North Truro 2010 - North of Highland Campground

This was our second year camping on the cape. We were not so fortunate with the weather as we'd been the previous year. It rained for the first three days. Soaking. Solid.

But we'd managed to reserve a campsite that was on higher ground, so we weren't entirely miserable.  The campground had a large blazing fire in its main lodge. We sat in front of it, dried our socks and raincoats, and ate toasted marshmallows.

You can walk to the beach from the campground, even with small children. It is not a short walk. You do have to cross two streets, but otherwise the trail is mostly through pretty woods. It is a very nice beach. Not too bad in the rain, depending on your stamina.

The people at the front desk were friendly, though strict about the rules. After you check out, they won't let you leave your car in the parking lot while you go to the beach one last time.

There was a playground, which the kids loved, and a store, which the kids loved, and there were ping-pong tables in the lodge. You could borrow ping-pong racquets from the store.

The campground was not far from a Stop & Shop, for restocking groceries.

The bike path was very close to the campground as well. With teenagers, you could probably bike to Provincetown. But that was beyond the range of my children's capabilities.

You definitely want to take your bike to the Cape.  The bike trail was beautiful, and relatively flat.

My husband thinks that walk-to-the-beach is a trap because, unlike the previous year, we didn't often drive to the other wonderful beaches in the area. I would rather not climb into a car if I don't have to.

I could see going back there to spend a relaxing week riding the bike trail, walking to the beach, playing ping-pong, and sitting in the lodge catching up on writing and reading. There was even a small adults-only lounge. (Not in the X-rated sense, but in the sit-and-read-in-peace-and-quiet sense.)

On the way home, stop by the Truro Vineyards and pick up a few bottles of the local grape for the folks you left to take care of your pets while you were away, and as a little bit of vacation to drink once you've been back in the real world for too long.

That was our plan, but unfortunately, we left on Sunday, and they close early on Sunday. We didn't get there in time.

If you're looking for a semi-rainy day activity, the winery also gives a free tour, which my husband and I found fascinating, while our children were bored out of their skulls.

Truro on Dwellable

Nickerson 2011

Kettle Ponds

The best part of Nickerson could be the Kettle Ponds, with their sandy beaches and beautiful water for swimming or boating.

Duck in Kettle Pond

Ranger Programs

When you arrive at the park, pick up a copy of the events schedule. There are guided hikes, such as the orienteering workshop that I found somewhat helpful in combating my 180 degree sense of direction. If you'd rather just sit, there are also campfire programs with folk tales and star gazing.

Both my daughters liked filling out their Junior Ranger books. The elder daughter completed her Junior Ranger requirements during the week of our stay, and was awarded a Junior Ranger patch. This is a great program that the State Parks, as well as the National parks, run for kids.

Ranger Todd collecting fewmets

Ranger Todd grew up in Cape Cod, and he seemed to know every single plant and animal around. He was really interesting to listen to and unfailingly polite. All the rangers were friendly and helpful.

Ranger Todd explaining animal bone

The Campground

There were actually campsites still available in August, if you didn't mind moving around every few days.  The rangers at the main station did not handle reservations at all. You had to connect to the Internet or call ReserveAmerica to reserve a spot, even if you were at the campground already.

It would pay to bike or drive around with the campground map to scope out where you'd like to stay the next year. There was a lot of variety.  The campsite that we thought would be walk-to-the-shore from the website map wasn't, since the map didn't show the steep dropoff between the campsite and the kettle pond.

The sites are somewhat close together, but not unusual compared to commercial sites. There were often empty sites, probably from people who reserved but couldn't make it.  The bathrooms were OK. Some were more modern than others. We brought quarters but didn't need them. The showers were free, when they weren't being cleaned.

There was a "pavilion" that would have been improved were there something to sit on within it.

There are folks who stay in the campground for the season and help out. They were good at their job and helpful if you need any sort of information about the park or surrounding area. One lady would put bouquets of wildflowers on the bathroom sink to brighten up the place. That was a nice touch.

The camp store sells firewood, which is the only firewood you're allowed to have in the park.

The canonical camping hot-dog supper

(Two years earlier, Nickerson was booked solid, so we stayed at Sweetwater Forest Campground, also in Brewster.)

Just outside the Park

There is a calm ocean beach, and grocery stores, and pizza places, and other restaurants.  You don't really need to bring a large cooler or worry about packing food.

Finding shells and hermit crabs in the ocean

Waiting for fish & chips at the Breakwater

Brewster on Dwellable

Until we have an intelligent or touch-sensitive windshield

Often the sun is too low for sun-flaps and too bright for sunglasses.  It gets particularly difficult when it is shining right behind a suspended street-light.

I've been in this situation several times, at a particular traffic light, about 7:30 in the morning.  I can't block the sun with the sun-flaps and still see when the traffic light turns green.  I end up sticking my fist out to block the sun.

An easy solution would be to have a disk of thin tinted plastic, about fist-sized--10 cm diameter--that can attach electrostatically to the windshield, with a small handle to pull it off and place it where it needs to go or store in a dashboard rack.

The ideal size and shape of the plastic could be worked out with user studies.  It would make sense to have the tinting stronger at the center, and fade out towards the edges.  It would also make sense to have an alternate shape that had a flat edge cut from the circle, not a half-circle, but cut it from a point about halfway from the center--this would be to line it up with a traffic light edge.

A more symmetric shape would work when the problem is just that the sun is very low and bright while you're driving.  It could get dangerous trying to drive with your fist stuck out, as I sometimes try to do, driving home around sunset.

Often the traffic report sites "solar" trouble as the cause of massive backups in the morning.  If everyone had these disks, we might get to work a little sooner.

A better and much more expensive solution would be to have the tinting built into the windshield.  You could touch the spot you wanted to darken.  You could touch it again to clear, or have a "clear-all" button on the dash.

A more advanced solution would be for the windshield to track the sun and the location of the driver's eyes, and adjust its tinting accordingly.

We need a half-sized rapid dishwasher

The current model of domestic dishwasher doesn't work for my family.

It sits, partly-filled, with rinsed and dirty dishes, while we wait for there to be enough to fill it and justify a full cycle.  We run out of spoons, or glasses.  Sometimes bowls.  We wash all the current dishes by hand, so the dishwasher never fills up.  We run the rinse cycle when there aren't enough dishes to justify that full cycle, then pull out the dishes and finish them by hand.  Or we get busy with other tasks by the time the rinse cycle is over, and the rinsed dishes sit in the dishwasher.  If we don't remember to open the dishwasher door, the rinsed dishes go through a warming phase that hardens leftover dirt.  The next day, the spouse who didn't run the rinse cycle thinks that the dishes are clean, and starts using the glasses from the top rack, which look clean from their rinsing, until one doesn't.

To avoid the half-filled problem, we wash a lot of dishes by hand.  Sometimes the best use of the automated dishwasher is that it gives us more rack space to dry the hand-washed dishes.

We don't need a "dry" cycle in a dishwasher.  Has anyone ever used the "plate warming" feature?

What we need is the restaurant-model dishwasher, a small version, to handle the plates from two or three people.  We should be able to place the unrinsed dishes in a simple rack, run a strong hot rinse cycle of less than a minute, a slightly soapy cycle, followed by another rinse.  Also have the option for just the quick, less than a minute, rinse.  We can finish what this doesn't clean by hand.

The cycle must be fast, so that we don't walk away and forget, and so that it is as convenient as washing the dishes by hand.

This would remove the problem of architecting placement of bowls, plates, pots etc to make most efficient use of the dishwasher and electricity.  It would prevent the fighting that goes on because of it.  Did you know that one-third of all divorces in this country stem from a disagreement as to how to load the dishwasher? (And thirty-seven percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.)

The goal of running as much as possible in one cycle would be relaxed.  We would relax.  And have clean dishes.

I know this invention isn't needed any more

but I would like it if my car stereo would let me play the radio while I'm waiting for it to re-wind the tape cassette.

Even when a car has a CD player, it would be nice to be able to play music on the CD and a news station on the radio simultaneously.

I suppose people listen to music or news on their radios and then play news from podcasts or music from their cell-phones nowadays.  I tried listening to my Galaxy Nexus Android but there was too much road noise.

That Galaxy Nexus is a great toy but a lousy phone.  It's hard to hear.  It's hard for people to hear me.  But that's another topic.

Aibo + Scooba = Yes!

We could never rationalize the cost of a robotic pet.  We could never rationalize the cost of a floor-scrubbing robot vs a mop and scrub brush, but,

Dear iRobot:

Could you please build us a cute robot with an intelligent personality that also scrubs the floors? 

It doesn't have to be a dog or a cat.  Sammy the Squid or whatever's appropriate would be fine.  It could be a science fiction animal, or just robotic.  But we want the feel of a pet again.  Without vet bills, or wondering who to leave it with when we plan a vacation.  But make it useful.  If an intelligent Roomba is easier, that's OK too. 

two years, one rabbit

Goodbye, Chestnut.  You were my favorite mistake.

#tweettypes

Tweets fall into three broad categories that can be sorted according to whether they link elsewhere.  The true and perfect tweets are self-contained units of information, a pithy saying or joke, some with the beauty of a haiku.  At the other extreme are pointers to get you to read elsewhere.  In between is a matter of degree.  Thus:

1. self-contained
2. useful by itself, with link to explain more
3. useless without expanding link.

When I don't have a WiFi connection, or am just looking for a quick diversion, I wish my tweet-stream could be filtered to allow only type 1). It shouldn't be hard to filter out all tweets containing links.
It would be nice to have the option to filter the type 2) tweets in and out, but that would be harder.

Another way to break tweets into three categories is

1. general interest
2. personal message
3. advertisement.

There are authors and others whose tweets I follow, but I would rather filter out what they had for lunch or some reply to a message I didn't get from a friend of theirs.  For now, when there is too little useful information in the mix, I just un-follow.

laptop logos should rotate

Because when the computer is closed, I naturally position it with the logo right side up.  But then I can't open it. I have to turn it around.  The PC makers want everyone else to see the logo right side up when the computer is open.  I understand that.  But a clever PC maker, who cared about usability, would have the logo right side up when closed, then rotate once opened.  A little gravity detector.  Like the way a phone screen rotates.  Yeah, sure, it could add to the cost.  But a really clever manufacturer would come up with a very cheap way to do this.

Of course, an entire generation of people have probably gotten used to making sure the logo is upside down. They might be confused by this.

A really clever NEW computer company would design a logo that had vertical symmetry.  Just for this reason.

please follow my blog, please?

At tonight's inaugural meeting of W.orD. (Write or Die, Jim Isaac's name for us), Susan explained that it was useful to have a blog that people follow, and that to maintain followers, we would have to update it at least every other day.  The blog could be on anything and still help us sell fiction.

This blog isn't about anything because it is about anything.  To un-jam my thoughts.  It's mine.

Would you follow it?  Who are you, anyway?  Does anyone see this?

Should I share it on Google+?

No, I've resisted that before, because I like it being "pull" not "push".  Once you cross-post to Facebook/Twitter/Google+, then it's push.  The link to this blog is on my Facebook page and Twitter profile.  If anyone's interested, they've been notified where to look.

Do people still use the terms pull/push to describe methods of accessing content?

We are so primitive now, passing out advice on current wisdom on navigating our presence in the Web.  We don't understand it yet.  We're getting vague ideas that are rightly scaring us.

I read once that people in the future will regard as quaint our belief in the separation between "real" and "virtual".

We are starting to teach our kids how to take care in creating their Web presence, how it will stay with them always.  The World Wide Small Town, with no anonymous Big City to escape to.

Meandering topic of a blog post.  If I post more often, I'd meander way more.  And stay up too late.

Very Slow on the Uptake

When I was a college freshman, my roommate told me that her father always paid cash when he bought a car. She looked very proud of this statement. It was pronounced in a similar way to other teachings of financial advice from her dad, like when she told me that he always knew to a penny what was in his checking account. I had a hard time puzzling out why it would be better to walk into a car dealership with that much cash in his pocket, instead of writing a check. I suppose I never forgot that statement because I couldn't figure it out. I was many years out of college when I remembered the statement again and realized that what she probably meant was he never took out a loan to buy a car, but purchased it with money he had in savings. That is good advice.

Tuesday 2 a.m.: Kill king, implicate princes

On the counter at the drugstore were some pocket-sized planning calendars--plastic coated, with kind of ugly designs. I noticed their labels said, "The Macbeth Collection". In small letters they said:

Plan Ahead.  A little planning goes a long way.

So what do you write in your Macbeth planner?

Boskone 2012 notes

Just the raw notes, now shared on Google Docs.

I was typing notes at some of the panels.  I kept thinking I'd edit them and post them here, but there's always something better to do.  In the meantime, I've uploaded them to Google Docs, and selected share with public. Maybe with them in Google Docs, I'll be more likely to edit them.  I deleted what I wrote during Elaine Isaak's writing exercise and just left the prompts (except the visual prompt that was on a card dealt from a stack.)

Working on my bio for zoetrope

I learned how to read so I could read the Oz books.  I grew up discussing science fiction dreams with my father.  I escaped Jr High and bouts of flu by reading Heinlein, Azimov, and back issues of Analog.  When I was fifteen, I met a disciple of Gerard K O'Neil, who convinced me that people don't need to live on planets: our future is in free-floating space colonies and hollowed-out asteroids  I've been writing about Mark Hankin, his family, and their friends since I was seventeen.

My next commuter car

What I'd like for the vehicle that replaces my '97 Toyota:

• Electric, with a range of 200 miles between charging.
• A really good sound system
• Built-in vacuum cleaning, like are in some houses, or a car-Roomba, to clean up the toast crumbs.  
• Good visibility
• Rear windshield wiper
• Good in snow and on ice
• Why not a front-windshield defroster?  Wires can retract, fold away, or be invisible.  Or wireless defrosting beams from around the windshield.
• I want it to teach me French and Spanish while I drive to & from work
• Ability to download podcasts to my car
• Variable-width cup holders. 
• Easily changed windshield wipers
• Voice-activated intelligent GPS
• Voice-activated cellphone interface
• Polarizing windshield with intelligent sun-blocking (shade intersection of line of sight to sun at windshield) with touch override.  Okay, maybe for the car after.
• How about at least the ability to toggle a shade-spot on the windshield by touching where you want the extra shady spot (or to clear it, of course)?

Today she's eight. World, just wait.

On Monday, school was canceled because of the widespread power outages.  At 6:30 a.m., our house is in its 26th hour without electricity.  I have to wake up to go to work.  I light a candle to find my clothes. 

Rafi hops out of bed.  Her sister is asleep.  Her father, having been up half the night feeding the wood stove, is snoring. 

On ordinary school mornings it is a chore to drag her out of bed by 7:35.   She has only caught the 7:45 bus that stops in front of our house once since September.  What is she going to do with no electricity?  Wait for the sun to get brighter then read a book.  Maybe practice her ukulele.  I can only hope.

I give her cereal for breakfast, with milk we've been keeping in a bucket of snow.

Isn't it strange, she says, how I always wake up when I don't have to wake up.  When I do have to wake up, I never can.

Uh huh, I agree. 

I wonder why I'm not more sleepy, she says.  Then she grins, for she has figured out an explanation: 
It must be that I get lots of rest on days when I'm supposed to wake up, so that I don't need the sleep now.

under the influence

Watched Julie and Julia Saturday afternoon.  Noticed we were low on bread.  Prepared whole wheat bread dough in what must be the first time in a long time, as the whole wheat flour seemed old.   The kids helped knead the dough and form it into rolls.

Since that bread  wouldn't be ready for supper, I also  baked quick beer bread to go under the Welsh Rabbit.  The kids don't like Welsh Rabbit, so I also cooked spaghetti. After supper I remembered the kids needed a snack for Sunday school.  I'd forgotten to buy popcorn on the last grocery-trip, so made fluff-krispie squares with cinnamon and chocolate chips.

Sunday, grocery shopping, the on-sale fish was cod and haddock.  It looked better made into chowder, so bought red potatoes to chowderize it, then baked corn bread on the side.  We all love corn bread.

Now, at work, I'm finishing my lunch:  Welsh Rabbit on broccoli, corn bread, and beer bread, with chowder and whole wheat roll on the side.  Very nice.  The time spent cooking and baking wasn't wasted, although there were a lot of other things I wanted to accomplish this weekend.  What's a good movie for getting other things done?

I am very sad Steve Jobs died

He created beauty and improved our world.

sacks for the tablet interface

Instead of user accounts to organize a tablet interface (as I mentioned in May)  it might be good if, when I turned on my iPad, I saw an icon of a sack, labelled "Margie's", and there'd be other sacks for the other people using the iPad.  The same app could be in several sacks.  The apps we most often use could still be splayed out, or in their "most often used" sack.

There should be a way to tell the iPad to put all the music stuff in a Music Sack, and, more specifically, to put all the ukulele apps in an Uke Sack.  All the kids' games should be in a sack, instead of cluttering up my view.  All the News Readers (Huffington, NYT, ABC, etc) should find their own sack for when I want to read a magazine or check the news.  Apps are very easily categorized, and they should be thus self-organizing.

My kids have downloaded a lot of games and I am tired of sifting through them all to find my stuff.  It is awkward to drag things to the bottom and then pull them out on the screen where I want them.  Just let the iPad organize this for me.  Why can't it?

As for email, if the user sack most recently opened was "Margie's sack", it would be nice, when I click on email, to get one of my email accounts, instead of Zoe's.  And vice-versa for "Zoe's sack".  Although, as her mom, it is good that I can read her mail.

A New Paradigm for Business: Company Showrooms replace Retail Stores

People are already behaving that way: They examine the product in a retail store, then go home and find the best price online.  Retail stores are going out of business as a result.

We like to see and touch many things before making a purchase decision.  To fill this niche, large manufacturers will create showrooms, like the Apple Store, to display their products.  Smaller manufacturers will pay to have their products displayed in new Showroom companies that will spring up to provide this service.

using ground turkey for spaghetti & meatballs

Why?  

• preference: I've grown less used to beef, since I haven't been eating it as often.  
• economic:  Ground Empire Turkey, $3.99/lb at Trader Joe's, vs $6.50/lb for beef when they have it.  
• Health: turkey's less bad for you anyway.

The fear was that ground turkey wouldn't taste enough like "real" meatballs to go with red sauce.  I think it turned out better, in a way, since it didn't have as much of the excess grease that beef burger produces.  

Spices to make the turkey more beefy:

• Worcestershire sauce
• tamari
• ground sage
• ground bayleaf
• coriander
• thyme
• oregano
• ground peper
• Ro insists on cumin, so I added a bit
• egg to bind it
• next time, I'll try potato flakes too.  Ro says he's been adding it to the turkey burgers.

Previously, meatballs turned into meat sauce.  Yesterday, I learned to have enough frying-pan surface to allow each to cook on the bottom and be turned before it can stick to its neighbor and be merged.

The sauce: sauteed red onion, rosemary, celery, garlic clove, zuchinni, in olive oil then added meatballs as I formed them.  Moved the meatballs to the auxiliary frying pan before dumping in a can of tomato paste and 2-3 cans of water.  After the water stirred in to a good sauce consistency, I put the meatballs back in.  Then added a few sprigs of chopped frozen broccoli and some frozen spinach to give it more green.

Served on top of whole wheat spaghetti.  Thought red wine would go with it.  Looked in Christmas-present crate from Gonzalo and Lisa.  Chose THE VELVET DEVIL MERLOT 2009 WASHINGTON STATE.  All caps on the label, so here too.  I liked it quite a lot.  The first Merlot I've liked.  Screw-top cap.  Fun.

quote from Slate: 3 Golden Rules for Book Review

from How Not To Write a Book Review, By Robert Pinsky, on Slate:

1. The review must tell what the book is about.
2. The review must tell what the book's author says about that thing the book is about.
3. The review must tell what the reviewer thinks about what the book's author says about that thing the book is about.

readercon links

quick summary:  http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/07/readercon-science-fiction-as-it-was-born.html

still waiting for my food pills, transcript posted by the author.  I wasn't impressed by the spheres in apple juice.  The caramel stuff was O.K. Very interesting introduction to Post-Modern Cuisine.  I was hoping for something on how compact foodstuff can be created for space travel etc.

Youtube link of Howard Waldrop reading near midnight Saturday, after Poland.  He was having trouble with his eyes.  Read part of a scary Hansel & Gretl en route to what seemed like an Auschwitz analog.  Then read complete "The Bravest Girl I Ever Knew" a fake Hollywood memoir about King Kong actress. (I was very sleepy, but I'd heard such raves about HW, I stuck it out... I kept thinking 1) it was almost over 2) it would have a point.)

Another youtube link of Samuel R. Delany Interviews Katherine MacLean.  Watch Spencer fix the microphones because I forgot to.

Joan Slonczewski's syllabus for course on Biology and Science Fiction

1. Evolution
1. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
2. Galápagos, by Kurt Vonnegut
2. Ecology 
1. Dune, by Frank Herbert
2. A Door into Ocean, by Joan Slonczewski
3. Genetics and Molecular Biology
1. Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton
2. Brain Plague, by Joan Slonczewski

(From Saturday evening Readercon panel on Science Fiction for Today's Undergraduate)

Random quotes from Readercon panels

At Saturday morning panel on Book Inflation:
Unlike other people, when I get to the end of a book, I quit writing.  (Howard Waldrop)

At Saturday evening panel on Science Fiction for Today's Undergraduate:
Paradoxically, Science Fiction is very much a dialog with its time.

At Saturday evening panel on The One Right Form of a Story:
I always think a lot about serious literary stuff, but I know that no one will ever know that I'm thinking about it.  (Judith Berman)

You can't write the story until you know the thang. 

(Judith Berman, quoting Howard Waldrop)

No two people have the same process. Learn what your process is.  (Judith Berman, possibly quoting Delaney's On Writing.)

At Sunday afternoon panel, Effing the Ineffable: Writers Who Think Cinematically:
I have lots of things to say that are ill-informed. (Maria Dahvana Headley, introducing herself.)

notes from Readercon talk/demo: Walking Through Mayhem, led by Madeleine Robins

Two lists of questions:

1. Who is fighting?
2. Where are they? What is the terrain?
3. What is the desired outcome?

Also,

1. What is the reason for the fight?
2. How serious is it? (e.g. Laertes & Hamlet vs Catherine & Petruchio)

In stage combat, the fight is divided into phases (x hits y on left shoulder, y parries,..), and there are 5 basic targets, numbered (left hip, right hip, left shoulder, right shoulder, head..)

Advice:

• Balance the panic factor ("I could die!!") with pain ("Ow!")
• Think about where someone winds up--reels back, turns.
• If your character is afraid of dying, he will fight dirty
• Write out all the actions, then edit it down, replacing actions with sensory observations (e.g. bad breath, sweat, pain, cold..) and interior monologue.
• Be realistic about effects of violence
• concussion->vomiting, then can't think straight for days
• after a muscle bruise, fencer won't be able to lift sword
• it's hard to pull a knife out of a muscle
• Only the young have the energy and stupidity to not notice how uncomfortable they are.

 

All the other kids with the foam duck kisses better run, better run

Fortunately, the DJ said: "that was Pumped Up Kicks..."

Wanna compete with Apple? Stop copying the iPad.

The iPad is nice, but--at least for me--it never feels like that smooth and beautiful experience I see on the TV commercials.  It's hard to use it without wishing for improvements.  How about:

• Add hierarchical or other better means of organizing apps, instead of having them all on pages and pages
• Let there be different user accounts for email and selections of favorite apps.  I don't need security between them, but a quick way to say which user you are and then see a different set of app screens and books and email accounts would be useful.  Even if a single user wants to organize himself into several virtual users--e.g. My Business Self, My Fiction Self, My Art Self, My Fashion Self...
• Include a stylus.  It's really hard to do fine-detail drawing or pointing (e.g. selecting that space between letters to fix a typo) without one.
• How about a shape that's easier to grasp?
• How about a tablet that comes with the protective cover?
• Do some usability studies.  See what confuses people in the interface.
• Improve touch-typing on the screen.  
• Let the person rest the fingers on the virtual keyboard, and have sensors notice the lift and re-drop.
• Make use of new friction technology: http://bit.ly/lco6b6   http://bit.ly/ivQtNd

obvious need for a klutz-proof phone

My Sony Ericsson was stepped on (we think), which broke the screen, so I was looking through AT&T choices for a replacement.  I was seriously considering a refurbished Rugby phone, which was the only "rugged" option in the free category.  Looking through the user reviews, there were a lot of complaints about the "Push To Talk" button being in the way so that users were hitting it inadvertently all the time.  It was notable that, in nearly all the reviews, nobody wanted the Push to Talk feature.  The phone was designed for job sites, construction workers in a team, that sort of thing, where Push To Talk would be useful.  But many people were buying it because, just like me, they wanted something less likely to break.  (I also liked that reviewers said it was very loud and easy to hear through background noise.  I could never hear my Ericsson sufficiently without putting it on speaker.)

There is a definite need for a rugged phone for individual users.  One with a good volume control.  One where you won't inadvertently connect to the Internet and be charged for it.  Why is this not among the current choices?

The other thing that annoyed me was the lack of protection for the camera lenses. My old Ericson's lens was covered when the phone number pad was slid closed.   All of the 2 MPixel and above camera lenses on cell phones that I saw in the AT&T store are exposed.  There was one 1.3 MPixel camera phone that did protect its lens.  Kind of ridiculous.

Bridegroom magazine

Of course it wouldn't be called that.  A better name would be Ready.  And, yes, a lot of men would not subscribe to it.  But a lot of women would buy their men gift-subscriptions.  It could have some low-key articles about wedding planning.  And also articles on:

• Guide to Formal Attire for guys who've worn jeans all their lives
• Honeymoon Options - Travel Section
• Honeymoon Techniques
• Financial Planning
• Recommendations for merging finances
• Should you have a Pre-Nup?
• Guide to buying Life Insurance
• Guide to buying Houses
• Guide to buying Condos
• Guide to buying Condoms
• Guide to buying Lingerie (with helpful photos)
• Engagement Rings - Alternatives to the Diamond
• The Six Things Every Couple Should Agree On Before Saying 'I do'
• Reasons to delay having children
• Ways to keep the romance when you can't delay having children 
• Preparing to be a stepfather
• Negotiating between your children and your future wife
• How Girlfriends Change When They Became Wives 
• Bachelor Parties - Stories and Advice
• When to Speak Up, When to Shut Up - Survival Guide to Wedding Planning and Beyond

..plus lots of amusing anecdotes sent in by readers.

The previous great idea for an invention

was a plastic mat shaped into a grid of lenses that you could lay down on top of an icy driveway or path.  The lenses would focus sunlight to melt lots of holes in the ice.  It would just take some knowledge of optics and plastics manufacturing to make this cheap and durable.

Another great idea for an invention

Is a napkin that fits over your sleeve, so you can wipe your face with your forearm, as is so natural to do.  It would be great on picnics, or at those stand-and-eat parties where your hands are already full.  I would love to see them introduced at a formal dinner party too.  Wouldn't that be splendid?

Zubie says this is fact an old invention--the accountant's sleeve, used to keep ink off the pen-and-ink writer's actual sleeves.  I say we can bring this back into the 21st century, and into our table manners.

Get out your sewing machines!

sf from cons - reply to tweet message

@pargery I'm so far behind in sci-fi. What do you recommend?

I’ve been too caught up in my own stuff to read a lot, but I guess Charles Stross is the current Gibson/Sterling heir. His Halting State is a mystery about stolen virtual money that I would like to take out of the library again to finish.  He was an engaging and amusing speaker at Readercon panels.

I did finish The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson whose main character’s hot flashes were paranormal events.  Somehow I found it a more compelling narrative.  She was also very sweet in person (at a Readercon “kaffeeklatch”.)

People do mention Scalzi. I read the first two of his books. There's an interesting alien race that seems to have war-making as a religion, not like Klingon-honor-code, but like, they want to spread the gospel of Really Bad War of the total annihilation variety. I'm curious if he develops them more in later novels. I enjoyed his blog post about borrowing an Oscar.

I read Elaine Isaak's trilogy because I kept seeing her at conventions, and she lives one town over from me. They're fantasy of the kings and pseudo-middle-ages variety, not sf. For some reason she denied her work was a trilogy, but when I read it out of order, the story really suffered. It was otherwise likable and sufficiently new.

And I keep seeing Jennifer Pelland too. I liked the story I heard at her reading a few years back.

some links to stories

• Jennifer Pelland Ghosts of New York
• Tobias Buckell
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies - E-zine
• Strange Horizons
• Joan Aiken story
• Charles Stross
• stories
• book

27January2011 cellphone photos...

Fire inspection finally done, we light the wood stove.

 From the kitchen window

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(For today's photos, see facebook album.)

Zoe and Rafi - Spring 2010 to January 2011

Click here to view this photo book larger

DSC00695.JPG

Click here to view these pictures larger

Arisia Workshop on Writing The Other, led by Nisi Shawl (notes)

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http://2011.arisia.org/Writing: Nisi Shawl presents “Writing the Other”. In this workshop, Nisi will present a hands-on writing class featuring exercises and explorations of ways to create believable characters of a different race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or ability. Participants will be asked to bring some of their own writing to work on, but sharing is not required. Expect to spend three hours learning by doing.

First a discussion on defining differences: e.g. weight, race, bisexual, also a reader, a person who uses big words, disability issues, fibromyalgia

Difference is not monolithic.
For people in the dominant paradigm, you need an instruction manual for everyone else's differences.
How you are made to feel different: height, weight, age55, W.African religion

"dominant paradigm"=group with power, generic person, neutral, "unmarked state"
ROAARS = acronym for Religion Orientation(sexual) Age Ablity Race Sex(as in gender)
Differences that appear in US and Canada marked as important
ROAARS doesn't include economic status / Class
Vyar:
group promise
REPTILE brain function
If you have a personal fail, just acknowledge and own it.  We're all afraid of being labelled a bigot.
The primitive part of the brain needs dichotomy. stay/run good/bad - oversimplify reactions w/ others
brain scientist (Vicka Corey):
"reptile" is really deep structure, not educable, preprogrammed, weed out own species from others.
As social people we develop out to the cortex.
Personal interactions vs institutional.
What would we consider the Dominant Paradigm or
UNMARKED STATE
young, 30's adult white straight abl bodied christian protestant male medium build no facial hair
If you tell a story about man who fell in the river. Then people's picture of the man is of the unmarked state.  If the man turns out to be black and gay then it transforms from being about a man who falls into a river into a  story about a black homosexual who fell in the river, and people may ask why did you make him black or gay.  They could complain that he's "black for no reason."
Descriptions of black people in novels, someone brought up Starship Troopers where the main character (Filipino for no reason?) looks in the mirror and notes his curly hair.
Nisi says, "My hair is not curly, it's kinky"

exercise#1:
Pick a celebrity of any political/ethnic, like Lindsey Lohan. Now pretend you're the chosen one and you're meeting someone very different in the ROAAR, such as a homeless person.
Here Margie blanks out on all famous people and attributes it to having had less than 6 hours of sleep per night since the previous Wednesday.  I type nothing for about two minutes while everyone scribbles or types around me.  Blink.
OK, I'm Barack Obama and I'm meeting a homeless person.  I'd probably be relying on my background in community organizing and recommend some resources.  
That's getting no where.  How about that guy parodied on SNL, running for Mayor now, what's his name?  I can't believe I can't think of... So sleepy.
I'm the ex chief of staff. 
I'm Harison Ford, I used to be a carpenter.
Hello.
4 minutes are up.
Nisi asks:  Was one of the people closer to the unmarked state or not?
POV a lot like you?  Then did character have same view as you?

Someone reads a funny internal monologue of Snooky's view of a librarian.

New term:  PARALLAX
Similar to meaning of sighting stars from different points on the earth or how 3-d vision works with two eyes, different views.
Compare the views to pinpoint where object actually is.
Person of marked state's view of unmarked state.
People don't wake up in the morning and say, "Wow, I'm black today."
(Some remark about how adolescents sometimes do.)
XKCD web comic. view of color. what colors men see vs women.
Men tends to describe things less in terms of color.
She drew up in a '67 mustang vs a light blue sedan
Andy asks, Why do I need to know the color of this person's sweater?
Men may be more fixated on the size, dimension of things than women are.

Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler is a wonderful example of parallax. Is she an Alien? Late 19th century West. Woman sees her as suffragette. Chinese railworker describes her skin in terms of particular porcelin and asumes she's prostitute because she's ugly.

Exercise #2:
Pair off and write dialogue with each other.
everyone gets 2 card with characteristics.
I found something you lost with your phone number.  A calendar.  Do you need this back?
work out logistics of where you'd go to get it back.
8 minutes. (my card said I was a DJ with Alzheimers.  My partner's said she was a polyamorous man dodging child support.)

- Hello, hello?
-- Hi.  I was at Oak Park today, and I found something of yours.  A calendar?
- Huh?
-- You lost a calendar?
-Who is this?
-- Look, I found something of yours--uh, your name's Sarah?  It's a calendar with a bunch of numbers and names on it.  Looks like you have a lot of female friends.
- My friends?  Why?  You have my calendar?  My gosh, I need that back.  Why are you talking about my friends?
-- Oh, no reason.
-Why won't you tell me your name?
-- It's Joey.  Well, look, I can meet you somewhere to return your calendar.  Maybe at a bar?
-Oh, no.  I don't drink, very much, any more.  Could you come by the station?  I work at WKIZ.  The address is in the front of the calendar.  You could leave it with the receptionist.  She's very nice.  Pretty too.
-- Yeah, sure, that works.  You'll be there?  I'd like to return it to you, you know, personally.
- Yes.  I'm here now.  My shift ends at...  I'm sorry, who is this again?

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codexwriters.com pro is a good website for neo writers (major workshop or sales)
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What happened in workshop:
J Peland: struggle to bring up characteristics
My characteristics were bald and moslem.  It is hard to tell on the phone that someone is bald.
Brian Gardner: worrying about trying too hard with stereotype. Rural teen.
Julia Ross: I had Filipino English as 2nd language.  I know nothing about Filipino.

Andy: what's on card doesn't work itself into dialog per se but it colors the conversation.

Nisi: what people say may be reflecting what they think you are more than what they are.
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Nisi: Going on from there.. I also wanted to talk about Categorical Thinking and the idea of Generalizing.
Vary: How Generalization helps and not. It is a 3-edged sword. Can be helpful. e.g. use more color names. Every man isn't like the generalized one. Need to know specifics of character. Raised by women who discuss color naming. (Denisov as a decorator should be more color-describing. W/ interst in art history, reference to famous paintings.)
Trying to apply a characteristic across the board. Hairless cats. Sphinx, disease, shaved, kitten.
How categories people use reveal their social structure. e.g. Fool's War by Vera? Patel? Her categorization point out that most people have brown skin and no religion.  Character describes another as having skin of milk and strawberries.
White Queen by Gwynyth Jones. colonization. alien talks about the idea of gender as astrological symbol-it's a parlor game. they are hermaphrodites, choose to be male/female as if it wer a cosmo quiz type.
Greg Egan - future in which humans are not born in bodies. They are uploaded intelligences.  Uploaded into a Virtual Reality that mimics now? Or specialy-organized tiojns.
Futures in which there is no race will still have categories.
Most married people are straight etc.
In science there's the issue of: data vs anecdote
darkmatter book. all african-descended writers. not all characters are. some s. asian, ...
Exercise #3:
Finding differences and similarities:
How 2 people in each picture are the same and How they are different.
(Handing out magazine photos...)

Both tough guys. Both have hats. Black Cop vs White Cowboy.
Cowboy independent. Cop enforces and follows rules. State trooper.
Horse/nature vs roads/cars/machines.
Away from people vs interacting w/ people
Both tough, disciplined, in good shape,
Cowboy more physical work.
Cowboy might just be guy on vacation in cowboy hat.  Trooper is definitely at work.  Or likes to dress up in costumes.  Like Village People.  So that in common: they both could be Village People.
Cop looking down at me.  Authority. Confrontational.
Cowboy looking down and away.  Contemplative.
oops was doing it wrong.  was supposed to do all similarities followed by all differences.  or the other way.  Oh well.
Cowboy looks peaceful, not troubled by others, looking at campfire, calm, untroubled, slightly hypnotized by flame perhaps, but not very.
Cop looks like he has a problem with persons.  Trouble . Staring down trouble.
Angle of photos very dramatic.  I'm looking down on cowboy from slight angle.  Cop looking down at me from very big angle.  Photographer must have been lying down in the road.


Nisi: Our default may be to look for differences.
With someone whose ROAARS are different you should certainly do [I wasn't paying attention. darn.]
Nisi writng Loisa May Alcott type potboiler W.Indian planter's illegitimate daughter imprisoned by relative who wants her inheritance, work with CONGRUENCE.
(e.g. Dowland: "love is love in beggars and in kings." [listen to Sting sing it..])
She reads and loves big words like me.
My intended audience also reads and have probably been in love.
Similarity in being religious even if different religions.
Find your similarity, analoguous experience to your character's.

Varya: Kidnapped sex slave in SF poor uneducated Korean potato farmer.
I haven't been sold in prostitution but I have been trapped in a horrible soul-sucking job.  She's compassionate to 3-legged bird and made things worse.  We can all relate to trying to help but making things work. Consulting with SME's help too.
Nisi: A point of relation.  For your readers and for yourself to the charcters.

Exercise #4 Congruence
Do 1 of 2 things. Your choice.
Mess with one scene in the writing you brought. Change at least one major ROAAR's characteristic to one that's different from my ROAAR, then they do something they love doing and I love too.
Select something that already differs.
OK, select a character with dffrent ROAARs or change if needed.
I guess I just don't get it.  My characters are already doing what they do.  Some of the things they do I like.  They have sex.  I like that. Others, would it , wow, it just occurred to me the woman guard character feels instinctively more different from me than the man, main character Denisov.
OK, if an old black gay man is bowling he's bowling.  How is that different?  Put him in a wheelchair and I can talk about physical differences.  Very old--the ball is heavy.  Once you bend down to roll the ball, it's hard to get up.
Bowling brings back memories about being younger and bowling w/ friends now dead.
Well, too late.  Exercise is over.
-
Stafford changed his black ex-slave character to an Asian sheriff with different set of priorities.  Now can go back to original piece and no longer blind.  Can see views.  Parallax.  Similarities in not slaves but treated like slaves. Different set of problems.

Vicka: hanged gender and didn't make much difference but characters tried to find a common ground.

Jennifer P. had her profoundly disabled character dance. e.g. belly dancing.  only can use her arms. "I can't see how this looks but it feels so nice."  I never thought to make her dance before. Now an idea.

10 minutes left:

Andy: Animated TV show. characters can't grow. Need to start the same each episode.
Nisi. Unintended resonances. Clarion West example. German surname guy was torturing kids in their basemt. Everyone assumed he was a Nazi.
Run it by people and get feedback, as diverse a set of eyes on it as posible. Different ROAARS from yours. Some that match those of your characters. Hear about your mistakes. Consulting people familiar with the culture.  That does not give you a seal of approval bythe culture. e.g. "Approved by Koreans."
One thing my Korean friend told me was that Korean women speak with their eyes. Widened, narrowed. Not so many smiles.
A Hindu can't explain Budhist.
Nisi: You should pay for expertise.
1) Acknowledge any help you get.
2) Ask what you can do in return

Arisia Panel on Glassblowing techniques - 16JAN2011

Well, I thought it would be good to have a netbook at Arisia so I could upload notes to a blog.  I didn't manage to get to many panels, but here are my notes on glassblowing.  Not edited.  The panelists hid their name tags, but I recognized Suford Lewis, so she's the only one quoted here by name.

Mainly, I got the impression that glassblowing could get very painful.  Shards of broken glass endangering others.  Cuts and burns for the glassworker.  Expense. Always the danger of your piece blowing apart, cracking as it cooled.  Good for a violent-artistic temperment.  Also good for the geek, as Suford says near the end.  Chemist/Artist.

There did seem to be a simple less expensive path, not involving kilns etc. The old fashioned kind I suppose I remember from childhood demonstrations.  I'm sorry I missed the lecture on Renaissance Glass given the day before (when I was wandering the hotel looking for Zoe who turned out to be camouflaged in a corner of FastTrack where I kept returning and not finding her...)

Rough notes:

hot method
rebuilding furnace could take a month.
crucible: bricks and castable material. could take up to a week?month? to get going again.
natural gas, propane, newer electrical furnaces
own studio vs sharing: let someone else maintain equipment So expensive to run. Not practical to have own. Also not 'green'.
10 am to 10pm heavily utilized community studio.
teaching facility.
"renting studio time"
glory hole = furnace in which you heat the glass
friendliness generous
We Fusers are smallest group (Suford Lewis) at edges of really popular techniques. kiln formed.
$60 per hour NY vs $100 per month 10 year ago subsidized by state
innovations driven by 'can you top this' more than any other craft fields.
hot-head torch. $20 DeVardi - Imported Indian Glass. Sell soft glass gorgeos colors, $5/lb good to play with.. . 1 lb bottleof mat pro gas. $8/tank. spectrally correct safety goggles. metal sticks called mandrils. clay called beaded. marvels = graphite to play w/ . tungsten at craft store.
cool down slowly with vermiculite in coffee can.
Compatibility.  How many know about glass compatibility?  You can't take any cool looking glass, broken stuff etc.  Things need to expand or contract at same rate.
COE=coefficient of expansion
need to match or your stuff falls apart.
For kiln work use 90 COE or 96 COE. Can't mix.
With kiln work you do everything flat.  Then finaly last fireing is at lower temp, the slump, where falls into shape.
people on e-bay sell you stuff w/ wrongly labelled COE. Find out when falls apart.
Window glass is 72 COE. Cheap, good for practice pieces.
Soda lime glass 96 COE for furnace work.
goh josh melts his own blues & other colors but most people buy.
whether piece survives has to do w/ shape and what you're making.
solid paperweight more stable than something thin w/ different thicknesses.
Annealing beads in vermiculite ok.
Giraffes that are not continuous could be more difficult.
Slow cool down is essential.  If temperature too different in different parts of piece, then changes size at different rates and crack.
oxypropane torch and bar-silicate
Test COE by fire bead where full-fuse between 2 glasses.  View w/ normal polarized sunglasses and view the microfractures.  Haze arond the
Blow thin bubble with known and new glass.  If stable then same COE. If not then not. (pop or squish.)
96 glass by Bullseye are consistent. "insane about " QA.  Their freely available from the website handbook 7-10 part PDF is very useful.  Section 5 is bible for fuser. Guideline.  YOU stil need to calibrate the kiln.
kiln=annealing oven
"We wind our own annealing coils."
Suford: "I bought a used kiln." full sized 28" diameter kiln. I started w/ published recipes.  Things got overly melted or didn't go to full fuse. Spent ~ 4 months comparing pyrometer, what kiln was doing, until I developed recipes for my kiln that worked the wayI wanted it to.
Kilns are long-lived and not fussy but each seem to... most important that temp the same all around.
Ruth had flaky analog kiln that needed changing every 15 minutes. Partner built a digital controller for it.
Question on WArm Combing techniques: Heating glass up enough to move. Glass in kiln, fuse, once reach liquid state...I don't want to spend $200 on a graphite comb.
Suford: ONe of the joysof group studio is being able to buy such equipment. Fun to play w/ but didn'twork for my style. KIndof like a rake. Asbestos gloves. Going over bull fuse. Never take glass > 1750 F.  Fusing 1450-1550.  To do this techniqueyou ned 1650.  Manipulate colors on very soft fluid surface.  Hard since it is all glowing red at that superheated state.
Lamp work. Glass blowing. Fusing.
Safety:
1) Goggles. Dihelium spectacles for lampwork. Emission spectra of heated
2) If doing .. need goggles for different spectra.
Some rely on peripheral vision, but very dangerous. Could lead to macular degeneration.  Also glass shatters and tiny shards fly all over the place.  Need goggles.
Also, expect to get burned and cut.  If that freaks you out, don't touch the medium.
Piece of red-hot glass shooting down your shirt.
Salem State has semester class. Somerville open studio coming up, too.
powdered stuff or enamel, need mask.
If you're generating particulates, you should wear a respirator.
powdered glass fusing onto metal substrate.  or directly onto hot glass.
Brass will do sparky terrifying things, but embed it into glass and get cool 3-d effect, bubbles, amber color.
Suford: be very careful incorporating non-glass into glass. Can fall apart.
Mi: Cu is compatible. e.g. josh simpson's copper baskets into which he has blown glass.
Won't work with iron. will crack.  Try google search.
Zinc pennies in glass not good.  NOt good to heat Zinc anyway.  I know someone who encases them into paperweight, but the piece can explode. Also Zn is hazardous.
Bathsheba Rosen with computer controlled 3-d files, astronomical,microbial, uses lasers to create microfractures inside glass block.
Suford: similar technique w/ controlling glass bubbles in block.
Deep depressions or even small, trapping little air as possible because it will expand.
Then add another piece of glass on top to trap the bubble.
Textured surfaces of some glass that is sold for trapping bubbles too.
Roll hot glass in Baking soda, burn it off.
COLD WORKING AND SURFACE DECORATION
Vase sample.
Step 1: made a shiny vase.
Step 2: masking material called buttercut. Drew oak leaves and laid oak leaf mask.  Used sander to edge away non-masked material.  Shiny leaves on rough background.
This technique could be used with mirror or window glass.
Photo-sensitive resist. Dry image. Scanned, photoshopped. Sandblast a photographic type image on your piece.
There is also glass that will make a reddish or amber color when exposed.
People etch beads or use copper painting for electoforming.  PUt painted copper with chunk of Cu in solution run electricity through and get Cu deposits. "electroplating gone mad." gnarly.
Suford: Edgings, tack fuse.  Using color-metallic pens you can write w/ then fire.  Chemical etching. Jars of armarage(?)  Contrast of shiny texture andmat.
STAIN GLASS COLD WORKING OPTIONS
Glass grinder - motor w/ spindle, wet setup-sponge touching edge of cyllinder.
smooth the edges or contour just right.

Bizarre extreme shapes or mosaic - get a glass bandsaw.  diamond. wet.
$300/machine $100/replacement blade

Blown glass piece.
grinding wheel to grind mark off bottom. PUnte attachment.  She tries to make them beatiful so don't have to come off. She put an insulating button on this vase. tucked in.
Josh Smpson glass downstairs is all ground and polished.
Pointing - where when it melts a little flows into sharp point. Grind through and put into kiln again to smooth where polished.
Beads
millini=millefiore like designs
you build a rod so that when you cut disks out of it, each has the image. e.g. fractal ferns. LIke with fima-clay.  Or get a mandril=thin steel rod with ...
It's cheaper to learn it in College.  e.g. MIT has faculty and staff glass-blowing classes.
Suford: Glass is the most wonderful medium for someone who wants to do artistic expression but also wants to be geeky about it.

picking dandelion leaves by flashlight after 9pm

That bunny has me really well trained.  If I go outside, then come back in without dandelion leaves, she looks disappointed.  So I go out again to collect some.

Zoe says that Chestnut is really an alien spy sent to learn about human beings.  The aliens are learning quite a lot.

The Bunny Beach, by Rafaela Zeballos (Age 6)

One day my bunny got too many walks. She was super stressed out. I wished that there was a bunny beach. There weren't any where I lived. And, also, there were too many dog beaches. There were dog beaches that could hold more dogs than there were in town. And some dog beaches didn't have any dogs, because there were too many dog beaches.

So, I decided to make a bunny beach. We took an airplane to Washington D.C. and we talked to the President! And we said, "There needs to be more bunny beaches. There are too many dog beaches."

So, the President said, "OK. I will pass a law that a quarter of the dog beaches will become bunny beaches. And there shall be no dogs allowed on those bunny beaches. So the bunnies can be safe."

So, the President called up his architects and the architects took down the sign for the dog beaches and said they were bunny beaches! And, also, they made a sign that said:

BUNNY BEACH
No Dogs Allowed.

So, I brought my bunny over to the bunny beach. And there were a lot more bunnies! We had a lot of fun. I played in the waves and made sand castles while my mommy watched the bunny and played with her and shared spinach snacks with her.

The End

zero landfill plants

Subaru has a sponsorship plug on NPR where they boast that all Subarus are made in "zero-landfill plants". I keep thinking that when you buy a new Subaru, you open up the trunk and there are all the scraps that they couldn't throw away. With that image still in my mind, the plug goes on to say that "Love: It's what makes Subaru a Subaru". And I think that their customers would have to love them to put up with that, and I'd much rather have a car that was made by great engineering.

It's still not as bad as the plug for Saab, which says: "Saab: Move your mind.."

And I think, "....Because this car ain't going anywhere."

Click to lie

Adobe keeps wanting me to update my version of Flash. When I click to do it, it displays a long, hard-to-read agreement and wants me to click the box that says I read and understood it. Somehow, that's the box I'm not ready to click, even though I ignore these sorts of things all the time and just click through to get other software I want. What are the legal implications of this World Wide Dishonesty? Does anyone but Richard Stallman care?

Harvard-Dartmouth vs. Yale

The late great Mark Ellis Gordon, father of my childhood friend Barbara Gordon, maintained that the holiest day of the year was the day of the Harvard-Dartmouth football game. The second holiest day was Yom Kippur. In the year when the two collided, he did take Barbara to the game, though he wasn't happy when Barbara told her grandmother about it.

As a grownup, I've often heard about the important Harvard-Yale game. Nothing about Harvard-Dartmouth.

Mr. Gordon attended Harvard in the early 1950's or late '40's. Is there something in sports history about Harvard vs Dartmouth in the 50's? 40's? 60's? that would explain his POV?

frog in the bathroom

There was a frog in our bathroom this morning. Zoe found it hiding behind a jar of conditioner. It was tiny. It looked like one of those plastic frogs that glow in the dark, or have a push-pin at the bottom so you can attach them to your clothes. This one crawled. The kids took it to school in a portable terrarium. I hope it survives. Rod has been searching on the web and he thinks it is a spring peeper, the smallest NH tree frog.

bunny in kitchen, photos

I really need to find the flash camera.

the bunny seems happier in the kitchen, now

She's used to the family.  She sniffs at everyone's sneakers, nibbles on some of them.
I'm told she got caught under the 'fridge yesterday.  But she obviously got out.  I'm curious if she's sufficiently intelligent not to do that again.
She looks less like a tribble, more like an overgrown caterpillar.  Then she'll hop out of caterpillar and be quite a rabbit again.
She's cute, doesn't mind being patted, and makes us laugh.  Fulfilling a pet's function.
Last night, when I got home, there were PVC pipes leaning against the garage door. Rodrigo says he'll use them to construct an outdoor pen.  Cheaper than pressure-treated wood, and safer if she chews on them. Goes his reasoning.

the bunny wants to jaunte

She'll be quiet and still in one corner of the kitchen.  I'll turn around and she's someplace else.  I know she can jump onto the Rubbermaid storage box I had once thought would block her escape to the rest of the house.  I haven't seen her jump up.  I walk away, hear a thud, and there she is on top of the box with a helpless bunny "How did I get here?  This place is interesting.  I don't think I could ever get off" look to her. But, once, when I reached to pick her up, she jumped off the box, back onto the kitchen floor, without effort or harm.

I can't get over the impression that we have a small alien prisoner. She wants to teleport. She wants the power to turn invisible. Someone should write a story about hyperintelligent bunnies who can do these things. For now, she is dissatisfied with life. But where else should she go?  To hide in the backyard until a hawk or fisher cat eats her? We will build a pen for her, an outside pen. We will. That may cheer her up.

She is so not a dog. At most she is like a cat in that she is aloof. She tolerates being picked up and patted. She will sometimes walk up to me and sniff at my sneaker. She is very curious. Sometimes. She is also content to lay about resting for long stretches of time.

She is cute and soft. I feel affection for her. This weekend, I was alone in the house with her, and noted that she did have the calming, cheering influence of a pet. The girls are thrilled with her. When they Skyped me, they asked me to get the bunny so they could see her. She huddled in a corner, not wanting to socialize, but I scooped her up anyway. Her life's purpose is to be cute for my children. You're on, Chestnut. Time for your closeup.

Chestnut.

Meet Chestnut?

Someone bought all four of those fluffy white bunnies, but the bunny lady has another, younger bunny. Zoe and I like that this one has brown eyes, not pink. She's only 7 weeks old. The fluffy white ones were 12 weeks old.  Somehow, we've already named her Chestnut, even though we're not sure if someone else will grab her first.  We think she's awful cute.

RoRo says she looks like a tribble with feet.

bunny on the brain

I saw these bunnies on craigslist and I want one.
I resisted the dog for good practical reasons.  We might cave on the bunny.  Its fluff-to-trouble ratio is looking highly favorable.  Lower vet bills, less drama.   Kipling never wrote about giving your heart to a bunny to tear.

botany and prepositions

A few sprigs of chives have sprung up through the poison ivy next to the sidewalk outside my office building.

Literal truth just begging for symbolism.

not a sequel, not a prequel, 1984.1?

Is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead a parralelquel?

Has anyone written a parralelquel about a guy who monitors the 2-way TV's in 1984?  He probably works in a cubicle among many.  His life is probably not too different from Winston Smith's.  My guess is there are folks now with similar jobs in nursing homes or prisons.

They must have some rules as to what kind of activity to report.  Probably lists of boring rules, with jargon.  I bet there's official jargon, for reporting activity, and slang that the monitors use for joking about the people they're forced to watch all day and night long.  I mean the 1984 folks, particularly, but I imagine it exists to some extent in real life.

I remember a high-tech day care center that would give parents a secure URL/Web address so they could watch their kid from their PC at work.  It is a reassuring feature for guilty/worried/lonesome parents.  But with some disturbing implications.

decent weekend

Saturday skating with Rafi.
Sunday Avatar with Zoe.
Got past page 100 in #1B1T and read some 21st century Ray Bradbury too.
Monday managed to swim before work.
O.K. Now work.   :^)

Rafi's haircut

First off, she looks adorable with it.  She was already adorable, and beautiful, but sometimes, as the day wore on, she looked... well like she could use some attention to her hair. 

Second, I've wanted her to have a short hair cut for years because

• I thought it would look good because she always looked great with her hair tied back. 
• Half the time she is off to school before anyone brushes her hair.  By the time I see her Friday night at Aikido her hair is often a disaster.

Third: I did not trick her the way my mother tricked me.  When I was 6, my mother asked me in a bright voice:  "Would you like a pixie cut?" and that sounded so magical I said yes.  I didn't know it would mean cutting my hair off.  I remember crying in bed that night missing my hair.  In defense of my mother, when I look at my first grade photo with the pixie cut I must admit it's a lot cuter than the 2nd grade photo of me with longer hair.

Remembering the pain of that pixie cut, I did not use trickery.  I used propaganda.  I asked Natalie to cut my hair short first.  Then I asked Rafi, "Do you want a short hair cut like Mommy?"  Rafi said "Yes!"  And her hair cut came out even better than I expected.  I'm amazed at how cute she looks.  She's pleased with herself.  That's the best part.

I, alas, don't look as good with a pixie cut as I did when I was 6.  No photos until it grows out.

Fourth:  Propaganda may not have been needed.  She had already taken a scissors to her own hair a few weeks earlier.  She wanted her hair cut.

As to donations, yes I would like it if it went to a child who could use it.  We'll measure it and send it off if it is 12".  I am too much an animist to send my 6-year old daughter's precious talisman of a braid to wipe up nasty oil spills.  My hair clippings, fine, but they've gone up Natalie's vacuum cleaner already.

on route 3 south this morning...

A pickup pulls in front of me in traffic.  It's a large olive drab Nissan Titan.  If it gets into an accident, will the police report be titled "Crash of the Titan"?