…you! Dinah will be coming home on Sunday.
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All connected
You may need to diagram this next sentence; I’ll triple check to make sure it’s accurate. This past weekend, I accompanied my good friend E to her old roomie and since-forever friend J’s wedding – already a little odd because J was marrying someone I work with (neither I nor my coworker knew about the link until 2 months ago – I hadn’t seen J in 25 years) – only to find that my ex-wife S’s college roommate and noted nature writer (who I’ve wanted to meet forever) was the mistress of ceremonies. E, J, and NNW are friends! Also – not the same schools. E, J and I (me) -> UNH; S and NNW -> Syracuse.
A great wedding, too. Wonderful people, good food, and writer husband of NNW told me one of the best strange-but-true stories ever.
NNW is off to western Mongolia/Altai to investigate Snow Leopards; I’m prepping a care package of Eagle Dreams
Interesting blog
Via The Opposite End of China,
Monsters I was familiar with (makes me want to play Songs of the Free at bleeding from the ears volume – I guess I’m wired very literally. Also – polish those silver things, boys!):
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And monsters (the Kanas Lake Creatures) I wasn’t aware of:
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Time with my girl I spent it well
I had to be strong for my woman
You must be joking
Oh man you must be joking
Après le Bain
Incoming!
Heavy inbound linkage from BibliOdyssey – welcome! If this is your 1st visit, you might want to check the Greatest Hits link farm over on the right margin – some of the more popular and/or commented on posts.
Saturday AM cleanup
A very neat artist/caddis collaboration (via ectoplasmosis). I guess at nugget and wire scale the density of gold isn’t an issue. Any fisherpeople visiting New Hampshire in late June should make a point of getting up to Errol to catch the Alderfly hatch – Alderflies are medium-large caddis that emerge in huge numbers. Also – I’ve got to get a subscription to Cabinet!
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Goldfarming was a popular topic last week. I heard a reasonably good explanation on NPR in the context of South Korean gaming and some law-making around same. Then a BoingBoing post (great title – “Gold-farmers beat ad-ban by spelling URL in dead gnomes”) pointed me at this crazy video.
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Charlie Stross weighed in with a great little essay about explaining the video above to someone from the distant past – say, 1977. I can’t end a goldfarming item without a hat tip to Cory Doctorow’s great story on the topic – Anda’s Game.
Finally, on a personal note, things are going well (knock wood) with Luz, preparations are being made for the shorthair pup, and the summer is flying by. My energy has been very critter directed over the past few weeks – expect posts to be either linky (like this one) or snapshots of falcons, dogs, etc.
Oh, and by the way,
Puppies!
Posting’s been light, and is likely to continue that way. I had to take time to post a few pictures of this morning’s puppy meet ‘n greet, though – clicking on any of the images below will take you to the Flickr photoset (rather than embiggening the picture, as is the usual mode).
My two – at least at this moment – faves:
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Rogue wave of pups (or is that wave of rogue pups?) swamps the S.S. Briar:
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Pinned in the timestream
Driving home from the airport with Luz last Thursday night, I had an unusual internal experience. Unusual for me, at least – maybe this happens to other people all the time (though I think I’d hear about it). We were driving north on 95, well into the northern suburbs; it was dark and I was poking along. Being the worrywart that I am, I started reviewing all the preparation I’d done for Luz’s arrival – especially that morning’s final “is everything in place?” inventory. That’s when the feeling hit me – the prep work happened in a previous lifetime. I’m not going all Shirley MacLaine here; what I mean is that in the hours between preparation and the drive north, my life shifted, jogged sideways, rolled slowly over a curb. I had a strong feeling of time racing by – my truck, tootling towards home, was not only moving through space, but also through time. “Well, duh”, saith you and “I know, I know”, I respond – but very rarely do I get the sense of time’s passage so concretely. I had an intense sensation of ‘the present’ being a membrane – or better yet, a shock wave – one moment thick and I was (and am) pinned to this surface translating the future, as it arrives, into my past by experiencing, sifting and storing. I’m sure there’s a name for what I experienced (“whoa, dude”, perhaps), and the Bo tree it wasn’t, but it was strong and – at least from where I sit – interesting.
The More You Know
“She” referenced in the post below is an immature Peregrine Falcon. She’s mostly pealei and weighs a little more than a thousand grams. I’m manning and taming her following the suggestions made by Ronald Stevens in Observations on Modern Falconry.
Boston’s Logan Intl. Airport has always been tough to navigate, but after years and years of arrivals, depatures, pick ups and drop offs, I had it pretty well mastered. Now, in the aftermath of the Big Dig and Ted Williams Tunnel project, I’m back to square one. Thursday night’s trip to the cargo center at Logan was highlighted by an involuntary 2 way transit of the Splendid Splinter (aka Corpsicle) tunnel ($3 toll, thank you very much) and beaucoup white knuckle driving. When I know where I’m going, I can do a pretty good job of getting into a Boston driving headspace (aggression punctuated by near psychotic behavior); when I’m unsure about turns or really need to get somewhere, I become one of the herbivores, cut out of the herd and slaughtered by predatory cabbies. Sigh.
She’s here…
Clipped from a local newspaper
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Lightening bugs? Oops. Probably terrahrist coleoptera doing a dry run. For more lightning bug fun: Sterling’s Luciferase.