I have successfully moved my blog. Once I’m satisfied everything works, I’ll disable the old location.
Author: Christopher (Page 22 of 29)
This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My blog is NOT my best friend. It is NOT my life. I do NOT have to master it as I must master my life. My blog, without me is NOT useless. It simply won't get updated. I must write my blog true, except when it serves my purposes to do otherwise. I must write better than other bloggers who are trying to outblog me. Or not.
I knew that bees were disappearing in the US and it is very alarming, but I didn’t know it was starting to happen in Deutschland. At best honey and fruit is going to get a lot more expensive. At worst world the human race is doomed. Killer bees don’t sound so scary after learning about this.
Der Spiegel – Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
BBC News – Vanishing bees threaten US crops
science friday (podcast) – Honeybee Problems
That isn’t a typo. Alas, I didn’t make it up. I just heard it on a Science Friday podcast about how invasive worm species are destroying soils in the northeast US. It seems that they turn patches of forest floor that were once full of organic material into bare patches. These are forests above the glacier line. Presumably during the last Ice Age the hundreds of feet of ice killed off the native earthworms, so you generally don’t find them in northern soils.
The invasive species are from Europe and Asia. The venerable nightcrawler is a European import. The speaker said that most of these imported worms came either in the ballast of ships or in plants brought over by immigrants. Native species aren’t moving northwards the way the invasive ones are and given the northerly range these worms have in their native habitat they wouldn’t be expected to move that far north, so global warming may be affecting them. Hence, global worming.
Give it a listen. It’s fascinating: Science Friday March 23, 2007 Earthworms.
It’s an interesting experience getting older, knowing at some point you reach the full height of your physical and mental powers and then begin their gradual decline. I’ve passed my physical peak and now begins the physical gradual decline. Let’s hope it’s a gentle slope. Now I get to experience problems that come with not so much age as it is my genetic predisposition.
I have a frozen shoulder. 50/50 chance of guessing the correct one. It seems that women, diabetics, and redheads are prone to it. Basically, the cuff surrounding the ball and socket become inflamed and limits mobility. It will take months of stretching to restore most of the mobility. I am not female nor diabetlic, but I do have reddish hair. I wonder if a female diabetic redhead is thrice as likely to develop a frozen shoulder.
How did it happen? I strained my arm trying to start a gas powered leaf blower. I must have pulled the cord fifty times very hard. I thought it would heal up. It didn’t. Went to the doctor. He examined my arms and took X-rays. No torn muscles, no damaged bones. All good. It’s not pleasant and can be painful at times, but when I know what ailments friends, family, and acquaintences suffer from, I feel fortunate. The rest of me is in pretty darn good health. I could lose a few pounds again. It sucks when you stop exercising on a regular basis. Your waistline behaves like the imperceptably slow inflation of a balloon.
Update – I went to my first physical therapy session today. He assessed my mobility or lack theirof. Then he worked on my shoulder a bit and then showed me a number of exercises which I did. At the end he hooked up some electrodes and slapped an ice pack on my shoulder. I sat their for fifteen minutes while my shoulder was frozen and electrocuted at the same time. I get to go back a few more times and then I get to do the rest on my own sans electrodes.
I liked the pictures in the blog entry I took of the ‘twa cars ‘n a ditch’ so much that I decided to post some more pics. This time it’s from our trip to Scotland in 2005. The graphic at the top of this blog is Marsco part of the Red Cuillins on the Isle of Skye. Is it not striking? Now for the pics:
Melissa and I on Staffa at the mouth of Fingal’s Cave. Staffa off the west coast Mull and about six nautical miles north of Iona. It was part of a package tour, really more a series of separate trips and tickets. First we boarded a Calmac ferry from Oban to Mull then we hopped a bus that travelled a single track road through some of the most luscious and beautiful landscape we’d seen up to that point in our trip. Next we hopped on a small 30 foot boat which took us through some very choppy water to Staffa wherein I got very motion sick. After about an hour we got back on the boat which took us to Iona. Shortly before we docked I finally threw up, and as chance would have it, on the side and very spot of the boat where everyone had to step to get off. We the walked up to the ruins and the abbey to see what the place where St. Columba set up his monastary and where the Book of Kells was written. Then we got on another smaller Calmac ferry to Mull, back on the bus across the island, then the big ferry back to Oban.
Note- In 2006 we went to Ireland and saw both the Book of Kells in Trinity’s library and went up to Northern Ireland to see Giant’s Causeway which is the same type of volcanic columns as Staffa.
This is a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry from Mallaig arriving at Armadale on Skye. It’s such a neat shot.
This is the car park where John Knox is buried. The red arrow points to the spot. The building in the background is the old Scottish parliament building, which alas we didn’t get to go into because it was undergoing renovation. To the left and behind, outside the picture is Edinburgh Cathedral. If you go inside you can see a statue of the founder of the Scottish Protestant Reformation. We also saw his statue in Geneva, Switzerland in 2004 along with some other luminaries of the Protestant Reformation, including Calvin and two other stern looking gentlemen I’d never heard of. They look more like Time Lords from Dr. Who.
Some of my previous posts include PDF slideshows. I plan to post more pictures of previous trips.