All posts by djones

mom, weather

Short Report Tuesday

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The temperature reached above 80 degrees here today, well above normal for this time of year. Everyone just keeps hoping we get some moisture. This has been an extremely dry and warm winter, making it hard when we don’t get snow and it is warm enough that the mountains melt out early. That means that all the farmers around here will be hurting unless we get some rain timed just right and in sufficient amounts. Average annual precipitation here is less than 14 inches a year with half of it coming in the form of winter snow. Needless to say, this winter is at less than 0.5 inch. A worryingly dry year.

Taking advantage of the warm weather, Molly and I hit the park for our daily miles. (Molly was willing to join me today since the period of mourning L leaving was over at about noon when the squirrels got frisky.) I couldn’t believe the number of young mothers and kids at the playground. A literal explosion out of the house and into the park with the warmer weather. Another month or so and the young ladies from the college will be out sunbathing in the parks. That is always an interesting time of the year since it serves to preview what the prevailing swimsuit styles will be this summer at the city pool. Somehow, the older one gets, the less enthusing following swimsuit fashion becomes. It’s not like I spend a lot of time at the pool ogling like a slobbering teenage boy anymore. Besides, back then L was a lifeguard so there was something of interest for me to ogle!

Mom continues to do well and may be able to return home by the weekend depending on the therapists evaluation of the readiness of her house. She is starting to get antsy to be home. She got the surgical dressing changed and saw the orthopedic surgeon today. So it was a busy day for her, going over to the doctor’s office and then having physical therapy. When I got over to the nursing home a bit after 5pm, she and a few friends were sitting outside, relaxing and visiting in the late day sun.  She will still be in a wheel chair and unable to put any weight at all on her leg for at least another 6 weeks, but at least she will be at home. That will make her happy.

Other than that, not a lot to report today. Time to get some real work done so I can get ready to mosey down to the radio station for the weekly show in the morning. 6am comes early, but at least it is light out since the spring to daylight savings time.

poll, six degrees, two degrees

Miscellaneous Monday Once More

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Mondays always seem to be the tag ends for me. It is the day that all kinds of little things come up and eat their share of the clock. Thus you get to suffer through my potpourri of things to blither on about.

In the Two Degrees of Dan, several readers came up with their own two degree comments. It is always interesting to see how people can be connected. One of the reasons for the Two Degrees thing was to get some low degree linkages with readers. Those can then be used to illustrate the social network property that any two people on the planet earth are seldom more that six degrees away from each other. For example:

Kris Loves Chocolate: Kris->Airline Passenger (aunt of Condoleezza)->Condoleezza Rice
One of the former ministers of our church, Beth, attended Denver University and her roommate was none other than Condoleezza Rice. So I am related to Kris by the fifth degree Dan->Beth->Condoleezza->AP(aunt)->Kris.

♥ Kathy:Kathy->Dad Dan->Gene Wilder
To which I connect via the following tidbit. Back in the days before the IBM PC, I bought a CP/M based computer from a small Hollywood company that sold a script editing and production system and had to manufacture their own computers to run the software. So they developed a sideline of selling these computers to techies like me. The company was so small that they only had one salesman, named Bill. Bill was very proud of the fact that he had dealt personally with Gene Wilder to sell the script system to his production company. Thus, we have Kathy->Dad Dan->Gene->Bill->Dan. The fifth degree strikes again.

Now here is a question that I have never seen an answer for: What is the relevance of the peoples age in the degree of the relationship between them? Obviously, newborns don’t know anyone yet and so they get at least one extra link via their parents to anyone else. I.e. newborn1->mom1->mom2->newborn2. But at some point they meet enough other people unknown to their parents that they can link without first going through the parents. I.e. newborn1(older)->newborn2(older). So does that mean babies have longer link chains than they will have when they are older? You can tell that I am a scientist because I worry about such things. Anyone ever heard a good answer to this question?

In other things, it was warm here today, close to 80 degrees. It was so nice that I walked to city hall and then walked over to Mom’s to collect some stuff and then walked out to the nursing home to deliver it. Mom is doing well and really hopes to get back home Friday. All depends on what the doctor has to say. So I got my seven miles in without Molly the dog today (she is busy moping since Laurie headed back to the mountains today).

One final random meandering and then I’ll let you go. I have noticed that there are several ladies in the nursing home that have broken bones as the cause of their stay. In many cases they suffer from low bone density and the bones in question (hips, legs, ankles and even backs) just snapped while they were doing such mundane things as standing at the kitchen sink. I want to remind all women to make sure that they are having their bone density checked as they age. It’s not something that anyone thinks of when they are younger, but beyond a certain age it can be a real problem. These are all alert and lively ladies that are now confined to wheel chairs. There are treatments that can help if the lowered bone density is caught in time. Please take care of yourself so that it is not you in their place in the coming years!

Last week I promised a poll to determine the fate of the LinkWithin widget at the bottom of each post, so here it is:

Note that you can vote as often as you like and this page will allow voting thru the 21st. Thus if you really have strong feelings, you can vote a lot. This is one election the *YOU* definitely can buy. Contact me if you want to bribe me to make the vote turn out in your favor – I’m open to any and all offers. {*grin*}

six degrees, two degrees

Two Degrees of Relation

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Everyone knows the old standby Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game. If you aren’t familiar, go ahead and click the link – we’ll wait. Good, now you understand the six degree thingy. What I am about to do is play a short round of Two Degrees of Dan. Here the goal is to get as famous as you can be by no more than two steps from me. I’ll add another restriction just to keep the playing field level – I cannot have met the final object of the link myself. (Otherwise there are a lot of famous and semi-famous people I have meet in person and we would be playing One Degree of Dan. {*grin*})

First Round:
I once spend a very pleasant summer on the beaches of San Diego at the Scripps Institute. It was a special seminar on Quantum Chromodynamics that attracted a number of the young researchers in the field, including myself, to sit at the feet of the established gurus. That in and of itself has absolutely nothing to do with this round of two degrees, I just needed to reminisce and brag for a bit. The real key is that my roommate for the time in San Diego was also named Dan and he had a very famous mother. Yes, that’s right, my roomie was non other than Daniel Friedan, son of Betty Friedan. You know, the feminist writer, author of “The Feminine Mystique“, and primary founder of the National Organization for Women.

What did I learn from the experience? I learned that one might not desire such a famous parent if you were as shy and self-sufficient as he was. Not that Dan was any slouch since he went on to become a MacArthur Fellow (the so called genius award) and co-founded the high-energy theory group at Rutgers.

So for this round we have Dan -> Dan ->Betty for the two degrees of Dan.

Second Round:
During the course of my thesis work, there was one person who I ran into often at conferences and in meetings. He was based at Cal Tech at the time. We spent many a break arguing about parton physics versus constituent interchange physics. Can you guess who this person was and who his very famous sister is? Perhaps a hint – his name is Rick Field. Yes, that’s right, his sister is non other than Sally Field, the famous actress. Need more evidence? Click here.

So for this round we have Dan->Rick->Sally for the two degrees of Dan. Note that if we remove the restriction that I can not have met the final link in person, we could pull another chain here since Rick was at Cal Tech to work with Richard Feynman, the Nobel laureate famed in his later years for heading the Challenger explosion investigation. Thus we would then have Dan -> Rick -> Richard or as it would have been put by anyone who spent and time around Feynman, Dan -> Rick -> Dick.

So what can you come up with for the two degrees of you? Remember that you can’t have met the final link in person.

birthday, google maps, limerick, MIL

Saturday Rambling

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Yesterday was my MIL’s birthday, which we celebrated tonight with the traditional cake and candles. I’d tell you how old she is, but a gentleman never discloses a lady’s age.

L and I went over to MIL’s house for the celebration and we spent the evening in conversation. I fixed a few things on her computer and then we played a new game we invented. I call the game “What does it look like now?” Basically, you go into Google Maps and put in addresses of places where you have lived in the past and then (if you are lucky and it exists) you chose “Street View” to look at what the place looks like now. So we looked at places in Minneapolis from MIL’s younger days, followed by places in California and Colorado, etc. Then we decided to visit the pyramids at Giza (along with the Sphinx) and the Taj Mahal. We ended our tour with a trip to the infamous artifact claimed by the insane to be Atlantis. Of course we also watched some videos associated with places and had a blast navigating by hand between several of the places. (You can tell we are an easily amused bunch.)

What started this foray around the world was a discussion about the number of times we had each been to Washington, D.C. and what we had seen while there. That led us question if the underground tram from the senate to the senate office building is still open to guests of the senators since 9/11. Shortly (and after about 13 intervening topics) that led us to question where exactly was Camp David? (How’s that for a wild careening ride down the old thought train?) That of course led to the old paper atlas and then on to Google Maps and then to all of the above.

It is amazing what a powerful tool a computer and the internet can be to keep a mind engaged and kill occupy a lot of time. For seniors living alone and not getting out much, it can serve as lifeline, communicator, amusement device, news source, etc. It can also serve as a source of reading material (with font sizings suitable to available visual acuity). Think of even 20 years ago when none of this was available and how cut off and disengaged from the world people could become. Those of us that spend our lives on computers often worry about the possibility of the computer leading to social isolation and a lack of people skills amidst users, but this is the other side of the same coin. The combo of computer and internet can make the world a much more social and engaging place, or it can be used to completely eliminate the normal human interactions. The choice and effect is yours to chose.

I’ll leave you with the limerick from my MIL apropos my limericks  in response to a Mama Kat challenge. The background here is that I often tell people that they’ll know I’m fed up with being mayor when they find me naked in front of the bar some Saturday night. She couldn’t resist twitting me about it.

The MIL’s Limerick

There is a mayor named Dan

Voted in by many a fan.

    But if he goes to a meeting nude

    We’ll think he’s very rude

And run away as fast as we can!

Goodnight!

blogversation, sterling

Blogversation – Show & Tell

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Summer from Le Musings of Moi is hosting the Saturday Blogversation again this week. The topic is the rather open ended Show and Tell. The instructions are to pick something to show off to your friends just like the old days of grade school and vlog about it. So without further ado, here is the highly awaited video premier (on this blog anyway) of my bragging point for the day:

Before you ask why I have that rather dyspeptic expression on my face, realize that there was a group of people standing behind the camera making faces to see if they could make me laugh. I was never so happy to finish a spiel in my life. Good editing removed me sticking my tongue out at them.

I hope that this gives you a good idea of the area. Most of the video was taken in the late spring / early summer and was produced to promote the area. I encourage you to visit the Sterling web site  for further information and videos (the normal home of the above video is here.) By the way, the sculpture shown in the video is by local artist and sculptor Bradford Rhea.  He is the sculptor who was commissioned to create President Clinton’s gift to His Holiness John Paul II in 1993. You can read about the experience here.