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Friday

flora / Friday / hobby / photo — Comments Off
26
Jul 19

Friday flora

Consider, if you will, the humble saw grass.

This one is called purple saw grass, because not everything can have a creative name. But by way of an apology over nomenclature, it displays a fine versatility. If you look at it from the right angle you can imagine it as something much more exotic, and more importantly, you can imagine yourself as some place much more exotic:

Sawgrasses range over great temperate portions of the world, including most of the central and eastern parts of the U.S. People normally think of the river of grass, as you’d find in Florida’s Everglades. It’s a picturesque image. But there’s a lot to have issue with here, while you’re imagining. The taxonomy is in dispute. Some of these things aren’t even grass, but sedges, which are merely a grass-like plant.

Hey, when you’ve got those lovely culms to enjoy. On some species you’ll see them reach a height of eight feet, but this particular one won’t quite make it. Lovely enough to walk by, however:

They also make for a pretty fair photographic foreground:

But enough about sawgrass, how about something less interesting!? That’s why you’re here, surely. Right?

This is a clump of something called Euphorbia.

It’s a catchall word, covering a wide range of flowering plants (or spurge). Poinsettias would fall into this group, as would a lot of ornamentals. There are more than 2,000 different plants under that genus and is quite large, genetically speaking. And you can find some sort of variety almost everywhere in the world. Carl Linnaeus wrote about Euphorbia in his critically important “Species Plantarum” in the middle of the 18th century, and that’s probably why it’s such a generic thing today. “Linnaeus wanted it that way,” but no one thinks to ask if ol’ Carl was having a bad day.

Some things that look like cacti are Euphorbia. Some things that have flowers which actually aren’t flowers fall into this genera too. I think ol’ Carl was just trying to meet a deadline.

I asked that bee, but he didn’t know either. He just wanted to be left alone, to do his pollen thing. It was almost the weekend, after all.

And to you I say Happy Weekend. (It should be capitalized in every instance.) Have a nice one and come back to tell me about it on Monday.

collarbone / cycling / Friday / memories / photo — Comments Off
19
Jul 19

And sure, I’m now all caught up on everything

Still filling time in this space for the week by catching up on things I haven’t already put here. Meanwhile, I’m updating the vacation pictures. Next week I may have to build out a section of the site just for that trip. And some of it will definitely go on the front page. I’ll let you know.

Anyway, here’s something completely unrelated that I’ve re-learned. If you wait, usually for just a few seconds, that flower photograph …

… will offer you something a little bit better:

I think I may re-learn that every year. Is that possible? Could it be that sometimes you and your brain disagree on the importance of things when you file them away? I’m not speaking of distraction, or short-term memory or forgotten things, but the simple stuff.

No, in fact, Noggin, this is useful information and I’d like it ready for immediate recollection, please and thank you.

Or it could be that information like this, knowledge which slowed The Yankee and I down from Wednesday’s lunch by a good 15 seconds, is something she’s de-programming. She could be spending the night whispering “That bumble bee thing isn’t important at alllllll.”

(Because it was on a television show somewhere once, so we now think this is how we are programmed, by whispered things said over and over while we sleep.)

I’m not saying she’s doing that. It’s probably just something my brain doesn’t prioritize in lieu of, I dunno, which lightswitch does what on the kitchen wall or where I left my phone charger. Nevertheless. Sometime in May next year, when I’ve forgotten how they sound, I’ll be startled by the sudden presence of bees. Then, two or three weeks, later I’ll have this realization: If you don’t rush right off after taking your petals picture a little winged creature will come by and make your composition that much better.

That just doesn’t seem like a thing you’d need to re-learn, is all. And yet I think I might be doing that almost annually.

In these last few days we’ve had something of an anniversary around the house. Seven years ago, last week, I had a big bike crash. I hit something I didn’t see and went straight onto my shoulder and head at a respectable speed. Seven years and two days ago I had a surgery that put some of the finest medical-grade titanium that Germany has to offer into my shoulder. I was off my bike until the next January, the plate and six screws were just part of it. I don’t remember as much as I should about those next six months or so, owing to the crash and surgery and medicine, I guess. But I remember being amazed at what happened to that helmet. It kind of exploded on impact.

That helmet took a huge blow my skull didn’t have to. It did its job. Maybe it saved my way of life. Maybe it saved more. Of course, after you destroy a helmet you have to replace your helmet. It turns out you should also do this on a regular basis as well. It’s a shelf life thing, basically. The good people at Giro Cycling, who make my favorite helmets, recommend doing so every three-to-five years even if your previous headgear hasn’t been damaged. So keep your purchase dates in mind.

Anyway, it was time for me to update, and so I got an upgrade. My new helmet, a Giro (with MIPS!) took our first spin together Wednesday evening.

Looks sharp, right?

If you ride a bike and don’t wear a helmet, it’s worth considering. I get it; I’ve heard the arguments against helmets. They all sound thin to me. You’ve heard the arguments for helmets, and maybe you disagree. I simply suggest that it’s worth considering how they can be helpful in some circumstances. Or, as I tell my students I see riding around town, “You’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on your brain; protect your investment.”

If you do wear a helmet, make sure yours is still roadworthy, undamaged and up-to-date.

adventures / Friday / photo / Roatan / SCUBA / video — Comments Off
12
Jul 19

Our final dives in Roatan

We had our last two dives of the trip last Friday. While every other day had been three or four dives, the last day is on a bit of a clock. Again, because of the chemistry going on in your bloodstream, you’re not supposed to dive within 18 or 24 hours of your flight. So we had two dives on Friday afternoon and other activities until it was time to leave.

So our last two Our last two dives featured El Aguila, or The Eagle, is regarded as one of the best diving sites around the island. El Aguila is a 230-foot long freighter. It was hauling concrete and bound for Haiti when it wrecked. It stayed where it stopped for a long while and had quite the adventure as a former freighter before being purchased, cleaned and put at this final spot, sunk at 110 feet in 1997. It sat upright for about a year, and then Hurricane Mitch blew through in late 1998 and snapped the weakened ship into three pieces.

We also saw plenty of fish and groupers, plenty of garden eels and a very curious green moray eel. You can see some of that in this video:

Here we are, diving off down the bow of The Eagle:

Doesn’t it look spooky and cool?

Here’s The Eagle amidships:

Count your coral while you can:

I certainly was:

It’s just so pretty:

Thanks for following along this week with last week’s diving adventures. Next week we’ll show off a few other things from this trip and, eventually, get back to normal.

I guess. If we must.

Friday / IU / photo — Comments Off
28
Jun 19

I know The Answer

I had lunch with a former student today. Alex “The Answer” Eady graduated a year ago and has been doing news on WTIU here locally since then. We’ve been able to get together a few times over that period with her busy schedule. Today, though, was a sad meeting, because she’s skipping town.

I’ve watched her work for three years now, and now I’ll have to see it from afar. Her next stop is Virginia, and big things are in store for her. She’s got all the talent, charm, work ethic and know how one needs to be the next big thing. Her time is coming and she’s going to take advantage of it in a big way.

I’ll just miss the lunches.

But there’s always social media. And with her move, I’ll have former students, and now friends, working in 18 markets across 13 states.

family / Friday / links — Comments Off
31
May 19

It’s like Ray Bradbury said …

“If we are interested in Mars at all, it is only because we wonder over our past and worry terribly about our possible future.”

Today I put my grandfather’s name on the list to go to Mars.

I bet he would have liked the idea of that. You can see some of his books here. And you can send your name, or the name of a loved one, to the red planet as well. Go here to go to Mars.