Squirrels follow after the raccoons

The area around my house on Shellpot Creek is a wonderland for grey squirrels due to the trees and whatever sustenance the squirrels glean from them. The snows have lately allowed me to document some of their activities due to their tracks, but mostly they scamper from tree branch to tree branch much too quickly for my rudimentary photography skills to capture. At least I have actually seen the squirrels, I only know about the raccoon from the tracks.


About 15 inches separate one track from the next.











What you see in the tracks is actually the hind feet in front of the front feet from the way the squirrels lope along.

Morning ablutions and driving don't mix!

I have already suffered through the horrors of watching women put on makeup, men shave and other morning private bathroom activities performed while driving. I haven't seen anyone showering in their car yet, just give it time.

This guy gets caught shaving and driving and loses his license because of it. My problem with it I stated succinctly some time ago:

"Yesterday I got to watch a guy shave as he drove into work. Doesn't he care about all of the little shaving bits of stubble dirtying up his car or the shirt he is wearing? I was more than a little turned off by his public shaving."

Form the article about our current offender:

"The court heard how police officers saw him drive past their patrol vehicle as he used an electric shaver on his face and crane his head to look in the rear view mirror."

His excuse is the funniest part:

"Hutcheson, who had previously worked on accident investigations with the police, also claimed he had been leaning across the car at an awkward angle so he could see past a dozen mannequins he had stored in the back of his car."

I don't even want to know what that is all about.

The offending driver is a health and safety inspector and claimed he was late to give a first aid course. I can only imagine that defensive driving courses are a lot different in the United Kingdom than in the United States. Maybe some of my readers can comment if this is so.

China fails to pick up its Space Junk

China's recent destruction of a satellite with space weaponry has produced more space junk for all. I discussed this issue in a previous note last year (The sky is not falling - orbital debris threatens satellites) based on an interesting article in Science describing the threat to orbital facilities - communications satellites, weather satellites, telescopes and space stations - from space debris. The debris comes from pieces of the spacecraft breaking apart, from collisions and from old spacecraft themselves.

One of the authors of the Science article, Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA, recapitulates his advice for dealing with the problem. He suggests deorbiting old satellites or destroying debris with ground based lasers and implicitly adds a new suggestion - don't actively blow up or test weapons that create large amounts of debris. The fear is that enough debris will create a chain reaction and destruction as impacts break apart satellites and add to the debris field, creating more impacts, etc.

The graphics produced by the New York Times to illustrate the danger are what I would have produced with the satellite data from the Union of Concerned Scientists from this post combined with the debris data from above if I had the infinite time and resources that they have (only in comparison to me). The charts are informative. I like to think that my approach preserved more scientific information about the orbits while the NYT's approach was prettier.



Now that the Chinese have blown up a whole satellite, it seems silly to worry about that golf ball in orbit stunt now doesn't it?

I must also mention the deleterious effect this worrying about space debris is already having on the astronaut corps.

(NYT article found by Slashdot)

(alternative post title - Whatcha gonna do with all that Space Junk? All that Space junk inside your trunk. )

tags: satellite, astronomy, science,

Homunculi visit the Shellpot Creek

I spotted these tracks in conveniently frozen slush this morning. The tiny hand prints indicate that at least one homunculus has visited this area and may be preparing for something. Note the five fingers, one of which is clearly a thumb. Imagine my excitement at some real alchemical activity in my yard.





I took close-ups of two consecutive sets of tracks. Here is the second set.

There are about 16 inches from set to set. This indicates a creature that is about a third the size of a normal human. Perhaps it is Homo Floriensis. Or some thing that is familiar with the correct stud spacing in walls.

The frozen slush preserved 8 sets of tracks.

Further research suggests these are probably raccoon tracks.

The thumbs on a raccoon are not opposable but they do really make it look like they have little hands.

(homunculus picture in the alchemical test tube above is from my Life Science Library book "Matter", 1963, pg 21)

Is there a wedge between Delaware and Pennsylvania?

The title wedge is cartographically speaking as opposed to argumentatively speaking. Technically the answer is now "no" since that was all cleared up in 1921.

Strange Maps and Mike's Musings take on the weird border between Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland over a few posts. I know I have bored many a group at a cocktail party with the trivia that Delaware is east of the Mason-Dixon line (The border is the lesser known North-South running line besides the one familiar as the southern border of Pennsylvania).

Also interesting is that the western boundary of Delaware is not exactly a straight line, some of that famous 12 mile circle pokes the border out into Maryland a little. Whereas for me this map stuff is more of a hobby, Mike has turned it into a career.

On a side note, I seem to have fallen off of Mike's Musings Delaware blog list. I wonder if I haven't been "Delaware" enough, talk to much about stuff that has nothing to do with Delaware (which is a lot of things) or said something to offend. I've been here for 16 years, I could pass as a native for a spy mission to another state if you need me to. We all have to stick together if we want to avoid an unSeparation Day.

(this shameless ploy did work for Galaxy Girl).

(notes: Separation Day, June 15, 1776, was the day the colonial General Assembly declared Delaware an independent state, I know that you all didn't know that)

Bible quiz or cultural literacy - you decide

Of course I am a bible wiz (and humble too):

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

...we get pieces of it read to us every Sunday at church and I went to Catholic school for 12 years. Beyond that, the Bible is an important piece of literature for Western civilization and even if you don't believe it, as literature it has influenced many other works of art and literature for thousands of years. So if you are well read you know the stories and the answers to the quiz.

(found at Gazizza)

MoMA has the Van Gogh

One of the more popular paintings that the Museum of Modern Art in new York has is the painting The Starry Night by Van Gogh. This was at least eveident by the constant crowd of art appreciators gathered around the painting. I was excited to see the Van Gogh with my own eyes (if necessarily through the glass on the painting). Van Gogh did cut off his ear lobe, but there is a lively debate as to why and what medical condition caused him to do so.

here is the list from Wikipedia, all of these have advocates and naysayers:

• Epilepsy
• Bipolar disorder
• Sunstroke
• Ménière's disease
• Lead poisoning
• Acute Intermittent Porphyria
• Syphilis
• Absinthe Intoxication
  

I myself am a big fan of Acute Intermittent Porphyria because it sounds so cool.

How do you pronounce that name anyway? van go? van gawff? The dutch pronunciation is not "f" but more of a guttural h. It sounds pretentious when you pronounce it differently from everyone else in the English Speaking world (especially if you speak English). Or perhaps we should pronounce all names the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin. God help the Welsh!

Biden puts his foot in it

Everyone has now heard of Joe Biden's comments about Barak Obama, here is Wonkette's take on it.

What is much funnier are the comments on Wonkette and other outlets about Delaware. Here's a good one:

"Biden's racist in that well-meaning-but-still-inadvertently-racist-grandma kind of way; that 1950s "well, for a black man, he's done pretty well" patronizing kind of attitude.

Then again, he is from Delaware, where everyone, black or white, is perpetually filthy, dissheveled, and addicted to meth."

I am not sure if Delaware needs the kind of spotlight that our Senator is causing to be shined on us. We are more comfortable with lawyer murderers and teenagers abandoning babies in dumpsters. I think Wilmington has a high crime rate for a small city too.

Happy Groundhog's Day

Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow today so Spring is "just around the corner", a safe prediction in these days of global warming and building climate catastrophe. I misread the Yahoo story today and thought something more exciting had happened. From the first line:

"A new pair of hands pulled him from his stump this year..."

I though it said the new pair of hands pulled back a stump! Serves him right for disturbing a hibernating animal.

Remember to read the sacred text and watch the sacred movie today.

Snow and Ice on the Shellpot Creek

It doesn't seem to snow lot in Delaware this year so much as early and often. Last evening brought another batch of the white stuff and a coating on the ice already on the creek. Here is a shot facing up the creek.