Moving my blog

I am shutting my blog down on this site and moving it all to my new blog established on texafied.com/blog using wordpress, an extremely flexible open source blogging software. You can access my new blog here: http://texafied.com/blog

Squeezing masses of caterpillars to green mush

Spiders...yes, great clumps of spiders all over the place! They appeared about two days ago: tiny spiders all clumped together in large masses, recently hatched out and huddling together before they embark upon their individual journeys out into the great world. What were the factors that caused them to all hatch out on the same day? It reminds me of when ants or termites all take it into their heads to embark on their great mating flights all at the same time. Yes, certain environmental factors: temperature, moisture, etc., etc. blah, blah...but how can these factors determine these events so precisely? I found several of these spider clumps, all apparently hatching at the same time. I suspect that they are all the offspring of the common Neoscona sp. that is so conspicuous here in the waning days of fall when the cool nights and shortened days tell these beautiful creatures that their days are numbered.

I noticed something that I have seen before in other poikilotherms. Such creatures' temperature depends upon the external environment, and on cool days they often clump together in large masses which tends to raise and maintain a higher temperature than if they went their separate ways. I used to notice this is especially in web worms.

These accursed creatures used to infest my apple trees. I noticed that on cool days these caterpillars would mass together and allow their dark bodies to soak up the heat. I knew this because I would go around and... Let me interject here that I LIKE animals. Today I won't hurt anything unless they bite or otherwise feed upon me (mosquitoes and fleas come to mind). But at this time I would become inordinately angry at these caterpillars that would devastate my apple trees if I would let them. Also I loathe pesticides. So, as I was saying, I would go around, take the large mass of squirming caterpillars in my hand and squeeze. As their little bodies burst and released the green contents, I noticed that without exception that they were extremely warm. On warm days the individual caterpillars would leave the large mass and disperse in all directions, only to return at night or when the weather became cooler.

These little spiders seem to do the same thing. Usually these little "superorganisms" don't last too long since the individual spiders usually wander off, or balloon off in a strong breeze.

Ok, I finished reading my book on HTML and am ready to begin experimenting. As usual I seem to be re-inventing the wheel. I had the bright idea of making templates of HTML code that was commonly used which would save me the effort of typing all that obscure stuff over and over as I did my pages. Then I heard about HTML editors and found that this has all been thought out before, and these nifty little progs will automatically do most of the tedious work involved in writing the code out. Ok, so I won't be inventing the wheel all over again. But now I can modify and interpret the existing code that I do find!

I am not a groupie!

I really, really do not consider myself a groupie. I mean really! However, I have begun to realize that I do have some very intense enthusiasms about some things. I never thought of these enthusiasms as falling into the realm of "groupie," but...well, I dunno. So I looked up the definition of groupie and found the following:

1. A fan, especially a young woman, who follows a rock group around on tours.
2. An enthusiastic supporter or follower: a ballet groupie; a fashion groupie.
3. An admirer of a celebrity who attends as many of his or her public appearances as possible.
4. An enthusiastic young fan (especially a young woman who follows rock groups around).

So, since I'm not that young ::cough::, and I'm not female, and I don't follow anybody around, then I must not be a groupie. The term "enthusiastic supportor or follower," however, might apply to me in so far as my enthusiasms go.

For example, I used to have an inordinate passion for Tom Sawyer. I had read the book at least twenty times by the time I was ten, and could quote entire passages by memory. I copied my life after Tom, emulating him in every way that I could imagine. I eventually shifted my interests over to Huckleberry Finn as I got older, and even today I still re-read Huckleberry although I have largely abandoned Tom.

As I write this I am reminded more and more of various books and authors that I have developed a great liking for. In the late sixties I became interested in Tolkien's Ring Trilogy almost concurrently with Casteneda's early books on his apprenticeship with the brujo, Don Juan. In the early seventies I also developed a passion for Mary Renault's books on ancient Greece. Years ago I became enamoured with Roger Zelazny's books on Amber--a series of ten books compiled together in the Great Book of Amber (see the Amber Chronicles). More recently I began an interest in Anne Rice's vampire books. Oh and Colleen McCullough's series on ancient Rome. When I say that I became interested in these authors and their books, I mean that I read and re-read these books over and over and have for years. Yes, I have read more of the high brow classics than the average person, but with a few exceptions, I never had the slightest inclination to read them over and over. The only movie that I developed an intense liking for was Blade Runner which I still can't get enough of.

However, these aren't real people! The only real person that I have such an enthusiasm for and whom I actually might follow around (if he were still alive), and about whom I continually read biographies of is...Charles Darwin. I mean it's not that unusual to light candles before his portrait in my home is it? And incense...and just because I call him "Saint Darwin" doesn't make me a groupie does it?

Choking on Acronyms

You resonate

Like a harp

Left on

Apollo's altar,

Catching the wind

At the end of day

Giving forth music

As the westering sun

Turns the

Wine dark sea to gold.

I haven't been idle...really. Joomla has just put out a second Beta prior to coming out with a new release candidate. Supposedly the new version is much better than the old. I was faced with the prospect of using the older version or waiting until the bugs had been worked out with the 1.5 Beta 2. This new Beta version was "primarily for the developers and designers" which I decidedly am not. Also the more I read about such things, the more I realized that I really needed to know HTML, not to mention PHP, etc. Otherwise, I would just be blindly following directions with little knowledge of the subject.

So I have decided to learn HTML, CSS, PHP, and whatever; I am terrible at understanding acronyms. I have been reading a book on HTML and have just begun reading about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and have been surprised at how uncomplicated it looks. I hesitate to use the word simple, because it isn't, but it really does not seem that difficult to understand. Of course, I haven't gotten past the basics, so I should keep my astonishment to myself, because I'm sure I shall have to eat these words later. After I have learned my basics, perhaps then the new version of Joomla will be out, and I will be able to make a better decision as to the best way to proceed.

Joomla...I'm getting excited now...

I opened up Joomla the other free open source web maker that comes highly rated, and have been looking at the EXTREMELY well written directions! Thus far, it seems light years ahead of Drupal in the way that it is explained and the way that it operates. Everything is so logical and so incredibly well presented. I haven't finished going through the directions yet and have yet to make my trial web site, but I'm already many days ahead of my pace studying Drupal.

Drupal is "said" to be the most powerful and the most flexible, and where I am at right now I certainly can NOT see this. Joomla's user manual is so well organized and so clear in its presentation, that it seems to be inspired. The Drupal instructions seem to be so diffuse and disorganized that it makes the entire learning process a slow and laborous process--more than the content warrants.
So, I am sure that I shall be commenting further on the two programs in the future.

The weather here has been sunshine interspersed with rain--mostly rain all day today in fact. The wind is blowing the little paper-like cups that cover the growing tips of the Douglas Fir all over the place. As the twig tips grow, the little brown cups fall off. Many flowers, too numerous to mention now, but soon I would like to post some photos.

Drupal, drupal...bah...

I think that I have been wasting my time trying to figure out the basics of the web building program, Drupal. I have no idea why I attempted this time consuming project. My current website, texified.com, is run by a very easy and intuitive program. Supposedly Drupal is able to be expanded more and has an active community of people who are continually modifying and developing the program. So far though I have seen nothing impressive about it, and I think that I might try Joomla next.

After over a week of effort I have finally been able to construct a very basic site (not put onto the web yet--if ever!), but so far it seems cumbersome and non-intuitive. Now I am speaking as a complete novice as far as my knowledge about such things goes. I sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the directions which assume a modicum of prior knowledge at least.

I feel sorta like the non-mechanical fella who is trying to put some oil in in his car. The directions say to find the oil cap, remove and add the oil. The poor guy looks all over the car trying to find the right place before finally realizing that the the directions have failed to say to open the hood! There have been a couple of incidents like this for me in following the directions.

Musings on the Human Heart

Charles Darwin was riding a train coach and noticed a lady staring impassively out the window. Suddenly with no warning her face crumpled into an intense expression of grief, perhaps at a thought of something sad in her life, he speculated. I think of this sometimes, how we pass each other on the street, eat beside other in restaurants, go about our lives, only seeing the exterior that we present to the world.
Of course our literature is full of comment about how we are all separated from each other, unable to effectively communicate the panaroma within us all. I think that our opportunities to really get to know one another are limited, and that when we are able to communicate in ways beyond the superficial, we are often surprised at what we find in each other.

We more often than not find that there is gold within us all. When we dig down and get to really get to know somebody, we often find that underneath that outside mask is a warm, loving individual, full of doubts and fears, pain and hope...we find a person with whom we can forge empathetic bonds, a person whom we can grow to like and to even love.

I read a story once about a man facing the final judgment after his life was over. He was facing a group of judges who were once men and who had lived on earth before passing over that great divide. God was present, but only as an advocate for the accused. The final judgment as to the man's fate rested solely upon the judges. All the man's past sins were brought forth before the judges. It was shown how from an early age the man had lied and cheated. He grew into a thief and a murder. He became a despicable person full of sin and all sorts of vice of the lowest sort.
God told the judges about how he knew the motivations that drove the man. He talked about how he was born a sweet baby, full of the special goodness that all children have. He talked about how he was beaten by a drunken father, how he stole food in order to feed his mother and his many brothers and sisters. He told the judges how the man's environment had twisted and changed him into what he was. He told all the man's inner feelings and how at heart he was still good and true.
The judges took all that into account in their judgement, but in the end they condemned the man to Hell. They said that all men have their own peculiar motivations--both good and bad, but not all men act upon them. This man acted upon whatever it was that formed and made him, and that is what made the difference. This man had acted, and they were judging the man for his actions not his motivations. Hitler, I assume, was once a sweet child, full of dreams and aspirations as all children are. What were the factors in his environment, what were his motivations that turned him into a monster? To human judges that is all irrelevant. History judges him on his actions.

And so that I suppose is what we do in our lives. We usually have, unlike God, no idea as to a persons motivations, and so we usually are reduced to forming judgements and opinions concerning someone on their actions. When I see a person acting offensively, I form a reaction based on his actions without regard to what made him act in such a manner. That is all I can do with somebody whom I don't know. I can make a mental note to be more understanding, but that understanding doesn't always go very far when a person acts in such a way.

But what about a person whom you DO know very well...or think you do? What happens when such a person treats you with contempt, hurts you in mean sorts of ways, and in general seems to loathe the very ground you walk upon? How should you react when this happens?

Cycles...

The past two days here have been very warm actually getting up to 73 degrees yesterday. I actually heard people complaining about the heat, and of course, many people are wearing their skimpy summer clothes. People here really can't take any kind of heat whatsoever.
The vegetable seeds that I planted are germinating and poking their heads up. I can tell that I'm going to have to thin them out, which is always difficult for me because I don't like doing that. If I don't do it though then the plants will be stunted. I think that I will replant the thinned seedlings...somehow that makes me feel better about it all.

The wind picked up in the afternoon, and when I left the house the porch and driveway was covered with the tiny dried up corpses of male Douglas Fir cones...yes the ones that spewed out so much pollen a while back. I can always tell the time of year just by looking at my driveway. The plants go through their annual cycles and shed their various structures just like clockwork. There were a few yellow Madrone Leaves on the driveway also, foretelling the month of June when they shed all their old leaves.

My new project is to learn all about the program, Drupal, which I want to learn in order to be more flexible in posting my web site. I'm not quite sure about it yet, and I can tell that it will be a time consuming process.

Turdus migratorius Grease On My Windows

That’s right, the crazy robin is back again this year! Two years ago I was awakened at sunrise by a series of loud taps on my bedroom window. I dismissed the noise at first and drifted off to sleep only to be awakened again by more loud taps on the glass. I discovered upon raising my shade that it was a robin who was valiantly fighting it’s reflection on my second story bedroom window. “Why couldn’t it have picked a down stairs window,” I wondered blearily. I opened the window and shooed it away, went back to bed and once again was awakened after I had gone to sleep. After a moment’s thought, I went into the next bedroom and retrieved my daughter’s large Raggedy Anne doll and placed it on the window sill so that it stared sightlessly out with it’s large eyes. I had no more problems with the robin.

That is I had no more problems with THAT window. The robin then proceeded over the next few weeks to attack every single window on the east side of the house. It didn’t merely give the windows a few dusultory pecks. No, it acted as if its territory (my front yard) had been invaded by an army of other robins, and it spent every waking moment fiercely attacking its reflection—over and over and over. At the end of this campaign, all my windows had been smeared almost completely with what I could only call…Robin grease.

The material on the windows appeared to be some type of oily substance which was very difficult to wash off. I assume it was the oil that the bird rubbed on its feathers which it got by rubbing it’s head on it’s pygidium, sometimes indelicately called the “Pope’s Nose,” which forms that little stub which most people call a tail.

Last year I only heard a few pecks from the robin. I assumed that the original robin had possibly moved on to that worm farm in the sky and breathed a sigh of relief. But now it’s back, back with a vengeance. At the moment it is only attacking the top three panes of my large front living room window…just those three. And sure enough, I see the tell-tale smears of robin grease. I watched it today as it sat in a bush outside the window. It would sit there impassively, staring with it’s crazed beady eyes at my window for a few moments, and then with no discernable change in it’s demeanor it would launch itself like a rocket at the window.

I’m taking no chances; I’m looking high and low for the Raggedy Anne Doll.

Dr. L. Frank Brown, a Teacher for the Ages

A while back I wrote something about crossroads that we all encounter in our lives--certain events whose significance at the time we often are unawares. There are events, however, whose significance is well realized at the time. Events which shake us and leave us changed.

I had a teacher once whose words spoken with a quiet intensity changed my life forever. It was on a limestone hillside in Texas many years ago. It was spring and the Bluebonnets and Indian Blankets covered the land in the warm sunshine, and the song of Meadowlarks filled the air. Students in my Historical Geology class were every where over the hillside, but I only had eyes and ears for Dr. L. Frank Brown who was my teacher.
I had just caught a young snake whose identify I didn’t know, and I was a bit disappointed that Dr. Brown, a geologist, said he didn’t know what kind of snake it was when I asked him. The snake must have been a guide, leading me to my teacher, for Dr. Brown motioned to me and another student as he knelt down and picked up the fossil of a clam from the limestone outcrop that we stood upon.

“Look at this!” he said, holding the fossil out in his hand, his voice intense and directed right at me. “This area is filled with these broken clam shells. Look…you can see where the shell was broken after death, and you can see that the broken edges of the shell are smooth and worn. These shells of these clams were washed back and forth by wave action to form this ripple mark made of clam shells which was on the floor of a shallow Cretaceous sea. If you could find an adjoining ripple bed, you could calculate the depth of water that these shells were in by the distance between the ripple marks. These clams were probably just offshore, their shells worn smooth by the wave action. Listen! Smell! Can’t you just hear that ancient sea and smell the tidal flats these clams lived in?”

And so, in an instant was my life changed forever. That moment was inscribed on my being never to be erased. I can remember it exactly. The sun warm on my neck and bare arms, the snake wriggling in my hands totally forgotten, the buzz of grasshoppers, the smell of that good Texas country…engraved forever along with those simple intense words spoken with a fervor that spoke excitedly of momentous secrets being revealed.
I simply felt doors swing open in my mind and through them I had a far off glimpse of lands never before dreamed of. The idea that from a few simple observations the ecology of a land gone to dust over sixty five million years ago could be deduced was something absolutely inconceivable to me. And it was far more than that…it was an introduction into a way of looking at things that I had never experienced.

I finished the course with an “A,” and received in the mail a copy of Loren Eisley’s The Immense Journey with an inscription on the front page by Dr. Brown congratulating me on my achievement of making the highest grade in the class. In the future I took additional courses from Dr. L. Frank Brown—two semesters of Invertebrate Paleontology and a course in Sedimentology/Stratigraphy. All of these courses involved weekly field trips with some of them extending all week end. The Stratigraphy course also involved one on one trips with Dr. Brown who dedicated all his weekends during that semester to his students. I often wondered how his wife tolerated his being gone constantly.
In all of these courses, Dr. Brown taught with an intensity and enthusiasm which captured and riveted the attention of his students. His dedication and single-minded pursuit of teaching excellence has remained with me all my life. It was quite simply impossible to be around him without catching the fire that he gave off—a fire that made one want to know more about the secrets of the universe that he imparted with such ease and facility.
When he had to leave our school at the end of my senior year, all the students were devastated and appalled. He burned so brightly that he showed most of the other faculty in the Baylor Geology department to be dim and dusty cinders. He had to move on. This was my first glimpse of what envy on such a level could do to the best and brightest.

I never saw Dr. Brown again. However, because of his incredible influence I went on to finish my Bachelors, then my Masters and eventually my Doctorate. I have taught many hundreds of students since those days, and every day that I do so, I think of Dr. Brown and wonder just how he would explain a particularly difficult concept, or how he would try and enthuse students in the subject that he loved so much. What a role model he was!
And just before he left I had intended to write him and tell him how much he had influenced and changed my life, but…I never did, he left before I wrote the letter. And all these years I have regretted not writing that letter…until now. I recently to my astonishment found him online and wrote him at his email address repeating much of what I have just written. I can't begin to say how pleased I am to tell him how much he changed my life.
I don't think it would be an invasion of his privacy to provide this link to his profile. You can go here and see how he has progressed since he left the narrow strictures of Baylor University.

Sword Fern and Lilac

It's been rain mixed with sun today. The sword fern are sending forth new growth and their fiddle heads are in the process of uncurling.

Also the lilacs are at their height. I have two bushes, one on the front corner of the house and the other by the porch and driveway. I especially like the latter since it curls over the porch steps which gives me an opportunity for a wonderful sniff of lilac every time that I go by. Also, however, they act like sponges which dumps water on me if I brush against them after a rain!

Do You Have Passion?

I tried to ignore the tons of rock which seemed poised to drop onto me as I squeezed through the narrow crevice, covering myself with the wet clay of the cave. I had never known any symptoms of claustrophobia before I had entered this small cave in search of some elusive Collembola. It was mid-January in Northeastern Iowa and the snow was deep and the temperature was in the single digits outside the cave. Inside the cave it was cool and damp with puddles of water upon which one could find these new types of Springtails which so excited my guide. All I could see of him at the moment was his feet ahead of me as he scrambled unconcernedly through the narrow passages and crevices.

Finally we reached a wider place in the passage which contained a small pool of water. We were on our bellies with the ceiling pressing into our backs and my claustrophobia had increased.
"Here!" he shouted excitedly and took out a small brush and a vial of alcohol.
Looking closer in the weak yellow beam of his flashlight I could see extremely small hopping insects on the surface film of the water. This is what we were after--new species of Collembola, commonly called Springtails. Back in those simple days of 1974 these curious creatures were considered insects, but now with sophisticated means of genetic analysis, we are able to divide and subdivide, clump and unclump taxa based upon DNA esoterica which has provided taxonomic "splitters" with a dream tool. They now (for the moment) appear to be put into a class of their own along with other apparently unrelated Arthropods that have internal mouth parts (Entognatha).
As he gently caught the creatures on the tip of his camel hair brush and dipped them into their final bath of alcohol, I could see his hands shake, his breath puffing forth in dense clouds of vapor in the cool air. He was almost beside himself with excitement. He had found and described these creatures which through isolation and eons had differentiated into distinct species. Since this was in one of those "islands" which had not been covered by the lastest glaciation (Wisconsin), they may have been isolated longer than we realized. Even though he was just an undergraduate at nearby Luther College, he had already accomplished much. Caught up by his excitement, I forgot the pressure on my back, the chill and the wet and became absorbed in these tiny creatures that lived in the utter darkness of this cave.

Sometimes I think back on this young man with his incredible enthusiasm for a small insignificant group of animals. Most people had never heard of these creatures, and if they did, they probably would be amazed that anybody would pay any attention to them. However, in the dim chill of that wet cave, with the sense of imminent doom from the rock pressing on my back, I caught a part of his fire and felt myself becoming excited in turn. I carry a part of this fire still. And this is the lesson that I learned from him:

Life should be full of such enthusiasms. We should search out and cultivate these passions! We should open ourself to this incredible universe and catch something of the mysterious fire that lies at its root. I love and admire anybody with overpowering passion and enthusiasms which fill them with a holy fire which can illuminate and fill all those who come in contact with them. And it can be anything! Springtails or painting, music or archery...can you feel it?

Are You Really That Simple? 无为

A while back, I became interested in the idea of what it would mean to lead a simple life. I found this one religion/philosophy which seems to embrace this idea. Some of it's major tenets are:

1. The universe is comprised of a basic unity--a mysterious force which is unknowable and which is the origin of all things. It is impossible to know absolute good and evil.

2. Life is the greatest of all possessions. To attain the richest sort of life, a person must somehow attune himself to this unity.

3. Live in primitive simplicity and let all things take their natural course. We should place our will in harmony with the natural universe which works harmoniously in its own way. When we try to impose our will it disrupts that harmony.

4. Kindness, humility and sincerity should be cultivated.

5. The highest goodness is like water which seeks the lowest level drawing nearer to the unity of all things.

And how can such a life be lived today in the midst of all our modern wonders and the complexity of our civilization?

We are responsible for how we live our lives. Cultivate simplicity, get rid of unnecessary "things." Try to attune to nature and the changing seasons. Try to not be so judgmental. Accept and try to understand other people. Cultivate compassion and kindness. Encourage others to abandon their rampant consumerism. Development spontaneity in your life and try to look upon your life as a child does--full of awe and wonder.

Everything is Impossible!

I was just thinking about the varied circumstances that have led to me being right here, leading the life that I am leading. Everybody, I am sure has done this, thinking back to a particular event that seems to be a major turning point in one's life. If we had made a different decision at a critical juncture then our lives would have turned out totally different.

There are many small decisions that we make throughout the day that affect our lives, but there seem to be a few pivotal events I can think of which would have led to major changes in my life if I had made a slightly different decision. It is usually only with hindsight that we can spot these pivotal episodes. I am sure that there are many choices that we make throughout the day that have the potential to be one of these nexus points, but because of the choices that we make, we never realize that we have passed one of these probability points. Most choices lead to a continuation of our daily routine, but if we make slightly different decisions then major changes can occur.

I can remember one cold wintery night back in January, 1974 in Decorah, Iowa. I was enjoying a drowsy evening listening to classical music, reading and drinking tea, when there was a sudden knock at the door. I was somewhat irritated at being disturbed and I was loathe to get up and open the door to the frigid cold. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was one of those critical nexus points. If I had decided to ignore the knock, I would have gone on down the life path that I was on at that time, and I would never have realized that I had been brushed by the dark wings of change. However, I got up reluctantly, opened the door...and my life was sucked into a hurricane of change and turmoil which led me down a dark divergent path far from my loved ones and all that I had known before. I stand here where I am today because of that long ago decision.

This is just one fork in my life that I remember, but when I ponder this, I realize that my life was full of such episodes--arguably an infinite number of nexus possibilities. And not just my life, but the lives of those around me, the lives of my parents, the decisions that they made each moment of their lives which led to the present reality...and so on, the decisions of their parents, etc, etc. back to the beginning. When pondering this I realize that the probability of ANY event occurring is infinitesimal. NOTHING is really possible when the infinite probabilities are considered for any one event. And yet, of course, things do happen, improbable as these events are! The arrow does move!

My Little Garden

Well, I finished 95% of my chores--it was just a mite later than my goal. Today was a beautiful day here, and I planted two types of beans, in addition to lettuce, and turnips. I have three small garden plots on the side of my yard; each one is a raised bed in a sort of stair-step arrangement going down the slope. Each plot is about 6 x 12 feet and varies as to the amount of sunlight it gets. Sunlight is a premium in my yard since it is surrounded by Douglas Fir, Western Cedar, Red Alder and Pacific Madrone trees, in addition to a thick understory of Salal and Huckleberry found under the trees. The sun at these latitudes, as I have mentioned before, seems to always be low to the horizon and only in summer does it peek above the trees. I have laid boards down in the plots to demarcate the planting areas and to provide something to walk on so I won't tramp down the soil. One half of one little plot and three quarters of another one is overgrown with mint plants. I haven't the heart to pull it up since I love the smell so much and also love the taste in my tea. There are also volunteer chard and potato plants coming up which takes up another goodly percentage of the plots--not to mention Dandelions
We are at the height of the Spring blooming time, with tulips, rhodendrons and many other flowers and shrubs at their loveliest. The wild Huckleberry is putting out new growth and the tips of the new growth are an unsual orange which is striking against the green foliage. The Salmon Berry bushes are now beginning to set little green berries, but it will be a while before it ripens.

Musings

Beginnings

Until I spoke to you

I could only catch glimpses

Like flashes of light,

Sparkles of what was inside you.

And then

Opening yourself up to me

Giving of yourself

I entered into you

Getting to know all that was you.

It amazes me

All of that

Hidden

Within secret feminine folds

A human life, warm...breathing

Pulsing with life

And love and joy.

****************

ENDINGS

Some endings stand out more than others.
Others are commonplace and fade from memory.
Some are known at the time,
Like the last time I talked to my mother
Or held my red haired love

Other endings come unawares
Sparing us the heartbreak
Of knowing too much.
It is only later that
We realize another
Ending has come and gone.

Like when I saw her stride
Purposely out of the terminal to board
The plane in that little
Iowa town.
Would I have run to her and held her close
One more time if I had known?

Or when I watched you wave goodbye
From the rear window of that departing car
How could I have known it was the last time
And that you were forever lost to me?

And the last time that I carried my daughter,
Or held her little hand as we walked along.
When I let go of her, what would I have done
If I had known...
It was the last time?

Chores, chores, chores--phooey!

I've been trying to do a lot of projects, and to help myself out I have made a detailed list that fills almost an entire page. I have listed the main items below that I want to accomplish by next Tuesday:
A. Set up a new computer and connect it to my home network.
B. Clean out the closet and either throw out any junk or take useful items to Goodwill.
C. Thoroughly clean my bedroom and computer room.
D. Put numerous photos into frames and hang them. This includes some really old copies of photos of my family.
E. Clean out the garage and organize the junk...I mean things of value!
F. Cut pathways through the backyard salal and huckleberry (bushes), rake and clean in general.
G. Cut the brush back on the margins of the clearing in which I live.
H. Take out all the old plants that I saved in the garage over the winter and put on the deck.
I. Plant some azalea and camellia bushes.
J. Pot some new plants into some new containers and window boxes.
K. Take out some rotting landscape timbers around the raised beds and replace with new.
L. Dig up and plant the garden.
M. Mow front and back yards and also the margins along the street; cut back the weeds along the driveway; clean driveway and deck.

Those are the main headings of what I want to do. Totally unrealistic I know, but if I can do all but "D" and "M." I shall be happy. Unfortunately I am working my days off this week, and so will be short of free time to do all this.

Seattle Pike Place Market

I traveled to Seattle yesterday on the bus ($3.00) and returned on the commuter train ($4.00). The trip on the train was new for me and is by far the preferred method. It travels down the Green River Valley through the countryside which is now bright green with new Spring leaves. I haven't been through some of these small towns in many years, and although I had heard of the train, I had never taken it. It was a delightful experience.

While in Seattle I walked down by the waterfront (windy and chilly and looking a bit run-down), and meandered my way through all the construction before climbing the hill to Pike Place mark. As usual the market is a place full of sights, sounds and smells that capture the senses. The tulips are reaching their height and the flower stalls were full of them.
I always like looking at the vegetable stands also. The vegetables and fruits are always carefully arranged so that they create a wonderful assemblage of color and texture. I am also always amazed at their price!

And of course I have to visit the fish stands with their incredible assortment of fish and other types of sea food. Sometimes the fishmongers put on a show by tossing the fish about for the benefit of the tourists, but today they were fairly quiet, not even shouting out their wares. In fact the place was relatively quiet and uncrowded. Relatively I say since it was still quite full of people and noise. It is a great place to browse and see the sights, and then to stop in some small eatery to eat lunch or breakfast. The entire area has been converted into a series of shops, stalls and restaurants of all types and descriptions. I was thinking how nice it would be, if money were no object, to live in a condo overlooking Puget Sound and the ferries, and then to come down to shop in the market and eat in the astounding number of restaurants. Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets? :)

It's a great place to walk also, going up and down the steep streets, wandering from one end of the downtown area to the other. The buses are free in the main city area, and you can get on and off whenever you wish. The driver always announces the last free stop, so you can leave before you have to pay!

It all sounds very wonderful, and it is--IF YOU LIKE DREARY, CHILLY, RAINY WEATHER! And that's the fly in the ointment of living in the Northwest. You can go for weeks without seeing the sun, and when you do it is a weak, watery thing, low on the horizon giving forth slanting rays that always makes me think that it is either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. The rain is legendary--not the hard pounding rain that one finds in the rest of the world, but drizzle, ranging from a fine mist to a steady rain that goes on and on and on... August and September are, however, wonderful with perfect warm, sunny weather and chilly nights. I suppose that it is a good thing for the area that it has such lousy weather, otherwise everybody and their dogs would flock here as they have to California. Actually the weather seems to have little impact on the burgeoning population which is rapidly filling the narrow corridor between the mountains and the sea, clear cutting the forests, polluting the water and the air, and in general befouling the pristine eden that once was here. But what else is new, huh?

PROHIBIT TALKING IN CARS IN WASHINGTON STATE

The enlightened state of Washington is about to pass a measure outlawing the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. As a local paper reported, the offense is punishable with a $101 fine, and would be a secondary traffic infraction which means that the driver would have to be pulled over for something else. I think this means that if a policeman observes a person driving down the road with a cell phone up to his ear, the officer would have to desperately look for another more serious infraction to legally pull the miscreant over. Perhaps the laudable officers of Fife, Washington could give the other police officers pointers since they are so skilled at pulling drivers over for trivial violations (See December post: Fife, the City that Sold it's Soul to the Devil).

As this paper says, this ban is long overdue. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that drivers quadruple their chances of being in an accident when they use their cell phones. The surprising thing shown by this study is that this accident rate holds whether the drivers HOLD their phones or use HANDS FREE DEVICES! The legislature decided to only address hand-held phones because police officers wouldn't be able to tell whether or not the person was using a hands-free phone.

I was filled with astonishment as I read this article! SURELY, the officers could be able in some way to detect that drivers were using a hands-free phone. I thought that perhaps they could use binoculars to see if a person's lips were moving IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY PASSENGERS! Then another thought occurred to me.

If the accident rate was the same for people talking on hands-free phones as it was for phones that they had to hold, then what exactly WAS the common factor that could be causing the increase in accidents? It couldn't be the fact that the drivers were only using one hand on the steering wheel while their other hand held the phone since the accident rate was the same for hands-free phones. After a short period of cogitation on this, I realized in a sudden flash of inspiration that it was the ACT OF TALKING! The act of talking was causing a fourfold increase in accidents. This leads me to urge our prescient legislature to extend this ban! PROHIBIT ALL TALKING IN CARS!

It's Raining Pollen!

Yesterday morning when I walked out on the porch, it was so slippery that I thought for a moment that it had frosted during the night. I then realized that there was a film of yellow pollen over the porch and steps which acted as as a fine lubricant. Wiping the railing, I found that my finger tips were covered with the powder-like pollen. I had to hold on the railing as I climbed down the steps for fear of slipping. My car and the windshield were also covered with it. This happens every year. This year it coincided with some warm weather that we had for the past two days. I am almost certain that this pollen is coming from the Douglas Fir trees that surround my house, but I didn't check the male cones. When shaken they produce a great cloud of pollen during this time of year. Luckily, I don't seem to be allergic to pollen from this species.

I am enclosing some more photos. To the left is the fiddle head from my least favorite fern--the Bracken Fern(Pteridium aquilinum) that I have mentioned before. They are coming up everywhere like weeds--which they are! They occur worldwide and is such a pest in Britain that they initiated a program to control their spread. People eat them like asparagus as I said before, but this fern contains carcinogens, and in areas where they are consumed regularly such as Japan, the occurrence of stomach cancer is among the highest in the world.

I also found that the Horsetails (Equisetum) are coming up in my yard. They used to be used as scouring pads because of the large amount of silicon in their cell walls. These are a primitive group of Vascular Plants (containing tubes) that reproduce by spores instead of seeds. The strobilus, shown here, is the spore producing body which in this area comes up before the photosynthetic stems. The photosynthetic vegetative stems can be quite attractive, especially when they catch the light in shaded areas, but they can be a nuisance because of their tendency to spread.

It is also that time of year for my old friend the Dandelion (Taraxcum sp.) to blossom forth in all its glory. I had very few Dandelions until I disturbed my yard a few years ago in order to empty the septic tank. This disturbance in the grassy lawn was all it took for them to take hold with a vengeance. I just gave in and learned to enjoy their beauty before they go to seed and become all raggedy. The Dandelions in the Northwestern U.S. are the most beautiful that I have ever seen. They seem to be larger and deeper yellow than those I have observed elsewhere.
The birds are also singing their little heads off. Like clockwork on April 1 in open areas, I heard the White Crowned Sparrow (Poor little me, deep!). About my house, I hear the species that are most common to the woods and boundary areas. The WinterWren, the Robin, the Varied Thrush along with the Chestnut Backed Chickadee are all singing loudly. The Spotted Towhee is just getting started and will remain the most vocal bird in the area through July. Also, although I have seen the Song Sparrow , it has barely begun vocalizing. Soon it will become, like the Towhee, one of the most heard bird around my house.

Coffee, Korean Food and a Wedding Date

I recently had a chance to visit the Mandolin Cafe, a coffee shop/eatery, in Tacoma. I had been hearing about it quite a bit for the past year--how they had free internet access, good coffee and a nice decor. It was actually more than I expected. It occupies a large building which used to be an auto parts store I think, and the decor is delightfully funky. It's warm and friendly with a large number of places to sit. I really get irritated with places that don't have enough seats for their patrons. Their parking lot, however, is small and from what I hear it is sometimes hard to find a place. They have their own large coffee roaster and a large supply of coffee beans in several gunny sacks. Apparently they have music on every day but Monday. Nobody was playing when I was there in the morning, and there wasn't a time indicated. I also saw a wine bar which I assume opens later in the day.

Last Thursday I also met Jessica and her fiance at a Korean restaurant on South Tacoma Way in Tacoma. I don't know the name of the dish we ordered, but it consisted large amounts of raw beef, pork, chicken and bacon which we broiled on a broiler set into the middle of the table. There was also the usual small dishes of various vegetables: rice, sprouts, Kim Chee of various types, etc. The typical way to eat all this was to place rice, meat, and any of the other dishes on a large leaf of lettuce and then cram it into your mouth. You have to cram it, because if you take small bites it falls apart. As usual it was very tasty and I came away stuffed. The highlight of the evening was when Jessica said that they had (finally!) set a date for their wedding--next May!

More Plants Springing forth...

Well, there are so many plants flowering forth that I thought I'd put on some more photos. I am in the process of learning what some of these plants are, so bear with me. The shrub with the red berries are shown to the right is yet to be identified. I thought for a moment that it was the hips of the small wild rose that blooms here, but the stem and leaves are totally different. It is growing in the brushy area between my driveway and the street that runs by my house. Another red berried bush that grows here is the red huckleberry, but this isn't it. Further research on my part needs to be done...

Below right is a view of my street in front of my house. As you can see it is strewn with the male Red Alder catkins that I mentioned in the earlier post. I believe this to be the culprit responsible for my annual bout with hayfever. Actually thus far it has been a minor problem with only mild attacks, and I haven't had any problem with it in over a week now.

Also just in front of my house by the front street are clumps of Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis). They are stickery bushes that are extremely common in damp areas of the NorthWest. There are places down the street where these plants cover large areas. As you can see, the blossoms are small but have a pleasing dark pink color. The berries range from a light orange to a deep red color. The taste is rather bland I am afraid, but I make sure that I don't eat them until they are good and ripe, because they can be quite bitter otherwise. Once I was eagerly gobbling some of these very ripe berries by the Green River in Flaming Geyser park. These Salmonberries were very ripe and had begun to separate from their base. Unbeknownst to me large numbers of Earwigs (Dermaptera) had collected between the berries and their cuplike base, and I discovered too late that I had been happily munching on them!

Lichen is extremely common here (Not a plant, I know). It grows especially well on branches and the bark of trees such as the Red Alder and the Big Leaf Maple. Here is a photo I took of a dead branch covered with lichens that had blown down during a recent windstorm. You can see there are four or five different forms. Since I have no taxonomic knowledge of lichens, I can't begin to identify them. I hope to remedy this ignorance since it irritates me not to know what I am looking at. I just know that they are roughly classified by shape--crustose, foliose, fruticose, etc). Lichens are comprised of an algae (aquatic, plant-like organism, usually green algae or cynanobacteria) and a fungus (usually an Ascomycete) in a mutualistic relationship where both partners help out the other. The fungus, unable to make its own food protects the "photobiont" and supplies water and minerals, and the algae in turn produces food for the fungus through photosynthesis. Some claim that the relationship is parasitic since the algae can do very well without the fungus, but this seems to ignore the fact that the fungus can protect the algae from dessication, allowing both to live in extreme conditions where the algae couldn't possibly live. Apparently this habit of "lichenism" has evolved many times and often the partners have a variety of ancestors. In addition to being an example of an interesting case of cooperation between two very different organisms, lichen are important nitrogen fixers, taking free nitrogen from the air and making it available to other plants. Thus the web of interelationships gets quite complex.

Spring and Pollen

Almost three hours ago, the sun passed over the equator heading North...thus the Spring or Vernal equinox, when day and night is almost of equal length. Of course we would not have seasons if it wasn't for the axial tilt of the Earth (23.4 degrees). Well, there would be some annual differences I suppose as the Earth cycled through it's elliptical orbit about the Sun. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the Vernal Equinox.
About a week ago, I began having the unmistakable symptoms (sneezing, "itchy eyes") that were indicative of Spring. I have tried to identify the plant culprit, but I can only guess that it is the Red Alder (Alnus rubra) which is wind pollinated and begins blooming at that time. The streets are strewn with the male catkins just now and I'm sure that this must the plant whose pollen irritates me so much.
Lots of rain yesterday with high winds, but today it was partly sunny with gusty winds.

Extremely Sweet with Many Feet

This wonderful Big-Leafed Maple (Acer macrophyllum) is one of my favorites on my walk to the beach. It is only about two hundred yards from my place, and I always have to stop and admire its moss-covered branches which are festooned with the lovely epiphytic Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza; aka P. vulgare). The Licorice Fern is called such because of its licorice-flavored rhizomes. I usually see it growing in the thick moss on the Big-leafed Maple, where it can be instantly identified by its distinctive pointed tips. The Indians of the area often chewed the rhizomes for their flavor, and they were used as a medicine for sore throats and colds.

These ferns are luxuriant during the rainy season, and I have seen them growing in great abundance on the eaves of an old shed. They shrivel up, however, during the dry months. The generic name, Polypodium, means many feet which apparently applies to the footlike appearance of their rhizomes. Glycyrrhiza means "sweet root" which refers to the fact that the rhizomes contain ostadin, a steroid, which is three thousand times sweeter than table sugar! No wonder that the people in this area used it as a sweetener also.

Read a detailed description here with a mention how these ferns have been involved in forming polyploid species. Instant speciation involving nondisjunction is a topic for later I think!

All the early spring flowers are pretty much in bloom now. Forsythia, flowering crab apple, and of course camellias are blooming. The camellias in this area are amazing with large bushes tall as the eaves of a house being common in the older sections of town, where they usually begin blooming about the middle of January. I am always disappointed in the camellias that I see, however, because they all seem to be touched with what I call the "brown blight" which causes the petals to turn brown and ugly. This is especially evident in the white camellias. Apparently this is caused by a fungus. The Great Northwest is a fungus heaven! I hope to photograph the many mushrooms this coming autumn.

Seed Dispersing Ants and "Woodpecker Trees"

Western Trilliums (Trillium ovatum), the beautiful early Spring wildflowers, are now blooming in the nearby woods. As you can see the white flowers (sometimes pinkish or purplish as they age) are arranged above three offset leaves or giving the plant a pleasing symmetry. This set of "threes" is reflected in their name, latin for "threes." The arrangement of threes is also reflected not only in their petals and leaves but also the flower parts--sepals, stamens (6) and stigma. They often occur in moist, shaded woodlands in this area. I first encountered Trilliums in Northeastern Kansas and have also observed them in Northeastern Iowa, and Maryland. Another common name is "Wake Robin" since they appear in early spring about the time that Robins become more active.
Apparently, ants carry the seeds back to their nest, where they eat an oil-rich appendage (elaiosome) that is on the seeds. They then discard what's left of the seeds and thus disperse the seeds in the quiet forest floor. Some believe that this structure produces a pheromone that elicits a "dead corpse response" in the ants. This interesting hypothesis states that the fatty acids in the oils of the elaiosomes of certain plants have undergone convergent evolution to resemble those of arthropods resulting in them being more attractive to carnivorous and omnivorous ants (Hughes et al. 1994) . Apparently this mutualistic relationship is common in eastern north America where ants disperse (myrmecohory) as much as 30% of the spring flowering herbaceous plant seeds in the deciduous forests. The more I learn about the ecology of ant seed dispersal the more interesting it gets. This great site discusses the entire subject and talks about how certain stick insects lay eggs that look like seeds and are taken back to the ant nest and cared for. The hatchlings of some species of these stick insects even look and behave like the ants!
I like Hansen's site for it's interesting descriptions of his plants of the Northwest that he offers for sale.

I went out and cleaned out some more of the dead bracken fern from the flower beds this morning. The bracken fern is one of those annual ferns that is so very common here. I'll take some photos soon of the edible fiddle heads that are just now beginning to emerge from their winter dormancy. They are beautiful when they first emerge and in the fall when they turn a golden yellow, but they quickly become leggy and take over your gardens and flower beds if you let them. Also they die back in the winter and leave their unsightly brown foliage which has to be cleared out.
I also encountered on one of my walks a dead tree covered with woodpecker holes. The common Pileated Woodpecker appears to have made most of the holes, judging by their large rectangular appearance. These are the types of trees that foresters, working for the most part for the large timber companies such as Weyhauser, want to eliminate. They talk of the diseases that they carry and advocate cleansing the forests of such "trash." In a tree farm this might be the thing to do, but in a balanced forest ecosystem, such dead trees provide an invaluable source of food and living places for numerous species of insects, fungi, amphibians, birds, etc.

Hughes,L; Westoby,M; Jurado,E (1994): Convergence of elaiosomes and insect prey: evidence from ant foraging behaviour and fatty acid composition. Funct. Ecol. 8, 358-365.

Darwin and the Three Hundred Spartans

I just got back from seeing "300" which as probably everybody knows is about the Spartan defense of Greece at Thermopylae. I am not sure if many people in the general population were aware of this battle and if they did, I'm not sure if they realized its significance. I was really looking forward to seeing it. It was interesting...more of a surrealist version of the battle than an historical account. For people used to the special effects in the movies today, it might not seem so outlandish. The king of Persia, Xerxes, was really, really something else. I found his seven foot, shaven, bejeweled, pierced, androgynous figure with its enhanced voice, most...well interesting. I also was trying to place the accents on the actors, but never could quiet place them. With all my reservations, I enjoyed it greatly. I guess the thing that I was most disappointed with was that the battle scenes showed less of the coordinated action of the Spartan phalanx and more of individuals fighting separately. The battle scenes themselves, however, were quite awesome, sometimes in slow motion and resembling an intricate dance. I recommend it highly and give it four stars (****).

I just got in the mail two books on Darwin. Actually one book, the first in a two volume biography by Janet Brown, was about Darwin, and the other was by Darwin. Or rather it was a compendium of his books: From so Simple a beginning: Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, with a forward by that eminent biologist Edward O. Wilson. I have read Brown's excellent second volume (got it on sale at Half-Priced Books) and enjoyed it immensely. I look forward to pleasant hours ahead.

Watermelon Rind and Cat's Urine?

Ok, I made a mistake. Those early blooming shrubs that I mentioned a couple of posts ago were NOT Hazelnuts. About an hour ago, I saw one of these shrubs at the edge of the woods across the street from me. I saw immediately upon examination that they were not the catkins typical of Hazelnuts but were a dangling cluster of white flowers. I took a photo and then immediately went back to see if I could identify this bush. I have seen it for years since in early March it is the very first plant in the forest understory to leaf forth and produce flowers.
Apparently it is the Indian Plum (Oemieria cerasiformis) which in the fall produces blue black fruits about a cm in diameter. Small plum, huh? It is described as being one of the first plants to flower in the Spring. The flowers are described as being similiar to watermelon rind and cat urine in fragrance. The leaves smell like cucumbers. Ok, hold on I'll be back.

I just went out and confirmed that the leaves and blossoms definitely have a cucumber/watermelon rind smell and there is also an unpleasant hint of musk. Ok, I guess this really is Oemieria cerasiformis until I find out differently. The Indians of the Northwestern U.S. used the bark to make an astringent tea with purgative qualities. Tasting the twig I find it quite bitter. Apparently the native people also chewed the twigs and applied it to sore places. It seems that any plant that tastes bitter or nasty is often used in some sort of medicinal way...strange. Here is a very good article from a grower and seller of the plant who says that the fruit might have cyanide in it! Interestingly he always says that another name for it is Skunkbush. :)

Did You Feel As IF You Had Saved Some Time Today?

No wait...we lost time (counting on fingers). Daylight Savings Time came early...seems like this was decided upon as a means to save energy. I think that I also heard that some companys stood to make millions over this decision. I dunno...
I set all my clocks ahead yesterday afternoon so I wouldn't have to do it when I came home early this morning. Then I woke up two hours earlier than I normally do and couldn't go back to sleep.

The Pineapple Express still is tearing through the area today...a steady good rain with wind about 25 mph from the Southwest. I enjoyed watching it as I sipped my hot coffee this morning. The rain overflows from the eaves and falls on some metal sheets that I put up to protect the shingles. This is right outside my second floor bedroom window and provides a soothing splashing that lulls me to sleep.

Intimations of Spring

The leaf buds on my lilac bush began to swell over a month ago, and now the hazelnuts are blooming in the forests with their long catkins hanging down and the first hint of new green leaves. Crocuses are emerging, but only open up in the sun. Flowering crabapple trees are also beginning to bloom. Early daffodils have been blooming for a couple of weeks now.
A few days ago we had the first warmish day, it got up to 58 here! Now another of those Pineapple Express rain fronts is beginning to come through.
I got some interesting books the other day. One was on the Permian extinction when as much as 95% of life disappeared, possibly due to Global Warming. The others dealt with Natural History themes which interest me, for example, the relationship of surface area and volume with all its implications. I think I'll write a paper on this topic.

Will You Die with Your Song Unsung?

I just heard somebody say that they didn't want to die with their song unsung. I got to thinking about this, and wondered about how common this phenomenon is, how many people really go through their lives and never live their dreams...never really sing the song that is playing within. We go through our lives making our living, working long hours perhaps, putting off until "later" our dreams and our aspirations. Then we wake up some day and realize that there is no more time, that we must put up or shut up, and then we wonder just where all the time went and wish that we had lived our dreams and sung our songs all along during our life when we were busy making a living.

So...now, today, begin to sing your song; begin to live your life. Start in small ways if you must. Take a moment, look around, examine your senses, take a deep breath, see the beauty...the wonder of this incredible universe. And then do something that you really want to do. You don't know what you want to do? Make a plan for your life, write down your goals and then write down how you can achieve them. Too old you say? Never! Use the time you have, take your life and squeeze the juices out...drink deep!

I'm at the end of another semester. Tomorrow is the final, and I just recorded the grades on my grade sheets so that tomorrow all I have to do is to record the final exam grade, let the computer do all the averaging and then post them online. Then a couple of weeks between semesters to refresh my batteries. And I actually will get two days off next week, the first in a month!

An Interesting Event that Took Place on my Hand

There I was, sitting in the bright sunlight, reading my biography of Darwin at Cutter's Point. I happened to look down and noticed my hand that was exposed to the sun. On my hand were innumerable bright points of light that were going on and off. I looked closer at what appeared to be a miniature Christmas light display. Apparently in the heat of the sun, miniscule drops of perspiration were oozing out of my sweat glands and then evaporating as soon as they emerged. I wiped my hand, feeling no wetness and noticing none. The scintillating points disappeared only to gradually reappear as the perspiration emerged from the pores.
For some reason I was impressed by this. Hey, I never said I wasn't weird! :)

February 17...another year

A pretty day today, after a week with no time off. I might get next Thursday off, but none scheduled for the week after next. Another birthday today, and I wonder how long the old bod will hold out.
I saw Jes yesterday and gave her my digital Mavica CD for her to take to the coast this weekend with Craig. It is a great little camera, recording on mini-cds which are very cheap, and it takes great photos. I haven't used it that much since getting my Nikons last Spring, one for the Panama trip and another SLR soon after.

I Should Be More Tolerant

Yes, I really should...but sometimes it is so hard! Sitting here in Cutter's Point, I have been subjected to this unrelenting account by a woman who went into excruciating detail about: her family and how they are buying a new dog which is by far the best breed there is; her daughter's dealings with the Girl Scouts and the problems that the mother had with the behavior of the other girls and how their parents refused to discipline them; the buying of her new house with detailed descriptions of the walls, the floors, the kitchen and her criticisms of her neighbor's taste in houses; her accounts of meeting her old high school friends with criticisms of their life style and their clothes, and...well, you get the idea. All this wouldn't be so bad if she didn't talk in this whiney voice that you could hear all over the shop. She wasn't talking loudly, but lord god almighty it was penetrating! I tried to shut her out and tend to my business, but it was hard with her sitting right beside me. I should have moved you say? Possibly, but I was settled and wanted to finish editing some photographs and saving them to disc, and I was right in the middle of it.

Maybe I just like to complain. Come to think about it, complaining is one of my few pleasures in life. It gives me exquisite satisfaction to...oh my god, the man's cell phone is ringing with this really, really loud ring! I gotta go!

Awareness of the Now

Do you ever have times when you become intensely aware of your existence? When your senses seem to awaken, and you become aware of the breaths that you draw, the feel of the clothes on your body, the small subtle sensations, the tiny messages that your body sends you, telling you where all the parts are, your feet here, your arms there? Sounds become sharper, smells and then you think that there will come a time when all this will cease--no more breaths, no more sensations, when we all will return to...to what? Time then becomes precious. I want to squeeze each golden moment, and I regret so much time squandered through the years. But...the moment passes and life continues, this incredible existence rushes along like a locomotive through dark shifting mist, full of rushing sound and wind, hanging out the window, eyes streaming, squinting, searching the track ahead in the dim light.

It's very difficult to live life in the now; we are always thinking back to he past or forward to the future. Now takes care of itself, unappreciated and ignored. Hopefully I can learn to live more in the present.

Synchronicity and Mark Twain

I'm reading a couple of interesting books (actually I have about 11 that I am currently reading): one about Synchronicity (Synchronicity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster by Allan Combs and Mark Holland) and one is a biography of Mark Twain. This is in itself a case of synchronicity since Mark Twain wrote about incredible coincidences in his own life. The idea of synchronicity is not simply the idea of unlikely coincidences according to Jung, but it should be logically meaningful to the person experiencing it and should express some underlying pattern that is not apparent.

"Synchronicity explains "meaningful coincidences," such as a beetle flying into his room while a patient was describing a dream about a scarab. The scarab is an Egyptian symbol of rebirth, he noted [Jung]. Therefore, the propitious moment of the flying beetle indicated that the transcendental meaning of both the scarab in the dream and the insect in the room was that the patient needed to be liberated from her excessive rationalism. His notion of synchronicity is that there is an acausal principle that links events having a similar meaning by their coincidence in time rather than sequentially. He claimed that there is a synchrony between the mind and the phenomenal world of perception. "

"Let us recall that according to Jung, synchronicity is a coincidence charged with a sense (meaning) between the interior psychic state of a person and an event of the objective exterior universe." (Moisset)

Of course the occurrence of unlikely coincidences is usually attributed to the laws of probability, and since it is not testable then it certainly is not scientific. Personally I have experienced such events, and although I have had training in various sciences, I still find it hard to attribute all of these happenings to mere chance. For now however, these phemenona don't appear to be readily amenable to the scientific method although the quantum physicists Bohm and Pauli provided a theoretical framework upon which one might base these occurrences. This is a huge area of interest which I intend to pursue further.

Mark Twain has been one of my favorite authors since I was the age of six when my mother read Tom Sawyer to me. I was to set the pattern for the rest of my life with books that I l ike by reading and rereading this book until I could quote passages from it by the age of ten. In addition to his having had various synchronistic events in his life, he also once had a vivid dream about his brother's death which came true in all its particulars. His mother always said he was psychic from an early age. I used to be totally skeptical about such things until I and some members of my family experienced a few of these unusual happenings. The trouble with this field is that there have been so many credulous and superstituous people making some preposterous claims. There should be more scientific inquiry into the matter.

Fog and Moonlight

I am looking at a small leafless Japanese Maple in a large planter outside the window where I am sitting and drinking coffee. It appears to be covered in tiny sparkling jewels, shimmering drops of water from the heavy fog that shrouds everything. As I walked to my car last night, sheets of mist fell slowly, reminding me of a time long ago when I delivered papers early in the morning. Then a light mist was falling and each time a tiny droplet hit my eye, the street lights, the entire universe suddenly and briefly went out of focus. It was a momentary blurring before my vision cleared...and then the next droplet and another blurring.
The other night was a full moon and fog. The moonlight lit the fog up and made everything appear to be floating in a bright, numinous void. Black silhouettes of trees, the glowing shifting fog...and off in the distance the mournful lowing of a fog horn.
I like to take photographs in mist...like the above: "Looking Towards Manzanita."

The Narrows Bridge is Nearing Completion

Since it was a beautiful sunny day today (after the fog burned off), and since it was Sunday with less traffic on the bridge, and since the last two spans of the new Puget Sound Narrows Bridge are poised to be put in place, I thought I would walk out onto it and take some photos. I began taking photos of this new addition to the existing bridge back several years ago before the construction had actually begun and have continued ever since. This new bridge parallels the existing bridge and is being added at great expense (to be paid by tolls!) and great effort to relief the traffic that has resulted from the cancerous population growth that has occurred in the region.

The last two spans are about to be placed. Each span is about as large as an apartment building and have been brought into position under the bridge by two different ships. Specialized cranes then lift the bridge sections into position where they are bolted together to create the mile plus span that is needed to reach across the "narrows" of Puget Sound. Instead of trying to fit the last two sections into the space that is left (about 8 millimeters of clearance), the workers will pull the entire existing span to one side to allow more room to put the new sections in. Since this will be done any day now, I wanted to photograph the last two spaces with the spans hanging just below ready to be moved in.

I was shooed away by a security guard when I attempted to walk down what was once a pedestrian walk on the north side but which now has been covered with plastic and sandbags. I was told to walk a couple of hundred yards away to enter the new pedestrian walk way which was set off by a series of rubber boots on the new highway. I did this, passing past piles of equipment and earth moving machines that was stored on the new highway leading to the new bridge. Most of this highway has been completed, with the finishing touches now being applied. I walked out onto the old bridge, which I really don't like to do because the only thing separating me on the narrow walk from the traffic whizzing by four feet away is a raised curb or pipe about ten inches high. The buffeting wind from the traffic also tends to blow my hat off, and I have to always hold tight to it.

Coming back after I had taken numerous photos (I will soon put them on my website, texified.com), I was eyeing my car which was parked near the top of the old walkway above and to the side of the new highway, and was thinking that I could make a quick dash up the slope (since I didn't see the guard) and save myself a longer walk (as if I don't need it). Just when I was about to make the dash, I saw the guard's pickup approaching the top of the old walkway. He got out and began putting warning tape across the entrance. I continued nonchantly on my way to the "approved" entrance and passed a family who had driven their car past the barriers and was proceeding down to the entrance to the bridge where all the equipment was stored. "Oh," I muttered to myself, "you are going to be sahree!" Sure enough as I finally made my way back to the road and had turned back toward my car, I saw the guard hurriedly jump into his truck and speed off around the block to the entrance to confront the intruders. Meanwhile the family had parked amongst the piles of equipment stored at the north entrance to the new bridge and numerous children, dogs and grownups piled out and began cavorting about. Children runnng amongst the equipment, dogs barking and chasing them...everybody having a grand old time. I wondered how the party intended to go out onto the bridge as I had done with all the running kids and dogs. It took a while for the guard to drive around the block to the entrance, and by the time he had sped hurriedly down to the hapless family, they all were making their way to the pedestrian walk on the old bridge. I could only imagine the conversation that ensued, but I saw the apparent father of the brood tale off chasing the children with the dogs barking at his heels as I got into my car and drove off.