Mammoth Moth, Day 2

Remember how I posted about that giant moth yesterday? Yesterday? (Thanks to T for the classification!)

Well, last night I was at the boathouse for our last Learn To Row class. Outside the pedestrian door to the boathouse there is a stand with some flyers and info about the club. The base of it is made of boards probably 4" deep. And this is what I saw:

And look, I found the Wikipedia page for this one myself! (I think. T, verification?)

I'm pretty sure I've never seen moths this big before in my life. And now I see two in one week! Maybe they're giving Starbuck's a run for its money in a bid to take over the world. That could be interesting, actually: "Welcome to Celebrity Death Match! In the blue corner, giant swarming silk moths of all colors and varieties! And in the red corner, the perky, over-caffeinated coffee shop baristas!" Odds?

Mammoth Moth

Holy Frankenmoth, Batman!

J came over one night last week (or was it the week before?) for dinner and some TV. I was late getting back, so he was waiting for me outside. When I got home, this is what he showed me:

And to give you a better idea of the scale of this monster, remember that these are full-sized bricks, surrounding a full-sized window.

My handiwork

Yesterday, I did something handy!

Before you get all excited, ask yourself these questions:

Q: Did it require a lot of skill?
A: No.

Q: Did it require any skill?
A: Not any more than comes naturally to someone who likes to take things apart.

Q: Did you have any help?
A: Yes. Kind of. I was on the phone for some technical assistance regarding drywall with this guy named T, who said he was in Colorado, but really I'm pretty sure he was in India. Or maybe Singapore. It's hard to tell. In any case, you know how helpful those people usually are :-)

Anyway, what I did -- since you are now on the edge of your seat with anticipation, I'm sure -- was re-hang the broken towel rack in the bathroom. Witness my handiwork:

Spackled-over old hole, and new drillwork below it (with an anchor, this time!)

Bracket

Rack

Ta-da!

I like being handy. Maybe I should do it more often.

What I Watched -- Amelia

We all know how the movie ends - no surprise there. It's a little bit like Titanic or The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in that way.

The journey here is enjoyable and predictable. It's a biopic about a woman who was generally happy with her life, and there's not a lot of drama in that. There is, of course, her early demise, but we all know that's coming, so it lacks the shock value that would really tug at the heartstrings.

Hilary Swank portrays the title character as strong and brave to the point of being bullish, and also fiercely independent, even after her marriage to George Putnam, her publisher and promoter. According to the stories, this is all true about the real Amelia as well, so credit is due to the writers and actors for sticking to the real thing, I suppose.

Probably my favorite aspect is that the movie is a visual festival - from shiny early-version aircraft to roaring 20's attire. Eye candy, a little bit like Marie Antoinette - not a good movie, but loads of fun to look at.

Reality? Nope. It's all about perception.

Lots of interesting thoughts and wise sayings come about while rowing. This week, another brilliant insight surfaced, compliments of J, one of the guys in my rowing group. (Why do so many boys' names start with J?)

We were taking a break between pieces, and he asked C and I whether we would be going to Masters Nationals (yes for C, no for me). (It rhymes!) J said he didn't think he could go either. His wife is pregnant and is due in early September. Masters Nationals is August 12-15. His comment was this: "Even though it is unlikely to be a problem in reality, [M's] perception is that it will be a problem."

Now there's a guy who's learned his lesson. Probably the hard way. This is their third.

Spirit and Opportunity

I totally love these guys. It's great knowing that they're up there, trolling around on Mars. Is that weird?

Probably. But really, how can you not love them? They're little anthropomorphised robots. Like Wall-E. Or the Energizer Bunny.

Their mission was originally designed to last for 90 days, but we're 6-1/2 years in, and Opportunity is still chugging around in the Martian dirt, picking up rocks and tracking the weather. Spirit, it seems, is now stuck in a rut (literally). He's in a crater, but two of his little wheels are busted, so he probably won't move any more. He's a paraplegic robot. But he still has working instrumentation, and can send info back to Earth (or, he will, as soon as he wakes up from his wintertime deep hibernation).

And seriously, how fun would it be to be a scientist working on this project. It's like a video game for adults, which also happens to pay the bills. Perhaps the best job ever.

Whitaker Music Festival - Updated

L and her trusty camera snapped a couple pics of J and me during the evening. Thought you might enjoy.

Me, sleeping away the concert

J, apparently very excited about having his picture taken

L and me at intermission. Look! I'm awake!

Holy Enormity

S and I went to Sam's Club on Monday on our lunch break. She needed some stuff for her house; I needed dog bones. Dad buys dog bones in the enormous size boxes, so I figured Sam's was the place to go.

And I was right! They do have dog bones in enormous size boxes, but unfortunately they only have large size bones. I guess everything at Sam's Club has to be enormous, even the bones inside the enormous size boxes!

I will just have to remember to break them in half so the dog doesn't get tubby. Certainly can't have that, or I will never be allowed to dog-sit again!

Go Cards!

Last night, J's parents took us to the Cardinals game! We had seats in the Bank of America club, which means an all-you-can-eat buffet and a magic cup which holds all your refills for the night - beer, wine, soda.
I'm pretty sure the magic cup had something to do with all the homeruns also, but I can't be sure. We were losing 4-3 when Albert Pujols's hit a 2-run homer. That was followed up later in the game by solos from Allen Craig, Skip (Jared Michael) Schumaker, and Randy Winn. A Ryan-Pujols double play ended the game with a final score of 8-4, with the Cards scoring those 8 runs on 8 hits. Not bad.

What I Watched -- Whip It

Plot: nothing special.

Costumes: awesome.

Ellen Page: typically morose but a still-likable character.

Roller derby fun: two thumbs up!

Girl power: excellent!

That's pretty much as thorough a summary as I can give this movie. If you're curious what roller derby is all about, check it out.

(I get the feeling that roller derby is the new rugby, in that "Nuh-uh! Girls really do that?" kind of way.)

The Wonders of Evolution

I know I've talked before about RadioLab on here. I was listening to another really interesting podcast today, so I thought I would share some info that I learned!

According to Robert Sapolski, a professor of biology at Stanford University, information travels through the brain in two ways. The example the host gave to illustrate these phenomena is the following: he's on the way to his best friend's house. He opens the front door. He sees he friend on the floor.... Then there's a split of processes.

The first process involves the visual cortex: light bounces off the body on the floor to your eye, that information travels through the optic nerve to brain, then down into the visual cortex, which turns dots to lines, lines to shapes, etc. This "local train" chugs deeper into brain, and then you consciously realize the image you're seeing, which is that your friend is dead.

The other process totally bypasses visual cortex stuff and goes directly to amygdala. The amygdala instantly tells heart to pound, tells the stomach muscles to clench, and makes tears flow. But the amazing thing is that you're still a couple seconds away from consciously understanding the image that you're seeing through your visual cortex.

What does all this mean? Your body knows what you're seeing before your brain does.

[As an aside:

Interestingly, this basic idea actually goes back to circa 1900 and the researcher William James. He researched using the idea of a bear attack. Imagine you're walking in the woods and you're attacked by a bear. You feel scared, right? James wanted to know what that feeling of fear was made of. He understood the process in three steps: 1) you see the bear; 2) your body responds; 3) you realize what you're seeing, so the feeling of fear kicks in. So if your body can't respond, he hypothesized, you won't feel fear. Everyone thought William James and his theory were crazy until....

Antonio Damasio, a neurologist and the Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, tried to prove that this was actually partially true. He studied paraplegics, and found that they feel less. Less fear, less joy, less of everything. Just less. Because their body can't respond the way a fully functional person's does. Weird.]

Now the really interesting stuff (and some more info from Robert Sapolski). Imagine a couple fighting. When the fight begins, the amygdalic (is that a word?) response systems (heart pounding, stomach tightening) kick in for both the man and the woman. And the systems turn on at about the same speed (2 seconds!). But. BUT! The system turns off more quickly in men than in women. At the point that a man thinks the fight is over, the woman's body is still tense, her heart is still racing, etc. So even if logic tells her that the issue is over, the lingering tenseness in her body tells her brain that it is not actually over. And as a response, her brain looks for something else to fill the void, some related problem to fight about.

Doesn't that explain a lot?

Whitaker Music Festival

Last night, J and I went to the Whitaker Music Festival at the Botanical Gardens with L and her sister (who's visiting from NC!).
We arrived with our picnic dinner and chowed down, then the music started. The concert was...well, actually, I don't know how the concert was. Because I slept through it. Oops. But J said the musicians were excellent, though it was more background music than a focal point. Which seemed appropriate, because people were chatting all during the show, from what I could tell. (J learned some things about some of L's friends, and I imagine that had to happen while the music was playing.)
Hopefully I can go again, when I'm not so sleepy!

Another adventure in retail

A woman called my bookstore a while back. She told me she wanted a dictionary.

Me: "Is there a particular publisher or version you're looking for?"

Her: "Yeah, the Colgate."

Me: "Um..."

Her: "No, that's not it. College Gate. Yeah."

Me: "Collegiate?"

Her: "Yeah, that's the one."

Well, at least she was looking for a dictionary. Maybe she can use it to find "the words she needs today." Words such as "collegiate." That's really all I can say about that.

Chicago - Day 2 - Chicago Sprints

Thanks to J for taking some pictures of my Womens' Masters 2x race with K!

Launching:

Racing:

(a little fuzzy - sorry)

Docking:

After that race, J abandoned me at the course to go watch the World Cup final, so that's it for the pics of me rowing. But I did snap some other good ones:

Womens' Masters 4x

A thirsty pup

There were also a couple of other super-cute dogs hanging around the course. One was wearing his owner's medal, and another (a Poodle-Australian Shepherd mix) was very soft and fuzzy and friendly!

After all my races were over, we went to Potbelly's to get my favorite: a Wreck and an Oreo shake! We headed south on Lake Shore Drive to get on 55 and make the long drive home, some of which was in pouring rain. But we made it!

Chicago - Day 1 - Northwestern

Chicago Sprints Regatta was this past weekend in Lincoln Park. J and I took off after work on Friday and drove up to Evanston for the race. We stayed at J&Ts house; they were out of town, but C was there dog-sitting so we got to see her and her boyfriend.

I had one race on Saturday (which I almost missed due to the fact that the Lincoln Park Boat Club didn't post the heat sheets online so I didn't know what time my race was!). That race didn't go too well, which was disappointing, but it freed me up for an hour of chatting with my college friend M (while J was going on his 12-mile run). Which was lovely. We hadn't talked in a while, and she had just returned from a South African adventure! World Cup and Vic Falls and safaris, oh my!

J and I spent an hour or two in the afternoon wandering around E-town and the Northwestern campus, hiding out under trees when it started to rain (smart, huh?), and reading our magazines. And I took some pics! Hooray!

Baby bunny in the sorority quad

The Arch

The Rock

Students paint this to promote events, and during the school year the design/even changes every day or so. There is a blog chronicling the Rock's adventures here.

University Hall - the English Department (the History building is being renovated)

Random plaque

Our reading bench

J not excited about me taking his picture

Trees on the Lakefill

Deering Music Library

We finished up the day by meeting with Margaret and her friend M (3 Ms!) at Flat Top for some delicious Mongolian BBQ, then got ice cream to top it off. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon and evening, and was nice to be outside without feeling suffocated by the heat and humidity that hangs over St. Louis all summer!

Coming tomorrow: a couple pics from the regatta which J took...stay tuned!

Fun Fact #1

Did you know that Wint-o-green Life Savers really do spark in the dark? Cecil explains why.

Also, did you know that Life Savers is owned by Wrigley, which is in turn owned by Mars? How do people keep this all straight?

It's her party -- 3 weeks late

K had her (belated) birthday party on Saturday, July 3. I was too busy having fun to take many pictures, but here are a few I managed:

Happy 4th! (observed)

Happy Birthday, America!

What I Watched -- Michael Clayton

There is a lot going on in this movie. It is part legal thriller, part mystery, part politics, and part psychological drama. And it's George Clooney as the go-to guy. In Up in the Air, he was the go-to guy for firing people. In Michael Clayton, he's the go-to guy for cleaning up the messes that his law firm and its clients find themselves in. But this time, he's gotten involved in a mess that is bigger than he anticipates.

You find out right at the beginning just how much trouble Mr. Clayton is in, and the rest of the movie is a flashback, showing you how he got there. Then you catch up to the present and find out how it all ends. I'll refrain from saying more, because I don't want to ruin it. But if you're a conspiracy theorist, opposed to agribusiness, or like to see the craziest of the nitty gritty, this one's for you. Probably a good one for a miserable winter day.