Here's something about me: I like to mispronounce the name of one of the birds from the last post---the heron---and turn it into the same thing that black people call "heroin."
For most white folks "heroin" is a three syllable word that auditorily resembles "HERR-oh-in" whereas in the black communities around America it sounds more like a two syllable "herr-AHN."
So, for me, when I feel like making the older white folks I've just met at a touristy restaurant in Long Beach uncomfortable, I start referring to the heron (usually "HAIR-in) as the great gray herr-AHN and watch them try to decide whether to correct me. (They never do.)
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Heron, Crane, or Stork?
We have some cool birds around here in Long Beach. There's the ocean right here as well as an estuary, or the remnants of one trying to be reclaimed by well-meaning science folks. I think birds are cool, anyway.
On walks sometimes you see these great big majestic things, standing nearly five feet tall they hang around in the rocky shallows sniping fish. It got me thinking: are they herons or cranes? And what's the difference really?
That got me thinking about those birds in general, the tall, flying birds, egrets, herons, cranes, and storks...I needed some clarification.
Storks are the easiest to spot. They are, eh, the ugliest? Their beaks are monstrous and look ripped from the fossil record. Many storks don't have the ability to call or sing, and for them the clacking of their beaks is how they auditorily communicate.
Flamingos are recognizable, so they were off the list. Same with the scoop bill or curved bills of special case large flying birds. Also, it turns out, that egrets are a kind of heron.
This led the investigation to the discussion between herons and cranes. I was trying to find out which one of these majestic beasts are visible on a weekly basis in and around our tiny spit of Long Beach.
Well, there are only two types of cranes that grace the US, and one is the most critically endangered bird on most lists: the whooping crane. The whoopers are found in either Texas or the Dakotas, are the tallest flying bird in the world, and are wary of human action. Not likely what I'm seeing around here. Also, I know what they look like: mostly white with some red face markings.
The birds I'm curious about are slate blue/gray. That turned out to be the great give-away---the color. The most common large flying bird that's not a raptor or pelican in the US is the great gray heron.
They successfully make a living along most of the coastline America has to offer. They are beautiful in person and don't scare too easy.
In general, and I'm not really a bird watcher per se, cranes have shorter beaks and don't curve their necks when they fly. Neck position is another giveaway for the heron/crane discussion. The picture above, the heron, chills with its neck curved, while the cranes below are a little more stretched. This isn't always the case with the heron, but it's good to know.
This is the most beautiful stork you may ever see. Usually they're nightmare-inducing vacant-eyed-staring you into submission:
This led to another, tangentially related discussion about geese vs swans that Corrie and I had. It was too small to relate individually, but I put it here because it seems more, eh, natural? Geese and swans are the largest animals in the duck family, with swans being the largest. Their necks are far longer than the goose. A goose is like a big, long-necks duck, while the swan is like that for the goose---bigger and longer-necked.
On walks sometimes you see these great big majestic things, standing nearly five feet tall they hang around in the rocky shallows sniping fish. It got me thinking: are they herons or cranes? And what's the difference really?
That got me thinking about those birds in general, the tall, flying birds, egrets, herons, cranes, and storks...I needed some clarification.
Storks are the easiest to spot. They are, eh, the ugliest? Their beaks are monstrous and look ripped from the fossil record. Many storks don't have the ability to call or sing, and for them the clacking of their beaks is how they auditorily communicate.
Flamingos are recognizable, so they were off the list. Same with the scoop bill or curved bills of special case large flying birds. Also, it turns out, that egrets are a kind of heron.
This led the investigation to the discussion between herons and cranes. I was trying to find out which one of these majestic beasts are visible on a weekly basis in and around our tiny spit of Long Beach.
Well, there are only two types of cranes that grace the US, and one is the most critically endangered bird on most lists: the whooping crane. The whoopers are found in either Texas or the Dakotas, are the tallest flying bird in the world, and are wary of human action. Not likely what I'm seeing around here. Also, I know what they look like: mostly white with some red face markings.
The birds I'm curious about are slate blue/gray. That turned out to be the great give-away---the color. The most common large flying bird that's not a raptor or pelican in the US is the great gray heron.
They successfully make a living along most of the coastline America has to offer. They are beautiful in person and don't scare too easy.
In general, and I'm not really a bird watcher per se, cranes have shorter beaks and don't curve their necks when they fly. Neck position is another giveaway for the heron/crane discussion. The picture above, the heron, chills with its neck curved, while the cranes below are a little more stretched. This isn't always the case with the heron, but it's good to know.
This is the most beautiful stork you may ever see. Usually they're nightmare-inducing vacant-eyed-staring you into submission:
This led to another, tangentially related discussion about geese vs swans that Corrie and I had. It was too small to relate individually, but I put it here because it seems more, eh, natural? Geese and swans are the largest animals in the duck family, with swans being the largest. Their necks are far longer than the goose. A goose is like a big, long-necks duck, while the swan is like that for the goose---bigger and longer-necked.
(Photos ripped from other sources. Thanks!)
Banned Book Factoid
The first banned book in the New World was titled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption. It was published in 1650 in England and quickly caused a stir in Boston. It refuted the Puritans theology and claimed that obedience, rather than punishment and suffering, was the price for atonement (according to Wikipedia).
The reason it was sensational at all was because the author was a very prominent businessman in Boston and the founder of both Roxbury (later abandoned) and Springfield, Mass. He was born in England, came to the colonies, made a name for himself and his children, and got enough people upset with his book that they burned it in the square on Boston Common. Only four copies survive to this day (the text is available online if you look deep enough).
Beyond burning the copies, the government put this businessman and author on trial for heresy. His trial date was set for the exact same day as the first witch trials. In the days before the trial he transferred his holdings over to his sons and fled. He was on a ship bound for England when his trial got underway. He never returned to the colonies, but his family did well enough.
This colonist's name was William Pynchon, direct ancestor to one of my and Norm's favorite authors.
I couldn't make this up if I tried, and if I did, it would hardly be believable.
The reason it was sensational at all was because the author was a very prominent businessman in Boston and the founder of both Roxbury (later abandoned) and Springfield, Mass. He was born in England, came to the colonies, made a name for himself and his children, and got enough people upset with his book that they burned it in the square on Boston Common. Only four copies survive to this day (the text is available online if you look deep enough).
Beyond burning the copies, the government put this businessman and author on trial for heresy. His trial date was set for the exact same day as the first witch trials. In the days before the trial he transferred his holdings over to his sons and fled. He was on a ship bound for England when his trial got underway. He never returned to the colonies, but his family did well enough.
This colonist's name was William Pynchon, direct ancestor to one of my and Norm's favorite authors.
I couldn't make this up if I tried, and if I did, it would hardly be believable.
Name That Costume
A picture:
Weirdos in the know will recognize this as the characters from the Homestar Runner universe, but all made up in various costumes. There are 11 characters here, and I will name them:
Front row: the Cheat, Strong Bad, Homestar Runner, Marzipan, Coach Z
Middle: Bubs (on the far left) and Strong Sad (on the far right)
Back row: Pom-Pom, the Poop-smith, King of Town, and Strong Mad
If you're not a weirdo in the know and don't recognize these characters, check out the website sometime. The Strong Bad emails were the main attraction for the years 2004 to 2010. The humor is good, smart, and surprisingly clean. They were the originators of the term I've been using each winter season for a while: Decemberween. Also, for full disclosure, I posted about the "Indie vs Independent" film sbemail a few years back.
This picture was from the first new content they put up in maybe four years,
Anyway, I'm embarrassed to say that I was only able get seven of the eleven costumes. On the website they had the names of the costumes as mouse rollovers.
Here they are in no particular order (some I had to look up):
Spaceman Spiff
Tobias Funke
Tom Servo
Cochise
King Size Homer
A Tribe Called Quest
Goro
Ram Man
Mean Machine
Mac Tonight
Pale Man (I counted this guy, as I recognized him but didn't know his name)
How many can you name?
Weirdos in the know will recognize this as the characters from the Homestar Runner universe, but all made up in various costumes. There are 11 characters here, and I will name them:
Front row: the Cheat, Strong Bad, Homestar Runner, Marzipan, Coach Z
Middle: Bubs (on the far left) and Strong Sad (on the far right)
Back row: Pom-Pom, the Poop-smith, King of Town, and Strong Mad
If you're not a weirdo in the know and don't recognize these characters, check out the website sometime. The Strong Bad emails were the main attraction for the years 2004 to 2010. The humor is good, smart, and surprisingly clean. They were the originators of the term I've been using each winter season for a while: Decemberween. Also, for full disclosure, I posted about the "Indie vs Independent" film sbemail a few years back.
This picture was from the first new content they put up in maybe four years,
Anyway, I'm embarrassed to say that I was only able get seven of the eleven costumes. On the website they had the names of the costumes as mouse rollovers.
Here they are in no particular order (some I had to look up):
Spaceman Spiff
Tobias Funke
Tom Servo
Cochise
King Size Homer
A Tribe Called Quest
Goro
Ram Man
Mean Machine
Mac Tonight
Pale Man (I counted this guy, as I recognized him but didn't know his name)
How many can you name?
Shave Changes
A great many things associated with hipsters I find lie upon a continuum with "reasonably tolerable" on one side. This continuum only gets worse from there, but that's me. I work for a living.
I do like the new world where being a "beer-geek" is a thing. I knew once enough hipsters stopped swilling that PBR garbage they would start to peer towards turning beer into an art, and lucky for them the infrastructure was already there. While I don't really consider myself a "beer-geek" (now that I know that "OG" on bottles refers to the "original gravity", I'm still not quite sure what original gravity is all about), I am knowledgeable enough to find what I like and observant enough to recognize an interesting fact.
Who wins in a world with "beer-geeks"? FANS OF BEER, that's who. The fact I mentioned above? In Long Beach we live within a hundred mile radius of probably the greatest beers ever produced in the history of mankind, and that's not hyperbole. It's an amazing time to be near the San Diego and Orange County beer-volution.
Anyway, this post is about shaving. Another thing hipsters brought renewed focus upon as something that I don't find that annoying is shaving.
I believe it started with the love of the mustache (on my continuum from earlier the "mustache as my own facial hair" is far from tolerable), but discerning men decided to revive interest in the art of the shave.
Right after we moved to Long Beach from Texas I went exploring the South Coast Plaza Mall. South Coast is an enormous institution, and, situated in the swanky part of Costa Mesa---the part that comes together with Newport Beach and Irvine (as opposed to the working class Latino-family section that borders Santa Ana)---is full of swanky, high priced stores. That combo has turned it into routinely the number 1 mall by annual-revenue in the country.
The first place that caught my attention was a knife and blade store and I went in to get a sense of their selection. What caught my attention beyond their knife collection, which was good if unspectacular, was that they had a wide collection of old-timey safety razors and lather-brushes and shaving soaps. I asked some questions about the razors and blades and got some reasonable answers, and started to imagine myself switching.
Three years later when I was asked what I wanted for a birthday something in my memory crackled and I asked for a lather brush and soap holder. It would be almost another year before I'd pick up a new razor.
My brother Dan got for me this wonderful combo:
The brush came labeled as Dachshaar, which is German for "badger hair" (a dachshund is literally a "badger-hound", which is one reason why wiener dogs aren't your typical 'small dog'). After doing some research a few weeks ago I'm happy to report that badger hair is the top of the line, so thanks Dan!
At first, like during the first dozen shaves, the brush smelled like wet wild-dog. After the very first two or three shaves it wasn't so pleasant on the softness scale, but the soap I was using was so much more soothing than anything from an aerosol can.
The cup itself is a wonder of ergonometric design. It fits perfectly and comfortably in my left hand as I work up lather. Eventually, I told myself, I would move away from the cartridge-based wet-shave razors and into old-timey safety razor realm.
It turns out there is an entire world of shaving that I was woefully uninformed about. Among fellas there are two basic kinds of shaving going on: dry shaving and wet shaving. Dry shaving uses electric razors, wet shaving uses water, lather, a razor and a blade. Wet shaving is itself split up into three areas: cartridge blade use, safety razor use, and straight razor use. I may be missing something exotic, but this discussion can move forward.
The straight razor has much too steep of a learning curve for me in my current job, and I'd already focused on trying the safety razor beat, so, during this most recent winter break, I went out and picked up a razor, some double-sided Japanese blades, and got to work...
...butchering my face.
Those double sided blades are flimsy and soft. You put them on the cross bar in the open razor above and tighten the neck-bolt. Those open faces come down and bend the blade taught, giving you a single exposed edge on each side.
The first time I went to shave I didn't know what the hell I was doing. It took five times as long, wasn't nearly as close as I was hoping, and it looked like I lost a knife fight---I was all kinds of bloody. I asked people I'm acquainted with on Facebook if they had experience or advice, and was directed to a number of resources.
Shaving like your grandpa is a pretty sweet experience when you get to know what you're doing. Once I learned the basics---the ANGLE is paramount, no lather means no blade, learning how to read your stubble---the closeness is amazing. The health of my facial skin is higher than ever. And while I do cut myself more now than when I was using the cartridge-based razors, they heal, and each time I'm getting better.
Teaching your sons to shave wasn't just a bonding time for fathers in the past---there was/is a serious protocol to the maneuvers and decisions needed to shave oneself with a safety razor.
Up soon on my quest is to teach myself the ultimate safety-razor shave: the cold-water/no-mirror shave. Cold water shaves are an acquired taste, but they're even better for your skin than hot water shaves.
Like with the desire and execution of eating better because of years of ignorance and poor habits, I'm trying to treat my face better. Years of cartridge shaving, tobacco use, and no sunscreen are being addressed with these new shaving protocols.
I do like the new world where being a "beer-geek" is a thing. I knew once enough hipsters stopped swilling that PBR garbage they would start to peer towards turning beer into an art, and lucky for them the infrastructure was already there. While I don't really consider myself a "beer-geek" (now that I know that "OG" on bottles refers to the "original gravity", I'm still not quite sure what original gravity is all about), I am knowledgeable enough to find what I like and observant enough to recognize an interesting fact.
Who wins in a world with "beer-geeks"? FANS OF BEER, that's who. The fact I mentioned above? In Long Beach we live within a hundred mile radius of probably the greatest beers ever produced in the history of mankind, and that's not hyperbole. It's an amazing time to be near the San Diego and Orange County beer-volution.
Anyway, this post is about shaving. Another thing hipsters brought renewed focus upon as something that I don't find that annoying is shaving.
I believe it started with the love of the mustache (on my continuum from earlier the "mustache as my own facial hair" is far from tolerable), but discerning men decided to revive interest in the art of the shave.
Right after we moved to Long Beach from Texas I went exploring the South Coast Plaza Mall. South Coast is an enormous institution, and, situated in the swanky part of Costa Mesa---the part that comes together with Newport Beach and Irvine (as opposed to the working class Latino-family section that borders Santa Ana)---is full of swanky, high priced stores. That combo has turned it into routinely the number 1 mall by annual-revenue in the country.
The first place that caught my attention was a knife and blade store and I went in to get a sense of their selection. What caught my attention beyond their knife collection, which was good if unspectacular, was that they had a wide collection of old-timey safety razors and lather-brushes and shaving soaps. I asked some questions about the razors and blades and got some reasonable answers, and started to imagine myself switching.
Three years later when I was asked what I wanted for a birthday something in my memory crackled and I asked for a lather brush and soap holder. It would be almost another year before I'd pick up a new razor.
My brother Dan got for me this wonderful combo:
The brush came labeled as Dachshaar, which is German for "badger hair" (a dachshund is literally a "badger-hound", which is one reason why wiener dogs aren't your typical 'small dog'). After doing some research a few weeks ago I'm happy to report that badger hair is the top of the line, so thanks Dan!
At first, like during the first dozen shaves, the brush smelled like wet wild-dog. After the very first two or three shaves it wasn't so pleasant on the softness scale, but the soap I was using was so much more soothing than anything from an aerosol can.
The cup itself is a wonder of ergonometric design. It fits perfectly and comfortably in my left hand as I work up lather. Eventually, I told myself, I would move away from the cartridge-based wet-shave razors and into old-timey safety razor realm.
It turns out there is an entire world of shaving that I was woefully uninformed about. Among fellas there are two basic kinds of shaving going on: dry shaving and wet shaving. Dry shaving uses electric razors, wet shaving uses water, lather, a razor and a blade. Wet shaving is itself split up into three areas: cartridge blade use, safety razor use, and straight razor use. I may be missing something exotic, but this discussion can move forward.
The straight razor has much too steep of a learning curve for me in my current job, and I'd already focused on trying the safety razor beat, so, during this most recent winter break, I went out and picked up a razor, some double-sided Japanese blades, and got to work...
...butchering my face.
Those double sided blades are flimsy and soft. You put them on the cross bar in the open razor above and tighten the neck-bolt. Those open faces come down and bend the blade taught, giving you a single exposed edge on each side.
The first time I went to shave I didn't know what the hell I was doing. It took five times as long, wasn't nearly as close as I was hoping, and it looked like I lost a knife fight---I was all kinds of bloody. I asked people I'm acquainted with on Facebook if they had experience or advice, and was directed to a number of resources.
Shaving like your grandpa is a pretty sweet experience when you get to know what you're doing. Once I learned the basics---the ANGLE is paramount, no lather means no blade, learning how to read your stubble---the closeness is amazing. The health of my facial skin is higher than ever. And while I do cut myself more now than when I was using the cartridge-based razors, they heal, and each time I'm getting better.
Teaching your sons to shave wasn't just a bonding time for fathers in the past---there was/is a serious protocol to the maneuvers and decisions needed to shave oneself with a safety razor.
Up soon on my quest is to teach myself the ultimate safety-razor shave: the cold-water/no-mirror shave. Cold water shaves are an acquired taste, but they're even better for your skin than hot water shaves.
Like with the desire and execution of eating better because of years of ignorance and poor habits, I'm trying to treat my face better. Years of cartridge shaving, tobacco use, and no sunscreen are being addressed with these new shaving protocols.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Raccoon City
Raccoons, raccoons, raccoons. Jeeze. I learned that there are multiple acceptable forms of the plural of "raccoon". [[Kinda like e^x being it's own derivative. (This only makes a little sense now.)]]
A friend of mine cared for a raccoon kit for almost two years. One day it left the backyard and never returned, and we all felt that was probably for the best. But in those 20+ months I got to play with the young man named Bandit. Playing with him was so much fun; it was like a rascally dog mixed with a clever toddler. I grew a deep affinity for raccoon in general.
On Netflix there was a program about raccoon and about how city raccoons are becoming smarter because of all the anti-raccoon technology designed to repel them. We're making them smarter. How awesome is that.
There is a raccoon family that I saw after dark while leaving my university's campus by bike last year, and there's a family close by to us here in Long Beach. According to most sources, raccoons are pretty much everywhere.
The Netflix program discussed an experiment where they caught one of the family-group leaders for a raccoon troop and radio-collared her. They were able to track her and her family group's movements. They were surprised to see that she and her kits never left a rectangle centered on a few blocks in an urban neighborhood.
The scientists remembered having seen scat and other proof of raccoon occupation all over town, and snatched up some more raccoon close by to the original test subject. The following is a picture with each family group's movements traced out in different colored ink:
Each family group has their own defined set territory. It's pretty neat, right? That's what I thought until they started to zoom out, and you start to think about how many raccoons actually live in this city and when does it become their city...
Raccoons are tough, smart, resilient, and can learn at accelerated speeds. If I had to choose land mammals to survive an apocalypse, the raccoon and the rat would be among my choices.
A friend of mine cared for a raccoon kit for almost two years. One day it left the backyard and never returned, and we all felt that was probably for the best. But in those 20+ months I got to play with the young man named Bandit. Playing with him was so much fun; it was like a rascally dog mixed with a clever toddler. I grew a deep affinity for raccoon in general.
On Netflix there was a program about raccoon and about how city raccoons are becoming smarter because of all the anti-raccoon technology designed to repel them. We're making them smarter. How awesome is that.
There is a raccoon family that I saw after dark while leaving my university's campus by bike last year, and there's a family close by to us here in Long Beach. According to most sources, raccoons are pretty much everywhere.
The Netflix program discussed an experiment where they caught one of the family-group leaders for a raccoon troop and radio-collared her. They were able to track her and her family group's movements. They were surprised to see that she and her kits never left a rectangle centered on a few blocks in an urban neighborhood.
The scientists remembered having seen scat and other proof of raccoon occupation all over town, and snatched up some more raccoon close by to the original test subject. The following is a picture with each family group's movements traced out in different colored ink:
Each family group has their own defined set territory. It's pretty neat, right? That's what I thought until they started to zoom out, and you start to think about how many raccoons actually live in this city and when does it become their city...
Raccoons are tough, smart, resilient, and can learn at accelerated speeds. If I had to choose land mammals to survive an apocalypse, the raccoon and the rat would be among my choices.
Happy 2015!
Wow...
Long Beach is a pretty nice place to winter, where "winter" is a transitive verb. It has been colder lately. Last night, after a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity with 12 players (way too many) and seven ounces of champagne, Corrie and I rode our bikes home from the house party, and the temperature was 41, which is as wintry a number as you'll likely see.
The above picture and the following picture I took the other day, when it was yet warmer.
Happy New Year!
Long Beach is a pretty nice place to winter, where "winter" is a transitive verb. It has been colder lately. Last night, after a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity with 12 players (way too many) and seven ounces of champagne, Corrie and I rode our bikes home from the house party, and the temperature was 41, which is as wintry a number as you'll likely see.
The above picture and the following picture I took the other day, when it was yet warmer.
Happy New Year!
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