utenzi

Press Releases

2011-05-18T14:20:00.005-04:00

Universities love to release press releases when scientists get a paper published. Unfortunately they usually have the press release written by their PR folk, typically English Majors!

Why is this bad? Mostly because typical English majors stay as far away from science classes as they can. As a result, press releases written by them have tendency to mislead readers. Case in point, today a press release was put out by University of Alberta informing the public that researchers there had shown that "Mobile Animals Could Have Evolved Much Earlier Than Previously Thought."

So far, so good... but then the lead paragraph went on to say:

A University of Alberta-led research team has discovered that billions of years before life evolved in the oceans, thin layers of microbial matter in shallow water produced enough oxygen to support tiny, mobile life forms.

Now forgive me for being picky but how can microbial matter exist billions of years before life evolved? Isn't microbial matter alive? That's rhetorical---microbes are indeed alive.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Now in the actual article, Possible evolution of mobile animals in association with microbial mats, written by scientists and published online in Nhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifature Geoscience (May 15, 2011), the language is a little more accurate:

Complex animals first evolved during the Ediacaran period, between 635 and 542 million years ago, when the oceans were just becoming fully oxygenated. In situ fossils of the mobile forms of these animals are associated with microbial sedimentary structures and the animal’s trace fossils generally were formed parallel to the surface of the seabed, at or below the sediment–water interface. This evidence suggests the earliest mobile animals inhabited settings with high microbial populations, and may have mined microbially bound sediments for food resources.

The science article isn't as pithy as Brian Murphy's press release, Life gets a little older, but it's a lot less idiotic. And I like that. They really need to have intelligent people look over those publicity blurbs before they're released to the press.

short and healthy

2011-02-18T13:19:00.004-05:00

Twenty two years ago a group of researchers started studying a small village in South America. You might be asking yourself what's so interesting about this Ecuadorian village.

Well, it so happens that there's an unusually large percentage of people with Laron syndrome. A disease which involves mutations to the GHR (growth hormone receptor) gene. These mutations lead to severe GHR and IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor-1) deficiencies. Since insufficient growth hormone results in a failure to grow properly, this is a very height challenged group.

This study commenced in 1988, two years before the human genome project got underway. Back then we didn't have DNA microarrays to pinpoint which genes are being up and down regulated. Why am I mentioning this? Hell if I know.

In any case, the researchers commenced the project in an attempt to help the people with GHRD. But an interesting thing happened on the way to the forum.

These short people don't die of cancer or diabetes. Go figure. Their "normal" Ecuadorian counterparts (the control population) die of these things at a rate of 20% (cancer) and 5% (diabetes) despite the fact that the GHRD folk tend to be more obese on average (21% in GHRD vs 13.4% in control pop). Weird, huh?

Since the mortality of the GHRD group is much higher in children, it's not a good idea to artificially emulate the low growth hormone level from birth. However using drugs to partially block the binding site of HGH (human growth hormone) might be very helpful.

That's not what's typically done though. Most people who play around with HGH (it's available by prescription) are boosting their levels, usually for athletic reasons. Uh-oh!

For those interested in the science background, HGH is synthesized and secreted from the back of the pituitary gland and is regulated by the neurosecretory nuclei of the hypothalamus. Interesting, n'est pas?

If you want to read the paper, Growth Hormone Receptor Deficiency Is Associated with a Major Reduction in Pro-Aging Signaling, Cancer, and Diabetes in Humans, it was published in Science Translational Medicine this month. Just search for the lead author, Jaime Guevara-Aguirre.

Happy New Year

2011-02-03T11:30:00.004-05:00

According to the Chinese, today is the first day of the year.

And since about a quarter of the Earth's population is living in China (1.3 billion strong!) their opinion has to count for something. Maybe a lot. And it means more each and every year.

In any case this is the year of the rabbit. The branch is 卯 Mǎo. Whatever the hell that means. According to Wiki there's no apt English translation. At least I know what a rabbit is. :-)

I work with several Chinese people and I received two New Year presents which are pictured here. I've had some types of mochi before and it's okay---the hot shredded radish worries me though. I'll try it---but I suspect it'll not like me.

恭喜发财 : Often mistakenly assumed to be synonymous with "Happy New Year", the usage of this phrase dates back several centuries. The first two words of this phrase have a long historical significance.

Legend has it that the congratulatory messages were traded for surviving the ravaging beast of Nian, although in practical terms it may also involve surviving the harsh winter conditions. Nian being a dragon-like critter.

From Wiki:

Clothing mainly featuring the colour red or bright colours is commonly worn throughout the Chinese New Year because it was once believed that red could scare away evil spirits and bad fortune. In addition, people typically wear new clothes from head to toe to symbolize a new beginning in the new year. Wearing new clothes also symbolizes having more than enough things to use and wear in the new year.

In that tradition, I bought some new clothes at Wal-mart yesterday evening after hiking around Oconeechee Mountain. A lot of the Winter clothing is 50% off at Wally World so I got some "nice" stuff really cheap. So, happy new year!

Ground Hog?

2011-02-02T14:36:00.003-05:00

No, not groundhog. I did mean ground hog. Or maybe ground dog.

This critter loves to play in the dirt and mud. She truly was meant to be a warthog, pig or some similar wallowing animal.

It's a testament to the cupidity of the gods that she was born with white fur. And that certainly helps sell lots of pet shampoo to a certain household. :-(

On the subject of Groundhog Day, it's warm here but overcast and windy---not much chance any groundhogs here would see their shadow. Now I just hope the warm weather arrives here to stay on schedule.

Groundhogs don't lie, do they?

Put a Cork in it

2011-01-31T11:14:00.000-05:00

But try to be careful just how you put that cork in. Okay?

Case in point. Here's a nice bottle of Moscato that Carrie and I had Saturday night.

We picked it up last week at Trader Joe's and thought the cork looked a little funny cut off like that on the top but chalked it up to the bottler trying to make their product stand out on the shelf.

When I began to use a corkscrew to remove the cork I started to wonder if that damn thing was solid wood and not cork at all. It was quite dense and hard. Once the screw was all the way in, things weren't any easier. That bugger was very difficult to pull out.

There was a very good reason for that difficulty. The cork was put in the bottle upside down!

As you can see on the left, the part drilled in is the narrow part. The thick part of the cork was in the neck of the bottle and under quite a bit of pressure.

In the lower picture you can see the insignia on the part of the cork that was inside the bottle. I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be on the outside of the bottle.

At least it tasted pretty good. Not really clear details but that was probably due to being on the sweet side, and not the fault of the cork placement.

We had the wine with two types of Gouda cheese, also bought at Trader Joe's, and both cheeses were quite good.

One Gouda from France that was only 6 months old and a longer aged one from Denmark. We liked the Danish cheese more but it was close. The more pungent quality of the older Gouda made the wine taste better than its pedigree would normally allow. ;-)

Later that night we had a Wisconsin cheddar that we didn't like all that much. Even the dogs didn't appreciate it.

Cows are Herbivores?

2011-01-30T16:29:00.002-05:00

I think most of us learned early in school that cows are herbivores.

Sure, there were other facts given to us. They go "moooo", often have cute spotted hides like those on the Gateway Computer boxes, produce milk (which might not be all that great on its own but leads to cheese and ice cream), and cows often have cute names like "Bessie" and "Elsie".

But now I have to question those myriad facts I learned so long ago.

Just look at these two pictures I took today! That doesn't seem like a herbivore to me. What do you think?!

You can bet I didn't stick around to ask Bessie there what she was eating. I didn't want to be next!

Now that I've uncovered the disturbing fact that cows do have a yen for animal flesh what's next? Vicious rabbits (like the one in Holy Grail) or killer sheep like in that Kiwi movie Black Sheep. Or maybe this is a ZOMBIE cow! Yikes.

Actually the explanation is more pedestrian but the thought of zombie cows is worth exploring. Especially if I can score some serious cash from National Enquirer for being the first to photograph this nasty new breed of cow.

A Bruschetta Weekend

2011-01-25T14:54:00.004-05:00

Carrie and I had bruschetta for lunch on both Saturday and Sunday.

It's very important to start off with fresh high quality ingredients when making bruschetta. In this picture you see some of the tomatoes that we used.

We bought the tomatoes at Trader Joe's because they have very good produce. We also purchased the basil, garlic and cheese there as well as the bread we used on Saturday.

The batch we made on Saturday didn't have quite enough garlic in the butter and the basil needed to be pushed a little harder too. Fortunately we had plenty of both ingredients on hand and used more on Sunday.

Even so, the bruschetta was very tasty on Saturday and we had no problem finishing off the 24 pieces in a very short time.

This picture shows the tomatoes after being sliced up.

Two teaspoons of fresh basil have been added and the mixture has been coated with a few tablespoons of olive oil. The bowl goes into the fridge to blend the flavors for a half hour or so.

While the tomatoes are cooling their heels in the fridge it's time to make the garlic butter.

We just melted a stick and a half of butter in a small saucepan and added 2 cloves of garlic, lightly smashed. On Sunday we upped that to 5 cloves and probably could have made it 7 or 8 even.

You don't want the butter to get too hot else the garlic will taste bitter so just keep an eye on the pan. If it boils, quickly back off on the heat. We let the pan go for 20 minutes but it doesn't need to stay on that long.

Now slice up some bread, preferably something long and narrow like a French baguette, and make the slices kinda thin. Say around 3/4 inch.

Dunk the bread in the garlic butter or drizzle some on top, sprinkle on some cheese, we used a Parmesan / Romano blend, and place under the broiler for a couple of minutes.

The result should look something like the photo here.

Now all you need to do is take the tomato mixture out of the refrigerator, add some salt, and spoon it on the bread. Eat while the bread is still hot!

The batch we made on Sunday, using more garlic and basil was just devine. We made 24 pieces again and never sat down. We just ate it quickly as soon as the bread came out of the oven.

We didn't exactly fight over it but you can be sure we were each counting how many pieces we were getting. It's fortunate that the number was even 'cause things might have gotten ugly if it came down to one final piece of bread on that plate.

Saturday Eats

2011-01-22T22:28:00.002-05:00

Carrie and I did a lot of eating today. We got off to a late start but finished well.

No, this isn't something that we ate. Rather it was one of two deer remains that we came across while cutting through some woods while hiking off trail south of Mebane.

The day started with Carrie and I hitting Trader Joe's when they opened. And I'll tell you, it was darn nippy out this morning---hell, all day long. I managed to spend $90 on fixings for bruchetta (2 containers of grape tomatoes, garlic, butter, some baguettes, and basil) and pizza (sauce, dough, and lots of cheese) plus several bottles of wine and a lot of small portions of cheese.

After that we went to Occoneechee Mountain to burn off some calories to make room for the food we were preparing to consume. The 3 mile hike was bracing 'cause it was damn cold out still. I think it was still below freezing when we finished around 11am.

Then we picked up a few more items at Wal-mart since I needed to stop at a gas station next door. I was almost out of gas and didn't want to get stranded on the side of the road. Once we got back to Carrie's house we finally had the first food of the day: Bavarian creme doughnuts!

Yum. We ate those while prepping a plate of cheese types to go with a bottle of Riesling that Carrie's daughter gave her last month. The wine was quite good and one of the cheeses, a Gouda, was a real stand out.

After that we did a few miles of hiking with Carrie's dogs ---and came across the two deer carcasses-- and then came back home to have a nice meal of bruchetta. 24 pieces of it! We were stuffed, but not too stuffed to skip having ice cream with amaretto on it afterwards.

Still Icy in Places

2011-01-14T14:42:00.003-05:00

I needed to walk a MTA form over to the Technology Transfer office Today.

Since that's on the other side of campus from where I work, I did the walk at lunchtime and combined the walk with a side trip to the Battle Branch Trail.

The picture there to the left is the Forest Theater, slightly ice covered at the moment. Getting that picture was a mite treacherous due to the fore mentioned ice.

In case you're curious, Battle Park is named for Kemp Plummer Battle. Who the hell is he, you ask? He was president of UNC from 1876 to 1891. And yes, that was a long time ago.

This second picture shows the trail I was walking on. I didn't have much time so I just looped around on the Deer Track Trail, and then got back to the lab lickity-split.

The trail was very icy but except for the hilly sections, the footing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Still, I wish I had been wearing hiking boots. I didn't fall but I did slip around a bit and it was because I was wearing smooth bottomed sneakers.

With all the leaves gone, you can see how the trail gracefully glides around the hilly terrain. In the more temperate times of the year, a lot less can be seen and it's easy to feel isolated on the trails of Battle Park. But not in winter!

This last picture is just a view of the leaves on the side of the trail, sporting a very shiny layer of ice. It's what all the fashionable dead leaves are wearing this winter, y'know?

Ha! Once or twice I was almost wearing some of that ice too.

Cold equals Pain

2011-01-13T15:03:00.002-05:00

I received my electricity bill from Duke Power in my Email today.

Ow, ow, ow, ow!

This is the first time in the 8 years that I've had my house that my bill went over $100. And it cleared that hurdle quite readily with a "score" of $143.31.

That's 45% more than any other bill I've gotten from Duke Power and more than 50% higher than the bill I had last December. Ouch!

Admittedly this is by far the coldest winter that I've experienced since I moved down south 25 years ago so it's not surprising that the electric bill went up. But 50%? Yikes. And January is starting off to be colder than December so this month's bill will probably be up around $150 also.

At least this is normal weather for January; it's supposed to be cold now. December was freakishly cold for this part of the country. And don't get me started about snow!

Dog Tired

2011-01-11T08:28:00.003-05:00

I hurt my back at work last Wednesday and that's been slowing me down somewhat.

But I'm not the only one with sore parts. Poor Bella really received a workout this weekend.

Just look at the headstand she's doing in that photo on the left. That was taken on Saturday morning during a short snow squall. The weather went from sunny and mild to windy, overcast, and quite cold in just a few minutes. Freaky. And over in about 10 minutes.

It happened again around an hour later but by that time we were back at Carrie's place warming up in front of a nice fire eating croissants.

The hiking was colder on Sunday when the mercury (does anyone still have mercury thermometers?) dipped down to 20f. Brrrr!

Carrie and I took Bella, but not Bibbs, to Occoneechee Mtn for a nice hike around the mountain at 9am. Damn it was nippy out! I didn't even take many pictures 'cause I didn't want to take my gloves off.

Later that day we did another hike, around 4 miles, in the woods south of Mebane. By then it was just a little below freezing and a lot sunnier so we were able to take Bibbs along. She's too thin and delicate to handle hikes in really cold weather.

This time there was a lot of stick throwing involved and we really, really tired out Bella. She simply can't resist chasing sticks no matter how tired she is. And as you can see in this picture, she was totally exhausted by the time we got back to the house.

None of these three hikes did my back any good but the snow on the highways today might give me a chance to rest up for a day. It's not looking good for being able to get into work. I think I might be bonding with my heating pad while reading a book. :-)

Found while Hiking

2011-01-07T14:46:00.006-05:00

I don't know who did the nibbling, but it was done just before we hit the clearing.

There was still plenty of plump juicy flesh on these bony parts. Yum-yum.

UPDATE: I didn't know it at the time, but a little research revealed that the bony head parts above once belonged to a rabbit. I would not have guessed that rabbits had such a long lower tooth but they do. The overall dentition is very indicative of a herbivore and the larger front teeth plus the placement of the small back teeth spells out the rest.

Day after Xmas

2010-12-26T17:42:00.003-05:00

I went down south for Christmas this year. Like usual.

In the wee hours of Friday morning I drove down to my father's place in SC so I'd get there before holiday traffic ramped up. It was still pretty quiet on the roads when I rolled into Dad's place at 7:45am.

The picture over there is from Xmas evening. It didn't snow here until pretty late---around 5pm, I'd say.

Earlier in the day I was at my brother's house near Atlanta. My Dad and I drove down there for Christmas. All 3 of my nephews were home for the holidays and that doesn't happen very often anymore now that two of them are out of school. And so we wanted to get together for the day.

We might have stayed longer except for the bad weather outlook. Snow on Christmas, the first time in 17 years for Atlanta, and more snow expected on Sunday. Driving in snow in the south isn't a good idea---people can get a little weird.

So we unwrapped presents in the morning, then sat around and talked a bit, then went to the garage for a few hours to play pool. Then we had dinner at 4pm.

The snow had started to fall around noon but it wasn't very serious until around 3pm. By the time we hit the road at 5:15 there was nearly an inch of snow accumulated on the ground but nothing was sticking to the road yet.

The departure was so sudden that I was still chewing ham as I walked out the door. Some people worry a lot about road conditions. And no, I wasn't the worrier.

Fortunately, despite steady snowfall the entire way, the road was only wet, never icy. And we got back to SC only 15 minutes slower than the trip down to GA that morning.

And there was barely any snow on the ground here.

As you can see on the picture above of my father's deck, we didn't even get an inch of accumulation here. I was hoping to go out this morning in my kayak and get great pictures of snowy banks in the midst of flurries of snow. Not a chance. It was almost all gone by the morning. :-(

So I made some cookies instead. Phooey. And up in NC where I live they got a lot of snow. Over 8 inches, I think.

The computer here can't read the picture card from my dSLR so I have to wait until I get home to see those pictures. The ones here are from my small Panasonic camera.

Foreground versus Background

2010-12-21T10:56:00.004-05:00

I took these two pictures on Saturday during a short but pretty snowstorm that rolled over the area.

In both pictures I was using a foreground subject with snowy details against a low contrast backdrop with less detail.

This first picture I used sharp focus to bring out the crystalline quality of the snow against the somewhat blurred backdrop of trees in the background. The different contrast levels also helps make this distinction.

I didn't use Photoshop but if I had, I'd drop the contrast even more in the trees to simulate fog. There was so much cloud cover along with the snow that the atmosphere naturally gave the impression of fog even though there wasn't any present.

In the second picture I have my lovely model standing in the falling snow, with trees in the background to help make the snowflakes stand out better. There's too much detail in the dormant grass in the midground. I should have blurred that part somewhat in Photoshop but I was too lazy to bother.

It wasn't until later in the day that we realized how little snow fell in most of our area. We received around 2 inches here but most of the area had little more than a few snowflakes scattered about.

We hiked around 2 miles in the snow. It was quite lovely though we were pretty wet by the time we got back. Although it was very cold when we started, by the time we got back to the house the temperature was up around 35f.

The dogs jumping up on us with wet paws didn't help any either. :-(

Snowy Hike on Sunday

2010-12-20T11:45:00.004-05:00

I went on two hikes in the snow this past weekend.

The picture to the left was from a late breakfast. I prepped the sausage and Carrie put the croissants together. They were quite tasty though most of the cheese leaked out.

One of the hikes was on Saturday when it was snowing fairly heavily. The snowfall didn't last long but we did end up with somewhere close to two inches. I must admit though that it was quite fluffy stuff.

The second hike was at Occoneechee Mountain on Sunday. By then the snow was melting but still pretty. It's very unusual to have so many snow days here in NC in December.

The temperature on Sunday was still pretty cold, not much above freezing, but the sun was bright enough to warm the ground. The three pictures below were taken on Sunday at Occoneechee.

Cute as a Bug

2010-12-16T09:41:00.003-05:00

More snow today. December isn't being nice to us.

Isn't this thing as cute as can be? It's my rental while my car is getting repaired. I'll probably have it another 3 or 4 days.

As you can see, I was in the midst of snow removal when I took the picture. Since it was rain/sleeting while I was out there I didn't expose my camera to the weather for very long.

My attempt to drive into work was short and ill conceived. It was so slippery out there that the traction control light on the dashboard kept coming on and I never got moving faster than 30mph, most of the time I was under 25. I just drove 5 or 6 miles and ended up back home.

If nothing else, it's not a good idea to drive in conditions like that in a car you're not used to. :-)

What a Difference...

2010-12-15T00:25:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you don't know when you have a good thing.

Sure, we had a very long and very hot summer. And autumn was pretty damn warm too.

But still, how could I have complained about the cold two weeks back just because we were having a few nights of below freezing weather?

Now we've had a week in which it was often below freezing all day long and the next week isn't a whole lot better---and right now it's 17f outside and still dropping. Supposed to get down to 13f!

The weather in December is a lot different than what we had been having. That's for sure.

I turned on the light I have under the house, am dripping a couple of faucets, and have turned up the temperature in the house to 68f. All this just to keep my water pipes from freezing. These southern homes aren't built for temperatures in the lower teens. :-(

In a Pickle

2010-12-14T16:43:00.005-05:00

I was involved in a car accident on Saturday so in a way I'm in a pickle.

But I'm really referring to these nasty things.

My girlfriend insisted on stopping at a diner the other day just because she loves their breaded pickles. Me? Not so much.

I'd never had one before and I strongly suspect there won't be any follow-ups for me. This is a form of cuisine that I want no part of.

The main event, so to speak, is a dill pickle slice which is then breaded and deep fried. I'm no fan of dill pickles to start with and I certainly don't care to have them deep fried. That's just nasty.

Look at that picture to the left. Now does that look appetizing to you?

Damn thing makes me shudder. And then it's served with ranch dressing on the side. That's even nastier! The entire ordeal was enough to make me shudder. But at least I found a solution.

As you can see in the photo below, if you put enough catchup on the breaded pickles they taste a lot better. Thank god for ketchup! Now if I could only load my car up with ketchup to make it all better... but I'm told that doesn't work.

Instead of ketchup, me and my insurance company will be spending $3k to fix my car's front end. Poor car. In the meantime, I've got a cute little red VW Beetle to drive.

Fortunately neither my gf nor I got as much as a scratch in the mishap. If it wasn't for an inconveniently placed metal sign, and a big pile of logs, my car would be in good shape too.

Cold Weather Making you Sluggish?

2010-12-08T15:33:00.004-05:00

As you might guess from the pictures in this post, I am using the cold weather this week as an excuse to post some pictures of a slug.

I guess to be accurate I should call it a snail (molluscan class Gastropoda), but that doesn't work as well with my post title.

I doubt the little fellow is alive anymore since we've had a lot of sub-freezing weather since these pictures were taken on November 27th.

I noticed the little guy moving across some leaves (quite slowly, as you might guess) on the ground near a stream in Duke Forest. To get a better bead on the head parts, I put the snail up on a tree branch.

The new location didn't seem to bother it one bit and he (she?) was merrily moving about in no time at all. The hand shot was taken during the transfer and is being used to give scale to the critter. It was small, true, but had loads of personality. Small things often do.

Snowy Weekend

2010-12-06T13:16:00.005-05:00

Here in NC we got 1 - 3" of snow this past weekend, mostly on Saturday afternoon and evening. Where I live it was 3 inches!

On the left is my car soon after the snow began to fall. Since it'd been cold for a while the snow began sticking almost immediately.

Within an hour of the first flakes spiraling down, the ground was covered and the dirt road on the other side of my car was covered as well.

I was at Carrie's house so I didn't get my usual pictures of my house covered in a blanket of snow. We did make a run to my place later that night since we needed some supplies for dinner that I had in my fridge and pantry. Carrie has a big truck so that made it easy to scoot over to the next county where I live.

After picking up some pork cutlets and wine from my fridge, and taters and applesauce from my pantry, along with a ricer for making the mashed potatoes we got back to Carrie's place before the roads froze over.

There were a lot of suicidal deer on the road that night. Southern deer aren't used to snow and I think they were more than ready to end it all after seeing all those crazy white flakes falling down.

As it turns out, when I drove home the next day there was a huge area of red stained pavement where the deer were freaking out the night before. Apparently not everyone was able to avoid those nutty deer. No bodies were around so I suspect someone that lives near there is enjoying some venison by now.

Cold December

2010-12-01T13:33:00.004-05:00

Here in NC we've had a very mild season so far. But December first seems to be bringing new weather to town.

As you can see in the picture over there, we've got a lot of nights of below freezing weather about to hit. I can't say that I'm happy about that but at least it waited this long to arrive.

The weather has been very mild with the exception of a few nights here and there. My electric bills have been almost pleasant to see. Hell, my heat didn't turn on even once all last night---but that's about to chance with the sub-30 degree temperatures that are coming in.

In other news, Thanksgiving last week was unusual for me.

For one thing, I didn't spend the day with relatives. This is the first Thanksgiving in over 20 years that I didn't spend with my family. Instead, I spent it with the family of my girlfriend.

And to celebrate this change in venue, I got a puffy eye. The picture there to the left was taken around 10 minutes after my girlfriend's daughter's dog lunged at my face and gave me that bruise. Now, a week later, it's puffy and yellow with some mild red streakiness to it. But at least it's not a real black eye.

Despite the animal attack, it was nice to go to Thanksgiving there. If nothing else, it was a lot quicker. The drive there took me 10 minutes. Had I gone to my brother's house the drive would have taken over 6 hours. And in a few weeks I'll be making that drive anyway to join the family Xmas celebration.

Burning House

2010-11-08T13:38:00.003-05:00

It's not my house that is burning down, it's the show House. Apparently critics are starting to take notice that the writing on the show is in a death spiral. No doubt the sexual and romantic relationship between Cuddy and House this season will be viewed later as the handwriting on the wall. I don't know if it constitutes a true Jumping the Shark moment, but their being in bed together at the beginning of this season must be close.

The other reason for the word "Burn" in the title of this post is a more promising one. Burn Notice starts up again this coming Thursday. I liked last season almost as much as the first season and a lot more than the seasons between. I hope this coming season holds the line. Program it in: 10 pm on USA Network.

If anyone cares, that annoying Conan O'Brien is making his debut on TBS tonight. He's got a slot between 11pm and midnight.

Brrrr

2010-11-07T23:19:00.004-05:00

Every year I delay using A/C in the warmer months and heat in the colder months. This year hasn't been an exception to that.

Most of last week it ranged from 56 to 58 in my house. A bit on the cool side but nothing really bad. I spent the weekend at my girlfriend's house and when I returned to my house at 5pm on Sunday it was to find the house had cooled further. Down to 51.2 degrees, to be exact.

That was the limit. I don't like it to go under 55 so I turned on the heating system within 5 minutes of getting home. Brrr! Now it's a toasty 62 in here and I'll probably turn it up to 65 tomorrow. It takes a while for the house to warm up so I'm gradually getting it used to the idea, you see.

It was supposed to go below freezing last night but I don't know if it did or not. There was a little ice on Carrie's deck but it didn't feel all that bad outside when we went hiking at 9am. Probably around 45f. But a couple of cold nights really dropped the temp in my house.

Tomorrow morning I have a doctor's appointment. I have a feeling she's going to tell me to lose more weight. Probably around 12-15 pounds. More hiking and less eating, I guess. I'm at 192 now and I should be around 182... or even less. That's not going to make this a fun winter. :-(

Two in a Row

2010-11-05T13:17:00.003-04:00

I didn't feel like waiting until December.

The two pictures here were taken last Saturday. I was hiking in the Cabe lands area of Eno Park, near the quarry.

Both pictures feature distant relatives of ours. One an insect the other a spider. While the two are both in the phylum Arthropoda, they're in different classes (Insecta and Arachnida).

The hornet pictured there on the left was crawling on my leg after I put it there. I found it on a rock. I had it in my hand for a while but every time I tried to take a picture of it, it fell off my hand and back onto my leg.

The hornets movements felt kinda funny because the wings never stopped moving and that created a slight tickling sensation. Because of the cool temperatures, the poor thing was moving a mite sluggishly so it was early to pick it up. But not so easy to get it to stay put.

I had an eye exam yesterday morning. I really hate those pupil dilation drops. It was a rainy overcast day so the sunlight didn't bother me but the oncoming headlights sure did. They appeared huge and freaky looking. As a result, the drive in to work after the exam was very interesting.

On Monday I have a doctor's appointment and the vision exam was in part to satisfy my doctor. She's been after me to get a vision test for nearly 18 months.

One odd thing resulted from the visit. While my eyes checked out fine, when I went to talk to the woman who does the eyeglass fitting I found out something interesting. I was wearing glasses that I'd gotten in 2004.

That probably explains why my vision seemed to take a dip around 6 months ago. Apparently I must have switched the glasses I got 2 years ago with the ones from 6 years ago. Oops. When I get home from work today I'll have to figure out where my more recent pair of glasses is...

My November Post

2010-11-04T14:35:00.004-04:00

It's been nearly a month since my last post. Maybe this is becoming a once-a-month blog.

These pictures are from a hike I took with a Meetup group last weekend. The hike was a 9.5 mile meander along 3 trails in Raven Rock park, near Lillington NC.

The last month has seen a few changes in my life.

My mother succumbed to lung cancer after a 2+ year encounter with the disease. She was diagnosed 23 months ago with a fairly advanced tumor in her left lung. Fist sized, they said, and gave her a couple of months to live.

She stayed nearly pain free for almost the entire two years. It was a very slow growing tumor and really fooled the doctors. The last 2 weeks were bad though---the cancer, relatively mild for most of its span, showed its fangs at the end.

That happened a month ago.

During the two bad weeks and the month since I managed to gain some serious weight. I don't know how that happened. (okay, I ate a lot) And now I'm up to 193 and am supposed to see my doctor on Monday. Uh-oh. She's going to cuss me out. :-(

I'm now going out with someone after a 6 month sabbatical from dating. She's got far too many pets so my allergies are all over the place. Two dogs, 4 birds, 3 cats, and some chickens outside. But so far I'm surviving.

Other than that things are pretty much the same: same house, same job, same car, same bad habits. See you in December!

New TV Shows

2010-10-05T10:35:00.003-04:00

In what is quite a surprise to me, my favorite of the new shows is Chase, an NBC police procedural about the US Marshal Service.

A lot of the appeal is generated by the female lead, Kelli Giddish, who stars as U.S. Marshal Annie Frost.

It's difficult to believe that the actress is only 30. She looks and holds the screen like a performer with a lot more experience. Just look at all those "determination" lines around her mouth and eyes! Talk about sexy. Or is it the gun and badge? LOL the leather jacket doesn't hurt either!

Lone Star, another series with a Texas hook, seems to be canceled after just two episodes. It was a very good show but I had already decided to stop recording it. The story line just looked to be getting too convoluted and The Event is my show this season for convoluted plot lines. I don't need two like that.

I've already deleted from my record list Running Wilde and No Ordinary Family, both after just watching one episode. They were horrible. At least Wilde has the cute and perky Kerri Russell on it. But that's not nearly enough---the show just stinks.

I like several of the people in Better With You but that only lasted 2 episodes before I stopped recording it. The mom from The 70's Show is on it. I'm still recording The Defenders but it's hanging by a thread. Both stars (Jerry O'Connell and Jim Belushi) are so annoying I keep hoping one of their clients shoots them.

Last night I watched the final episode of the first season of The Glades. I love that show. I hope the show avoids the Sophomore Jinx when it comes back in 2011 on A&E (of all places).

The series will go back into production later this year on 13 additional episodes, set for 2011.

A&E boasts that for the season to date, "The Glades" has averaged 3.2 million total viewers for each premiere episode, becoming the network's No. 1 series in total viewers and making A&E the top ad-supported cable network on Sunday nights, A&E says. "We're pleased that the series has struck a chord with fans," adds president and general manager Bob DiBitetto.

Hiking near Sunset

2010-09-29T15:07:00.002-04:00

A few pictures from last night's hike at Occoneechee Park. The sunset was pretty.

This picture was taken through the trees as we were sitting at the Quarry Overlook.

It was in the low 70s when we were hiking which was a huge change from the low 90s that we'd been used to hiking in. This change in the weather was quite welcome. Even more welcome was the 36 hours of rain we'd had from Sunday afternoon until quite late Monday evening.

I'd not mowed my lawn in over a month. At my house it'd been around 7 weeks since I'd had any rain. My back door wouldn't lock. I thought there was some kind of water damage to it and it'd warped. Since my area is pretty safe I just didn't bother locking it. And then when leaving for work on Monday, the lock worked again.

I guess the door was so dry it changed shape! I'd never had that happen before.

This second picture is the group of us leaving the overlook with the sun shining through the trees behind us.

Tonight after work I'm helping an ex-girlfriend move some furniture so she doesn't hurt her neck and back. Then a little shopping at Wal-mart which is close to where she lives, and then back home for dinner.

Lamb, pork or beef?

2010-09-28T15:24:00.004-04:00

A recipe I was following the other day asked for ground lamb.

Now I don't know about you, but where I live ground lamb isn't typically stocked in stores. Actually, lamb of any stripe is difficult to find.

So then the question became should I use ground beef or ground pork. I didn't even bother to contemplate ground chicken or turkey. Ickers!

What I would have liked to do would have been to have a mix of 75% pork and 25% beef but given that the packages of ground pork were 1 pound each, I would have had to make enough to feed an army. I could have bought a pound of pork and a pound of beef and just used a quarter of the beef but that wouldn't have been quite enough.

In the end I went with just using 2 packs of pork and nixing the beef entirely. Sorry cows! Or like actress Clara Peller used to say in those Wendy's commercials, Where's the beef?

So that's what you see over there on the left. Just ground up piggies.

Quite a bit of fat in them. At the beginning I could only put a little over half of the meatballs in the pan. Yet before I moved any of the cooked meatballs over to the sauce they had shrunk enough so that the rest of the meatballs could fit.

That was fine though. I used all that melted fat to saute the onions, shallots, and garlic and then later added them to the sauce too.

I was using a North African recipe so the spicing was heavy on cumin and allspice with a healthy wallop of cinnamon and ground coriander seeds too.

It turned out pretty good but the pasta was rather bland. In my hurry to finish the food at the end, I totally spaced and forgot to salt the pasta water. The sauce and meatballs were quite good but I was taking a lot more care early in the process when I wasn't hungry yet.

Yeah, I know. Rookie mistake.

Wounded in Action

2010-09-27T14:36:00.003-04:00

Dogs are dangerous.

See my lip? Torn up it is. Do you wonder how it got that way?

Just take a gander at the picture below and you'll see the oaf that inflicted the injury on my person.

The obvious conclusion was that I was lifting the dog, it struggled, and my mouth got struck during the fracas. But no, it wasn't like that at all. All I was doing was sitting in a chair eating my dinner and the dog tried to jump in my lap.

Do you see the size of that damn thing?!? Needless to say it didn't fit and my mouth got whacked by the dog's head during the attempt to fit onto my lap. Dogs!

Another interesting thing about that picture. Until I saw the picture up there I didn't realize how different the wear pattern was on my teeth. It looks like I use the teeth on one side of my mouth a lot more than the ones on the other. Odd.

I'll have to pay more attention when I'm biting things and see if I can notice myself preferring one side over the other.

In other matters, that picture up there is already out of date. I shaved off the sides of my beard this morning and I'm back to having a goatee. I might get rid of that too.

Hair has been annoying to me lately. I'm in favor of shaving it all off---but I'm doing it in short stages just in case I change my mind.

A Pair

2010-09-22T14:22:00.004-04:00

How's this for a pair of bugs. One small and kinda cute in a buggy way and the other huge and icky. It's like a hummingbird bug. It hovers at a flower and that long tongue goes in then off it flies to find another flower. *shudder*

As Roxanne points out in the comments, the "cute bug" is a cucumber beetle and apparently they're bad news. Since I took the picture at a botanical garden, it's not my problem. :-)

Another toy

2010-09-18T23:31:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I went on two hikes and both of them were road trips to the west of me.

And both times there were at least two roads closed on my route. Since I just look at Google Maps and write down which roads to drive on---when something is closed it's really not a good thing.

I got lost multiple times and it took a hell of a lot longer than it should have. So after the second hike I decided it was finally time to buy a GPS. And so I did. Amazon had one of their specials on a Garmin on Tuesday and I snapped it up for $99.99.

It arrived on Friday afternoon. It's very pretty.

As you can see in the picture above, it's a Garmin nuvi 855. Touchscreen, talks to you, and even has voice recognition too. Gotta love it.

I used it for the first time today while driving to Duke Forest for some hiking and it was great. I wish I'd bought one of these gadgets years ago.

I've never used one before so I don't know which features they all have and which ones aren't standard. I really liked having the posted speed and my actual speed right there on the display. It makes keeping track of the speed issue very easy. Showing what turn is coming up next is great too. I do love toys!

Pictures while Hiking

2010-09-17T23:16:00.002-04:00

I delayed my evening hike at Occoneechee a little bit tonight.

As a result, it was getting pretty damn dark by the time I was doing my second loop around the trail.

That's what made it weird that this big boy was still on the trail. My vision wasn't very good since in the low light I had trouble seeing slight color variations.

As a result, I almost stepped on the snake. His sudden move to get away is what made me notice him. Otherwise I'd never have seen him at all.

And isn't he pretty?

The darkness made it a lot easier to take macro shots of this plant.

The flash lit up the parts I wanted to take the picture of and the rest of the scene was too dark to be seen. Nice.

I love how startling white the puffy parts are. It's like a dandelion top.

Paddling after Work

2010-09-13T23:55:00.002-04:00

I did a lot of hiking this past weekend but no paddling.

So I decided that paddling after work today was an excellent idea.

As you can see from this picture, the setting was quite lovely. Unfortunately I was stuck in a canoe with the world's worst paddler. This guy was a public menace!

Whichever side of the canoe he was paddling on, he scooted all the way over to the edge of the canoe. I was doing all I could to keep us from tipping over. At times I couldn't paddle because I was holding the sides of the boat as I leaned over the edge to keep from capsizing.

And despite being out there for 2 hours, he never got any better. If anything, as he tired out (the wimp!) he just got worse.

The lack of paddling pictures is because I never dared pull out my camera. We were in constant danger of going over. Grrrrrr.

The Future

2010-09-04T21:11:00.005-04:00

Things have been a little weird at times lately.

So I decided that a little warning about what might happen in the future would be a great thing. As a result, I decided to buy some Tarot Cards. I don't know if they work but it can't hurt.

The cards, which are quite pretty, came with a 284 page book. Yes. I said 284 pages!

I'm starting to get the idea that this Tarot thing might be a wee bit complicated.

I guess it might be a while before I'm able to read these suckers. I'm getting a feeling it's not something that just automatically comes to you. Maybe I should just buy a computer program that predicts the future, eh?

I'll let you know if I open a booth at the state fair. :-)

Toy in the Mail

2010-09-02T23:17:00.003-04:00

The Kindle that I mentioned yesterday arrived today. Pretty damn fast.

This is the box it came in. Nice and compact. Amazon is getting pretty good with its packaging.

As you can see in the picture below, it was extremely easy to open. Just rip a tab on the end and then lift the lid. That was it.

The painful part was setting up the wireless network that I needed to download books onto my new Kindle. A few weeks ago I "switched" from Roadrunner to AT&T but I never bothered to actually do it. So tonight that was the task I had to do so I could play with my new toy.

I was impressed with how easy the AT&T setup should have worked. Unfortunately I have a Linux OS and not Windows or Mac. Let's just say that things got complicated and I had to call up the Helpline folk to find out how to work around the OS problem. It took a while on hold but once I was connected to a human, he just had me input website IP numbers directly and that made everything work just fine.

It still took a while but my connection with AT&T is a bit faster than Roadrunner and a lot less expensive. I'll cancel my Roadrunner service tomorrow. :-)

So far I really like my Kindle and I was amazed at how fast books download. It only takes seconds!

Red Letter Day

2010-09-01T02:38:00.003-04:00

Actually it's more of a black letter day now that I think about it. Amazon just shipped my Kindle 6 minutes ago and the lettering on those critters is black.

Yep. 2:32am on September 1st is when they sent the Email and I read it 5 minutes later. Gotta love this instant knowledge stuff.

I bought one of the new generation $139 Kindles that don't have the 3G connectivity. Since I don't think I'll be buying many books on impulse, I'm willing to give up the roaming capability to save some money. Fifty bucks! And until I decide if I like it or not, I'm only downloading free books ---mostly old classics--- only some of which I'll be willing to read. But this is more about deciding if I like the feel, sensation, experience of reading an electronic tablet. I really do like holding a heavy paper based hardcover book so this electronic gadget is iffy.

Well, we'll see... it's supposed to get here tomorrow!

Grave Matters

2010-08-29T14:19:00.004-04:00

I went on two hikes this morning. One, the Quarry path at Eno River I did with a Meetup group and the second, Cox Mountain at Eno River West, I did by myself.

All told it was around 7 miles---less than I walked yesterday at the zoo but I also did it in a lot less time. Today I was only hiking for 3 hours as opposed to yesterdays six and a half hours.

While hiking on the Quarry path I noticed an interesting looking dead tree well off the path on the east side. I wandered back in the woods to get a picture of it. That's it over on the left. And from there I could see an odd clearing off in the distance, further to the east.

Imagine my surprise when I found that the clearing was actually an old abandoned graveyard.

It's not really old, the most recent gravestone I saw was from 1925 but many of them were dated in the mid 1800s. While the graveyard didn't look like it was visited very often there were signs of care so some people must visit every now and then. I never knew it was there.

Zoo Day

2010-08-28T23:54:00.003-04:00

I went to the state zoo in Asheboro today.

I wanted to play with a new camera and what better place to take pictures than a zoo?

I invited a friend to go along since I have a 1+1 membership. We were there from when they opened at 9am to 3:35pm---almost their closing time---and we never stopped walking the entire day.

Her shins were hurting and my feet just ached. Dehydrated? Sure, as well as being a little sunburnt where sweating and wiping cleaned the sunblock off, but it's great to see so many animals and their respective environments in just one day.

I took 510 pictures with my Canon, I'm not sure how many Nancy took with her camera but she was snapping away the whole time too.

The morning was misty and somewhat overcast but the afternoon was sunny and peaked around 86f. Beautiful weather to be walking around for us. Though by noon a lot of the critters were holed up and unavailable for photoshoots.

Humming

2010-08-23T20:57:00.003-04:00

My parents have a hummingbird feeder on their deck.

Which provided me a great opportunity to play with my camera a bit. Tomorrow I'm going to work on getting some wings without blurring, but it'll have to be very bright out to allow me to use that fast a shutter speed.

I had to be very patient to get these shots because there are 3 hummingbirds nearby and they're so territorial that whenever one would fly near the feeder, at least one of the others would swoop over to drive off the one that wanted a drink. It was only once in a while that one of the hummingbirds made it to the feeder without being noticed by the others.

They'd be a lot less hungry if they'd just cooperate but I guess that's not how hummingbirds are built.

At least this one is willing to share his food with some ants though I suspect the bird isn't aware that it's sharing.

Speaking of sharing, I took a bunch of pictures of a waterfall today but the chip I used wouldn't work with my parent's computer and so I have to wait until I get home to see the pics.

The computer is pretty old and I suspect the card is too big. It's a 4GB one. So now I'm using a 2GB card in the camera and the computer is quite happy with that one.

A Few Days in SC

2010-08-22T16:07:00.003-04:00

In the wee hours of the day I did my normal 3am -- 7am drive to my parent's house.

My brother joined us for a few hours in the morning but he wasn't able to stay away from work for long. The excessively hot weather this summer has wracked havoc on his golf course (he's a golf course superintendent), especially the bent grass greens. They're just burnt right up.

After Craig left to go back to Atlanta, Dad went to church and Mom and I read for a while. Due to my late night and all it was very difficult to stay awake so finally I figured that hitting the water for some paddling might wake me up a bit.

It would have been better to have been on the water in the early morning but any time of day is better than no paddling at all. :-)

So I went kayaking for a bit in the afternoon. Since it was so hot with lots of direct sun I kept it down to an hour and a half out on the water. Still, I was soaked with sweat by the time I got back as you can see in this picture.

Good exercise though, y'know? I sure do feel like taking a nap...

One Decade Apart

2010-08-20T23:23:00.002-04:00

I watched two movies last night that I had recorded off of TCM this past week.

Yeah, a very exciting Friday night, don't you know.

Anyway, the first one was made in 1961, the year I was born. The second one happened to be made one decade later in 1971. There really seemed to be a huge thematic difference between the two and it was partially due to the times in which they were made.

The first movie was a Disney flick named The Parent Trap and starred Haley Mills, twice. It was kinda funny watching how clumsy they were dealing with using one actress in two parts on the screen at the same time. Lots of body doubles with the face obscured and in cases where they used Haley on both sides of the screen, the interaction was really forced. Actors today spend a lot of time "interacting" with people and monsters via green screen and they've gotten a lot better at it. Watching Parent Trap was an interesting way to see how they did it way back then.

Social values (or at least the Disney version) were on strong display in this movie. While it centered on a divorced couple (Gasp!) who split their twins between themselves and then didn't communicate for 12 years---still, the film was all about family values.

The second film was Shaft. Apparently things had changed quite a bit between 1961 and 1971. LOL Just a wee bit grittier and with that very interesting soundtrack in the background. This wasn't made by Disney.

A lot more attitude with a prominently displayed NYC as background in all of its early 70s dirt, grime, and urban decay. Great movie. It's a little clunky in places but it's held up pretty well for a movie that's almost 40 years old.

Cookies on the Water

2010-08-19T23:48:00.003-04:00

Here's a picture from last Sunday when I was kayaking.

One of the other paddlers snapped this picture of the group while we were resting near the shore, on a cookie break.

That's me in the blue vest bobbing up and down in my new kayak.

I didn't bother using my rudder last week but I'll probably give it a try next time. It'll be interesting to see how much of a difference it makes. Normally you don't need one in good weather but when the wind picks up it can really make a huge difference.

Nuclear Paddling

2010-08-17T15:18:00.003-04:00

On Sunday I went paddling with a Meetup kayaking group. We went to Harris Lake which serves as a water reservoir for a nuclear plant.

Here's the Wiki on the place:

The Shearon Harris Nuclear Generating Station is a nuclear power plant with a single Westinghouse designed pressurized-water nuclear reactor operated by Progress Energy. Located in New Hill, North Carolina, in the United States, about 20 miles (30 km) southwest of Raleigh, it generates 900 MWe, has a 523 foot (160 m) natural draft cooling tower, and uses Harris Lake for cooling. The reactor achieved criticality in January 1987 and began providing power commercially on May 2 of that year.

I've got two pictures that juxtapose paddlers with the nuclear plant.

For some reason the appearance of the large cooling tower in the back with the kayaks and paddlers in the foreground is appealing to me.

Some might find alarm in that "scary" image of the cooling tower, billowing hot steam, or maybe in the smaller but potentially dangerous containment building. I just view them as lots of cement and a certain techy appearance.

They combine to form a calming image for me.

It is nice to see that Harris Lake is quite big though. In the end, the lake is what prevents the pile in the containment building from melting down. The bigger the lake the less likely a problem will occur. At least problems stemming from the lack of coolant.

AT & T

2010-08-16T19:54:00.003-04:00

I've got a project to do.

Either tonight or tomorrow I'm switching out my broadband connection. I've had Roadrunner for several years and it works fine. But.

But I don't have cable, I have satellite. However to get Roadrunner I have to pay for nasty cable even though I'm not using it.

So recently AT&T finally allowed coverage to my area and I quickly signed up for it. It's only going to cost a quarter of what I had been paying through Time Warner.

I just hope that it works. I don't have a whole lot of faith in AT&T.

Kissing is Good

2010-08-15T23:14:00.004-04:00

Or is it? The photo below brings the entire "kissing is good" situation into some controversy.

Believe me, I didn't start out trying to make waves. I was just playing with a friend's puppy. She's had it for about a month and this was the first time I'd been by. He seemed like a nice puppy. Not one to get fresh or take advantage. Little did I know!

These days I'm a little less trusting, and you can take that to the bank. Just don't kiss any puppies on the way there. Really bad breath!

PS Just for the record, that pink thing in the picture between our mouths is Barney's tongue not mine. I don't kiss like that the first time I meet someone.

Another Kayak

2010-08-14T20:18:00.004-04:00

I bought another used kayak off of Craig's List today. I'm going to have to stop looking at that site 'cause it ends up costing me too much money.

As you can see, this one is bigger than my car. I bought it in Greensboro so it was an hours drive away. I'm signed up for a short paddle tomorrow morning so I'll get to use it right away.

This kayak is a Prijon Seayak. It's a 16 foot long sea kayak, which is a very short length for that type of kayak. They sell for around $1,600 new but this one is 15 years old. Pretty damn old for a big piece of plastic. It's only 24" wide which gives it a nice sleek line to slip through water with less resistance. Or so they say!

I hope that it works as well on the water as it does on top of my car. It didn't even shimmy at 75mph though I did try to keep it at 70mph or under. It'd have been really bad if it popped off!

4 from last Weekend

2010-08-13T23:15:00.002-04:00

Here's 4 more pictures from the hiking last week that I appear in.

They were just uploaded today. Juliet, who took the pictures, used a film camera thus the delay. Film! WTF? I guess there's always going to be a few Luddites around.

BTW, I'm the one in the green t-shirt. I'm just a minor player in most of these pictures but the background is very pretty. Hanging Rock Park has a lot of very pretty spots, especially the waterfalls that are in the park.

I'm planning on doing a lot of yardwork this weekend as well as buy another used kayak off of Craig's List. I'm supposed to go look at it on Saturday afternoon. It's a very old kayak (1990s) but still pretty! I have to go into work for an hour or so on Saturday or Sunday. That's bad but on the good side, I'm signed up to go on a kayaking trip Sunday morning and that'll be fun. And I might go to lunch afterwards with a buddy I have in Pittsboro---which is near where I'll be paddling.

And then it's back to work on Monday. :-(

Labyrinth

2010-08-11T23:28:00.004-04:00

I just finished reading a book by the lovely Kate Mosse (English author born just a few months after I was). Apparently Labyrinth was an international bestseller back in 2005. I missed it then but happened to pick it up in a used bookstore last month and just got around to reading it these past 3 days. I really enjoyed it quite a bit.

It's background is religious since it explores the Cathars, a gnostic Christian sect, and how they were brutally suppressed by more mainstream elements of the Roman Catholic Church in the 13th century. The book explores the situation by having a murder mystery / love story to engage our interest. Mosse does this by superimposing a modern storyline over one from the 13th century time period and running them in parallel. It works very well---but I do have a strong liking for that sorta thing.

One of my favorite series of books is by Katherine Kerr where she does a similar thing using ancient Celtic culture as her backdrop. The theme of love conquers time is just hard to resist. And besides, a religion that is dualistic and gnostic is frankly quite interesting albeit too strange to take seriously. At least by me.

Here's a paragraph on Catharism from Wiki:

This placed them [the Cathars] at odds with the Catholic Church in regarding material creation, on behalf of which Jesus had died, as intrinsically evil and implying that God, whose word had created the world in the beginning, was a usurper. Furthermore, as the Cathars saw matter as intrinsically evil, they denied that Jesus could become incarnate and still be the son of God. Cathars vehemently repudiated the significance of the crucifixion and the cross. In fact, to the Cathars, Rome's opulent and luxurious Church seemed a palpable embodiment and manifestation on Earth of Rex Mundi's sovereignty.

There's a lot more paragraphs there so feel free to give the Wiki link a click and find out more! :-)

Naturally this book invites comparison to The Da Vinci Code but there's a big difference: Mosse actually knows how to write. Just saying.

Hot Hiking

2010-08-10T23:06:00.002-04:00

I went hiking after work today and nearly got poisoned for my trouble.

That sounds weird---maybe I didn't say it right.

In any case, the hike was very hot. The weather was steamy---the humidity was through the roof---and temperatures were in the mid-90s most of the day. *whew* As a result, I only went on one loop at Occoneechee and afterwards joined the other members of the group at a nearby restaurant.

That's the location of the poisoning! Well, poorly executed, at least. I ordered grilled tuna because this place tends to overcook their burgers for health reasons. Believe me--after what they do to a dead cow there's not a bacteria in the world that would stick around. Scary.

Oddly enough, the problem was the other way for the tuna I ordered. It was frickin' raw and not very good quality. Canned tuna is a big step upwards from the crap they served me. Nasty. Had it been grilled a lot of that taste would have been hidden but not when they serve it raw.

I should have done another spin around the park instead of eating that nasty tuna. The first two slices of tuna were all I could eat. I was very hungry but I left the other 6 slices on my plate. I'd have sent them back had the waiter ever come around---but he didn't. That's another thing... the waiter was awful.

Tubing on the Dan

2010-08-09T23:08:00.003-04:00

Sunday morning we were hiking at Hanging Rock park from 10am to 1pm and then we drove 10 minutes away to go tubing on the Dan River for 3 hours.

This is where we put into the river after a 10 minute bus ride in VERY cramped seats. We were stuffed on that bus like sardines. (but not as smelly as sardines despite all that hiking)

The following pictures are from the slow journey down the Dan River. It was about 3 miles and the river just moves along gently in most places with a few mini-rapids just to keep it interesting.

The river was packed with people from start to finish though it seemed more locals than tourists given the amount of alcohol consumption going on. I sure hope these people weren't driving afterwards!

Hiking and Paddling

2010-08-08T22:16:00.004-04:00

On Saturday I hurt my back. I was leaning over my mower, trying to adjust the wheel height when I got frustrated and lifted the thing off the ground to get better leverage. Kinda heard/felt a *pop* sound and that wasn't good.

Unfortunately today was the day for a Meetup activity that I had signed up for several months back. Hiking in Hanging Rock state park, which is about 80 miles away from me, followed by 3 hours of tubing down the Dan River.

Of these activities, driving, mountain hiking, and tubing, none are very helpful to a back that's hurting. Real bad timing here. I have to work on that.

In any case, these three pictures were taken by others in the group. The first two are on the hike up Hanging Rock mountain and the third is a picture at a pool beneath a waterfall, near Hanging Rock park. I'm the one in the green shirt (the first of 3 shirts I was to wear that day)

There's no pictures of me tubing since I was usually near the front and nobody else up there had a camera. I'll post some of my tubing pictures tomorrow. :-)

Relief

2010-08-05T21:58:00.004-04:00

It's weird. My legs don't look all that bad. The poison ivy is very mild. The chigger bites I've gotten are bothering me more than the ivy.

Helping in this fight is using better drugs.

For the first time I actually went to a doctor right away. She prescribed a strong steroid based anti-itch cream and also advised me to pick up a over-the-counter foam type cleanser designed for poison ivy contact. It really helps.

A factor for the future is a bug repellant I can leave in my car. I usually use sprays but due to the heat this summer I wasn't willing to risk leaving a pressurized can in my car. Having a DEET 40 pump spray just for the car solves the problem---and will hopefully keep chiggers away and insects too.

Since I'm going to be going tubing down the Dan River this weekend with a local hiking group (apparently we should call it a hiking and floating group now) I'll be able to give the bug spray a try in just a couple of days. Before we do the Dan River we'll be hiking to a few waterfalls around the Hanging Rock area. Temperatures are forecast to be around 90. Should be fun!

Food Shows

2010-08-04T14:19:00.003-04:00

This past Sunday I watched The Next Food Network Star (and isn't that an awkward name?) and was quite disappointed. When the season started around 3 months ago there were 3 contestants that I immediately liked. Those three were tough competitors and have stayed on the show through thick and thin---at least until this week. Brad, my favorite of the three, just got booted off. Now there's only Herb (who I don't like), Aria, and Aarti (adorable!) left.

Aarti has her own website. Aarti Paarti. See what you think. Of the three that are left, she's by far my favorite.

On Hell's Kitchen there weren't any chefs eliminated last week so this week two got the axe. The lovely Autumn was no surprise since she'd been sent up for elimination more often than anyone else on the show---I think she was victimized due to her being the prettiest one on this season but I'm sure there's other opinions on that---but Ben's elimination was more of a surprise. His skipping prep was probably what did him in. Now there's just one episode left in the 15 show run.

Autumn Lewis
Age : 29
Hometown : Chicago, IL
Occupation : Personal Chef, North Hollywood

Special Effects

2010-08-02T23:19:00.003-04:00

More GIMP effects on a picture. The pic below is a modified picture of my knee with poison ivy. The same one from the post earlier tonight. They sure don't look the same, eh?

I'm using it for my desktop wallpaper. At least for a while.

***It's odd but you can see the commonality of the two pics on here a lot better than on my computer screen. Must be the small size of the pics. If you look at the bigger version, you'll see how unlike a leg the modified picture truly is.***

Poison Ivy again

2010-08-02T21:09:00.005-04:00

This is the second time this year I played around with poison ivy. You'd think I'd learn.

But no, I keep on doing this. Last time it took over a month for everything to clear up. This time, and for the first time in my life, I'm calling in medical help. Or at least I'm trying to. I called my doctor's office this morning but never got a call back. I'll give it another try tomorrow morning.

I went hiking on Saturday night and also Sunday morning so I could have been exposed on either hike but the evening hike at Eno River Park is the more likely. My symptoms, which at first I thought were just bug bites, first appeared on Sunday afternoon. By evening it was obvious that it was poison ivy and not just insect bites.

And now these pictures were taken just 10 minutes ago. Most of the rash is around my knees in front and ankles all around. A lot more on the left leg than the right and only a few spots high up on the thigh and butt. Since the thigh and butt spots were covered by clothing it's odd that I've got contact points there.

Unfortunately my experience tells me that soon these spots will spread until nearly my entire legs are covered. I certainly hope that my doctor can suggest a better form of treatment than just waiting it out, which is what I usually do. Damn poison ivy!

Where do you draw the line?

2010-08-01T19:36:00.003-04:00

Below is a picture I took while hiking at Occoneechee Mountain Park this morning.

The picture is okay but I took a similar one that was better so I decided to play around a bit with the lesser of the two pictures.

The picture here was my first attempt. I used a filter named "cartoon" in GIMP (a Photoshop-like program that is available for folk using Linux OS) and kept the settings on the mild side.

I like the overall effect more than the original picture since it adds a little more "oomph" to the aesthetic. Or something like that. But I wasn't satisfied yet so....

I used the "basket weaving" filter and that might have been a little too much. I actually like the effect of the filter but not on this picture. I think it'd be neat on something more... abstract. Anyway, I should have drawn the line at using the cartoon filter, I guess. Maybe if I add a few solar flares?

deer commentaries

2010-07-31T22:25:00.004-04:00

Maybe that should be spelled "dear." It's kinda hard to determine.

The picture is from a hike I did on Saturday. I got the picture just as I was leaving Eno River Park at 8:50pm. The deer were grazing near where I was parked. While there's only two deer in the picture there were 8 in all. Mostly males.

And yes, it was getting a wee bit dark to be hiking in the woods. That last 20 minutes of trail had me doing some serious jogging.

The "dear" versus "deer" part involves some Emails tossed around between me and JLee. I was teasing her about having to work on Saturday and she was teasing me about her having a dinner date afterwards and me.... not having one. Overall I think she won. Dammit.

And speaking of dates, number 3 hasn't happened yet. Nope. Not on Friday, nor Saturday, and not even anything scheduled for Sunday. It's enough to make one wonder...

Goodie Two Shoes

2010-07-30T00:06:00.004-04:00

Actually the title should be "two sandals" but that just doesn't have the same cachet.

I received this pair of sandals today from Amazon. My last pair got tossed at the end of last summer and I'd not bothered to replace them until now.

I liked the low profile of these and the flat lines---plus the crazy colors. And on top of that it's all for a good cause. The Sole Rebels organization is out of Ethiopia and they promote economic and social change for their workers.

They've got an interesting website (you should check it out) as well as nice shoes and sandals. See what you think.

The company, soleRebels, began in 2004 as a way to bring jobs to their village, Zenabwork, located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Their shoe selection features collections of sandals, flip flops and shoes. These feature recycled car tire soles and an array of recycled and sustainable ingredients like hand spun and hand loomed organic fabrics and a palette of unique natural fibers including organic pure Abyssinian jutes and Abyssinian KOBA. Nice, huh?

Here's an excerpt from their website:

Our motto at soleRebels is: “making the world a better place. One step at a time.” And we attempt to do that, in whatever small manner, every day.

from our inception we proudly employed+trained the highly marginalized or those thought unemployable . together we set out to re-imagine the traditional ETHIOPIAN “selate” and “barabasso” shoes ( recycled car tire sole shoe) in dynamic + vibrant new fashions.

we aimed to create something that was authentically local but had a truly universal flavor to it; and for the past few years we have that and more . and all the while we never lose our focus on crafting our wares from the most eco-sensible materials available - a combination of recycled , organic + bio-based materials , and then making our shoes in the most energy efficient manner possible – with our talented hands.

And they were on sale. :-)

Television

2010-07-29T13:23:00.003-04:00

Have you seen the new show The Glades? It started early this month on A&E and I really like it so far.

The show stars Australian actor Matt Passmore who plays a Chicago detective who was fired due to screwing his boss' wife. Bad move, eh? So he relocated to southern Florida and took up his bad boy ways down near the Everglades. Passmore does a good job in this role. He's very irritating and that's how his character is supposed to be. The love interest is cute as the dickens and a bit complicated since she's married to a guy in jail.

The reality shows on Bravo are closing in on the end. Work of Art (which I still like a lot) is down to the last 5 artists and on Top Chef, Andrea Curto-Randazzo's departure ---she reminds me of Sarah Jessica Parker in that an iffy face is combined with a hot body--- means that there's 10 left, I think, out of the starting 17.

Last night's episode of Top Chef got viewers all riled up due to a pea purée fight. Personally I think it was just the editors making it look like some underhanded skulduggery was going on---but on blogs and bulletin boards it looks like viewers ate it up. Maybe they'll reveal if the pea purée was really stolen on next week's episode. Right now they're saying that nobody knows which is obvious BS. *sigh* Top Chef is descending into the nasty basement of reality tv.

Patootie Pain

2010-07-28T23:47:00.004-04:00

Work today was a pain in the patootie. A royal pain, at that. Three different crises running in parallel. It was truly a mess.

None of them were all that bad and could have been solved in fairly short order --- if only the other two crises would have left me alone for 40 minutes or so. Unfortunately all three took quite a while to solve because the other folk kept calling or Emailing me which forced each problem in turn to worsen while I was taking care of the most recent complainer. Yikes.

Fortunately days like this are very rare in my job. Was it a full moon day or something? I was sure glad when I got out of there at 5pm.

And after work I went on my second date with.... what name should we give her? Maybe Sybil. That's easy to remember. And this time we had a traditional "dinner and a movie" date. Dinner was Italian at Tarantini Restaurant not far from campus. Sybil had the Fettuccine Alfredo (only $12---gotta love it) and I had the Vitello Parmigiana ($17) and we had some excellent bruchetta as an appetizer. Lots of feta cheese on it and it tasted wonderful. I was going to have a bottle of wine and forgot all about it. I just remembered now. Oops.

Neither of us was wearing a watch and when we left the restaurant we turned our phones back on --- and it was 6:57pm and the movie was starting at 7pm. Oops! Fortunately the theatre wasn't all that far away and of course they put all that crap on first so we ended up walking in right at the start of the rolling of credits. *whew* The move we saw was Inception and it was pretty good. It also was pretty long. It just kept going and going and going. :-) Fortunately the acting was pretty damn good. The plot was a little twisty but I didn't think it was nearly as complex as the reviews would have you believe. And by a little after 11pm I was home. It is a work night after all.

The Taste of Singapore

2010-07-25T23:30:00.005-04:00

I went on a date tonight, the first one in many weeks. And the first one to go well in months. Yes, months!

We met at a Asian restaurant in Southern Village named Merlion, which specializes in the cuisine of Singapore:

The vibrant, multicultural country of Singapore is home to an equally distinctive blend of foods from all across Southeast Asia. The perfect synthesis of the best of Asia makes Singapore a food paradise. Merlion Restaurant brings the authentic and unique flavors of Singapore to Southern Village in Chapel Hill. Come visit and find out why we call Merlion Restaurant, “Uniquely Singapore.”

This is what I decided to have:

Merlion Pineapple Rice
Rice stir-fried with Merlion’s aromatic spice blend and refreshing pineapple
cubes. Garnished with pine nuts, scallion and golden shallot.
With Vegetables or with Chicken 13.95

I liked but wasn't thrilled with the meal. Unmentioned in the menu description was the huge amounts of broccoli in the dish nor did they mention the heap of dried bacon on top. I HATE bacon. And yes, I realize I'm about the only person that does.

By the way, courtesy of Wiki, the Merlion is an imaginary creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, used as a mascot of Singapore. Its name combines "mer" meaning the sea and "lion". That's a picture of one over on the left.

Fortunately my date more than made up for the lackluster meal. She was warm in demeanor and passionate about her work. It was wonderful to just listen to her. And so far she hasn't noticed how boring and contrary I am. I've got my fingers crossed!

Further developments, if any, to follow. Since I've not been very lucky in getting to the second date point---this might be the only mention. :-(

In case you want something to ponder over, where in 'ell would a merlion live? It seems poorly adapted to the sea and it certainly can't move around on land. I guess I'd understand it better if I knew more about the background of Singapore and the people there. Odd critter though.

Friday

2010-07-23T12:41:00.003-04:00

This has been one long and very hot week. The temps have been hovering near 100 the past few days and might have hit triple digits once or twice.

Walking across our hilly campus today to drop this weeks worth of books off at the library got me soaking wet with sweat. It's brutal out there!

The books on the left are the ones I'm bringing back. I'm going to take out a few more by Karin Slaughter. I'd read two book by her before but hadn't remembered her name. Now I'm going to read her books more systematically.

Back to the weather topic: while I might complain about the heat, the pictures below are of people who really should complain. Construction workers and athletes that have to train outdoors.

I took the two pictures while walking across campus. The UNC football stadium is having some cosmetic surgery and this is a bad summer for it. At least if you're doing the work. I'm glad I was just taking a mile and a half walk. Doing real labor outside is just nuts.

kayaking

2010-07-19T15:52:00.002-04:00

Just a few river scenes taken with my new waterproof camera.

Yes, no more cases of digital camera suicide for me. The days of kayaking mishaps and hiking sweat causing cameras to die early deaths are behind me!

The First to Table

2010-07-16T19:31:00.001-04:00

Coming Along

2010-07-15T23:27:00.000-04:00

Now I've got 6 Roma tomatoes that are ripe and nearly half of the grape tomatoes. My bell peppers, on the other hand, just aren't doing much. The beans are looking good but it'll be some time before I can harvest them.

Lunch

2010-07-14T15:54:00.002-04:00

I had lunch today at a Chinese restaurant today. The Red Lotus in Chapel Hill.

A friend of mine had her 43rd birthday recently and instead of a gift, she asked to go out to lunch. So we did.

It was great for me since I don't get to go out to lunch very often. I have to park off-campus and as a result going out to eat isn't easy. Cry has a parking spot on campus so she can just scoot over to her car and drive away.

The receipt is funny. They ask at the bottom for customers to follow them on Twitter and Facebook. The world is changing too fast for me!

new toy--again

2010-07-12T18:56:00.003-04:00

I have another toy. This time it's a kayak. A pretty yellow one.

I got it used off of Craig's List from Jeff, a guy who lives over in Burlington. I paid $550 for it which isn't a great deal but the yak is in good shape, almost new, and it is nearly $300 off what I'd pay for it in a store at retail.

If you know much about kayaks, then you realize this is a very inexpensive boat 'cause 14 foot long kayaks usually go for a lot more than $750-800. However this one doesn't have much in the way of frills and it's plastic all the way.

But it will float---or at least that's what Jeff told me. :-)

I hope to find out for myself tomorrow night. If I can get out of work early enough I'm planning on going to a Meetup paddle on Lake Jordan.

I sure do hope this thing floats.

In case you're curious, the first picture is at Jeff's house after we loaded the boat on my car. And the second picture is the boat on my rear deck. And my deck starts to look quite small when there's a 14 foot boat stretched across it. :-(

Fun in the Sun

2010-07-10T23:55:00.004-04:00

I was out on the Dan River today kayaking. Hot sun, danger of rain and thunderstorms, serious sweating---all in a days work.

It did rain a bit on my drive to the outfitting company up in Stoneville, NC. Fortunately despite some threatening clouds, we saw nary a drop while on the river.

Stoneville is pretty far to the north in NC, just 10-12 miles from Virginia, and about a 80 minute drive from my house.

The first picture is the 13 of us at the boat launch site, just before we started down the river. It was a 3-hour paddle and we got under way (weigh?) around 10:30.

The second picture is me. Staged and it looks like it too. One of the other paddlers, probably just to get some relief from my frenzy of photo taking, offered to take some pictures of me with my camera.

She did give it back. Eventually. :-(

We went a little slower than I would have liked---some of the folk let the river do most of the work---but I kept busy paddling all over taking pictures and being a bother. It was a lot of fun---and probably for just that reason. I like being a bother.

Finally rain

2010-07-09T10:43:00.005-04:00

There hasn't been a drop of rain on my lawn in over a week.

And during that week it was consistantly in the 90s with one day in triple digits. When I walk on the lawn it sounds like rice crispies: Crack, snapple, pop.

Late last night, after midnight so I guess it was actually early morning, we finally had a downpour. When I got up this morning my rain gauge greeted me with a very welcome 1.25 inches of precipitation. My lawn is very happy!

Now I need to go get some gas for my lawn mower. I'm all out and I suspect that I'll be mowing on Sunday. My kayak trip on Saturday is going to keep me from lawn duty that day. It's amazing how fast grass grows when it finally gets some water.

Five Days

2010-07-08T16:25:00.003-04:00

That watermelon has been sitting out in the heat for 5 days now.

Between the dehydration and the insects feeding on it, the watermelon is looking a wee bit worse for wear.

I took this picture around 8am this morning, before going into work. It was already 85f out and I gave my tomato plants some water since I didn't want them to end up looking like this watermelon.

We're supposed to get some afternoon rainstorms for the next few days but I'll believe it when I see it. It's been over a week since there's been any rain at my house and the grass in the lawn breaks when you step on it.

I've signed up for a kayaking tour on the Dan River this Saturday. It's supposed to take around 3 hours so it'll be from 10am to 1pm, more or less. I hope it doesn't rain then!

Aging Rapidly

2010-07-06T18:05:00.003-04:00

In my title I'm referring to the watermelon below but it could, I guess, refer to me also.

I went to see my doctor today. Scheduled appointment, nothing serious. And she told me to lose some more weight!

I'd already dropped 45 pounds to get to 183 which is the upper threshold for a normal BMI at my height. But apparently she wants me to be near the middle of the weight range for "normal."

Jeeze. Pretty soon I'll look all dessicated like that poor watermelon over there. At least the bugs like it now.

Pics from my Canon

2010-07-03T22:39:00.004-04:00

I was playing a little with my Rebel EOS today. There's a lot of stuff to learn. I keep trying to zoom electronically and then sheepishly I remember that I have to zoom the lens manually---just like I did back in the film camera days.

The first picture is of some watermelon I was going to eat while reading outside today. Unfortunately the watermelon was tasteless so I used it for a photographic still life and fly food. But even the flies weren't very impressed.

And this is my front sidewalk with the lovely sun shining down. Odd how much more I like sun when the temperatures are no longer in the 90s. Too bad our respite is short lived. We're getting back into the 90s tomorrow and it's supposed to last for quite a while. Might even get up to 100 by midweek. *sigh* And my parents and brother, who live further south, are going to have temps in the 80s. What the hell?

Size is Relative

2010-07-02T23:18:00.000-04:00

I was going to go hiking after work today but something I read on the Internet changed my mind.

I went to check the delivery status of my recently purchased camera, expecting to see that it was still stuck in Indiana, but lo and behold---it was delivered to my house just a few minutes after noon. Woo-hoo.

Since I didn't want to leave it there unattended on my porch any longer than necessary I made a bee line for home once I finished things up at the lab. And that's the box over there that the lovely toy came in. I was surprised at how much it weighed.

But once I'd unpacked the box some of my surprise went away. There was one hell of a lot of stuff packed away in that little box.

And I was also surprised at how much bigger the SLR was over my old cameras. You can see the comparison below. The Canon Rebel dwarfs the Fuji that I have sitting next to it.

One thing that didn't weigh very much was the lens. Back in my non-digital SLR days I had this really nice Tokina zoom lens. That thing weighed more than my camera body. So I was expecting something like that with the Canon lens. Nope. The lens weighed practically nothing. It was like it was just a cardboard tube painted black.

I am impressed with the clarity of the pictures though. Since the filters haven't arrived yet I'm not taking my new camera out into the nasty dirty world yet but the pics I've taken indoors to try it out have really been nice. I'm quite impressed with what this camera can do---and I've only just started to scratch the surface of its potential.

I do love toys. And to celebrate, while the camera battery was charging I scooted off and got myself a haircut. I was starting to look like a hippie! And afterwards I bought a whole watermelon as well as some frozen burgers and fresh buns for weekend grilling. Great weather and greasy food---what more can you ask for?

Entropic Chaos Factor

2010-07-01T13:24:00.005-04:00

The title of this post is a description of Lisbeth Salander, one of the principal characters in Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy" and it's ascribed to her in the book by her sometimes lover, Mimmi Wu.

The series started with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo though the "entropic chaos factor" description occurred in the second volume The Girl Who Played with Fire. The girl referred to in both titles is Salander.

But back to the entropic chaos factor description. It's a phrase that just plays havoc in the mind. At least my middle aged male mind. But let's examine the individual words a moment. In common language chaos and entropy are often interchanged as if the meanings are the same. For example a party might be described as chaotic because there seems to be little order exhibited there. In science jargon this would not be accurate though. What's really meant is that the party exhibits a high level of entropy.

Entropy is a tendency for closed systems to lose order. To put it another way, in the absence of energy supplied from outside, systems always become more random. This is the basis for the second law of thermodynamics which states that in general the total entropy of any system will not decrease other than by increasing the entropy of some other system.

The confusion results from people often believing that chaos means random. And I suppose it does in common conversation but when you use a short string of words like "entropic chaos factor" it just seems like you're defaulting to the specialized language of science. Or something like that.

First Part

2010-06-30T22:14:00.003-04:00

This past Friday I bought a camera on Amazon. In fact the nicest camera I've bought since the one I purchased while in college for a trip I was taking to Greece.

I've been very slow to move over to a digital SLR. Part of the reason is that since I use glasses I find it liberating to be able to use the back of the camera for framing the shot and focusing and such.

With SLRs you use the viewfinder since it's a single lens system. SLR = single lens reflex The light enters through the lens and goes to the ~~film~~ computer imaging chip. So what you see is what you get. Of course it's not quite that simple with digital SLRs but it's still close. So that means I have to peer through that nasty little viewfinder.

As you can probably tell, it wasn't the camera that sold me on upgrading to a dSLR. In this case it was the printer that was bundled with the system. Or more accurately, there was a $400 rebate if you bought the printer with the camera and since the printer was $430 it was practically free. Both zoom lens that I bought were also essentially tossed in. I did have to pay for the extra battery and the filters that I bought. Two ND filters to protect the lens and one polarizing filter to use on my main zoom lens when needed.

I didn't buy any extra ink yet for the printer. I want to see how everything looks first. The refills cost almost $120 with a 14% discount. Ouch. I sure hope the ink that comes with the printer lasts a while!

So, the printer arrived today. It was the first thing shipped and it was sent via FedEx. The camera was shipped out 12 hours after the printer but it was sent by the US Postal Service. It's not expected to arrive for another week plus. A full week after the printer despite being shipped just half a day later. Pretty sad, huh?

All the other toys (plus two books ordered at the same time) were shipped out today. Next week will have a lot of deliveries showing up. Wheee. (I'm still slightly traumatized from spending the money)

Canoeing in the Heat

2010-06-26T14:20:00.004-04:00

Today is another hot day.

I've lost track of how many days in a row it's been over 90 but it's been quite a few. And today's just one more on the list.

This morning at 8:30 a few friends and I went canoeing on Lake Michie in Durham. It was so humid I had to keep wiping off the lens of my camera. *whew* As soon as we got on the water the sweat was pouring off us.

The rentals were very reasonable. Six dollars a half-day (6 hours max) for Durham residents and 8 dollars for non-residents. Since they're tandem canoes, it's 3 dollars per person. Not bad.

We only stayed out for a few hours but it was more than enough. I think I lost 3 pounds in sweat.

The picture above is one that Juliet took of me to get back at me for all the ones I took of her when she wasn't expecting it. I'm bad that way. Since I was facing the wrong way and just shooting over my shoulder---not many turned out. Most of them are of the bottom of the boat. Oops.

The picture to the left is from when we were launching the canoes at the rental place. It felt a lot cooler in the shade under the trees.

It Bee Hot

2010-06-25T14:55:00.006-04:00

Yesterday after work, in the 100 degree heat, I decided to go over to Sarah Duke Garden and take some pictures of the grounds.

Foolish? Hell yeah.

The walking at Duke wasn't nearly as bad as sitting in the car at all the stop lights though. Going from Chapel Hill to Durham is a real pain in the patootie.

How do you like that picture? I just happened to get the bee leaving the flower. Just lucky.

After I got all hot and sweaty, I went to the Nasher Museum. I'd never been there before and the admission is free on Thursday.

Damn good thing. That's one weenie little museum. I can't believe they charge money to go there the other days of the week. The museum is only a few hundred yards from Sarah Duke so it's an easy 2 for 1 and parking is free at the Garden after 5pm.

How do you like that bridge? It used to be white and now it's BRIGHT red. It's very noticeable but I think I liked it better before.

It might not be paint though. When I got closer, the bridge actually looked different. I think they might have bought a different set of rails and they just come in that color. Maybe they'll paint it later.

That heron never moved while I was wandering near it. Odd bird. I took some closeups of it and the bird looked like it was exposing itself. You can't really tell in this picture though.

Mexican stand off

2010-06-24T00:18:00.005-04:00

This is what last night's dinner ended up looking like.

Here's the pan right after I pulled it out of the oven.

I ate dinner while watching Top Chef and then Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, both on Bravo.

I really like the art show. It's refreshing to see their talent displayed in contrast to the nastiness that so often dominates reality shows. That said, some of the artists are inflexible---and the worst of that ilk got bumped off the show this week. Awww. :-D

An interesting difference in the two shows is that while they've both just started (I think Artist has been on one week longer) I've got a much better feel for the contestants on Artist than on Top Chef. I wonder if that's just me or if the personality types or show format are the cause.

This is the first serving I had. I ended up having a second one before I was through.

I jumped the sauce from mild to medium heat and it tastes better this way. My changing the cheese from Jack to a blend of Italian cheeses wasn't good though. It tasted better using a Colby-Jack blend.

a late dinner

2010-06-23T21:30:00.005-04:00

I didn't get started on dinner until almost 9pm so I wanted to fix something fast.

If I was smart I'd have just made some cheese and crackers and munched on them while watching tv but instead I went Mexican.

But very easy Mexican. I used the recipe on All Recipes that I mentioned last week to make Green Chicken Enchiladas. Yum.

First I sauteed some chicken, then I layered the chicken and cheese on some flour wraps. Rolled them up and put them in a pan. Poured green chile sauce over them and baked in an over for 30 minutes.

That's as far as I've gotten so far but I hope to be eating in another 15 minutes or so. :-)

I changed the cheese from Monterrey Jack to an Italian blend. I hope that doesn't end up tasting funny. :-(

Books

2010-06-19T16:32:00.004-04:00

I'm in SC this weekend visiting with my parents. Father's Day is tomorrow, y'know?

I did my normal 3am to 7am drive. There was an unusual amount of traffic but even so it was sparse compared to drives during the day.

The books over there on the left were gleaned during a shopping expedition this morning at a couple of used book stores near here. I spent $38 and change on books that listed at $113. They should keep me busy for a few weeks.

I didn't go kayaking today. By the time I'd talked a bit with my parents and made sure my parents dog had enough attention the temp outside was over 83 and way too humid for paddling. I think I'll hit the water tomorrow morning before the sun is up.

Chicken and watermelon for dinner tonight!

Pet Peeve

2010-06-18T15:10:00.006-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted a pet peeve so here's the one for the month: Why do studies have to exaggerate?

Journalists and regular people too. I read a puff piece in the paper today about how you can save money and oil by using mass transit to commute. That's an obvious truth and well worth an article in the paper from time to time, I guess. Though it's so obvious who's it going to inform?

But my peeve is the exaggeration they use in these things. According to the article people typically save $7,000 a year in gas by using mass transit and they use several people as illustrations and they claim to save $6,000 to $8,000. Then the article goes on to quote a $9,000 annual savings from the American public Transportation Association (who obviously has a vested interest in quoting a high number).

Well... what in hell are these people driving? I get around 30 miles per gallon (actually 33.2 recently) and with gas costing in the $2.40 - 2.65 range, that's roughly 8 cents a mile. So to save the lowest amount, $6,000, I'd have to "not drive" 72,000 miles a year. How many people commute that much?

Given a 5 day work week, 2 weeks off, you have 250 work days a year. That means I'd have to use mass trans 288 miles a day to save that much on gas. And while a lot of people drive big SUVs (shame on you!) which block my view (shame on you again!) they still get at least in the mid teens for gas mileage. That would mean they'd need to avoid driving 145 miles a day to make that $6,000.

So the official estimate of $9,000 savings? Wow. Are those people driving across the state every day?

Making this even sillier, I drive about 12,000 miles a year. At 30+ miles per gallon that means I use about 400 gallons of gasoline annually. That's a cost of roughly $1,200 a year (assuming gas averages 3 bucks a gallon). How in the world can I save multiple thousands a year? Even if you're one of those people always on the road, it's not easy to accumulate that kind of savings---and if you drive that much, a bus probably isn't going to work out for you.

BTW, that's a Red River Hog up there, not a gas hog. Potamochoerus porcus if you want the Latin. Courtesy of the NC Zoo.

Mexican on Sunday

2010-06-14T14:22:00.006-04:00

It's a mite steamy out there today. The temp is 92 at 2pm with high humidity and it's supposed to reach 97 today.

And thunderstorms in the late afternoon. When the rain hits the pavement it's just gonna turn into steam. *whew*

Over there on the left you see a couple of pictures from the NC Zoo from last week. Bison this time. That fellow looks rather moth-eaten. The second picture is of some of his friends. Also rather moth-eaten. And dusty too.

Change of topic---last night Cry invited me over to her place for dinner. She saw a Mexican recipe on the All Recipes website that she wanted to try out.

The recipe is called Green Chicken Enchilada and it's made using shredded boneless chicken breasts and shredded Monterey Jack cheese wrapped up in flour tortillas with green enchilada sauce covering the bundles as they bake.

Very simple and quite good. We were both impressed with how tasty they were especially considering how easy it was to make them. Some Mexican rice on the side and it was a good meal. And Pinot grigio wine to drink.

Do you ever wonder how animals can get so damn big by just eating grass? I suspect they sneak out on occasion and chomp on other animals or maybe have milkshakes. It can't be just grass.

Faces

2010-06-10T18:28:00.003-04:00

Here's two pictures of faces that I took at the NC Zoo last weekend.

The theme also carries over into a TV show I watched last night. Bravo's new reality show, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, had as their first elimination challenge creating a portrait of one of the other contestants in half a day. Most of the 14 contestants were realists but there were a few abstracts as well.

How can you do an abstract portrait? "Here's your painting. Just pretend it looks like you."

In any case I liked the show. There's a lot of reality shows out there but as far as I know this is the first one that features artists and I found it to be refreshing. Some of the contestants have a lot of experience others are totally unknown. Sometimes you really wonder how they decide which people to pick for these shows.

For example, on that Gordon Ramsey show, Hell's Kitchen, everyone smokes---common in the cooking area but is it THAT common?---and they're mostly odd with little in the way of cooking chops. It's almost like they pick people that can't do well just to give Ramsey more to yell and carry on about. IMHO.

Big Bird

2010-06-08T11:45:00.004-04:00

I took a bunch of pictures of the ostriches but most of them weren't very interesting.

I got lots of blurry pics due to the low light early in the morning. The field with the ostriches was my first stop at 9am. These 3 pictures are okay tho.

Here we have a big bird who appears to be small due to its audience of 5 giraffes (the 5th is hiding behind the tree and you can only see the head). The ostrich is keeping its head down and trying not to create trouble. Or I could be anthropomorphizing a bit.

I have a number of good pictures of the giraffes. They're much more photogenic, especially in low light. Their fur reflects light a lot better than does the dowdy feathers of the ostriches.

What should I name this?

Friends of a feather maybe. Or ruffled feathers? Maybe the sky is falling though I think Chicken Little owns that one.

Lemur Island

2010-06-07T18:14:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I went to the NC state zoo in Asheboro.

I got there at 9am, which is when they open, and I stayed until 3pm. I probably walked around 6 miles during those 6 hours, maybe 7 and my calves are a little sore. And I'll tell you, it was damn hot. And humid. It was supposed to hit the low 90s on Sunday and it sure felt like it.

Those fellers there on the left are ring tailed lemurs. Lemur Island is the newest attraction at the NC Zoo and they have a number of ring tailed lemurs there and supposedly some red-ruffed lemurs too. The only one I saw stayed semi-hidden under a rock ledge---you can see him in the picture at the bottom of this post.

I took a bunch of pictures at the zoo so I'll probably be posting a few more before I get tired of looking at them. :-)

Veggies in a few weeks

2010-06-06T19:58:00.004-04:00

I posted on Friday a picture of Cry's garden so I figured I'd best put up one of my own admittedly rather small garden area showing the progress since I posted about it's start 3 weeks ago.

You might notice the two circled areas. The area circled in black, near the top, is of my first tomatoes. They're very small and green right now, but in a couple of weeks I expect they'll be plump and red. That plant is a grape tomato so the fruit isn't going to get all that big.

The other tomato plant, the one in front, is Roma so while a little bigger, that one isn't going to have huge tomatoes either. And over there on the right is a bell pepper plant.

The white circled area shows my newest plant. It's a bean plant that resulted from one of the seeds given to me by Cry in payment for helping her with her trellis. So far the second seed hasn't germinated. :-(

Lattice

2010-06-04T12:00:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I helped a friend build a lattice for some of the plants in her garden, especially the beans.

This is what it looked like when it was done.

She had bought the wood with a different building style in mind so this lattice is a compromise between her view of what she wanted, my view of what she needed, and the constraint of the wood that we had on hand. Neither of us felt like running out to get more wood, y'see.

I've labeled a few points of interest on the lattice. (A) is where some screws can be seen jutting out of the structure. (she calls it the Contraption) Since I thought we were using 2x2 lumber I'd brought screws with me that would penetrate most of the way through 2 of those. Instead we had some 1x2s and those screws were a mite exposed on the other side. Oops.

(B) is where a knot caused a 1x1 to buckle requiring a somewhat ugly fix. I just screwed a length of 1x1 over the knot area so that the whole thing wouldn't buckle. That would be a very bad thing.

(C) is purely her work, and it can be seen in detail on the left. The lattice wasn't stable enough as built so we knew we had to buttress it somehow. Staking it out on the windward end was Cry's very effective solution. Just like how you would stake a lean-to to make it stable, it works just as well on this lattice. Soon, with all the rain we've been getting, those beans will be growing all the way to the top of those poles. Over 7 feet tall, y'know.

24 in 36

2010-06-03T03:30:00.003-04:00

Early Tuesday evening I started having nasty sinus headaches as a storm rolled over the area. No surprise there. Anyone subject to sinus headaches knows that the changes in barometric pressure, which often accompany storm fronts, can trigger sinus issues as the pressure inside the head doesn't reflect the pressure outside the head.

Of course this is only true if the sinus passages are clogged. With many of us, that's often the case. If this clogging lasts long enough a sinus infection occurs, less time and you might run a fever as bugs spike a bit but then it goes away. Fortunately when I have problems it's usually been the latter so the "ordeal" runs its course over 3-5 days.

Today (actually yesterday since it's after midnight now) I stayed home from work because of the fever starting. Fever's an interesting thing. It can make experiences more intense even as it causes muscle aches and more frequent trips to the bathroom.

You see, I had recorded the entire season of 24 on my DVR and picked this week to watch it. In the past 36 hours, as a way to distract myself from the sinus headaches, I watched the entire season. The fever just made the shows seem more immediate.

I'd read in a number of places that the season of 24 that just ended (it's the 8th if you're curious) wasn't as good as usual. Maybe you just need to watch it nonstop but I thought it was fantastic. Of course the fever might have helped.

That poor Jack really takes a beating in every season but he never stops. It just took a little fever to keep me from going into work. Bauer doesn't stop when beaten, shot, tortured, stabbed, et cetera. And that was just the first few hours of his day. Don't try this at home, huh?

The Chloe O'Brian character (Mary Lynn Rajskub) really came to the forefront in this season which I thought was great. I've commented before on how adorable I think she is in the role. (Probably not the effect they're trying for but I like intense and neurotic women) This season allowed me to watch Chloe almost nonstop for a day and a half. Almost worth being sick.

Amphibians

2010-05-30T00:07:00.002-04:00

Since I wasn't able to sleep on Friday night I headed out to go hiking while it was still cool Saturday morning, just after the parks open up at 8am. We had a lot of rain during the night so I choose Eno River Park to see just how swollen the river was.

Hell, it was so swollen the toads and frogs were staying away.

Here's a couple examples of amphibians I found hiding from that raging river.

Stormy Weather

2010-05-29T07:20:00.003-04:00

Had a lightning strike near the house last night. The thunder roll lasted something like 12 seconds and some stuff in my kitchen was knocked off of shelves.

The electricity was only out for about 2 seconds but my Internet service was out for 9 hours and just came back online about 10 minutes ago at 7:10am. I wasn't able to sleep last night so I was checking frequently.

I finished the new John Sandford novel, Storm Prey, at 3:45am and was quite impressed with it. My favorite recent novel by Sandford was a Prey novel in which Sandford overlapped his two series (Prey series and Kidd series) but this book was close behind.

In this book the main character, Lucas Davenport, is shaken when his wife, Weather, is an unwitting witness to a robbery and the rest of the book revolves around the robbers trying to tie up loose ends. One of which, of course, is Weather Davenport, but there's plenty of other problems for the robbers as well. All of which supply a lot of dead bodies and a few clues for Davenport to gnaw on.

Virgil Flowers, once a minor Prey series character who has since had 3 novels featuring him, plays a large part in this book though definitely in the background.

Towards the end of the book the main character, Lucas, makes an off color joke based on his wife's name and it was somewhat funny. I couldn't help but reflect on how last night's weather here was irksome so hearing "weather" in a funny context was quite welcome.

Trader Pizza

2010-05-27T19:08:00.005-04:00

When I got home from work today I made a pizza. It wasn't quite from scratch, I used some dough I bought at Trader Joe's the other day.

This is what it looked like when it was done. There's just something about a lot of melted cheese on top of red sauce that looks so damn inviting.

The pictures below kinda show what I did to make dinner. I started out by rolling out the dough on a lightly floured board with a small glass bottle. Sounds odd but it works pretty well.

Then I tossed the dough in a rectangular baking pan and baked at 350f for 8 minutes to get the crust a little crusty. After that I pulled out the pan---the dough had a lot of bubbles in it but I don't know if that's obvious in the picture below---and added pizza sauce plus a bunch of Italian seasoning herbs.

Then the cheese. Mozzarella on the bottom, a mix of provolone, asiago, fontina and Parmesan above that and then some feta on top. Yum.

I baked the pizza at 350 again for another 8 minutes and then ate it. Half, anyway. I'll tell you, I don't like the whole wheat pizza dough nearly as much as the regular flavor. Other than that it was pretty darn good.

Missing Memory

2010-05-26T23:54:00.002-04:00

I got all the numbers programmed into my phone.

Well, that's not exactly accurate. I looked over the numbers in my old phone---which hadn't been used in two years---and determined how many people I still would be likely to get a call from (11 out of 74) and programmed those numbers into the phone.

Any numbers from the past two years? Oops. They're at the bottom of a lake.

Fortunately my memory is so bad that I really can't remember anyone anyway. I joyfully go through life in a world populated by strangers.

Maybe I shouldn't write posts this close to midnight...

The longest known non-relatives to make the cut is a tie between Sharon and Teresa from back around 1995 (AOL pen-pals from the early days of this Internet social thing) and the most recent is Crystal from this year. And the first two probably don't have the same phone numbers they used to so those numbers are iffy.

My advice is to back up your contact list or at least not drown your cell phone!

Cell Phone Replaced!

2010-05-25T15:30:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I got my replacement cell phone in the mail.

After my last one drowned---kayaking incident while at Lake Hartwell---I had the folk at Verizon reactivate my previous phone. It's the one on the left in these pictures.

Now that one hadn't been used in almost 2 years and it was almost dead when I switched to a new---and now very wet---cell phone. It's no surprise the old one was in such bad shape. It was over 4 years old when I replaced it and it'd seen a lot of hard use. Poor thing.

The freaky thing is how close in appearance the replacement phone is. I bought a used and reconditioned phone but I had assumed it'd be fairly recent. From the appearance this "new" one could well be 4 or 5 years old.

That's not really a problem because I HATE all the bells and whistles on the new phones. I think that's a sign of getting old. *sigh*

Anyway, the reason I wasn't able to stick with my old phone is that while it could dial out---and even that wasn't a piece of cake---I wasn't able to answer incoming calls. I had to wait for the caller to give up and then I could call them back. Bad phone!

And often the phone would just hang up after a couple of minutes. Very frustrating!

One big improvement is the resolution on the screen. Sure, the newer ones are a lot better. But as you can see from these two screens, the reconditioned one is a lot better than the phone I have been using.

Since it's not a new phone it didn't come with an owners manual or anything like that. So I'll have to check the Verizon and Motorola sites for a PDF of the manual so I can figure out just what this phone does and doesn't have on it. One bizarre thing---it doesn't have a camera. I thought ALL cell phones had cameras. I don't need one, don't even want one, but it just seems odd not to be there.

Viral Lyrics

2010-05-24T13:57:00.006-04:00

I'm having one of those times where I can't get a set of lyrics out of my head. The first stanza from Olivia Newton John's Sam keep running over and over and over and...

I heard that you're on your own now
So am I
I'm living alone now
I was wrong
So were you
What will you do?
Are you glad to be free?
Are you feeling lost just like me?
Longing for company

The song's okay but enough is enough. Maybe if I start humming another annoyingly addictive song I can get rid of this one. But do I really want to be constantly hearing Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer either???

Maybe I could go with ONJ's version of the Rafferty song Mary Skeffington. I haven't heard it in years but I liked it when I was a kid.

Mary Skeffington, close your eyes
And make believe that you are just a girl again
Go to sleep tonight, dream of days
When you had something there to light the way

Remember a holiday in a north of England town
You slept in a room upstairs on a bed of eiderdown

Mary Skeffington, when you wake
You mustn't be afraid to face another day
Think of what you had, you'll get by
You've always been a lady, hold your head up high

Look back on your home where you spent the best years of your life
Remember the man who asked you if you would be his wife

Hmmm. Obviously it's not the content that is keeping the songs going through my head. Maybe it's her voice...

You gotta make friends

2010-05-22T13:49:00.005-04:00

Sometimes you cross paths with folk that you don't have much in common with but just instantly like.

That was the case for me when I met Hissy here when I was hiking out of Eno River Park last night around twilight. I don't think my admiration for him was returned and soon we departed and went off in different directions.

I'd like to think that both our lives were enriched by the experience but in the end I think Hissy just learned to stay away from hiking paths.

You might note that I was very sweaty. For some reason, even on relatively cool days, I just shed water like it's going out of style. It's a wonder I don't just melt away.

BTW, in case you're wondering what in 'ell that is around my neck, that's the keyless do-hicky for getting back into my car. I don't like the noise that car keys make jingling around in my pocket so I wear my "keys" around my neck while hiking.

Southern Belles

2010-05-21T23:48:00.001-04:00

There's a cultural stereotype of southern women that they're sweet and demure. Well, having lived here in the south for over half my life now, I just don't buy it.

Take the example found below. I was hiking in Eno River Park after work tonight and taking pictures as usual and check out the reception I was given by someone passing by. The new generation of southern women are a far cry from those in former times. *sigh*

In case you're having trouble "reading" the picture---I don't think she's counting to one.

Wine on Thursday

2010-05-20T22:59:00.003-04:00

Actually the wine was bought on Monday but I was rather slow to upload the pictures.

As you can see, I went to Trader Joe's to pick up the wine. I like them for their wine and cheese. I also bought a LOT of cheese. The total bill was over $60 and the majority of that was cheese, not wine---as you can tell by the prices of the wine, seen below.

Back a year ago, when I was dating Julie, she bought me 6 bottles of wine for my birthday. Now that I've managed to drink 4 of them I decided it was time to renew my store of wine. So I bought these 4 bottles. Two of them are types I've not had before so I'll just have to see if I like them.

Since I'm not going through them very fast---back when Julie and I were dating we'd go through 2 bottles with almost every meal, now I'm drinking a bottle every 3 or 4 months---these 4 bottles will probably last me a while.

PS Julie would be very disappointed in my buying frozen basil

toys on Wednesday

2010-05-19T19:34:00.004-04:00

My birthday was a few days ago but it was today that I got toys. Wheee.

After work I went to Occoneechee Park to go around the mountain twice. That's around 5 miles. Even though it was only around 70f it didn't take long before I was soaked with sweat. This getting old business isn't good for ones health. Of course being dead is no picnic either.

Anyway, the first trip around I saw 5 snakes and was upset that I didn't have my camera. I generally don't bring it with me these days because I go slower when I'm carrying it 'cause I keep taking pictures.

So on the second loop I had retreived the camera from my car and carried it with me. Of course I didn't see one damn snake. The bastards! At least I saw this deer as a consolation prize. But I can't pick up a deer and take a picture of it so it's just not as good as a snake.

Back to the topic of toys...

When I arrived home I found that I'd gotten 3 packages from Amazon, all ordered at different times. The most recent order, the one for a replacement camera, arrived after only 4 days. Not bad. I've got the battery charging now so I'll find out in an hour or so how well it works.

The other two packages contained DVDs in one and a book in the other. What a nice welcome home.

I've still got some books that haven't been delivered yet. They were books that I preordered. One was released yesterday so I'll receive it in a day or two, the other gets released next Tuesday. Both are books that I'll read right away. :-)

And speaking of birthday gifts, a friend of mine recently vacationed in Hawaii and she's promised me bikini shots of herself cavorting on the beach. I can't wait!

Weekend Farming

2010-05-16T17:49:00.005-04:00

Maybe "farming" is a bit of an exaggeration.

Really what I did was drop 3 veggie type plants into the ground after clearing said ground of the ground cover and invasive grass that were already growing there. Sorta farming but on a very small scale.

As you can see to the left, I have two tomato plants and one bell pepper. I bought them nearly a week ago but was waiting a bit to plant them. You see,the area I wanted to put them already had ground cover growing there and a lot of invasive wild grass had made its home there too.

This is what the area looked like this morning just before I started hacking away at it with a hoe.

The prep work that I had done was spraying the area 3 times in the past week with herbicide of the Round-up variety. As you can see, it worked better on the ground cover than the grass. That grass was VERY well established.

But after waiting a week, I wasn't going to wait any longer. Hopefully the roots are full of nasty herbicide so once I hack off the tops of the plants, they'll be reluctant to get started back up again. In any case, I'm going to remove as much of the root material as is practical with my limited tools.

Here you see my initial foray into the clearing process. Wheee! BTW, it was over 80f and humid as hell out there. Yes, I am whining a little.

In the following photos I document just how much "bad" plant material I get out of this little bitty plot of land and also how much better the plot looks with the grass pulled away. And finally there's a picture of my 3 veggie plants in the ground. Soon I'll add mulch and water and the rain we're supposed to get the next 3 days will give the tomatoes and peppers a nice start.

I just hope that the bugs and birds don't destroy the plants before the deer get a chance to eat them. *sigh*

Dead Panasonic

2010-05-15T02:32:00.003-04:00

It's official now. The new Panasonic camera that went into the lake last weekend is indeed dead.

I waited a week before trying to turn it on. Plenty of time for it to dry out. But to no avail. It's dead as a doornail. A very lifeless and relatively expensive doornail.

I really liked that camera and was going to replace it with the same model but I got too good a price on it last month. I paid $120 and the best price I can find now is $150 and I can't justify paying 25% more right now.

As a result, I went with a $70 special that was on Amazon today. It's a 10MP entry level camera. It'll do for a while. I'll try to not dump this one into a lake.