Hey, It May Not Be The Cover Of Rolling Stone, But At Least It's A Middle Section From Leatherneck

 

Coincidences

 Maybe we live in a simulation or maybe so many things happen, that there are bound to be coincidences...

--When I was an undergraduate, I met a young woman in astronomy 101.  We spent a fair amount of time together, but not much happened romantically.  She liked to hold hands on long walks, we went to the movies a time or two and kissed once.  Anyways, she was a Hotel & Restaurant Management student and spent a summer in India, working at a large international hotel.

--After I graduated, I spent a year and a half living in Sun Valley.  One one of the many drives between Sun Valley and Spokane, I picked-up a hitchhiker who, I discovered later, had dropped a ball point pen in my car, which was from the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe Vermont.

Also, while living in Sun Valley, I developed a deep friendship with a woman who had gotten a degree in Journalism at University of Idaho while I was in Pullman.  One of the many things I remembered was her telling me she dated a guy with the memorable last name of "Custer".  He attended WSU and they met because she spent a Summer as a lifeguard at the public pool in Pullman.  She noted that he--even though a STEM guy, could really write--which was kind of a mixed blessing since he wrote beautiful but rather mean post-break-up letters to her.  The name was familiar to me:  I took a Science Fiction lit course under the legendary Paul Brians and in this small-ish class, we would review each other's papers.  There was a Custer in the class, IIRC he was stem and he was an amazing writer!

--After Sun Valley, I returned to Pullman to prep for grad school, via a degree in Biology.  One of the first courses I took was Organic Chemistry.  It was an equipment/glassware intensive lab and each student had a row of drawers of their own stuff.  A label on a piece of glassware read "Custer".  I became friends with the Indian-American TA and through her, met my Indian-American wife.  She grew up in the Boston area, which is how we got into the vicinity of Vermont.  We got into Vermont itself because we figured that since entry-level jobs paid so little, we might as well live someplace with a lower cost of living. It happened that UVM advertised in The Boston Globe.  We ended up living in Vermont for 8 years.

The Progression of the Deck Shelter Project

 

Imaginary Dialogue

Mom: How did you sleep last night dear?

Me:  Pretty good considering that I felt as if The Eye of Sauron was on me all night.

Mom: The flood light from next door is really something isn't it?  I need to get some curtains for that room...

How it went:  After I mentioned Sauron, Mom stared at me blankly and I didn't know if she didn't hear me (she's hard of hearing) or didn't get the reference.

It turned out to be:  Both.

Poor "mom-ing" and errands done on a bike

I normally 'deal with my hair' by shaving my head every so often.  I've been doing this for about 5 years, so it's not a pandemic adaptation.

A concatenation of events induced me to get a professional cut for once:  A barber shop in the middle of our village reopened after a couple of years of being closed.  I had gone there every once in a while and the place was staffed solely by the owner, who was close to retirement and was only open sporadically. I wanted to support him by getting my hair cut there, but often needed a cut and he was closed.  This and my thinning hair probably combined into me making a habit out of the DIY method.

A small story of a time I got my hair cut there:  I kept having the barber take a bit more off, since he wasn't getting it tight enough.  He noted that, "I can take it off, but I can't put it back ".  I replied without much thought, "Maybe someday, in Heaven, you will gain the power to put it back".  He became visibly moved by this. Which made me have "the feels" as well.  He was getting up in age and had recently lost his wife, so his mind would understandably be turning to mortality...

The second reason for going back to the barbershop was that in a few days, I'll be flying out for a wedding.  I would like to make a good impression--we live 3,000 miles away and I don't see these people all that often.

I had some time and the only vehicle available to me was the GMC Yukon XL.  So I thought, why not ride your bike?  If I take the bike path, it's only 2 miles and there are no hills.  Of course, I haven't ridden my bike in months and the tires were flat and got a bunch of dust and cobwebs on myself in the process of pumping up the tires and set-off on my way.

It was a drizzly day, so the path wasn't the usual zoo, but there were a few walkers, joggers and bikers out.  I was in no hurry but still could maintain, what I estimate to be a little more than 15 MPH, with very low effort.  When I needed to overtake people, I would slow to maybe half that for safety reasons.  I noticed a small child riding a bike following his mom on her bike and I slowed as I came closer to overtaking them.  I had to slow even further because the mom turned around and began heading toward me.  It looked as if all three of us would intersect at the same point, so I slowed enough that she could pass her son first.  As she got close to the boy, she instructed him, "somebody is coming up from behind you, so get to the right".  Naturally, he veered sharply and suddenly to the left.  I had to come to a complete stop to avoid him.  The mom either didn't see this or remained ignorant of the accident she had almost caused.

I got my haircut in the nicely re-decorated barbershop and was regaled by a Spanish dubbed (and subtitled, also in Spanish) version of Twilight.  Very compelling cinematography, but even my smattering of Spanish (3 years of high school courses!) I could tell how idiotic it was.

After the haircut, I purchased wedding cards and made it home with no further ado. 

Okay, I'll Explain

 My Wife didn't understand my Facebook post--which was just the picture below:

The FBI seized a "fully constructed" Lego set of the U.S. Capitol from the home of an alleged insurrectionist. 

What does the FBI think they can prove here?  Are they not sure they have enough evidence that the guy was trespassing in the Capitol and the Lego set will put them over the top?

Maybe the FBI has watched one too many 'heist' movies and they think his sinister plot depended on the detailed model, provided by Lego.

Contrast

 

With flat light, you can still kind of see the break line, it runs almost vertically.

When I tilt it a bit, it's really easy to see the etching.

BTW.  These pills are our elderly female dog's incontinence drug--estrogen.  They work like magic. She gets half a pill per day, wrapped in American Cheese, so she will eat it.

Another Accepted Post!

 David writes:

"This may be off-topic, but your post reminded me of something from a few days ago:

"I had been looking into this Knight Professorship program because of the controversy around tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones at UNC, and found out that Michael Pollan is a Knight Professor at UC Berkeley.

"It seems, on one hand as if it is laudable for a foundation to facilitate getting people, who could be exceptional professors, but who lack the normal academic credentials, in front of students.

"In the case of NHJ, it looks like a colossal mistake—her work doesn’t come close to academic standards, she hasn’t really broken new ground in journalism and hasn’t done any teaching.

"In the case of Michael Pollan, this seems like a perfect example of why the program is great. He is a very compelling speaker and has written a bunch of books which are journalistic and very influential. One thing that comes to mind with Pollan: Was the Knight money really the only thing stopping Berkeley from offering the professorship?"

Althouse posted it Here but my response was to this post.  In fairness, she had two Michael Pollan posts in one day and I was admittedly on a tangent--to both of them.

Not, No Signal, But Certainly, Not Much Signal

 If you look at past and current infection rates in the UK, it looks pretty scary:

But let's look at the death rate:

Last time the case rate went this high, the death rate went from high single digits to the high 400s per day.  Now it's jumped from the high single digits to, 21.  I conclude that the vaccine is working, though I would like to see more data about who is getting infected.  An alternate hypothesis is that D is more infectious for those who are not immunized, but less deadly.  And of course it could be and probably is a mixture of this and vaccinated people becoming infected, but having great survival rates from the vaccine. 

The previous death rate was approximately 500 deaths / 25,000 infections, so one in 50.  Now, (with rounding) about 25 deaths / 25,000 infections, so one in 1,000.  A 20-fold difference in this outcome.

I'm Half Italian and Only Now am Realizing

 

That the Italian flag has vertical stripes.  It's not shocking, it's just that it never really occurred to me that there is a flag, almost just like it, but horizontal.

The reason for this was that I had been watching a bunch of Wimbledon over a very rainy 3-day weekend and marveled at how no American men were left and yet Canada and Italy each had two men left.

Well, I was right about Canada, but not Italy.  I thought that a name like Márton Fucsovics didn't sound very Italian, but reasoned that professional tennis players are kind-of world citizens:  They choose a place that is nice to live in and which has the kind of weather which allows you to train year-round.  Italy has pretty nice weather compared to most of the Slavic areas.  Anyway, I noticed his flag was different from the very typically named Italian, Matteo Berrettini's flag.

So I learned something about the Italian flag and something about the Hungarian flag too. 

A Rainy 4th Of July Weekend

But we still got to do everything we wanted to do: 

On the 4th, I got in a run during a break in the rain--I would have happily run in the rain, but it was nice to see the sun.

Later, I fired up the grill when it was mostly sunny.  When it started to rain, I wheeled the grill to a place under the new shelter we just installed and I was able to grill, without the rain drowning the coals or wetting the meat.

After dinner, it got nice again and everyone went outside and lounged under the shelter.  I had wheeled the grill back to its normal place in the sun, or rain.

Much later, some fireworks were set-off and I was kind of glad it was raining again, since one of the small rockets landed in an oak tree branch and a small fire was burning up there.  I'm pretty sure the tree was never in danger and all that was burning was the firework itself.  But better safe than sorry: The garden hose just reached the spot (after I stood up on the deck railing) and after a few tense moments, all was well.  We set off one more large rocket and decided to not test our luck with the arrays of tiny ones.

Another break in the rain came on the 5th and so my wife and I explored a new (to us) trail nearby.  It was very buggy and the trail didn't go far.  But the town forrest had been harvested in 2019--according to a sign I saw on the way to the parking spot--so there was much open area and we found ripe blueberries growing in there.  We braved the deer flies and mosquitoes long enough to enjoy a couple handfuls of the tiny but very sweet and tasty berries, before making our escape.

It Should Have Been An Emergency

 It was Saturday the 3rd of July and we had plans.  I was watching Wimbledon tennis and my wife had plans to either do a cardio class, or treadmill if the class was cancelled.

Either of these plans require electricity, which just went-off around 8:00 AM.  I've done it so often, it was almost too easy:  Open the garage door manually, wheel out the generator and plug it into the outside 220V socket, fire the unit up, go to the basement and shut-off the main breaker and all the other breakers, energize the socket breaker then all the others one-by-one.  Go back out and release the choke on the generator.

I got Wimbledon back on the TV once the cable box reset itself and the wife's class remained cancelled so we decided to find out if the generator could handle the treadmill.  It could!

We were back on track!

An accepted comment from Matt Damon and the Cocoon/Wilford Brimley line

 Here

Matt Damon Is a lucky guy. He’s aged to the perfect spot—as old as Wilford Brimley was in Cocoon, but doesn’t look old like that. Damon was a handsome young man, but had an uncanny resemblance to Hillary Swank. Life is good for both of them, Hillary Swank is still beautiful and Damon is a little less pretty, but in a good way.

I feel a little bad, with everyone picking on Brimley for looking unusually old for his age—he still made it to 85, which is pretty respectable. So I feel like I should point out, in The Natural, Richard Farnsworth was two years younger than Brimley but looks 10 years older:

The Natural

I think a lot of men looked old at an early age back then—of course it could have been Hollywood movie magic. Robert Redford was the same age as Farnsworth in that scene (47), so not everybody looked old for their age back then.

Run Away Sir Brave!

 Hmmn, what is he responding to?

Who knows?  Sir Brave has bravely blocked me.

Am I Doing The Math Wrong Or Is The IOC Crazy?

 "Athletes would also be required to demonstrate that their total testosterone level in serum has been below 10 nanomoles per litre for at least 12 months prior to their first competition"

"Testosterone levels are measured through blood tests. Most doctors agree that a “normal” reading falls anywhere between 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL)."

The units are not the same:  nM/L in the olympic standard and the normal medical standard is ng/dL. Getting from L to dL is easy, just divide by 10.  So 10 nM/L = 1 nM/dL but we have to get to ng/dL.

Testosterone weighs 288.42 g/M so:  (1 nM/dL)(288.42g/M) = 288.42 ng/dL

That's around the low end for a man. 

 "In women, normal testosterone levels range from 15 to 70 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL) of blood."

So the IOC is allowing trans-women a level over 4 times the high end of normal for women?

Alternate McSweeny's Headlines, Part 14

 After a long drought, they tee one up!

GETTING RID OF THE FILIBUSTER 

WILL PUT THE SENATE IN THE TERRIBLE 

POSITION OF HAVING 

TO craft LEGISLATION WHICH 

is not 

completely insane

 

by BOBBIE ARMSTRONG

A Rejected Althouse Comment

It was off-topic, but waste not, want not:

I think some people want to make Juneteenth problematic.

I was in a Twitter “debate” a few days ago and the poster was claiming that teaching about Juneteenth was illegal due to anti CRT laws being passed in various states. The line of “reasoning” was as follows:

Opening salvo by none other than former Sec of Labor Robert Reich:

“So let me get this straight: Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, but laws are being enacted all across the country to keep people from learning about it?” 

Pushback from Zaid Jilani:

“No, that’s not at all what’s happening, but what’s the point of correcting you? It’s not a genuine question.”

Defense of Reich from Xavier Harmony:

What kind of white person can learn about Juneteenth without feeling discomfort?

“A bill signed into law by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt bans lessons that include the concept that someone should feel discomfort, guilt or distress on account of their race.”

Where I come in:

“The point of Juneteenth was that people were freed, not that it was fine to own them.”

To elaborate a bit: I became aware of Juneteenth about 20 year’s ago.  I believe it was from an article in someplace like The Atlantic or The New Yorker about Ralph Ellison's novel, Juneteenth.  I haven’t read it, but the review gave some background of the Juneteenth episode in history.  

From an intellectual point of view, it was somewhat predictable:  No rational person would think that all the slaves were freed the day after Appomattox, news traveled slowly and it was a large country.  In fact, I suppose there were some people still enslaved even after Juneteenth—some out-of-the-way place, that didn’t get the news, or just ignored it until somebody came and forced them to comply.

Anyway, what I felt about Juneteenth and in fact, whenever I hear about slaves being freed, wars ending, etc. is happiness.  Not guilt.  Why would I feel guilt for things that happened long before I was born?  And really, who but a racist, thinks I ought to feel guilt for something out of my control, like the color of my skin or the circumstances of my birth? 

Flat Earth and CRT

 If for some reason, a bunch of nuts decided to sneak Flat Earth theories into public school science classes, we ought to do something about it.  This does not involve banning the idea, people can still freely discuss it, should they wish to do so.  We just wouldn't give it legitimacy by presenting it along side the spherical Earth theory.

I suppose the flat-earthers might try a couple of tactics:

--Why are anti-flat-earthers afraid of presenting this theory along side other theories?

--They would just lie and claim that Flat-Earth science isn't being taught, but also that it is totally correct and aught to be taught.

--They would claim that this is just geology and it is accepted by high-level academic researchers.

An Approved Comment on Althouse

 

Ann Althouse said...

David writes:

I grew-up in Spokane and had heard that bordellos were operated in Wallace. I had no first-hand verification of these rumors until some years later. A friend had a bachelor party in State Line ID. Next to the bar was a cat house. The proprietress made it clear what they were doing there, without directly saying it. This made me conclude that it may not be legal, but is tolerated. A few years later I was in a situation where I needed to drive between Sun Valley ID and Spokane every month, always late at night/very early morning. I mainly used a route which took me right past (really over, since it was an elevated part of the freeway) Wallace on I-90. The architecture looked interesting, but I never stopped; I had a 500 mile trip, which was either just starting or nearly over. Plus I would be going past between midnight and 5 AM.

I did end up going there once. I picked-up a hitchhiker on one of the trips. Yes, back in my 20’s I was pretty care-free and thought the chances of being murdered were remote. I soon found out I had picked up a prostitute who needed a ride into Wallace, for work. I don’t remember how she told me, but I remember it was pretty matter-of-fact. Me: This is certainly an odd hour to need to be anywhere. Her: I work at the bordello, my car wouldn’t start and this is a good time of the night for this line of work. Me: Glad I could help. She was dressed provocatively, so I assumed she wasn’t some sort of support staff. In fact, she may have just come out and told me she was a hooker, but it’s been over 30 years and memory fades.

Down in the city, it looked like an interesting place and I wanted to go back and visit in the day time. But the thing is that it was kind of a hike from Spokane (about 90 miles), so I never did. Also, I now live near Boston, which may not be the center of the universe, but is claimed to be the hub of the universe. So, I’ve always kept some kind of central point not too far away.

Wallace Idaho

6/11/21, 7:41 PM

Dune