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
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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
Sunday, April 5, 2009
We be walkin'.....
We took a little stroll today. Originally, we were going to hike at Devils Den (a nice little state park about 10 miles from our house) but found out there was some big mountain bike thing going on today and most of the trails were closed off for them. I like mountain bikes..but only when I'm riding them..was thinking walking around while a few dozen mountain bikers tried crash faster than everyone else (crashing is what mountain bikers are most fond of doing) was not going to be a lot of fun.
So we shifted a bit. The start of the Ozark Highlands Trail, the soon to be scene of my pending lunacy, is only about 20 miles from our house. So we decided to take a stroll there.
The beginning of the OHT is actually a great trail to start of the walkin' season on. There is a section 3 miles long before you have to do a major creek crossing and it's relatively flat since it following alongside Lake Ft. Smith. Off we proceeded...or we proceeded to be off, I get those confused.
There is a really nice ranger station and parking lot at the beginning. The trails kind of rolls along, no real elevation gain or loss, a very good thing this early in the season. Lots of little rivulets to step across but nothing major...pretty much a walk you could do in sandals if you so chose..we didn't.
The weather cooperated with us well... overcast but no rain. A bit breezy but comfortable with just a shell or minus the shell after walking a bit. I do wish that I had chosen the long sleeve shirt this morning though. I was a bit warm with the shell on but my arms would get cold when I took it off...I chose to be a bit cooler rather than sweating in the shell. I'm thinking there will be plenty of time for sweating on trails at a slightly later date.
We ran across these tiny little plants bunched together (see picture at beginning of post). To me they looked like umbrellas on a piazza at a small Italian seaside village, all furled up in the last cold of winter waiting spring's warmth and the arrival of the tourist horde.
We hiked in the 3 miles to the river crossing at the end of the lake. I will eventually have to cross this river when I do my long walk but we decided today was a good day to keep our feet dry. Plus we figured 6 miles was a good distance for this hike... so we must ate a bite of lunch and headed back.
Overall, a very good day of hiking. Good weather, easy trail, great company (I can think of a few others I would have enjoyed taking the stroll with us though).
..take care...t
So we shifted a bit. The start of the Ozark Highlands Trail, the soon to be scene of my pending lunacy, is only about 20 miles from our house. So we decided to take a stroll there.
The beginning of the OHT is actually a great trail to start of the walkin' season on. There is a section 3 miles long before you have to do a major creek crossing and it's relatively flat since it following alongside Lake Ft. Smith. Off we proceeded...or we proceeded to be off, I get those confused.
There is a really nice ranger station and parking lot at the beginning. The trails kind of rolls along, no real elevation gain or loss, a very good thing this early in the season. Lots of little rivulets to step across but nothing major...pretty much a walk you could do in sandals if you so chose..we didn't.
The weather cooperated with us well... overcast but no rain. A bit breezy but comfortable with just a shell or minus the shell after walking a bit. I do wish that I had chosen the long sleeve shirt this morning though. I was a bit warm with the shell on but my arms would get cold when I took it off...I chose to be a bit cooler rather than sweating in the shell. I'm thinking there will be plenty of time for sweating on trails at a slightly later date.
We ran across these tiny little plants bunched together (see picture at beginning of post). To me they looked like umbrellas on a piazza at a small Italian seaside village, all furled up in the last cold of winter waiting spring's warmth and the arrival of the tourist horde.
We hiked in the 3 miles to the river crossing at the end of the lake. I will eventually have to cross this river when I do my long walk but we decided today was a good day to keep our feet dry. Plus we figured 6 miles was a good distance for this hike... so we must ate a bite of lunch and headed back.
Overall, a very good day of hiking. Good weather, easy trail, great company (I can think of a few others I would have enjoyed taking the stroll with us though).
..take care...t
Friday, April 3, 2009
Friday evening in the fatman chair....
Just kicked back in the fatman chair and realized it's been a bit since I updated this bit of internet-ium.
Did some mowing this week. I really like the riding lawnmower thing. It's been a long time...like ever, that we've had a yard big enough to need a riding mower. The last time was when we lived in Panama and persona labor was so cheap you could get your lawn mowed on a weekly basis for something like a buck two ninety seven.
I'm thinking that as soon as I get the yard in a normalish shape, this whole mowing thing won't be so bad...I'm thinking it's a two...maybe three beer yard. There is even a cup holder on the mower...obviously they were thinking along the same lines as me..
Right now though the mowing a one gigantic pain in the knee. In the knee because I keep hitting my knee on the steering wheel of the mower as I get off of it. I'm having to get off of it a lot right now.
As most of you will remember...we bought this house as a foreclosure. It had been abandoned by it's previous owner sometime in March '07, left unoccupied for the entire summer, and nothing was done with the yard during that time. When we first saw it...there was waist high grass growing...by the time we had closed on it, the yard had been brush hogged. This left the grass about 4 inches high but lots of cut grass on top of it.
The big problem right now is that as I mow, the grass catcher sucks up all the grass, the newly cut and the older stuff. It will fill up both the grass catcher bags in about 50 yards of mowing...basically, one pass down the front or side yards. Then I have to pull the mower up to the yard cart behind the 4 wheeler, pull the bags out, and dump them in the cart. Then I put it all back together and off to mow another strip.
After about 4 load from the grass catcher, it's time to go dump the cart, so it's off to the woods. I'm scattering the lawn clipping throughout the woods. Of course the whole getting to ride the mower AND the wheeler all day is kind of fun... the emptying the bags while the wind is blowing..not so much.
We went to the home show this evening. Lots of interesting companies out there. Bought a flagpole. It's a twenty food telescoping pole. Need to get some quik-crete and dig a hole.
Going to take a walk through the woods on Sunday if anyone wants to go with... we're looking at the start of the Ozark Highlands Trail at Lake Ft. Smith...was going to walk in Devils Den but there is a huge bike thing there this weekend. Zip me a note if you are wanting to go and we'll coordinate times..not too early, probably leave the trail head about 10...walk til noon, lunch, walk back.
take care...t
Did some mowing this week. I really like the riding lawnmower thing. It's been a long time...like ever, that we've had a yard big enough to need a riding mower. The last time was when we lived in Panama and persona labor was so cheap you could get your lawn mowed on a weekly basis for something like a buck two ninety seven.
I'm thinking that as soon as I get the yard in a normalish shape, this whole mowing thing won't be so bad...I'm thinking it's a two...maybe three beer yard. There is even a cup holder on the mower...obviously they were thinking along the same lines as me..
Right now though the mowing a one gigantic pain in the knee. In the knee because I keep hitting my knee on the steering wheel of the mower as I get off of it. I'm having to get off of it a lot right now.
As most of you will remember...we bought this house as a foreclosure. It had been abandoned by it's previous owner sometime in March '07, left unoccupied for the entire summer, and nothing was done with the yard during that time. When we first saw it...there was waist high grass growing...by the time we had closed on it, the yard had been brush hogged. This left the grass about 4 inches high but lots of cut grass on top of it.
The big problem right now is that as I mow, the grass catcher sucks up all the grass, the newly cut and the older stuff. It will fill up both the grass catcher bags in about 50 yards of mowing...basically, one pass down the front or side yards. Then I have to pull the mower up to the yard cart behind the 4 wheeler, pull the bags out, and dump them in the cart. Then I put it all back together and off to mow another strip.
After about 4 load from the grass catcher, it's time to go dump the cart, so it's off to the woods. I'm scattering the lawn clipping throughout the woods. Of course the whole getting to ride the mower AND the wheeler all day is kind of fun... the emptying the bags while the wind is blowing..not so much.
We went to the home show this evening. Lots of interesting companies out there. Bought a flagpole. It's a twenty food telescoping pole. Need to get some quik-crete and dig a hole.
Going to take a walk through the woods on Sunday if anyone wants to go with... we're looking at the start of the Ozark Highlands Trail at Lake Ft. Smith...was going to walk in Devils Den but there is a huge bike thing there this weekend. Zip me a note if you are wanting to go and we'll coordinate times..not too early, probably leave the trail head about 10...walk til noon, lunch, walk back.
take care...t
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