Thursday, 25 October 2007
The fires finally seem to be slacking off in southern California. Whew. Let’s see what this does to our national bottom line; will it amplify or dampen the national and international credit upheaval?
I suppose it depends on the time frame—in the next week, month, several years?
And ol’ Brownie’s buddy finally shows.
Monday, 22 October 2007
…in which life returns to its normal patterns, with the addition on my desk of a new oversized (for me) screen.
Wait. Not normal. It’s raining here in ATL!
And way not normal: relatives (by marriage) are evacuated and even closer relatives are awaiting possible evacuation orders in the San Diego area. Too bad the LA-oriented national news is covering Malibu over SD—where something like 300,000 people (yes, well over a quarter of a million) are staying in the homes of relatives, friends or strangers, bunking at hotels, and even Qualcomm Stadium.
Sunday, 14 October 2007
1. What do you call a grizzly bear with no teeth?
2. Why did the tiger eat the tightrope walker?
Humor from a 6 year old….
1. A gummy bear.
2. He wanted a balanced meal.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Overnight, we kept our window open to temper the heat of our room. [Old hotels; you know the drill.]
5 am: Through the cracked window all I could hear was night-silence.
5:45 am: Rain sounds begin. Drip drip.
7:00 am: Rain has turned to snow.
7:45 am: Slow-drifting snow flakes are huge (shown above).
8:30 am: We descend below the snowline, about 10 minutes below the Lodge parking lot.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
We saw snow today at Santiam Pass, although the cloud cover’s precipitation was rotting it away.
Yes, Grasshopper, Dorothy’s not in Kansas (alternately, me/Georgia) anymore.
Friday, 5 October 2007
Finally we had over twenty-four hours of off-and-on rain, some of it rather drizzly, so the plants are renewed. This afternoon during a break, we walked over to the bank and PO, only it was more like swimming through the humidity!
I liked this panorama from the Hudson River Valley that JCB brought back from his trip this week to Montreal, which he drove to from the Newburgh NY airport. While he didn’t compose his itinerary with this in mind, it turned out to be extremely wise ’cause his passport’s expired, and he could drive across the border with it, but wouldn’t have been able to fly out of the country.
I know it’s a major change of topic, but I couldn’t keep from commenting on this article that discusses the argument that keeping old ladies around conferred evolutionary advantage. It kinda misses the point that larger family groups, or larger groups with significant social bonds have an evolutionary advantage—if the higher head count is in productive adults rather than children or ailing adults—over smaller social units competing in the same social landscape.
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Seems like our future, maybe the future of life “as we know it” on this planet, is wrapped up in water. Gotta have water.
Gotta have air, too, but it seems that we can survive long enough to reproduce when we live with polluted air. For example, consider smokers, who deliberately inhale highly polluted air (although other airborne contaminants are more dangerous than the typical modern US ciggy), and modern urban China. No lack of reproductive success with either of those populations.
Food, well, yup, that’s a necessity. But we get our food primarily from agribusiness. And agriculture is without a doubt dependent on water, so our food sources depend on water. too.
By water, I don’t mean simply potable water, or rainfall, or even groundwater. But the big, capital W water: that is, water from anywhere.
If I decided to go into the legal profession, I’d specialize in legal issues associated with water. It ties into human rights, civil rights, group vs individual rights, ownership, distribution control, the whole shebang.
I’m thinking, in fact, that the folks who are specialists in other resources (petroleum products, scarce metals and minerals) are already working to corner markets and build in legal loopholes to give Them advantages in the economics of water. I also figure that The Angler and his ilk have been getting laws changed to help those folks, and that we’ll only find that out sometime in the mist-free future….
At first glance, I was mystified today when I examined our water/sewer bill and discovered we pay over twice as much for sewage (based on how much water we consume, so the volumes are—assumed to be—the same) than for water. But then I figured, I suppose it costs more to make sure sewage doesn’t contaminate, tada!, water, than it does simply to deliver clean water to my house.
Next topic to ponder: how better to use graywater (more on this in the southwest than these parts: examples from Arizona and New Mexico), a practice promoted in a leaflet included with our water/sewer bill. Someone who goes to the trouble of toting their shower water out to plants was lauded. We use our dish water on outdoor plants, but the shower water goes down the drain (for now). As I understood it (maybe this is now incorrect: note to self, check on this), we couldn’t directly pipe our graywater into the yard, but we can carry it out there. Some people use graywater (sometimes greywater) for flushing, and I guess that may not be a violation.
Rather twisted logic there, no?
So, would the agribusiness water demand drop if we consumed significantly less grain (takes lots of water to grow and process) replacing it with non-starchy vegetables (as diet specialists recommend would improve our health)?—veggies sold only minimally processed?
Sunday, 16 September 2007
Amazingly, the weather’s turned cool, and I’m not hearing the buzz of the cicadas that I heard all summer even through closed windows (hmm, maybe we need to upgrade our windows).
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Late this afternoon, we got one of those tropical downpours that fills the gutters, then a half an hour later, after you had to make a mad dash through it and got sopping wet (your hair!, at least), it stops and before an hour is gone, the sun’s back out.
Dinner menu: venison tenderloin, courtesy of Scott (the Ultimate Woodsman) and Emma.
