Saturday - It's hot, in the 100's for
the last few days. There is enough moisture that the swamp cooler isn't
working as well as one would hope, and the house interior maxes out at about 80F in the late afternoon.
There's a little mechanical unit available, but I resist turning it
on...
Some friends invited, so I went over to the Antelope Valley Fair in the
evening with them. This is my second trip this year, but I didn't
really get out of the diorama/painting hall last time. This time, with
young children, we spent our time mostly walking about and letting them
go on the children rides. This is relatively new - when I was young,
even a teenager, there were no rides designed specifically for children
under 48" tall. It's nice, the rides are small, slow and not so
intimidating to a child.
Smaller Ferris Wheel in the section for childrens rides.
The first thing we did was watch some of the Rural Olympics, however.
People driving trucks, backing them between narrow barriers, tractors
around pylons, and so on. Surprisingly fun to watch - and the stands
were pretty full! Tractor racing around barrels:
Full stands for the 2011 Rural Olympics.
Potato spearing and hay stealing were crowd favorites. Hay Stealing in
particular was remarkable. A huge pile of hay bales has to be loaded
into a pickup and transported across a finish line by two guys in a timed competition against others. The
bales are about 100 pounds each, and there looked to be about 24 of
them. Yet two guys did it in less than a minute and a half. The last place (out of five teams) guys did it in about 2 minutes.
Announcers comment: "The good news is the team just won $400. The
bad news is that they spent a lot more than that on bail, practicing last month!"
Pylon racing on tractors looked like something I could do. Then the announcer mentioned that the winner had been driving tractors for 50 years, and the runner up for 35 years. Maybe it's harder than it looks...
In the evenings I've been checking on cats, dogs, fish and mail for some out-of-town friends. So far everything has been fine.
Book #98 was The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms,
by N.K. Jemisin. It was a fantasy novel and had a lot of rave reviews.
I thought it was OK but nothing spectacular, a bit disappointing.
An interesting view of the east coast earthquake, via the EarthScope sensor net, (one I'd never heard of).
The animation itself seems to have been generated by Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy
Thursday 25 August 2011
Thursday
- the service for Dr. Fuerst in San Diego went well, as did the little
reception afterwards. In the early evening my friend and I headed back
to Lancaster.
His wife is escorting the widow, her mother, to Colorado this evening
with the casket for internment there, and he will pick up their boy and
fly out from LAX tomorrow for the ceremonies in Greeley on Saturday. On
Sunday everyone will fly back to California.
Dr. Charles Fuerst, 1925-2011.
Wednesday
24 August 2011
Wednesday - finished packing and headed down to San Diego for the services.
There was an earthquake in Virginia yesterday, pretty minor by west
coast standards. Someone posted a pic of the damage, and was properly
mocked for it:
"Our prayers and hopes are with you in your time of need".
Tuesday
23 August 2011
Tuesday
- down to Ventura to get some work in. Five hours work for four hours
of driving... Back to Lancaster in the evening.
Amusing. The boss was a bit resistant to the idea of updating/completing the web site, but multiple recitations of "The 90's called and they want their webpage back!" seemed to eventually bring him around.
Book #97 was Hammered, by Kevin Hearne, 3rd in the series. I don't think the others are out in Kindle yet.
Monday
22
August 2011
Monday
- picking out a jacket for the funeral service on Thursday. I'm a
pallbearer so my usual dark Navy color coat won't do. Time is short, and I really
don't have time to shop, so it's off the shelf and not particularly
well fitting. But so it goes.
After returning one coat that I didn't like and getting a haircut I was
walking out to the car when I saw something that restored my faith in
humanity a bit. A nicely dressed lady in the opposite aisle walked over
to a car and started quizzing the occupant
Hi, are you OK?
Have you been in the car long?
Are you too warm?
Can I bring you some water?
It was an elderly gentleman, sitting in the back seat of a car, with
the windows open. She was just checking to see if he was OK, and he
seemed to be. My father was a bit of a lizard in his 80's, like this
gentleman seemed to be, so the 85F temp wasn't a problem. But it was kind and responsible of her.
Sunday
21
August 2011
Sunday
- Pretty tired, not feeling well. Very sore in the joints and muscles,
still.
Book #96 would be Agent
of Byzantium, by Harry Turtledove. This is sort of an alternate
history, where the Eastern Roman Empire never fell. It's really a
collection of stories previously published in SF magazines, in which
our intrepid hero Basil Agyros discovers the (1) telescope, (2) cowpox
as a vaccination for smallpox, (3) gunpowder, all in the early 1300's
(current calendar). I enjoyed it well enough, not great literature but
a fun read. What I didn't like was the cover on the 1988 paperback:
Agent of Byzantium, 1988 paperback cover.
Firstly, telescopes have just been discovered (OK, stolen by Basil from the German
barbarians) and the person on the cover has a fancy high-tech scope.
Secondly gunpowder has just been discovered (OK, stolen by Basil from the French barbarians), and there is a fancy
high-tech rifle. Thirdly is the anachronistic gizmo he is holding -
looks like a satellite uplink of some kind, in a world without
electricity or electronics.
Fourthly the classic Roman outfit is anachronistic as well - by the
1300's soldiers garb was a lot more "medieval" looking.
Detail of drawing, showing a Byzantine Infantryman, ca. 14th Century, modified from here.
(Neverland Press, looks like it might be an interesting book to read and review)
And fifthly: in this alternate history Constantinople never fell to
Islam (or to anyone else), in fact Mohamed is a saint in the Eastern
Orthodox Church (St. Mouamet) - but the picture shows Muslim minarets in the
background at the Hagia
Sophia:
None of the minarets were built until the 1400's anyway, and the larger
in the 1570's. So, it's anachronistic even
for an alternate of this alternate history - not only would they not have been
built, but they wouldn't not have been built for a couple of hundred
years yet!
I wonder what Turtledove said when he saw the cover?
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Snowy mountain,
probably along CA-395 somewhere.
