Diary of a Mad Natural Historian

Got the new bars swapped in. Molto comfortable so far. Next upgrade – enhance the engine so that it can average 15mph and not be sweating at the end of a ride (street clothes theory of bicycling).

Years of blogging, that is. Hasn’t gotten old yet, so on we go!

Some additions I’d like to call your attention to.

Two new links under Sensory stimuli:

Hunter/Gatherer – Stephanie Brown’s blog. I’ve mentioned Ms. Brown’s work before – obviously, I like what she does.

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Annie Wu – discovered a while ago (via KdeM, maybe?).

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And an addition to the Pages section – my Awesome stuff for sale! page – it’s pissah! Go! Buy!

If you look at the Monthly: box over in the right margin, you’ll notice that posting frequency has dropped by about 50% for the past 6 months. Some of it has been because I’ve been busy, but another factor has been what I can only describe as dilution. With so many ways of emitting signal – Facebook, Wave and especially Twitter – and some finite number of things to say, my attention has not been focused on posting. I read this entry by Eliza Gauger with interest; I’m not willing to go as far as Bruce Sterling and declare blogging dead, but it has taken a bit of a hit. While I was looking at the bookmarklet Eliza is using, I discovered that there’s similar functionality built into Wordpress called Press This. I’ve started using it (’sproke and the two Lottes were posted via Press This) and am going to mix a lot more Tumblr/Soup-ish quick links into the blog stream. Expect the blog to be – at least until I go off on another tangent – a mix of ‘ooh, shiny’ quickies, stream-of-experience pictures and bog standard pointless ruminations.

A pretty little granddaughter appeared last night as if by magic. I can call it magic, since I wasn’t in the birthing room with my laboring daughter. Frances Mae M. (Frankie – though Scout may be used as a nickname, too) weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. and is gorgeous.

A long simmering project finally boils over. Lehmanhaus is the umbrella identity applied to my various activities w/ predatory critters – dog training and breeding mainly. Thanks largely to the efforts of A Certain Design Student and a friend who teaches Latin, I am pleased to unveil the official Lehmanhaus t shirt! [fireworks and gunfire stage right, ululation and baying hounds stage left]

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If any of you out there are crazy enough to actually want one (please – seek help) I have some extras. I’m going to do this the low tech way (except for preferring payment via  PayPal) email me (dr.hypercube-at-gmail.com) what you want and I’ll figure out shipping, tell you what the total damage is, etc. They’re $12.50 a pop – I’m trying to cover expenses – plus shipping.

On the name – Lehman is my mom’s maiden name. A good Swiss/German moniker (Mennonite) that matches well with my German dogs.

Some of you may have noticed that the blog has been doing a bit of time travelling – first back to the beginning of December and then to January 10. I think we’re resynchronized, time/space-wise – sorry for any confusion.

You may see a request pop up from ‘Twitter API’ asking for an ID and password when you first visit DoaMNH. It’s an issue with the twitter badge (halfway down the right margin). The twitter folks are working on it – if it’s not resolved soon, I’ll comment out the badge. In the meantime, just click cancel and press on. Sorry ’bout that…

D & M over at Curious Expeditions are finalists in the 2008 Weblog Awards (Best Travel Blog category). You can vote here. Gaffs and skulls and bezoars, oh my!

If anyone else – blogrolled or otherwise – is on the Weblog Award list, sing out. There’s a bunch in the right margin that should be…

• Living off the grid is a fine thing if you are set up for it. In a house designed for steady electrical input? High stress situation. ~7000W generator, here I come.
• Generator placement – garage or basement? Neither! With today’s quieter engines, locating the generator in one’s bedroom is now feasible! The other obvious location – the kitchen – is already tight because you’ve brought the gas BBQ in (haven’t you?).
• Why was this storm so much worse in terms of outages than the ice storm of 1998? Did NH just get hit harder this time? I’ll never forget the pictures of high-tension towers in Quebec and upstate New York crumpled and folded – the next summer, the Design Student and I took a trip to Montreal and the tree damage was apparent everywhere. This time, the ice accumulation was lighter – here on the coast – but the numbers of houses w/o power was up by a factor of four. I’m going to keep an eye on post mortems and not rely too much on anecdote.

I (and many others) am dealing with the aftermath of our recent ice storm. Power is still out – lines are down in at least 3 places along the road I live on. The wood stove has been keeping the house in the mid-50’s, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading by wind-up flashlight. It’s impossible to get any sense of when or in what order service will be restored from Public Service of NH; across the river, Central Maine Power has a goal of all customers back on by midnight tomorrow. I’d love to hear a similar county by county set of goals from PSNH…

I’m tired – too tired to write coherently – and I have many photos I need to upload and tag first. A preview of coming attractions: