Thursday, August 04, 2011

Purple Coneflower and Camel's Hump

22 comments:

  1. Howard Dean is First.

    Photo out front is a Vermont "Green Mountain High" peak.
    Catreona, while quilting tonight I listened to a bunch of John Denver tunes on YouTube, as well as interviews and learned the details of his tragic death. Thanks for the link that sent me there.

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  2. BTW, I never noticed until I later looked at the photos I'd taken that there had been a bee on the top Coneflower! It gave me an unexpected delight. :-)

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  3. Judge allows American to sue Rumsfeld over torture
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110803/us-rumsfeld-torture-suit/

    It has begun!

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  4. No dice on the pocket slide rule on eBay; someone was willing to pay much more than I thought was reasonable. So I ordered an 8-inch (20 cm) one from an instrument dealer that I think I am going to be very happy with. Today I received two from him (the replacement for my old stolen one and a very good late model German one) both heavy duty plastic "ten-inch" models. Also a very good Japanese bamboo one via eBay. I have another 6-inch (15 cm) very late model German one coming from El Salvador. Those, plus my old ones, will be the extent of my collection. They all need a little cleanup for esthetics and also to get them operating smoothly again, but nothing much. The variations in quality are quite obvious.

    Cat--The standard slide rules were 10 inches (scale length--total length about 11 inches). Engineering and physical science majors could be recognized by the slide rule cases hanging from their belts when I was in college. The ten inchers could be read to three significant figures. 8-inchers ditto, but it was a rare size. Next step down was 6 inches (readable to two significant figures), 5, and even 4 inches. Some of the small ones had magnifying cursors. Next step up from ten inches was 20 (readable to four significant figures), definitely a desktop model. There were a few very long straight ones (there is a seven-footer at a university in Michigan), and surveyors' offices had cylindrical ones with spiral scales about five or six meters long and magnifying readers that were readily portable, maybe about three feet long, and readable to I don't know how many significant figures. There were also circular slide rules, slide rules built into watches, etc. A very few makers had scales on their slide rules that made them functionally twice as long and readable to another significant figure.

    I'm going to have fun reconnecting with my cultural heritage! Indeed, I already am. And phooey! on my very long-nurtured grudge.

    listener: "I think I'm just gonna feel this way until he's home. Which, BTW, involves 7 (seven) plane flights two days before his brother's wedding.  What could possibly go wrong? LOL!"

    The mind boggles…

    And the wedding dress problem is a bummer for sure; I hope to find better news as I proceed through the blog…

    listener--the butterfly on the flower looks to me like it was almost but not quite a snack for a bird.

    Bill--maybe there is something to your take on the debt ceiling bill; I hope you have the right angle on it. But darned if I know. In the business pages I keep seeing pronouncements that there is a risk we might have another recession. Hello? What planet are you broadcasting from? I don't see that the recession is anywhere near an end.

    Well, much to late to complete catching up on the blog. Hasta luego, all!

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  5. Bill Thomasson8/04/2011 09:08:00 AM

    Technical definition of recession: An on-going decline in Gross Domestic Product. Gross Domestic Product started growing again --- What was it? A year and a quarter ago? But growth has been so slow we still haven't made it back to where we were. And now people of a pessimistic turn of mind are worrying that GDP may turn down again.

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  6. listener--the butterfly on the flower looks to me like it was almost but not quite a snack for a bird.

    Alan ~ I actually saw the butterfly fly over to that flower and just in the time it took me to focus my camera, this is what happened. There was no bird in the area. So I think it's either that there was a previous injury to the wing and it happened to fall apart there, or that this was the butterfly's last hurrah as a living creature and its wings were just about done anyway. (Sometimes the scales disintegrate.) Come to think of it, since this garden is not too far from a roadway, it could have been a mishap with a vehicle.

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  7. I finally saw, in person, the woman who said I could be on the summer sub list, but then didn't let the secretary put me on the list. But never returned my messages.

    Apparently she decided, *after* promising me that I could be on the list, that the "right thing to do" was to give the people who were *already* teaching classes this summer first dibs, and that I would only be notified if they couldn't find any takers among the people who were fortunate enough to already *have* teaching contracts for the summer.

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  8. That sucks, Renee! Boo and hiss. And she's, at minimum, a bloody coward.

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  9. Bill Thomasson8/04/2011 06:20:00 PM

    Bloody coward is probably a good term. If she changed her mind, the least she could have done is let you know.

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  10. Bill Thomasson8/04/2011 06:25:00 PM

    Incidentally, I think I mentioned a week and a half ago that I had won a Blackberry in the Disability Pride Parade raffle. I now have it set up, with a font more or less big enough for me to read, and it works at least as a cell phone. I'm not sure when, if ever, I will be using all these smartphone features, but I now feel comfortable giving Penny my Jitterbug. She really should have a cell phone, especially when we are in Reno.

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  11. Thanks. Yeah, I've been thinking coward. I've also been thinking that this is a great example of why the idea of a physical Hell will always have an appeal for a lot of people. Especially those who have no chance of seeing the "higher ups" get what should by all rights be coming to them in THIS lifetime.

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  12. Glad the Blackberry is working out for you (and Penny, lol!). Have fun with it.

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  13. Well, Mormons don't believe in Hell, so I never got that. But I had an Uncle who was a real piece of work, and got away with it for 81 years. . . . Then somewhere I saw/heard/read that during the Life Review one "gets" to feel the feelings of those their actions have affected. And I was satisfied: what I really wanted, always, for him to have to understand the consequences of his acts, and that about covers it. It *also* doesn't mess with my karma, lol!

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  14. A bit ago, I was humming, and looked up, and Beau was paying a *lot* of attention. . . . At my feet, tail wagging, head cocked one way and then the other. Realized I was humming Ode to Joy. Went to my music and set up three more versions. He went calmly nuts. (It's not the first time I've played mp3s on the computer.) Wigglingly jumping running around, trying to get closer to the sound. Funny as heck to watch.

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  15. That's neat, puddle.

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  16. I agree that she's a coward and I'll throw in that she's not very thoughtful to have left you believing you might have some income (in this economy!) then just blow you off. I think rude and unfeeling would not go amiss either.

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  17. Naps always help.

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  18. That's a pretty nice raffle prize, Bill. Congrats!

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  19. What a sweet old soul.

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  20. So my coworker learned today that her cat has a back problem. The cat is something like 2 to 4 years old and she took kitty in when kitty was a stray. She has had kitty about 8 months and hasn't really warmed up to the cat for some reason, though she was close to her last cat. So, for about 36 hours kitty wouldn't eat (and she's big on eating) and couldn't pooh. So she took kitty to the vet and learned that when kitty was a stray she must have had some sort of battle in which she was injured and now that's coming to the fore. Without knowing whether or not its operable, she decided that kitty must go. (And it's plain that she understands the cat might well be euthanised as a result.) Gotta say it kind of broke my heart, what with three of us going out of our way to help our dear old cats make it along a little longer. I don't mean to be judgmental, because everyone's situation and capacity is different. But this is also the coworker who was so hard on me during my training time. It kind of clarifies things in that regard. Maybe she'll have second thoughts.

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  21. Okay...gotta go quilt some more. I am within spitting distance of finishing the quilting stitches on the fourth and last panel!!! I believe I'll have that much done before I fall into bed tonight. Tomorrow I'll work on the edging, finishing that up over the weekend. On Monday I hope to be able to tie-off the panels...that is, attach them to the madras plaid comforter cover via the tied-quilt method. I promise to post a photo when I get it done! :-)

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  22. Oh, *please* please Phuleeze!!

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