An Early New Years?

An Early New Years?,
originally uploaded by meeyauw.

This photo of Buddy made Explore in flickr for a few hours. So at one time I had two photos in it! Buddy made it for December 29, 2006. This is the history of Explore for this photo:

28 hours ago: 489
31 hours ago: 491
34 hours ago: 454
Highest position: 454 on Saturday, December 30, 2006

I remember the flurry of activity that day as soon as I posted the photo. I think it may have caused so much interest because it was novel. Although I can't imagine that it is the only cat-in-a-toilet photo on flickr! Mouse with all her fur looks better hanging in the toilet. As soon as her fur returns, I'll catch her there, too!

Turnip

Turnip,
originally uploaded by meeyauw.

This is my first flickr photo that made it to Explore (the 500 most interesting photos of any given day). This was for December 27, 2006. Here is the Explore history, as of today at 5:12 PM, of this photo of sweet Turnip:

3 hours ago: 431
14 hours ago: 419
17 hours ago: 420
20 hours ago: 397
23 hours ago: 401
26 hours ago: 382
35 hours ago: 380
42 hours ago: 433
Highest position: 380 on Saturday, December 30, 2006

It's fascinating to follow the history of a photo in Explore!

My iMix: Providence TV songs from 3 seasons

Kitten vs Front Row

kitten vs. frontrow on Vimeo

Snowy Day Activities

Use that leftover Christmas cheese and leftover box of shells and make macaroni and cheese . . . from scratch!

Wash the dishes.

Think about taking a shower.

Work on a huge desire to get out of the house because you can't.

Rinse out bottles for redemption.

Don't walk down to the mailbox: your feet might get wet and cold!

Blog.

If you can't think of anything to blog, then just edit the blog and find stuff to put on it. Memes are nice and complicated.

Remember those loaves of bread you cheerily made for Christmas presents but which came out unlike any bread you had ever made before and so you don't know what to do with it? Take pictures of it for your blog about snowy day activities. And then devise a project for your flickr pages: how long will it take wild animals (outside wild animals) to eat the dry, stale bread?

Break up cat fights.

Let cats out.

Call cats in because they are so stupid to be out.

Try to find that Shostakovich (or was it Mahler?) symphony you used for a movie a million years ago but you don't find it but you hear a lot of great music.

Have fun with Nair!

Take stupid pics for this blog.

E-mail everybody you know.

Eat your great macaroni and cheese while hunched over the computer.

Take stupid pics for flickr.

Think about taking a shower again.

Brush your teeth a different way and wonder if it is a better way.

Walk into the storm in your slippers in order to take a picture for this blog and then have frozen feet half the day.

Feel sorry for yourself.

Have a little anxiety attack.

E-mail strangers with stupid questions.

Be grateful for the draft dodger thing that Amy got you for Christmas and keep stuffing it under the door after you let the cats out. And stuff it back again after you haul the cats in because they are so stupid to be out in this weather.

Be shocked and amazed at how much damage Amy's two little dogs can do to the steel door that you stuff the draft dodger under.

Walk outside in the snow in your slippers again in order to place the bad loaves of bread in the most advantageous place for wildlife.

Use fd's flickr toys to spiff up Symmetry Amy from two years ago.

E-mail the link to your snowy day activity blog in the middle of the night to everyone you know. Wonder if they are your friends anymore.Go to bed about 3 AM because you are so bored.

Fret in bed: are these handful of people that I e-mailed earlier: are they the only people I know??

12/30/06: Cliffs on the Mountain

12/30/06: Cliffs on the Mountain,
originally uploaded by meeyauw.

Hawks and bobcats live up there behind my kitchen. You can't see the fine powder that is falling today. But there is no traffic at all going by today. Another "unexpected" event. Sue and I were going to go to St Jay for lunch out today! I really wanted to do that. Now we need to make new plans. And another storm is due in on Monday.

So I am blogging, listening to music, caring for these pesky cats . . . and staying warm! It is cold!

Watch weather reports for Monday storm! Will there be school Tuesday?

Merry Go Round

Merry Go Round,
originally uploaded by oybay.

This is oybay's photo creation and it's one of the loveliest I have ever seen. Be sure to check out his work (just click on the photo).

Frankie

Frankie,
originally uploaded by meeyauw.

After I looked at Tiger Lair's posters and Photoshop work, I was inspired to make this (her work made me miss Frankie). I'm not sure about the quote (I mean, it's good enough but is it the perfect one?) but the thing about flickr toys is that I can make as many as I need.

Welcome back to myself

I was unable to log into this blog for ages when Google bought it. Suddenly I can get it and everything is still here! So here I go again.

Much is repeated on iWeb...I am uncertain as to which way to go. At least with blogger posting is faster and I can blog from other sites. We'll see what happens.

Lolita

I don’t believe it. The folks who commented on this audible.com book seem to have missed the point! I know it is an excellent reading by Jeremy Irons: in fact the reading is the book! My point is that this book as read by Irons (and I probably would have missed it if I had read the text myself) gives us a look into the mind of a pedophile. And that mind is scary. Humbert's ego is so immense that he only knows any of humans as they relate to his comfort. Delores is not a person to him at all: she is a means to satisfy a huge drive within him that has prevente him from behaving human at all. He regards any woman older than Delores to be ugly and grotesque. This is misogyny. Even after spending a year with Delores, after raping this 12 year old daily, after telling her her mother had died but never allowing her a normal period of grief, after all this, Humber complains that she still has not bonded to him and continues to cry herself to sleep every night!

I may agree that this book is a classic of literature if I am able to learn if Nabakov was a pedophile himself (how did he ever learn about the psyche of pedophiles?). If he was, then this is not literature. It would then be a journal; non-fiction. I do hope to be able to spend some time investigating that.

But how these people can think that this book is about love mystifies me. You have to listen yourself and judge.

The following is from audible.com about Lolita:

What the Critics Say
"Lolita is an authentic work of art which compels our immediate response and serious reflection, a revealing and indispensable comedy of horrors." (San Francisco Chronicle)
"Language is essential to Lolita, and Mr. Irons captures Humbert's voice perfectly. In the Random House audiobook, he read the novel with a sensitivity to the language that conveys all of Nabokov's humor, passion, and lyricism." (The New York Times)

Publisher's Summary
When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause celebre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the 20th century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story that is shocking in its beauty and tenderness.
Awe and exhilaration, along with heartbreak and mordant wit, abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. But most of all, it is a meditation on love — as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

The Audible Review
Why You Should Download This Audiobook: Vladimir Nabokov's notorious tale of an aging intellectual's relentless and ultimately destructive fascination for a 12-year-old girl is one of the magnificent works of world literature. Jeremy Irons, who played Humbert Humbert in Adrian Lyne's screen version, delivers the text knowingly and with great insight. His mastery is so complete, his performance so convincing, that a greater experience of a work in audio—and there are many, many great experiences—would be difficult to find.

Customer Reviews

Reviewer: Amie, from Burbank, CA, USA Date: October 16, 2005 Reader captures all of the feeling and wit of Nabokov's writing. A wonderful book, and a great listen. Captivating all the way through.

Reviewer: Jim, from Bellingham, WA, USA Date: October 26, 2005 I have tried to read LOLITA on several occassions, but for whatever reason--probably the dull, midwest monotony of my internal reading voice--have put the book down. I purchased LOLITA (read by Jeremy Irons) with a sense of trepidation (had I just bought something I would never finish?) The book is as impressive as the critics will tell you. Nabokov's language, his ability to fully render a scene, his mind-boggling vocabularly, and his characters--those desperate and beautiful and horrible creatures--are like nothing else in the canon of fiction. Add to this the luxurious experience of Jeremy Irons' voice and you end up with a book--a reading--that will make you shake your head in awe.

Reviewer: compuhund, from Edmonds, WA, USA Date: November 08, 2005 Only Vlad can pull off such over-the-top vocabulary with such grace and beauty. Jeremy Irons gives as perfect a performance in reading this book as he gave in portraying Humbert in the recent film. While Lolita as a book may at first disturb those who have never before read it (or listened to it), those who have experienced the feeling of being in love with a person they can never really have will feel an instant sene of familiarity in Nabokov's moving narrative. The imagery is absolutely magical, evocative, and melancholy. A true work of art.

Reviewer: Victor, from Windham, CT, USA Date: January 26, 2006 This book builds slowly and subtlety from the diary of a 40-year old sophisticated, intelligent European man, who finds, isolates, and abuses a 12-year old American girl, to an emotionally intense, regretful, despairing self-criticism of his actions. I listened to this book twice, to completely understand the plot, the appearance of another older man, the second motor trip to the west, Lolita’s escape, the meeting two years later, when Lolita is 17, and the death of Humbert Humbert, Clare Quilte, and Dolores Schiller. Vladimir Nabokov’s prose is excruciatingly articulate – speaking of the world of total evil, being drunk on the impossible past, looking for the evidence of a supreme being in the darkness of his own sin, and H.H.’s thoughts, evoked by looking down on a town in the mountains where only the sound of children playing can be heard. The author’s own thought are difficult to discern and this makes reading Lolita a test of your own attitude about the plot. H.H., however, considers himself to be a monster who was cheated of his only chance at redemption when Clare Quilte helped Lolita escape from him. Only when the harm has been done, does he realize that he loves the child and even the dead-leaf echo of that nymphet at age 17.

Reviewer: myntmd, from Goodyear, AZ, USA Date: February 23, 2006 An engaging, beautiful scripted book. The reader sounds like a clasically trained actor and he speaks it as though he's thinking it up himself. The best audiobook yet!

Reviewer: Catherine, from Maplewood, NJ, USA Date: April 26, 2006 Jeremy Irons is one of my favorite actors, and he delivers a stunning reading of this classic. Nothing short of amazing - I can't imagine reading this book silently or hearing anybody else read it. The musical use of language is what makes this book, and it just rolls of Irons' tongue like honey. I didn't so much listen as observed this performance in amazement. Wonderful. If I could give more stars, I would.

Reviewer: Todd, from West Simsbury, CT, USA Date: June 06, 2006 I read (and listen to) a lot of different types of books and sometimes forget how talented some authors can be. (I’m not sure if that’s grammatically correct, but I’m not one of these great authors) Lolita is a book that makes you stop and realize just how beautiful the language can be. The narration adds to the experience. If you’re looking to go back to a classic for your next download, this will not disappoint.

Reviewer: Debra, from The Woodlands, TX, USA Date: June 22, 2006 There is really nothing to add to all the wonderful reviews that have been written about this story and it's masterful narration. It is well worth the time to listen. My heart broke a million times over for little Dolores and I was shocked by how much sympathy I felt for the monster Humbert Humbert by the end of the story. Jeremy Irons is a masterful narrator. I loved every second of it. Even when I wanted to choke HH.

Reviewer: Deborah, from New York, NY, USA Date: October 31, 2006 This was the best audible book I ever listened to. The narrator was the best. I enjoyed the story so much. I listened to it twice. Don't skip this one.

Christmas 2006

It has been snowing for three days now. Not much accumulation yet but finally, finally enough to prevent me from going to the dentist. But I also won’t be able to see Sue or Camille.

Christmas was a big disappointment.

flickr update: over 800 hits! Several awards! No Explore photos yet! :-(

How many photos can I favorite? There are hundreds of thousands of gorgeous shots there and I can’t seem to get enough of them. I have begun my inane iMovie of The Planets. I have over 100 NASA images of Mars to work with and have gotten almost 2 minutes edited halfway to how I want them.

Anna and Aaron are coming this weekend. Not for New Years though. Another damn New Years alone.

No word from Camille. One letter from Simonne. I am still baking my special secret recipe cakes for gifts. I tried to make bread too, but I used a new Fanne Farmer recipe and misread ingredients so the bread is as heavy as bricks!

So Happy New Year to this fractured family! I want to go back to work and feel productive, useful, and valuable again.

Chaz Booth

My last student to die . . . one year ago today:

Chaz Lamont Booth

CHAZ LAMONT BOOTH (BIG CHILLY) We Love you Chaz, miss you so much. We keep you alive in our hearts and memories, every minute of the day. You are our Angel in the sky who watches over us day and night. The hearts you touched, the love you showed us, is priceless. We love you Son, Brother Chaz. Forever, until we all are reunited... Rest Baby Rest. Love Always, Gone but never forgotten Mommy, Moe-Moe, King David, Amy


Published in the Hartford Courant on 12/24/2006.

David Spicer

ONE OF DAVID SPICER’S favorite things is teaching children — as young as 5 — the “great biblical truths through music.” Spicer is the organist and choir director at The First Church of Christ in Wethersfield. Tonight, about 3,000 people are expected to attend one of the church’s four candlelit services. (TIA ANN CHAPMAN)

Dec. 21, 2006
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

accompanying article:

Organist Devoted To Spiritual Notes

Many Respond To His Longtime Ministry

By ANN MARIE SOMMA
Courant Staff Writer

December 24 2006

WETHERSFIELD -- For two decades, David Spicer has played sacred music at Sunday services at The First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, calling the faithful closer to the Lord in the largest Congregational church in New England.

While churches around the country are struggling to find replacements for organists reaching retirement age, The First Church of Christ's music ministry is thriving under Spicer's direction as minister of music and the arts.

Tonight, Spicer will lead the music as about 3,000 people are expected to show up at one of the church's four candlelit services.

"You can't find many people that are talented musicians and devout Christians - he's a combination of the two," said Bill Dean, a choir member who sat on a search committee that hired Spicer.

As the church organist and choir director, Spicer has directed everything from a 22-piece orchestra performing George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" to a small children's choir during his long and musical career.

Under Spicer, the church stages a concert series with year-round performances in contemporary, traditional and sacred music. The concerts are free and open to the public. There are Christmas and hand bell concerts, biblical music dramas and even a puppet ministry. Under Spicer's direction over the last decade, the church has hosted the annual Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival, a national competition for young organ students that provides scholarships to study the organ.

Spicer presides over an Austin pipe organ made in Hartford that also has non-winded, digital voices. He describes sacred music as "explosive and vibrant."

"Music is my life," said Spicer, who will turn 60 the day after Christmas. "I'm able to combine music and the Christian faith. Those are two powerful forces."

When Spicer was a child, his father prayed that he would grow to serve God - a prayer Spicer didn't know of until he was in his 30s. But by that time Spicer had begun a career in church music, graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, both in Philadelphia.

Spicer moved to Wethersfield from Lincoln, Neb. Many of Spicer's seven children have sung in the choir. One of his favorite things about his job is teaching children - as young as 5 - the "great biblical truths through music."

"They sing songs from the Psalms and the Old and New testament. When you sing, it makes a deeper impression on the brain," Spicer said.

"The thing that makes him unique is that when you show up for choir rehearsal, you don't know if you are going to get a rehearsal, or a bible study, or a music appreciation class," Dean said.

Spicer's concert hall is the church's historic meetinghouse, where George Washington worshipped on May 20, 1781, while in Wethersfield to confer with the Count de Rochambeau, the commander of the French army in America, about the Battle of Yorktown, according to church historians. John Adams also worshipped there.

William Burke, whose two teenage sons are in the adult, youth and hand bell choirs, said Spicer is an inspiration.

"He has inspired several generations of youth to follow his path of celebrating great music in a church setting," Burke said.

Spicer said he'll remain at First Church as long as they want him.

"Reverend Schuller once said, `You bloom where you are planted.' As long as we are planted, we'll still make beautiful music," Spicer said.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

Rainbow Fire

Rare "Rainbow" Spotted Over Idaho

June 19, 2006—It looks like a rainbow that's been set on fire, but this phenomenon is as cold as ice.

Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border (map of Idaho).

The arc isn't a rainbow in the traditional sense—it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.

This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour, according to the London Daily Mail.

—Victoria Gilman

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060619-rainbow-fire.html

Housefly Gets Glasses Made With Lasers

March 28, 2006—Pampering pets with designer goods isn't so unusual—and now even your houseflies can get outfitted in style.

An entry in a German science-photo competition, this image shows a fly sporting a set of "designer" lenses crafted and set in place with a cutting-edge laser technique. The glasses fit snuggly on the fly's 0.08-inch-wide (2-millimeter-wide) head.

Manufacturing firm Micreon GmbH submitted the insect's picture for the Bilder der Forschung (Photos of Science) 2005 competition. Selected images were on display last week in a Munich shopping center.

Micreon, based in Hannover, Germany (see map), created the fly's eyewear using ultrafast laser micro-machining. The firm notes on its Web site that the process can create objects with high precision at scales of less than a thousandth of a millimeter.

—Victoria Gilman
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0328_060328_fly_glasses.html

Cat Chases Bear Up Tree

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060613-cat-bear.html
Cat Chases Bear Up Tree

June 13, 2006—Perhaps not since the Cowardly Lion has an animal's appearance been so at odds with its attitude.

On June 4 a black bear wandered into a West Milford, New Jersey, back yard, was confronted by a 15-pound (7-kilogram) tabby cat … and fled up a neighbor's tree. Hissing at the base of the tree, Jack the clawless cat kept the bear at bay for about 15 minutes, then ran him up another tree after an attempted escape.

Finally, Jack's owner, Donna Dickey, called the cat inside, and the timorous trespasser disappeared back into the woods.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said of Jack in an interview with the Newark Star Ledger.

Unlike cats, bears aren't typically territorial, roaming instead over vast areas that would be impossible to patrol for intruders. With a habitat that includes much of North America, black bears are seen fairly often in this region of New Jersey.

Full-grown black bears weigh between 200 and 600 pounds (90 and 270 kilograms) and measure as much as 6 feet (1.8 meters) long. Their diets can include fruits, honey, insects, acorns and animals as big as moose calves—a fact apparently lost on Jack.

iPods in Space!

International Space Station Imagery

high res (1.2 M) low res (95 K)
ISS014-E-08795 (29 Nov. 2006) --- European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Reiter, Expedition 14 flight engineer, works with the Cognitive Cardiovascular (Cardiocog-2) experiment in the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station. Cardiocog-2 will determine the impact of weightlessness on the cardiovascular system and respiratory system and the cognitive reactions of crewmembers. The results of this study will be used to develop additional countermeasures that will continue to keep crewmembers healthy during long-duration space exploration.

Hazel

agove: Hazel was already sick with EGC)

Hazel and Matilda have died from eosinophilic granuloma complex. They were wonderful cats and I still miss them. I posted this entry to Cat Behavior, a flickr.com group that I have joined:

I had a stray pregnant mom, Matila. She had six kittens and was the best mom I had ever seen. But one of the kittens, Hazel, was a troublesome girl and as soon as she could walk, she kept disappearing in the house. Mom was pretty upset about this and spent a lot of time howling and searching for this kit. Then suddenly one day I noticed that Hazel never left her mother's side! And then I saw that mom had chewed every last whisker off this kitten; right down to the skin!

Hazel never recovered her independent spirit. Whenever those two were separated (such as trips to the vet, etc), there was awful howling.

Before this experience, I had never heard of it happening either. My vet confirmed that it happens often.

Matilda

Since I am remembering this family of Matilda’s I want to tell the story of the moth. Matilda, as I wrote previously, was the best cat mother I had ever observed. She taught her family of five kittens how to drink from a water bowl by having them sit around the bowl while she drank. I then watched as one by one they tried to drink it. Repeatedly Matilda would demonstrate the technique for them as they struggled with this new skill.

Another day as the kittens were lined up on the kitchen floor (how did she get them to do this?), Matilda brought a huge moth into the kitchen. We lived in the city then, but had built the cats a large and safe run so that they could be outside. Occasionally different animals like moths, earthworms, snakes, and even birds were killed and brought into the house.

Using the live moth, Matilda demonstrated her hunting skills for the kids. Some were horrified and cringed in fear of the moth. Others tried to jump in and play. But Matilda kept them all in control until she let them kill the moth with their play.

I miss those days with Matilda and the kittens. I kept all the kittens except one which I gave to my son. There are only two left now: Zorro and Turnip. Zorro you have seen before in my photos. Turnip is in this photo with his mother. Unfortunately, Matilda is out of focus.

God Uses a Mac!

Monday, March 6, 2000
Contact: CDC, Division of Media Relations
(404) 639–3286

Why is handwashing important?

Remember Ignaz Semmelweis? Of course you don't. But you're in his debt nonetheless, because it was Dr. Semmelweis who first demonstrated over a hundred years ago that routine handwashing can prevent the spread of disease.

"Dr. Semmelweis worked in a hospital in Vienna whose maternity patients were dying at such an alarming rate that they begged to be sent home," said Julie Gerberding, M.D., director of CDC's Hospital Infections Program. "Most of those dying had been treated by student physicians who worked on cadavers during an anatomy class before beginning their rounds in the maternity ward."

Because the students didn't wash their hands between touching the dead and the living--handwashing was an unrecognized hygienic practice at the time--pathogenic bacteria from the cadavers regularly were transmitted to the mothers via the students' hands.

"The result was a death rate five times higher for mothers who delivered in the hospital than for mothers who delivered at home" said Dr. Gerberding.

This week is Hand Washing Awareness Week, a timely reminder--before flu season reaches its peak--that regular hand washing is the single most effective way to prevent the transmission of disease. Visit FirstGov.gov’s link to the Centers for Disease Control to find out how this hygienic practice gained recognition during the 19th century and to learn five common household scenarios in which contaminated hands transmit disease-causing germs.

FirstGov.gov Updates: News and Features 12/5/06 3:42 PM

You’d think a country like ours could do better than tell us to wash our hands ..... and save more than a few lives in the bargain!

A Weekend

Well, I’m sort of sick this weekend. Not flat-on-my-back-sick-in-bed, but enough so I can’t go out, can’t do housework. I am mostly sleeping. and I hurt my foot badly in school Friday so I can barely walk. But I did do all of my Christmas shopping and list making. The list making isn’t going so well on screen because I can’t compare and rewrite the lists.

And I figured out a work-around for the “1-burn” audible rule and made CDs (but not enough) for folks. (The Work-Around: make your one copy, then insert your new CD back into computer. When it asks if you want to import the tracks even though it can’t find track names on Grace Notes, say YES. After the import be sure to use -I to change the information on the import. Each import begins with track 1 and will overwrite any previous track 1s you may have.)



I trudged out in the snow to take the above photo of the progress on the siding of the house. It looks great! It looks like a new house, in fact. There was another dead shrew in the garage, and a dead woolly bear caterpillar (wooly bear is also a correct, alternative spelling). It’s red band is wide, which means a mild winter. It crawled into the garage sometime Friday during the flooding rains and died while the snow flew Saturday.



This photo and my mailbox photo are on my flickr page. I expected there to be thousands of woolly bears posted there, but I could only find four or five. Those were alive, though.

Sue came by and picked up her camera. I missed the Burke-Lyn craft fair that we always go to. I missed talking to her. She did ask me about Fibonacci and fractals and string theory but I’m not feeling well enough to be too talkative.

I have not read, I have not done housework. I am focusing on what I have not done and I shouldn’t. I’m glad I’m alone this weekend, actually......although now, this second day of not feeling well makes me think I have a fatal disease. The only really important thing I have to do is my CCV work: loads to correct and read and score.

The YouTube site is running as poorly as ever. The playlists utility does not update correctly. I tried Safari, Camino and Foxfire and it never worked right. But of course, they are a Yahoo site now so I guess we can expect the same poor quality.

It is nearly 4 PM now and I am hungry! This is the first time I’ve felt hungry in two days. The pains in my stomach have disappeared (I think!). I wish it were Christmas now. I can’t wait for everybody to get their presents. I want to bake with Christmas movies and music on the TV and radio.

Well, I guess I’ll go eat, finish the dishes, do the wash, and grade papers. And watch more Christmas movies. Today was a John Denver movie about Georgetown, CO. The whole town believed in Santa. Denver was recent widower and architect sent to this town to scope it out for development. Of course, he loved the place, they loved him, but the evil developer was going to destroy the town anyhow, and on Christmas Eve, too! But they got the place back and everyone lived happily ever after.

It’s strange how my fondest Christmas memories are of movies and not my own Christmas life.

Photo Hunters

Dead Flies

Here is the dead stuff; the macabre and disgusting. A dead cluster fly.

Pollenia rudis (Fabricius) . . . When crushed, the cluster fly has an odor resembling "buckwheat honey." . . . from the University of Ohio.

So the house should smell great, huh? I don’t have the infestation of flies that I had when I moved into the house in 2002: but it sure doesn’t smell like buckwheat honey, either!

The bedroom I want.

The photo I took from a website (long since lost but I remember that it was from a web site illustrating rooms at a local bed and breakfast) shows the skylight curtains and bed that I want. Since my bed is king size, I can’t get an antique bed. But this is light and flowery. The problem with the curtains on the skylight is that you want to see the stars, snow, or moon when you can. But you need to keep the sun out because it fades fabrics and creates awful heat.

To see my wishlist you can use the froggle link on the blogroll, click "wishlist" on my del.icio.us tag cloud, or click on the amazon wishlist script. These are all on the sidebar to the right.

You can be sure to find me a wonderful gift at any of those sites! As I become more organized the froggle list will be disabled because it is not as good as a tag cloud.

The Last Shrew of Summer

I should not say “of summer” since it was finished long ago. But “of this year” or “of this season” just didn’t have the allure of “last summer”. Buddy went out this morning at 4 AM because I was up with a massive hot flash. It was 28° out and very frosty (still no snow!). He returned at 6am with this poor shrew. I know the photo is grotesque but the shrew enabled me to try out my newly discovered camera’s macro capabilities and they work very well as we can see.

I have gotten three complaints about my fly photos: “they are gross”, “what is motivating you??” and “what’s next, dead things?” (well, yeah, I guess so). But the cluster flies are the only living things other than people and cats to photograph close up. I will look for an alive spider today in the garage. I may even try some landscape photos of the beaver ponds as they begin to freeze.

There are no hunters parked on the road this morning. No gunshots have been heard.

A syncing preference pane for iCal and gCal is coming out soon! All those hours devising ways to manually sync the two with automators, scripts and e-mail are for nothing. But it’s worth it if it works! see http://blog.spanningsync.com/ for more information!

My Second Bug Pictures

So there was a poor cluster fly hanging and twirling and struggling on a thread of a spider web from the kitchen ceiling Friday night. I immediately got the camera and shot over 20 photos until I got some that worked (above).

Sports setting works; you need the flash. But the macro that my old camera had? Where is it? I used 10x zoom here. (Update: I found the macro settings that night: see the shrew photo on the next page). I like the glistening of the fly here and the eyes again. The eyes are geometric, as is the “nose”.

I tried the red-eye affect on Mouse: no difference in the photos but I put my favorite one here just because it is a pretty picture. Mouse certainly looks fat here, and she feels fat. She is accepting the brush more often now and at times I feel she is seeking it out for relief from the mats that she always gets.


I saw Flight of the Phoenix tonight while the cats fought and went outside and back inside incessantly. Long boring beginning and very predictable (especially if you had seen the Jimmy Stewart version which I barely remember). I don’t like computer graphics; they imply a lack of creativity of the writers and directors. After that movie, I missed Holiday Inn, which I love. I settled on watching the end of Titanic in bed while I cried because of the sorrow and death of the old lady.


The kitchen is a mess, all the floors are dirty and litter needs to be done tomorrow. Busy day ahead.

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My First Bug Pictures

I finally got a presentable bug photo....a cluster fly (the infamous harmless Vermont pest).

Top: I need to work on focusing.
2ndt: Very nice! I see his eyes! I wish I could get even closer. But I can see the hair on the legs and body.
3rd: The eyes!
Last: I used the flash while cluster fly was on the window. I was going to trash the photo but then I saw the reflection of his body in the glass and thought it was a nice effect.

My goal is to be as good a bug photographer as lepike on flickr.

The Great Tile Debate

in order to use this article at school, I have copied it here..... photo by Mark Greenwald

The Great Tile Debate

Metro, the subway system serving Washington, D.C., has a distinctive look. Underground stations resemble immense, minimalist concrete bunkers. The tiles covering the floors are six-sided—large, terra cotta hexagons. Now, the board in charge of Metro is debating whether to switch to square tiles, like those typically found in most other subway systems around the world.

From a mathematical perspective, both square and hexagonal tiles do the job of tiling the plane. As do tiles of many, many other geometric shapes. And the choices get even wider when you consider using several different tile shapes together. My own bathroom, for example, is tiled with octagons and squares.

So, the decision on which shape of tiles to use actually hinges on practical considerations. One of the problems with the Metro hexagons is that they get slippery when wet. But that's a function not of their shape but of their composition and glazing. Still, the companies that manufacture safer square tiles apparently don't do hexagons. And lopping off corners to turn squares into hexagons would be extremely costly and wasteful, a representative of one tile manufacturer told the board.

Then there's the problem of broken tiles and water leakage. Metro officials claim that floors with square tiles would be easier to maintain than those with hexagonal tiles. Fewer sides mean fewer joints, and fewer joints mean less water leakage.

That's an interesting claim. The most efficient way of partitioning the plane into units of equal area with the smallest possible total perimeter is a hexagonal (or honeycomb) grid—not a square grid. So, to minimize the amount of grout required to fill the joints between the tiles, a hexagonal tiling would be more economical than a square tiling, provided the hexagonal and square tiles each have the same area.

However, if the issue really concerns the number of points at which grout joints meet, then a hexagonal tiling is at a disadvantage.

There's also the task of laying the tiles, especially when they need to cover large areas. One Metro board member who had tiled two bathrooms and a foyer in his own home argued that, as a practical matter, square tiles are much easier to handle and place than hexagonal tiles. Indeed, complex tiling patterns can be expensive and time-consuming to install. But are tilings or regular hexagons really more difficult to work with than are tilings of squares?
In the end, the Metro board put off the decision for another day.

References:
Peterson, I. 1999. The honeycomb conjecture. Science News 156(July 24):60. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/7_24_99/bob2.htm.
Sun, L.H. 2006. Board of 2 minds about 6-sided tiles. Washington Post (Oct. 20).

To see the Metro tile recommendations, go to
http://content.wmata.com/board_gm/board_docs/101906_PlatformRehab2.pdf.. You can find an audio recording of the Metro Board Planning and Development Committee meeting on Oct. 19, 2006, at http://wmata.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2.

MathTrek 10/20/06 6:00 PM Ivars Peterson

Home on Sunday

We left the hotel at 6:30 AM and thought we would grab a taxi. We got a limo instead (actually just a large black car) but the price was the same. We drove by Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther again.

Now that I was awake and was to spend so much time waiting in Union Station, I had an opportunity to appreciate how large and beautiful it is. This small photograph of the barrels and arches inside is linked to a page with more photos. (You have to look up the history of the station yourself.) I kept imagining Louisa May Alcott arriving here to nurse the Civil War soldiers so the whole experience for me had enormous romance. When you leave the station the Capitol dome is visible straight ahead.

Finally we boarded the train (Amy never left the waiting area!) and as soon as the train began moving, I fell asleep. I woke up at various times to see Wilmington, Delaware; the Delaware Memorial Bridge, New York City, and New Haven. We changed engines in New Haven and I wish I had called ahead to Anna to ask her to meet us, if only for a few minutes. It was much colder by then and I wished I had worn something warmer.

In Springfield, we went into the station and got a couple of Pepsis and stretched our legs.

We got into White River Junction at 6:30pm, just as advertised. It was very cold and wet. We tried to find a place to eat but everything seemed closed and we got lost, so we went home. The weather deteriorated as we went north: from rain to fog to snow. Lots of snow at Sheffield Heights, and during moose season, too. So I took it easy while Amy fretted and called Andy to pick her up at my house (so she wouldn’t have to spend anymore time with me as necessary!). He came soon after we arrived: with my cats!

And the next day I went back to work exhausted, disoriented and sad.

Saturday in Washington

I was pretty hungry by the time Amy and Andrew wandered in Saturday morning so that we could go to Whole Foods for breakfast again (the photo with the purple sky above). It was colder and beautiful out. Hundreds of people rushed about and the food was great. We decided to go to the National Portrait Gallery and then see what else we could do. We planned on going out to eat that night.



We began walking, just as we did yesterday: I still don’t know which streets or direction. But we went past the old convention center site where the Cirque de Soleil had set up their beautiful tents for their shows. Then we walked under the Chinatown arch and found the National Portrait Gallery (free admission).

I was very very hot so I viewed the Civil War area (where I was fascinated by John Brown and the submarine inventors and models) and then waited outside to rest and cool down. I soon left to get ice cream and cokes. Also some popcorn for the birds which were very used to people. It was fun watching them communicate to the others on the street that there was food. At one point I had attracted over eleven birds! Sparrows, pigeons, and another bird that I had seen all over the city and originally thought was a young starling. But having hundreds of birds the same age and markings meant they were not young starlings, but another type of bird.



As we walked back to the hotel we went by Ford’s Theater. It was closed for tours because of an actual performance, so we went inside the house where he died (top left photo above). It was a very powerful experience to be in the same spot that Lincoln died.



We continued to walk in the direction of the White House again and passed many architecturally wonderful buildings, including the Sun Building (Baltimore Sun) (the tall photo on the right). It was the first “skyscraper” in Washington.

I napped and rested for the upcoming long walk to Georgetown for Ethiopian food at Zed’s. Then I walked over to Whole Foods to get a strawberry cream cake that I had drooled over in the bakery. Eventually we started off down Vermont Avenue and past the Martin Luther statute again (a strange statute for a city to erect!). I wanted a photo of a Vermont Avenue sign and Andrew grudgingly took one on his phone and without even trying it came out unusable.

Photos of Hillary are in the entrance of Zed’s. The prices on the menus outside were very reasonable. We had a reasonable wait (no reservations) and had a great time learning how to eat with the sourdough steamed bread and no utensils. We shared a mishmash of different dishes between us, had some good conversation, paid the bill and walked all the way back to Dupont. The whole way! I certainly enjoy dining now: conversation, experimentation with food. No rushing in order to eat before my next class while I do many other things. Just talk and food.

I finally got into Andrew’s apartment (which, he had been saying, was disorganized and not ready for visitors). But it was great to see the work he had done and the electronic piano he has. He played for us (oh the memories there....): some Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven. Then we all walked to the hotel, had dessert very fast, the kids left, and I fell into bed dead tired.

For two whole days now, the kids have refused to walk with me but have been two blocks ahead of me. Very very irritating. I prefer Indian food, and while I am glad I experienced Ethiopian, I don’t like the bread and won’t seek it out again.

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