8 sept 2020
0303 sleeping
1332 walking to the Fort
1337 exploring Ft. Abercrombie
2216 eating ice cream
2250 eating ice cream
Food: jerky, fruit leather and pita for lunch; steak and oranges for dinner
I spent most of the day walking. Shortly after I woke up I packed a lunch, put my rain jacket and flannel shirt in the small daypack, and then took off for the fort. It was about a 3 mile walk, but it took well over an hour to get there since I stopped along the way and checked out Beaver Lake. Once I got to the park I decided to walk out to where the battery and such were and then explore the trails all along there. I never could figure out if I was supposed to pay or not since all the fees were for parking and by the car full. Some really scenic views and lots of good birds. I decided to eat my lunch in a meadow on one of the cliffs overlooking a bay where I could watch both the birds and some boats. It was pretty idyllic. There was a steady stream of people (maybe someone ever 10-15 min) but it was pretty quiet even with that. After my lunch I wandered to a different cliff and watched puffins and various other sea birds attracted to a bait ball. I was talking to someone from Monterrey and 1) she was amused I considered this to be crowded (cause I was saying I had bear spray but wasn’t super concerned about bears because of all the people/dogs running around) and 2) she didn’t know there were puffins in CA (I told her to go on a pelagic trip). We chatted for a little bit and then went on our ways. I decided to take the Parkside trail out instead of following the road so first stopped at Lake Gertruide and watched it for a while. Just a couple of kingfishers and 3 Mallards. I did see some American Three-toed Woodpeckers on the trail too. Right as I was coming out of the park John called so I talked to him while I walked to town. He is trying to figure out how to get the truck off the ferry in Bellingham if they aren’t going to be there (put him in touch with Dick from fantasy birding) and then some logistics of the AZ trip. I told him this year its all about cutting out as many moving parts as possible. Also the truth came out- he wanted to take the ferry to Dutch, but not in Sept lol. Then I talked to the parentals until I was to safeway. Stopped there and decided to get a steak to grill and some ice cream along with some oreos and chocolate bars for the trip. Oddly enough they had wet wipes, hand sanitzer, and Lysol wipes, but no thermometers or milk in anything smaller than a gallon. Next I stopped by the beer store and got some Deep Powder Porter for the voyage since John said its fine to bring your own beer if you drink it in your state room (and he said he wouldn’t set foot on a ferry without some drinks). One I got back to the house Robert turned the grill on (it’s a pellet grill) and I cooked my steak. I ate it on the porch with my beer, and it tasted pretty damn good, and I don’t think that was just because I had walked 10 miles. The weather was perfect and it was just an all around good day. After dinner I ate some my ice cream and then did a bit of work before reading my book.
7 sept 2020
0040 doing some computer stuff
0637 sleeping
1452 on my way to the airport
1907 walking out to the windmills on Kodiak
Woke up shortly after 8 since Steve is apparently up at the same time father is and Mary is up by 8. We hung around the house for a bit and then went to Potter Marsh. It was crazy windy and we were almost blown away. We did see some of the carnivorous Mallards (Jason said as opportunistic feeders he wasn’t surprised they were feeding on salmon). Not many birds due to the wind but still a nice walk. The parasailers were out on the Cook Inlet, I counted at least 6 at one time. We were going to grab some breakfast but the place was closed due to Labor Day so we headed home (drove past a large tree that had come down taking out their neighbor’s power) and Mary cooked breakfast while Steve showed me around the van conversion. Father really needs to do one, I think they would have a lot of fun driving around. After we ate we talked for a while until it was time for Mary to take me to the airport (Steve was on the phone).
6 sept 2020
0724 heading out the door
1055 sleeping. on a plane!
1621 flying between DFW and ANC
2147 hanging out with Steve and Mary
Food: Gallos enchiladas for dinner
5 sept 2020
0202 obsessively tracking my package
0435 obsessively tracking my package (finally left Memphis)
1719 getting ready to eat
2355 making sure I was actually packed
Food: chicken for lunch, fruit for dinner
Woke up and checked fedex. Package was delivered. Then I saw an email saying the swab had been received and was in processing. Hopefully I get my results quickly since if I am negative when I land it 1) makes things a lot easier entry wise and 2) I can stay with Steve and Mary. Spent the day doing some packing off and on (mother waterproofed my rainpants) and playing with the critters. We also churched this evening, and actually managed to get everything set up (including a trial run on the surface since I'll take mothers laptop) in like 25 minutes. Mother and I also made mojitos since Matilda has been so bountiful. I gave mother a hard time for not owning a cocktail shaker and yet sending us all to college with them. We also hit my hair with some more dye to see if that makes it any bluer. After they went to bed I finished packing and then lounged.
4 sept 2020
0023 computer backup
0426 computer backup
0603 sleeping
2050 getting ready to talk to the west coasters
food: lamb and salad from the Mediterranean place for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: woke up at an ungodly early hour (10) and took the covid test. It actually was really easy- the swab only stayed in my lower nose so no pain. Then we drove to Madison and dropped it off at fedex. Then we stopped the at the beer store and I got rum and amaretto. I also went into the other part of the store to get some beer. Next we went to costco and I got all the stuff the parentals thought they would need while I was gone. It was super crowded with people buying stuff for labor day but I was able to get in and out pretty efficiently. Then we put in an order for pick up at the Mediterranean place which was incredibly tasty. Then it was time for the real fun. I took apart my computer and replaced the battery, which was actually pretty smooth all things considered. Had a problem with 1 screw, but father is more patient than I am and was able to get it out without stripping it. I also discovered my computer basically had a cat living inside it so that was rather icky But getting all that dust and fur out should help things run better. Annoyingly my computer still didn't charge when I plugged it in. Father tried testing the old battery with his multimeter to see if it was actually charged even though it claimed not to be, but we couldn't really tell since the connection was so strange (9 wires). So for fun i tried the 130W charger I had found yesterday and oddly that worked. Guess I have some extra resistance or something? Then we skyped with the west coast people. We talked some about the wedding, drinking in dorms, and the upcoming crazy weather (it will be significantly warmer in CA than in AL). Eddie and Ania are going to socal for the week to an air bnb that advertises their wifi speeds. The really nifty thing this evening though was getting to track my test kit. I was following it both on flight aware and on fedex, and basicly within a minute of the plane getting to the gate the package was scanned in as in Memphis. Same thing with leaving- the flight was delayed but fedex and flight aware both matched almost instantly when the plane pulled away from the gate/saying the package had left the facility.
3 sept 2020
0842 sleeping
1243 sleeping
2347 computer backup time
Food: tacos for lunch
Fact: The Hess Triangle is a small (each side is about 2ft) piece of sidewalk in New York City that is not owned by the city. In 1910 a bunch of building were condemned by the city for infrastructure needs (subway and street) and they missed this piece. The city tried to get the owner to give it to them anyway but he refused and the family even won a court case to keep it.
Woke up and did some hanging on the hangboard. I also started to gather my stuff for the trip. Apparently part of coivd times is packing in advance. Mother started experimenting with fruit leather and her first batch was pretty tasty. She also dyed my hair. We left it in for over 30 minutes this time trying to get it a bit more blue. The basic Catharus analyses were finished so I sent Matt some trees and also set up a partition finder run. Not much else happened today, did a bit of birding around the high school (dodging volleyball players and some unidentified sporting event that didn't look familiar to me at all). I realized I needed to do a full computer backup in preparation for replacing the battery so I got that running and worked on some small projects using mothers computer for the rest of the evening. The big annoyance though was I accepted my fate and started moving some of my clothes into the dresser. At which point I discoverd a Dell charger like I needed. Could have saved 90 bucks if I'd found it earlier. But I guess its good to have a backup since my old charger is really not ideal.
2 Sept 2020
0048 working on Catharus
0258 working on Catharus
0725 sleeping
2234 trivia
Food:Lamb and potatoes for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: A palimpsests is a manuscript with multiple layers of writing. Historically remote areas had chronic paper shortages, so they would errase and reuse the same paper over and over again, even in monastery libraries. Using various lighting and xray techniques it is possible to read these errased layers, sometimes discovering totally lost works or even extinct languages. St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai is home to about 130 of these, including some erased works in Caucasian Albanian, a language from Azerbaijan (and only examples of this language not in stone).
Spent most of the first part of the day going back and forth with various people at A&M trying to get my access back. Noone was quite sure why it was still gone, and I found out in the process that even some people who were just changing from one dept to another were loosing email access. Finally around 1730 I got it back, after 1) realizing that they had a different theres<x> matched up with my UIN (it was crazy being 1 of 3 theres<x> on the email thread and 2) resetting my password rather than using their normal process. Whats annoying is I had actually thought about doing that last night but noone seemed to think that would make a difference so I didn't. But its all fixed now. I also talked to Jason for a bit over text and then finished editing the last 50 uces. Got various alignment configurations running on raxml to see what the trees looked like. We won trivia again, this time we didn't even have Zac play the last 2 rounds and we were still increasing our lead, what was crazy is mother had multiple answers correct that we shot down or our lead would have been even more extreme. Mother and I also finished hanging the hangboard. Tried watching HHI but gave up with the commercials still freezing and HH was no better so switched to Bill.
1 Sept 2020
0102 working on Catharus
1918 eating lunch
2155 working on Catharus
2221 working on Catharus
Food: tamales and enchaladas for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: The most popular car in East Germany (before the fall if the Iron Curtain) was the Trabant 601. It had a two stroke engine and was made of Duroplast (a cotton reinforced plastic resin that is actually stronger and lighter that steal). They were also built to be easy to work on using a standard tool set. However since they were so underpowered as soon as western cars became available they were made obsolete. Today they are a popular collector car.
Woke up and since Maria was facetiming with mother wished her happy birthday again. Gave her a hard time about running super fast while she was in AK- told her it was because she was being chased by a bear. I also admired the sign mother made for her, it has some cute kitties on it. Then I spent a few minutes trying to make sure my netID stuff kept moving (since I lost my access while I was sleeping, looks like around noon. Then I had a zoom session with a researcher about the impacts of covid/working from home on work and pleasure. She seemed pretty fun. I convinced her to check out ebird and told her i expected to see her in fantasy birding one day. It looked like we were making some headway on the netID but by COB noone had actually been able to get it so I could log in and my emails were bouncing. After dinner I worked on thrush stuff and read my book. Was having trouble with HHI streaming so ended up giving up on that since it kept freezing about 2/3 of the way through the episode during the mitsubishi commercial.
31 Aug 2020
0308 working on Catharus
1121 sleeping
1600 picking up groceries
2020 working on Catharus
Food: Pork chops with rice and corn for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: Raw Agarwood is one of the most expensive natural materials. It primarily comes from Aquilaria malaccensis that has been infected with a mold (Phialophora parasitica). In its pure, high quality form it sells for 100,000 a kg. Its host plant is of conservation concern due to overharvest to get the Agarwood.
Woke up and realized that I hadn't heard from Theresa about my netID stuff being approved. So i sent her a quick email then went to pick up groceries. Monday between 3 and 4 is the wrong time to go, i waited for close to 30 minutes, and didn't leave walmart until about 1615. The wild thing was as I drove in and out only about 10% of the people were wearing masks (as the entered or exited the store, not just walking in the parking lot). On the way home I stopped and got mother some gas since her car was complaining about its fuel situation. Once I got home I set to work trying to figure out my netID stuff. Apparently the paperwork didn't process so I started setting things up as best I could for potentially being unable to access things. Left a few message groups that I knew would have a ton of mail, copied over my google drive, and set up email forwarding on the off chance that would keep working. After dinner we started to hang the hangboard- it took a while to find
the screwed we needed to sink into the studs. It ended up being a three
person job but we got the plywood up. Then spent the rest of the evening alternating between freaking out about my netID and working on Matt's stuff.
30 Aug 2020
0146 working on Catharus
0842 sleeping
1243 sleeping
2347 working on Catharus
Food: French Toast and eggs for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: The Dolmen of Guadalperal, near Peraleda de la Mata, Spain, is a 7,000 stone structure that is usually underwater. However, in 2019 the drought was so bad that it was completely exposed. The structure is made up to about 100 stones of varying sizes arranged around an oval. Historically it was probabily enclosed and roofed, but not much of it remains. It was possibly used for death rituals.
Woke up as the parentals were starting to set up for churching since Eddie requested we church at 1600. So I helped them get things ready and then we chilled for a few minutes before it was time to start. Grey Kittie was sleeping in the cat tree but the parentals decided he needed to be removed from the sunless room so I picked him up and put him on the couch. He was unhappy at being disturbed so meowed for a while while we finished getting set up and during the service. We are getting the set up down at this point, but we do need a checklist since I forgot to switch between grid and speaker view when father was doing the gospel and homily. Then we talked to Eddie for a bit before signing off. Since it wasn't raining I went ahead and painted the plywood the color of the walls in Maria's room since its the bluest paint we have. Got everything cleaned up and then did some work while mother cooked dinner. After dinner we just watched some tv and I workd on the sequences. The end is almost in sight.
29 Aug 2020
0631 sleeping
1157 sleeping
1946 eating lunch
2143 eating tapioca
Food: Corned beef and potatoes with veggies for lunch fruit for dinner
Fact: The newest gemstone found in the US is Sonoranite, the first US gemstone discovered in 40 years (which was Helenite, similar to obsidian, but formed by heating ash and dust from the Mount St. Helen area to form a glass)
Woke up and since it wasn't raining I painted the plywood for my hangboard. It was dry by evening so I should be able to hang it tomorrow (I hope). Did a little bit of birding, but not much going on. I had wanted to walk down to the high school but it sounded like half the town was there, every time I stepped foot outside you could hear people yelling and the PA system making announcements. So i decided to skip it. Also with all the rain I figured going to wheeler was not likely to be productive, so hopefully we get some dry days later this week. Black kittie was lounging on the treadmill so I decided to see what would happen if i turned it on. He actually walked a little bit before loosing too much ground and sliding off the back. So i tried it again but at the slowest speed possible (0.5mph) but this time he just sat there and slid off the end, so need to find the magic speed. After the parentals went to bed I turned on a Bill Walton game and learned about Sonoranite.
28 Aug 2020
0243 working on sequences
1129 sleeping
1327 trying to decide if i should get up or not
2215 talking with the west coast people
Fact: The Kush pyramids in Sudan are a little younger than the Egyptian pyramids. They are also steeper sided and not reserved for royalty. Instead anyone who could afford the construction costs could build one. There are actually more extant pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt.
Food: Enchiladas for lunch, fruit for dinner
When I took out Schubie at 0425 or so it was really eerie- it felt like an impending hurricane, which i guess it sort of was since it was what was left of Laura. An odd mix of still and gusty wind, with really heavy air and clouds streaming by. Decided I may as well take Dumas out so did that and then read my book for a while before bed. I woke up to the sound of the parentals fixing the slick spot in the drive way with brooms and blowers, I eventually decided to get up and do some birding before the next round of storms came through. It was already pretty windy a large branch came down next door. Didn't see much and once it started raining i headed inside. Other parts of Morgan Co had tornado warnings but we just had watches all evening. Jake called a little after dinner, which allowed father to solve a mystery that he had actually been telling us about over dinner. When he was in 2nd grade he got in trouble for throwing spitballs (which he wasn't doing). So he got sent to the principles office and was kept there until he would apologize. But he kept just telling the nun that he couldn't tell a lie and apologize for something he didnt do. So he was stuck there until Christy came to collect him. Father had always wondered how Christy knew to come get him and who was actually the guilty party. Turns out it was Jake. At 2100 we skyped with the west coast people. We ended up just talking again, but next week hopefully we will play skatagories (which Ania hasn't gotten to experience yet). We were also talking about how amusing it is that these days when you ask a person what they are wearing to a wedding you are referring to masks not attire. We talked until just after midnite then mother and I had a little bit of ice cream and i turned on HHI after the parentals went to bed.
27 Aug 2020
0421 reading the Jim Butcher book
1326 sleeping
1617 at the vet with schubie and black kittie
1930 working on sequences
Fact: Spectre opens up with a Day of the Dead Parade in Mexico City. Mexico City really wanted to use James Bond as a tourism thing, so
they cut a deal to fill the opening sequence there, have a bond girl be
Mexican, and not have a villain be Mexican. Only issue is there is no Day of the Dead Parade in Mexico City. Then someone realized that they didn't want disappointed tourists showing up for the parade only to find out it doesn't exist, so they started hosting it, including customs and props from the filming.
Food: burgers for lunch fruit for dinner
Woke up and took Schubie and black kittie to the vet. Schubie got some chiropractery and acupuncture while the kittie got his shots. It was pretty impressive with Schubie, you could actually hear the joints/bones in her paw shift back into place, and she seems to be walking better now. The chiropractor also suggested some core strengthening and balance exercises for both puppies so we will start doing those. They are actually pretty similar to what I did with my knee/ankle during pt. The funny part though was when the tech came to get black kittie- she didn't realize the cat was massive so when she picked up the carrier instead pulling the carrier up she got pulled down. Black kittie is now on a diet, although we were already feeding him even less that a cat of his girth should eat to maintain weight (250C vs 220C;now we are supposed to feed him between 200 and 230C). It was raining by the time I got home so no birding today. After dinner father put on some Hogans Heros. We had turnovers for dessert which resulted in this amusing picture. I tried to get Dumas to walk on the treadmill with me but he ran off as soon as it started moving. I put on Spectre and worked on sequences, then once it was over switched over to HHI
26 Aug 2020
0032 normalizing the audio in my NAOC presentation so it can be shared
0723 sleeping
1646 sequence editing
1716 sequence editing
Food: Manicotti filling and sliced steak
Fact: The Tamil Tigers were the only recognized terrorist group with what resembled a conventional military instead of taking a more guerilla warfare approach. The Tigers were the army, Sea Tigers was the navy, and Air Tigers was the air force
Woke up and answered emails then worked on the thrush sequences. The Yankees played a double header and lost both of them in really annoying fashion. Before lunch i did a little bit of birding in the yard. Took the puppies for walks after dinner and did a little bit more birding. Then worked on sequences for a few minutes before it was trivia time. We won, although space balls was winning most of the way. TBH i think Jimmy might have made some math mistakes, or space balls forgot to send in one of the answer sets because somehow we went from 7 down to winning by over 10. Afterwards father was wondering how much cholesterol was in a drumstick since he has to have bloodwork done tomorrow. Mother though thought he was talking about a chicken drumstick and kept just saying they are frozen (which clearly they were as an ice cream). Eventually she figured out he was talking about the ice cream lol. It was pretty amazing. Then they went to bed and I watched some HHI.
25 Aug 2020
0001 playing with the star stacker
0258 sequence editing
0737 sleeping
1734 sequence editing
Food: tacos for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: Wilkie Collins dictated a chapter of his book, Moonstone (one of the first modern detective stories), to Caroline Grave's (his mistress) daughter because he was on so much opium to dull pain from gout that he couldn't write it himself (and the moaning from the pain resulted in his secretaries quitting). When it was finished he said he didn't remember how the story turned out. Groves maintained two households in a polyamorous triad (the other part of the triad was Martha Rudd, with whom he had children and would go by Mr/Mrs Dawson). When he died he divided his estate between the two women.
Woke up for our honorific name meeting. It was a really good exchange that I mostly just listened in on since history isn't my thing. Laura suggested we start meeting every 2 weeks, although the first meeting is smack in the middle of the day I am on Kodiak so we will see how that works out. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on thrush sequences. After dinner I had father show me how do to the audio trimming so i could create individual files for each slide now that they are normalized. It took a few hours but eventually got it done. I also discovered that when I was recording my last word on each slide tends to be much quieter than the other so I started manually normalizing the final bit of each slide. I tried getting really fancy and swapping out a word where I cut the final s off of samples with another samples recorded earlier, but because my tone changes across the slide it sounded funny. Rather than looking for a slide where i ended with samples i decided just to leave the original and call it good. After that was all over I tried watching HHI but for some reason we were signed out of sling so i ended up watching tiny house nation instead.
24 Aug 2020
0315 sequence editing
1519 sequence editing
1532 sequence editing
2136 sequence editing
Food: beer battered fish fillets for lunch, fruit for dinner
Fact: Lease agreements in Belgium are for 3, 6, or 9 year terms. The rent can only be changed (outside of adjustment for inflation) every 3 years. If you are breaking a lease early the amount of penalty is dependent upon if it is a 3/6/9 year lease and how many years in your lease is. So most people who are just going for a year are stuck doing things like air bnb.
Woke up and spent most of the day working on sequences. I decided to saw the board to hang my hangboard on. Since the ciruclar saw battery wasnt charging first I tried sawing it by hand, which was working but taking a while. Then father remembered he had a long blade for his jigsaw so I used that which was much faster. Then I did a little bit of birding before dinner. Mommy made the beer battered fish things I got at costco. We should have taken a picture of the fish with father in it to send to the others to see if they could figure out what made the picture unusual (since we only got fish sticks as a kid when he was out of town). After dinner we watched some TV then since it was clearing up outside we decided to take some pictures. We got some pictures but then the clouds started coming back. It was pretty amusing because where ever we pointed the camera the clouds would show up (and leave where we had been trying to take pictures of before). Turns out this messed up the stacking software so we ended up not being able to get anything to stack correctly.
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