23 Aug 2020

1244 sleep
1816 cleaning up after churching
2147 watching Tiny Creatures on netflix with mother
2249 watching Tiny Creatures and eating desert

Food: baked chicken for lunch, fruit for dinner

Fact: Ash and camphor were both used keep insects out of ancient homonids bedding.  There is archiological evidence that homonids as far back as 200,000 years ago made bedding out of grasses that they would occasionally burn and replace.  There is also evidence of people working in bed on carvings or wepons.  So i guess working in bed isn't a modern human specific thing. (Wadley et al. 2020; 10.1126/science.abc7239)

Woke up and did some stuff online.  Then we got everything ready for churching.  We were able to get the sound to work this time, and also rearranged the camera location to see if that helped the video quality.  We talked with Maria and Kevin for a while both before and after.  Then it was dinner time.  After dinner father put on Hogans Heros while he did dishes and then mother put on netflix after.  We watched "Tiny Creatures" which is a new series filmed in the directors backyard basicly about small animals.  Very heavily anthropormophized, but the video quality was amazing, even if i don't think the mouse would resuce the raven from a trap who then turned around and rescued it a little later from a python.  Then they both rescuded the guy who owned the shack in the everglades (who had tried trapping the raven for stealing his fish).  The first one was so sad though because mother kangaroo rat got eaten by a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake so her baby would survive.  He then ran away but eventually got a Harris Hawk (that was trying to eat him) to chase off the rattlesnake so he could reclaim his family burrow.  But rattlesnakes have to eat so theres that lol.

 

22 Aug 2020

0637 sleeping
1018 sleeping
1140 sleeping
1646 grilling steaks

Food: steak for lunch, fruit for dinner with mint from Matilda's first harvest

Fact: You can pick up mining explosions on seismograph.  Its also possible to discriminate them from earthquakes, for example the mines in UT my brother has in his data set set off multiple explosions in a short period of time along a line.  

Woke up and played on my computer for a bit.  Really it was a pretty low key day- talked to Eddie a bit about why I wasn't ok with the night before.  Hopefully commnication improves- if we just know that something isn't going to work thats totally ok its just when you have a plan and then people bail that its annoying.  We also talked about exploisions and seismic activity.  Then he told me about the new Microsoft simulator that was just released.  It includes real time weather, air/runway traffic, and even the coulds include 32 layers of data.  I really want it.  Guess when we build our computer we will take the specs needed to play it to its full extent into account.  Father and I grilled steaks and they turned out amazing.  We had dessert and then I talked to Jack for a while.  He got a kitten a few weeks ago, and overall things seem to be going well with him.  He is TAing but his stuff is mostly online so luckily he doesnt have to worry about a ton of student interaction.  After I talked to him I talked to Maria and Kevin since something is cheeping in the chimney.  We figured it was prob a Chimney Swift since Maria listened to some recordings, but after I talked to them they decided to see if they could rescue it and it turned out to be a bat.  Luckily it flew out the open door once they opened up the fireplace.  Glad it was a successful rescue.  I also told them about the flight simulator and now Kevin wants to buid a cockpit mockup with VR in the basement.  Sounds like fun to me.  Maria said its the basement so he can do whatever he wants (although i bet if it was a 747 cockpit shed be down there constantly).  One of the exciting things was mother made me a fruit platter before she went to bed and included some mint from Matilda, her first harvest.  It was super tasty. 

21 Aug 2020

0005 working on Catharus
1017 sleeping
1613 at the botanical gardent
1716 driving to costco

Food: cheese burgers for lunch, fruit for dinner

Fact: Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is a plant that was used by indigenous people to treat poison ivy.  Research studies confirmed that it does positively impact poison ivy rash.  The plant is native to much of the US and is found in shady wet areas, like near rivers and streams.  Its pretty aggressive, and actually can outcompete invasive species like garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata).  The plant can also be used to treat athletes foot.  Pretty useful (and pretty) plant. 

Woke up early (1310) because we were going to the botanical garden before going to costco.  It was really fun to go for a walk someplace different.  There were just a handful of people there and if you were outside you didn't need masks.

Lots of pretty flowers and some nice pollinators.  Father took a bunch of pictures along the way (including the Jewelweed). I tried playing Happy Birthday on the piano they have sitting out on a trail, but i couldn't for the life of me get the final note right.  They also had nifty sculptures from repurposed things.  My favorite was probabily the one made out of rail road spikes since we have our spike collection, but they were all very cool to look at.  We stopped for a bit at the pond and ate some fruit while watching the dragonfiles.  Then we made our way back to the enterance.  We didn't have time to go inside the butterfly house but we did see some butterflies, skippers, and moths.  I wanted to get a bird nerd shirt that the front desk person told us about, but they didnt have any in my size.  So i got a botanical garden t-shirt instead.  Then it was off to costco, where I had to get a new slurper and pick out sheets for mother.  The rest of it was pretty normal.  The checker prob though I was crazy since I didn't care about my raspberries starting to go bad (seriously, it was just 1 and it wasnt really bad yet) but then when she discovered my 24 pack of eggs was missing an egg i was like yup that has to be addressed. 

So ended up paying for everything then parking my cart by the employee area running back to the very back of the store (through all the random people running into long lost friends) to get a new carton of eggs (but not raspberries).  Once we got home father and I grilled burgers.  After dinner we moved the coffee table over and i fed the puppies.  Mother also used the used the new slurper for the first time. It sounds different than our old slurpers, but seemed to work well once she figured out some of the quirks.  Then it was time for trivia, only problem was while I was out getting a beer everyone else decided not to do trivial.  Which was not cool. But we all talked for a bit and i blew out my candles again (this time all in 1 breath; better than Ania and her 1 trick candle that she had to blow out since Eddie is still traumatized by them) and ate cake (or cupcakes for Maria and Kevin).  Then Eddie and Ania left to get ready for their trip Sunday and Maria and Kevin signed off after a bit also.  Once the parentals went to bed I put on Bill Walton cause i needed some fun in my life.   Maria was on facebook so talked to her a bit, reminded her that while she is inconvienced by the pandemic she still gets to see her friends, go out for drinks etc, im stuck 600 miles from all friends and have had to change my entire life and Friday trivia is my one hint at normal fun that i get. But then again its just a typical Therese birthday.  Maria said next year I could come visit for my birthday and we'd have fun but i pointed out by then she might have a screaming thing, and knowing my luck shed prob be popping out the screaming thing on my birthday.  She said shed try to make sure I don't have to share a birthday with it, so theres that at least.  Around 0300 I heard an explosion that didn't sound like it was from the quarry. Then again around 0400 there was a second explosion (and I could hear this one clearly since HHI was off).  It was super loud and sounded like it was really near by and wasn't gun shots like we have been getting in the last couple of weeks.  Schubie was in the living room with me for the 2nd one and she was really agitated she actually sat with me while I pet her for over 20 minutes which is so unlike her.  Father heard it also so when mother woke up she posted some about it on the Trinity facebook page and we eventually found out it was a transformer explosion. 

20 Aug 2020

0624 getting ready for bed
1127 sleeping
1330 sleeping
2136 talking to Maria

Food: tacos for lunch fruit for dinner

Fact: The Yankees assigned number 89 to Miguel Yajure.  Once he appears in a game that is the last uniform number between 0 and 99 that has not appeared in a MLB basball game.

Got the sharpie MS submitted since raxml actually finished a little before 2.  Once the MS was submitted (a little before 4) i read some and played WoW.  I went to bed after father got up so he wished me happy birthday (although both he and mother already had since they didn't go to bed until after midnite).  I slept well and woke up right around 1400.  I had a ton of emails, texts, and fb messages so answered those.  Apparently Jason and Matt had noticed I had pinned Kotzebue but the decided not to relocate.  But since Jason was saying he might start waking up early to see where I was I just went ahead and told the group about Rick's trip.  I spent a bunch of time on the phone with AA getting my various flights changed.  Now i have a flight on hold that used substantially less miles than my previous flights since I'm no longer going to WRG.  The 2nd person I talked to was really curious about AK but said she was more into plants than animals so I told her about Fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium), which i've always loved.  I did a little bit of work but spent most of the day hanging around with the critters and parentals.  I learned about fathers sailing days.  Turns out it was the armstrongs who introduced him to sailing (after he dragged his feet for a while) and they used to be in a sail club that had cheap rentals between 1700 and 0500 so they would get those and spend the night playing around San Diego harbor.  Then the guy he used to race with found out he liked sailing and invited him to come out on one of the mid winter races.  Father was miserable because the weather and water were really bad and he was glad they canceled the first race.  But then the next day they did the rance and it was a bouy race so he had fun.  By the next week he was invited to crew the boat and told the Ensanda was in a couple months so be ready.  They won their class on year.  It also took 4 or more days to get back north after the race- a couple years he took the week off, but one year he literally stepped off the boat and onto a bus back north (didnt even stop at Hussong's that trip although he did met the rest of the crew for breakfast in San Diego on their trip back North).  During July-Sept they would race to Catalina 2x a month, and there were times he was racing almost every weekend.  The boat had an oven so for dinner they would pick up a lasagna from Giovannis (which apparently mother would get for get togethers sometimes and pass off as her own) then when they were part way there throw it in the oven so it was ready when they anchored.  He said it was a pretty good way to pass time with some bottles of wine and away from the noise of orange co.  Mother sailed out to Catalinia a few times, once with father, but a number of times with her brothers also.  Then I showed up and everything got lame lol.  Then we went for a walk with the puppies and the parentals came along to pick up after them (best birthday present ever).  I also weighted the kitties and discovered black kittie was 18.1 and grey (not brown like mother is trying to convince us of) weight 8.6. Mother made me a texas choclate sheet cake so i was very happy about that.  She put all the candles on one side of the cake so we could use them again tomorrow and i failed at blowing out all 35 at once, it took 2 attempts.  Then I talked to Eddie, then video chatted with Maria.  After that the parentals went to bed (its cloudy out so no photography) and I watched James Bond.  Father came back out twice, once during james bond and the 2nd time right as i turned on HHI so we watched them looking for a house in Ireland for a little bit before he went back to bed.  

19 Aug 2020

0741 sleeping
0805 sleeping
1534 getting raxml running
2202 working on thrush sequences

Food: corn chowder for lunch fruit for dinner

Fact: Erta Ale in Ethiopia is not only one of the most active volcanoes on the planet but also has one of only 8 persistent lava lakes.  I've actually seen one of the others a few times- Massaya in Nicaragua.  Watching the lava slosh back and forth in the lake is pretty cool.

Woke up and saw that partitionfinder had finished.  So I got the new raxml analysis running and decided to wait for that to finish before submiting the ms.  Since its supposed to rain tomorrow I decided we should put off grilling so no costco trip today either.  Spent a lot of the day working on random things I'd been putting off- looked over some manuscripts, worked on some sequences, and cleaned up my computer folders.  We had a massive rainstorm in the early evening and the power kept flickering but luckily it didn't go out.  I kept obsessively checking my raxml run and since it was running really fast I decided to get everything else formatted so all I had to do was drop in the new tree and it would be ready to go.  Really, the highlight of the day was relocating our tomato plant to the deck in hopes of it getting a little bit more sun to help the tomatoes ripen faster.  We came in 3rd in trivia- there was a new team, plus space balls was back.  Our group was also off our game (even with Zac helping from a backpacking trip).  The worst was the bonus round which involved recognizing pictures of baseball pictures.  I ended up just resorting to naming players on the pictured teams and hoping the parentals could guess from there.