Travels and Thoughts

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WEEK 38 2007

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Saturday 22 September 2007

Saturday - Hah, rain! The cats were puzzled. "Make the wet stuff go away human!" they tried to convey to me, but I didn't. So they messed around in the wet grass and mud in the side yard for an hour, occasionally coming back to me to complain.

Did you know that when cats lick wet sand off their paws they apparently swallow it? Weird. I wonder if cat's even know how to spit. I mean, apart from the angry hiss and spit thing, wherein the spit is, I suspect, accidental.

Home offices of writers (most of whom I don't know). I seem to recall that both Mark Twain and Ernest Gann used remodeled chicken coops to work in - their houses were just too full of distractions. Some of these authors mention that necessity, "never getting work done until I moved into the basement" or "across the street". [via kottke.org]

Which reminds me: when I see a photo of an author in front of book shelves I always feel an urge to see what the titles of the books behind him are. Often it's their own books, often in foreign editions - Finnish, Spanish, Russian, whatever. For science people it's usually science books of one sort or another. For example: Thorne, Misner and Wheeler's Gravitation is unmistakable, even in a blurry background, due to it's size (huge) and color (black).

Friday 21 September 2007

Friday - a cool day, a bit of cloud and wind. They are predicting rain for tomorrow.

I tried out Amazon.com's "Mechanical Turk", in the Steve Fossett search, mostly out of curiosity about how it works. After looking at about a hundred 'hits' I was starting to get eyestrain and stopped. And I didn't see anything of interest. Trees and scrub. It's remarkable how much nothing there is in the American west.

Every piece of that search area has been over checked at least once they say, over at Wikipedia.

I looked at some of the other searches, they looked pretty boring. UPC stickers, people wanting comments on their blog (why?).

You know, if we had simply rebuiltthe twin towers, rather than moaning and groaning and reveling in misery, a visit from someone like Ahmadinejad would just have been a chance to say "See? In your face! Bigger and better than before!"

Riley in a favorite nap position.

Thursday 20 September 2007

Thursday - doing this and that. Took a friends boy to Boy Scouts and hung around for the meeting. Even got to assist in a badge board, or whatever they call it.(he got the badge, that kid knew more about knots than I, the supposed sailor, did).

Interesting. More about the Moveon.org ad. There was a bill expressing confidence in Petraeus and condemnation of Moveon.org, and it passed, 75:25.

For California we have Sen. Feinstein voting for it, Sen. Boxer against. [via Captains Quarters]

Wednesday 19 September 2007

Wednesday - it's cooled down a lot, into the high 50's at night. So, when I open the door for the cats in the morning, Phoebe is reluctant to go out. In the warm weather he is so eager to go out that his head pressed against the opening door makes it difficult to open - now he waits for Riley to lead the way. And when their hour is up both cats come inside willingly.

I give them a little food to help condition this willing re-entry, but since they generally vomit it up (along with some grass stalks) I'm not entirely sure of the efficacy.

Tuesday 18 September 2007

Tuesday - on the road, back to Lancaster.

Ben Ericksen's back from his NorSea 27 trip to Maine. It sounds like he had a touch of weather (and the mal de mere) on the way back. Good point about the cabin sole though.

Monday 17 September 2007

Monday - still TDY, doing this and that around Dad's house.

Book #54, finished on the trip up, was In The Company of Soldiers*, by Rick Atkinson. It relates the story of the invasion of Iraq for Gulf War II, as seen by Atkinson as a Washington Post reporter attached to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus. It's well written, following Petraeus and the 101st as they deploy to Kuwait and eventually attack (in terrible weather) into Iraq. It is only spoiled a bit by the author's Bush Derangement Syndrome (attributing the Kyoto Treaty rejection to Bush being a sure sign of this), and quite open in it's admiration of the men - officers and enlisted - engaged in the battle. Despite being abridged it was a good listen - recommended.

It would be interesting to hear Atkinson's take on the recent slandering of Petraeus by MOVEON.org in the NY Times - I suspect he wouldn't be complimentary to Moveon.org.

Sunday 16 September 2007

Sunday - watched some football. The 49ers' won in the morning, barely, and are now off to a 2:0 start for the season, the first time that has happened since 1998. It's been that long? The human mind is a funny thing, it blocks out the painful memories.

The Raiders lost, in another close game. They are now in a 0:11 streak. To be honest, they didn't play that badly, and only lost in overtime, by missing a kick to a kick by the other side. But they were up with 8 minutes left - they shouldn't have let the other team move at will and score to tie the game.

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Photo Notes: Lemon grove.

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