Personal Musings category archive

(Link fixed)

How would you feel if, every morning, you woke up to find a pair of deadbeats waiting to move into the house that you built with your own beaks?

You can watch a short movie of the chickadees being annoying here and one of the sapsuckers here (not great, but the best I can do with my digital still camera which takes movies just as an afterthought). We have observed that the sapsuckers never leave their nest unattended. One will return before the other leaves.

Here’s me laying in wait on the roof.

(Aside: It has been reliably reported that chickadees support John McCain.

Here’s a picture of the bike I bought yesterday. I spend today trying to learn how to shift the derailleur and actually ended up adjusting the front shifter:

(Would you believe the grass was cut just four days ago?)

Last night, Second Son was driving girlfriend’s car (with permission–it’s easier on gas than his truck) home from “the Spot.” (“The Spot” is located in the same building as the Urban Bike Project–it’s a collection of art galleries for local artists, as well as a venue for local bands.)

The car got rocked. That is, someone threw a rock at it. Not 500 feet from the local State Police Barracks in the middle of a generally much more than okay area. He immediately turned left into the Barracks and reported the crime.

It’s clear to see from the pattern of the break that the rock hit on the lower left corner where the glass curves from the side to the back. According to Second Son, the cop said, “Well, it hit at the worst possible place.”

Fortunately, no one, not even the back seat passenger, was hurt. But there were shards of glass everywhere–in the back seat, on the rear shelf, under the front seats, even in the map pocket of the right rear door.

Meanwhile, the car doesn’t do (rear) windows any more:

The neighbor lent us his shop vac to suck up the glass, but there’s still bits and pieces in the driveway. No foreign objects and no exit wounds were found in the vehicle, supporting the theory that it was a rock and not a bullet.

I’m going to keep parking on the street, thank you. And the boat doesn’t move until the glass is gone.

We’ve had far too much excitement around here lately.

(Aside: I included the campaign sign in the picture just for Opie.)

Here are a couple of pictures:

We have noticed that a couple of other local boids don’t seem to like their new neighbors. They hang out just above the nest and harass them.

Probably because they are different.

I think the harassers are the chickadees, but I didn’t get a really good look. Intensive research (five seconds on Google) yielded nothing.

I’ll try to get some pictures of that the next time I’m on the roof (I had to come down because the camera died).

Addendum, Later That Same Afternoon:

Apparently, chickadees, also known as “Black-cap Titmice” (Titmouses?) like to squat in woodpecker holes (emphasis added and this dude needs to attend my writing course–he makes Dickens seem concise):

Hardy, smart, restless, industrious, and frugal, the Black-cap Titmouse ranges through the forest during the summer, and retiring to its more secluded parts, as if to ensure a greater degree of quiet, it usually breeds there. Numerous eggs produce a numerous progeny, and as soon as the first brood has been reared, the young range hither and thither in a body, searching for food, while their parents, intent on forming another family, remain concealed and almost silent, laying their eggs in the hole deserted by some small Woodpecker, or forming one for themselves. As it has been my fortune to witness a pair at this work, I will here state what occurred, notwithstanding the opinion of those who inform us that the bill of a Titmouse is “not shaped for digging.” While seated one morning under a crab-apple tree (very hard wood, reader), I saw two Black-cap Titmice fluttering about in great concern, as if anxious to see me depart. By their manners indeed I was induced to believe that their nest was near, and, anxious to observe their proceedings, I removed to the distance of about twenty paces. The birds now became silent, alighted on the apple-tree, gradually moved towards the base of one of its large branches, and one of them disappeared in what I then supposed to be the hole of some small Woodpecker; but I saw it presently on the edge, with a small chip in its bill, and again cautiously approached the tree. When three or four yards off I distinctly heard the peckings or taps of the industrious worker within, and saw it come to the mouth of the hole and return many times in succession in the course of half an hour, after which I got up and examined the mansion. The hole was about three inches deep, and dug obliquely downward from the aperture, which was just large enough to admit the bird. I had observed both sexes at this labour, and left the spot perfectly satisfied as to their power of boring a nest for themselves.

H/T to Linda for finding this.

From Delaware Liberal:

This is what conservatism is all about: the worship of the wealthy; the rest of it is just smoke and mirrors.

When you look beyond the smoke and mirrors to the actual behavior, well, there it is.

Words can lie. Behavior does not.

(Aside: No, Chris, not your kind of bike.)

A refurbished Fuji Sports 10, ca. 1975.

Second Son has been doing some volunteer work at the Wilmington Urban Bike Project. A week or so ago, he bought himself a nice refurbished bicycle for $30.

I’ve always liked to cycle. Heck, when I was growing up, when I wasn’t on a tractor, I was likely on my trusty Western Auto 24″ one speed with a coaster brake. My Huffy three-speed gave up the ghost several years ago, and, frankly, I’m getting old enough so that I need more than three speeds (you don’t realize how steep that little hill is until you try to bicycle up it).

So, today, we went down the the Urban Bike Project; we donated his old bicycle from when he was a little kid and I bought the Fuji for $75.00.

The Urban Bike Project has an interesting approach. It does not exist to sell bikes to the general public and you could walk by it without knowing it was there; normally, you have to volunteer to get a bike, but I had an in with Second Son. And I would just as soon give my money to them as to Target, let alone some high-priced exclusive bike store for people who wear colors so loud a hippy would never have worn them and pants with funny padding when they cycle (yeah, I know the padding is practical, but it still looks funny).

The Project lets neighborhood kids (they are not located in a great neighborhood, but neither is it the worst neighborhood in town) work on the donated bikes, teaching the kids how to maintain bicycles as they go. After a kid has worked enough hours–five, I think, something the kid can accomplish in a day–he or she can pick out a bike from a selection the Project reserves for that purpose.

Second Son tells me that one of the problems they face is that, often, after a kid earns his “free” bicycle, the kid will turn around a couple three days later and find his bike has been ripped off. Indeed, as I wheeled the bike out, one of the adult leaders suggested that I write my name, address, and phone number on a slip of paper and drop it down the seat tube.

(I don’t expect a bike to disappear in this neighborhood, but I may drop my business card in there–maybe it will lead to a gig.)

Monday, I will hie me down to Dunbar’s about a mile hence and pick up some basic maintenance stuff (patch kit, tire irons, spare tube, spoke wrench–I have vise grips, WD-40, a Swiss Army knife, and duct tape; if it can’t be fixed with vise grips, WD-40, a Swiss Army knife, and duct tape, it can’t be fixed). The surest way to prevent a flat tire is to be ready for one.

Tomorrow, I have to pump up the tires (90 psi) and see if they hold air and go to some parking lot somewhere and learn how to ride this thing. I’ve never shifted gears on a derailleur before . . . .

So, I’m on the way to the bank this morning and someone passes me (at a reasonable speed) in a bright, shiny, new black Lamborghini.

I want that car.

The closest I’ll ever get to it is probably a used Fiat.

(According to the Car Talk guys, Fiat stands for “Fix it already, Tony.”)

Is not dead. Check out this story from Mithras.

No. Not that kind.

This kind.

We’ve been hearing a tap-tap-tapping rap-rap-rapping on a tree.

Two yellow-bellied sapsuckers (as opposed to yellow bloodsuckers) have taken up residence in a tree right next to the back porch.

I’ve been noticing white flakes near the base of the tree. I was thinking they were some kind of petal from a spring flower, until, today, I got off my anatomy and actually walked outside to look at them.

They were flakes of wood.

I followed the trail of wood flakes upwards along the tree trunk until I spotted the hole in the side of the tree. Even as we speak, the pair are busy working on an addition to hold their brood.

I found a diagram of a woodpecker nest here. Looks like they have their work cut out for them before their three bedroom split is ready for full occupancy.

I’ll try to get some pictures, but it might be a few days and ladders will certainly be involved. I’m thinking that, if I get on the porch roof, I should be close enough to get some decent shots without scaring my new neighbors.

I seldom cast stones at the main stream media, but they have earned this rock.

Most of the stones cast at them are not cast at news reporting, but at opinion columnists. Opinion columnists trade in, natch, opinions, and they have the right to be stupid mistaken (though, damn! I’d love to have a job where I could get paid large sums of money for being consistently, repeatedly, continuously wrong, wrong, wrong, but then I’m neither Tom Friedman nor the CEO of Citibank).

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times broke the story that many of the persons who posed as “military analysts” for various media outlets were in the pocket of the Pentagon and likely spouting the Bushie line in their “analyses.”

If you wanted more, you pretty much had to listen to NPR or read the left blogosphere.

The story has been pretty much ignored by those media organs implicated in that same story.

Who woulda thunk?

Glenn Greenwald has addressed it in great depth here and here.

ASZ talked about it here.

But in the print and broadcast media? Nada. Zilch. Nil.

The bottom line is that the Bushies pressured persons to lie to the public about what was going on in Iraq and implied that their sources of income would be jeopardized if they did not toe the Republican Party line.

This week, On the Media interviewed one of these analysts who who found his role as Bushie toadie to be–er–uncomfortable. From the website:

As reported in The New York Times last weekend, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and others have turned, again and again, to military analysts – retired members of the armed forces hired by broadcast and cable networks – for their supposed expertise on the war. Only, it turns out, the analysts were often coached by the Pentagon in what the Times said were “hundreds of private briefings.” Among those named was Maj. Robert Bevelacqua, a former Green Beret and Fox News contributor through 2005. Bevelacqua discusses his own role in the march to war.

Visit the website or listen here:

I don’t know about you.

But I am tired of liars running our government and tired of our government suborning perjury–well it’s not perjury unless you are under oath lies.

Lying. It’s a Bushie thing.

(Aside: I didn’t use to give money to Democrats. Then there was Bush.)

I had to fill up with gasoline on the way to DL last night.

$3.57 per gallon.

Driving to my training gig this morning, I saw prices in Pennsylvania in the $3.75 range.

Three houses on my way had Corvettes parked in front “for sale by owner.”

Now, Corvette mileage ain’t bad, at least on the highway. Not great, but not terrible. But Corvettes are essentially toys.

My guess is, those folks have to sell the cars so they can eat or pay their mortgages.

Josh Marshall:

Now that the nomination process for the Republicans is over, McCain is running and hiding from what he said on his quest for the nomination. He’s no Horton the Elephant–but, then, we have already established that “Horton the Elephant could not have been a Republican.

More from TPM:

The rub here is this: McCain does not want to leave Iraq. Period.

He wants tens of thousands of troops to stay in Iraq permanently. He made a big point of this during the primaries when it was politically advantageous to do so. And he followed up with a qualifier explaining that it’s okay because our occupation of Iraq will soon be like our presence in Germany and Japan where nobody gets killed. But there’s little reason to believe our occupation of Iraq will ever be like that.

(snip)

The relevant point is that McCain believes American troops should stay in Iraq permanently. His pipe dream about Iraq turning into Germany doesn’t change that. It just shows his substitution of wishful thinking for sound strategic judgment.

It’s the best catch there is.

I was at the dentist’s today have a temporary cap replaced with a (what I hope will be a) permanent one.

Unfortunately, in this case, my dentist is very good. The temporary cap fit so perfectly that it didn’t want to break free and come out.

The tech wiggled it and wiggled it. No go.

It wasn’t very pleasant, because, as she wiggled the cap, the tooth rocked back and forth. The tooth itself didn’t hurt, but the rocking did. I nearly crushed my cell phone, which I was holding in my hands.

Finally, she said, “I’m not trying to hurt you” and called in reinforcements.

I said, “That’s okay. I know you aren’t working for Dick Cheney.”

She laughed.

because he meant what he said, and he said what he meant.

As I have mentioned before.

And, like most politicians who call themselves “conservative,” he has no principles. Just conveniences.

Josh Marshall has more.

Addendum, 4/27/2008:

Trudy Rubin. Follow the link for the complete analysis:

As the Democratic candidates battle each other, McCain’s ideas about America and the world have gotten too little coverage. Some see him as George W. Bush redux; others say his opposition to torture and his concern about global warming show he’s more open-minded.

In an obvious effort to distinguish himself from Bush, McCain describes himself as “realistic idealist.” Yet his speeches and comments reveal a disturbing lack of realism about the world, especially the Middle East.

(snip)

Has the Arizona senator not noticed the world has changed since George W. made similar pronouncements at the turn of the century? The illusion that America alone can shape the globe should have passed.

(snip)

Yet, when McCain lays out how he’d exercise American power in Iraq and elsewhere, he seems unaware of the consequences of seven years of Bush policies.

(Link Fixed.)

I voluntarily did more today than I have done in a month.

I started a Sauerbraten. I’ve considered cooking one before, but the problem is that you have to start three days ago.

Now, I didn’t use the recipe that I linked to. Rather, I used the recipe in the New York Times International Cookbook by the Greatest Cookbook Author Ever.

I also prepared a ratatouille for tomorrow (again, not the linked recipe). It’s sort of a vegetable casserole with aubergine, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, onions, and assorted other stuff. Takes about half an hour to cut everything up and about an hour of messing about with the ingredients before it’s ready to go into the fridge for tomorrow.

I spent all afternoon slaving over a hot stove. So Linda cooked supper.

The Phillies were ahead, 6-0.

Now it’s Phillies 6, Pirates 5 (which turned out to be the final score) in the bottom of the eighth.

But, whatever the outcome, it is undeniable that the Pirates have the dumbest looking uniforms on the planet.

Sales of new homes plunged last month to the lowest in 161/2 years, as housing slumped further at the start of the spring sales season, a government report yesterday showed.

Also, the median price of a new home fell compared with March 2007 by the largest amount in nearly four decades.

16 1/2 years ago.

Oh, yeah.

A Bush was president then.

Tradition.