Mallards Game and Pagode Practice

 

Yesterday I had a really strange day. I was working from home when suddenly the internet stopped working, so I texted Travalon, and he confirmed that there was an outage. I couldn't just go to my own office to work, so I messaged my boss, who said I could go to the coworking space I had worked in the day before. I thought about it, but the day was so nice and I was feeling so sniffly that I just took half a day of personal time. This was probably due to the road construction I complained about on my last post. At first they said the internet would come back at 1:30, but then it was 5:30, and then it was 10:30. When Travalon came home from work, we went to the Culver Springs Natural Area. Here are some photos.

We hadn't been to a Mallards game yet this year, and the happy hour on the Terrace was canceled due to the police killing here in town, so while everyone else was at the vigil for the victim, we watched baseball. I had an infused drink, forgetting that they slow down time and baseball is already so slow that time seems suspended, so it was a very meditative game for me, although the Mallards did keep hitting three-run homers. In the end they won something like 14-2. Here are photos.

This guy was batting 1000 because he had one at-bat and hit a three-run homer. 

They have this stuff over the bleachers now, I guess to block out sun? And at night they light it up.

Here is a video of that.

Oops, this is out of order, but before that we went to a place in De Forest where train cars are parked, and we saw some graffiti.

And then, still before the game, we went to my future parking lot and saw more graffiti.

And here are a couple of Wisconsin and Southern engines.

And here are some screenshots I got off a couple of videos of local trains posted on social media. I recognize a lot of this graffiti, but now I'm wondering... is 4AL "for a laugh" or "for all locations"? Both are represented on the same train!

Today I was supposed to work on campus and give blood, but I felt sniffly again and canceled the blood donation, since they won't let you give when you're under the weather, and that was the only reason I was going to go to campus. Oh, and also to make sure my plants were okay, and to check for a book someone was waiting for. In the evening I went to the pagode jam again, and this time there were nine of us, which seemed like a better number than the large group last time. I am the weak link, but I still had fun, especially playing the drums with the deep bass notes. I brought the mandolin but never cracked her out. A lot of the group are in the real Handphibians, and they were supposed to play tomorrow at the Atwood Fest, but the whole festival has been canceled because of the shooting. Bummer, I was hoping to check it out tomorrow. I don't understand the facts around the shooting enough yet to have an opinion; it's always bad when cops execute people of color when you feel like they could totally de-escalate if it were a white person, but I've also heard the person was armed and had wounded one of the cops. But then I've also heard the guy was on the ground and they shot him point-blank in the back of the head, so that doesn't sound like self-defense on the part of the cops but rather vengeance. All I know is the system has got to change because entirely too many people of color end up dead at the hands of cops. I read something recently that said liberals believe the law should treat everyone equally, so they try to appeal to fairness with conservatives, but it's a lost cause because conservatives believe the law should protect high-status groups and bind low-status ones, never bind high-status groups or protect low-status ones. Which I guess if you want to be that horrible, that's your right, but then quit saying how Christian you are. Jesus totally taught that everyone is equal in the eyes of God, so they should be equal in the eyes of the law too.

While I was at pagode, Travalon went out on the dock and took sunset photos. Here's my favorite.

When I came home, the moon was big and bright, so I brought my telescope out to look at it. I would get it in view, but then when I tried to focus, I'd lose it again. Travalon came out and took a photo.

Honestly, this is probably as good as it would have been looking through the telescope. 

Famous Hat

Just What You've Been Waiting For - More Blog Monsters!

 

This morning the guy came to fix our internet, and he needed to find some cable panel that we couldn't find anywhere in our condo because it turned out to be somewhere outside. I had to leave for an appointment, but Travalon texted me that things were working again, so that was one-third of my problems from yesterday solved. I had to go see the doctor because I had an episode of I think it's called tachycardia (a racing heart) on Ash Wednesday, but I chalked it up to fasting until having another episode last Thursday. They did an EKG this morning that was perfectly normal, and they did some labs that were all normal except one low level that could be caused by a viral infection, and my glucose level was too high because they said it didn't matter that I hadn't fasted, but it obviously did. I wore a mask because of my cold, so then the nurse put on a mask too. I had thought of canceling, but it seemed important to go in despite my cold. It was good to find out nothing's wrong... except now they want me to make an appointment to get some device that I have to wear for a week. Ugh. 

I worked from home in the afternoon and felt okay until taking a short walk right after work, hoping to see the train. Immediately I started to feel woozy, so I went home and just missed the train, but I felt so lousy that I didn't even care. (And as I'm writing this, another train is going by outside right this moment.) I called in sick to adoration and spent a quiet evening at home, and someone else volunteered to lead Night Prayer. I joined but only "talked" by writing in the chat. Hopefully I feel better by tomorrow - I'm supposed to work on campus, and it's not clear anyone else will be there if I can't be.

Meanwhile, at work Travalon got the kids to draw blog monsters. This is a fresh batch of kids, so they hadn't done this before, and they were all very small and had no idea what a "blog" is. I'm not sure they know what a monster is either, since this looks like a girl wearing a tiara. This can be Princess Blog Monster.

Travalon had no idea why this kid thought a blog monster would look like a cup of McDonald's hot chocolate. This can be Micky D Choco Blog Monster. The marshmallows are a nice touch.

I love how colorful some of these are. This one looks like a comet. I'll call it Halley's Blog Monster.

This one looks like a rainbow with eyes. It's Roy G. Bivp Blog Monster (the P is for pink).

Is this one supposed to be a robot or a little girl? I'm calling it Kawaii Blog Monster, since that's the Japanese word for "cute."

Here is Travalon's Irish blog monster. I'm dubbing this one Paddy O'Blog Monster.

He said this kid drew a blog monster and then scribbled over it, so he worked to salvage it.

I like how this blog monster looks like it's suspended in blue jello, like it's a salad at a Lutheran potluck or something. Maybe I'll call it Lutheran Potluck Blog Monster. Then again, it looks like it's dancing, so maybe I should call it Disco Blog Monster. I'll let my readers weigh in on this one.

My other two problems from yesterday were solved too, because my DNA data is deleted, and my timecard is fixed. Yay!

Famous Hat

Another Frustrating Monday

 

Today was a very quiet day, and I only saw a grad student and heard a second one. I asked Hardingfele if she wanted to walk with my colleague and me at lunch and at first she said, "No, it's gross," I assume meaning the weather, but then she said maybe, where were we meeting? She didn't show up, so my colleague and I walked without her, but when I asked if she wanted to walk on my afternoon break, she said, "Let's do it!" Then at the very end of the day, the chair stopped in with her husband. I had just brought the mail upstairs, including an incredibly heavy box for her, and it turns out they stopped by the mailroom looking for it, so I could have spared myself the pain. She did make me a cup of good coffee, but at that hour I wanted decaf, and it had that weird decaf taste. Not worth it. Travalon said I should have brought some stuffies from home to keep me company, and I said, "I got my posse here with me."

Travalon picked me up, and when we got home, we went down to the dock. We saw some cool stuff down there, like a pair of northern shovelers.

Tux Duck is so handsome!

I don't know what this gull is doing to these ducks, but it doesn't look good...

The buffleheads are so cute!

Could you pencil in some time on your schedule for DuoLingo bragging?

It was a frustrating day, despite being so quiet. There was a problem with my timecard, and my boss is on vacation, so I had to text him. (Which I hated doing.) He said he fixed it, but it still looked weird on my end. Then I read that we should all delete our data from one of those genetic websites because they just declared bankruptcy, so I have reluctantly done that. And Travalon had gotten a new modem, but when he hooked it up, our internet didn't work because he needed another router. He hooked up the old modem, but the internet still didn't work. Someone is supposed to come tomorrow morning to help with this. Maybe by tomorrow my timecard will be fixed, my DNA data will be deleted, and we'll have internet access. That is my hope, anyway.

Famous Hat

Tom Brady Is Pure Evil

 

I am starting to see how people get drawn into conspiracy theories. As my regular readers know, I am often frustrated with the Packers when they lose, but this time I really feel it wasn't their fault. Since Brady played in the AFC until this season, I hadn't really seen a team around him in action, but watching Sunday's game was like hearing descriptions of people watching the infamous Black Sox game: you knew something was really amiss, but you couldn't believe players would really cheat like that. Since other people whose teams are in the AFC have been griping about Brady cheating for many years, today I tried googling "Does Tom Brady cheat?" and found something really surreal - the search started to autofill, as they always do, but as soon as I started writing the word "cheat," it stopped autofilling. Now that is weird! I'm sure LOADS of people have searched for that question! Does Google somehow stop this search? And then... it only came up with five hits that were all about how Brady was investigated for "DeflateGate" and exonerated, which seemed even weirder, because he wasn't exactly exonerated, he just agreed to pay a huge fine so that the whole thing would be forgotten. And surely there are bloggers out there, if not professional sports writers, who have said things about how he must pay off the refs, because that has been the rumor for years... but nothing about that showed up in the search. So weird... Is he paying off Google? I have never seen a search return so few results!

So many things in life seem stacked against us, like in this heavily gerrymandered state where Republicans got about a third of the votes but somehow ended up with two-thirds of the representatives. I just can't imagine how it must feel to be a minority, where things are even more stacked against you. Football isn't supposed to be like that - it's supposed to be a meritocracy, but if you always know one guy is going to win, what's the point of watching anymore? And indeed, ever since Brady has become so dominant in the NFL, their ratings have taken a huge hit. It didn't affect us so much in Packer Land, since we are in the NFC and so very rarely would play the Patriots. But now that Brady plays for the Buccaneers, who are also in the NFC, we will encounter them more, and so we'll be treated to more games where the refs let them get away with murder but call the Packers on ticky-tacky fouls. Who wants to see that? And now I feel like Brady is gaming Google too. How else to explain those weird search results??

Famous Hat

Early Music Mystery: Solved!

 

What is life without a little mystery? Mine was that I had a soprano line stuck in my head, from some piece that I sang with the Lutheran choir. I thought it was from "O Sacrum Convivium" by Byrd, so I found the video on YouTube, and indeed it was there. However, I thought it was also in a piece by Bach's second cousin, and I thought his name was Johann Michael Bach, but none of the pieces by that composer seemed familiar. Finally I looked him up on Wikipedia, and he had an older brother named Johann Christoph Bach, and he had written a piece called "Furchte Dich Nicht." That was it! And it had the same figure in the soprano line! What??

So I emailed my OTHER choir director, who said, "We never did anything by Byrd by that name. We did a piece by Tallis by that name." He also said the JC Bach soprano line was based on a chorale. So I looked at the YouTube video, and it was from a CD of pieces by Tallis and Byrd. Obviously YouTube is so smart that if you are looking for a piece by Byrd that doesn't exist, but one by the same name does by Tallis, it knows what you mean. I asked the name of the chorale the JC Bach piece was based on, and he said "O Traurigkeit." So I was able to find the sheet music for both pieces online, and the figure is very similar, but probably just a coincidence. It goes up the scale four notes, then back down five, and then it repeats. So really not that strange that two composers would come up with that figure separately, but I'm glad to know I wasn't losing my mind - they really are the same. And so the mystery is solved, all thanks to my OTHER choir director and the internet. What did we do before we had all this knowledge available at our fingertips?

Famous Hat

Online Reviews of... Everything

In case you missed it, there is a very entertaining story making the rounds on the Internet about a couple in Arizona who had an online meltdown because of bad reviews of their restaurant. I won’t get into the details, but you can read any of these stories. It did get me thinking about online reviews. Once I bought a kind of expensive rosary, and my friends were laughing when I talked about checking the reviews first. (They said it was beautiful and well made, but the beads were kind of small.) Then today Luxuli sent me a link to reviews of an app for iPhones that makes farting sounds. It’s bizarre enough that this app exists, but really, people are taking the time to review it. That’s what makes the internet great.

Famous Hat

My Adventures in ePlush World

Currently I am one state over, visiting my family, and yesterday my parents and I went shopping for presents for my niece and nephews. We were in the toy section, of course, and my father held up a stuffed animal and said, "Look at this!" It was a hedgehog! It was one of those stuffed animals that comes with a code to enter into the online world (let's call it ePlush), so it was about twice the price of a normal stuffed animal, but it was very cute.

I don't know much about ePlush, other than that Hardingfele's daughter Rock Star Tailor (who is 7 going on 15) is a complete addict, but as someone who is thirty-something-going-on-five myself, I decided to splurge and buy the ePlush Hedgehog. (I am a pathetic aunt; I spent more on this lousy experiment than on the young relatives I was actually shopping for.) It sounded like a lot of fun: the real Sylvia is about halfway through her average life expectancy of four years, but now she could exist in virtual reality forever! (I wasn't ignoring Charlie and Cashmere, but they are only about four years into an eight-to-twelve year lifespan, and anyway we didn't see any ePlush bunnies.) So I bought the little stuffed hedgehog (which is about twice the size of the real Sylvia) and logged into ePlush at my parents' house. (Unlike me, they have internet access at home - that's how I have been blogging lately.)

It wasn't too difficult to adopt the fake Sylvia. (Almost as easy as adopting the real Sylvia; her owner asked me to hedgehog-sit for a weekend and never took her back.) I picked a user name and password, entered the code on Fake Sylvia's tag, and said what I wanted to name her and that she was a girl. Up popped an adoption certificate with a birthdate of May 29, 2008 (the real Sylvia was probably born in April of 2006), a cute picture of the fake Sylvia, and a proclamation that I, Famous Hat, had adopted a girl... PORCUPINE???? I looked at the tag on Fake Sylvia more closely, and sure enough, in font about three microns high, it clearly stated that the animal was a porcupine. (Made in China, of course.) Now in my humble opinion, as well as that of my parents, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephews, Fake Sylvia looks like a twin of Real Sylvia, except that she is a soft silvery gray while Real Sylvia is what I believe is technically called "agouti," meaning her quills are striped brown and white so that she looks a little bit filthy all the time.

I was supposed to have a photo my brother had taken, of me holding both Sylvias, so that all five of my readers could weigh in on this extremely vital matter: is Fake Sylvia a porcupine, or is she clearly a hedgehog? However, Brother Dearest, after swearing up and down to me that he would email the photo right away, has failed to do so. I will post it as soon as he sends it. (OK, now I have posted it, but it's teeny. I hope you can get an idea of the Two Sylvias!)

Anyway, ePlush is clearly aimed at children, but there are some fun video games on it. Also, you can talk to your pet and she always has something sweet to say in return, like, "You're the best owner!" and "I just love playing with you!" Real Sylvia mostly just says, "HISSSSS," although she does say, "Squeak! Squeak!" when she's happy. Not once has she ever said to me what a great owner I am. The take-home lesson here must be that porcupines are superior pets to hedgehogs.

Famous Hat