School LOCK-DOWN Dun-Da-Dunnnn

Just got an automated voice mail from the middle school. They had a lock-down, which by the way, whenever I hear about these things I think about prison movies. Until fairly recently, prison was the only context for the expression.

The cause of this "lock-down" you ask? Ah, someone found an EMPTY firearm cartridge in the hallway. Now I suppose it could be harmful if a student happened to have: A bullet, powder, a primer, a reloading press, the correct reloading dies, and oh yes--a gun!

Okay, I know; I am being a little playful here. When you fire any kind of automatic weapon, it spits-out the used shell. So, if you see a shell on the floor, maybe there has been gun-play. Of course when guns go off, they often make a certain very loud noise, technically called a bang!

Maybe there was someone there with a gun, and he dropped the empty. Yes, that is very reasonable. I know that if I want to go to the range and do some shooting, I am sure to bring lots of empty shells along.

This is way out there, but just stick with me on this. Maybe some kid picked-up an empty shell from home, or found it on the ground and brought it in to show around or just forgot that it was in his pocket? I know this seems very unlikely. It probably really was the night time janitors doing target practice in the hallways and they forgot to pick-up one of the shells and who knows? Maybe they left their rifles laying around too. Or a gunman came to the school to shoot-up the place, but somehow just brought empty shells with him.

I would be willing to bet it was a parade shell: In our 4th of July parade there are always troops (mostly re-enacters) who fire volleys and kids pick-up the empty brass blanks left in the street. I know Dahlia did this and then her sisters weren't happy till they found shells too. You can tell these shells from regular ones because the blanks are crimped at the top. This keeps the powder from spilling out, since there is no bullet to block the end.

UPDATE: My daughter is home now and added this detail: They had to gather together in one corner of the classroom for around an hour. So the school blew some 600 student-hours of learning, all for no reason.

UPDATE 2: Coincidence edition: Dahlia, who goes to the grade school, came home from school and presented me with a rock that she thinks looks like a bullet...

Agenda For Thursday

My day-off this week is tomorrow, what shall I do?

1. Keep tabs on Meenah

2. Go for a long run

3. Roast some coffee

Quite frankly, I will be happy if I accomplish task 1.

A cute little hand-full...

UPDATE; Coffee roasted. Kenyan AA and Mexican Turquesa, had the African coffee with breakfast. Meenah, still alive...developing.

UPDATE 2: Got in a long run. Un-timed due to not being able to find running watch--probably left it at work. Good that it was un-timed since I had no enthusiasm today and was very slow.

Cooking tip #2 Old Potato Baking

It is common knowledge that potatoes should be pierced prior to baking--otherwise they may explode.

Vast experience has shown this to be true. Today I learned a corollary to that bit of truth: Oldish potatoes might still explode if poked in the normal way.

Today I baked 5 potatoes and they were fine, no sprouts or anything like that. They were a little old though and had that slightly dessicated, shrunken look and feel to them. I poked each of them 4 times with a fork and baked at 375F for an hour. At the end of the hour, two had burst so I got out a knife to poke the other three. The first one I poked blew-up real good. The other two I was more gentle with and they gasped out a puff of steam, but held.

Next time: Good deep piercings with a knife before baking. Now to clean the oven.

maggots in medicine

Just keeping my run going...

I started out in March posting every day and sort-of eased into the idea of seeing if I could post every day this month.

A favorite blogger posted some provocative pictures which inspired me to write an (uninspiring) Haiku.

Gone to tilted green

by a crooked shadow-path

Or the straight sidewalk

A lot of her commenters are very clever and I was hoping to get the ball rolling poetry-wise. It didn't work, the comments section found its own path...

Finally broke 76 minutes for this run

That makes 8 minutes per mile.

This is odd.

I can't get to any blogger blog, but am able to get to the compose page.

If a blogger posts, but nobody can see it, does the post exist?

Happy Easter

The children have all found their Easter baskets and are just tracking down the last of the hidden eggs.

In the last week or so I have been complaining that Spring doesn't seem to want to come here to New England. Well, yesterday I saw the first sprout of Spring.

This is the rhubarb coming back to life.

Map My Run Image

About half of my friends and relatives use MacOS and the browser that comes with it, Safari, does not show the mapmyrun images. So I thought while I am demoing Snagit, I might as well show what these images look like.

GeoID went crazy again...

This has happened before, not to this extent though. I normally might get 2-3 hits per day but sometimes, for reasons I don't understand yet, I get a huge deluge of hits. Just in case one might think that it is just GeoID not working right, I don't think that is the case: The site counter jumps too.

Here is another odd thing: I see a hit from location zero longitude and zero latitude. So, on the equator and due South of London. It is odd, because there doesn't seem to be any land there.

An Easter Puppy

I didn't realize this until reading some of the obituaries for WFB that he was a big lover of the Cavalier King Charles. It is pure coincidence but still fitting that our first dog should be this breed.

Helpful Cooking Hint...

Just in case you too face this exact (really common) problem:

My wife and I both want to have a hamburger tonight. There is only one hamburger bun left.

But we do have a fresh loaf of bread...

And they usually have two of these kind of pieces...

Presto! With the help of a large biscuit cutter.

Dinner accomplished!

If you have the right theory, all the facts make sense...

NPR has a story from yesterday which is pretty interesting: The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat

by Richard Harris

3000 robots have been taking the Ocean's temperature the last 4-5 years and haven't seen any warming. At the same time, sea levels have risen 1/2 inch.

This is naturally very confusing: If the Earth is warming, then why isn't it actually warming? If it is not warming then why the increase in sea-level? When you warm-up water it expands, but since the water isn't warmer the expansion couldn't have been from that.

The answer is cosmic rays. Okay, I don't wear a tinfoil hat so I will explain further. When the sun is more active, as judged by sunspots, it produces a strong magnetic field. This field reduces the amount of cosmic rays which hit our atmosphere. Oh, yes. Cosmic rays seed clouds. This isn't my brilliant theory by the way.

The Chilling Stars: The New Theory of Climate Change (Paperback) by Henrik Svensmark

Clouds have multiple effects. They insulate at night, holding in warmth. But in the daytime they reflect more sunlight away than insulate--so the net effect is thought to be that clouds cool. There is one region of the earth where clouds only warm; the arctic. The reason is that places with permanent snow cover already reflect the sun very efficiently, so clouds there are only insulating. If the sun was fairly inactive (as it is and has been the last couple of years) one might expect global cooling and some melt-off of arctic ice. We haven't seen the cooling, but we also haven't seen carbon dioxide based heating either--possibly they are canceling each other out.

When Will The Winter End?

Yesterday was very nice; sunny, warm and pleasant. No sprouts, flowers or signs of Spring--like they have in other, more fortunate places. Still a pretty good day. My wife & I both worked from home, so we had a brisk walk together. I was looking forward to a long run today, my day off. But look at this gray drizzle!

Gray, dim & dismal are the watchwords for today. A bad day for a long run is a good day to cook--perhaps I will make a cauldron of spaghetti sauce...after a short run.

Update: 9.5 miles run 77:40 and sauce made. Going to relax for a bit.

Another Giant Falls...

Arthur C. Clarke: RIP

I got into scifi when I was maybe 12 or 13. At that age, paperbacks were pretty much the only option. In fact the first book I ever purchased at a store is in this picture: The Wind From The Sun. Back in 1975 or so, I still remember how 95 Cents + Tax stung.

It is surprising, now that I think about it, that I still have these cheap things 30 years after buying them.

So, What's Up With Obama's Church?

All the news, at least on the internet tubes, has been about Senator Obama's church. I won't go into lots of details about this, since I am sure anyone who is interested can find out all they want on their own. I will just sum-up the tenor of it by saying that the motto of his church might as well be, "Never trust whitey".

What I got to wondering was; did Senator Obama have a choice? That is, are all the African-American churches on the South side of Chicago like that? I have no idea, I kind of hope not. What do you mean by, "kind of"? Well, in general terms, I wish none of them were like that. But on the other hand, if some were not like that, then I am pretty sad that Obama didn't choose a different church. I should note here that the Trinity United Church of Christ is very popular--something like 8,000 members.

I will also note here that I do not personally think that Senator Obama does himself hate or distrust whites, unlike say Jackson, Sharpton or Obama's own pastor.

We're All Irish Today!

St. Patrick's Day is a pretty big deal in lots of places and this is especially true in the Boston area. I have a (possible) shred of Irish in me, from my Mom's side--Dad 100% Italian; so our kids have a little Irish in them.

My wife made everything pictured and I can assure you, she doesn't have a drop of Irish blood, but today she is all-Irish and everything delicious!

Too late to enlist?

A friend had asked me how old one can be and still join the military. He probably asked me because I had been in the Marine Corps. The thing is, I had no idea what the answer was--I joined when I was 18.

Well, I looked it up: You can be up to 42 to enlist and up to 35 to take a commission. The younger age for officers is because they want you to be able to put in 20 years and you have to retire at 55.

55-35=20

If I was still single and had never served before (and was under 42!) I would consider signing up. I bet there would be a novel in it. In researching this, I came across the story of Kristi Jo Newland. A very inspiring woman and a reminder of why we are a great country: We have people like that and lots of them!

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun

Running observations

I was going to bag running for the weekend since I have the beginnings of a head-cold. I rested all day Saturday but still felt enervated all day. So today I figured that if I am going to feel like crap all day, a run won't make me feel worse and might do some good.

A lot of the snow, most really, has melted so I decided to run on trails. The trails were not really good for anyone: There were long stretches of snow and ice which would be good for cc skiing, but then this would be followed by long stretches of mud and dirt.

There is a spot that I always pass by; it has several lengths of sawed white birch logs laying on the ground. I have seen them before, I know that the are there. Whenever I first see them I wonder, for a split-second, why there are PVC pipes on the ground.

I listen to music as I run. The iPod shuffle is so small, you can't feel the weight of it. I listen to classical rock and classical music and I have it pick the tunes randomly. So I might get the Red Hot Chili Peppers--which makes me feel like running aggressively, followed by Mozart's "Requiem"--which (sublimely) makes me think of my mortality, then some Cake--which reminds me of how much I like horns in rock music, then Beethoven's 6th--which reassures me that Spring will eventually show herself...