9 June 06
Footie Here We Come
As everybody in the civilized world is aware (the United States on the other hand remains largely ignorant), the World Cup begins in about 10 hours (0 days 9 hours 53 minutes according to the countdown on the BBC World Cup site. ) Pica gets quite excited about the event, although with neither telly nor broadband it’s hard for us to follow the matches live here. We may end up watching some of the matches at the several restaurants here that promise to show them on their TV. Does this mean we’re headed to Little Prague at 5 in morning Saturday to see England-Paraguay? Maybe.
11 May 06
Here Comes Whole Earth
The Whole Earth Festival is back in town tomorrow. Unfortunately I’ll miss most of it since I’ll be spending the weekend at a class in San Francisco, but I’ll get a quick tie-dye fix tomorrow at lunchtime…
28 April 06
The Lure Of Morse
Since we’ve gotten into pandemic preparedness mode here, I’ve renewed my interest in radio. Several years ago, I got my technician class amateur radio license, but haven’t done much at all with it. The next step after the technician class is the general class license, which allows you to transmit on shortwave frequencies. One requirement for this license class is passing a Morse code receiving test, which takes a good bit of study, though the copying rate of the test has been reduced to a very slow 5 words a minute.
Despite its antiquarian aura, Morse code is very practical in the land of ham radio. Basically, it’s an incredibly efficient way of getting a signal out to the world if you don’t have much transmitting power or a good antenna setup. Since we live in a very small house and can’t exactly be erecting a 40’ antenna tower, that kind of describes my situation for the foreseeable future. There’s also the appeal of going lightweight and portable, as the Adventure Radio Society folks do.
5 words a minute may do for passing the test but it is not acceptable for actual communication. I’ve started studying using the Koch Method, where you start out learning two letters at a reasonably fast rate (15 wpm overall, with each character coming in at 20 wpm), and then add another letter when you master the characters you have so far. It’s aural reflex training—you bypass thinking about the letters (“oh, dot-dot-dot, let’s see, that’s ‘S’, right?)
Anyway, good Morse code operators routinely defeat expert texters in text messaging contests. If I ever get a cell phone, it’s going to be a Nokia Series 60 job, which is readily programmed (happily even in my favorite programming language, Python), so somebody has even whipped out a Morse texter for these types of phones.
22 April 06
Rubber Ducky Washing
Picnic Day was today; there was no rain. I calligraphed certificates for all the junior ducky washers (in the absence of a real oil spill, the vet students had covered the ducks in paint) and we moved along to see the Dachshund races (the Doxie Derby).
Instant replays ruled out any controversy on the part of overzealous doxie owners and there was the usual assortment of sausage dogs—well over half—who wandered off, distracted, never getting to the finish line. The Rec Hall had at least 4,000 people in it while we were there.
On to the baseball, where the Aggies were getting soundly thrashed by Cal State Long Beach, and a trip to the Memorial Union for a cup of tea. It’s so hokey. It’s so fun. It’s so… Davis.
20 April 06
April
Floods? Check. Taxes? Check. Ceanothus? Check. Kingbirds? Check. What’s left? Picnic Day!
Once again drawing about 50,000 people to Davis this Saturday with a good chance of rain, the Doxie Derby followed by the cockroach races and about 400 other events will keep us busy. This year we’re going to try and get both our soil and water tested by volunteers from the department of Land, Air and Water Resources. We have only sampled a tiny portion of it in the six years we’ve been here, but it’s a good portion.
If we don’t get rained on I may do some sketches. And the Aggies are scheduled to play Cal State Long Beach at baseball so we may end up there… Our outing to Raley Field last Sunday was rained out.
16 April 06
The Pandemic Vegetarian Cookbook, Preface
Assumption #1: There will be a pandemic that will disrupt the food supply (and require everyone to stay home for a week or two, entirely self-sufficient. It may be longer.)
Assumption #2: You’re not going to be shooting game in your yard, or squirrels, rabbits, or dogs or cats.
Assumption #3: You’re not willing to sabotage your immune system in order to avert a cytokine storm.
Assumption #4: You’ll have built up a good supply of whole grains and beans. These will keep you going for a good while.
Assumption #5: You’ll organise your entire life around a supply of sauerkraut. (And stored chocolate, rationed in tiny pieces…)
Recipes will follow once I start following different length scenarios. Stay tuned.
9 April 06
Not What I'd Fly In For
I’ve just arrived in Denver for a training workshop the first part of the week. On the shuttle to my hotel, there was a couple who had flown in from Seattle just to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. A German anatomist has come up with a technique for impregnating tissues and organs with various polymers so as to preserve them for “didactic eternity”. 200 human specimens are being presented at the museum. I never was much of an anatomist—I’ll stick to mapping, thank you!
In other health profession news, it turns out there were dentists 9000 years ago.
27 March 06
Feathers of Hope Turns Three
A week and a bit after Cassandra Pages (it’s how I remember to look for this date, apart from the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, which is mostly why we started blogging)...
23 March 06
Avian Flu is My Life
I have a T shirt I made when I was working in Graduate Studies here at UC Davis that says “Commencement is my Life,” because it did seem to be for the months of March through mid-June every year. (I made a second one that said “Commencement is no longer my life” I’d wear the day after while I was on my way to visit DocRock who year after year conducted de-Commencement ministrations frivolous and serious, all of them necessary and all of them appreciated beyond words. Thanks Doc.)
I’m on a Yolo Audubon sub-committee organizing an Avian Flu Symposium in Davis (April 15th). It’s also becoming an increasingly time-consuming part of my work. Avian flu is predicted by scientists to arrive in North America by summer. Whether this one really does turn into a true human pathogen remains to be seen, but it seems sensible to behave as if it could. It has before. Lots of people died.
So now when we wander around the Coop we are looking at food that would keep well without refrigeration, we’re thinking about how to store it, what to do about water, how to hunker. We’re thinking about emergency preparedness. A bit late, I know, but time to start. We’re probably going to buy a much larger solar cooker, too…
13 March 06
Recovering from Overstimulation
I will leave you with a drawing of butterflies and a pair of mating Atlas moths while I catch up on some badly-needed sleep…