Kathryn, Ironically

I haven't posted in a while because of various deadlines and whatnots. I'll be out of lurker mode sometime this month.

I'm in mid-central Massachusetts for a day of consulting. 

Yes, B., I will admit that even the yellow shimmering clone-forests of the eastern Sierra are a firefly to the forest fire of these leaves.

I'm told that the peak color should be hitting in about a week. 

The 9-week project I'd been on ended last Friday. Then I had 2 days to pack for Burning man, and here I am now.

I think that this summer I've twittered/ blogged / non-project-written about 20 posts total... it was an intense time-- much like a worldcon, but lasting 63 days not 5.  

Am home, slept, and off to work.

I shall also go download megabyte pages on my mobile just to remember the joy of unlimited data.  $2/mb? What was that, the 20th century?

I'd read many of these last year as novels or in Asimov's SFM (and may I recommend getting a subscription:  science fiction, readable in the hot tub, introducing you to many great new writers: it's all good).

My anecdata feeling is that this year is a relatively strong year: I'm having a hard choice for #1 in each major category.

I'm also working 12 hour days, so the reading is filling up all of my interstitial times.

Which means I'm spending 16 hours a day in a state of flow. Yay.

Few authors capture SensaOne'sThere the way Kim Stanley Robinson does in his novels.

He's long been one of my favorite authors, but even though I devoured the Mars trilogy as it came out I didn't read Antarctica.  That was a mistake, now fixed.

It's Science Fiction & Fiction about Scientists, with Thrills, Dangers, Key discoveries made by a geologist, Long journeys, and Problem-solving through extended political discourse leading to a consensus: I expect no less from KSR, and those were all there.

And always there's Antarctica itself, and for a brief few hundred pages you get to see and hear it.  (Go to the grocery store and pick up a block of dry ice to chill some water-ice to keep by you while you read (never use dry ice itself as a book prop) and it'll be as close as you can get without paying thousands of dollars & traveling thousands of miles.)

Good read- highly recommended.

Decloaking, delurking, & delivering a message that I'm still here, if only tangentially, for the next 25 days. 

That's when the Big Project starts.

After that things'll just get weirder, I'm sure.

The 62 days until the start of WorldCon? That's Forever from now, from the view of this moment.  Tomorrow it'll look different.

Because of other events, B&I only went to BayCon for Saturday evening.  This was Baycon's second year in Santa Clara, and our first time seeing the new digs (last year we went to Nevada during MDW).  Sounds like the con and the hotel have a good relationship, which bodes well for bidding well. 

I had the good luck to run into katster  within 15 minutes of registering, and so my badge went from plain to "Ohh, Shiny" with ribbons.

Had the usual good discussions of assorted topics, including 'The Future of Westercon' (which has been shrinking away, perhaps in part because it hadn't been in the Bay Area for a fandom generation, reducing brand awareness in a core audience. San Jose will likely win 2011 [no one else is bidding]) and "Love and Monsters, one of the best episodes ever (if you ignore the monster)?"

Hallway costumes continue to exhibit an ever-more-elaborate steampunk / clockpunk / Heterodyne component. I heartily approve.

We almost always have been somewhere over the MDW-- a con, out in the desert, away and offline.

But because the Big Project is launching in 38 days, this weekend is going to be spent partially online, like a typical weekend.

I will read the reports from Wiscon and elsewhere with longing, at least until the Leechblock filter kicks in.

Have a productive, fine and travelfun weekend.

These are all the states I've visited:


These are all the states I've visited more than once, separated by at least one year, where I was old enough to remember the visit. One roadtrip from California to Toronto and back again gave me a bunch of mid-west states that show up above but not here.



And here are all the states visited during a roadtrip-- in a vehicle, with a flexible schedule or no particular place to stay:


By far I've had the most roadtrip time in California. The further east the state, the less total time spent.

This afternoon I went to my sister's house for a mother's day BBQ: salmon and chicken.

Afterwards my brother-in-law offered to babysit (a nice offer- he'd had a busy weekend and was tired) so we could take my mom out to the movies.  There really was just one movie to see, and we did.

Star Trek.

We four women ranged from full geek girl (me) to mildly-written-SF-literate* (one sister) to Gen-Y 'non-SF other than TV or Twilight' (other sister) to my mom (awesome).

We all liked it. A lot.

Afterwards we did discuss if it passed the Bechdel rule or not. Technically yes I think, although, well, you'll see.


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* but knows lots more about movies

Here's a historic view looking west, and a view of its location within Moffett Field.  It is the largest and oldest of the three hangers there (the other two are at the top of the 2nd picture).  It is 8 acres (3.2 hectares, 10 football fields) in size.


Here's a picture I took last week, with building 17 in the foreground.

This is from the CMU (west) building on the day they hosted the homebrew robots club, looking north. (In picture 2 above it'd be from the middle-right red-roofed building within "Shenandoah Plaza" [the set of 1930's-50's buildings within Moffett Field].)

Previously on Kathryn goes to the new Science Academy, we had Monkey Frogs.

Now, Sea Pens.


Going only on my memory from an invertebrate zoology class I took cough:schwa-sound:cough years ago, sea pens are in phylum Cnidaria, the  medusa and polyp of the water world... jellyfish and corals (cnidarian species can have either/both of the medusa or polyp bodyform during their lives). Cnidaria does not include ctenophores, the comb jellies, which have their own phyla.

Unlike the polyps that make up a coral colony, each of which has the same form and function, the individual polyps in a sea pen specialize- some group together for structure, others specialize in feeding.  Sea pens are primarily sessile but they can move.

Cnidaria have spiffy (when viewed under a microscope, not when felt) nematocysts, their spring-loaded spear-cells used for protection and to catch food. Their stings can be hideously painful or deadly to people.  A relative who grew up by the subtropical oceans tells of the time when the thinnest of thin tentacles from a jellyfish wrapped around her neck while she was swimming.  For the next few months she had an inch-wide red welt on her neck, and she had to get used to the "what, did you try to hang yourself?" jokes.

Some reference prices for bulk foods one might be getting to fill an earthquake kit. 

Other than going into (for me) unusably bulk sizes, it would be difficult to go below these prices.   As long as prices are within 50% of these baselines, I'll be happy.  I'm seeing 2x-4x or more at large grocery chains.

beans & lentils:
pinto-- .60/lb (Costco, 10lbs); white northern-- .75/lb (small produce store, bulk);  brown lentils .80/lb (India cash&carry 1 or 5lbs); other beans .80--1.30 (produce store, bulk;  India cash&carry)

Rice:
regular white-- .45/lb (Smart&Final, 10lbs), .40/lb (Costco, 25lbs)

Pasta
various types 1.00/lb (Costco)

Other:
All purpose flour .25/lb (Costco, 2x10lbx);  Chapati .45/lb (Costco);  white sugar .45/lb (10 lbs?).

Shelf stable foods.
I plan to use (= have used this method before) one of these to flavor pasta/rice and frozen veggies = four large servings.
* Thai and Indian foods in plastic package (Tasty Bite style, can be boiled in the bag to heat):
     $2-2.50 (Trader Joe's), $1.50-$2.50 (Indian Cash&Carry).
* Canned Chili, meat and beans, 400-600 calories $1-$1.50 (Sale, Safeway)

In terms of  pure calories, for each 1000 calories the rice is $.30, pasta  $.60 per 1000 calories, lentils $.50, canned soups $3, canned chili $1.75+.

Before Thursday I had not known of Phyllomedusa sauvagii,  the Waxy Monkey Frog aka Chacoan Monkey frog.

They are a tree-dwelling dry-heat-loving opposable-thumbed creature native to the Gran Chaco region of southern South America. They are green, but (as seen here) can camouflage themselves.

They have reptile-like skin permeability (low water loss and gas exchange through the skin relative to other frogs) because they secrete and wipe themselves with a lipid (wax) that prevents water loss. Other adaptations include the abilities to drink falling rainwater and to excrete uric acid instead of urea (like reptiles and birds, and unlike mammals and [most] amphibians).

Until now, the 21st century wasn't fully available to those who are allergic to or otherwise not partial to cats. Worry no more:


dogs also now come in fluorescent.

[Update: the two are still close together, and it's fun to find Venus in the day. Always use a building or other solid object to block & prevent any view of the sun during a daytime search. Put your location into heavens-above.com and it'll give you a whole sky map.]

We were up before 5 for this occulation: it started at 5:11 and ended at 6:04.  It must have been a spectacular transit from Venus.
Pictures

(just my pocket-sized camera, both handheld [image stabilization is a useful feature of modern cameras]. B. had one  telescope out for his pictures, and I also had the astronomy binoculars for looking.

I've been practicing my way towards a better ratio of fruits and veggies to everything else. I am not declaring any goals for myself, other than to spend some time each week reading from my favorite recipe books.

Since I've gotten up to some speed* I'm now declaring a spot not far ahead of me to be my starting line.

I"m lucky: in my walkable neighborhood we have 1 farm**, 1 farmer's market, 3 large grocery stores [Lucky's, Ranch99 (Asian), Kyo-Po (Korean), the smaller  India Cash & Carry... and all of these except for the Lucky's compete with each other on produce.
Kyo-Po, I've read, contracts directly with farmers, so their prices and quality feel like a farmer's market.  This is all good. I remember when living in one of San Francisco's Chinatowns how I vibrant the food choices were, because quality, not price, was the deciding factor: all the prices were reasonable.

And then there are the tree nearby produce markets. I went to one yesterday. I bought
8 lbs of fruits for $10:
       Papaya,  Grapes,  Mangos,  Banana,  Strawberries, Apples, Oranges
17 lbs of veggies for $19. 
       Bean sprouts, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, celariac, jicama,  mushrooms, onions (red, white) , orange bell peppers, romaine lettuce, shallots, turnips, winter squash, yams.

Tonight's dinner was an orange, onion  jicama & romain lettuce salad with a chili-spiced vinigrette,  fried mushrooms and onion added to TJ's low-sodium tomato soup, and chicken.

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*  Helpful tools are
1. Epicurious and a fun set of cookbooks
2. sharp knives and peelers
3. a good produce market or three.

* 11 acres of former-school-fields turned to fields, about 3 acres now under production, plus a small orchard, beehives, housing being built for workers, and more.

I noticed the BoingBoing link to Maker Shed's sale.  I'm seeing nifty stuff.

Who wouldn't like this Art Car Postcard Set, 26 art cars for $3 instead of $10. I met the maker of the cover phone artcar at BurningMan: He drove it there from the east coast!

Or how about Apollo EECOM: Journey of a Lifetime --an insider's history of Apollo- for $2. Or KnitKnit: Profiles + Projects From Knitting's New Wave?

Fun stuff.

Friday, August 7, 2009, Hotel Delta Centre-Ville, Montreal.

making_lumiere