2 November 06
First Rain
The first rain of the season was today. We got nearly an inch—0.88” over the day, plus a little bit last night. I didn’t dig out the slot in the ground where we place the rain gauge until this morning, so I don’t know the total from last night.
Rain of course means getting wet in ways you don’t quite want. I dressed lightly for the way into work, just my yellow windbreaker and jeans—only to find out that it was drizzling quite handily once I started cycling in. I also have to find some dry nook to store my outdoors clogs. Ploosh!—stepping with my socks on into the cold, wet linings of these when I went out this evening to the garden to fetch vegetables for the pasta sauce wasn’t that much fun.
But it was wonderful to see the drips and drops forming up on the concrete overhang outside my window at work. Yes! A window. From which I can watch the rain.
1 November 06
Up and At 'Em
I woke up at 3:30, so I got up. I have, gentle reader, a novel to write. (And log into the NaNoWriMo site, which is clogged and sluggish.)
I wrote 2676 words this morning. I wrote them in pen, then typed them this evening. I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.
Historical fiction is hardest, I think, in the dialog. I’m not attempting any real victorian language. Keep it plain and simple should work…
31 October 06
Analog Revolution
One of the default assumptions in my professional circle and probably the general culture as well is that going digital is the way to better utility and higher productivity. I’m having fun questioning that these days. My growing success with the hipsterPDA is one example. But many other practices deserve a look at their analog equivalent. Realizing this, I’ve gone to the habit of trying to write out everything longhand, preferably with a fountain pen, before touching a keyboard. It’s definitely a different writing experience. Does it help? I think so.
Computers are good at two things—being able to do complicated numerical transformations at amazing speed and being devices that can replicate information with perfect fidelity. It does not necessarily follow that digital interfaces are easy to construct or use nor that digital data is incorruptable and long-lasting. Were I to save the draft of this blog post, written in Noodler’s Ink, rather than commit it to the recycling bin, the paper document would likely far outlast the digital trace of this post. And let’s not even get started on the issues of electronic voting—it will suffice to say that the geekier one is, the more one is scared by the prospects of it.
30 October 06
La Ilustre Fregona
I like to mop. I’m strange that way, I’ll admit it. Tidying is a grot and sweeping’s not much fun either, and scrubbing hurts. But mopping delivers a huge amount of satisfaction for the effort. You can make a good serpentine pattern on the floor, weaving the wet with the as-yet-unmopped dry. It’s a meditation, mopping.
The myth goes that the mop was invented in Spain. I’m going to guess that like so many other things it was actually invented in China and introduced through the Moors into the Iberian Peninsula, where it did undoubtedly undergo whatever modifications have led to its perfection somewhere before the time of Cervantes. (The kind of mop I’m talking about is the one that proliferates in Fantasia and that requires squeezing in a basket attached to the top of a bucket, not some miserable sponge-lever-effort that breaks after two uses. The Fantasia mop has survived for five centuries with no improvements necessary, though it doesn’t stop them from trying.)
Today I mopped up the leavings of last Wednesday’s windstorm, the traces of a week’s worth of cobwebs, the clumps of cat fur from the fierce play Diego and Charlie indulge in. The cats sit on the sofa arms watching me in a kind of horrified fascination. The floor glistens and then dries to its dull tile self, snug and ready for the next onslaught of walnut pieces, compost, smelly beetles, whatever else we track in from outside…
28 October 06
End Of Season
The Cardinals won the World Series last night 4 games to 1. The Tigers, who were dominant in the playoffs, lost their stride, maybe as a result of the six days they had off between the end of the playoffs and the start of the World Series. We were rooting for the Tigers—the story of their rise from near-record futility in 2003 to league champion this year is a heartening one. But the Cardinals are a good and worthy team, with a cadre of some very talented players, and I’m not dismayed to see them win. I’ve liked their manager Tony La Russa since his days with the A’s, especially since he has a strong commitment to companion animal welfare (he started the East Bay-based Animal Rescue Foundation after rescuing and trying to find a home for a stray cat that ran onto the field during an A’s-Yankees game.) And it’s fun to see somebody of my stature win the series MVP—the Cards’ shortshop David Eckstein who seems to need all-out effort to make the throw to first base. A stout heart still counts for a lot.
The offseason brings two pastimes, following the moves as teams rearrange themselves for next year, and catching up on baseball and the arts. The San Francisco Giants have already hired a new manager, snatching Bruce Bochy away from the Padres, and seem likely to part ways with Barry Bonds. If the latter happens I’ll be glad. As for baseball in film and literature—it’s high time we finished watching the Ken Burns baseball series!
27 October 06
Falcon in my Office
I’ve had this really big critical push at work to get a project finished, but yesterday at three we were lured out into the sunshine by shrieks of delight. A falcon with jesses, a bell and a transmitter had just wandered on into the student lab, and Tamara had scooped it up and was looking like something out of a fantasy story set in Scotland. 
Except we’re in Davis, not Scotland, and this weird looking bird was not a peregrine, not a kestrel, not anything like anything I’d ever seen.
The falcon belongs to a falconer who had lost it in the huge windstorm we had on Wednesday. He had posted flyers all over the place, never really expecting to see the bird again. (It’s a hybrid cross between a Barbary and Taita falcon: falconers do barbaric things in their spare time. But as such, the only one like it certainly in the United States, it’s probably worth a bit of money.)
Santiago the farmworker guy was hanging out when the falcon landed in his truck. He brought it over to us, not sure of where he was going (he was heading for the Raptor Center but was unsure of his way). He called the owner, who dropped to his knees when he saw the bird on Tamara’s wrist. He calls the bird “Bird.”
A different kind of excitement than the red-breasted or taiga flycatcher, which hasn’t been seen since Wednesday evening…
26 October 06
Inbox Zero
In the fit of organization that has overtaken me as a result of my office move, I’ve been inspired to tackle my email box. Merlin Mann’s series Inbox Zero has proved very helpful. One day into the experiment, my inbox is indeed at zero, and life is good. You just have to be drastic, and make liberal use of the delete key. And most importantly, keep on doing that.
Besides, email may be dying off as a medium anyway.
25 October 06
Things to do
1) Come up with a workable “class” to teach on Saturday at Cold Canyon as part of our training. It’s only 20-30 minutes. I am wavering between birds (hard to see in the canyon for anyone, frustrating for novices), sketching, or calligraphic gesturing of plants that they will have had a good chance to look at by the time it’s my turn. Any ideas?
2) Finish laying mulch on the gardens, such as they are. The flagstones are nearly in.
3) Make fences for both gardens. (It’s blowing very hard outside now and I wish I had gotten to this earlier. However, the plants seem to be establishing well so maybe it’s alright.)
4) Come up with a Christmas card idea before November 1. I know I should call it a holiday card but if I did I wouldn’t make one, simple as that. (It has to be easy to produce because of 7, below. I am thinking of a linocut print this year.)
5) Defer my copperplate learning to the spring. My online teacher is very unresponsive and has never given me information about how to pay her, so I’m going to bow out of this one easily.
6) Persevere with my urging of coworkers to stop leaving candy on counters at work, which has started to creep back with Halloween approaching and threatens not to depart until well into the New Year. A distressing encounter with a bowl of Candy Corn (which I don’t even like!) on Monday triggered a grovelling plea from me yesterday. They seem to have taken it well enough. When you have a sugar addiction, it’s probably best to be very clear about it.
7) Write a 50,000 page novel during the month of November as part of National Novel Writing Month. (It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to get done.) I’m doing this to try and get a big monkey off my back. I have the suspicion it doesn’t do that; the monkey just gets more clingy, but I have to try.
There, see now. If I start to seem a little crazy be sure to let me know.
Things to check off:
The red-breasted flycatcher, this evening on Putah Creek. First lower-48 record. [John Sterling’s photos of this bird can be found here
[PS: Make that a taiga flycatcher (split from red-breasted), first mainland North America record. It wasn’t seen today, as far as I know.]
25 October 06
Lap Kitties
Diego is turning into a regular lap cat, often seeking Pica’s lap when she does her rounds on the web early in the morning. Charlie is much less so inclined, but one day last week he joined his brother.
23 October 06
Stink
October’s the month where we get infested with beetles that fly, crash into the light, and then emit a stench which is like concentrated smelly feet squared.
They’re small beetles, small and long. They look like a shortened earwig without the pincers, innocuous really.
They live in leaf litter and make all efforts to get indoors, where they then hide under anything there is to hide under. If they’re disturbed, they freeze, then scuttle in all directions. Like miniature cockroaches that smell.
Efforts to come up with an ID have so far met with failure. It’s in the Carabidae, is all we know for now. We may scan one for all you carabid experts out there…