BunkBlog

We are, as I write this, on the first sea day of our honeymoon cruise. We’ll be arriving in Jamaica on Wednesday, then Grand Cayman Thursday and Cozumel on Friday. We left from the still-devastated Galveston on Sunday afternoon; the ship left two hours late because it had to drop passengers from the previous week in Houston (where the cruise had been operating from while Galveston got back in order enough for the cruises even if not for their own residents).

So far, it’s been gorgeous and fun. There are a suprisingly large number of Texans on the ship, but we did have breakfast with a Canuck as well, and a wine tasting with a couple from Iowa. And several couples from Texas. 🙂

Not sure how often this will get updated before the 10th of November, but I’ll try to post at least once more this week. No photos before we return, though.

536 days after we met, Kat and I are getting married on October 31st. We’re happy to share this time of our lives with each of you, and anyone who is in San Angelo (or wants to trek here) is invited to share in some sort of shindig that our good friend Dora is throwing for us on the afternoon of November 15th. Dora rocks.

We’re leaving town as soon as we can, heading for a great cruise of the Caribbean.  We’ll be zip-lining through the trees in Jamaica, swimming with turtles and sting rays in the Cayman Islands, and touring the ruins of Tulum near Cozumel.

If you don’t feel you can attend the shindig, just know that all of you are in our hearts.  Many of you had to tolerate our dating from afar stage, some people graciously helped Kat escape Lubbock and move to what is now our cozy home.  We have wonderful friends all over the States and you are welcome to share in our joy.  No gifts necessary, just come to raise a toast.

Love to all, Gary and Kat

I still haven’t quite gotten through the last of the Baroque Cycle (I’m around page 2000), but I breezed through Anathem‘s 900+ pages in just a few days. Stephenson’s latest novel shows that he is capable of writing an ending, and he even dialed back the rampant exposition a bit. He added a few appendices to address that, but at least it didn’t interrupt the flow. The story of a non-religious “concent” (convent) that is filled with men and women who take themselves out of mainstream society for years to study science and philosophy…well, it’s a bit convoluted, isn’t it? Anyway, it ends up a good adventure involving all sorts of complicated cosmology and cosmogony and philosophy and even a little math and tiling problems. Very cool book. If you enjoyed Cryptonomicon or Snow Crash or any of Stephenson’s earlier novels, get it and read it. If you haven’t read Stephenson, understand that he’s long-winded and this book even includes a couple of extra languages. See below:

He’s nine?  How the heck did that happen?

First of all, I love this squirrel:

That little critter is the only mammal at the Nature Center that tries to escape through the roof of its cage. We start humming the Mission Impossible theme music whenever we see him.

Alex’s love of all things military continues, so even though he asked for a birthday party with lots of animals, he still got this cake:

He loved wearing the snake and was great with the tarantula:

More photos in the gallery, as usual.

Kat coerced three other Nature Center folks to help with the party (a task which is usually relegated to just Kat), so the kids got to see over a dozen animals, and everyone was able to touch and hold them. A few animals were brought out that have never been brought to a party or event before – Kat rocks.

Alex has had a pretty good year, with his trips to several Eastern states, a trip to ride nearly every roller coaster at Fiesta Texas, Schlitterbahn, lots of toys, games, and just a lucky time for the boy. Fortunately, he’s also a great kid. Every time I have other children his age over for dinner, I’m reminded again how well Alex’s mother and I have done in instilling a modicum of manners and not instilling a distrust of vegetables and “weird” food.  He loves to try new things, and although I may want to strangle him some days, I’m very happy that he’s in my life.  Happy Birthday, boy.

According to this ABC report, a Reserve linguist is blabbing about some NSA program that targeted Americans.  I sure hope that she is being covered by some sort of Congressional exemption, cuz otherwise she’s kind of violating one of those NDAs like the one I signed this morning (probably the twentieth or more identical form I’ve signed over the years).  Strange that there’s no specific statement that the “whistleblower” is protected that way, but I guess journalists don’t have the same focus as intel geeks.

In April, the contract I have been working on for five years was due to be renewed.  Instead, the government extended it until the end of June.  June came around, and the contract got extended until the end of August, while the contract bid process was finally begun.  At the end of August, no contract was awarded, and thus began a joyful process of “guess what is happening in contractland.” Shoe number one hit the floor with a hollow thud.

Every week, a tale regarding exactly what rumor was ascendant was passed around. The next week, a completely new and different tale would be exchanged. You can imagine how much fun was had by all. During this time, we all nominally continued to be employed, but without any job site to go to had to make do with our saved vacation time in order to qualify for paychecks. Fortunately, I had over a month of vacation time saved up, so I weathered September without a problem. Many of my coworkers were on “Leave Without Pay” status for much of the month. Fat lot of good it does to be hypothetically employed, if you can’t use that hypothesis to pay bills.

We all knew our company was a shoo-in for the new contract. We’re the incumbents, have been doing the job for over a decade, have a good rapport with the customer, and have such a great understanding of the local realities that our bid must have been among the lowest. We also knew the contract had to be awarded by the end of Fiscal Year 2008 (that would be the 30th of September). Imagine my surprise to get a call on the 29th of September that said we didn’t get the contract. Shoe number two squashed something. Fortunately, the new overlords will be hiring all of us worker bees to work the new contract, since they have exactly zero local employees to do the work themselves. Now, to prepare for an interview with the new employer. Yes, I have to interview for a job I’ve held for five years. Yay.

You may remember Guin, the gender-confused cat, from previous posts such as the one about the really large cat bed:

He was also convinced he was a dog, evicting Banshee from the dog bed at times:

He loved to hang out with his best friend, Leo:

And he even got a little rough with the dogs at times, since he was the king of his demesne, he thought:

Sadly, Guin is gone.  We’re not sure what happened to him, but he seemed to have not suffered any trauma. He was happily shredding the couch just two days ago, but this morning he was on the back porch.  As far as we can tell, he came home around sunrise this morning. Leo was so confused, he was wagging his tail and waiting for Guin to swat him with his claws, as they would so frequently play.  Kat’s heartbroken, of course.

He’s been lain to rest under a flagstone, by a shrub he enjoyed staring at in the back yard. You were a good kitty, Guin.

So, we had planned an October 14th date, with reception the following weekend.  That’s changed, for a few logistical reasons.  The new plan is October 31st JP ceremony, then we leave town for Galveston.  A day on the island, then our week cruising the Caribbean, then back home.  Reception is maybe the 16th of November.  Who’s coming?

My mother tells me that, even as a child, I was not too enthusiastic about having pets of any kind. Naturally, I’m living with an animal nut. I’m pretty sure this is closer to “irony” than anything Alanis Morissette ever sang.

Wednesday, the Nature Center where Kat works was to provide animals and a presentation for over a hundred Girl Scouts for their day camp. Somehow, I was drafted to assist. I ended up educating myself about Australian animals to enough degree to fake ten minutes of Q&A(1), and then handled a ferret for the evening. And, there was that incident with the snake…

1 – Did you know that, while Australia has many snakes, New Zealand (closest neighbor for the geographically-challenged) has no snakes at all? That’s the most interesting thing I can come up with. Sorry.

Dear coworkers who babble all too frequently near my desk: “nonplussed” actually does not mean the same as “unfazed” but um…the opposite.  Thank you, please drive through.

I’ve been working on military bases for pretty much my entire adult life.  In that time, I’ve been continually amazed and astonished at the utter inanity of the bureaucratic ninnies who are allowed to run much of the daily workings of the government.  For instance, we have a proxy server which blocks access to web sites deemed inappropriate.  Which sites are inappropriate and why remains a guessing game, as they have misconfigured the blasted thing to show a useless error message.  There are locations in the “Access Denied” template to display exactly what category of evil you were trying to access, as well as the usual boilerplate about Big Brother watching you and he’s gonna getcha.

Today, I discovered that RealClimate is blocked. Exactly how is a climatology site objectionable? Of course, the propaganda information sites they do allow are equally interesting. There has never been a day that drug abuser Rush Limbaugh or felon G Gordon Liddy has been blocked, to my knowledge. Comedian Al Franken’s Senate campaign site – blocked. Air America was blocked, then allowed, then blocked, and now it’s allowed again I believe. For the longest time, Little Green Footballs was allowed, while DailyKos was blocked. Now, they’re both blocked.  I can get behind that – neither of those sites is official use, I’d wager. Drudge Report and WorldNutDaily – always accessible.  Slate’s Video News – blocked. Go figure.

Seriously, RealClimate? Frack.

First, thanks to all who wished me happy birthday this past Saturday.  I appreciate it.

The lovely Kat put together an unusual method of gift-giving – a scavenger hunt. I wandered around the nature center, following her rhyming clues, hoping not to be told to put my hand in the viper cage. It was a very cool haul of presents, including a few pans to be used for various stir fry and baking needs, as well as a few books I’ve been looking at. Of course, the cocktail shaker got a good workout this weekend, making a few batches of raspberry margaritas to accompany the Serrano ham-wrapped figs.

Sunday morning we hit the lake, after applying what appears in retrospect to be insufficient amounts of sunscreen. Kayaking across 3 miles of placid water, watching for critters, and watching The Boy splash around in the water – good times.  The eventual “seen animal” list included a bevy of turtles, a flock of birds, a swarm of dragonflies, a school of jumping fish (none near the fishermen, though), and a couple water snakes. The first snake was a cottonmouth (aka water mocassin), which was swimming away from the crazy humans at a good clip. It must have been at least 4 feet long. The second slithery critter was a diamond-backed water snake of much smaller size.  It popped up and then slipped beneath the surface, never to be seen again.

We also discovered that paddling a tube is not very efficient (no bow or stern, so you tend to paddle clockwise and counter-clockwise rather than forward).  Well, The Boy discovered this, after much instruction on the proper angle of attack for the paddle.  Then, we discovered that The Boy likes to paddle the kayak.  Come back here, you little monkey!

Overall, a great birthday and good weekend. Now, if my coworkers would just stop saying, “Got some sun this weekend, eh?”  SO original.

Kat’s kayak arrived via big truck last week, and then sat on the love seat for two days due to lack of time. Here it is.

When Kat arrived home Friday afternoon, she chanted “It’s kayak time” repeatedly until I changed into swim trunks and slathered on some sun screen. I took my inflatable kayak, which is (in contrast) a big pig of an overgrown pool toy.  But, still got us around the lake for a couple hours, during which we saw critters. There were many turtles poking just above the surface, a nutria putting on a diving show for us, a swan, and a water snake. Maybe that water snake, who knows?

The only problem with taking the kayak out, other than sunburn? The cat no longer has a giant bed.

Kat is working as a naturalist at the local nature center, and gets to spend much time with the critters. She’s owned snakes and lizards and all manner of furry, finned, and scaled critters over the years. She minored in biology. She’s not generally squeamish.

Saturday, I’m finally getting the 2007 DVDs ready to ship to far-flung relatives, when I get a call. “There’s an emergency, I can’t get in touch with [Snake Guy] (her boss at the nature center), and I need you to come out here.”  So, I hit the road for the lake, pop in and she’s standing in the middle of the main room, with the door to the reptile room blocked, while she madly dials anyone who can help with the unidentified snake in the room. Last seen heading for a dark corner, the reptile has decided to enliven the morning and cancel a child’s birthday party.

After a couple hours of searching, a snake wrangler in flip flops (!) pulling apart the reptile room, and general panic trying to identify which snakes might be missing (without going into the “venomous” room if avoidable), the little bugger finally decides to reveal himself. It turns out to be a fairly dehydrated water snake. One of the enclosures appeared to be missing a water snake, except that snake died three weeks ago. This one is the same species, albeit much younger and smaller. He broke into the nature center. While we’re trying to figure out which snake had escaped, it turns out this one was a burglar. What are the odds?

Congratulations to Stacy and John, who are tying the knot as I write this. You guys held out until you found the perfect couple, I’m sure it’s a great day for you both.

Now, about the photos…

Although I’ve been battling a cold since Sunday, yesterday was an especially good day for Us.  Kat first drove down from Lubbock to see me one year ago, on the 14th of May.  To commemorate this momentous occasion, we went for a bicycle ride to the river with The Boy, then for dinner we had fish tacos (her favorite of my cooking thus far), and knocked back a fabulous bottle of Moscat Spumante to finish up the night.  I didn’t even know that spumante was made with muscat grapes, but it was very nice – not at all dry and very very drinkable.

I’ve told her that one anniversary per year is all you get, so next year there will be no date-aversary.  Gotta hold the line somewhere…

After a great ceramic show at the museum, where Kat caught up with several fellow artists (and a few students who want extra credit), followed by a wonderful dinner downtown (despite the best efforts of the most inept waiter ever seen), there was a presentation. Kat insists that I inform all and sundry throughout the world, so I will.

Yes, she is actually pointing to the ring after having put marker on her finger pointing to the ring as well. Thorough, she is.

October 14th is the big day. We’ll be having a dinner for locals (and whoever wants to travel to the middle of nowhere) on the afternoon of Sunday October 19th, which happens to be my son’s (and sister’s) birthday.

Following Wayne’s tip on Gear Diary, I requested a “free” Senseo coffee maker (just pay for shipping) last week.  Guess what’s in my kitchen right now?  Oh, yeah, baby.  I’m not a big coffee drinker, but someone else is and for fifteen bucks, what the heck?

I guess I didn’t read the offer very well, because I was surprised to see a canister in the box, along with a bag of coffee and the machine itself.  The machine is on sale at Amazon for about 65, coffee bags cost around 4 dollars, and the canister is another 4 bucks.  So, almost 75 dollars worth of coffee swag for 15 – dude, hit that site, if you (or your significant other) like coffee even a little bit.

The movie Expelled is coming out in just over a week. According to every reviewer who isn’t an right-wing fundamentalist, it sucks. Of course, I assume it will play here in San Angelo (as seen on “FLDS Watch”!), because we always get that stuff. Have fun with the reviews on Expelled Exposed – the reviews are pretty entertaining. Heck, even Fox News didn’t like it; I’m pretty sure that’s the target demo.

My most linked-to post ever, yesterday’s denialists missive, has attracted the usual suspects. Not surprisingly, Akismet’s spam filter blocked them and I don’t feel like unblocking them. Typical tactic of the denialists – overwhelmingly loud shoutdowns instead of actual scientific evidence. In lieu of opening up my blog to becoming another nutjob-infested place, I will address the “issues” that denialists like to throw out in defense of the lack of action toward anything like good stewardship of the planet.

More ice is forming in the Antarctic than is being lost. This is actually a predictable effect of the current warming cycle. More warmth equals more evaporation equals more precipitation, particularly at the poles (more at the South than North for other reasons). It also equals less precipitation in the tropics. These things are predicted, and they have happened.

Antarctica is cooling. No. It had a cooling trend over 60% of its mass, several years ago. It’s a lot more clear now, as the warming trend has become much more widespread. Also, Antarctica is susceptible to warming and cooling based on ocean temperatures, so it would be predicted to warm later than the Arctic region. This is predicted, and it is happening.

It’s cold in BC right now, so global warming is a hoax. Local temperature variations do not change a global multi-decade trend. See also, “it’s been a cool year all over” for more nonsense. Yes, it has been the coolest winter since 2001. But, it’s still the 16th warmest year on record. So, “cooler” than “really hot” is not much to go by. The warmest years on record are 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2007.

The arctic sea ice came back big time this winter. Yes, it did. But, there are two types of ice pack in the arctic – perennial and annual. The annual ice made a nice recovery. The perennial ice, though, is still much decreased. The perennial ice covers about 30% of the arctic, where is had covered 50-60% of that area in the past. Perennial ice (which lasts 6 or more years) covered 20% of the arctic as recently as the 1980s, but now accounts for a mere 6% of the coverage. One year does not make a trend. In the past twenty years, 17 of them are the top 17 hottest in 150 years of records.

Sunspots are to blame for the warmer temperatures. Sunspots have not increased in 20 years, so how could they be to blame? NASA says solar increases do not have the ability to cause large global temperature increases.” The Sun is approaching solar minimum, yet global warming continues.

Calling people who deny the incredible mass of data about global warming “denialists” rather than “skeptics” is an ad hominem attack and I should be ashamed of myself. I am a member of the Skeptic Society. Skeptics don’t believe things contrary to masses of evidence, willfully denying the vast majority of experts and all the research, cherry-picking bits of contradictory evidence to support a tiny minority opinion. Nope. Doesn’t happen. I’m amazed that people can call themselves “skeptics” and yet retain such unwavering belief in something.

What are the denialists afraid of? If the global warming “conspiracy” has its way, we’ll get cleaner air, cleaner water, less dependence on hostile governments, more wildlife returning to their habitats, and a booming economy based on renewable rather than finite resources. Oh, please don’t throw me in the briar patch!