RelentlesslyOptimistic

I truely feel like I was visited by an angel \m/

Thanks Erin, for teaching me "Rock on!" \m/

Via Woosk. And yes, truely (sic).

Geek alert: Google Street View Tricycles!

If you've ever gotten frustrated tooling around in Google Street View because you can't get to someplace that isn't a major street, then you're probably as much of a geek as I am. Google has just announced Google Street View Tricycles as a way to index some of those hard-to-reach places!

Via Justinsomnia

What is it?

I was struck by the beauty of this image, and so in the spirit of bookofjoe decided to post it for guesses. Answer in the comments, I'll post the answer in a few days. The prize, of course, is recognition on the internets, and that warm feeling you get when you know you're right.

Portland Plastic Pony Public Art

In some of the older commercial and residential parts of Portland, Oregon there are rings embedded into curbs from the time when people needed to tie up their horses. A local artist, Scott Wayne Indiana, started tying small plastic horses to the rings to remind people of the City's history (and for amusement, I presume). He was soon joined by others who formed the horse project. 

The site has many more pictures, stories, and instructions on fastening horses to the rings. I only wish we had rings in the curbs in Kansas City. Well, that and that Scott and friends had liked alliteration as much as I do.

Prairie Perspective

Kiosk Hello:

From an interview on NPR

“I watched prairie dogs every day, rise before the sun, stand with their paws pressed together facing the rising sun in total still­ness for up to 30 minutes,” says Williams. “And then I watched them at the end of the day take that same ges­ture 30 min­utes before the sun goes down they would press their palms together in per­fect still­ness. I don’t mean to anthro­po­mor­phize, but when you look at a crea­ture that has sur­vived over the mil­len­nium begin and end each day in that kind of stance, it causes one to think about one’s own life and speed and rapid­ity in which we live.”

Living under the house, part two

Happily, Michael & Kathleen's skunks left voluntarily. In the meantime, though, something has moved in under our house. The stairs that lead from the basement up to the room addition and then outside are lined with the same limestone as the foundation. Recently, after I spread some boric acid, tracks appeared near holes between the limestone blocks on either side of the steps.

To find out what was living there, I first consulted these ingenious little plastic tags. Each tag has sized examples of front and back foot tracks, none of which matched the tracks on the steps. 

So then I turned to the only book of tracks we own. Even though this one's for the Rocky Mountain region, I figured it'd probably have something close. I started by looking at the tracks of rodents, of course. All the examples included drag marks from tails, which ours didn't. I then looked at the tracks of critters without tails, like chipmunks, but still found nothing similar.

I finally just started thumbing through the book, and found an exact match! I know they don't usually live under basement stairs, but stranger things have happened.

We're very excited.

We have otters.

Beast Treaties

"They were a pestilence, coming upon us in so many ways- with guns, knives drawn behind empty handshakes, bringing sickness and fire. No matter how many we killed, no matter how firmly we stood, they just kept coming. It was we who saw our numbers dwindling, our villages emptied or turned to ash. The death and desecration and misery was beyond what our gods had prepared us for. There were no ancestral stories to tell in the night which were more brutal than what we’d seen in the day, and so there was no wisdom to draw on… no comfort. In the end, staring at their piece of paper, the one they said would make it all stop, I took the pen and did the only thing left for me to do- I drew a tiny little elk’s head."

 

This fascinating post at The Nonist covers a little of the history with a lot of images of the totemic drawings Native Americans used when they signed treaties, and why reproductions of the treaties often show only an "X" in place of the original drawings.

American Clown: Athletic Dance for Men or Boys

One of those tasks that I've been meaning to get to for awhile now is to add Bibliodyssey to my Blogroll. PK, the creator of the blog, posts images from old manuscripts from libraries around the world, which sounds far less fascinating than it actually is.

I couldn't resist this image out of the July 26th entry, which is from the1916 American Clown booklet of the title, part of a series of "Illustrated Athletic Dances for Boys and Girls" by the Athletic Dance Press of Milwaukee. The American Clown Dance is written for men and boys, so if girls take part the booklet instructs that "the leap frog and roll may be eliminated" and offers a substitute step appropriate for girls.

The Athletic Dance Press also published "Alabama Scare Crow: Eccentric Novelty Dance for Boys or Girls," "Amazon Triumph: A Spectacular Group Dance for Older Girls," and "American Farmer: A Character Dance for Boys or Girls" among many others (that list of titles is from Booknear.com). The American Clown booklet has an order form for those and additional dance booklets on page 11.

Other Bibliodyssey posts include images from old medical journals (the one below is from an Oxford University folio showing the veins, "produced in the late 13th century in England"), astrology, and much more. It's one of those sites you can get lost in for hours, even without following the links to other fascinating sites.

Pot prevents Alzheimer's

A Molecular Link between the Active Component of Marijuana and Alzheimer's Disease Pathology.

..."the active component of marijuana, ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), competitively inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) as well as prevents AChE-induced amyloid -peptide (A) aggregation, the key pathological marker of Alzheimer's disease...Compared to currently approved drugs prescribed for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, THC is a considerably superior inhibitor of A aggregation."

Is science great, or what?

More signs of Spring

Maybe it's just that I have more time to pay attention to it, but the emergence of Spring seemsmore prominent this year. Last Friday I saw my first forsythia of the season, and today after the weekend's rain I saw a lilac with leaves on it.

This understory tree (magnolia?) has only stark, dry branches, without even buds. Only the white flowers provided any sign of life. I couldn't smell any fragrance, but it was pretty chilly.

I also caught this lily (or iris?) pretending to be crocus until I got close.  There's also starting to be a slight green tinge of buds on trees. If the weather cooperates, I bet that within a week or so we'll have that sudden explosion of green as the leaves begin to open.