"Try not to look down"

Happy December

Hi all,

I haven'’t posted for a while but Ceri's pancakes inspired me. After reading her post I really wanted some pancakes of my own. I had some fresh pomegranates so I used the seeds and it was quite good.

There is good news. My camera is back. My new ability to take pictures might translate into a less boring blog for you. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera for a spectacular sunset on Saturday. Coming back from Joshua Tree there was a wall of smog coming from LA, and the sun shining through it was just amazing. There were so many colors. Hopefully it will happen again and I'’ll get to show you.

Things are going well. I "“finished" my proposal just before thanksgiving and emailed it to some potential committee members, one of which was impossible to get a hold of. That stressed me out for the last two weeks because I need to meet with them soon. I finally gave up on the one and chose someone else. Now have a meeting set for next Wednesday, the 14th. Ideally they will like my proposal and I will be off to the Bahamas in January to do research. It is especially important that they approve because I already have a ticket to go to Abaco on the 3rd of January. In addition to collecting vocalization of the parrots I will be presenting a poster of my plumage study. I am working on the analysis right now and it looks good. I finished measuring all of the dead birds I have here and there is some overlap, but a discriminant function analysis showed significant grouping for the white head plumage and the rose throat. Assuming I am interpreting the results correctly.

After my proposal defense on the 14th another exciting thing will happen. I get to see Ceri! I pick her up at Ontario airport and we immediately head north for her sister'’s wedding in Auburn, WA. I'’m not too excited about driving all night, but I guess it's important for Ceri to get to the bridal shower Thursday evening so I'll drive as long as I can.


I am excited about getting away from this, however.




I scrubbed this sink only two days before this picture. I wish I could use the sink too.







Ok, I've wasted enougth time. I hope to post pictures more often in an attempt to reestablish my readership. So, yeah, keep reading.

Peace and Love,
Bryant

Old photos

I sent my new camera to be fixed and I think they have it now. I suspect they will determine that it is beyond repair in short order and send me a new one soon. Maybe I'll have it after thanksgiving.

So, without a digital camera I have been trying out the old style 35mm film. I finished off a roll that had been sitting in the camera for about 9 years. Yeah, it's a lot easier to take pictures when it is relatively free to develop them. Some of the photos were from around old Thanksgivings so they are sort of in the spirit of the season.






Hey Brett, remember this place? It's our place at 12 and G. My first apartment. I loved living there.


Sorry for the mess, I guess I needed to take out the recycling.







Here is a squirrel that would eat at my window. They would run strait up and down the side of the building.









These are from Thanksgiving in 1998. Bradley came to visit and we went snowboarding at Wolf Creek.

Climbing Again (maybe)

I feel like I need to post something even though I don't really have time. I had hoped to have a digital camera this week and start posting pictures. I bought it on Ebay and it came on monday. Annoyingly, after 13 photos it stopped working. So I have to send it to Minolta for repairs already. I do have some pictures that I developed at Target for only $10.

Thanks for all the advice on bradley and sunny's surname. He liked Bloom best. Last time I talked to him they were thinking of Koala. So it seems to be between Boots, Bloom and Koala.

Chelsea's visit was fun. I hadn't seen her since we climbed Mt Evans last fall. It was nice to have her visit and show her some of Southern California. It was also a good excuse for me to get out to see Southern California. We climbed at BoxSprings and Joshua Tree. It made me want to start climbing again and be active and healthy. We'll see if I can keep it up. Here are the places we climbed while she was here.

BoxSprings is in Riverside, CA. - Wednesday


Not a destination climbing spot, but it's only 15 minutes from Loma Linda so it's fun for a couple hours on an afternoon to get away from studying. There are a lot of bolted routes 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11.

Randomness of the day: Today I ran into a guy at the coffee shop that had a route guide in pdf, so I had him email it to me.



The rock is sharp and after 5 months without climbing it was a good place to break in my fingers. I let Chelsea lead the routes while I wimpered and babied my red, raw, blistered fingertips. This week my fingertips are all callused and numb. I went back here on wednesday with some classmates and the climbing was easier.

The University of California - Riverside is just to the left of this photo.

Joshua Tree National Park - Friday

This picture is Chelsea on Gunsmoke. A V3 in the Barker Dam area which is a classic.

Here I am pretending I'm as cool as Chelsea.

We also did some rope climbing at Joshua Tree but I guess I didn't get any pictures. Joshua Tree is hard. A 5.6 there is a 5.10 at other places.


Saturday
We wanted to climb Tahquitz but it didn't work out. If anyone wants to buy a guide book to Tahquitz and Suicide peaks let me know. Tahquitz was were a lot of famous climbers started before going to Yosemite. The first 5.8 and 5.9 were done there.

Sunday
We also went to Pirates Cove/The Beach at Newport Beach but I don't have any pictures and we mostly just played in the sand. We saw the aftermath of the most impressive car accident I've seen since I've been here. The car was so far off the road on it's top but still holding up traffic on both sides of a 10 lane highway. I can't imagine how the car got over there.

Chelsea's friends live in Newport Beach and they were her ride to the airport the next day. We couldn't get a hold of them but we went there hopeing that they would call back. I guess they are notorious for not answering their phones or returning calls, even to eachother. At the end of the day we hadn't heard anything from them so I was beginning to think I would need to drive to the airport the next day. I decided I wanted some sushi and was prepared to drive to San Clamente to get it because that was the only place I knew of. So we were driving down the PCH and Chels was about to make some comment about See's Candy being for rich people when she saw her friends in the candy store. We zipped down the alley back to the store then snuck in and hide behind some candy display. They never noticed us even with our giggling so we had to just walk up behind them. I guess they were going have sushi as well at a half price place on Bilboa Island. The sushi was very reasonably priced. I recomend it. Just take the fairy across to the peninsula, drive one block and park by the Wells Fargo ATM. It's in the alley across the steet.

After sushi I left Chels with them and drove back home.


Now I'm trying to catch up with school and research. I think it's coming together and I'll probably be going to the Bahamas in the next couple months to get recordings of parrots. I'm will be attempting to finish my proposal and get a committee together before then end of the month.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose..."

I guess I do have one other thing to report for the weekend. My brother and his girlfriend have decided to get together and share a last name. But they haven't decided which name to share yet. So I thought it would be fun to use your collective creative abilities. Here is what they have thought of so far.

Bradley & Sunny Belle
Bradley & Sunny Turtledove
Bradley & Sunny Boots

Their names right now are Bradley Reynolds and Sunny Thomas. Bradley likes Boots best so far.

What do you think? Give me your ideas.

Running for my life

I’m procrastinating, but it’s to your benefit because I am writing this post.

I don’t have much to report. Last week was mostly studying. My professor let me take the philosophy test even though I totally spaced out on taking it in the first place. I’m not sure how much he docked me but I got an 18/25 which makes it possible to get an A still.

I spent a lot of time running this weekend; 6 miles Friday, 3 on Saturday, and another 5 today. There is a new running club for LLU students which I think will be really nice. This old Korean doctor, that has already run 5 marathons this year, is coaching us for free. He says we can train with him if we promise to run for the rest of our lives. Maybe I will. I am thinking about running another marathon after the encouragement and the excitement of being part of the group. I bought some new insoles today. I hope to get another 100-200 miles out of my shoes.

Saturday night I went to Marie-Lys and Austin’s for a costume party. It was fun. There were some good costumes. I’m trying to get a picture of myself to post here.

I am mulling over buying a digital camera. I know I shouldn’t but I really want one. Film is just too expensive and I want to take pictures.

My friend Chelsea is coming tomorrow. She hasn't updated her blog in over 3 months. It's the end of rafting season in Moab so she is coming here to visit and climb some California mountains and cliffs before driving to Costa Rica for the winter, or some such thing. One never knows where she is at.

Maybe I’ll buy a camera and show you all the routes and beautiful California mountainsides. I have to get back to studying if I’m going to go climbing later in the week.

Seven things

I caught Ellen's mind virus. I didn't think I would make it but I think I got 7 things for each.


SEVEN things:

7 things I plan to do before I die:

live in another country/learn another language
MS (?)
argue that there is a difference between a Cuban, a Cayman and a Bahamian Parrot
publish a scientific paper
build a house
do a bicycle tour (pacific coast, europe, or mexico)
Climb spaceboys in El Potrero Chico (15 pitches)

7 things I can (or once could) do:

jump onto a picnic table with my bike
climb a 5.10
build a campfire
tell the difference between a Cuban, Cayman and Bahamian parrot
play chess
get into grad school
rebuild a vw engine


Cuban

Cayman

Bahamian







See? Isn't it obvious?




7 things I cannot do:

read fast
focus with a computer in front of me
loose weight when I want to
convince Ceri to move to California
team sports
kill a bear with my bare hands
beat Ceri at the crossword, or scrabble

7 things that attract me to the same or opposite sex:

smiles and giggles
happiness
understanding/liberal
intelligent conversation
rides a bike
wastes time with me
that spot on the neck at the end of the jaw

7 things that I say most often:
I needed Ceri's help on this one.

i should be reading
i need to get away from my computer
yeah....
so, anyway
oh-kay
huh, i don't know
go away (I only say this in my head)

7 celebrity crushes:
Since I don’t actually know these people I probably only like the characters they play.

Sara Vowell
Jenna Elfman (Dharma)
Jessica Alba (Dark Angel)
Nina Persson (voice)
Tina Fey
Gwen Stefani (from the 90's, although she is still sort of cool)
Jared Diamond/Pierce Brosnan/Harrison Ford/Ernest Hemingway (that's who I want to be)

I tag Amy and Brett.

The science and philosophy of Kansas

So, I’m taking Philosophy of Science this quarter. It’s a class I enjoy immensely but of which have the disturbing precognition to know, I will not be getting an “A” in. I neglected to take an online exam today. I was only fooling myself into thinking I could graduate with a 4.0 gpa when I know I am 3.0 student. I really like the class anyway. It’s one of my favorites and maybe the teacher will let me make it up.

As you may have guessed from the title of the class, it has given me the capacity of scientist qua philosopher and I have always had a deep desire to be this person. Ok, I don’t think that highly of myself, a 3.0 student after all. I’m going to ramble on anyway.

If any of you ever read the news, or go to church, you will have heard about the controversy in Kansas over the whether Intelligent Design (henceforth id) or Evolution will be taught in high-school science classrooms. If by some impossible chance you have not heard of this hit next blog. Now, I know I am not going to say anything new here, but since the topic is education, and blogging is public media, I am going to take the opportunity to educate the public. For another insightful and intelligent abstraction of the enormous topic please visit the Doldrums.

Here is the question; should id be taught as an alternative to evolution in science classrooms? I will add my vote to the NO camp and let me explain why. First, id is not science and neither is any theory of the origin of life. It is in the realm of philosophy. Second, evolution is science. I believe it should be taught in the science classrooms. Why is one science and other not? Because science is based on empirical data. There is a plethora of data available to support the theory of evolution. There is no data available about the origin of life. To qualify as a scientific theory it must be testable and repeatable. Any theory on the origin of life is not testable or repeatable so it does not qualify.

Ok, having said that and I don’t know if I said it well, I do think there is a place for id in schools. Id should be taught in philosophy. The fact that this is such a huge issue really does say something about the quality of our education system. I don’t know if philosophy is a required class for public high-school students but it should be. I am a graduate student and I am only in my second philosophy class. I think every high-school educated person should have a philosophy class in which they teach the following; philosophy of science, critical thinking, and ethics.

Pope John Paul II once said (1996), invoking an earlier Pope Louis XIII (1893), “Truth cannot contradict truth.” Though they were over 100 years apart and had vastly different understandings of truth, they shared a similar dilemma, the apparent contradiction between the Scriptures and scientific theories. I always liked John Paul, I’m not familiar with Louis, but I have a lot of respect for their steadfastness in their beliefs. Their conclusions were the same then and now, either our interpretation of the Bible was incorrect or of the scientific data. They called for open discussion and acknowledgment of “hostile arguments” so mistakes in understanding could corrected. And if no mistakes were found, then judgment should be suspended until such time as these discrepancies could be reconciled. John Paul recognized that evolution is more than just a “serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study” and acknowledge it as a theory. But he also recognized that it was at heart, a philosophical question.

Science is a great and powerful tool for the acquisition of truth, but it has limits. Science can not tell us why things happen only that they do. It can’t assign value to things and it has little to say about relationships.
It is a cold machine that requires the human capacity to ponder. I am a scientist in training but I think of it as only one tool in the toolbox which guides our lives. In our search for truth and wellbeing, science is a tool for observation, but there are also feelings, beliefs and logic. When choosing what to believe in or when making life decisions one should consider all the tools and use the ones that are right for the task.

I want to keep going with analogies but I know I’ve lost some of you already. Sorry, it’s kind of long and wandering. I might have more to say on this later.

War, Peace and Rattlesnakes

Last night I went with my advisor to Joshua Tree National Park for a lecture he was giving. I had contemplated staying the night out there with Ceri’s parents but he only called me an half hour before we left so I didn’t really have time to warn them I was coming. I recognized it as an opportunity to talk about my research and get out of Loma Linda so I said I would go.

It was good to get to talk to him, sort of encouraging and discouraging at the same time. It was encouraging because it’s good to talk about my project with someone that knows a lot more than me and work things out. But it was kind of discouraging because he didn’t seem optimistic that things were going to work out. We are waiting to here back from some people about acquiring some data. He is worried that we won’t be able to get the data and kept talking about other projects that might be fun. I would just get the data myself but there might not be money for that. I’ve got to get my proposal done.

After the lecture we went to a restaurant in 29 Palms where Drew Berrymore likes to go. The lady, who had invited my advisor to do the lecture, paid for dinner. She was very nice and always smiling, an alumnus of Walla Walla. At the beginning of the night we learned that her husband is in Faluja and I kept telling myself all night, “Don’t say anything.” At the end of dinner we started talking about the war and I was curious so I kept asking questions. I finally let a comment slip about how aggressive Americans are toward peace lovers. She started to get red and defensive. I feel bad. I could tell she is perpetually on the verge of tears. I wish he could come back and stay here with his wife.

Bill’s lecture was entertaining. After his talk he pulled some snakes out to show people. At one point he dropped one and everyone jumped back, some onto their seats. One lady had to move to the other side of the room and hide behind her daughter. It was funny. They are kind of scary. They were all in Rubbermaid containers in the back seat and I would think once in a while about getting into an accident and having rattlesnakes all over the car.

Here is a quote from the car ride home. “Wow. I keep veering left. I never veer left.”

Bush vs Bush

This is hilarious. Bush vs Bush.

“The leaves are falling back east….”

Ok, I’m back to driving my SUV to the coffee shop. I went running this morning and had to step out of the bike lane onto the curb 4 times to avoid becoming a red spot on someone’s windshield. In the spirit of Ceri's vindictive post, I’ve been thinking about taping nails to the white line that separates the bike lane from the car lanes.

After running this morning, I have been antsy for the rest of the day. I can't really concentrate on class.

It was cold this morning and I had to wear a sweat shirt on my run. This afternoon it was 97 degrees and sunny.

Consumerism

I was just looking at Strovska’s blog this morning and wishing she would update it. Then I looked at my own and realized her last post was two days newer than mine, I have been adding links as I discover them though. Now she has updated and I guess I should do the same. Maybe posting doesn’t have the same therapeutic value for me as it does for others. I tend to be a net consumer in the blogosphere with less in the way of production. I wonder if that is fair.

I wonder if I am the same way at the coffee shop sometimes. I pay my $1.75 for a cup of coffee and then proceed to use about $1.75 worth of toilet paper for my nose over the course of the evening. Thank you Boise-Cascade. Some environmentalist I am. At least I bring my own cup and that saves them a penny for the plastic one they would have given me. I’m feeling better about this coffee shop now that they split from their franchise and started offering free wifi. It’s a lot closer so I can ride my bike and be a good patriot by following the lead of our favorite politicians and not driving my SUV. Although, I was almost run over twice on the way here today, seriously. There might be something to the SUV’s are safer campaign.

My proposal is now 5 semi-solid pages long. It’s getting there.

That’s all I can write for now.

Fall Quarter

I've been back in California for a week now. I had started writing a post about that time but it ended up just sitting in my draft box and now is out dated. So I'll try again.

Ohio was very pleasant. I’m glad I was able to bring some things back to California for Ceri because that means she is coming out here. I was 12 pounds over the limit for checked bags but the ticket guy let me through.


In my draft I started talking about the nastiness of Southern California and it's resemblance to an armpit. I still believe that but the business of the last week has diluted the effect. At the time, the contrast between where I had been and where I had come too was depressing and almost intolerable. In reality there are many parts of California that are beautiful and can be fun. Those places just happen to be to far from where I live to be accessible. I already spend about 25-30% of my income on gas. The penalty for being poor I guess.


“Being poor is a crime and the punishment is death.” If you haven’t listened to This American Life in the last month I highly recommend episodes 296 and 297.


I worked on Camp Pendleton again this weekend. At $10/hour it actually pays less than staying at school and studying for my assistantship. But it is extra money on top of my assistantship and it is about the only time I can afford to see the ocean.

School started out pretty well. My classes are interesting; Philosophy of Science, Biodiversity and Conservation, and Research Methods and Design. There will be a lot of reading and required work. At first I was concerned about the amount of religion slipping into my science classes. But I think it will be tolerable and even interesting. It certainly has a place in the philosophy class, western science having been born from a desire to understand God and the laws of nature that allowed creation. I’ll keep you posted about that and if you aren’t not interested than you don’t have to read it.


I finally finished and developed a roll of film, the contents of which, I discovered, span an entire year. I think I can almost afford one roll of film per year in my budget although, at $26 for development and $4 for a roll of film, it is still an open question. I’ve decided to renew my search for a digital camera, motivated more by economics than the immediate gratification which images stored as electrons can supply.


How is my research going? Yeah, well, my proposal isn’t done yet and I don’t really want to measure more birds until it is. I still have the 7 pages of garbled words that I did when I left Ohio. It might come to a point were I need to just write it and let people read it to get more feedback. Actually, that might be the only way to get my advisor’s attention. He doesn’t seem to respond to verbal communication all that well.
“Hey Bill, I have a question”
“Can you email that to me?”


Ok, I told you I had developed some pictures and I’m running out of time for tonight. So, here they are in a totally random order. Briefly, they are pictures from the Alcazar in Segovia in December; Sunny, Bradley, and Ma in a grassy park in Madrid; Bryant and Ceri last August sometime, somewhere we don't know; some pictures from Salton Sea birding with Stacy Davis and my advisor Bill in January; and Bradley and Sunny at the Getty in Santa Monica this August.

For more about Katrina and the Bush administration read Felber's blog. He is a much better writer than I am. Of course, he gets paid to be a writer and a satirist.





Oh, and this is fun too. It's a quicktime movie about the President's speachalist.

Hurricane, hurrican't, or hurri-don't-wanta

Ok, I know that hurricane Katrina is last week’s news but I was sort of doing things and not keeping up. Ceri has already vented some frustration at the government.





I just came across this article from the Houston Chronicle in December of 2001 and it's kind of pissing me off. The link is to a copy at Louisiana State University because you have to have an archive subscription to read the original at the Houston Chronicle.





So, we sort of knew at least 4 years ago that around 250,000 people would be trapped in New Orleans in this sort of storm, 20 feet of water would drown the city and about 25,000 people would die. But we don't really care because 30% of the people in New Orleans live in poverty. Most of the people are dieing after the storm and the government doesn't seem to care.

The Progressive Sept 1, 2005
The state and local authorities were woefully unprepared, and the Bush Administration responded with a lethal tardiness.



While Katrina was without question an extraordinarily vicious storm, the vast majority of people who died did so not because of Katrina but because of a laissez-faire federal government with skewed priorities.



“A rightwing government that strangles public expenditures for public works is largely responsible for what happened in New Orleans,” says Paul Soglin, former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, and past chair of the committee on urban economics for the National Conference of Mayors.

Definately read this article.



Meanwhile, our president, who happens to hold the record in just over 4 years for most vacation days while in office, claims we can handle both Iraq and Katrina. But our National Guard, it's equipment, and the budget is tied up in foreign countries instead of protecting our people at home. Shouldn't the National Guard be more concerned with our wellfare?



If they didn't care about the poor people in New Orleans they should have at least cared about the largest shipping port in the United States. One quarter of the nations gas and oil, all of the grain exports from Montana to Ohio, and one third of the countries sea food. This hurricane is costing the United States billions of dollars. If we're talking about national security these are dollars that would have been better spent restoring protective wetlands on the coast and a better levee.



When will we learn that people matter and the environment matters? What is government good for if it can't protect its people? We certainly can't do it ourselves. Volunteers are not organized enough tend to overwhelm the area by requiring food and water for themselves. This nation needs to start thinking about health care for everyone and an environment that takes care of us.

beaches and mountains

Hello peoples. The original intent of this blog was to inform people of my where-abouts so, here is my tentative schedule for the next month.



I am going to Los Angeles to get Bradley and Sunny today. We are probably going to go to the either the Getty or the Natural History Museum. We are thinking about camping tonight close to the coast but looking through a California Camping guide yesterday, it looks like most places require a reservation and can cost between $20 and $150. So, we might end up back in Loma Linda.


Tomorrow we are going to the beach. Everyone says Laguna is the one to go to so that's where we are going.

Saturday we are going to climb San Gorgonio, getting up early around 4:30am leaving at 5am. We want to be the first in line at the ranger station to get a hiking permit on the Vivian Creek Trail. It's the shortest and steepest. 14 miles round trip and over a mile up, 5500' elevation gain. The other trails are around 20miles round trip but still I think about the same elevation gain.


Sunday we are all heading to LAX. Bradley and Sunny are going to Spain and I am going to Ohio until school starts, 24th. (Sorry Chels. I really would love to climb some 14ers and go rafting. I just can't right now.) While I'm in Ohio I hope to make significant headway on my research proposal. I've been hoping to get that done all summer. Technically, I don't have to have it done until December, but I've been looking at my classes and I'm getting excited about the idea of graduating in the spring.



There you have it. If you happen to be in LA or BG when I am, give me a call. I'll keep updating my blog too.

Wiki is awsome

Yesterday I was looking at articles on wikipedia. I used to do this when I was a kid too, with the real encyclopedia. It's really interesting. The beauty of wikipedia is that it, if you see something wrong you can change it, but if you don't know anything about the subject you can be confident that someones else made it correct.



So I was thinking, most of the time for classes in which a research paper is required, the paper gets written and then the teacher uses all the papers for a bonfire to roast marshmellows on. Last quarter we came up with the idea of presenting our research papers to our class in a power point to make it seem like less of a waste of time and to get peer review experience. But another good idea, i think since it was my idea, is to have them publish it on wikipedia. It's easy to check up on and measure their progress because each page has a history that anyone can view. And it's out there for peer review. Of course I would require a certain length and depth, and include a bibliography, and that it were either an original or a significant improvement on an existing page.





So, I'm presenting this idea to you all. I might suggest this to my professors next quarter. What do you think?

Agatha reloaded

They fight, and bite,

And fight, and bite, and fight,

Fight, fight, fight,

Bite, bite, bite,

The Puppy and Crayfish show!



Now you can see Agatha fighting with the crayfish in live action.
Fight!

Another week in Loma Linda

I think I need to get a camera. I don't know how to write a post without a picture. I guess I'll need to learn how to be entertaining without pictures because it looks like I'm losing my readership. Or watchership since I've heard that some poeple come here only for the pictures.


How about some highlights from the week.

The jeep turns better the the wagon. Parallel parking is super easy and I can fit into places that would otherwise leave me driving around the block. If I had a picture I would show you.
I paid off one of my credit cards that I had been carrying a balance on for 4 years. That's awsome. I was getting charged $50/month for finance charges. It's just a trick though, I still owe the money but now it's on another card.


Goodbye Nebraska :(
I applied for a California drivers licence. This does not mean that I am Californian or indicate anything about how long I will actually live in California. Unfortunately, it might indicate that I wont be moving back to Nebraska. So, even thought the california licence doesn't mean much to me, I might take Ceri's advice next time I move and delay getting a new licence until I actually have to. I almost didn't pass the eye exam. I tried reading the board twice before the lady let me use the machine. She said I was just barely legal. After my tests and money they gave me my old licence back cut up and said, "Here's is your temporary licence".




Last night I went to see Tosca by Giacomo Puccini at the Redlands Bowl. It was well done I thought. I couldn't understand most of it because it was in Italian and I didn't bother to get a libretto. The first act was interesting and had a lot of actors and action. By the second act I was eagerly anticipating the end. This was probably because there was less action in the second act and I still couln't understand the words. But the singing was very good. So after most of the second act being drawn out it ended abruptly and with a bang. Mario was supposed to be only fake killed by the fireing squad but it turns out he was for real killed. Tosca was so upset, and also in trouble for killing Scarpia (the cheif of police) that she threw herself off the roof of the building. The fireing squad used real muskets and gunpowder so that was exciting. I didn't think I would stay for the whole thing, but, it was a good opera, and what else was I going to do?



Not a very entertaining post so far. I've been thinking of writing something about Kansas versus science. Maybe it would be to late but it's still in the news. Maybe I'll do that today if I don't find anything else to do.

California and the First Sleeplessness

California

So I had to leave Ohio on the 23 of July for work, and to meet my mom and switch vehicles.




This is the view from the hotel we stayed at in San Clemente. I like the location a little better than the hotel we used to stay at in Oceanside but the hotel itself is not that great. The internet didn't work and there was no breakfast, and it's expensive, like $150/night. I'm glad the company is paying for it because I would be sleeping in my car and bathing in the ocean every night. Or I guess I might just drive back to Loma Linda for the evenings. One night at like 3 in the morning, the fire alarm went off. I thought there was a fire until I went out my door and ours was the only one going off. Turns out some people upstairs were getting a little crazy in the hot tub and it leeked into our room.



I wasn't to good about taking pictures this time. Since I had killed my last camera in the canal getting the fike nets out. I did take some pictures of the San Clemente nuclear plant and of the Camp Pendleton countryside. But I'm a little nervous just admitting that I took those pictures. I don't know that sort if of thing is legal or not. It probably is. You can be a terrorist for anything these days. Don't wear any heavy coats or parkas, I know that.


On the right are some red eared pond sliders. As I may have mentioned in previous posts, our mission is to remove all the exotic species from the Santa Margarita Estuary. These are exotic turtles are exotic but I guess since there is no protocol for killing turtles humanely we often end up throwing them into the weeds and hoping they die, or live depending on your point of view. I didn't want to kill them so I took them. Another action of questionable legality on my part. I do have a California fishing license though so I think I'm covered. Those fike nets will catch all sorts of animals and most of the drown before we get to them. Which I am glad about. We have caught 3 beavers. Imagine trying to get a live, squirming, thrashing, biting beaver out of a net while your in the water. They are exotic, too. The whole project is kind of dumb, but whatever. It's fun. We are never going to get all the crayfish out of the river with minnow traps. And we are never going to get the exotic fish out of the river if we keep throwing them back in the lake. I'm not going to explain the whole thing to your right now. I think we go one more time this summer and we are done.

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Sierra National Forest

After a week of fishing and getting paid for it I went to meet my ma at Sierra NF just east of Fresno. We got there late the first night and camped way up this winding road at a free campground.


The next night we went to the ranger station for maps and a campfire/camping permit. We decided to head up towards a grove of Sequoias called the McKinely Grove. I guess it wasn't as impressive as the groves in Sequoia National Park because I didn't take any pictures of them. They are still big trees though. We stayed up there and camped just off the main road and then fished in Dinky creek for about two days. It was nice and relaxing.





This is the fishing whole I used. This stream is "planted" with fish every week but I couldn't catch any.







This was the view from our second night.





Below, Agatha is playing with a crayfish I we had bought for the turtles. The liked the fish better so I had to dispatch the crayfish with Agathas help.





I had hoped to have a video of Agatha and the crayfish but the place I am hosting it won't release it yet.




Quick ecology note. There are some native crayfish to California but many have been replaced by species from the genus Procambarus because they are sold for bait and thrown into the water live.




The pond sliders are also introduced by people that buy them in pet stores and put them in there garden ponds. Both animals are from the south around Louisianna, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi area. Pond sliders will eat fish, crayfish, and small native turtles. I haven't mentioned bullfrogs yet but they are another invasive species. They are from the midwest and south as well. Bullfrogs will eat anything, even snakes, fish and birds. They are partly responsible for the decline of the native arroyo toad in southern Califronia. If you have one of these things for a pet and you do not live in part of there native range. Please do not let them out.






So the second night we drove up this trail a bit to get away from the road. I have to show a couple pictures here of the road.



























Check out my car following the jeep right up this mountain.




















You see Ceri? Escorts are cool.






































Ok, Ceri doesn't believe me. She has a car just like mine and hates it. Although, she does like it better now that I got it to run better and get better gas milage.

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1 august (my birthday)

Backwoods Sleeplessness

On the last night I was with my mom in the forest we had a pretty good adventure. We decided to take a beginners off road trail in the jeep to test out it's new engine. It went back to lake a secluded lake with some good fishing. So, we left the turtles and the wagon at the trailhead, loaded up the jeep with camping gear and took off down the road.




It was a good one for beginners just like the pamplet said. Ma started out driving but was scared so I took over. By the time we were headed back out Ma was getting a better idea of what the jeep can do and she drove most of the way back out. These are all pictures from the way out but whatever, its the same trail both ways.
































This is the rock pile near the end. It was a little tricky but no real danger. (Something more tricky than this is trying to get all these pictures to line up right. )






























Here is ma looking good behind the wheel.



































We got to the lake around noon. So we spent the rest of the afternoon lazying around. Ma went swimming while I was fishing. The lake was warm, not like cold glacier feed lakes in Colorado. Fish were jumping everywhere. I guess they were eating dragonflies that day and not salmon eggs. I didn't catch any fish the whole trip.










This is Brewer Lake. Really nice.
























This tree fell down and took a couple with it. This is where we parked the jeep and made our kitchen. We couldn't eat near the lake because of bears. It was a little bit of a hike to the lake from here but the trail got really difficult. I like that we could close are food in the jeep at night instead of hanging our food.

































I don't know what any of these flowers are called.















































Here is a nice place to take a bath.

































Ok, so that was a nice relaxing afternoon. We had some weird nacho hamberger helper thing for supper and got into the tent around 6pm. We still had two or three hours to darkness but we knew the mosquitoes would be terrible. I read a few short dective stories from ma book since I had finished my own book the night before. The Invisible Man really wasn't a very good story. When the sun left us behind a mountain I turned on my headlamp and read a while longer. I kind of had to pee but I didn't want to get out in the mosquitoes. Ma had already gone out to walk Agatha and had let some bugs in. I figured I could wait until sometime in the middle of the night when the bugs weren't as bad, or else just wait until morning. So I drifted off and fell blissfully asleep, which I am not convinced is the only way to sleep in the backcountry.



I must have started sleeping around 9 and I sleep pretty well in a tent. Around 9:30 I here my mom scream. I jumped up and she was yelling at Agatha.



"Be quiet, Agatha lay down. Agatha be quiet. Agatha lay down."



Agatha was staring out the window ignoring my mom. I didn't know what was going on but I was starting to get scared already. Then ma told me there was a cat outside the tent.



"A what? A mountain lion?" I asked.



" I don't know. A cat I think." She said. I couldn't hear anything but my mom talking to Agatha and Agatha licking her butt. Then I herd this noise from somewhere over by the creek. It sounded like a skreetching scream to me.



"Was it that?" I asked. My mom didn't hear it. Awhile later I heard it again. Meanwhile, Agatha was still licking her butt and I couldn't hear what my mom was pointing at by the side of the tent. Finally, everything else was quite and I heard a russle and and meowish noise. I couldn't see anything outside and I didn't want to turn on my light in case it was a mountain lion.



I layed myself back down and stared at the roof of the tent thinking about what it could be. It didn't sound big so I wasn't to scared about that. But what was the noise I had heard. I had never heard a puma before but I know they scream like old women. Then I started analyzing the noise. It did sound more like a skreetch than a scream. I don't know. And what was the thing outside the tent. Agatha didn't seem to care anymore but I was wide awake. And I had to pee. I was just hoping I could make it until daylight.



About three hours later I couldn't take it anymore. I told ma I had to pee and asked her what time it was. It was 12:30. There was no way I was going to make it until morning. So I put on my shoes and headlamp. Unzipped the door and stood up. Ma yelled, "Your letting the mosquitoes in." So I had to clear the door and face the night. I took a few steps and shined the flashlight all around. There were no signs of life which was a relief. I relieved myself and jumped back in the tent.



For the rest of the night every noise had to be analyzed. Cracking branches, chirps, knocks across the lake, and fish splashing around.



In the morning there were no tracks, scraps or anything to help us solve this mistery. All I had was the sound I had heard. We packed everything up pretty early and headed back out. Taking the pictures you've already seen of the jeep on the trail along the way.



We ate some breakfast back at the trailhead, switched cars and drove down out of the mountains. Ma headed north through Yosemite and I headed south to Loma Linda. When I got back I surfed the internet for the sound clip I linked to. That sounds really similar to what I heard. That combined with the meow and the smaller sounding animal outside the tent leads me to believe that it might have been a lynx.

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Anywho, sorry that was so long. Now I am caught up with the present. I am back in Loma Linda and bored even though I should be measuring more birds in the lab.




Now that I've been keeping up with posting I'll try to continue so keep checking back.

Washington and New York

Here is most of what I did in Washington and New York.









I measured birds. Without having done any analysis so far. It does look like at least some of the populations will be
diagnosably different. I am concerned about the measurement of the red on the throat but I'll see what happens when I
run the data through some statistics.




I also saw some cool stuffed birds I'll never see anywhere else.





This is the ivory billed woodpecker which I guess there is a chance I might be able to see someday. Now that it is no longer extinct




This one is a passenger pigeon. They used to cover the skies so thick you couldn't see daylight between them. They would move in flocks a mile wide and 300 miles long. It's crazy to think that these birds once made up 40% of all North American birds and we know that the last one died on 1 sept 1914.

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New York

New York was more of the same for me. We got in Wednesday night, the 20th of July. Traffic wasn't great in New York City
but it wasn't impossible either.





We managed to find a parking spot on Todd's street
immediately so that was good. Todd is a friend
from the Mill in Lincoln. We used to play chess and sometimes ski together. He was a most excellent host.



After Ceri and I finished in our respective museums we met Todd at his local coffee shop and then headed to "Little India" for some cheap and tasty indian food.






Todd had an awsome apartment with roof access.














Click on it to see the full size.








After the Indian restaurant we helped somebody celebrate leaving for Italy for a year at a bar in Midtown. I'm told it is one of the financial centers and is a huge terrorist magnet so it's one of the only subway stops that gets a police presence.

The next morning we went drove to the place where the twin towers used to stand. It was a pretty big whole. And I took a lot of pictures. So here are some of them.

This one says "Remember, Jesus loves the people you hate."



Jesus called us to renounce violence and befriend our enemies.



Here are a few additional thoughts


Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God.



You can't hug children with nuclear arms.



Bread not bombs



The strongest insurgency in Iraq is where there is no electricity, water, sewer and trash clean up.


New York City had 2245 murders in 1994 and 590 in 2004. This has been attributed to Guiliani's zero tolerence for petty crimes. They cleaned up graphitti and came down on anti-social behavior.










There are four subway lines running in the bottom of this pit. The pit looked like it was 4 or 5 stories deep.






We were trying to get a picture of us with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

After seeing downtown we had to go back home to Bowling Green so that I could catch my flight from Dayton the next morning.

Here are Ceri and I pretending to be asleep.

This gets me pretty close to caught up for the summer. I have one more week to cover which will include the other sleepless night that I had. I'll get that done this week sometime so keep checking in.