LifeJGK

Cranes in Texas

2006-03-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd pass on an interesing experience I had on my trip to TX a coupleweeks ago. I was travelling with my MI shrimp farming friend Russ Allen, andwe had a day of bad weather and mosied(sp?) up the coast from Rockportthrough town called Palacious (pah-lah-shush). Just north of town was ashrimp operation Russ had known of for years but had never seen, so westopped in. These former rice farmers got into shrimp farming in themid-90's and now farm about 350 wet acres, 2.5 million pounds/year, with adandy state of the art processing plant -- all very interesting agriculture.

We took off in their truck to look over the ponds and on the way we passed afield with 50 Sandhill Cranes and I commented that we'd see them up North ina couple months. Conversation moved on to Russ' and my interest in birding,and I told my favorite story about Sandhill Cranes -- how the MI BreedingBird Atlas has a menu from a Jackson, MI hotel from 1918 with Sandhill Cranefeatured on the menu!

I'm used to getting some unbelieving comment in return when I tell thatstory, but the son matter of factly said "they're delicious, we roasted upfour of them at the end of the season last fall". I think he put it in a wayto get the full shock value from "this northern birder", and he did. My jawdropped -- I think I said "I wish I'd been there to try one", or somethingdumb, probably asking what the side dishes were.Now back in Michigan, I checked the TX regs, and sure enough there are 3large zones with staggered seasons for Sandhill, a daily bag limit of 3 anda posession limit of 6. I have no sense of how many hunters there are forthem, but it seems to me the annual take would be more than incidental. Ithink I'll email TX wildlife & ask about estimates.

Anyway, this news surprised me all the more in light of getting close viewsof Whooping Cranes the day before. We had a boat and were able to go up theIntercoastal Waterway N of Rockport between the mainland and the barrierMatagorda Island. It's a surreal trip! There, you're making your way up thechannel, there's 3 Whoopers (a pair & one young) for your viewing pleasureand they don't seem to bothered by you. Further up you come across one ofthe tour boats with 60 people, 30 scopes, and 30 cameras trained on anothercouple of Whoopers, and they don't seem too bothered by it. Now a doublewide barge of benzene comes by, driven by a huge tugs belching diesel, andthey don't seem too bothered by it. Further up, another pair & one young arebarely in the water on the shore, probing and fussing. We turn off the motorand drift with the light wind. A double barge of ChloroMondoHexaneEthane orsome god-awful environmental disaster waiting to happen churns by, roaring,spewing, and thowing a heavy wake. When the wake gets to the Whoopers onshore, they clearly don't like that and off they go in flight -- what a sight.

The juxtaposition of endangered species and envirodisaster was eyeopening. We figured we saw 26 of the 218 Whoopers on the planet thatafternoon, and I ended up feeling that the Sandhills are no less specialthan the Whoopers, just more plentiful-- plentiful enough to hunt!

Another impression to pass on is the incredible vulnerability of coastalchemical and petroleum processing industries to hurricanes and terrorism.The plants are wonders of chemical engineering, and very accessible. What Ihadn't thought of is that all the inputs to the plants have to get there tobe processed, and all the outputs have to get to market. Pipelines, trucks,20 barges a day churning past Whooping Cranes -- it's a dauntinginfrastructure of vulnerable targets we've built!

Cream Reunited

2005-12-01T06:03:00.000-08:00

I was ambivalent about watching this 90 minute reunion show last nite on PBS. After all, how good could 3 old farts be? Mighty good! Ginger Baker at 66 can still lay it DOWN on drums. Jack Bruce at 62 still sings like a young man. And Eric Clapton, also 62, showed off some new tricks in solos on the classic Cream tunes I used to know by heart. But the thing that really struck me overall was the wall of sound these 3 guys can produce. I can't think of any groups except Hendrix that could do so much with 3 instruments, jazz excepted.

I saw Cream in Ann Arbor in 1968 (I think). I was listening to the UM student station about midnite when the DJ mentioned casually that there would be an interesting impromptu promotional set in the Student Union Ballroom about 2AM. Well, of course, that's all it took to picque my interest and I trundled over there, and, of course, it was mobbed. I did manage to get into the ballroom itself and sure enough, the gear was all set up waiting for some nameless band. In comes 3 guys, and someone realized it was Cream, who I'd heard of but had never heard, let alone live. So they did this 45 minute devastating set that should have peeled the plaster off the ballroom, and that was my introduction to cream. Absolutely amazing, and I was absolutely nerve deaf for 2 days after. I remember walking out of the union into heavy snow that had fallen, and at first I thought that's why it was so quiet outside.

I must say it's hard to see these guys age -- but you could close your eyes and it was still all there.

An Interesting Fall (to me)

2005-11-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, we've had some great fall weather -- it's still warm enough that I haven't put the boat away yet. My back has been behaving itself this fall, mostly because of extensive stretching I've learned to do. As a result, I've been able to a lot of really hard physical work through this summer and fall. It feels good to do the work, and then it feels good to know I can still do it if I take care of my back.

So I've done a lot of work at Douglas Lake trying to protect the shoreline from erosion, and have about 110 of 165 ft of frontage bolstered with other rock from the shoreline. It won't really prevent ice from coming in and doing what it wants, but high water and resulting erosion really should be minimized. I've also paid attention to the 9 acres behind the cottage in a way I've not for a long time. I started by locating all the standing dead maple I could and getting it cut and hauled for firewood. So now I've burned through almost all of the punky wood I cut a few years ago and have 3 cord of seasoned rock maple. I hope to buy a fireplace insert for the fireplace and improve the efficiency of burning the wood I do cut, and getting better heat in the cottage to boot.

In cutting the wood an hauling it, I realized that I had quite naturally created a fairly straight trail back into the woods from the burn pile that a pickup truck could drive on -- this opens up a lot of possibilities for that back property. Maybe a camping platform and a sauna?

In Petoskey, I removed all the 18X18X4 stepstones that were in the lawn to the front door, and got 5 yards of topsoil delivered to fill those holes and all the other uneven spots in the lawn for the snow to sit on all winter in preparation for spring grass planting. That's a lot of topsoil! So I brought the good wheelbarrow that my father Claire built in the 60's down from the cottage to use to haul -- worked great, but it's time to replace the stringers on the wheelbarrow -- another great project.

Anyway, all this great weather and physical work is making for a great fall. Winter will be here soon enough.

Too good not to post

2005-10-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term.

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY 'A.'

Labor Day Reunion & Latest Infatuation

2005-09-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

Well, we hosted our 13th (I think) Labor Day reunion for Mary's Mulholland clan, and, as always we had a great time. This is a good crew to have as guests. We usually have 20-25 folks, but they respect our home, pretty much clean up after themselves, and pretty much entertain themselves. That's good for me because instead of feeling I have to be host all the time, I can pick a few opportunities to pitch in and otherwise do as I please. This year I braised 3 pork shoulders and made pulled pork sandwiches which everyone loved, and so did I if I do say so myself. I made dinner on Sunday too, but I can't remember what!

One of the nicest things this year was having some of our young family members join us for all weekend. Claire was back from MSU, Chuck Nelson was up from Detroit, and Janna Tyler was in from LA. I just thought it was very nice, with all the options these young people have, that they chose to spend the time with us. Oh yeah, I made mexican food on Sunday -- enchiladas with mole, rice and beans, and a terrific mango-nectarine salsa that was a hit.

Now on to my latest infatuation. I've decided the little 13 ft planing dinghy I bought last year is just too small a sailboat for me at this age. So now I'm looking at a Sea Pearl 21 -- see www.marine-concepts.com . This is a really cool little cruiser with leeboards and cat rigged as a ketch. It draws only 5", but you can add 400# of water ballast into 2 tanks along the bottom. So I'm looking for a good used one. The best I've found so far is in Nashua, NH which is quite a haul but I'm trying to keep myself from hopping in the car with a check. We'll see........

Claire's Off to College

2005-08-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

Major milestone for us all -- Mary, Kelly & I all took Claire down to James Madison College (http://www.jmc.msu.edu/) at MSU last week to move her into her dorm. For those of you inclined to write, thats 665 Case Hall, East Lansing, MI, XXXXX, and Claire would like to get mail. You get a 20 minute parking pass to unload, and that meant two trips up the elevator for us, even with my wheeled cart. She will likely do well with her roommate Andrea -- they had a loft installed to get their beds off the floor and make more room, and put a carpet down. Modern dorm life includes a refrigerator, microwave, water filter, TV, DVD, latptops with 811.g wireless network, I-Pods with speakers, and on and on.
How did I feel as a parent? Well, I dropped something off in Claire's room after she, Kelly, and Mary had gone down to the cafeteria to eat, so I went down the stairs instead of the crowded elevator. I was behind another couple that had just dropped their daughter off, and the Dad said "Well, she's in!" (the dorm). Without missing a beat, the Mom said "Well, she's out!" (of the house). That pretty much sums up the ambivalence I feel. I miss her terribly, but know she's 90% ready to be out on her own. She'll learn a tremendous amount in the coming year, both academically and as an adult in this world of ours.
I've been resisting the urge to call her a bit, and happily, she's called me several times, and not just for money! I think she misses her family and home a bit, and that's good I guess. I know I value every minute we talk about not much of anything too important. Email is also an interesting way to communicate with her -- I try to update her on doings up here along with the "college business" we need to conduct. It's interesting to watch her gradually take on adult responsibilities like properly applying her tuitions and learning to run a checkbook, debit card, and credit card!

Type II Diabetes

2005-08-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I'm not so different after all. After reading for years of the "epidemic" of diabetes in the U.S., I guess I'm among the hundreds of thousands with TypeII -- the kind where I'm making plenty of insulin but not using it well. I seem to have been heading toward this for years. My blood sugars got high enough that my internist wanted to start measuring my average blood sugar over the past 3 months with a measure called A1C. This technique takes advantage of the fact that free glucose in the blood binds irreversably to hemoglobin, and the red blood cell supply regenerates itself in 3 months, so that glucose bound in this manner is directly proportional to the average availability of glucose over the last 3 months. So my A1C at first was 6.7, then 6.2, then 6.3, and that didn's satisfy my doctor. To me, I"ve eaten well for many years. I was vegetarian for 9 years, 5 of those narrowly macrobiotic. I am back to eating widely for 20 years now, but I don't drink pop, fruit juice, don't eat candy, etc. But it turns out that history has done more to keep my cholesterol low than my blood sugar. But now I'm going further back -- whole grains only, e.g. But the real surprise is learning about my portions. I had no idea that the 1/2 cup of roast almonds I casually had in the evening for a snack was 850cals! I feel so smart in some ways and so dumb in others. I'm in the food business and know a lot about nutrition, but am WAY off in thinking about appropriate portions. Some of that comes from feeling so deprived -- I swear I eat 1/3 of what I used to eat as a young man, and thinking of eating less just seems too little. So I'm taking diabetic classes to learn about all this, and also using a neat little glucose meter that determines my blood sugar in about 5 seconds -- cool technology. It really is interesting to confirm that my blood sugar is lowest in the morning after sleeping and fasting, and highest about 2 hours after eating grains, or 10 minutes after eating something obviously sweet. Duh! Anyway this late education is somewhat revelatory for me. I continue to exercise rigorously 3-4 times a week, and have never had this much muscle mass in my life. But the diabetic folks say less exercise but daily is more effective for their purpose, and my doctor says he doesn't care about my muscle mass, he doesn't want me to weigh this much. So much for my sense of what's good for me! So the only other thing to blog on about is that I've had peripheral neuropathy in my feet for over ten years. That means my feet have gotten progressively "numb" (some would say that's true of my brain as well). This is a symptom that can be caused by many things, but usually diabetes. But when this symptom started my blood sugar was normal. The latest research is now finding that many people with this "preceeding" symptom are turning out to have, guess what?, Type II Diabetes. And that's the rest of the story. What do I know anyway -- just a poor boy from Palmyra MI.

Claire's Downstate Graduation Party

2005-07-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

Mary went to her parents last Wednesday to prepare for this graduation party for Claire, and she did a great job organizing everything. All I had to do was pull the beverages together for the day, which was easy. We had 70 people all told -- her Mulholland family, my McComb clan, and many neighbors too. It was sunny and warm, and we had a 20X30 tent setup which really helped. I think it meant a lot to Claire to have so many wellwishers to send her off to college. It meant a lot to me to see Claire thrive on the well deserved attention and love from her family.
I left Sunday with the girls to drop Kelly off in Big Rapids for a week of band camp. On the way on M46, we came upon a bad accident, sort of a 2/3 head on. There were several cars already there but only 2 people out of their cars to help, so I got out to do what I could. All 3 of us felt completely helpless but were able to get one woman out of her car and into a restful position on the ground. The other 3 people were hopelessly pinned, one unconcious, both drivers delierious with head injuries. The driver I helped was periodically trying to set up because there was no car left to lean against on his left side, so that was the only thing I could do to help him -- let him lean against me. After 10 mins the EMT's and State Police arrived, and after another 5 minutes I was no longer needed. The emergency personnel were amazing in those 1st minutes on the scene.
I was really shaky for the rest of the trip up north, I was thankful that Claire was there to help with the driving. I was still really upset this morning, and called the State Police post near the accident to learn that both drivers had died. I wasn't surprised, but it drove the whole thing further home for me. Mary is around this sort of thing in her profession daily, but I'm really not wired for this. I'm stunned at how profoundly the lives of those 4 people changed in that instant.

Mary's 50th

2005-07-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Mary's 50th birthday last Friday in modest fashion at the cottage. It was the first time in a couple of years, given disparate schedules, that all four of us had been at the cottage at the same time. Mary was vehement about having no parties for her birthday, so we didn't. But Mary's parents and sisters Karen & Bridget had made secret plans with me to drive to the cottage on Saturday and surprise her. Since Mary was napping when they arrived, they all filed in the bedroom with the cake and she awoke to an awkward version of "Happy Birthday" -- first rate surprise.
We had hot and muggy weather through the weekend and were grateful to be at the lake. Since getting a depth finder for my boat, I finally had a chance to get out on the water and really use it -- very interesting after growing up on that lake, and having benefit of my father's version of topgraphic maps that he used when he fished. I think we always fished on the "wild" end of the lake because of Dad's bias toward the undeveloped part of the lake -- we always fished the East end. But what I found with the depth/fish finder was that there were many more fish down in the deep holes of the West end. Not sure why that would be. Sunday nite, Grandpa and I went out and slow trolled with bottom bouncers and rapalas/cleos. Within 20 mins I had a 28" pike, and 15 mins later Dad had a 30" pike -- the biggest fish he'd ever caught. Glad I could provide him that thrill.
Am reading a great geology book "Reading the Rocks" by Marcia Bjornerund that really pulls a lot together in a way I've never gotten. A fine book, well written, and cutting across the usual approach to geology.

Parent Orientation

2005-07-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from the past two days with Claire & Mary at MSU orientation for Claire, and it was really impressive. There are so many more resources for students to succeed than when I was in school. I even liked the food they gave us for lunch. I was glad I attended because it reinforced what I already had guessed -- that this is a major step in Claire's growing up. She is so ready for college, and I was so impressed with what I saw and heard in orientation that I'm completely comfortable dropping her off there on 24 Aug to begin this new phase. I think she was ready to stay there today. Driving home, we could tell she was really thrilled with her decision to attend James Madison College, where she intends to major in Social Relations and a secondary interest in the STEP program, which I think stands for Science, Technology, Environment and P??. Her first year of classes sounds just amazing. It was quite a couple of days.

This past weekend

2005-07-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I have a new definition of a good weekend. I got to Douglas Lake at 10AM Sat and was in my swimsuit till 9PM Sunday when I returned to Petoskey. Can't remember that ever happening before, but it was great. Got my little Zuma sailboat in the water, cleaned up, and sailed once. Went fishing twice. Took two naps, got caught up on my vacation journal to Maine, and swam four times. I'm having a problem with erosion on the beachfront and have been filling discarded tires with cement to thwart futher erosion. Seems to work well for my back to do no more than 4 tires each weekend, which entails hauling 12 80# bags of concrete down and mixing it on the beach. My backs been behaving lately, but I believe only because I am religious about stretching in grotesque ways. Also found time to work 3 of the "easy, breezy" NYTimes Crossword puzzles that are confoundingly hard to me. My Mother (Helen) used to work them routinely, and maybe there's hope for me to retain a few of the brain cells. Claire is buying a Mac notebook for college. I was willing to buy a Dell notebook, but she wanted to spring for the difference for a Mac. I think she, like many others, are so impressed with the IPod as a consumer design that they want the same elegance in a notebook. Being a PC kinda guy, I tried to sway her, but to no avail.

Getting Started

2005-07-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

Just starting this blog after being inspired by cousin John with http://area51robotics.blogspot.com/
Not really sure what I'll be writing about but will begin by mentioning my use of APRS on my recent vacation to Maine. I learned that digipeaters on 144.39 are not as thoroughly dispersed as I might have guessed/hoped. I also learned that indavertently moving the tuning knob of my Yeasu FT-100D transmitter left me transmitting into outer space for an undetermined number of miles. Nonetheless, I had email from several folks on my return that indicated they had "seen" me in various places along the way -- even had a couple folks send me a screen shot of my location in areas I didn't think I was making it.