| oh Glob I am drooling |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|06:59 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | food | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Signal, Season 5, Show 12, July 7th 2009 - Les Howard and Kari Haley | ] |
I want some.
Yum! |
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| tufa towers |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|01:28 pm] |
The towers of mystery.
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| volcanobloom |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|01:27 pm] |
These were flowers growing atop Panum Crater.
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| heavenride |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|10:12 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | bike, me | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sore | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | KUCI 88.9fm in Irvine - AAA | ] |
I rode after skool to AV for an appointment, then had dinner, had the bike fixed, rode to downtown V'ville, then up 66 and home; I got home at nine-something and soaked nigh endlessly in the bath.
I rode 25 miles today. It hurts but it feels good to know that I can do that. Wow. Go me!
My sandals are done for reenactment this weekend and I started a sock today....I got toe and some sole done. I can do two socks ere reenactment. I feel good about myself. |
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| Negit Island |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|06:33 am] |
The black island, Negit, in Mono Lake. Paoha, its white colleague, is in middle distance and the rock outcrop is part of Panum Crater, a volcano merely 700 years old. Amazing.
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| Pathetic Palin? |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|08:19 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | ugh | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | KUCI 88.9fm in Irvine - AAA | ] |
Home, ate, watered plants, washed wool. And washed it again. This toga is NOT going to shrink.
On the Wasilla whack-job, courtesy of Sully! |
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| chinless wonder/froth of July |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|11:46 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | me | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | meh | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | 流水 - David Ming-yueh Liang | ] |
I wondered when I got my Assbook account whether it would take away from blogging, and to a degree, well, I guess it has.
Listening to the qin, an instrument I've liked for a long time. In this we recall that fireworks are a Chinese invention.
For today: A Declaration!
There are others.
Indeed, there are many others.
This is a day for declarations, one thinks.
I mean, why not? Life, liberty, property? What's so bad about all that, really?
STOP TRAVELLER
Near this place lies JOHN LOCKE. If you are wondering what kind of man he was, he answers that he was contented with his modest lot. Bred a scholar, he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth. You will learn this from his writings, which will show you everything about him more truthfully than the suspect praises of an epitaph. His virtues, if indeed he had any, were too slight to be lauded by him or to be an example to you. Let his vices be buried with him. Of virtue you have an example in the gospels, should you desire it; of vice would there were none for you; of mortality surely you have one here and everywhere, and may you learn from it. |
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| stovewood |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|10:06 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | camping, me | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | elated | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | soundtrack of December Boys | ] |
So.
I made an Altoids-tin stove and then made a cup of pseudo-coffee on it.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Altoids-Tin-Alcohol-Stove/
It really works. I balanced a tin mug atop the rim of the stovelet and fed the perlite with Everclear. (I couldn't believe that I was buying Everclear, even for a chemistry experiment...) Oh, sure, they say to use denatured, but there is the Jackknife Principle to consider: everything must have more than one use. And in the weird Nebenwelt of ultralight backpacking, the whole idea of carting ethanol as both stove fuel and...medicine (yuck) has a certain mad appeal. Will I ever actually....use this?
Well, why not? I made my own hiking stick and cap. My next assignment is my Roman shoes, although I might not hike in them. Hmmm.
I can for certain say this. Tote an Altoids tin and a pot; balance the pot atop rocks or such. Carry a plastic bottle of Everclear. Carry matches and a lights, since you don't want to lack fire. Cook. It'd have to be lighter than those smelly white-gas stoves that we used to have to tote, complete with pumpable starters and messy fuel. I met two hikers who'd tramped all over Hesperia seeking white gas; trust me, alcohol is easier to find.
I can't wait. |
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| love is the devil |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|07:45 am] |
I dropped my Mighty Bamboo Staff and had to crawl down the Devil's Postpile to retrieve it. This was forbidden and sort of dangerous:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Devils_postpile_NM.jpg
I was near the left top, where the curved columns are. This pic....Yowza.
I did get the staff back and then lost it to the Cedar Glen folk as of last weekend's hike-from-hell. I mean, they still have it, and I could go up there if I went and picked up my rentacar. Maybe I shall at that.
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| wee pine |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
Wee are one!!!
From Devils Postpile.
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| flowers and song |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|09:55 pm] |
The flowers of heaven on Devil's Postpile.
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| extremophun |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|09:34 am] |
Extremophile bacteria at the exit of a freshwater spring on the shores of Mono Lake. I think that the rocks round it might be tufa.
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| Sharon on Faith |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | soundtrack of The City of Lost Children | ] |
Sharon says:
I give a lot of talks at churches and synagogues and other religious communities. Many of those communities are already engaging in the nuts and bolts work of responding to an *existing* Long Emergency - they are doing the marrying and burying, the preaching of moralities, both productive and not. They run the food pantries, the battered women’s shelters, the emergency funds. They find clothing for the naked, food for the hungry and offer sanctuary and public appeals when violence breaks out. This is the nitty gritty work of responding to the crisis as it unfolds, and it must be done simultaneously with the building of the “better model.” I would argue that some of (not all) the best people to make the case for Transition to are the people who are already on the ground in our cities and towns doing the work that desperately needs more hands. |
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| nightmare girl |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|06:12 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | me | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | meh | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Savage Love Episode 140 - Dan Savage | ] |
Up after a weekend from hell.
The hiking trek Saturday ended at 4am in the emergency room after hours on the trail waiting for search and rescue, who were very nice people. Chief, our super scoutmaster and US Marine, had fallen behind and then fallen unconscious...Eadgifu, our middle-aged black woman, had asthma, which I didn't know about, and had fallen and was in more and more pain from falling and smacking her knee. The trail was not eight miles, as we had been told; we hiked fifteen and two-thirds miles. Ugh. I need to double-check, and I did: I called the rangers. I need to...triple-check.
Sunday I got home at six, slept, drove to the Canyons on 14, workshopped with my ghetto-Roman pals, saw the Vasquez Rocks, missed the Traders Joes and then had an accident when I got to Hesperia. Whether the cheap and chippy car is salvageable remains to be seen. The airbags came out and smelled nasty; I had never smelled them before.
I guess...well, I was in the hospital and did talk to a cop, albeit a really nice one. If there was a worse weekend, I'd be in jail, or I'd be in the hospital for myself.
Shit. |
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| bra? |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|11:23 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | california | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | morning-guh | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Savage Love Episode 139 - Dan Savage | ] |
Keef is also a bra. |
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| Tufa power! |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|01:24 pm] |
A new tufa forms round a spring. It can grow as far as the water surface, then no more. Interesting.
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| the sea monkeys attack!!! |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|01:23 pm] |
Artemia in Mono Lake: the wild ur-stock whence sea monkeys were domesticated!
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| Tufatofumania???? |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:11 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | me, travel | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the mesa | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Racoo-oon on KUCI | ] |
The towers are much richer and stranger than pictures can describe. Despite reading about Mono and seeing endless pics, and being there before, I had no idea of how mysterious, how Atlantis-like this was.
http://www.monolake.org/
The towers formed in lines..., and so the overall (very strong) impression is of the ruins of a civilization whose standards of building were... not quite our own. I was there for eight hours on Friday.
Highly recommended; deeply alien and strange.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake
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| Unto these Mesas? |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:07 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | garden, me | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  relaxed | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Track One-Groin | ] |
I came home today, came home from skool and the library and pizza, and relaxed, read some gaslight crime, and watered, weeded a little, noted that lettuce is bolting like Michael Bolton,, and picked some oleander and desert willow for a milk-bottle flower arrangement.
Home. After a week at Reds Meadow in the Sierra, it was good to be back. 28 miles on the PCT, a cheerful horseback ride with a student of The Herbologist's, a Satanic Landmark, numerous tasty-enough meals and lots and lots of chances to practice my Spanish with Luis and Miguel, the Mexican-immigrant kitchen boys.
I really, really enjoyed it; I even drove a couple of hikers round, earning my trail-cherub wings. Of course, one was a racist jerkhole, but you take what you get, plus HE DROPPED OUT!
Sic Semper Podeci! (Thus always to buttholes!) |
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| Swallows and amazons? |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|09:05 pm] |
Well, minus the Amazons, of course. This was just a swallow at Mono, feeding on the superabundant scurf of flies.
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| Ospreys on stack |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|09:00 pm] |
The proud parents, on their tufa-top nest. This was taken through the scope, of course.
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| Osprey Hen on Nest |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|08:56 pm] |
This worked out amazingly well. I was at Mono yesterday because I was sore from hiking to Badger Lakes the day before. There was a huge bird-a-rama in Lee Vining, the miniscule town by the lake.
A birder at South Tufa had a spotter scope trained on a pair of ospreys who'd nested on a tufa stack, feeding on fish in the streams (Mono has none, only sea-monkeys); there were chicks as well. I took pics through my zoom lens and through her scope. I couldn't believe that any of them came out.
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| it's over/Review of Night at the Museum II |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|09:44 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | me | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the mesa | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | feeding | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | He Mandu-Mouth Music | ] |
Eating tofu and choy sum stir-fried with black bean garlic sauce and fermented tofu, more garlic, bell pepper and tiny yellow squash, in local tortillas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only in California.
I finished exams today, graded, logged the grades. My work for this semester is done. Yay! I even have summer syllabuses ready. I'm getting used to this. Maybe that's a problem.
I was reading a free roleplaying system. There looks to be a lot of support material for it, if I wasn't the sort of maniac who makes everything from scratch and makes his own worlds and so on and on. I'd actually like to try running this, maybe with the Marish/Lasa setting. Maybe it will work. Maybe.
I rode over the river after school to the new movie theater and saw Night at the Museum II. I had intended to see Up!, often as it's been praised, but it had already started. I was surprised and delighted by the love-letter-to-the Smithsonian atmosphere of the movie, and didn't mind Hank Azaria's faggy pharaoh too much. The CGI is the movie: it's a popcorn crapfest, but I enjoyed it very much. If you love the Smithsonian as much as I do, then do see this. If you have never seen the Smithsonian, then this is a pleasant fantasy set in part there and in part in other places. Recommended.
I rode back to skool, grabbed fruit and veggies, and rode home for dinner. Mmmmmmm.
It's good to know that I can do this. I felt shackled to my car for so many things. I don't have to be. You don't have to be.
The average length of a car trip is ten miles. You can ride ten miles on a bike. If you can't ride it today, you can ride a block. Then two. Then ten. That's a mile. Then a hundred. Ten miles. What's the average weight of a car's car-go? I don't know. I can carry a hundred pounds on my trailer. I know that the average weight of a car's freight must be under a hundred pounds.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/ten-reasons-not-to-bike-to-work-all-debunked-threefold.php
You don't have to be.
Guh. This feels really good. |
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| Sharon: Lady of the Birds |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|09:33 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | birds | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | quiet | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Burritos North and South; In-N-Out Secrets; Mobile Slaughterhouses; Biodynamic Wine - Podcast:Talk | ] |
Sharon shows bird love.
Wow. That's all I have to say. I came home after a lot of grading, passed most everyone, and made soop for dinner, done the washing, done the ironing, rode to the store and the post orifice, mended pants, and am reading on compost.
I bought a sickle. I had a hammer already. Now I have to mount them on the wall, crossed.
I am reading a fine book on compost, very much recommended.
More as it comes. |
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| root magic |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|10:08 pm] |
A huge gnarled mass of root and branch on the trail.
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| Silverwood |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|10:06 pm] |
We hiked out of Silverwood and I did manage to take some pictures.
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| wind hell |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|09:20 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | me | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | soundtrack of Six Feet Under | ] |
Loooong ride home: seven miles uphill into a roaring 25mph wind. Cold, throwing me off the road, tearing my helmet off. I stopped and ate calzone.
Crap.
It was *really* good to get home and make a fire. Ice water. Shortbread. Might make pseudo-coffee sometime.
The students were themselves today. I have a crapload of work to do before the semester is over. Then off to Reds Meadow.
They have horses. Maybe I'm not too old and fat to ride a little ways. I'll bring the Bicycle of Moral Superiority too. Devils Postpile has a no-cars rule. Wow. I can ride my bike... I will go. No plans. Nothing definite. I will go. And see it. |
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| WE'VE GOT SPIDERS |
[Jun. 6th, 2009|10:55 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | music | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | the mesa | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Bullet-Spider Problem | ] |
Home from Haydn concert at school and a botched hike on PCT: my coworker, the Moviegoer, pooped out after less than three miles. Shit.
We left Silverwood, intending to hike to Cajon, but he got tired-er and tireder, panting, and lagging behind. We stopped for a rest, and he didn't want to go on.
I hate this. |
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| shortbread |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|10:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | food, recipes | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | yumm | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Spiritual Light-Beth Orton | ] |
I made shortbread because I had no eggs.
Heat oven to 350' or so.
Two sticks of butter, softened. Stir in two cups of sugar. Granulated organic will do, but powdered really works better.
Add two and a bit cups of flour, and a third of a cup of cornstarch or so. A spoonful of your favorite liqueur, instead of water. Almonds or walnuts or chocolate chips. A little more flour, maybe.
Mix all together and press into a mold, or into a 9x13" pan, or use a muffin tin (very convenient).
Sprinkle the top with sugar. Do not try to make shortbread with honey, or you will reenact my "is it soup yet?" evening.
Bake for about 45min to an hour. It should be a little bit brown when it comes out. It needs to be cut when hot, then broken when cold; a muffin tin avoids this issue.
Yum. Drambuie shortbread. |
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