molybdeblog

Alternative wedding ceremonies

2004-12-28T11:34:00.000-08:00

I'll definitely have to take into consideration an alternative wedding ceremony, discussed on Deblog's blog. I can only guess where they did their registry.

Gordon Christmas lights 1

2004-12-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

Gordon Christmas lights 1
Originally uploaded by gwynethnotpaltrow.

Here's my first picture posting, to illustrate my post about the Hanukkah bushes. I guess the in term, though, is Chrismukkah.

Of course, this doesn't give the full impact of it in real life.

Fiancés and other amazing things

2004-12-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Thanks, marblehead, for letting me steal that bit of code without having to look it up.

Well, this morning while I was taking a call from the reception place, I got a call waiting call in from the cake place confirming today's tasting. While calling my voicemail to get that message, my fiancé called to tell me that the homebuying class called to say we got a spot. When I hung up, the voicemail rang (since I'd hung up on it) with the message from the bridal place saying I have two weeks to pick up my dress. All of these occurred while I'm up to my elbows in dishwater and I can't get the silly clip off the back of my phone so it doesn't really fit underneath my ear.

I'm so glad I stayed home from the office to revise that paper without distractions.

I'm liking the Seidemann® mode of wedding better all the time.

Hanukkah bushes

2004-12-15T03:26:00.000-08:00

My fiance's (don't feel like looking up the HTML for accents) family enjoys the holidays. All the holidays. They're jewish, but last year (without trying) they took runner-up for best Christmas lights for the area. This year she's trying. Over 13,000 lights later, the house they affectionately term "the beacon for planes," is impressive. The house is outlined in white. There's a train with characters and the wheels have sequential lights to look like they're spinning. There are children decorating a Christmas tree, Santa climbing a rope to the roof, the Nutcracker and company. There's a waterfall of blue lights over the fence, ending in a large pond for the herd of moving, lighted raindeer to sit beside. There's a bridge over the pond. There are nets of lights over every bush and most of the ground. There are luminaria to light (some good 'ol candles are helpful when you keep blowing fuses). The tree, seen through the window, is over 15 feet tall in their high-ceilinged living room. The tree looks better than the one in Macy's, with lights and ornaments in a dense pattern from floor to ceiling, capped by a two-foot angel. I'm not sure how his father solved the problem that you couldn't have the outside lights and the tree on at once, but I think it involved unplugging the garage freezer. I haven't mentioned the entire village (nay, city) of ceramic houses on quilt batting over a table next to the tree. But coincident with the last night of Hanukkah, the Association's judging of Best Lights also came to the end yesterday. There is great anticipation in the Gordon household, although younger son, Ben, (not my fiance) is rebelling against his filial obligation of crawling on the roof and ladders for many hours four weekends in a row.

There's also a six-inch high menorah in the kitchen.

15 seconds of fame

2004-12-15T02:51:00.000-08:00

I am most disappointed to report that the Arizona Republic has a ridiculous policy of not posting all the articles on the web. In fact, they don't post a regular column they publish, called "My Worst Job" in the Careerbuilder section, despite the fact that it's shown on page EC1, thus being page 1 of a section, albeit an insert in the classified section. If they had done so, I could have simply provided a link, but instead I must retype the story profiling me from this past Sunday. And you don't get the joy of seeing my picture, although somehow my forehead and proboscis look enlarged and my chin recessive. I don't quite look as Neanderthalian as that would suggest, and (shudder) I have been told that it is not an unattractive portrait.

"My Worst Job: Rabbit cage cleaner

Gwyneth Williams, 33, is an isotope geochemist at Arizona State University. Her worst job was her first, when as a teenager she cleaned cages for a woman who bred rabbits for shows.

'She had several hundred rabbits, at least,' she said. The rabbits were divided into about 40 cages, and the waste-filled trays under each cage weighed about 25 pounds. The trays, which were cleaned once a week, were so heavy that she had to lean them up against her body to carry them. 'I was pretty scrawny then,' Williams said.

'They were these metal trays that leaked at the edges, so no matter how careful I was, some of the stuff got on me' she said. 'The smell was intense. I got so dirty that my mother wouldn't let me sit in the car. I had to sit on newspapers.' Williams got paid $25 for each cleanning, which took about three hours.

The smell was not the only bad thing. 'Most of the rabbits were not up to show quality in the ways their ears fell or they didn't have the proper stance,' she said. Williams took one home as a pet - a blue, lop-eared rabbit - and named him Hill Street Blues, her favorite TV show then.

What did Williams learn? 'I guess I learned responsibility or something,' she said, laughing.

'And to earn lots of money so I don't have to clean cages anymore.'

This was written by my college roommate, Jolyn Okimoto (now Rosa). What she felt inappropriate for discussion in a family paper was the description of outdoor freezers full of the not-pretty-enough. Now there's a subject for a reality show - losing beauty contestants face far more serious consequences than public humiliation. As entrants are rejected, they could film their demise, cutting in to twitching whiskers and grooming of future entrants. They could have a side competition of winning recipes.

discretion

2004-10-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

The wonderful and frustrating thing about blogs is their public nature. This allows public discussion of the minutae of daily life, but also the possibility of such things being seen by parties that might be awkward. Not that the parties would be awkward, actually, but their having seen your comments could create an awkward situation. Although, in some cases, the parties are awkward, but that's another matter all together.

Just as a theoretical example, if you were to make comments such as "A micromanager would call him a micromanager!" (thus making him a femtomanager), some individual who signs one's paychecks might take it personally.

Especially if it's true.

reply from Mugsy

2004-08-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the reply from Mugsy's owner, on receiving my haiku:

Gwyneth

Scorpion Finder
Twilight Black-Light Huntress
A killer without remorse

Slightly unusual syllabic pattern notwithstanding.

Mugsy

2004-08-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

A haiku in honor of Mugsy, a 90-lb. German Shepard:

Bouncy companion
Hair creation is my job
Deep-voiced guardian

Also, I've realized that, due to differences between canine and human insertion joints, humans are much more compact in bed. Arms and legs are easily and comfortably left parallel to the long axis of the torso, but not so for our hair-between-the-toes companions.

Centruroides exilicauda

2004-08-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

Things I learned today:

1) scorpions do, indeed, fluoresce a lovely green color under UV light. At least, the seven I saw on the back wall of the house I'm dogsitting at did. There may be non-fluorescing varieties, but I didn't see any of them for obvious reasons. Only four have been found inside the house over the last couple of weeks.

2) crowbars are not very effective dispatching tools - too small an impacting surface area - and scorpions are speedy. Only got two.

3) the recommended goo-be-gone (closest equivalent to carburator cleaner found at Home Depot) is not immediately effective, although four got good multiple squirts and may expire elsewhere.

4) scorpions are very flat and like to hide in very narrow cracks; you can still tell they're there because there'll be a glowing green leg just showing, but they can't be easily enticed out into elimination range

5) Moral discovery of the day: Despite knowing we're invading their habitat, usually being a person who'll take spiders, etc., outside, I have no qualms about murdering scorpions on their own turf.

6) I feel an undeniable urge to keep my feet tucked up under me.

Pithecanthropuses!

2004-08-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

Decrying a minor annoyance in the office today, I grumbled Billions of blue blistering barnacles and was saddened to get only a look of confusion from the secretary. I was distressed to realize that she was unfamiliar with Haddockisms. And then it dawned on me that there might be other be-nighted individuals who lived in ignorance and darkness, unable to properly and truly express their emotions because they didn't have the language to express them. I mean, seriously, when someone cuts you off on the highway, which is more satisfying, a middle finger or "Anamorphic aardvark!?" When waiting in line at the DMV, it sounds infinitely more erudite to say "Addle-pated lumps of anthracite!" or "Miserable molecule of mildew!" in reference to the good employees. I mean, without knowledge of this lexicon, I would never have realized that Ophicleides is a keyed bass instrument, precursor to the bass saxophone. Or that Cercopithecus is a type of long-tailed African monkey with cheek pouches and ischial callosities. My world view would have been so much more constricted.

aligning myself with the practical prescriptivists...

2004-08-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

I should have known my boss would turn out to be on the side of the descriptivists. The debate, of course, is whether you use two spaces between sentences in a paragraph or one. This becomes important when you, say, have a thirty page proposal and a page limit of 15 pages. Using two full stops/ spaces is described as "more practically useful", although no particular advantages are listed. HTML is rapidly giving the descriptivists the edge.

I've also learned other space-saving tips: make your line spacing "exactly 12 pts", with a 6 pt space between paragraphs to avoid complete blindness, 11 pt type is perfectly acceptable and 10 pt arial is more readable than 10 pt times. Obviously, a full block style or limiting indents to 0.2" helps.

It's wonderful to be in such a learning environment.

Multi-colored Synthetic Dust...

2004-08-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

Walking across the parking lot, I found a wrapper with the above as it's title. Upon close examination, I realized that the plastic was torn and it may well be missing an "er" at the end. However, I like the idea that someone would commercially sell multi-colored synthetic dust. What would you use it for? How would you advertise? What would be your customer demographic?

Sit 'N Solve

2004-08-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally finished the Cross sums book Sit 'N Solve. Unfortunately, the Amazon website doesn't show a picture of this, which is cleverly shaped like a porcelain utensil. I guess I must consume too much fiber, though, since I never could finish one at a sitting. Or mentally slow. They don't get progressively harder, though, which is a bit annoying. They use lots of 16 (7+9), 17 (8+9), 30 (6+7+8+9), 10 (1+2+3+4), so they're not particularly difficult. I do try not to cheat, so I don't pencil in the possible number combinations, but you're never more than three or four additions off so it isn't too hard to remember. So I was feeling pretty good, but then got the Dell Cross Sums magazine and now feel considerably more like I'm in the Fastlane to Hell.

Diet Water

2004-08-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

All right, I guess I'm ceding the option to make oodles of money by posting this, but I just must share my concept for Diet Water. This would be water collected at high latitudes - which, as everyone knows - is naturally enriched in δ¹⁸O (by around 29‰ at Camp Century in Greenland) due to a combination of Rayleigh fractionation and Hadley Cells!^‡ If you were to drink only this water, the isotopic composition of the water in your body would reflect this source over time (any fractionation associated with the biological processes of incorporation into your flesh would be overlaid on this change in source). So, if you were living at the tropics and you weighed 150 pounds and you're 90% water, you would naturally lose about 0.014 oz. Without exercise or changing the amount of Ben & Jerry's you eat! Of course, if you lived in, say, Chicago, the effect would be significantly reduced because you're at higher latitudes. And if you lived at higher altitudes (Denver), again, you're already drinking somewhat isotopically light water.

I don't know why, when I tell people this plan, they find it amusing. I mean, Avani is only one of many competitors in the commercially available oxygen-enriched water market. There's also Stenkulla Brunn and SuperOxyUp. There's a nice webpage about some other commercial water products that show that diet water is a commercial product just waiting to start pulling in the dough.

^‡δ¹⁸O is defined as equal to:

(¹⁶O/¹⁸O_sample -¹⁶O/¹⁸O_standard) × 1000

(¹⁶O/¹⁸O_standard).

The average abundance of ¹⁶O is 99.76% and ¹⁸O is 0.20%. Ignoring the small difference in actual mass versus the isotope number (ie, the atomic mass of ¹⁶O is actually 15.994915, in the carbon 12 standard), this results in a 0.0007% decrease in the average atomic weight of oxygen.

IT'S ARRIVED!!!

2004-08-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

Silly as it sounds, when I saw the package in the office, I didn't know whether to swoon or hold up a lighter.

Our new Solis Palazzo finally for the office arrived. Two business day shipping. HA! After some fumbling with a clogged lever dropping grounds into the brew group (they test each machine with coffee prior to shipping it), the elixir with lovely crema emerged. My boss fails to realize that it's utterly ridiculous to spend this type of money on a coffee machine if you're going to use the sludge they call water to make it with. We'll work on that. Previously, he has completely disparaged the espresso I've made in the little $120 machine I got more than a decade in The Big Breakup #1, claiming the crema is thin and inferior. Yet he has the gall to claim that tap water here is potable. I shudder to think how many descaling tablets we'd need if we were to use local water (hardness >21° dH, whatever the hell that means- it's off the top of the scale). We could use the SuperQ water that'll come out of the four cartridges, fed from the reverse osmosis system, but since the resistivity of that water is >18 MΩ, I think we might corrode some of the internal parts. Although the brew group is plastic...

Strange to think that if you get water pure enough, it becomes corrosive and toxic. If that's all you were to drink, eventually I think you'd keel over due to the lack of electrolytes. That leads to my brillant idea for diet water...but I'll save that for another post.

Cupping (taste test) results will be posted soon.

stitchin' and bitchin'

2004-08-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

So Tuesday I decided it was get-more-involved-in-community night. I proceeded to the local very cool used-new bookstore, Changing Hands to attend the Stitchin' and Bitchin' knitting group, completely unsure of what to expect. First of all, I shouldn't have expected a chair. The community room was packed and people kind of scattered seats in what was left of the floor long after all the table spots were filled. Everyone got nametags and it was a nice mix of demographics, all of the female variety. Except for one gentleman with a paper bag, bad bowl cut for a hairdo and rather high waistline. He disappeared a little way through.

Everyone got name tags and just put their first names on it, kind of like an AA convention. "My name is Gwyn, and I'm...a knitter." I sat next to an enthusiastic young woman with three tattoos (the one on her left forearm of a palm tree kind of looked like a piece of clip art), getting instruction from the woman next to her how to sew her little meticulously created pastel knit squares into a baby blanket. When she got bored of that, she swiched to her hot pink-and-orange fluffy scarf. Half an hour later, a thirty-something carrying a bag of a size similar to the duffel I took to Greenland to do geological field research for two months came in. She sat in a seat momentarily vacated by an unwary person and pulled out a large, intricately created afghan to lay over the back of the seat. Of course, in Tempe it's still >100° at 9 pm and the afghan was finished, but I'm sure the expressions of admiration expressed at its quality by various people through the evening were irrelevant in her decision to bring it. The backs of plastic chairs usually need some padding.

Latter, one of the organizers of the event made her rounds. She wore a short skirt and a see-through rose baby-doll top. She looked at everyone's project and managed to say something appreciative about each one, which kind of dilutes the sincerity. When she bent down next to me, I couldn't avoid realizing that her tan didn't stop at her low neckline. I didn't know if she was running for office, but suspected that she might own a local yarn shop. I didn't ask for fear of having a card and her enthusiasm impressed on me.

I'm still working on squares for an afghan (39 down, 9 to go) in rather muted autumn tones in a normal Lite-Lopi wool, so felt a bit dowdy next to the multi-colored striped socks, ribbon, sparkles, fake fur and other materials. Even though some of the hand creations are so ugly that I would pay not to wear them. Even though my pattern is a bit complicated with lots of 3st-psso, M1, yo, and casting on a single stitch and increasing to 60, then decreasing, you don't notice unless you look.

I did learn that an alternative to scissors for cutting yarn when getting through airport security is an empty container of dental floss. There was a great deal of discussion about whether trying to sneak bamboo needles through security was worth the risk, as well as evaluations and demonstrations of how you might kill someone with these rather blunt objects. This evolved into the superior effectiveness of ball point pens for such an endeavor (killing, not cutting yarn).

To speak of these gentle people anthropologically a cruel thing? Have I become a catty spy for my blog? No, I don't believe I'm different, just verbalizing my experience to an anonymous audience.

The next meeting is supposed to be held at a local venue for live music. I can't wait.

Overheard at the movies...

2004-07-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

Situation: Family emerging from Catwoman.

Teenage daughter to grandmother: "Now, grandma, wasn't that better than bingo?"

Grandmother: "At least at bingo, I could have won some money."

more culinary literary adventures

2004-07-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Well, To Cook a Tart had a satisfying finish, although a bit more comic than the bulk of the novel. I won't make some of the obvious comparisons that come to mind, since that might reveal more than intended. It isn't a complete surprise, but there are some nice twists that I didn't anticipate. The thing I liked about it was the emotional honesty that isn't always neat and tidy. I'm trying to avoid the cliche gastronomic metaphors that keep trying to intrude.

Continuing my riff on "the pleasures of the table," I picked up a copy of the 50th anniversary edition of The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher, a collection of five of her works. I had only intended to read a couple of my favorite essays in "An Alphabet for Gourmets," before moving on to things I hadn't read, but I got swept up in just one more (kind of like Pringles). Everyone likes A is for Alone, but B is for Bachelor is wonderful, and I hate to admit I always get kind of teary at I is for Innocence. Aunt Gwen's Fried Egg Sandwiches always seem a more earthy version of Proust's famous madelines. And on that note, I think I'm going to head over to be inspired at The Muse (coffeeship on Terrace Avenue, Tempe).

high calorie treats

2004-07-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

I've been reading How to Cook a Tart by Nina Killham and enjoying it quite thoroughly. I picked it up at the library, thinking it was one of those mysteries where the sleuth is a chef, but it's not really a piece of genre fiction. In part, it's heavyhanded; each character represents a particular attitude toward life (via food): the protagonist cookbook author (fat=love & comfort), her daughter who wants to survive on air, her husband's Zone-dieting colonic-cleaning mistress and her husband who vascillates between her gastronomic indulgences and fiber colonics. The author places these characters on the stage and watches how they play with each other.

hebe joins the club...

2004-07-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

The blogging community has just gotten richer with the grand entrance of the youthful bringer-of-nectar Hebe. I remembered that was the name of one of the gods, but couldn't remember which one. Hence, a google search turned up other aspects of the god, including earth-bound, euphonious, acronym (what's the adjective form for acronym? acronymic? acronymious?), timely, and even a member of the (shudder) Canidae family. Marvin shouldn't learn about that last one. I suppose I should try to do some work today.

dusty rain

2004-07-13T17:38:00.000-07:00

A kind person warned me yesterday afternoon that it looked like a storm was coming, so I tried to finish up what I was doing and bike home before it hit. My timing was perfect, so I got caught in the worst of it. A strange mix of a dust devil and large, warm rain droplets. The rain wasn't refreshing, but allowed a muggy swamp to rise up from the pavement. My teeth were still gritty after two glasses of water. I love Arizona.

Exploding Emporers

2004-07-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I saw Napoleon Dynamite this past Saturday. I had thought of it as kind of an indie-film (Jon Gries is the biggest name, showing in only one local theatre, human drama, no special effects...) until I saw it was an MTV film. Perhaps that explains the fact that the best available seat was at the end of the first row and there were no less than ten 'tweens camped out on the floor in front of me until theatre management made them move. I started feeling a bit dubious about the movie when I saw the audience demographic, but fortunately my prejudice about the aesthetic discernment of the Bonnie Bell set turned out to be in error. A certain amount of high school wish fulfillment played out on the big screen, but thoroughly enjoyable and fresh with an unamiable lead and underplayed acting.

Potential and realized insecurity

2004-07-09T13:54:00.000-07:00

While packing for my recent move, I came upon one of my favorite poems by Philip Lobate:

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

Although my tongue always has trouble getting around the phrase "devise ways."

This leads to a meditation on whether poetry is written to be heard or read. Being a bibliophile (witness the 13 unpacked boxes of books in my living room), I tend to read poetry (on the rare occasions I do read it) and digest it visually. Meter is an aural element, as is vocal emphasis. Some poems come in shapes, but that always seems pretty gimmicky and I don't know of any really great poems in that form.

Bonanza

2004-07-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I picked up a $4.99 DVD of the first four episodes of Bonanza between candy bars and magazines last night at Safeway. I was rather charmed by the wooden "acting", melodrama and badly done sets. Also realized that it came from an era when hour shows ran 48 or 49 minutes instead of the modern 40 to 42 minutes. Hoss in self-defense kills the escaped convict murderer father of a young boy, rendering him (boy, not Hoss) an orphan. This allow him to deliver the following lines while staring at his upraised hands in horror:

These hands can lift a heifer clear off the ground, but I'd rather cut 'em off than see the look in that young feller's eyes like he wants to spit!

I just don't see this sandwiched between The Bachelor and Blind Date.

modern communication

2004-07-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm realizing how dependent on modern communication I am. I forgot my cell phone at home, so of course I can't call in my request to get my phone hooked up in my office, but have to hoof it over to the other building. Register for lab safety class, fire safety class, cancel registration for grad student for same, request connection for another internet connection in the office, track down HR to find out the holdup with getting my ID into the system, obtain a local email address, ID card - all of these tasks become more geometrically more arduous when I have to hop between buildings to take care of them. Where's a deux ex machina when you need one? Although I'm still having trouble visualizing a big crane swinging a guy dressed as Athena over the stage. Hopefully, he was a beardless youth, because the idea of Athena, Venus or Hera with a heavy five o'clock shadow is a bit frightening. The potential for physical comedy is obvious. (yep, Elizabethan).

On an unrelated topic, what is the proper conjugation of pic, as in picture? is pix the plural of pic? or pics? It seems in common enough usage that I'm sure some authority has handed down a decree.

chronicles of my east-coast ass...

2004-07-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

...hebe has dibs on that as a blog name, but I couldn't resist using it as a post title.

High temperatures in the ten-day forecast for Tempe: 107°, 103°, 106°, 108°, 109°, 109°, 109°, 108°, 108°. That's 39 to 43 deg C for all you on The Continent. As opposed to us islanders. And yes, I know that's only nine high temperatures in the ten day forecast, but it's already cooled down to 104° (8 pm), so that doesn't count as today's high. What possessed people to decide, "Hey, here's a great place to put the sixth largest city in the US!" Heat stroke, I imagine.

I'm going to start tracking down the conspiracy that makes the water taste so foul that everyone has to buy bottled water. I suspect that Mayor Giuliano's campaign is funded by Arrowhead/ Perrier. His vision for Tempe can be seen at http://www.tempe.gov/elected/mayor.htm and is apparently inspired by these words of wisdom from the Moody Blues:

"When the white eagle of the North is flying overhead,
The browns, reds and golds of
autumn lie in the gutter dead."

Never let it be said that there aren't visionary politicians for the 21st century.