Aulde Acquaintaunce - NOT Forgot

May the Divine assistance always remain with us.  And may all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. 

End of the year.  End of "The Holidays"  [well, the end for most people -- we keep the holiday lights going through Twelfth Night at least - crowndot]. 

Thoughts turn toward absent members of the festive gathering, friends and family who have gone before us into the next life.

I like the gentle words of the new (Advent, 2011) translation of the second Eucharistic Prayer, where it says:

Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection and all who have died in your mercy: welcome them into the light of your face.

"All who have died in your mercy." 

The mercy of God is infinite and inscrutable.  And that's a good thing. 

Resolution Runners

There is a new crop of New-Year's-Resolution runners out on the trails.  The really superior ones start a week or so before New Year's Day so as to feel all exercisier-than-thou next week. 

I can tell by the socks of course.  The beginner balks at laying out $100 +/- for a pair of actual factual running shoes, but particularly shies away from paying $9.50 for a pair of socks! 

But I can also tell by their faces, and responses to my greetings.  There is a look of fear in their faces, and there is no response to my "Hello" or "Happy New Year".  It seems to be fear of being caught in the act of something.  Fear of being recognized.  Recognized as a failure?  Recognized as a running newbie?  As for the response or lack of response, maybe I'm just so funny looking that it takes their breath away.  Maybe they are running too fast and have no breath left to take away.  But I don't even get a wave or a tilt of the head or a smile.  Just a look I call "The Pole-Axed Cow" -- the wide eyes just before the complete collapse.  (To be fair, it is not just newbies that  give me the Pole-Axed Cow look.  I get it from the IronMan guys, the deathly serious out-to-prove-something guys a decade or two younger than me (I'm 55) and still acting out their adolescent pride.)

For all the new runners out there, let me say two things. 

First, it's totally okay if the gear comes later.  When I started running in 2004, it was cotton socks, cheap all-purpose training flats, and cut-offs.  I remember doing the Couch to 5K the first time, that big day of the 20 minute run, in cut-off BDU pants that had cargo pockets and came down to my knees.  Oh, and I carried a digital kitchen timer for those first weeks of timed run / walk intervals (did not have a digital watch at the time)!  So -- gear will come later, and to suit your comfort (and income) level. 

Second, it's okay to respond to greetings by other runners.  Honestly, runners are some of the most welcoming and inclusive people!  Your local group may vary.  Maybe where I am is exceptional.  But I don't think so.  The attitude that says "Only Competitive Runners Allowed" is extremely rare.  Many race directors are or have been very fine competitive runners, and they are happy to see runners of every ability level in the field.  But it's not just race events that will welcome you.  Many runners remember their start too, since we weren't all naturally gifted talents that climbed success upon success from Middle School on.  We're glad you're here.  We hope you'll stay. 

Life <--> Dreams

I remember St. Thomas Aquinas said that we are not culpable for the sins we commit in our dreams.  I suppose I should take comfort in that. 

Sometimes I make bad decisions in dreams -- like not  punching somebody out.  Or telling them off.  Or slaying, staking and burning them. 

In a dream last night, I was attending some crowded meeting in a small room.  School?  City government?  Sewer district?  Anyway, I was being scolded by a pair of ugly women for daring to move that the minutes be accepted without being read (always a good move at any meeting where you have a say!), and that the meeting then be adjourned immediately. 

One of the uglies even had to take her teeth out so she could scream at me better. 

I was jostling my way to the exit when I woke up.

Non mea culpa, non mea culpa...

Holy Innocents

28 December is the memorial of the Holy Innocents slaughtered by King Herod in his attempt to nip in the bud a possible rival king.  (The story is told in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew.)  

It always comes down to that.  The need for power drives them to slay.  They want to consolidate, expand, perpetuate their power.  Solidify, justify and secure their power.  All those in favor?  Subjects.  All those opposed?  Enemies.

Enemies that at the beginning need only to be marginalized, but ultimately -- and the more successful the tyrant the easier it becomes -- to be eliminated.  Final solution. It is not a surprise or a shock to me that a Herod would employ such measures.  It goes with the exercise of his type of rule.

This day also calls to mind the flight of Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus into safe seclusion in Egypt.  An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream to warn him to flee.  In this picture, the souls of the slaughtered babes accompany their flight. 

 

Triumph of the Innocents by William Holman Hunt

Then when Herod died, an angel appeared to Joseph again in a dream to tell him to return to the land of Israel.  Joseph must have believed that the new ruler was no improvement, because yet a third time Joseph is guided by means of a dream, and they end up moving to Nazareth.

I think what we need is a devotion to St. Joseph under the title of St. Joseph the Dreamer.  Would that all the people should have such a clear channel to the guidance of the Holy Spirit!

"It's turned out nice again..."

As George Formby used to say.

Yes, it rained most days.  I had a four-day migraine, but it was much better on Christmas day.  I haven't come down with the flu or a debilitating cold (yet).  I didn't have anything on my Christmas wish list, so I can't say I didn't get something I wanted.  I have bite marks in my cheek and tongue, but I did not say anything that got me into trouble at the Family Get-Together Thing. 

Fortunately at casa Crowndot we celebrate all the Twelve Days of Christmas, so it's not like I have to stop enjoying the season --  the tree, the lights, the music, the festive food -- all at once.

That means I still have time to work in some of those things I haven't been able to squeeze into my days off so far, like hibernate.  And have a good cry. 

Christmas Day has come and gone.

As George Formby used to say, "Haha, never touched me!"

On the feast of Stephen...

Before it was known as the Day After Christmas Sale Extravaganza; before it was known as Boxing Day; before it was even known as the Second Day of Christmas -- it was the Feast of Stephen.  Yes, the day mentioned in the carol about Good King Wenceslaus is 26 December.

St. Stephen is remembered as the first martyr of the church. The name Stephanos in Greek means "crown" or "wreath", as in a victorious athlete's laurel wreath.  I don't know whether the saint lived up to the name he already had, or is honored as having attained the crown of martyrdom. 

Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2473  
Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God." 
[St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Rom. 4,1:SCh 10,110]

The trial, witness, and death of Stephen are described in the New Testament book of Acts, chapters 6 and 7.  In spite of some of the simpering iconography, he must have been a man of great physical courage in addition to great faith.  I hope I don't have to find out what it would be like to face death by stoning.  

"Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
[Acts 7:56, ESV]

Resolutions

If you have not made good progress on writing up your New Year's Resolutions list, chances are you are not going to make much progress on that "Conquer Procrastination" one during 2013. 

Just sayin'.

Tinnitus

I don't notice it most of the time.  Sometimes at night when everything is quiet, I hear it.

Two or three variable high-pitched whistles, a low rumble or two.

Hearing damage is cumulative, and in the old days (1970s) hearing protection was less "normal" than it is now.  All that framing lumber cut with the Skil saw, that trip in the old station wagon one hot afternoon with all the windows down and the wind roaring through, the sudden start of an impact wrench where I work -- it all adds up.  I don't notice it until things go quiet around me.

There are other noises:  mental noise, soul noise.  Thoughts that come back.  Lingering regrets.  That time I was so embarrassed.  When the rest of my world is quiet, they come back.  Should-haves.  Why-didn't-yous.  If-onlys.

There is a kind of mental tinnitus, a chorus of caterwauling, shrieking zombie thoughts that won't stay buried. 

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. ...

Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap ... 

When up in my brain there arose such a clatter!

Forgiveness, yes.  Forgiveness is out there, it is available.  Healing, though, that takes longer.  Scars, too, maybe they last.  The freshness of the wound toughens up, the color and tenderness of the scar diminish.  But they last, maybe until a new heaven and a new earth -- and a new body in a new life.

I don't notice it most of the time.  Sometimes when my soul is very quiet, I hear it:

In dulci jubilo,
Nun singet und seid froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne
Leit in praesepio;
Und leuchtet wie die Sonne
Matris in gremio.
Alpha es et O!

A song of our true homeland.  Angels we have heard on high. 

Christmas Birthday

This is a verse from a birthday card my mother used to recite on the anniversary of her natal day, Christmas Eve. 

When I was growing up, most of the day was dedicated to Mom's birthday.  After a dinner of (always!) take-out Chinese, decorated incongruously with Japanese paper lanterns and tiny parasols; after the opening of birthday presents; after the birthday cake and ice cream -- only then did the day transform into Christmas Eve. 

We had a cheap vinyl tablecloth that was printed in birthday motif on one side and Christmas motif on the other.  The annual turning of the tablecloth was the Big Deal I remember as a Christmas tradition at our house. 

Mom passed away in June of 2000.

I still feel like I need to give her a phone call to wish her a happy birthday.

Happy birthday, Mom!

 

 Mother's Bouquet, Jeffrey T. Larson 

 

Why don't you just tell me what you really think?

I've had about enough of that snide commentary about my cooking -- from the smoke alarm. (Oh come on!  I'm not that bad!  I just, um, use a lot of BTUs!)

A few of my favorite things...

Out of the 200+ ornaments hung on our little tree:

The Road to Bethlehem

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  (Luke 2:1-5, English Standard Version)

 I know we celebrate Christmas at Midwinter.  Does it really matter what time of year these events actually took place?  I don't know whether it was clear and cold, or raining, or snowing.  

The Government made them register.  They had to travel.  At the worst time for her.  Not in a buggy with springs above the wheels.  Tradition says, on a donkey.  There may have been at least three donkey rides in Jesus' life:  before his birth, the flight into Egypt, and that day entering Jerusalem with hosannas and palms.  

I picture Joseph as tired but competent; I imagine him with strong opinions about the government that makes them travel at that moment, but also with both the physical and the emotional strength to stay quiet and just deal with it.  

I picture Mary, "Who was with child."  She is nearly full term.  The baby has shifted, head down, and dropped.  She can breathe a bit easier, but the jostling on the donkey must have been torture.  

"Joseph, I need to walk a bit for a while."

"Joseph, I need to just sit here for a while."

"Joseph, help me down."

"Joseph, help me up."

Imagine the Mother of Mercy turning a patient smile toward her betrothed, quietly breathing, "Thank you."

Some days I imagine a dry road of rock and dust.  Other times I imagine days of rain turning the roads to mire and their wool and linen clothing cold and heavy.  

They did what they had to do under the "benevolent" government of the Pax Romanum in order to get to the place they needed to be.  They obeyed the law in order to bring the Law Giver to the place of where the history of humanity would be intersected with the plan of the Unmoved Mover.  

Spring or Winter, wet or dry the weather, there was some one particular night when they got to Bethlehem.  That one particular individual girl named Mary got down from that donkey at the end of the journey.  

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 

 A particular manger.  Near a particular No-Vacancy Inn.  And very particular firstborn Son.

Bleak Midwinter

Once the fastest ship

In local lore, the schooner Forester  (its remains are shown above) was once America's fastest ship.  Fastest ship in the world, some say.  It didn't make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, but apparently it made the run from Australia to San Francisco in record time shortly after the turn of the 20th century, using wind power!

Launched in November 1900 from the Hay and Wright Shipyards in Alameda, California (across the bay from San Francisco), the Forester took lumber to the other side of the Pacific Rim and returned with coconut meat (called "copra").  Here is an old newspaper photo (highly contrast-enhanced and edited by me) from time of launch:

Lots of canvas-carrying capacity up on those masts!  Not much freeboard under load!  Here is a picture from the Martinez Historical Society:

That's lumber, stacked to what looks like a dangerous height and weight.  Maybe they just tied it all down and figured the whole thing would still float, even if every void filled with water?

By the early 1920's, what with all that newfangled steampunk paddle-wheel technology and all, the coal-smoke-belching vessels were carrying more cargo, faster than by sail.  That put an end to the full time commercial career of the Forester.

The formerly-fastest Forester did a stint from 1927 to 1931 as part of a floating breakwater during the construction of the Southern Pacific Martinez-Benicia railroad bridge, which was at that time the longest, heaviest double-track rail bridge west of the Mississippi River.

Capt. Otto Daeweritz was the only captain the Forester ever had. Some time after 1931, he had the vessel towed to anchor off Grangers' Wharf at the mouth of Alhambra Creek in northern Contra Costa County between Martinez and Port Costa, along what is now the Martinez Regional Shoreline park area.  Forester served as Capt. Daeweritz' home until his death on board in 1947.

The schooner remained in place.  It burned to the waterline in June 1975 in a fire the local gossip says was a fireworks accident, not deliberate arson.  The picture at top of this post was taken by me on 9 December 2012 during a solstitial new-moon extra-low tide.

The remains of the hull are disappearing gradually, to tide and storm, worms, and vandals.  At casa Crowndot, we usually refer to the Forester as "Martinez' slowest ship."

Runners have 52 words for mud

Water soaked soil.  Mire.  Slime.  Muck.  Goo.  Adobe.  

Some people still say the Eskimos have 52 words for snow.  Be that as it may, I'm pretty sure that from autumn through spring, trail runners have about 52 words for mud.  If you include compound words.  And phrases. 

A lot of them take the form of "(expletive-adjective) (expletive-participle) (redacted) mud!" 

Sludge.  Ooze.  Bog.  Slush...

This is the MEDIA.

"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!"  Habakkuk 2:15 (KJV)

Oh, would that there be woe to those who flood the eyes and ears with their liquor that goes down so easy and strips away the natural defenses of free and reasonable persons.  Hard cases make bad laws.  But that never stops them.  With purring, luscious come-on pillow talk; with constant repetition of the Party Line; with shrieking and wailing to drown out anything else; with a Dialogue and a National Debate and a Cause -- for the children! -- they replace deliberation with de-LIBERATION, and strip the decent protections of freedom.  One by one the garments hit the floor, and there the poor drunk stands defenseless, shameful, wondering how it came to this.  Too late the drunkard wonders where he made his wrong move. 

It's time we have a national debate about guns, they say.  We HAD that debate.  That's what makes them so irate.  The pro-gun people won.  Most states have "shall issue" concealed carry laws and less crime.  The Supreme Court states in black and white that the second amendment to the United States Constitution recognizes the right of individual persons to keep and bear arms.  "More guns" equals "less crime" wherever it is tried.  (And vice versa: look at the crime rate in the place formerly known as "Great" Britain.)  All this new noise since Friday is the same old noise, and the same old noise-makers.  Bloomberg.  Schumer.  Feinstein.  The rest of them. 

Here, have a drink, sailor.  New in town?  Drink the kool-aid.  My place or yours? 

"Jar Jar, you're a genius"

"Jar Jar, you're a genius"

Just because.

Restoring the Springfield 1903 Rifle

It's a freedom thing. 




Earlier this year I finished turning a "sporterized" Springfield '03 rifle back into something like its original military configuration.  The hardware pieces were accumulated over the course of many years.  Numrich had in their inventory a "new, unissued" stock and handguard, I finally worked up the courage to begin. 

The "new, unissued" M1903A1 stock looked like it had spent the last 60 years or so in a damp basement.  It had what looked like marks of roots on it, but the wood was sound.  With many hours of fitting and sanding, the action fit and functioned.  Half a dozen coats of boiled linseed oil (per military specification!) actually produced a better looking product than I had feared.



One of the peculiarities of the '03 and '03A1, of course, is the rear sight, shown here with the folding elevator down in the "battle sight" mode.



Designed by someone's feuding in-laws, this item's staggering complexity is surpassed only by its truly inhuman range of adjustment.



It is not your imagination -- the sight really does parallelogram toward the left -- to allow for the drift due to bullet spin.  There may be a Coreolus Effect adjustment, or one for the precession of the equinoxes, for all I know.

Another item that strikes the modern user as quaint is the magazine cut-off, shown here to the left of the rear receiver ring in the center position which allows removal of the bolt.



With the magazine cut-off in the "magazine off" position (lever swivels down toward the stock), the bolt cannot be drawn back far enough to clear the back of the top round in the magazine.  In this mode, the rifle functions as a single-shot rifle.  The rounds in the magazine, according to period manuals, are thus "held in reserve".  All five of them!



With the magazine cut-off in the "magazine on" position (lever swivels all the way up), the bolt comes back far enough to allow the top round to be pushed forward and into battery.  When the last round is expended, the rear of the magazine follower prevents the bolt from moving forward.  The magazine may then be charged with single rounds or a five-round stripper clip. 



Here's the muzzle end.  The thin front sight blade makes a fine target sight.  The picture includes the front sling swivel and bayonet lug band.  You may be able to see the "flaming bomb" ordnance proofmark behind the front sight.





The Springfield in military configuration has a forward barrel band that retains the front handguard retaining band, holds the "stacking swivel", and mounts the bayonet lugs.



The latch in the slot at the rear of the bayonet handle slot fits between the two sections of bayonet lug.  When attached, the hilt loop slips over the muzzle and the handle slot slips onto the lugs.



Here's the end that sends forth the hurt to the enemies of freedom:

Beethoven's Birthday Tribute

Well, it is actually the date when Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized.  But that's birth into the Church, so here goes...

And Razzleberry Dressing

I have access to a wonderful lunch service that stops by at the place where I work.  Usually I treat myself to a couple of their wonderful salads each week.  My favorite is a spinach salad with grilled chicken, feta cheese, a hard-boiled egg, half a pear, steamed and seasoned with cinnamon, dried cranberries, and a little cup of what you see above:  genuine raspberry vinaigrette.  With real raspberry seeds, your certification of authenticity!

This time of year it reminds me of the song from the old Mr. Magoo Christmas Carol TV special.

And the moral of that is...

Sunrise over the knife rack

What to my wondering eyes should appear this morning but -- color and texture in the dawn sky.  This picture looks out the kitchen window:

And yet ... and yet ... half an hour later, the sun is above the cloud layer and I'm still below.  The day is now gray.  Anybody that was not up for the show just misses out. 

There would be a moral to this story, but the Duchess is still asleep.

New Moon Time

New Moon (lunar/solar conjunction) was at 12:42 AM Pacific Standard time.

I always feel better once the moment of New Moon is past. Not that I'm all astrological or anything. It's just that, well the brain being mostly fluid, I am sensitive to the movement of the tides, including brain tides.

Besides, back in the days of playing NetHack, the program would note the system date, calculate the phase of the moon, and titrate the number and severity of enemies in your dungeons according to the degree of darkness of the moon.  "You're in luck, full moon tonight!" was a good message to see at the beginning of a NetHack session.

If you know what this is . . . then you'll know what this is!

Happy New Moon!  Don't party too hard.

Mechanical Minions

They promised us home nuclear generators, flying cars, and robots.  You can look it up in old editions of Popular Mechanics.  But no-o-o-o.  I'm still paying the power bill and still driving around in a thing with wheels, on the ground.  Isn't that dangerous?  I mean, don't they run into things and stuff?

Oh well, at least I have robots.  Not the "Danger, Will Robinson" kind.  But robots.  Faithful electromechanical servants.

My clothes washer is smarter than the first computer I worked with.  Doesn't work any better than the clockwork-timer jobbie we started with, but it's quieter, and they tell me it's more energy-efficient.

I have a robot in my kitchen that's kind of cool.  I put soft, squishy food waste into this thing through a hole in my sink, and then I turn on the water and tell it to take out the garbage, and by golly it disposes of that stuff.

But my favorite robot is the one that does automatic data backups at work.  I bet that between 1982 and 1992, I spent a thousand hours backing up data onto removable media.  I missed out on 8" floppies (but I remember our early version of dBASE came with 8" as well as 5-1/4" floppies!  I used 5-1/4" floppies in all varieties; I used 3-1/2" floppies low and high density; I used Quarter Inch Cartridge tapes.  The QIC tapes were supposed to be a vast improvement because it promised "automatic" backups onto a single media destination tape.  Only problem was it didn't always work, so you sort of had to attend it anyway -- and it violates the Popular Mechanics promises if the human has to be the attendant of the machine.

Since 2005, however, the core of the backup strategy has been CDs (and now DVDs).  I have software that actually does reliable automatic backups while I am home not thinking about my employer's data.
When it requires a disc change, it politely opens the drive and waits for my presence in the morning;  in my mind's eye it seems to bow slightly at the waist as it hands me the completed disc on a butler's silver salver.  "Thank you, Minion, you may go," I say.

At last I am the ruler of my mechanical minions!

Changing Shifts

As I was getting to work the last few days, somebody else was getting off work.  We meet in a parking lot surrounded by trees.

It was a Western Screech Owl.  (wiki image)

He flies low across the parking lot, and perches in the top of a coast redwood, looking at me.

Then up and off, into the fog, he flies away from the perimeter lights.

Winter Wildflower

Along the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay and adjacent salt water areas, one meets the hardy Hairy Gumweed (Grindelia cuneifolia).  All yellow flowers are there to be loved, no matter how ignoble their names, how sticky their buds, or how prickly their foliage -- and especially to be loved are things that bloom in winter.  This one is in northern Contra Costa County, at the Martinez Regional Shoreline park.  The picture is from a few hours ago, the afternoon of 9 December 2012. 

No Vacancy

I have never accepted the opinion that Mary, by virtue of her Immaculate Conception, escaped all the aches and pains and inconveniences of human life. 

Would she not rather,  like the Son she was chosen to bear, freely choose to undergo our trials and sufferings out of love for us, if not out of necessity?  So it is with all due respect that I consider the following. 

I have had occasion to travel by car when my spouse was "great with child", as they say.  It's bad enough in a car.  The posture is all wrong, breathing and digestion are a challenge, and there better be a rest stop of some sort every fifteen minutes.

But on a donkey?!  I chose the image above (found by way of an images.bing.com search for "posadas") because Mary is visibly preggers.  Aren't they a darling couple?  Can't you see Joseph lifting her (them) down from and back onto that donkey?  Can't you see him finding a place and then guarding her so she can, um, powder her nose?  Can you imagine how much work it was to travel with a nearly-full-term woman?  Oh. Right.  You can.

I also do not particularly accept the idea of "Saint Joseph the (Communist Peoples') Worker."  That is too solidarist for me, and I'm more a subsidiarist kind of guy.  I prefer to think of San José as "Saint Joseph the Dreamer".  Matthew's gospel mentions three dreams of divine inspiration -- those are the ones we know of. 

But in spite of all the "ins" Joseph had with God, The Big Guy somehow failed to call ahead for a reservation at any of the inns around Bethlehem.  God lets us sweat the details, I guess.  Something about freedom.

Random bonus thoughts:  The Roman occupiers of Judea remembered the hammering the Seleucids took from the Jews some time before.  I am sure I have read that the Romans did not look kindly upon Judean natives carrying arms.  But as a wood-shaper and carpenter by trade, Joseph would have been expected to have lots of pointy steel things in his possession.  Good choice for guardian of Mary and Jesus.  What would be more natural than for Joseph to be on hand to cut the umbilical cord when Jesus was born?  (I believe Jesus underwent natural birth, remember?)  So, think of it:  Joseph ties cord; Joseph wields a small blade; Joseph with the Most Precious Blood on his fingers...
A great miracle happened there.

Fungus Among Us

After recent rains, what is this I see popping up through a mat of spruce needles next to the parking lot at work?  A whole colony of toadstools, in various stages of emergence.

After the dome pops through all white and shiny, it begins to spread out.  The outer layer dries and darkens into interesting texture.

The tops become flat, and the spore-bearing surface on the underside matures.

Spores will drop from the "gills" of mature basidiomycota.  There's a whole lot of life out there when you look!

Remember Pearl Harbor

It is important to remember.


It is also important not to go all truther about it.

On 5 December 1941 Task Force 12  departed Pearl.  The Lexington went along to ferry Marine aviation to Midway.  Lexington had been the last carrier remaining in the harbor, since the others were on scheduled training exercises.  It just happened that way.

The code the British had broken was the diplomatic code, not the military code.  Even the British had no idea an attack on Pearl Harbor was going down when it did as it did.

Roosevelt may have been evil in many ways (social/economic policy, sucking up to Stalin) but don't you think if he had gotten the carriers out because he knew an attack was coming, he would have snuck a few battleships out of there too? 


But do remember.

The Dark of the Year

Depending on where you live, places in the northern hemisphere are experiencing their earliest sunsets around now.  In Miami, Florida, the earliest sunset was back around November 29.  In Seattle, Washington, the earliest sunset is not until December 10.  In San Francisco, the earliest sunset is around December 7. 

The latest sunrise for Seattle is about January 1; for Miami it's not until January 12; for San Francisco, it's about January 6.

Mid-winter, the winter solstice, is on December 21 at 11:12 Greenwich Mean Time.  That's the "shortest day of the year" but due to astronomical sciencey stuff called the analemma, the day of earliest sunset, the day of solstice, and the day of latest sunrise are not the same (unless you live on the equator, where all days are 12 hours long!). 

I am always glad when the earliest sunset is past, even though it only varies by much less than a minute per day when the sun is rounding the corner of the analemma, as it were.  I'm glad because I tend to do more of my non-employment-related outdoor activity in the evening, and even a few more seconds of light gives me some hope that the evenings will soon be noticeably brighter. 

May your days be merry and bright!

Rainstorm Morning

The picture is shot of the Weather Underground (I wish they wouldn't use that name) "Wundermap" at 7am 2 December 2012.  The orange streak is the heaviest rain.  We have had just about an inch of rain in the last 24 hours, and it's coming down hard right now. 

Geologist Clarence King, writing in ca. 1880, is quoted in Oaks of California (Pavlik, Muick, Johnson, and Popper, Cachuma Press 1991):

Riding thus in the late summer along the Sierra foothills, one is constantly impressed with the climatic peculiarities of the region.  With us in the East, plant life seems to continue till the first frost; but in the Sierra foot-hills growth and active life culminate in June and early July, and then follow long months of warm stormless autumn wherein the hills grow slowly browner, and the whole air seems to ripen into a fascinating repose -- a rich, dreamy quiet, with distance lost behind pearly hazes, with warm tranquil nights, dewless and silent.  This period is wealthy in yellows and browns, in great overhanging masses of oak, whose olive hue is warmed into umber depth -- those are the conditions of the vegetation.

The same is true of the coastal hills at the same latitude, with the exception of the micro-climates so near the Pacific Ocean that the morning fog cools the day and waters the ground. For the most part there simply is no precipitation from May to October.  The grass looks dead -- this is the real reason, I think (and not the excitement in the second half of the nineteenth century over metal mining), for the enduring nickname of "The Golden State". 

The weather, rainfall and its absence, and water politics are always topics of conversation in California.  For now, talk of raising my water rates due to drought is silent.  Much more of this, and talk of raising my water rates due to damage to our hydrological infrastructure will begin.  Flood watch is in effect for many areas.

Coyote Bush

Coyote Bush is a large part of our Northern California coastal chaparral.  Here are two views of female Coyote Bush in the process of releasing seeds to the winds.  Pictures taken Saturday, 24 November 2012.  Viewing the ongoing unfolding of life in the natural world is a primary reason I love running trails.