Teleidoscope

Tue, Mar 31, 2009

Flash Floods

Posted at 7:13 pm MDT to Weather

After the few days f storms, we had a couple of nice days. Then it clouded up again, and today we had occasional bursts when it rain cats, dogs and hamsters.

At least this front has less thunder and lightning.

All the waterways were already full from the previous round of rain, so there are flood and flash flood warnings in all of the counties around here. Nothinglike what Fargo is getting, of course, but 4 feet too much is still a flood if it takes out the roads and drives people from their homes.

I'm not in an area in danger of flooding, as far as I can tell. The biggest nuisance I have is that the weekend storm knocked out the traffic light at the corner so it flashes yellow and red. (I've gotten spoiled. The first couple of week I was here there wasn't a traffic light there: they just installed it. But I've gotten used to having the left turn arrow to help when I come home from work.)

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Sat, Mar 28, 2009

Digger

Posted at 12:52 pm MDT to Media

I had been hearing about an online comic called Digger that was supposed to be very good. It recently moved to a new site that made it more accessible, and I finally looked into it.

It is very good. Very philosophical and with great charcaters who are vivid both individually and culturally. The art (black and white only) is beautiful.

The heroine, Digger, is a sentient wombat who inadvertently tunnels to somewhere strange.

Other characters (so far: I'm about 3 months into the archive) include: the statue of Ganesh, a "shadowchild" who doesn't know who or what he is, Ed the outcast hyena, Second Librarian Vo, the Oracular Slug and the temple rats (little furry librarians).

It seems to have started in February 2007, but generally updates Tuesdays and Thursdays so the back story is not huge. The beginning is here.

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Lightning

Posted at 9:56 am MDT to Weather

Thunderstorms along the Gulf Coast don't mess around with half measures. I was awakened at about 4 am by a thunderstorm that produced lightning flashes every few seconds for several minutes. There were a couple of bursts like that yesterday, too. Most of the thunder seemed fairly distant, but that means the lightning bolts that were lighting up the sky.

There have been problems with flooding because of three days of heavy rain. And there were tornadoes in Mississippi and further inland in Alabama because of the strength of the storms. But the weather seems to be clearing up for a while

It was cloudy when I got up this morning, but now the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Trees and bushes that were just bare sticks a week ago are putting out green leaves.

Weather.com says there may be scattered thunder showers on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it should be sunny until then. This will be a relief after the past several days of very dark cloud cover.

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Thu, Mar 26, 2009

Precipitation

Posted at 7:33 pm MDT to Weather

The weather report a couple of days ago predicted 100% chance of rain for the Mobile area. I was amused, since in Colorado they seldom call for more than a 70% chance of rain even when it is actually raining.

We have had rain. Also thunder and lightning.

And there must have been a power glitch last night: this morning I discovered the hard way that the apartment's alarm clock does not have battery back-up. My furry backup alarm clock also failed, since cats are solar powered and the clouds, rain, and recent timechange made the room very dark. Fortunately, my internal clock works pretty well. I awakened (out of a very strange dream) only about half an hour later than usual.

Meanwhile, Colorado has been hammered by a blizzard that has most of the major highways officially closed and most other roads just impassible. I'm glad I travelled home last week.

It turns out I'll be travelling back to Colorado again next Thursday (and arriving very late i the evening)-- I hope enough snow melts by then that I can get into my driveway. If not, I'll stay at Nanette's.

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Tue, Mar 24, 2009

Hero Parrot

Posted at 8:17 pm MDT to Current Events

The Denver Red Cross has given an award to a Quaker parrot that saved the life of a toddler his owner was babysitting. The little girl started choking on a piece of pop-tart while the sitter was in the restroom, and Willie the parrot squawked and flapped his wings and yelled "Momma Baby" and made noises his owner had never heard him make before, so she hurried back into the room in time to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

Willie was only about a year old, so he didn't have a huge vocabulary, but according to the original report he did know how to say things other than Momma and Baby. It seems that he not only recognized that there was a problem and gave the alarm, he used words that were contextually appropriate.

Clever bird. I wonder if he knows it is himself he sees in mirrors...

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Sun, Mar 22, 2009

Tabla Concert

Posted at 12:15 pm MDT to Media

Last night's concert by the Boulder Philharmonic was outstanding.

The opener was the Estancia suite by Ginastera: sort of an Argentinean equivalent to Copeland's Rodeo.

The symphony was Dvorak's 8th, which is inspired by Central European folk music.

In between, they performed two world premieres -- pieces that have never been performed in public before. The other pieces that have premiered at the Phil over the years have been a mixed bag, but these were both amazingly good. Both pieces got standing ovations.

The Concerto for Tabla and Orchestra was written by a local composer, Bill Douglas, who is on the music faculty at the Naropa Institute, our local Buddhist University. It included rhythms and melodic themes from Africa, Celtic music, Medieval themes and others (all different uses of 12/8 time) and included a spectacular tabala solo. Also some interesting vocal percussion performed by some of the orchestra musicians.

The second short piece, Beirut Sensations, was written by the tabla soloist, Rony Barrak. The percussion was less spectacular, but the music was beautiful.

I appreciated the diversity of rhythms in last night's concert. Formal European music evolved with a lot of melodic and harmonic complexity but was fairly bland rhythmically. Adding influences from more rhythmically complex traditions (Including European folk dances) produces a wonderful result. (I'm sure they would not have been appreciated by 19th century concert-goers whose ears have not been trained by exposure to jazz, rock, and world music.)

Ironically, the Phil announced next year's concert, and because of the recession they have had to pull back to programs of mostly standards to try to put lots of bodies in seats. Interesting programming like last night's concert and the other programs of the past couple of years is not going to happen again for a while.

It's odd to look at a schedule that includes

Night on Bald Mountain 
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique
Brandenberg Concerto #3
Beethoven's Fifth
Brahm's Piano Concerto 1
Ravel's Bolero
Carmina Burana
Chopin Piano Concerto 2

and think it looks bland. It reminds me of the Time-Life Treasury of Classical Music my parents owned, which is a little disappointing after all of the neat stuff I've been exposed to by the Phil over the years. I hope they can afford to be a little more adventurous for the 2010-2011 season.

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Sat, Mar 21, 2009

Budget

Posted at 5:34 pm MDT to Travel

The Denver office of Budget Rent-a-Car is amazingly inept. My trip home yesterday went very smoothly until I reached the car rental office, which was effectively understaffed: there were 4 people on-site (5 if you count the one in the exit booth) but it seemed like there was only one who could actually get anything done. And she was monopolized by a 45 minute conversation (at 10:30pm) with a customer who wanted nitpick about things on a bill that the local office has no control over anyway.

I have to confess, I hope this unknown turkey will get audited by the IRS: I'm sure he will enjoy nitpicking their. ON his time, not mine.

My back and arms are complaining a little today because because I didn't use a roller bag and ended up carrying my small bags through the Mobile, Houston and Denver Airports. I'll probably be fine by Monday... when I have to do the whole thing again in the other direction. But it is nice to be able to keep my property under my control without having to gate-check it for the commuter-airline flight.

And it's annoying that I can't even eat the tiny packages of pretzels that are all they serve on the flights any more. (There was barley malt flour in them.) I'm going to buy some buffalo jerky at Costco tomorrow so I have it for the trip back to Mobile.

Other than that the trip went well. It's nice to be able to sleep in my own bed, surrounded by all of ny stuff. I picked up my accumulated mail. I'm reading books I had left behind, unfinished, when I headed out, and watching stuff that has accumulated on the DVR. I'm going to the Philharmonic concert this evening. And tomorrow evening I'm going out to dinner with Nanette.

And I'm breathing air, not water vapor.

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Thu, Mar 19, 2009

Flying Home

Posted at 7:05 pm MDT to Travel

I'm packing for a quick trip home. Air connections between Mobile and Denver are pretty gnarly, so I'm flying Friday evening (arriving very late), and Monday morning (leaving very early. But it means I will spend 3 nights in my own bed.

Dinah Kitty will be annoyed.

I'll also be attending a Philharmonic concert.

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Iditarod

Posted at 6:58 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

This year's Iditarod finished this week and one of the news sites had a bunch of photos.

I was pleased to see that the sled dogs' equipment includes little jackets and booties when the conditions get really bad. And there was one picture of dogs at a rest stop laying on top of hay in little yellow sacks like sleeping bags. They were very cute, with just their heads sticking out of the yellow covers.

The hay seems to be standard procedure, so there is something between the dogs and the snow while they rest, but the sleeping bags (or maybe little tarps wrapped around them?) only showed up in one picture.

The Iditarod is a sporting event I'mm a bit ambivalent about. I'm sure the sled dogs enjoy racing, just as race horses do. But I think humans sometimes take excessive advantage of the animals trust. The weather turned bad near the end of this year's race, and at least three dogs died.

If it is available on DVD, I would like to rent the movie "Attla/Spirit of the Wind", (about the famous mucher George Attla) which I saw years ago. It's a beautiful film. And I remember being surprised to realize that what sled dogs ate in the old days in the native villages was mostly salmon... George Attla and his father built an amazing waterwheel salmon catching device to get the fish to feed his first competitive team.

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Wed, Mar 18, 2009

Car Window

Posted at 6:32 pm MDT to Technology

Today was a dry, sunny day, and also a payday. These were both helpful, because this morning the power mechanism for my passenger side window broke, with the window in the lowered position.

The window is now closed, but the inside panel of the door is still at the repair shop. The mechanic couldn't get the part he needed today, so he closed up the car so I would have it this evening. Tomorrow morning I will take the truck back to the repair place and he will finish the repairs.

Driving a vehicle from the 2000 model year has its disadvantages. This is the second time this year that I've had to wait while a part was ordered. I think the truck will last a while yet -- I've only got about 72000 miles on it -- but I think I need to plan to get a new one in a year or so. It seems to be starting to self-destruct from age, and I want a reliable vehicle.

Checking online, I've learned that (unlike the rest of the world) there are no front-wheel-drive based pickups sold in North America, not even by the Japanese companies.
How annoying. Maybe if I hold off buying until the next model year they will have at least improved the gas mileage.

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Tue, Mar 10, 2009

Fog

Posted at 9:58 pm MDT to Weather

It's really unfair to have a morning of really dense fog so soon after Daylight Savings time started. It was dark this morning.

And it's a little depressing to run the windshieldwipers to clear the condensation and have them leave yellow streaks of pollen. No wonder I'm having occasional bouts of sneezing and watery eyes.

I have noticed that a lot of shrubs and trees have started flowering during the past few days, so I suppose I should be grateful this is not an ecosystem I'm very sensitized to.

It could be worse: they're having deadly blizzards in North Dakota and Minnesota, and according to weather.com the weather here in Mobile at 10:25 pm was 64 degrees F and 86% humidity. And sunrise was at 7:07am, with fog... no wonder it was hard to get up this morning.

There ought to be a rule against having daylight savings time sart before the equinox.

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Sun, Mar 08, 2009

Gadgets

Posted at 8:06 pm MDT to Technology

My google-fu has improved, so I finally got USB working with VMware. The key was to search for the error message "vmware remote usb device disconnected". And it turns out the VMWare Infrastructure GUI needs to do the connecting explicitly.

The TomTom has updated its software (finally) and is now downloading the latest maps. While out shopping today, I got it a case, so it won't get all scratched up if I toss it into my bag or briefcase.

I also got a cable to connect my MP3 player to the aux jack of the new car radio. (I still need to figure out how to reset the time on that: it's now two hours off, since I had never changed it after I arrived here from Colorado.)

And I'm now using a different Targus mouse because the old one had gotten very unreliable. (It takes a lot of mousing to wear out an optical mouse, but the old one was several years old.) I bought the new one when they were on sale a while back, and I'm glad I remembered to toss it into one of the travel crates. I don't know whether switching mice helped the USB problems... it probably didn't hurt.

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Sat, Mar 07, 2009

Raise the Camels

Posted at 12:50 pm MST to Media

"Raise the camels" is apparently what you say when it's time for a caravan to get moving, because when they stop to rest they lay down to chew their cuds (or whatever camels do instead of chewing cuds). There's a lot of raising of camels in the movie I just watched.

My back has been complaining a little, so I dug my yoga DVDs out of the travel crate this morning. (I think I am either losing a little weight or it is rearranging itself: I got in my own way less than the last time I did the last time I did yoga.)

Next to the yoga DVDs in the crate was Warriors of Heaven and Earth which I bought when I was living in Boston last and never watched or unpacked. I watched it this morning.

The movie is an excellent "Chinese Western" set along the Silk Road in 700AD, with swords instead of rifles and Turks instead of Indians. You can tell it's a Western (and aimed at an international market) because not quite all of the main characters are deadat the end. I've gotten used to the fact that Chinese movies tend to have body counts that would impress an Elizabethan tragedian, so it's refreshing to have someone survive.

The scenery and costumes were gorgeous. (Including some of the fanciest male hairstyles I've seen since the elves from Lord of the Rings). And there are lots of excellent sword fights, major battles, and horses (and camels). The battles were sort of John Wayne stylized, not over the top wu xia style.

According to the 'making of' special, the "helicopter" shots were done with an ultralight aircraft and a hot air balloon, since they were out in the middle of the Gobi.

And it's nice that the female lead got to take part in the climactic battle, not just serve as a love interest or baggage. (She was in charge of setting off ballistas and rockets, etc. while the men fought with swords and bows and arrows. Very reasonable.)

I will want to rewatch this on my big screen TV when I get home. I'm sure there are details I missed on the smaller screen.

I also find myself wanting to learn some Mandarin. One of the characters (Played by Kiichi Nakai) is a Japanese warrior whose letters home had Japanese voiceovers. Chinese movies are generally subtitled, sometimes in more than one dialect, even for home consumption, so the Japanese parts would not bother the audience. But it made me miss being able to follow along with the subtitles, which I can do, to some extent, in Japanese and many European languages.

The DVD comes with soundtracks in Mandarin, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and subtitles in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese... I watched in Chinese with English subtitles, but it might be interesting to mix and match. Watching a Chinese movie with a Spanish dub and Spanish subtitles might be an interesting way to refresh some of my very rusty Spanish. I seem to be able to read it better than I hear it, these days.

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Fri, Mar 06, 2009

Couscous Stir Fry

Posted at 5:53 pm MST to Technology

A very, very fast meal.

frozen tilapia fillet
Birdseye Steamfresh veggies (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower
salt
couscous
soy sauce

Thaw the tilapia fillet and cut into small pieces.

Heat a little oil in a wok.

Boil 1 cup of water. Add salt and a cup of couscous, cover and set aside to hydrate.

Put the tilapia in the wok and stir it around.

Meanwhile, nuke the veggies to the low end of the recommended cooking time. Add some of them to the wok, along with soy sauce and stir for a minute. Serve over some of the couscous.

Voila. A tasty, balanced meal in about 5 minutes.

If more time is available, start cooking rice about 15 or 20 minutes ahead of everything else and use that instead of the couscous.

(Actually, I think I like couscous better than rice. Thank goodness I'm not allergic to wheat along with the other allergies. I don't think I could live without real bread and pasta and other wheat stuff. Or maybe I just wouldn't want to.)

The new frozen food packages designed for microwave steaming are really handy. I suspect I'll need to play with the times in Colorado because of the lower boiling temperature.

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Thu, Mar 05, 2009

Mortgage

Posted at 7:41 pm MST to Miscellaneous

I have refied my house a few times over the years, but most of the money went back into the house, and not for bling.

Over the years since I first moved in I have:

jacked the foundation
replaced the posts that hold up (and down) the porch roof
replaced the roof when it was leaking badly
put stucco siding over the original cheap plywood
replaced the doors
added the back door and back porch
replaced all wondows (some twice)
rebuilt the front porch larger and added railings
replaced the water well pump twice and the water softener once
replaced the unusable wood stove with one that works
replaced rotting living room carpet
put in piped gas instead of propane and replaced the furnace
replaced that furnace, added central air
replaced the electric water heater with a gas one
moved the breaker box from the bathroom outdoors (per code) 
put the power lines underground
replaced supercheap cupboards and counters in kitchen and bath 
replaced sinks 
added utility sink in basement
installed washer, dryer and chest freezer
installed dishwasher
replaced kitchen appliances twice
replaced all light fixtures on main level
had the septic system redesigned and rebuilt

I owe more on the house than I originally paid for it, but not a lot more. I have just completed 4 years of payments since my last refi. I have paid off 1/4 of the principal in these 4 years. That's one year ahead of the amortization schedule.

The current mortgage is a fifteen year mortgage, but I have prepaid enough principal that even if I only made the official amortizing payments I would only have 10 years left instead of 11. (I have never made a 'real' payment on the mortgage: I always have at least rounded up to the next hundred dollars.)

If I can maintain the monthly payments I have been making for most of the past year, I will have the house paid off within 30 years from the original purchase in 1985. I might even be able to cut another year off that if I can increase the payments a little more.

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Sun, Mar 01, 2009

Pizza Kit

Posted at 10:01 pm MST to Technology

Amy's makes a non-dairy frozen pizza with roasted vegetables. It's not bad, but I think that next time I will try grating some goat mozzarella on top before it goes in the oven.

I cooked the pizza using the pizza kit which is part of my traveling gear: stone, peel, cutter and a serving rack that the pizza stone can sit on. Leaving the pizza on the stone after it came out of the oven helped keep it warm.

I have never actually used the kit for baking a pizza (homemade or frozen) before. It is in my traveling gear so I can use the stone and peel when baking bread.

Other things in my traveling gear (usually because I ended up buying them while in previous corp housing even though I already had them at home):

coffee mugs (corp housing never has large mugs)

magic timer for hard boiled eggs

coasters

trivets

spoon rest

can opener

kitchen shears

measuring cups and spoons

flyswatter

bandaids, generic neosporin, aloe vera ointment, etc.

plastic storage canisters for flour and sugar

salt and pepper grinders

electric kettle

teapot

stick blender with carafe and attachments 
   so it can play the part of a regular blender 

I haven't bothered to unpack a lot of the small utensils from my crates, because the kitchen in this apartment is actually fairly well equipped (it even has a wire whisk and a good cork screw). I've had mixed luck with that in the past: Minneapolis was the best before now, Portland and the first Boston place were pretty mediocre, and the second place in Boston wasn't really a corp apartment and came with no equipment at all.

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