Rod's Alter Ego

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:50:08 GMT

Update: Summer

A day of rain. A much needed rain, they assured us. I am endlessly suspicious of this ubiquitous they who purport to know what I, or you, and anyone else needs. True enough, the ground was bone dry, and I've no doubt our local plant life is tickled green, tho for the rest of us it's a day to remain inside, pay bills, rid the corners of dust bunnies, sing along to Carly Simon's Your So Vain (which, some of you may know, was not about Mick Jagger or Warren Beatty), or finish a book. Master is presently enthralled by Richard Russo's Straight Man. Personally, I'm looking forward to a nap.

Not a bad day for an Open House. The newly built one behind us for instance. It was built by the same builder who built ours, and tho it's slightly bigger it's not as nifty inside as ours. Or outside for that matter. Our front and back yards are covered with verdant grass (btw, that fertilizer we used worked faster than mainlined heroin), ornamented with a dozen trees, and the back yard is entirely fenced. By contrast, the house for sale is surrounded by a faceless plain of dirt. Mud today. The asking price was $449K, recently lowered to $419K. Right now I see a nice couple peering out the second floor bedroom window, from where they can see our verdant backyard lawn, spotted here and there by dead patches of brown grass, supposedly from my pee, and tho she denies it, I suspect Lucy's as well.

Yesterday was glorious, sunny, warm and hardly a breath of wind. We went for a hike in the nearby mountains. The tundra flowers were exploding with delight:

Siberian Aster

Yellow Saxifrage

Wild Geranium (aka "Crane's Bill")

Alaska Hottie (Mom, not me).

Earlier in the week Master returned from Boston where he presented a talk on one of his recent papers. On the way he stopped off in Cleveland to attend the Case Cancer Retreat, and while there picked up his diploma. It's official now:

Dr. Nibbe (but not the kind who helps people - haha!)

As I enter my senior years a simple hike in the mountains requires I take an inflammation fighter. The ubiquitous they says I need a selective COX-2 inhibitor, to shut down the production of my prostaglandins, and this will lessen my pain. I find a single dose also makes me sleepy. And so it was that last night, with a full bowl of food quietly digesting inside me, I drifted off into a luxurious, drug-assisted sleep. Meanwhile, the uprights cleaned up and headed out for date night. So sound was my sleep I didn't hear the door close behind them.

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:13:00 GMT

At Ease

I have never been a giant among dogs. Or a standout in any way among friends. Never the one friend in the group quietly admired for his achievements. Or not so quietly should someone new inquiry about you. "Oh, yeah, Rufus. Did you know he tested out of the usual dog show qualifiers and went straight to Westminster?" Nope, never happened. Never will. I score at, below, or slightly above average in some endeavors, but I am exemplary at none. I often require a second chance, or more. I am a fan of the adage that perspiration trumps inspiration. This has less to do with my genome than it does with who I've chosen to associate with these (nearly) ten years. Don't confuse the blueprint for the house I say. If you hang with overachievers it will rub off on you, and not if you don't. We make our beds, they say.

There is no going back, no un-ringing the bell as it were. We are what we've become. Some late life reshaping is possible, tho major changes are rare. I'm okay with this. I have to be.

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:18:35 GMT

Another thought

Between a Freudian reading of Christianity causing the Housing Crash, the recycling of old news as NO NEWS with the Lipstick on a Pig shtick from the Obama Biden camp, Bill Ayers must have his work cut out for him and that of his Marxist sisters in the Media...now with Porn causing the Oil Spill, we can return to the questionable nature of Gendered Discourse and Democracy as Solipsistic.

I think we need a word which refers to a blog comment that is far wittier and pointed than its object article.

Carry on.

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 06:06:19 GMT

Green grass and high times

Our neighbor recently observed the pale green color of our front lawn and handed us a pH kit to asses alkalinity. "For vibrant green you'll need 6.5-7.0. The soil is acidic here. If it's lower than 6.5, lime the hell out of it."

So it was, and so we did, and now we wait.

Threw some fertilizer on, too. The stuff where the first number is three times either of the second two. "That'll get it green fast," he said. I'm a little concerned we went overboard. I half expect nightmarish mutant grass to be pressing though our second floor window screens by morning. Our neighbors will be awakened by blood-curdling screams.

While we wait we wonder, what is up with certain societal icons? Stephen Hawking is evidently now quite certain there aliens are out there, and cautions against disclosing earth's location - despite the fact we already have - fearing these beasties may be rapacious SOBs who will conquer and kill us for our resources. And closer to home: Helen Thomas, a veteran white house reporter, recently told a another reporter that the Jews should leave Israel and go back to their home. Home being either Germany or Poland. Uh, earth to Helen, do you not recall where six million Jews were murdered that caused them to leave their home in the first place!? Or the fact that Jews were living in Palestine well before the Holocaust?

Wacky beliefs explained by drug-drug interactions? Possibly. More likely a portent for us all - the inevitable misfiring of neurons in aged brains.

In science news, Lamarck is back! For those of you unfamiliar with Lamarck, he was a contemporary of Darwin who hypothesized, among other things, that traits possessed by the parents are directly transmitted to their children. The mechanism for this transfer was not well articulated. Nevertheless, on Lamarck's view, if a father had been a body builder his whole life his children would be well muscled, too. Lamarck has been largely ignored, especially so since the dawn of modern genetics, but it is becoming increasingly clear that nuclear DNA can become chemically modified (see epigenetic modifications) during one's lifetime resulting in the increase or loss of the expression of certain proteins, the workhorse molecule directly causing our phenotypic traits. If these modifications that can occur during a parent's lifetime - owing to what they ate, drank, drugs they used, etc. - occurred in germ-line DNA then the corresponding trait could be directly passed to their children. The phenomenon has been shown in increasingly more organisms. Beyond the implications for evolution, the article touches on the implications for human disease research.

Whew... okay then.

Well, we've had a wave of summer guests so far, from in-laws to former neighbors and colleagues from Cleveland.

We will miss ya'll, come back again soon!

Mon, 17 May 2010 16:58:25 GMT

Back Home

According to the weather forecaster we should expect a 40% chance of Spring this year. The term forecaster begs the same kind of incredulity as the person who claims to be able to bend spoons with their mind, ala Yuri Geller. Success rates are similar. Don't misinterpret this as regret, we love it here, wouldn't trade the peace 'n quiet for the frenzy Outside (see FAQ) for anything - well almost anything. However, a bit more honesty from our local forecasters that basically they just fill ten minutes on the evening news each night with pretty satellite pictures and talk of highs and lows, but don't in fact know within two standard deviations whether it will rain or be windy or breach sixty degrees tomorrow, would be a praiseworthy expression of humility. Casting weather predictions in terms of percentage seems to mock the science of probability. I once heard that a forty percent chance of rain only means that for all times in the past when the weather "looked similar" it rained forty out of one hundred times. In which case the forecaster could be more optimistic and forecast a sixty percent chance it won't rain (or be blustery or breach sixty).

Betting on Spring the uprights planted trees and shrubs, and the front yard is shaping up into some nice eye candy for passerby. Particularly impressive is the towering weeping birch, flanked by the Colorado Blue Spruce and the emerging green grass.

Speaking of eye candy, and maybe I shouldn't speak this way of her given she is my "Mom", but seriously, on Mother's day she was lookin' hella good...

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:42:52 GMT

Poof!

Aloha Rufus,

We've been to Napilli & Kapalua beach a number of times. Yesterday we ventured out to Molokini for a snorkel adventure, where we were voyeurs of fishdom and turtledom. Can't imagine what the fish must think, all these uprights floating and bobbing above them all day long. The turtles are recently off the endnagered list but appear blissfully unaware of this. They have a sort of inverse myopia, whereby they see quite well what's beside them, but very poorly in terms of what's directly in front of them. Consequently, they will swim directly at you and don't stop until they bump into your mask if you don't get out of their way. It takes twenty five years for these turtles to reach mating maturity. Uprights should take a lesson, I know.

Slaughterhouse Beach - Honolua Bay - 2010

Last night we took in a magic/comedy show. This is a must see for anyone visiting Lahaina. Along with three other men I was asked by the magician to surrender my wedding ring for the closing gig. Mom was not 100% comfortable with this. But earlier a guy in the back row surrendered a $100 bill which was burned in front of our eyes, prior to 1) recording the exact serial number on paper and 2) validation of the number by the entire audience with the help of someone in the front row. I have no idea how he pulled this off, but by the end of the show the same $100 bill reappeared inside a lemon! My ring was joined to the other two rings and then separated again. Not sure how he pulled this off either, but we were relieved he did.

We've looked for gifts for you and Lucy. Nothing yet but we have until late tomorrow morning. Didn't figure you wanted an Obama Bobble Head. Plenty of those marked down in the shops here. Pay with a twenty and you get "change you can believe in!"

We're on our way home tomorrow.

Mahalo buddy.

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:00:03 GMT

Qua Tourists

More from the Isle:

Rufus,

We are wakened each morning by bird squawk in the trees outside our room. Great place to be a bird, I suppose. Plenty of verdant canopy in which to perch and twitter away the day. Post pillow talk we eventually throw on our shorts, tank tops and flip flops and trip over to the Starbucks. I like Starbucks, they're consistent, but I don't claim any brand loyalty. This morning Mom found us a nice local joint and the espresso was just as I like it, dark and rich with a caramel crème.

Yesterday we visited "The Blowhole". The ocean undercut the volcanic rock here, and when the waves are powerful water shoots out from the hole like a shaken soda. The guide book cautions that one should clearly identify the hole and not pad about trying to find it. It's a rather innocuous looking hole, and quiet between wave swells, but I can well imagine that if one stood over it, peered inside and wondered, "Is this it?", they would be in for a violent smack down. Something you want to avoid on these rocks, which are exceptionally sharp. Ask Mom. She slipped and fell near the olivine pools just up the road from the blowhole, sliced her hand open and scraped her back. One of those accidents where one doesn't even know they've been cut until the blood is seen running down your arm.

Some pictures for your amusement: Us (blowhole behind), The Blowhole during an eruption, Siren on the rocks, and I stop for meditation at the center of (what appeared to be) a spiritual place.

Talk at you later, friend.