2020 Hindsight

Ash Wednesday Dust n Earthquake Dust

The words of Ash Wednesday:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return

Ouch! I didn't mean that *dust* reference was to imply an earthquake!!! Seattle just got rocked -- 45 seconds long; 6.2.... oops, been upgraded to 7.0. Another story. CNN's story

Where was the quake first reported? perhaps MetaFilter!

Yahoo News has a good list of links

The news hasn't hit earthquakenews.com just yet, but there are lots of good links for more information from that site.

Yikes! According to the USGS Recent Earthquakes list, the Golden, Colorado earthquake center has this one pegged at 7.0

Did you feel it? Go to the USGS Earthquake report site and add your comments about what you felt and your location. View the Community Internet Intensity Map for this earthquake. So far, the statistics page says that they've gotten over 2600 reports, and the maximum intensity is the maximum possible intensity on a roman numeral scale of I to IX -- IX.

USGS Seismo Links

• Links for Pacific Northwest Earthquakes

• Map of Recent Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest (this site is down right now; check back again)

• Recent Global Seismicity in the West

Brent has reports from Seattle.

And, well, the answering machine works at my brother's place in Seattle; haven't been able to reach him yet. I'll just have to sit tight. His girlfriend is a nurse in a pediatric unit.... it's gotta be one heckuva busy day for her if she's working today. update: I heard from my brother; all's well. He lives in the Pioneer Square area, on the 5th floor of an old brick building. Broken Glass from things falling is about the extent of the damage. His girlfriend was returning from an Air Force Reserves trip, and was in the process of landing when the quake hit. The plane was diverted, and kept flying while the ground crew/command ensured that all was okay. So she didn't even experience the quake at all. (My brother magnanimously saved some of the cleanup of the broken glass so she can see what the quake wrought at home!)

Speaking of sitting tight, when there are extreme quakes, I always stand there, shaking in the doorway, and count.... Cause it seems like it takes forever... counting out loud makes it more real. (No, it didn't last for minutes, I counted to 20 or so by the time it died down. . . ) But ouch! 45 seconds?!?!

Music Biz What's Courtney Love up to now? The L.A. Times reports of her lawsuit claiming that her recording contract is illegal.

"I could end up being the music industry's worst nightmare: a smart gal

with a fat bank account who is unafraid to go down in flames fighting for a

principle," Love said.

"Look, you show a music industry contract to any attorney in any other

business, and their jaw just hits the floor. Somebody has to put a stop to this

crap," she said. "I've been evangelized. I'm ready to take this thing all the way

to the Supreme Court."

Fat Tuesday | Mardi Gras | Shrove Tuesday

It's Mardi Gras! I'm wearin' my beads. Chuck Taggart of Looka! has a good explanation of New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions.

More about Mardi Gras: Its history, parades, thrown trinkets, & other stuff.

Mardi Gras Links of all sorts.

Okay, so if "fat tuesday" is a direct translation of "mardi gras," then what's with the Shrove in Shrove Tuesday? (I'll be going to a shrove tuesday pancake supper this evening, so I wanna know)

The English term

"shrovetide" (from "to shrive", or hear confessions) is sufficiently explained by a sentence in the

Anglo-Saxon "Ecclesiastical Institutes" translated from Theodulphus by Abbot Aelfric (q.v.) about

A.D. 1000: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his

deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then my hear by his deeds what he is to do [in the

way of penance]". In this name shrovetide the religious idea is uppermost, and the same is true of the

German Fastnacht (the eve of the fast). It is intelligible enough that before a long period of

deprivations human nature should allow itself some exceptional licence in the way of frolic and good

cheer. No appeal to vague and often inconsistent traces of earlier pagan customs seems needed to

explain the general observance of a carnival celebration.

For my final horticulture class, we met at the Hollywood Hills estate of the Peer family, of the Peer Music publishing company. There's an extensive camelia collection there. Damned if my camera battery ran out of juice, but I did get some pix. However, it'll be a while before I'll post them; I'm behind on sleep.... zzzzzzzzz

existential conniption fits

404, again. . . or the inner miseries of web servers Well, there are those who've been pointing to this 404 page; and I agree--it's a must read!

Seen from Subaru . . . and I don't mean the car, either. It's a space shot from the Subaru Telescope at the National Observatory in Japan. <via blackholebrain>

Today's APOD (astronomy Picture of the Day) image ain't so bad, either, especially if you're a Brycer: Martian Sand Dunes

down trend--it's not what you think it is After yesterday's note about amigoingdown.com, I happened to see a reference to an article with this headline: Surpriseyourwoman.com goes down on users. giggle

Today in history rot sih niya dot Okay, so that's a bad palindrome, but 66 years ago, in 1935, RADAR (spelled the same backwards as forwards) was first demonstrated, according to Ari's Today page <via Sprezzatura> I've a friend whose father worked with the whole radar project in WW2--top secret stuff, he was in England, met an American nurse stationed "over there" but couldn't court her until after the war ended, due to all the cloak and dagger secrecy he had to maintain. My friend says, "If it weren't for the war, my parents wouldn't've met and I wouldn't be here."

Tantalizing Word Origins I recently read The Odyssey (there's even been a thread devoted to it over on WannaWrite), in preparation to see the movie, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? So many terms that have made their way into the language come from names of people in the story. One in particular that stood out was the name of a person called Tantalus, the person whose story gives us the word tantalize, tantalizing. This is his story (as told by Odysseus, who saw him in the underworld):

I saw also the dreadful fate of Tantalus, who stood in a lake that reached his chin. He was dying to quench his thirst, but could never reach the water, for whenver the poor creature stooped to drink, it dried up and vanished, so that there was nothing but dry ground用arched by the spite of heaven. There were tall trees, moreover, that shed their fruit over his head用ears, pomegranates, apples, sweet figs and juicy olives, but whenever the poor creature stretched out his hand to take some, the wind tossed the branches back again to the clouds.

even more rain

Look closely at those little fingers. It's amazing that something --so tiny and so perfect-- can be so strong and powerful. Consider all the hearts that she's got wrapped around those little fingers of hers.

Turns out I was not the only weblogger who visited Las Vegas last week!

Turns out I'm not the only one who's been visiting a new niece!

Speaking of which, here's another picture of Niece Cuteness, immediately after a bath:

On Freezing Water. A little over a year ago, when I was visiting my Grandpa, we had a discussion on the properties of freezing water. Why does water expand before it freezes? I just looked at my list of referers, and saw a search using the terms freezing+water+expands that led to last year's story. It also led to a page with this explanation:

The reason that water expands upon freezing is because of the strong hydrogen bonding between the water molecules. Water is polar

having a positive e3nd nearest the Hydrogens and a negative end nearest the Oxygen atom. Therefore The positive ends of some water

molecules attract the negative ends of other water molecules. When water reaches 4 degrees Celsius the molecules have been pushed

as close to one another as they will be. Below 4 degrees the water molecules begin to align themselves into the crystal structure of ice.

---

Am I going down? Nope, this site is about airplane safety, not oral sex. <via eugene>

Pay Pal Problems Salon: Losing Faith in Pay Pal And I'd been looking into it and considering some of the possibilities.... but there are problems w/ Pay Pal, too.

Area 404 - links to good 404 pagew on the net. I like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one. <also via eugene>

Dust Speaking of that last one, and a pre-lenten thread that may be making its way around blogland (Dave W's talkin' bout mortality, and we ain't yet reached Ash Wednesday's imposition of ashes, with the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return")...well, I've been doing some thinking along these lines, too. It probably can best be summed up this way, "God in the hands of an angry sinner."

Rain Rain Rain Rain

I got home last night from Las Vegas; today I went to a nearby mountain park. Hike up to the small waterfall while the rain in the trees went drip-drip-drip.

Walking along a trail, I spied raindrops and their concentric circles in a shallow puddle

Near the waterfall, small plants grow out of wet rock

Lake Mead, Hoover Dam and Fremont Street

The Las Vegas area adventure continues. Yesterday my brother had to work, so we swapped cars (his holds many, mine holds two) so that the rest of us could go on outings.

Before we left, though, I caught a lovely grandmother-granddaughter moment:

We've been singing various things to Valerie; I think this was in the "todos me quieren; abuela me quiere" (everybody loves me, grandma loves me) phase of singsong.

En route to Hoover Dam, a lookout over Lake Mead, with big brooding cloudcover.

Then we drove over Hoover Dam, got out and went walking along it. It had been years since I've been to Hoover Dam (so long I don't remember!), but I couldn't resist saying, to my sister-in-law and her parents (all from Panama), "Well, it's no Canal Panamá, but it is rather impressive!"

Here's the edge of Lake Mead, against the dam. In the foreground is the spillway when the lake's level is too high.

the face of Hoover Dam

Looking down Hoover Dam at the turbulence of the water as it exits whatever electricity-generating contraptions that are contained in the dam's interior. Nice surrounding scenery!

Hi there! Greetings from Hoover Dam!

Just as we were leaving, the sky turned all orange-red-pink dramatic, and the lights on the dam came on. The dam's architecture and detailing have nice little 30s art deco touches.

We drove into Las Vegas and decided to take in Fremont Street (well, technically it's called the Fremont Street Experience), a street that's been made into a pedestrian district, covered over with a long arch that has a short light show at the top of every hour.

Here's the Fremont Street arcade from just outside of it. . .

Let the show begin! Here are a couple of shots of it:

Nearby the Fremont Street arch, I went all ga-ga over a couple of wonderful neon signs that were on display:

Old Home Week

So.... I drive to Las Vegas to see my niece, and to check out the Water Conservation Garden (see pix)... and guess what?! Right across the parking lot from the Water Conservation Garden there's a little building, and it turns out that's where Hal works!

Susan and Hal... Yes, Hal learns to believe that we ETPers are not figments of his imagination. ; )

As for other plants, well. . .

You'd think that, coming to Las Vegas, I'd go grabbing shots of these magnificent casino buildings. But no......

This little beastie is called "teddy bear cholla" Iddn't it cute?

Is it a set of budding cactus flowers, or are they a bunch of tiny pineapples?

So what does Hal do across the street from the Conservation Garden? Well, there's this display, see. . . of a site to commemorate the earliest days in the history of Las Vegas, see. . . and right over here (where he's gesturing) is where there are some archeological digs going on, and as to what is there, well. . . . you'll just have to go to his site to find out!

This evening Hal and Audrey came to my brother n sister-in-law's house for dinner... here we are... three 'bloggers, face to face. (well, those two bloggers, being married to one another, get a lot of face time, but... well, you get the idea!)

p.s. but of course I prepped the fotos and uploaded 'em and then did this entry while Hal and Audrey were still here. What else would you expect?

Awwwwwww

My new niece!!!

Look at this beautiful creature that my brother and sister-in-law made--Valerie Grace Kitchens

Valerie with her mother

Valerie with her father

At two weeks old, smiles are pretty random, but pleasing when they happen, anyhow

Yes, Valerie's auntie loves her! : )

(see the pictures I took at Joshua Tree National Park on her very birthday)

Analog Art and Bookbinding

Andrea's got a great little ditty about how her day is (or was, or will be) and philosophical implications thereof. (scroll down the day's entry for it)

---

Analog Art and Bookbinding (Well, Craig --comrade in bookbinding-- linked to yesterday's page; I think he's gonna love what I post today!)

I pulled all the shit that had been piling up on my drawing table (sigh; now in piles on the floor in the hall), and dusted off my T-square, triangle, Xacto knife, blades, Schaedler Ruler, and poured some distilled water into an ancient jar of Yes! paste for some analog art fun last week.

Note to self: Don't go near your black velour sweater (the one that likes to shed black fuzz) if you're gonna be binding books. You'll see fibers from it all week long, especially in the glue that you just applied to some surface.

Okay, enough preamble... here are some pix of what I was up to:

What possesses a person to carefully cut out little pieces of 1/16" mat board and carefully glue them down on another sheet of paper, exactly 1/16" apart (shoulda allowed for a skosh dab more), I'll never know.

Actually, once the reinforced pieces are there, and the other side of the paper glued over (was *that* a hairy process or what?! --not 'black fuzz' hairy, just managing a wet-with-glue strip of paper some 72 inches wide), and the combined contraption convinced to fold up (eek, that took some doing, see note above about allowing a skosh dab more)

When you got several copies of your own book--over 1000 pages long and weighing close to 4 pounds per copy--a few of those add up to make a nice little weight for makeshift book press. Here the spine, carefully goaded into flattened concertina, is set to dry under weight.

With the cover in place, and the ribbon to tie it closed, but before any of the "guts" of the book were glued into place.

So, what does one use to press the concertina spine to the endpieces? One's own handy-dandy books!

Here is the detritus from digital printouts of the images to go into the book. This is the mess, the beginning of messes. The studio would only grow messier.

Here, in process, I'm tipping in the pictures along the spine. Pictures face this way n that.

Once the book is constructed, then a matching slipcase (Craig, we gotta talk technique about which surfaces should be the 'overlap' ones for a slip case) to hold the unruly wants-to-unfold book.

Oh. . . and that mess I mentioned a while back? Well. . .

As my freshman-year college roommate used to say about our room--especially my half of it, "This mess is a place?!?!?"

Analog art has its own challenges that may not be so apparent when always working with computers. This snippet of conversation sums it up:

"I solved a verrrrry ticklish problem today; it was touch n go there for a while, but I managed to prevail."

"A computer must have been involved"

"er...actually, no!"

So.... now I'm wanting to get one of those Epson 7500 series printers, and to find inkjet paper that is the right weight for bookbinding, and that has printable surfaces on two sides, and is archival quality. But first, prolly some more books made from images printed out on my little Epson Stylus Color 800. By the way, Liége paper rocks for this kinda stuff...tho it does have a tendency to curl up on the coated side. Mebbe that's another argument for two-sided ink jet paper; the coating on each side would balance the curl-factor.

Quiet

Things are quiet around here. Haven't had much to say, tho I've been reading various blogs around. So I'll leave you with a silly picture, from a place I visited on my road trip last fall - Big Texan, in Amarillo, Texas. One of those over-the-top places. It's got one of the Edith Ann chairs...

---

YAY! Garret got a couple of shots of Pasqual'sin Santa Fe!!! Love the alt tag! Thanks!

Thanks for the Link, Craig!