Sunset for Cinema

I've just finished a week of working at our Cupertino site, which has fewer Redwoods and more chaparral, not to mention a bigger creek and better views at the tops of the hills. There are fewer trails though. There was a boy with Down Syndrome in my group, and he was super cute and super excited to be there. There was also a boy who said he wants to be a biologist when he grows up. He even brought his own field guide with him, and I saw him referring to it from time to time.

During the week, we got a bit of rain, although it rarely got heavy. Just enough to bring out the newts and moisten the dust.

Speaking of childhood, the local dome theaters that marked the landscape of my youth are falling one by one. The Century Theaters were once five: Century 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25, but now they are three, 25 and 24 having been reduced to rubble in the name of "progress", although the way I see it, "progress" is usually just a euphemism for greed. Developers are swooping in with their avaricious plans. The three remaining domes have fallen under the jaded gaze of the people who toppled the old Town & Country shopping center across the street, where the sprawling shopping dystopia called Santana Row malevolently squats. It looks like Santana Row is soon going to engulf the property where the domes currently reside.

Last week, I happened to be near the remains of another old movie theater, the Meridian Quad. The only physical evidence that it was ever there is this sign:

Why was I there? I was inside the pizza place getting face painted by clowns. Yes, clowns need to practice this kind of thing. I then went to work, where my coworkers weren't surprised at all. In fact, my boss didn't even ask why my face was painted. I love my job.

Mysteries, Both Real and Imagined

Spring has been gathering steam for most of the Winter, and now it's officially here, as of 12:57 P.M., EDT. Happy Vernal Equinox. Hopefully we'll have some Spring showers before Summer comes along to cook us.

My nights at work this week have been relatively easy. I finished reading Edogawa Rampo's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" and almost finished watching season 4 of Farscape. I can do that sort of thing when the campers are all asleep. Three more episodes to go.

I also marveled at the mysterious pile of crap that appeared outside one of the cabins. Sometime in the middle of the night, one of the campers evidently couldn't be bothered with the 30 second walk to the toilets, but instead let fly less than 10 feet from his cabin door. He can cross "criminal mastermind" off of his list of potential careers though, because after the deed was done, he stepped in it, allowing the janitor to follow the tracks back to his bunk. That was where things stood when I left this morning. I'm sure he's had a talking-to by now.

The Beckoning Darkness

After around a month of working days, I'm back on the night shift this week. It's actually not that hard for me to switch back and forth, but only because even when I'm working nights regularly, I tend to be diurnal on the weekends. It's probably not good for me to constantly switch my schedule around though. when I'm working nights, I usually spend nearly 24 hours awake at the beginning of the week. I manage this by exerting very little energy on those days, and taking cat naps at work (and apparently, by sitting in my comfy chair and blogging).

Yesterday, Willow used a bunch of her own money to buy various gag items to use on April Fool's Day. She wants to organize a party at which she and her friends prank each other. I tried to convince her that pranks are less effective if people expect them, but dad advice often falls on deaf ears.

Speaking of special days, here's a photo of the birthday present I got for my step-daughter, Eva, on her birthday last month:

I wonder how many kids go through a "creepy doll" phase. I approve.

Records, Pizza, Coffee, and Snakes = the Perfect Outing

I'm currently reading a book called "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains", by Nicholas Carr, and so far it hasn't told me much that I hadn't already figured out for myself. The internet is distracting us and ruining our attention spans. Carr provides the reader with a lot of interesting background information though, so from my perspective, it's still worth reading.

I'm reminded of another interesting piece of information that I once read (or heard), pertaining to the reason why people often walk into rooms and suddenly forget whatever mission they had in mind. It has to do with the fact that we evolved in a world without compartments, where there were no rooms. Once we moved away from the wide open vistas and stuffed ourselves into compartmented boxes, it in turn compartmentalized our thought processes. The end result of this is that when we suddenly find ourselves in a new room, whatever it was that we were thinking in the previous room sometimes vanishes from our mental horizons.

The internet can be like that. The continuous landscape of a book vanishes into a welter of enticing, neon-lit alleyways down which every imaginable distraction (or vice) is displayed. Every link is a doorway leading to another "room". It really isn't surprising that our thoughts can end up scattered and our internal calm shattered.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I notice that some physical shops are taking things in the opposite direction. Yesterday, Willow and I were wandering through Berkeley (after stopping by a friend's house to buy a truly impressive record with real leaves pressed into the vinyl, followed by lunch at Zachary's pizza with Uncle Greg) when we stumbled across a coffee place called Artis. See an article here. We mostly went in just to use the bathroom, and I figured I'd pay for that privilege by buying some coffee. I figured it would be one of those places that brews each cup by hand, and I was right, but they took it one step farther. They roasted the beans by order too. I bought a pound of beans and watched them roast it for me. I must add that the bag that contains my newly roasted and purchased beans exclaims, "each bean in this bag was PICKED LOVINGLY BY HAND thousands of miles away".

Taking this to its logical conclusion, I envision that one day citizens will be able to wander into coffee shops and witness beard-tugging hipsters gathered around pots of soil as they watch coffee plants grow, waiting for the beans to be ready for harvesting so that they can conclude their transactions.

I wonder if this kind of thing is a reaction (conscious or otherwise) to the fast-paced, hectic online world that many of us inhabit. If so, I approve.

After we left, we went to East Bay Vivarium and looked at snakes and spiders. Willow wants me to get another python. I still have my eyes on the Beaded Lizards.

In other news, Willow's softball season is up and running. She keeps saying that each year will be her last, but keeps signing up again anyway. She's a busy girl.

Lanterns to Light the Darkest Passage

Broughty Cole's body was fished out of the Sacramento river yesterday. According to police, there was "nothing suspicious" about this. Really? At least his family can have some closure, but that doesn't lessen the tragedy of his passing.

Here are some faerie lanterns to light his way into the beyond. I don't necessarily believe in a beyond, but if there is one, it should have faerie lanterns.

What Tomorrow Brings...

Remembered past is history and unknowable future is a mystery, and somewhere in the future lies the answer to the question about a man named Broughty Cole, who vanished off the face of the earth a little under a week ago, leaving his car parked at a marina near Sacramento. I didn't know Broughty, but he played drums for the opening band, Lasher Keen, at a show I attended a couple of days before his disappearance. I am slightly acquainted with his two bandmates though, and they're both fine examples of humanity. This fact, coupled with having seen him just a couple of days before he vanished, makes what is essentially yet another missing person case more personal (yes, they all suck, but we'd all be emotional wrecks if we took every bad news story personally). I find myself checking for updates quite often (there is a Facebook page set up to coordinate search efforts) and I donated some money to help fund the search efforts (you can too, if you are reading this in a timely manner - just go to the Facebook page and send money via Paypal to the e-mail address mentioned there).

Other than that, words fail, so here is a healing photo of a forest, taken earlier this week.

...And here is the most recent version of the flyer. I don't imagine that posting it here will make much of a difference, but I know for a fact that not posting it here will make exactly no difference.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

There is a teacher at camp this week whose name is Concepción.

The kids call her Misconception.

When Working Is Playing

We've been getting a bit of rain over the last week, with attendant rainbows.

Last Wednesday was especially moist, but that didn't stop us from hiking. I figured it would be a good day for the kids to learn about water. We ended up wearing it. I don't think we would have gotten any wetter if I'd led the kids into the pond. As it was, we spent a lot of time playing in the gutters and culverts. At one point, we unblocked a clogged gutter and got to watch a refrigerator-sized cluster of leaves, branches, and other debris go racing away down the hill like a bear saddled with extra gravity. The kids loved it. They also loved just playing in the water. I love getting paid to play in the water.

During all of this, a boy said that he could have chased a coyote in his pants and nobody would have noticed. "Chasing a coyote" is camp code for peeing, and yes, we were all that wet.

On the mid-week feedback forms that we have the kids fill out, one kid remembered the lesson on decomposers slightly incorrectly. We teach about decomposers (fungus, bacteria, and invertebrates), using the acronym "F.B.I.", and one kid remembered that part, but wrote that he'd learned about fungus, bacteria, and immigration.

As I was leading the kids into the nature lab, one girl looked up and told me, "you smell like syrup." At first I was confused, since I hadn't eaten anything with syrup that morning, but then remembered the Candy Cap mushrooms I'd had in my backpack. They smell strongly of maple syrup, and even though I've lost the mushrooms somewhere, my backpack continues to smell like syrup. As smells go, it's a pretty good one.

This week, it feels colder and the clouds remain. Maybe we'll get some more rain. Speaking of getting things, one of the teachers from a couple of weeks ago showed her appreciation for what we do by giving all of the staff members who were working that week inscribed copies of her book. I hadn't even known she was an author. It's a children's book about the Redwood forest, complete with beautiful illustrations (check it out here). I love it when people make these kinds of gestures. It's yet another reminder that what we do is appreciated.

Eleven!

Willow turned 11 today! Happy birthday, Willow! Here are the first substantial posts I wrote about her birth, way back in the benighted year of 2003.

At camp this week, there is a kid who has not one, but four, imaginary friends. Apparently, he gets annoyed if you sit in a seat taken by one of these friends. I'm both glad and disappointed that he's not in my field class. Weird kids are cool.

Nerd Stuff

Yeah, I'm a big nerd. One of the things I'm most excited about this year is the opening of the new Godzilla movie.

Here's my review of Thursday's Marissa Nadler show. It was definitely worth taking the night off work to attend it.

We're getting ready to settle in and watch this week's episode of The Walking Dead. It's the only TV show I watch as it's being aired.

Tomorrow, I'm back in the field for another month or so before I work another week of nights. Right now, it feels like Spring again, although rain is forecast for later in the week.

Musical Notes, Plus More Chicken Stuff

The two nights I worked this week rank among the easiest I've ever worked. Once the kids went to bed, I had not one single visitor, with the exception of a pair of boys who stopped by at 6:00 AM on the first night to let me know that there were no paper towels in one of the bathrooms.

Tonight, I'm playing hookey and we're going to Santa Cruz to see Marissa Nadler. Here's what I had to say about the last time I saw her.

Speaking of musicians, these days it seems like more and more independent artists are going the Kickstarter route to fund upcoming albums and tours. I'm a big supporter of this sort of crowd funding, mostly because it means that more good music will reach my ears and more good musicians will continue to be able to continue doing what they love. Here's one that blipped my radar today. One of the other good things about this sort of thing is that by the time the finished product arrives in the mailbox, enough time has passed that it's almost like getting free music, which is much better than actually getting free music because this way you're not a shiftless freeloader pirate who steals songs via dodgy internet sources.

Next week, I'm back in the field.

Out the window, I can see one of the chickens taking a dirt bath in one of the garden beds, next to the leafless kale plant. The chickens are very diligent about making sure it never grows leaves.

Here's a pair of photos from a few days ago:

Great Flaming Arrow of Doom

Hanging in the sky to the west is an immense isosceles triangle, pointed like an arrow toward the western horizon, as if threatening to skewer Orion. Orion, in fear for his life, hides behind the mountains, with only Betelgeuse giving away his position. The venomously bright, downward-pointed tip of the triangle is Jupiter, and the other two vertices are Castor and Pollux, which are the two brightest stars in Gemini.

For most of human history, this great westward-pointing arrow would most likely have been seen as some sort of harbinger of doom. These days, our harbingers of doom are much more ridiculous, as can be seen in this graph, and this article.

Night of the Living Clowns

The stars are diamonds in ink, although a cataract of cloud is advancing. I'm back on the night shift this week, although only for a couple of nights since the holiday snipped off the first one and my constant desire to experience live music will be snipping off the last one.

After I met with the cabin leaders tonight, I sent them back to join the campers down at the hillside amphitheater, where they were just finishing up the campfire program. One cabin leader lingered in the staff room, and then asked if he could stay there for a little bit. It turned out that one of the teachers was dressed up like a clown (for a skit) and the cabin leader was scared to go near him while he was in his clown outfit.

I remember being afraid of clowns when I was a kid - when I was maybe 3 or 4 years old. The cabin leaders are all in high school though. It's moments like this that remind me that we have kids watching over the kids.

With that in mind, I realize that, not counting the three sleeping teachers, I'm really the only adult here. This week I'm in charge of 111 sleeping 6th graders and 11 cabin leaders, at least one of whom is terrified of clowns. I can only imagine what the others are scared of.

Currently listening to: Bohren & der Club of Gore "Piano Nights"

Of Mist and Moondogs

The weather has been wintery, but not wildly so. Misty mornings give way to overcast afternoons, and every so often the mist coalesces into almost-raindrops. Right now, there is an scent to the air that smells like atmospheric indecision, something halfway between Winter and Spring. The dry, warm weather has tricked a lot of plants into blooming early, or so it seems to me.

It even continues to trick the local rattlesnakes. Although I've seen snakes during every month of the year (one of the benefits to living in California), it is still unusual to find rattlesnakes in February. This is the same rattlesnake from last week, resting in nearly the same place.

This illustrates what a typical morning at camp has looked like over the past couple of weeks:

The camp week flew by uneventfully. The kids were good, with only a couple of them being annoyingly immature. I did pretty much the same things I did the previous week, although the scorpion I've been finding on Mondays has moved. In its place this Monday was a male Calisoga spider. The Wednesday night hike was beautiful, with an enormous moondog circling the moon and almost seeming to bisect Jupiter, and puddles of moonlight gleaming in the forest.

During our visit to the chaparral earlier in the day, the trail was suddenly full of robins. There must have been 15 or 20 of them. They were probably looking for unwary invertebrates.

Jeanine is at work right now, and the girls are at the mall. This is the first time that Willow has walked to the mall with Eva and her friends, and it's a bit of a walk (perhaps 2 miles). I'm still not completely comfortable letting her do that, but I've always been a bit disdainful of parents who over-shelter their children (mostly because I have to deal with the results of it at camp) so off she went. Plus, there's no way I want to spend any time in any mall if I can avoid it. I think they'll have a better time without me anyway. Jeanine is going to pick them up after she is done working, and then we'll spend our Saturday evening together.

On Cheese, Coffee, and the Written Word

Under grey clouds gravid with rain, Jeanine and I went to the farmer's market today. Last week, we picked up some great pepper sauce and some ghost pepper salt (which I now put on nearly everything), plus some gluten free pizzas and coffee beans. Just the essentials.

This week, it was the cheese curd that called our names. Plus more coffee beans, although only I could hear them. Jeanine is deaf to the cries of coffee.

We stopped in at the book store so I could pick up some Alastair Reynolds novels. I was feeling good about having saved money and space by accepting the loan of a big bag of books and DVDs from a friend (now more than a year ago), but he's a friend with excellent taste, leaving me wanting more on all fronts, so most of my recent book and DVD purchases have been directly inspired by the contents of this particular bag.

There was a book signing in progress at the store, and I recognized the book as one I'd impulse-bought a few weeks ago. It's a book about a book store, so it appealed to me to see a writer of a book about book stores sitting in a book store with a smile on his face and a pen in his hand. His name is Robin Sloan, and his book (his only one to date, I believe) is entitled Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. As soon as I finish reading all of the books I've borrowed, I'll crack its cover and get started. It's not a signed copy though, because I bought it on the wrong day.

Speaking of writing, I just dusted off and threw a new coat of imaginary paint on one of my other blogs. It's completely fictional, and hasn't actually been updated in around a decade, and when I peeked at it today I found that most of the posts had dropped off some virtual cliff into the unreachable darkness of nowhere-land. I updated the template and republished them. Since it's a story written in blog style, it must be read back to front, starting with the oldest post and working forward. Annoying, isn't it? Perhaps I'll start updating it again. Or maybe not. Check it out here.

Jeanine just walked through the house holding both chickens. There was a whole lot of flapping going on.

Much Needed Moisture

We have finally had a bit of rain, although not exactly a deluge. It has been drizzling off and on for the last handful of days though. I guess it's better than nothing.

The moisture brings out the amphibians and the decomposers, but that didn't stop me from also finding a Rattlesnake this week. It was coiled under one of the usual corrugated sheets of metal near camp, and barely reacted when 21 kids leaned over to look at it, cameras flashing.

On our "all day" hike (really only around 5.5 hours) we ascended 1000 feet into the foggy greenery, being careful not to tread on newts. By the time we finished the hike, we'd walked around four miles and counted 210 of them.

Here's newt #74:

Here's the magical woodland:

Yes, I took these at work. Weep.

Shortest Joyride In History

This morning started out with a bang, although Jeanine and I didn't hear it. Eva did though, and when I went out front, I noticed that an obnoxiously large pickup truck had collided with a tree across the street a couple of houses down. It was at an angle, almost as if it was thinking of trying to climb into the branches. I shook my head, got into my car, and went to work.

It wasn't until later that I found out that what I'd seen was the aftermath of an armed robbery, during which a knife-wielding man had jumped into the truck after menacing the owner. I guess it's a good thing his driving skills were about as good as his ability to make morally sound decisions, because he immediately crashed into a tree. Unfortunately, he survived the crash and got away on foot. He's still at large, possibly hanging out with the murderer from a few weeks ago and laughing at our inept police department.

Two Minor Things

Occasionally, a thing or two sticks in the mind. I'm not talking about the big events here, but rather those little moments that come and go without any fanfare, but somehow manage to linger in the corners of consciousness for days afterward.

This week, one such thing was a glimpse of the setting moon. I can't remember whether I was coming or going, but I think I was with Willow at the time, maybe coming back from her play. The moon was huge and grinning, a thin, upward curved crescent with a bulbous head of earth-shine rounding it out. It was a little misty around the edges too, like it was trailing ectoplasm as it sank.

The other thing was Elmo. You know, the Sesame Street character. He was standing by the curb alongside a major thoroughfare, looking as if he was waiting for a ride, grinning like Elmos always do.

Second Week In the Field

The ground at camp is still moist from the tiny bit of rain we got over the weekend, making it feel more like Winter. There is a certain smell in the air after rain, and the moss on the trees still had fronds extended. There was (and is) a definite chill in the air too.

We have another group of bright, well-behaved kids. One girl in my group decided to give herself a nature name she couldn't even pronounce, much less spell. Some kind of dinosaur. Usually I can figure those out, but this time I came up blank, so I asked her to change it to something else.

She chose Micropachycephalosaurus.

Later, the same camper picked up something she found on a stump, asking, "is this scat?". I told her that the time to ask that question is before reaching down and picking things up. As it turned out, it was indeed scat. Grey Fox scat, to be precise. Grey Foxes like taking dumps on top of things. It's how they mark territory. We've been finding scat on top of logs, rocks, and even on top of the big pile of decomposed manure in the garden. Silly creatures. I'm glad people don't mark territory like that.

Speaking of camp. Check out this page. It has interviews with me and many of my coworkers, conducted by Scooby. Scooby always goes above and beyond.

Here are a some photos from last week:

Days In A Daze

The frequency of my posts has dipped a bit due to my schedule upending itself this week. I'm now almost completely diurnal again, at least for the rest of this school year. My first week back in the field as an instructor was an easy one, with bright kids and even a little bit of rain! We had found a few salamanders early in the week, and they all looked kind of thin and dry. The kids even found an Ensatina sitting on top of a log. Perhaps it felt the pressure drop, or maybe it was doing a rain dance before we interrupted it. Whatever the reason might have been, this is the first time we've ever found one on top of a log instead of under it. Of course, the cynic in me whispers that perhaps one of the kids put it there and then lied about it (I tell them not to touch Ensatinas because they are lungless salamanders, and do their breathing through pores that can easily be clogged by contact with human skin). Up by the creek, the ladybugs are clustered in their thousands, wintering in weather that has more in common with Spring. Out of the 23 kids in my group, 22 lasted the week. One girl went home on Thursday morning due to illness, and I was sad to see her go. She was very excited to be at camp and was crushed that she would have to miss the last couple of days.

Due to nearly 100% cloud cover, we had to inflate our portable planetarium on Tuesday evening so I could teach about constellations and actually have a visual aid.

I managed to successfully complete my goal of walking 100 miles in January, but only just. No goal for February yet. I tried out my pedometer and it seems to be fairly accurate. I walked nine miles on Thursday alone.

Thursday night, Jeanine and I went to see Willow perform as the Scarecrow in her school's version of The Wizard of Oz. Most of the kids did an excellent job. I went back again on Saturday and saw it again, only missing the third and final performance due to snoozing on picking up a ticket in time. I was over by the dressing/make-up rooms though, and heard part of the third performance through the outside speakers. I also watched the hapless volunteers wrangling the offstage actors, and I can report that the kids playing the flying monkeys were very well cast. The Tin Man was pretty good at using his ax as a guitar too. Right now, Willow is at a girl scout meeting. Cookie sales are coming soon! She's having a busy weekend.

Greg had a performance on Friday evening, which I'll write about in my music blog. Willow's performances book-ended his, and during my second viewing, I realized that Willow was performing in a bigger venue (an elementary school "cafetorium") and in front of a bigger audience (parents and other relatives, mostly). She also rehearsed a lot more, since play rehearsals started in September. I guess this is a good little anecdote to share with people contemplating becoming performers of any type. That fifth grade role in the play may be the peak of your career, at least if you care about venue and audience size.

Here's a photo of an impression of the stamp I carved and hid last Sunday. So far, one person has found it.