Wednesday, 8 February 2006
We’re back to our usual grind, here in Atlanta. One bright spot is a walk to Piedmont Park. I always enjoy this view east down Lake Clara Meer (even the Park’s web page doesn’t say who Ms. Meer was), and sometimes try to count the swimming ducks. The north bank (left in photo) used to have a resident pair of chickens (no lie!), but they seem to have moved on. Hopefully, one of the many dogs walked in the park didn’t get them!
Monday, 6 February 2006
Monday. Rain, unceasing rain. A day so overcast night lights are on across the city even at midday. Puddles have advanced to near-lake status. Drainage sewers must be near capacity (I’ve yet to hear about any sink-holes yet, though!).
In contrast, I choose instead to post this image from a winter’s night in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, collected from a visit to the memory chest we call iPhoto….
Saturday, 4 February 2006
Crocus blooms may be the unsung heroes of northern springtime. How can I improve on their brilliance with mere words?
Thursday, 2 February 2006
Seattleites are fighting mold sprouting beneath their fingernails this year more than most (El Niño? global warming trends?), but at the odd moment in the afternoon the skies may relent and the Cascades reappear.
Think of the smattering of Northwest Coast peoples’ mythologies you know—the role of ravens, for example—they will brave moderate rains to go about their business. We even saw them bathing in the creek in the rain! And squabbling with gulls over edible treasures…. [Yeah, I know these are crows; gimme some poetic license!]
Didn’t see any mold between their claws either!
Wednesday, 1 February 2006
Rainy becomes sunny and the grey and flat becomes the sparkling of well-cut gems.
A front-page story on The Wall Street Journal on 31 Jan “Greenspan’s Legacy Rests on Results, Not Theories” by Greg Ip (sorry, I read the paper version, so no link) describes Greenspan’s philosophy for running the Fed as based on Bayesian-influenced risk management decision-making where he’s willing to deliberately risk smaller mistakes to prioritize avoiding much bigger ones. Drawing on Isaiah Berlin’s 1953 book categorizing people as having either hedgehog or fox approaches—Berlin got this idea from an ancient Greek, according to the web—Ip argues that Greenspan is a fox. Hedgehogs are those who have pretty fixed single beliefs and they aren’t willing or adept at altering their approaches or viewpoints based on new information. Foxes, on the other hand, draw from an array of traditions, aren’t hidebound, and accept ambiguity as inevitable.
So, are you mostly hedgehog or mostly fox and does it put you mostly in the rain or in the sun?
Monday, 30 January 2006
My favorite parts of the day are the transitions at dawn and dusk. If sunlight fuels our lives on this planet (well, along with oxygen, water, the CHON chemicals), then moonlight may well fuel our souls.
Monday, 30 January 2006
I’m quite happy living in Atlanta where I do not see banks of rotting snow, depressingly grey (the most unattractive grey imaginable), with the texture of decay, and the charm of an unaged buffalo chip. Remnant snowbanks just do not happen in Atlanta, at least in these days of global warming (perhaps it was different during the Little Ice Age).
Atlanta (and Georgia in general) does have its drawbacks. I’m thinking excessive humidity (I’ve seen oiled wood kitchen cupboards turn green with mold provoked not by poor housecleaning, but by their presence in an unairconditioned house), chiggers (the worst thing about fieldwork), rattlesnakes and copperheads, and assorted closed-minded staunch fundamentalists, rednecks, and Republicans.
Of course, some of the latter bunch crop up most places in our fine nation.
Monday, 23 January 2006
I know it’s only January, but I have a hankering for a mountain hike, I think because we had such a spectacular one last year, when we descended to the west from Brasstown Bald, the highest place in Georgia. The weather was unsurpassed; we started in the clouds, with leafless winter vegetation around us. As we descended, we moved with the seasons, seeing buds, then tiny leaves, assorted mushrooms, then finally reaching the road in full-out spring leaves, with happy lusty-strong poison ivy.
During yesterday’s walk, however, John and I plodded through rain during early rush hour, no sparkle to the sodden landscape. I found the urban noises and looming dusk rendering the adventure so totally dissimilar, I dreamed about the Brasstown descent as an escape from the Atlanta drone.