The Art of Panic

New Years Resolutions

2012-01-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

I don't normally do resolutions, but this year I have been inspired by the number of blogs featuring acknowledgements of the usual course of breaking the resolutions. So forthwith are my resolutions that i can keep for the coming year:

I will accuse more people of having the intelligence of a kumquat.
I will gain weight. (Made even easier by my new insulin regimen.)
I will ask "And your point is?" to any number of people pointlessly blithering on.
I will be accused of speaking pedantically more than once.
I will have any number of questions for which I can find no good answer.

I'll leave you with this question

and these thoughts

(In honor of the pending divorce of Katie Perry and Russell Brand)

Ultimo Anno Sexto

2011-12-29T23:13:00.001-07:00

No, it is not nearly as sexy as it sounds. It is merely the last one sixth of the year (or as near as I can remember - it has been 40 years since I last learned any Latin). I figured that with the paucity of posts on my part in the last couple of months, it was a good time to summarize the last sixth of the year.

The week before Thanksgiving brought the 11th annual Community Caring Hands Trivia Bowl (which I have written about in the past here and here.). After the ultimate humiliation of placing second last year by one point, this year our team roared back to win. One team member who had been gone on recent years returned to play with us this year while another departed to move to Love Lady Texas. So if you run into Dr. Bob the surgeon around Love Lady, say high from me. {*grin*} Our team has competed for the last 8 years, winning in 5 of them. We treat the trophy like hockey teams treat the Stanley cup. So it is mine to display now until next November. Looks good on the piano doesn't it?

I made sure it was out for Christmas to tease the teen age relatives who were on a competing team this year!

Then came Thanksgiving and Black Friday. L and I hit a few sales since she needed a laptop and I wanted a spare coffee pot and a tool set (years of using the same tools, with no metric sizing and the shrinkage caused by the son's teenage years left me a bit short in the wrench department.). I remembered why I generally don't attend such sales. Why stand in line and shuffle and shift in a mass of humanity? Especially since some things were available the next day. I do have to admit that we got L a new laptop for a very nice price. The nice thing was that in our rural community, everyone was cordial and friendly, trying to help one another. Sounds a bit nicer than some of the reports from cities that I read.

There was the sadness of Carol's death and the funeral. There is nothing quite like a rural funeral where the burial is out on the plains with snow and wind and near zero temperatures with sub-zero wind chills. Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) is such a sad thing, especially since it so often strikes in middle age.

Other than the normal round of Christmas parties, it was a pretty calm December. The weather here has been unseasonably warm, with highs in the 40s and 50s for most of the month. That goes along with the relative paucity of snow thus far. It is almost as bad as the mountains where snow packs are at the lowest levels in 30 years.

Christmas was, as it normally is, a dual affair. We had the clan from my side of the family here Christmas eve for gag gifts and coffee and cookies and ... It seems hard to picture that the youngest of the group is now in first grade. I can remember babysitting for their moms and dads a long time ago. The party got livened up when the young ladies and gentlemen discovered the costume closet. There is nothing like a group of teenage girls and guys putting on a dress up show in costume and wigs. Everything from roman gladiator and Cleopatra to cowboys and indians. Talk about energy and enthusiasm! L and I and mom journeyed over to the MIL's for present opening and good food on Christmas day. The son was working at Breckenridge, so didn't join us. He had just gotten back from his first real vacation. (He decided to go to Hawaii and visit friends and relatives before the ski season kept him tied down. He got L some puka shell encrusted flip flops and me some macadamia nuts for Christmas - what more could one ask for.)

The last week of the old year was marked by very warm days and then the wind. The last few days have had wind gusts into the 70+ mph range with steady "breezes" of 40 mph. That isn't too bad unless it is like yesterday where the wind brings falling temperatures and whiteout snow conditions. L had a cold and combined with the wind and snow and ice, it was a good day not to be out and about. So no New Years Eve partying for us. We instead had soup for supper and were in bed right after the right coast ball dropped.

So much for the year that was.

Odd Thoughts

2011-12-03T20:36:00.001-07:00

Today as I was contemplating my navel after clearing the snow off the sidewalk and driveway, I began to meander down several odd mental pathways. So here are some odd thoughts for your perusal.

1) How great is it to live in a small town? I am out in shorts and parka this morning clearing the snow when the postman pulls up and yells "Hi Dan, just got a package for you, I'll be by with the mail in a bit." as he walks to the door. No comments about my choice of clothing or sanity level or ... That is because in a small town everyone knows your name and accepts your behavior, just as you accept theirs.

2) How different is it to meet the love of your life at different ages? At least for me, the mental picture I see when I close my eyes and kiss L is of the wonderful young girl from 40+ years ago. We have been married for going on 37 years and I still think of her as a teenager. If I had not met her until later in life, what mental image would be the one etched in my memory?

3) How appropriate is this to most arguments?

R.I.P.

2011-12-03T20:08:00.001-07:00

We learned that Carol, L's business partner and friend, lost her battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) yesterday. She battled and fought with all her strength to see her kids grow into adulthood. Try as she might, she is not going to see the three teenage kids she leaves behind graduate from high school. It is so sad to see someone so young (our age) reach the end. Our sympathies go out to her husband and family. (I wrote briefly about Carol and her battle here.)

Carol, 1955-2011

Rest In Peace

Long Ago

2011-11-14T16:37:00.001-07:00

Long ago in a time when personal and office technology was just coming to the fore, L and I founded a little company called Jones Technologies, Inc. It is a story for another time to mention what it is called now. Needless to say it was small then and isn't now.

We started the company about the time the first laser printers with {*gasp*} built in fonts were coming to market. But, ..., nothing was standardized and no two printers had the same way of calling the fonts and using them, so they were pretty much a useless novelty. A client of mine had me create a program to set the fonts in a particular line of lasers as a sales tool. This was back in the days of MS-DOS before Windows was even a gleam in anyone's eye, so you ran my program and then your word processor to print and automagically you had the graceful fonts (but only one font for the whole page, etc ...). It was a resounding success for the client as a sales tool at the time.

In playing around that year, I decided to make what, for the time, was an impressive demo. Using FatLips (yes, I named the program FatLips internally - it was a play on the printer brand and a certain movie of the time), I created this:

At the time, it was a spectacular card. The graphic was cut and paste - literally pieces of paper taped together and added to the page. A few years later this type of thing was common place. And in another few years it was completely supplanted by pure computer techniques.

In any case, this came to mind as L was cleaning out some old paperwork and came across this and had to show me. An interesting reminder that what is now trivial to do from your favorite programs with almost any printer was once something that required programming and specialized tools. I for one do not miss those days of yore in the least!

It or not It

2011-11-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

The other night we had a discussion about *it*. You know, the quality that some people have that makes them so appealing on television and in the movies. My writer friend with his extensive background in film and I have discussed the topic before. His claim is that no one has been able to quantify what constitutes having *it*, but almost everyone can agree when they see someone with *it* on camera. *It* seems to be a major topic of discussion and debate in film school.

The discussion the other night was engendered by the following thought chain: we all agree that there are some people with *it* and that *it* cannot be taught, but is the opposite true? Are there people that just naturally have the opposite of *it*, such that when you see them on camera you immediately react the opposite of how you react to someone with *it*. Can they be trained so that they can escape the "not *it*" label even if they cannot be trained to have *it*?

I think this is an amusing question for many reasons. I have always been struck by the fact there are people who exhibit *it* on camera but who do not exhibit the least amount of *it* in person. When we lived in LA and hung out with some Hollywood people, I was often surprised at how little *it* showed up off camera. Likewise there are people who seem to have *it* in person, but who do not show the same on camera. My claim would be that there are people who have the opposite of *it* and they exhibit "not *it*" the same way.

So what do you think? Are *it*ness and "not *it*ness" qualities that just exist and cannot be changed? Or are they learned/trained quantities that anyone can attain? Inquiring minds want to know.

While you are pondering that question, you can enjoy this cartoon from The Math Plane:

The Fall of Indian Summer

2011-11-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Amidst the interesting potpourri of odd web information I have stumbled across in the last couple of weeks is this gem from 2dayBlog:

To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click "I agree."

A sad but true summary of a great many religious persons and their relationship to the master source material of their belief system.

In other news, fall/winter has arrived here. A couple of weeks ago it was pleasant and in the 80's. Now we have had two snow storms and the third is forecast for tomorrow evening. So here are some pictures of L and I strolling in the park with Molly the wonder dog before the snows arrived, supplemented with a couple of pictures from my strolls about the neighborhood:

Of course, once you see the streaking ice crystals running across the sky, you know that snow and cold is not far away. So when I spotted this in the sky I knew that Indian fall was soon to fade away.

Sure enough, the next morning this was the view out the front door.

It warmed up and melted a bit, then snowed again and has stayed cooler so some of the snow is still around. So the predicted 6-8 inches tomorrow night will add to what is already hiding in the shade and make it seem like winter is coming. But at least I don't have to mow the lawn!

More later. I wanted to make sure you knew that I hadn't died. {*grin*} The MIL had double knee replacement surgery, I needed decommission a couple of servers here and replace them with more power efficient units, I have been changing my insulin regime, and ... In other words I have been a bit distracted and busy. I hope to get back to posting on a more regular basis soon.

Indian Summer Has Come

2011-10-19T21:30:00.000-06:00

Today was a beautiful indian summer type of fall day. The sky was crystal clear blue, the sun was warm, and the air temperature was in the low 60s. It was great!

As I walked cross town to a doctor appointment (I managed to wear a hole in the bottom of my foot and so need inlays for my walking shoes), I couldn't help but enjoy the newly fallen leaves from the cool weather last night. They are covering everything in their plenty. Can you spot the sidewalk in this picture?

Yeah, it means someone is going to have to rake a bit this weekend.

Unfortunately, it was not a hard enough freeze to kill the grasshoppers. They were hopping in mass with every pile of leaves I kicked as I walked. Maybe later in the week. I can always hope.

The Coming of the ...

2011-10-18T11:10:00.000-06:00

It is time once more for the weather to turn cold. Last night was predicted to be the first freeze of the year, but once again the weather critters were off a bit. So maybe tonight? It is hard to predict since it was near 90 on Saturday but it hasn't been above 60 since and the night time cooling is going closer and closer to freezing. The date of first frost here on the plains has been a moving target over the past few decades. After years of stability in late September, it has now been marching later and later in the year. For the last few years, it has averaged around Oct. 10. This year it is going to be considerably later than that. Guess it goes along with the rest of the "non-existent" global climate changes.

I love this time of year. So many things are done for the year and/or nearing their end. I mowed the lawn last weekend for the last time this year (and it better be the last time since I am throwing away the mower in the city trash pickup next week; it has served well for a number of years but has reached the point where even I cannot apply enough baling wire to keep it operational and so it must go). I also turned off the water to the sprinkler systems here and at mom's house. I had already turned it off at the MIL's place preparatory to replacing a broken pipe. I guess you could say the early weatherization for winter is complete. Plants have entered into the slow part of their growth curve as the days shorten and cool.

I love the sense of fulfillment that comes with working in the cool and cold and then settling in in the warmth of the house in the evening this time of year. The joy of getting out of bed in the cold of morning and then warming up. The coming of the early nightfall and late morning sun. The turning of the leaves and the honking of the geese.

The best things about this time of year? They include the coming of Halloween and the pumpkin crop:

But the absolute best thing is that the bugs die off, including these lovely pests:

Wind and More Wind

2011-10-07T08:34:00.000-06:00

The last several days have seen continuous 45 mph winds out here on the plains. A sure sign that the cooler weather of fall is on the way. In fact, the first frost might well happen this weekend. Which means an end to all the daily fresh melons and vegetables from the garden until next year. Just time to clean up and prepare for next spring and then batten down for the cold and snow of winter.

Other than all the branches and street lights and other things blown over and about, the worst part of the wind is the dust and sand. There are stories of the original settlers out here in sod houses being unable to stand the day after day beating of the wind and dust, to the point of giving up hope and just lying down and dying. The wind reminds me of the Santa Ana winds in southern California: the ionic charge in the air makes one literally feel bad. So needless to say I have not been in the most pleasant of moods. Of course, neither has anyone else, so we all have been ready to verbally spar at the drop of a hat. A good time to just hunker down and remain calm. At least the wind has died down a bit now as the cold and rain gets ready to settle in. But it still leaves my mind in a flipping and flopping state where seemingly random things connect to other things and then hook into something even further afield. For example ...

I love the fall weather once it gets here. There is that sense of drawing back into one's self for the coming days of winter, the slowing down of the pace of life. There is nothing that says job well done like the feeling of brisk air in the morning and the sound of geese circling the harvested corn fields.

The sound of geese as they migrate also reminds me of my grandfather. When he found out that he had inoperable metastatic cancer, he lived on with his steel will to see one more cycle of planting and growing. And when the fall and harvest came, he decided it was time and died. I remember slipping away from work, bundling the son in his infant carrier, and driving the 30 miles over to his farm to just to sit with him in his final weeks. And I remember the sound of the honking geese circling as I would leave to head back home.

That of course brings to mind how lucky I was growing up. I not only knew all my grandparents, but some of my great-grandparents. A consequence of being the oldest child of the oldest child on both sides of my family. In fact with the exception of L's grandfather, we had a complete set of grandparents on both sides when we were dating. So we both grew up with the presence of grandparents in our lives. It makes me sad to think of all the people who aren't so lucky.

Enough meandering, time to get back to work.

Passion

2011-10-04T11:15:00.000-06:00

I saw this over on 2dayBlog.com today:

and do know you what my first thought was? It was "Hasn't everyone?"

And my second thought? If you haven't, you are not living your life with enough passion. Time to get passionate.

So what was your first thought?

Speaking of ...

2011-09-28T10:18:00.000-06:00

Speaking of things that have been delayed a bit, the watermelons are a bit late here this year due to the odd weather. So this weekend I was out in the watermelon patch picking a few as they ripened. L took this picture with my phone - one of the clearer ones I have seen it take.

The melon in my arms is about 22 lbs. - a good size but enough melon to keep L and I eating for days.

Did you know that you can tell when a watermelon is ready to be picked by looking at the first curly tendril on the vine nearest the melon? When it curls and browns, the melon is ready for picking. I like that much more than the myriad of odd ways to tell when cantaloupe, muskmelons, and honeydews are ready. Just one simple visual inspection and you are set to go.

Back to getting ready for the 5K this weekend.

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-09-27T16:01:00.000-06:00

I am the executive director of the Logan County Humane Society. This Saturday is our 2nd annual 5K Run and Pet Walk. So this week is busy with everything from getting T-shirts printed to painting the route on the streets. Not to mention all the silent auction donations and .... (If you want to sleep in for the animals and get a T-shirt or make a donation, you can sign up on our website.)

Last year was the first year and we had about a 100 participants. We have already almost tripled the corporate sponsorship this year, so it will be interesting to see the participant turn out. It is one of the more amusing factoids that there are certain characteristics in how people sign up for such events. Females tend to sign up early for the pet walk. Males and 5K runners tend to wait until the night before and/or day of the event to sign up. (I assume they are checking the weather forecast.) Thus the planning is always a bit up in the air as we wait on pins and needles. You never want to be short of coffee and donuts for a crowd of animal people. {*grin*}

One of the fun aspects is painting the streets to mark the route. We use a bright pink paint and, as I once said to a colleague, when else do you get to vandalize the city streets for a good cause. Three of us will get together Friday afternoon to walk the course, marking and measuring via a GPS unit. (Nothing makes 5K enthusiasts more upset than a course that isn't exactly 5K. Many of them seem to lack a sense of humor about that. {*grin*})

I'll leave you with our logo for this year:

I Jab You, You Jab Me ...

2011-09-21T22:59:00.002-06:00

Many of you remember when I was mayor that many disputes had a certain resemblance to two young kids poking each other. The same thing happens now that I am the Executive Director of the humane society. The only difference is that the level of insanity seems to be higher when dealing with animal rather than urban issues.

For a classic example, I give you this letter that arrived in my mail recently:

Spot the classic signs of the jab fest? They include:

No signature
Unverifiable claims
False concern for others

How much do you want to bet that the complainer runs a similar food business and has lost business to the yellow trailer. Why not simply keep a sample of the offending food and send it in for analysis. Why not ... In any case, this missive ended up in my trash can.

I long ago adopted a very simple rule. If I get an anonymous accusation against my staff, I investigate it because there might be a possible justifiable case for anonymity. If I get an anonymous accusation against some other person or organization, it goes directly to the trash can.

If you are unwilling to stand up and identify yourself, why should I waste my time on your complaint. I think that too many people today hide behind anonymity. If you have something to say, stand up and say it proudly. Deal with any consequences in the open. Don't hide behind anonymity and act maliciously like a cowardly teenager.

What do you think?

Ever Have One Of ....

2011-09-13T10:51:00.001-06:00

Ever have one of those days when things are just that little itty bit off kilter? That describes my morning to a T.

Within one 30 second span, I:

caught my finger nail on the cupboard door and ripped the nail
bit my tongue out of the blue
spilled ground coffee all over the counter

and that was before I kicked the door frame as it moved in front of my foot.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the day brings.

Yet Another Anniversary

2011-09-06T22:32:00.000-06:00

In spite of the fact that I have been missing in action for the last month, I am alive and well. I could offer excuses, but L has changed jobs and is now located back here at home rather than 3 hours up the road. So we have been doing a lot of things around the house and just making up for time apart over the last few years. In addition, we each spent a week down and out with the creeping crud that was endemic in this area and had a friend pass away. In other words, life got in the way for bit.

It is official that this was the hottest August in recorded history here! Same for Denver and much of Colorado.

Time once more for the ignorant to rant that there is no such thing as climate change. It is going to be interesting to see what the weather is like this winter.

But the real reason I chose today to start blogging again? Today is L and my 36th wedding anniversary. Early on we were this carefree couple.

I still have a fond spot in my heart for the maxi dress with empire waist from this era. Of course, we evolved through college to become this pair when we got engaged. (Notice that the horn rimmed glasses were gone!)

It seems hard to believe that it was 36 years ago that we meandered through the maze of getting married on the way from the east coast to the west coast, stopping off here in Colorado to get hitched before a small crowd of 200-300 or so. Don't you think we looked pretty calm? (And notice that the horn rims are back due to some damage to the other glasses in the days preceding the wedding.)

And now? Well, we both look a bit whiter of hair. (The picture is actually from last fall.)

An Odd Question

2011-08-02T08:41:00.000-06:00

Do you ever watch foreign movies with English subtitles?

I do. I find that they satisfy a craving for a completely different viewpoint on life and society than my normal viewing habits. I am especially fond of Swedish and French films for their rather odd (to an American) point of view.

Understand that I don't speak or understand a word of Swedish, so the subtitles have to carry the movie for me. Likewise my French is pretty poor, so unless the on-screen action involves speaking to the class idiot, I have to depend on the subtitles. It is always amazing to me how much of the emotional tone one can deduce just from hearing the voice inflections of the actors, even when you don't understand a word they are saying! I suspect that the similar inflection structure of French and Swedish to English is the reason I like those films and cannot stand, for example, German subtitled films.

It is also interesting to me that my preference for type of film varies by nationality. I like Swedish detective mysteries and social movies while I like French humor and farce. I tend to like the humor in French movies featuring Audrey Tautou, whereas I really don't have a favorite actor or actress in Swedish films.

So with all my oddities in mind, here are a few foreign films that I highly recommend, subtitles and all:

Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles (A Very Long Engagement)

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amelie)

Så som i himmelen (As It Is In Heaven)

So do you watch foreign films? If you do, what are some of your favorites?

Hot, Hot, and More Hot ...

2011-07-25T21:51:00.000-06:00

... and I'm not talking about the sauce on my burrito either.

The entire month of July has been running hot with highs above 100 for most of the last few weeks. Normally, the highs at this time of year are in the upper 80s, so you might say that the temperature has been running 12-16 degrees above historical norms for the past month. Couple that with unheard of amounts of rain and it has not only been hot but humid with occasional floods here in the semi-desert.

L and I were talking about it tonight at supper as we contemplated next month. August is usually the scorcher around here, with occasional highs in the 116 to 119 range. If August runs 10 degrees above the historical norms, it could be a bit too toasty for my taste. Not only that, but that will be the time of the county fair and marching parade. Nothing says semi-desert like marching a few miles in 100 degree heat while carrying a tuba on your shoulder. One year L and I led a precision marching keyboard and kazoo team in the parade - and boy were we glad to reach the end of the route. I can't imagine doing it in even hotter weather.

The extreme temperature variations, unusual rainfall, and severe wind all bring to mind the idiocy of those who espouse the no climate change line. Sort of like this editorial cartoon concerning everyone's favorite and least factual news station:

Of course, one always has to keep in mind that all news media are a bit slow on the mental uptake, especially around any sort of a rating period. In these days of Jerry Springeresque news coverage it is no wonder that many people forgo the mass media in favor of the bits and pieces they can glean from the internet. Nothing brings it home like the "local color" segments.

Time for me to head back to waiting for it to cool off a bit. What's the weather doing in your neck of the woods (or desert as it may be)?

I Resemble That ...

2011-07-19T14:48:00.000-06:00

Sad to say, I resemble that cartoon. This year was my 35th college reunion and next year will be my 40th high school reunion. The only point of poor correspondence is that I won't reach my 60s until two years after that.

I find it amusing to look back. When I was a youngster, the very idea of making it past age thirty was foreign. Now it seems like a brief flash. It has been longer than that since I went to high school.

Back in those days of yore, vinyl records were king and eight track tapes were just starting to fade into history. I remember that the first stereo I traipsed off to college with had a record player and an eight track player and an AM/FM radio. The ultimate in media sophistication!

While I was in college, the new-fangled tape cartridge came out and began battling reel-to-reel tape decks (and quickly dominating the automobile market and the also new-fangled Sony Walkman was the iPod of the day). And today I look around and find all of those technologies eclipsed. Even CD-ROMs are dying now in the face of online streaming and mp3 players like the iPod.

And speaking of online streaming, I was asked by Foursons what I thought of the new NetFlix pricing plan where the unlimited streaming is $7.99 a month and the one-at-a-time mail order DVD is $7.99 a month. This is as opposed to the combination being $9.99 a month under the old plan.

If it was just me, it would have little to no impact. I'd just move to streaming only and continue on my merry way. But (there is always one of those), L uses the mail order one-at-a-time DVDs for her watching pleasure. It comes down to the fact that we use the same entertainment sources in different ways. I stream movies as a background amusement while working, etc. L consciously sets aside time to watch a movie as an event, completely engrossed in watching. So when I am forced to modify our plan come September, I suspect it will be to go with the unlimited streaming + one-at-a-time DVDs.

The more interesting point here is how NetFlix is working to push people to move to a new technological base. A while ago, the mail order option was the right way to compete (and drive to extinction) with the movie rental stores that started in the days of VCR tapes. Now that almost no movie rental shops exist, NetFlix wants to move its customer base to streaming. That eliminates the hassles of physical inventory and shipping and simplifies their business model. But there are still some who want the physical media and the sometimes newer releases only available there. So NetFlix has very wisely left in place a plan for them where they can pay a higher price per movie and help finance the bandwidth expansion NetFlix needs. A win-win from their point of view. From my point of view as a technologist, it makes sense. As a consumer, I am a bit PO'ed that they effectively increased my price by 60%. It makes me think of the cable and satellite companies.

Rain, Rain, Go Away ...

2011-07-13T21:58:00.000-06:00

... come again another day.

We have had rain nearly every day for the last week. More than 3 inches in the last two days alone. Given how little rain we normally get, this seems like a flood of biblical proportions.

Coupled with the rain has been lightning and thunder and wind - so Molly the wonder dog has been Molly the shaking dog hiding on my feet. It's funny but Molly will hang with L as her best buddy until the thunder starts and then it is time to find me. She seems to think that I will save her. {*grin*}

The worst part about the rain is that it is keeping the area dry land wheat farmers from harvesting. Every day while it is too wet and muddy to harvest is yet another chance for hail and wind to destroy the crop. Not a good thing.

The answer to the falsehood in the list of woes and happenings from last time was the boredom of Netflix being down. Everything else was true.

(Does anyone else feel that the new beta blogger tool leaves a lot to be desired? I know that I do.)

Happenings

2011-07-07T11:19:00.000-06:00

All sorts of odd / tragic / funny things have been going on here. Interspersed in the litany of woes and good tidings below is one gaping falsehood - the rest are true. Which one is it?

Storms. Four storms in seven days; including hail and 70 mph winds and rain. This area is a semi-desert that normally gets less than 14 inches of precipitation a year, but in the first 6 days of July alone we have had close to 2 inches. Can you say damp? I knew that you could.

Humidity. (See above.) Normal relative humidity levels here seldom exceed 20%. But already this month there have been days with humidity levels close to 90%. Sort of like moving to New Orleans without Bourbon Street!

Heat. So far the hottest has been only 107 degrees. I just can't wait for the dog days of August when it sometimes hits 115 or more.

Worry. My (younger) brother had a heart attack. Of course this was while he was recuperating from surgery to re-attach the tendons in his foot. Sometimes when it rains it pours. (He is out of the hospital now after some recovery time and getting stent(s) put in.)

Stress. L is doing the prep work to paint the trim on the house. (Thank heavens the house is brick and doesn't need painted.) The scraping and wire brushing and contemplating having to do a primer coat and a paint coat has left her a bit sore and grouchy. Nothing like heat and humidity and grouchiness to make all come to a boil. She especially didn't appreciate my suggestion that she get up at 5am and work while it was still cool. Something about getting up early was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back.

Cats. This month seems to be the grand prize of found cats that no one wants. Especially the feral ones. We must be getting 10 calls a day or more about found cats and kittens. Normally we could go months without that many found cat calls.

Fear. Molly the wonder dog gets extremely nervous when the thunder and lightning are around - to the point where she jumps in your lap and quivers. So for the hours while the storms move through, Molly gets no more than a few inches from me or L. Sort of like having a two year old around again. {*grin*}

Micro-bursts. Some friends own an amusement ride manufacturing business in the area. A micro-burst before one of the hail storms picked up a completed Ferris Wheel, moved it laterally about 15 feet, then toppled it and mashed it to pieces. No one would have believed it except for the eye witness who was sure his pickup truck was next.

Toads. All the rain and water has led to a bumper crop of toads throughout the yard. Enough of them that even Molly the ever curious has reached the point where she simply stares at them and continues on her way. I don't know whether to attribute this relaxed attitude towards toads to boredom, learning that they really don't taste good when you lick them, or ...

Pieces. My ancient lawn mower has finally gone to pieces. It survived the years of the Son abusing it mowing lawns (including this one), but old age has finally crept up on it. Guess it is time to look for a new one when I spend more time fixing it than mowing with it.

Boredom. Netflix was down for a whole day and I had no entertainment. {*grin*}

So which one is the figment of my fevered imagination?

I'm Back, Yet Again

2011-06-23T22:06:00.000-06:00

After battling network issues and then some weather issues and spending some time in the mountains with L, I am once more sweating profusely at my keyboard. So what great oddity do I bring forth to celebrate my return? That was a tough question since I seem to have run amok amidst things that pique my interest and curiosity of late.

For example, I read that the recent quake in Japan is estimated to have moved the main island approximately 8 feet eastward. Interesting in and of itself, but that led my mind wondering how property surveyors handle the movement. Up til the introduction of GPS units it would not have make much difference since survey marks were based off the geologic survey markers embedded in the ground. Since the ground moved, the basis mark moved with it and all was fine. But now survey is based increasingly off of precision GPS readings. Those GPS readings are based on satellite positioning, not ground. So the ground moved but the satellite did not.

Picture now the poor Japanese property owner whose neighbor wants to build a fence at the edge of his lot. The deed marks the lot in terms of latitude and longitude. So a surveyor comes out and marks the corners of the neighbors lot from the latitude and longitude via satellite and now discovers the the lot sits 8 feet into our poor owners lot, right through his kitchen. So how is the subsequent slew of anomalies corrected/handled. Inquiring minds want to know!

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Gore Vidal quotes:

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half have never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

Oh My!

2011-06-09T23:29:00.000-06:00

I had a whole slew of semi-serious topics I planned to talk about, but then I took a left turn and all you get is this. {*grin*}

As I was taking my pills this morning, I was struck by the thought that the drain in my sink has to be the healthiest drain anywhere. For more than 20 years it has dutifully eaten every pill and drug to slip from my fingers in the morning with nary a burp or belch. It obviously has low cholesterol from the statins and niacin it has stolen. It is on a balanced diet supplemented with all the vitamins it has swallowed as they tumbled from my hand due to sleep blurred vision. It has every once in a while even taken a dose of insulin that would kill a cow when a vial was dropped. And yet it keeps right on waiting for the next tidbit to fall its way.

So far as I can tell, the only substance to ever cause it indigestion is the stubble from my beard mixed with shaving cream. Even then, adding a bit of Drano to the mix seems to set all to right once more.

I figure it will still be gobbling things up long after I am gone.

Event Pictures

2011-06-03T23:07:00.000-06:00

Here are a few pictures from the LCHS volunteer appreciation/recruitment and facility status update meeting.

First up, a picture of me talking to a couple of the volunteers and guests prior to the presentation. (And boy does this picture make me look BIG!)

(I am the gentleman in the suit coat and gray hair. {*grin*})

Next is yet another picture of me talking to a group prior to the presentation. This time you can at least see my smiling face!

(That's me on the left.)

And finally here is a picture of me giving my presentation:

You can click on any of the pictures to get a much more detailed picture. Just hide the good glassware so it doesn't crack upon sight of my beautiful mug. {*grin*}

Of course the real reason for attending is the layout of food, including pizza:

(We are very fortunate to be able to use the Tennant Art Gallery at the local college to meet. Nothing like fine art around the room to set off a meeting. One of the better things we accomplished during my terms on the college board was to set up the Tennant Collection of Western Art for perpetual display in a dedicated gallery that also serves as a meeting facility.)

Have a safe weekend!

The Event That Was

2011-06-02T21:22:00.000-06:00

The volunteer appreciation and recruitment event for the humane society (and new facility construction update) was this evening. I was more than happy that it was held in a nice air conditioned gallery as the outside temperatures today soared into the high nineties. Made it a lot of fun lugging stuff into the gallery. {*grin*}

Tomorrow is the BBQ for Relay for Life, so I'll have to mosey over and eat and throw a few balls at the dunk tank victims. Of course it probably won't be as hot just to make it less enjoyable for the dunkees. It always amazed me that I made it through three terms as mayor without being railroaded into being a dunk tank victim for the event. There is a lot to be said for glaring and looking unpleasant. {*grin*}

Am I the only one who finds that the year is getting away from them? It seems that time is flying by and always catching me unawares. The older I get, the faster time seems to move. I just know that one of these days I am going to look around and it will already be next year. Do you ever feel that way?

Once There Was A ...

2011-05-30T21:22:00.000-06:00

A short fairy tale of woe and doom. Once upon a time there was a company named Google who also happened to own another company called Blogger. One fine day, one product of Google ceased to work with the only product of Blogger. True to form, Google acknowledged there was a problem for some users and proclaimed that they were working on the issue. After weeks of problems logging in to Blogger using Google's Chrome browser, today it seems to work mostly work correctly again. You might think that such idiocy wouldn't happen with products all under one owner like that, but ... So the moral of the story? Not even all the ducks in one family swim together is a straight line all the time.

In any case, today was Memorial Day and it was a nice and slightly cool day until about 4pm when the forecast 50 mile an hour winds and hail hit. It all cleared out in time for me to fire up the BBQ to cook for the small celebratory crew of L, her mother, my mother, and me. So we had a great repast and sat around the table talking for a bit over desert. All in all a very pleasant evening.

One of the topics of conversation was the question: Do you count relatives by marriage as "relations" or not? The original train of thought came about from L and my attendance at a high school graduation party for the daughter of a golfing buddy. At said party we ran into a person who is related via marriage to me through the fact that he is the cousin of my uncle's wife. We also ran into the brother of another aunt's late husband. I would consider those all relatives (even if a bit distant). On the other hand some people do not consider any marriage tag-a-logs other than spouses to be relatives. So what do you think?

(Those of you who share my devotion to science fiction will find the names more meaningful. {*grin*})

I'm Back ...

2011-05-24T09:48:00.000-06:00

Or at least trying to be.

Blogger has made it darn hard to get back. Somehow they broke their interface when using Chrome and LastPass. The little light bulb above my pointy head finally turned on and I fired up another browser to login and do this post. It doesn't seem to have been a good month for Blogger. This has been the worst period for outages and odd errors since I started writing this blog. I sure hope it is not a harbinger of the future!

So just to get everyone up to date, this has been a month of getting some gardening stuff done (and the onions all planted) and the arrival of spring weather. Out here in the semi-desert the coming of spring means thunderstorms and sometimes even rain. This month has been a wet one compared to most years - one of the continuing changes due to climate change. The winters have been geting dryer and the springs wetter and more stormy. So now we are waiting for it to dry out enought to get the rest of the garden planted. And of course once it is planted, that will be the last moisture we will see for the rest of the growing season. {*grin*}

Time to get back to work preparing for an upcoming Humane Society event. Now that I have a way around the Blogger idiosyncrasies, I hope to post regularly again.

I'll leave you with one of the better editorial comments on the recent Blogger shenanigans from The Odd Blog:

Caption: Ann Althouse, relaxing at an undisclosed location following the attempt on her life by Blogger.

Abuse?

2011-04-20T10:49:00.000-06:00

Every so often something new and annoying happens in the business of the internet. The most recent trend to annoy me is the appearance of streaming video ad-lets that have no escape, mute, or user control embedded in various pages. Many of them have no way to prevent the contents from being streamed at the person viewing the page they are on. One clicks on to a page and there, off to the side, is a streaming video with no accessible controls and sound blaring, making it nearly impossible to read the article you originally intended to read.

Why are these ad-lets annoying and a dirty trick? There are several reasons:

No volume control to mute the obnoxious ad audio.
No pause control to stop wasting bandwidth for the video.
Capricious consumption of my bandwidth without asking permission.

Given that more and more ISPs are installing bandwidth consumption caps on consumer accounts, do you really want to see your bandwidth used without your permission to display an obnoxious streaming ad? I sure don't, and I don't even have a bandwidth cap on my service.

What can be done about the problem? Short of some technical slight of hand to prevent the domains serving the bogus video from connecting, there is very little the average user can do. But one thing we can all do as consumers is to refuse to do business with any company that uses such ads. Maybe they will get the hint that abusing their potential customers is not a way to increase sales.

What do you think?

Near and Dear

2011-04-19T05:21:00.000-06:00

Near and dear to my heart is the dumbing down of the populace I see each day. Little things like simple math skills gone missing. A complete lack of knowledge of the world around us and how it works. Attention spans approximating that of a gnat.

All of these problems I believe are symptomatic of a change of attitude in society as a whole. A few generations ago, education was regarded as the way to a better life. Parents emphasized education as a way to a better life to their offspring. Somewhere along the way the whole process has been ditched in favor of the many faces of the cult of idol-ism. So now we have a growing group of semi-literate and scientifically uneducated people who follow the dictates of the talking head of the moment without critically examining anything. It scares me for the future.

One of the oft overlooked consequences of the dumbing down of America is the increasingly strident opinions of the populace. One of my favorite quotes puts it succinctly:

People are getting dumber but more opinionated. -- Philip Roth

Can't be much clearer than that. Check out your favorite letters to the editor page for classic examples. (Or listen to a call in radio or TV program since many are no longer capable of writing a coherent letter.)

On the other hand, my rationalist mind demands that I also ponder if the dumbing down is real or just a a figment of my imagination. After all:

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. -- George Orwell

So what do you think. Is the increasing stridency of modern opinion due to the dumbing down of the populace or ....?

How To Tell ...

2011-04-14T11:32:00.000-06:00

How to tell that you are still young.

First, the conversation between L and the Son on the morning after his 21st birthday party as reported to me:

Son: What time did I get back last night?
L: I don't know - I didn't hear you.
Son: Then do you know how I got home?
L: No.

Now the part that tells you that you are 21 years young. After a night like that, the Son was out and skiing black diamond runs by noon. Only when you are young do you recover that fast.

I was proud of the Son and his friends. He scheduled some days off around his birthday so he could enjoy time with his friends. They were smart and chose to walk/bus on the bar crawl so that they weren't driving. Let's hear it for responsible young adults!

In other signs of 21 year old stamina much closer to home, take a gander at what it is doing outside right now after days in the 80s last week:

Let's hear it for April snows that bring May flowers! (And for Old Man Winter who still believes he is a frisky 21 year old. {*grin*})

Happy Birthday to You

2011-04-07T03:55:00.000-06:00

Today is the Son's 21st birthday. It sure doesn't seem that long ago that he came into our lives. Seems like only yesterday he was a small helpless bundle that fit in the palm of my hand and the crook of my arm. Now he's well over 6 feet tall and a young man.

Last I heard, he and his buddies were off to do a bar trawl at midnight followed by a day of festivities today. It is amusing the changes brought on by changes in liquor laws. When L and I were younglings, the 21st birthday wasn't celebrated big time. Why? Well, the primary reason was that the Vietnam War had driven the drinking age down to 18. (The infamous "if you are old enough to die for your country, you are certainly old enough to drink in it" line of reasoning.) So it was the 18th birthday that was the big celebration. I suspect that celebrating the 21st leads to a bit more maturity and restraint than the old 18th birthday parties. I can only hope. {*grin*}

The last couple of years have seen the Son mature and becoming more responsible and adult. So rather than merely being of age to drink, he has truly become a young adult.

Happy Birthday - I'm proud of you.

In honor of the occasion, I think the Beatles' Birthday lyrics are fitting:

You say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too, yeah
They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party
Yes we're going to a party party

I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (Birthday)
I would like you to dance (Birthday)
Dance

You say it's your birthday
Well it's my birthday too, yeah
You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

The Right Words

2011-04-05T23:09:00.000-06:00

Do you ever struggle to find the right words to convey what you mean without it sounding wrong? I do and it can be so frustrating. It is amazing how many phrases can be technically and linguistically correct but sound completely wrong when used in conversation. I find it especially hard to give someone directions to perform a set of tasks without sounding either pedantic or like a control freak.

I am the type of person that might utter a phrase like "'Preparation H' sounds like a tax form, but is really a medical ointment. Either way, it's a pain in the ass." I truly appreciate the word play and double meanings implicit in such a phrase. I am also prone to misinterpretation of intent - primarily because of my deep seated sarcastic nature. Thus if I tell L that I "love her legs," it is likely to be interpreted as a criticism rather that the loving compliment intended. So I have to work hard and curtail a lot of my normal volubility or else convince Molly to let me share her doggy space with her.

I often wonder if languages other than English suffer from this problem. Is the problem due to the polyglot nature of the English language, allowing shadings of meaning well beyond the strict intent? Do languages like German with a stricter organization and tighter constraints on structure have the same problem? Is sarcasm different or harder to misinterpret in other languages? Inquiring minds want to know.

Now with that out of the way, back to reality. Remember that it was in the 80s on Saturday and then snowed on Sunday? Well today it was warm and windy, so of course there were wild fires in the area being pushed along by the wind. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week brings. {*grin*}

Well, off to get some more real work done.

Maudlin Thoughts

2011-04-04T12:51:00.000-06:00

It was 82 degrees in the shade Saturday. Sunday it snowed. Welcome to spring on the high plains. Molly spend much of Sunday cowering at my feet as the thunder accompanying the snow bothered her sensitive constitution. {*grin*}

While it was snowing, L went to visit her friend and former business partner who lives on a farm/ranch about 20 miles from here. L's friend was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) a while ago. When L is down from the mountains she goes to visit (when her friend is able) and bring food to put in the freezer. Her friend has faced the invariably fatal disease with amazing heart and grace. It is hard to imagine just how hard it must be for her.

L's friend is now at the point where she has a feeding tube and is on a respirator and depends on an eye-tracking and blink computer to do much. Yet she still keeps on. She wants so much to see her kids grow up (she has a boy aged ~15 and twin girls aged ~13), but knows that it is a wish that will not be fulfilled. For me it is even harder to see how it has impacted her husband as he tries to farm and run the ranch and spend as much time as possible with her and help the kids deal with it. He was always a happy go lucky guy, but now the smile and spirit slips when he thinks no one is looking. I sometimes see him at the grocery store and it looks like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. I am not sure that I could handle it anywhere near as well as he has.

Rather than think sad thoughts about the impending end, I prefer to remember the miracle that is their marriage. She was an international business lawyer who happened to be in the area on a shotgun hunting trip. The trip was on what was to become her future husband's land. They met, courted and fell in love in their late 30s/early 40s. She changed her practice to move out here and they had kids. The fairy tale they neither one thought they would have became their reality.

I remember one evening when we were out at their place for a dinner party. To say that L's friend was often a bit disorganized about social occasions would be an understatement. Thus I can remember treading my way in the dark to the grill to cook, all the while being rubbed and attacked by the herd of pygmy goats running wild in the yard, while the others were getting everything else in the house ready hours after the planned time. There is nothing quite like standing in the dark, lit only by the grill, and feeling the fur and tongues of little goats on your legs and wondering if they were really goats or were they skunks? Yet the food was superb, the conversation better and the evening memorable. What more could one ask for?

World's Oldest Jokes

2011-03-29T22:46:00.000-06:00

Reuters reported a few years ago on the world's oldest jokes. The bathroom humor involved in the jokes dating back to 1900 BC prove that the human sense of humor has not gotten better in nearly 4000 years.

How bad are the old saws? Well ...

The first joke comes from ancient Sumeria circa 1900 BC:

Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.

I'm sure you could come up with a slight rewording that you heard before you completed high school. Proves that really bad humor has been with us a long time.

Leaving aside some Pharaoh and nearly nude nubile women jokes from the 1600 BC era, you might wonder about the jokes of relatively modern ancient cultures. Well, the Anglo-Saxon's from the 10th century left behind this bawdy question and answer joke:

Question - What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?Answer - A key.

I think I heard that one before I was out of grade school. How about you?

Euphoria!

2011-03-28T16:29:00.000-06:00

Last night was one of those nights when the phase of moon and the barometric pressure and ... all came together to make sleeping an euphoric experience. I can't tell you how rare it is any more when the sinuses are clear and the aches and pains are gone and laying down is so pleasant. It was great.

Of course, I have been paying for the glorious night of sleep with an itchy nose all day. That might be because of the combined thunder and snow and rain storm that has dropped in today. It has gone from sunny and clear to thundering and raining to snow flurries and back to thunder and rain and then sunny again in the space of a couple of hours. Spring must really and truly be afoot.

The weather, especially the thunder, means that Molly the wonder dog has been Molly the trembling ball of nerves, trying to crawl into my lap all day. Once the thunder fully recedes into the distance, she'll collapse on the floor of my office and sleep for a few hours. (In fact, she is asleep now.) So maybe she'll have a euphoric sleep as well.

On a completely unrelated note and somewhat related to J. Cosmo's cryptic comments about J.R. (from Dallas), what is the show or shows that you actually watch as scheduled? Note that tivo or DVR or online viewing via hulu or netflix doesn't count. I want to know if there is a show or shows you actually watch as and when scheduled by the networks and cable companies. (None is an acceptable answer as well.) I have a deep suspicion that there are very few people who follow program provider's scheduling whims anymore. but I want to see if I am wrong.

What? You didn't know?

2011-03-24T11:01:00.000-06:00

Given the comments on the previous post about the picture of the armpit sniffers, it is clear to me that many of you weren't aware of the great career opportunities in sniffology. Just think, you too could have a business card with your title listed as Armpit Sniffer.

A job as an armpit sniffer entails sniffing armpits of people of all sizes, who stand in a line with their arms in the air. Generally, the work is as a tester for deodorant manufacturer. After all, the cosmetic companies employ hundreds of armpit sniffers to make sure that we all smell good at all times. The power of antiperspirants and deodorants is still tested by sniffing, using human noses, in hot rooms. Sniffers generally sniff about 60 armpits an hour, or close to 500 in a busy day. Each sniff of an offensive odor is recorded on a scale of 1 to 10.

There is an established protocol for sniffology, including the requirement that the sniffers sense of smell should not be dulled by cigarettes or coffee or other odors. The people on whom the deodorant or antiperspirant is tested can be all men, all women, or mixed. Even the fact that humans are one of the sweatiest species on the planet does not deter the intrepid sniffologist (in spite of the fact that many people find the odor and job completely intolerable).

Some tidbits of odd information about/from sniffological studies and professional sniffers:

Studies using women sniffers on male subjects have determined that women are more drawn to the odor of men who are genetically dissimilar to them.
Professional sniffers are trained to understand everything about the human body and the role of the sweat glands.
When asked how it feels to be an armpit sniffer, a professional replied "if you've sniffed one, you've sniffed them all."

So the next time you think you hate your job, remember that it could be worse!

BO?

2011-03-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

I must have BO (Body Odor). Either that or Molly has it. Why you ask?

When Molly and I went for our walk yesterday, we went to the park. The walking path around the park is about three quarters of a mile long, so eight laps and you have your 6 miles done. In any case, when Molly and I got to the park we ran into people and dogs galore during the first lap. We must have seen 20 or 30 people. But ... by the second lap there was nary a person to be seen walking in either direction. We saw no one else for all the rest of our laps. The only explanation I can think of is that we had really bad BO or something. It must have been as bad for them as for the ladies in the armpit sniffing line below.

What do you think?

Mishmash -or- How the mind rambles on

2011-03-21T12:31:00.000-06:00

It was a glorious weekend here with temperatures in the 70s and winds mostly below 25 mph. L and I spent time walking with Molly, enjoying the sun in shorts and Ts. Spring must really be getting here. (Although I note that the weather forecast for the rest of this week is for wind and more wind. There is a reason why this area is famed as the "Saudi Light" of wind for all the wind turbines in the energy fields.)

(Photo by Wolfgang Schlegl )

Of course, there is a blizzard coming. Why you might ask? Well, I was in attendance at church on Sunday with L and the MIL. L and I snuck in late and hid in the back so mom wouldn't see me. She was being awarded with the Silent Disciple honor and it was a secret that she didn't know about. (One of the few times I knew something church related that mom didn't. {*grin*}) The award clearly caught mom by surprise and she was moved to tears. It was great to see all her peers congratulating her. Yea mom! (The reason for the blizzard is the rarity of my attendance at Sunday services. Once every 3-5 years is about right. I am more than willing to work and help, I just don't like Sunday services.)

I had to write a dunning letter this weekend, an experience that is fortunately rare. As some of you know, I sit on a Boy Scout troop committee and serve as treasurer for the troop as well. (This is the same troop I was a scout in and the Son was a scout in ... as described here and here.) One of the checks from the annual popcorn sale was returned for NSF.

This is a rare happenstance - it was only the second bad check in all the years I have been the treasurer for the troop. Two bad checks out of literally hundreds or even thousands is a pretty good record. It bears out my belief that people in this area honor their commitments and understand that the funds raised go to defray the costs of going on summer camps at places like Yellowstone, etc. Many of the boys would not be able to afford the expense of the summer camp trip without the mechanism of popcorn sales and the community steps up to help. In the back of my mind, I assume it was just a mistake on the check writer's part.

Last but not least, the taxes are done. L balanced it out pretty close - we ended up owing the state a whole $3. I think we can handle that. {*grin*}

Bad Hair(less) Day

2011-03-17T00:29:00.000-06:00

Today has been one of those days. You know the type. Things go wrong and nothing works like it should and you aren't quite thinking straight.

It started this morning with the phone service for the Animal Officers missing (all of their phones being unreachable with the dreaded "You do not exist!" message from the cellular carrier). That left all the calls routing to me with no way to get the officers to respond. Finally got that sorted out by 1pm when the cellular carrier finally fessed up to screwing it up. You never want to hear the words "Oh, we changed all our internal coding last night and forgot to handle your subset." Getting everyone to pull the batteries out of their handsets and then pull their sim cards for long enough to reset and putting it all back together again was interesting. It seems that many good animal people are a bit technology challenged and can't figure out how to open their phones without detailed instruction. Which is hard to do when their phones aren't working. Thank heavens for internet connectivity and email and laptop video.

The day of snafus left me a bit discombobulated (and of course well behind schedule on all the things I had planned to get done). It was in the upper 60s and glorious outside and I didn't get to enjoy it. Then, as I was making supper, I found myself opening the microwave to get a fork and putting a dish of food in the silverware drawer to heat it up. Needless to say, that was untenable. But I did finally get the meal made and it was edible, so I couldn't have made too many really bad errors during preparation.

I'll leave you with this succinct view of the current idiocy occurring in congress:

Nectar of the Forgotten Gods

2011-03-15T11:01:00.000-06:00

Do you ever have foods that you forget how good they taste until you have them again? I do.

The other night I made strawberry Jello (sugar free, of course) with pineapple (ditto) in it. I hadn't made that in a while and had forgotten how good it is. In fact, it was so good that I had it for breakfast. Strawberry Jello with pineapple and a side of cottage cheese. The breakfast of the gods -Yum!

In any case, it brought to mind several thoughts:

Do you have foods that tickle your taste buds but that you forget/fail to make for long periods?
Do you eat foods at non-traditional meal times (like Jello for breakfast)?
Do you find yourself falling into food ruts (like an apple and a piece of cheese for breakfast everyday)?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Pi Today, Gone Tomorrow

2011-03-15T01:19:00.000-06:00

After all the excitement of Pi Day (3/14), I'm not sure a nerd like me can survive. Next to the upcoming glory of Avogadro's Day (6/02), nothing else is so exciting. For the non-nerds out there, Pi is a constant fundamental to Euclidean geometry, Avogadro's number is a constant fundamental to chemistry as we know it. Together, they define what kind of universe we are experiencing.

On a more serious note, please keep the people of Japan in your thoughts. They are in the midst of a once in a lifetime disaster. (And beware the spammers and scammers if you donate to the relief efforts.)

Full Circle

2011-03-13T09:09:00.000-06:00

Remember how I said that the weather went from snow and cold last Monday to the 70s by Thursday followed by wind, etc.?

This is the view this morning from the front door:

Yup, it is snowing to commemorate the joy of springing forward for daylight savings time. Nothing like cyclic weather to proclaim late winter.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term March Madness, doesn't it?

The Joy of Coming Spring and Other Oddities

2011-03-11T16:28:00.000-07:00

This has been a typical late winter week of weather here on the high plains. Monday and Tuesday it was cold and it snowed. Wednesday was undecided. Thursday it was warm, close to 70. Today it is warm but the wind is howling at a sustained 40 mph with gusts up to 55 mph. What will tomorrow bring? Who knows?

Enough about the weather. Let's get on with another topic of late winter - dieting. It seems that the impending arrival of spring has a certain group of people diving head first into the idea of getting rid of the "winter excess". Some have resorted to the more mechanistic approaches:

Others have been a bit more organic in their approach:

In any case, it can suck the fun right out of luncheon meetings when the diet monster is in full rage. Especially if you are the only one not eating a salad. {*grin*}

That brings my meandering mind to the topic of brown rice. The other night L was bemoaning (on the phone to me) the amount of time it takes to fix brown rice up in the mountains because of the altitude. The boiling point of water is so reduced at the close to 2 mile altitude that it takes forever (and at least twice as much water) to prepare brown rice there. Given that it is a 40 minute task down here at just less than one mile of elevation, you can imagine how long and frustrating it is up in the mountains. In any case, I could tell that L was frustrated. (After all, why call me to kill the time while the rice quasi-boiled away. Watching brown rice boil is not noted to be a source of high entertainment value. I can't picture that talking to me while I fixed my supper and watching her rice bubble away has a much higher rating.)

More later ...

When did?

2011-03-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend L and I took her mother out to celebrate her 80th birthday at the steakhouse. One of the topics of discussion that came up was "When did it become acceptable for people to wear hats indoors?" There is nothing that says "lack of respect" like the idiots that wear their hat indoors at restaurants, sporting events, even funerals. It has reached the point that one often has to request that people remove their hats for any event.

As we looked around the restaurant, it seemed that at least half the males were wearing their dirty, sweat stained, baseball hats. (Although this being a rural area, many of the hats had farm and seed company logos rather than a baseball team.) And it struck me that sometime in the last 30 years it has become socially acceptable to for people to wear their hats in all manner of inappropriate places. I have been to funerals where those same people have had to be reminded to remove their hats in the church. Likewise for the national anthem, religious services, oaths of office, etc.

Even when the hat idiots are reminded to remove their hats, the result is often a blank stare of complete incomprehension. Somewhere through the years, the idea that wearing a hat indoors was disrespectful to the others present and to ones self has disappeared from our culture. So when did it go and why?

And the winner ...

2011-03-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

... for the oddest call of the week thus far - Mr. Elliot of Los Angeles.

The call went as follows:

<ring ring>
Me: Dan Jones
Him: Hello, my name is Mr. Elliot. I'm not sure where I got this number, but is Dan Jones still the mayor of Sterling.
Me: No, that is Larry Fetzer.
Him: So he was just elected?
Me: No, about a year and a half ago.
Him: How long is the mayoral term?
Me: Two years.
Him: Oh!
Him: You're probably wondering why I called? Well, we are playing a trivia game here in LA and we needed those answers. Thank you. Bye.
<click>

Which leaves me with questions:

Why play trivia during the day?
Why ask obscure questions about small rural Colorado town when playing trivia in LA?
Why not go to the Sterling city website and look up the answers? After all, you did enough searching to associate me and find my number - why not finish the job.

Oh well, I can now say that I have officially been a part of a trivia question and answer from half a continent away. Can you say that?

Another One Bites The Dust

2011-02-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

Did you waste the time and effort to watch the "Worst Show On Earth" (otherwise known as the Oscars)? From all the reviews and rants I have seen, this years show reached new depths of bad. It would seem that a group dedicated to excellence in entertainment should be able to do better.

I have to admit that I did not watch the Oscars. Instead, Molly and I were busy vacuuming and steam cleaning the carpets. Of course, that led to Molly being very unhappy with me. At first only because she got tired of running from the noise of the machines and then because everyplace she went to lay down and rest on the carpet was damp. Pretty much the story of my life - do something good and make the ladies unhappy. {*grin*}

Earlier in the day, Molly was exhibiting her regal prerogatives, scanning for signs of the squirrels she so wants to herd.

She spent hours scanning back and forth, just hoping to spot one of the little miscreants to sprint after. I have to admit that there are times I would happily join her in pursuing them. Just last week the power flashed off as one of them fried themselves on the power lines. You can tell that spring is approaching because the squirrels are coming out to frolic and fry. Goes right along with the tulips emerging and Molly shedding slightly less. All the traditional signs of spring. {*grin*}

Time to get to work (and move all the furniture back to where it belongs).

Long Haul

2011-02-24T03:03:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things about life in a rural area is that you know many people for decades, people who aren't necessarily your friends, but people who have been around forever and are connected to you in odd ways. My mind meandered along that track today when I went to get my hair cut.

Why you may ask? Well, my barber, Don, first opened his shop when he returned from 'Nam in 1972 and I first met him when I returned home from college over Christmas break that year and got a haircut. We ran into each other for the occasional haircut over the coming years until L and I moved back here in 1989. Then it became a regular occurrence. So we have known each other on an acquaintance basis for close to 40 years.

Over the course of that time we have discovered other connections. His late father used to run a pool hall here which was frequented by an uncle of mine (by marriage) who practiced pool at the shark level there for a time. I never put the two together until Dag (his father) died and the obituary mentioned Dag's Pool Hall. By that time my uncle was long gone as well. When I mentioned to Don that I had never mentally connected him with Dag and my uncle, it turned out he had never connected my uncle with me either. Strange how some connections only become apparent later.

Likewise at his 60th birthday party (a small gathering of ~200 people {*grin*}), I discovered that we were for a time related by marriage. The daughter of one of my second cousins who was the in the same class as L and I was married to his younger brother for a time. We only became aware of the connection when she attended the party and we got to talking while waiting for the cake to be cut.

Don also serves as an area Santa Claus every year, both charity and private. He has a classic fire truck bedecked with lights that he drives around delivering cheer and presents, raising money for charity. The Son had many a Christmas where Santa arrived on Christmas Eve with sirens blaring and gifts in tow. Somewhere I even have a picture with mom sitting on Santa's lap from one of those years.

I even sicked the press on Don one election year when the Denver papers were covering the ballot issues out here. He didn't know at first who sent the reporter down to spend the afternoon kvetching with him and his customers, but always swore he'd get even someday. I'm still waiting. {*grin*}

The point of all this meandering is that, one of these days, Don is going to retire and I'll have to find a new barber. That will be a strange adjustment after all these years. No more calling for an appointment and having him recognize my voice. No more asking when I can get in to be made handsome and being told there is no hope for that, but that he might be able to make me look like less of a bum. I'm going to miss that.

Hair, Hair, Everywhere

2011-02-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

After partying wildly all weekend ... OK, OK going out to dinner with mom and the MIL ... L is back in the mountains celebrating her real birthday (mainly attending the ministry meeting at the prison) and I am back at work. After all, any excitement at this advanced age is hazardous to our health. {*grin*}

Given the reactions to my old joke, you all should be happy that I haven't yet indulged in my penchant for really long and involved shaggy dog jokes. I especially like those that take at least a few minutes in setup and end in a bad pun or other word play. After all, a chorus of groans is so much more rewarding that a few laughs here and there. Especially if it is a multiple part shaggy dog with multiple groans. With that in mind, I hereby relent and present one of my favorite shaggy dogs from the 80's.

A church in the outlands of the old country lost their long term bell ringer. The deacons advertised far and wide to find a replacement, but no one wanted the laborious and unpaid position. Just as the priest was about to abandon all hope of finding a new bell ringer, he answered a knock at the door and saw an armless man standing there.

“I’m here about the bell ringer job,” the man said.

“But,” replied the priest, “How are you going to ring the bell with no arms?”

“Just watch me!” the man said.

The priest and the armless man climbed the staircase up to the bell tower. The armless man ran at the bell and rammed the bell with his forehead, causing the bell to move slightly. The armless man backed up and timing his run carefully, once again ran at the bell and rammed it with his head. The bell swung even further. After several more carefully timed running rams, the bell swung far enough and pealed mightily, releasing a beautiful sound from the bell.

“The job is yours,” said the astonished priest.

"That is fine," said the armless man, "but I must insist on remaining nameless since I have enemies."

"Well, ... I guess that will be OK." said the priest.

Every hour from sunup to sundown, the armless man climbed the staircase in the bell tower and ran repeatedly at the bell until the bell rang. After weeks of on-time beautiful bell ringing, the village returned to normal life. One day, the armless man miss-timed his final run at the bell and missed it entirely. Out of the tower he flew to crash onto the cobblestones below. A crowd quickly gathered and looked accusingly at the priest standing over the body.

Someone yelled, “Does anyone know this man?”

The priest sadly answered, “I don’t know his name, but his face sure rings a bell.”

...

After a period of several weeks morning, the deacons once again began the process of looking for a bell ringer. Shortly thereafter the priest was awakened from his evening nap by a dull thud at his door. When he opened the door, he saw no one until he looked down and spotted an armless and legless man on the step.

"I am here about the bell ringer position that was held by my armless brother. I was far across country when news reached me and I have been travelling since. Family honor demands that I assume the position held by my late brother." said the armless and legless man.

“But,” replied the priest, “How are you going to ring the bell with no arms and no legs?”

“If I can ring the bell, do I have the job?” the man said.

"Yes, but you must first show me that you can ring the bell.", replied the priest.

The priest and the armless, legless man climbed the staircase up to the bell platform. The journey was painful and arduous for the armless and legless man. He was near exhaustion when they reached the bell platform, but persisted in his mission.The man slithered his way across the platform at the bell and slammed the bell with his forehead, causing the bell to move slightly. The man backed up and once again slithered at the bell and slammed it with his head. The bell swung even further. After several more carefully timed slithering slams, the bell swung far enough and pealed mightily, releasing a beautiful sound from the bell.

“The job is yours,” said the astonished priest.

"That is fine," said the armless man, "but I must insist on remaining nameless since I, like my brother, have enemies."

"Well, ... I guess that will be OK." said the priest.

Time passed and the armless, legless man rang the bell day after day. He was always on time and reliable and the villagers were overjoyed to once more hear their bell peal out across the land.

One fateful day, the armless and legless man was ill with a cold. When he slammed his face into the bell, it left him disoriented and dizzy. After several more passes at the bell, he was completely lost and slithered off the bell platform and on to the cobblestones below. A crowd quickly gathered and looked accusingly at the priest standing over the misshapen lump that had been the man.

Someone yelled, “Does anyone know who this man is?”

“I don’t know his name,” sighed the distraught priest, “but he’s a dead ringer for his brother.”

Wild and Howling

2011-02-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

No, not my birthday celebration. The wind. What did you think I was talking about?

So yesterday I turned another year older (all of 57 years and the gray hairs were all earned). Four days from now L will have her birthday and join me in being older. (Notice that I did not say how old she was? A gentleman never discloses a ladies age. Just kidding.) The upshot of all that is that our real birthday quasi-celebration will be tomorrow night with our moms. Sort of splitting the difference if you will.

It is funny to grow older. My friends and I were all convinced we'd never make it to age thirty in those halcyon years when we were sure we knew everything. Now we all laugh about it and remember those that are not still with us. One friend thinks that the fact we are all still alive is proof that we weren't living life to the limits. Of course he then has to back down a bit when we point out that he is still with us and hasn't led an exactly sedate life. {*grin*}

On a more serious note, you might have noted that Twitter shut down Twitdroyd and UberTwitter access today while at the same time pushing a commercial tweet for their new Twitter Mobile. Sounds like idiocy on the part of Twitter to me. I always figured people should be able to chose their own favorite method of using any service. A few more stupid moves and Twitter will be removed from my universe forever. (Facebook and MySpace already shot their own toes off and are long gone from my universe.)

Finally, I read a good joke today and thought I'd share it and leave you smiling.

B and T worked together in a factory and were both were laid off at the same time. So they went to the unemployment office together.

Asked his occupation, B said, 'Panty stitcher. I sew da elastic onto da ladies cotton panties.'

The clerk looked up panty stitcher. Finding it classified as unskilled labor, she gave B $300 a week in unemployment compensation.

T, when asked his occupation replied, 'Diesel fitter.'

The clerk looked up diesel fitter and it was classified as a skilled job. So, the clerk gave T $600 a week in unemployment compensation.

Later, when B found out, he was furious! He stormed back into the office to find out why his friend and co-worker was collecting double his benefits.

The clerk explained, 'Panty stitchers are unskilled labor and diesel fitters are skilled labor.'

'Wut skill?' yelled B. 'I sew da elastic on da panties. T puts dem over his head and says, 'Yeah. DIESEL FITTER'.

Wha?

2011-02-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

Today is being spent making up for all the brain deadness of yesterday. Yesterday was one of those days that would have been better spent not even getting out of bed. How bad was it? Well ...

The day began with me getting up and mentally going through my todo list for the day as I got dressed in my bathroom. My attention wondered back to reality when I saw a flash of green and had the random thought "I don't have any green pants." A few moments later it struck me that I was busily trying to stuff my leg into my green tee shirt sleeve and pull it up in the belief it was my pants. That brought reality crashing in for at least a few moments, at least long enough to finish getting dressed and get to work. At least I didn't look quite as odd as Lady Gaga in one of her tamer incarnations:

But it was close, too close for comfort.

The bad thing is that it was the high point of my day. The rest of the day amounted to being interrupted mid-thought in everything I tried to get done. I got phone calls from every marketing firm in the universe, a couple from people who still won't believe I'm not named Steve, and the usually assortment of lost pets and animal care concerns. After trying 5 times to fill out the grant paperwork for a proposal and still not getting past the first paragraph, I decided to go with the flow and just shut the brain down for the day. How do you handle those kind of days?

So today my brain has been rebooted and the cogito interruptus has been at a minimum. Maybe I'll even get some real work done and not do battle with non-existent green pants. A guy can hope, can't he?

Maybe tomorrow will be even better as I turn yet another year older and closer to death (with due apologies to Pink Floyd for mashing their timeless lyrics). (Yup, that's right. I have a {*gasp*} birthday tomorrow.)

Growing Exponentially

2011-02-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

And no, the question is not "What is my waistline doing?" {*grin*}

Along with all the publicity about running out of IPv4 addresses, how many of you caught on to the near exponential growth of the beast called the internet over the last 30 years? Given that I was assigned my first domain name in the eighties when there were only a few of machines connected, I have seen it happen and lived to tell the tale. Sometimes it has amazed me and other times it has seemed like the most obvious of things.

What do I mean? Consider the following data points:

Year	Number of Internet Connected Devices
1984	1000
1992	1 million
2008	1 billion
2010	5 billion
2020	50 billion (est.)

Who would have thought that an academic/DARPA experiment to go beyond dial-up store and forward systems would grown into such a monster. 1985 was the year the very first .com domains were issued (symbolics.com was the very first in 1985). Most companies saw no purpose to registering a domain name back in the good old days. All the hoopla would come later.

So my question for you is how many devices in your home and on your person are connected to the internet right now? I come up with between 10 and 20 for me, depending on how you define device. (And no, my toaster is currently not connected to the internet!)

Happy ...

2011-02-14T05:24:00.000-07:00

... whatever day. It was originally supposed to be Happy Valentine's Day, but then I was awoken at 3:30 this morning to inglorious sound of Molly the wonder dog retching by my ear. One of the joys of pet ownership is the occasional gift of upchuck, be the pet a dog or cat. I just wish it didn't happen while I was sound asleep. By the time it was all cleaned up and the carpet cleaned, I was wide awake. At least it wasn't hidden like kitty cats tend to do. {*grin*} For some reason, cleaning up after the dog brought to mind the days of the Son's infancy from long ago when we would undergo poop containment system failure. You know, when the onsie has both legs full and the only sane method of recovery is the emergency shower as you peel the onsie off. Odd how the mind will connect unrelated scenarios like that.

Getting back to Valentine's Day, L and I have been together and celebrating the day in our own low key way for 39 years now. We met the first day of sophomore year of high school in 1969 and didn't start dating until the fall of 1971 - not due to a lack of effort on my part. The first time I asked her out, she said she couldn't because her grandparents were in town and then showed up at the event I asked her to sans grandparents. Needless to say, it was a couple of years later that we actually went on a date. The rest is history - much to the concern of her parents at the time. I think they got really tired of flicking the porch light off and on when I'd bring L home from a date and we'd sit in the car talking for hours in front of their house.

This Valentine is for you, L. I miss the days when we could spend hours cuddling and talking about anything and nothing without life getting in the way. May we return to those days in the future.

Nothing like a little scientific humor to go with the sentiment of the day. (You do recognize Charles Darwin, don't you?) (You can find this and other scientist Valentines over at Ironic Sans.)

Deindividuation

2011-02-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

Do you know what it means? I think it is one of the more informative terms ever to come from sociology and psychology. It explains so much of the atrocious behavior we see every day in real life and on the news from our fellow human beings.

So what is it? One definition is "doing together what you would not do alone." Wikipedia says

Deindividuation, as described by Leon Festinger and colleagues in 1952, is the situation where anti-normative behavior is released in groups in which individuals are not seen or paid attention to as individuals. Simply put, deindividuation is immersion in a group to the point at which the individual ceases to be seen as such.

One of the clearer explanations of the experimental results underlying the phenomena and the societal appearance was given yesterday in the wonderful "You Are Not So Smart" blog. I encourage you to click on over and be amused and amazed and edified.

Deindividuation explains phenomena as diverse as crowd riots, flash crowds chanting "jump" to potential suicides, much teenage behavior, and facebook and blog attacks. It makes clear much of the ugly behavior that happens on line. But the most interesting part to me is how easily the problem can be controlled simply by requiring people to identify themselves as individuals. Any one who has run a public forum that allows anonymous comments versus one that requires a validated ID knows just how powerful it is for commenters to be seen as individuals rather than as part of the faceless horde.

The really sad part is that it is an unconscious feature of all of us. Anyone can undergo deindividuation with only a small nudge in the right circumstances. So what do you think? And which of these two pictured individuals is more likely to suffer deindividuation?

(picture credit unknown)

Does it change if they have on hoods?

Cold Doggy

2011-02-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

Remember how I remarked on Molly and her cold loving habits yesterday? Well here she is at about 9 this morning as the temperature hit 2 degrees.

This is after an hour of me repeatedly calling her and asking if she wants to come in and getting the "Who me?" look in response.

My real question is what does she hope to spot as she scans the snow. The squirrels don't come down to the ground when it is this cold, so it can't be a squirrel. Likewise the birds aren't flitting about much right now. (Although I did see a flight of at least a 100 geese circling and honking this morning as I shoveled the walk!) So what is it that is so interesting?

I have my own theory. This is when Molly thinks her deep thoughts. You know, the thoughts that she tries to express when she sits with her head in my lap and makes googly eyes at me. Rather than dumb affection, I always wonder if it might not be more along the lines of her trying to mentally convey that she has solved all the problems of the universe and why haven't I caught up to her. What do you think?

The Day That Was

2011-02-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of meetings and odd phone calls. In between trying to keep the sifting powder snow off the walk so people could make it in to the meeting and having it continue to sift back in and getting a whole spate of wrong number calls that wouldn't believe that I was not named Steve, it was an interesting day. I'm considering offering snow gliders at the curb and changing my name to Steve. What do you think?

On top of that, it is currently about 1 degree with a slight breeze outside. Just cool enough that Molly the wonder dog is only laying on her back in the snow with her legs akimbo for 15 minutes at a time rather than hours. It always amazes me that she will lay there in the cold with her fur flying in the wind and give me this look that says "What? Me come in? No way." Sort of like the way she likes to use her nose to make big snow mounds so that she can lay on them and survey the snow for signs of action. I suspect some of that is from the Husky that is mixed in with her Border Collie.

Now that Molly has deigned to come in, she is laying at my feet and snoring as I write. I envy my dog's life at times. Getting fed, drinks on demand, a doorman to let her in and out, and the ability to drop off to sleep at any time. When does my life get that good? Maybe when I look this good?

Here We Go Again

2011-02-07T23:48:00.000-07:00

After being tolerable for a few days, the cold is returning with a vengeance. The temperature has been dropping at more than 10 degrees an hour, the wind whipping at 25 mph, and snow trying to come down rather than blow around. It was in the 40s today, but it is now below 10heading for subzero. Let's hear it for the return of the cold! Tomorrow is scheduled for highs in the 5-10 degree range with winds to 40 mph. Late winter on the high plains. Nothing like it for variability.

In other news, another Super Bowl has come and gone. I can remember the original game - it was viewed by many of us as a self promo akin to the Billy Jean King/ Bobby Riggs tennis matches that would come later. Now it has grown into a behemoth that takes over the land of TV and sports for a day. Who'd a thunk it?

Somehow I find the Super Bowl a bit anticlimactic unless one of my favorite teams is in it. Needless to say, neither Pittsburgh or Green Bay fall into that category. But I did like the way Green Bay played and was a bit surprised at the apparent nerves shown by Pittsburgh. We had the MIL over and ate burgers and chips and commented on the ads - which in my opinion were not as creative this year. Oh well. Time to go into full football withdrawal. What will I watch with no more football on?

I Couldn't Resist

2011-02-03T12:06:00.000-07:00

Jay over at Bailey's Buddy had this absolutely hilarious picture on his blog today with the caption "They want in!". Sort of sums up the current state of the universe, doesn't it.

Thanks Jay. It made me laugh out loud.

By The Way

2011-02-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

Did you remember that yesterday was "Work Naked" day. Did you celebrate at your place of work? Inquiring minds want to know.

It was a bit too cool to contemplate here with the sub-zero highs. But clear this gentleman was in the swing of things.

Everything Goes Better on Work Naked Day

A Potpourri of Posting Wonder

2011-02-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

You've probably noticed how unreliable my posting habits have become. Or maybe not? No excuses, just too many other things on my plate at the moment.

I had a meeting last Friday in Greeley which is about 100 miles to the west of here. Getting there for the 8am start time entailed being on the road before the sun had risen. Between here and Greeley, there is about 60 miles of the Pawnee National Grassland - prairie grassland and sage brush preserved in it's original form. Of course that also means that there is close to an 80 mile stretch where there are no services as well. None of that probably enthuses you, but as a prairie native it does me. It has been a while since I was driving westward as the sun rose behind me amidst the thousands of acres of prairie. It is so flat around here that you can see for 20 miles in all directions (which always made me wonder how western writers could talk of indians sneaking up on people out here).

(The view in spring. Picture from coloradorvcampgrounds.net)

As the sun rose, the landscape went from black to shades of gray and then to patches of glorious molten red. The sage brush and the antelope herds suddenly became clear and then the light increased to the point where color appeared. And in my mind was the thought that this is the way man was meant to live. (If you can't tell by now, I am a born and bred flat-land prairie lover.)

The other thing that was spectacular about the day was that it was in the 60s by noon with only a light 15 mph breeze. Basically it was as if spring had arrived early. It was close to 70 at 5 pm. Fast forward 72 hours and it was about 6 degrees at the same time of day. Monday night it got down to 23 below zero and at 10am Tuesday as I headed off to a meeting, it was still 14 below with wind chills in the -35 range. Made the 50 yards from my truck to the door of the meeting place an interesting journey (The nose piece on my glasses froze to my nose in that short span. Of course the first thing you do when you walk inside and your glasses steam over is reach up and remove ... Ouch.). The temperature eventually got close to -1 for a high, but the wind chill never did get above -20. So last night the temps were in the -17 to -19 range and the wind chills were in the -30 to -40 range. Pretty typical late January weather here. (It could be worse. L called last night and by 8:30pm it was already -22 in the mountains with wind chills lower than -44. She said it made the walk from the garage to the door somewhat painful to exposed skin.)

Here's hoping the weather people have it right and tomorrow makes it above 20 degrees. We could use some warmth and the people (Hi Mom) with frozen pipes would like it to not blow so much. (Mom's pipes have thawed since we have gotten up to 10 degrees today and the wind shifted direction.)

P.S. I think we are becoming less and less like our pioneer blood lines. Maybe we are becoming a nation of wusses. I cannot remember ever having school cancelled because of the cold as a kid. Now they cancel for temps in the -20 range? I suspect that some ancestors are rolling over in their graves. (My great grandparents homesteaded out here, ...) Heck, I can remember being sent outdoors at recess to play in weather that was -20 or worse. It was standard that all girls kept extra pants and tights at school to put on under their dresses. Now I seldom see that kind of weather preparedness. Like I said - we are wussing out. What do you think?

Perfection or Not

2011-01-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

I often find myself walking in the park and listening to music on my phone (one of the joys of a smart phone is that it doubles as a music machine and computer and ...). Sometimes the mood of the day and the endorphin high of the walk and the sound of the music meshes perfectly. It is on those days that I have a hard time resisting the temptation to dragoon each and every person that I encounter and insisting that they grab an earphone and share the perfection of the experience.

Other times I am mired in the day and cannot find music that matches the weather and the walk. It is the type of day feels like a slog. On those days I pass people who look like they are clearly having a day where everything is perfect. On those days I am sorely tempted to stop them and ask what they are listening to so that I can gain that nirvana too.

So my questions for you are:

Do you ever feel that urge to share the perfection of the soundtrack of your life?
Do you ever want to ask someone else what soundtrack is making their day so much better than yours?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Bureau of Odd Facts

2011-01-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

No, not a barrel of old farts, but time once more for a journey through the odd facts that strike me over the head and leave me going huh?

First up is the factoid that the suicide rate in the United States rises ~17% for every 500 meters above sea level. So those of us who live close to a mile above sea level have a suicide rate 55% higher than those living at sea level. Having lived at both altitudes, I have no clue as to why there is such a difference. Really piques my curiosity. Anyone have any idea why? Gives a whole new meaning to hang'em high.

Next up is the odd conjunction of two factoids to make one oddity.

Factoid 1 - 10% of all convicted murderers in the United States are women.
Factoid 2 - 1% of all executions for murder in the United States since 1977 have been women.

Leading to the oddity that women murderers are disproportionately less likely to be executed. Why? Inquiring minds want to know. Is it a sympathy or sex thing?

What lesson are we to learn from these facts? The only morals I can come up with are 1) live near sea level and 2) make sure your sex change operation is complete if you are of the male persuasion and are contemplating murder.

What odd facts have made you go ?huh? of recent times?

When Last We ...

2011-01-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

When last we spoke, I was preparing to be a pallbearer in the cold. It was indeed cold and the wind was whistling. You could tell the foreigners because they tried withstanding the grave side service in nothing heavier than a suit coat. They were shaking pretty hard by the end since the wind chill was -25 degrees or lower.

Of course then started a warming trend that saw temperatures reaching the upper 50s Sunday and Monday. A lot of the snow melted and the ice could be chipped off. Today started nice but then the temperature dropped 30 degrees and it started snowing. So it is once more snow covered and the temperatures are headed into single digits again. Nothing like the variability of the weather out here on the high plains of Colorado.

Leaving the weather aside, I have been enjoying the outdoors while the weather was nice rather than writing here. (Sounds like a good excuse doesn't it?)

The other day I was reflecting on how varied my musical tastes are. Everything from Katy Perry to Iron Butterfly to... In fact the only music I really can't stand is some Rap music and a lot of the old cater-wauling country and western. So what forms of music can you not tolerate?

Random Thoughts

2011-01-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

It's 3pm and the thermometer has finally hit a blazing 10 degrees, but the wind chill has never gotten above -5. This morning at 9am it was still -10 degrees with a wind chill around -25. What you might call a slight cold spell typical of January. Looks a bit like this:

The bad part about the cold is the timing. I am a pallbearer at a funeral tomorrow and the indoor part of the service will be no problem, but the cemetery is out on the plains with no shelter from the wind and the cold. He was a military veteran, so the graveside part of the service may run on for a bit by the time the secular and military services conclude. I'm just hoping it is above 5 degrees by that time and that the services proceed apace.

On a completely unrelated note, there are bald eagles gathering in the area for the winter this year. A rarity somewhat symptomatic of climate change and of improved fishing at the reservoir.. They are out by the reservoir as is their wont, munching fish, sitting in cottonwood trees, etc. At least 20 adult and younger eagles are hanging about. Earlier (before the snow and cold) they looked like this:

(Photo by Jessica Elbert and TheDenverChannel.com)

Now it is a bit colder and snowier and they look a bit cooler:

A sight I never thought I'd see in this area. It's good that the eagles are recovering.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's ...

2011-01-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to shovel snow we go. It snowed again yesterday and so this morning it is time to clear it off before getting down to real work.

(Courtesy of VSTA Newsletter)

Makes me a bit jealous of L. She headed down to Arizona yesterday for some corporate training this week. Her biggest concern was how not to carry her heavy coat with her on the plane. After all it is a toasty 3 degrees out right now with corresponding highs for the day compared to the balmy weather in Arizona (in a city where the BCS National Championship game is being played tonight.)

Odd question of the day: Do you have certain actors/actresses you like to watch and yet you cannot put your finger on why you like to watch their work? I do and it often bothers me as to why I like to watch their work.

In one example that springs to mind, the actress in question is not exceptionally good looking, sexy, or even capable. Her acting seems monolithic and wooden when I reflect upon the performance in retrospect. And yet I will scour NetFlix to find shows and movies she is in just to watch. Why? Who knows?

So do you have similar inexplicable quirks in your viewing preferences?

The Week From Hell

2011-01-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

Last week was one of those weeks I'm really happy only rarely occur. A week ago Thursday we got our first real snow of the season - with blizzard and white out conditions. Of course, that also happened to be the day I started to come down with the creeping crud that is circulating here abouts. It turned out to be a dud of a blizzard, mainly wind and cold with only a half foot of snow.

Friday more than made up for the dud blizzard of Thursday with more snow and wind and real blizzard conditions. The temperature stayed in the single digits, the wind blew at 35 mph with gusts to 50 mph and the snow dropped out of the sky with a vengeance. When it finally stopped snowing around 3pm on New Years Eve, the wind continued to howl at 40 mph and wind chills were in the -25 to -35 range. The snow was drifting into drifts as deep as 7 feet in places.

(Photo swiped from Google - not one of mine.)

Remember that crud I mentioned? It came on strong and my nose would not quit running. I was supposed to go to a New Years Eve dinner, but I had to call and beg off. I was in bed and trying to sleep by 6pm that night. New Years day I got my snow shoveled and the MIL's snow shoveled (it was challenging to travel the 5 blocks or so to her house just to shovel) and then crawled back into bed. By now my throat was raw and I was hacking along my merry way.

On Sunday, my throat was so raw I couldn't swallow, my ears ached, my nose and lips were cracked and bleeding - I felt and looked just wonderful. Couple that with the fact that the infection was throwing my diabetes control off and causing my blood sugar to spike and drop in spite of the insulin, etc. and it was beginning to look like it might be time to visit the emergency room. Fortunately, I finally started to stabilize by evening.

On Monday I still felt like crap, but no worse. Of course it was then that my voice completely disappeared. I slowly got better over then next few days and actually began to feel human by Thursday - just couldn't talk and had no energy. Today I am pretty close to recovered modulo tiredness and an episodic hacking cough. I could do without another week like the last one. Ever!

Here's hoping your week was much better.

Tis the Season

2010-12-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

'tis the season for really bad jokes at the expense of rival sports teams. Since I live in the area of the country colloquially referred to as the "armpit of Nebraska", the Nebraska CornHusker teams are an obvious target of coffee shop innuendo and jokes. With that in mind, here is one of the better ones floating around right now:

A: "Have you heard about the two Nebraska players declared ineligible for the bowl game?"

B: "No - What happened?"

A: "Seems they both were failing the same class. The coach talked to the professor and got him to agree to give them a retest yesterday. If they passed the test, they could play in the bowl game, otherwise ..."

B: "How did the re-test go?"

A: "I heard it went like this:"

The players walk into the room and are handed exams. They have one hour to finish. They get settled in and start riffling through the test, occasionally writing and erasing furiously.

Player #1: Psst! Hey Psst!
Player #2: What do you want? You know we aren't supposed to be talking here.
Player #1: But I'm really stuck on question #3. Can't you give me a hand?
Player #2: Let me see. (Flips pages to question 3 which reads "Old MacDonald had a _____") That's obvious - the answer is farm!
Player #1: Thanks.

Player #1: Psst! Hey Psst! Psst!
Player #2: Now what?
Player #1: I'm really stumped here. How do you spell farm?
Player #2: Come on man, you know that! e-i-e-i-o.

Now you know why the Nebraska players remained ineligible.

The Joy of Youth

2010-12-14T18:49:00.002-07:00

The other day while walking in the park, Molly and I were passed by a young lady all of two or three years old. She was being chased by her somewhat older sister in the unseasonable warmth of the day. Her sister would catch up to her and she would stop. Then she would give the most mischievous grin to all around, look at her sister and grin even harder, then take off toddling at break neck speed once more, looking back over her shoulder with a look of pure joy.

This tableau continued for the next 20 minutes or more. Each time Molly and I came to that end of the park, the two girls were playing tag while their parents sat at a picnic table.

Seeing that motion induced look of radiant joy on the little girls face actually made me a bit jealous. It was clear the whole process of motion and the freedom it brings was new and brought nothing but pleasure to her. So why did I feel the twinge of the green eyed monster? Because she was still young and inexperienced enough not to have concerns about falling and running into things? Because she hadn't experienced the aches and pains of life? Because she didn't hurt too much to enjoy running and twirling? Because the simple pleasure of running and twirling and playing with her sister filled her entire being with joy, unfettered by fear or thought or experience? Maybe it was all of the above as I remembered those feelings with envy.

In the end I left the park smiling. The little girl and her reminder to me of the joy engendered by simple things left me smiling, just because it is impossible not to be infected by the unfettered joy of youth. May you find your joy and smile too.

(Pictures courtesy of the University of New Hampshire archive.)

Now I Know

2010-12-13T00:58:00.000-07:00

One of the great secrets of the universe has eluded me for years. I have never figured out how to lose and keep weight off with ease. Losing weight can be easy, but if I don't practice ceaseless vigilance it comes right back. I can picture myself turning onto a 400 lb. gorilla, stealing all the bananas in the zoo.

Food seems to jump onto plates in front of me and thence into my mouth with no conscious effort at all. And then the other day whilst reading my daily dosage of bloggery, the answer came to me. The problem is that I have metal fillings in some of my teeth.

Sounds like a good explanation to me.

I'm Back ...

2010-12-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

... after spending a few days running around like a headless chicken trying to catch up. At one point I was harried enough to have my polo shirt on wrong side out for hours, only noticing that something was amiss when I kept trying to put my pen into the pocket that was on the inside and inaccessible.

Part of the reason for running around like mad was that I was indeed selected for the jury and so needed to make up some time. However my record remains perfect - I have never entered jury deliberations. Every time I have been seated on a jury, the defendant has decided to plead guilty. In close to 40 years of jury eligibility, I have been called for jury duty somewhere on the order of 25 times and have actually been empaneled on the jury 3 times now. In all three of those cases, the defendant has decided to plead guilty before the end of the trial. In two of the cases, it was within minutes of the the start of the trial.

This time the plea came in the second day of testimony when the defendant suddenly took a plea bargain. I understood why he did so. He was up for three counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon and had prior felonies - thus he faced the possibility of 63 years with no possibility of parole if convicted. But the DA had no choice but to offer a misdemeanor assault plea and a year of jail after the star witness suddenly lost his mind and memory on the stand. It wasn't overly surprising that he did so since he was the victim of the assault and also the brother of the defendant. I think that he had second thoughts about being the one to send his brother away for that long. So after a day of gory medical testimony featuring the bashed in skull and broken jaw and teeth of the victim and then another half day of the disaster that was testimony for the prosecution (3 of 29 scheduled witnesses), the DA and the defense came to the plea agreement and we were excused.

I'll leave you with the following question: what are the holidays like in a family where the brothers practice deadly assault on one another with a rock, avoiding murder by about a sixteenth of an inch according to the medical testimony? Would they trust each other enough to let the other carve the turkey?

On a completely non-factual basis, I think the whole thing was triggered by a monetary tiff over the proceeds of a drug deal gone wrong. Absolutely no evidence presented to support that thought, but it sure seemed that that was what was going on.

Sometime before I die, I hope to finally reach the deliberation stage of a trial. After all, I figure that I must look really mean to induce all those people to plead guilty. {*grin*}

Huff and Puff and ....

2010-11-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

The wind howled today, at times hitting 50+ mph and the temperature never got above freezing. Right now the mercury is dropping and the wind chill is in the 9 below zero range. I think it is safe to say that fall is officially here.

In contrast to the cold and wind outside, I spent all day in an overheated courtroom.

All day from 8:30am to 5:30pm and there is still no jury empaneled. I hope to find out tomorrow if I am on the jury or not. There is nothing like the maneuvering of attorneys in a multiple felony case to bring out the worst of the jury selection process. Thus my new theme song:

Hi ho, hi ho

It's off to court I go

Defense to the right of me

Prosecution to the left of me

And the judge in the front of me

How low can we go

So off to court I venture in the morning.

Today I Rant For Tomorrow I ...

2010-11-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

Today I wasted yet another two hours of my life sitting through a meeting of a committee I got volunteered to serve on. It seems that in spite of having a paid facilitator, we run in circles week after week. Mostly because there are too many players with personal skin in the game, all trying to act like they don't. I just wish that we could somehow force everyone to stand up and declare their real interests so we could move on to solving the problem at hand without all the posturing and protectionism and hidden pushing and shoving. Oh well, probably much too sane and logical to have happen in a room full of pols and ~~idiots~~ ...

Then to make matters worse, the weekly meetings have been moved to a room in a historically restored court house.

The meeting room has 18 foot high tin plate ceilings,

hardwood floors,

and absolutely no sound absorption. So the meeting is like sitting in a echo chamber with a jet revving for take off at one end. No one can hear anyone else and that includes the recording system for making the official notes. And so it goes ...

At least there was a football game on the TV when I finally got home.

Odd Thoughts

2010-11-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I caught a bit of dialog in a teaser for a TV show that made my day.

"You're building a time machine. Right? So what's the rush?"

Talk about an amusingly deep thought! If you ever succeed in building a time machine, you can always go back to any earlier time with it so that if you have ever built it you already have it now. If you don't succeed, it will make no difference and you will have no machine ever. I always dreamt of having one of these

ever since I read H. G. Well's novella "The Time Machine" in my childhood. I still wouldn't mind having one, but by the above logic I don't have a snowball's chance in ....

In other completely useless information, it is forecast to get up to 60 degrees today and have highs in the 50s until ... wait for it ... next week around Thanksgiving when the highs will be around freezing. Sort of figures. Wait until the time when everyone has time to wonder about outdoors and then make it turn cool. Oh well.

Time to get on with it. Don't do anything I wouldn't.

Do You ...

2010-11-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have a particular taste in mind when you decide to fix or order a dish only to have the actual dish not live up (or down) to your imagination? I do.

Sometimes I come across a recipe and think "Boy, that sure sounds good." But many times the actual taste bears little resemblance to my mental picture of how it should/would taste. The same thing happens from time to time with old favorites. Then I always wonder if I have made the dish wrong. After all, I seldom follow a recipe to the letter. I am more a bit of this and a dash of that type of cook.

The other day the topic came up in a discussion with mom, since it happens to her as well. Her thought was that it might be related to aging and the associated changes in taste abilities and preferences. My thought was that it might be reflective of the different nutritional needs at the time. After all, when I was a teenage football player, every bit of food in the universe in any combination looked good and tasted good. Now? Not so much. We left the topic hanging that so we could go eat. {*grin*}

I was also reminded of how taste and cravings for certain foods can change due to other environmental factors. For example, one of the drugs I took or a couple of years to treat a chronic condition left me with an insane desire for grapefruit. Not citrus fruit, but grapefruit specifically.

I'd peel and eat a couple of grapefruit a day and they tasted absolutely sublime. Then I changed to a different drug regimen and the desire for grapefruit faded. (Not to mention that they taste no where near as good as I remember them from the drug period.)

Now I am left to wonder if my current fascination with scrambled eggs

drizzled with Tabasco Chipotle Sauce

is an artifact of my current drug regimen, a development of aging taste buds, or is just a passing fad for my taste buds. After all, I used to not care for scrambled eggs in any form what-so-ever. That is certainly not the case now.

So what foods do you find you crave? And which ones no longer live up to the taste in your imagination?

The Drear and the Darkness

2010-11-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have been dull and dreary with clouds and occasional skiffs of snow, highs in the low 40s and lows in the teens. Typical fall weather for around here. Because it has been staying above freezing for the daylight hours, the snow is now mostly gone and we are back to the dull drear of fall in the period once the leaves have fallen. There is still a hint of green in the grass and the sagebrush is turning brown, but that too will soon fade. Somewhat like this:

(Picture from UC Collection)

L went skiing for her inaugural run of the year yesterday. That means she was both happy and stiff and sore last night when I talked to her. (Ibuprofen was invented for aging baby boomers. {*grin*}) The interesting point was that it was blowing and snowing up there - pretty much the standard weather in the mountains from now until spring. Right now, it is both colder and snowier in the mountains than out here on the plains. L proclaims that it is now winter in the mountains in spite of what the calendar says. At least it can look pretty:

(The glow of Breckenridge in winter.)

Which brings me to one of the things I dislike about this season - the decreasing amount of daylight and advancing time of darkness as we approach the winter solstice on December 21. Sunset is already at 4:35pm and will get progressively earlier as time rolls on. I really dislike the coming weeks when it is dark by 3:30 - it is depressing. It is even worse in the mountains where the valley walls cut the sunlight off even earlier. I often wonder how people who live at far northern (or southern for that matter) latitudes handle it. Days with no hours of sunlight seem like they would be really hard to endure. On the other hand, the shortening days seem to be ideal weather for soup. {*grin*}

Time to get on with real work.

Hip Hip Hooray for Fall

2010-11-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

It was close to 80 degrees this weekend. Truly unseasonable weather for this region. L loved it since the ski areas in her neck of the woods are already open or will open this week. Coming home to nice warm temps in the upper 70's is a bit like taking a tropical island trip in the deepest darkest days of winter - something to be enjoyed and treasured.

With the oddity of our balmy October and November, a major topic of discussion has been "when will fall really arrive?" Last year we had several snow falls in October and a full on blizzard in late October. This year? Not! No snow and no temperatures conducive to snow. Even some debate with myself as to whether I was wise to have shut off the water to the sprinkler system a few weeks ago to avoid freezing pipes.

But this morning! Ah this morning. What did I find when I let Molly out for her morning frolic? This:

Fall has well and truly arrived at long last. Nothing whispers fall better than a soggy, just below freezing, huge flake, dump of wet and wild snow. I love this kind of weather!

The sky is grey and filled with white flakes, the trees and wires are coated in a rime of lovely white, but it is still warm enough that the streets and sidewalks are mostly clear. In fact, I took these pictures moseying around outside in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

Hip Hip Hooray for Fall!

I Miss Feynman's Wit

2010-11-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

I was reminded yesterday of one of my favorite quotes from Richard P. Feynman, the late Nobel prize winning physicist,bongo drum player, artist, and personal idol. It exposes the deep inner feeling of most physicists in a way that anyone can understand. Without further ado:

Physics is to mathematics what sex is to masturbation.

-- Richard P. Feynman

Any dyed in the wool physicist will not only agree but cheer wildly for the aptness of the quote.

I was reminded of the quote because of an afterward on an Abstruse Goose cartoon that presented the quote and then supplied the rather tongue in cheek mathematicians answer - "And your point is ..?" Now anyone who has spent much time with me knows that two phrases that I use often are "Are you done blithering yet?" and "And your point is?" The cartoon struck me as great because it used a favorite quote from one of my heroes and poked at my own foibles. What more could one ask for from an afterward to a good cartoon?

I will leave you with a few other Feynman quotes that only get better with time:

Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

Richard P. Feynman

The Halloween That Was

2010-11-02T11:07:00.000-06:00

Like most things in my life for the past few weeks, this post is a bit late. It should have been posted on All Hallows Eve, but instead you get to enjoy it now. At least Pink Floyd's Time is playing in the background to make sense of the utter disregard for chronology this blog shows. So play this as you read. {*grin*}

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but Halloween here was a bit lower key than normal just because of the day. Since the merchants and the city and the nursing homes all ran their celebrations on Friday, there seems to have been less incentive for the little tricksters to be out and about on Sunday for the official event. Normally we see between 40-70 trick or treaters at the front door before we shut the lights off at ~8pm. This year we only had 31, somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the normal total.

There was also a discernible difference in the composition of the visitors. Most years we see a fair number of teens and tweens in groups of 4 or more interspersed with a lot of sibling groups of 1 or 2 under the age of 10. This year, it was almost all youngsters in various sized groups with the parents standing out at the street watching. When Molly the wonder dog and I would answer the door, it left a lot of them in shock. It took them a few moments to remember that they were supposed to say trick or treat. Some just wanted to pet the doggy, some just wanted to hide from the doggy, and some were heard to say "dad, he gave us snickers!" as they departed for the next house. At least I didn't have to put this sign up to excuse Molly's behavior this year:

The smaller crowd also means that I have several bags of candy left over. It should make L happy when she journeys home this weekend. I'm just happy that it is all in un-opened bags so that it doesn't tempt me!

Time to go vote. Make sure you do too. Vote that is, not go.

The Wind ...

2010-10-26T15:17:00.000-06:00

True fall has finally blown in. Yesterday, as L left for the mountains, it was turning cool and windy. In the mountains, it was snowing and blowing, which made the ski areas happy, but which didn't overjoy L. {*grin*} Reports are that it continued snowing this morning in the mountains.

In any case, it finally (barely) frosted here last night. I see some blackened leaves on the lilac bush which is a pretty good indicator that it dropped below 32. I haven't gotten over to the garden to see if the few remaining zucchini plants have turned black or not. (Zucchini are very sensitive to freezing. About the only thing known to man that stops a zucchini in its tracks.) Ye olde lilac as a two toned shivering bush:

Today the wind is howling outside like a banshee and the temperature is not going to reach much above 50. The wind is running a steady 25-35 mph with gusts above 50 mph. What more could one ask for to herald the arrival of true fall weather? After all, nothing says fall like cold and bluster. The forecast is for a hard freeze tonight, dropping into the 20s. Of course, in the tradition of this oddly long mild year, the temperatures are headed for the 70s later in the week.

Tonight I need to attend the city council meeting since the second reading and public hearing on the master contract to build the new humane society facility is on the docket. At long last, after more than 6 months of delay, we may finally be on the way to getting the building started. So I'd better get back to work.

Weather?

2010-10-19T18:55:00.000-06:00

The weather here has certainly been odd this fall. We have yet to have a hard freeze. Most of the corn is already in the cribs and silos and it has yet to freeze. Many years the question is when the snows will come, but this year it is when will the freeze arrive.

The average date of first frost here abouts is Oct. 10. So far it looks like we may even make it into November before it freezes here. Odd.

I can still tell that it is fall in spite of the late season warmth. The angle of the sun has increased to the extend that what I call the "reflective" season is upon us. Everything in the midday sun has a white-ish sheen that makes some things darn near impossible. Finding errant golf balls for instance - not that I would ever know about that. {*grin*}

Another hint of fall is how fast it is getting dark. I dread the beginning of daylight savings time as it exacerbates the effect. It is already getting dark around 5pm, a world of difference from the 9pm or later in the heady days of summer. I hate the days of December when it is dark by 3:30pm. (Assisted a bit by the infamous "fall back" time change.)

Well, I should get prepared. I am serving as the moderator of a panel/discussion/forum tomorrow from 10am to 4pm. The Northeast Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition is hosting to let people get answers to their disability questions. That's what I get for being a staunch supporter when I was mayor. {*grin*}

Lest I forget, mom's birthday is tomorrow. Since I know she reads here (and thinks I forgot):

Happy Birthday Mom!

Poop Carrier

2010-10-18T23:50:00.000-06:00

Now that I have recovered somewhat from putting on the first annual Logan County Humane Society 5K Run and Pet Walk, maybe I'll be able to post in a more timely basis. No promises, just a fond hope. {*grin*}

Oh, are you wondering about the title? Well ... last Saturday when I got the 5K runners on their way and then the Pet Walk people off and going, who should decide to poop within steps of the start? Yep, Molly the wonder dog, as walked by the ever beautiful L. So as I was getting ready to head across the park for the finish line, I heard L yell for me to come and take this.

This was a bag of Molly poop. L didn't want to carry it for the next half mile to get rid of it, so I was pressed into duty as a poop carrier. You can now add poop carrier to my long list of titles. I think next year I am going to recruit some volunteers to line the course and be poop carriers. They'll have to be young or they will be too wise to accept. Either that or they will have to be spouses of the Pet Walk participants. It's amazing the things you will do when you are married!

Here are some pictures from the event. This is what the main site looked like early in the morning before we started setting up:

And here we are just about mid-way through decorating:

But now let's skip over to the start of the 5K. The undistinguished future poop carrier in the green shirt is me explaining the rules and getting ready to start the 5K runners.

They're off! The young man in black led the 5K from start to finish with a time of 19:40. Probably not surprising he is on the high school cross country team. {*grin*}

But in the meantime, notice Molly stopping to leave the gift of poop in the middle of the walkers?

Yes, that is Molly pooping on the right edge of the picture.

In any case, a good time was had by all the runners and walkers. Here is Molly, L, and friends as they near the finish line:

Then it was time for the silent auction and fashion show. Note how the decorating added class to the pavilion.

I'll close with a couple of pictures of the models strutting down the improvised runway.

Too Much Information

2010-10-07T12:06:00.000-06:00

Many years ago when I was a teenager ... Whoops, wrong kind of TMI.

I speak of the TMI from information overload foisted on the buyer by some online ordering systems. When you order online, most sites give you a tracking ID so that you can check the status of your order. Those tracking systems often include a lot of useless information that skirts around the one piece of information I want to know - when will the item(s) I ordered arrive in my hot hands?

For the most part I don't care what day your warehouse finally handed the item to the shipping company. I also do not care that it then languished in Bumf**k, Georgia for a day or more, for example. Nor do I truly want to know that your truck driver averaged less than 40 mph travelling cross country to a meaningless warehouse in the highlands of Colorado. And I really question the reason it took 36 hours to leave the rural warehouse to head out here to the plains.

What do I really want to know? Plain and simple, the only important fact is the day the item is going to arrive on my doorstep. It is not like my knowing all the other details will change that date. Nor will I feel empowered just because I know all those odd routing details.

I just want to know with certainty the day it will arrive, especially since you invariably ship it in the colorful display box advertising the contents

and then simply leave it on my front door step for all to see without even ringing the doorbell. This gentleman follows your truck around for a reason.

So how do you feel about shipping TMI?

(None of the images are mine, nor do they the local version of reality.)

It Must Be Fall ...

2010-10-05T14:34:00.000-06:00

... because my musical taste is migrating towards "fall" music.

I don't know about you, but I tend to undergo seasonal modification of my choice of listening music. Summer leads to a preference for springy and funky music, akin to this Mungo Jerry classic:

But in the fall and spring, my taste turns to heavier and more cathartic music like these Jefferson Starship classics:

and

Of course, come the hard days of winter, there is only one possible salvation: the full 17+ minute version of In A Gadda Da Vida by Iron Butterfly. (Unfortunately, the YouTube time/bandwidth constraints only allow mutilated short versions of this classic to be posted. Trust me, the full version is worth searching out and puts the poor pale mutants to shame.) Here is the full song split into two videos. If you want the full experience. put both together in a YouTube playlist and they will play as one full length song. (It helps to have dropped some serious hallucinogens before seeing the original video circa 1969 contained herein. {*grin*})

Anyone who can listen to the full song and not feel rejuvenated and renewed must have grown up in the wrong generation. Or maybe they were just not exposed to enough hallucinogens early in life. {*grin*}

So how does your taste in music gyrate with the seasons?

What's Your Tipping Point

2010-10-04T19:34:00.000-06:00

Over the last month I have been contemplating a purchase, one that is more $$$ than what I consider as trivial but less $$$ than what I consider a major purchase. So I researched and agonized and finally decided on the size and manufacturer I wanted. Then it was time to select a vendor, since it was an item not carried locally.

I narrowed it down to two vendors, one that I had used and liked before, W, and one that many people swore by and many swore at, Y. Y offered the object of my purchasing frenzy for about 6% less than W. But then I looked at the shipping and handling costs - W's was less that $1, Y's greater than $10. Even with the shipping and handling added in, Y was marginally cheaper than W.

I waffled back and for for a moment, teetering on the slippery slope of deciding on Y due to a less than 1% difference in total cost. I fairly quickly decided to go with W because of my past experiences with them.

In physics, a tipping point is the point at which an object is displaced from a state of stable equilibrium into a new, different state. Like adding another coin to this stack:

In those terms, the difference in price (including shipping) between W and Y was not enough to exceed my experience based tipping point. I really haven't been able to figure out what my tipping point is for this particular transaction, but I suspect that if Y were another 3% cheaper, I would have slid down the slippery slope and tried them.

So what is your tipping point. When does your loyalty due to past experience give way to financial differences? Inquiring minds want to know.

I Have Proof ...

2010-10-01T23:08:00.000-06:00

that having a kid causes gray hair.

Let me present my case, step by step.

Let us begin back in the days of yore circa 1988, before L and I had the Son. Here we are with my brother's two oldest kids:

Note the nice dark hair on my head and face. I was Josh's (the one in my arms) favorite uncle because I was one of the last adults able to lift him up (and because I am his only uncle, but ...).

Then a few years later the Son was born and not much had changed:

But note the lightening already starting. (The flowers in front were from one of my clients in celebration of the Son's birth.)

About a year later and look at how the gray side-burns were coming forth:

Add another year or so and look at the gray as we played on the floor at mom and dad's:

Add another bit and see how the hair on top is turning gray and starting to thin:

I think it was because of all the toys I got to fix. {*grin*}

From there on out it just seems to go faster and faster. Here we all are a few years later:

By the time 2000 rolled around, we were still up for a good dress up occasion, but the white was running rampant:

Of course, the teen age years were yet to come, and with them came still more white (and the Son got a lot taller!):

In the same time frame, here is a better view of the gray taking over. (And no, I don't know why the Son is pointing at the ceiling.)

I'll leave you with this shot of me in my office a few years ago. The thing I am holding is an original art creation sold to benefit the local historical society - I called it "Thing-a-ma-boob".

Notice how gray and sparse the hair on top is? I do from time to time. And it sure seems to correspond with having kids. {*grin*}

(I'm kidding of course - the Son had little to do with the changes in my hair.)

The Oddness of Current Living

2010-09-30T01:37:00.000-06:00

(Or how I learned to love the phone ... with apologies to Dr. Strangelove.)

I just got off the phone from a 90 minute call with a marketing madman in Russia. Let me put that a different way - I just had a Skype video call with a person about software development and marketing who happened to be located in Russia. Nothing odd about that except for handling the 10 hour time differential - the call started at 10pm my time, 8am the next day his time.

But, ... (You knew there had to be a but didn't you?)

My memorable telephone experiences began with a phone little different than this:

You turned the crank and asked the operator to connect you. Heaven forbid that you actually wanted to call outside of the local switchboard. Then the operator would have to arrange the circuit and call you back to connect the call.

But life went on and the dial phone arrived.

Do you know how much of my life that the idea of a 90 minute long distance call was petrifying for fear of the size of the bill? I remember when I was a kid and people didn't even talk on the phone much since there were *gasp* local message unit charges. By the time I was in high school, the local message unit charges were gone and most people had a private line rather than the party lines that preceded them.

Then came college and I was thousands of miles from home (and from the college L was attending). Calls on weekends and late nights were made for the incredible bargain rate of $1.25 for three minutes. I could sometimes afford to call once a week! People locked phones in the dorms by the simple expedient of a dial lock in the 1 hole. That prevented dialing any number or even O for Operator.

But some were clever enough to tap the pulse code the dial generated on the switch-hook, beginning the whole new enterprise of phone freaking.

After graduate school, calls were down to $0.30 a minute and the nascent idea of a cellular phone was hatching. Still, a 90 minute call would have been a true luxury. Not to mention a budget breaker. And the touch-tone phone started to become the norm and the surcharge for having a touch-tone phone on the line disappeared as well with time.

Then came the internet and cell phones and the break up of the AT&T monopoly.

Suddenly there was competition and phone costs began a long decline. Until today we think nothing of fixed price unlimited calling and free or nearly free calls. So my 90 minute video call? Cost me nothing per se.

We sometimes forget about the silent revolutions happening around us all the time. Having a video call with someone was the stuff of dreams and Bell Labs when I was young.

Now it is so common that my shock is not that I talked so someone half a world away on a video call, but the fact that it cost me nothing beyond my already existing internet connection.

Viva The Revolution!

Why Have I Been So Scarce Of Late?

2010-09-28T15:34:00.000-06:00

When even my MIL remarks that I don't seem to be blogging as much of late, it is pretty clear that the spottiness of posting has been noticeable. {*grin*}

One of the unfortunate facts about real life is that it can intrude on fun activities like blogging. The medical issues of adapting to insulin use, with its attendant occasional glucose drop outs, coupled with getting the inaugural version of a special event up and running, has left me a bit short on blogging time. Of course cantaloupes and melons have been in the way as well. {*grin*} I really and truly do hope to become a bit more diligent in the coming weeks. As part of that effort, I am posting in the middle of the day since the evening will be taken up with meetings.

So what inaugural event have I been getting ready to go? A hint may be gleaned from this little bit of original art work:

But an even better hint of what I'm blithering on about might be gleaned from the full schedule of events, etc. The full flyer/entry form for the even looks like this (click to get the full pdf):

This is what I have been getting set up.

Each part has its own story. The artwork was the winner of a contest at the prison outside of town (where I occasional am the graduation speaker) in the commercial art training program and the T-shirt mentioned has the original artwork printed on it. The fashion show is part of the effort by the local Maurices store for their corporate sponsored Rescues & Runways program. This is also their first such event, so we are all learning about delays and frustrations together. The group that cusses together stays together is what I say. {*grin*}

Time to return to real work. I have to attend the city council meeting tonight on some other matters for our new facility construction, so I need to get some stuff prepared.

The Shirt Returns

2010-09-27T22:18:00.000-06:00

(The picture in the previous post was taken at a pig roast and patio party at the no longer existent Sterling Country Club. It was a fun evening. You should have been there. I had to say that as a member of the board of directors at the time.)

Here is another appearance of that particular Hawaiian shirt - this time with the Son as we doffed our matching shirts for the Father-Son golf tourney. It's always important to establish a team identity, especially when neither of you is a particularly good golfer. {*grin*}

This picture is from 9 or 10 years ago. I miss being able to do fun things like this with the Son now that he is grown and on his own.

Speaking of golfing, I'll leave you with this picture of L and I golfing in the mountains from a few years ago.

Isn't the view spectacular?

A Simple Question

2010-09-21T00:44:00.000-06:00

Tonight I have but one simple question. Why am I dressed like this and where am I?

P.S. Remember that I warned you long ago of my propensity for loud Hawaiian shirts and farmer tans. So no complaints about the shirt!

P.P.S. The location is in Colorado.

Garden Weather

2010-09-20T00:37:00.000-06:00

The weather here abouts has started turning odd as fall gets ready to set in. Saturday it reached a high in the 50s and was down right chilly Saturday night. Then today it reached the mid-80s and tomorrow it is predicted to hit the upper 90s or lower 100s - depending on when the thunderstorms roll in. Pretty much typical weather for this time of year around here. The problem is that one day it will be nice and warm and then by that evening it will have fallen to the 20s and that will be it for growing things. Thats life.

Right now we still have some cantaloupe ripening in the garden and a whole lot of honey dew melons. It is becoming questionable if they will beat the reaper and ripen before the frost. The rest of the peppers and egg plants and tomatoes are just about done. The second planting of turnips and radishes are coming up - and since they like the cool ground they will probably be fine. The beans and cucumbers and zucchinis are all but finished. The last of the acorn squash are still on the vine and the hard shelled squash are mostly done. The onions have been pulled and cured and stored. In other words, the garden is starting to wind down. That means it is time to start thinking of next year. {*grin*}

Maybe I need to think about growing all the ingredients to one of these:

What do you think?

Revival

2010-09-16T22:26:00.000-06:00

Unable to cope with the loss of my precious Seiko, I decided that a post mortem examination was in order. Out came the magnifying glasses and miniature tools and micro soldering iron plus a few test instruments. I set to work without much hope, but my old friend deserved at least one last ditch effort on my part.

Sparing you all the gory details, I traced the leads from the quartz crystal and low and behold - a tiny crack in the wire whisker. Fortunately, I was able to do a quick solder job and Seiko sprang back to life with all the energy of a teenager. Once I got his guts put back in place and his case re-sealed, he merrily ticked along. Here's hoping for another 37 years (by which point I may not be around to care ... {*grin*}).

Go Seiko!

So Long Old Friend

2010-09-16T19:02:00.000-06:00

R.I.P.

Seiko Wrist Watch

Came to live with me - September 1973

Departed to the great hourglass in the sky - September 2010

I knew it would happen some day, but I hoped it would not be so soon. My faithful watch now stares at me with the vacant gaze of the dearly departed. I thought it was simply a dead battery at first, but changing the battery had no discernible effect. I am forced to face the dread alternative that it has gone to the great hour glass in the sky.

This watch was only the second "serious" watch of my life. It was a replacement for the first "serious" watch, the one that was broken in the fatal accident I wrote about here. My wonderful Seiko has served me well all these years with nary a bit of trouble. It was on my wrist when L and I got married. It suffered through my PhD. orals with me. It calmly kept track of the universe when the Son was born and my grandfather died. It witnessed the death of both my father and father-in-law. It saw me through three terms as Mayor and innumerable rounds of golf. It lived a long and useful life, long enough to warrant a page in the book of rare digital watches, a fitting accolade for a 37 year old digital watch. And now it is gone.

Farewell old friend. You served me well. I hope you enjoy your rest.

The Month So Far ...

2010-09-15T17:13:00.000-06:00

I seem to be unable to get my bloggy groove running smooth of recent days, so here are a couple of the high points from the last couple of weeks. Hopefully just writing it out will re-start the groove thing. {*grin*}

We held our annual garage sale over Labor Day weekend. L and I have decided that this is the last one for a while. As you might remember from last year (described here), we had a big one. Here's a picture of a small part of the sale from last year:

This year was a bit more restrained because we have finally gotten rid of a lot of the junk that accumulated over the last 20+ years of living here. Now that we are down to normal levels of trashy treasures, it is time to let the stuff breed and grow for a while. Then we can have another big one. At least the MIL was able to sell her freezer for more than she was asking for it.

This year also featured L and I's anniversary falling on Labor Day. So on the 6th, L and I spent time together around the house and then went to supper with our mothers. What might be called a very high key celebration of 35 years of wedded bliss. {*grin*} L and I have never been ones to treat the day as a cause for massive celebrations, but this was a very pleasant time because we got to spend it together with only a simple supper social obligation. For a number of years I played in a 3 day Labor Day golf tournament, so our anniversary almost always fell during the tourney. This year I did not and it made the day really laid back. A progression of L and I over the years:

Engagement

Marriage

20+ Years Married

Recent Times

Avatars

I am still amazed how lucky I am to have L in my life, even after all these years.

Well, that is all I have time for right now. Hopefully I will be back to more regular blogging now that the garden, melons, and lawn have slowed down and the temperatures are starting to feel fallish.

The Prodigal Returns

2010-08-23T23:35:00.000-06:00

and leaves you wondering what the heck he was thinking. {*grin*}

I finally got a chance to look at my Google Reader today - only 937 unread posts! For those whom I owe a comment or two, the reading and subsequent commenting is in progress. Be patient.

This is a busy season. The garden has been going wild with cantaloupe and muskmelon and Dews. So every few days I wade through the melon patch picking the ripe ones before they get too ripe and literally explode. But boy are they tasty!

I'll leave you with the mental image of me gobbling cantaloupe with every meal and this odd thought. The other night I was listening to a German radio station via the net and it brought forth the memory of constructing my first radio - a tube and transistor hybrid shortwave set from a kit. That let me listen to the world, intermittently and weather permitting. Now all I do is choose my station from amidst thousands to play with great fidelity via my computer. Yet I still miss the thrill of finally tuning in that elusive show after weeks of trying. The really odd thought is how much hidden technology has to function perfectly for me to listen to the station over the net. More and more what once was hard becomes easy - but it depends on a boatload of invisible technology to work. What is going to happen if the technology ever fails in a big way?

One Of Those Days

2010-08-16T17:15:00.000-06:00

Today has been one of those days.

L headed back to the mountains this morning, which is always a bit sad.

The person working on the entry form for the Humane Society 5K Run and Pet Walk is no longer working for the hosting company. Of course I find out by the receptionist telling me over the phone that he is no longer with the company. At least it makes some sense for why it was taking him so long to get the form ready. I just wish they had let me know before it became a critical item on the event timeline.

Severe thunderstorm warnings started coming in by 2pm. By 3pm it was pouring rain. By 4:30pm, the alert sirens were wailing away with flash flood warnings. And of course it was then that the lightning started hitting nearby. Some of the bolts hit only a few hundred feet away and made such a boom that I literally leaped from my chair. (And of course Molly hasn't gotten even an inch away since the thunder began.)

And now, even as I write, patrol cars with loud hailer at full volume are driving up and down the streets announcing "We are under a tornado warning. Seek shelter now."

I think I'll go hide under the bed and sleep until tomorrow. Sounds a lot more appealing than the day has been so far.

(And no, the picture is not mine - it is by Fred Smith and appeared in Meteorology News)

Odd Facts for the Paranoid

2010-08-13T00:49:00.000-06:00

Given that today is yet another occurrence of Friday the 13th, it seems like a good time to apply some mathematical legerdemain in support of the true specialness of Friday. Why do I say Friday (and Friday the 13th) is a special kind of day?

Consider these two little known facts:

Friday is the most likely day to be the 13th.
The first day of a new century can never be a Friday.

No other day can make such claims! How can such outrageous claims be true? Let us begin by considering how our calendar works.

Every fourth year is a leap year, so in 400 years there are about 300 years that have 365 days, and 100 years that have 366 days.

Except...

Every 100th year is not a leap year, so that makes 304 regular years and 96 leap years.

Except...

Every 400th year is a leap year (which is why 2000 was a leap year), so we have 303 regular years, and 97 leap years.

That's all the exceptions.

Thus the number of days in 400 years is given by

(303 x 365) + (97 x 366) = 146,097,

which is an exact multiple of 7, namely 7 x 20,871. That means the calendar repeats itself exactly, leap years and all, every 400 years.

Now all we have to consider is the 400 year cycle. In 400 years, there are 4,800 days (400 x 12) labeled with the date of the 13th. But, 4,800 is not evenly divisible by 7. Thus the frequency of the day of week of the days labeled the 13th cannot be uniform. This is one of those cases where actually enumerating the days and counting them up is the simplest way to get the number of Monday the 13th ... Friday the 13th ... Sunday the 13th's. For the moment, trust me that the answer for the 400 year cycle is[1]:

Day	Number of Occurrences in 400 years
Sat	684
Sun	687
Mon	685
Tue	685
Wed	687
Thu	684
Fri	688

So we see that Friday is indeed the day most likely to be the 13th, edging out Sunday and Wednesday by one occurrence per 400 years..

Working out that the first day of a new century is never a Friday (or Sunday for that matter) is much simpler.

There are 365 days in a common year. Dividing 7 into 365, we get 52 plus a remainder of 1. So a common year is exactly 52 weeks plus one day. Therefore, from a common year to the following year, New Year's Day advances by one day of the week (DOTW, since us scientists cannot live without acronyms.). So if New Year's Day of a common year falls on a Monday, the next year's will be a Tuesday.

For a 366-day leap year, the remainder is 2, which means that going from a leap year to the year following, New Year's Day advances by two DOTW – e.g., from a Monday to a Wednesday.

What happens to New Year's Day over a period of several centuries?

In a single century, New Year's Day advances by 100 DOTW (one per year) plus an extra day for each leap year. These come every four years, of course, except that a year evenly divisible by 100 isn't a leap year. Therefore in each century there are 24 extra leap days (100 divided by 4, minus 1), meaning that from one century to the next, New Year's advances by a gross total of 124 DOTW. But each complete week's worth of days doesn't do anything to advance New Year's – seven days of DOTW advancement just gets you back to the day you started on – so we divide 7 into 124 and get a remainder of 5. Thus from one century to the next the net DOTW advancement is five days.

As a second century goes by, the DOTW advances another five days, for a total of ten days from the beginning of the first century. Taking modulo 7 of 10, we get three days of net DOTW advancement over the 200 years.

A third century advances New Year's another 5 days, for a total of 15 DOTW; modulo 7 of this yields 1 day of net DOTW advancement.

For the fourth century, we have to take into account the third leap year rule: years divisible by 400 do have a leap day. So for the fourth century, we advance the DOTW another five days plus an additional leap day, plus the 15 days accumulated over the first three centuries, for a gross total of 21 days advanced. Take the modulo 7 of that, and you get a net total of 0: that is, the fifth century starts on the same day of the week that the first century did. Then the pattern starts over again.

So we have is one fixed pattern that repeats itself exactly every 400 years. Since there are only four starts-of-the-century in each four centuries, New Year's can fall on only four of the seven days of the week. The winners depend solely on where the days of the week happened to line up with the cycle when the crazy leap year system was adopted. Our system is set up so that not only Sundays get left out, but Tuesdays and Thursdays as well. The first New Year's of each 400-year cycle falls on a Friday, the next century starts on a Wednesday, the next on a Monday, and the next one – the century beginning with a year that's divisible by 400 (like, e.g., 2000) – starts on a Saturday.

But you have to remember one little pedantic factoid - the new century technically starts in the the years ending with 01. If you define your centuries as beginning with the year ending in 01, then the cycle goes Saturday-Thursday-Tuesday-Monday. So being pedantic still won't get you a century that starts on a Sunday, but it does get rid of Friday. {*grin*}

[1] If you don't want to trust me about the frequency of the various days of the week over the 400 year cycle, consider this simple Excel spreadsheet calculation as elucidated by Graeme McRae on his wonderful MathHelp site:

... Start with the 13th of this month. Put that date in cell A1. Then in cell A2, put the following formula:

=DATE(YEAR(A1+30),MONTH(A1+30),13)

Copy the contents of cell A2 down to all the cells from A3 through A4800. Now you have a table of the dates of all the 13ths of every month for the next 400 years.

Next, in cell B1, put this formula:

=MOD(A1,7)

Copy that formula from B1 down to all the cells from B2 through B4800. Here, numbers from 0 to 6 represent the days of the week, as follows:

Number Day
0 Sat
1 Sun
2 Mon
3 Tue
4 Wed
5 Thu
6 Fri

If you like, you can have Excel format these cells to show the day of the week instead of just the number. Click Format, Cells, Custom, and type ddd as the custom format -- it's up to you.

Now, in cells C1:C7, enter the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a vertical column.

In cell D1, enter the following formula, but don't hit enter yet!

=SUM(IF(B$1:B$4800=C1,1,0))

After you type the formula in cell D1, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys, and press enter. This makes the formula into an "Array Formula", so it counts the number of days in column B that match cell C1. Then copy this formula from D1 to D2 through D7.

If you format column C to make it show day-of-week (Click Format, Cells, Custom, and type ddd), then you will have a table that looks like this:

Day Frequency
Sat 684
Sun 687
Mon 685
Tue 685
Wed 687
Thu 684
Fri 688

Serendipity and Other Oddities

2010-08-09T20:20:00.000-06:00

I was hit over the head with a clear case of serendipity on Saturday evening. I was sitting at my computer, contemplating what to fix for supper when my phone rang. The conversation that followed had certain Kafkaesque properties.

Me: Hello.

Mom: What time are you coming over for supper? It's getting late.

Me: I didn't know I was coming over for supper.

Mom: Oh, well maybe we didn't actually discuss supper. It was when we talked about you coming over to do some gardening today.

Me: Well, I didn't come over this morning because of the rain last night. But what is this about supper?

Mom: I thought we'd agreed that you were coming over for supper tonight.

Me: I don't remember that discussion, but I was just sitting here contemplating what to fix for supper when you called.

Mom: Well, you'd better get over here. I have the zucchini patties almost done and the steak ready to toss in the iron skillet.

Me: Okay, I'll be right over.

Do you ever have the solution to your quandaries appear out of the blue like that? Isn't it neat when it does? (Thanks, mom!)

Time to get back to comforting Molly. The thunder and lightning has had her spending all afternoon and evening glued to me. The earlier lightning storm was strong enough to blow out the local cell towers. It only took them a couple of hours to get cell service back up and running. (One of the advantages of fiber optics to the door is that lightning is not a problem. So I could surf and email the whole time.) Now it is just putting up with the continuous warnings for the severe thunder storms and the tornado warnings blaring over all the TV programs. Makes TV seem really boring and pointless. Maybe it is time to go watch TV online. {*grin*}

Thumper Attacks!

2010-08-03T23:31:00.000-06:00

Tonight Molly and I got started on our walk a bit late - we had to wait for me to go fix mom's electricity. For some reason she gets a little perturbed when her kitchen outlets and refrigerator quit working. {*grin*}

As Molly and I walked along, we passed near a stand of bushes. Suddenly there was the boom and squeals that signal the upset presence of a wild rabbit. Sure enough, there about 2 feet in front of us was a rather large doe working to get us to follow her. It has been hot and dry around here, so I suspect she moved her family to the bush near an irrigated lawn to solve the heat and water problem. In any case, she didn't want us to linger near the bush and was trying hard to decoy us into following her.

Molly was all in favor of a policy of hot pursuit. Nothing like a big squealing rabbit right in front of your nose to get you excited if you are a dog. I had to explain to Molly that if she actually did catch up to the doe, she would probably suffer grievous injuries. The first thing the doe would do is flop onto her back and use those big paws and strong back legs to break Molly's nose and then attempt to rip off her face, followed by sprinting away while Molly was distracted by the pain. I don't think Molly really believed me, but she was willing to continue on with our walk. Good enough. After all, some wild rabbits around here are really big:

(You can read all about this rabbit here.)

The rest of the walk was pretty uneventful until we started back to the house. The entire sky from horizon to horizon in the west was being lit up by lightning, fast approaching us. Which was pretty amusing given that looking in the other direction you could see the stars in the clear sky. Now if some of it would just yield some rain.

Time to go protect the garden from big bunnies. {*grin*}

That Was The Week That Was

2010-08-02T20:39:00.000-06:00

Am I the only one here old enough to remember that TV show? (Even I remember it only from reruns on late night TV; it originally aired on the BBC way back in the early 60's. I seem to remember seeing it as late night filler on a Boston UHF station in the 70's.) In any case, it supplied a catchy title so the memory space it occupies in my mind is not totally wasted. For the insanely curious, go read the Wikipedia synopsis at That Was The Week That Was.

Last week I mentioned that I would write about the beautiful printer/scanner I won from the wonderful ladies of Aiming Low and HP. Late last week I finally got it unpacked and set up. (My delay was making it dangerously close to losing my tech geek card - true geeks must drop everything to play with any new piece of equipment!) Setup was trivial since it has built in wireless connectivity. And the photo prints are spectacular! Thank you Aiming Low and HP! Oh, it also looks pretty nifty as well:

Nothing like all black with a neat little touch screen to appeal to the tech geek in me.

L was home this weekend and we had the big thirtieth birthday party for my friend the writer to attend. A group of friends, great BBQ, two kinds of cake, and pie - the ideal way to say happy birthday. It doesn't seem possible that he is that old. I have known him since he was in high school and it just doesn't seem to be that long ago. (I suspect that is a symptom of aging - everything seems to have happened just a moment ago. When you are young, it seems like everything is yet to happen in the far distant future. The older you get, the faster things seem to happen.) In any case, Happy Birthday Bryson!

Time for Molly and I to head out for our walk. I think Molly will trust me by now. This morning it was time for her annual veterinary checkup and vaccinations. She and I hopped in the truck went to the bank where the drive up clerk gave her a doggy biscuit. Molly thought that was pretty neat. Then we drove out to the clinic and Molly could smell all the dogs and cats and other critters in the gravel parking lot. That really excited her. She led me in the doors and sat with me in the waiting room. But when it came time to sit on the scale and she really didn't want to be still. But we got through it and into the exam room.

That was when all those things that she blames me for happened. The cold stethoscope to the chest, the thermometer up the rear, and of course the three shots. All while I am holding her against my chest and beginning to look like I sprouted a white fur coat from her shedding on me. We came home and she carefully spent most of the day sleeping across the room from me in my office, raising her head to be sure I wasn't up to another sneaky trick whenever I moved. By this evening she was willing to let by-gones be by-gones and was rubbing furballs all over my legs. So I think it is time for us to go. {*grin*}

The Omnious Sound Of ...

2010-07-27T00:26:00.000-06:00

Tonight marked the early signs of the cicadas. There were a few out and making their droning racket as Molly and I braved the heat to go walking. Cicadas always amaze me. Years underground and then a metamorphosis followed by a short but intense life above ground. I always wondered about the poor cicadas who aren't synchronized to the same n year cycle as the masses. I suspect they feel like the unpopular kids in school: they know there is something they are missing but aren't quite sure what.

Cicada nymphs burrow underground and feed on sap from plant roots. The length of time they spend in this subterranean existence varies from 2 to 17 years, depending on the species.

When they are ready to become adults, the nymphs tunnel to the surface and crawl up on the side of the nearest object. Then the skin splits down the middle of their back and they emerge to inflate and dry their wings. This is done at night. So by day, one often spots the dried husks sitting empty on branches and trunks:

The winged adults fly around a bit, but spend most of their time sitting on trees and vertical surfaces. The males make the tremendous droning noises trying to attract the females. In the winged adult state, they look like this:

I'm not sure if this is the year of the mass emergence of the locals or if there will be but a few stragglers. I remember some years ago when L and I had just started up a new company and we had our newly hired marketing director out here in the boonies doing a corporate branding and imaging exercise. The meeting was in August and the cicadas were in full throat. The drone during the day was loud enough to drown out conversation as we walked on the sidewalk. Nanette, our new marketing director, had never heard cicadas before. When she inquired what the noise was, we showed her a few in the trees and some husks on the ground. It scared her enough that she was unwilling to spend much time outdoors after that. She thought the sound was horrifying; we thought it was a normal part of summer.

So what do you think? Scary or neat? (If you have never heard a cicada, you can visit the Cicadas of Michigan site to hear recordings of ten of the species native to Michigan)

VBS and Other Tales

2010-07-22T21:48:00.000-06:00

It must be time for VBS (Vacation Bible School) in this neck of the woods.

Why you ask?

Well ... we have had severe thunderstorm warnings, a tornado warning, and even a brief flash flood warning in the last 4 days. All in the late afternoon or early evening. When did VBS begin at church and what time does it meet? I'll give you three guesses and won't even count the first two.

Tonight brought forth water and more water as it thundered and poured water in sheets. Of course the gutters on the house chose then to suffer downspoutnodrainus, a nearly always fatal disease caused by pine needles in the craw, i.e.

The water was cascading out of the gutter and everywhere except out of the downspout. Me being me, I decided then would be a good time to unplug the downspouts while I waited for my chicken to finish baking. No need to get a hose or turn on the water; mother nature is dumping enough you can't even see your hand in from of your face.

(No wonder - my arms have shrunk so I can't possibly see them!)

As I am standing there with my arm in the air and my hand in the overflowing gutter, pulling pine needles out of the downspout and enjoying the icy water running down the inside of the sleeve of my rain coat, across my chest, through my pants. down my leg, and into my shoe, the thought crosses my mind about possible obituary headlines for when I am struck by all the lightning flashing nearby. (And how is that for a run-on sentence?) Some of the better ones included phrases like "Dumbass Former Mayor Dies Holding Hand in Air During Lightning Storm", "Idiot Gets Grounded Just Before ...", or even "Franklin's Experiment Sans Kite Proves Fatal To ...', etc. The worst thing was that the ice water running through my pants was the most thrilling moment of my day. It's been all downhill after that.

I suppose my thoughts of electrocution came from replacing the heating element in the oven earlier this afternoon. Nothing like throwing both stove breakers (Ask me how I first learned that there were two double breakers for the stove.) and unplugging the (3) cords from the stove before disassembling the lower oven to pull out the old element and put in the new one. I have to hand it to GE. The stove was a high end model purchased by the people we bought the house from more than 20 years ago. In that time I have had to replace the broiler element and now the oven element. Never a problem with the burners or the built in microwave or the computer ... Had to replace a little plastic knob on the cleaning timer, but not much else. they just don't build 'em like that anymore.

Time to go put on dry pants. The thrill is gone. {*grin*}

Day	Frequency
Sat	684
Sun	687
Mon	685
Tue	685
Wed	687
Thu	684
Fri	688

The Art of Panic

New Years Resolutions

Ultimo Anno Sexto

Odd Thoughts

R.I.P.

Long Ago

*It* or not *It*

The Fall of Indian Summer

Indian Summer Has Come

The Coming of the ...

Wind and More Wind

Passion

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I Jab You, You Jab Me ...

Ever Have One Of ....

Yet Another Anniversary

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When did?

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I Miss Feynman's Wit

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It or not It