Fishing

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life. One of the most unusual was tuna fishing on a pole-and-line boat in the Pacific. Since we were a pole-and-line boat, the first thing we did while we were trying to find a school of tuna was catch baitfish. These are small fish that tuna like to eat.

We had guys on the boat who placed hooks on the fishing lines, guys who baited hooks, and guys who held poles with baited lines in the water and hauled in the tuna they caught. I started at the bottom of the ladder as a junior hooker and quickly worked my way up to senior hooker. Then I was transferred to junior hook baiter. From there I worked my way up to master baiter.

Didn’t see that coming, didja? The 13-year-old kid inside me lives!

Thanksgiving Eve

A cold rain fell all last night and all of today. A little colder and it would be snow, but the temperature is 38°F. The windows are fogged and streaked with condensation. Forecasters say the rain may turn to snow tonight and last until daylight tomorrow morning.

The gray sky’s feeble light is obscured by awnings, leaving the room dim and gloomy, but that doesn’t bother me. A sheet of clear plastic taped over the window air-conditioner crackles as wayward breezes outside push and pull on it, making the plastic sheet puff out and then retreat back, as if the a/c unit was a breathing thing.

I have the thermostat turned down so that the boiler doesn’t run. Today, I get my heat from a kerosene stove. It sits silently nearby, casting warmth and a comforting glow into the gloom. It’s the next best thing to having a fire in a fireplace. Heat and firelight; ancient things but still very comforting on a cold day or a cold night. To our primitive ancestors, a fire could mean survival. Maybe that’s why it still feels so comforting to us. It’s wired into our brains now: fire means you won’t freeze to death, fire means the big cats won’t eat you tonight. Once in a while the stove gurgles as a bubble of air is pulled into its fuel tank. It does that now, as I type these words.

A Linda Ronstadt CD is playing. (Remember CDs? Before iTunes, before Spotify, there was a time when you could hold music in your hand.) This CD is one I bought in the ‘70s called Living In The USA. It has some very pretty melodies and some toe-tappers, too: Back in the USA (Chuck Berry), Alison (Elvis Costello), White Rhythm and Blues (J. D. Souther), and the tune that is playing right now – Mohammed’s Radio (Warren Zefron). (Don’t ask what the lyrics mean; Mohammed’s Radio means something different to every person who hears it.)

The song ends and I hear a train whistle blow. It’s distant, maybe a mile or two away. Just barely, I hear the rumble of steel wheels on steel track. Then another series of whistles and it’s gone. Silence.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, an American holiday to celebrate American obesity by stuffing our faces with turkey and ham and sweet potatoes and green beans and cranberry sauce and biscuits and pumpkin pie and … oh, you get the idea. I think too often, we forget about the reasons we should be thankful. It’s too easy to focus our attention on things that are less than ideal, while everyday blessings, like just having clean water to drink, are taken entirely too much for granted. I have food in the fridge, for which I am thankful. I have clean, running water at the turn of a tap, for which I am thankful. I haven’t decided if I will eat anything at all tomorrow. Maybe I’ll spend a day meditating on all those things for which I’m thankful.

And I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving, my friends.

Football Watching Day

Today was an exceptional fall day. Cloudless, blue sky to the horizon in every direction; temperature 62°, warm sun, light breeze. There might be prettier days in Heaven, but here on Earth you’d be hard-pressed to find a nicer day than today. In short, it was a perfect day for lounging in front of the TV and watching football while munching on pizza, popcorn, and salted nuts. So I did.

It seems like all my neighbors were wasting their day mowing grass. I wanted to say to them, “People, what are you doing? This isn’t a grass-mowing day, this is a football-watching day.” I watched the Redskins/Titans game. The ‘Skins won today; it was their first win in 5 games. Now it’s 4:30 and I should probably go for a walk. I hear walking is healthy. I’m skeptical, but now that the game is over, what else is there to do? The pizza is gone, the popcorn is finished, and the salted nuts are seriously damaged. A little voice in my head tells me walk it off. Ok, ok, I’m going.

(Time passes…)

I went to a nearby park beside the river that flows past my small city. I communed with Nature. I took photos. I had the park to myself and it was very peaceful. Now I’m back in time to watch the Cowboys/Giants game.

Photos (click any photo to enlarge):

Ice Cream

Ice cream. Who doesn’t love it?

I’ve never snorted cocaine, nor injected heroin, but if they’re more addicting than Cookies ‘n Cream ice cream, then I’m staying far, far away from both of them.

You’ve seen those 3-pint tubs of ice cream in grocery store freezers? Or as I sometimes call them late at night, single-serving tubs. They work like this:

Day 1. I buy a tub of ice cream and take it home. I eat a nominal “serving” (as defined on the side of the tub). I think, That can’t be a serving, and I eat another.
Day 2.  I eat three servings. Before getting into bed, I remove the tub from the freezer, and I get a spoon, and I nibble at and scrape away the lumpy surface of the ice cream so that it’s smooth as a billiard table. This amounts to at least one more serving, but I don’t count it because I’m just “neatening up” the ice cream.
Day 3.  I no longer bother with the pretense of servings. I attack the tub with a spoon until the ice cream is gone.

Cookies ‘n cream should be on the Schedule One drug list, and the stores that stock it should be guarded by the DEA.

That is why I rarely buy ice cream. I can handle it fine as long as it stays inside its tub in the store’s freezer.

Another thing: on the store’s freezer aisle, I was surprised to see all the 3-pint tubs. The last time I bought ice cream, it was sold in half-gallon cartons. When did everyone switch from half-gallon cartons to 3-pint tubs?  And why do single-pint tubs cost twice as much as 3-pint tubs?  (Store: “We have to charge extra for the convenience of the smaller container.” Me: “What?”) Incidentally, the half-gallon cartons did not last any longer than the 3-pint tubs.

You can measure the passage of time in America by the shrinkage of cans and cartons. Sixteen ounce cans went to 15 ounces, then 14.5 ounces. Six ounce cans of tuna went to 5 ounces, then to 4.5 ounces. A roll of toilet paper shrank to a half-roll, then went back to a full roll, which the manufacturers like to call a double-roll, but we all know it isn’t really a double roll – it’s just a roll. Though admittedly, a so-called double-roll is double the size of a half-roll. Maybe that’s what they mean. “You’re getting double the amount you would be getting if we sold you half as much as we’re selling you.” You can’t deny the logic.

I’ve wandered off the topic of this post, “Ice Cream,” and there’s only one thing to be done about it. It’s time to go to the freezer and see if the Cookies ‘n Cream is as tasty as it was yesterday. I’m really not an ice cream addict. Really, I’m not. I can stop eating it whenever I want to.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

[p.s.: This is Day 3. As foretold in the Prophecies, the tub is empty. My stomach is happy.]

Fall Again

It’s that time of year again in central Virginia. When I got up at 6 AM, the temperature was 49°. At 10 AM, it’s 60°. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, and trees are turning their fall colors. Brown leaves are gathering in street gutters and on sidewalks. Soon they’ll be in my yard, thanks to the neighbor’s willow oak.

The high temperature is forecast to be 78° today and 75° tomorrow. Then highs will drop to the mid-60s with nighttime lows in the high-40s. That’s ideal; no heat needed, no cooling needed. Some people leave a bedroom window partly open at night and sleep under a blanket.

In fact, I enjoy sleeping with a window cracked open, especially in summer. I like the smell of fresh air, of mist in the air, of falling rain. I like grasshopper songs, distant rumbles of thunder and locomotive air-horns on passing trains. I feel connected to the world.

On the last October day, my neighborhood throws a Halloween party in the park across the street. It started as a neighborhood party, a safe place  for local kids to go and have something to do. There’s a haunted house, a bounce house, a costume contest. There’s a tent where a young lady will tell you your fortune. And so forth, but you get the idea. There are free snacks and drinks, like pop corn, soft drinks, and apple cider. And, of course, lots of music. Naturally, people from all over the city began showing up, and it became a city party. Now people come from neighboring cities as well, which they’re asked not to do, because it’s just a neighborhood park, but people (and monsters and princesses) are going to do what they want to do, and that is to be around other costumed people on Halloween. The park now gets a quite a crowd of people of all ages on Halloween, from small kids to grandparents. This year’s party will be on a Friday evening. If the weather is good, I predict a large crowd and a good many monsters and princesses – even a few Britney Spears.

 

Gretchen of the Swiss Alps?  >>

 

Reunion, the After Part

(Second of two parts: part one was Reunion, the Before Part.)

It wasn’t bad. The reunion, I mean. Oh, there were a lot of geezers there. At times I felt like I was in a bad movie. “What the hell am I doing here with all these old people?” But all in all, I enjoyed it, I think. I sat at a table with my best high school buddies, and I enjoyed connecting with them again. There was food and drink. There was music. God, was there music. The decibel level equaled a 747 on its takeoff roll. My ears are still ringing. Some guys showed up dressed like Jake Blues and his brother Elwood, and they performed a Blues Brothers act; they sang and danced, and they were not bad at all. There was a roll call of our fallen classmates: 24 out of a class of 116.

There was dancing. The best dancer by far was a slender gal named Elaine. It was fun to watch her dance. She was good and everyone could see she loved to dance. She had moves a teenager would envy. More than once, I almost asked her to dance with me, but really it was just more fun to watch her dance. We talked a little bit and discovered that in school we had lived on the same street. She had lived down the street in the next block. Her house is long gone now, having been converted into a parking lot for a church across the street.

It’s almost midnight. I’ll pour a nightcap and watch some Modern Family, then hit the rack. Sleep well, dear readers.

Reunion, the Before Part

I was planning to mow the grass in my yard on Saturday afternoon. Really, I was. But then something happened.

It all began with my decision to cook a pork roast Friday night. I bought two 2-pound roasts Friday. Friday night I put them into my slow cooker. I poured cider vinegar over them, patted them with salt and pepper, and poured more vinegar over them. I put the lid on the cooker, set it to Low, and went to bed.

When I awoke Saturday morning, the house was filled with the aroma of pork BBQ. Mmmm. I got up and took the roasts out of the cooker and put them on a platter. Using forks, I pulled the meat apart. I reserved two cups of juice from the cooker and discarded the rest. I put the meat back into the cooker. I mixed brown sugar and crushed red pepper flakes into the juice and poured it over the meat, and put the lid on the cooker.

The next step was to make white, Alabama-style BBQ sauce. I needed some vinegar, which I was almost out of, so I thought, “No problem, I’ll drive to the Martins store and get vinegar.” There were several other things I wanted to buy there, anyway.

In Martins, I immediately ran into Homer, a friend I hadn’t seen in three or four years. So naturally, I wanted to chat with him and catch up with what he and his wife, Sara, had been up to. That conversation delayed me for a few crucial minutes, just long enough to prevent me from making a quick escape from the store. If it weren’t for stopping to talk to Homer, I probably wouldn’t have run into Douglas.

But a couple minutes after I left Homer, I was walking down an aisle when who did I see walking toward me – it was Douglas. I hadn’t seen Doug in five or six years. He and his wife, Cynthia, were in town for their high school reunion. Doug and I had been best friends in school; I think we met in the third grade, and we were pals until we graduated high school and went our separate ways. So, of course, that means his high school reunion was also my high school reunion.

I hadn’t planned on going to my high school reunion. I have to confess something here, which may frighten some of my readers. It was my 50th high school reunion. Yes, I admit it, folks; I’m a geezer. I hang my head in shame. I’ve tried to live right and eat the right foods and not smoke (at least, not since I was 38) and what good did it do me because here I am, anyway: a geezer. I’m a young geezer – it’s that age where younger (but still middle-aged) people will be friends until they learn my age, and then they can’t get away fast enough.

I haven’t attended any of my class reunions. Most of the people in my senior class were people that I knew by face only. They were only classmates. We didn’t have any other connection. We didn’t talk to each other. Kids at my high school were kind of cliquish. I didn’t belong to any cliques, nor did I have any desire to pretend to be on some rung of a social ladder. I just lived for the day high school would be over.

Doug and Cynthia asked me to have lunch with them at Panera Bread, which was next to the hotel where they were staying. So I did, and that’s where I ran into another high school friend named Wayne, and his wife Carol. They were in town to attend the reunion. I knew they would browbeat me into going to the reunion, and they did, all of them; they browbeat me and browbeat me, until I said, “What can I say to stop this browbeating?” And it was, “Tell us you’re coming to the reunion.” So here I am, ready to go. The reunion starts in 50 minutes. I have to open my senior class yearbook (yeah, I still have it) and spend a few minutes looking at faces and names. It’s a given that I won’t recognize anyone’s face. I’d feel bad if I didn’t remember their names, either.

But I’ll go and make the best of it. There may be something interesting I can blog about afterward. It will probably involve me dropping a plate of food into my lap or spilling a glass of rum and Coke down the front of my shirt. Oy.

Not So Fast, Summer

It’s a pleasant day in central Virginia. At 3 PM the temperature is 76°F (24.4°C) and the humidity is low: only 34%. I have a front window open and a back door open, and the gentle breeze feels good. I’m feeling expansive, which can only mean, dear readers, that the time has come once again for me to impart some of my fantastic wisdom into your puny brains. No, wait. That isn’t right. I meant to say, it’s time to impart some of my puny wisdom into your vast intellects. Nah. That doesn’t sound right either. Let’s just get on with it.

Today is the last official day of summer for 2014 for the northern hemisphere (last day of winter for the southern hemisphere). In the northern hemisphere, the autumnal equinox will occur today (Monday) at 10:29 PM EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). Alternately, I could say the equinox will occur on Tuesday, September 23, at 02:29 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Yes, folks, it will be both Monday and Tuesday at the same time – just not in the same place.

What is an equinox, anyway? It is a point in the earth’s orbit around the sun at which every place on the earth experiences equal parts daytime and nighttime. This happens twice for each trip around the sun. It happens in March and again in September. The date and time of the equinox is calculated by astronomers, and in their calculations they assume the earth is a perfect sphere. But it isn’t. It’s slightly bigger at the equator than at the poles. And different places on the earth’s surface are at different elevations above sea level. These factors mean that the autumnal equinox will occur at slightly different times for different places. (If you live exactly on the equator, then you’ll receive exactly 12 hours of daylight every day of the year.)

So, of course, I began to question when the autumnal equinox will occur for my city. For the answer, I went to the U.S. Naval Observatory website. It has a handy calculator for determining time of day for sunrise and sunset almost anywhere on the earth. The calculator produced a calendar for 2014, and a quick review of September showed that the 25th had 12 hours and 2 minutes of daylight in my city (more day than night), while the 26th had 11 hours and 59 minutes of daylight (less day than night). Clearly, the local equinox must occur sometime during one of those days: either the 25th or the 26th.

For you, dear readers, tomorrow may be the first day of fall. For me, tomorrow – and the day after – will belong to summer. I will await them, watermelon martini in hand, refusing to acknowledge the waning of the light.

Playing the Spacedrum

The hang (pronounced “hung”) is a percussion instrument made by PANArt in Bern, Switzerland. The Spacedrum is a brand of handpan made by the French company Metal Sounds. In this video, Yuki Koshimoto plays the Spacedrum. Yuki has a channel on YouTube where you can listen to more of her music.

If you liked listening to the Spacedrum, here’s a longer tune. In this video, the camera follows Hang Massive duo Danny Cudd and Markus Johansson. The music is played on two hanghang (plural of hang). The song is OMAT ODAT (acronym for One Moment At a Time, One Day At a Time) from their CD As It Is.

The Farmer’s Will

My amigo CyberDave sent me this puzzler:

This is what they call HORSE SENSE:
A farmer died leaving his 17 horses to his three sons.
When his sons opened up the Will it read:
My eldest son should get 1/2 (half) of total horses;
My middle son should be given 1/3rd (one-third) of the total horses;
My youngest son should be given 1/9th (one-ninth) of the total horses.
As it's impossible to divide 17 into half or 17 by 3 or 17 by 9,
the three sons started to fight with each other.
So, they decided to go to a farmer friend who they considered quite smart,
to see if he could work it out for them.
The farmer friend read the Will patiently, after giving due thought,
he brought one of his own horses over and added it to the 17.
That increased the total to 18 horses.
Now, he divided the horses according to their fathers Will.
Half of 18 = 9. So he gave the eldest son 9 horses.
1/3rd of 18 = 6. So he gave the middle son 6 horses.
1/9th of 18 = 2. So he gave the youngest son 2 horses.
Now add up how many horses they have:
Eldest son  9
Middle son  6
Youngest son  2
TOTAL IS 17
Now this leaves one horse over, so the farmer friend takes his horse back to his farm.
Problem Solved!

I’m sure the intended reaction is “Huh?” But it’s pretty easy to explain this puzzler.

There are two problems with the Will. First, this distribution leads to fractional horses. And second, the fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/9) do not add up to One. Even if you could do the division, there would be left-over horse.

Let’s restate the fractions using their lowest common denominator (54). According to the Will, the oldest son receives 27/54 (half) of the horses; the middle son receives 18/54 (a third) of the horses; the youngest son receives 6/54 (a ninth) of the horses. These add up to 51/54, leaving 3/54 of the horses not going to anyone. How much is 3/54 of 17 horses? It is 0.944444444 - in other words, just about one horse.

Let’s compare what the sons “should” have received from the Will versus what they actually did receive.

	Should have received	Actually received
Oldest	8.5	9
Middle	5.66666666666 …	6
Youngest	1.88888888888 …	2
Total	16.0555555555 …	17

The part about the other farmer bringing his horse over and then taking it back is just a smokescreen. It covers up the fact that all the numbers have to be rounded up to get to 17.

If you still don’t see the trickery, let’s suppose we aren’t distributing 17 horses but rather 17 dollars.

Then, the oldest son gets $8.50, the middle son gets $5.67, and the youngest gets $1.89, and everyone is happy. Of course, these amounts add up to $16.06 and not $17, but the Will doesn’t say the sons are to receive 17 of anything. The Will says only that each son will receive a certain fraction of 17. The additional (and unstated in the Will) constraint that we impose on the distribution is that the amounts have to be whole numbers because we don’t want to chop up a horse. By choosing to round the numbers up, the sons altogether receive almost one more horse than they were left by the Will. As we’re talking about horses, that rounding up seems logical (and humane).