Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip

Posted on February 2, 2014 by RegenAxe

Droplet #1

Droplet #2

Droplet #3

Droplet #4

Got cold, ice and snow? Check! Got the winter doldrums? Check! Looking forward to six more weeks of this crap? No I am not! It’s not going to happen. Oh, I know that forecasting Phil from the original weather underground has crawled out of his hole in Punxsutawney and has seen his shadow and that means that we’re in for another six-weeks of winter, but you can count me out of all that, thank you very much. I’m only planning on having to endure three more weeks of winter, before I sky for a hopefully warmer Seattle. I don’t plan on coming back until after Phil’s forecast has run its course.

So, how do you fight cabin fever on a cold and blustery Groundhog Day? Well, for me, I try to get all artsy-fartsy. It takes my mind of the drab exterior landscape. Yesterday’s all day rain, turned to a wintery mix last night and now it is just plain cold. This morning, I decided that I wanted to photograph drops of water splashdown. I started with some online research and eventually selected the appropriate curriculum, a YouTube video that had been posted by a kid, who was likely not yet old enough to drive.

This really is a most marvelous age that we live in, what with smart phones and the Internet and all. Imagine if one were to step into the way-back machine and set the dial for a mere fifty years ago, find some everyman on the street from back then and then induce him to return to the present with you. Further imagine the following thought experiment. Separated by a curtain so that he cannot see, you ask this 1964 everyman to converse with a contemporary high school student. You ask your everyman to ascertain the intelligence of this student. He’ll soon become amazed at the student’s depth of knowledge on almost every subject. The student will be able to perform complex mathematical calculations in almost the time it takes to state the problem. The student will be able to reel off detailed treatises on even the most arcane of subjects. The student will be able to describe with precision the physical appearance of almost any locale on the globe. My 1964 everyman would be convinced that he is conversing with a bona-fide genius, rather than just the average teenager with a smart phone. Technology has made us augmented humans, even prosthetic gods.

So, after ten-minutes of schooling, I descended to the basement and began picture-taking. I started with clear water, but the contrast left a little to be desired. I don’t have a true macro lens and that was limiting. I switched to food coloring and that helped quite a bit. The end results are certainly colorful enough; even if the droplet detail is sparse.

I’ll close with a cheer, this being Super-bowl Sunday too. I’m rooting for the Seahawks, because of the money. An NFC victory indicates a bull stock market, while an AFC victory is usually followed by a bear market. I’m rooting for the Seahawks, because they are in the same division as the Rams and their reflected glory will make the Rams shine a little brighter. I’m rooting for the Seahawks, because I’ll be in Seattle in a few weeks and being in a town that has just won the championship is a lot more fun than one that has just lost. Trust me, I know. Finally, I’m rooting for the Seahawks, because then maybe Jay will be happy and leave a comment?

Carl’s Seattle Seahawks-Saint Louis Cardinals Rant

Above and Beyond

Posted on January 31, 2014 by RegenAxe

Above and Beyond, by Bryan Haynes

The artist, Bryan Haynes, has a show of his prints at the old courthouse. Of the several dozen prints in the show, “Above and Beyond” seems to be the signature work. The Haynes prints depict rural Missouri life, often in a historical context. This still life depicts a sycamore tree in the fall, after its leaves have fallen. Birds dot the beyond of this print, a signature Haynes characteristic.

This has been a rough week for me. Since last Saturday, I’ve been plagued by backache that has been steadily intensifying. It reached peak intensity on Thursday. It was so painful that I stayed home from work and just moped about the house all day. I started taking Aleve, which eased the pain substantially. I went back to work today, but took additional sick leave to keep a chiropractic appointment. It was with fellow Team Kaldis rider, Dr. Bill, the ‘Mad’ doctor. After his examination, he provided treatment and performed an adjustment. I’m scheduled to see him again tomorrow.

I’m uncertain how my back was injured. On Saturday, I walked around downtown taking pictures. The only thing that I can think of is that all the squatting and stooping I did while photographing somehow caused a muscle to be pulled. By way of full disclosure, I should say that muscle I pulled is not so much a back muscle as it is a backside muscle. A similar incident occurred last year and its effects were more easily correlated to its cause. I strained a muscle while tying my shoes. Interestingly, the exercises that Bill gave me for rehab, looks and feels distinctly like tying my shoes.

Since this is Friday and as often as not, I’m at my wit’s end to scrape up enough material for a decent size post, I usually go the potpourri route. Next up then is the following joke:

At the end of the Cold War, American and Soviet spies just couldn’t stop spying on each other. So they decided to have a contest in one year to prove who the better spies were. They settled on a dog fight. A year later, the Soviets had raised a vicious pit bull; the Americans countered with a meek-looking dachshund. Seeing the dachshund, the Soviets were confident of victory. But once the fight started, the dachshund mauled the pit bull. The Soviets were stunned. The Americans responded: “While you were raising that awful dog, starving it, teaching it to be mean, we were figuring out how to disguise an alligator as a dachshund.”

This joke is Nancy Pelosi’s favorite and she has told it to her caucus to get them in the mindset to think outside the box against their Republican rivals for the 2014 elections. My final bit of potpourri involves the Super bowl.

Another joke about this game involves the fact that both contending teams come from states that have legalized marijuana. It is being referred to as the Smoke-a-Bowl. My informal polling of my workplace’s football intelligentsia has Seattle winning by a ton. Sorry Manning fans. No word yet on whether it is an English or a Metric ton, so watch that points spread, especially in the late quarters.

A Guide to American Football

Posted on January 29, 2014 by RegenAxe

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’Cable

Posted on January 2, 2014 by RegenAxe

MSU Spartans Magnet

Anne, Dave and I went to Mike Duffy’s at Richmond Center, our local sports bar, to watch the Rose Bowl. We must be the only family in our demographic that doesn’t have cable TV. Anyway, we had a nice dinner and watched the game. As a plus they had $3 Bloody Marys and these had regulation Red Cross sized pints.

I don’t know why we were in such a rush to get there, because we could have missed the whole first half and not missed anything. Anne and I shortened our New Years Day bike ride in order to make kickoff. Stanford had the ball first and made quick work of Michigan State’s vaunted defense. By text, my brother Frank poked me about that drive. He did his post-doc at Stanford. State was still trailing 17-14 at the half. The only good thing about the first half was our food. We arrived before the dinner rush and were still seated after it had faded. The New Years Day tide was not so high that most of the eight adjacent tables were never seated.

If you find the 60 second halftime marching band spots frustrating for their brevity, then you should try them in a sports bar, where all of the TV sets have their sound turned down and as soundtrack, some oldies radio station was doing a countdown. Other than during the bandstands, Anne appreciated the soundtrack though. It was full of music from our college days, Carly Simon, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Joe Croce to name a few. In the third quarter State tied it up.

In the fourth quarter things started to get interesting, a young Spartan couple (’11) sat down at the bar and Michigan State took the lead. It is always better to find your team leading in the fourth quarter than in any of the previous three. Three young studs had broken our circle of eight empty tables in the third quarter. We were mostly able to ignore their banal banter, except when it came time for them to settle their bill. One of them had the bar’s buyers club card that was pitched as a ‘VIP card’. He went on and on about his VIP status with the waitress and reminded me of the A-hole in the Harvard bar scene of “Good Will Hunting” that the Matt Daemon character makes quick work of.

After the Stanford field goal and in the waning minutes of the game Anne decides to go to the bathroom. I called out to her that she’ll miss the big play, but instantly regret it, because Stanford has the ball. After two dueling timeouts she returns in time to see Stanford fail to convert on fourth down. All she had to say was, “I have VIP status.” Afterwards, Michigan State ran out the clock and won the 100th Rose Bowl, 24-20.

On our way out of the bar, Dave told us a story from his year in DC. A couple of Notre Dame friends showed up and they all went out to watch the football game in a sports bar. Notre Dame was playing Michigan State. Dave, who rooted for State was rewarded as MSU drummed the Irish. His friends got so disgusted with the game that they all moved to a non-sports bar. Unfortunately, the bar that Dave’s friends picked was where the local MSU alumni were watching the same game. It was decked out in green and white.

Reinventing the Wheel

Posted on December 8, 2013 by RegenAxe

Christmas Bike Lights

It has been a very cold and somewhat snowy weekend. The front passed on Thursday and the temperatures promptly dropped thirty degrees. We’ve had a couple of dustings of snow, each about an inch, too much to ignore, but not enough to enjoy.

On Friday night, we partook in Maplewood’s Christmas Tree Walk. Sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce, it was an opportunity to cruise through some of the boutique shops along Manchester. The wind was pretty icy that night and as Anne was at no loss to point out, “You should have worn your long underwear.” We shopped at ‘tiny little monster’, a t-shirt shop of ‘Stick an Arch on It’ fame, across from the Fantasy Shop. We also stopped at Kă·kā·ō for chocolate. They offer a service where they specialty mold chocolate bars with your own design on them. I’ll have to remember them for next year.

I can understand why Anne wanted to do this event, because you wanna be where everybody knows your name. We couldn’t walk ten feet before someone who Anne knew appeared. Eventually, we ducked into Las Palmas for dinner. We were eating, when a large party was seated next to us. When served, one of the women exclaimed that she didn’t want salt on her margarita. The waiter obliged and whisked it away, but instead of taking it back, he offered it to me, for free. Later he also offered us a free dessert. He probably recognized Anne as one of those teacher types. They can be especially good customers at happy hour, because they get off at three.

Not much happened on Saturday. Oh wait, Michigan State beat Ohio State for the Big Ten championship. You wouldn’t know it though by reading the Saint Louis Post Dispatch. The paper was chock full of Mizzou’s loss to Auburn, with articles and headlines galore, ‘Au-burned’, ‘Defense-less’ and ‘M-I-Z…N-O-D’. The only coverage of the MSU vs. OSU game was an AP wire article that gave the Spartans rather short shrift, “No. 2 Buckeyes get bumped”. By whom I might ask the Post’s sports editors?

Sunday, there was a flurry of Facebook activity, I guess because it was still too cold to go outside and do anything. Paulette alerted us to the Copenhagen Wheel, a wheel that coverts a conventional bicycle into an electric bike. In this vein I would like to offer up Shark Wheels as the next new, new thing in bicycle wheels. So far Shark Wheels are mainly being looked at for skateboards, but can bikes be far behind?