the Tree of Forgetting

In my neighborhood there is a tree
that's called the tree of forgetting,
to which those whose souls are dying
go to lay down their troubles.

So that I would no longer think of you
under the tree of forgetting
I lay down one evening,
And I fell fast asleep.

When I awoke from that dream
I thought of you still,
because I forgot to forget you
as soon as I lay down.

Francisco Silva y Valdes
(translated from Spanish)

Labels: poetry

Another Record Low for Arctic Ice

This year sets another record for the loss of ice from the Arctic Ocean. The last time a record low was set was 2005 (and before that it was 2002). This year's low beats the older one by 386,100 square miles - about the size of Texas and California put together. This is a much larger drop than between the last two record lows and in less time.

Here's the news story via Yahoo. And here's the post from the National Snow and Ice Data Center about the study results.

Labels: climate

Locavore Extreme

Late last winter, Manny Howard decided to embark on an adventure - an experience he writes about in the New York Magazine Feature, My Empire of Dirt.

He decided to see what his 8000 square feet of back yard could really do in terms of production. He was going to grow food plants and raise food animals in his Brooklyn backyard transformed into The Farm, and he was going to do it with the purpose of only eating things he had produced for the entire month of August. It started as the logical extension of the Locavore movement (only eating things produced within 30 or 100 miles of where you live) to its extreme end. It became an obsession that drove his whole family to the brink of collapse.

It is fascinating reading. And he was eventually successful, although he had to shift his goals to some degree. After an unfortunate incident with a table saw, having to dig a hole 7 ft deep through clay, apparently buying the only rabbits in the world that didn't actually "fuck like bunnies," and a near marital meltdown, he did spend 4 weeks eating what he had raised. He spent an enormous amount of time and money to produce what was essentially starvation rations for one man for a month. There was no surplus for canning. There was nothing for the plate during the months of production. It was an extremely eye-opening story.

Labels: sustainability

Theater Review - Cityceased

Our friend Maureen clued us into this really unique theater experience.

The play is called Cityceased and here's the blurb about it from the City Pages:

This collaborative performance depicts a city of the dead, where people exist as long as they are remembered on earth. No advance ticket sales.

Every week Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday from Sat., September 1 until Sun., September 30, 8:00pm
Price: $12
Lakewood Cemetery - 3600 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis

Well, already we were intrigued. But the actual experience was so much NOT what we were expecting.

It turns out this is a play on the hoof, so to speak. We started off at the top of the steps near the incredible Lakewood Cemetery Chapel. Then we were instructed to "follow the lights." The lights were 2 propane lanterns with aluminum foil to direct the light in one direction. The lantern people led us down the stairs to the place where we met the characters. And from there the action took place as a walking tour of the Cemetery at night. It was really wild. We went last night, which of course is the coldest night of fall so far. It was great in that it so felt like Halloween time but the blurb didn't actually say "outdoors and bring your walking shoes..." So some of our party weren't dressed for it. But everyone managed ok.

First of all, we thought it was worth it just for the walking tour of this wonderful cemetery at night. This is a gated "community" and no one is usually allowed in after dark, so it was a treat. But the play and music was a great addition. I don't want to give away too much, because it was great to discover what they were doing ourselves. The story is a good one and they use music in really wonderful ways to both reinforce the action and help the "scene changes" as we moved from place to place. Let's just say there are drums, an accordion, some xylophone, even a little bit of piano... all around the cemetery! It was great! And how they pulled it off was just as impressive.

If you like plays, or plays about dead people, or walking in a cemetery after dark, then GO SEE THIS PLAY! Two big ole' thumbs up. Apparently it's easiest to get tickets on Thursdays and Sundays, but like I said we went on a Friday night and had no problem. It runs through the end of the month so don't miss it!

Labels: reviews, theater

Deferred Gratification

So earlier this summer, I sold most of my good Magic the Gathering cards on Ebay. (I'll pause so that those of you too shocked to continue can catch your breath.....)
My ultimate goal was to get a new bike for fun and exercise. I had sort of planned it since last winter.

Well, as these things go (whenever they cross paths with me), I just kind of didn't get around to it in the springtime. Then it was the middle of summer and I started getting photos and stuff together. Then they got posted and it took a week to find out that they all sold and I had made almost what I had set as a goal.

And now summer's over. :) No doubt I could still have a really fun time on a bike throughout the fall. But after getting some good advice from that great guy I live with, I decided that I wouldn't go that route. Turns out this week REI was having this big old fall sale and things were more than 50% off. So....

I took a big ole plunge. You're looking at a picture of the Salomon Snowscape 7 crosscountry ski set I just ordered. Got everything: skis, binding, poles, boots... All for less than $200, which is about $170 less than it would've have been at regular price.

So now, I REALLY AM going to learn how to crosscountry ski this winter. No more pansyass complaining about wanting to. No more trying to avoid looking like an idiot by not going up to the desk at the Rec Center at Carleton and checking out a pair to learn on. Time for a little personal responsibility.

I've got some more small bits of irrelevance that I can liquidate over the winter and have enough in place to buy a new bike next spring. This way, I'm going to enjoy getting out into the arboretum over winter and be in shape to enjoy that bike when it arrives.

Labels: personal

Not Just for the Youngsters

Old age 'no barrier' to sex life

In a survey of 3,005 people aged 57 to 85, a significant number said they were sexually active into their 70s and 80s.
Health problems or lack of a partner, rather than lack of desire, were listed as the most common barriers to sex.

Well, this is good news. Not only do those older folks with active sex lives record higher quality of life, but that higher quality of life seems to feed back into a longer life (on average). There has been little research in this area, probably owing to the similarity this might have to thinking about one's parents having sex, which most people try and avoid. But growing old doesn't make someone any less human and ignoring this important part of being human leads to a skewed view of what we have to look forward to as we age.

Labels: science

On Assignment: The Sequel - Day 2

Yesterday I made the single largest beer purchase I have ever even contemplated.

We can't pay for alcohol out of our grant funding from the government. So we took up a collection from those who wanted to contribute in order to get beer. For the week. For 40 people.

I went to the market/liquor store in Hoback Junction (no lie) and ended up with 2 grocery carts full of beer. Piled high. And spent the whole contribution fund of $280 in cash. The cashier said she hadn't ever sold that much beer at one time before.

Labels: personal

On Assignment: The Sequel - Day 1

We found out last night after I made my post that we are only 10 miles away from one of the forest fires that's currently chewing up acreage here in the west. It's entirely possible that we'lll have to evacuate if the wind shifts just the right way.

Last night, the smoke drifting around obscured about half the sky, making it like looking at the stars from the middle of the Twin Cities. But the other half of the sky was simply spectacular. I haven't been able to see that many stars in so long... The Milky Way was bright in the sky and so magnificent. I did see one shooting star before I just had to go to bed.

That view of the sky is just so awe inspiring. Just one example: I know with my head that the Milky Way we see in the sky is an arm of our galaxy. But how do you comprehend something of that scale from our insignificant place on this little backwater planet? Knowing and understand aren't the same thing.

It reminds me of Carl Sagan's famous Blue Dot slide. Everything you've ever know about or cared about has happened on that tiny little dust mote caught in a sunbeam. Think on that...

UPDATE
The forest fire is about 30 miles away not 10.

On Assignment: The Sequel

Another week, another trip for work. :)

This time, I'm going to be spending a week at a geology fieldcamp near Jackson, WY, helping with a workshop on Teaching Geophysics in the 21st Century.

The setting is absolutely gorgeous. And the facilities are incredibly "rustic." I totally missed out on this experience because I wasn't a geology major. Geology students come to places like this at least once in their education, spend most of a summer living in sheet metal shacks eating food cooked over fires and spend their days doing field geology and their nights... well they usually start out around the firepits...

Tonight is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, too. And here I find myself out in the middle of no where with no light pollution.

I've got the good office camera with me and will be taking a lot of photos. But I'll have to post them later as the damn thing can't talk to the laptop I have with me.

Labels: personal

Softball Season Roundup

So this past weekend was the end of season tournament for my softball league.
It was pretty disappointing for us. We lost our first two games and were out. Oh well.

This was a good season regardless. A hard one too. We really kicked some butt the first half but after we got bumped up to 3rd rank we just couldn't hit our stride. We went 2 and 8 the second half, a mirror image of the 8 and 2 of the first. So we came out 10 and 10 on the season. We've just got a lot of work ahead of us to be able to play at the division 1 level against the best teams in the league.
Actually we play them hard now and make them work for it. So we have to get better to be able to win. :)

But that's for next season.

It's also weird being done now. We usually do a tourny in Milwaukee over Labor Day but we aren't going this year. So I'm done a month early. It's not like I can't use the extra time or that Jacob and I won't have fun doing something over Labor Day. It's just... different. And in the words of the poet, "We fear change."

:)

Labels: personal

Movie Review - Hairspray

I didn't really know what to expect when Jacob said he wanted to see Hairspray, but I've dragged him to enough bad movies that I owe him. So I figured "what the hell."

But I really and truly love this movie! It was a happy, fun, frolic of music and dancing. And there was this heavy line of progressive civil rights through the whole thing. I loved all the music and dancing. I was bouncing around in my seat the whole time. It was hilariously funny and I laughed through most of the flick. Even John Travolta dressed up in a fat suit and drag didn't take away from the movie. Once you realized that they weren't trying to make him actually look like a woman, you could just suspend disbelief a bit and it was fine.

I really can't recommend this one highly enough. It's one of the best movies we've seen together in a very long time. And for both of us to agree that it was a good movie... well let's just say that might well be the little mentioned 8th sign of the apocalypse.

Go see it. You'll be glad you did. :)

Labels: reviews

This Just Doesn't Happen in MN!

(Photos from mpr.org)
Unbelievable...

First off, though, Jacob and I are both fine. We've gotten a number of check in's from around the country from friends and family. But neither of us was anywhere near this yesterday.
That said, of course, it was a stretch of road that both of us have traveled how many hundreds of times, and it isn't unusual for me to have been on it a time or two per week.

And so far, we haven't found anyone in our circle of friends and loved ones who was involved. Very thankful there. The estimates at the moment put the number of missing around 30. Out of about 150,000 people who use that bridge every day. That's a pretty amazingly small number. Still significant to every family involved though.

Minnesota Public Radio has a lot of great coverage of the events as well as a lot of really amazing photos.
And I just found that KARE 11 News has security camera footage of the actual collapse. Wow!

UPDATE

Found this image on the BBC website. Wow.

Apparently someone put a comment on a NYT article about this. The gist was something like "I'm from Minnesota. Things are just supposed to work there!" I think that pretty much sums things up for folks around here.

Labels: news

Dear Diary - November 26, 1994

I don't know that I'll have time or energy to write tonight after the concert so I'll get down what's happened so far now and update later if need be.
A bunch of the folks that went dancing last night didn't feel so hot this morning. After I left, most of the others stayed until 3 or 330 AM. Ha Ha! I enjoyed going dancing so much. It felt so good to just let the music in to do the thinking.
After rehearsal this morning, there was an interminable official reception by the town fathers. Then after lunch I went shopping in downtown [Compiegne] with H, Wanda, and Jennifer. Wanda made me feel so happy today! We were waiting outside the bank while H cashed a travelers check and she said that I was one of the few people on the trip that she still respected as much now as she did before we left Raleigh. From a classy lady like her, that was a really big ego boost.
I have come to the conclusion, this evening, that I would technically be classified as a bisexual [ROTFLMAO!!! Gods! More in the comments.] However, this is not really correct in that am not looking to have sex at all. [Again, I'm speechless. Poor moron, I _was_ him, Horatio.] But I am attracted to men and women. [*sigh* shakes head sadly] This whole line of thought sprang from a long conversation this afternoon. Apparently, I haven't been terribly observant in Chamber Singers, as the ratio of gay to straight is pretty high and climbing daily by some accounts. I guess I turned my gaydar off without realizing really. It can be a dangerous thing. Regardless, it's been working intermittently on its own which has been confusing.

Addendum - December 11, 1994
I didn't write about it after the concert, but one of the most important things in my life occurred that night. At the reception after the big gala concert, a bunch of us singers were standing around talking. I smelled T's cologne [Cool Water] and knew he was nearby. So I turned towards him and found out that he was closer than I anticipated. I was practically on top of him. The smell of his cologne was so strong, I just wanted to grab him. At that moment, all the jumbled pieces in my head just snapped into place. There was a word that described what I felt and I knew it wasn't "bisexual." It was also my first inkling that T was gay - I was within scant inches of him for what would have been an uncomfortably long few seconds for many straight men.

Okay. Let's just get that whole "bisexual" thing out of the way right up front. Looking back, I know that that precious little tidbit was just my juvenile, vain attempt to keep the genie in the bottle. Deep inside I knew (and had for a while) that I certainly did not feel the same towards women as I did towards men. I just couldn't yet bring myself to put the word on it.

Even after what happened that evening, I still didn't actually say or think the word "gay" for several more weeks. And those several weeks were some of the loneliest, darkest times I can ever remember. In retrospect, I have come to see that time (however romantically) as a mourning period. A life that I knew and the future that would have flowed from it was drawing to a close. That life had to be put down before another could be taken up. And I did certainly take it up. But there will be more on that in future posts. There were still many emotional train-wrecks of my own devising ahead. But after that period, the fact that I was gay wasn't the source of my mental illness. It was only a supporting character with occasional lines. No screwups sprang from the fact that I was completely unprepared emotionally for this brave new world or attraction, hormones, dating, sex, relationships.... When one does not feel compelled by one's hormones to behave like a sex-starved lunatic whenever girls are around (unlike one's peers), one (wrongly) begins to develop the idea that one is above such petty, carnal concerns. I was completely impervious to the temptations of the flesh... Which was, of course, complete bullshit. I was worse off than most because I had never had to develop those muscles.

Next Time: Baby Steps

Labels: diary

Hurricanes - Lots of 'em

So at work right now I'm spending almost all of my time working on developing lab activities about Hurricanes for high school earth science students. It's a pretty incredible project and I'll link off to it when it's ready for public consumption. Now, I know a fair amount about hurricanes. Or at least I thought I did. I've learned so much more about them and atmospheric dynamics in the last several weeks. And today I came across a really incredible image on Wikipedia (I LOVE THEM!).

This small image doesn't do the thing justice. But if you click on the image it will take you to the full sized one. (Be warned - the full image is almost 6 Mb.)

The image is a compilation of the tracks for every hurricane that has happened across the globe between 1985 and 2005. !! Those blobs of color actually resolve out to points mapping out the position of the storms at 6 hour intervals and whose color denotes the strength of the storm at that point. (The colors map to the Safir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.)

The thing that I found so compelling was that you can really see the overall patterns of hurricane formation and movement at this scale. North of the equator, they start in the low latitudes and travel westward before most of them turn to the north and ultimately end up traveling back to the east above 30 degrees N latitude. And the storms in the southern hemisphere (called tropical cyclones instead of hurricanes, btw) mirror that behavior - traveling westward, turning south and then moving east below 30 degrees S latitude. And the complete absence of them at the equator. By all accounts, it is physically possible for a storm to cross the equator, but there are no records of one actually succeeding.

The other glaring thing is the almost complete lack of hurricanes in the South Atlantic. The only one on record is Hurricane Catarina in 2004 that was a Category 1 and hit the coast of Brazil. (Actually, the Brazilian people named it themselves unofficially since no one had ever developed a list of potential names since hurricanes "don't happen" in the South Atlantic.) There have also been a handful of tropical storms that formed in this part of the ocean but they were short-lived and none had ever developed into a full blown hurricane before that we know of.

It's just an awesome picture and there's so much information in it. Any questions?

Labels: science

Garden Update

This, friends is the largest single-day harvest yet this season. Whatever shall I do with the abundance??

The big one on the lest is one of the Nyagous black tomatoes. Then there's a red cherry and 4 yellow lemondrops. The Nyagous might still be a little under-ripe but it was developing those splits in the top and I figured it was better to pick it now rather than wait for it to be completely ripe and have it explode on the vine. So mow I have gotten a fruit off of 4 of the 7 varieties I planted: early girl, yellow lemondrop, red cherry, and nyagous. Still waiting on white wonder, giant beefsteak, and big beef. Although, there is a fruit on the big beef plant that should be ripe in a day or two. Although it doesn't really live up to "big beef." Ah well...

The female pumpkin flower that I hand pollinated last week has died. May she decompose in peace. But I have 3 more that will open in the morning and as luck would have it, there are 3 males that will also open in the morning. So we'll try it again.

I've got 4 female cucumber flowers being pollinated as we speak. I don't know how long they stay open or what to watch for now, but 4 is better than none.

The second round of radishes is an almost total bust - only 3 surviving plants. Several others sprouted but for some reason the rabbits decided now was the time to attack. They left everything alone all spring. Perhaps the heat and drought have cut down on their other food sources. But if the radishes are the price for keeping them out of everything else, I'll pay it. And this fall I'll be planting garlic again, so that will help keep them away next year if past experience holds.

Labels: gardening

Dear Diary - September 10, 1994

I spent the afternoon with JF today. We were supposed to be playing D&D up at University Towers but Charles fell off the face of the earth. So we just hung out.

I spent the evening over at H's place. We got a flyer made up for the [Grains of Time] CD, had dinner, and then watched TV and talked for a long time.

H told me tonight that he is gay and is finally coming out to some people. I truly had no idea. On the way home, I tried to formulate how I felt about it. I feel honored that he decided to share this aspect of his life with me. I can't find any revulsion or scorn or hate in my feelings for him, only the love of one soul sharing another's search for happiness. And that's what I wish for you my friend; happiness and joy.

H was the first person that ever told me he was gay. We had been friends for about 2 years at this point and we had become very close. I really didn't have a clue that he was gay before this particular evening and had not begun to understand my own status either. If I remember correctly, he was cooking and made some comment about stereotypically straight behavior and used the ever-so-PC term "breeders." I of course played the foil and said something along the lines of "I wouldn't talk that way about a group unless you're taking yourself out of it." To which he said "I am." And from there we launched into dinner and a discussion about him being gay. I'm sure I looked completely confused. I'm not terribly quick when the universe shifts under my feet. But I wrote this entry as soon as I got home to my apartment that night so I must have caught up pretty quick. In fact, my entry from 2 days later begins...

When H graduates, I'm not going to have any really close friends in Grain's anymore. I mean, he's the only one I really do stuff with outside the group and we can talk about serious stuff if we want or need to.

... and continues on into more of my barely post-adolescent, self-righteous drivel.

I suppose that, given all the things that were still yet to happen in my life, it shouldn't be surprising that I was able to take his coming out basically in stride. But 1) there are a lot of people in the closet that react with panic in these kinds of situations because it shines to bright a light into that dark corner they don't want to look at and 2) I did not always get that same response when I was coming out. But at this point, I was so completely clueless about myself and we had such a close friendship that this new facet was simply absorbed into it.

"I looked for my soul, but my soul I could not see. I looked for my God, but my God eluded me. I looked for a friend and then I found all three." - Thomas Blake

Next Time: Switching Teams

Labels: diary

Ugh - Tread Water

1) On Assignment Rap-up: Days 3-6 went well. The workshop was very fun and the folks were great. Being stuck there an extra day did suck, but the PI and I used some of the extra time to get some preparations in place for the workshop we're doing together in August. And then Friday morning when I went out to the car (which hadn't been driven in about 5 day) there was a flat tire. *grrrrrrr*

2) Being gone for a whole week was pretty nice, but it isn't like I was on vacation. I was working the workshop and I was also doing other work on the side. But when I got back to the office this week I was totally buried. I have a couple of looming deadlines which were approaching faster than work was happening and new tasks were piling up faster than I could deal with them. This was a really rough week. I'm the one who has to catch all the dropped balls and fix a lot of the random crises and put out the wildfires. But at the office meeting on Friday, I think we managed to carve out some buffer around me so that I can push through these last couple of weeks before those deadlines and actually get the work done.

3) I started something this week that some people might think unwise. You see, back in June of 1994, I started keeping a diary and this week I went back and read all 4 volumes of said diary. At the beginning I was writing about everyday but towards the end I was only managing to make an entry about twice a year. (Sounds kind of like my blogging behavior...) All in all, the record goes from 6/94 through July 2000. But the big issue here is that I started keeping the diary about 5 months before I came out of the closet. So I actually have a record of what I was thinking and doing through that whole period. But, gods, so much of it is self-important drivel! I mean truly, truly awful stuff. And I was a complete basket case emotionally far more often than I would like to remember. Understandable, I guess, considering what was going on in my life, but still it's not a particularly inspiring period. But with all that said, there are a (very) few instances when I surprised current self with some bit of insight or clear thought. So over the next weeks and months, you'll probably see some of those diary posts appear here (heavily edited to protect the guilty). So stay tuned.

Labels: random

On Assignment - Day 2

So I found out last evening that the f$*k-wads at North Worst Airlines had decided to cancel the flight that I am coming home on. Apparently the 4pm flight from Syracuse to Detroit just puts too much of a drain on their pilot flight hours. So they canned them. All. Retroactively. No "from henceforth..." but "it shall be as if it never was."

And they were so nice. They decided they wanted me to be on a Friday morning flight. Leaving SYR at 630 AM!!! So I'd have to be there an hour early, that's 530. Then it's a 45 minute drive, that's 445. Then I'd have to be conscious and alert enough not to kill myself on the way, so that would mean getting up about 4 am. To quote the Bard, "I don't think so Tim." My Morning Person credentials don't kick in before 6am thank you very much.

So I called and talked to "Raymond" (with the interesting south Asian accent) for a few minutes before he put me on hold for a half hour. He assured he'd call me back with information about what other flights I can go on. Right. I'm just glad I found out now, when I have 3 whole days to try and get through the reality shielding around NWA headquarters.

I mean, I know they don't give a shit about passengers or employees, but you'd think they would at least try to make it look like they did.

Labels: evil

On Assignment - Day 1

This week I'm in upstate New York at Hamilton College providing support for a workshop on Designing Effective Courses in the Geosciences. It started today and it runs through Thursday.

This morning before the workshop actually got underweigh, some of us went on a field trip to see some of the geology in the area south of the Adirondacks. Quite interesting even if most of it was Sedimentology and Stratigraphy that went right over my head. But the really cool thing about the strata that we were looking at was that half of the layers were fossil bearing. And not just one every now and then. In several places, the WHOLE LAYER was just fossil bits that had been cemented together. So we saw a lot of fossils. One of the ladies on the trip is just a machine at finding trilobite fossils. Over the course of the 4 hour trip (of which 1.5-2 were driving), she found 5 or 6 trilobites. That's just unreal. She said it's her thing.

I also found a part of one. I don't have pictures to post, but it's forward part of the carapace. Basically the "head" of it and nothing else, but it's an example of the biggest species of trilobite living in the area at the time. Pretty cool. I just picked it up because it looked like a cracked black egg shell attached to a rock. Sweet!

The rest of the day was spent "in session" and most of this first half day was getting the faculty to define what their goals are for the class they want to develop this week. Specifically. This is something that is very hard for folks to do, actually. It makes perfect sense that knowing what you want your students to get out of your class affects how the class comes together. But that's not the usual way for class development to happen. Usually it's about covering a certain range of content, having a certain array of assignments and labs, with a little assessment thrown in at the end so they can give grades. Rather bass-ackwards, as they say. So this afternoon was where we got to rattle them up a little and get them thinking about it from the front and many of them find it frustrating and unsettling. They can see plainly that it makes sense but it is foreign and alien. So they have to break out of their own barriers. But it's a good experience and they get lots of feedback as they try and formulate what they want their students to be able to do with the knowledge once the class is done.

Tonight the participants have some "homework" in that they need to take all that feedback and improve the draft goals they came up with today. Tomorrow we scale down from the overarching course goals to a finer level of detail. What ancillary goals and skills and activities do they need to think about to get the students where they want them to be? Should be fun and interesting.

Labels: education

More Than Meets the Eye

I don't remember how old I was when I first saw them in the toy aisle, but the first Transformer I ever bought was Bumblebee. Like many guys my age, from that moment I was pretty well hooked. I spent inordinate amounts of my allowance buying them over the next decade or so that the original toy series was out. I watched the tv show religiously. Even the reruns. And there were always reruns. While I didn't memorize their stats from the back of their packages (that would have just been weird), I kept all the boxes so that I could look at those stats anytime I wanted to (which, to me, seemed much less weird...). I made a lame, half-assed attempt at making a transformer costume for Halloween once. The first Transformers movie was the first movie I ever went to by myself. No one in my family wanted to go, so mom dropped me off at the Beaucatcher Cinema on Tunnel Road and then took my brother across the street to the Asheville Mall. It was 1986, I was 12, and it felt like the first grown up thing I had ever been allowed to do. I have a copy of that movie (VHS) on the shelf in the den right now. And I've watched it.

I idolized the transformers. The concept of taking something plain and ordinary like a car and transforming it into something totally cool and extraordinary like a giant robot with guns was just indescribably awesome. The way I remember my play with the toys, it was mostly about actually taking them from one form to the other and back with little plot or story-line or good versus evil battles and such. The act of transforming was more magical than anything else I could come up with to do with them. If you had asked me then (and I'm sure many family members did) why I liked them so much, I'm sure my answer would have been something like "because they're so cool!" That's all I could vocalize at the time. Looking back with some perspective, I think I understand it a little better.

That transformation from car to robot was exactly what I wanted. I could change these action figures back and forth in the dark blindfolded with one hand. If I could do that good enough and long enough, maybe my hands could find the secret of how they did it so that I could work that same magic on myself. Transformation of the base metal of a chubby, homely, geeky nobody into the pure gold of ...... someone else. It would be years before I could make that alchemy happen, but I now see the foundation being laid here. "It is possible to be different than we appear!" "Change is necessary to fulfill what we came here to do!" These were the messages I got loud and clear from my time with these "toys."

So, as you can see, there was a lot of baggage that accompanied me into the theater today to see the new Transformers movie with Rick, his son Large, Mark, and some other folk. I knew I'd see the movie, even though I was terrified they would destroy yet another fond childhood memory with cheesy cgi graphics (have you seen what they're gonna do to Alvin and the Chipmunks???). It simply wasn't optional.

On the whole, I'd give the movie a B. It was entertaining. Great graphics of course. Shia LaBeouf and Josh Duhamel were both cute and did decent jobs. But when I heard Peter Cullen (who has been the voice of Optimus Prime since the beginning) I went right back to being 10 years old. Through that whole period, Optimus Prime was the pinnacle of all that was Good and Right and Holy in life (melodramatic, I know). Today, when he made his first appearance and transformed from big-rig to robot I started to choke up. I'm a sucker for the whole "good triumphs through teamwork and sacrifice" thing and that is one of the strong suits for this whole storyline. (Now my right brain is busy this whole time trying to analyze what was going on in the movie and how its creators were able to generate this kind of response from a 33 year old man who hasn't played with his few remaining, boxed-up transformer toys in years. It was of course a brilliant display of emotional blackmail on the part of the studio. Too bad for them, I don't have any children to get hooked on their upgraded toy line.)

So, go see the movie if you like. It won't win any awards but it can keep you entertained for almost two-and-a-half hours. But this was SO not about the movie for me. I just reintroduced myself to a kid I knew a long time and several lives ago. He really digs the Transformers and at least we have that in common. That lifeline is worth a lousy $7 matinée admission.

Labels: personal

Garden Update

So last week, I had to pull the radishes because they were starting to really shade the cucumbers against the fence behind them. I got a decent harvest from the Sparkler Radishes, a couple didn't sprout and a few of the others were small but I got a ziplock of radishes from 2 1.5' rows which I don't think is too bad. The French Breakfast Radishes on the other hand... Almost a total bust. I got 1 decent radish out of a 4 foot long row. They produced all sorts of greens but not much in the way of root. Oh well.

Anyway, today I decided to pull one of the two Gold Pepper plants I had. It wasn't doing well and all the leaves were getting deformed. The other one is just fine so I guess it's something in that particular seed's genetics.Well that opened up a chunk of space in the garden so this afternoon I planted a second round of Sparkler Rashishes. 3 Rows by 1.5' long. Hopefully I'll get similar results on this set.

In other news, those cukes that the radishes had been shading are doing quite well. In fact, as you can see there on the 3rd plant from the right, the very first cucumber flower has bloomed. It opened this morning and is a beautiful thing. :) The three larger plants are from the original planting. They were the only ones that germinated from that round. So about 2 weeks later, I filled in the gaps with more seeds and they all germinated. So we'll have an unintentionally staggered harvest, I guess. That'll be nice.

Also, the little monarda bush that I planted this spring has started blooming. It doesn't seem like there's been any problem getting the tomatoes pollinated so far, but every little bit helps and I've sort of built myself up to see what this miracle worker will look like.
Pretty cool, huh? Kind of creepy and spider looking. It has several more rows of those red things so I'm interested to see how much creepier it's going to get.

As a final note, I don't think I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, our neighborhood had a workshop on Rain Barrels at the community center. For $20, residents could help assemble donated materials and take home a brand new rain barrel. So of course I went. I know... It's not terribly good looking yet, but it can be painted. On Sunday I went and got the materials to raise it up off the ground and cut the down-spout to get it into position. It's a 50 gallon barrel and that's a lot of water for the garden. And in our thunderstorm today (the first in a long time) it looks like I got between 5 and 8 gallons off the part of the roof that hits that downspout. Again - pretty cool.

Labels: gardening

Mitt Romney is Evil

I know, I know... What else is new?
How about this. (via Towleroad)

The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest.

You know, this disturbs me as much or more than all the other evil this man has been a part of. Most dog owners treat their animals as members of the family. This just shows the man to be incapable of showing respect to anything that can't possibly help him in gaining power. If I were one of his kids (aside from changing my name and getting the hell out of that house), I'd be worried that next time, I might be the one strapped to the roof.

Labels: evil

10 Years

On July 1, 1997 I became a citizen of Minnesota. Well probably not legally. But that was the day that I moved into an apartment in Loring Park, Minneapolis, MN and started a new life. When I think about it, it seems like a decade could hardly contain all the things that have happened since I moved physically out of the South that I had left mentally so long before. Hell, even getting here was an adventure.

I was finishing up my *cough* 5th *cough* year at NCSU and I was going to graduate whether I wanted to or not. So, to avoid the "real world" as long as possible, I started looking at grad schools. My partner at the time, J, just wouldn't shut up about how great Minneapolis was. He had visited an old boyfriend of his once and just could not stop going on about it. Reluctantly I put it the U of M on my list of applications and filled out all the paperwork. Well, it turned out that the Geology and Geophysics department was apparently overjoyed to get my application and flew me up to look at the school. Being as how they were also the only school to have actually made me an offer of financial aid (at the time) they pretty much had me, as they say, by the short and curlies. I was really impressed with the school and the town and did some apartment shopping while I was here to visit the program.

So fast forward a few months. Mom and dad were going to help us move to MN. (J was so happy and my parents were happy to help but not terribly happy that both of us were going.) So I got a UHaul trailer that my dad would pull with his truck and J and I would load some stuff into my car and follow behind. I don't remember for sure, but I think we pulled out of Raleigh on the 25th of June. We were going to take 3 days going up, J and I would stay in a hotel for a few nights, mom and dad would drive back because mom had to be somewhere on the 2nd, and we'd move into our new place on the 1st. Simple.

Well..... My car blew a head gasket going up and down the mountains, I think somewhere in West Virginia. We were just lucky there was a store at the top of one of those hills that I could pull into. We offloaded everything from the car onto the bed of my dad's truck and left the car there. I kid you not. Dad was going to come back for it to tow it back to Asheville to sell. The only complication was that dad's truck (a former ambulance chassis I might add) only sat 2 in the cabin. Bucket seats. So... What choice did we have? J and I spent the rest of that day riding out of the mountains of Appalachia on the bed of a truck surrounded by the belongings that wouldn't fit in the trailer. How very Beverly Hillbillies....

Luckily for us this didn't continue. Because dad's truck dropped its transmission on the road late that evening south of Indianapolis, IN. Sweet! In the dark, in a part of the country where we didn't know a soul, and down to zero working vehicles. Truly a great day. J was just completly freaking out. Think of the most stereotypical gay flameout you can imagine and your on the right track. I'm sure my parent were completely scandalized. Anyway, we ended up spending 2 and a half days marooned in Seymore, IN in a hotel with my parents.

I have marveled at how dad was able to make anything good come out of this whole ordeal. He got on the phone from the hotel and called a friend back in NC whole tows ambulances (dad worked for the Emergency Medical System so he knew everybody). His friend agreed to come get his truck and take it back to Asheville. In the mean time, we hunted around for a UHaul truck to pull the UHaul trailer we still had with all our crap in it. We eventually found one and dad's friend arrived.

And mom left with them. She wouldn't actually set foot in Minnesota or see my adopted home for another 8 years when she visited with my Uncle Bruce. But she had to get back and this was the only way. So she rode back with them. The three of us left spent one more night in the hotel (in one room... awkward...) and then got back on the road. We made the entire rest of the way from south of Indianapolis all the way to St. Paul in one very long day. I think we arrived at the hotel at about 2 am on July 1st. We checked in, slept, got dad in a taxi to the airport to fly home and then tried to figure out our new home.

It was a major adjustment. (Picture driving a 15 foot long UHaul truck with a 10 foot long UHaul trailer in Loring Park trying to move into our apartment.) But a messy (nasty) breakup, a slut phase (it's a technical term....), a degree, 2 jobs, a new husband, two dogs, and a house later - I'm still here. I am in my 10th season with my softball team (longest serving member). I have friends like my Creepy Game Night crew that I feel like I've known all my life. I've been here long enough to lose friends to death and moving away. I've lost my grandfather, my father, and my grandmother since I moved here; gone back to NC to mourn and comfort. But I always return to Minnesota.

I've told friends and family that I knew very quickly that Minnesota was where I was supposed to be. I feel just as certain about that now as I did 10 years ago. Moving away from everything and everyone I had ever known was truly wrenching. The move itself was traumatic. But birth is a difficult thing. Rebirth even tougher. Especially without the gift of forgetting your previous lives. But, oh, what an adventure it's turned out to be.

Labels: personal

Another Record

OSLO (Reuters) - This year is on track to be the second warmest since records began in the 1860s and floods in Pakistan or a heatwave in Greece may herald worse disruptions in store from global warming, experts said on Friday.
"2007 is looking as though it will be the second warmest behind 1998," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia, which provides data to the U.N.'s International Meteorological Organization.

Full Article, via Yahoo! News

Labels: climate

Balance

How many times have you heard someone say, "We have to balance the needs of people with the needs of the evironment." I can tell you I've heard it too many times. And for the most part, I think that those speakers were being earnest. After all, what are a few spotted owls compared to hundreds of families and the communities that depend on logging to make their living. Surely what we need to get by is worth something in the equation.

But here's the rub. The "needs" of people aren't a static thing. Humans are never satisfied with things as they are and always want that next incremental improvement in their lifestyle. So humans demand more and more of every system that supports them. Modern Homo sapiens has coopted 40% of the biosphere and it's processes just to satisfy our "needs." One species - 40%. Leaving the other ~5 million species on the planet to divy up the other 60% as best they can. That kind of behavior is inherently unballanced.

On the other side of the equation, what Gaia needs is for all the parts to stay in equilibrium. There are natural extreme events that disturb that equilibrium, sometimes almost totally as in the case with the great mass extinctions at the ends of the Permian and the Cretaceous. But on the whole, equilibrium is established and maintained over enormous stretches of the planet's history. (Note that "equilibrium" doesn't mean stasis. It's a dynamic, evolving condition where every piece of the system is living and breathing and changing but doing it in concert. This is where the longterm stability of the biosphere is generated.)

So how does one balance exponentially growing needs on one side of the scale with punctuated equilibrium on the other. In short... you can't. The best one can hope for (with today's society) is that, for a short time, you can hobble that exponential growth enough to allow the environment to stabilize somewhat from the last assault on it. There are so many things that happen that are normal in the cycle of things: wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, floods. Left to it's own devices, an ecosystem will absorb that difficulty and come out on the other side in time. But we aren't in the habit of leaving ecosystems alone and these wounds aren't healing well and sometimes not at all.

Humanity believes that it has "dominion" over the planet and everything on it and therefore that what is best for us is best for all life. From that point of view, we have the god-given right to as much of the worlds resources as we can get our grubby little hands on. Without consequences. At least none that will affect us. "Paying it forward" in a warped and twisted way. We're just a species in it's terrible two's: everything is about us and what we want and woe betide anything or anyone who stands between us and our sought-after trinket.

I hope and pray that someday, soon, there will be a critical mass of individuals who want the species to grow up. That our world won't become the distopia foreseen by so much science fiction. That maybe there's a chance for simple, happy lives in communities not blasted back to the stone age by our unwillingness to let go of behaviors that are killing us none too slowly.

Labels: sustainability

Monopoly Mentality

So there's this small company named TerraCycle. They've produce one of the most innovative organic fertilizers to come on the market recently. It's made from worm castings (worm crap) and the worms are fed on totally organic plant materials. The castings are liquefied and then bottled. And get this: they bottle their product using recycled pop bottles that are gathered by school and community groups who receive $0.05 for every bottle they send to TerraCycle.

To sum up:
1) 100% organic and sustainable fertilizer
2) bottled in recycled soda bottles rather than brand new petroleum plastics
3) which provides a modest revenue stream to kids who are also learning to recycle and take care of the environment

It's obvious why Scotts-Miracle Grow had to put a stop to it. It could make people see the miracle-poison for what it is. And that's not good for business.

Labels: evil, gardening

Happy Solstice

Time for a Midsummer Night's dream. Just call me Puck.

Here in St. Paul, today's sunlight clocked in at 15 hours 36 minutes. And tomorrow begins the slow, inexorable shortening of days until Midwinter. Hard to remember when the heat just builds for another couple of months I know. But I have come to taken comfort in the rhythm of the seasons. The heartbeat of the planet. In the closest of summer heat and humidity, I feel winter's icy breath on my neck. And every fall harvest sends my thoughts back to the last spring's planting and ahead to the next.

Labels: random

And he saw it was good...

And it was good.

I went running over lunch in the Arb today as is my wont when the weather is nice. I decided that, with temps in the low 80s and a nice breeze, it was a good day to do the trails in the Lower Arb along the Canon River. It's a route I usually only hit coming the other direction and there's a little side spur that I always miss or haven't had time to explore. Today I remembered it early and was going to get there about halfway through the run so I got to indulge in some discovery.

At this point, the main trail has tracked away from the river by at least 100 yards or so. And the side trail was narrower than the main track so it really felt like I didn't know what was around the next bend even though I knew I was headed toward the river. It was well worth the time. At the end of the spur, there was a wide part of the trail at the top of the bank with a little path down to the side of the river. It was in the shade and there were wild blackberry bushes all over. These bushes are in vast abundance in the Arb and they are all teetering on the edge of ripeness. A couple more days tops.....

So I'm standing there in this perfect place overlooking the river, taking a brief rest and trying out the almost ripe berries, when a big shape comes flying into view from upriver. It's big. It makes a slow pass by me, goes downstream 20 or 30 yards, and makes a circle around the little island in the river and passes again heading back upstream. I didn't have my glasses on (damn astigmatism!) but it was mostly brown of body and white of head with white mottling on the former and brown on the latter. I wasn't convinced I knew what it was until I got back to my desk and looked it up on the web. But it was. A juvenile (probably 2 or 3 years old) Bald Eagle. Gorgeous. And probably my closest sighting to date - not more than 20 yards at the nearest.

You know, all the individual pieces of this world are terribly flawed, humans most of all. But when you put the pieces together the way they fit, the pattern is breathtaking and perfect.

Labels: ecology

"But I miss my dad tonight..."

I Still Can't Say Goodbye
When I was young, my dad would say,
"Come on son, lets go out and play."
Sometimes it seems like yesterday.

When I climbed up the closet shelf,
when I was all by myself,
grabbed his hat and fixed the brim;
pretending I was him.

No matter how hard I try,
No matter how many tears I cry,
No matter how many years go by,
I still can't say goodbye.

He always took care of mom and me.
We all cut down a Christmas tree.
He always had some time for me.

Still the wind blows through the trees.
Streetlights they still shine bright.
Most things are the same.
But I miss my dad tonight.

I walked by the Salvation Army store,
saw a hat like my daddy wore,
put it on and fixed the brim;
still trying to be like him.

No matter how hard I try.
No matter how many years go by.
No matter how many tears I cry.
I still can't say goodbye.

Artist: Chet Atkins, 1988
(Lyrics transcribed from the Whole Grain Toast recording by The Grains of Time.)

Labels: poetry

First Harvest

Other than the basil of course, which we've been picking on several times in the last week or two.
But this is the first thing that could rightly be called a vegetable to come to fruition this year. *yay*

In other garden news, 13 of the 17 tomato plants have active flowers and all the rest have buds. And one of them even has a proto-mato on it. (Yes it's the early girl that I bought to replace one of the exotic plants that died and it already had flowers at the time, but I'm still taking the credit.) Each of the white pumpkins has produced a single male flower but they need to get bigger so they make male and female at the same time. Or at least male on one plant and female on the other. All the cucumbers are up and 3 of them are reaching out for the strings to start climbing. The peppers are going slow. I'm hoping that this hot weather we've been having will give them a nice kick in the keester. And the one surviving watermelon plant is slow too. Probably not enough sun. But we'll see how it does over the course of the summer.

Labels: gardening

Split personality

I sat down the other day and figured out where I spend my time. This exercise bore out the sensation of being torn that I've had for a while now.

In a week, there are 168 hours.
I average about 7.5 hours of sleep a night, so let's take that right off the top. I'm not conscious of my surroundings when I'm not conscious. This knocks off 52.5 hours leaving me with 115.5.

Now, I'm at work from about 8 am to about 5 pm, 5 days a week. That's 45 hours. If you count in the 9 hours of travel time (45 minutes each way, 5 days a week), that takes my "work" commitment to 52.5 hours. The same amount I'm asleep at home!
Subtracting that off means that I am at home and conscious for 63 hours.

Not counting travel time, I spend more than a quarter (27%) of my life (and some 39% of my waking hours) in Northfield. With travel, it becomes 31% of total and 45% of waking hours. That's really not that much less than the amount of time I have in my own home (38% of total, 55% of waking).

I guess it's not surprising now how much I've grown attached to Northfield and the countryside here. I'm here for a substantial part of my life. I know some parts of this town better than I know some parts of our neighborhood in St. Paul.
It also gets to the heart of why I always feel like I'm running from one thing to the next. There are all these priorities that we have for the house and the yard and so on and I fall behind. Now as Jacob will tell you, one reason for this is that I'm a scatterbrain*. But obviously, if you only have 55% of your waking hours in one place, it's hard to keep up.

*The clip is from a great Minnesota folk singer-Songwriter, Peter Mayer. I have a bunch of his music on my computer and he has a real gift for meaningful lyrics and great tunes.

Labels: personal

That's a lot of water

So Mark sent me this link this morning, quite incredulous as to some of the claims.

Thunder? It's the sound of Greenland melting

In the CNN article, they toss out 2 figures that are important in determining if they know what they are talking about. First they say that there are approximately 624,000 cubic miles (!!) of ice in the Greenland glacier. Next they say that if all of that ice melted, it would raise global sea level by 23 feet. This seemed like an absurdly large number to our dear engineer friend. So you know what I did? I did the math. Back of the envelope, of course...

Radius of Earth = ~3963 miles
So the surface area (assuming perfect sphere - 4*Pi*r²) is ~2x10⁸ square miles.
If Earth were just water and if that 624,000 cubic miles (!!) of ice converted to an equivalent amount of liquid (not true) and then spread out over the whole globe, (volume/area=height) this amount would raise global sea level by ~3x10^-3 miles, or 16.7 feet. But of course the earth's surface is only 2/3 ocean, so that extra third would be spread out on the rest. Meaning a total "ideal" sea level rise of 25 feet.

And that was without even breaking a sweat. There are lots of simplifications and assumptions in that calculation, but it shows that a 23 foot rise is entirely reasonable.

The CNN article is interesting, as is the NASA Earth Observatory article I got the image from. The CNN article had to put a happy ending on their piece, of course. About how the fishing is so much better now that the warm water species are moving north into Greenland's waters.

Labels: climate

New Imaginative SPAM

So I was going through my share of the upload forms at work this morning, clearing out all the SPAM and checking for actual important submissions and I noticed a block of SPAM that is different than I've seen before. I have to say, they are getting more sophisticated. We still get a bushel a minute of the same old run of the mill SPAM but these were beauts. At least they are starting to sound more reasonable. For example:

"I have to scroll left and ...(URL deleted)"
"I've just been letting everything ...(URL deleted)"
"Hi just popped in here through a random ...(URL deleted)"
"I base these views partly on the success of ...(URL deleted)"
"My life's been completely bland today ...(URL deleted)"

And then there are the actual records that people submit which look so much like the SPAM on either side of them that they get deleted with the rest.... grrr... Just when you think no one actually writes like that. *sigh* Guess I'll have to go dig that one out of the trash.

Labels: random

Bill Maher - Bye Jerry Falwell

OMG!! I love Bill Maher!! This is totally worth the watch! (via Joe.My.God.)

Little Hill on the Prairie

On Tuesday, I went with the Conservation Biology class to the McKnight Prairie Remnant about 7 miles from campus. This little plot is about a half mile long and an eighth of a mile wide. It's one of only a handful of places in MN that were never extensively disturbed and retains intact native ecosystems with diverse populations of species. When you look at the surrounding farmland, it is easy to see that the only thing that saved it was that the hillsides were too steep to plow. That and the College's purchase of the land in the 60s before the recent suburban sprawl explosion.

Not terribly impressive at first glance, I'll admit. But when you think about the facts, it should seem more important.

This 1/16 of a square mile has at least 200 species of plants in residence along with many species of animals.
McKnight was the primary source for all of the species used in restoring the prairie section of the Arboretum. As a comparison, those restorations currently support something on the order of 60 plant species.
There are several endangered species in the remnant that are only found in perhaps 4 or 5 other places. Period.

The hills on the remnant are primarily St. Peter Sandstone that only barely qualifies as "rock" instead of "sand." It's a very dry, windy biome on the tops of those hills and there are several arid-land specialists that make there homes there. Here are some photos of plants that I took while we were there.

Beard Tongue (Penstemon grandiflorus)
Blooms in May.

Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium campestre)
Not actually a grass. Just one of those weird names. It was very windy so the picture didn't turn out that great.
Blooms in May.

Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum)
Blooms in April.

Prairie Turnip (Psoralea esculenta)
The roots of this plant are edible (hence the name) and were gathered by Native Americans and early settlers.

Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia)
Probably brought in originally by a passing (literally) bird, this cactus has flourished on the high, dry, sandy outcrops. Cactus in Minnesota... Who'da thunk it.

But the thing that caught the student's attention the most and really electrified the whole field trip was the Fox Snake that we saw.

We were told that the copper colored head was the signature of a Fox Snake. It's quite rare and no one has one in McKnight before. It was quite exciting. I have several more images of it that I snapped while we were standing around talking about it. Which it wasn't crazy about, by the way.
It's not a poisonous species but it will strike (which will hurt) and even though it doesn't have a rattle, it will shake it's tail that way to try and convince predators to leave it alone. Everyone crowded around to get a good look at it but the naturalist who was leading the trip kept everyone from getting too close and gave us a lot of info about it. Once most of us moved on, it quickly hightailed it off the path.

All the time we were up on the hills, the sun was shining and the wind was gusting up around 30-40 mph. It was exhilarating! At one point, most of the group was standing at the edge of the hill-top, leaning into the wind with arms out letting the wind hold us up. We were only there for a little over an hour, but it was a great hour.

Labels: ecology

One Small Step

Here's something that I think Alan and Rick will approve of.

While we haven't been as disciplined about it as either of those guys are, we are working on paying down our debt so that we can be as truly free in this world as you can get. This year, most of our tax refund and some other money I scrapped up went to that end. I'm happy to say that a week or two ago, I sent in the final payment that means we now own both of our cars free and clear.

We paid mine off several years ago with the insurance settlement after an accident. (While technically totaled, the only damage was to the dent-resistant side panels [which indeed shattered instead of denting] and the car was still eminently drivable.) This month, we paid of Jacob's car and freed up a couple hundred bucks a month that we can use to pay down the next thing. Which, incidentally, will probably be the piano.

This is one of those rare moments when it actually feels like we're making progress. I mean, we pay extra on something every month, but sometimes the movement is so slow it just doesn't feel like we're ever going to make it.

But for now, it's a sweet feeling of success.

Labels: money

Tomatoes and Peppers and Basil, Oh My

I think planting is pretty much done for the spring now.

Last Thursday I got most of the seedlings planted that I had grown from seed. Then on Saturday I finished planting and then got all the beds mulched with last fall's bagged and partially composted leaves. So here's the grand total:
17 tomatoes (3 red cherry, 3 yellow lemon drop, 3 black nyagous, 3 white wonder, and 2 giant beefsteak)
2 golden pepper plants
3 varieties of basil for Jacob
1 garlic chive

2 white pumpkins
2 small watermellons
1 row of Japanese Climbing Cucumber (from seed)
1 row of Sparkler Radishes (from seed)
2 short rows of French Breakfast Radishes (from seed)

And a partridge in a freakin pear tree...

And this morning during my watering, I found something I wasn't expecting at all. The radishes that I planted as seed on Saturday have already germinated and are sprouting. I couldn't believe how fast they sprouted.

Labels: gardening

Hosta Ayer

After a couple of incredibly stressful weeks between work and singing and everything else, I decided that I really needed a mental health day. So I took yesterday off. I didn't "relax," per se, but everything I did I did because I wanted to and it brought me some happiness and sense of accomplishment.

So what did I do??

I spent basically the whole day dividing up a giant hosta plant next to the garage. The root ball was probably about 2' diameter, so it should have been divided about 4 years ago. But it made all sorts of little bush-lettes once it was finished. I put many of these along the alley side and neighbor side of the garage in beds that I spent all of last Saturday preparing. But there were still several pieces left so I took them across the street to a neighbor who also took the day off and whose wife had been planting a different kind of hosta earlier in the day.

After I ripped the hosta out of the ground, I planted a new Red Bloom monarda in it's place. This lovely little plant will hopefully draw more bees (if they still exist) and other pollinators into the garden this summer, which should help me out in terms of vegetable production.

Labels: gardening

3 Weeks Early

The Atlantic hurricane season begins in just about 3 weeks. Apparently someone forgot to get the memo to the newly formed Subtropical Storm Andrea.

Currently the storm has sustained winds around 45 mph and is located directly southeast of Savannah, GA. Forecast shows it most likely heading west-southwest and making landfall on the Florida peninsula around 8am on Saturday still as a Tropical Storm.

I guess she couldn't wait since there are a total of 17 named storms forecast to form this year in the Atlantic. She probably just didn't want to share the spotlight. Yeah, I bet that's it.

Labels: climate

More on Bees

Here's a truly fantastic article about the decline in bee populations from the Guerrilla News Network (thanks for the tip Rick!).
They cover pretty much every single credible theory out there as to why Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is occurring.

One important thing I didn't know was that, up until very recently, the only commercially available foundations (the wax or plastic piece on which the bees draw out the comb) force the bees to build their combs with slightly bigger cells; on the order of 0.5 mm larger across. When you do the math, that means that each cell is about 50% larger volume than it would be naturally. And since the bees grow to fill the cell, that means that the bees that are being churned out these days are supersized by about the same 50%. But it also makes them more susceptible to the mites and diseases that are most likely part of CCD.

That's right folks! Industrial farming happens in bees too!

And in answer to one of my own questions, organic beekeepers who don't use these larger foundation pieces aren't seeing the same problems as the industrial beekeepers. Of course they also aren't trucking their bees all over the country spreading diseases and stressing out the colonies.

This is a really important article if you're interested in bees. Or want to continue to eat in the decades ahead...

Labels: sustainability

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast

Link to article (Via Yahoo)

Implications: An ice-free Arctic Ocean in 2020 rather than 2050.
Implications of the Implications: Even faster global temperature increase than predicted.

"The IPCC report was very careful, very thorough and cautious, so they erred on the side of what would certainly occur as opposed to what might occur," Scambos said...

Well it certainly is a good thing we didn't scare people with the worst possible scenario, isn't it. That might have led to dramatic calls for action a decade ago. And then where would we be??

Labels: climate

Happy May Day!

Or Bealtane according to the old Gaelic tradition. The beginning of summer and the light half of the year.

Don't forget that this weekend is the Living Green Expo at the MN State Fairgrounds.

Labels: sustainability

Recursion

A friend just pointed me to xkcd.com and the comics there are hilarious! But being a geek/nerd will really help if you actually want to understand the humor. Alternatively, you could just be physics major... Either way...

I think all the D&D geeks in the audience will like this one. Enjoy.

Labels: humor

Floating

I used to dream of being an astronaut and flying away to other planets. But then, what child who grew up with the original Star Wars movies didn't.

But for someone like Stephen Hawking, who has been confined, nearly paralyzed, to a wheel chair for the last several decades, I can't even begin to imagine what the experience of weightlessness must have been like.

His mind has never been bound inside his failing body. All you have to do is see all the innovative and profound work he's done in theoretical physics and cosmology over the last 40 years to see that. But to have the burden of bone and unresponsive muscle removed, even for a few seconds at a time, must have been truly glorious.

Hawking has been among the most vocal proponents of the space program... not necessarily the one we have but the one we should have. He has pushed the idea that humankind has no chance at a sure future if we continue to keep all our genes on one planet. Global catastrophes happen infrequently, but we have seen dozens over them over observable geologic time. The only way to ensure the long term survival of the species is to not keep all the eggs in one basket.

I hope we get there. But I also hope that the Homo sapiens that puts down roots in other parts of the solar system has matured enough to do so responsibly. Otherwise, we should just stay here and let future species wonder at the kind of beings their fossil assemblies portray.

Labels: space

Under $3k

The Race to Build Really Cheap Cars (Thanks for the tip, Mark)

Renault-Nissan is planning on building a car for under $3000. The price could be as low as $2500, which is 40% less than the least expensive sub-compact car available today. The Chief Executive of the company, Carlos Ghosn, made this announcement at a plant-opening on April 4. An Indian carmaker, Tata Motors, plans to launch a $2500 car next year. This race for the really ceap car could have a major impact on the industry as a whole.

It stands to reason that these small, lightweight cars would also have better gas mileage than the larger gas-guzzlers even though no one's putting out any numbers just yet. Sounds like a great thing, right?

Well, maybe not.

Let's take a more holistic look at this. As the article states, right now the most inexpensive car on the market is about $4200. If you drop that price to $2500, how many additional people will be able to afford to buy a car that currently can't afford one? It's a perverse relationship, I understand, but here's the facts. The more inexpensive cars are, the more people will buy them, the fewer people will need to ride public transportation, and pollution and emissions go up not down, regardless of the efficiency of the cars. A net increase in the number of vehicles on the road can only lead to more and not less. Period. If we could instantaneously replace all cars on the road with these new, cheaper, cleaner vehicles, we could see a precipitous drop in emissions. But we can't and we won't.

You can see something analogous in the airline industry. As airfares have come down over the past several decades, more people are able to fly for whatever reason they need to. This is a great thing - putting more options in the hands of normal folks and not just the rich elite. But as the number of people flying has boomed, so has the number of planes in the air needed to carry that larger population. And as a result, airline emissions are growing. At current growth rates, air traffic could contribute as much as 15% of the total greenhouse gas emissions within the next 50 years.

Now don't get me wrong. These cars could be considered a very good thing on the individual scale for low-income people who need transportation in areas without decent mass transit. But only if you don't count all the hidden costs to the planet and the climate that go along with them.

Labels: cars, sustainability

Well I'm glad that's settled.

Vatican panel condemns limbo to eternal dustbin (Via BoingBoing) [free registration required]

Limbo, the commission said, "reflects an unduly restrictive view of salvation."

Wow... You know I always wonder if Jesus had any idea how bad an idea it was to hand over the keys to heaven to people. How many times has he regretted giving them that "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven..." bit?

I imagine there is at least one division of the angelic bureaucracy devoted to updating the cosmos based on each new papal decree. The tireless seraphim of the Apostolic Revision and Reconstruction Division (ARRD) together with the cherubim of the Vatican Alteration Renovation Center (VARC) constantly on guard to make sure that reality changes to be in step with man's viewpoint. Even remaking the divine his-/her-/itself on occasion. Such an important job...

Labels: religion

Carbon

This diagram is from an article from the American Society for Mechanical Engineers that one of my choir-mates from church pointed me toward. What is shown in the diagram is the carbon emissions from all the various pieces of the US economy. Each square represents 10 million tons of carbon dioxide emission. There are 726 squares in the image.
All it takes is a quick look at this diagram to see the lie that is being perpetrated by those Partners for Affordable Energy commercials about how clean coal is and how it's good for the US. (And no, I won't link to them. You're perfectly capable of Google-ing them if you really want to get there but I refuse to help you with it.)

The other diagram that I found particularly powerful is this one.

Energy and Transportation are climbing, Industry is declining (but thats a shrinking sector of the economy as well...), and everything else is slightly less than an order of magnitude less than the top two as well as trending flat or downward. Again, this is just for the US.

It's a good article, you should go read it. It doesn't look like it's a long-term reliable link (the "current" bit is kind of telling...) so go look before they move it around.

Labels: climate

Bees Needs

Rick: why haven't you blogged about the bee disappearances yet?
John: That's been all over the place. I figured everyone already knew. And even though it's only been in the msm recently, it's been in the enviro lit for a long time. I didn't think I had anything new to say about it.
Rick: ah, I see
John: It's hard. I want to be able to comment on the things that I post about. But if my point of view is not that much different from ones that I hear other places, I don't want to just add to the chorus.
Rick: I don't actually understand what the impact of losing all the bees would be
John: ??

Well, there you have it. I guess there is a reason for me to do a post on bees and their disappearance.

Now I'm no entomologist, but here's what I've found out through researching the topic.
There are 3 main areas of concern with the recent alarming disappearance of honeybees: Economic, Food Supply, and Ecological. I own up to my own bias in that I've ordered these in what I perceive to be increasing importance or validity.

Economic
For a number of commercial crops (i.e. almonds, citrus, alfalfa, cotton, corn), pollination by honeybees is basically essential. In order for the massive fields of monoculture to produce all the identical commodities needed for our grocery stores, "bee hives are transported from orchard to orchard with trees in flower to improve the pollination" (Koning, 1994). You lose the bees, then raising those crops becomes so unprofitable that they can't be brought to market. And all those enterprising bee-traffickers are out of business too.
Of course, the vast monoculture fields and orchards combined with the trucking of bees all over the place are two of the leading factors sited in the recent decline and possible crash of the European honeybee population in the US. Bees get a big chunk of their nutrition from the pollen of the plants they "service" and eating just one thing for as long as it takes to pollinate a gigantic field is not healthy for them. Add to this the fact that moving all these millions and billions of bees around the country makes it very easy for diseases and parasites to permeate the whole population. Pollination is a service which nature provides and we have come to take for granted. But it isn't free. We pay the cost of the service by providing an environment that won't kill the medium of that pollination.

Food Supply
By some counts, as much as a third of our food depends directly (fruits, nuts, corn, honey...) or indirectly (alfalfa for cows...) on pollination by insects and mostly by bees. So we should be worried about having enough food to feed 6 billion people.
Of course if we could see our way clear to ditch the whole unlimited population growth model we might be able to do something about this one. Or we could just wait for Gaia to fix the imbalance herself...

Ecological
Something that doesn't get as much play (mainly because as a species we're pretty damn self-centered) is what effect the crash of the honeybee population would have on the broader ecology, beyond the plants we currently care so very much about. I don't think we even know what fraction of plants in the wild depend on bees for pollination. I did find a study in Science (published behind their wall of $$$ of course): Parallel Declines in Pollinators and Insect-Pollinated Plants in Britain and the Netherlands (Biesmeijer et al., 2006)
The study looked mainly at bees and hoverflys. They found a lower diversity in the bee populations and also in some areas of hoverflys. (What the hell's a hoverfly??) "In conjunction with this evidence, outcrossingplant species that are reliant on the declining pollinatorshave themselves declined relative to other plant species." While they aren't able to link these two things conclusively, there is very strong evidence of a connection here.
It seems fairly obvious that bees (generally and honeybees specifically) are a very important species in the ecosystems where they traditionally exist. This is a great example of a keystone species - one that has an effect on its ecosystem that seems out of proportion to it's share of the biomass. You disrupt this species and the ripples are felt throughout the ecosystem, in this case all of North America. You remove that species.... Well, a lot of ancient stonework in the Mediterranean would still be standing today if only the keystone hadn't been removed from all those arches.

Another thing no one has mentioned yet is the Africanized Honeybee. They brought the African Honeybee over to South American because it did better in warm climates than the European Honeybee that was used all over North America. And then these two sets of bees started mating. Et voila! The Africanized Honeybee, also known as "killer bees." They are smaller and (vastly) more defensive of their hives. They will also swarm an invader and sting it enough to introduce enough venom to kill it (hence the nickname). This hybrid has marched its way up through Latin America and is currently in Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. I haven't seen any reports of these bees being affected by the same Colony Collapse Disorder as their European cousins but perhaps no one has looked. If a crash of the European bee population were to coincide with a general warming of the North American environment...... Ah, but that'll never happen....

Labels: sustainability

It's all in who's doing the counting

I learned something last week that I didn't know before. On Marketplace last Thursday evening, in between the "actual" financial news stories, there was a tiny little snippet that really caught my attention.

"Oil jumped 3% today, up almost $2 to $63.85 a barrel. Refiners are worried they won't have enough crude in six weeks or so when the summer driving season really gets going. Take that $63.85 with a grain of salt though. It's what we're paying for a barrel of something called West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark. And it's a good deal cheaper right now than almost every other kind of crude out there. As much as $5 cheaper. North Sea Brent is what the rest of the world uses to price its oil. It closed at almost $69 a barrel today. Analysts are saying that might be a truer price for a barrel of crude."

I hear this and I have to wonder: 1) why we use a different benchmark than the rest of the world, 2) what's the historic difference in the price for these benchmarks, and 3) is it really that clear cut? And why aren't we seeing news of this on other media platforms? And even on public radio, this is a filler piece? Isn't there an actual story here?

Labels: oil

Living Green Expo 2007

That's right. For everyone anywhere near the Twin Cities, it's time again for the Living Green Expo.

This annual, free event runs May 5th and 6th at the State Fairgrounds in St. Paul. It is a really great event with pretty much every kind of company, group, organization represented that work with the environment and sustainability and much, much more. There are speakers and workshops and free stuff and food and plants and shopping.... It really is a total blast if you are trying to learn abour sustainability and the environment and what you can do in your life to live more green.

And no, this is not an ad. I don't get any money for people clicking on the image. I just feel really strongly that the more people who see this and go and learn, the better off we'll all be in the long run.

Labels: sustainability

Thinking Blogger Awards

CV Rick (the Ninja Writer himself) has tagged me with a Thinking Blogger Award. Cool!!

From the TBA link:

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging.
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

(I decided to use the "silver" version of the award image. Gold is so overrated. :P )

So, 5 blogs that make me think..... (in no particular order, because it would be rude to show favorites in a top 5 list....)
1. Fastlad - This Irishman-Amongst-Americans always opens my eyes when I read his blog. His poignant recounting of his life growing up gay in Ireland rarely have happy endings but are so real you can feel them like you lived them yourself. And his snarky sense of humor is truly right up my alley.
2. Kilo India Tango - This lovely little lady is a friend of mine from back in college. Great sense of humor, wonderful a cappella music arranger, interesting points of view on politics and libertarian issues. Oh and you'd best be respectful if you go for a visit. Kit likes guns and, from what I hear, she's damn good at using them. ;) But she's not one to be pigeon-holed and really enjoy reading whatever she's getting up to.
3. Andymatic - This Chicago blogger is a cool guy. I think his tag line kind of sums it up for me: "I hear the gulags have DSL." Lots of politically relevant indignation and laughing at the stupidity of people we give control of the government to. Good stuff.
4. Boysbriefs - Now this cutie lives out in Phoenix with his husband (near another great blogger - Darin of APNH fame, so consider this one a 2-fer). He used to post about all his bacchanal exploits when he was single gay boy in Atlanta, and frankly those are good posts. :) But, as happens when we grow up and land someone who can stand us for any length of time, he has since turned his pen to other subjects. Just good reading.
5. Sardonic Bomb - Scott is a very talented photographer and I think that has brought him to a different level of observation. He has insights that I think are important and interesting. Plus he photographs a lot of beautiful men. :D And he has a graphic of Thor! What more could one ask for??

So there you have it.
It was made harder by the fact that if Rick hadn't tagged me, he is one of the ones I would have tagged. And he also already tagged Success Warrior who would have also been on the list. Good thing my blogger bench has a lot of depth. :P
Go forth and read good things.

Labels: blogs

Of genes and sex

There is a really interesting article in the NY Times from 4/10 about the current state of research into what how genetics affect sexuality and gender. Very interesting stuff. Here's a particularly interesting clip.

Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men. In experiments in which subjects are shown photographs of desirable men or women, straight men are aroused by women, gay men by men.
Such experiments do not show the same clear divide with women. Whether women describe themselves as straight or lesbian, “Their sexual arousal seems to be relatively indiscriminate — they get aroused by both male and female images,” Dr. Bailey said. “I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men.”
Dr. Bailey believes that the systems for sexual orientation and arousal make men go out and find people to have sex with, whereas women are more focused on accepting or rejecting those who seek sex with them.
Similar differences between the sexes are seen by Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist at Michigan State University. “Most males are quite stubborn in their ideas about which sex they want to pursue, while women seem more flexible,” he said.

I think part of what I enjoyed reading in the article was the breadth of research that's actually being done here currently. I have zero illusions that research pointing to a biological cause for homosexuality will lead to acceptance; just look at that recent hoopla over that evangelical guy's comments on the subject. I just think it's inspiring to know that people are trying to understand something so basic to being human.

Labels: science

I'm a little late for Groundhog's Day...

But I'm finally poking my head out of the den. And I also have the opposite reaction to the little varmints. After a long MN winter, I love seeing my shadow because it means the sun is out and things are warming up.

Things have been really hairy lately, what with all the hoopla surrounding Holy Week and Easter and my attendant obligations to Jacob and the choir at church. On top of that we've been working on a $2.5M grant proposal that had to go out yesterday which for some reason felt like tons more work that past proposals have been. Well, it's over and out the door so now I can turn my attention back to all the things that I've been neglecting in the mean time.

Expect a couple of notes today. I've got a few things to say and I'd best do them while I remember what they are....
- Brain like a sieve

Labels: personal

IPCC...

YouPCC... WeAllPeeCC...

Ah juvenile humor....

It's almost as funny as watching the governments and politicians try and derail the newest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
(You can read the Summary for Policymakers at the BBC website. The full text of the report is not yet available but will be released on the IPCC website.)

Apparently governments like China and Saudi Arabia were concerned that the scientists wanted to say that they had "very high confidence" that ecosystems are already being affected by climate change. They were able to strip it down to "high confidence" which arguably carries a significantly different connotation.
Our fine American representatives took issue with the statement that poor countries who contribute least to Climate Change are going to bear the brunt of the fallout from loss of species, changing weather patterns, and sea level rise. Thankfully, the effort to strip this language from the report was successfully beaten back. (Think that would have even been on the table if Al was in the White House since 2000, instead of the shrub?)
At some point in the all-night "negotiations," reports are that all the scientists (800 and some in all) walked out in protest over the efforts by diplomats and government representatives to further weaken the statements in the report. I guess we should be glad that we got as much truth as is still in the report.

This all highlights the overwhelming problem. In order for governments to get off their butts and do anything, they have to be involved in the discussions that point out what should be done. In which case they try to deform the situation so that they can get away with doing as close to nothing as possible. (At least those governments with their hands in the cookie jar - China, US, and the whole middle east.) Scientists have been putting out study after study and report after report for decades saying what was going on and what needed to happen. And now the last chance we have of actually changing things at the national level is the very opportunity that will let them skimp and cry and whittle down the possibilities.

Labels: climate, science, stupidity

ISEW

This term, I'm sitting in on a Conservation Biology class a couple of times a week, so you can expect to see a new bit or two that I run across in that context.

Today we were discussing the concepts behind Ecological Economics. One of the things the professor did was pull up the Friends of the Earth website on alternatives to the GDP as indicators of economic wellbeing. This is obviously incredibly important.

Why, you say? Here's why.

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the estimated value of all goods and services produced in a given country in a given year. It's been around for a long time and it is one of the cornerstone metrics of modern economics. The problem is that in adding up all those goods and services, it doesn't account for the costs incurred in terms of degraded air or water quality, depletion of natural resources, loss tourism dollars due to environmental damage, etc. These negative externalities aren't factored into a company's bottom line, they are costs shared by everyone. Meaning that the companies see all the profit and only a small sliver of the cost while everyone else sees essentially none of the profit and a much larger share of the cost in terms of health problems, loss of access to resources, degraded environment and so on. It also doesn't figure the cost of the loss all the potential uses that might have been discovered for a resource that has been completely used up. The original tragedy of the commons.

So there are some groups, FotE among them, who are trying to establish some way of giving these fairly nebulous concepts real economic value and therefore some economic muscle. Friends of the Earth has developed the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), and even though it doesn't quite roll off the tongue as easily as "GDP" it is a start to revamping economics in a radical way. It includes several factors even beyond environmental concerns and you should really go check out their site for the low-down on what's included. But they have put together some examples from different countries based on their new index. They plot it on a graph alongside the published GDP over the last half of the 20th century so you can see how economies have done when you factor in the damage they have done to the environment and their own people. The one for the US is the last one on the page.

This graph shows what most people in the environmental community have been saying for years in a more abstract way. When you cost out the value of what has been destroyed or damaged in our great American expansion, we are worse off than we were 50 years ago in a concrete, economic sense.

Now there has been some quibbling about their model and the values they assign to things and how it all fits into the formula which is all valid and frankly well over my head. But the point they make is this: assigning a value (any value!) to these "invisible" parts of the economy is a step in the right direction. Right now, economics does indeed assign a value to the land, water, and all the other natural resources in the world. It's just that the value it assigns is "0."

Labels: economics, sustainability

Quotable

"It wildes varily."

- Colleague, S, in response to a question at a recent workshop about what the standard format was for websites between all our project partners.

Labels: unintentional humor

Is there something the politicians aren't telling us?

So I found this particular image and caption on a story at the Washington Post about how the residents of Springhill, MT had to use their snow plows to clear away a blizzard of tumbleweeds that were blow in by a big storm. Frankly, the picture is much more interesting...

Maybe there's a republican mole at the WaPo doing this sort of mischief on purpose. But I doubt it. Looks like it has all the marks of simple incompetence to me.

Labels: unintentional humor

Just in Time for Lent

I found a link to this quiz over at HO's Blog. Hmmm... Seems I have some Lust issues.... Cool!

Greed:	Low
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Low
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	High

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

Labels: fun, quiz

Will

Have I ever mentioned how much I disliked the southern accent I grew up with? I think it started because we always watched ABC Nightly News with Peter Jenkins at dinner time. Now that man had a voice and accent. And he always had answers and raised good questions. For the longest time, Peter Jenkins was my highest example of what a literate, educated, sophisticated, and knowledgeable person could and should be. But I digress. The point is, I wanted nothing to do with the (obviously stereotypical) ignorance and backwardness that came along with sounding southern. So, I got rid of it. I actively remade my pronunciation and left Southern behind in favor of the "neutral" accent you hear on TV. It's like I became a Midwesterner long before I moved to MN.

And I also remember once looking down at my feet during freshman year of high school and realizing that my feet turned outward. Not more than 15-20 degrees out of true, but still... it bugged me. A lot. So I started watching my feet more. And straightening them out as they fell. Eventually I only needed to check on them every now and again. Now my feet land straight with every step.

Point is, that kid could do anything he really wanted to, simply by virtue of having discipline and a will that was unshakable. These days, I feel like I've let him down. He had a level of focus to bring to bear on his priorities that I haven't exerted in a decade. Sure there are lots of excuses: I'm older now with more responsibilities; I have Jacob's priorities and happiness to consider; I don't have enough time to spend on stuff I want to do; it's harder for adults to break the patterns they've set for themselves... Take your pick.

None of this changes things, really. I can't hide from the fact that I have the ability to make real and lasting changes in my life and to further my priorities because I've done it before. I think that's why I often get frustrated these days. I know that I have the power to change the circumstances that make me unhappy (being in debt, being out of shape, needing new challenges at work...) and yet things continue as they are.

Reminds me of an old Garrison Kieller joke about his fictional Lutherans - They come in (to church) just as they are, sing "Just As I Am," and leave just as they were.

Labels: personal

Great Music Video

So I happened across a really sweet music video over at Josh and Josh are Rich and Famous.
The artist is Bright Eyes. The video director is James Cameron Mitchell. And the song title is "First Day of My Life."

A warning to any straight men in the audience. It's a gushy, sentimental song. So you'll probably be uncomfortable through the entire thing. All those people being obviously emotional and demonstrative. It's just sick and wrong, I know.

Labels: music

Raise a Glass

So, last night, Jacob and I were having drinks with our friend Stephen. He was just in town for a couple of hours on a layover and we went to meet him at the airport.

I haven't seen Stephen in probably about 7 years and although we've talked a couple of times on the phone, there was a lot of catching up to do. So I was telling him about all the stuff that has happened in the last several years: new jobs, new projects on the house, Nana passing in January, Dad passing in... And it hit me like a thunderbolt.

We were sitting there having drinks on the two year anniversary of Dad's passing. I was pretty stunned. To have not seen its approach and then to suddenly have it right there looking at me like that was unsettling. Not that I've forgotten dad or don't miss him. But it did just sort of loom up out of my unconscious that this important day had arrived and I had almost missed it. If I hadn't needed to fill someone in on what life has brought my way, would I have remembered at all?

I talk to Dad fairly often. And if I'm honest with myself, I'd say that it's more often than I called home to talk to him and mom when he was still alive. Perhaps that is part of it though. After I moved up to MN, I wasn't able to go back to NC very often. Family and friends sort of became disembodied voices on the other end of a phone line or words in an email note. So I've been able to continue to carry on conversations with him (admittedly one-sided though they be) and know what he would have to say to me. I talked to him a long time when I went back to spread his ashes on the hillside where I grew up. And I've come to understand how very similar we were and are, for all the outward and apparent differences. I do wish I had made the opportunity to get to know him as a friend and not just my dad. He and I were never terribly close and we didn't know how to relate to each other. There was real love and caring in our relationship, but the first time I ever got a glimpse of what he really thought and felt about me was when he was in the hospital just a few years before he actually died. Knowing what I do now, there's much we could have talked about had either one of us known where to start.

So, when this realization hit me last evening, what else was there to do. We raised our glasses and drank a toast to Dad. Nasdrovya!

Maybe next time around we'll be able to work through the barriers that kept us from becoming the friends we should have been.

Labels: family, personal

Saudi Arabian Oil Production Drops 8 Percent in 2006

This great post over at The Oil Drum is very enlightening. Not that it's new to those who have been paying attention. More of a confirmation, really.

Here's the gist:
All the data that has been published about the amount of oil produced by Saudi Arabia shows an overall decline in production of 8%. This, despite all the protestations of new wells and increasing production and refining capacity. In fact, without the tapping of a new well last February, the overall drop in production would have been 14%. Stuart (the post author) does a really good job of going through the various circumstances that could have generated this decline. When he is through he does something extremely unusual - he strongly claims (and without qualification) that Saudi Arabia has peaked and is on the downside of production. In the past, he has always maintained that the data were leaning that way but that it wasn't conclusive. So the fact that he has thrown his own considerable reputation behind this is impressive:

Overall, I feel this data is clear enough that I'm willing to go out on a limb and conclude the following:
Saudi Arabian oil production is now in decline.
The decline rate during the first year is very high (8%), akin to decline rates in other places developed with modern horizontal drilling techniques such as the North Sea.
Declines are rather unlikely to be arrested, and may well accelerate.

And as always, the comments are full to bursting with interesting points of view. There's really as much good reading there as in the article, but the subject does drift and evolve a bit more.

Labels: science, sustainability

Warmest Winter EVAR!

Well, at least since records started being kept on daily temperatures back in 1880.

While the US temperature this year was basically normal (averaged over the whole country), globally, this winter was 1.3 degrees (F) warmer than the 20th Century average. Land surfaces were the warmest on record and sea surface temperatures were tied for second warmest on record, only .1 degree cooler than the record holder.

For more info, on US and Global temperatures and precipitation for Dec 06 - Feb 07, check out NOAA's News article on this story.

Labels: climate

I'm glad they don't have anything better to do

So last night coming home from rehearsal, I heard something on As it Happens that made me yell at the radio (not that uncommon an occurrence, I know).

It seems that the New Mexico legislature has decided that it wants Pluto to still be a planet. So they're going to pass a law making it one. They are going to vote (TODAY!) on a bill that says, in part, "as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet."

!!!

The lady on the show last night went so far as to say that they are thinking about mandating that school textbooks continue to proclaim that Pluto is in fact a planet. No matter what they rest of the world and scientific community have to say about it.

!!!!!!!!!!

All I could think was how similar this is to the numb-nuts in Kansas and Ohio who want to include creationism and "intelligent design" into science classes and textbooks. This group of legislators, of both parties, are so self-absorbed and unwilling to accept the change in scientific thought that they will hamstring their own students as they learn about the solar system??

A Wired News article points to the opinion of some scientists that anything that draws the public's attention to space and the solar system is a good thing. Let's hope so. But let's also send the students in New Mexico links to actual science beyond the boundaries of their provincial upbringing.

PS: I know it's been a while. Been busy, and (blah blah blah blah). But now I promise I'll post a... (blah blah blah blah). Anything for my public. :)

Labels: science, space, stupidity

Snow...Snow...Snow...Snow...Snow...

(As sung in the final song of White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, of course.)

I think it's finally tapered off now. We've easily gotten another foot since Wednesday night.
I shoveled twice yesterday and each time there was at least 4 inches of new snow on the ground. Just looking at the walk when I ran Brutus out this morning, there's easily another 4 inches now, perhaps 5 or 6. So after having lived in MN 10 years (this July) we finally got the kind of snowfall I expected all the time when I first moved here.

And for all you climate-change-curmudgeons out there, this actually plays well with the current state of the discipline. (Universal Caveat: It is difficult/impossible to attribute a single event to climate change.)
A warmer Earth means less snow overall. But it also means more energy in the climate system to drive extreme storms. The two storms that have hammered us over the past week have been monsters, stretching almost border to border of the US, and dropping tornadoes, hail, snow, and buckets of rain as they moved across the country. These storms are charged with just little bit more heat energy so they pull up that much more moisture from the gulf and distribute it in that much larger area as precip of various forms. We still have cold air up here this time of year so we got snow. Snow and freezing rain in Iowa. Tornadoes in Missouri. Series of devastating tornadoes in Georgia and Alabama killing tens of people.
We will still end this winter in a drought. We were way behind in rainfall from last summer and fall and we've been way below average for snow so far. These extreme events are just spikes of activity.

Labels: climate

Maiden Voyage

The snow has melted and settled some from our blizzards last weekend. And Northfield didn't get as much snow as the Cities did, for whatever reason. But I was able to get out into the arboretum and try out my brand new snow shoes today over lunch. *woot*

Snowshoeing in the current conditions was a lot like plain old walking. But. There was no slopping around in the mid-shin-depth drifts. No sliding on the buried ice layer. And the shoes aren't weightless so you get a decent leg workout (which I bet I'll feel in the morning). And I didn't feel bad at all tromping along on the trails that have been so nicely groomed for the cross country ski folk.

One of the big reasons I asked for snowshoes for Yule (thank you dearest....) was because I wanted a reasonable way to get outside in the arb during the winter when it really isn't very fun to go slogging through the snow. I figure once I get good at snowshoeing I'll move up to cross country skis. But then I've been saying "this year I'll learn to ski" for several years now. Only so many minutes in the day, I suppose.

So all-in-all I give it a thumbs up. And there's another winter storm coming in tomorrow night which might yield even more snow. I've heard forecasts all the way up to another foot in some places. Yay!

Labels: personal

Geek Update

And now that we're back above 20 F for lows, that phenomena has stopped. :P

Labels: geek

Game Review: Flight of the Hamsters

This one is just fun.

Flight of the Hamsters

You get five flight-worthy hamsters and they get shot out of a hamster-powered slingshot and go flying through the air. You can make them glide by holding down the left button (as long as you have power in your glide meter, but it recharges while you're not using it).

There are also rockets and fans and 2 different colors of hamster balls that you can grab while in the air that will help you get some more distance.

So far, my single hamster record is 326 feet. My best game is 588 feet. :D

Labels: games, reviews

Species Extinction

(9 minute flash video)

Created by the Species Alliance.

Labels: climate, science, sustainability

Geek Moment

The door on the men's bathroom on our floor is a finely tuned piece of work. The closer limits the door to almost exactly the necessary amount of uumph to close with no momentum left over.

This of course is a fine thing. Except during the winter.

See, the bathroom is unheated and generally a good deal colder than the hallway outside. So when the door opens the heated air expands into the room and provides just a tiny amount of additional resistance to the door closing. The door still closes all the way, but it must eat up whatever minuscule surplus momentum the door has.

Because when the exhaust fan comes on (on it's own, at some interval) the additional air pushing inward on the door causes the door not to latch when it closes.

Only happens for a month or two in the coldest part of the year.

Labels: geek

Busy

Well, it's nice to see that people are at least trying to read my blog.
But things have been really busy this week and I just haven't had time to do any writing.

I've had my normal compliment of rehearsals in the evenings and on top of it, we hosted a workshop at work this week which completely soaked up my days Monday and Tuesday. Then we had a meeting of the web support team yesterday from about 830 am to about 430 pm. Both the meeting and the workshop were really interesting and informative and there were great people at both. But that's just a long week. And I still have 2 more days to go!

So that's the story and I'm sticking to it. Sorry to disappoint some people who have a history of not updating their own blogs.... *cough* *cough* Rick *cough* *cough*

More later hopefully.

Labels: personal

Put Up or Shut Up

So in an interesting call of the bluff, a Washington State gay marriage group has filed paperwork for a voter initiative. Not to legalize gay marriage, but one aimed at the conservative numb-nuts who say that since gay couples can't procreate, they don't deserve marriage rights.

Well, the new initiative replies:
Ballot Measure: Straight Couples, procreate or else

The measure would require couples to prove they can have children to get a marriage license. Couples who do not have children within three years could have their marriages annulled.
All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized," making those couples ineligible for marriage benefits.
...

The group said the proposal was aimed at "social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation."

Labels: civil rights

We just don't learn...

Tankers may ship water to parched cities of future (Via Yahoo)

This whole scheme takes as it's basis the conjecture that energy will be cheap forever and therefore it would be not simply feasible, but profitable for this folly to take place. Case in point:

"You can ship any liquid commodity if the money's right," said Bill Box, spokesman for Intertanko, the world's largest association of tanker owners.

And the whole reuse of old single hull transport ships. Old, inefficient, fossil fuel burning behemoths.
Take cheap energy out of the equation and what you're left with is a lot of people without water and with no way to get it. But the one thing that we certainly can't admit is that we have to wholly change our civilization to meet the challenge we have created. Nope. Can't do that.

That would mean that mother nature would win......

Labels: hubris

Homage to Reactionary Crackdown

This message and others are appearing on t-shirts in response to the knee-jerk security panic that gripped Boston yesterday. (Via Digg)

I heard about another one on NPR but haven't been able to track down a picture. It apparently, and sagely I might add, states that,

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force is da bomb!"

UPDATE: (Via BoingBoing) These stickers shouldn't be necessary, but anyone making things that look, well, post-stone age should probably consider adding them to their creation just so they don't get hauled in on charges. Of course, this is just the kind of thing smart terrorists would do to lull us into complacency...

UPDATE2: I should have known that BoingBoing would have a link to the t-shirt I was looking for.

Labels: humor, stupidity

Blind Spot

Aly (my car) got another beauty mark last night.

On the way home from the recording session at 11:15 pm, I was coming down Snelling past the State Fair Grounds and only minutes from home when a lady in a mini-van changed lanes onto me without checking her blind spot. She saw a police strobe coming the other direction and was pulling to the side of the road. While this is laudable behavior, 1) one should check to make sure the space you want to enter is unoccupied, and 2) the police car was turning off onto a side road.

So... There was no damage to her van, but Aly's driver-side mirror got broken off. Dent resistant panels on both vehicles did their job and while there might be some scratching underneath the salt layer, everything is structurally sound. But now I have to go get estimates and stuff and either have them pay us directly or go through their insurance company. *ugh*
At least we won't have to lay out for this one. And it wasn't even my fault.

And just for the record, No, she isn't named for Aly McBeal. That would be silly.
Her first license plate was ALY-### so she was already named when we got her. And she was accustomed to responding to it, so why change... :)

Labels: cars

Busy Signal

Wow. For what is supposed to be the down-time post Holidays, this has to have been one of the busiest times I had in a while.

After all the trips to NC at the beginning of the month, there have been a number of weeks of being really busy at work getting ready for some workshops coming up. And The Singers has been really hopping getting ready for some concerts that we had last weekend and in preparation for the recording we are doing this week. We're putting down tracks for a CD of all music by Stephen Paulus who is a world-renowned choral composer who lives in St. Paul. He has been a particular friend of the group and this year we put together the money to record a whole disk of his music. And it's truly lovely stuff. But that has meant a lot of rehearsal over the month of January and now we are on the second of three 4-hour nights of recording at St. Michaels Lutheran Church in Roseville (which is an "intimate" space with a cathedral acoustic).

To offset some of this and to actually see my husband for more than a half hour in the mornings, I've been leaving work at 3 instead of 5 this week. And I have to say, I could get used to it... Traffic is better, I'm home earlier... *sigh* Ah to be independently wealthy... This working stuff is for the birds.

Labels: personal

Quote

"Sally, the youngest niece, raised her hand as if she was in class. 'What's pragmatic?,' she asked. Her mother responded, 'Pragmatic? It's the opposite of hope."

Ze Frank - in his show about beans, 01/22/07

Labels: poetry

I just hope there's no crucifixion involved...

That would be messy. That's right, folks. My Jesus Year begins today.
Happy Birthday to me. :D

I know things have been really quite lately. I've just been all out of sorts with just one thing after another these last several weeks. First the spur-o-the-moment trip back to NC over New Years, then the not so surprising trip back for Nana's funeral, working and catching up on missed work, rehearsals every night (almost) and missing rehearsals for various reasons, and the transmission going out in Jacob's car... It's been quite the month and year so far. But I'm sure, since it's my birthday, everything will be completely clear sailing from here on out for the rest of 2007. Isn't that the way it works??

I've got several things in my mental queue that I want to

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01 October, 2008

Bailout for the Environment

17 September, 2008

One of my favorite songs.

16 September, 2008

Soneto V - You Are the Love of My Soul

11 September, 2008

Lipstick is...

05 September, 2008

Parsing Palin

02 September, 2008

Quotable

28 August, 2008

It's just funny...

25 August, 2008

Neurotic Much?

19 August, 2008

Shameless Plug

07 July, 2008

6.5 Weeks of Hell - Epilogue

03 July, 2008

Creatures of Habit

11 June, 2008

Greatly Disturbing

06 June, 2008

6.5 Weeks of Hell - Part 2

04 June, 2008

6.5 Weeks of Hell

20 May, 2008

Good Old Girl

29 April, 2008

I suppose it's nice to have my intuition validated, but still...

04 April, 2008

April 3, 1968

04 March, 2008

Gary Gygax - RIP

Greening the Desert

02 March, 2008

Blogger Play

01 March, 2008

Sarah and Jimmy

29 February, 2008

I just LOVE my commute

28 February, 2008

Two Different Views of Fantasy

27 February, 2008

"It comes out of the f**king ground!"

20 February, 2008

What WOULD Jeebus Do?

19 February, 2008

Importing Trouble

18 February, 2008

Happy VD

17 February, 2008

Days of Future Past

12 February, 2008

Time killer for geeks

09 February, 2008

Uh oh...

08 February, 2008

Ctrl+Alt+Del

07 February, 2008

REALLY Retro

06 February, 2008

Checklist for the Day - Review

Dear Diary - April 13, 1997

05 February, 2008

Adrift

Checklist for the Day

04 February, 2008

Dusk at Sea

03 February, 2008

This is part of your American electorate

Gulf Stream

I heart Granpa Jake