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cycling / photo / podcast / running / Wednesday — Comments Off
19
May 21

Something for you to listen to here

We had so much to do this week — a week’s summary on Monday and a lot of outdoor wildlife on Tuesday — that we’ve had put off this week’s check-in with the cats until today. Probably the most successful feature on this humble little blog, so let’s get to it.

Phoebe has lately really enjoyed whatever this toy is. We throw it in the air, and she catches it or bats it down. And, now, she … licks it … I guess.

Poseidon has kept his attention on the birds. And the squirrels. And the chipmunks. And the rabbits. And maybe the cicadas. Who knows what he’s looking at here.

I went out for a little run yesterday. It went bad before it started — Not unlike today’s bike ride! — but at least I saw some interesting plant life.

Hand it to those local bike shop bros, though. Ask them to work on three things, get your bike back nine days later and they addressed … at least one of those items. I’m not saying it’s frustrating, but I think you could put those pieces together.

That was a delightful afternoon ride.

I talked with a clinical psychologist this morning about substance use disorder. It was an interesting interview. The tricky part was asking reasonable questions. This is not an area I’ve spent a lot of time in, and I wanted to set up an actual, you know, expert, with some useful softballs.

On Topic with IU · On Topic with IU — Discussing substance use disorder and accidental deaths with Dr. Melissa Cyders

The hardest part was getting the whole thing down to 30 minutes. Those last 90 seconds or so are always tough. That’s the downside to talking with experts, there’s so much worth hearing.

So click that little play button, and I’ll go find some more people to talk to.

More on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and more On Topic with IU podcasts as well.

hobby / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
18
May 21

Some pretty weekend photos

Just filling a normal Tuesday. I did work stuff and taught a student some stuff and wrestled the email beast to the ground for another day and wrote a bunch of tweets and edited some audio and those pictures are sounding pretty good right about now, aren’t they?

So here they are. This is the creek. Looked a little low, but otherwise fine, on Saturday:

And we had lovely weather on Sunday afternoon, so we sat on chairs on the deck and read and watched the birds go by.

The red-headed finches, we noticed, run this joint.

We have an excellent anti-squirrel device on our bird seed holder. Now if only the birds were neater this guy wouldn’t be setting up camp.

Also, why do we call it bird seed? If you plant it they don’t grow into birds.

I said, Mr. Goldfinch, the seeds don’t grow into birds.

We have some nice cardinals around here.

And two chipmunks living in the yard, as well.

The male cardinal is a social butterfly.

A quick search suggests that sentence has never been published on a webpage crawled by Google’s spiders. I wonder if this is the same cardinal. I don’t have a learned enough eye to know.

And, again, every time these little finches come through, whatever birds are here split.

There must be a story there, an ornithological opera of aviary avarice about surly seed stinginess, but we didn’t hear about it Sunday. Unless we did. There was a lot of chirping and birdsong.

Tomorrow: we’ll check in on the cats! And there will be a new podcast for you, as well. And maybe some other things! But you’ll only now if you come back to see.

If you have some more time to kill right now, however, there’s always more on Twitter and check me out on Instagram, too. Speaking of On Topic with IU podcasts, and, oh hey, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? They do. Check them out.

Covid-19 / family / Monday / photo / swimming — Comments Off
17
May 21

What I’ve been doing with myself

Last week we were on the road. It was my first long trip in the car since the lockdown. I don’t think I’ve driven out of the county since then, but we left the state last week. A few weeks ago my happily vaccinated in-laws came to visit, and last week it was time to see my family — the vaccinated ones, anyway — so we drove down to Alabama.

We had some rained a few times on the drive, but mostly we saw dramatic clouds.

They add to the scenery in places where there isn’t much else to look at.

My mother gave me the biggest hug and said I owed her 17 days worth of hugs. I’m not sure how she arrived at that number, but I didn’t question the formula. I expected she would come up with a much higher number. Oddly, the number of days didn’t decrease over the duration of our visit. Canny as ever, my mother.

It was nice to see her, of course, and my grandfather. Both have gotten The Shot. They found a drive-up deal and are proud they didn’t even have to get out of their cars to get dosed. They’ve been quite careful and safe and kept themselves isolated. We’re the most people they’ve each seen outside of a few doctor visits.

So my grandfather came over and I got to give him a hug. What a lovely feeling. We also had hamburgers.

He brought his dominoes and proved how bad we are at math. We are bad at math. Of course he plays all the time — that’s their Sunday thing, they have church via Facebook or television and then he breaks out the bones. Of course he’s played his whole life. The stories he could tell you about his parents counting the domino dots … while I’m over here pointing and mumbling to myself.

They really wore us down in the third round.

When we weren’t losing at dominoes The Yankee got in a few swims. She had a race coming up and has been in the water only once since the weather turned last fall. So we went Rocky IV last week. She donned her wetsuit, tied a rope around her waist and swam while I held her in place.

She had a great race Saturday, finishing just off the podium.

We also made sure to get a few Publix subs during our visit. Around here you have to drive several hundred miles to get a good sandwich.

And then we returned on Thursday evening, with much better weather around us.

That’s such a long drive. But it was a lovely and long overdue visit.

Everyone is doing pretty well, considering. It’s a “not ideal, but we’re still fortunate in a great many ways” sort of circumstance. Normal enough, I guess, or maybe that’s the catching up. It was nice to stare at other walls, to sit at the pool and see and be seen. Fortunate in a great many ways, indeed.

adventures / Friday / photo — Comments Off
7
May 21

Friday in the garage

Slept in, enjoying a day off. Fiddled around catching up on the day’s reading until lunch. Had a sandwich and then went to the garage.

I have been trying to get into the garage all week. But events, and timing and desire and other things, so events, have conspired against me. Today, though. Nothing on the calendar, so to the garage!

Moved the car out so I could get to a saw. I had some wood scraps that needed to get trimmed down. Do away with the pointy bits and save the better stuff on the end.

Ahh, the smell of sawdust! Smells like progress!

And then I straightened things up along that wall of the garage. It needed it. It needed cleaning more than I realized.

Doing that I found a piece of lumber that would work for something my beautiful bride asked me to make for her. So I cut that down to size. And then cut it again. And then tried to square it up. And cut it a 1/16th of an inch off the desired dimensions. Fortunately that’s not integral to the project. Nor is the squareness of all the ages. Somewhere there’s a 1/32 inch of a wave in the thing and we don’t care.

And then I sanded and sanded: 100, 150, 220, 400, 600. It’s almost furniture quality.

It’s just a rectangle of pine. It took no time, but the grain is clean and has some nice character when you can see it up close. Most importantly, she’s pleased. Next The Yankee will stain it — she likes the staining part, everyone does. Then we’ll put some legs on it to make a nice monitor riser on her desk.

This evening we went for a nice walk in between the rain drops. Standing on the cement garage floor and then walking three miles or so. I was starting to feel that. Thanks, old sneakers!

Ribs and re-runs for dinner this evening, and then an early morning for a bike ride. All of this makes for a nice way to start a weekend. Still didn’t get to some of the projects I’d imagined for myself last weekend. But it’ll keep.

And this will have to, as well. I’m taking a few days off from here. So this may hold us over until May 17th. There will be plenty of things to see here then.

Until then, though, you can keep up with things on Twitter and check me out on Instagram, too. And did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. Follow the cats.

IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
4
May 21

The cats are in this one

I did an interview today, and then I edited the video. And then I played with the mysterious settings in Adobe Premiere. Everything worked fine, after a subsequent amount of time. It’ll be up tomorrow.

You learn a lot by being self-taught. That’s what I’ve learned, every time. I spend a lot of time thinking about that when I’m messing around with something I’ve taught myself.

Somewhere in all of that is the joy of learning. That’s probably one of those things that means different things to different people, but to me, it’s pretty straightforward. Instilling the willingness to continue to learn in someone, because they understand the delight of discovery, is to give them the drive to want to do it throughout their lives. And what a gift that is, a gift that defeats the fear, the intimidation of learning new things later. Then a person isn’t stagnant. They continue to grow throughout their lives. What a joy that is.

You know people who just sparkle in knowing a new thing. They positively glow at the opportunity. And you know people who blanch at the prospect.

It’s funny, I used to think of this in the context of the elderly. You see it in people a lot earlier, though. And lately I find myself wondering — not about the old guy who knows he’s lived and seen and learned it all, and yet there’s still so much! — but about that middle-aged guy who thinks he’s lived and seen and learned enough.

And he’s going to stagger through the next several decades like that?

That sounds lonely, and depressing, doesn’t it?

So the joy of learning, of discovery, of inquisition, of invention and creation, it shall always be.

These aren’t the problems of philosophy, but, then, it’s only Tuesday.

If it’s Tuesday, that means yesterday was Monday. And I didn’t do the cat feature. So let’s get to that here.

Phoebe did not like this email.

She did not like it at all.

We were sitting out back and Poseidon desperately wanted to be involved.

Really he wanted to find some place to roll around out there, but we’re on to his game.

And now they’re both onto the idea that there’s a chipmunk living in the back yard. If you’ll just follow their eyes here, you’ll see him too.

One day, they are thinking in their little kitty brains, I will catch you and your days of blissfully tormenting us will be over.