Function Words

No Maps For These Territories

2009-10-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've just viewed the William Gibson documentary where he talks about his writing process.
Most of the film is him riding around in a limousine in Los Angeles talking extemporaneously. I liked trying to figure out where the car was at the same time that I was digesting his ideas.
I really enjoyed hearing him talk about his background and about where his ideas came from. Gibson was the first person to use the term cyber-space in his 1984 novel Neuromancer.

I've read most of his novels but not his short stories. He is an impressive forward thinker.

District 9

2009-09-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

What a film! I loved it, loved it, loved it, in spite of the violence.
Generally, heavy violence in movies is a deal breaker for me. I avoid war movies like the plague. I haven’t seen Saving Private Ryan, Eastwood’s WWII oeuvre, or most of the well-known mafia movies.
In District 9 the violence and gore did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie at all.
District 9 is the story of aliens from a refugee ship that has been parked over Johannesburg for 20 years. The aliens look insectoid but walk upright and are much taller than humans. They have been banished to an interment camp in a neighborhood of Johannesburg called district 9. The movie is partially presented in documentary/news reporting format. There are reporters and “expert” narrations of the events.
The thing that won me over the most was how utterly real the portrayal of human nature seemed. The internment camp looked like a favela in Rio or a neighborhood the west bank or one of the many refugee camps of Africa. The comments by the locals about their distrust of the aliens could have referred to so many minority or displaced people. Then the bug-like appearance of the aliens was repellent to humans to justify their horrible treatment including the brutality and experimentation. The portrayal of the Nigerian gangs who moved into District 9 to exploit the plight of the aliens was dead on too. The main human character, Wikus van der Merwe, is self-serving and patronizing by turns. As his situation deteriorates and he finds that working with the aliens is his only salvation he sabotages his only means of escape. In the end he does realize that he must align with the aliens but by then it is mostly too late. I can’t wait for District 10!

More East Africa pictures

2009-06-26T21:19:00.001-07:00

This group of zebras were resting their heads on each other. There is also a baby nursing.

Some interesting facts about hippos. They are quite dangerous. Even though they are herbivores they will attack humans (and they have huge teeth!). Hippos graze at night but spend most of the day in the water. Hippos can't swim so when you see them in the water their feet are touching bottom.

Everywhere we went there were women carrying things on their heads. These two women were great! They were working at a demolition site. They are carrying buckets of bricks on their heads.

We followed this young male chimp for more than an hour. At first he was in the treetops feeding on figs. Eventually he came down from his tree and then we tagged along behind him on the ground in the forest. It almost seemed like he was leading us. He would look back to see if we were there. At one point he stopped and sat for about 5-10 minutes. That's when I took this picture. Soon he took off again and it was clear that if he wanted to lose us he could do it easily.

East Africa pictures

2009-06-26T21:06:00.001-07:00

This is the glacier on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro taken from Horombo Hut.

This male lion looks exactly like a lion should look. I couldn't believe we got so close.

In the Serengeti there were thousands of zebras. The guide said there are probably over a a quarter million. The patterm of their hides are mesmerizing.

I don't have many gorilla pictures. There were 2 problems. The majority were on my stolen camera and the low light in the forest meant that most of the ones I have are not clear. This one is the silverback eating bamboo.

East Africa

2009-06-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

We went to 6 countries in East Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. Some of the places with magical names that we saw are Ngorongoro Crater, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Lake Tanganyika, Olduvai Gorge (the cradle of humankind), Bujumbura (the capital of Burundi).
Naturally, the animals were the highlight of the trip. We went on a 4-day safari in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. I climbed Kilimanjaro on the Marangu route. We went on a wildlife drive in Nairobi national park, Kenya. We went on the Kazinga Channel launch trip in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. We went to Parc Nacional des Volcans in Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas and we went to Kibale Forest in Uganda to track the chimpanzees. Both primate experiences were astonishing.

When we were in Gisenyi, Rwanda we walked across the border at Lake Kivu to Goma, DR Congo. Gisenyi is a beautiful resort town on the shore of the lake. It's hard to believe that just across the border (also on the shore of the lake) is a different world. The DRC is currently a very dangerous country, including the possibility that the local armed forces are known to use rape as a weapon of war. The contrast when we crossed the border from Rwanda could not have been more stark. The place is filthy. The people look at each other suspiciously, there is a huge UN presence including an enormous compound with mounted guns in the corner turrets. To make matters worse for the people of Goma, the volcano Nyiragongo erupted in 2002 sending a stream of lava right through the center of the city. The lava covered 40% of the city. Large parts of the center are still lava fields 7 years later. It adds to the desolation of the place.

The most negative experience I had occurred in Kampala, Uganda. This was near the end of our trip. I was robbed by a pickpocket who reached in my purse and stole my small camera with over 1000 pictures from all of the wonderful places I had been. I am devastated to have lost them. How foolish I was to not have it secured when I walked on the streets! I keep thinking of all the "should'ves, could'ves" Second guessing myself about how I could have prevented the theft. I lost all interest in taking pictures after that. I HATE Kampala. It is a HORRIBLE place. I have never felt so negative about a city. I can usually find something redeeming about the places I visit but Kampala will forever be the worst city I have ever visited. Dirty, ugly, dangerous.

I had 2 cameras with me on the trip. The majority of my photos were taken with the stolen camera. I continue to mourn the loss of all those images. I do have a few that I took with my other old camera. I will post some of those pictures in the next couple posts.

There were thousands of wildebeasts (aka gnus) in Ngorongoro Crater.

It's hard to see giraffes just roaming around munching on the treetops without being astounded. This one is in the Serengeti.

We saw this female lion stalking a hartebeast in Nairobi NP.

Following the chimps around for 10 hours was true magic. I had the feeling that I was really in their world.

This elephant was at the water's edge in the Kazinga channel in Queen Elizabeth NP.

Easter Island aka Rapa Nui

2009-01-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

We're back from our winter vacation in Chile (and also Buenos Aires).
We spent a couple days in Santiago and then flew to Easter Island.
We visited family in Buenos Aires and then went to Patagonia to hike in the beautiful national park called Torres del Paine.
It was marvelous to be in the southern hemisphere during the longest days of the year.
Santiago and Buenos Aires were both quite hot. Patagonia was cold and windy but very beautiful. Easter Island is a tropical island that resembles Hawaii. It is very small (only 18 km across). Most of the coastline is lava. There are 2 small but beautiful white sand beaches and then there are the moai. I think there are over 700 of them sprinkled over the island. Nobody knows exactly what their purpose was. One unexpected fact is that nearly all of them were facing inland rather than looking out to sea. All of them were toppled by the 19th century due to interclan rivalries. The story of how the island was populated is amazing considering that it is over 2000 miles from the nearest land. The history of what happened to the polynesian people who lived there.

I've posted 2 pictures of the moai.

The first is one group of moai at the beach. A couple of them have the topknot which was quarried in another place and then placed on the top of the moai.
The second is of the moai that were left in the quarry. After they were carved from the rock in the quarry they would be transported to some other part of the island and then raised on a platform called an ahu. Many of the moai were just left partially carved in the quarry.

Speedway 40 years ago

2008-11-23T19:06:00.001-08:00

This is an amazing picture of our neighborhood about 40 years ago. The photographer was standing on the beach at about Topsail facing northeast. The derrick on the right is where our building is. The two houses on the right are still here. The smaller white on is opposite our garage.

I still can't get used to the idea that we live on an oilfield.

Ohllywodo

2008-08-29T18:48:00.000-07:00

Back on the summer solstice we decided to hike up to the Hollywood sign. It happened to be a very HOT day but it turned out okay because we started fairly early and the hike wasn't that difficult.
The Hollywood sign is not on Mt Hollywood. Instead it is on Mt Lee on the edge of Griffith Park. By that I mean that the trailhead to hike to the sign is not one of the usual entrances to the park. It wasn't hard to find the trail or the parking. The Gower exit off to 101 takes you there. The hike itself is mainly on a fire road. The uphill is a little strenuous but it isn't really very difficult. (The downhill is easy!)
The view from up there is wonderful because you can see both the ocean and the valley.
It's also quite neat to be standing behind the sign. You can't actually get to the letters (easily) because the is a fence. There are some holes in the fence where you 'could' get down to the letters but I didn't think it was worth the effort to try.

I took pictures all along the way. I think my best one is the accidental picture above.

I learned when I was reading about the hike afterwards that there is a point along the trail where the angle of the view and the topography make it look like the sign is misspelled as "ohllywodo"

As it turns out, I found that spot although I didn't realize it at the time so my shot is a little less than perfect but I think it is neat to see the "O" first and last due to the perspective.

My bee story

2008-07-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

So John came back again to repair the broken downspout drain on the balcony.
He began opening up the wall. Immediately, bees began flying out. Obviously they were not gone yet. Luckily they are not aggressive. They just fly around and make me nervous. Once the wall was open we got the idea to use my camera to take a picture up inside the wall to see what we had. Here is that picture.

Yikes! We definitely need a bee removal expert.

When the bee guy came he explained that he needed to get the queen and then the other bees would follow. The next picture is him breaking the wall open. Even when he pounded on their wall they didn't attack. They just flew around.

Once the wall was open we could see the honeycomb on the upper right side.

Next, he used a metal scooper to put the bees into a box. Then he carefully inspected the swarming bees to find the queen. Unfortunately she was nowhere to be found. Either she flew away or was killed during the demolition. In this case he took the bees that were in the box and then sprayed the whole area with something that would cause the remaining bees to go away. So, no more bees but a very interesting afternoon.

Bees!!!

2008-07-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

On the 4th of July I looked out my window and saw an enormous swarm of bees flying above my street. For a little while they were near my balcony but they eventually moved on.
I didn't notice them after that. On July 9 we went to Portland for a long weekend birthday celebration (which was great, btw)
When we returned today I noticed bees on the balcony again. Only this time they seemed to be going and coming from the drain hole near the balcony floor. There were enough bees flying around to make me nervous about inspecting too closely but I had the idea of flooding the floor with water so it would drain out of the hole and wash the bees away.
Now I've tried it and it may have helped a bit but it didn't solve the problem. I am afraid the there is a queen inside the framework of the balcony which means that it will take quite a bit more to persuade them to leave.
My most recent attempt has been to soak a rag with carpet cleaner (I had a jug of it nearby) and stuff the rag in the hole. My thinking was that the soap would be offensive and drive the bees away. I don't really want to kill them but I certainly don't want an infested balcony!

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

Check out my spectacular tulips and iris. I think there are 3 dozen stems in all.

I have such wonderful kids!

I also have a new coffee mug with sweet Melody's tiny 6-month handprint.

Earth hour

2008-03-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

So long ago, so busy!
I have been working harder than I can remember at my teaching.
5 courses is a lot. Especially when one is brand new and another is significantly different from the last time.
Anyway, that's my excuse.

Right now it is earth hour. All the lights are out chez moi.
Even the TV is off. I am using my computer on battery power and trying to minimize my power use in every way I can. I have even unplugged the 'fridge (so I shouldn't open the door until 9:00 pm)

It's kind of nice with candles. There's enough light to see but not really enough for reading.

New Computer!

2008-01-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I picked up my new MacBook Pro. Isn't it pretty? It has a built-in I-sight camera along with all the other bells and whistles you would expect from a Mac. Now of course I am doing all of the set up things.
I went to IT at CSUN and activated the wireless on campus.
I called Time-Warner Cable about getting broadband at home.
It will be so nice to do fast downloads. It might even make doing taxes easier.

Mom and Mel

2008-01-06T18:16:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a long time since I posted here. This is a picture of my beautiful daughter and her daughter courtesy of Melody's other grandma. I am so happy that she sent me a copy!
I can't believe how big she's gotten. Look at her holding her head up.

Beautiful Melody Valentine!

2007-11-05T14:58:00.000-08:00

My beautiful granddaughter was born on October 30.
I drove up to Santa Cruz in time to be there when she was born.
My daughter's labor was not easy, as you might expect. The hard labor lasted at least 7 hours. Then there was an earthquake. The nurses on the maternity unit are convinced that the earthquake caused all 4 mothers who were there to deliver in less than an hour. It was pretty hectic for them. For me it was wonderful!
Shortly after the quake, from outside the door of the birthing room I could hear Melody's hearty first cries.
I am so lucky that I got to see her when she was minutes old.

Recent Movies

2007-09-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've seen a few movies in the last couple weeks that I have not mentioned here.
The most recent one was: The Secret Life of Words, a 2005 movie with Tim Robbins and Sarah Polley.
I'm not sure what motivated me to put it in my Netflix queue but it was one very touching movie.
The story takes place mainly on an off-shore oil rig off the coast of Denmark, I think.
When the movie begins we see some disconnected video of an industrial explosion that is hard to sort out.
Then the story goes to a factory where most of the employees are women working on some kind of assembly line.
One of the workers is a hard of hearing woman named Hanna who seems more like an automoton that a person. She is called into the bosses office and told to take a vacation because the other workers think she is "difficult".
She goes to an undetermined coastal city, checks into a hotel. While eating at a chinese restaurant she overhears a phone conversation about needing a nurse for a patient that can't be moved. Out the window we see an oil rig that appears to be on fire. She tells the guy that she is a nurse and volunteers to go take care of the guy.
She goes out to the oil rig where Tim Robbins is the blinded burn victim. She begins taking care of him and over the course of her time on the rig we begin to learn more about both Hanna and the burn victim's life on the rig.
The performances are wonderful. The story is very powerful. We get an explanation of why Hanna is so robotic. A gem of a movie. The kind of story that stays with you for a long time.

Nome

2007-08-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

First of all, I think Nome is a great placename.
Nome is located on the Seward Peninsula, in northwestern Alaska on the Bering Sea. This is the penisula where the state comes the closest to Asia. The peninsula is the location of the Beringea land bridge.
You must fly to Nome (or go by water). Alaska Airlines has 2 flights daily in specially fitted planes that have about 1/2 of the passenger seats removed to make way for cargo. The only roads are 3 local roads that are each about 70 miles long that go to nearby villages. Nome is located far enough north so that no trees grow nearby. One of the reasons that people like to go to the end of the Council road is because there are trees there.
The town seems desolate and forlorn without snow. I imagine that WITH snow is it white and forbidding but less tattered looking. The tattered appearance may be due to the lack of trees to shelter the buildings. After the inital shock of the treeless landscape I really liked it. I felt like I was on the edge of the world.
Nome became a boom town during the Alaskan gold rush when gold was found on the beaches. There are abandoned gold dredging buckets sprinkled around town as a reminder of its gold-obsessed past. Gold mining has recently been revived. There were "miners" living in tents all along the beach. They had various kinds of makeshift dredging devices. I spent part of an afternoon wading around in the Bering Sea panning for gold. I have a few flakes for my trouble.

Nome is also the end of the Iditarod, the 1000 mile dogsled race that begins in Anchorage. The race milepost says 923. It is located near the Safety Roadhouse about a dozen miles from Nome on the Council road.

Alaska!

2007-08-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

It's hard to appreciate just how big our 49th state really is unless you try to drive around it. And this is a fairly difficult task because there really aren't that many roads. I read somewhere that 40% of the state is wilderness. There aren't even trails in most of the national parks.
I'm not going to replay our whole 5-week trip in this blog. I think I will talk about a few of the highlights in successive posts.

Alaska is a big state.

The Dalton Highway goes from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay. (Actually, it's not called the Dalton Highway until about mile 74.)
The road was built as a service road for the oil fields on the North Slope. The pipeline parallels the highway for most of the way. It wasn't opened for ordinary traffic until 1994. It used to be called the haul road because it was intended for huge trucks to carry supplies to the oil fields. It wasn't intended to be scenic and the trucks travel as fast as possible making it dangerous for smaller vehicles. The rock was very big. I was lucky that it didn't get through the windshield because it would have hit me in the chest.

The majority of the 411 miles are unpaved. Since it is the only road, if you commit to driving up you have to go back along the same route. The other thing about the road is that there are no services. Gas can be obtained at Coldfoot and at Deadhorse but in between it is all wilderness. Much of the wilderness is tundra, of course. There are a few "tourist" sites along the way. There is a roadside at the Arctic Circle and a nice viewpoint at Atigun Pass that looks down on the North Slope. We saw the fox, a herd of caribou, a herd of musk ox and a number of arctic birds. My favorite part of the journey was the last 100 miles from the pass to the North Slope where we saw the fox.

Being in Deadhorse was like being in somebody's workspace. The "hotels" are really housing for the workers with 3 meals a day cafeteria style.

The midnight sun was really neat. That clock reads 12 midnight. Look at how bright it is outside. I think the sun stayed at least 20 degrees above the horizon. Work goes on 24 hours a day. It becomes harder and harder to decide when to go to bed when you don't have the sunset to guide your biological clock.

She's a girl!!!

2007-06-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Now I can picture little MV.
Aren't ultrasounds wonderful?

caving in to "do not call"

2007-06-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

After many months of unwanted sales calls, I've finally given in and put my phone information on the national "do not call" list. I have always been skeptical about the effectiveness of being on this list. I don't think it excludes the kinds of calls I hate most: solicitations for money and political ads.
I wonder if I will even notice a difference?

Word Play

2007-06-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

A geeky romp.
The people who were finalists in the contest are astounding.
I guess practice makes perfect but it is very hard to imagine being able to do the NY Times crossword in 3 minutes.
This kind of expertise is just as hard won as any sport.
I especially liked seeing Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, The Indigo Girls doing crossword puzzles.
It's a pleasure to see prominent people associate themselves with "smart" activities.

thinking aloud

2007-06-22T10:58:00.001-07:00

I've been pondering the use of a- as a prefix in English words like: akin, alight, aloud, abloom, alone, ablaze

a- can be an adjective-making prefix. But it also makes adverbs and verbs. At first I thought it was mainly a relic from the inflection system of Old English. Now I can see that the story if far more complicated than the simple hypothesis I started with.

In other word news: "floccinaucinihilipilification" is a pointless word.

slacking off

2007-06-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

I've just reviewed my 2007 posts. I started off the year with the best of intentions about daily blogging.
It's obvious that like other new year's resolutions, daily blogging is very hard to maintain.
I will try to do better!

Art everywhere

2007-06-21T08:11:00.001-07:00

This clever artist arranges books artistically and then photographs the results. Her name is Nina Katchadourian. Here is her URL: www.ninakatchadourian.com/languagetranslation/sortedbooks.php
I think this one is brilliant.

49-Up

2007-06-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

The most recent documentary in the -Up series is fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Up!
The children we first met when they were 7 years old in 1964 are now 49. (It was actually filmed in 2005 so they are really 51 at this moment.)
One thing that I liked was the astonishing difference in production values that can be seen when they run the original opening and credits and also when they show fragments of the 1964 film to introduce the people.
In 1964 the editing and music were designed to add false drama. There was something ominous about the theme song.
The voice over comments which appeared to be crafted to be neutral were very loaded with value judgments about class, divorce, neighborhoods. Now it comes across as a phoney kind of objectivity that was not objective in the least.

Just a few observations about the "kids".
I was surprised at the number of divorces. I guess I shouldn't have been considering my own life experience.

I recognized the houses in the "Tony" segment as 'looking like Spain' even before he said that they had built a holiday home there. What is most interesting to me is how it fits with the stereotype about the English vacationing in southern Europe to escape the English weather and then eventually recreating exactly the same English community rather than blending into the local community. It is easy to imagine that this was how colonization occurred in the 18th-19th centuries (although it would have been with severe hardship rather than as a vacation home.)

I wonder how the every-seven-year-filming schedule has influenced the lives of the people who were filmed. Did they strive to succeed in different ways because they knew they would have to explain themselves on camera?

It is also great to see the physical transformations of everyone. You can't see the child in all of the adults. Although sometimes you can see the 'child" in some of their offspring.

I was surprised at how few of them and/or their children had gone on to higher education.
I was also surprised at how many of them already had grandchildren when they were 49.

By and large I was especially struck by how happy everyone seemed to be at 49 even if they had be obviously very unhappy in previous segments.

I think this is a great series.

still no surgery scheduled

2007-06-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

The member services person seemed to get things moving but I think it is still a ruse.
The gate-keeping at Kaiser is exhausting to deal with. Somehow I start thinking that I don't have a right to prompt service.
This is especially pernicious because it is a manipulation of my mental health at a time when my physical health is compromised meaning I have less will to fight.
Natually, the wost symptoms always come during the middle of the night. On Monday night at 12:23 I woke with intense burning pain in my back. No change in position made it better. I finally got up and took some Tylenol 3. Eventually I went back to sleep, probably when the drug kicked in. In the morning, oddly enough, I was pain free!

The member services person talked with sechduling. She learned that I am on the "cancellation" list. If someone cancels their surgery I will be called. This is VERY UNLIKELY. She was unable to tell me if I was on the August list.
She said another option for me is to go to a different Kaiser facility that doesn't have such an impacted schedule.
I was so grateful for her help. I thanked her profusely. As it turned out she didn't do much. I called the other facility. They said that I couldn't go there without a referral from my other doctor. I still have a bunch of legwork to do. Kaiser makes it so difficult!

The gallbladder saga continues

2007-06-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

I saw the surgeon on June 7. He said that it did look like I need the surgery. He said to get in touch with the surgery scheduling person. This is where my misunderstanding began. I thought he was telling me that he would be able to fit me in quickly. What he was really saying was that the scheduling person is responsible for OR availability and that since my surgery is elective the best I can hope for is to move farther up the priority list if an operating room happens to come available at the last minute. Otherwise the earliest elective date he has is August.
Meanwhile today I saw my primary care doctor. She agreed that a cholecystectomy is probably warranted too but that she can only make notes to that effect in my record. I asked her about how I might be able to move higher on the priority list. She said short of an ER visit the best thing to do is to get in touch with the scheduling person again and ask for "next available" rather that a specific surgeon. She also gave me a prescription for tylenol + codeine for the pain.

I called the scheduling woman. She is a very kind person but obviously she has different priorities that I have. She transferred me back to the surgeon's nurse to discuss the "next available" scenario. Later today the surgeon called me back and explained what I described above. I asked him directly what I can do to get a higher priority.
He said: 1. call scheduling again and ask for it. He said it would be a request for a second opinion to get an alternate surgeon.
2. call "member services" and complain about the delay (he said this does not reflect badly on him--he recommended that I do it)
3. go to the ER if I have an elevated temperature and vomiting.

I asked exactly what constitutes an emergency condition. He said fever, vomiting and elevated white count.

After that conversation I left a longish message with the scheduler. I also asked her to put me on the August list but please, please, please can I have something done sooner? It hurts a LOT. It's hard to imagine having this pain for 2 more months. She hasn't gotten back to me yet. I will try to talk to her tomorrow morning and then call member services.

I also thought of another question--just how risky would it be to go on a trip to Alaska in this condition? What if I have an attack? Can I go to an Alaska hospital and have the surgery. Will Kaiser pay for it?

This whole thing is pretty aggravating! I am not used to chronic pain. Even if it is not constantly horrible it is still hard to live with.

The ER

2007-06-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

Well Wednesday I had a recurrence of abdominal pain that was pretty much the same as I experienced about a month ago.
It was a fairly sharp, localized pain in the vicinity of my stomach at the edge of my right ribcage. After a few hours of the sharp pain the discomfort seemed to spread throughout my belly, working its way downward. Although this second time the localized pain did tend to stay in one place longer. I also had chills and a brief vomiting session. I was still feeling pretty bad on Thursday morning but I recovered mostly by the afternoon. On Friday, my whole abdomen felt like it was bruised.
On both occasions it happened after I had consumed a large quantity of milk so I figured that it was probably a developing lactose intolerance. Both my daughter and my brother have L-I which became more significant for them over time, so it wouldn't be unexpected.

Friday and Saturday things were pretty much back to normal although my tummy still didn't feel "right". I figured I would see the doctor next week if it was still bothering me. Then Saturday afternoon I noticed that I had the rash that I get when my immune system is active. This scared me. I started to wonder if there was a connection between the abdominal pain and the immune response. I decided to call the Kaiser advice nurse just to be sure.

I was surprised when the nurse said that I should go to the ER to be checked out within the next 2 hours. He even said that if I didn't have someone to drive me I should consider an ambulance! Talk about overreacting! I kept saying that I was feeling so much better today than I had on Wednesday, my main concern was the rash.

We drove to the ER, arriving about 4:00pm. They are very slow there. I waited over an hour before the triage nurse interviewed me. Then it was another hour before they called me to be examined. It was a good thing we brought thick books to read! When I was finally put in the exam room I waited yet another hour before the doctor came. I guess I must have been low on the triage priority list.

When the doctor did see me he took my symptoms very seriously but it was clear that he did not think it was lactose intolerance. He did suggest that I try Lactase but he wanted to do all the blood tests to rule out gallstones. They drew 5 vials of blood and inserted the valve in my arm. He said it was "just in case they needed more blood after they got the results from the first 5."
Then I had to wait for the results to come back from the lab. Obviously the doctor thought it was possible that I might need to be admitted! It was 10:00 pm before the lab results came back. When he saw them he said that he wanted to have me get an ultrasound of my gallbladder. By now it was pretty clear that that was his primary diagnosis.
The ER nurse scheduled me for the ultrasound at 8:00 am on Sunday morning. The nurse also said that the results of the ultrasound would be sent to my primary doctor and that I should make an appointment with her to have them read ASAP.

We finally got home at midnight. I woke up early this morning to go back for the ultrasound. Unfortunately in the ER they hadn't told me that I had to fast. I ate breakfast before I left so when I got there they sent me home again to wait for 8 hours.

I finally had the ultrasound at 2:00 today. The procedure was quite interesting. Not only did he look at my gallbladder. He also looked at my pancreas, kidneys, liver, and aorta. He said they can see quite a lot including cholesterol buildup in the aorta if it is present. He must have seen something because he asked if this was the second time I had been there. I suspect that it looked bad enough that he would have expected it to bother me before now. Because he is a technician he would not tell me much about what he saw and he was careful not to give me a diagnosis. He said that I had to get the official diagnosis from my doctor. He did say that I had one big gallstone though. Now I have to get my mind around the idea of having gallbladder surgery!

All of that waiting around in the ER was rather interesting. Although I couldn't see what was going on I did overhear some very interesting stories. There was an 11 year old girl who had been sexually assaulted--they had to call the police to interview her and her mom; someone collapsed in the parking lot and had to be retrieved on a stretcher; one patient came in not breathing--this one got everyone's attention. Suddenly the hallways were empty because most of the staff were working on him. There was one person who had multiple lacerations from a knife fight; the were several wailing babies, one with a broken arm--I felt so sorry for them. Their cries were so heart-rending. All in all a fascinating peek into real ER operations while I was a patient. At the time I didn't think that I was very sick so I almost felt out of place but now that I have had the ultrasound I am taking it all much more seriously too. I'm definitely glad that I went in.

The good news is that most gallbladder surgery these days is laproscopic rather than major surgery. From what I have read it usually involves an overnight hospital stay and the recovery is in as few as 2-3 days. That would certainly be nice. For once I seem to have lucked out as far as my schedule is concerned. I do not have any immediate obligations. I am finished with my teaching for the semester and our vacation is not until July. I was just thinking about how much worse it would be if I had a gall bladder attack while we hiking somewhere. It is certainly much better than when I dislocated my should in the Galapagos Islands. I guess if I must have surgery now is a good a time as ever.
I just have to keep telling myself that!

A quote I like

2007-05-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

29 May quote from LA Times:
Marketa Inglova, musician in movie “Once”
Sometimes people come into your life with a mission where they maybe push you in the right direction, say the right thing, inspire you in the right way. I think we might mistake that sometimes for it being more than it really is. Some people might just be messengers. Who is the right person to stay throughout your life and who is the right person to let go? I can’t judge that. It’s very personal.

Rhonda's first birthday

2007-04-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've only put 9600 miles on her in a year. I still love driving slow to maximize my mileage. I think I probably irritate the other drivers with all my coasting. I love being able to go 600 miles between fill-ups. I've found that I get gas about every 3 weeks now. With my Neon it was once a week. My tolerance for stop and go freeway driving has increased too because whenever I am stopped, Rhonda turns off so I don't burn any fuel--no pollution, little cost.
I did get the stickers for driving in the carpool lane but I haven't put them on yet for two reasons. 1-people in the carpool lane like to drive fast and I would probably be a self-righteous obstacle. 2-those huge yellow and black stickers would deface my beautiful car. There has only been one occasion when I wished that I could go in the carpool lane because I was in a hurry and the other lanes were gridlocked. One time isn't enough incentive to disfigure my pretty car. Someone suggested that I could probably sell the stickers on e-bay. I don't think I will but it is an interesting thought.

Wow! What a week!

2007-04-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

My baby is pregnant and I hiked 10k on the Great Wall.

On Monday when I returned from China I got a call from my beautiful daughter who said that she figured out that the reason she has been feeling so crappy for the last couple weeks is that she is pregnant. I'm going to be a grandma! Fantastic!
Now I wish I had bought the adorable mandarin hats that they were selling for children at the Summer Palace. Ah well, there's plenty of time to find cute baby stuff. I had been jealous of people who were doting on their grandchildren. Now I can be one of them.

Meanwhile during our weekend in Beijing we arranged with a taxi driver to take us to one of the access points to the Great Wall near Beijing called JinShanLing (it's about a 2 hour drive into the countryside). The driver left us there and then drove to the nearby access point at Simitai. We walked along the Wall for 10 kilometers from JinShanLing to Simitai and then found our taxi driver and returned to Beijing. What a neat thing to do. It took us about 3-1/2 hours to hike the 10 kilometers along the Wall. It is a great experience to be hiking on this impressive structure. As you hike you can see it wending its way along the mountain ridges in both directions. On parts of the hike the Wall was fairly intact and in other places it had crumbled away so we had to scramble using our hands. It was just great! The hike itself was not that difficult. There are lots of steps and hills because it is following the contours of the mountain ridges. It was an exhilarating experience. I never thought I would be able to hike on the Great Wall of China.

Getting ready for China

2007-04-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

I need to make the most of my almost-5 days in Beijing.
I plan to see the famous things like Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
I want to eat Peking Duck and see the famous tombs and temples.
But the thing I am looking forward to the most is the Great Wall.
There are at least 4 segments of the Great Wall that are near Beijing. I have decided that I want to go to Jinshanling and then walk 10k on the the wall to Simatai. It seems like the perfect China experience for me. Walk along the ancient wall. I've seem many pictures of it with stretching off into the distance with towers every so often.
I'm told that the landscape is fairly wild and beautiful. I hope that the trees are beginning to leaf out. It should be a very fun hike.

It's been awhile

2007-03-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

I've been fairly busy with work and planning for my China trip so I haven't had much time to put any thought into my blog.
Actually, I haven't done much about planning China, more about figuring out how I will cope with the aftermath. I get back on Monday at 5 and then I have to teach two classes on Tuesday.
So what else? I've been reading an interesting book called "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain" which is a report about ongoing collaboration between some prominent neuroscientists and the Dalai Lama.
The reason this book interests me is that I have been talking about brain plasticity in my language development class. The results of a variety of experiments seem to indicate that the brain is far more malleable than was previously believed. The real estate of the brain that seemed to be permanently occupied has been shown to change function or expand due to increased training.
I have worried about stroke as my most serious health risk. When I read about brain plasticity it gives me a little bit of hope that it might be possible to recover some function if it should happen to me.

Kaaterskill Falls

2007-03-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

Kaaterskill Falls is a falls in upstate New York. The name is used as the fictional setting for a novel by Allegra Goodman about the world of orthodox Jews. This is a closed community that I certainly know nothing about. I found Goodman's story-telling to be very rich and completely engaging. I really did feel as though I could understand this community a little better. She manages to put the reader inside the mind of these people in a way that makes their everyday life very interesting.

Chinese visa

2007-03-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I went to the Chinese consulate in LA to obtain our visas. It is on the third floor of a Korean school building in central LA.
Finding the building was fairly easy. Parking was a little more difficult. The first place I parked had a meter. I got out and put a quarter in. For some reason the quarter didn't drop into the compartment. I figured I could push it through with another coin. That didn't work. The quarter was stuck and the meter didn't register. There is a sticker on meters now which gives an 800 number to call if the meter is broken. I called them. She took the information about the jammed meter and then she said she would notify the meter maid and I shouldn't park there because I would get a ticket! Annoying.
I did my good deed, reporting the meter and now I couldn't use the parking space!
I eventually went a block over and found a place that didn't have a meter so in the end it only cost me one quarter.
It's a good thing I was in an unmetered spot because when I finally got inside the consulate the line for visas was around the corner and out the door. I waited for over an hour. When I finally got to the window the woman looked to see if there was a "free" page in both passports, wrote a 2 on the receipt (that's about all, no name or other identifying info that I could figure out) and said I should come back to pick them up on Friday. She said it will cost $50 each. There was a notice at the entrance which worried some. It said that you must pick up your passport with visa in person. I asked her if I could pick up both of them. She said "yes, because the receipt says '2'" We will see!
Fortunately, the pick-up line is a lot shorter than the drop off line. Maybe Friday will go fast. I hope so!

I'm going to China!

2007-03-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

So here's a crazy idea. Why not go to Beijing for the weekend?
Actually I will be "on the ground" from Thursday to Monday. I guess that is a long weekend.
The reason it is so short is because I teach on Tuesdays.
On the other hand I couldn't turn down an opportunity to go to a new place.
I will get to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and a lot of other stuff.
I haven't looked at the possibilities much yet. I am just getting used to the idea of doing a crazy thing like this.
I do have to obtain a visa in the next week and also plan all of my teaching before I go because the day when I return is going to be a doozy! I will be completely jetlagged with 2 classes to teach.

Painting class

2007-03-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

My second art class was painting. What fun!
First she went over all the materials: oil paint, acrylics, watercolors, brushes, canvas.
Then she talked about the basic shape and features of the human face and the color wheel.
Then she handed out prepared 11x14 canvases, mirrors, brushes. She started us with dollops of 2 blue acrylic paints and then guided us to create a self-portrait. She took up through the build-up of colors step by step. In an hour we each had a very nice self-portrait. I had no idea it could be this easy. I love acrylic paints!

reassured

2007-03-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

I saw the doctor about my breast pain today.
He said that there is no evidence of cancer either in my most recent mammogram or in the physical exam.
He said that I should have my annual mammogram in June and then come back for a follow-up appointment to confirm.
It was a very satisfying consultation. I got all my questions answered and I felt that the doctor-patient interview went very well. I like this doctor a lot. I should probably submit an evaluation to Kaiser for his personnel record.
I am a satisfied patient.

Mishka Kornai at the Beverly Hill Shorts Film Festival

2007-03-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

We went to one program of a film festival.
The 15-year-old son of a friend of ours, Mishka Kornai, had his short comedy "Seller's Remorse" accepted for the BH Shorts Festival. The festival runs over this weekend with the films grouped into 4 or 5-film programs according to topic.
Mishka's film's Program topic was: Time's Almost Up
It was about the consequences of telemarketers who will do anything to make a sale. Very funny!
A great evening all the way around. After the premiere we went to a party at Kate Mantilini with Mishka, his mom, the cast, and a bunch of other people who produced, or worked on the film. The party was also really fun.

Probably the most amazing thing about the evening was Mishka. He was the cinematographer for the film. What makes him remarkable is that he was able to do this quality of work at only 15! I can only imagine what the future holds for him.
After the 5 shorts the producers/directors/cinematographers were invited up front for a Q&A. They talked about techniques that they used, costs of production, inspiration for their films and time to produce them. I don't think that anybody in the audience realized that Mishka was half the age of all the other people up there. He handled himself beautifully.
He is only a sophomore in high school. The rest of the filmmakers were easily in their 30s or older. He seemed completely at ease with them. Somehow he didn't seem like a teenager at all. I heard that on the set he has no problem at all setting up his shots, directing others who are twice his age.

He wants to go to film school at USC. This was at least his 4th film. Between now and highschool (!) graduation he will already have an enviable body of work. Someone last night said "he could bury himself in a hole for ten years and then come back and still be a youngster." He has a real head start. With a portfolio like this I think he should not have any trouble getting into USC.
I think that a big reason that he is the focused, confident person that he is is because of the amazing support he gets from his family. It is great to see them together. I feel lucky to know them.

worries

2007-03-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

Talk about flip-flopping emotions on this blog! I think I have mostly used my blog as a place to talk about things that are happy or that amuse me. I know, I know, once in awhile there has been a rant.
In this post I am going in another direction.
I talked to my mom today and I recently read a family blog about my aunt so my attention has been focused on my family and on my family history. Two of my mother's sisters have died of cancer. Another of her sisters is having cancer treatment right now and my mother was successfully treated for melanoma. I guess I should acknowledge the familial tendancy toward cancer.
Now my worries:
Over the past few months I have noticed some pain in one of my breasts. I had decided that 1) cancer isn't usually painful and 2) I've had similar pain on the other side from time to time so it's probably nothing to worry about. But recently, over the last month, I am having a different sensation in the same breast. I wouldn't call it pain, more like pulling or stretching. I notice it intermittently but especially when the seatbelt pushes against my breast.
Every time I did my self-exam I couldn't really feel anything unusual. My breasts have always been rather lumpy, I couldn't locate a specific bump or sore spot. At first I figured the pulling would go away. It hasn't. Today I did another self-exam and decided that there may be a difference between the lumpiness of the two breasts.
I decided that given my family history I should take this more seriously.
I made an appointment for Wednesday to find out more. I really hope that I am worrying for nothing but I must admit that I am scared.

Art Class

2007-02-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

My glory days in art occurred when I was in second grade. I was one of the first place winners (there were 3) in a contest to design a safety poster about looking both ways before crossing the street.
Since then the decline in my artistic activity has been precipitous.
I decided to change that so I enrolled in a 2-night community college art class where we get to find out about basic materials and try to discover our inner artist.
I loved it.
The first class was Monday. She went over basic fine art drawing equipment (as opposed to graphic art).
This includes types of charcoal, pencils, pastels, oil crayons and conte crayons. She also explained the types of drawing papers and erasers and she gave us specific advice about how to store and carry our supplies.
Then we got to do our first drawing. She brought lots of paper, and drawing materials. She had us create a still life using stuff we had with us. I used a water bottle, sunglasses, box of altoids, a hairbrush and my cell phone.
It was so much fun! My drawing is pretty terrible but I had so much fun doing it.
I can't wait for the next class when we learn about acrylic paint and oil paint on canvas. We get to paint a self-portrait in oil on canvas. What a kick!

Notes on a Scandal

2007-02-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

Judy Dench is amazing in Notes on a Scandal.
She plays an old maid teacher who is obsessed with a younger female teacher.

One interesting thing about this movie and Venus is that in both of them the main character is an old actor, Peter O'Toole/Judy Dench, performing masterfully. It is unusual to have major roles for old people. I think it may be targeting the aging baby boom audience.
What both Dench and O'Toole can do with just a look, pursed lips, a walk is really remarkable.

The way I saw Notes on a Scandal there was not a missed note. You could see the train wreck coming almost from the first scene. The Barbara character in this movie had similarities to the Maurice character in Venus. I see the main difference as being that Maurice was old but accepted his decline. He was determined to get what he could out of the time he had left. He wasn't crazy. For the most part his expectations were realistic.
Barbara was crazy. She was very lonely and she had serial obsessions. The moment when that becomes completely clear is when her cat is going to be euthanized and she demands that Sheba be with her even though Sheba is on her way to her Down syndrome son's perform in his first play. She could not understand how a mother's love of her child could take priority over a cat. She was very scary. An amazing performance!

Venus

2007-02-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

We saw the movie Venus last night.
This is one of the cases where I really appreciate skillful acting. Peter O'Toole was amazing as a doddering old rapidly declining actor who had spent his life chasing women. He plays the character Maurice (pronounced Morris)
He is marvellous as an appreciator of women even as he is completely aware that no woman is interested in him anymore.
He is determined to enjoy them to the very end of his life. This puts him in sharp contrast with his friend Ian who is also an actor and equally declining. The difference is that Ian is determined not to enjoy the end of his life.
He views his young niece, Venus, as a dangerous nuisance rather than as a gift to be courted.
One thing that I loved about this movie was that it didn't sentimentalize old age. The actors were so real. We could love them exactly because they were so real.

yogurt and coffee

2007-02-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

...for breakfast.
It looks like time to go to the grocery store.
We need fruit!

-gged words

2007-02-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

Question:
Why are -gged words like 'jagged' 'ragged' 2 syllables but 'wagged' 'sagged ' 1 syllable?
Answer:
If they are adjectives, they are 2 syllables; verbs are 1.
-ed is derivational for the adjectives, -ed is inflectional for verbs.

surfing "finds"

2007-02-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

While looking for information about Jeannette Rankin I found other stuff that was also interesting.
First, Jeannette Rankin is a feminist pacifist who was the first woman to be elected to the House of Representatives in 1916(?) (Not completely sure of the date) from Montana (also surprising-for some reason I would have expected some eastern state). I do know she was the first woman. She was also one of a few who voted against the US entering WWI.
This position was not viewed kindly and so she was not re-elected.
But then a few decades later she once again ran and won in 1939(?) (not sure of this date either). But this time she was the ONLY representative to vote against the US going to war against the Japanese in 1941. She stayed completely true to her pacifist position. A very courageous woman.
I learned that a play has been written about her in 2004. "A Single Woman"
The play has been performed in numerous places in the West including Blue Lake California.
Blue Lake is a tiny town near Arcata.
Arcata is a small town in Humboldt county.
The nearby county seat of Humboldt county is Eureka.
Eureka is almost twice as big as Arcata (26,000 vs 14,000).
Neither of them are very big.
An interesting fact about Arcata is that it is a university town with the northernmost Cal State university.
The student body of CalState Humboldt is 7500 so 1/2 the population of Arcata is made up of university students.
This means that the town of Arcata is politically rather liberal in complete opposition to the very conservative Eureka.

Oh what crazy thoughts we think when first we follow every link!

Sidney Sheldon's women

2007-02-19T17:39:00.000-08:00

Sidney Sheldon died recently. I certainly recognized his name as a successful writer of television scripts like I Dream of Jeannie and The Patty Duke show and also of bodice-ripper novels. Upon reading his obituary I learned that he was a very interesting guy. He used research on his books as an excuse to globetrot.
He would spend months in the cities where he set his glamourous stories. It sounds like he had a very interesting life.

Now to the point of this post. I wanted to get a sense of who he was so I found a used copy of his first best-seller, The Other Side of Midnight. I am reading it now and I agree with the cover blurbs--it is definitely a page-turner.
It was first published in 1973 when he was 55. It is a very funny sort of fiction to read not so much because it was pre-feminist but because of his writer's perspective.
On the one hand it is very exciting. The plot devices are clearly thought out and well-executed so the story tracks beautifully. I guess I would expect that from a screenwriter. The strange thing is that the main characters are women and all of these women seem like men, no matter how beautiful, feminine and sexy they are. My impression is that even though Sheldon likes women a great deal, he is unable to convincingly portray the mind of a woman. Everything in the story seems like it is a man imagining being a woman. He is not attacking them. They are presented in a very favorable light, for the most part but the emotions don't ring true. Everything is about sex. Even this wouldn't be odd except that somehow it is from a man's point of view. Sheldon seems to have been very accurate in his portrayal of the places and history he describes. He must have done a great job researching them. But he failed to research the women who are at the center of everything. There is a peculiar emotional detachment that I can't ignore. The women's bodies are objects to the women themselves. As I have been reading I find myself wondering if I am the one who is out of sync. I keep having to remind myself that this is a guy voicing his thoughts through these female characters.

fury

2007-02-18T10:22:00.000-08:00

It seems very possible that my intense reaction to frustrations with inanimate objects in my life may be displaced anger that I feel but don't express.

TurboTax sucks!
I wasted most of the day yesterday attempting to download the updates. They promised that with my 56k modem it might take up to an hour. It took over 5 and then when my computer attempted to expand the files it froze completely and I had to reboot, losing the whole thing.
They also promised that if the modem closed the connection due to "inactivity" I should be able to dial up again and TurboTax would resume downloading where it left off. THERE IS NO "RESUME" BUTTON. The only thing that I can do after redialing is "CANCEL" which means starting over.

You would think that a product that has been on the market for at least 10 years now would get better with time.

Somehow it appears that they are making it my fault that they have produced a product which is impossible to use.
What happened to "the customer is always right"?

people who expect too much

2007-02-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

I have just spent an hour responding to a request from one of my students.
She is a woman who was enrolled in my course last semester. She managed to attend only 10/32 hours of class.
When she did show up it would often be in the last 5 minutes of a 4-hour class. She had her infant daughter with her on 2 occasions. On the one hand, she is clearly a very bright woman but on the other hand her life is entirely unmanageable.
In part, due to missing so much class time she turned in a project for the course that was very inferior.
I gave her an F for the course.
When I looked at the people registered for the same course this semester, I discovered that she was on my roster again.
The day before the semester began I received an e-mail from her saying that she was re-taking the course to get a better grade but that she would be missing the first 2 classes because she was out of town on "family business". As it turned out, she has already missed the first 4 classes of the new semester.

Yesterday I received another e-mail from her asking if "since I have already attended your class, can I take the course on-line and aim or at least a C?". This is NOT an online course and furthermore, she barely attended the class the last time. I will have to prepare special materials for her and accept e-mail assignments. Also, if she misses class, it's unlikely that she will have adequate notes to study for the final. It is possible to obtain the lecture information by reading the textbooks but I've noticed that students seldom do as well on exams if they rely strictly on their own reading.

She is asking me to compromise my academic standards so she can pass the course. She is also asking me to do a substantial amount of extra work just for her. I've already spent an extra hour of my time just responding to her e-mail. I don't get paid for this!

pants, scissors and diapers(?)

2007-02-15T19:43:00.000-08:00

Oh the wonderful things I learn on the Language Log. There is a technical term for words which only occur in the plural. It is "plurale tantum". It seems that the pants/trousers family of words is very productive. Other pant-like (pants-like?) garments that also have this twoness property include: slacks, breeches, bloomers, jeans, dungarees, bellbottoms, tights, shorts, Levis, 501s, underpants, skivvies, drawers, panties, boxers, briefs, etc. You get the idea. It seems that all of these garments share the same property. They have 2 leg holes and thus are candidates for being included in the list of pluralia tantum.

Other pluralia tantum objects in the world include: suspenders, scissors, shears, pliers, binoculars, tongs.

Diaper is an interesting case. It appears that we can say: "She wore a diaper." or "She wore diapers."
Even though you can't say: *She wore a pantie. or *She wore a short.
Also interesting is that the brand names for diapers, Pampers and Huggies are also pluralia tantum but they they can be singular too: Hand me the Pamper so I can change the baby.

Hmmm. What's going on here?
The Language Log says that diaper/diapers and by analogy Huggie/Huggies is plurale tantum and singular.

Pscyhology of overestimating

2007-02-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

I had been wondering when Rhonda would need her first oil change.
It seemed like too much time had gone by.
Yesterday as I drove home a little icon of a wrench suddenly lit up and the display said: Oil life 15%

This morning, I located the nearest Honda dealer, Honda of Santa Monica, and called to ask whether I needed an appointment for my oil change. He said I could just drive in. He said the amount of time it would take depends on when I come in. Then I asked how much it would cost. Talk about sticker shock! He said $55 for an oil change.
Oh well, I decided it was the price I had to pay for a hightech car.

I brought Rhonda in this morning. They were very nice. I asked why the oil change was so expensive. He said it is because they use a special oil in the hybirds. Just as I expected.
But then when I got the bill it was "only" $40. I felt very pleased that they charged so "little" when in fact the oil changes on the Neon used to be under $20.

It is amazing how my expectations about the $55 price changed my attitude toward the actual price.

the plural of nexus: nexi?

2007-02-13T08:07:00.000-08:00

These evil nexi are not orignal but they are worth repeating.
I found this in the Language Log:
The sad thing about Goropism is that within it lie the seeds of the evil nexus of nationalism, racism, and linguistic chauvinism." You could turn that comment into a terrific book on the Dark Side of the enlightenment.
This nexus refers to a "scholar" who explains all human language in terms of Dutch.

The other was a conversation about the evil triangle in New Mexico of Los Alamos, Espanola, and Santa Fe.
The nexus of plutonium, poverty, and privelege.

Random stuff

2007-02-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

A definition I liked:
"An adventure is a tragedy that does not occur."

Upon hearing about the new Intel highspeed chip that supposedly can process teraflops, a trillion operations per second, I had to look up what a teraflop is. Then things got a little strange. There is more than one definition of billion and trillion. The number of zeros after the 1 for both "billion" and "trillion" is different in the US than it is in the UK.
It seems as though this could lead to some major confusions.

Here is how it breaks down:

US: million = 1,000,000 billion = 1,000,000,000 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000
UK: million = 1,000,000 milliard = 1,000,000,000 (called “a thousand million”)
billion = 1,000,000,000,000 trillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

I assume that the teraflop refers to the US trillion, since Intel is a US-based company. But I wonder about how this discrepancy in the names for numbers might cause significant troubles.

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-02-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

I really liked Pan's Labyrinth. I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" it but I thought it was great.
By that I mean that it portrayed such misery and brutality that calling it enjoyment would not be right.
The story takes place shortly after Franco's fascists have taken over in Spain in 1944. At the time there were still pockets of resistance to the regime.
I've known for a long time about the dreadful brutality that was done by Franco. In the movie all of the evil is personified in the character of the Capitan. He does not hesitate to murder or torture anyone who he thinks might be a threat. A hungry father and son are captured while they are out rabbit hunting. The capitan beats the son to death in front of the father and then he shoots the father. After both are dead he looks in the sack they were carrying and finds the rabbits. He tells the cook to prepare them for dinner.
The main character is a little girl whose widowed mother is pregnant with the child of this evil capitan. The mother and daughter are brought to the military encampment so that the capitan can obtain his heir when the child is born. At one point in the movie he says to the doctor "If you have to choose, save the baby."
The little girl retreats into a fantasy world that she creates from the fairytales that she has been reading. The characters in her fantasy world are not beautiful--the fairies look like insects, the faun is a spooky goatlike creature--the land of the fantasy is a grey and ominous ruined well and an ancient tree stump populated by an enormous toad and hundreds of huge beetles. Even though the fantasy world looks scary it is not nearly as terrible as the real world she is escaping from.
The story does not have a conventional happy ending but it is a perfect portrayal of Spanish fatalism.
From the very beginning we know that things will turn out badly. For example, Franco remained in power until the 1970s. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to watch the tragic story unfold.

farther or further?

2007-02-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

It seems like they can be used interchangeably.
I can't walk any farther.
I can't walk any further.

What is the furthest distance you can throw?
What is the farthest distance you can throw?

The one thing that is odd is that the root of both of them is "far" and never "fur".

The American Heritage DIctionary says that they come from Old English: furthor

BNL word play

2007-02-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

On their latest CD The Barenaked Ladies have employed a clever turn of phrase by invoking alternate meanings of a verb.

When I was a baby I learned how to suck,
You have raised it to an art form.

I like the way they force us to interpret what the antecedent of the pronoun "it" must be.

feral sheep?

2007-02-08T10:39:00.001-08:00

More thoughts on New Zealand. This is a country where sheep outnumber people by 10 to one. I started thinking about the relationship between sheep and humans. It occurred me that wild sheep would probably be impossible because they depend on being shorn every year. What would happen if their wool was not clipped? Would it keep growing? Well it appears that it would! Here is a picture of Shrek the sheep. Somehow he managed to outwit the musterers (yep, that is what people who gather sheep are called) for 6 years. By the time they found him he was enormous. He could barely walk. His wool covered his eyes. I would imagine that if the wool got wet he would have weighed so much that he might not be able to support himself. Also, even though you can't really see it too much in the picture, there was moss or algae growing on the wool so he was green, hence the "Shrek" name. He was finally found and sheared in 2004. There is no word on his current condition. Presumably he now gets his annual haircut.

Wong Way

2007-02-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

Those zany Kiwis really have this official street sign. I found it in Te Anau.

I also found big fruit and a BIG dog. The dog was next to an equally large sheep. The fruit were next to some much smaller Japanese tourists.

brilliant ideas

2007-02-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

Why is it that so many brilliant ideas occur to me when I am asleep, in the shower, driving, etc.?
They always seem to come at a time when I can't write them down. Of course I seldom remember them later when I have a means to record them.
Could it be that they are not so "brilliant" as I think?
hmm...It's likely that many of them are really so dumb that it's lucky I haven't written them anywhere.

Volver

2007-02-05T08:39:00.000-08:00

"To return" directed by Pedro Almadovar
This is a wonderful movie about the world of women. Penelope Cruz is luminous. Brilliant and resourceful. Her character deals with the problems she is presented with in the most sympathetic ways.
All of the women in the movie have problems of various kinds. All of them have been hurt.
They band together to help each other.
At first I thought it was going to be a magical realism movie. It isn't. It's about coping with death and violence. It opens with a scene of all the widows at the cemetary cleaning the graves of loved ones.
The other dominating image is the powerful winds of La Mancha.
We understand the effect of winds by seeing a car driving down a road through a wind farm.
The story takes place in a working class neighborhood in Madrid and in an unspecified village some distance away.
I found myself so absorbed in the story that I would forget to read the subtitles. I loved the Castillian Spanish.
The imagery of the widows (we called them 'tanks' when I lived in Spain) was exactly like I remembered.
The other thing I noticed was that even though a number of crimes were committed there was a complete absence of the police. When I was there during the Franco regime the police were omnipresent and oppressive. I think the unwillingness of the characters in the movie to contact the police is a residue of police oppression from 40 years ago. It is also possible that in the masculine world of Spanish tradition, there would have been little sympathy for the crimes of women or of crimes perpetrated upon women so the women handled the situation among themselves without bringing in the authorities.
I don't want to spoil the story by relating any of the plot.
I definitely recommend this movie.

"They felt like that this was..."

2007-02-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

"They felt like that this was their own community."
I've noticed that the use of the two conjunctions in a row "like that" seems to be an element of some dialects of spoken English. It seems to be a 'chunking' issue where the speaker says "they/I/we + feel/felt like" as a chunk where feel+like is a unit.

Either one of the conjunctions could have been omitted:

They felt like this was their own community.
They felt that this was this own community.

I suspect this doublling of conjunctions is rare in written texts but is a common part of the syntax of spoken English.

discovering e.e. cummings

2007-02-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

I've just been looking into e.e. cummings' biography.
He was well-known for his pacifism.
I have realized that many of his poems would be relevant to the current Iraq war.

Here is the beginning of one titled "Why must itself up every of a park" that I liked:

Why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to answer "no"?

-------------
Wonderful images!!

Tristan and Isolde

2007-02-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

The historical background information about the post-roman facts in Cornwall appear to be fairly accurate.
I liked the fact that they identified the Britons, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Picts. I also liked the fact that they didn't bother to recreate some kind of fake accent for everyone. They spoke in conventional modern English.

The story is another reenactment of a famous medieval Celtic legend.
Other versions of the story tell of the doomed love and elopement of the central figures. The story also involves the taking of a magic potion that permanently seals their love. In some versions Tristan become one of the knights of the round table.
The movie version changes most of these things. The characters' names are kept the same but their activities are somewhat different. For example, in an early battle scene Tristan leads the fight against Irish raiders who are stealing women from Cornwall. He is wounded by a blade covered with a paralyzing poison. His compatriots think he is dead and send him out to sea on a funeral boat. When the boat grounds itself in Ireland he is found and revived by Isolde who knows about herbal remedies. In the end of the movie-version Tristan dies.

I don't mind the changing of a legendary story. After all, legends may contain a grain of truth but they are not a historical record. The thing that I did mind was the focus on brutality and the modern sensibilities that were included in the story.
The feminism of Isolde comes across as false. I think nearly half of the story was battle scenes. I can imagine that Hollywood believes that they can't tell a story to the modern audience without all the gore. But for me it seemed to be way over the top.

accident-prone

2007-02-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

adj. Having or susceptible to having a greater than average number of accidents or mishaps.

I am NOT, repeat NOT accident-prone. Granted, I have had a few accidents but I know that this is a case where I am not above average.

I spent a large part of my dreamtime last night arguing with various people about this point. Sure, I did dislocate my arm while snorkeling, sure I did knock myself out when I slipped and cracked my head on a rock at the end of a bridge. (It could have been a lot worse. I could have fallen in the river!) Anyway, these were only two incidents. In neither case did the mishap prevent me from continuing my trip.

But then my horoscope today said: facts turn into stories, which turn into theories, which turn into ideologies. Choose carefully.

Maybe I should just resign myself to this "fact". Tell some stories and get use to an accident-prone ideology?

Rhonda was injured!

2007-01-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

There is a long scratch on Rhonda's door! More than 2 feet long! It almost looks deliberate. I want to believe that it wasn't intentional. I don't like thinking the worst about people.
It happened in the parking lot at CSUN yesterday. Probably just someone walking by, but why did they have to scratch her??? Wah!
At least it isn't terribly deep. I have to look into what I can do about it that will not be too expensive.
I wonder if buffing is possible? It may not completely remove it but make it less obvious and therefore less upsetting for me every time I get open the door...
The downside of having a pretty, new car, I guess. I wouldn't have even noticed on the Neon!

another new semester

2007-01-30T07:08:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of class at CSUN. I will be teaching 2 sections of 417, one today and one tomorrow.
All is not well with my teaching career.
Back in November I was told that I would lose one English course to a "full-time" faculty member.
Then, a week ago I learned that my remaining fully-enrolled English course was being given to another "3-year entitled part-time instructor". His course was under-enrolled and was being cancelled. Since he is entitled to a certain number of units he exercised his right to take over another course from a hapless lower-seniority instructor. (My entitlement is only 1 year. His trumps mine.)
Apparently, my course was the only one which did not overlap with other courses this instructor was teaching so I lose.
Economic catastrophe!

It's time to stop taking my teaching career seriously and look for work that is reliable.
Why am I doing all of this work when I am paid such a pittance?

dictionary fun--zuche and fish slice

2007-01-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

This is a "zuche"

and this is a "fish slice"

New words for old things. Who knew?

a fasces sighting

2007-01-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

So having recently acquainted myself with what Roman fasces look like, they are now coming to my attention.
Here they are today in an LATimes editorial cartoon.

I wonder if this image is a parody of some iconic Mussolini photo?

Lemon Curd, yum!

2007-01-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

Intense, lemony goodness!
I made little lemon tarts for dessert last night.
I used graham cracker crust instead of pastry crust.
The contrast in texture between the lemon curd and the buttery crackers only enhance the taste.
I had no idea that it was so easy to make lemon curd.

To make the lemon tarts: Make 1-9 inch tart crust or 4 individual tart crusts. Cool.
I used a basic graham cracker crust recipe from an old cookbook.

Lemon Curd

2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces

Whisk eggs, yolks, salt and sugar in small saucepan until smooth and light colored.
Add lemon juice, lemon zest and butter.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes.
The constant stirring is very important!
Reduce heat to medium-low, continue stirring all the time.
Cook until curd is thick enough that it coats the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes more.
Curd should be as thick as thick hollandaise.
Pour the hot curd through a fine strainer into tart shell(s).

Refrigerate.

Thoughts upon hearing an interview with Guillermo Del Toro

2007-01-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

Roman fasces

Guillermo del Toro was interviewed on Fresh Air yesterday.
My first reaction was to be very impressed with his erudite speech about film, child psychology and the history of the Spanish Civil War.
My second reaction was to decide I have to see Pan's Labyrinth.
Then I began thinking about what I know about the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco and fascism.

I started with wondering about the etymology of fascism and wondering whether it had ever had positive connotations.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary 'fascism' is derived from 'fasces' the Latin plural of 'fascis' bundle
a fasces is a bunde of rods bound around an ax with the blade projecting, carried before ancient Roman magistrates as an emblem of authority.

From the definition "bundle" Mussolini adopted fascism to describe a political group led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition, emphasizing aggressive nationalism.

So my conclusion is that Fascism has always had negative connotations.

Now, some random thoughts about Franco and the Spanish Civil War.
Franco was still in power when I lived in Spain. I experienced the fascist regime in 3 ways.
1-The ubiquitous Guardia Civil in their funny patent leather hats made me feel safe as a foreigner (as long as I didn't deviate from any of the rules).
2-The abrupt and startling arrival of armed troops swooping down on university gathering-places like the cafeteria or library.
We would be sitting have lunch when suddenly the army would march in rousting everyone from the building. They used bull horns to tell everyone to go home. It was rather frightening for an american kid who had never seen that kind of breach of civil rights, let alone being face to face with so many guns.
3-At home, my landlady, Isabel, had many bitter stories about how her family suffered during the Civil War. Family members killed, tortured, displaced from their homes and left destitute. At the time, 25 years later, she had to take in boarders to survive.

I visited el Valle de los Caidos, Franco's hollowed-out mountain mausoleum which he claimed was bigger than St. Peter's. I don't remember how many people died building the damned thing. It may have been more than 30! The irony of workers dying while building a "monument" to honor the war dead was not lost on me.

Now I really want to see Del Toro's movie!

The -ive/-ful puzzle

2007-01-24T09:09:00.000-08:00

There are a bunch of verbs which end in "ect" (affect, defect, effect, infect, perfect, deflect, inflect, reflect, neglect, abject, object, project, correct, direct, detect, protect, respect, etc.) that can be turned into adjectives by adding either the suffix -ive or -ful. The vast majority of these "ect" verbs use -ive to make adjectives but "neglect" requires -ful (neglectful but not *neglective) and "respect" can use both -ive and -ful (respectful and also respective). The two adjectives 'respective' and 'respectful' have clearly different uses.
What is going on here?
It may be time to investigate the English adjective-making suffixes a little more deeply.

A use for my "old" Powershot G2

2007-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

I love my digital camera. It is an "old" Powershot G2 with the flip out door-thingy that makes it possible to hold the camera in all sorts of odd positions and still see what you are photographing.
You can hold the camera above all the tall people and flip the viewer downward or you can turn it completely backward to photograph yourself.

This is the idea that occurred to me: With my digital camera it is possible to take pictures of the parts of my body that I seldom (or never) see. I'm not talking about prurience here. I'm talking about things like the top of my head, the middle of my back, the bottom of my feet, etc.
I don't have to worry about paying development charges for these odd pictures and I don't have to show them to anyone.
I like the idea of being able to check out the condition of my body as it detiorates into old age. Relive my former glory.
Okay, I know it's weird but I like the idea of reminding myself of the blisters I got on the Milford Track

Most depressing day of the year?

2007-01-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

Supposedly it is today. Dunno, could be. It remains to be seen.
The happiest day of the year this year is supposed to be June 22.

It's happening again!

2007-01-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

I've posted twice in 2007. Neither of them are appearing when I follow links to my blog.
They can be recovered only if I click on the Dec 2006 archive which causes the Jan 2007 archive to appear.
Crazy!

Now I have to deal with finding more lucrative work.
I lost one of my English classes so I will not have enough income to cover my expenses.
I hope an interesting job magically appears soon!

Impressions of New Zealand

2007-01-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

The natural beauty of New Zealand is spectacular.
I loved the 16-hour days.
33.5 miles in 4 days on the Milford track was haaaarrrrdd! but really beautiful too.
The first day (to Clinton hut) was only 3 miles. It was the only rainy day.
The second day was a gradual uphill to Mintaro hut.
The third day was over the pass to Dumpling hut. The uphill was not as bad as I expected. Mackinnon pass was very windy and cold with great views to the valleys on both side. It was the downhill over big rocks that really made me suffer.
We took the side trip to Sutherland Falls. Enormous and very beautiful. I kept thinking that there are not that many people who have had the opportunity to see it because it is so inaccessible.
The last day, 18k to Sandfly Point by 2 pm, was the hardest for me. My blisters were very painful and my muscles were so stiff. I figured if I stopped I might never get going again. I decided that the only way to get to the boat on time was to power on through. I actually arrived almost 2 hours before the boat. Now I had a new dilemma, where to wait for the boat. The view of Milford Sound at Sandfly Point was lovely. A beautiful sunny day. The sandflies were just as bad as everyone predicted. The moment you stood still they would descend. There was a nice shelter except that it was broiling hot in there.
After taking off my boots to soothe my miserable feet I went walking in the frigid Sound but I was chewed by the sandflies.
I ended up spending most of the waiting time cooking in the shelter feeling pleased with myself for accomplishing the 33 miles.

A gorgeous hike. It was definitely worth the blisters and the muscle aches and pains (even the sandflies).

Tuataras, kiwis, weka, moa, fjords, glaciers--it's hard to imagine a more interesting place.
Volcanoes, waterfalls, sheep everywhere!
It makes one want to open a mexican restaurant in Queenstown!

Zorb

2007-01-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how they came to invent zorbing. Maybe it's because New Zealanders are bored.
The only thing you can do is giggle when you are sliding around inside a giant ball bouncing down a hill.
It's totally out of control but extremely funny.
You dive through an impossibly narrow chute to get in. The chute is lubricated with water to help you squeeze through. The attendant zips the chute closed, you walk a couple steps and then you're off...rolling, sliding, laughing.
Getting out of the zorb is something like a breech birth.

The day before New Zealand

2006-12-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Holiday greetings to everyone.

It's been so long since my last post!
Let's see, what have I been thinking about recently?

I want to do the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas) differently in 2007.
I want to see my kids.
I want to decorate.
I know it will be a crazy time because of the usual end of the semester rush, I just need to prepare for it.

I loved the movie Sweet Land (no watches), I hated Babel (5 watches).
I kept thinking of the line that the woman who was shot said "why did we come here?"
The Lives of Others (1 watch) was amazing. Borat (8 watches) was largely unamusing. Watching someone act stupid to make others look stupid is not that much fun. Am I humorless in the same way as my mom? There is that danger-I do take things literally.

I find that if I don't like a movie I have almost nothing to say about it. I really have no interest in rehashing it. The rehash would only cement the unpleasant experience in my mind.
Maybe some of this darkness has to do with the lack of daylight at this time of year.

On the other hand, we are going off to New Zealand tomorrow night. We are hiking the Milford Track, site of part of the Lord of the Rings movie set. I've been told it's been called the most beautiful hike on earth. I think the 4-day trek it is going to be painful. 3/4 days are 12+ miles, a lot of it is up- or downhill. I am in such bad condition. But on the plus side, it is summer there! I guess my biggest hope is that we manage to be on the trail on days when it isn't raining. It rains a lot (!) there.
The website for Wellington says that there are 16 hours of daylight with the sun up for more than 15 hours.

We will be back on January 17. I will post again then.

Walkin' to LA

2006-09-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

This was the 225th anniversary of the founding of LA. Every year on Labor Day the cities of Alhambra and LA re-enact the walk that the first settlers (44 pobladores) made from the San Gabriel mission to Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula mission. There are usually about 1000 people who make the walk. I think there might have been as many as 2000 this year.
The distance is 9 miles mostly on Mission Blvd. Today we walked to LA along with a whole bunch of other people including descendants of the original families.
The sign-in was at 7:00 am at the San Gabriel Mission. They had a sound system playing "walk" music: "Walk like an Egyptian", "Walk Like a Man", "Walk away Renee", etc. They gave out t-shirts and breakfast snacks. It was partly sponsored by Disney so Mickey Mouse was there and every TV station. There was a formal kick-off with speeches by Tony Plano, the star of "Betty the Ugly" and Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of LA and a bunch of city council dignitaries. A band of local Gabrielino Indians came and did a blessing and of course the priest of the San Gabriel mission said a prayer.
There were 2 hard parts to our walk. The first was finding parking. We got up at 4:30 and arrived downtown around 5:30 to board the bus to the San Gabriel mission. Then we drove around for 1/2 an hour and finally parked in Union Station for $12.
The second was walking 9 miles in the heat on pavement. We have walked on trails that long fairly often but walking on pavement is much harder on joints and feet.
The neighborhoods we went through were not very nice but it was really great to see LA from that perspective. They blocked off the streets and we walked down the middle. Everyone walked briskly for the first 3 miles but things began to slow down and spread out by the time we got to mile 5. There was a refreshment stand and water along the way. They city even used these neat connections to take water directly from hydrants and attach a water fountain.
We made it back to Olvera Street before 11. We limped back to our car.
I was never so happy for grapefruit juice as I was when I got home. With a little bit of advil I am feeling pretty good now.

Back from Australia...and 800 pictures later!

2006-08-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

How to choose...how to choose...
We went all over the continent.
The red tingle tree is a variety of eucalytus which occupies the roughly the same ecosystem as the giant sequoias.
They are very old, they are found in a very limited area of southwest Australia in the Walpole national park. They are resistant to fire like redwoods. The heartwood can burn but the outer life support system survives. They even have a red, fibrous bark like the redwoods.
At Walpole there is a wonderful canopy walk bridge.
You can see our shadows on the trunk of the tree.

home invasion

2006-07-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

for me the worst of hells
is walking on eggshells
where is the limit
that I will permit?
I promised myself way back when
how could I ever let this happen again?

Dublin rabbits (ehrm, 'hares')

2006-07-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

There are great rabbit statues in Dublin. This one is dancing on the point of an anvil. Actually they are called 'hares' rather than rabbits. They were done by Barry Flanagan. There are at least 8 of them. They are on O'Connell Street. All of them are lined up from the bridge to the needle. It is a delightful bit of whimsy.

Pangur Bán

2006-07-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

This poem was written by a ninth-century Irish monk is St Gallen, Switzerland.
Monks who illuminated manuscripts are often referred to as the only source of light during the dark ages.

Pangur Bán

I and Pangur Bán my cat
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will
He too plies his simple skill

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

We're off

2006-07-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

...at 5:00 pm
I doubt if I will be able to blog while traveling.

What to do in Ireland

2006-06-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

Besides the obvious Guinness, I have very few goals. In fact, I'm not that fond of beer. I will certainly try it but I won't go out of my way to consume bunches. On the other hand I think I should try to find some Irish artisanal cheeses. And I'll bet it could be possible to find 19th century English grammar books there. It could be fun to spend time in used bookshops.

ear trumpets

2006-06-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered that I can use a kitchen funnel as a rudimentary ear trumpet to amplify the hissing sounds coming from the leak in my *#&*!#%# areo bed. This is the 19th leak I have had in this piece of garbage! It has never been used on anything but a clean carpeted floor. All of the leaks occur in the corners of the impressed indentations. It is clear that it is a defective product. Finding the leaks is a maddening exercise because they are usually pinholes when they start as the plastic gives way at it weak points. They always occur while someone is sleeping on the bed. By the time they realize it is going flat they have spent a miserable night sinking to the floor. Aerobeds suck!!!

This time the leak was under an already patched area where the glue was not completely solid. I tried to find it for four days. I could not feel the tiny wind issuing from the hole and I could not hear the hiss until I thought of using an ear trumpet. What a cool, retro device. It does amplify nearby sounds effectively. I found the hiss quite easily with my kitchen funnel.

noticings

2006-06-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

Two noticings for today:

a large number of announcers (and probably others) in Southern California pronounce "orange" as "are"+ange rather than "or"+ange
This one appears to be consistent. If the speaker does it, he/she does it all of the time.

many people (including me) sometimes insert 'l' into the word "both" so it sounds like "bowl"+th
This one is in free variation. The same person will sometimes do it and at other times not.

Bagdad Cafe and Ireland

2006-06-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

Bagdad Cafe is the best movie I have seen in a long time.
It's set in the Mojave desert. The cast includes a black woman who owns this down and out cafe and a very traditional Bavarian woman who is a tourist. The story involves, well, lederhosen, an Indian sheriff, boomerangs, magic tricks, truckers, a coffee thermos, tattoos and house cleaning. Jack Palance plays a wonderfully quirky artist who paints women and vegetables.
A completely satifying story. I loved it!

We leave for Dublin on Saturday. One thing about Ireland is the amazing familiarity of the place names: Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Londonderry, Killarney, Kildaire, Galway, Kerry, Waterford, Donegal, and Killybegs.

We will go to the Giant's Causeway. Maybe I will finally see puffins!
Then there's the play I would like to see called "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years"
Here is how it's billed:
Jesus Christ (Son of God and father of modern stand-up) returns to earth for His long-awaited comeback tour. He doesn't get past US immigration because He's a bearded, Middle-Eastern guy, fully prepared to die as a religious martyr. He is immediately detained under the Patriot Act. In His first one-man show for almost two millennia, Jesus talks candidly about his time in Guantanamo, His controversial relationship with His Father, and His on-going legal battle with The Life of Brian.

Another try to show off Rhonda

2006-04-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

Function Words
For some reason my attempt to post a picture of Rhonda has not shown up. I am going to try to post again without the photo. Rhonda was delivered on Saturday. She is great! I love having a new car. It takes a little while to get used to the continuous variable transmission and the no shifting. The other thing that takes awhile to adjust to is that my car turns off whenever I stop. It gets so quiet! I love it!
I also love the mileage. Over 40 mpg so far. I have to learn to drive to maximize the miles. Now I understand why people with gas engines get annoyed at hybrid drivers who delay off of stop signs.

Rhonda!

2006-04-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

My new Honda
Rhonda was delivered on Saturday. A 2006 Civic Hybrid. I love driving a fuel-efficient car. Even better, I love driving a reliable car! So far I have gotten to 45.8 average mpg.

back from the frozen north

2006-01-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

Actually, it wasn't so frozen. For some reason, probably global warming, the January temperature on the shore of Lake Superior was in the 40s. Amazing! I think this is very distressing.One more thing to blame on the current administration.

My son and I went to A Prairie Home Companion too. I am reminded about how much I like In My Life and Brokedown Palace. Both were performed beautifully on the show. A really fun evening.

the phone drama continues

2006-01-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

The problem with the phone being connected to our front door is that we use the phone keypad to open the door. So even if the person calls on another phone we still have to go down 4 floors to open the door for them. Also, they would need to know our other phone number, which is fine for friends but a definite problem for delivery people.
Our 'cableguy' manager used his equipment to test our phone. It's the line coming into the building and not something within our house. This is a GOOD thing because I will be out of town (in Wisconsin) on the up-coming repair day. Now I think I will put a note on our intercom button telling the phone guy (I expect a "guy" too!) to check only the outside line. I'd better because he might go away without doing anything if I am not here. Very annoying! Bill said that the reason they made me wait so long for the repair guy is because it is cheaper for Verizon to give customers a credit for lost service than it is to pay overtime for someone to come out promptly. I hate the corporate mentality!

I went hiking in Altadena yesterday. The weather was amazing. 85 degrees on Jan 6! The trail had repeated views of downtown LA. Really nice! I was reminded of how much I love the nearby mountains. The piney smell, the quiet so near to the city. A couple miles up the hill and back. It is good for the soul!

phone groan

2006-01-04T19:46:00.000-08:00

A most annoying turn of events. Some time in the last few days our phone line went down.
There is no dial tone. Dead! It's a good thing I have a cell phone. To further aggravate the problem, the phone is attached to the intercom of our building, which means that anyone coming to our door cannot contact us. I called Verizon repair. They told me that the first repair appointment available is Jan 12. It occurs to me that I should deduct 1/30 from my bill for each day of loss of service. I will call the business office tomorrow to notify them.

Wet Roses

2006-01-02T08:16:00.001-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! (a day late)
We saw Match Point and toasted the new year while watching the fireworks in the fog. The effect of the fog was to make the fireworks look something like an impressionist painting. Just a bit fuzzed out.

The Rose parade is happening and it is pouring! The surf is huge, Trader Joe's has a pirate ship float. We have a gigantic berm on our beach to block the anticipated high tide from washing away our houses.
I thought the attendance at the parade would be much lower because of the weather but that doesn't seem to be the case.

San Diego visit

2005-12-30T11:14:00.000-08:00

99 is my new favorite card game! I had doubts that I would ever have a favorite card game but this was a real kick.
I loved our overnight in San Diego visit. What a fantastic home. It is so nice to reconnect with my cousin. We had a catbird seat for the balloon parade.
Now to completely change the subject, they are talking about pet peeves at the movies. I have concluded that the plague of commericials at theaters may drive me away from them completely. If I am at home I can at least use the MUTE button when the commercials come on. In the theaters the volume of the commercial are always louder than the feature and I feel like a desperate captive. There must be a better way to encourage movie attendance.

San Diego here we come

2005-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

Off to San Diego to see my cuz'.
I don't have a specific plan.
Now I am perusing guidebooks to come up with ideas for things to see.
As I look at the list of museums I can't remember being inside any of them!
That doesn't mean I haven't been, it just means my memory aint what it used to be.
It's time to look on-line.
Gotta bring my computer to show off our pictures too.

North Country

2005-12-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

I just saw North Country. It was easy to hear the sexist language of miners as typical of men I have known.
What was especially troubling was that this happened in the place where I come from. I feel outraged that people could have been completely sincere in 1990 when they said 'women don't belong in mining, they are taking jobs away from men.

more pix of near and dear

2005-12-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

In New Guinea markets people actually asked to be photographed. This was Mt Hagen, among the chickens. It's a good thing we weren't worried about bird flu at the time.

He hasn't been a "little" boy for a long time, but he is still my boy. Doesn't he look great? It was a wonderful wedding.

Our New Guinea trip was the most exotic a place I have ever been. What an amazing country!

They are a beautiful couple. It is still hard to realize that my baby girl is now older than I was when she was born!

a few pix of my nearest and dearest

2005-12-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

In July, I visited the offices of Dewey, Cheetham and Howe at Car Talk Plaza. They even gave me ice cream. My fraternity housemates were very happy about that.

2005-12-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

Function Words: She who so shall, so shall she who

2005-12-25T11:53:00.000-08:00

Here it is Christmas day 2005!
Merry Christmas all.
Since nobody is aware of the presence of my blog this greeting will go unanswered.
I love my yellow sweater with ruffles (!) and I am delighted with the New Yorker CDs.