House of the Purple Worms

Finished New Sketch

2012-01-22T00:28:00.006-06:00

Assignment: A Black and white sketch create a sense of depth using foreground background and and middle ground, have an overall focus area and incorporate effective use of negative and positive space. (Completed versions below)

Here is the unfinished version. I want to leave at least one of the remaining bottles unrendered, but am not sure which one. Originally I thought it would be the one in the back, but now I'm leaning toward one of the other two. It's getting late and I had hoped to have finished tonight, but now I know I need to stop. I guess I'll continue tomorrow.

I'm not fond of the centrality of the primary figure. Maybe this cropping is a bit better:

Redecorating in My Head

2012-01-18T12:07:00.004-06:00

Someone on my social networking site posted some rooms with the question about what was Good, bad or otherwise. One room really bothered me - it was cluttered and had a variety of furniture styles and so many colors that my head hurt.

I just couldn't resist rethinking it. So I set to work on photoshop. First I had to get rid of some of the clutter - remove a few pictures and reduce the size of the corner table. And what's with the combination of zen, barock and rustic country elements? How many colors can you have in one room, red, blue, green, lilac, gold and black (and let's add a yellow coffee table ornament while we are at it!) So my next step was to try to unify the color scheme a bit. I live in a cold climate, so I wanted some brighter colors, but maybe not quite that many. Here is what I came up with.

After looking at both of them for awhile for some reason the original seemed cheerier. Here is a side by side comparison:

It made me wonder if it was the colors I didn't like or if there was something else going on, so I tried a different set of colors:

What do you think? I almost wonder if I don't like the original version better. The continuation of the white table and seating actually looked cleaner and in our winter drabs maybe all those colors aren't so bad after all. (Especially if you take out some of the clutter.) I guess it's good that I'm not an interior designer! Still it is fun to dream!

Circular Sweater Update

2012-01-12T22:05:00.004-06:00

Well, I ripped out about 4-5 inches that had ruffled because I increased too much and so I am slowly adding the rows back on. I don't like the pattern as much, but I have a better sense of how the increases affect the circumference

New Tribal Fringe belt

2012-01-10T20:38:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I had a lot of things to get done today and well, I didn't do any of those things, but here is what I did do.

Various and Sundry

2012-01-08T15:08:00.002-06:00

It's a lazy afternoon. Most everyone in the house is up to this:

I on the otherhand decided to find something to do with those plastic things that come around a six-pack of cans.

Maybe a doormat?

Recent Completion

2012-01-06T11:49:00.002-06:00

I think the edging gives it a nice finished look.

Holiday Celebration

2011-12-31T22:11:00.008-06:00

We couldn't make it down to Texas this year for our family gathering, so we skyped instead. I usually take photos of the holiday, so this year all I could do is screen shots, but here are a few very blurry images of our time together.

Here we are (from the tiny little corner shot!)
I just love this shot of of spousal unit D. It was tiny and pixilated, but it also is totally cool. Doesn't he look like something out of Deadwood or the Wild wild west!?

Here are some of the family members.

As you can see there are way too many gifts to be opened!

Here's the sweater I knitted for my Mom (hope my sister lets go of it!)

And I can't quite figure out what this was, but it got careful scrutiny!

After an hour still no dent in the number of packages!

More family shots!

Here are my two beloved sisters.

It was as good a time as could be had given we were more than 1300 miles apart!

My Beautiful New Acquisition

2011-12-24T19:05:00.002-06:00

Goodbye, Art!

2011-12-23T15:07:00.003-06:00

Sigh! They took Phantasmagorey to the crusher today.

Maybe not to the Crusher, but probably - It will be auctioned off and the proceeds will go to a local animal shelter.

My idealist self keeps hoping that some Classic Honda lover will buy it and refurbish it and I'll see it sail by on the highway some day.

A Better Shot of the Snowflakes

2011-12-22T23:35:00.003-06:00

Not much time for creativity, but...

2011-12-18T13:09:00.004-06:00

So before I go to sleep I pick up the crochet hook and do half a round. Not too exciting, but at least something is happening! The big one is about 4" in diameter. It seems to be the only snow we'll be getting before the new year!

Nap time!

2011-12-07T23:39:00.002-06:00

Red, Red red is the color of my ...

2011-12-01T22:16:00.002-06:00

I'm full of remorse. I got my hair cut and had some (okay a lot of ) color added and I love it - botht he color and the cut and then I found out my spousal unit hates it.

Sigh!

Putting Things together

2011-11-21T22:29:00.003-06:00

I don't know what it is going to be, but here are my medallions crocheted together. I'd like them better if they were more delicate, but this is the size yarn I bought and I'malready using a hook too small for the yarn!

Crochet Medallions

2011-11-15T22:24:00.003-06:00

A while back I took a class on free form crochet with Myra Wood and one of the things she recommended was using pattern books and doing a bunch of different kinds of pieces to then free form crochet together - so I've been teaching myself how to crochet medallions from a book by Edie Eckman. Here are a few of the medallions I have done in the last week or so.

I think I'll have to buy yet another color with which to combine them together, but for the time being it is interesting to see what can be done with the hook as opposed to needles!

Kitties at Rest

2011-11-11T18:26:00.002-06:00

Well, Not exactly in the Straw!

2011-10-29T10:48:00.005-05:00

My puppy caused a bit of commotion this morning and allowed me to get an interesting (albeit blurry) shot:

He (or she)'s about 30 feet up there!

What's Past and What's to Come

2011-10-14T09:44:00.005-05:00

I'm at my annual writer's retreat and am getting a lot done, so I don't have much in the way of photos this year. I want to dedicate this blog to one of my teachers, Kenneth O. Hanson, whom I learned last night had died in 2003. When I was a young and evidently very impressionable first year student, I saw him out walking on our wooded campus. He looked preoccupied and so I didn't rush over to greet him in characteristic style. I was however perplexed by his activities so the next time I saw him in class, I asked what he had been doing walking out in the campus wilds. His reply was simple and perhaps even obvious enough and yet it was one of those things that overpowered me with its implications. Like Bernstein's story in Citizen Kane about the woman with the white parasol*, I have thought about this moment from my college years frequently and as a reminder of what it means to be a poet, a scholar and a mindful human being. I was saddened to learn that you had died, Professor Hanson and appreciate what you have taught me about what is valuable in life. Here are two images from my walk. I have only two, because I spent the rest of the time in thought and the thoughts were the more valuable of the experience.

* The comment in Citizen Kane is as follows:

"A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl." Cited from Wikipedia I bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought about this comment!

Stupid Pet Tricks

2011-10-11T23:45:00.004-05:00

No, not that kind! The kind our pets make us do for them! Yeah, so I knitted this sweater for the little dog. The sleeves are too big and poofy (and I ran out of yarn at certain points and had to use some black I dug up from elsewhere. This is the back.

I seamed it in the front with more black. I wonder if it is now too big.

So I got my boy to model it for us. Here is the side view.

He was like a living doll and whatever position I put him in he stayed in. Here you can see the back.

Somehow I'm not too sure he likes it.

New Clothes

2011-10-02T20:55:00.003-05:00

So here is the new dress I bought for Renaissance Festival next year. I have to figure out what kind of sheath to wear under it. I really like the dress! Here are a few self-taken photos (sorry about the camera in the picture (and no make-up at all!) Two are with a yellow shirt and one with black. Unfortunately I don't really have a light yellow skirt, so I may have to see if I can find some light yellow fabric at a fabric store.

So here is the new dress I bought for Renaissance Festival next year. I have to figure out what kind of sheath to wear under it. I really like the dress! Here are a few self-taken photos (sorry about the camera in the picture (and no make-up at all!) Two are with a yellow shirt and one with black. Unfortunately I don't really have a light yellow skirt, so I may have to see if I can find some light yellow fabric at a fabric store.

2011-10-02T14:48:00.008-05:00

So, we did manage to go to the 2011 Minnesota Renaissance Festival one last time before it closed. It was cooler this time and we noticed an abundance of warm clothing and hats.

I love the shot of this gentleman reading in the sun. The vendors dressed warmly because their booths (especially those in the shade were very chilly, especially when a breeze ran through their booths.
look at those leggings with the hat and the adorable boots!

The performers too dressed warmly (and their family members). I believe in this case it may be the wife of Zilch the Tory Steller.

As we entered we were fortunate to see Twig the Fairy as she entertained the children. She is such a graceful and bliss-creating creature. Her smile just makes you feel warm inside.

As usual there were interesting costumes, including this steam punk inspired one. (I noted several this time around.)

This bat's wings moved dramatically.

As always I gawked at the gorgeous and varied costumes. It is marvelous how people find things to wear that represent their inner selves.

I just love the way the shadows played across the lunching in this table area.

We had to visit our friend and brilliant designer Marla Ferrara. She was dressed in an adorable cossack inspired look. Look at that brilliant smile!

Check her out at the Texas Renaissance Festival - Lost Art Leather. (If you see her, I doubt she'll be this warmly dressed!)

Of course we went to see some of the performances. St the moment we are somewhat obsessed with Danger Committee. We went to two of their performances this time and had already seen three other different shows. Reynaldo, Bald Guy and Other Guy do some blatantly dangerous things including juggling live stun guns. (Which I have to admit I don't enjoy very much.) I do love the knife throwing and the juggling of fire"cluby thingies". More than that I just love to hear Reynaldo's phoney accent and sarcastic jibes at the audience and his group members. I've noticed a certain lightening in accent of late and someone needs to tell him to cut that out, - he's got some 'splainin' to do!

Of course we had to check out the damage from the fire that occurred last week. The area was fenced off, so at first we could only see the tops of the building remnants.

We were toldthat the fire was put out quickly, even though it did cause an hour delay in opening.

Eventually I found a crack in the fense, so here is what it looks like without the privacy fence.

We really got decadent this year and purchased real Renaissance costumes, but we didn't put them on - we are saving them for next year. You'll hardly recognize us then, but in the mean time here is what we looked like this time around. Don wore one of Marla's stunning dyed tops (she doesn't just do leather - her textiles are to die for!)

I wore my bodice and as usual some remnants of belly dance costumes along with a scarf that I inherited from my dear friend Dana Atkinson who died last Christmas.

Don likes to take pictures at angles so here is another unique shot that actually shows the bodice.

The Warblers are Here

2011-10-02T14:40:00.004-05:00

Exciting to me and maybe no one else, but the warblers are passing through again!

Unfortunately with all the help from my dogs I wasn't able to capture them photographically too well.

Plans for the New Shawl

2011-09-27T21:02:00.004-05:00

I've made a design for my new shawl, but now I'm looking for a background to lay the design on. Here are some stitches that I have been playing with as possibilities. The first set is the back side (But I'm thinking of a purl ground to be sure that the pattern stands out.)

I ran out of orange yarn so had to continue with purple.

Here's the front of the first swatch. I can't quite decide which to use.

Sunday afternoon Stitches Midwest 2011

2011-09-27T20:50:00.006-05:00

My last class was on Celtic cables with Melissa Leapman. It was a frustrating class, because there were a couple of people in there who had never done cables before and it meant the whole class was slowed down so they could learn how to do cables.

Basically while these people had private lessons, the rest of us followed the patterns given to us with minimal help. Ms. Leapman had a good sense of humor, but she was tired and we were all pretty tired I guess. Luckily my friend Trudianne was in the class, so at least there was good company.

Doesn't she have a beautiful smile?!

Here are two of the three swatches for class:

Terry Eagleton

2011-09-26T22:27:00.005-05:00

I had the opportunity to hear Terry Eagleton talk about Jesus and Tragedy. He said so many clever and fascinating things. He discussed theological writings and the idea that God did not need to create the Universe he just did it because. Creation, evil and art have no purpose according to Eagleton, they just are.

Some of the things he said were so witty and pithy - he spoke of the Holocaust as a dream of purity and said to watch out for purity, because "evil can't accept the messiness of everyday existence. He also spoke of fundamentalism as a fetish that hides the gap.

Eagleton is not a man of technology. "I don't even use e-mail," he said, "I intend to get to the end of my life without ever having used it."

He describes himself as "an ecriveur (someone who just writes) and not an ecrivain.... That I write is less important than what I write," he says.

In talking about gaps, he noted "being self-estranged, that we are not identical with ourselves allows us to be creative."

He gave us much to think about.

Little Bitty Kitty One

2011-09-26T22:18:00.001-05:00

No comment really - just cute pictures.

Stitches Midwest 2011 Sunday

2011-09-11T19:38:00.007-05:00

So our last day had arrived. My sister had one class in the morning and then she had to fly home. I had an afternoon class and then in the late afternoon I would be driving back to Minnesota. It would be a long day, but a good one.

Our morning class was about Fascinating Fibonacci sequences with Laura Bryant. I had taken her class on Color in hand-dyed yarns and very much enjoyed it. I have to admit I was a bit mystified about what we could learn here. I remembered fibonacci series from math class and knew that if you join prior two numbers together you get the series. If you start with 1 and add it to itself you get 2. Then you add one to two to get three and 2 to 3 to get 5 etc. Laura made it sound quite mystical - a natural sequence that seems to inevitably be pleasing to the eye based on combinations found naturally in the real world in beings like the chambered nautilus (seen at this website):

or even in plants (from this one) ...

Laura walked us through a variety of patterns and color combinations:

And showed us some magnificent garments that she had made.

She doesn't seem to like to smile when she is demo-ing unfortunately and I do want to show this sample, so I can't cut her face off - just pretend she is smiling beautifully, because she has a lovely smile.

Here you can see two Fibonacci garments at once.

We had two assignments in class, working with multiple colors in a fibonacci sequence as below:

We were told that the variegated yarn would still be pleasing even though it disrupts the understanding of the stripes. It should still read as a 5. I don't know if the striping is naturally pleasing or not. (I do like the colors which combine some of her Prizm yarns and some left-over stuff that I brought along.)

Our second assignment was a diminishing fibonacci series that blended two series into each other. Below you can see the white blending into the red. The yarn is indulgence and it is truly decadent - a silk/wool/mohair with a gorgeous shine to it and a very soft hand. It was a joy to work with.

I can't claim much accuracy in my series, but I did continue to play with it since ihad not finished the sample in class and came up with an interesting stripe pattern. (I had accidentally skipped the section that was supposed to be two rows (and skipped from 1 to 3) but We were told we really only needed to have relationships of the numbers (and not have them necessarily in order). I think it worked out okay.(Click on the image to see a larger, sharper version)

After the class was over I had to say Goodbye to my sister. It was SO painful. We had had a wonderful time together and after she got in her car and headed off to the airport, I cried. Here is my last picture of her before she left!She thinks I go overboard on the picture taking!

Of course there was only one solution to the sadness of parting! The market, so off I went to spend time until my next class.

Saturday at Stitches Midwest 2011

2011-09-09T21:26:00.019-05:00

Saturday was the day we had decided to take it easy. We had signed up for one class and one only on this day, so that we could have some market time in the afternoon. I was pretty tired. I just hadn't been able to sleep the night before, which made me sad, because this was the course I was really, really looking forward to, Merike Saarnit's Elongated Stitches class.

It meant I made a lot of mistakes and did not get things done well and even though we weren't supposed to rip. I did, because I was too tired to do things correctly. Even my sister got creative. I absolutely adore this mistake that increased the number of stitches drastically and produced this eyelet encrusted fan.

Despite the mistakes I made, I learned so much. Here is my sampler from the class!

Even better, we got to see some absolutely gorgeous things, including a sweater that a student had made using things she had learned in Merike's classes.

This was in the student fashion show later that night, but the fineness of the design and complexity of the work were lost on the runway with its glare and lack of definition.

Since it was an original design with amazing stitch work, it really should have won one of the prizes!

Merike showed us some of the Estonian stitches in her work, like this lovely vest using some of the Patent stitches.

Here is amore subtle use of the same type of stitches in a single color.

She brought examples of all manner of things.

Here are caps, socks, mittens, you name it!

During the afternoon we shopped (yet again.) Neither my sister or I need any more yarn, but on that day we really needed yarn (and a whole bunch of other stuff too. Here is some of what I got! Now I didn't buy all of it. I won the little green and yellow skeins in Gwen's class on entrelac as a kind of door prize:
And that gorgeous pink and purple stuff next to it was a gift from my sister. But I have to confess that the rest is all my responsibility.

And hen there was this too!

And oh yeah there was jewelry!

But wait!! I won the buttons (well, half of them - I won a gift certificate for 20$, but all the buttons I liked cost a little bit more!! Of course!!)

Then there was the student banquet and fashion show. The food was decent and the company was fantastic.

We dined with Elise Duvekot (with whom we had taken classes in Knit One Below last year.)

Lily Chin showed up in her one of a kind costume - this time representing the home-run top hat for the Mets.

Poor thing she had this huge collar on that made it extremely hard to eat (let alone sit in a chair and hold a civil conversation. She was as always absolutely charming, but I would have rather eaten dinner naked than have to hold up that collar all evening.

But when it came time to honor our teachers, there she was on stage in the front row, smiling and gracious as always.

Myra Wood wore her new Duplet inspired jacket. It was just fabulous, but I did not get a really good shot of it. If you are on ravelry you can see it there in all its glory. Here she is looking stately behind the knitter's podium.

Then of course it wsa time for the Student fashion show. There were some lovely things. I did not take pictures of everything, but we started off with this blue lace shawl.

One of the nicest pieces was this Evenstar shawl (also lace) knitted by a young man who looked like he might still be in high school. It was done in Buffalo (1 and 1/2 cones on size one needles! Wow!!)

This lace piece must have taken a lot of work!

Andthis woman had as much personality as her fluffy sweater! It had beautiful cable-work on it and she bounced down that run-way with verve and unforgettable spirit.

Of course I entered MMario's Vampire W(h)ine, but to no avail. Prizes did not go to intricate lace shawls on this particular night. (Although a brightly colored green shawl with lace stitches (of which I alas have no picture) did win a prize.

Next time I think I'll hire a shawl wrangler!

This may have been my favorite piece in the show. It was quite stunning with its central floral motive and it's mesh outer ring.

Here is a slightly better shot of the center.

This was an impressive piece too. Look at all that color work at the hem!

This quilt was a cheerful bit of knitting!

I'll close with images of two of the winners. Mary (who won a few years ago) produced a fantastic jacket in multiple colors!

It had lovely swing to it too.

Roberta also won a prize for one of her fabulous long coats. She does them without patterns and they are always absolutely breath-taking.

Of course after the banquet we were exhausted, so it was back to the hotel, packing and preparation for our last day. The time had gone SO fast!!

Stitches Midwest 2011 Friday

2011-09-04T16:44:00.008-05:00

Friday we had two classes. Our morning class was with Gwen Bortner again - this time we were taking a class in her specialty - Entrelac.

We enjoyed our class very much, working our way through a little circular project.

Pretty cute, huh? We were assigned to finish it up after class and then to felt it. I managed to finish it while we were in Chicago, but I didn't felt it until I got home.

But I think it looks quite charming felted and it seems to work well too to keep the drinks cool.

I can't even remember what we had for lunch that day. I think we drove over to Panera an old standard. I do remember thinking my salad had been better the night before. I did eat my sour dough role at Panera though and it was WAY better than the bread the evening before.

Our afternoon class was on mitred knitting with Jane Slicer-Smith. Her book Swing, Swagger and Drape is very beautiful and full of A-line jackets and garments with wonderful mitred knits. Since I had already studied this technique with Horst Schulz, I was much more interested in her insights on designing with mitres.

She gave us help with learning how to reduce numbers of stitches in garments and also in ways to add structural elements in places where firmness is needed.

This jacket changes the number of stripes in the squares as one moves up the garment.

The color of this blue piece is rich and saturated.

We learned that we could also turn the garment and work squares the other direction.

This red piece for example, switches directions.

After class we were exhausted mentally, we decided (with much difficulty) to go eat at a Thai restaurant. I was so tired, I guess I forgot to take any pictures there. The food was decent and we tried a variety of things and even had left overs that we could eat for lunch the next day.

Thursday at Stitches Midwest 2011

2011-09-03T23:23:00.005-05:00

I had driven in on Wednesday, had a nice swim and a relaxed morning on Thursday, so I was ready for our first class on Thursday. Sister Sandy would come into Midway, so it was a race for her to get to class on time (which she didn't quite make.) She did manage to show up for class, but was exhausted. Our first class was Sneaky Short Rows with Gwen Bortner. For those considering the class, Gwen is a great teacher; very clear in her expression of things and straight forward. Here are a couple of our class mates:

This was the only class in which I actually finished the exercises (and of course I can't find my swatch at the minute, so a photo will come later. Here however is a nice photo of Gwen pulling out an example, while my sister examines her work.

We learned a variety of short-row techniques and instances where one might be better suited than another. In this garment you can hardly see where the short rows have been added.

After class we went back to the hotel before finding a restaurant. We had delicious salads at a place called Portillos.

The decor was old movie posters and eclectic stuff and the food was great.

My sister brought it over to the table. (I really like this picture of her!)

We had a marvelous dinner, but were both exhausted so when we finished eating we left the nostalgic decore and headed back to the hotel and to bed.

A Taste of things to Come

2011-08-29T21:52:00.005-05:00

I just got back from Stitches Midwest 2011 in Chicago. I'm exhausted so I can't blog about it now, but here is a sample of what I knitted:

Fascinating Fibonacci.

Miters by Design:

Road Trip

2011-08-24T21:59:00.004-05:00

Made it to Schaumburg and found my hotel. The Homewood Suites. It has a separate bedroom (Sorry about the shadow form the door.)

The sitting room is a bit dark and is dominated by the TV, but is tasteful and we have a great kitchen and bath (with a real bath tub!

Best of all, I got there in time for the welcome home reception: Buffalo wings and a great salad! They serve them here:

After dinner and a nice glass of Merlot, I went swimming in the outdoor pool and enjoyed the hot tub.

Now I'm rady for bed (except I've got knitting homework to do!!)

Vampire W(h)ine - On the Rack

2011-08-23T15:23:00.003-05:00

Okay - it is pinned out and will come with me to Chicago for Stitches Midwest. (Hope it dries in time!) Here are some pics!

Hi, Mom

2011-08-20T22:20:00.004-05:00

Thought you might want to see a recent picture!

We went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival today. I'm too tired to post really, but here is a cool steampunk-like necklace that I acquired (and at a very reasonable price wiht the earrings, I might add.) Here's a close-up:

Keeping Up with Arbogast

2011-08-13T12:22:00.004-05:00

My Mom must like the bulldog, cause she has indicated that she hasn't seen any pictures of her on the blog lately. Of course that isn't quite true! Less than three weeks ago there was this picture of her protecting us from the green menace! Nonetheless, I thought I'd update on how us old timers are doing since the arrival of the ghastly Arbo.

Of course our older cat has had some difficulties adapting to this new energy ball. (The shelter had called him Spitfire if that's any indication!) Little guy adores her and just can't understand that she does not want to play EVER!

There has been a bit of hissing, and avoidance behavior, but they seem to be getting along just a bit better.

All us older citizens are having a hard time keeping up with Arbogast. His tendency to ambush us from behind curtains or body slam us when we are least expecting it, keeps us on our toes and after a few short hours this is what the household looks like on an average playday with Arbogast.

Copper has to protect the most important toys from kitty predation. The bottom of my contact lense case disappeared from the bath tub (without a trace) My hair brush is currently seeking asylum under the living room couch after being chased down the hall and across the dining room!

Of course Aimee feels completely neglected, if not exhausted from all the guerilla warfare being practiced around the house.

She's asleep on the couch right now next to Copper. (I think trying to blend in with the blanket in the hopes of getting a little rest before the next onslaught.)

We love our new little kitten, we really do, but this is how we have all decided we like him best.

Shawl Update

2011-08-10T00:11:00.008-05:00

Just a quick update. I'd lost my (photo) card reader, so I haven't posted for a while! It doesn't matter though, I've mostly been working on the edging of the shawl. I have not pinned it out, so you can't see the points on the edging at all, but still one can get an idea of what it is going to look like.

You can see that at least one member of the family likes it. I am 11/16 of the way around and racing to get it done in time for Stitches Midwest at the end of the month. (I'm also really not looking forward to dressing it- There are hundreds of points on that edging and every single one will need a pin! I may have to do it in sections!

Oh and what the heck is this? I was digging in my garden and I unearthed this: about 2 inches by one inch and scary because it squirmed!

I'm guessing maybe it is a Cicada pupa because of the green, but the internet seems to suggest it's a moth. This one's a gypsy moth. So maybe mine's a luna moth. I couldn't find anything quite like it on the net.

So what would you do with something like that? Me, I buried it again. I didn't know what else to do with it.

If I recast Gone With the Wind Today...

2011-07-29T12:47:00.007-05:00

Gone With the Wind is often mentioned as one of the top movies ever made. Obviously this kind of film shouldn't be "messed with", HOWEVER,.... (grin!) on one of my social network groups someone posed the question, if you recast Gone With the Wind, whom would you cast?

This got me to thinking. Who could forget all the buzz about casting Scarlett the first time? Bette Davis (one of the front runners and someone who desperately wanted the role) would have made a great Scarlett O'Hara, but a very different one from the one we got of course. She made a terrific Jezebel.

Naturally, I just adore Vivien Leigh's Scarlett, and truly have difficulty imagining any one else for the role.

Since the original cast was so good, I decided to change the question to - if we were casting Gone With the Wind with living stars who would we cast, (because I don't think anyone will ever be as good as the actors chosen by Selznick.) My cast turns out to be mostly a 1980s-1990s production - since most of the stars I decided on are now too old for the roles.

For Rhett Butler, I think Val Kilmer would have done a fantastic. He has that sneer of cold command and his Doc Holiday shows he can fit the period well. George Clooney could also probably carry it off nicely. He certainly has the looks and the heart throb factor.
We all know that the role of Scarlett O'Hara is THE pivotal role. I don't know if she could have handled the accent, but I think Demi Moore has that same dark-eyed willful quality that Vivien Leigh emoted so well.

For Mammy, Queen Latifah could do a super job. Obviously we would want to update the film to be less racist and give more space and dimension to the African American characters.

Ashley Wilkes would be portrayed in my version by James Spader. He would have been fabulous, especially in his younger glam days.

Then there is Melanie Hamilton. I hated sickly sweet, generous, kind Melanie! Kate Winslett could have done it, but I think I gravitate towards Lili Taylor. Her role in Six Feet Under shows she can do that meek and kind type, although I prefer seeing her in roles with a little more umph. Her Valerie Solanas is one of the all time great performances in a film!

You'll probably laugh at this, but I bet Winona Ryder could do a great Belle Watling, She has the maturity and sex-appeal. You just feel like she has seen the seamy side and still has a heart of gold! Julianne Moore could akso do it and play a very complex and interesting Melanie, I bet!!)

Robert De Niro would be a great Gerald O'Hara. (I wonder if he can do an Irish accent.) Any movie I cast would have to have Steve Buscemi in it too - I had to think about this a bit, but definitiely could see him doing the wicked overseer Jonas Wilkerson, that everyone loves to hate. Of course we would have to be sure and kill him off, since it seems to be a requirement that Buscemi dies in 80% of his films.

Here's the old cast:

and here's a modified version instead with Spader, Kilmer and Staite (from my younger cast below).

If I were casting it with today's young crop then. I'd use James Ford (Sawyer from Lost) as Rhett, Mila Kunis (from The Black Swan and That 70s show) for Scarlett (or maybe Eliza Dushku), Queen Latifah would still be a great Mammy, and Ashley would have to be portrayed by someone like Stephen Moyer (the kindly vampire Bill from True Blood). Belle would be done well by Morena Baccarin (from V). I can envision Claire Danes or Maybe Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Firefly) playing unalterably saccharine Melanie.

Somehow Ford just doesn't have that Butler look when you try to put him in period costume. Here he is with Kunis in the big kiss scene:

How do you feel about Clooney and Moore?

Yeah, a classic is such for a reason!

Green Invaders

2011-07-28T22:46:00.005-05:00

I guess there have been some little green alien visitors around of late.
No, not these:

Surely you've seen the youtube video of the kitten and the green invaders.

http://youtu.be/8-1F-CokXNU

Well, we were visited by the same dangerous greenies.

Somehow they just don't seem that threatening though.

There's a New Kid In Town!

2011-07-09T19:50:00.004-05:00

Well, this has certainly been the Summer of Extreme Indulgence, the heating system (okay, we haven't actually got it yet), the China Hutch and now Arbogast.

We went to the local animal shelter (I'd been waiting on edge for more than a week for them to release him from the stray cat room. This morning when I checked he was still there and then in the afternoon they'd moved him to adoptable status. I had to race over so that I could grab him before some one else did. Since he is a stray he is a little bit feral and we are working on making him more social with humans.

Of course as proud new parents there are a few baby pictures to come. You can stop looking now if you want!

He hasn't quite figured about clay cat litter yet!

Yup, he's been fixed, but he's missing something besides his testicles.

....nonetheless, he's a real MANx.

The spousal unit doesn't like the name. (Go figure!) Last time we got an animal (Aimee) I had dozens of names, all male in mind. Now I wish I could remember some of them. As I recall they were things like Hezekiah and Raskolnikov. Maybe that makes Arbogast sound like a real wise choice.

A Real Life

2011-07-05T21:59:00.005-05:00

I thought I would live in a house with College student furnishings for the rest of my life! Having been in the work force for more than 20 years now, I still somehow did not manage to acquire a real, solid piece of furniture .... Yes, we have a few cheap Swedish units and of course those immortal bricks and boards and I know most of our money has gone towards books, and traveling and well, .... ahem .... art supplies like paints, canvas, looms and (sigh) wool, .....NONETHELESS, I had still always hoped to have a prized piece of something that might be glimpsed in House Beautiful.

Okay, so spousal unit D and I decided a few weeks ago to splurge on a single beautiful furnitura objet. We went to the furniture store, (in fact we went to a lot of them) and examined one piece after another. After much cogitation we settled on a unit and then spent hours pouring over dozens of wood samples to decide just precisely what stain color would match all the mismatched pieces in our living/dining area. After much anxious discussion, we placed our order and settled in to wait for our special piece that would be made just for us and just for our Richard Bresnahan ceramic tea pots.

Well, today was the day! A gigantic truck backed up our football field long drive-way and two delivery men brought in our new piece. I'm sad to say, that I am moronically ecstatic!! With no difficulty I can imagine that my room is now one of that type that could easily appear in one of those stylish coffee table magazines.... at least I can do this if I choose a particular angle, move a few things around so no one sees my extension cords and three weeks of mail piled on the bookcase and if I shoot carefully and at a downward angle while perched on the coffee table leaning slightly onto the chair. I know I should seek satisfaction in things that are not material (and I will,) but for the moment, I am deliriously happy about having one single pristine piece of genuine furniture!

So now I'm looking at that bookcase. Don' you think it would look better in a Chadd's Ford Cherry or maybe Heritage Mahogany? Do you think they make it in Mid-century Modern?

Response to Farewell to Paleo

2011-07-03T13:11:00.003-05:00

Recently Don Matesz on his Blog "Primal Wisdom" announced a major change in his dietary philosphy in a post entitled, "A Farewell to Paleo". There was quite a response from his followers and from disemblers and it really got me to thinking.

The comments (some of them pretty harsh) reminded me that I had been mulling over a post anyway about self-righteousness. When people become converted from one life style to another they frequently repent of their past and at the same time become very judgmental. I am always more than a little concerned when we low-carbers complain about how we were duped by self-righteous scientists who "knew" (believed) they had found the truth (that fat is bad for us) and then we go on to become equally self-righteous about our own ideas of health. While Gary Taubes raises very good and (I believe) scientifically better-backed points, I think we should be wary of proclaiming we know the answers and pronouncing it sad that others are so deluded. A food nazi is a food nazi is a food nazi, to modify Gertrude Stein.

It is quite likely that people with different genetic backgrounds do better on different diets and thus there may not be one specific diet that is better than another. I tend to side with the common human physiology group that thinks there must be a general better way, but some of us have deficient genes and allergies and we don't process things as well as others. For this reason, I think it is a mistake to get on our high horses and to decry the lifestyles of vegans, high carb dieters, Zone enthusiasts, cannibals, you name it, etc. (Okay, well maybe cannibals! wink!)

First, we have to publicly admit, that the science in favor of low carb that Gary Taubes looks at isn't definitive - it may be, for example, that there are levels or types of carbs (or proteins or fats) that are processed in other ways than we currently understand and it could be, we simply don't
know how to distinguish them yet. There are many, many variables and we may not have stumbled on the correct combinations yet.

Mataez writes in his blog that despite having written a book in support of the paleo diet and having followed the life style for some 14 years, he can no longer do so. I would like to look at Matesz' points briefly one at a time because they relate to some questions I have been having about Low Carb. (Why it seems to stop working for some people, Why thyroids seem to become a
problem for some people, Whether allergies and mucous are related to a low carb diet, etc.)

Mr. Matesz' intro states:
I have endured increasing cognitive dissonance because the currently popular concept of paleo diet—animal-based, relatively high in protein and fat and relatively low in carbohydrate—
conflicts with empirical nutrition knowledge accumulated over the course of 5 thousand years in both Asian and Western medicine, including a rather large body of clinical and laboratory data
accumulated since the 19th century, all pointing toward humans being more adapted to a plant-dominated, high-carbohydrate diet supplying significantly less than 30% of energy from fat.

I've decided I don't think this is strictly true. For Asian Medicine, it may be
so, (and I will confess to being underinformed) but as we know from Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, bad Calories (in which he looks carefully (one might even say obsessively) at the research on weight loss, medicine of the 19th (and early 20th) century suggested that carbs were not good for us and that to lose weight we should stop eating potatoes, bread, rice, (starches and
sugars). Recent research also seems to suggest that carbs and sugars are also a problem, it is only a brief period in the middle of the 20th century when experts claim that a low fat diet is. (See Taubes, Chapters 2 and 3 particularly)

Matesz relates a list of ailments that have "returned" after a long period of paleo dining.

1. Dry skin/skin lesions
2. Return of Allergies/sinus/mucous
3. Abdominal distress
4. Irregular bowel movements/constipation (supposedly from lack of
fiber)
5. Lipomas
6. Muscular stiffness/cramps
7. Anxiety Attacks
8. Chronic tension in the shoulders and neck.

He also chronicles problems experienced by his wife (Tracy ):
t1. Progressive weight gain
t2. Headaches and Tension
t3. Mitochondrial discomfort
t4. Constipation
t5. Fatigue
t6. Breast tenderness (premenstrual)
t7. Hot flashes/night sweats
t8. Bloating (a sign he claims of fat intolerance).

Both have changed their tune about the health benefits of the paleo diet. Tracy notes on one Paleo website, that "I've been transitionting into a full Paleo 'Cave Girl' since meeting Don last spring, and have greatly improved my health, especially extreme blood sugar swings. As a holistic healing practitioner, this diet is the foundation for lasting health!"

I think several very interesting and important issues are raised and I'd like to discuss them in terms of the aforementioned symptoms..

1. Dry skin is generally something that people say improves with addition of fat to the diet and reduction of carbs. (The Eades for example take up the issue of less dryness and improved skin in their book Protein Power). Often dry skin is also frequently associated with an under-active
thyroid something that has been associated with low carbing for some people. (It is difficult to know whether the low carb diet reveals the pre-existing condition or whether it is connected. A reduction in calories can result in the thyroid supressing metabolic activity that also masks a s a thyroid condition and because of the interconnectedness of all hormones in the body, when you monkey with one (such as insulin) you will probably affect the others.) A second reason why people get dry skin is aging. This too relates to hormones, because we produce fewer sex
hormones (androgen and estrogen especially) and our skin gets drier. It may be that the dry and itchy skin is simply a result of aging.

2. Allergies / sinus / mucous - I am also having this problem and find this the most interesting aspect of the blog. I have been reading the Eades' work on Protein Power and note that they say that some people have reactions to the arachidonic acid in red meat and eggs, this
might relate to the problem Matesz mentions here.

3 & 4. I personally have never had this problem even when eating primarily meat - Both the Eades and Taubes cite the experiment of Vilhjahmur Stefansson and Karsten Anderson showing improvement in health on a diet of red meat alone. The Eades suggest that diarrhea is more likely issue, so I wonder if something else is going on. (see below) A commenter on the blog, Diana, claims to have almost died from doing zero carbs (eating absurd amounts of fat and protein only). One wonders, however, if she was getting sufficient protein to sustain her bodily functions and whether she also restricted food intake too severely or some other health issue at the time - it is impossible to know without further information.)

5. Lipomas - a commenter points out these are usually considered genetic and that noticing one 5 years after being on a particular diet and then that it has gone away 6 months later when a different diet is applied leaves room for a lot of other variables to play a role - I just don't know about this one.

6. Muscular stiffness (also I'll include here all of Tracy's symptoms (except Mitochondrial discomfort which I don't know what to make of either since as someone points out Mitochondrial discomfort is not something that one is generally able to "feel")). What does one make of muscle stiffness as a symptom? I certainly experienced it and night cramps. A commenter on Mataesz' blog notes that aging causes increased stiffness in the muscles. Matesz tells us he is in the second half of his 50s and although there is no age listed for his wife, I believe from looking at her picture that she may be of a similar, if perhaps slightly younger age. I am not trying to make this personal, but it suggests to me that Tracy is probably facing menopause. There is no doubt that hormonal interactions are very complicated and that carbs affect insulin production and insulin production affects other hormones and vice versa. If one hormone changes then all the other hormone amounts and production can be modified by the body. I learned this when hitting menopause and doing low carb at the same time. Personally (and anecdotal evidence is not scientific, but it MAY be instructive), I discovered that taking magnesium supplements relieved me of night time muscle cramps and stiff muscles in the morning. The Eades also speak of potassium deficiencies as a common occurrence for
low carbers (especially at the beginning). This begs the question of whether something about a low carb diet is insufficient (because of the insufficiency of these minerals). As far as the menopause symptoms (and even the dry skin mentioned above which for women is
also a symptom of menopause) I hardly think that low carbing should be blamed for this. In fact most of the women I know who have horrible symptoms, have improved greatly when moving from a high carb diet to a low carb one. When I got replacement hormone (testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone) therapy, my thyroid problems cleared up completely and I am no longer having thyroid problems on a low carb diet. (YMMV.) Too severe a reduction in food amounts can cause the thyroid to suppress the metabolism, but it is unclear if there is serious damage at stake here as a result of low-carb diets, so I think we need more information.

7-8. Anxiety attacks, chronic tension (also Tracy's t2) - Hmm,.... I
wonder if this isn't part of the problem - it sounds to me like Mr. Matesz is having tension/stress issues aside from diet (I guess this could be caused by the cognitive dissonance he mentions above, but more likely this seems like it is external to his diet.) Maybe not, though - I do know many people who claim to have less night anxiety after moving to low carb, so it seems like it could be a result of allergies or a sensitivity to arachidonic acid mentioned by the Eades (p 97 Protein Power). Many of the symptoms that Matesz mentions are listed by the Eades here as a problem for individuals sensitive to arachidonic acid. "If you suffer from elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, marked fluid retention, or inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, bursitis, asthma, allergies or skin rashes, you may want to limit your intake of red meat and egg yolk somewhat." Thus many of Matesz' symptoms could be clarified, the allergies, the bowel issues (Increased water retention might explain constipation (not enough water for flushing the colon,)) and the skin issues. Of course things may not be that simple since as far as I can tell, arachidonic acid is manufactured by the body and almost all forms of animal protein contain it. Seafood evidently tends to have less and thus Mr. Matesz' improvement by going to a more seafood based and reduced protein diet would make sense and would support a move away from the Paleo diet (maybe for everyone, but especially for individuals that are sensitive to arachidonic acid).

Anyway - for me the bottom line is that most of Mr. Matesz' evidence is anecdotal and does not have enough isolation of variables to indicate that the low carb diet is the actual problem. He bases some of his argument on Paleo's inconsistency with Traditional Chinese Medical tenets. I have respect for Traditional Chinese Medicine, but so far it has not been helpful tome in terms of weight loss and insulin regulation. Without controlled research studies to support Matesz' viewpoint, I will wait to act.

Here are some interesting aspects that I have taken from Don Mataesz' blog:

1. I was very interested by what some commenters wrote about gluten grains versus other carbohydrates and will watch to see if there is any important distinction to be made there in terms of blood sugar and insulin response.

2. As noted above I am curious as to whether certain mineral imbalances are inherently a problem with this diet (magnesium and potassium in particular).*

3. I also found the comments about Ötzi the alpine Neolithic man who had evidence of milled grain in his colon interesting, because it undermines part of the argument about paleolithic diet and how long we have been adjusting to digestion of grains. I suspect that a certain amount of grain carbs is actually okay as long as one hasn't damaged the system by repeated excessive carb input. Probably Cut the Carb's Hans Keer's 15-30 % carbs in the diet is not unreasonable given a healthy digestive and circulatory system (?)

In the mean time, I do not belong to that healthy group, so I am remaining very low carb. I am currently losing weight and will stick with the very low carb program.

*I may have found an answer to the question of magnesium deficiency - Dr. Eades just addressed it on a recent blog post. He suspects that our filtered and treated water has far less magnesium (and other minerals) than we would be drinking if we got our water from nature.

Stuck On a Desert Island with Whom?

2011-07-02T19:22:00.008-05:00

So I was catching up on my radio podcasts from MPR and one of the episodes that caught my eye was called, "Who is your favorite Literary character?" Okay, yes, well, that's hard because I have so many, Harry Haller, Josef K., Sherlock Holmes, Edward Rochester, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Maud Bailey, or even Esther Summerson from Bleak House, but then it turns out the topic is a bit trickier. The show focuses on that old desert island ploy - and asks, "With which literary figure would you like to be stuck on a desert island?"

That is such a different question! I love all the characters above, but could you stand to be on an island with any of them? I mean, those dark, brooding Byronic men - they are delicious, but it would get old really fast to have them constantly smoking opium and singing paens to the daemon muse. That pretty much cuts out all the vampires of current pulp fiction and all my favorite German characters.

What a delightful party to have Harry Haller (the depressed Steppenwolf), Josef K. (the accused from the Trial) and Leo Naphta together at your island dinner party. The conversation might go something like this:

Me: Well did anything exciting happen today?
Harry Haller: The day went by just as days go by. I killed it in accordance with my primitive and withdrawn way of life.
Me: That's so exciting, Harry...
Josef K.: I was just thinking I should take over my own legal defense...
Mr. Darcy: Really, Josef, I am SO tired of your obsession with your trial! I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself.
Leo Naphta: And you, Fitzwilliam leave this bourgeois drivel, ... a sign of cowardice and vulgar effeminacy, the end product of civilizaton...
Maud Bailey: So, what, we're friends now, is that it? I know this is an awfully repressed sort of English thing to say, but what the hell ...?
Edward Rochester sits there brooding silently.
Harry Haller: You are all making me long for my fiftieth birthday when I will kill myself...

Harry Haller

No, these are not the types of people I would like to be stuck on an island with (no matter how much I love to read and reread their stories.) And although Sherlock Holmes is brilliant, he'd become tiresome so very quickly! No Dr. Watson I!

Forget the Shakespeare characters - would you really want to spend months (or even hours) with Hamlet, King Lear or Richard the III?

I love the Jane Austen heroines, but Emma would get really annoying fast (She'd probably try to set up Esther Summerson and Mr. Darcy and all that shyness of Esther would really grate on the nerves too! And would Elizabeth Bennett really be a good companion?

Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Effi Briest, Hedda Gabler, and even Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov don't seem like very sanguine conversationalists - no I think one would have to find characters from a comedy to spend lengthy amounts of time with.

I was thinking Robinson Crusoe might be a really fascinating person to spend some time with (plus with all that island experience, I bet he could be really useful around the hut.) But when push comes to shove I decided that the most entertaining and fun person to hang around with would be Lord Illingworth from Oscar Wilde. He is a mature man in his forties and not so idealistic and silly as Jack Worthington, nor as Foppish as Algernon Montcrief. He would be entertaining and adult, a fascinating conversationalist and wit and dinners on the island would be a delight. As he remarks in A Woman of No Importance, "A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world." (Or at least keep one amused on a desert island!)

The Kitty I Want

2011-06-30T21:29:00.002-05:00

Here's a picture of a stray kitty that I decided I want to adopt yet.

Co-op Fund-Raiser

2011-06-27T22:29:00.007-05:00

Our Fund-raiser was a nice little, intimate affair. The board arrived early for the preparations.

We set up the carrotometer with our sign of appreciation.

We had everything: fresh local cheese.....

We had live jazz music....

... and a sommelier, who served some interesting wines and trained us to know how to appreciate them.
And of course what would a fancy fund-raiser be without a chocolate fountain and fresh strawberries from local farms?

Here's a closer view.

The Sommelier trained us to look for hints of grapefruit or berries as we sampled a variety of wines from Chardonnay to a Cabernet Sauvignon.

We were honored to have representatives from College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University and we used this occasion to try and let them know how grateful we are to them for their help in getting started.

It was great to see people enjoying the art!

And of course there were some speeches of support and thanks along with the celebration!

So now it is just a question of getting everything ready for the opening in one short week!

Pictures For the Co-op

2011-06-27T21:56:00.003-05:00

So here is a better view of the finished carrotometer.

I spent the morning getting it to the co-op (and then repairing it, because the carrot fell off in transit.) Then I hung paintings. Since our co-op aims to be one fo the first art and food co-ops in Minnesota we needed art, so I basically grabbed everything I could off my home's walls so that we would have a little color for our upcoming Fund-raiser. I don't have that much framed art of my own, so I grabbed anything that didn't have dead bodies and guns and ended up with four paintings. The spindles, and three Afghani war paintings, the jeep in the bombed area, the bicycle and the young Afghani girl. (You can click on the images to see the pictures better.)

Of course the nicer art was that by my Mom. Here style is defined and her technique is crisp and attractive. Below are three paintings, "Saying Goodbye" what I called "Blue Fantasy" (originally just titled "Blue" and one I call "Blue Tango".

The next pictures go so well with the green walls and wood of the co-op decor! (Although the image does not do this synergy justice.) These are "Family Outing," "The Airplane Plant," and "Departure for College."

"Flight of the Spirit" below was hung on the front wall and it looks perfect there. This one I had to reframe because it was coming out of its old frame and it now looks really good with its new mat board and thicker frame.

Next up some photos from our Fund-raiser

Almost Done! Yay!

2011-06-26T19:40:00.003-05:00

Here are a few images with the current fund level marked. I will put a thin black line on it tomorrow after the orange paint dries (and try to get a picture of it upright in all its glory (cough!))

Update on Nebraska Nuclear Plant Problems

2011-06-26T10:58:00.006-05:00

(Above image from 21stcenturywire)

Well, you may remember my blog post on the Fort Calhoun Nuclear plant emergency (here). It seems things are not looking better and there is NO national news coverage of impending potentially very dangerous events. According to Globalresearch.ca A second nuclear plant in Nebraska (the Cooper Nuclear facility) may also experience additional flooding and is already unable to expel sludge because of the rising Missouri River (and more flooding is expected) so its sludge pool has already been "overtopped."

Omaha Public Power District reports there is nothing to worry about, maintaining:

June 23, 2011

Rising water from the Missouri River has begun flowing into a sewage lagoon at Fort Calhoun Station. A partial bypass was recently put in place to divert water that had leaked into a sanitary wastewater lift station, allowing the continuation of most of the flow to the sanitary lagoons. The water overtopping the sewage lagoon this week will be considered a continuation of the previous bypass issue by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.

The NRC notes,
"RELEASE OF OIL TO THE MISSOURI RIVER

Notification is being made to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality regarding the release of oil to the Missouri River from the Cooper Live Fire Training Facility. Currently, levees separating the Training Facility and the Missouri River are being over topped due to flooding of the Missouri River. This condition has resulted in flooding of the burn pits in the fire training facility, with the subsequent release of the residue which includes unburned fuel oil. Any release of this water containing oil to the Missouri River is uncontrolled at this time. Then is no radiological contamination in this area.

Current river level is approximately 900.5 ft. MSL, approximately 3.0 feet below plant grade elevation. The fire training area is lower than plant grade. A press release is not planned at this time. River level is currently projected to be 899 ft. by Wednesday 6/22."

These optimistic opinions are not shared by everyone, however. Tom Burnett on The People's Voice website reports, "“Ft. Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storage facility for the entire state of Nebraska…and maybe for more than one state. Calhoun stores its spent fuel in ground-level pools which are underwater anyway – but they are open at the top. When the Missouri river pours in there, it’s going to make Fukushima look like an X-Ray.”

For more very interesting information please see Patrick Henningsen's article, "Why is there a Media Black Out on Nuclear Incident at Fort Calhoun."

Veg(e)ing Out

2011-06-25T22:28:00.007-05:00

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a......

Yup,... it's a giant 8 foot tall carrot! So let me try and explain this one!

Oh, yeah, this is SO what I spent hour after hour in college learning art for! Large vegetables! As you may remember, we are trying to start a Co-op in our little hamlet here in central rural Minnesota, so we are having a Cocktail/(Beg for Money) Affair on Monday preceding our opening on Friday. A few weeks ago I got persuaded to do invitations with little watercolor carrots on them, so I obediently provided 35 little carroty note cards. We were going for simple and elegant (and cheap of course).

So now, somehow I have become the go to girl for carrots. This week, I was asked to do a sign, as well as to paint and letter the carrotometer (above) that we will fill out as we get donations.

Alas, it has been too many years since that calligraphy class in the 70s. The sign is not as good as I had hoped. Here's what I ended up with (bad spacing and all.) I guess it gets the job done, but there is no hope for either simple or elegant there!

And while we are on the topic of food - here is a really good sashimi salad that I made last night. Now that is art! (wink!)

Edging for Shawl

2011-06-25T13:01:00.004-05:00

I'm definitely not happy with this edging - nor with the beads. I'm considering ripping the whole thing out and starting over. I'm doing far more repeats per section than I should be doing according to the pattern, ( I think I should be skipping every other stitch when attaching, but I'm not sure the edging would take that much stretching.) The beads are BORING too just in a basic row. I've done a good 8 hours of work on this much of the edging but if I can stretch it out twice as far (by starting over, then it would be worth ripping out), since I will take a lot less knitting (but then it might look too stretched out for the shawl.)

Here is a closer view, but unless you click on the image to enlarge it, you can't really see the beads in the photo. I hate the outer edge (that I redesigned) too - It looks sloppy - I may need to take a break from this project and reevaluate it later - I'm not sure I have a level perspective at the moment.

On the Edge

2011-06-22T23:01:00.003-05:00

Okay, the shawl is in stasis right now because the designer decided to give it the edging from hell. Okay, maybe it's not that bad and I should not have bound off before doing the edging, but I'm just not used to having to think backwards when I'm reading the purl row of a pattern. The first attempt seemed too large, so I went down a needle size, but of course now it isn't repeating at the same interval as the motives in the original pattern which means even more fiddly repeats if I continue with this edging. Here is what it looks like thus far:

You can really see how very little I've gotten in my two days of struggling with the pattern. I'm sure it will get esier, but it isn't the kind of pattern you can easily memorize and the numbers of stitches changes with each row, so it is also hard to check for mistakes.

If worse comes to worse I'll rip this back and just crochet a simple chained edging or put on a much simpler knit one.

Homely Updates

2011-06-20T16:55:00.006-05:00

Okay, (she says sheepishly) ....so every so often (like most everybody) I let my materialistic desires get the best of me. When spousal unit D and I went looking for a cabinet for our exotic Japanese style tea pots, I just happened to see this rug hanging in the clearance section. It had been discontinued and honestly I believe it had been discontinued so long ago, that they had given up on ever selling it. The tag hung there almost desperately. There were numerous indications of price reductions done in that peculiar way where there is a sum and then a line drawn through it to indicate a major price drop. The first crossed out number was followed by yet another with a line through it and then yet another and another. At the bottom there was nothing below the last crossed out number. Now you might wonder what kind of rug is so ugly that no one would want to buy it. Well, telling you that it is orange and blue might ease you into an understanding and adding that it also has yellow, green, purple and black in semi-psychadelic geometric shapes will drive the comprehension home. And yes, nonetheless, something about this rabidly colorful, noticeably out of style rug called to me and I knew right then and there, I had to have it!

In a way it has transformed our living room( and I think not in an altogether bad way). In fact, I am quite enjoying the additional color. So without further ado, I introduce the recently acquired rug in its new home:

And as far as the most recent knitting project, I'm binding off and am less than halfway around (and there is an edging still to be knitted and attached, so there will be no new project for awhile.)

Review: HMS Pinafore at the Guthrie

2011-06-20T10:18:00.013-05:00

Before I comment on the play, I want to express my strong feelings that the Guthrie is an outstanding institution and that we in Minnesota are extremely fortunate to have such a fine theater and hence should do everything we can to support it. If you are not someone who tithes to your favorite religious organization (and even if you are!), then perhaps you would consider tithing to the arts. The arts contribute to public discussions of ideas, personal edification, and they build community. I can recommend any play at the Guthrie as time well spent, whether it has a few rough edges or is an incomparable masterpiece, in any case it will be time well spent.

Review: HMS Pinafore at the Guthrie

My second proviso is that I attend the preview performances. This means the version of the play that I see is incomplete, because adjustments are made after the director has a chance to see how the performance plays before an audience. Plays rarely get worse after previews, so assume that many of my dissatisfactions will have been eradicated by the time the production is ready for prime time.

All that being said, I had a marvelous time at the Saturday, June 18th production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore. It is a thoroughly silly play and those that brook no infantility would probably not enjoy it, but if you can enter into the production in the spirit it is given, it is a marvelous whirl through an imaginary Victorian kingdom of manly men, miserable matrons, high-minded maidens and merry mix-ups.

Crew rehearsing

At present the production's quality is mixed, some of the musical numbers were still a bit rough while others were joyous and well put together. Peter Thomson's "When I was a Lad" was marvelous, assisted with perfection by "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts". The big tap number near the end is alas, not the stunner that it should be. The choreography there is uninspired and some of the tapping (especially early on in the number) is sloppy and at best tepid. Nonetheless what is missing in accuracy is overcome by personal enthusiasm, and the wanton silliness of the final number with its over-the-top joyousness compensates for the more minor problems. And the tango with Buttercup and Captain Corcoran is wonderful recompense, giving us lovely moves and sterling execution.

The music also bothered me a bit. There was a tendency by the nine piece orchestra to modernize the music somewhat providing a loose swing quality that had the same effect on me as muzak. This may be my own little foible, but I much prefer the crisper old-fashioned versions of the songs. This problem was amplified (literally) by the fact that the band often overwhelmed the singers. We do want rousing music, but it should still be crisp, and the singers should be hearable above the jubilation, especially since the lyrics are so deliciously clever. The audience needs to know that the only ship that the Right Honorable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B had ever known before his appointment as "ruler of the Queen's Navee" was a partnerSHIP in a law firm. No doubt the volume will be well under control by next week's opening night.

I also have to rave (but with appropriate propriety of course) about the costumes. Fabio Toblini made the production positively shine with his clothing and fabric choices. The navy is suitably nautical and the Right Honorable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B is exactly how I imagined him complete with Victorian hat of the admiralty and sumptuous paunch. Buttercup is redolently sleazy in her decolletage and red skirts appropriately tucked up to reveal her super-sensual striped green and black stockings. Best of all were the glittering costumes of the sisters and the cousins and the aunts in shiny satins and with the most luxurious meldings of colors. There is one particular purple, fuchsia and tan dress that gave me goosebumps it was so delectable!

The acting is also uneven, occasionally overstepping the bounds of broad satire into excessive camp, but the two primary actors of the play are the very model of perfection, knowing exactly when to hold back and also when to milk a silly line for everything it is worth. Christina Baldwin positively glows in her performance of poor little Buttercup, the bumboat gal who has an unfortunate and mysterious past. No little maid from school is she - she positively oozes sexuality and experience. Equal to her excellence is her requited, but unavailable love interest played by Robert O. Berdahl (who rocked in an earlier production of The 39 Steps.) His Captain Corcoran is a delicious presentation of a pretentious British Captain. He knows precisely how long to draw out his vowels to offer us the height of British upper class pretension. It is a pleasure to listen to (as well as watch) his puffed up Corcoran as he boasts about his perfect (well, almost perfect) comportment.

Brigitte Norby's publicity photo of Dowling, Baldwin and Berdahl

Just look at the range of foppish pomposity that Berdahl is able to show over the course of just a few minutes in his song about being Captain of the Pinafore (and its even better in his giant nautical mustache!):

The supporting cast is great and the sailors do a good job. Jason Simon is appropriately over the top with his Dick Deadeye and will help the children stay attentive when the song lyrics may be tad too clever for young imaginations.

It was also wonderful to see Barbara Bryne back in a role that she seems almost born to play - the "Very Special Visitor". Her diminutive height and ability to look sternly and thus appear to be six feet tall and in complete control, bring just the right air to this role of a woman who has had to forgo her desires for her duties.

Indeed one of the things that I enjoyed most about the play is that the women are shown to be far more intelligent than their male counterparts. While it is an outwardly silly play, the issue of class inequality is of significant importance and it seems that it is the women who not only suffer the most, but also ask what action can be taken to correct unfortunate situations. Josephine the Captain's daughter looks at the serious repercussions of giving up a well-to-do life to become the wife of a common tar and realizes that it would be nigh impossible to be happy on love alone, but also finds ways to elude the Right Honorable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. and use his own words against him in her suit to marry seaman Ralph Rackstraw. Seri Johnson's cousin Hebe also knows how to step in and take action and eventually is able to make her very distant cousin her own (and Hebe does the role to perfection!) ... And of course it is Buttercup (whose selfless willingness to reveal publicly her horrible error) that saves the day and eventually paves the way for her own and the Captain's happiness. From the beginning of the play we know that love can not level all classes, but by the end we understand that a smart woman can.

Christina Baldwin as Poor Little Buttercup

By the way, for those who wish to take me up on my recommendation to make a donation to the Guthrie, click the link here.

Or click to donate to the MIA or the Walker .

Don't forget the music scene you could contribute to the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra or the Minnesota Opera and there are so many others too.

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant DEclares Emergency*

2011-06-15T11:47:00.010-05:00

It's a small world. Here we are in the US thinking, well those kinds of things can happen in Japan and Chernobyl, but... Well we seem to have the potential for a similar kind of event happening right now in the middle of the U.S. The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant just outside of Omaha Nebraska had a little electrical fire that shut off pumps to the cooling pool for the spent fuel rods of its reactor. You can read about it here. Of course it has hardly been reported at all by the mainstream media. CNN had a tiny little blurb on it saying it was "under alert", that there was a fire and it was out in 40 minutes (It did not report that the pumps weren't working to cool the reactors during that time and that the area was inaccessible for several hours because of the gases from the fire extinguishing chemicals.) Back up pumps were evidently useable. NRC says they had a pump going again within 90 minutes and that it would take more than 80 hours for a state similar to Fukushima to be reached (but one wonders where the line to actual danger is since as we know Fukushima is a major disaster).and the reactor itself was down for maintenance and had not been brought back up because of potential flooding, but there is some concern that if any of numerous dams give way on the Mississippi due to flooding, a wave could come and cause the same kinds of problems seen at Fukushima. ProPublica notes that fire safety is a longtime issue at these plants as is the continual piling up of spent fuel rods. CNN and the rest of the Major Media for some strange reason does not mention any of this.

I know, I know, what are we going to do, with global warming and all our NEEDS for electricity in the modern world, we HAVE to use nuclear power, right? The oft quoted government verbiage is that we have reached a global consensus. Hmm tell that to Germany, a country that has decided to phase out nuclear power altogether. I guess we know what part of the globe has reached consensus.

The government itself seems to be of two minds, while Obama speechifies on increasing clean energy, he is also promoting the use of natural gas and to some extent nuclear energy. Funny because page 69 of this government document indicates that offshore wind production could produce more than enough energy to power the entire U.S. grid (not just the paltry 20% being provided by our 104 licensed reactors.

The document states, "The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) first estimated the offshore wind resources of the United States in 2003. These data, which were reported in several technical papers (see, for example, Musial and Butterfield 2004, 2005), demonstrated that the U.S. offshore wind energy resources were very large, with an estimated potential gross resource nearly equal to the total generating capacity of the national grid. These data were conservative because they did not include key areas such as Hawaii, the southeastern coast, or the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, they contained generalized assumptions about wind energy exclusions areas that were not fully developed. "

And think what this could save us in terms of protecting our national interests in oil production in the middle east. There are SO many unpublicized costs to nuclear energy, such as transportation and manufacturing of machinery and materials for building and running plants production, uranium mining, storage and of course the price of accidents.)

Just saying, it's a small world, but it seems like the answers are there for us if we really look and without the need to split atoms.

Note: I have changed the title of this post because the Omaha Public Power District website maintains there was never a level 4 Emergency. They do note that there was an Alert that is the second level of problem status (after initially registering a NOUE (Notification of Unusual Event) - According to NRC reports, this was reported as an emergency to the NRC (Event Number: 46929) a fact they neglect to mention in their section quelling "rumors". )

Dining Area

2011-06-05T21:59:00.002-05:00

Testing to see if this side board would look okay in our dining area. What do you think?

My Mural for the Co-op

2011-06-01T22:54:00.004-05:00

I was asked to do a picture of a food cooler for our "Meet the Manager" evening at the co-op. (I've been working with the board to try and get a food co-op in our area that will support local sustainable agriculture and foster community.) We had hoped to open today, but building inspections etc meant greater delays than we expected. We are planning on getting a produce cooler but have not yet managed to get it installed, so for the meet the manager evening, so since I arrived an hour early I was asked to draw one and hang my mural in the location where they hope to have the cooler. So here is my approximately 3 foot by 9 foot mural completed in just over an hour.

Blocking an old piece

2011-05-30T14:37:00.001-05:00

As I was looking for another ball of yarn for my shawl, I dug up this old piece that I had knitted from cat hair and silk. Alas, Deja is no longer with us, but it is nice to have a memory of her.

Off to Delaware

2011-05-27T15:53:00.011-05:00

It was a bit rainy our first day on the road, but the trip went well and we were able to drive into Ohio before stopping for the night. We found a great deal on a hotel and it was inexpensive but still had a pool, a whirlpool a refrigerator and everything one could want in a hotel room.

Our neighbor had an interesting car. Not only was it riddled with phony bullet holes, (paste on type ones) but it had a whole bunch of antennae!

The next day was short and except for a tiny bit of rain went well. We arrived in the late afternoon. The next day we met with Aunt Pauline at her beautiful house.

The decor was amazing and the setting also gorgeous. Aunt Pauline showed us around. Here she is on her back deck.

Aunt Pauline was a designer in New York and it showed in her home. She used to visit the theater quite a bit and she has decorated the bath room with the play bills she collected over the years. What a sentimental journey to go in and look at all the stars from Broadway. (Click on an image to enlarge and see some of the many famous people represented.)

It was great to see Katherine Hepburn, Zero Mostel, Ingrid Bergman, Barbra Streisand, Rosalind Russell and so many others that we have loved over the years.

We went to a delightful Asian Fusion restaurant called Nectar.

It had a lovely decor that featured a lot of Orange. It also had a huge screen with an image of Buddha above the bar.

This is a view from the opposite end of the room.

We had a marvelous time chatting with Aunt Pauline and a fantastic meal!

Update on the Pups

2011-05-13T22:38:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted an image of the pups lately. Aimee has been annoyingly playful (and demanding) but I still have to post this image where she is being completely angelic (because she is asleep!)

Knitting Beads

2011-05-13T22:20:00.001-05:00

So, I'm out of beads for my current shawl project and although more are on the way, for the moment I can't work on it, so I decided to play a bit with the beading technique I learned from Betsy Hershberg. Here are four new beads I have made.

I don't have any of the fancy tape yarn that she told us about, so I used some tape yarn I got from a grab bag/freebie. Unfortunately it is a bit too big to fit easily through my cheapo beads, so I am not willing to work any harder to make an additional red knitted bead. The beads are actually about the size shown. (My experiments with a smaller bead were disastrous.)

The gold ball is made with some gold colored crochet thread and gold beads. I put too many stitches on the needles for that one and it is lumpy and has a mobile skin. The green (moldy cheese) beads are made with some soy-silk tape that I got as a sample with my last yarn order. I just can't tell if these are the tackiest looking things I've ever seen or whether the right person can carry them off. (Maybe both are true!)

My Beautiful Flowers

2011-05-06T22:24:00.003-05:00

My sister sent me these beautiful roses for Woman's day. (Since neither of us have children, we don't celebrate mother's day. I have something in mind for her too, but so far have had difficulty finding what i am looking for!

Playing Around with Twined Knitting

2011-05-03T09:27:00.006-05:00

Okay, In the late evenings just before bed, I've been playing around a bit with the twined knitting technique that I learned in class. I didn't like the mistake in the middle of my reversible scarf . (You may remember it looked like this):

Well, I decided to rip it out. One of the problems that occurs with the twined back and forth knitting is a tendency to curl. L. Farson had added a knit/knit row every so often in one swatch that created a horizontal line across the pattern and it stopped the curling, but I wasn't crazy with the effect. decided to see what else could be done. Here is my first attempt - a completely reversible pattern that involves a kind of 4 stitch basket weave.

As you can see the two different sides look very similar (although the zigzags are straight on the back and vice versa).

I like the original effect better, but I have certainly learned something form trying this combinaton of stitches.

I also picked up a much finer yarn and decided to see what little tiny twined knitting would do. Using gosamer /fine lace weight on size 7 (!!!!) needles, I produced a pliable fabric that looks like this.

I reversed the wrapping midway through in the hopes that I would get a mirror image design. On the "front" it is barely noticeable. Halfway through I reversed all the wraps on the back to see how the pattern would change. On the reverse side you can notce just a bit that instead of dong a herring bone I now have columns of vertical hash marks that form diagonals across the fabric. It is very subtle, but it is there.

Here is a slightly larger view that shows the three different (barely) patterns. The bottom third is garter stitch for an edge, the next third has a herring bone effect and the last third has the diagonals.

Of course I've got some more ideas coming, so stay tuned!!

Plunder!

2011-05-01T20:46:00.006-05:00

Okay, here's what I scored at the Yarnover. (I tried to restrain myself, but I did do a little shopping!)

The first place I went had really cool jewelry. I was enthused. I only had 15 minutes to shop before my class, so I power shopped all this really great stuff!

I'm a pushover for fused glass. .. and look at these sweet earrings!

It turned out the artist lived in St. Cloud and is the wife of a colleague! Small world! After classes we had another 45 minutes of shopping time, so I raced through the crowded market and scored these adorable little wooden tops.

I looked at the woman who sold them to me and realized she was in my spinning guild (in St. Cloud!) I knew I'd better find some "foreigner" to spend money with or I would feel guilty for bothering to come! (Not really but it is a great excuse to spend money, right?)

I had noticed a gorgeous red yarn before my second class and decided if it were still there when I got through with my twined knitting I would go back and adopt it.

I was almost seduced by some bright green yarn instead, but the beauty of the red was too big a draw. My door prize was a couple of odd balls of yarn:

I think it was a pretty good haul!

The Dog Ate my Class work!!

2011-05-01T12:30:00.005-05:00

I'm pretty sure it was a conspiracy! I think the cat had something to do with it and the dog probably finished the deed! Last night when I went to bed, my class work from the Yarnover was safely on the table. My beautiful silver beads were nestled on their swatch, gleaming and looking beautiful. (see blog post below for image). This morning I got up to find this horror before my eyes!

Yup! That's my beautifully gleaming silver bead I did in class yesterday. Oh well!

Minneapolis Yarnover 2011

2011-05-01T11:08:00.012-05:00

Yesterday I got a chance to go to my first Yarnover event. I'd been considering gong for several years but the inertia of the end of the school year had always kicked in and made it difficult for me to seriously contemplate the 90 mile ride into the Big Cities. But my beloved teacher from the Craft Cruise, Lily Chin, was going to be there and suggested we do lunch, so I mustered up my energy, made the trip and even participated in a few classes. If you don't know Lily, she is probably the best knitting and crochet teacher out there. She is energetic and enthusiastic and you will learn so much form any class that you take with her. (Sign up if you have the opportunity!!)

We had a very pleasant lunch, chatted about the good old days, caught up a little on our sisters and their activities, chatted about upcoming craft cruises and everything fiber and cutting edge.

The Yarnover was a lovely event with lots of local Minnesota vendors and excitement. In many ways I liked the shopping better than at some of the bigger events because there were so many independent producers. There were lots of beautiful, one of a kind crafted items (stitch-markers, needles and home spun wools, for example) and it was pure delight to walk through the highschool commons area (where everything was set up) and inhale the colors, ideas and excitement. This woman was particularly welcoming.

Of course there were many celebrity knitters and designers teaching at the event and it was fun to walk around and see what and who was there. This attendee turned out to be quite popular.

I couldn't resist snapping a few images of the market and the wonderful people that one sees as they browse the booths.

I really wish I had had more time to shop, but the classes and the market conflicted with only a little time in between to look at the wide variety of merchandise.

If you are a knitter and have never come to Yarnover, then I highly recommend it. Of course if you like to shop, it could be detrimental to your "Pocket book" (A word they don't really use here in Minnesota. I wonder why.)

My classes were fun. (Short digression here). My sister and I try to arrange to go to Stitches Midwest whenever we can (as you may know if you read this blog regularly) and this year we arranged to take our classes together, but as we signed up the first class we agreed to do The Beaded Knitting Sampler with Betsy Hershberg, it turned out that the class was already full. So, when I saw Betsy was teaching at the Yarnover, I decided to sit in on her class there. I had visited her website before and decided that I was much more interested in the beaded knitting than the knitted beads, but I was curious about her techniques and regretted not getting into the class at Stitches Midwest, so I signed up anyway and am glad I did. Betsy is a delightful person and a good teacher, who explains her process well and is kind to the students that are struggling. She is somehow able to rein in the precocious and encourage those that tend to trail behind. I think we had all finished the two beads that were our goal for the end of the class. Here is Betsy in action.

She was wearing a lovely knit jacket with a drapey front. I don't know if she planned it to match her hair so nicely or not, but isn't she well "put together"?

The woman across from me in class turned out to be from St Cloud (and I would meet several people from out my direction throughout the day.)

The woman on the left was just delightful. We had a delicious chat about dogs and snowshoeing. (And look at her felted bag!)

Betsy's jewelry turned out (in my opinion) to be much more beautiful in real life than in the pictures I had seen on blogs. For this reason I am a little bit hesitant to show more images, because the fascinating qualities of the pieces just don't come through. (Also my auto focus was out of comission again - so sorry for the blurry images). Nonetheless, I do want to show some of the kinds of things that this creative woman makes.(She claims to be an active artist as opposed to a creative one, saying her sister calls her "concrete linear sequential" in her "creative" process. (Are you listening SLS? I think this may be the way you create too!!) )

The red and black necklace below uses a base of large mahogany beads.

Betsy was wearing these. I very much like the wavy line of smaller beads on the larger bead on the left.

This gorgeous piece used resin beads interspersed with some of Betsy's knitted beads. As you can see there are lots of possibilities with this technique.

My afternoon class was on reversible twined knitting with Laura Farson. Laura is such a gentle and kind person and another excellent teacher. To me this technique was really new. (I had done a little bit of playing with twined knitting after reading about it's rediscovery in one of my knitting magazines.)

She wasn't thrilled with me taking a picture of her with her glasses on, but doesn't she look adorable there - very teacherly. (And she is an excellent teacher. Not only did we learn reversible twined knitting, but she reviewed German twisted cast on and Elizabeth Zimerman's sewn cast off with us, for use with our scarf project. )

Here are some of our class member busily at work.

Laura has modified standard twined knitting in several ways including changing it form circular to back and forth (hence the possibility of reversibility.) Below are some of the stitch patterns that result from playing with the direction of the twining.

This was our class project - a reversible scarf in worsted weight yarn of two contrasting colors.

Below are some modified versions of the basic pattern.

And here is what I did! (I think I finally found a purpose for the free ORANGE yarn I got with my last order from DBNY !!) The front turns out like this with a slightly zigzagged pattern.

The back has a more exaggerated zigzag or herringbone effect.

If you are good at finding waldo, you willalso see my mistake where I started twisting the other direction!

Below you can see the beads from Betsy's class on top of my swatch from Laura's class.

Current Project

2011-04-27T22:25:00.003-05:00

I have all these swatches from classes I've taken on knitting! So since I'm too tired to work on my lace project, I decided to sew a few of them together. The colors are weird, but here is what I have in mind. I've been connecting the swatches with a royal blue and writing the names of my teachers near the appropriate swatch. As you can see only a few of the swatches are actually put together so far, but I laid out most of the pieces to see how they might look together.

Progress on the Vampire Shawl

2011-04-25T15:36:00.004-05:00

April 25 - About44-45" wide Middle of the ribbon

Dr. Michio Kaku on Nuclear Power in the U.S.

2011-04-23T09:57:00.004-05:00

Dr. Kaku is a nuclear physicist who studied under Edward Teller. He was interviewed by Amy Goodman about the Fukushima disaster, but also made the following interesting comments about the Indian Point nuclear plant north of New York City.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what do you think should happen? Do you think nuclear power plants should be built in this country?

DR. MICHIO KAKU: I think there should be a national debate, a national debate about a potential moratorium. The American people have not been given the full truth, because, for example, right north of New York City, roughly 30 miles north of where we are right now, we have the Indian Point nuclear power plant, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has now admitted that of all the reactors prone to earthquakes, the one right next to New York City is number one on that list. And the government itself, back in 1980, estimated that property damage would be on the order of about $200 billion in case of an accident, in 1980 dollars, at the Indian Point nuclear power station.

AMY GOODMAN: No private corporation could even build a nuclear power plant: you have to have the taxpayers footing the bill.

DR. MICHIO KAKU: You have to have what is called the Price-Anderson Act, having the United States government guarantee the insurance. Nobody will guarantee—nobody will sell an insurance policy for a nuclear power plant, because who can afford a $200 billion accident? That’s why the United States government has underwritten the insurance for every nuclear power plant. So the Price-Anderson Act is an act of Congress that mandates the U.S. government, the taxpayers, will underwrite the insurance, because nuclear power stations are not insurable.

From Democracy Now website

Low-Carb versus High-Carb Diet

2011-04-10T12:57:00.008-05:00

Some of you may know that I have been pursuing a very low carb diet for several years now. I don't share this too often, because the common wisdom is that low fat is healthy and high fat is not. I often get people proving to me that my diet is unhealthy, because in Japan and the Mediterranean they have a longer life span and the traditional Japanese diet is extremely high carb and low fat and of course Japan is considered one of the healthiest countries in the world. How can this be. I've decided to try and answer this question with some data to help explain what I think is happening.

Since I spend a lot of time in Japan, this is a question that plagues me and I will present here a combination of personal theories based on the work of ex-New York Times Science writer Gary Taubes in his two books Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat. Taubes, by the way is not some self-promoting diet Guru, but someone who spends a lot of time researching the actual studies that many fanciful theories have been based upon and debunking them.

I was asked recently whether all human bodies are basically the same (in terms of diet help) or whether there are body types that mean we are different and thus need to rely on different diets for staying and getting healthy.

Here is my response: In Why We Get Fat (pages 168-170 ) Taubes suggests that human bodies are all basically the same. Data show that people that migrate from one country to another take on the health issues associated with the diet of the country they move to. (For example, Japanese women have less breast cancer and alzheimers disease than when they emigrate to the US and begin to eat an American diet. African Americans have greater instances of heart disease etc. than people eating their native diets in Africa.)

So, if high carb diets are so unhealthy, then why didn't the Japanese have more health problems before they started adding in Western foods? One has to read between the lines to try and puzzle out an answer, but here is what I can say based on Taubes.

1. Taubes notes that the diet eaten by Sumo wrestlers to bulk up basically doubles the amount of carbohydrates in the typical Japanese diet. Top-tier wrestlers ate about 5500 calories (780 grams of carb, 100 grams of fat and 365 grams of protein) in their Chanko nabe (pork/vegetable stew with added rice (see image below)). The fatter, but less muscular second tier of Sumo wrestlers consumed 5120 calories, but ate 1000 grams of carbs, 50 grams of fat and 165 grams of protein. (Note that the heavier group ate fewer calories, so calories in/calories out is not the whole story!) The average Japanese diet according to The Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare (1972) was 359 grams of carbs, 50.1 grams of fat and 82.9 grams of protein. (pages 306-7 Good Calories, bad Calories). Taubes uses these data to show that increasing carbs can lead to pathological obesity. (One might add here that the average life span of a Sumo wrestler is 60-65 years more than 10 years less than the average Japanese citizen.)

2. Taubes also notes that in the 1870s when the Japanese switched over to eating (polished) white rice rather than brown - they had outbreaks of beriberi in the Japanese navy. This was cured by replacing the white rice with barley (less refined food) and adding into the diet meat and evaporated milk. (page 321 GCBC). Thus even though we think of the Japanese as eating lots of rice. This is a relatively new development and most Japanese carbs were originally unrefined and found in vegetables. Even now, rice is eaten at the end of the meal as a kind of dessert (for the most part) and not in huge quantities.

3. Taubes points out on page 211 of GCBC that the Japanese eat considerably less sugar than other nations (traditionally) (Along with Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal and Italy).

4. We see that the carb ingestion in Japan is relatively high (359 grams compared to 50 fat and roughly 83 grams of protein (roughly 73%)). Taubes' best explanation for their health despite a high carb diet is found on page 177 of GCBC. He suggests that after WWII some populations (Japan, Greece and other Mediterranean cultures) barely eked out an existence after the war and that their diets were characterized by a "near absence of refined carbohydrates" little heart disease and "a relative lack of of calories" and that this diet was not eaten by choice, but by necessity. To me this suggests that if you are using up (physically) the food value you ingest that you have less to worry about; that it is only when you eat a surplus of calories/food that issues of carbs versus fats and proteins become truly significant and that unrefined carbs (for whatever reason) are less damaging than refined ones.

My two cents: I know that Taubes believes exercise and calories are relatively unimportant for weight loss, but it seems to me that one must take into account the destructive effects of some diets on the body. For healthy individuals who eat only what their bodies need food-wise and get exercise, their metabolisms seem to run smoothly and also cause them to properly dispose of these "fuels" without increasing fat. I suspect that if we eat excess carbs together with excess calories, the body decides to store away the carbs for later and that this alters or damages the system. (If we eat excess calories with few carbs there seems to be evidence that we are less likely to store those substances as fat.) This is all theoretical and needs some research and relates I believe to healthy people who are not overweight. It seems like once the fat storage system begins to work overtime, then carb processing becomes problematic and I believe that is when we start to see all the diseases developing.

So do we believe that there are different body types and things that work for some as opposed to others? Well, if the above is correct, then it would seem there are and there are not. We might all start off pretty much the same, but depending on what we have subjected our bodies to and how fat we have gotten, then that might alter our needs and "best practices".

Do I personally believe that there is a genetic component? Yes. Some of us have genetic defects and I am assuming that this is possibly the case before we unintentionally alter our needs via poor diets or lack of exercise. How significant a role do these genetic components play in differences in dietary needs? It is hard to tell. It might be that those genetic predispositions would be minor or insignificant if we all ate the low carb diet that seems to be most healthy for humans.

Bottom line ( My Opinion) Refined carbs and sugars aren't good for anyone and eventually break our systems. Healthy people who eat non-refined carbs, have regular exercise and eat at the boundary of what their caloric/fuel needs in terms of food can probably eat high carb without significant health problems. Storing excess fat disturbs our mechanisms such that we cannot eat a higher carb diet without significant health repercussions. A complicated theoretical answer to a seemingly simple question.

(I highly recommend the books by Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat. For more info there is also Wolfgang Lutz' book Life Without Bread.

My Letter About Nuclear Reactors to the Government

2011-04-08T13:38:00.004-05:00

I live within 50 miles of a Nuclear Reactor that is the same design as the plant in Fukushima Japan. Experts in the field of Nuclear Reactors have long warned that this kind of plant has major design flaws and is not easy to shut down safely. Nonetheless we have 23 of these plants operating in the United States. (After more than 30 years of operation we still have no safe way to dispose of radioactive waste despite all the optimistic promises that have been made for years about the hopes of scientific research.)

Additionally radioactivity affects us over time and repeated exposure. It diminishes very slowly and it is the repeated or continuous exposure that is damaging to living beings. The more radioactivity we pump into the atmosphere and environment, the more is there to be damaging to us all. (It doesn't dissolve in the ocean or the air - it is diluted by raising the overall level of radioactivity in the large volume of water or air, but that simply means a tiny bit more overall exposure to everything within that volume.)

I have just written a letter to my governmental representatives and President to that they close down the G.E. mark 1 Nuclear reactors that currently provided less than 4% power in the U.S. and yet represent danger to the American public because of their flawed design and lack of clear procedure on how to shut them down.

Here is my Letter:

Dear President Obama (Senator Franken, Senator Klobuchar, Representative Bachmann)

As I am sure you know, there are 23 GE Mark I reactors currently in use in the U.S. This is particularly disturbing to me as I live near one of them located in Monticello, MN, a reactor that has the same design that has failed so catastrophically in Fukushima, Japan.

The A.E.C and other regulatory officials have warned us about the flaws of this particular reactor design for some 40 years. The flaws in this design are fundamental and cannot be fixed and these reactors can not easily be shut down (especially in times of crisis or emergency.)

Put together, these 23 reactors provide less than 4% of the nation's electricity. This means that electric needs can be provided in different ways.

Please close these reactors permanently and do it now. Thank you very much.

Progress on the Shawl

2011-03-31T22:37:00.001-05:00

Here is how it stands at the end of the first chart. I like it

Dancing with the Local Stars

2011-03-25T22:22:00.009-05:00

Well, the local University Ballroom Dance Club had their yearly show tonight and I got to do my routine. It was billed as our version of Dancing with the Stars although the stars were certainly not as stellar as the ones that twinkle on the network television show!

It felt a little like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland getting together to put on a show and we can use my dad's shed for the stage, (at least in terms of my contribution), but the students did a fantastic job, both of teaching us old fogies a few new licks as well as performing intricate numbers themselves.

One of the sisters shows off her waltzing talents below.

In between the "stars" numbers the dance club performed some really nice numbers.

This team was one of the best, showing off a number that had earned them a score of 97 out of 100 at a recent Twin Cities competition.

That is my partner Michael dancing with his sister Anna. They were absolutely fabulous together and had the greatest characters for their routine. She was reluctant and he persisted and won her over for a dance.

This couple (below) had a very cute story to their number about a poor street musician dancing with a woman that puts money in his hat. The nattily dressed man transformed from a dirty busker to a "swell dude" right before our eyes.

This was a very hot number, that combined Tango with other moves.

Our fox trot went okay. I flubbed a few of my steps, but I didn't fall on my behind and my partner was very kind and encouraging, so I am relieved. We did our routine to "Puttin' on the Ritz. My partner was very ambitious and invented a rigorous choreography that involved hesitations, promenades, turns, fans and even a dip, so I felt pretty good about our performance afterwards (given the complexity of the dance.) Of course I didn't take a picture of us dancing, but here I am in the living room after the event - a little bleary (and worse for wear?) but at least you can see the costume. Yeah, those are my far away eyes!!

More Dog Pictures

2011-03-20T22:21:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry. I can't help myself!

I'm sorry. I can't help myself!

On the Needles

2011-03-20T21:08:00.000-05:00

I've been working on an MMario design called Vampire W(h)ine. I'm really liking it thus far. It is currently about 18 to 18.5 inches in diameter and I am going to have to order more yarn before I can finish, but here is what it looks like at the moment.

And of course I have to put a picture of my puppy up n the blog. Yup that's her on my couch!

It's Great to Know..

2011-03-15T22:51:00.003-05:00

It's great to know we have 4 Nuclear reactors on the fault line in California, in a place where the "big one" could happen any time and that Japan's nuclear reactors were extensively fortified to resist earthquakes.

It's great to know that Minnesota has recently initiated steps to allow Nuclear Power plants to be built after a 6 year moratorium! Yes, I know we won't have Tsunami in Minnesota, but we have tornadoes and floods and we still haven't figured out a place to store the waste.

I don't know what you think, but that sure looks like a big river that our power plant is sitting on.

Whoops

2011-03-13T18:31:00.003-05:00

Encounter with a playful puppy. We should not have both gone for the rope toy at the same time. The result was a collision, a trip to the emergency room and 5 stitches!

Looks like the vampires paid me a visit, doesn't it?

I can't wait for the swelling to go down! It's hard to open my mouth!

What's On the Needles Now

2011-03-09T21:35:00.004-06:00

I've started two shawls. Here is MMario's Vampire W(h)ine:

I'm only on row 35, but it is coming along. Currently 240 mm (9.5 inches) in diameter. Since there are 225 rows without the edging, this will probably be a pretty large shawl (and I will run out of yarn before it is done!!) It will be more than 5 feet in diameter when done before the edging if size is consistent with what I have done thus far!! The yarn is KnitPicks gloss.

The other shawl is a Niebling variation called Frosted Ferns,

Arbitrary Images from our Trip West

2011-03-06T13:56:00.007-06:00

These two were taken in North Dakota. We woke up to see the wild horses grazing in fornt of our tent in the campsite.

Below is one of many images I took at Yellowstone. What beautiful vistas!

This was in South Dakota.

Age and Loss

2011-03-04T09:48:00.004-06:00

The older one gets the more one seems to have to deal with loss. One would think that this would make the act of grieving easier, as if with each loss one was able to detach a little bit more from the world and thus make the thoughts of one own's passing increasingly easier. Perhaps it is the other way around and we fight our own mortality harder each time. Of course there is also a third possibility. It could be that this really has nothing to do with us, but is simply the pain of knowing that something beautiful and kind has disappeared from the world never to be encountered again.

It has been a hard year for the family here at Purple Worms. In the last several months a dear friend, a cherished colleague, a mother-in-law, the last uncle and now an animal member of the family have passed on. Winter is a time of death and he has claimed his rights this year in extreme.

On Wednesday we lost our beloved cat, Deja. She has not appeared too often on this blog because she is what I used to refer to fondly as a "cat without a face." A sweet and delicate soul, she was a tortoise shell Persian cat, with a face so dark, that it was nigh impossible to photograph. Not only that, but through the years as I strove in vain to photograph her, she absorbed the timing of the flash and learned to blink always at just the right moment.

We had her some 13 years and have no real idea of her age, but despite her delicacy she ran our household with an iron hand, making sure that water bowls got changed, people got up when they were supposed to and that items placed where they didn't belong got replaced.

I have a few images I would like to leave with you. None reflect the true beauty of her face and personality, but they are what I have. I have posted this image before. It is not Dejá at her most lady-like, but it shows her iron will and her beautiful green and gold eyes, so very rarely apparent in the photos I collected over the year.

Dejá now resides in the Pet cemetery on the east side of the house with Bart the dog, Hagen, Snuffy and my much missed Naphta. It's time to turn back toward the living and remember how important our interactions with others are. I know today I will think twice before I make a sarcastic comment to a colleague or continue working when someone wants to interrupt me and I will certainly hug every member of my household an extra heartfelt and meaningful time and be mindfully thankful for the blessings of each presence.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Goofball!

2011-01-17T10:49:00.002-06:00

No, it's our dog!

The Way We Were

2011-01-14T18:20:00.007-06:00

Okay, it's a nostalgia post, I can't help it. Here's what we used to look like back in the day. My sisters were (and still) are absolutely beautiful!

And here is my beloved dog, Hieronymus! He was so smart. I do miss him!

And here he is with his baby cousin, Tyro.

Here's my husband. He looks so German somehow! (Or maybe Dutch! He does have Dutch roots!)

And here is a really old picture of me.

One more from The Three Penny Opera:

Far Enough

2011-01-12T09:57:00.004-06:00

I DO understand that we as a public are struggling to understand how someone could suddenly shoot a judge and a congresswoman and I DO understand our desire for new information, but for me today's New York Times piece "Police Say They Visited Tucson Suspect's Home Even Before The Rampage" goes too far. In this age permeated by psychology I know we want to know why: why such a senseless act happened, why an innocent judge had to die, why a 22 year-old boy could be so bitter.

Nonetheless, do we really have to know how many hours a week the mother spent managing ponds in Agua Caliente Park? Is it our business to know the suspect's father's business? What does it really mean that they built a privacy wall on one side of their property?

So turn the situation around. What would the press be saying about you if one of your family members suddenly decided to take violent action based on his or her peculiar beliefs. (And yes, you know we all have those relatives with those secret rages. The uncle that despises the postal bureau for unfair raises in postage, the second cousin angry with buses that cut him off during morning drives, the sister-in-law who is convinced that the entire staff of the local five and dime are out to get her. Not to mention those even closer to home.) So what would the paper be printing about you, if, god forbid, your child should suddenly decide to take out the customers and staff of your local convenience store?

Were some kids in the neighborhood afraid once to go into your yard and get their ball after you yelled at them for having to retrieve it for a 6th time? Did your neighbors ever hear you yelling loudly in anger? Do you have a collection of Kenyan masks hanging in your house that makes you religiously suspicious? Maybe you collect odd-shaped rocks and display them in a china cabinet or have a room that you painted black and is always closed up (never mind that you use it to develop film and print photographs - that's pretty bizarre that you haven't moved to digital yet.) Maybe you have a blog that has a bizarre title that no one understands. How would you like your personality to be summed up in a 7 word sentence, one of which by requirement has to be the word weird?

I think the Loughner family is in enough pain without having to be dissected for every questionable action or every poor choice that they ever made, so turn that spotlight back on yourself and think about how our judgments of others causes them pain. And we know that pain can lead to anger and of course we can see where anger gets us. Articles like this certainly don't make us want to talk to our neighbors. They are not like us, they are strange and of course we certainly don't want them to think weird things about us! It's like more fuel to the fire, and yet it is isolation that allows things like the recent shootings to happen. What can one do? I think shutting ourselves up in our houses and wondering will only make the problem worse, so if you really want to do something about it, my advice is, go out and have a cordial talk with your neighbors today. You could save a reputation and maybe even a life.

Komon or is it a Dogi?

2011-01-11T21:03:00.005-06:00

Some people may be wondering about that Dogi I started a million months ago (Maybe April or May). I just haven't had the hear t to knit since my knitting buddy Dana died. I do pick at it sometime, but the Dogi has been going very slowly. It is actually done, except that I decided that I didn't like it as a vest and so I decided to add sleeves. Here is what it is supposed to look like. Fuzzy Karen(http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuzzykaren/4154984880/sizes/o/in/photostream/) knit a lovely version:

(Go check out her totally cool crocheted ball and it's sun costume!!)

Anyway - mine didn't look cool like hers, (I had made it longer) and I just felt it needed arms., so I borrowed a meshy type stitch from the Komon and added its sleeves to the Dogi's body. Here is a detail. It shows the sleeve texture (on the right) and the vest texture on the left. You can see the vertical button stitch design much better on Karen's photo:

Here is the larger shot. (Yes, I gained weight over the holidays, but I didn't take off my sweater before modeling, so I think it's not as bad as it looks. Nevermind that the right sleeve isn't there! That will be the next step!)

Sad

2011-01-09T10:59:00.004-06:00

How can this still be up on Sarah Palin's facebook page? It was in poor taste when she put it up and it is in even poorer taste now that one of the people on her list has actually been shot. I invite you NOT to go there and give her additional hits.

Bulldog Royalty (updated)

2011-01-01T18:32:00.006-06:00

My sister in Los Angeles (Pasadena) just sent me these pictures from her phone! It is SO exciting! It's like meeting the Queen and her closest friend! It's bulldog royalty!

This (above) is Sully) but look what you see below!! It's Tillman!

Here's an even better shot, she just sent me!!

My Parade

2011-01-01T14:08:00.015-06:00

This is my version of the parade with all the flowers. Bear in mind that my version of things is always a little bit different than the typical one. My sister actually got to go and see the rose bowl parade and of course I watched the parade in order to try and find her in the crowd of 90,000 people. I missed the first 2/3s of the parade because I was so busy scanning the crowd. I had to watch on TV and evidently they edited out a lot of the featured floats. I know I didn't see a "Cirque de Soleil Comes to Los Angeles" float. California newspapers reported on it and had images like this:

...and like this (from KTLA.com)

Of course I don't have pictures of the most beautiful float - the Chinese racing dragons float. Nor do I have images of the Dole float which won one of the big prizes, but the press drawing looks like this:

I was also able to find an artist's rendering of the Natural Balance float on line. (Why do I care, you ask?) Because it features Tillman the most famous bull dog in the world, of course!!

This float broke a record for weight and advertised itself that way. The back half of the float had diving dogs jumping into a huge (heated) pool of water, but the star was Tillman and friends who water boarded down a slide on the float's fore.

Yes, I did take a few photos once I got through gawking at the crowds. Mine are details of this and that.

There were a lot of houses and buildings in the parade. I have already forgotten which float is which. This one clearly has a Western theme.

This one is the Uno float. Somewhere in those bleachers are my sister and brother-in-law.

They are both wearing black, so I'm sure you can spot them right away!

Here are a couple of closer shots so you can see them better.

See, they are in the middle under the presenter's booth.

This was a pretty nice float:

but not as exciting as Tillman.

My favorite part was this guy on the bull.

And what is a parade without Pacman?

Pacman not only had his friends with him, but also shot out streamers which can be seen at the sides of the picture.

It's not a parade without marching bands and there were many. I graded them all on how they turned the corner. I think this is TCU and as you can see, they did an excellent job. There were bands from far away Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (who almost didn't make it because of the weather and even from Hokkaido.

This float had a western theme too, the ponies were colored with ground coffee beans (among other plant materials). I just couldn't bare to include the float devoted to Ronald Reagan, sorry.

Here's another perfect marching band. Ya gotta love the feathered hats!

This is a shot of the rose bowl from the blimp.

I liked this float about Tea with Friends. I can't remember who sponsored it, but the dragons were the stars of this years parade.

I hadn't given up looking for my sister. She had to be in those stands somewhere.

These were firemen with old-time fire equipment.

The horses were gorgeous.

This final float was dedicated to the firefighters of 911.

Of course I had to look for my sister one last time. I'm pretty sure she is in this shot. See her next to the guy with the beard?

New Years is a time to look back at one's past mistakes and adventures, to thank those who have been there for us and to look forward to the days ahead as we try to be better people.

I hope you all had your black eyed peas and collards this year! We could all use some luck in the year ahead!

"I sometimes wonder if I exist myself."

2010-12-30T13:24:00.010-06:00

As most of you who follow this blog know, every other year we tend to go down to Texas to visit the family. This means that it gets harder and harder to find new and exciting sights to visit in the Corpus area. I know some people could see the Lexington every year for the rest of their lives, but my martial interests don't extend much beyond the development of air technology via hot air balloon.

I very proudly wrote my friend Popeye-x in San Antonio that I had located the Alamo, but for some reason he seemed dubious.

I was sure my Alamo was better than his. After all, his alamo couldn't possibly have such a wonderful decor ... such as classically clad Grecian (well um - pseudo-Grecian) beauties....

And does his silly old San Antonio Alamo have....

gargoyles? I think not. So I was quite confident that I had won the argument until he sent me this:

For those of you that know me, you will have immediately realized that I was totally conquered. Mick Jagger and I go way back and of course what could possibly trump Bill Wyman in a Coon Skin Davy Crockett cap?

I would need to find another stupendous sight. One of my sisters (the one who told me that Austin was bigger than Chicago) told me there was a really cool rhinoceros in Corpus, so she drove me around all over the place only to let me know at the end that we'd missed it somehow. Evidently Corpus is rapidly approaching Chicagoan size too.

We did however find this rhino:

I was quite surprised when my other sister told me there was indeed a rhino in Corpus and she would take me to see it. She then proceeded to drive around in the same aimless pattern the other sister had. After turning back she informed me we had missed it somehow. (I don't know why that sounded familiar, but I was beginning to suspect a conspiracy.)

Well, on the way home she got very excited. I was fully prepared to be made the buffoon victim of yet another Chicago joke. The rhinoceros, I was told, had to be behind that fence.

I was supposed to walk into some wealthy person's yard and look through the holes in the fence. Note the slits in the wall. Because it was private property, I gingerly snuck over to the slit on the far left. I looked quickly preparing to scamper back if I should see people out sunbathing by the pool or a shot gun pointed in my general direction. I looked again. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say. Were they pulling my leg, or did they really think that this was a rhinoceros?

There was no shot gun and no sunbathing, thank goodness, but in that whole walled enclosure, do you see anything resembling a rhinoceros? Okay, so just to be sure, I moved over to a slit on the right. Hmmm... okay, well, maybe... or I really was the butt of some elaborate and large joke?

As I found yet another slit, it was confirmed - this indeed looked like a rhinoceros.

Running around the corner to the left, I peeked through a slit on the street side and there it was in full splendor.

Austin was indeed as big as Chicago and all was right with the world. On the way home we gave a busker some money to share our holiday joy.

December Drawing

2010-12-29T20:03:00.002-06:00

My niece is graduating from art school this year. Here is a sketch of her at our holiday gathering.

Birds I missed

2010-12-29T19:22:00.006-06:00

On the way home from Texas we saw lots of hawks. Unfortunately all I could catch was this...

(Obviously not hawks). Of course we were hurtling through space at 60 (plus) miles per hour, so I guess I should be satisfied with the memory and any blurred trace I could manage to capture. My first attempts managed only a few empty branches. (No time to aim or focus.) We saw a golden eagle and I didn't even bother to raise the camera. I was entranced by her beauty and wanted to be sure to appreciate her rather than grab another shot of empty air.
Here is the image from Wikipedia.

Ours was in a tree, but you could clearly see the brown color and the yellow beak. It had the mottled white spots here and there on the chest too.

With left Texas and I kept pracitising and missed all the birds in Oklahoma and Missouri, but in Iowa with a little luck I managed to catch the tree that had this bird.

And I got a closer shot but no focus on this hawk:

My best one was this one, but it is also completely out of focus.

These were easier to catch for some reason.

While others take pictures of the bridges of Madison county, I was more taken with their dilapidated barns.

I missed some great shots of these too, but still there were a few whose beauty seemed to make the world stop even just a moment.