Posted 9:17 PM by Angie Schultz

Awww, and He Didn't Get Them Anything

Well, Niles has had a very nice birthday present: a Cardinals victory.

Garfield is feeling a little sheepish:

I remember their last win, in '82. That was twenty-four years ago. I was in college then. I am soooo oooold.

Posted 11:31 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Birthday Boy

Someone has a birthday today, which means he is home from work, hanging around bugging me again.

In retaliation, I get to post this picture:

Katherine Gorge, N.T., Australia, Aug. 2000

Here we see the famous explorer Sacageekwea in full Pommie-Seppo tourist mode.

Well, for anyone else it would be, but he dresses like that at home, too. No floppy hat, but he makes up for it with Hawaiian shirts and sandals with his socks. (Back off, ladies. He's all mine.)

N.T., for the shut-ins among us, stands for "Northern Territory", aka the Top End of Australia. We went there after visiting Uluru on the advice of my Australian boss, who urged us to see Kakadu National Park. "It's bigger than most US states!" he said. Wow!

That sounded kind of funny, so I checked it out, and he turned out to be absolutely right! That is, in some alternate universe where the US never expanded beyond the original 13 colonies, and the South succeeded in seceding. (Kakadu is about the size of New Jersey.)

Katherine Gorge is not in Kakadu N.P., but quite a bit south. We drove down there, which enabled us to experience the famous speed limit-free Stuart Highway, and partake of quaint local customs such as not getting squashed by road trains and avoiding roving psycho murderers.

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but Niles is standing on cliffs overlooking the river. We went on a tour boat with a couple dozen other people, but there were many people out on their own, paddling down the river in canoes -- despite the obvious presence of crocodiles. (The crocodiles could be detected by a glimpse of their eyes or snouts above the water, and by the signs saying CROCODILE NESTING SITE: PISS OFF at certain points along the shoreline.)

These were freshwater crocodiles, and so (nominally) harmless. Occasionally, they told us, they did get dangerous "salties" in the river. These they laid traps for: cylindrical metal cages baited with a dead pig. (Or tourist, in season.)

During the dry season, the boats can't get all the way up the river, so you have to keep getting out and scrambling over rocks to the next boat. This would be OK, but the river was very low and there was sometimes a drop of two feet (looked higher to me) between rocks and river. This sort of thing was not made clear at the beginning of the trip. It's a wonder no one broke anything. My knees would never stand for that sort of thing, nowadays.

When the picture above was taken, our group had clambered up the cliffs to a waterfall-fed pool above the river. This is a charming idea, recalling romantic visions of secluded jungle spots where Tarzan and Jane might canoodle. Not so romantic with pasty tourists and screaming Spawn of All Nations along, however.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday

Posted 1:24 PM by Angie Schultz

The Hedgie Blasts Off Launch

We love hedgehogs, and we love the work of Jan Brett, a children's book author and illustrator known for her beautiful, detailed artwork. So we were totally jazzed to find out that she was writing a book called Hedgie Blasts Off. And then we found that Brett was coming to Houston for a signing! Wow!

So yesterday we went to a nearby Barnes & Noble for what we thought would be about a half hour. The signing was at six, and we figured that we'd be there until six-thirty, maybe seven at the outside, and then we'd go to dinner (which is awfully early for us to have dinner). Eventually we began to hope the restaurant would still be open by the time we left (it closes at 11). I think we finally got out of there at 8:15.

Niles forgot to bring the camera[1], so we had to make do with cell phone pictures, and so will you. In the end, we exceeded the phone's capacity, so Niles was frantically emailing himself photos so he could delete them and take more.

The first thing that we saw, upon rolling up to B&N, was Brett's rock star-style tour bus:




Inside the store, there was quite a line. The middle of the floor was filled with people (with a large proportion of kids, of course), and quite a few more arrived after us. At the front they were giving out purple wristbands to the first 275 people (or rather, groups), and orange wristbands to anyone else. The orange people might not get their books signed, depending on how late it got. But we never saw anyone with an orange wristband, not even at the tail end.

I wish we'd taken pictures of the crowd, but I didn't think of it, and besides, we didn't have a lot of room on the phone. But I did get Niles to document the massive police presence:



No, really. These weren't security guards, but HPD officers. Armed! The one on the right was there the entire time. For the first hour or so he kept looking around alertly, as if a jihadi might spring from behind the coffee table books. Really, did they have trouble at a previous signing? Tots rioting? Parents hitting each other with hefty copies of Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury? Dirty bomb threats?[2]

We weren't there for too long before Jan Brett arrived and gave a little talk.



She talked to the kids in the audience about drawing and creativity and whatnot. She said that when she was a little girl, she looooved horses, and usually that's all she drew. But sometimes she drew other things, usually to do with space. Hey! I did that too! Sometimes I combined the two by imagining winged horses that traveled through outer space.

In the photo above she's beginning a sketch of Hedgie. Watching an artist at work is a little like watching magic. The pen flicks around, making random marks, and before you know it there's a picture. Not cartoon like anyone could draw, but a real picture, with depth and shadow. That's the mysterious part -- knowing where to put the random pen-flickings.

Brett talked a little bit about that, about adding details to flesh out the image. But it still seems like magic to me.

That's the finished sketch.

On the floor behind Brett you see the Undead Hedgehog Army of Cuteness:

After the store closed, they rose and began their takeover of the Earth! If they woke up from their naps in time. Maybe the cops were there to keep them from mischief.

I think these were puppets. They were everywhere. There were two cute little blonde girls in front of us who had puppets, and we got to hear the puppets play the clapping game (e.g. "A sailor went to sea sea sea to see what he could see see see...") for about an hour. Joy.

Later, Hedgie himself turned up:

Awwww!

Many of the kids[3] had their pictures taken with him, including the two in front of us. That was just the cutest, blondest, pinkest thing you ever saw (they were wearing pink) and all by itself spiked my blood sugar enough to be able to carry on to the end of the signing.

At last we made it to the front of the line:


That's not a terribly good picture of Jan Brett. I think Niles was trying to make sure he got the banner behind her. Being (nominal) grown-ups, we didn't have a lot to say to her. She mentioned her web site (did I say she has a web site?) and we said that we liked the cross-stitch patterns she has there. I've stitched one of them:




We got two books signed, Hedgie Blasts Off, and an older book, The Mitten, which also stars a hedgehog, and which, inexplicably, we didn't already have.

We also got goodies! There was a card of the book cover:



and a sort of newsletter for the book:


That's just its cover. Inside there were some drawings and pictures, an explanation of how Brett came to write this particular book (she went up with the Blue Angels once! -- as a passenger, I mean), and a picture of Hedgie to color.

And we also got a poster which turned out to be for her Africa book, Honey...Honey...Lion! Beautiful, but disappointing, in that it contained no hedgehogs. (I couldn't find a picture on the web, and it was too big to scan.)

Linky Love:
Jan Brett's home page: Coloring books! Cross-stitching! Murals! Ideas! Projects! Rides! Games! All singing! All dancing!

Jan Brett books at Barnes & Noble.

Jan Brett books at Amazon.

Go there! DO IT NOW![TM]

[1] Not exactly true. We discussed it, but neither of us thought there'd be much to take pictures of, except Brett herself, and she might not want her picture taken. So we just didn't bring it. But I'm going to blame Niles anyway.

[2]Does anyone see the words "dirty bomb" and imagine a shower of Hustler centerfolds? No, huh?

[3]And one or two adults. But not me -- I still have some dignity. Just a smidgen. I'm saving it for an emergency.

Posted 10:20 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Rocket Rest Home

Niles was home with a cold for three days this week, hanging around the house, bugging me. So I couldn't get any scanning in; I'll have to post a picture we had scanned at camera store.

Rocket Garden, Kennedy Space Center,
Nov. 2004

This is part of the rocket garden of the Kennedy Space Center. From left to right we have the Mercury-Atlas, the Redstone, and the Atlas-Agena. That Restone is probably a Mercury too, i.e., it was used in the Mercury program. The red spires on top of the Atlas and Redstone are escape towers (so you know they were from manned missions). The black cones beneath the towers are the actual space capsules, where the astronauts sat.

Naturally, these particular rockets were never launched; they were either space program spares, or military spares refurbished to sit in the garden. They might be even be replicas. See this site for more than you ever wanted to know (especially here and here.)

This is a time exposure, of course. I have a little tabletop tripod, about as high as my outstretched hand, that I usually carry around. I don't remember if I had it with me that day -- we were there several days, and by the end I was getting tired of lugging my enormous camera bag through security -- but I do remember I took this photo by resting my camera on top of a handy garbage can. Mmmm-mm! That's a good smell. There were also bees.

This is not too shabby a photo. Some in that set are out of focus. It's hard to focus at night while you're bent over double with your hair in the garbage and bees buzzing around.

Labels: Florida, Foto Friday

Posted 10:57 AM by Angie Schultz

A Cunning Plan

The New York Times brings us the shocking (zzz) news that North Korea's nuclear fizzle was a plutonium, rather than uranium, design. I could've told them that: if it had been a uranium bomb, it would've worked. The Trinity test (and subsequent Nagasaki bomb) was a plutonium device. The design of the uranium bomb was considered so simple that there wasn't any need to test it. Plutonium bombs require an explosive lens which must compress the plutonium symmetrically. Else you get an embarrassing pre-detonation and a tiny yield (and the chicks all laugh at you). The problem with uranium bombs is that they require tedious and time-consuming (and expensive) enrichment of the uranium.

Anyhow, this leads me to my brilliant (and cunning) plan for dealing with the North Koreans. The element uranium (atomic number 92) was named for the planet Uranus, discovered eight years earlier. Neptunium (93) and Plutonium (94) were subsequently named for the planets Neptune and Pluto.

Now we all know that Pluto is no longer a planet. But what few people realize is that means plutonium is no longer an element! Which means you can't make bombs with it!

Think about it: has anyone else successfully detonated a plutonium bomb since the IAU met? NO. QED, res ipsa loquitur, caveat emptor et cetera et cetera.

At least, this is what we'll tell Kimmie. Hell, it can't work worse than anything else we've tried.

UPDATE: And if it works on him, we'll try it on the Iranians.

Posted 9:54 AM by Angie Schultz

Up Denial River

Brendan O'Neill frets over a new religious intolerance -- that of the global warming True Believers. These pure and holy people, who know that only Man is vile, are seeking to silence the infidels and freethinkers. His article begins:

One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing 'climate change denial'. 'David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial', she wrote. 'Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.'

But if you scroll down to his first footnote, you find that the Austraian columnist in question is...Margo Kingston! Frankly, if you're taking Margo Kingston seriously, you've got bigger problems than the end of the world.

But perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss this concept, just because it comes from the dim and shadowy recesses of Kingston's cranium. Just think of all the people we could villify merely by going bug-eyed with indignation and insisting on trials for denying various things. Trials for all! Fair trials, of course, and afterwards, fair hangings.

For example, anthropogenic global warming is small beans indeed compared to what even a smallish asteroid could do to us. And yet you don't see musicians jetting all over the Earth to prevent it, like they do global warming. No. In fact, except for a few obsessed far-sighted individuals, the whole issue is pretty much non-existent. DENIERS! How dare you ignore the coming bolide genocide?!

And then there's the imminent Second Holocaust -- you know, the one the Iranians are cooking up. Iran is sure to get the bomb. Everyone says so. We're just going to have to live with it. And when I say "we", I mean the US. The Israelis will not have to live it. The Iranian plan is for them to die with it.

So, since Iranian nukes are inevitable, and since the Iranians seem determined to wipe out Israel once they have them, the Second Holocaust is inevitable. And anyone who says it isn't is a SECOND HOLOCAUST DENIER and SHOULD BE TRIED. I'm sure that will be a great comfort to the dead Israelis. I mean, at least we tried.

And then there's North Korea. Kim hasn't explicitly threatened to wipe out anybody just on general principles (yet), so he's off the hook there. But he is starving his own people. Eventually that'll become genocide. HOW DARE YOU DENY IT?!

But the real beauty lies the fact that, between the asteroids, the Iranians, the North Koreans -- and whatever else we can dream up -- Margo's got to be guilty of denying something.


Condolences to David Roberts of Grist[1], who also suggested that "global warming deniers" be subjected to "some sort of climate Nuremberg", but only last month, and so wasn't included in O'Neill's article. He can take comfort, though, in being attacked by an actual US Senator (James Inhofe). Here he is in the HuffPo, taking comfort.

[1]By casually mentioning Grist in this manner, I act as if I am familiar with the publication. I am not. In clarifying, though, I'd have to say something like, "Grist, some sort of earthy-crunchy publication" (or, like Melanie Phillips, "something called Grist magazine"), which seems unnecessarily dismissive. Besides, if it's beneath my notice, why am I stooping to criticize? (Because when I googled for "'global warming' Nuremberg" this article floated to the surface, that's why.)

Posted 1:26 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Golden Grouch

Am not feeling well today. None of my pictures look good. So you'll take what's coming and like it:

Golden Gate Bridge, April 1994

I scanned another roll yesterday (Thursday has become scanning day). They all came out in weird colors, with dust and spots the software wouldn't remove. It's so hard to judge what the colors will be from the laptop screen. I'm going to have to bring the scanner into the study so that I can use the big Samsung monitor, like I am right now. Of course, that doesn't mean that the colors that I'm seeing are the ones you're seeing.

There's a "fade correction" (something like that) on the scanner software. Sometimes it works great, sometimes it doesn't do much, and sometimes, as in the above picture, it seems to do too much. The color of the bridge doesn't look right, but a quick image search shows that others get this color, too, so maybe it's OK.

The prints made off this negative have a pink tinge to the clouds, while the hills and ocean have a dreamy, blurred look to them (which also shows up in this image). I wouldn't be surprised if the film was old.

I like the way the famous beautiful view is enhanced with a caution sign. Next time I'll bring a box to stand on, and maybe I can get a photo without it. (It's not as if I'm short, either.)

This was taken a day or so after I moved to California. I sure miss it. Wish I could go back to stay.

Labels: California, Foto Friday

Posted 11:57 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Grand Ole Opry House

I realized last week that my last three or four (or five or six) photos have all been of Hawaii. I didn't mean to do that, it just worked out that way. Since each was from a different island, I toyed with the idea of completing the set, posting a different island each week until I was finished with them. But, I thought, to hell with it. Let's go somewhere different.

So today's photo is for gentle Emily, who just can't get enough of the establishing shots in Lost.


Sydney, Oct. 1999

That was taken from a ferry on the way to Taronga Zoo, which is on the north side of Sydney Harbo[u]r. Betty, a friend of mine from California, was coming through town with a friend, and the three of us went to the zoo together.

The remainder of this post is a little depressing. Just ignore it and look at the pretty picture if you like.

Betty was a fascinating lady. She must have been 75 or so when I met her, and she was still working. In her youth she'd been a computer, back in the days when that word applied to people, and in the '60s had been on many exciting projects for NASA.

She and her husband had become wealthy over the years, and during her last few years she traveled to Egypt and China and, for her last big trip, Australia. She also went once a year to Vegas with some girlfriends. She was a millionaire, but she told me that she allowed herself twenty (or it may have been fifty) dollars to gamble away, and when that was gone she was done.

When she came through Sydney she was having a little trouble with her arm. She had strained it, she thought, and it was taking an awful long time in healing. Then again, she was getting on in years.

After she got back to California she found out that she had ALS. I got to go back to the US for a visit in 2001, and was able to see her on my last day. She couldn't speak much by then. She had a little keyboard to type on, but she was mostly beyond that, too. So I had to do most of the talking, and bored her with accounts of what I'd been doing in Australia.

When I left her, I found I had nothing to say, no words of parting. When you leave someone you don't see very often, you say things like, "see you soon," or "hope I can get back in town before too long". When you leave a sick person, you say, "get well soon". None of these was appropriate. She wasn't going to get well, and I wouldn't be seeing her again.

She died about a week after I got back to Sydney.

This post turned out to be kind of a downer, though I didn't mean for it to be.

Labels: Australia, Foto Friday