Another List

Here is an interesting "top 10" list. It's a list of the top 10 new species of 2014, although I'm not sure what the criteria for being in the top 10 might be. My favorite is probably the New York Frog, which definitely gets the reward for hiding in plain sight. It got away without being discovered by looking very similar to the Leopard Frog. I've told this story at camp a bunch of times already. I like telling kids that every hike is like a treasure hunt, except that the treasure only gets taken home in your memory.

2014 by the Numbers

I've always claimed to hate math, but I like statistics and lists. Go figure. Looking at 2014 by the numbers, I managed 138 separate posts here, which is exactly 100 more posts than I managed to squeeze out of my brain in 2013. I'm not sure why that is. I didn't make any resolutions or vows or anything like that. I guess I've just felt like writing more recently.

I uploaded 40 separate posts over at my music blog, which more or less means I went to 40 shows this year. This is exactly the same number of posts I managed to produce the previous year.

Overall, this means I wrote 178 blog entries this year, although the length and quality of all of these varies greatly. I'm not making any vows or promises to write more for 2015, but if I keep up my current momentum, it will happen naturally.

I've already seen two movies this year. On Thursday, we went to see "The Woman In Black: Angel of Death", and while I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the first one (not to mention the stage version, which I've seen twice now - once in London and once in Walnut Creek, of all places) better. It's good to see Hammer producing films again though. The sets were appropriately atmospheric and eerie, old-school style, and I loved the scenes where the ghost is in the frame in such a way that she isn't seen until she moves. This kind of trickery makes movies like this fun to watch, and I may even have to watch it again to see if I can catch the ghosts before they move.

This afternoon, I took Willow to see the third Hunger Games movie, and it was good too. This series is grim fare when once considers its intended audience is teenagers. I doubt either of these will rank amongst my favorites of the year, but 2015 is only days old. I'm not sure what my favorite film of 2014 was, but Jodorowsky's "Dance of Reality" is definitely a contender. "Under the Skin" was really good too.

Happy New Year

Where once we wrote "4" at the end of a short string of numbers, we will now write "5". Rather artificially, the cycle begins again. These days, I'm generally rather jaded and skeptical about the whole concept of making resolutions at the beginning of the year. Sure, it's good to want to improve oneself, but so many so-called resolutions a mere memories by the time February rears its chilly head above the temporal horizon.

That said, there is no time like the present for forging ahead and mending flaws. The hedonism of the holidays is behind us, and the time for going back to work is quickly approaching. The new calendar (I got one called "Serpentine", which features nice drawings of venomous snakes) is on the wall, showing that, as always, our days are numbered. Today is day number one. I'm going to try out a few minor changes in my habits, but stop short of making any sort of official announcement on the subject.

I spent part of the last day of the year at the mall with Jeanine. The night before, in the midst of the usual chaos that accompanies such things, at the Neurosis show at the Great American Music Hall, she showed how quick her reflexes were by ducking to avoid a stage diver. Unfortunately, this motion caused her glasses to leave her face and meet their untimely end somewhere amongst the feet of the people piling up in front of the stage. When I found them, they were bent and missing a lens. The nearest LensCrafters location happens to be in a mall, and despite my aversion to malls, I went with her to keep her company while she waited for her new glasses to be ready. We wandered through perfumy-smelling department stores (Jeanine had to return a gift that was too small), gawked at all of the silly people, ate mall food (okay, the jalapeno pretzel was pretty good, but the vegan place in the food place couldn't sell me a soda with kale and fresh ginger in it because it wasn't "ready" yet). In short, the experience confirmed and reinforced my stance on such places. As always, it was fun to spend time wandering with Jeanine. We wander well together.

Last night, I celebrated at midnight with Willow and Eva (Jeanine was already in bed) with store brand sparkling cider. Willow's first words of the new year were, "this tastes weird". It was nice to spend New Year's Eve at home. Predictably, people nearby were celebrating with fireworks, but it wasn't as obnoxious as it sometimes is.

Reflecting on the year, I'm happy to say that it was a good one. Willow turned 11 and Eva turned 13, we added three chickens to our little flock, and I got to do a little traveling (Baltimore, Yosemite for the first time, Lava Beds National Monument for the second time, and L.A. with Eva to see Black Sabbath), saw a lot of shows, read a lot of books (but unlike some years in the past,didn't manage to keep track of how many pages I read), saw a bunch of movies, and walked 484 miles. I now have 496 more miles to walk to complete the "Walk To Mordor" challenge on DailyMile. Maybe I'll go for a walk today.

Chilly and Sunny

By California standards, it has been chilly, causing us to do strange things like wear sweatjackets inside and go to bed with socks on. This week, the forecast calls for actual freezing temperatures, which means more socks and maybe another blanket on the bed.

Today, everything is bright and lush, with the yard still soaking in the afterglow of recent rain. We threw the new straw into the chicken coop, dumped the water out of the worm bin, and cleaned up the yard a bit. The chickens followed behind us and have already started to undo things. Chickens are like that. Chickens abhor neatness, and will do their best to scatter things like dirt and leaves. Maybe we should lacquer the yard. That'll teach them.

Wild birds flit around the periphery of the yard, waiting for the humans to disappear back inside.

We've got several plastic bins full of rainwater too, which we'll use to water things during dry spells. At the moment, the next chance of rain looks to be around 10 days away, right at the end of the extended forecast.

Currently listening to Stray Ghost "October Songs"

Holiday Sloth

On the 24th, shortly after my last post, it stormed ferociously for around five minutes, irritating the chickens and thoroughly soaking everything. I picked up Greg at the BART station, and then Willow at her mom's. We did the usual gift exchange/Christmas dinner thing, and I think everyone was happy.

For the first time since we moved here, we used an artificial tree instead of a real one. It worked just fine, and was much less work, both before (not having to go get one, put it up, and decorate it) and after (no needle mess).

Christmas morning, everyone slept in until at least 9:00. More presents were opened. I dropped Willow back at her mom's around noon, and then went up to my work to check on the animals in the nature lab. Since then, I've been enjoying not having to do anything in particular or be anywhere in particular. The only problem with this is that the days fly by (although, truth be told, they fly by regardless) and soon I will have to be doing things and being places again. For now though, holiday sloth is the order of the day.

That said, I did pay some bills and walk to the pet store to get crickets today. Speaking of animals, there was a cute possum in our avocado tree the other night. It vanished upward when we opened the back door to get a closer look.

Eve

The two expected packages showed up this morning, leaving only one to go. I expect it will be late. The holidays aren't about packages though. The religious right would have everybody believe that it's all about Christmas, celebrating a magical birth that supposedly happened over two thousand years ago, but memories are short and traditions are in a constant flux. Despite being raised in a family where Christmas was celebrated (albeit in a secular fashion), I've always approved of the idea of celebrating the winter solstice instead. being an atheist who appreciates paganism, I think both the pagans and the atheists can agree that celebrating the solstice makes more sense. Let the light return.

So, yeah, the holiday season provides an excuse to spend time with family and exchange gifts. Be careful out there though, because for many people, the season provides an excuse to drink ridiculous amounts of toxic substances and then try to operate heavy machinery. As for me, I'll stick with ridiculous amounts of chocolate.

The doorbell just rang, pushed in a way that made it simply go "dong!". Outside was a harried looking FedEx driver, too tired to make the door chime actually go "ding dong", with a huge, heavy bag. It turns out that the bale of straw that Jeanine ordered from Amazon has arrived in time for the holidays (yes, you can buy straw bales on Amazon - who knew?). We're doing our part to support the War On Christmas by wishing the chickens "happy holidays" with new bedding for the bottom floor of their coop, which is somewhat mucky due to recent rains. Maybe we should put a little chicken-centric nativity scene in there too.

That reminds me of this story. Apparently, Christmas is fighting back.

Holiday Preparations and Supernatural Visitations

The days are getting longer again, not so anybody would notice yet. I spent my infinitesimally longer day wrapping presents and doing a little last minute (and probably unnecessary) Christmas shopping. I also went and got a tofurkey, some ice cream, and other holiday essentials.

When I got home, Jeanine was still quietly freaking out about seeing a ghost in the garage. She said a man stepped into the garage from the kitchen, paused a moment, and then walked towards the closed garage door, where he vanished. This isn't the first time ghosts have been seen around the house. Jeanine's mom has seen them too. I'm sure Dexter the cat sees them all the time, since cats see all sorts of stuff that others don't. I haven't seen anything, and probably won't. Interesting though.

My coffee maker is broken, but I won't go so far as to blame our supernatural visitors. I think it just wore out. I've been pouring water from the tea kettle over the coffee, cowboy campfire style, and the result is strong, gritty coffee. It's kind of like Turkish coffee. Yum. Since I don't know how to fix the one I have, I suppose I should get a new coffee maker.

I'm still waiting for the arrival of three separate packages containing gifts. Two of them look like they're supposed to show up tomorrow, if the tracking information is accurate. The other one will show up when it shows up, I guess.

Currently listening to: Phil Legard "Angelystor" Beautiful.

The Final Stretch

I'm done with work for the year, and so begins the final approach to 2015. Please make sure your tray table is up and your seat is in the upright position. Thanks for flying air 2014.

Holiday shopping is nearly done, although the suspense of whether or not the gifts I've ordered online will arrive in time is still very much present. Over the weekend, I took Willow to see some bands play, saw my brother perform a holiday show at a house concert in San Francisco, and took Willow to see the final Hobbit film, which as expected was full of Peter Jackson's brand of over-the-topness. Good though. Jeanine mostly worked. Eva wandered around with friends.

I did some shopping too. While attempting to buy iTunes gift cards at Fry's, I was first told that they were limited to one per customer (??), and once the guy had figured out that this statement was as ridiculous as it sounded, the system went down and the clerk and his supervisor couldn't manage to activate two of the cards. I left with two of the four cards I'd attempted to buy, and for my trouble, a $10.00 gift card, and $25.00 credited back to my account. That means I made well over minimum wage just standing in line. In fact, I probably made more than I get paid at work. Not bad. I'll go buy the other gift cards somewhere with working machinery and competent clerks.

We had a bit of rain over the weekend, although it seemed to mostly lurk somewhere between San Jose and San Francisco, which is where I got rained on the most. Not much rain in the forecast right now, but there is a 25% chance it might rain a bit later in the week.

Exceptionally Extreme

It rained most of the night last night. On the news today, I saw that the recent rains have helped 23% of California move from "exceptional" drought to "extreme" drought. I'm sure there are a number of people out there in our massive state population who think that the minute it rains, the drought is over. It reminds me of the people who think that a cold spell or a snowstorm means that global warming is a hoax.

A Corpse Is A Corpse, Of Course Of Course

Heavy rain is falling in the darkness beyond our windows. I can hear it impacting on the skylights and the roof. This is shaping up to be a good, solid rainy season so far. Let's hope it continues.

Human remains were found in the woods near camp on Sunday. I had noticed a line of burnt out flares on my way to work last night, and hadn't remembered them until I saw this article. According to the report, the body had been there for around a year before being discovered. It's a good thing it was a little farther away from camp than we ever take hiking groups, because it would have been a bad thing to stumble across while hiking with a group of 5th or 6th graders.

The kids this week seem like a good group. I don't have to wake up anybody at night, and the kids seem relatively well behaved. I found out in the middle of the night that my friend and coworker, Scooby, who usually tells stories in the morning, wouldn't be coming in in the morning (due to pain from possible kidney stones), so I ended up telling stories instead, while worrying if the staff who live on the ocean side of the coast range would make it to work on time due to Highway 17 being closed in both directions because of a downed tree and power lines. Like most worries, this didn't end up being an issue. Several staff members made it in by 8:00, and I got to go home and sleep.

Vampires, Rain, and Chickens, Plus A Bonus Cat

After a relatively dry weekend, the rain is back. It started raining last night as we were driving home from seeing the Iranian vampire film, "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night", and it hasn't really stopped since. The film is definitely worth seeing, filmed in stark black & white and given to long silences, meaningful looks, and industrial squalor. Just my kind of film, actually. This is a good year for art house vampire films, with Jim Jarmusch's "Only Lovers Left Alive" also being worthy of note. Both films have good soundtracks too.

Later, I'll go to work for the last week of camp for the year. We're supposed to have over 200 kids this week, meaning we'll be stuffed to the gills.

Out back, the chickens weather the storm as best they can.

Here's Henrietta:

Here's Mrs. Charles:

Here's all five of them. Note Dot's swollen feet. The vet couldn't figure out what the problem was, but they don't seem to slow Dot down at all. She can still perch with the best of them.

Dexter still wants to know why the birds get to play in the yard and he doesn't:

Outernet

AT&T is a corporation that apparently can't find its ass with both hands and Mapquest. Jeanine called to get a repair person to come and figure out why our internet connection was borderline nonexistent, and why we had no dial tone on the land line. She was told that somebody would come out between sunrise and sundown on Friday. We waited. And waited... Nobody showed.

Today, an AT&T guy showed up sometime in the early afternoon, poked around a bit, and said that the problem was waterlogged equipment. He pointed to something up one of the nearby poles, and said he couldn't fix it but would call someone who could. A couple of hours after he left another AT&T guy showed up. He had no idea that somebody had already been here, but took a quick look around and said he could fix the problem. He did confirm that the first guy's diagnosis was correct though, and wondered why the hell he hadn't been able to fix the problem.

The problem is now fixed. We have a dial tone. We have internet. That means Jeanine can get work done and I can go back to wasting time.

Storm

The rain came roaring in sometime during the wee hours, lashing sides of buildings and creating standing water in the low lying areas. Our power cut out a little after 7:30, but of course the generator kicked in seconds later. When the power cut out, my friend Scooby, who was telling a story to the kids at the time, clapped his hands and snapped his fingers, making it appear that he'd magically restored the power. The kids were in awe.

As I left, I only had to swerve around one substantial branch on my way down the hill, which relieved me. I wasn't looking forward to getting stuck at work again, especially since I had to go downtown and get a new copy of Willow's birth certificate. The powers that be are making all employees re-apply for health coverage, and like all bureaucracies, they require enough official documents to choke a clerk. I'm not sure which one of Willow's parents mislaid the original, but neither of us can find it at the moment. It's a moot point now, I suppose. Plus, the storm kept the casual document searchers away this morning, and I was in and out in less than ten minutes.

As usual, I slept through most of the day. The wind and rain never got vicious enough to wake me up, which is sort of disappointing. When I went to bed, the media hype machine was running on all cylinders. I wouldn't be surprised to hear a news report that the raindrops are laced with the Ebola virus and that good citizens have been found bleeding out in puddles across the state as the CIA tortures the survivors in a vain attempt to find shadowy culprits.

It also occurred to me that anybody who has gotten a driver's license in the last couple of years is driving in stormy weather for the first time today. Now, that is actually a little scary.

This Had Better Be Worth It

The wind is moaning and moist. The weather isn't supposed to get really wild until much later, but the storm is definitely on its way. At least one concerned parent has called camp to make sure everything is all right. Schools in the north and east bay will be shut down tomorrow, and the media keeps repeating variations of "be afraid - be very afraid".

I'm hoping that the coming storm lives up to its hype. I'm also hoping that no kids vomit tonight. Two kids lost their dinners last night - one of the floor of his cabin, and one in the doorway to the girls' bathroom. As far as I can tell, it was all because they were feeling anxious. Another girl complained of a stomach ache, which I quickly discovered was probably because she hadn't pooped since Sunday. Kids are weird.

The sunrises have been beautiful again this week.

Sailors take warning.

Incoming

There is storm on the horizon, expected to hit our area late Wednesday night with heavy rain and wind. At camp, there is talk of switching up the schedule so that the usual Thursday all-day hike doesn't coincide with the downpour. Not that this really affects me, since I get to stay dry in the hub at night anyway. I look forward to enjoying the storm though.

There is always the chance that a tree or a power line will make getting home problematic, but that's okay. I'm just excited that inclement weather is on the way. We actually seem to be getting a decent amount of rain this Autumn. I hope it continues for the rest of the season.

This week, we have around 190 kids, which is a bit more than the 115 I was expecting. I hadn't realized that a second school had been added to the schedule. I got to camp last night to find that there were more people in a couple of the cabins than there were beds, so I had to open the storage room to get extra mattresses. That was definitely some poor planning on the part of the daytime staff. If this kind of thing isn't addressed during the day, I'm left to scramble at bedtime. At that point, it's too late to do anything other than throw mattresses around. It made me grouchy.

I have to wake up two kids at night so they won't wet their beds, and this week, both of them are nearly impossible to wake up. Other than that, I had a good night, and the day arrived with another colorful sunrise. Jeanine said the light at home was a strange glow. The calm before the storm, perhaps.

Currently listening to: Nest - "At the Shelter, First Awakening" Beautiful solo Kantele music.

Orange Clouds, Unconcerned Birds

One of the good things about owning chickens is that We find ourselves in the backyard at sunset and sunrise, so we get to see sunsets like this:

And sunrises like this:

The chickens, having no appreciation for the finer things in life, don't care. They just march up their ramp at sunset, and down it again at sunrise. Right now, they're eating dried mealworms and the rice we didn't finish during dinner a few days ago. Easy to please, chickens.

Last night, the crows were in the persimmon tree again. They left as I photographed them. This one looks like it's hanging on a branch, like some strange corvid fruit.

Mysterious Stranger, Flea Markets, and Other Unimportant Anecdotes

Our modem is being grumpy again, but we're stuck with it until one of us gets fed up enough to call AT&T and wait on the line for most of the day. Having to make a phone call has always been a big deterrent for me.

Nobody puked on the last night of camp this week. I got there a little early so I could set up the trail cam near the deer carcass, only to find that the carcass was gone. I set up the cam anyway. I still don't know what happened to the deer, although it's a good bet that it was dragged off by the Mountain Lion to a more secure location.

The only picture the trailcam took was this:

I have no idea who this person is, or why he (it looks like a he to me) was running by our camp in the middle of the night. The time stamp on the camera isn't set properly, so I'm not sure what time of night this was taken.

The only other thing of note to occur was an alarm going off in the kitchen. It turned out to be the temperature alarm on the big walk-in refrigerator/freezer. I didn't even know that particular alarm existed, but it makes sense to have one. We wouldn't want to serve spoiled food to the campers. It turned out that some genius had left the door to the freezer ajar. Thanks, genius.

I stayed up all day on Friday, which is something I've started doing on the weekends that Willow is here. That way, I'm not sleeping all day while she sits around bored. It's just as well too, because we had to get up at 5:30 because her girl scout troop was selling stuff at the flea market to raise money for future trips (Disneyland, Europe, etc.).

When I dropped her off, somebody tried to buy the trombone in my trunk (which was open so I could get the things that Willow was selling). The trombone is not for sale, sir. When I went to get her later, I bought a lamp from the guy in the stall across from theirs, to replace the one the cat broke. I also noticed that many people who attend flea markets have no idea how to fit their cars between the lines of the parking spaces. I actually made one guy move by pulling in next to him after he'd done a sloppy parking job. His wife couldn't get out on her side of the car. Take that, guy. That kind of thing is high up on my list of irritations. It shows a serious lack of consideration and/or a complete unawareness of one's surroundings. After that, I saw several even more egregious examples of poor parking skills. I think I'm turning into a grumpy old man.

Speaking of broken, we've been having plumbing issues. Today, when I was washing dishes, water pooled up in the shower. That's weird, and probably expensive.

Outside, for once, the sky is not having plumbing issues. It has been raining off and on all week. The early morning drizzle has given way to partly cloudy skies, but more rain is in the forecast. Hurrah!

Around the Sun We Go, Where We'll Stop, Nobody Knows...

I turned 47 today, and spent most of the day sleeping, waking up in the evening to have cake and such.

My first action on the anniversary of my birth was to clean up puke. Somebody has managed to vomit in bed every night this week, and as I type, I'm wondering who will do it tonight. I had checked this particular girl at midnight because she's a diabetic, and found that her blood glucose levels were elevated. She has one of those neat little pumps that calculates what dosage of insulin to administer, so she did this and went back to sleep. Less than an hour later, as I was coming back from the lodge with my freshly microwaved meal, I found her waiting for me in the hub, covered in vomit. Lots of cleaning ensued, and she rechecked her blood glucose levels. Still high, but then again it hadn't been too long since she'd had the insulin, so I had her drink some water and go back to bed. Around 5:00, she puked again, and more cleaning had to happen. This time, I called her mom, who ended up having to drive up to camp to figure things out. To make a long story short, the catheter in her device was slightly bent (she'd changed it out herself earlier in the day), so she hadn't been getting the insulin she'd administered (which meant the hot chocolate she'd had right before bedtime was wreaking havoc). She ended up going home to catch up on lost sleep, and hasn't come back.

The other interesting thing that happened on my birthday eve was the partial deer that appeared at the bottom of our driveway right around the time the night hike started. Some of the kids got to see it before our hub host and our facilities manager dragged it off the road and hid it behind a boulder. The kids were impressed. I wanted to set up my trail cam, which takes infra red photos and has a motion sensor, but I didn't have the right SD card with me. Tonight, when I went down to set the camera up, the carcass was gone. I don't think the rangers would have moved it, so it was either our facilities manager (who worries about getting nervous calls from parents whenever Mountain Lions are mentioned), or the lion coming back and dragging it off. I set the camera up anyway, and will check it in the morning.

The other thing that happened was that a live wire came down on our access road, preventing me from heading home in the morning, and preventing the daytime staff from getting here. They ended up parking at the adjacent county park and hiking in, and I eventually drove down the road as far as I could and chatted with the rangers and our facilities manager until the PG&E guy had things cleared up. It's never a dull moment around here this week. Our facilities manager is going with the theory that the deer might have been hit and dragged by a vehicle, while the rangers are certain that it's a Mountain Lion kill. There is a mother lion with a couple of cubs in the area, so I'm siding with the rangers on this one. It was strange that it was found in the middle of the road though, but then again the lion night have been startled by nearby people, forcing her to temporarily abandon her kill.

It's always nice to get a mysterious story for my birthday.

A More Than Welcome Deluge, Plus Vomit

The rain hit sometime after midnight last night, and continued until past sunrise. The worms were out on the walkway, and I even found a small frog in the hub, covered in dust from spelunking under the desk. Figuring he'd be happier out in the rain, I ejected him.

The campers this week are 6th grade Catholic school students. Each night, I have to wake up two potential bed wetters and a girl with diabetes. Last night, a kid puked all over himself and his bed, adding to the smelly bag full of vomit-stained clothes already awaiting me outside the laundry room. One girl went home with a fever too. Plus, there were a few other people, including a cabin leader, with stomach aches. I think I had been getting spoiled by a series of relatively easy Monday nights, so one like this was bound to happen at some point. It wasn't too bad though. Plus, there are a couple of part time staff members, Fox and Weasel, filling in as cabin leaders, which means at least a couple of the cabins have good, solid leaders.

During the time I wasn't cleaning up vomit or taking temperatures, I continued reading S.M. Stirling's excellent "A Meeting In Corvallis" (part 3 in the initial trilogy of his post-apocalyptic "Change" novels), listening to the massive "Ballades" cassette box set by Motion Sickness of Time Travel, and watching old Sherlock Holmes episodes. I do keep myself entertained. I walked another two miles too, circling camp my customary sixteen times to do so.

I'll do it all again tonight, and the night after that, and so on... It's supposed to rain again later, and out the window I can see a bank of dark clouds to the north.

Rain

This is the view out the window as I type these words. We were awakened by the sound of heavy rain this morning, and hours later, it is still coming down. There are puddles in the backyard, and the chickens are still in their coop. I love mornings like this. I'm in my pajamas, with a steaming cup of Earl Grey next to me.

Speaking of the chickens, they've stopped laying for the season. We probably won't see more eggs from them until sometime in January, so I finally broke down and bought some eggs yesterday. Store bought eggs are no longer as appealing, being relatively tasteless when compared to the ones we get from our pets. They even look less appealing, seeming pale and watery compared to the rich, thick hues of the ones produced in our yard.