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?