26 July 2006

knots 2 u

yesterday at 2:20PM i was one thing. by 2:27PM i was given the information i was to be something else.

.

today. i am something else, indeed.

cryptic enough for ya?

well, that’s is sort of how it feels.

24 July 2006

Meshugeh

A brick shy of a load, around the bend, balmy, bananas, bats in my belfry, batty, bizarre, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crackers, crackpot, crazed, crazy as a coot, crazy as a loon, cuckoo, daffy, daft, delusional, demented, deranged, ding-a-ling, dingbat, dippy, disturbed, fruit loops, fruitcake, gaga, half-baked, insane, kook, loco, looney-tunes, loony, loopy, lost me marbles, lunatic, mad, mad as a hatter, not all there, lost me marbles, not playing with a full deck, not right in me head, nutcase, nuts, nutter, nutty as a fruitcake, off me dot, off me rocker, out of me head, out of me mind, out to lunch, potty, psycho, psychotic, screw loose, screwball, screwy, sick, soft in me head, teched, touched, touched in me head, unbalanced, unhinged, wacko, wacky, warped, whacked.

Nuff sed?

17 July 2006

The sprain in Maine

I am home from work today.

Why? Because I sprained my right ankle on Saturday.

I was invited to go sailing aboard a 35' Baba with my close friends and neighbors. We were going out for 12+ hours and hoped, with the right wind to get out to where we were likely to see whales.

The wind was not right to sail to the most likely place to see whales. So, we sailed and motored over to Cranberry Isles, an island town comprised of several islands. On the way, we did see a Minke whale. We got off on Baker Island to the southeast of Mount Desert Island.


This is a shot of The Baker Island Light Station. It marks the southwestern entrance to Frenchman Bay. The 43' high brick lighthouse (105 foot high focal plane) is located on the eastern coast and was built per order of then President, Quincy Adams to warn mariners of the treacherous shoals around the Cranberry Islands and the sand bar that connects it with Little Cranberry Island.


The Baker Island “Dance Floor,” is gorgeous, pink granite slab surrounded by piles of huge granite chunks. This is LBE. She is not resting. She is doing a private Pas de Deus with the granite. It was lovely to watch. She rolled and twisted and hung cantilevered and did a slow dance with the slow moving rocks.

After an hour or so, each of us taking time to ourselves to dance, nap, read, we walked back to where we tied up the tender. Within 100' of the shore as I was walking, talking about Northern Cardinals with Marco, I turned my ankle in a wagon wheel rut and ouch!

I sat down immediately. After a few moments of rest and using Marco as a crutch, I hobbled back to the tender. Getting out of the tender without tipping, up the convex side of the boat, (known for its high water line) over the gunwale and in was not easy.

But friends LBE and SBE helped and encouraged. LBE got an icepack from the cooler, and after rubbing a healthy dose of Arnica (an anti-inflammatory, pain reliever and a local antibiotic, that is used for dislocations, sprains, bruises, chilblains, and varicose ulcers. It helps to prevent bruising and swelling after traumatic injuries and prevents bruising at the site of injury.) gel on the sprain, wrapped my ankle with an ace bandage to hold the ice pack in place. I was able to recline on the bench with my leg up on the side deck and my foot elevated on the gunwale.


Always prepared, LBE had Rescue Remedy on board. Rescue Remedy is a combination of Bach Flower Essences (Star of Bethlehem: trauma and shock; Clematis: the tendency to faint and unconsciousness, being ‘far away’ and not present mentally; Cherry Plum: fear of mind giving way, verge of breakdown; Impatiens: irritability and tension; Rock Rose: terror and panic) that is beneficial when one finds oneself in traumatic situations, such as stress, emergencies, after getting bad news, before an exam or job interview and all other kind of situations where one may suddenly loose emotional balance. The Essences help to quickly get us back in balance so that we may calmly cope better with a situation.) I took several drops in my drinking water.

We did all the right things soon after the injury. So. I’m in pretty good shape but I knew that being in our new office with its flight of stairs would not be a good idea for me today. I’m home trying to keep my foot elevated and resting.

14 July 2006

warm

It is 9:35 PM. It is also 84 freekin’ degrees in the house.

I am cranky.

Tough shit.

13 July 2006

Hummer in hand

Take a close look. The little blighter has actually landed on my finger!
(click image to see enlargement)


By the way. If you put up hummer feeders it is really best not to use the colored premade-crap-kind of nectar. Food coloring is bad enough for us bigguns never mind a critter as small as a hummingbird. It is also so much cheaper to make your own. Sugar and water. That's it.

Here's the recipe for the syrup:

  • Use one part ordinary white cane sugar to four parts water.
  • It's not necessary to boil the water. The microorganisms that cause fermentation don't come from the water; they are transported to the feeder on hummingbird bills.
  • Store unused syrup in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
This is an all around great hummer info site: http://www.hummingbirds.net/index.html
Read this if you care to know more about dye in hummer food: http://www.hummingbirds.net/dye.html

Also try to find a feeder with a perch. While they have no problem feeding with out one, every ounce of energy they can save is a huge help to survival.



Photos were all taken holding the camera in my right hand while holding the feeder in the other hand.


ruby and rufous















Here then, for those wanting to know, are photos showing the difference between Rufous (Selasphorus rufus) and Ruby-throated (Archilochus colubris) hummingbirds. The Rufous is a decidedly western bird. The Ruby-throated decidedly eastern.

I have no idea who Paul Conover is. I could guess, a bird photographer.

10 July 2006

some things I did today

I drove 100 miles to give a presentation to 7 cosmetologists, aka: “hair care workers.”

I watched the episode The Brave and The Backache of The Dick Van Dyke Show and marveled at what a physical comedic genius Dick Van Dyke is (was).

I found this under my bird feeder:














And I found these all over my yard:

03 July 2006

The Final Frontier

I went out this evening, well, not out-out; the mosquitoes are easily, not kidding, in the millions tonight, but out on my screened porch and then run-fast-quick out to my car, to watch the International Space Station orbit overhead. A perfect night to view it from this part of New England as the skies were clear, the sun was just down giving the ISS a lot of shine and early enough for me to still be awake.

In just 3 minutes that thing, hurtling through space rose WNW, glided overhead SSW and darkened from view SE as it entered Earth’s shadow. As I sat in my car and watched through binoculars at this spacecraft shining like a sharp, bright star, I could not help but find it astonishing to consider there are people in it!

The highlighted circle is the region where the satellite was at least 10° above my horizon. (The size of the circle depends on the height of the satellite.)

Solid part of orbit shows where the satellite was sunlit, and the dashed part where it went into the Earth’s shadow and was rendered invisible. That occured about 9:20PM.