Since a goodly part of our winter house heating is done with wood in the fireplace and the wood stove a supply of firewood is a handy thing to have around. When we moved in last year it was too late to cut wood so I bought some. Then when the ice storm hit we got the ice fallen limbs from Martha and Larry for this winter. Next winters wood will be the first I've harvested off our land here.
With no substitute job today and a promised sunny, though chilly day, I thought it would be a great time to get a start on next winters wood pile. Sunny didn't quite happen until about the time I was tired enough that I figured I should call it a day before something bad happened. The chilly lived up to the forecast quite nicely though..about 18 degrees when I started out this morning and about 23 when I returned around noon:30.
I was well layered up as I ventured off for my first major attempt at imitating Bobby Sherman. I had concerns about staying safe and with Cyrilee off in DC put out a fail safe message on my FB page to launch search parties if I didn't update before dark. I also had my SPoT (www.findmespot.com) device and sent a test "I'm ok" message ( http://bit.ly/6kbeHV ). I could have used it to summon 911 if necessary.
Things went pretty well but I did have a couple of problems. To help stay hydrated I took a small thermos of coffee and a bottle of green tea. The coffee stayed pretty warm but the green tea kept freezing up, I kept squishing the bottle to break up the ice but it was difficult to stay ahead of it. Also, my beard kind of froze to the draw string slide adjuster of the hood I was wearing, along with some wood chips... ( http://twitpic.com/stiig ).
I also ran into a small difficulty with one of my least favorite farm construction materials. As I was clearing away small trees and branches around the top of the fallen tree, I managed to free a 12 foot piece of old barbed wire from its entanglement within the branches. I did this while I had a running chainsaw in my hands.
Said barbed wire immediately attacked my legs. When it hit the outside of my right leg I instinctively moved that leg away from the barbed wire and closer to my left leg. At this point the wire managed to snag both the left and right pants legs pretty much locking my feet very close together. As I have a compromised vestibular system, having my feet really close together is not a real stable position, plus the whole barbs into the legs wasn't very pleasant and the running chainsaw in my hands was of some concern.
Having been recently immersed in the adventures of the British explorer, David Livingstone, I pulled out my best imitation British voice and said, "Well, this is a bit of a pickle we've managed to get ourselves into." Then my one brain cell that was only semi-frozen suggested that I might, at my earliest convenience, shut off and put down the chainsaw. I saw there was some wisdom in this suggestion and complied in a less than leisurely manner.
After a bit of blood and struggle, I managed to extricate myself from the wires fiendish grip. The rest of the outing was mostly without incident. While the resulting pile of firewood isn't overly impressive, it is a good start to next winter's heating fodder... http://twitpic.com/stjs1
.. take care.. t
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Random Mumblings
Just a few random mumblings during a rest period....
I've started substituting at the local school system. So far all the jobs have been at the West Fork Middle School. I've gotten a couple of calls from the high school and elementary but they came after I had already committed to jobs at the middle school.
While I was teaching at the high school level I always thought that teachers and other staff who chose to be at middle schools were somewhat loony. After having spent several days in middle school classrooms now, I've come to the conclusion that middle school isn't as loony from the inside as it appears from the outside. Maybe it's must that West Fork is different but I'm having a pretty good time so far.
Autumn has certainly descended upon us here on our hill in the upper west corner of Arkansas. The leaves have mostly fallen off the branches and chilly rain makes a regular appearance. There are still some days though when one can shuck off the coat while outside.
Having recently acquired a tractor with a front bucket on it, I've developed a great deal of appreciation for how much aches and pains hydraulics can save you. The part of the firewood pile that we are using right now is stacked by the garage door...on the lowest level of the house. We had been carting it up to the main level one double sized milk crate load at a time. It was doable but did require some effort. Now with the tractor, I fill up the bucket with wood, drive it around to the front of the house and lift the bucket up to porch level and stack it in a rack on the porch. Then when I need wood I don't have to schlep it up stairs..just a short walk from porch to fireplace or stove. Yeah hydraulics.
With winter approaching I'm starting to see reminders that every household should have 3 days (sometimes 5 days is recommended) of food and water for each individual in the home. This recommendation has come from all levels of government.... local, state, and federal. This is certainly a good idea and we have complied. We could actually eat for a couple of weeks with the food in the house...though those last few meals might have some odd combinations of dishes.
These governmental admonishments though did get me to thinking about what is actually being said. All levels of government are stating that they believe they won't be able to help for 3 to 5 days if the general condition runs over to the crisis column... I'm good with that, at least they are admitting their shortcomings. So, they believe they won't be able to even deliver help that takes zero specialized training and can be done by most of the adult population in an area.... pile water and food into a vehicle and drive it to someplace. If they won't be able to find this level of help to send your way for 3 to 5 days...I wonder how long it would take them to find and dispatch help that requires specialized training and equipment...say a police officer.
This of course leads to thinking about plans for self help if some dipstick decides to take advantage of the general crisis and visit evil upon you and your loved ones. I know some of you are now thinking..."Migoi, don't you live 10 miles from the nearest town and that is the reason for the time delay in help." While it is true we live out a bit, we heard the same admonishments and warning from the government when we lived in suburbia.
We have a self help, dipstick removal plan well in place... do you?
...take care... t
I've started substituting at the local school system. So far all the jobs have been at the West Fork Middle School. I've gotten a couple of calls from the high school and elementary but they came after I had already committed to jobs at the middle school.
While I was teaching at the high school level I always thought that teachers and other staff who chose to be at middle schools were somewhat loony. After having spent several days in middle school classrooms now, I've come to the conclusion that middle school isn't as loony from the inside as it appears from the outside. Maybe it's must that West Fork is different but I'm having a pretty good time so far.
Autumn has certainly descended upon us here on our hill in the upper west corner of Arkansas. The leaves have mostly fallen off the branches and chilly rain makes a regular appearance. There are still some days though when one can shuck off the coat while outside.
Having recently acquired a tractor with a front bucket on it, I've developed a great deal of appreciation for how much aches and pains hydraulics can save you. The part of the firewood pile that we are using right now is stacked by the garage door...on the lowest level of the house. We had been carting it up to the main level one double sized milk crate load at a time. It was doable but did require some effort. Now with the tractor, I fill up the bucket with wood, drive it around to the front of the house and lift the bucket up to porch level and stack it in a rack on the porch. Then when I need wood I don't have to schlep it up stairs..just a short walk from porch to fireplace or stove. Yeah hydraulics.
With winter approaching I'm starting to see reminders that every household should have 3 days (sometimes 5 days is recommended) of food and water for each individual in the home. This recommendation has come from all levels of government.... local, state, and federal. This is certainly a good idea and we have complied. We could actually eat for a couple of weeks with the food in the house...though those last few meals might have some odd combinations of dishes.
These governmental admonishments though did get me to thinking about what is actually being said. All levels of government are stating that they believe they won't be able to help for 3 to 5 days if the general condition runs over to the crisis column... I'm good with that, at least they are admitting their shortcomings. So, they believe they won't be able to even deliver help that takes zero specialized training and can be done by most of the adult population in an area.... pile water and food into a vehicle and drive it to someplace. If they won't be able to find this level of help to send your way for 3 to 5 days...I wonder how long it would take them to find and dispatch help that requires specialized training and equipment...say a police officer.
This of course leads to thinking about plans for self help if some dipstick decides to take advantage of the general crisis and visit evil upon you and your loved ones. I know some of you are now thinking..."Migoi, don't you live 10 miles from the nearest town and that is the reason for the time delay in help." While it is true we live out a bit, we heard the same admonishments and warning from the government when we lived in suburbia.
We have a self help, dipstick removal plan well in place... do you?
...take care... t
Friday, October 23, 2009
Hot and Cold Running Wars....
Took a trip down memory lane, read the book "Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S." by Kenneth Sewell. It was recommended to me by my optometrist. Having been a cold war submariner during a previous period of life, I found the book very interesting.
It certainly brought back lots of memories, both good and bad. The book is about the 1968 sinking of the Soviet submarine which had been designated K129 by the U.S. Mr. Sewell's theory is that the K129 sank while attempting to launch a nuclear armed missile at Pearl Harbor... bet that got your attention.
The official story (U.S.) of that sinking has always been that K129 sank because of an internal explosion from hydrogen buildup while charging batteries or (Soviet) it sank because a U.S. submarine whammed into it. Both are very real possibilities.
The charging of a submarine's batteries does indeed produce copious quantities of hydrogen, which if not properly vented, could cause an explosion or fire... fire on a submarine.... very, very bad. If your house catches on fire you can run outside. If your submarine catches on fire..not much of a place to run. Of course, flooding is very, very bad also. One continuing joke often told during the changing of the watch (new guy taking over the duties of old guy) was, "There was a small fire, but don't worry, the flooding put it out." Bubbleheads have a strange sense of humor.
The U.S. submarines of that era certainly spent a lot of time in trying to get really close to their Soviet counterparts, without actually touching mind you, but sometimes that happened too.
Mr. Sewell, doesn't really offer much verifiable proof for his new theory, but bases it on new interpretations of public info supported by quite a few quotes from unnamed/anonymous sources. That people who actually know the real story are not willing to be named is understandable. Anyone having anything to do with the submarine force during that time period (and I assume still today) at some point signed a non-disclosure document indicating you would be thrown two stories under the prison for the rest of your life if you said anything.
Having been thus restricted, the submarine community often substitutes information in place of what really happened. I once received a letter of commendation for something I didn't do, because what I really did was necessary to continuing our mission but not in accordance with the Navy's rules and regulations. I didn't go rogue, I did it with the full permission of my captain. What I did was a success and he wanted to give me a reward for doing it but he couldn't hardly say he had given me permission to break the regulations. Sometimes when you're out there operating independently, you have to improvise.
Overall, Mr. Sewell weaves a very convincing story. Looking back at that era I would say that his theory has a very good chance of being true. It's quite a chilling theory, but the really scary part is that it's difficult to believe that the essential nature of governments has changed. Today's government (collective mass) are just as likely to be just as devious...certainly makes me not want them to have any more power.
Speaking of rogue. I've noticed that Sarah Palin has a book coming out on Nov 17. It's called Going Rogue: Sarah Palin An American Life. Some apparently liberal publishing house is publishing, on the same day, a book titled, Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare. While I don't currently have any opinion of either book since neither is on the shelf at the moment, it would seem to support the idea that liberals hate book store clerks. Can you imagine the anger of someone with a conservative bent who accidentally picks up Rouge when they thought they were getting Rogue? Or even more so, a liberal thinking they were getting a book trashing Ms. Palin only to open it and find it actually had positive things to say about her...apoplexy would ensue. Note to any in Ms. Palin's publishing camp that happen to run across this... Kindle-ize please. The Rouge folks... don't bother.
If cold war era thrillers are your thing... definitely read Red Star Rogue, it's more exciting that any novel. If you don't have much background in submarine operations from that time, read Blind Man's Bluff first. BMB is a pretty accurate description of U.S. cold war submarine operations and a look has how I spent part of my life.
..take care... t
It certainly brought back lots of memories, both good and bad. The book is about the 1968 sinking of the Soviet submarine which had been designated K129 by the U.S. Mr. Sewell's theory is that the K129 sank while attempting to launch a nuclear armed missile at Pearl Harbor... bet that got your attention.
The official story (U.S.) of that sinking has always been that K129 sank because of an internal explosion from hydrogen buildup while charging batteries or (Soviet) it sank because a U.S. submarine whammed into it. Both are very real possibilities.
The charging of a submarine's batteries does indeed produce copious quantities of hydrogen, which if not properly vented, could cause an explosion or fire... fire on a submarine.... very, very bad. If your house catches on fire you can run outside. If your submarine catches on fire..not much of a place to run. Of course, flooding is very, very bad also. One continuing joke often told during the changing of the watch (new guy taking over the duties of old guy) was, "There was a small fire, but don't worry, the flooding put it out." Bubbleheads have a strange sense of humor.
The U.S. submarines of that era certainly spent a lot of time in trying to get really close to their Soviet counterparts, without actually touching mind you, but sometimes that happened too.
Mr. Sewell, doesn't really offer much verifiable proof for his new theory, but bases it on new interpretations of public info supported by quite a few quotes from unnamed/anonymous sources. That people who actually know the real story are not willing to be named is understandable. Anyone having anything to do with the submarine force during that time period (and I assume still today) at some point signed a non-disclosure document indicating you would be thrown two stories under the prison for the rest of your life if you said anything.
Having been thus restricted, the submarine community often substitutes information in place of what really happened. I once received a letter of commendation for something I didn't do, because what I really did was necessary to continuing our mission but not in accordance with the Navy's rules and regulations. I didn't go rogue, I did it with the full permission of my captain. What I did was a success and he wanted to give me a reward for doing it but he couldn't hardly say he had given me permission to break the regulations. Sometimes when you're out there operating independently, you have to improvise.
Overall, Mr. Sewell weaves a very convincing story. Looking back at that era I would say that his theory has a very good chance of being true. It's quite a chilling theory, but the really scary part is that it's difficult to believe that the essential nature of governments has changed. Today's government (collective mass) are just as likely to be just as devious...certainly makes me not want them to have any more power.
Speaking of rogue. I've noticed that Sarah Palin has a book coming out on Nov 17. It's called Going Rogue: Sarah Palin An American Life. Some apparently liberal publishing house is publishing, on the same day, a book titled, Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare. While I don't currently have any opinion of either book since neither is on the shelf at the moment, it would seem to support the idea that liberals hate book store clerks. Can you imagine the anger of someone with a conservative bent who accidentally picks up Rouge when they thought they were getting Rogue? Or even more so, a liberal thinking they were getting a book trashing Ms. Palin only to open it and find it actually had positive things to say about her...apoplexy would ensue. Note to any in Ms. Palin's publishing camp that happen to run across this... Kindle-ize please. The Rouge folks... don't bother.
If cold war era thrillers are your thing... definitely read Red Star Rogue, it's more exciting that any novel. If you don't have much background in submarine operations from that time, read Blind Man's Bluff first. BMB is a pretty accurate description of U.S. cold war submarine operations and a look has how I spent part of my life.
..take care... t
Friday, October 16, 2009
Young' uns and some questions...
I find it interesting that in the last few days a couple of youngsters have shown up on the media-scape that passes for news these days.
One, the absentee UFO pilot from Colorado, is undoubtedly known to all the readers by this point. The other, a student from a local school who refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, is probably less well known at this point.
I wonder if either of these boys would be known outside their immediate family's circle of friends if it wasn't for the technological advances in information distribution we have today. But this isn't really about that...
First, ET2. While this whole thing might be a publicity stunt dreamed up by the adults in the family (adult in this case being those that have reached the legal age of majority and not necessarily referring to any advanced state of mental processing), I see a more common scenario as the more likely possibility. A six year old boy hosed up while looking at an attractive nuisance, knew he has hosed up, was fearful of the consequences and did what six year old boys do in these circumstances... hid, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that he could hide long enough for the adults to achieve amnesia about the whole thing.
The biggest question is that why didn't the adults on scene at the house do a thorough search of the premises? Not the parents, they could be too emotional to do a good job. The arriving police though should have assigned each room or area to an individual officer, who would then search it methodically. Find the boy. Helicopter hovers over big balloon using prop wash to force to ground... end of story. If this did happen, what are the consequences to the officer assigned to the area where the boy was eventually found?
This of course is just conjecture because for all the airtime and words going out by the media this morning...no real answers are forthcoming.
The other lad, is currently the center of a small local debate. Seems that a student at the West Fork Middle School (West Fork being the small town closest to our hill), refused to stand for the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently this happened for four or so days, the substitute teacher reportedly 'harassed' him to the point that he eventually made an insubordinate retort back thus earning himself a trip pricipalward.
Some comments I've seen in the local media seem to indicate that there are folks that want to make this into some liberal vs conservative type of issue. The odd part about that aspect is that the liberal/conservative roles seem to be a big reversed in this case. Usually, it is folks labeled as conservative whacking at public schools and their staffs while folks labeled as liberals are the ones saying the schools are fine enough that parents don't need any real choices in selecting which schools their kids attend...just go to the neighborhood one.
While details of the broader picture of this incident are lacking, my thoughts run more along the lines of... 10 year old boy, substitute teacher... kid looks as job description for 10 year olds, sees the plainly written clause of "cause as much grief as possible for substitute teachers" and properly executed his job description.
It was reported that he refused to stand because the U.S. is not fair to homosexuals and to say the words of the pledge would be a lie. It's entirely possible this it true. If it is then I have some questions... If the parents knew of this belief and what actions he was planning on taking in support of this belief, why didn't they hie themselves to the school house to let the teachers/administrators know what was going to happen? Seems like a little proactive parenting would have been a good thing. Gotcha type of parenting protocols with the school is about as productive as gotcha type of reporting with vice-presidential candidates.
Also, did he acquire these convictions, and stand (or sit) his moral convictions all during this school year, or did this burst of empathy occur coincident to having a substitute teacher? If he had previously been sitting through the pledge, did the teacher put that note in the substitute plans? Seems like a little proactive substitute lesson planning would have been a good thing.
Another question is that after he refused to stand for the pledge on the first day...did the substitute seek guidance from the principal about how to handle our recalcitrant young lad? Seems like a little proactive substituting would have been a good thing.
These cases seem to be good examples of the problem with information gathering...there never seems to be enough information if you actually want to think your way through the situations...of course going all knee jerk reactionary seems to work for those in the NFL hierarchy...so why not for the rest of us.
...take care... t
One, the absentee UFO pilot from Colorado, is undoubtedly known to all the readers by this point. The other, a student from a local school who refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, is probably less well known at this point.
I wonder if either of these boys would be known outside their immediate family's circle of friends if it wasn't for the technological advances in information distribution we have today. But this isn't really about that...
First, ET2. While this whole thing might be a publicity stunt dreamed up by the adults in the family (adult in this case being those that have reached the legal age of majority and not necessarily referring to any advanced state of mental processing), I see a more common scenario as the more likely possibility. A six year old boy hosed up while looking at an attractive nuisance, knew he has hosed up, was fearful of the consequences and did what six year old boys do in these circumstances... hid, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that he could hide long enough for the adults to achieve amnesia about the whole thing.
The biggest question is that why didn't the adults on scene at the house do a thorough search of the premises? Not the parents, they could be too emotional to do a good job. The arriving police though should have assigned each room or area to an individual officer, who would then search it methodically. Find the boy. Helicopter hovers over big balloon using prop wash to force to ground... end of story. If this did happen, what are the consequences to the officer assigned to the area where the boy was eventually found?
This of course is just conjecture because for all the airtime and words going out by the media this morning...no real answers are forthcoming.
The other lad, is currently the center of a small local debate. Seems that a student at the West Fork Middle School (West Fork being the small town closest to our hill), refused to stand for the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently this happened for four or so days, the substitute teacher reportedly 'harassed' him to the point that he eventually made an insubordinate retort back thus earning himself a trip pricipalward.
Some comments I've seen in the local media seem to indicate that there are folks that want to make this into some liberal vs conservative type of issue. The odd part about that aspect is that the liberal/conservative roles seem to be a big reversed in this case. Usually, it is folks labeled as conservative whacking at public schools and their staffs while folks labeled as liberals are the ones saying the schools are fine enough that parents don't need any real choices in selecting which schools their kids attend...just go to the neighborhood one.
While details of the broader picture of this incident are lacking, my thoughts run more along the lines of... 10 year old boy, substitute teacher... kid looks as job description for 10 year olds, sees the plainly written clause of "cause as much grief as possible for substitute teachers" and properly executed his job description.
It was reported that he refused to stand because the U.S. is not fair to homosexuals and to say the words of the pledge would be a lie. It's entirely possible this it true. If it is then I have some questions... If the parents knew of this belief and what actions he was planning on taking in support of this belief, why didn't they hie themselves to the school house to let the teachers/administrators know what was going to happen? Seems like a little proactive parenting would have been a good thing. Gotcha type of parenting protocols with the school is about as productive as gotcha type of reporting with vice-presidential candidates.
Also, did he acquire these convictions, and stand (or sit) his moral convictions all during this school year, or did this burst of empathy occur coincident to having a substitute teacher? If he had previously been sitting through the pledge, did the teacher put that note in the substitute plans? Seems like a little proactive substitute lesson planning would have been a good thing.
Another question is that after he refused to stand for the pledge on the first day...did the substitute seek guidance from the principal about how to handle our recalcitrant young lad? Seems like a little proactive substituting would have been a good thing.
These cases seem to be good examples of the problem with information gathering...there never seems to be enough information if you actually want to think your way through the situations...of course going all knee jerk reactionary seems to work for those in the NFL hierarchy...so why not for the rest of us.
...take care... t
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
No bling...
or more correctly... Nobel-ing.
Yep, I too woke up late last week, started a scroll through my iGoogle reader feeds and thought that I had inadvertently oversubscribed to The Onion. Obama and a Nobel Peace prize...really?
After mulling it over for a while, no actual mulled wine being involved but a Guinness or two might have been lubricating the brain cell during part of the mulling period, I discovered that I really don't care if he got it...good on Him.
I looked around a bit and can find no source that indicates that any U.S. tax payer money goes to fund the awarding of the prize and I certainly didn't send any dollars that way. Since it's not my money... I have no problem with it. They, being the they that actually funds the money that comes with the award doohickey, can spend their money on anyone they want.
I do have some small concern for teachers in the U.S. though. Since the standard has been set that you don't have to actually accomplish something to be rewarded for it, I fear that teachers throughout the U.S. will be inundated with students demanding A's for being able to tell the teacher about how great they were at doing their homework while not actually turning said homework in to the teacher.
It was a bit sad though... Norway only really had two things going for it and they've managed to devalue one of them. I will gladly change my opinion about this if anyone can provide me with a source of something He has actually done that made the world more peaceful or safer (those two concepts being inextricable linked). I'll even be generous and not stick to the February 1 deadline.
Don't talk to me about those speeches either. Not a single one of the dangerous folks in the world have made a single move to be less dangerous or more peaceful since He has been running around on the "America is scum, I'm here to save you" tour.
But again...their prize, their money...not my problem. There has been some on the interwebs that have suggested drinking was involved in the selection process. While I can find no evidence that this is not true...I really don't have a problem with it. I'm of the opinion that consumption of alcohol was involved in the creation of the greatest nation on Earth (I'm talking about U.S. of A for all you statist who have been drinking from His kool-aid cup). How else do you get a bunch of successful businessmen and farmers to put EVERYTHING (property, freedom, life itself) on the line for a vaporous concept such as liberty? Alcohol had to be involved in there somewhere.
So now it seems that Norway only has one thing going for it...their Jedi mind trickery seems to still be going pretty strong. Not much of a way, except by Jedi mind trickery, to be able to convince so many of the psycho-green statist that the Norway version of socialism is just grand. A brand of socialism that is funded for the most part on the Norwegians' ability and penchant for plopping down huge petroleum extracting mechanisms (more commonly known as oil wells) in an area that makes the ANWR look like a Brooklyn city park that has been taken over by drug addicts and sex peddlers.
I guess I really need to buy a program...can't tell the players without a program. It's apparently fine with the psycho-green statists that Norway can endanger the North Sea with their petroleum extraction because it's for socialism. Doing the same in the name of capitalism however is a whole 'nother story. Kind of like the film dipsticks that made a movie declaring that commercial aviation is currently the biggest danger to our planet...the same dipsticks that then plopped their fannies into commercial jets to all fly to one place to congratulate themselves on figuring out that commercial aviation was the biggest danger to our planet. They apparently decided their cause was important enough to endanger the planet....but yours is not.
So congratulations to Mr. Obama. Hopefully, he will be able to accept the prize while still on U.S. soil...just so Ms. Obama won't have to make the sacrifice of another taxpayer funded holiday in Europe.
..take care... tim b
Yep, I too woke up late last week, started a scroll through my iGoogle reader feeds and thought that I had inadvertently oversubscribed to The Onion. Obama and a Nobel Peace prize...really?
After mulling it over for a while, no actual mulled wine being involved but a Guinness or two might have been lubricating the brain cell during part of the mulling period, I discovered that I really don't care if he got it...good on Him.
I looked around a bit and can find no source that indicates that any U.S. tax payer money goes to fund the awarding of the prize and I certainly didn't send any dollars that way. Since it's not my money... I have no problem with it. They, being the they that actually funds the money that comes with the award doohickey, can spend their money on anyone they want.
I do have some small concern for teachers in the U.S. though. Since the standard has been set that you don't have to actually accomplish something to be rewarded for it, I fear that teachers throughout the U.S. will be inundated with students demanding A's for being able to tell the teacher about how great they were at doing their homework while not actually turning said homework in to the teacher.
It was a bit sad though... Norway only really had two things going for it and they've managed to devalue one of them. I will gladly change my opinion about this if anyone can provide me with a source of something He has actually done that made the world more peaceful or safer (those two concepts being inextricable linked). I'll even be generous and not stick to the February 1 deadline.
Don't talk to me about those speeches either. Not a single one of the dangerous folks in the world have made a single move to be less dangerous or more peaceful since He has been running around on the "America is scum, I'm here to save you" tour.
But again...their prize, their money...not my problem. There has been some on the interwebs that have suggested drinking was involved in the selection process. While I can find no evidence that this is not true...I really don't have a problem with it. I'm of the opinion that consumption of alcohol was involved in the creation of the greatest nation on Earth (I'm talking about U.S. of A for all you statist who have been drinking from His kool-aid cup). How else do you get a bunch of successful businessmen and farmers to put EVERYTHING (property, freedom, life itself) on the line for a vaporous concept such as liberty? Alcohol had to be involved in there somewhere.
So now it seems that Norway only has one thing going for it...their Jedi mind trickery seems to still be going pretty strong. Not much of a way, except by Jedi mind trickery, to be able to convince so many of the psycho-green statist that the Norway version of socialism is just grand. A brand of socialism that is funded for the most part on the Norwegians' ability and penchant for plopping down huge petroleum extracting mechanisms (more commonly known as oil wells) in an area that makes the ANWR look like a Brooklyn city park that has been taken over by drug addicts and sex peddlers.
I guess I really need to buy a program...can't tell the players without a program. It's apparently fine with the psycho-green statists that Norway can endanger the North Sea with their petroleum extraction because it's for socialism. Doing the same in the name of capitalism however is a whole 'nother story. Kind of like the film dipsticks that made a movie declaring that commercial aviation is currently the biggest danger to our planet...the same dipsticks that then plopped their fannies into commercial jets to all fly to one place to congratulate themselves on figuring out that commercial aviation was the biggest danger to our planet. They apparently decided their cause was important enough to endanger the planet....but yours is not.
So congratulations to Mr. Obama. Hopefully, he will be able to accept the prize while still on U.S. soil...just so Ms. Obama won't have to make the sacrifice of another taxpayer funded holiday in Europe.
..take care... tim b
Monday, October 12, 2009
Trip Report
A while back we noticed that the Naval Academy was playing Rice, at Rice. I wondered where that was and discovered it was in Houston. A couple of brain cells clashed together and I remembered that our good friends Joe and Rae live near Houston and wondered if they wanted to go see a football game. After a bit of coordination a road trip idea was born.
We launched off our hill and pointed south early Friday morning. Well, not too early, I planned for us to leave at 7:00, Cyrilee thought I said 7:30, so we left at 8:10, in the rain. It wasn't too bad driving in the rain, I had just installed new wipers on the jeep, so the windshield stayed nice and clear, much better to see our fellow travelers zip past us at about 20 miles per hour over the dry pavement speed limit.
It rained the entire trip, 513 miles without being able to turn off the windshield wipers one time. Just after we crossed the border into Texas I did get a bit worried. I thought I saw a bearded guy in a robe with a bunch of animals standing around him. I started looking around for a big squarish boat.
Finally arrived at Joe and Rae's farm in Magnolia, Texas. Actually, they are in Magnolia like we are in West Fork. Meaning that they live waaaay out of town and are only considered to be part of Magnolia because of the mysteries of the U.S. Postal Service routing system.
We stayed up way too late, but sincethe game didn't start until 2:30 on Saturday, we could sleep in a bit. When we got up in the morning we did some more catching up over a great breakfast then went for a walking tour of the farm.
They have some wonderful horses. I don't remember all their names, so I won't mention any of them in case the horses read this. Don't want them getting into a fuss because I mentioned one of their names and not all of them. They were very nice horses, though they were a bit intimidating when they gathered around us and started sniffing around to see if any of us were hiding treats in our pockets.
They also have some cows. About the only positive thing I can ever seem to say about cows is that they are tasty when someone grows one to a certain point then takes it to be whacked in the head and turned into hamburgers, country style ribs, and various configurations of steak. However, if there ever were a bunch of cows that deserved kind words while they were still in the pre-sizzle, butt you with their heads, dropping biological landmines all over the place state, this would be the bunch of cows deserving of those kind words.
Off to the game... it was a fun game, the Naval Academy won. It was a bit sad toward the end though because it was a pretty lopsided game. As Rae said, people don't really choose to go to Rice to play football. The end score was 63 to 14. Somewhere in the third quarter I started rooting for Rice inside my head. Being surrounded by a sea of Navy Blue and Gold, I wasn't sure how well cheering for Rice outside my head would have been received.
Stayed up waaay late again. Got up the next morning, ate a great breakfast, then got back on the road north. One of the interesting things about traveling around is finding new place names. When you move out of your usual environs you can find unusual and exotic names for places. All place have unusual and exotic names, it's just that after a bit those unusual and exotic names start to seem usual and mundane. Though, I'm thinking you would have to live in Cut and Shoot, Texas for a really long time before that would seem too mundane.
When seeing place names with adjectives in them that have a natural opposite (i.e. big/little) I always have a sudden urge to go find the opposite. Upon passing Big Man Lane, I really wanted to go look for a Little Man Ave, or better Little Woman Rd. We live attached to a town named West Fork, why isn't there other towns called East Fork and Middle Fork since there are similarly named branches of the same river.
...take care... t
We launched off our hill and pointed south early Friday morning. Well, not too early, I planned for us to leave at 7:00, Cyrilee thought I said 7:30, so we left at 8:10, in the rain. It wasn't too bad driving in the rain, I had just installed new wipers on the jeep, so the windshield stayed nice and clear, much better to see our fellow travelers zip past us at about 20 miles per hour over the dry pavement speed limit.
It rained the entire trip, 513 miles without being able to turn off the windshield wipers one time. Just after we crossed the border into Texas I did get a bit worried. I thought I saw a bearded guy in a robe with a bunch of animals standing around him. I started looking around for a big squarish boat.
Finally arrived at Joe and Rae's farm in Magnolia, Texas. Actually, they are in Magnolia like we are in West Fork. Meaning that they live waaaay out of town and are only considered to be part of Magnolia because of the mysteries of the U.S. Postal Service routing system.
We stayed up way too late, but sincethe game didn't start until 2:30 on Saturday, we could sleep in a bit. When we got up in the morning we did some more catching up over a great breakfast then went for a walking tour of the farm.
They have some wonderful horses. I don't remember all their names, so I won't mention any of them in case the horses read this. Don't want them getting into a fuss because I mentioned one of their names and not all of them. They were very nice horses, though they were a bit intimidating when they gathered around us and started sniffing around to see if any of us were hiding treats in our pockets.
They also have some cows. About the only positive thing I can ever seem to say about cows is that they are tasty when someone grows one to a certain point then takes it to be whacked in the head and turned into hamburgers, country style ribs, and various configurations of steak. However, if there ever were a bunch of cows that deserved kind words while they were still in the pre-sizzle, butt you with their heads, dropping biological landmines all over the place state, this would be the bunch of cows deserving of those kind words.
Off to the game... it was a fun game, the Naval Academy won. It was a bit sad toward the end though because it was a pretty lopsided game. As Rae said, people don't really choose to go to Rice to play football. The end score was 63 to 14. Somewhere in the third quarter I started rooting for Rice inside my head. Being surrounded by a sea of Navy Blue and Gold, I wasn't sure how well cheering for Rice outside my head would have been received.
Stayed up waaay late again. Got up the next morning, ate a great breakfast, then got back on the road north. One of the interesting things about traveling around is finding new place names. When you move out of your usual environs you can find unusual and exotic names for places. All place have unusual and exotic names, it's just that after a bit those unusual and exotic names start to seem usual and mundane. Though, I'm thinking you would have to live in Cut and Shoot, Texas for a really long time before that would seem too mundane.
When seeing place names with adjectives in them that have a natural opposite (i.e. big/little) I always have a sudden urge to go find the opposite. Upon passing Big Man Lane, I really wanted to go look for a Little Man Ave, or better Little Woman Rd. We live attached to a town named West Fork, why isn't there other towns called East Fork and Middle Fork since there are similarly named branches of the same river.
...take care... t
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Today's post is sponsored...
by the letters s, i, t, o, i, and d. I'm making this full disclosure to avoid running afoul of the Federal Trade Commission.
New technologies get abused...happens all the time, every time. When something new comes along there will be someone out there that will figure out how to use it a manner not prescribed by law, good sense, or for the betterment of society. While I can't find a record of it, I'm sure that it wasn't too long after automobile technology advanced to the point of cars being faster than horses that some bank robber clued in to the idea of a getaway CAR.
Before the wide use of blogs and Twitter, nobody told stories beyond two or three of their six degrees of separation because the connection gets too confusing. The cousin of a friend of my brother's tire guy told my brother's tire guy's friend's cousin that.... Now it's much simpler.. I read in a blog... or I got a text from Twitter....
It was inevitable that as soon as this started happening on a reasonable scale that some marketeer would realize that old marketing adage "giving people who disperse information free stuff will usually result in them dispersing positive information about the free stuff you give them" could be expanded into this new realm. Give these new information hobbyists (as opposed to the information professionals) free or discounted stuff and they will disperse positive information about the free stuff you give them.
Apparently this concept has caused more than one head to explode at the Federal Trade Commission. The explodees's compadres attempted several times to put the heads back together but they kept re-exploding. So they did what all government entities do...created a new rule. Apparently, the FTC has now declared that if you are a user of "consumer originated media" and you get something free or at a discount and you make positive comments about it in one of these "consumer originated media" then you have to disclose the free-ness or discounted-ness of the stuff. Houston, we have a problem...
A personal example... I'm on Twitter. I follow a mixture of local and national news sources, bloggers, ordinary folks, and local businesses. Sometimes these local businesses run contests. Sometimes I enter these contests and sometimes I win. I answered a trivia question by Eureka Pizza and won three large pizzas and 2 liters of soda.. It was pretty darn good pizza and I said so on Twitter. How am I suppose to make full disclosure of the free-ness of the pizza and tell folks how good it was in 140 characters? Same with the Tower of Power tickets I won from the Walton Arts Center..
And not to give them any ideas but will this concept be further expanded to include the free samples one gets while doing their grocery shopping? Seems to me this whole thing is a solution looking for a problem. Do people really go off and spend a lot of money based on the opinion of some blogger or twitterer that they don't know? I'm thinking if you go and spend very much money based solely on the recommendation of some person you don't know except 140 characters at a time or through a rambling diatribe...then maybe you deserve to have to put up with a crappy product. That'll learn ya...
Oddly enough there was already a 'rule' in place to cover these circumstances. A rule that was created when ancient latin was the franca lingua... caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter... if you correctly arrange today's sponsors you might discover what I think about certain government rule creators....
...take care.. t
New technologies get abused...happens all the time, every time. When something new comes along there will be someone out there that will figure out how to use it a manner not prescribed by law, good sense, or for the betterment of society. While I can't find a record of it, I'm sure that it wasn't too long after automobile technology advanced to the point of cars being faster than horses that some bank robber clued in to the idea of a getaway CAR.
Before the wide use of blogs and Twitter, nobody told stories beyond two or three of their six degrees of separation because the connection gets too confusing. The cousin of a friend of my brother's tire guy told my brother's tire guy's friend's cousin that.... Now it's much simpler.. I read in a blog... or I got a text from Twitter....
It was inevitable that as soon as this started happening on a reasonable scale that some marketeer would realize that old marketing adage "giving people who disperse information free stuff will usually result in them dispersing positive information about the free stuff you give them" could be expanded into this new realm. Give these new information hobbyists (as opposed to the information professionals) free or discounted stuff and they will disperse positive information about the free stuff you give them.
Apparently this concept has caused more than one head to explode at the Federal Trade Commission. The explodees's compadres attempted several times to put the heads back together but they kept re-exploding. So they did what all government entities do...created a new rule. Apparently, the FTC has now declared that if you are a user of "consumer originated media" and you get something free or at a discount and you make positive comments about it in one of these "consumer originated media" then you have to disclose the free-ness or discounted-ness of the stuff. Houston, we have a problem...
A personal example... I'm on Twitter. I follow a mixture of local and national news sources, bloggers, ordinary folks, and local businesses. Sometimes these local businesses run contests. Sometimes I enter these contests and sometimes I win. I answered a trivia question by Eureka Pizza and won three large pizzas and 2 liters of soda.. It was pretty darn good pizza and I said so on Twitter. How am I suppose to make full disclosure of the free-ness of the pizza and tell folks how good it was in 140 characters? Same with the Tower of Power tickets I won from the Walton Arts Center..
And not to give them any ideas but will this concept be further expanded to include the free samples one gets while doing their grocery shopping? Seems to me this whole thing is a solution looking for a problem. Do people really go off and spend a lot of money based on the opinion of some blogger or twitterer that they don't know? I'm thinking if you go and spend very much money based solely on the recommendation of some person you don't know except 140 characters at a time or through a rambling diatribe...then maybe you deserve to have to put up with a crappy product. That'll learn ya...
Oddly enough there was already a 'rule' in place to cover these circumstances. A rule that was created when ancient latin was the franca lingua... caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter... if you correctly arrange today's sponsors you might discover what I think about certain government rule creators....
...take care.. t
Monday, October 5, 2009
A few words on words....
I like words. They enable you to acquire cookies, more specifically, they enable you to acquire Fig Newtons (it's always about the Newton).
Lately, thoughts about words have been rattling around in my brain, occasionally bumping into a brain cell or two. This of course causes more words to happen and now I need to leak them out of my brain to create some room in there for more important pursuits like how to not glue myself to the PVC pipe when I fix the AC drain line in the next few days.
The word that started this was "liberal". I recently read Friedrich Von Hayek's 'The Road to Serdom'. In it he uses the word "liberal" 127 times (thank you Kindle search feature). Judging from the context in which he uses "liberal" it would seem that the definition of the word then (1944) closely resembles what we would call today a "free market capitalist".
I can't find any use of the word "liberal" in current writings that would come close to meaning "free market capitalist." In a mere 65 years the generally accepted meaning of a word has pretty much been reversed.
He also mentions the deliberate shifting of the usage of words was how the socialist in Germany created conditions that allowed the nastiest socialist of them all to be elected and carry out his atrocities. Yes, Hayek flatly states the Nazi regime was economically a socialist (state control of the means of production) regime using fascist political control to push acceptance of it's failing economic policies.
Another thought about words that keeps pushing to the outer edges of the spin cycle that is my brain concerns the reach ordinary people have with their words in today's world of blogs, twitter, facebook, and self publishing. This thought inspired by another book I finished recently, "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.
Mr. Friedman discusses how technological improvements have made the world more even, or flatter. In the not so distant past, for an ordinary person to get their personal viewpoint out to the world beyond their family and friends required convincing a series of people to risk certain amounts of money to publish or broadcast some version of that viewpoint. This risk of money often allowed these people an editorial right over the final product.
Today, through the use of blogs, email, twitter, and the self publishing of etexts, a person of modest means can give access to their viewpoint to a world wide audience. This accessibility to a broader audience is starting to have consequences to the "professional" purveyors of information. In some ways this technological advance has brought us back to a time prior to electricity or the printing press.
Think about how news traveled prior to electricity or cheap printed materials. A person would meet up with someone who had just come from somewhere else and talk to them about the happenings in that somewhere else. Then the information would be passed on to others the person knew or met. Such information transfer was fraught with possibilities for inaccuracy and filtering but people managed to integrate the various versions they received and made decisions in their lives based on this amalgamated "truth".
Somewhere along the line, as printed material became more widespread, and more so with the invention of electronic information transfer technologies, classes of information workers developed. By the end of the 20th century we find the generally accepted belief that the only "real" news is that which has been gathered, washed, dried, fluffed, and folded by "professionals".
Then a series of endearingly nerdy brains, fueled by high caffeine drinks figured out how to line up electrons in a fashion that allowed ordinary people, or even cranky, hill dwelling libertarians, to take their viewpoint and news out way beyond who they could trap in a corner at a cocktail party or backyard BBQ.
This caused some, but by no means all, of the professional information workers to go to high freak mode. It doesn't take a very in depth perusal of traditional print or broadcast type of information transfer entities to find claims that these "amateur" information transferers are "inaccurate, lacking in context, and politically slanted." Which is all true... but probably no more so that these traditional information sources. Show me an information outlet that this doesn't apply to and I'll show you a radio station in east New Mexico who only programs the slow reading of PTA minutes.
These new "news" outlets seem to me to mirror how we gather and use information from sources more close to us. How do we gather information about things that happen within our circle of friends and family... we hear the story (or receive an email about it) from various members of our circle, each having a slightly differing viewpoint. We weigh each of the versions according to it's source (because we all know that Uncle Fred will always blame everything on the Democrats and Cousin Sally will minimize how bad things are because she "just don't like to think about things like that".) and make whatever decisions we need to make based on our amalgamated version.
Now news of the broader world can come to us in this fashion... from many different sources, each with its own perception, slant, and flavor. For those thinking this is a really bad trend, please explain one thing... How can any media outlet accurately and unbiasedly report the missteps of a politician that they are on record as recommending as the best person for a particular elected position? When information is passed through any human brain it is altered.
All the thoughts didn't quite leak out but I've noticed that my use of the word "few" in the title probably wasn't very accurate... Then those who know me know that "Migoi sure does like words...he uses a lot of them"..
..take care.. t
Lately, thoughts about words have been rattling around in my brain, occasionally bumping into a brain cell or two. This of course causes more words to happen and now I need to leak them out of my brain to create some room in there for more important pursuits like how to not glue myself to the PVC pipe when I fix the AC drain line in the next few days.
The word that started this was "liberal". I recently read Friedrich Von Hayek's 'The Road to Serdom'. In it he uses the word "liberal" 127 times (thank you Kindle search feature). Judging from the context in which he uses "liberal" it would seem that the definition of the word then (1944) closely resembles what we would call today a "free market capitalist".
I can't find any use of the word "liberal" in current writings that would come close to meaning "free market capitalist." In a mere 65 years the generally accepted meaning of a word has pretty much been reversed.
He also mentions the deliberate shifting of the usage of words was how the socialist in Germany created conditions that allowed the nastiest socialist of them all to be elected and carry out his atrocities. Yes, Hayek flatly states the Nazi regime was economically a socialist (state control of the means of production) regime using fascist political control to push acceptance of it's failing economic policies.
Another thought about words that keeps pushing to the outer edges of the spin cycle that is my brain concerns the reach ordinary people have with their words in today's world of blogs, twitter, facebook, and self publishing. This thought inspired by another book I finished recently, "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.
Mr. Friedman discusses how technological improvements have made the world more even, or flatter. In the not so distant past, for an ordinary person to get their personal viewpoint out to the world beyond their family and friends required convincing a series of people to risk certain amounts of money to publish or broadcast some version of that viewpoint. This risk of money often allowed these people an editorial right over the final product.
Today, through the use of blogs, email, twitter, and the self publishing of etexts, a person of modest means can give access to their viewpoint to a world wide audience. This accessibility to a broader audience is starting to have consequences to the "professional" purveyors of information. In some ways this technological advance has brought us back to a time prior to electricity or the printing press.
Think about how news traveled prior to electricity or cheap printed materials. A person would meet up with someone who had just come from somewhere else and talk to them about the happenings in that somewhere else. Then the information would be passed on to others the person knew or met. Such information transfer was fraught with possibilities for inaccuracy and filtering but people managed to integrate the various versions they received and made decisions in their lives based on this amalgamated "truth".
Somewhere along the line, as printed material became more widespread, and more so with the invention of electronic information transfer technologies, classes of information workers developed. By the end of the 20th century we find the generally accepted belief that the only "real" news is that which has been gathered, washed, dried, fluffed, and folded by "professionals".
Then a series of endearingly nerdy brains, fueled by high caffeine drinks figured out how to line up electrons in a fashion that allowed ordinary people, or even cranky, hill dwelling libertarians, to take their viewpoint and news out way beyond who they could trap in a corner at a cocktail party or backyard BBQ.
This caused some, but by no means all, of the professional information workers to go to high freak mode. It doesn't take a very in depth perusal of traditional print or broadcast type of information transfer entities to find claims that these "amateur" information transferers are "inaccurate, lacking in context, and politically slanted." Which is all true... but probably no more so that these traditional information sources. Show me an information outlet that this doesn't apply to and I'll show you a radio station in east New Mexico who only programs the slow reading of PTA minutes.
These new "news" outlets seem to me to mirror how we gather and use information from sources more close to us. How do we gather information about things that happen within our circle of friends and family... we hear the story (or receive an email about it) from various members of our circle, each having a slightly differing viewpoint. We weigh each of the versions according to it's source (because we all know that Uncle Fred will always blame everything on the Democrats and Cousin Sally will minimize how bad things are because she "just don't like to think about things like that".) and make whatever decisions we need to make based on our amalgamated version.
Now news of the broader world can come to us in this fashion... from many different sources, each with its own perception, slant, and flavor. For those thinking this is a really bad trend, please explain one thing... How can any media outlet accurately and unbiasedly report the missteps of a politician that they are on record as recommending as the best person for a particular elected position? When information is passed through any human brain it is altered.
All the thoughts didn't quite leak out but I've noticed that my use of the word "few" in the title probably wasn't very accurate... Then those who know me know that "Migoi sure does like words...he uses a lot of them"..
..take care.. t
Friday, September 11, 2009
Some thoughts....
Just like many (most? all?) of my fellow citizens this morning, I paused to spend a few moments thinking about the events that happened eight years ago. Unbidden memories of the 'where' came rushing forward.
Where? In the Manana military housing area, on Oahu, Hawaii. As our neighbors started waking up shortly after it started there was a mass exodus. Some undoubtedly in response to urgent phone calls recalling them to their places of duty. Others, like Cyrilee, rising at their normal early hour, seeing the news and immediately heading toward their bases, knowing without being told, where they needed to be.
We've been told, for whatever reason, that we should view this day as a day of service. As I sit and think about those events from a few short years ago, and more importantly, life in these intervening years, my mind moves from honoring the victims, rescuers, and responders on that day to another group of people... those folks, especially the young folks, who joined the service (military) after 09/11/01. So yes, this should be a day of service...or more accurately, a day to honor service.
Often folks of my age and generation spend much idle chatting time lamenting the direction our society is heading. That the generation moving from youth to adulthood in these post 9/11 years have no sense of place or duty, only interested in having the hippest new smart-phone to text endless strings of opinion about who should be the next american idol.
I say the American Idol is all those kids who walked off that graduation stage, stood in front of a flag, raised their right hands, and told America, "This won't happen again. I will stand that watch, take up that challenge."
Full disclosure, I have a bias... our daughter was one of those. She is currently in her senior year at the U.S. Naval Academy. We are unwaveringly and immeasurably proud of her. While she has never stated that the events of 9/11 were the reason she joined , I would note that her facebook status update this morning simply reads..."9.11.01".
Where? In the Manana military housing area, on Oahu, Hawaii. As our neighbors started waking up shortly after it started there was a mass exodus. Some undoubtedly in response to urgent phone calls recalling them to their places of duty. Others, like Cyrilee, rising at their normal early hour, seeing the news and immediately heading toward their bases, knowing without being told, where they needed to be.
We've been told, for whatever reason, that we should view this day as a day of service. As I sit and think about those events from a few short years ago, and more importantly, life in these intervening years, my mind moves from honoring the victims, rescuers, and responders on that day to another group of people... those folks, especially the young folks, who joined the service (military) after 09/11/01. So yes, this should be a day of service...or more accurately, a day to honor service.
Often folks of my age and generation spend much idle chatting time lamenting the direction our society is heading. That the generation moving from youth to adulthood in these post 9/11 years have no sense of place or duty, only interested in having the hippest new smart-phone to text endless strings of opinion about who should be the next american idol.
I say the American Idol is all those kids who walked off that graduation stage, stood in front of a flag, raised their right hands, and told America, "This won't happen again. I will stand that watch, take up that challenge."
Full disclosure, I have a bias... our daughter was one of those. She is currently in her senior year at the U.S. Naval Academy. We are unwaveringly and immeasurably proud of her. While she has never stated that the events of 9/11 were the reason she joined , I would note that her facebook status update this morning simply reads..."9.11.01".
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Critterlings
Just a brief update on some of the critters that wander across our lawn on occasion.
Hummingbirds.. The hummingbirds seem to have taken to the idea of the free lunch we've been providing. When we first put out the hummingbird feeder we only saw one or two would come around. For the last few days, at times when I look out the window at the feeder it looks like WWII over France. As many as six hummingbirds were swarming around the feeder. It seems a bit late in summer for them to be "flirting" so I'm thinking defense of food source would be the most likely explanation.
I was out attempting to hoe out the grass/weeds growing between the rocks of our walk (very near the feeder) and heard the buzzing of a huge bee. Having had a grandfather that kept bees I knew better than to run...but it sounded like a really big bee. I stood still and soon a small creature hovered around to the front of me...a inch long hummingbird. Hovered there, looking like if it would have had hands or hips to put those hands on..it would have been hovering there, a bit askance, hands on hips and giving me that look.
At first I was impressed since I outweigh it by about 3500 times. On thinking about it a bit more, I'm thinking it probably could have kicked my butt if it so choose. It's got a pointy beak and moves really, really fast. I would have zero chance of actually hitting it and it could easily move around and poke at me with that pointy beak. Yep, that's not a battle I'm likely to win.
We had a slight mystery with the feeder. We would fill it up and during the course of the day the level would drop about 1/5 of the amount. The next morning we would get up and it would be empty. I was starting to think that hummingbirds are nocturnal. While filling it up yesterday morning we discovered the probably cause...which brings us to...
Raccoons.. We have at least one family of raccoons that come through. We've seen them more than once, a parent and 3 younglings. While filling the hummingbird feeder, upon looking closely at it we discovered tiny paw prints and some scratches. What is probably happening is that the raccoons had discovered that the hummingbird feeder can serve very well as a nightly dessert banquet for enterprising raccoons.
I'm thinking one of them gets on the steps rail and pull the feeder over sideways. This causes the vacuum seal to break and the water to run out the other side. I don't know if that raccoon gets the goodies or if the others gather on the ground below it and catch the sugar water on their tongues like school children and slightly deranged adults do with snowflakes. If you look below the feed it's clear that something has been in the vegetation below the feeder. I just wish I could get video of it before we relocate the feeder.
Deer.. We appear to have an orphaned fawn. Several times we've seen a lone fawn wandering through the yard with no mom in sight. A few weeks ago we saw a fawn/mom pair where the mom was severely limping. It's possible this is the fawn from that pair. It seems to be doing okay now but I'm not sure how well it will do after the first freeze. Anyone out there understand deer biology enough to know if fawns require the milk supplement to survive through the winter?
I'm not opposed to setting up a corn feeder and probably will anyway just to keep the deerkin fat throughout the winter.
Coyote.. haven't actually seen him but do keep running across signs he is still coming around. A paw print here and there. A bit of scat around the corners of the yard.
..take care.. tim b
Hummingbirds.. The hummingbirds seem to have taken to the idea of the free lunch we've been providing. When we first put out the hummingbird feeder we only saw one or two would come around. For the last few days, at times when I look out the window at the feeder it looks like WWII over France. As many as six hummingbirds were swarming around the feeder. It seems a bit late in summer for them to be "flirting" so I'm thinking defense of food source would be the most likely explanation.
I was out attempting to hoe out the grass/weeds growing between the rocks of our walk (very near the feeder) and heard the buzzing of a huge bee. Having had a grandfather that kept bees I knew better than to run...but it sounded like a really big bee. I stood still and soon a small creature hovered around to the front of me...a inch long hummingbird. Hovered there, looking like if it would have had hands or hips to put those hands on..it would have been hovering there, a bit askance, hands on hips and giving me that look.
At first I was impressed since I outweigh it by about 3500 times. On thinking about it a bit more, I'm thinking it probably could have kicked my butt if it so choose. It's got a pointy beak and moves really, really fast. I would have zero chance of actually hitting it and it could easily move around and poke at me with that pointy beak. Yep, that's not a battle I'm likely to win.
We had a slight mystery with the feeder. We would fill it up and during the course of the day the level would drop about 1/5 of the amount. The next morning we would get up and it would be empty. I was starting to think that hummingbirds are nocturnal. While filling it up yesterday morning we discovered the probably cause...which brings us to...
Raccoons.. We have at least one family of raccoons that come through. We've seen them more than once, a parent and 3 younglings. While filling the hummingbird feeder, upon looking closely at it we discovered tiny paw prints and some scratches. What is probably happening is that the raccoons had discovered that the hummingbird feeder can serve very well as a nightly dessert banquet for enterprising raccoons.
I'm thinking one of them gets on the steps rail and pull the feeder over sideways. This causes the vacuum seal to break and the water to run out the other side. I don't know if that raccoon gets the goodies or if the others gather on the ground below it and catch the sugar water on their tongues like school children and slightly deranged adults do with snowflakes. If you look below the feed it's clear that something has been in the vegetation below the feeder. I just wish I could get video of it before we relocate the feeder.
Deer.. We appear to have an orphaned fawn. Several times we've seen a lone fawn wandering through the yard with no mom in sight. A few weeks ago we saw a fawn/mom pair where the mom was severely limping. It's possible this is the fawn from that pair. It seems to be doing okay now but I'm not sure how well it will do after the first freeze. Anyone out there understand deer biology enough to know if fawns require the milk supplement to survive through the winter?
I'm not opposed to setting up a corn feeder and probably will anyway just to keep the deerkin fat throughout the winter.
Coyote.. haven't actually seen him but do keep running across signs he is still coming around. A paw print here and there. A bit of scat around the corners of the yard.
..take care.. tim b
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Thoughts Politik
Just a few thoughts and questions about public doings in the not so distant past....
I think I need some clarifying. When BHO was organizing community members against the actions of private companies and governmental entities it was a good thing. Now that BHO is a governmental entity and community members are organizing against his actions...it's a bad thing. My general response to the 'accusations' that folks against the current rush to 'reform' health insurance have been organized by some organization is.... so what?
I'm thinking someone needs to explain to me why it's a bad thing for citizens with a common grievance to organize together to express that grievance. The Secretary of State says that dissent is patriotic. The only relevant part of our current President's resume was as a community organizer. Folks just seem to be trying to follow their examples.
Why aren't we seeing a mad, elbow-throwing, shoving folks around rush of Congress Critters trying to get in line to sign up for this wonderful public option health insurance deal they're crafting together for us? Seems like if was such a good thing, we wouldn't be able to keep them from signing themselves and their families up for it.
I keep hearing that Medicare works...it'll be like that. Okay, maybe...but, why are there supplemental Medicare insurance policies needed if it works so well? As I understand it these supplemental insurance policies are through private insurance companies... will this same type of additional coverage be needed for the public option? Will they be available? Will the combined taxes for the public option and premiums for the supplemental policies be greater or less than what folks are currently paying?
These are questions... unfortunately both my senators seem disinclined to hold meetings where I could ask them. My representative seems to be on the questioning side of things, having publicly asked questions similar to the ones I have.
I have other questions related to the details of this thing but if I spend too much time thinking about it my blood pressure starts to get agitated, so I'll close for now...
..take care .. tim b
I think I need some clarifying. When BHO was organizing community members against the actions of private companies and governmental entities it was a good thing. Now that BHO is a governmental entity and community members are organizing against his actions...it's a bad thing. My general response to the 'accusations' that folks against the current rush to 'reform' health insurance have been organized by some organization is.... so what?
I'm thinking someone needs to explain to me why it's a bad thing for citizens with a common grievance to organize together to express that grievance. The Secretary of State says that dissent is patriotic. The only relevant part of our current President's resume was as a community organizer. Folks just seem to be trying to follow their examples.
Why aren't we seeing a mad, elbow-throwing, shoving folks around rush of Congress Critters trying to get in line to sign up for this wonderful public option health insurance deal they're crafting together for us? Seems like if was such a good thing, we wouldn't be able to keep them from signing themselves and their families up for it.
I keep hearing that Medicare works...it'll be like that. Okay, maybe...but, why are there supplemental Medicare insurance policies needed if it works so well? As I understand it these supplemental insurance policies are through private insurance companies... will this same type of additional coverage be needed for the public option? Will they be available? Will the combined taxes for the public option and premiums for the supplemental policies be greater or less than what folks are currently paying?
These are questions... unfortunately both my senators seem disinclined to hold meetings where I could ask them. My representative seems to be on the questioning side of things, having publicly asked questions similar to the ones I have.
I have other questions related to the details of this thing but if I spend too much time thinking about it my blood pressure starts to get agitated, so I'll close for now...
..take care .. tim b
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Great Leviathan Hunt
It's one of the classical confrontations...fisherman versus fish. The mano-a-fino battle of primal creatures using all their wits and intelligence in an effort to defeat their opponent. Or maybe it's just a guy standing on a boat trying to trick an animal with a brain the size of a BB into thinking the plastic wormy thing being dragged across the bottom of the lake would make a tasty snack...and failing to do so on a regular basis.
It didn't take me long to figure out that for these new attempts at piscinarial harvesting my old method of leaping cat-like from a high perch to explosively impact the water might not work too well. Mostly because this 49 year old body won't take the repeated punishment as well as that 9 year old body did. I suppose if I had 4 or 5 pints of Guinness filtering through my brain I might be tempted to give it a try, but with any less lubrication than that, it was unlikely.
Being very left brained, I first attempted to plan my fishing out logically. It would seem that if I could devolve to the point of being able to think like a fish, I should be able to figure out how to make a bit of fake worm appear to the fish equivalent of a Julia Child masterpiece.
Since I wasn't entirely sure how to think like a fish, I decided to start with other creatures that might also have brains the size of a BB. I began by trying to think like any of the 219 representatives that voted for "cap and tax"...then decided even a fish wouldn't be so stupid as to vote for something they hadn't read. So I set my devolving a bit higher.
After running through several possibilities I came to the perfect solution... just listen to Larry, a fisherman of long history and sterling repute, as to what to put on the line and how to make it act. As it turned out, that proved to be a pretty good strategy...on our first outing, I caught the first fish.
We had motored over to an appropriately fishy looking bit of lake shore a couple of hours before sunset. The protocol for this expedition would be to drift along this set of bluffs lining the shore, casting our bits of worminess out, and retrieving them in a fish enticing manner. My hook was baited with a item called a 'watermelon red Fat Albert' which in fact looked green to me and caused the phrase "Hey, hey, hey, it's faaaaaaat Albert." to get stuck in my head for the next 2 hours. I hope that you are now similarly inflicted....
So we drifted along..cast, let rotund Al sink to the bottom, slowly reel in, dragging the bait across the bottom trying to attract the attention of a fish.... repeat as necessary. As necessary turned out to be about a half a gazillion times. Cast, sink, retrieve...
I've cast, it sank, I'm retrieving, then a sudden jerk on the line and I'm all "Quint" from Jaws, calling to Larry to throw a bucket of water on the reel so that it doesn't melt from the heat of the monster stripping the line out. We're doing a Nantucket sleigh ride in a bass boat. I'm sure that Queequeg and his harpoon will be needed to land what has to be the record setting fish of all record setting fish.
Now this is fishing...a life and death struggle, a battle of wits and strength. A playing of nuanced strife reflective of the taming of the wilderness by humans. For twenty whole seconds I struggled to land what had to be the Leviathan of Beaver Lake.
As it turns out I had managed to land, as identified by Larry, a Kentucky bass of such minuscule proportions that if you managed to scrape all the meat off of it, you might have about 1/2 a fishstick worth of a meal...but it sure was fun catching it. Off the hook and back into the lake...the fun is in the catching, not the keeping.
Yep, this new round of fishing is much more fun and entertaining than the ones 40 years ago...even the ones where I used my uniquely hazardous methods.
..take care... tim b
It didn't take me long to figure out that for these new attempts at piscinarial harvesting my old method of leaping cat-like from a high perch to explosively impact the water might not work too well. Mostly because this 49 year old body won't take the repeated punishment as well as that 9 year old body did. I suppose if I had 4 or 5 pints of Guinness filtering through my brain I might be tempted to give it a try, but with any less lubrication than that, it was unlikely.
Being very left brained, I first attempted to plan my fishing out logically. It would seem that if I could devolve to the point of being able to think like a fish, I should be able to figure out how to make a bit of fake worm appear to the fish equivalent of a Julia Child masterpiece.
Since I wasn't entirely sure how to think like a fish, I decided to start with other creatures that might also have brains the size of a BB. I began by trying to think like any of the 219 representatives that voted for "cap and tax"...then decided even a fish wouldn't be so stupid as to vote for something they hadn't read. So I set my devolving a bit higher.
After running through several possibilities I came to the perfect solution... just listen to Larry, a fisherman of long history and sterling repute, as to what to put on the line and how to make it act. As it turned out, that proved to be a pretty good strategy...on our first outing, I caught the first fish.
We had motored over to an appropriately fishy looking bit of lake shore a couple of hours before sunset. The protocol for this expedition would be to drift along this set of bluffs lining the shore, casting our bits of worminess out, and retrieving them in a fish enticing manner. My hook was baited with a item called a 'watermelon red Fat Albert' which in fact looked green to me and caused the phrase "Hey, hey, hey, it's faaaaaaat Albert." to get stuck in my head for the next 2 hours. I hope that you are now similarly inflicted....
So we drifted along..cast, let rotund Al sink to the bottom, slowly reel in, dragging the bait across the bottom trying to attract the attention of a fish.... repeat as necessary. As necessary turned out to be about a half a gazillion times. Cast, sink, retrieve...
I've cast, it sank, I'm retrieving, then a sudden jerk on the line and I'm all "Quint" from Jaws, calling to Larry to throw a bucket of water on the reel so that it doesn't melt from the heat of the monster stripping the line out. We're doing a Nantucket sleigh ride in a bass boat. I'm sure that Queequeg and his harpoon will be needed to land what has to be the record setting fish of all record setting fish.
Now this is fishing...a life and death struggle, a battle of wits and strength. A playing of nuanced strife reflective of the taming of the wilderness by humans. For twenty whole seconds I struggled to land what had to be the Leviathan of Beaver Lake.
As it turns out I had managed to land, as identified by Larry, a Kentucky bass of such minuscule proportions that if you managed to scrape all the meat off of it, you might have about 1/2 a fishstick worth of a meal...but it sure was fun catching it. Off the hook and back into the lake...the fun is in the catching, not the keeping.
Yep, this new round of fishing is much more fun and entertaining than the ones 40 years ago...even the ones where I used my uniquely hazardous methods.
..take care... tim b
Monday, July 20, 2009
Fishin'
It sure is dusty in here, I wonder who is responsible for this space.....
We camped out at Horseshoe Bend during July 4th and the week after. Thank you Martha and Larry for letting us stay in your RV.
One of the activities during the week or so at the lake was fishing. When it was first proposed I was a bit hesitant. The last time I had gone fishing was when I was 8 and 9 years old and it really hadn't been that positive of an experience.
I had been taken fishing during that time by a step-father and it would be vastly understating things to call him a jerk. My fishing with him consisted of being placed on the bank of a creek or stream, close to an eddy. I used worms as the bait and a pole with a bobber on it. Instruction consisted of being told to not move, not talk, and watch for the bobber to move. I'm not sure why any adult would ever think that a 8 year old, small town, Arkansas boy could ever sit on a creek bank without moving or talking, watching a red and white piece of plastic sit in the water. I never remember catching a single fish.
After the first episode of this, the only reason I ever asked to go back was because I discovered that if I endured this unnatural torture for 30 to 45 minutes, I could quietly slip off and explore further up or down stream, out of eye sight. Sitting through the nonsense of watching the bobber gave me access to new stream banks to explore... one of my more favorite activities.
Thankfully, I was often left to my own devices on the stream that ran behind our house in Cave Springs. I was allowed to go as far as the upstream edge of the pond and for two cow pastures downstream...a bit less than 1/2 mile of stream bank to explore.
My fishing style during these solo expeditions was much more exciting. My favorite technique was to belly crawl along the bank until I found a spot on the outer edge of a bend where the water was deep enough I couldn't see the bottom. My reasoning was that if I couldn't see the bottom to verify there was no fish there then there was a distinct possibility there was a fish there. I would then ease myself up to crouching on all fours and launch out over the stream like some large, hairless jungle cat to plunge feet and hands first into the stream. All such launches from the creek bank were accompanied by a top of the lungs scream of "Geronimo." I'm not entirely sure why, but it was a practice I revived many years later during the 12 parachuting jumps I made...much to the chagrin of the jumpmasters.
My operational theory for this method of fishing was that I would seize any fish that my hands happened to contact or at the very least the shock wave of my body hitting the water would stun any fish in the eddy and they would float to the top. Although I never caught any fish using this method either, at least my version of fishing had the benefit of plunging into a cool stream after belly crawling through itchy grass on an oppressively muggy August afternoon.
In thinking back at these times, it occurs to me that I must have had a very flat learning curve as a child. Often the thing I took away from these attempts was pain and another wound I was reluctant to explain to my mother when I returned to the house at dusk. While it is doubtful that those eddies ever actually concealed any fish for me to stun into submission, they often did conceal tree branches or rocks which I would come into full speed contact with. The resulting gouges, scrapes, and punctures never lessened my enthusiasm for airborne angling, it was much less painful than sitting and watching a bobber bob.
My foray into the world of fishing 40 years later was much more enjoyable..but that's a tale for another day.
We camped out at Horseshoe Bend during July 4th and the week after. Thank you Martha and Larry for letting us stay in your RV.
One of the activities during the week or so at the lake was fishing. When it was first proposed I was a bit hesitant. The last time I had gone fishing was when I was 8 and 9 years old and it really hadn't been that positive of an experience.
I had been taken fishing during that time by a step-father and it would be vastly understating things to call him a jerk. My fishing with him consisted of being placed on the bank of a creek or stream, close to an eddy. I used worms as the bait and a pole with a bobber on it. Instruction consisted of being told to not move, not talk, and watch for the bobber to move. I'm not sure why any adult would ever think that a 8 year old, small town, Arkansas boy could ever sit on a creek bank without moving or talking, watching a red and white piece of plastic sit in the water. I never remember catching a single fish.
After the first episode of this, the only reason I ever asked to go back was because I discovered that if I endured this unnatural torture for 30 to 45 minutes, I could quietly slip off and explore further up or down stream, out of eye sight. Sitting through the nonsense of watching the bobber gave me access to new stream banks to explore... one of my more favorite activities.
Thankfully, I was often left to my own devices on the stream that ran behind our house in Cave Springs. I was allowed to go as far as the upstream edge of the pond and for two cow pastures downstream...a bit less than 1/2 mile of stream bank to explore.
My fishing style during these solo expeditions was much more exciting. My favorite technique was to belly crawl along the bank until I found a spot on the outer edge of a bend where the water was deep enough I couldn't see the bottom. My reasoning was that if I couldn't see the bottom to verify there was no fish there then there was a distinct possibility there was a fish there. I would then ease myself up to crouching on all fours and launch out over the stream like some large, hairless jungle cat to plunge feet and hands first into the stream. All such launches from the creek bank were accompanied by a top of the lungs scream of "Geronimo." I'm not entirely sure why, but it was a practice I revived many years later during the 12 parachuting jumps I made...much to the chagrin of the jumpmasters.
My operational theory for this method of fishing was that I would seize any fish that my hands happened to contact or at the very least the shock wave of my body hitting the water would stun any fish in the eddy and they would float to the top. Although I never caught any fish using this method either, at least my version of fishing had the benefit of plunging into a cool stream after belly crawling through itchy grass on an oppressively muggy August afternoon.
In thinking back at these times, it occurs to me that I must have had a very flat learning curve as a child. Often the thing I took away from these attempts was pain and another wound I was reluctant to explain to my mother when I returned to the house at dusk. While it is doubtful that those eddies ever actually concealed any fish for me to stun into submission, they often did conceal tree branches or rocks which I would come into full speed contact with. The resulting gouges, scrapes, and punctures never lessened my enthusiasm for airborne angling, it was much less painful than sitting and watching a bobber bob.
My foray into the world of fishing 40 years later was much more enjoyable..but that's a tale for another day.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A devolving evolution....
At times, while perusing the chaos that is the interwebonet I come upon a piece of writing about the current state of verbal and/or written communications in our fair society. Once in a while the article is simply an observation but most often it is a full throated lamenting of the deplorable state and direction of our rapidly devolving skill in usage of the English language.
My first thought upon reading one of these latter pieces is to marvel at the delightfully subtle irony of a screed decrying the tragedy of the evolution of language written in contemporary English rather than Late West Saxon (the long demised linguistic ancestor of English) or any of the innumerable permutations that have since found their way to the communicative boneyard.
My second thought is usually that any difficulties caused by new or creative alterations in spelling, grammar, or usage is more due to a failure in compliance with context rather than any absolute shortcomings of contemporary language. Since it is possible that the phrase "failure in compliance with context" just now saw it's very first utterance, maybe I should explain.
In my brain (admittedly sometimes not being in congruence with reality), it refers to the idea that the use of any thing, such as a tool, eating utensil, clothing, or language, works best when the selection of a particular type of the thing from all the various sub-types of the thing is made with due consideration of the context within which the thing will be used. An alternative label might be "Eating Soup with Chopsticks"
While a fad diet and book titled "Eating Soup with Chopsticks" would probably make it's way to the top of various bestseller lists, the truth is that selecting that particular eating utensil to assist in the consumption of that particular foodstuff would be a definite failure in compliance with context, not to mention a really looooong meal.
The same theory would seem to apply to the changes we some times see in how members of our society, especially those with birth years in the not so distant past, make use of language. I don't believe there is anything inherently bad or wrong with slang, the abbreviations used in texting, or even "smilies", it's just that using those particular linguistic protocols when a more formal formulation of expression is appropriate is likely to yield results as unsatisfying as digging into a bowl of creamy tomato with a non-spoon utensil.
Possibly a better path lies in upping our efforts in teaching better compliance with context rather than using our energies to down the creative adaptations necessitated by changes in our society and the technologies that support it.
I'll even be kind and not insist that any dissenting opinions (always welcome, by the way) be presented in Late West Saxon... Chaucer's Middle English will suffice.
To answer the question many of you might now have in mind... Yes, an article I read this morning really got up my nose and has been irritating my brain cells all day long. Now it's been purged and I can move on to thinking about how to avoid the disasters that always seem a hair breadth away from every turn in my renovational journey.
..take care... tim b
My first thought upon reading one of these latter pieces is to marvel at the delightfully subtle irony of a screed decrying the tragedy of the evolution of language written in contemporary English rather than Late West Saxon (the long demised linguistic ancestor of English) or any of the innumerable permutations that have since found their way to the communicative boneyard.
My second thought is usually that any difficulties caused by new or creative alterations in spelling, grammar, or usage is more due to a failure in compliance with context rather than any absolute shortcomings of contemporary language. Since it is possible that the phrase "failure in compliance with context" just now saw it's very first utterance, maybe I should explain.
In my brain (admittedly sometimes not being in congruence with reality), it refers to the idea that the use of any thing, such as a tool, eating utensil, clothing, or language, works best when the selection of a particular type of the thing from all the various sub-types of the thing is made with due consideration of the context within which the thing will be used. An alternative label might be "Eating Soup with Chopsticks"
While a fad diet and book titled "Eating Soup with Chopsticks" would probably make it's way to the top of various bestseller lists, the truth is that selecting that particular eating utensil to assist in the consumption of that particular foodstuff would be a definite failure in compliance with context, not to mention a really looooong meal.
The same theory would seem to apply to the changes we some times see in how members of our society, especially those with birth years in the not so distant past, make use of language. I don't believe there is anything inherently bad or wrong with slang, the abbreviations used in texting, or even "smilies", it's just that using those particular linguistic protocols when a more formal formulation of expression is appropriate is likely to yield results as unsatisfying as digging into a bowl of creamy tomato with a non-spoon utensil.
Possibly a better path lies in upping our efforts in teaching better compliance with context rather than using our energies to down the creative adaptations necessitated by changes in our society and the technologies that support it.
I'll even be kind and not insist that any dissenting opinions (always welcome, by the way) be presented in Late West Saxon... Chaucer's Middle English will suffice.
To answer the question many of you might now have in mind... Yes, an article I read this morning really got up my nose and has been irritating my brain cells all day long. Now it's been purged and I can move on to thinking about how to avoid the disasters that always seem a hair breadth away from every turn in my renovational journey.
..take care... tim b
Friday, June 5, 2009
A flaw in the system...
I will readily admit to being addicted to caffeine..my brain doesn't function very well without it. While there are some studies that suggest ingesting great quantities of caffeine will damage your body...my daily study suggests that not ingesting great quantities of caffeine will cause me to do damage to my environment and possibly ever greater damage to my body than whatever is being done by the caffeine.
Prior to our moving to Italy in 1987 I never drank coffee. Nine years in the Navy, having stood innumerable mid-watches (translation for those not navally oriented -- a job assignment from around midnight until about the time the sun comes up), and a stint on Subase Pearl Harbor where I worked 48 to 60 hours straight on a regular basis...all without coffee. I seem to remember drinking a lot of tea and sodas during those years though.
Upon our arrival in Italy, in the spirit of trying out new cultural experiences, I tried a latte. Immediately I started asking around to find out why this magic fount of taste and clarity had been hidden from me all these years. So began my willing embrace of this Ethiopian elixir.
Fast forward twenty something years and we arrive at a point where my few remaining brain cells refuse to function very quickly or very intelligently prior to as least a minimal coating of coffee based caffeine. Therein lies the flaw in the system.
My usual routine is to hit the five minute "In a minute Ma" button on my phone alarm a couple of times when it goes off at 4 a.m. but in a relatively short time, get up and ambulate a somewhat unsteady course to the kitchen. There I perform the high religious ritual of creating the pot of potential profoundity while in a very non-profound state of mind.
This morning, things went a bit awry. Our coffee maker has one of those semi-permanent metal mesh filters. The process goes something like.. Take pot, pot lid, and mesh filter from cabinet. Fill pot with water, pour water from pot into coffee maker. Put lid on pot, put filter in coffee maker, put appropriate amount of grinds in filter. Put pot into coffee maker, close lid, push button, stare blankly at the red happy light on button until enough time has passed for the first cup of coffee to have ended up in the pot. Take advantage of the "can't wait for the whole pot to brew before I get my first cup of coffee" feature of our coffee pot (Pause here for a small standing ovation for whoever first invented that grand device) and pour a generous quantity into my cup. It turns out that this is a VERY ordered process. If you hose up the order of the steps you are well....hosed.
This morning I reversed the order of two steps... putting filter in coffee maker and putting coffee in coffee maker. This is not good. The filter sits in a plastic filter shaped recess in the coffee maker. If you pour the coffee in the recess before you put the filter in there...no good things occur. You get to spend about 15 minutes in a coffee deprived state trying to get the grounds out of the recess. Some of them you can just kind of scoop out..but to get the remaining bits out requires some water, paper towels, then more paper towels to clean up the mess on the counter and floor that was created by severely non-coordinated fingers attempting to manage the clean out the grounds process.
Finally, got the grounds cleaned out, put the filter in place, put grinds in filter, pushed the button, stared blankly at the red happy light, and wondered why my toes were getting so warm..like in scalding coffee type of warm. Wrenched my stare off the happy light and discovered the coffee pot...sitting on the counter and not nestled within its proper nook of the coffee maker...dadgumit.
I promise you I said dadgumit at that point and not something more unsuitable for a mixed audience. A digression... If you go to Carlsbad Cavern and take the tour (highly recommended), when you get into the biggest room of the cavern the guide will tell you a story about the first person to climb up to one of the small passages leading off from near the ceiling. It took him several days to make the climb up the side of the cave wall. He pulls himself over the last ledge and falls face first into a huge pile of bat guano. His companion on the cave floor below inquires as to what happened... he replies, "I fell face first into a pile of bat guano." Yep, I'm as sure he used the word guano at that point as I am that I used the word dadgumit when my toes got coffeed this morning.
Another 10 minutes or so of cleanup in a coffee deprived state... I'm thinking that making use of the "program the coffee to start on its own in the morning after having set it up at night" feature of the coffee maker might be the way to proceed in the future to save my toes.
..take care... tim b
Prior to our moving to Italy in 1987 I never drank coffee. Nine years in the Navy, having stood innumerable mid-watches (translation for those not navally oriented -- a job assignment from around midnight until about the time the sun comes up), and a stint on Subase Pearl Harbor where I worked 48 to 60 hours straight on a regular basis...all without coffee. I seem to remember drinking a lot of tea and sodas during those years though.
Upon our arrival in Italy, in the spirit of trying out new cultural experiences, I tried a latte. Immediately I started asking around to find out why this magic fount of taste and clarity had been hidden from me all these years. So began my willing embrace of this Ethiopian elixir.
Fast forward twenty something years and we arrive at a point where my few remaining brain cells refuse to function very quickly or very intelligently prior to as least a minimal coating of coffee based caffeine. Therein lies the flaw in the system.
My usual routine is to hit the five minute "In a minute Ma" button on my phone alarm a couple of times when it goes off at 4 a.m. but in a relatively short time, get up and ambulate a somewhat unsteady course to the kitchen. There I perform the high religious ritual of creating the pot of potential profoundity while in a very non-profound state of mind.
This morning, things went a bit awry. Our coffee maker has one of those semi-permanent metal mesh filters. The process goes something like.. Take pot, pot lid, and mesh filter from cabinet. Fill pot with water, pour water from pot into coffee maker. Put lid on pot, put filter in coffee maker, put appropriate amount of grinds in filter. Put pot into coffee maker, close lid, push button, stare blankly at the red happy light on button until enough time has passed for the first cup of coffee to have ended up in the pot. Take advantage of the "can't wait for the whole pot to brew before I get my first cup of coffee" feature of our coffee pot (Pause here for a small standing ovation for whoever first invented that grand device) and pour a generous quantity into my cup. It turns out that this is a VERY ordered process. If you hose up the order of the steps you are well....hosed.
This morning I reversed the order of two steps... putting filter in coffee maker and putting coffee in coffee maker. This is not good. The filter sits in a plastic filter shaped recess in the coffee maker. If you pour the coffee in the recess before you put the filter in there...no good things occur. You get to spend about 15 minutes in a coffee deprived state trying to get the grounds out of the recess. Some of them you can just kind of scoop out..but to get the remaining bits out requires some water, paper towels, then more paper towels to clean up the mess on the counter and floor that was created by severely non-coordinated fingers attempting to manage the clean out the grounds process.
Finally, got the grounds cleaned out, put the filter in place, put grinds in filter, pushed the button, stared blankly at the red happy light, and wondered why my toes were getting so warm..like in scalding coffee type of warm. Wrenched my stare off the happy light and discovered the coffee pot...sitting on the counter and not nestled within its proper nook of the coffee maker...dadgumit.
I promise you I said dadgumit at that point and not something more unsuitable for a mixed audience. A digression... If you go to Carlsbad Cavern and take the tour (highly recommended), when you get into the biggest room of the cavern the guide will tell you a story about the first person to climb up to one of the small passages leading off from near the ceiling. It took him several days to make the climb up the side of the cave wall. He pulls himself over the last ledge and falls face first into a huge pile of bat guano. His companion on the cave floor below inquires as to what happened... he replies, "I fell face first into a pile of bat guano." Yep, I'm as sure he used the word guano at that point as I am that I used the word dadgumit when my toes got coffeed this morning.
Another 10 minutes or so of cleanup in a coffee deprived state... I'm thinking that making use of the "program the coffee to start on its own in the morning after having set it up at night" feature of the coffee maker might be the way to proceed in the future to save my toes.
..take care... tim b
Friday, May 29, 2009
Random thinking....
Just a few random thoughts my brain cells managed to spark up during my recent journeys. It might be a bit long winded so get comfortable.
For those contemplating using radio roulette as their sole source of aural amusement during a long drive there are a couple of things you should consider.
The strongest, longest lasting signal will be a Spanish language talk radio station. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. However, if your command of the Spanish language consists solely of the phrases "Dos cervesas, por favor." and "Donde es el bano.", as mine does, then it is very difficult to extract any entertainment value out of Spanish talk radio. Those phrases seemed to serve me very well during the six years I lived in places where Spanish was the predominant language but they didn't seem to come up during the episodes I listened to on the radio.
The second strongest, longest lasting signal will be a local talk radio station. The person talking on this station will have a voice so devoid of tonal variation as to make the pure tone sounds of an audiogram sound like a musical interlude stretching over several octaves. The reading will be delivered at a pace that makes the slowest southern drawl appear as a staccato, issuance of life saving orders during an emergency. Plus the subject matter will be the minutely detailed minutes of the last school board meeting.
All other stations will fade out on a time schedule of inverse proportion to the quality of the songs they are playing. Good songs...quick fade. Playlist consisting of the B side songs of one hit wonders... audible almost as long as the school board minutes reader. One last caution...if the DJ starts a contest where a question is asked and listeners call in with the correct answer...change channels before they ask the question... the station will fade before the correct answer is given.
It is only by an unbelievably lucky convergence of radio propagation theory and freakish atmospherics that I know the correct answer to: "What object do 70% of U.S. citizens like but don't own?" I didn't make the mistake of listening to the question the next time this type of contest came up.
Speaking of amusements... there is a certain night clerk at the Super 8 Motel - Amarillo East that can be induced to throw an amusing stamp-his-foot, put-his-hands-on-his-hips snit. To get him to put on this display all one has to do is: Upon checking out at 6:10 a.m., proceed to the complimentary coffee urn and proceed to fix oneself a cup of coffee. Upon the clerk stating, "The breakfast starts at 6:30." simply reply "Okay, thanks.", put a lid on the cup and walk out with it.
It wasn't until said cup of coffee marinated some of my brain cells into working that I realized given the body language response to my reply, his statement was probably an admonishment and not an invitation. Of course, by then I was thirty miles eastward on I40, irretrievably trapped in the tractor beam of the fatman chair and proceeding at greatest semi-legal warp speed toward said chair. Mr. Motel 8 Night Clerk...sorry man, didn't mean to usurp your coffee-icular authority.
Visited the UFO Museum while in Roswell. Interesting place, they seem to present both sides of the incident there... a not of this earth craft crashed in the desert or an expended meteorological instrumentation package returned to earth.
I'm not sure that I've formed a firm opinion in either direction. I do however wonder why a population of beings capable of creating a intergalactic craft the size of a Volkswagen wouldn't have a similarly technologically advanced version of On-Star and Triple A. They can travel from a place beyond our ability to detect that life exists there yet they can't manipulate things such that the local headlines from that time read, "Local Rancher, Sheriff, and Military Personnel Perish in Gas Tank Explosion." Just seems like a remarkable lack of consistency in their abilities and intelligence.
Another possibility is that the aliens actually landed in Hondo, NM, interrupting the Senior Citizens Annual Bronc Busting and Rhubarb Pie Gala. Tick off those folks and let them get a hold of you and the only thing left probably would resemble the scraps of a weather balloon.
The answer is "bumper sticker"...thanks for sticking around to the end.
..take care.. tim b
For those contemplating using radio roulette as their sole source of aural amusement during a long drive there are a couple of things you should consider.
The strongest, longest lasting signal will be a Spanish language talk radio station. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. However, if your command of the Spanish language consists solely of the phrases "Dos cervesas, por favor." and "Donde es el bano.", as mine does, then it is very difficult to extract any entertainment value out of Spanish talk radio. Those phrases seemed to serve me very well during the six years I lived in places where Spanish was the predominant language but they didn't seem to come up during the episodes I listened to on the radio.
The second strongest, longest lasting signal will be a local talk radio station. The person talking on this station will have a voice so devoid of tonal variation as to make the pure tone sounds of an audiogram sound like a musical interlude stretching over several octaves. The reading will be delivered at a pace that makes the slowest southern drawl appear as a staccato, issuance of life saving orders during an emergency. Plus the subject matter will be the minutely detailed minutes of the last school board meeting.
All other stations will fade out on a time schedule of inverse proportion to the quality of the songs they are playing. Good songs...quick fade. Playlist consisting of the B side songs of one hit wonders... audible almost as long as the school board minutes reader. One last caution...if the DJ starts a contest where a question is asked and listeners call in with the correct answer...change channels before they ask the question... the station will fade before the correct answer is given.
It is only by an unbelievably lucky convergence of radio propagation theory and freakish atmospherics that I know the correct answer to: "What object do 70% of U.S. citizens like but don't own?" I didn't make the mistake of listening to the question the next time this type of contest came up.
Speaking of amusements... there is a certain night clerk at the Super 8 Motel - Amarillo East that can be induced to throw an amusing stamp-his-foot, put-his-hands-on-his-hips snit. To get him to put on this display all one has to do is: Upon checking out at 6:10 a.m., proceed to the complimentary coffee urn and proceed to fix oneself a cup of coffee. Upon the clerk stating, "The breakfast starts at 6:30." simply reply "Okay, thanks.", put a lid on the cup and walk out with it.
It wasn't until said cup of coffee marinated some of my brain cells into working that I realized given the body language response to my reply, his statement was probably an admonishment and not an invitation. Of course, by then I was thirty miles eastward on I40, irretrievably trapped in the tractor beam of the fatman chair and proceeding at greatest semi-legal warp speed toward said chair. Mr. Motel 8 Night Clerk...sorry man, didn't mean to usurp your coffee-icular authority.
Visited the UFO Museum while in Roswell. Interesting place, they seem to present both sides of the incident there... a not of this earth craft crashed in the desert or an expended meteorological instrumentation package returned to earth.
I'm not sure that I've formed a firm opinion in either direction. I do however wonder why a population of beings capable of creating a intergalactic craft the size of a Volkswagen wouldn't have a similarly technologically advanced version of On-Star and Triple A. They can travel from a place beyond our ability to detect that life exists there yet they can't manipulate things such that the local headlines from that time read, "Local Rancher, Sheriff, and Military Personnel Perish in Gas Tank Explosion." Just seems like a remarkable lack of consistency in their abilities and intelligence.
Another possibility is that the aliens actually landed in Hondo, NM, interrupting the Senior Citizens Annual Bronc Busting and Rhubarb Pie Gala. Tick off those folks and let them get a hold of you and the only thing left probably would resemble the scraps of a weather balloon.
The answer is "bumper sticker"...thanks for sticking around to the end.
..take care.. tim b
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Traveling...
When I launched into the idea of driving from our hill to Tucson and back, my thinking went along the lines of... we've driven 5000 mile loops through Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas two or three times and have driven across the U.S. each way having a lot of fun. This should be easy.
I seriously overestimated the fun of driving 2500 miles by yourself. It wasn't that it was unfun...it was that those other trips had been with Cyrilee in the car and things are a WHOLE bunch more fun with her along.
I did run across a few interesting items though...
I saw a full sized RV pulling a trailer with what looked to be a full sized school bus on it. Seemed a bit odd.
On the way out of Tucson on Wednesday, I saw three sets of odd vehicle pairings. Just as I got to the edge of Tucson I started passing a mini-pickup with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back...towing a mini-pickup with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back. Then almost immediately I passed two more exact same set ups... three pairs of mini-pickups, one towing the other, with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back of each. Each towing truck had two people in it and the only thing that seemed different was the exact model and color of the trucks and the refrigerators seemed a little different. This pointed out one of the big drawbacks of driving cross country by yourself... no one to take pictures. To do so myself would have turned me into a traffic hazard.
I also managed to solve a problem for our new President... what to do with the terrorist suspects when he closes down Gitmo... turn them over to the senior citizens of Hondo, New Mexico.... let me explain.
When driving from Truth or Consequences, NM to Roswell, NM the shortest distance is to go north on I25 to San Antonio, NM then turn right. After driving an incredibly long distance through incredibly non-changing landscape, about 50 miles out of Roswell you will find Hondo, NM. It seemed like a pleasant little town as I passed through, but nothing of enough interest to make me pause in my journey to Roswell.
About 3 miles out of town I saw a sign that indicated the Hondo Senior Citizens Center was just ahead. At this point my opinion of Hondo dropped a bit. I was thinking, "That's a pretty terrible way to treat your senior citizens...stick them way out of town like they don't matter."
Then, upon passing said center I noticed they had a rodeo arena (with what appeared to be bronco or bull riding chutes) out back behind the center... It's not that the folks in Hondo don't love and honor their senior citizens... the Senior Citizen Center is way out of town because apparently the senior citizens of Hondo are a pretty rowdy bunch. At a time in life when lots of folks are worried about breaking a hip from falling...the senior citizens of Hondo apparently think a Saturday night wouldn't be complete without strapping themselves to the back of a 1600 pound raging hunk of bull flesh. Remind me not to upset any of the elderly from Hondo.
So knowing this about the older generation of Hondo, I started thinking...send the terrorists there and let Grandma and Grandpa whup up on them a bit to straighten them out (this seemed to be a forte from my own grandparents). Of course some ACLU lawyer would probably protest it as cruel and unusual punishment when the grandmothers sent the terrorist out back to cut the switch they were about to be whupped with.
..take care... t
I seriously overestimated the fun of driving 2500 miles by yourself. It wasn't that it was unfun...it was that those other trips had been with Cyrilee in the car and things are a WHOLE bunch more fun with her along.
I did run across a few interesting items though...
I saw a full sized RV pulling a trailer with what looked to be a full sized school bus on it. Seemed a bit odd.
On the way out of Tucson on Wednesday, I saw three sets of odd vehicle pairings. Just as I got to the edge of Tucson I started passing a mini-pickup with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back...towing a mini-pickup with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back. Then almost immediately I passed two more exact same set ups... three pairs of mini-pickups, one towing the other, with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back of each. Each towing truck had two people in it and the only thing that seemed different was the exact model and color of the trucks and the refrigerators seemed a little different. This pointed out one of the big drawbacks of driving cross country by yourself... no one to take pictures. To do so myself would have turned me into a traffic hazard.
I also managed to solve a problem for our new President... what to do with the terrorist suspects when he closes down Gitmo... turn them over to the senior citizens of Hondo, New Mexico.... let me explain.
When driving from Truth or Consequences, NM to Roswell, NM the shortest distance is to go north on I25 to San Antonio, NM then turn right. After driving an incredibly long distance through incredibly non-changing landscape, about 50 miles out of Roswell you will find Hondo, NM. It seemed like a pleasant little town as I passed through, but nothing of enough interest to make me pause in my journey to Roswell.
About 3 miles out of town I saw a sign that indicated the Hondo Senior Citizens Center was just ahead. At this point my opinion of Hondo dropped a bit. I was thinking, "That's a pretty terrible way to treat your senior citizens...stick them way out of town like they don't matter."
Then, upon passing said center I noticed they had a rodeo arena (with what appeared to be bronco or bull riding chutes) out back behind the center... It's not that the folks in Hondo don't love and honor their senior citizens... the Senior Citizen Center is way out of town because apparently the senior citizens of Hondo are a pretty rowdy bunch. At a time in life when lots of folks are worried about breaking a hip from falling...the senior citizens of Hondo apparently think a Saturday night wouldn't be complete without strapping themselves to the back of a 1600 pound raging hunk of bull flesh. Remind me not to upset any of the elderly from Hondo.
So knowing this about the older generation of Hondo, I started thinking...send the terrorists there and let Grandma and Grandpa whup up on them a bit to straighten them out (this seemed to be a forte from my own grandparents). Of course some ACLU lawyer would probably protest it as cruel and unusual punishment when the grandmothers sent the terrorist out back to cut the switch they were about to be whupped with.
..take care... t
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Hats for Bats...very nice...
Cyrilee and I went to the "Truth about bats" talk at Devil's Den State Park last night. It was a very informative talk. The state parks in Arkansas have a pretty extensive educational program. Go to http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/ to learn more about the programs in a park near you.
The presentation was given just after dark and was aimed at dispelling a lot of the myths and untruths about bats. I've always been fond of bats since I found out they were primarily responsible for the pollination of the agave cactus...source of all things tequila.
One of the myths dispelled was that bats have a tendency to get tangled up in people's hair...one look at the picture to the right of this should show why I would be interested in that not being true.
I have never had a bat get tangled up in my hairiness. I did have a small incident with a spider one time though. When we lived in Panama, one of the things I did in my spare time was help train folks to be Girl Scout leaders. My favorite activity for this was to conduct "leader hikes", I would take a bunch of Girl Scout leaders on a hike to they could in turn take their troops.
There was a short, one mile loop hike I had picked out. We met at the road but I wanted to do the trail briefing at a clearing about 100 yards into the trail. On the way in I managed to pick up a small spider, dangling from a piece of its web, on the bill of my cap.
It was small, it was where I could see it out of the corner of my eye, and it didn't seem interested in going anywhere, so I decided to go ahead with the trail brief, and relocate it to a bush when I was done.
One of my fellow trainers, who shall remain nameless (Denise), also saw the spider and in an effort to be helpful, attempted to relocate the spider from the bill of my cap to some other place. Problem was it didn't quite work out how she had planned. As she started to move it, it either leapt or fell from the piece of web to my moustache... this was not an improvement to the situation.
As alarming as a spider on my moustache might be, the comments I was hearing from some of the students, apparently not quite as comfortable around wildlife as I am, was even more alarming. On a day to day basis I am generally opposed to smashing spiders, I much prefer to relocate them to someplace else. When said spider is on my moustache and the chosen smashing tool is a sizable chunk of wood, I am adamantly opposed to the whole idea of smashing spiders.
We did manage to relocate the spider, and after a bit actually managed to regain control of the group. Judging from the commotion this tiny spider caused in others, I'm thinking a bat tangled up in my furry face would cause riots of untold proportions.
If any are interested in knowing more about bats, mark June 13 down on your calender. Devil's Den will be holding their annual Bat-o-Rama on that evening. It's not on the calendar yet but the interpreter told us about it last night. It should be a very good program. One of the top bat researchers and photographers, a Dr. Tuttle, will be doing the presentation. It will be held at the amphitheater near campground 'E'.
Tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel....
..take care.. t
The presentation was given just after dark and was aimed at dispelling a lot of the myths and untruths about bats. I've always been fond of bats since I found out they were primarily responsible for the pollination of the agave cactus...source of all things tequila.
One of the myths dispelled was that bats have a tendency to get tangled up in people's hair...one look at the picture to the right of this should show why I would be interested in that not being true.
I have never had a bat get tangled up in my hairiness. I did have a small incident with a spider one time though. When we lived in Panama, one of the things I did in my spare time was help train folks to be Girl Scout leaders. My favorite activity for this was to conduct "leader hikes", I would take a bunch of Girl Scout leaders on a hike to they could in turn take their troops.
There was a short, one mile loop hike I had picked out. We met at the road but I wanted to do the trail briefing at a clearing about 100 yards into the trail. On the way in I managed to pick up a small spider, dangling from a piece of its web, on the bill of my cap.
It was small, it was where I could see it out of the corner of my eye, and it didn't seem interested in going anywhere, so I decided to go ahead with the trail brief, and relocate it to a bush when I was done.
One of my fellow trainers, who shall remain nameless (Denise), also saw the spider and in an effort to be helpful, attempted to relocate the spider from the bill of my cap to some other place. Problem was it didn't quite work out how she had planned. As she started to move it, it either leapt or fell from the piece of web to my moustache... this was not an improvement to the situation.
As alarming as a spider on my moustache might be, the comments I was hearing from some of the students, apparently not quite as comfortable around wildlife as I am, was even more alarming. On a day to day basis I am generally opposed to smashing spiders, I much prefer to relocate them to someplace else. When said spider is on my moustache and the chosen smashing tool is a sizable chunk of wood, I am adamantly opposed to the whole idea of smashing spiders.
We did manage to relocate the spider, and after a bit actually managed to regain control of the group. Judging from the commotion this tiny spider caused in others, I'm thinking a bat tangled up in my furry face would cause riots of untold proportions.
If any are interested in knowing more about bats, mark June 13 down on your calender. Devil's Den will be holding their annual Bat-o-Rama on that evening. It's not on the calendar yet but the interpreter told us about it last night. It should be a very good program. One of the top bat researchers and photographers, a Dr. Tuttle, will be doing the presentation. It will be held at the amphitheater near campground 'E'.
Tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel....
..take care.. t
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Power Tool Ponderings
I have a love/hate relationship with power tools... well, actually, it's more a love/holey moley I could do myself some serious, permanent injury with this thing type of relationship.
The U.S. Navy Safety Office regularly puts out a summary message listing all the various ways folks associated with the Navy have managed to hurt themselves. Every time I find myself using a power tool (and it's always scary to walk up on yourself with a chainsaw in your hands), I figure I'm about three milliseconds from ending up on one of those messages. Being as uncoordinated as I am, at some point I might not be able to use the phrase "On the one hand..." but will have to modify it to "On my one hand..."
I'm pretty good at understanding how they work and everything...it's just a matter of a speed mismatch. Kind of the same reason I gave up skydiving after twelve jumps. I like being able to call a timeout in order to think things over a bit. In power tools and skydiving... putting up your hands in that "T" type signal really has no good affect.
When we lived in Panama, Cyrilee got me skydiving lessons for one Father's Day. It was a great present, I like doing adventurous things and since I really don't like flying, a sport where you get to get out of an airplane in mid-flight, something I always have an urge to do, seemed like a good idea.
I did have a couple of misgivings during the ground school part of the class though. The part on the ground is about four and a half hours long.. ten minutes talking about things when they go right, four hours and twenty minutes of talking about when things go wrong. Notice the verb... when not if...things go wrong. Then I figured since I lead a charmed life...what could go wrong.
During my twelve jumps, nothing went seriously wrong (I did get stuck in a cloud for a very long time on jump four or five) but I did notice there was a speed mismatch. Everything in skydiving happens at a hundred twenty miles an hour with no pause or rewind buttons. My brain operates at an average of about thirty miles an hour. Sometimes it goes faster, but when you calculate in the times I have to hit pause or rewind things for a bit of thinking, it averages out to about thirty.
About jump twelve, it dawned on me that at some point the whole speed mismatch would catch up to me. The jumping was fun (more fun after the parachute actually opened) but it wasn't enough fun for the risk involved. Twelve is such a nice even number too...
Same thing with power tools.. they generally have a pause button, but sometimes I'm not quick enough to get to it in time. In case you're wondering... no, I didn't manage to do any alterations to my appendages lately...just some early Saturday morning musings. Kind of an advanced explanation in case you see me with fingers numbering less than ten in the future.
A short twitter note: As you probably know by now I have a twitter account (and why don't you?). Since random folks from all over the world can start following your tweets, I find it interesting to speculate why a particular person chooses me to follow.
There is one person that keeps popping up on my follow list. Her bio claims she has a guaranteed method of how to get 2000 followers on twitter. The problem is, she has less than 2000 followers herself... When I don't follow her back, she will unfollow me in a couple of days, then a day or so later, she pops back up as following me again. Very amusing.
..take care.. t
The U.S. Navy Safety Office regularly puts out a summary message listing all the various ways folks associated with the Navy have managed to hurt themselves. Every time I find myself using a power tool (and it's always scary to walk up on yourself with a chainsaw in your hands), I figure I'm about three milliseconds from ending up on one of those messages. Being as uncoordinated as I am, at some point I might not be able to use the phrase "On the one hand..." but will have to modify it to "On my one hand..."
I'm pretty good at understanding how they work and everything...it's just a matter of a speed mismatch. Kind of the same reason I gave up skydiving after twelve jumps. I like being able to call a timeout in order to think things over a bit. In power tools and skydiving... putting up your hands in that "T" type signal really has no good affect.
When we lived in Panama, Cyrilee got me skydiving lessons for one Father's Day. It was a great present, I like doing adventurous things and since I really don't like flying, a sport where you get to get out of an airplane in mid-flight, something I always have an urge to do, seemed like a good idea.
I did have a couple of misgivings during the ground school part of the class though. The part on the ground is about four and a half hours long.. ten minutes talking about things when they go right, four hours and twenty minutes of talking about when things go wrong. Notice the verb... when not if...things go wrong. Then I figured since I lead a charmed life...what could go wrong.
During my twelve jumps, nothing went seriously wrong (I did get stuck in a cloud for a very long time on jump four or five) but I did notice there was a speed mismatch. Everything in skydiving happens at a hundred twenty miles an hour with no pause or rewind buttons. My brain operates at an average of about thirty miles an hour. Sometimes it goes faster, but when you calculate in the times I have to hit pause or rewind things for a bit of thinking, it averages out to about thirty.
About jump twelve, it dawned on me that at some point the whole speed mismatch would catch up to me. The jumping was fun (more fun after the parachute actually opened) but it wasn't enough fun for the risk involved. Twelve is such a nice even number too...
Same thing with power tools.. they generally have a pause button, but sometimes I'm not quick enough to get to it in time. In case you're wondering... no, I didn't manage to do any alterations to my appendages lately...just some early Saturday morning musings. Kind of an advanced explanation in case you see me with fingers numbering less than ten in the future.
A short twitter note: As you probably know by now I have a twitter account (and why don't you?). Since random folks from all over the world can start following your tweets, I find it interesting to speculate why a particular person chooses me to follow.
There is one person that keeps popping up on my follow list. Her bio claims she has a guaranteed method of how to get 2000 followers on twitter. The problem is, she has less than 2000 followers herself... When I don't follow her back, she will unfollow me in a couple of days, then a day or so later, she pops back up as following me again. Very amusing.
..take care.. t
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tung Oil and TEA Party...
Two separate subjects connected only by my brain. The first refers to a wood finish, the second to a bit of political protest.
As many of you know, the floor of our house is natural wood. The original owner finished it with tung oil. For the longest time the only reference I ever heard to tung oil was in the movie Beetle Juice. One of the main characters went out to get some tung oil and died in a car wreck on the way home... you can bet your rubber gloves and steel wool I drove really carefully on the way home, completely avoiding covered bridges and small white dogs.
Tung oil comes into play because I need to refinish part of our floor. The wood stove used to sit in a corner but we removed a wall and rebuilt the hearth pad the stove sits on. Now the pad covers less area and the wall is missing so there are parts of the floor that don't have any finish. We kind of need to refinish the whole floor because it looks old and semi-abused...but I kind of like the look, probably because I look old and semi-abused. I'm thinking I can incorporate this into my home defense plan...sort of a camouflage thing. Someone breaks in, I lie down on the floor, fade into just one big expanse of old and semi-abused..leap up as the dipstick walks past and Ginsu him with my utility knife.
But I do need to refinish those newly exposed parts of the floor. I doubt if I'll be able to make the parts match completely, it's difficult to match wood that's been walked on for 10 years with wood that has not... but I can make it a bit less noticeable.
I'm not actually at the tung oil part of the project. I'm at the creating massive amounts of dust during the mind and finger numbing task of sanding. I spent the entire day sitting on the floor sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding. I discovered this old and semi-abused body doesn't react well to sitting on the floor all day. This has created a small choice type difficulty for me.. Aleve or Guinness? I'm thinking Guinness for supper...Aleve for bedtime.
I don't know if you've ever spent the day sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding, but it's not a very mentally challenging thing to do... there's only so much to think about so your brain has to think other thinks. Mine turned to the TEA Party I attended yesterday evening.
In case you've been living in a rock (because I'm thinking even the things under the rock had heard about Taxed Enough Already parties in 800 or so cities) or are Barry O, the TEA Party was a gathering of citizens in various cities to protest the outrageous tax bill headed our way as soon as our current administration realizes they've won the election, don't have to be campaigning at the moment, and decide to start telling the truth about how much all these spending, bailout, and stimulus bills will actually cost.
So a few weeks ago I started reading things about the TEA Party, looked around a bit and discovered one was taking place near the square in Fayetteville. I kept reading words like, protest, revolution, and right wing. I started thinking...this thing could be a bit of fun. Revolution and right wing in the same paragraph...the right wing has all the guns, right. Could get interesting. Maybe an unruly mob, fanged police dogs and Bull Connor wannabes, tear gas and fire hoses.
So I made plans to go and was a bit disappointed when I got there... I've been waiting 31 years to participate in a protest. Having lived outside the U.S. for a goodly part of that 31 years, I tended to avoid any protests occurring in the foreign countries we were living in because no matter what the subject of the protest...someone in the crowd was bound to decide the U.S. was totally at fault. Being completely unable to hide my "American"-ness, especially if I said anything, I was always concerned about becoming some big, hairy pinata. The rest of the time we lived in Hawaii...and what in the world is there to protest there?
So here we are...lining up for my first protest. Revolution and gun-nuts. So I prepared to go downtown. Charged up the camera battery (I'm thinking Pulitzer prize time here), looked up 3 bail bond companies and wrote their numbers in the waistband of my underwear (figuring when the cops started arresting people I might not be able to get out of the way), and stuck $100 in my left sock in case I needed to bribe a taxi driver.
Watching the news before heading down town I got even more excited about the possibilities for mayhem and chaos. This was mostly due to the mainstream news heads claiming the TEA Party attendees were a bunch of stooges of the vast right wing extremist conspiracy...
Imagine my disappointment when I showed up and found... a bunch of ordinary, work everyday, pay the mortgage citizens simply concerned that their duly elected representatives no longer represented them and were wanting to work within the system to elect folks that wouldn't so cavalierly place an untenable tax burden on the next generation.
No raving mob, no fire hoses, fanged attack dogs, or tear gas. If the crowd had been any more genteel it would have been mistaken for a Miss Manners school of etiquette mixer. Regular folks actually expecting their elected representatives to listen to their needs... maybe it was a pretty grand protest to be involved in after all.
..take care.. t
As many of you know, the floor of our house is natural wood. The original owner finished it with tung oil. For the longest time the only reference I ever heard to tung oil was in the movie Beetle Juice. One of the main characters went out to get some tung oil and died in a car wreck on the way home... you can bet your rubber gloves and steel wool I drove really carefully on the way home, completely avoiding covered bridges and small white dogs.
Tung oil comes into play because I need to refinish part of our floor. The wood stove used to sit in a corner but we removed a wall and rebuilt the hearth pad the stove sits on. Now the pad covers less area and the wall is missing so there are parts of the floor that don't have any finish. We kind of need to refinish the whole floor because it looks old and semi-abused...but I kind of like the look, probably because I look old and semi-abused. I'm thinking I can incorporate this into my home defense plan...sort of a camouflage thing. Someone breaks in, I lie down on the floor, fade into just one big expanse of old and semi-abused..leap up as the dipstick walks past and Ginsu him with my utility knife.
But I do need to refinish those newly exposed parts of the floor. I doubt if I'll be able to make the parts match completely, it's difficult to match wood that's been walked on for 10 years with wood that has not... but I can make it a bit less noticeable.
I'm not actually at the tung oil part of the project. I'm at the creating massive amounts of dust during the mind and finger numbing task of sanding. I spent the entire day sitting on the floor sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding. I discovered this old and semi-abused body doesn't react well to sitting on the floor all day. This has created a small choice type difficulty for me.. Aleve or Guinness? I'm thinking Guinness for supper...Aleve for bedtime.
I don't know if you've ever spent the day sanding, and sanding, and sanding, and sanding, but it's not a very mentally challenging thing to do... there's only so much to think about so your brain has to think other thinks. Mine turned to the TEA Party I attended yesterday evening.
In case you've been living in a rock (because I'm thinking even the things under the rock had heard about Taxed Enough Already parties in 800 or so cities) or are Barry O, the TEA Party was a gathering of citizens in various cities to protest the outrageous tax bill headed our way as soon as our current administration realizes they've won the election, don't have to be campaigning at the moment, and decide to start telling the truth about how much all these spending, bailout, and stimulus bills will actually cost.
So a few weeks ago I started reading things about the TEA Party, looked around a bit and discovered one was taking place near the square in Fayetteville. I kept reading words like, protest, revolution, and right wing. I started thinking...this thing could be a bit of fun. Revolution and right wing in the same paragraph...the right wing has all the guns, right. Could get interesting. Maybe an unruly mob, fanged police dogs and Bull Connor wannabes, tear gas and fire hoses.
So I made plans to go and was a bit disappointed when I got there... I've been waiting 31 years to participate in a protest. Having lived outside the U.S. for a goodly part of that 31 years, I tended to avoid any protests occurring in the foreign countries we were living in because no matter what the subject of the protest...someone in the crowd was bound to decide the U.S. was totally at fault. Being completely unable to hide my "American"-ness, especially if I said anything, I was always concerned about becoming some big, hairy pinata. The rest of the time we lived in Hawaii...and what in the world is there to protest there?
So here we are...lining up for my first protest. Revolution and gun-nuts. So I prepared to go downtown. Charged up the camera battery (I'm thinking Pulitzer prize time here), looked up 3 bail bond companies and wrote their numbers in the waistband of my underwear (figuring when the cops started arresting people I might not be able to get out of the way), and stuck $100 in my left sock in case I needed to bribe a taxi driver.
Watching the news before heading down town I got even more excited about the possibilities for mayhem and chaos. This was mostly due to the mainstream news heads claiming the TEA Party attendees were a bunch of stooges of the vast right wing extremist conspiracy...
Imagine my disappointment when I showed up and found... a bunch of ordinary, work everyday, pay the mortgage citizens simply concerned that their duly elected representatives no longer represented them and were wanting to work within the system to elect folks that wouldn't so cavalierly place an untenable tax burden on the next generation.
No raving mob, no fire hoses, fanged attack dogs, or tear gas. If the crowd had been any more genteel it would have been mistaken for a Miss Manners school of etiquette mixer. Regular folks actually expecting their elected representatives to listen to their needs... maybe it was a pretty grand protest to be involved in after all.
..take care.. t
Saturday, April 11, 2009
A Walk to Yellow Rock
Today, being a nice spring-like day as would be expected a good two weeks into spring, we decided to get out and walk around a bit. Since Devils Den State Park is just down the road we decided to go there.
There is a trail called Yellow Rock that is advertised as being 3 miles long on the web page...sounded like a great place to go. So we loaded up the packs, stuffed some leftover fried chicken and Fig Newtons into the pack, and headed south.
We found the trail head...or what we thought was the trail head. Actually, we were kind of in the middle of the trail. The Yellow Rock Trail starts down near the river of Devils Den State Park, goes up the side of a hill, over to the rock, then loops to a small pavilion near one of the roads leading to the park. It was the part of the trail that is near this pavilion that we thought was the trail head and where we started out.
The one big advantage of hiking the whole trail starting from this mid point is the 1/2 mile climb from the river valley floor up the hill is done at the end of your hike when you're nice and tired, a bit footsore, and ready for that post hike Fig Newton and Guinness. It's easy to do the hard climb at the beginning of the hike...it takes a whole 'nother type of planning to put the hard part of the hike at the end...that's me, always thinking ahead.
Just as we were leaving the trail head a family of four plus pooch were also starting out. We chatted with them a bit..they had just moved to Tulsa from Alaska. Odd bit of coincidence...a family that used to live in state 49 and a family that used to live in state 50 (the last one there Barry, we didn't add another 7 after Hawaii) meeting at a trail head at the same time.
We don't get 200 feet down the trail and plus pooch manages to scare up the first snake of the hiking season. Mr. Snaky Snake retreats back into his hole before I can see him..but by making a bit of a pest of myself, I did manage to get a pretty iffy picture of him. Contrary to what many people seem to believe, I do NOT hate snakes.
The problem is I can't identify the particular species of a particular snake. Since I can't tell a poisonous snake from a non-poisonous snake with enough reliability to bet any of my appendages on the identification...I am forced to treat all snakes like they would stick 2" long fangs into my leg, inject a flesh rotting neuro-toxin deep within the selected appendage, and slither happily away to its snaky snake hole in the ground home. In other words, I try to stay away from ALL snakes, and as long as they stay away from me..we all remain happy and alive. However, if they attempt to get all snugly with me I will be forced to use these opposible thumbs and slightly expanded, tool creating brain pan to create or operate a tool and extinct that particular snake. Today Mr. Snaky Snake stayed curled up in his snaky snake hole and we parted company both alive and happy.
A bit down the trail we turned a corner and saw Yellow Rock from a distance. Back whenever Yellow Rock was named Yellow Rock, yellow must not have been the same yellow as the yellow we have today...it looked pretty orange to me, rather a dull, not so attractive orange. I suppose its possible that somehow, while on the Yellow Rock Trail, I managed to navigate us to a whole 'nother rock, Orange Rock. The trail was wide and well trodden though, I don't think even I, a person who managed to lose a trail in Panama for over a hour, only to discover it behind a bush, could actually make that type of mistake.
Upon arriving at the top of the Rock, (yellow, orange, or sandstone colored) we discovered that the actual name of this rock was immaterial..the view was great. At times we were looking DOWN at the birds flying around... tried to take photos but no matter the pleading or enticements, I couldn't get the birds to pause and strike a pose. I did delete a whole bunch of pics of trees with no birds in them (sure glad I'm no longer having to pay processing and printing for all those attempts, just to find out I missed).
Had some chicken, took a short nap, and proceeded along. We walked down to the beginning of the trail, in the river valley. Nice camping area at the end of the trail, interesting rock things on the way down...whole lot of huffing and puffing on the way out.
To end of hiking, after we returned to the car, we drove down to the park and ate the rest of the Newtons down by the spill way. Everything was great, until Cyrilee managed to stand up for us to go and bounced her cell phone down the rocks. It still works but has a cracked face....she needs to use the insurance we've paid for and get a replacement...of course she gets on a plane for a week in DC, tomorrow.
Lots of interesting stuff going on in Devils Den in the future...we've got our eyes on a hike back to the sandstone crevices with a ranger and then a talk about bats... Bats eat bugs...therefore bats are good.
..take care..t
Volcanoes
Got a bit of a brain clog going on here so I thought I'd try to move it aside by writing a bit about a random subject...volcanoes.
Volcanoes have been my favorite random subject after seeing a scene in the Willie Nelson movie Honeysuckle Rose (aka On the Road Again). In the movie Willie plays a country singer on tour (I bet it was difficult for him to take such a huge leap in acting a character so far from his real life persona). One of his long time band members, Garland, had retired and Willie is lamenting about the conversations he used to have with him. He says, "Let's talk about volcanoes. Garland knows everything in the world about volcanoes." How can I remember that line when the last time I saw the movie was more than 22 years ago but I'm not entirely sure where I packed my water filter for camping less than 6 months ago?
I don't seem to be able to channel Slim Pickens, the actor that played Garland, very well this morning so I don't know everything in the world about volcanoes, but not knowing anything never stopped me from talking about it before...so why change the trend?
One thing I've always wondered about with volcanoes is: was the whole "throw the virgin into the volcano" thing ever really a part of any culture for a population that lived near a volcano? Or is the meme just a Hollywood movie maker's excuse to put a nubile young woman, skimpily dressed, a bit sweaty, and displaying an endearingly frightened look, on the screen?
The volcanoes I've seen in person look like it would be very difficult to get close enough to the active part to actually toss a person in to the fiery parts. You could toss them down onto the rocks in most cases but to actually throw a person, even a petite young virgin, far enough out to hit the lava would take a toss worthy of the efforts described in the old saw "I don't trust farther than I can throw him."
Would throwing a virgin into a volcano even work often enough to become a part of a culture's "things to do when our world is coming apart" list of remedies? The volcano is rumbling, you toss in a virgin, it still blows it's top and kills half the population...wouldn't the surviving half have thoughts somewhere along the lines of "Okay, in the future...don't throw young girls into the big boiling mountain of melted rock...it pisses it off and it kills half of us. We need to form a committee to brainstorm other ideas for the next time." Even if pure coincidence made it work three out of four times...I would think that fourth time where half the folks get killed would make them rethink the whole thing.
How did they come up with the idea on the first place? The volcano starts rumbling, people think it's going to start spewing and destroying stuff, they look around and the best idea they can come up with is to take a young girl (were there guy virgins involved too, movies only show girls) and toss her in. How about just move out of the way?
This of course brings up another question (always so many questions). How many places in the world have a volcano and no place to move away from? I guess that Pompeii is pretty good proof that even if you have room to move sometimes you're not collectively smart enough to do so.
Speaking of Pompeii, when we lived in Italy, Cyrilee and I got to see the Israel Symphony Orchestra in one of the old amphitheatres there. Very interesting concert... open air amphitheatre, ancient beyond belief. I sat and wondered what it was like to attend the opening night of the "new" theater when Pompeii was an actual living town. The music was great, a warm, but not overly hot Italian night. Belly full of good food and wine. And fully armed Caribinieri lining the uppermost wall around the seating area.... first and only time I've listened to classical music surrounded by a bunch of folks with rifles held at the low ready position.
I've rambled on long enough at this point...thanks for sticking around to the end. Looking back at this I seem to not only have talked about volcanoes but virgins too..maybe I'm channeling Joey Tribiani right after he bought the "V" volume of the encyclopedia from Penn Jillette (you can follow him on Twitter by the way..also, one of the astronauts on the next space shuttle mission will be tweeting from space...way too cool).
take care...t
Volcanoes have been my favorite random subject after seeing a scene in the Willie Nelson movie Honeysuckle Rose (aka On the Road Again). In the movie Willie plays a country singer on tour (I bet it was difficult for him to take such a huge leap in acting a character so far from his real life persona). One of his long time band members, Garland, had retired and Willie is lamenting about the conversations he used to have with him. He says, "Let's talk about volcanoes. Garland knows everything in the world about volcanoes." How can I remember that line when the last time I saw the movie was more than 22 years ago but I'm not entirely sure where I packed my water filter for camping less than 6 months ago?
I don't seem to be able to channel Slim Pickens, the actor that played Garland, very well this morning so I don't know everything in the world about volcanoes, but not knowing anything never stopped me from talking about it before...so why change the trend?
One thing I've always wondered about with volcanoes is: was the whole "throw the virgin into the volcano" thing ever really a part of any culture for a population that lived near a volcano? Or is the meme just a Hollywood movie maker's excuse to put a nubile young woman, skimpily dressed, a bit sweaty, and displaying an endearingly frightened look, on the screen?
The volcanoes I've seen in person look like it would be very difficult to get close enough to the active part to actually toss a person in to the fiery parts. You could toss them down onto the rocks in most cases but to actually throw a person, even a petite young virgin, far enough out to hit the lava would take a toss worthy of the efforts described in the old saw "I don't trust farther than I can throw him."
Would throwing a virgin into a volcano even work often enough to become a part of a culture's "things to do when our world is coming apart" list of remedies? The volcano is rumbling, you toss in a virgin, it still blows it's top and kills half the population...wouldn't the surviving half have thoughts somewhere along the lines of "Okay, in the future...don't throw young girls into the big boiling mountain of melted rock...it pisses it off and it kills half of us. We need to form a committee to brainstorm other ideas for the next time." Even if pure coincidence made it work three out of four times...I would think that fourth time where half the folks get killed would make them rethink the whole thing.
How did they come up with the idea on the first place? The volcano starts rumbling, people think it's going to start spewing and destroying stuff, they look around and the best idea they can come up with is to take a young girl (were there guy virgins involved too, movies only show girls) and toss her in. How about just move out of the way?
This of course brings up another question (always so many questions). How many places in the world have a volcano and no place to move away from? I guess that Pompeii is pretty good proof that even if you have room to move sometimes you're not collectively smart enough to do so.
Speaking of Pompeii, when we lived in Italy, Cyrilee and I got to see the Israel Symphony Orchestra in one of the old amphitheatres there. Very interesting concert... open air amphitheatre, ancient beyond belief. I sat and wondered what it was like to attend the opening night of the "new" theater when Pompeii was an actual living town. The music was great, a warm, but not overly hot Italian night. Belly full of good food and wine. And fully armed Caribinieri lining the uppermost wall around the seating area.... first and only time I've listened to classical music surrounded by a bunch of folks with rifles held at the low ready position.
I've rambled on long enough at this point...thanks for sticking around to the end. Looking back at this I seem to not only have talked about volcanoes but virgins too..maybe I'm channeling Joey Tribiani right after he bought the "V" volume of the encyclopedia from Penn Jillette (you can follow him on Twitter by the way..also, one of the astronauts on the next space shuttle mission will be tweeting from space...way too cool).
take care...t
Monday, April 6, 2009
Bug Eating and Tweeting
I was all set to attend a one evening class at the Springdale Lewis and Clark store on wilderness survival skills..or as I like to think of it Bug Eating 101. Unfortunately, it was cancelled due to the instructor having knee surgery.
When I decided to take that long walk in a year or so I also decided that it would be a simply a mid-life crisis experience...not a life threatening ordeal that I might not survive. With this in mind I thought about which skills I needed to improve for those worse case scenarios, visits by Mr. Murphy, and my general lack of consistent motor skills. I knew that I want to get enough info in my brain so that if I manage to let my pack (containing my housing and foodly type stuff) float downstream during a crik crossing, I would be able to figure out how to get to a bail out point. Fortunately, although the OHT is quite long, it reality it looks like it is rarely more than a half day's walk from a road of some type.
I suppose I could go with the field experiment type of learning for this...grab up random bugs, and there's bound to be a few around the hill if spring ever manages to kick old man winter in the butt, and do a muncha cruncha, taste the tentacle, nibble test. However, knowing my luck, I'll manage to find the only species of inedible bugs within 10 miles....some of you are probably thinking right now "er..migoi, ALL species of bugs are inedible, you loon."
I think they give the clinic every month or so...also the guy that gives the clinic has a school and the Wilderness Skills 1 and 2 are being given in September...maybe I'll look into that.
Second topic...twitter.
As some of you know, my latest thing to do with my laptop while watching reruns of MASH or movies I've seen a dozen times (Tremors comes readily to mind) is to be learning how to use a website called "Twitter".
Twitter is a way to send a 140 character text message to a mass group of people..either through your computer or through your cell phone. You can also receive the messages (called tweets, don't I sound like the web geek?) from the people you are "following".
The aspect of Twitter that is very different than any other media that I've used is that ANYONE can follow you and you can follow ANYONE (anyone meaning anyone with a Twitter account). You don't have to know them, they don't have to know you. There is a way to block or require preapproval of those wanting to follow you but there's no fun in that. With this in mind, you actually have to put very little information on your Twitter page. The only thing it really requires is a working email address and that isn't revealed. You could lie about everything that is public, of course this makes your friends finding you much more difficult.
My "following" is slowly growing. I currently, as of this writing, have about 70 people following me. of those, I actually know and have met face to face, 4 of them. I'm not entirely sure why the other 66 of them are following me...maybe they read my "Hunka, hunka burning love" entry and are waiting for me to mangle myself or burn down the house.
Some of my followers are businesses and some seem to be business girls (or at least strippers). From my reading so far..Twitter seems to be the next wave of media for growing your business. I'm not yet sure what I'm going to "do" with Twitter, but I am having a bit of fun...I can say anything I want because most of those folks don't know me...and the few that do, know me well enough to write anything I say off to the "there's something wrong with that boy" excuse.
I'll provide more info about Twitter later...but then you all could just go to www.twitter.com, register an account, then search for "migoi" and follow me.. much amusement is bound to follow.
...take care.. t
When I decided to take that long walk in a year or so I also decided that it would be a simply a mid-life crisis experience...not a life threatening ordeal that I might not survive. With this in mind I thought about which skills I needed to improve for those worse case scenarios, visits by Mr. Murphy, and my general lack of consistent motor skills. I knew that I want to get enough info in my brain so that if I manage to let my pack (containing my housing and foodly type stuff) float downstream during a crik crossing, I would be able to figure out how to get to a bail out point. Fortunately, although the OHT is quite long, it reality it looks like it is rarely more than a half day's walk from a road of some type.
I suppose I could go with the field experiment type of learning for this...grab up random bugs, and there's bound to be a few around the hill if spring ever manages to kick old man winter in the butt, and do a muncha cruncha, taste the tentacle, nibble test. However, knowing my luck, I'll manage to find the only species of inedible bugs within 10 miles....some of you are probably thinking right now "er..migoi, ALL species of bugs are inedible, you loon."
I think they give the clinic every month or so...also the guy that gives the clinic has a school and the Wilderness Skills 1 and 2 are being given in September...maybe I'll look into that.
Second topic...twitter.
As some of you know, my latest thing to do with my laptop while watching reruns of MASH or movies I've seen a dozen times (Tremors comes readily to mind) is to be learning how to use a website called "Twitter".
Twitter is a way to send a 140 character text message to a mass group of people..either through your computer or through your cell phone. You can also receive the messages (called tweets, don't I sound like the web geek?) from the people you are "following".
The aspect of Twitter that is very different than any other media that I've used is that ANYONE can follow you and you can follow ANYONE (anyone meaning anyone with a Twitter account). You don't have to know them, they don't have to know you. There is a way to block or require preapproval of those wanting to follow you but there's no fun in that. With this in mind, you actually have to put very little information on your Twitter page. The only thing it really requires is a working email address and that isn't revealed. You could lie about everything that is public, of course this makes your friends finding you much more difficult.
My "following" is slowly growing. I currently, as of this writing, have about 70 people following me. of those, I actually know and have met face to face, 4 of them. I'm not entirely sure why the other 66 of them are following me...maybe they read my "Hunka, hunka burning love" entry and are waiting for me to mangle myself or burn down the house.
Some of my followers are businesses and some seem to be business girls (or at least strippers). From my reading so far..Twitter seems to be the next wave of media for growing your business. I'm not yet sure what I'm going to "do" with Twitter, but I am having a bit of fun...I can say anything I want because most of those folks don't know me...and the few that do, know me well enough to write anything I say off to the "there's something wrong with that boy" excuse.
I'll provide more info about Twitter later...but then you all could just go to www.twitter.com, register an account, then search for "migoi" and follow me.. much amusement is bound to follow.
...take care.. t
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