Friday


8
Jan 21

A mediation on …

There was a peculiar color in the air — is a phrase that has never been crawled across the web by Google’s spiders. It’s also wrong, in the sense of how we use language, which is why it’s never been written, one supposes. But it is particularly accurate in how we use science.

Color is, you might recall, the range of wavelengths based on how matter behaves in light, each substance’s combination of atoms and electron configuration send signals to the inner bits of the eye. Those signals work their way back to the command center for processing. Rods and cones, brain interpretation. And the brain says “There was a peculiar color in the air.”

So, really, it should be, my eyes and brain were detecting odd things brought on my the angle of the sun and various atmospheric considerations.

What I’m saying is that this usually green shrub held an unusual yellowish hue. So, yeah. There was a peculiar color in the air.

And it just hung there, for much of the day, or at least as long as I stood at the window looking at things, nodding ponderously, re-considering, not for the first time, how light works.

Photons, bouncing off things. What a concept! Once you can wrap your mind around that, the sky — with it’s shorter, smaller wavelengths — is the limit.

I changed the photos on the front page of the site to more generally reflect the season. Three of the photos in the set, including the one below, are from this year.

So click on over to the front page to check out the new look. And check back often, those do get updated.

And have a great weekend! Check back on Monday, when we’ll look in on the cats, and see if we can’t make up something interesting that did or didn’t happen over the weekend.

In the meantime, visit Twitter for more, and check me out on Instagram. And, hey, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? It’s full of timeline-beautifying cuteness. Check them out.


1
Jan 21

Happy New Year

This is already off to a great start, don’t you think? It just feels brighter. Happier. New. It did after midnight, anyway. How long does that last, in reality? Sure, the get outta here 2020 thing is a good joke and a fervent plea, but no one is operating with the false ideal that things will be different when they get back to work next week. (Sigh.) But perception is reality and, for at least a few real minutes, the calendar is the perception. Maybe it sticks. Maybe it sticks for you.

(Those are Fourth of July fireworks from two years ago, because it fit the theme, right? But we’re done with that now. And we’re going to do things for real and right, right? Right.)

Slept in, because, you know, had to see the world’s most awkward made-for-television television event. Cat woke me up. He did not have “being considerate” as a new year’s resolution because, of course our cats understand calendars and the concepts of fresh starts and the turning over of a new leaf. They understand these things, but it got ignored this morning, and so I’m resolved to do something about that cat.

And then I fell back asleep. These things together just through the whole day out of whack. No matter. It’s an easy and light day. Went for a nice walk. Watched some football. Got ready for this:

Oh, dinner was so good. We frozen the extra ribs from Christmas and had them tonight as a candlelight dinner.

A candlelight dinner for New Year’s. We sat, and talked, and it was delightful. We resolved to have more candlelight dinners. They can’t all be like this though.

And later, the compression boots. Feet, calves, knees and quads. It’s a four-point system of delightful and intense pain.

So, yeah, already off to a great start.

Happy New Year, to you and yours. Be smart, be safe.

More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account.


25
Dec 20

Merry Christmas


18
Dec 20

Progressive video and circumstance

We had a graduation today. This is what that looked like.

It was a live production and went off without a hitch, owing to the good work of some talented people, and also me. It’s probably a dry run for the spring commencement. While some 100 people became graduates today, we’ll have 600 students moving the virtual tassel from one side of the mortar board to the other.

If anything, I said, we should do all the future commencement ceremonies like this. It went faster. After, you could just come in for the cookies and punch and socializing, which is where the real fun is, anyway.

Came home to spend about 75 minutes with this view.

And a few more miles were ticked off on the trainer, glancing through the blinds, listening to old music and feeling the burn. It’s an interesting series of experiences. You go in there in a light jacket, get ready to ride, climb on the bike and take the jacket off. Once your heart rate gets up a bit you are, of course, comfortable. It doesn’t take long at all, because the chill is only just barely a chill. It’s the buffer between the inside world and the outside world, the temperature re-configuration chamber. What, you’re not thinking of your house in these terms this year?

When you really get your trainer-mounted bike going you get the flush cheeks and the other familiar precursors to sweating. And suddenly there’s a drip, and you begin reminding yourself this doesn’t happen on the road because of the evaporative qualities of nature and the wind wicking away your perspiration. Which it is most decidedly not doing here.

Before long, you’re no longer just sweating, you are now actively hot and that first chill is a far-off memory. There’s a ceiling fan, and turning that on makes some magical atmospherics happen. Your heart rate is up, you are wondering whether you should question these decisions, and the fan is circulating just enough cold air to null this whole thing out. So long as you keep going.

As soon as you stop, being soaked through and under a fan in a chilled room, you have to leave, leave now or never get control of your core temperature again.

This is that time of year where I’m always concerned about the temperature getting into my bones. There are no amount of blankets or hot beverages, no appropriate number of layers of socks, to get warm again. There are some particular experiences, like time itself, which you can never escape. Especially when the bike isn’t going anywhere.

We can outrun this semester, though. Another one, thankfully, in the books.


11
Dec 20

The last decent weather day, I fear

In April or so, when everyone was shut down, we went out to one of the local flat courses to do a few time trials. It’s essentially a loop and it runs 6.5 miles, with a long headwind at the end. On our first visit we did four loops, and marveled at how quiet the roads were.

We went this evening, with just enough light for three loops, and marveled at how noisy the roads are. What health crisis?

The first lap felt fine, until that headwind, and I got well and truly dropped.

Later I caught back up and tried to give her something to attack, and she caught me on the second trip through the headwind. And on our third trip we soft-pedaled in for pictures. Soft pedaling, at 21 miles per hour, into the wind. It’s a weird year on bikes all the way around.

And now, as I shut things down for the evening, I was struck by the play of a solar light I have in the kitchen window. It’s a cheap yard light, and I thought having a few of them around would be a good idea if the power went out, which thankfully, is a rarity in our neighborhood. The light shining through the plastic globe and playing on the ceiling looks like a static kaleidoscope, or a fancy, giant jellyfish.

Have a great weekend! Catch you on Monday! And, until then, more on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account.