Getting a new bike!

My poor GIANT Sedona bike is getting a little too squeaky-in-the-bearing, breaking down due to the 8 miles per day of commuting. I have wanted for a while to get an "upgrade" on my bike, and after speaking to the people at Great Lakes Cycle and Fitness, I learned that it would be way too expensive and inefficient to upgrade the components of my present ride. Instead, I could do a decent upgrade by purchasing a GIANT Seek 1: lighter, better componets, slightly more aggressive position, and 8 speed internal gearing. However, such a choice would have its drawbacks, including the fact that although the components are better than my Sedona, they are not necessarily "good" components, nor is the Seek built for my needs....

So... I decided to get a custom bike made. Yiiiii!!! It should be done at the beginning of May, or there abouts. Have no doubt that there will be photos.

Tax (and teabagging) Day

The script-writers at MSNBC must be having field-days this week with all the talk about teabagging coming from FoxNews and the right-wing of the Republican Party.

Excerpts below (what can only be assumed to be sarcastic comments are in bold, added by yours truly):

[April 15th] is going to be Teabagging Day for the right-wing and they are going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals: They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing, and lick government spending. Spending they did not oppose when they were under Presidents Bush and Reagan... That’s teabagging in a nutshell.... Washington prostitute patron Senator David Vitter ... has issued statements in support of teabagging but is personally tight-lipped... [Both Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity] are looking forward to an up-close-and-personal taste of teabagging themselves.

World builder

 

Saw this video and it reminded me not only of the wonderful things that are now possible in the virtual world, but of when I was thinking about making worlds up for role-playing games, painting pictures (or trying to) in my head about the layout of imaginary cities, etc. Somewhere in amongst all those boxes of old papers in my parents' attic, there are pages of imaginary cities with buildings delineating winding roads encaced within stone walls. There are layouts of some of those buildings, too, where adventures could start (or abruptly end).

Skip forward several years, and the first time I played the Sims, I was similarly enchanted with the ability to create a building that matched (some) of your desires. I was actually less enthralled with the pseudo-social aspect of the game, and ended up just having people work like drones to earn money to make a more interesting house possible. (I think that other people likely did this, too.)

For some reason, SimCity never appealed to me. Possibly because I wasn't "in control" of the development of the buildings or the city (the tools used to influence outcomes seemed to me too crude and contrived somehow). However, I did like seeing how building types thrived (or failed) with different types of urban development. Strangely, (or maybe not so strangely) I was more interested in the terraforming tools that one could use in SimCity 2000 to shape the landscape prior to beginning the game. If they had made only that part the whole game, I would have been quite satisfied to play around with that alone (which I did anyway).

Although I've never played in SecondLife, I imagine that many of the things portrayed in this video are analogous to what is possible there. However, the depition of being able to stand inside your own creation and build what your mind puts in front of you is ... wow. Not to mention that the graphics of this film are breathtakingly stunning, and the concepts of cyberintegration is quite ingeneous.

Are schools killing creatively?

Sir Ken Robinson's talk at TED in 2006. Brilliant piece. Funny, insightful, and hard-hitting.

Unilever, Catherine Zeta Jones, and a 7-minute shampoo commercial

Unilever Japan has made a 7-minute multi-million dollar commercial starring Catherine Zeta Jones to launch their new line of Lux products. See the stunning cinematography here. As a film, it's alright, until the last minute, when the corny product-pushing message is put in.

Happy Easter!

No daffodils out yet in Saginaw Forest, but there are flowers, and buds on the trees.

One thing that I didn't know was the etymology of the word "Easter". I had figured that it was dreived from Latin or Greek, but like many things with the English language, one cannot assume this. For example, in Spanish, this date is called "Pascua", "Pâques" in French, derived from "Pascha" in Latin (derived from the Greek "Πάσχα", which is itself derived). In contrast, this date is "Ostern" in German. In other Germanic-languages speaking countries, a derivation of the Latin "Pascha" is used.

So, in looking a little closer (i.e., doing Wikipedia research), this is what one finds for Easter (links in original):

The modern English term Easter developed from Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre or Eoaster, which itself developed prior to 899. The name refers to Eostur-monath, a month of the Germanic calendar attested by Bede as named after the goddess Ēostre of Anglo-Saxon paganism.^[8] Bede notes that Eostur-monath was the equivalent to the month of April, and that feasts held her in honor during Ēostur-monath had died out by the time of his writing, replaced with the Christian custom of Easter.^[9] Using comparative linguistic evidence from continental Germanic sources, the 19th century scholar Jacob Grimm proposed the existence of an equivalent form of Eostre among the pre-Christian beliefs of the continental Germanic peoples, whose name he reconstructed as *Ostara.

The implications of the goddess have resulted in scholarly theories about whether or not Eostre is an invention of Bede, theories connecting Eostre with records of Germanic folk custom (including hares and eggs), and as descendant of the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn through the etymology of her name. Grimm's reconstructed *Ostara has had some influence in modern popular culture.

Furthermore, I learned from Wikipedia that the Greek "Πάσχα" is derived from the Hebrew "Pesach (פֶּסַח)", which is the word for the Jewish celebration of Passover. (Strange, no, how the two overlap? Oh wait, it isn't really, isn't it?)

Therefore, in the English (and German) speaking world, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on a day named after a pre-Christian goddess of fertility, and Christians in other European-language speaking countries celebrate the same day using a word derived from the Hebrew word for Passover (which celebrates the Jew's escape from Egypt). My point is that neither "Easter" nor "Pascha" have Christian word-roots, and I think that's kind of interesting.

Yup, the crazies are out there.

via Sociological Images: Seeing is Believing

Well, at least one crazy is out there. (FYI, Culver is the Governor of Iowa.) However, there are several problems with the sign.

One is the grammar.

SAME SEX

ANIMALS

DONT MATE

GOD BLESS

CULVER MAN

UP

Okay, I'll give the man the necessity of writing in all-caps, since visibility is important. However, the lack of punctuation? Seriously, if you are going to make a sign to be seen in public, you should use better grammar than that. Also, the lack of punctuation makes the second part of the sign a little ambiguous. Does is it supposed to read, "God bless Culver man up" or "God bless. Culver, man-up!" In the former, it would be some sort of English patois-based statement asking God to "bless-up" "Culver man". However, I doubt that the sign is meant to be some sort of patois, therefore, I will assume here that it is the second case. So, before moving on, I will assume that the sign is supposed to read thusly: "Same-sex animals don't mate. God bless. Culver, man-up!"

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, let's look more closely at the first sentence: Same-sex animals don't mate. Ummm... but they do. Ummm... here are birds-of-more-than-a-feather that "flock" together, and there is documented evidence from over 500 species of homosexual mating. So the first premise is patently wrong. The man is holding up a sign written in bad grammar (which itself confuses and denigrates his own message) that begins with what is either a blatant lie (assuming that he knew the evidence to the contrary) or proof of his blatant ignorance (assuming he didn't know of the evidence). Not a good start there...

Moving on to "God bless", I have to ask to whom this statement is made. Is it a statement that relates back to the previous untrue sentence, is it a general statement, is it asking for a blessing for the Governor, or is it something else? If it is the first, then is the man asking that God bless a patently false statement? If so, then to what end? To hope that God would make the patently false statement somehow true, either by changing the nature of scientific observation or by asking to be brought under God's coattails (and the perceived social benefit that such a request brings)? If it is the second, why tuck it between a blatantly false statement and a demand that the Governor somehow "man-up"? Wouldn't it work better (logically) at the end of the sign as a courteous (or ironic) closing salutation? If it is the third, then to what purpose? (I will explore some possible options of "man-up" in the next paragraph.) Finally, if it is for some other reason, it is as clear as mud to me.

Moving on to "Culver, man-up!" Gwen at Sociological Images makes and forwards good points:

The Culver being told to “man up” is Iowa’s Democratic governor. Joshua says,

I just think it’s kind of telling that Culver is being urged to preserve the traditional definition of marriage with the phrase “man up.”  Only by tapping into honest masculinity can Culver fend off effeminate men and mannish women who want to marry each other…

It is a great example of the assumption that masculinity automatically includes homophobia; being a “real man” means not just being straight, but being opposed to gays and gay rights.

Apart from that, I had always thought that the phrase, "man-up!" meant that I was supposed to pair-up against someone in basketball, playing man-on-man defense. However, I think it is supposed to mean something closer to the various initial definitions found in urbandictionary.com. If that is the case, then is the man asking the Governor of Iowa to usurp power from the state's Supreme Court? If that is the case, then is the man asking for the governor to be an autocrat? I somehow doubt that, since if Gov. Culver takes autocratic power, I would think that this man (and many others in the state) would not be very happy about it. Okay, maybe he's not asking the governor to become an autocrat. Maybe he's asking the governor to make a statement against the state's Supreme Court decision. If the governor does that, then what? Such a statement would only be a political statement that would not really help in Culver's re-election, since (unless Iowa is different from the rest of the country) it is likely that more people who support the Supreme Court decision would be those who would try and re-elect Culver.

Now, this is just one example of a protester making an argument that doesn't address the decision of the Supreme Court. He is a private citizen, and not a person in political power. ... but Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars shows that legislators can also be quite ignorant (blissfully or otherwise) of the Supreme Court decision vs. the rhetoric (okay, it's one legislator in this case, not many).

This sort of backlash - although an inevitable part of any social change - is annoying. I understand that it will be there, and I feel it when certain "truths" I take for granted are questioned, but open-mindedness is not a selfish thing.

Biking becomes easier

Although I can only make a guess at the amount of weight I have lost over the past three months (I don't own or use a scale), I know that it is significant. Cycling twelve kilometers each day has forced me to cinch my belt ever-tighter, and to get out some jeans and shorts that I hadn't worn for "quite a while."

Not only do I see benefits on my waist, but I also have realized that my commute has become easier. I noticed it last night when I was cycling up the hill from Virginia to Stadium into the wind at a gear ratio I would not have been able to handle in February, and I noticed again this morning when I was tearing down Liberty, barely slowing down on the rises as I had my bike in top gear (I felt that if I was on a road bike, I would be overtaking the cars). Furthermore, I don't get as ravenous as I used to during the day, and although I eat a sizeable dinner, I seem to still be (slower now) losing weight.

I thought that perhaps I had lost some of this weight-shedding/muscle-building capacity over time, but I think I still have it (for now). I doubt that I will be able to go back to the physique I had when I was twenty-two (fifty-two inches around the shoulders, thirty-one inches around the waist), but I'll be more than happy to drop back down to between a thirty-four inch and thirty-six inch waist, and energy levels closer to what I used to have.

No doubt, getting to this point was not easy, especially when I compare what I feel like now to what I felt in January. True, it was blisteringly cold during that time, but I was also heavier, with less strength than now. I didn't feel like I could sleep enough, nor could I eat enough. I was stressed about this-and-that, and couldn't concentrate well. However, I now sleep better, need less of it, and I am starting to concentrate better, too. Who knows, but by the end of the semester, I might be in a position to actually get some quality work done.

Strangeness

I was yesterday introduced to the music of Soraya. It was lyrical, captivating, warm, uplifting, and - above all else - vibrantly alive.

Soraya died on May 10, 2006 from breast cancer. For half of her recording career, she knew that she had cancer, possibly incurable.

This juxtaposition of knowledge of one's impending death next to the lyrical beauty and vibrancy-infused music is strange almost to a point of painfulness. The strangeness comes about because I am discovering a wonderful artist who is - to some greater extent - a contemporary of mine, not a long-dead person from "the past". The painfulness arises because I know that the inspired heart and soul of this singer has been silenced, and the only thing we have are ghosts of her - fleeting images and sounds captured for a time on YouTube - eventually to be washed over and mixed in with those now-dead artists who came before her in that large beach that is the repository of music.

It is painful, too, because it seems like I was just getting onto a path to get to know someone very interesting - someone one can only hope to meet in one's life - and to make that person part of my life - thought it be only vicariously through her music. To learn, after cracking open the door to this wonderful music that flows warmly and quickly into one's blood, that the music is dead is itself a heartbreaking occurrence. Imagining the vast gulf of what might have been "if only" she were alive; the great possibility and richness her music would have brought brings an aching pain of emptiness, even though it is for someone that I don't even know.

More, too, does the pain come from another level of understanding. As I learn to sit and listen to the richness of another collection of music, I become painfully aware of the relative parochialness of my own viewpoint. Standing here, looking for a path along which one can gingerly walk toward a better understanding of a new field of knowledge - of experience - learning that a pillar has been almost cruelly and casually trimmed, to move from living artist to archive in an instant (seemingly) before I start my journey, is itself a shocking example of life's calm brutality.

However, instead of trying to forget, I will try and learn, to include Soraya as a pillar holding my pathway through to understanding del mundo hispano.

Be green like Obama Girl

Be green, Earth-friendly and environmentally conscious. Like hot people living in New York City. ;)

Snow in Ann Arbor

It snowed a lot last night. Well... not as much as other parts of the state at similar latitutde, but a lot for Ann Arbor (and a lot, considering that it is April). I wonder, though, how many people are going to use this as an excuse to do them some global-warming hating. Usually, such attacks conform to the following:

1) Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)/Climate Change (CC) is a massive conspiracy.
2) No one has proven AGW/CC or AGW/CC is just a theory.
3) I can disprove AGW/CC. Let me show you.
4) It's snowing. Therefore, no AGW/CC.

What's wrong with this argument? I mean, it is snowing. It is April. Well, what's anomalous-sounding is that it is snowing in southern Michigan in April. If this were northern Michigan, snow in the start of April isn't that uncommon. Snow in Alaska in April is even less uncommon, so the presence of snow in upper latitudes isn't the issue, it's that there is snow where it is uncommon in April. But that the wrong way of looking at the issue.

Climate is more than a snapshot of a weather pattern in a small region of the globe. Climate is a concept that is actually somewhat difficult to grasp, which is probably why so many people fail to grasp it. In a nutshell, Ann Arbor is (according to Grolier Online Atlass) "Continental Humid" with (according to Buildingscience.com) a "High" rain exposure and (according to Theodora.com) minimum temperatures of negavitve ten to negative fifteen celcius and plant zone 5b. How does this relate to today's temperature and precipitation? Well... today's temperature and precipitation matches the climate range of what Ann Arbor is supposed to be. It's an example of what "Continental Humid" is (from Wikipedia):

The humid continental climate is a climate found over large areas of landmasses in the temperate regions of the mid-latitudes where there is a zone of conflict between polar and tropical air masses. The humid continental climate is marked by variable weather patterns and a large seasonal temperature variance. The seasonal temperature variance can be as great as 33° Celsius, but is typically about 15-22°C (27-40° Fahrenheit). The temperature difference between the warmest and coldest months increases as one moves further inland and away from the moderating influence of the ocean. Places with a hottest month temperature above 10 °C and a coldest month temperature below -3°C, and which do not meet the criteria for an arid climate, are classified as continental.^[1] It is most prominent over a wide section of central and eastern North America, parts of Eastern Europe, northwestern Asia and areas adjacent to the Yellow Sea, the Korean Peninsula and Northern Japan. It is only found in small pockets (micro climates) in the Southern Hemisphere.

So... last night's weather (and today's weather, too) is well within the definition of "great seasonal temperature variance", especially since (regardless of how large the Great Lakes are) Ann Arbor is far "away from the moderating influence of the ocean".

Is AGW/CC a myth? Well, that is a subject upon which a scientist studying global warming would be better suited to answer, provided that you consider the concept of mythology of science something that a scientist would be qualified to answer. Of course, I am considering here, that "myth" is a word describing a concept or description of something that doesn't really exist. Therefore, since a scientist is trained to test whether something physical exists or acts according to a theory, and since AGW/CC is something physical and of a theory that is testable, then a scientist should be able to test the validity of AGW/CC. I am not an AGW/CC scientist, and most of the people who say that winter disproves AGW/CC aren't either.

However, I read many papers and discussions published by AGW/CC scientists, and the theory is consistent and sound. Therefore, I tend to agree with their findings, rather than those of the deniers. Okay, this is deviating into a different topic. Therefore, I'll end it here, with a rather unnecessary (and technically incorrectly used) Q.E.D.

Slate article on the "Green Economy"

Normally I like articles on Slate. However, this article was forwarded to me, and I must admit that I found it lacking, both in evidential strength and in good writing. I decided not to discuss the issues, per se, but focus more on some of the problems in writing.

This is not a well-written article, for logical purposes alone (let alone the facts underpinning the logic). For example:

The fundamental problem is that there's no solid evidence that green policies—even those aimed explicitly at creating jobs—will actually lower the long-term unemployment rate.

One could also sate that, "The fundamental problem is that there's no solid evidence that [heretofore untested] policies -- even those aimed explicitly at [perceived social benefit] -- will actually [reach the goal of the policy]," and play a game of madlibs. For example, read the statement substituting the following their respective places:

• intergalactic space penis
• impregnating cylon drones
• bring about a sexual revolution

or

• complete Palestinian universal autonomy
  
• ending Middle East conflict
• do so

The problem is that the statement is refuting the possibility of something that hasn't heretofore been possible (or conceived as being possible) because of a lack of evidence of it's success. It would be like saying in 1960 that the space shuttle would never work, because no space shuttle had ever been successfully launched. It would be like saying that the Salk vaccine wouldn't make any impact on worldwide polio, since it's never been proven.

Moving on to another issue: that of definition. Levi says:

For many environmental advocates, of course, these discussions are of secondary importance; what matters most is that green jobs will help the planet. They'd be wise to be careful there, too. Indeed, the most successful green jobs program to date is one that no environmentalist wants to brag about: the conversion to corn-based ethanol.

Apart from the problem of lumping all people who share a concern about the fate of the environment of our planet (whether it is through peaceful or violent means, or whether it is because of a primary concern for human existence or ecosystem health) is a logical fallacy. Of course, it also difficult to separate everyone out into their respective groups, even using the two axes listed in my parenthetical. However, a hunter/fisher conservationist can be considered as much an environmentalist on some issues as a PETA or GreenPeace activist. Do they all have the same viewpoint? No. Is environmentalist a monolithic group? No. Although it may seem like a bit of digression, it goes to the point of asking which environmentalists consider corn-based ethanol a "green job" sector? Certainly very few of the greenies in my department. Calling something a "green job" when it holds very few actual environmental merits is a term that Levi should get to know a little bit better: "Greenwashing". The corn-based ethanol issue is not just an environmental issue (in terms of the pollution caused by raising the corn, distilling the ethanol, and distributing it), it is also a trade issue (in terms of government subsidies of US corn production, causing world corn markets to "slide") and a fisheries issue (in terms of the massive dead zone of deoxygenated water caused by fertilizer-based nitrogen-rich waters of the Mississippi River flowing into the normally nitrogen-limited waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and creating massive algal blooms that actually cause deoxygenation when the mat begins to sink into the water -- due to the weight of ever-increasing numbers of algal cells -- thus causing aerobic-respiration based decomposition by existing bacteria). There are also social issues relating to the change in the Gulf of Mexico fishery, health issues caused by nitorgen leaching into groundwater well systems, and long-term macroeconomic issues caused by backing ourselves into a corner by investing in massive infrastructure for corn-based ethanol (thus effectively closing the door on more efficient alternatives for ethanol prodduction) prior to a full exploration of alternatives. Is the corn-based ethanol sector a "green jobs" sector? Well, only if you consider the production of liquid fuel from sources other than fossil fuels "green." If that is the case, then (imho) it is a limited definition of "environmental", and therefore Levi is in more need to define who is included in his set "environmentalists".

Finally, I've seen better conclusions to papers produced by freshmen than what Levi's put up. Seriously, all he does is lightly revisit some of the casually and illogically "investigated" points he mentions in his article before stating that no matter what he has said previously, it is necessary for the US to make some sort of decision. Really? No shit? Woah! Why did I just spend all that time reading your points of view that counteract your very conclusion? If you wanted to make your piece a contrast analysis of different opinions, you should have set up your lines of evidence differently and set up your opening thesis as one that will show how -- regardless of the perceived deficiences -- the green economy is something that we should pursue.

Iowa courts overturn same-sex marriage ban

Iowa's supreme court has overturned same-sex marriage ban, callilng it unconstitutional. First: YAY! Second: how quickly will (have?) people use the "activist judges" attack. Third: How quickly these anti-gay-rights people make it to the national news?

Hopefully, Iowans will - on the whole - stand behind this ruling and either pass it in the legislature, or pass it as a ballot. However, strategically speaking, if this issue makes it to a ballot initiative, it will have to be written very carefully to ensure that a defeat of it will not mean a constitutional ban.

Unfortunately, it's not an April Fool's joke...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The 10/31 Project
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Why we need volcano monitoring

While I understand that many other people have already taken Gov. Bobby Jindal's speech to bits, including his apparent belittling of volcano monitoring, but I just wanted to add some visuals to why it is a comment that is more than a little dull-headed.

 

Vesuvius erupting (1872)

via The Online Photographer

Mount St. Helens Eruption (1980)

Mount Redoubt eruption (2009)

Yellowstone Supervolcano (future eruption)

One could make the point that so-called "pork barrel" spending is bad business in Washingon. However, it accounts for a vanishingly small percent of government spending, and acts as a convenient canard against which to rail when making blinkerdly silly comments about spending and budgets. When will politicians learn to actually investigate what the "pork barrel" project is supporting (and have a staffer do some research into the topic, if they don't know what it is) than just saying something that - at the moment - might sound funny or degrading, but - in balance - only acts as a shovel to dig a deeper hole? Does this all play into the larger question of the divide between people's popular understanding of science, and what scientists actually do? Is this a question of tapping into people's resentment of government "meddling"? Is it anti-science?

Surly it cannot be the last one, since (it is my belief) that people in the United States readily understand that there are benefits of science. (You are - for example - reading this because of several benefits of science.) I feel, though, that it is a question of resenting government "meddling", especially tapping into deep-seated fear and loathing about the government's ability (some say unconstitutional ability) to tax its citizens. However, that is a topic for a different blog post.

The DOT will run heath care???

Sometimes political cartoons are good. Other times, they just fall flat on their faces. Take this one, for example:

First, its message is not precise: The "folks who run our transportation arteries" are the various Departments of Transportation (and possibly Departments of Motor Vehicles). It is inconceivable that the DOT will be put in charge of health care. Of course, if the message is, "Government: Keep out of our bodies!" or "Government: We don't want socialized health care!" then that could make a little more sense on the sentiment. However, if closer to the latter, it then becomes somewhat of a case of knee-jerk libertarianism. Let me explain:

One of the problems with the idea of government keeping out of public life is that we would unlikely have such things as the interstate system that we today take for granted. The massive public subsidies have created both good (the interstates) and bad (massive traffic problems caused by increased use of interstates) outcomes. However, if the interstate and state highway systems were not subsidized by government, then the cost of travel and interstate commerce would increase. (Note: the states cannot tax interstate commerce, but they could charge tolls on roads, thus increasing the cost of travel.) Many people who are anti-government/pro-free market conveniently forget this point.

Finally, as a bumper sticker, proposing no alternative to the [perceived] status quo (or future) is okay, since the point of a bumper sticker is to get a POV across while remaining legible by the person tailgating you through morning and afternoon traffic. This bumper sticker fails the pithy-and-legible test that most bumper stickers must pass.

Now, looking at the overal tenor of the piece, the car is a massive piece-of-work. Is this saying something about the state of the American auto industry, or is it a visual necessity in order to have a bumper larger than the driver's head in order to put on that not-at-all pithy nonsensical statement?

Lights out here in SagFor

 

Last night was a lights out for the planet. Although I thought that it would be good to burn some of the wood I was cutting, that didn't turn out to be such a good option (still too wet to burn easily).

Anyway, with all the lights out, I lit the candles in the fireplace. A nice candle-lit glow, no?

Why engineers need to think outside their box.

Via EcoGeek:

Following up on a story we brought to you a couple of months ago, the iron fertilization project in the South Atlantic Ocean has not produced the results expected by researchers.

To recap, the project by British scientists aimed to increase the amount of carbon dioxide-absorbing algae in the ocean off of South Georgia Island by adding extra iron to the water. Ideally, the extra algae would remove a large chunk of CO2 in the atmosphere and then sink far below the surface, permanently sequestering the CO2.

As expected, great amounts of algae did bloom, but there was an unexpected glitch. Instead of the algae sinking to the bottom of the ocean, they were eaten by copepods, which were then eaten by amphipods, which meant a lot less CO2 was absorbed and sequestered than thought.

Basically, the CO2 that was removed was "almost negligible" as one researcher put it. I guess it's back to the drawing board.

True, if this worked, it would have been awesome! I mean: "add iron to water, decrease atmospheric CO2". What's there not to like? However, what engineers didn't take into account was ... biology (well, technically ecology). Unfortunately, you can't go out and convince the amphipods to not do what they do when food is around; the world is not a labratory condition.

What is "wrong" with Dyson's perspective on climate change?

A friend sent me this article from the NYTimes Magazine Preview: "The Civil Heretic", and asked:

why do some very smart people (although I always thought Dyson had some wacko sides, but let's leave it aside) think global warming is BS? How do we counter that?

Well, I think that Dyson is too much of an optimistic futurist. The man is someone who worships at the altar of technology, bows to the god of innovation, and likely worships in the same vein as science-fiction writers who see a utopian vision of the future. I would say that although Dyson is a fantastic physicist, he is not a climate change scientist, and therefore what he is doing is not climate change science, but climate change issue advocacy. Now, a scientist in the field can be involved in advocating a position on the topic (thus making him a climate-change-science issue advocate), but Dyson is not such a man. Therefore, I think that his presumptions are based on his vast knowledge together with his idea of an unlimited near-future in which humans live.

We can't counter that.

I, on the other hand, love dystopianism. To hate the idea of dystopian futures only makes for a really unhappy environmental scientist engaged in climate change science and/or issue advocacy. (Note: I don't say that I would prefer a dystopian future, but that ideas of dystopian futures does not dog my cheerful outlook on life; some call me a happy cynic and others just call me strange.) I am not a climate change scientist. I work with some, I work with many others who interpret the science using objective measures and provide advice/advocate positions.

My peers tend to be closer to my POV (i.e., films like 12 Monkeys, Mad Max, the Postman, Waterworld, and Escape from NY/LA) than that of Dyson (i.e., films like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Star Trek, Metropolis, and Star Wars). Of course, there are people who like something that is not-quite-utopian (i.e., films like Gattaca, AeonFlux, and Equilibrium) or not-quite-dystopian (i.e., films like Brazil or eXitenz). (NOTE: these categories are quite broad, and I do like many of the films I listed as utopian, but I like the dystopian ones more; I just like SciFi.)

In addition to the POV issue, Dyson is also stuck somewhere between the idea that the scientific consensus on global warming is up-for-debate (e.g., like creationists keep claiming evolution to be) and the idea that this is a moral question. This creates two other issues that are psychological in nature. The first is that if a scientist finds him/herself in such a situation, especially if no immediate consequence of inaction is seen, that scientist is tempted to not act, because:

• There is no reason to act to change a course of events that can be gleefully studied (why else do people become scientists?);
• Acting to change the course of events runs counter to a scientific mentality that worships observation and testing as opposed to prevention (which would only have the end result in removing that thing which scientists gleefully like to do: study the phenomenon); and
  
• The longer one waits, the more data can be used to bring to bear on the topic at hand, since a lot of science is inherently backward-looking (i.e., based on observations of prior tests);

Note that I'm not putting anything in here about the possibility that Dyson has his own axe to grind on this topic.

How can we counter Dyson? We can't because by the time we see incontrovertible evidence of global warming, he will likely be long-dead. You cannot change his point-of-view. Furthermore, because of the long time-periods involved with global warming (versus the relatively short time-periods of human consciousness and understanding), people will have a shifted baseline of expectation vis-a-vis what a climate "should" look like, based on their own life experiences (since one cannot personally experience the lives of our forebears), which makes me pessimistic about future "visceral" (as opposed to learned/taught) understandings. The easiest thing to do would be to make him a non-entity in the debate; to sideline him into non-existence. This is what people have tried to do with ad hominem attacks (he's a kook, he's over-the-hill, etc.), mostly without success, since physicists (who make up a large percentage of the climate modelers) still tend to worship at the altar of Dyson. A more likely tactic is to change the frame of the debate away from what Dyson is perceived of as an expert; to social impacts, for example. I'm sure that to many American social scientists, the name "Dyson" only means vacuum-cleaner.

Of course, like a lot of my drivel on this blog, I could well be wrong about one, some, or all parts of this entry. (Well, perhaps not "all" parts of this entry, since I do like the films I listed.)

On a side note, I wonder how many scientists in different fields "believe" in the veracity of global warming science. Are there trends in this "belief" as one saw in scientist belief in creationism and Bible literalism...

Saginaw Forest blog

To my few readers:

I have created another blog that is an account of some of my activities as caretaker of the Sagnaw Forest property west of town.

The blog URL is: saginawforest.blogspot.com

I usually post one or more entry each week about goings on at the forest, including whatever maintenance I'm doing, what classes are doing, etc. Hopefully this will allow me to keep separate the themes of this blog (umlud.blogspot.com) and the other one.

Thanks,
'Umlud'

Photos from Wagner (west of town)

 

Who says that Michigan doesn't have solar power? A laughably small array of solar panels. This is right next to the anonymous 1901 South Wagner property. As you can see from the map, there isn't much of the property that is covered with solar panels. The terrain at that point slopes slightly to the south and east, and there aren't tall trees on the opposite side of the road, meaning that this solar array could be much bigger than it is presently.

  

One thing I really like about the Midwest are all of these big red barns that still dot the countryside. This one is located right next to the Washtenaw Intermediate School District buildings. Although it is located across the street from farm fields, and there are tire tracks leading up to and through the barn doors, I don't think there's a lot of farm equipment in there; perhaps some lawn-care equipment (e.g., riding mowers) and the like for the soccer field next to the WISD buildings.

  

Some erosion of the Quaternary geology that forms much of Michigan's lower peninsula, hiding the bedrock under meters of glacial deposits. However, this quarry (behind the Fendt Builders Supply) seems, for now at least, to be not in operation.

  

 Another shot from the quarry site. Here, though, it looks like there is a lot of discarded concrete that is scattered about. One wonders whether these are being stored here for eventual recycling, or if this is the quarry slowly being re-filled with concrete from demolitions in the city. If the former, then there is a lot of concrete that can potentially be re-used. If it's the latter, then it is at least a good thing to put all the concrete in one place so that in the future, if concrete recycling becomes much cheaper, this quarry can shift from a storage site to a processing facility.

Campus directions

Signs (without Mel Gibson) - watch more funny videos

How many times have you been the person in green? How many times have you been (or wanted to be) the person in black? Walking around UofM's campus (especially during the summer), one gets many opportunities to be the man in black. Unfortunately (for those of us who want to be that guy) or fortunately (for those of us who hate people being that guy), mobile internet and Google maps (and equivalent software) make such wanderings less likely, since you can get the street address from online (thanks to your mobile internet device) as well as driving (or sometimes walking - thank you Google maps) directions from where you are (if you happen to know the cross-streets or address of your starting location) to your destination (assuming that it is located any where need the street address).

Here are two (of many) examples of how street addresses and actual locations don't really correspond at the University of Michigan's Central Campus.

The School of Natural Resources and Environment is not physically located on Church Street. The address was changed from "East University Ave" to "Church Street" a few years ago, when the Post Office declared that East University Avenue didn't exist north of South University. (East U was called that because it used to be the street running along the eastern side of the campus, way back in the mid-1900s. It was pedestrianized over the previous decades, and now the only vehicular access to it is via an alleyway located just south of where the Google "A" is located.) Furthermore, although North University is technically "closer" to the building, the main entrance (which used to face East U) faces Church Street, thus 440 Church Street.

 

Here is the non-juxtaposition of the street address and the actual location of the Graduate Library. No strange weirdness here. Just an extrapolation of the final point from above: the library "faces" North University, thus it gets an address of "North University", even though is it much closer to South University (especially if you consider that the stacks (the building immediately to the south of the one with the arrow pointing to it) is also considered part of the Grad Library... Still, one gets the address of the street one faces. (Usually... since the Center of African and Afro-American Studies, located in Haven Hall -- which faces into the Diag -- has an address on State Street not Church.)

What to do with fairy tales and technology?

The story of Little Red Ridinghood like you've never seen it before.


Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Strange juxtapositions

Sometimes I see interesting juxtapositions in the newspaper. Like this one of smiling female underwear models showing up next to a picture of the pope. ...And the pope almost looks like the models' crotches are at the eye-level of the pontiff, too...

I don't know if this is something that an editor actually checks on, but I'm sure that if I find this slightly humorous, then some Catholics might find this offensive...

Silly comparisons

Of course, there are also some other problems that come out in the publication. The article on the right states:

The original 1908 Model T sported wood wheels and a fabric roof and could sputter up to 45 miles an hour. The typical SUV of today takes less than 10 seconds to hit 60 m.p.h., even as it weighs four times more.

Notice that the opening paragraph sets up a strawman right from the get-go. The Model-T is portrayed as quaint ("sported wood wheels") and obsolete ("sputter up to 45 miles an hour"), even spelling out "miles an hour", like spelling out an acronym is old-fashioned. On the other hand, the SUV is portrayed as being able to reach a speed that far-exceeds what the Model-T did, and in "such little time", even though SUVs are much heavier. Of course, the entire first paragraph says nothing about the topic of this blurb: "Fuel-efficiency myth".

On the Freep website, Hyde continues with the following:

What remains unclear is how it makes sense to compare a fabric-roofed, four-seat car to a seven-passenger truck stuffed with high-tech accoutrements.

Ummm.... Well, that's pretty easy. You take a popular car model/type from 1908 (a Model T) with one from 2008 (SUVs). The point of comparison is not what the "accoutrements" are in the Model-T vs the SUV, but that after 100 years, one would expect a little bit more improvement. This comparison also tacitly touches on the question of, "How did we get here?" with "here" being a street culture, trucks getting bigger, commuter villages, and comfort over utility (especially in the so-called sports utility vehicle). Of course, this point is a place where Hyde could have taken the road less-traveled in Detroit: to question the status quo of motor vehicle ownership, the car-culture, etc. ... but no. Hyde concludes with the following amazing piece of logical discontinuity:

When adjusted for their massive differences in weight using the government’s formulas, today’s typical SUV is about five times more efficient than the Model T.

Hyde, there is a difference between comparisons on paper, where you can do this sort of mathematical simplification, and the physical world, where net fuel economy is the major point of contention; the thing that impacts real people. Who cares that today's SUVs are 5x more fuel efficient if you normalize by weight? What Hyde is saying is that a Model-T's fuel economy is 80 pounds/mpg, while the average SUV's fuel economy is 255 pounds/mpg. Although this is mathematically correct (if you divide through by the values given in the article), the concept of measuring fuel economy as pounds/mpg is laughable. Laughable because if you did this sort of comparison with the expectations of the 2010 model Toyota Prius:

Weight: 2975 pounds
Fuel economy: 50 mpg

2975 pounds/50 mpg = 59.4 pounds/mpg

Oh my god! The SUV has a better Hyde fuel economy than a Prius! Can you believe it!!! WOW! The "average" SUV has a fuel economy of 255 lbs/mpg, and the 2010 Prius is only 59.4 lbs/mpg. Hell, even the Model-T has a better Hyde-fuel-economy at 80 lbs/mpg! Those damn lefties tree-huggers making negative claims about SUVs...

Oh, wait... That doesn't make sense!!! A unit like lbs/mpg is as useful a measurement of fuel economy as GDP/CO2 is a measurement of CO2 emissions.

Woke up to this

I really like this piece (and many of Beethoven's piano pieces -- not such a big fan of his symphonies), and this rendition of it is not only visually appealing, but also very emotive. Enjoy.

Videos about why science is important

Why we need to teach evolution from National Center for Science Ed. on Vimeo.


Why is Science Important? from Alom Shaha on Vimeo.

Pretty nice door

Although I have to walk outside to use my privvy-shed, I do have a nice scene to look at -- all the postcards that people have sent to Saginaw Forest over the years.

If you want to have a postcard pinned onto a wall (or the door) with all the other postcards that have been posted over the years, send me one at:

Saginaw Forest
3900 W. Liberty Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Cabella's mountain of taxidermy

For those of you not familiar with the Cabella's store in Dundee, MI, then you may well never have thought of the possibility of the existence of a mountain of taxidermy, let alone a mountain of taxidermy situated (literally) in the middle of an outdoors-store as big as a WalMart (but with massive timber columns supporting a cupola -- instead of a flat roof).

The juxtaposition of stuffed animals (with name-boards a la natural history museum) against racks of shirts and trousers, and the "gun library" in the background is still jarring each time I see it. Even from the "Carnivore Cafe" on the second floor, or from the "outdoors motif" furniture section (yes, you can purchase a massive arm chair covered with flannel), customers can still see the bighorn sheep at the top of the impossibly impossible faux mountain (complete with a "waterfall" emanating from the top of the "mountain", and fake pines growing straight out of fake rock).

Why was I at the Dundee Cabella's? Well, because the Michigan chapter of the American Fisheries Society was having its annual meeting and conference there. Although I did not present, there were many presentations that were very interesting and useful for my own understanding of things. (Plus, holding it at Caballa's meant that the registration cost was quite low, since -- I think -- Cabella's probably charged AFS Michigan only a nominal fee sine they were likely expecting that many conference-goers would purchase stuff in the store.) The only thing I purchased (other than registration fees) was a late lunch on Day 1 (a smoked elk sandwich and a salad), but I was eyeing some of the merchandise on sale...

Burning willow

I burned the willow that was piling up before the rain forecasted for tomorrow... and that flame was big.

St. Patrick's Day

Many students drinking around campus.

The same activity as last year, with some different people, no doubt.

Is eating fish good or not?

That grammatically simple question is anything but when you consider the different understandings of the consequences of humans eating fish. Here I will consider three points-of-view: a medical POV, a risk assessment POV, and an ecologist POV.

Many times the justification for eating fish comes to the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids. Doing a simple search on the PhysOrg website for “omega-3” yields twenty-two still-accessible news stories about this or that finding about the benefits of this fishy fatty acid:

• Help prevent medical complications due to obesity (Feb 12, 2009);
• Minimize menopause depression (Jan 28, 2009);
• Good with wine (Dec 4, 2008);
• Lower rates of eye disease (Jun 9, 2008);
• Protects against Parkinson’s Disease (Nov 26, 2007);

and so on…

Furthermore, studies in the medical literature also point out that North American diets are low in Omega-3 fatty acids, so… since they are so useful to us, we should eat more of it, and one easy way is to eat fish. Okay. I get it. You get it. A three-year-old can get it. However, the medical POV isn’t the only one around.

Over the past several decades, we have learned that there are different types of chemical compounds in our environment, some natural, others man-made. Some of these (mainly metallic compounds) are nasty, but don’t accumulate in the food chain (with the major exception of mercury, which – when methylated – has this nasty habit of bioaccumulating). Others (mainly hydrophobic nonmetallic compounds) are not only nasty, but bioaccumulate in the foodchain. The problem with bioaccumulation is that an organism absorbs the toxin at a rate greater than that in which the toxin is lost. Applying this principle to a food web/chain concept, an organism absorbing toxins is usually ingesting organisms at a lower trophic level (i.e., at a lower level on the food chain). Therefore, bioaccumulation leads to biomagnifications of a toxin as one climbs the foodchain to … you guessed it: FISH! What’s more, all those tasty fishes we human cultures are so amenable to gobbling up like there's no tomorrow (like tuna and cod) tend to be near the top of the food chain. (There are dangers of eating generalists like catfish and carp, but I won’t get into those here…) So what does that mean? Well, from a risk assessment POV, if you are catching fishes in polluted waters – or catching top-of-the-food-chain fishes who spend time in polluted waters (because, hey, fish swim around) – chances are increased that you will increase your ingestion of bioaccumulative biomagnified substances, like methylated mercury, PCBs, etc. These substances… which have medically been shown to be not good for you, leading to (among other things) retardation, immune disorders, gender-bending, and cancer. Well, so you can always just harvest the omega-3 fatty acids from fish, devoid of all those toxins that have bioaccumulated in the... oh, yeah. In the fatty tissue of fish...

But regardless of the touted medical benefits and the touted toxic risks, fishing is also a way in which man interacts with his environment. Indeed, some projections of harvest rates (against estimates of standing stock in the world's oceans) place economic extinction of fish species near the middle of this century (around 2042 if memory serves). What is the up-shot of this? Well, if you remove top-predators from a food chain, you have shifted the pressure to lower levels of the food chain. Since top predators have a direct impact on the number of lower-trophic animals (and those on still-lower trophic levels), the removal of a top predator (i.e., those fishes we love to eat due to their tasty pink-to-red flesh whose musculature is so suited for chasing down other fish and eating them) means that second-tier fish populations boom and crash, causing cascades of knock-on effects in a predator-controlled food chain. This leaves (basically) a system that doesn't function in a stabilizing manner. However, what is happening alongside these systems are the rather non-vertical foodchains of generalists (i.e., those fishes and alternate sea-life we don't really find that tasty). Since they do not suffer as greately from the loss of a top predator, their numbers increase beyond the ability of previously dominant food webs to manage (through marginalization, usually). In time - evolutionary timescales - these generalists will start to fill in niches that are left open by a loss in a predator-dominated foodweb. However, by the time this happens, humans are likely to be long past a stage that we would recognize them.

In the meantime, what do we have? We have doctors saying eat fish, because it's good for you (especially for pregnant women). We have risk assessors saying don't eat fish, because it's laced with toxins that are bad for you (especially for pregnant women). And we have ecologists saying don't eat fish, because it's leading to the worldwide collapse of fish stocks, meaning that the (possibly) toxin-fed babies carried by pregnant women today won't be able to have the benefits of fish the sea.

Willow cuttings

Ahhh.... I spent two hours cutting willows and setting them out to dry for eventual bonfire burning. After that, I spent about three hours setting down bricks to make pathways. My arms are as tired as they have ever been, including when I used to be a live-in aikido student in Denver during 1999-2000.

My forearms are ... bleaugh. My lower back is also tight. I think I will have to go to the Relax Station. (Possibly tomorrow...) Hmmm...

Anywho, here are some of the photos from my maintenance work today.

 

Clearing willow

Setting bricks as paving stones

Cutting willow

Yesterday I trimmed some of the willow near Third Sister Lake. Today I will finish it up. One statement about willow, though: it's a tenacious tree, and will grow in thicker each year. If it wasn't for the fact that its roots help hold down the bank, I would have tried to pull the roots... Photos coming of the results.

Of course, the anchoring ability of the trees is something that I wonder will help in shoring up the banks of the small creek that runs high every time there's rain or snowmelt... I'll have to talk with Bob Grese, who teaches methods in landscape restoration. (Maybe I can get him to come out here, too!)

On teaching about pseudoscience

Recently, when Richard Dawkins was invited to speak at Oklahoma University, that state's legislature decided that it would try and censure Prof. Dawkins by passing House Resolutions 1014 and 1015. Never mind that under the United States Constitution, the creation of such laws (called a 'bill of attainder') is not allowed, since the legislature of Oklahoma would have declared Dawkins guilty without a trial (which is still illegal).

Nevermind that Dawkins provided a well-reasoned and comedic eviseration of the resolutions:


there are still people who just don't want to listen to what the man says (this one says he is a biologist, doesn't ask a question, and walks out before he can hear the response; not one for open dialogue, I suppose):


In a recent post over at OUDaily.com, the topic of Dawkins' lecture and the state house resolutions were discussed. One of the comments at the site:

Creationism and I.Design can be covered as just two theories and then discussed along with evolution. It can be done by presenting evidence and discussion that is NOT based on blind faith. We as a state probably have the most backward outlook and I bet there are people who think the earth is flat and that rapture and witches are all true.. But I see no reason a scientific mind cannot humor the faith based pseudoscientists. All you need is to say some people believe Creationism is science and that it is a theory with not many evidentiary trails. Same goes for I.Design. NO need to be afraid of alternates because ignorance abound in our state. Afterall we are not very high on college educated percentages.

raised an interesting point in my mind. Why not teach a science course on how to detect good and bad science? Why not force university students to think critically upon various different types of scientific and pseudoscientific endeavors and discover what science really is and what it isn't. Don't forget to include pseudoscience from not just the US, but from around the world; not just with regard to contemporary topics like intelligent design, but also include historical debunking like phrenology; and not just with regard to Christian-based pseudoscience like creationism, but also those related to other religions like the sanctity of the waters of the Ganges River.

By having students learn about the framework of what science is and what it is not; what scientific evidence needs and needs to show; and what the implications are between dogmatic faith and deductive (and inductive) reasoning, you circumvent the sticky issue of forcing people to confront an apparent conflict-of-faith (creationism's pseudoscientific nature). What will (hopefully) happen is that you provide students with a methodology of defining and determining the quality of what is a science framework and challenge them to apply that framework to what they see around them and read about.

Advertising and belief

So I'm watching some shows on Hulu, and one thing that comes across my mind is the question, "Why is this advertisement on?" (Hulu plays a single 15-30 second advertisement during a show's normal commercial breaks.) I didn't ask because it seemed to me that the ad was not suited to people who might watch the show, rather, I asked because I (like to think) that I am not one who is so easily swayed by advertisement (unless I'm tired, and then I recognize that I'm drawn to advertisements).

So that got me metathinking during a Grey Goose ad, and it made me hypothesize the following: People who have a logical mind are less likely swayed by advertisement. Then I thought of a way of testing this - if I was so inclined, and had equipment. Find people who have rationalized themselves away from religious faith, since many arguments from logic find religious faith based either on false logic or a suspension of logic. Then run brain scans on these people and those who are zealously faithful. Compare the differences when they are each watching ads.

It sounds weird, but then again, at the worst if it doesn't work, then it will just prove me wrong. However, if it does show something, then it says a major thing about the human mind.

Clearing fallen trees

Just cleared a bunch of fallen trees on the property. That was vigorous and fun work. Many of the fallen trees were over one foot in diameter, and some of them were soggy with snowmelt, making the cutting difficult and the moving-out-of-the-way also difficult.

It started off somewhat annoyingly -- I'll admit that I didn't remember how to prime the chainsaw prior to it starting, but after a few minutes of fiddling, I figured it out. The previous caretakers told me that they had changed the chain prior to leaving, and the thing did cut like a hot knife through butter.

If I do end up getting a stove put in, then I am definitely up for doing more of that chainsawing. (Of course, I say that now... who knows what the future holds. Would I say that in September and October, when I have to start collecting the wood to burn during the winter? We'll see. If the school OKs the installation of a stove, of course.)

The yokel of slavery

I just heard one of the Detroit councilwomen say that the Indians threw off the "yokel of slavery" of the British.

I wonder where that slavery-yokel came from in Britain... (Or if Britain instituted slavery in India while they were colonialists.)

UPDATE:  Thanks to the anonymous commenter who has informed me that the councilwoman was Monica Conyers.

Writing poetry

I have recently been thinking the poetry that I have written over the past number of years, and I have realized that I have been very lax in the amount of poetry that I have written in recent years:

Why am I going back to an interest in poetry? Well in my recent studying of Spanish and my trips to Chile, I was introduced to Pablo Neruda's poetry. Of course, with any new language, one has to trust the translator to some level while simultaneously wanting to learn the language enough to fully appreciate the full meaning of the poem.

One thing about language is that words don't have the same nuance meaning or associated image in one language to another. This idea was captures very well up by Lydia Davis in her short story "French Lesson I: Le Meurtre" in Break it Down:

"A French arbre is not the elm or maple shading the main street of our New England towns in the infinitely long, hot and listless, vacant summer of our childhoods, which are themselves different from the childhoods of French children, and if you see a Frenchman standing on a street in a small town in American pointinig to an elm or maple and calling it an arbre, you will know this is wrong. An arbre is a plane tree in an ancient town aquared with lopped, stubby branches and patchy, leprous bark standing in a row of similar plane trees across from the town hall, in front of which a bicycle ridden by a man with thich, reddish skin and and old cap wavers past and turns into a narrow lane. ... An arbre can also caset a pleasant shade and keep la maison cool in the summer, but remember that la maison is not wood-framed with a widow's walk and a wide front porch but is laid out on a north-south axis, is built of irregular, sand-colored blocks of stone, and has a red tile roof, small square windows with green shutters, and no windows on the north side, which is also protected from the wind by a closely planted line of cypresses, while a pretty mulberry or olive may shade the south. ..."

Therefore, if I read a Neruda poem, like "Agua Sexual", the image created in my mind with the translated lines: 

"Rolling down in big and distinct drops,
in drops like teeth,
in heavy drops like marmalade and blood."

is very vivid, painting pictures in my mind and sensations at my fingertips. However, are these the images and sensations the poet wanted to evoke when he wrote in Spanish:

"Rodando a goterones solos,
a gotas como dientes,
a espesos goterones de mermelada y sangre," 

So what does this have to do with my writing? Well, I want to use this re-sparked interest in poetry to help me with learning and writing Spanish (and since Neruda wrote a lot about water, this is something that I can associate myself with emotionally).

Chimney issues

Well, the people came to check on my chimney and look at the possibility of putting in a wood-burning stove. As I thought, there was creosote in there, and they suggest not using the fire place until it gets cleaned. (Turns out that today was a check-in, and not a cleaning.)

Hopefully I will be able to get a wood-burning stove, since such a stove would allow me to use the plentiful amount of wood surrounding me and take off the burden from the gas furnace which is not the most efficient way of heating this place.

However, due to the relatively slow turnaround on payment from the University of Michigan, this might take a little while to pass through (assuming that the powers-that-be agree that this is a good thing to do).

Photo of the cabin

Where I live now (little house in a small woods).