Monthly Archives: April 2008

GeekWorld

A Cheap Lesson Overall

Leave a comment

58  bar falls 29.68  0mph E  dewpoint 57  Spring  rain

               Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

I have crossed a threshold today.   A while back my treadmill started to not shut off when I turned it off.  The treadmill kept going at a speed of 1.0 to 1.5 mph.  After calling NOW Sports in Arden Hills, where, it turns out, I bought the machine (when they were in Maplewood), Mike the repair guy called Landice.  They recommended replacing a harness that connects the dial to a rheostat and the computer board that controls the displays.  I looked at it, and it didn’t look  too difficult, so I ordered the $100 part.

It came.

Last night I took off the old harness and installed the new one.  No joy.  It didn’t work at all.  That was a step backward, but, it was not an unusual outcome when I set out to repair things, so I called Mike.  He said he’d call Landice and see if replacing the whole panel was the way to go.  After I hung up, I started to go upstairs and I noticed lights on the display panel.  Electricity!

That meant I might not be as far off as I thought.  I went back at it, jiggling wires.  It went off again.  Jiggled and moved some more wires.  A click.  A good sign.  Then, I found the right position for everything, turned the treadmill to on and it worked.  The elevation worked.  I turned it off.  It still ran.  At this point you might think I was unhappy, but I wasn’t.  This just meant that I had replaced the old harness with a new one and both were good.  The important thing here is that I replaced the old one with a new one and the damned thing still worked.  If that had been the  solution, it would have worked.  As it is, I spent $100 to prove to myself that I can work on things electronic.  A cheap lesson overall.

Art and Culture, Great Work, Weather +Climate

And the Soothsayers Predicted Snow

Leave a comment

55  bar falls 29.79 0mph SE dewpoint 54  Spring   light rain

                Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

And the soothsayers predicted Snow.  Oh, no.  Really, not a big deal.  Slush is more likely.  The precipitation now is all good.  As the weather continues (generally) to warm, the combination of rising soil temperatures and moisture puts plant life on the quick track up.

Randy, from Randy’s plumbing, called.  He will come out Friday am to install the gas piping to the generator.  Center Point will come out on Tuesday afternoon to give us the bigger meter necessary to provide adequate gas to the generator when it works.  Soon we will have protection against power outages.  One more block for the retirement security perimeter.

Membership in Permaculture in a Cold Climate is another one.  As we make the transition here to more and more home grown produce and hopefully some home captured energy, we will reduce our need to leave the property for grocery trips.  All this moves us toward a smaller and smaller carbon footprint. Although, I have to admit, the steam room probably eats up more than we’ll balance for awhile.  Gotta figure that out one of these days.  When we get that Prius two years from now, our balance sheet will look better.

Allison has asked me to consider a short article on astronomy for the summer Muse.  She wants me to focus on the moon since there’s enough written about sun cults. (her language)  Made a quick survey of objects in the MIA collection.  If you thrown in those with stars, there are over 100 objects that have either a moon or star connection.  Finding a good 8 or 10 for a Moon and Stars tour would be easy.  This plays to an interest I developed in archaeoastronomy while I belonged to the Minnesota Astronomical Society.  We’ll see what she wants.  More later.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality

A Vocabulary for This Age

Leave a comment

69  bar steady 30.11 2mph SSE dewpoint 35 Spring

                Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

On the way home from taking Kate to the airport I listened to an NPR interview with choreographer/dancer Patricia Brown.  Her company dances Friday at Northrup and she has some kind of an exhibition at the Walker.

Here’s the takeaway for me.  She is 72+.  A newspaper announced she was about to retire.  She said, no, I haven’t said that.  Instead, she said she was “…looking for a vocabulary for my body at this age.  When I find it, I will perform again.”  This is a great strategy for aging.  We do not look at our deficits, rather, we assess our capabilities and design a vocabulary that uses them, then we get on with our life.

Family, Garden

Morning Glories in the Lead with Cucumber Right Behind

1 Comment

52  bar rises 30.13 0mph S dewpoint 39  Spring

             Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

The moon of growing has fulfilled its role.  Daylilies have popped up everywhere.  A few magnolia buds have popped open.  I found a couple of daffodil’s with flowers still furled around the stalk, but visible now, where they were still hidden a day ago.  No tulip flowers visible yet but the plants themselves are in full leaf.  A few aconites bloom in the front, hidden by the asters of last fall.  I have to cut them down so we can see the blooms.  Leaves to rake.  Last year’s perennials to cut down.  The growing season outside is slowly getting underway.

Kate’s getting ready for her Gabe trip.  She’ll probably head straight to the hospital to see the little guy.  I’ll feel better when she’s there.  She’s got a lot of experience with infants.  A lot.

I’ll take her to the airport, then return here and probably work in the garden for a bit.

The morning glories have begun to rocket up.  I only planted them four days ago and they’re already an inch and a half above the plug.  The cucumbers race right along behind them with, for now, the cylindria beets.  I can see evidence of seedling’s emerging from most of the other plugs, too.  The vegetable garden has begun to grow, right here in our house.  Meanwhile, the lettuce and tomato up top with the halide bulb and the hydroponics continue upwards as well. 

Family, General

The Mohel Is In Israel

Leave a comment

63  bar steady 29.99 1mph W dewpoint 29 Spring

                 Full Moon of Growing

Interior Gardens, where I buy hydroponic supplies, has two Australian Heelers, a dingo related herding dog.  I met Lili and her buddy.  They were friendly and happy to see me from their perch on bags of stacked potting soil.  I bought some more pots so I can make the megafarm a bit more versatile and some trays so I can start more seeds.  So far the hydroponics seems pretty straight forward, but I’m sure the future holds challenges.

The bris will be May 4th.  The mohel is in Israel.  Little Gabe has some respiratory distress. Jon and Jen will be glad when Kate gets there.

Today or tomorrow morning is repair the treadmill day.  I have a harness to replace and it demands matching colored wires with the right sockets.  It seems straightforward, but I confused three colors on the back of the TV.  

Family

An Earth Day Baby

Leave a comment

54  bar steady  29.98  2mph WSW dewpoint 38  Spring

                 Full Moon of Growing

Gabe is an earth day baby.  To have a grandchild born on earthday is auspicious.  His generation will bear the full brunt of the policy decisions now taking place in homes, cities, states and the nation, in fact, all over the globe.  We have the chance to mitigate and in some instances reverse the earth damaging human footprint, but if we don’t, Gabe and his demographic cohort had better learn to swim early, though he resides in Denver, the Mile High city, so ocean rise would have to get severe to reach his front door.

He’s in  a level 2 nursery with oxygen, an IV for fluids and possibly anti-biotics. Kate says if he has trouble it will come within the first 24 hours.  She doesn’t think he will.  He weighed 6 lbs, 8 oz and is 19 inches long.  Lean and long.  Just like his dad.  This is a good weight for a 35 week baby.

Kate spent this morning in whirling dervish mode, controlled but rapid, making phone calls and deciding how to wrap up stuff around here so she can fly out tomorrow.  I’ll stay through Monday AM when I’ll drive out in order to be there in time for the bris on Wednesday.

We had a solid rain last night and though the temps are not as high today we’re still warm enough to encourage growth.  Several of the seeds I planted on Sunday have already sprouted.  I’m not sure what will happen to them left to their own devices for three days, they’re still vulnerable in these first few days, just like Gabe.  Got to think on it.

Family

Oil and Gas Operator

Leave a comment

76  bar steady 29.79 0mph ESE dewpoint 53  Spring

                 Full Moon of Growing

This land baron business creates decisions.  Just got an offer in the mail, unsolicited, for our land in Texas.  On one level it appears to be a generous offer for 40 acres of mesquite, sand and rattle snakes.  On the other hand, how did somebody in California whose business card reads Oil and Gas Operator decide to send us an offer?  Gonna check out the oil and natural gas situation in Pecos County quick. 

The reporter for the Ft. Stockton newspaper who wrote up the scam that sold off a 5,000 acre ranch in 40 acre allotments said to me when I spoke with her,  “My biggest hope is that oil or natural gas will be discovered under that land.  Would serve’m right.”

My siblings and I got this land as an inheritance from a ne’er do well step brother.  We still don’t why.  He died and we got the land.  He bought it on e-bay.

Gosh, I hope we have more suitors out there.  The ideal situation would be for us to lease our land to an oil company so they can put in a well.  Who knows?

General

Gray Hair, a Side Benefit of Aging

Leave a comment

77!  bar steady 29.79  2mph S  dewpoint 50  Spring

                 Full Moon of Growing

This may be one of those years where we skip spring and plunge right ahead into summer.   I prefer a little foreplay before it heats up, but we may not get it.

The trunk now has clean, fresh oil. While waiting on the oil change, I read and edited Stefan’s first poems.  He’s got such a good ear, it will be a pleasure working with him.

My passport application has gone into the Department of State.  This picture looks good, the gray hair makes me look better in photographs.  A nice side benefit of aging.

Just finished drying off blanched vegetables preparatory to putting them in plastic containers for the refrigerator.  Blanching gives the vegetables a bright color, sweetens them and preserves them, in the fridge, for meals.  They have become like snack food to me.

Nap now.  Workout. Go to Scott’s for the Woolly meeting.

Garden, General

The Hawthorne Giant Shakes His Shaggy Head

Leave a comment

64  bar steady 29.81 2mph S dewpoint 50 Spring

             Full Moon of Growing

It’s that time of year again.  The time, that is, when I have to pull the shades of my east facing computer room windows.  Otherwise, it heats up in here.  Pretty fast.

If we’d get some rain to get with this warmth, we’d have plenty of blooms.  I have daffodils and tulips getting close.  Went out yesterday and wandered through our woods and garden.  While looking at one of the large beds shifted from flowers to vegetables, a lily question came up.  Namely, where did I plant all the lilies I had in that bed?  I’ll be damned if I can recall.  They’ll come up as a surprise. 

The Hawthorne giant must have shaken his shaggy head and stomped off to the Arctic circle.  Hope he finds cool weather when he gets there.

The rock wool cubes in which I planted the lettuce dried out last night, at least in the smaller of the hydroponic setups.  I don’t know why.  The plants themselves don’t seem affected, so I conjecture that their root system now reaches down into the nutrient solution.  Learning while we go. 

The truck needs an oil change and I need to read Stefan’s poems and finish the book on Mastery that Tom Crane sent.  So, I’m off.

Faith and Spirituality, Family

A Tradition Thousands of Years Old

Leave a comment

59  bar rises 29.84 1mph NE dewpoint 46 Spring

             Full Moon of Growing

Kate and I observed a tradition thousands of years old tonight.  We got out the Haggadh, put the horseradish, cilantro, haroset, boiled egg and lamb bone (we substituted a chicken leg.) on a Seder plate.  A small egg shaped cup held the salt water, the Elijah cup stood ready for his return.  We had matzoh and we hid the aphikomon for the dogs.  They were, as the passover ritual suggests, children unable to inquire.   We worked together within the limitations of our planning and availability of certain goods to produce a meal, to read the Seder ritual and retell the timeless story of enslavement and liberation, the Exodus.

This Haggadh, the language and shape of the Seder laid out in book form, is hopeless.  It is sexist in the extreme; sexist where no law of faith requires it.  Kate suggested I write one of my own and I just might.

It is a little strange for me, metaphysically speaking, to participate in this ritual with solemnity, which aspects of it requires.  Once I get in the flow of it though the ritual and the language and the songs blend together and become a hymn to the life of a people and their relationship with their highest and best sense of themselves.  It is a story which acknowledges human frailty as well as longing for the divine, bravery as well as fear.  It is their story, but also our story.  Bondage, liberation and the struggle for freedom belong not just to the Jews, but to everyone.