Jephnol

Here's the photo from the Boston Museum of Science that became the background for the ballyhooed graphic.

This was another of my photos from the Boston Museum of Science. It's the image I tweaked in the last post.

D— asked me if I would design a tri-fold brochure for something she's doing on the side. She's selling travel-themed books for children and the visual theme for the brochure is a journey to far-away places. I'm working in Adobe Illustrator to design a graphic that'll get the idea across. Here's what I've got for starters:

O Living Always, Always Dying
By Walt Whitman

O living always, always dying!
O the burials of me past and present,
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and
look at where I cast them,
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.

(Quantum mutatus ab illo—how changed from what he once was)

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

"Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason".

—Unknown

...they get clogged with the equivalent of postmodern discourse.

"Ha! Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime"?

King Lear
Act II, Scene IV
Verses 5 - 6

I was out fishing last year when the Tall Ships were coming to Portsmouth. I had a disposable camera along, so I took a photo. It's pretty cool.

A New Hampshire blogger who shall remain anonymous posted a photo of her property, prominently featuring Poison Ivy. I posted a comment, gently warning the blogger of the kind of plant she had photographed—really, I was the soul of discretion—and her response was dismissive, stating "(Poison Ivy) doesn’t grow upward and turn into vines…"

Knowing this to be wrong, I then offered this comment of links w/ quotes:

“Technically there is the climbing variety (toxicodendron radicans) and the nonclimbing (toxicodendron rydbergii)”

http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/faq.htm

“Classic poison ivy in full swing. Some leaves are notched. Some leaves are not.”

http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/summer1.htm

“When you cut down a tree for firewood you can get a good case of poison ivy from the vine stuck to the tree - even in winter.”

http://www.poison-ivy.org/html/climbs1.htm
(I remember because I took screen shots).

Her response to this was surprisingly aggressive. She called me Bozo, emphatically and repeatedly, capitalized words often (the web equivalent of yelling), and claimed that somehow, because she lives in New Hampshire ("I live in NH fercryinoutloud..."), she has some innate ability to identify Poison Ivy—this in spite of being wrong about Poison Ivy and climbing vines. Well, Bozo had what he already knew confirmed by two UNH Professors: It's Poison Ivy.

It doesn't matter that Bozo's been a landscaper in New Hampshire for the better part of twenty-five years. Bozo lives in New Hampshire, too. In fact, Bozo was born in New Hampshire! So let's forget about the troubling aspects of taxonomy. Based solely on the fact that I'm from New Hampshire I can call anything Poison Ivy—according to my sister blogger that's all that's required for me to be right about anything New Hampshire, regardless of the facts! And rightly so!

(Don't miss the photos of the "new" Poison Ivy on the following page)...

For the past, oh, month and a half, I’ve been nursing and re-injuring a sprained knee. I haven’t had many chances to get out and I have cabin fever, so today I pulled myself together and went to the range to catch-up on a little shooting. No heavy lifting. I brought my .45 and two boxes of ammo. I was eager to try a straight-thumbs grip and I’ve been playing with my sight picture a bit. The results were stellar. At twenty-five yards after three wild shots on the paper I kept everything in the black, shooting at a quick pace. I’m very happy with those results.

There was a guy with the Coast Guard on the range with his .270 Browning. Good guy. We talked hunting and we traded a couple rounds in our weapons. That .270 was sweet! He tossed a couple .50 cal brass my way, too. Like I said, good guy.

It was nice to catch a break from being around the house.

Cox & Forkum