Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Miki, Race, and I took our usual morning walk, but just a bit later than usual – the sun burst over the mountains just as we started our walk.  The day is cloudless, so we had bright sunlight for our entire walk.

There wasn't any particular excitement along the walk, but lots of interesting and pleasant things.  White-faced ibis were flying in just about every direction.  I think they're searching for some wet ground, and there aren't very many sprinklers going nearby this morning.  One wheelie line we passed that was going had hordes of ibis under each sprinkler.  I think that field will have a depleted population of worms and grubs!  Barn swallows – dozens and dozens of them – were skimming the tops of alfalfa and barley, gobbling up any bugs that were stupid enough to leave the shelter of the plants.  In this way the swallows are helping the bugs evolve – any bug that likes to hide down low is likely to have more progeny, and eventually those will be the only bugs.  The swallows will then have to look elsewhere.

The sunflowers are out in force right now.  Along our walk there are perhaps 200 of these in bloom.  They'll continue to bloom all summer, and in the fall the stalks will die and dry out.  When that happens, they turn into seed-eating bird attractors.  Last year we had a bunch of these in our “garden” area, and in the late fall we had bazillions of finches all over them.  Their cheerful song was present for several weeks all day long.

Along the road we encountered a fat vole, sitting stupidly right in the middle, totally exposed.  The dogs, of course, immediately demanded a vole breakfast and set out to serve themselves.  The vole just sat there, blinking at us, with two dogs doing their very best to break the leashes or topple me (and they came pretty close to the latter!).  For a good 15 seconds or so, the dogs were right in that vole's face, lunging and snapping their jaws in the air 3 or 4 inches away.  The vole appeared to be completely unperturbed, and, worse from the dog's perspective, completely unintimidated.  They redoubled their efforts, but I finally managed to drag them back and safely around the vole.  On our way home it was gone, but I saw little tracks in the dust leading off to the alfalfa field beside the road.  Amazingly, the world's stupidest vole lived to see another day.

We stopped to admire the corner garden I've photographed before.  I know now that it belongs to Roger R., who lives about a half mile southeast of us.  It just keeps getting better and better.  Beets, carrots, squash, tomatoes, and corn – he's going to have a feast in a few weeks time!  

A little higher up, we walked alongside a barley field that is nearly all brown now.  The light breeze made the stalks and seed heads rustle in a most attractive way.  I could listen to that all day, much as I could listen to a burbling stream all day.  Just in the barley I took a photo of was a pair of quail.  I spotted them hunkered down and still, but the dogs did not.  Unlike the vole, they objected to our presence.  When I crossed some imaginary line, they simultaneously burst into flight, crossing about a foot in front of the two dogs.  Miki practically did a backwards somersault trying to get away from them, while Race did his best to pull my arm out of its socket.  I was laughing so hard at the two of them that I didn't feel any pain.

On the way back down, we spotted a tractor coming up the road toward us.  It was Mike C., a local farmer with a substantial dairy about 4 miles north of us, coming up to bale alfalfa on a field right at the end of our walk.  The tractor was towing a very modern Case baler, much like the one at right.  It's a sleek machine, and not all that big considering that it spits out gigantic rectangular bales that weigh about 2 tons each.  Mike was about to bale roughly 250 acres, and he figures it will take him 90 minutes.  Amazing machines.

Just before we got home, we passed our neighbor's pasture with (currently) four Paso Fino horses in the luxurious forage.  This morning one of the stallions decided to be indignant at our presence, and he led the four over to give us a piece of his mind.  In the last photo you can see the rather glorious barn these guys live in.

Yesterday the farrier was here, re-shoeing all these horses.  He works out in the same road we walk on.  That means there are hoof fragments all over the road from the farrier's trimming.  Miki and Race completely lose their minds in the presence of these clippings.  There is no dog treat we've ever tried that attracts them the same way these clippings do – they're like chocolate-covered cocaine for dogs.  After each farrier's visit, I have to short-leash these two and march them through the edge of the alfalfa field to avoid the clippings, else I'll have a big fight on my hands.  This morning I forgot, and I spent five minutes getting those two dogs to move 25 feet.  You wouldn't think that two dogs that together weigh half what I do could keep me from moving – but when they try really hard, they can do it.  Horse hoof clippings motivate them to do this :)

As we passed over our irrigation canal bridge, I noticed that the rose hips are just starting to turn red.  Yesterday there wasn't a hint of red on them.  Look at them now!  In a week or so, they'll be a beautiful cherry red.  We've got wild roses all over the property.  The biggest, lushest bunch is right at our bridge, but all along the canal and in our back yard we must have 100 more clumps of them.

I love these morning walks, even when they're unexciting...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  Yesterday my new woodworking bench was delivered.  'Tis a thing of beauty, it is – just over 300 pounds of solid maple.  It's strong, stable, and has two outstanding wood vises built right in.  There are dog holes in all the right places.  It's just the right height.  Just gorgeous!

You may remember that I cleaned up and organized the shop to get ready for this delivery.  All the big pieces of gear are more-or-less in their final position (though there are four wheeled tools in the “parking lot” that I'll roll out as needed).  That also means that I was ready to take some photos for the first time.  The two wide, short photos (the last two) are 180° panoramas from opposite sides of the room.

In the first photo you see the north end of the shop, with part of the dust collection system, the band saw (currently on wheels, but I think I'm going to remove them) and the table saw.  The second photo shows the south end of the shop, with the drill press, the “parking lot”, the grinder, the lathe, the coping saw, and of course the bench.  In the fourth photo you see the “parking lot” where the less-often-used tools are stored: planer, jointer, shaper, and (far right) the compound sliding miter saw.  The sixth photo shows the air compressor (hiding behind the bench), the space to the right of it where a vertical “dry” compressed air tank will go, and the dust collection system.  The first panorama was taken from the center of the west side, looking east; the second was taken from the center of the east side looking west.

After I took these photos I started building the wooden parts of the stake bed ATV trailer I bought the chassis for about a month ago.  Using the wood shop – woot woot!

“I want a Lamborghini.”

“I want a Lamborghini.”  Said by a Planned Parenthood executive (Dr. Mary Gatter) negotiating the price for the parts of aborted babies. 

A second horrifying video of Planned Parenthood's sausage factory.  It's a heavily edited video, and the full video isn't in evidence, so it's possible this isn't what it looks like.  Possible.  Much more likely: it's exactly what it looks like.

I watched the video until I got to the part where Gatter discussed using “a less crunchy technique” in abortions to better preserve the body parts she wants to sell.  That's one detail too many about how Planned Parenthood operates.  I understand that this may simply be the jargon in the profession, but it's disturbing to me, so I didn't want to hear any more.

Doctors killing babies.  Every time that factoid slaps me in the face, I'm astonished.  People whom you'd think devote their lives to saving lives, are instead taking them – with no discernible regret, sorrow, or even distaste.  Call me crazy, but I find that idea quite unsettling and scary.  If there are plenty of doctors willing to kill babies, there are probably more than a few willing to kill old software engineers, those well-known useless wastes of protoplasm...

Root cause of SpaceX failure identified...

Root cause of SpaceX failure identified...  It was a lowly strut, of all things.  I was fascinated to see how they figured this out: by acoustic triangulation using the several on-board accelerometers as if they were microphones.  Someone got quite clever there...

A negotiating mentor once taught me...

A negotiating mentor once taught me ... that once you have an agreed deal you like, stop negotiating and close it, quick, before the other side changes their mind.  The Iranian parliament (the Majlis) has clearly not absorbed this piece of wisdom.  They are objecting (or at least posturing as if in objection) that the (overwhelmingly good for the Iranians) deal isn't quite good enough.

Ordinarily this would fill me with hope that Iran is about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  However, on the U.S. side we have Kerry and Obama ... and past experience suggests that in this case, the Majlis are engaging in a last-minute negotiating tactic that just might work...

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Yesterday morning, that is.  I took the photos below before (the beautiful sunrise) and during our morning walk yesterday, and then forgot to post them – too much going on!

One of my biggest fears about financial security in retirement...

One of my biggest fears about financial security in retirement ... is the progressive/Democratic push to find ways to tax the assets I (and zillions of other retirees) depend on.  Here's Hillary's plan, which is quite modest compared with what Sanders would try to do.  I don't think even Hillary's plan is likely to pass a Congress where either house is Republican-controlled – but on the other hand Republicans have approved a bunch of other things I never thought they would.  So I just have to live in fear.

The progressives are relentless on this general topic, though.  They need money to finance their social engineering projects, and retiree assets (including pension funds) are one of the more obvious targets.  They're going to keep grinding away at it, I'm sure, just as they have on so many other topics...

Some day...

Some day ... some sweet, fine day ... the level of stupid on the Internet may decline to match the level of stupid in the general population.  But today is not that day...

Geek: Toki Pona...

Geek: Toki Pona ... the human language equivalent of Forth!

Linus downplays AI dangers...

Linus downplays AI dangers...  But he says it much more entertainingly than I did:

“I just don’t see the situation where you suddenly have some existential crisis because your dishwasher is starting to discuss Sartre with you.”

Ah, Linus.  Don't ever change, please!

Am I a “Real Programmer”?

Am I a “Real Programmer”?  I ran across this article in my morning reading, and the further I got into it the more it piqued my interest.  It's discussing a story about a programmer from the late '50s and early '60s named Mel Kaye.  It seems that Mel did all sorts of things that modern programmers, working in high level languages running under operating systems that hide the bare metal, think of as closely akin to magic and certainly incomprehensible to mere mortal programmers.

The surprise for me: I did most of the things the Mel did!  Ergo, I must be a “Real Programmer”!

Mel wrote in machine language (no compilers, no assemblers), writing the machine code down in hexadecimal.  I did all of my programming before 1978 in machine language, writing the code down, on paper, in octal.  My choice of octal was dictated by the machines I was writing code for (primarily Univac 1206s, 1218s, and 1230s).  I did so because no programming tools (compilers, assemblers) were available to me, and I didn't even know such tools existed.  In 1976 I “invented” something that would be recognizable as an assembler, and was astonished when I discovered (from a Univac tech) that such tools were already available :)

Mel wrote code that was self-modifying.  So did I.  So did everybody writing code for Univac computers – self-modification was actually a machine language intrinsic.  On those machines, to call a subroutine one would use the “call” instruction, which stored the return address in the first location of the subroutine.  Geek aside: yes, that means there was no stack and recursion was ... difficult.  On the other hand, in those bad old days core memory was an incredibly scarce commodity – and though modern programmers might be completely unaware of this, recursive programming is quite a memory hog.  One can always accomplish the same thing with a loop using far less memory.  Further, Mel wrote code that used tricky math on self-modifying code.  So did I.  In the mid-'70s I wrote a floating point math package that made extensive use of this particular trick in the tightest parts of the internal loops, squeezing out every clock cycle that I could.  That wasn't remarkable back then – it was the ordinary way of optimizing code, and the computer instruction sets had features designed to make this sort of exploit possible.  Today self-modifying code is considered a kind of heresy; before the late '70s it was absolutely the norm in any high-performance system.  We ran into this a lot in the Navy, as the performance we needed in these realtime systems was pushing the edges of what was even possible on the hardware of the day.

Mel wrote code that was hand-optimized for the timing of a magnetic drum rotation.  I did this, and a lot of it, on a drum machine that was used for training in the technical school I attended.  Even the U.S. Navy wasn't actually using drum memory any more by the '70s :)  I even did the exact same trick Mel did, using the drum's latency to add delays when printing to a Friden Flexowriter.  I was fascinated by the optimization problem for programs executed from drums, and I developed a set of paper forms to make that problem easier.  One particular trick that Mel did (optimizing the parts most frequently executed) was one that I focused on as well.  Of course I did, as it's the obvious way to get more performance out of a program.

Mel wrote a blackjack program.  I wrote a chess program (for multiple computers).  I've no idea about the relative complexity of the two games, as I don't even know how to play blackjack.  Writing a program for multiple computers, though, is definitely more difficult than a program for a single computer.  The multiple computers I wrote for weren't connected with a modern network, either – instead, they were each connected point-to-point to four other computers with “inter-computer channels” in an 8-by-8 array (64 computers) with the edges wrapped around.  There was no operating system, so I wrote a system of message forwarding that allowed any participating computer to send a message to any other.

So I'm thinking that I qualify as a “Real Programmer” – and so do a lot of other engineers who worked in the '60s and '70s.  I can't be the only one who survived that! :)

Maps of the world...

Maps of the world ... made by the Soviets.  Fascinating story, and some of the maps...

Progress in Paradise, compressed air edition...

Progress in Paradise, compressed air edition...  On Friday the folks that made my new workbench called me and said it was ready for delivery – a month early!  We arranged for them to bring it on Monday (tomorrow) morning – which means that today I had to rearrange things in my wood shop to make a place for it. 

With all the construction I've been doing in there, the place was a half inch deep in wood shavings, sawdust, dirt, and all sorts of jetsam and flotsam.  So this is a good time for a little cleaning.  When I considered that, it of course occurred to me that using a compressed air gun would be mighty handy to blow all the accumulated dust off my tools, shelve, etc., onto the floor where I can vacuum it up easily.  And that made me think of that beautiful new air compressor I have sitting there, waiting to be plumbed up.  I couldn't stand it.  So I ran to Home Depot and got enough plumbing parts to put a couple of female 1/4" quick-connect couplers on the back of the compressor.  Once I got all that put together, I had a great way to use that air compressor between now and the time I get all the copper pipe installed.  Hooray!

After that, 15 minutes of work with the air gun (very impressive, with 150 pounds of air pressure behind it!) got every bit of surface dust onto the floor.  I vacuumed half the shop and rearranged everything mo' bettah.  Then it started to get hot, so I put off the last half until early tomorrow morning, when it should be about 50° in there. 

One of the things I did while rearranging things was to take a bunch of stuff up to the second floor for storage.  Mostly this is stuff leftover from our move up here, and I just never took it upstairs.  That's too much like hard work!  Except that it's not actually so hard, since I have the electric hoist and hatch, which happens to be directly over my workshop.  The photo at right shows one load of stuff being lifted through the hatch.  The pallet is tied by four ropes to the hoist, which is just out of sight above the photo.  That particular pallet load had about 150 pounds of stuff on it (mostly in that green bin).  Hoisting it up this way is ever so much easier than hauling up the stairs manually!

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Miki, Race, and I took yet another route this morning, totaling about 2.5 miles round trip.  When we left, the mountains to the west had just their peaks in sunlight.  When we returned, the entire valley was sunlit.  It was just 48° outside, and wall-to-wall blue sky.  Beautiful, it was.

I love all the lighting effects in the early morning, as the mountains' shadows recede across the valley sides and floor.  In the last photo below, there's a pronounced “halo effect” around the shadow of my head (where the camera was).  This was just five minutes or so after the sun first hit that alfalfa, so the effect has to be entirely due to dewdrops and hairs – the plants couldn't have oriented their leaves so quickly!

So, I've finished reading...

So, I've finished reading ... the text of the Iran deal (formally the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, or JCPOA).  It's available as a PDF file here.  My conclusion?  While there is some hyperbole, as you'd expect, from the critics of the deal ... in general they are completely correct.

The deal is incredibly lopsided in favor of the Iranians.  It appears to have been designed to facilitate cheating at the margins.  There really is no provision other than re-imposition of sanctions in the event of non-compliance.  No fines, no threat of military intervention, no punitive action of any kind.  Any rational actor would of course immediately start pushing at the edges to see what they could get away with.  As quite a few reviewers have pointed out, because Iran has already put us on notice (with language baked into the deal) that if any sanctions are re-imposed, they consider the deal null and void ... then the chances of our side re-imposing sanctions for “small” infractions are near zero.  In other words, this deal is unenforceable.  Worse, for so long as the deal is in force, the signatories are obligated not to take military action against Iran.  The only way the deal could possibly be “enforced” is if some third party (Israel, Saudi Arabia, or a Middle Eastern consortium) does the enforcing militarily, or if a signatory unilaterally decides to abrogate the deal.

Designed for failure, it is.

If I were in the Iranian's shoes, I'd be taking a big chunk of that $100B or so that's being freed up, and using it to buy defensive weapons (once those sanctions are lifted) to raise the price for an attack by Middle Eastern rivals.  If I were in the shoes of the Israelis or the Saudis, I'd be polishing up my attack plans, and preparing to execute them before the sanctions are lifted just to avoid the preceding.  A joint attack would make the most sense, though I'm not sure that's palatable politically, for the Saudis.

I think this deal just raised the chances of a regional conflict, involving millions of people, very substantially.

Even the text of the JCPOA is lopsided.  I didn't measure them, but by eyeball between 80% and 90% of the text is all about the benefits to Iran.

No wonder they're dancing in the streets in Tehran!

A pleasant evening's walk in Paradise...

A pleasant evening's walk in Paradise...  Miki, Race, and I took a slightly different route tonight than our usual two mile (round trip) walk.  We probably did three miles all together, including a mile or so around a field on some tracks we'd never been on before.  I noticed that the aromas from the alfalfa and barley fields had a distinctly “cooked” aspect to them, which I suspect is closely related to the (wonderful!) aroma of drying hay.

On the way up the first hill, still on our usual route, we came across a large flock (perhaps 100 birds) of white-faced ibis right in the road and not near any water.  We'd never seen them on dry ground before.  They held their place until we got roughly 50' away, then a lunge by Miki spooked them and the whole flock was gone.  They stayed in a single flock and made a long, slow loop around the entire field, traveling about 2 miles in the air, then settled back down on the same road, but behind us :)

Some photos from along the way below.  The horses in the first photo belong to our neighbors Gary and Elaine S.  Debbie says they are Paso Finos.  In the third photo, if you click to embiggen it, you can see the Hyrum Reservoir (about 3 miles north of our house) roughly in the center, below and left of a distant peak.

Want to read the full text of the Iran nuclear deal?

Want to read the full text of the Iran nuclear deal?  Here it is...

I read things...

I read things ... and sometimes don't stop before they bring on the doom.

What pathetic wimps our citizenry includes...

The Chattanooga shooting were not a senseless act of violence...

The Chattanooga shooting were not a senseless act of violence...  Mark Steyn schools us, and wonders where the righteous anger is.  Good question...

We escaped from California...

We escaped from California ... just in time...

New word of the day...

New word of the day...  Seen here.  The word is “offenderati”.  Best definition I found:

The  people in this world who eagerly await their next opportunity to take offense/express indignation on behalf of any group they feel they can plausibly claim were slighted by someone's comment or action.

Good one!

Headline of the day...

Headline of the day...  From Ace, writing at Ace of Spades HQ (which, if you're not reading daily you certainly should be.  This just may be the very best headline evah!

Gawker Staff Smears Feces On Itself, Boards a Schoolbus Loaded With Gasoline and Napalm, Then Intentionally Drives That Schoolbus Into a Cargo Train Transporting Toxic Waste and Retarded Clowns

Oh, my.  I had to sit and cherish that for a while.  Even if Ace had no content worth reading (but he does, in spades!) I'd still read him daily just for the headlines.  But this one stands out even amongst his.

This article also contains the best summary of the Gawker article that I've seen anywhere...

A very sad story...

A very sad story ... that displays the resistance here to California-style parental smothering.  In West Valley City (just southwest of Salt Lake City), a 12 year old girl was lured out of her house and (apparently) murdered by a 15 year old boy from the neighborhood.  The boy has been arrested.  The local police chief, Lee Russo, said this:

A member of the family knew she was leaving the house, but it's unclear how much her parents knew.

"This isn't about parenting," Russo said. "What we are investigating is the death of a 12-year-old girl."

From the TV coverage, I found that this was in response to a reporter's question about the parents' responsibility.  The chief's response is a very restrained version of what just about every citizen around here would say in the same situation.  That's a very different collective attitude about parenting than we were used to encountering in California.

Here in Utah, we often see:

• kids riding in the back of pickups
• kids riding bicycles without helmets
• kids, often quite young, wandering about, both in the country and in town, unsupervised
• kids roughhousing in places with glass and nails
• kids climbing trees, without safety harnesses or nets

Kids being kids, in other words.  Learning to be independent.  Learning to look out for themselves.  Learning how to deal with minor injury and pain.  Getting exposed to all sorts of bugs so they can build up their immunity :)  After being immersed in California-style parenting for all these years, it is so refreshing to experience this!

Here's something I never expected to see...

Here's something I never expected to see ... Muhu Island in Estonia, featured as a tourist destination in the New York Times.  The reasons the writer liked it are completely different than mine, of course (what I liked there most were the birds).  I visited that mansion before it was renovated and turned into a hotel and restaurant.  Mansions like that dot the countryside all over Estonia, perhaps especially on the islands.  They pop up in the most unexpected places.  Even on my last visit (in 2005, I believe), very few of those mansions had been renovated, though some had been purchased with that intent.  Twenty five years of freedom and capitalism have wrought amazing changes on the Estonia that I first knew...

A diplomat's view...

A diplomat's view ... of the Iran deal.  The interviewee is Charles Hill, a diplomat with quite the impressive set of experience...

ObamaCare...

ObamaCare ... the pain has just begun.  If you've been paying attention to the facts, as opposed to the politicians, this won't be any surprise to you.  The pain isn't going to be just financial, either.  This morning I read this article in an English newspaper, the subject of which is homeopathic “medicines” and how to deal with the people who promote them, or believe in them.  But what caught my eye in the article was this passage:

Consider this in contrast to the doctor’s surgery, often over-subscribed, where patients may be required to wait up to two weeks for an appointment.  Drawing from my own experience, on a recent surgery visit I was informed that I had to pick one of the two issues I needed to discuss with my doctor, as patients were only allocated a 10-minute slot and there would not be enough time to discuss both.

Note the casual acceptance of their medical reality under the socialized medicine program in place for many years in England (the National Health Service, or NHS).  English friends of mine have many horror stories about their experiences with the NHS, and I know a dozen or so who have paid for foreign trips (including to the U.S.) in order to obtain timely medical care for their loved ones.  One particularly sad case involved a colleague's wife, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.K. – but only after waiting seven months for an MRI.  By that time the cancer had advanced to the point where other organs were involved, and she died a year or so later – in the U.S., where she could get timely palliative care (this is one of the worst areas of delays in the NHS).

That is, inevitably, where we're headed with ObamaCare, unless we can muster up the political will to get rid of a socialized medical system.  Debbie and I may have to educate ourselves on medical tourism if we want to get decent medical care in the future.  Estonia and India are beckoning, and so is China.  Sheesh...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise ... the Mormon horde edition...  Yesterday morning I had the last dental appointment associated with the root canal I had done.  This was for “restoration”, which in my case meant a silver amalgam filling.  This was to plug up the hole they drilled through my porcelain crown to do the root canal work.  Since the tooth had no nerves left in it, they didn't even need to numb me up for the filling.  As usual around here (but still new and awesome for us!), everything happened on time.  My appointment was for 10:30 am, and at 10:52 I walked out the door, finished.

The rest of the day yesterday I spent doing odd chores and cleaning up around the downed outbuilding.  We cleared out a lot of junk, and in general made a big mess, while disassembling that thing.

This morning, as planned, Steve and Janae arrived with a big fifth-wheel trailer ... and a horde (nine) of Mormon “young men”.  That term (young men) has a special meaning in the Mormon church wards; they're organized groups of young men that do things together, like the service project they did for me clearing out all that dead wood.  This group is from Steve and Janae's ward.  There were also a couple of friends and relatives, a bit older.  The group ranged in age from 14 to 22, but what they had in common was (a) muscles, and (b) enthusiasm.  At right is a photo I took as they moved the first section of wall.  With eleven people on it (twelve when I finished taking the photo!), it was easy enough to carry the whole weight between us – we didn't need the tractor at all.  Even lifting it over the fence and onto the rather tall trailer wasn't particularly difficult – although as I write this I note that my arms are a bit sore :)  In that photo I'm standing at the east edge of our back yard, looking due west.  You can see our shed in the background, and over it the stormy Wellsville Mountains.  That storm starting sprinkling on us just as we were finishing up. 

We had all six wall sections loaded up on the trailer in less than 15 minutes (at left).  It took another 20 minutes to strap them all down securely, put up hazard flags, and handle the donuts and milk that Janae (the blond woman in the photo at left) handed around.  The young men made a brief detour into my shop, to give me a hand moving my air compressor.  That beast weighs 650 pounds, and I needed to move it about 18" to one side.  I couldn't move it even a tenth inch.  It took them all of 15 seconds to get it exactly where I needed it.  They left a little while ago to head up to Steve & Janae's house, where this same group will help them unload the sections.  Then, in a few hours, Steve and Janae will head back down here with the trailer, and we'll load up the shelving, lighting, and a few other odds and ends that were in that building that they have a good use for.  They're also going to load up all the junk wood and dispose of it.  Then we're done!

What would it be like...

What would it be like ... to be colorblind all your life, then suddenly be able to see colors?  Watching that video will give you some idea.  Here's more about  EnChroma, the technology in those “sunglasses” he put on...

New Horizons photos...

New Horizons photos...  I found the page where they are publicly released.  Check back each day for the latest stuff from the Pluto system, like the photo of Charon at right...

Iran deal, explained...

Iran deal, explained...  Short and to the point...

Big batch of images released from Rosetta...

Big batch of images released from Rosetta...  Lots of good stuff!

So that's how it happened...

So that's how it happened...  Via my lovely bride:

Once upon a time there was a king who wanted to go play golf. He called the royal weather forecaster and inquired as to the weather forecast for the next few hours.

The weatherman assured him that there was no chance of rain in the coming days.

So the king went golfing with his wife, the queen.

On the way he met a farmer on his donkey. Upon seeing the king the farmer said, "Your Majesty,you should return to the palace at once,
because in just a short time I expect a huge amount of rain to fall in this area."

The king was polite and considerate, he replied: "I hold the palace meteorologist in high regard. He is an extensively educated and and I pay him very high wages.
He gave me a very different forecast. I trust him and I will continue on my way."

So they did.

However, a short time later a torrential rain fell from the sky. The king and queen were totally soaked, and their entourage chuckled upon seeing them in such a shameful condition.

Furious, the king returned to the palace and gave the order to fire the weatherman at once!

Then he summoned the farmer and offered him the prestigious, and high paying, role of royal forecaster.

The farmer said, "Your Majesty, I do not know anything about forecasting. I obtain my information from my donkey. If I see my donkey's ears drooping, it means with certainty that it will rain."

So instead, the king hired the donkey. And thus began the practice of hiring asses to work in the government and to occupy its highest and most influential positions.

Progress in Paradise, red-letter day edition...

Progress in Paradise, red-letter day edition...  Yesterday was indeed a red-letter day for Debbie!  It was the day of her six-week followup for her broken knee, with Dr. Higginbotham.  We had our usual amazingly different experience with (no) waiting: we got there ten minutes early for an 11 am appointment, and at 11:16 am we walked (well, rolled, in Debbie's case) out, finished.  It's really quite extraordinary for us to experience medical appointments that actually happen on time.  That never happened in San Diego!

All the news from the followup was great.  Dr. Higginbotham could find zero shifting of the bones since the initial exam a month ago, which is exactly what he was hoping for.  The swelling is down just as expected.  The good report means several things: Debbie is cleared to start (gently) weight-bearing on her injured knee, cleared to start using a walker to get around (freedom!), and cleared to start some (careful) physical therapy.  Woo hoo!  I'm seeing many more smiles since that report :)  Yesterday afternoon she made the first little trip around the house by herself, using a walker, and it went very well.  That's one little degree of freedom she's got now, and one less dependency on me.  All good!

Steve M. and his wife Janae came by to continue working on taking down one of our outbuildings, which they're going to re-purpose as a boat house.  I've been working with them every afternoon (after they get off from work) to get it down.  Yesterday afternoon we hit a milestone: the entire building is down, without any major damage to it.  What you see in the photo are sections of wall (six in all) that we've laid down on the ground.  In the background is the concrete pad those walls used to stand on.  Behind the pad is the north wall of another outbuilding that we're keeping.

Each of those sections of wall weigh roughly 500 pounds (I'm guessing on that, but I don't think I'm far off).  How did one old man, one very slight woman, and one young man with lots of sports injuries get those walls down, safely?  One word: tractor :)  Some walls we lowered toward the tractor by holding the wall up with the front fork and backing slowly away (lowering the wall).  The other walls we lowered away from the tractor by securing a chain to the top of the wall and the fork, and driving slowly toward the wall.  In each case, they all came down very nicely and (what I cared about most!) safely.  This was a much better plan that Steve's initial plan, which was for him and Janae to stand under each wall section as we brought it down, lowering it with their muscles.  I'd have had a couple of squashed Mormons – difficult to explain to the local authorities – if we'd done that!

This afternoon, or possibly early Saturday morning, Steve and Janae will be back with a trailer to pick up the shelving they're going to use, and to take away a pile of junk wood that came out of the building.  Then a little later on Saturday morning, a small horde of young Mormon men will show up to help us load the wall sections onto a big trailer that Steve's bringing down.  The plan is that I'll get on one end of each section with the tractor, and lift that.  The horde will get on the other end, and lift that.  Then I'll drive slowly toward the trailer.  The trickiest bit (really the only tricky bit) is that the gate through our fence is 8' wide, and the wall sections are 8' 6" wide.  We're planning to lift the sections over the 42" high fence.  If enough young men show up, that really shouldn't be too hard.  The tractor won't have any problem.  Once they load up those wall sections, the job is complete!

Then I have another project: backup generator, propane tank, and (maybe) a gasoline tank...

At noon today we're hoping to have a couple of visitors: Amy and Steve L., who are driving up from Salt Lake City.  We met Amy when she worked for us back in the '80s, when we had a business selling software to optometrists and dispensing ophthalmologists.  She's one of several employees who became friends.  She and Steve moved out of the San Diego area years ago, but we've kept in touch since then, mostly through email.  We haven't seen her at all in that entire intervening period – 26 years!  She and her husband happened to be in the area (Steve manages electrical power plants, and there's one here that's his), so we're taking advantage of their proximity to get together.  Yay!

This morning I have an appointment for “restoration”, which basically means patching the crown that they drilled through to do my root canal last week.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Miki, Race, and I took our walk an hour or so later than usual, well after sunrise.  I took the photo at right from the point at which we turned around.  In the center is a storm cell approaching us – and by the time we got back down, it started to spritz on us.

We met several people today along our walk: a crew from Clausen's dairy moving the irrigation lines on their alfalfa fields (2 hand lines and 4 wheelie lines), the gardener who keeps the corner garden I've posted photos of, and a couple of girls (8 and 10 years old) out for a walk in the beautiful fields and almost 2 miles from their home.  The girls told me they do this several times a week, and the main reason they do it is to see wildlife and birds.  On today's walk, they'd spotted a skunk, a rock chuck, two deer, and a flock of white-faced ibis.  They were excited about the ibis, as its the first time they'd ever seen them!

Can you imagine how the nanny-staters in California would react to two kids this young out on their own, so far from any adult?  It's oh-so-refreshing for me to see that this is completely normal here.  These two kids, and many more like them here, are going to grow up unafraid of the big wide world – unlike so many I've met over my city-bound career...

Limited blogging alert!

Limited blogging alert!  Today is Debbie's big day with the doctors – the follow-up after six weeks (!) of no weight bearing on her knee.  We're hoping she gets clearance to bear weight, so she can start hobbling around on her own (with a walker) and start physical therapy.

I had my first visit with our new GP yesterday.  I liked her, rather a lot, actually.  Great straightforward conversation, no punches pulled, no hesitation answering questions.  For example, I asked her how one could tell the difference between ordinary age-related memory problems and Alzheimer's memory problems.  She had a one word answer: “Autopsy.”  I like this lady :)  One thing I asked her about was some difficulty I've noted with my right shoulder in certain (not common) positions.  She diagnosed it (in about 20 seconds) as a rotator cuff muscle problem and sentenced me to prescribed physical therapy, which she's confident will fix it.  I start next Thursday.

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  I was feeling pretty lazy yesterday, after the hard work the evening prior.  We slept in, skipped our morning walk (much to the dismay of the dogs!), and I didn't actually get out and about until almost 9 am – very late for me.

The afternoon before, Steve M. and I had emptied all the junk out of the building that we're tearing down.  That collection of stuff defies any attempt to describe it in a pithy phrase.  There's shelving in about 10 different styles, lots and lots of plumbing parts, an odd-shaped remnant of some gorgeous Berber carpet, two big, thick rubber pads, electrical parts, about 15 different kinds of liquids (oil, gas, paint, herbicides, pesticides, and completely unidentifiable!), a baseball bat ... you get the idea.  A major collection of junk.  So yesterday morning, I sorted through all that stuff, and threw away anything that seemed unlikely to be useful either to us or someone else.  That was about 80% of the stuff, by weight.  Then I loaded all those liquids (maybe 200 lbs. in total) into my pickup and hauled it all up to the Logan landfill.  This is a city landfill, but open to use by anyone in the county.  Associated with the landfill is a hazardous waste disposal facility.  Much to my surprise, it's free for households – any quantity at all of any kind of liquid – even mercury!  They also dispose of old electronics, batteries, and just about anything else you're likely to have at home.  All free.  This is ever so much easier and nicer than similar disposal was in California!

While I was up on Logan I took care of a bunch of chores that have been accumulating.  Amongst them was stopping in at a fuel supplier to see how much hassle and money it was going to take to get propane, gasoline, and diesel fuel storage at our place.  Answer: very little hassle (all are readily available and permissible, unlike in California), and about half the money I'd expected.  My plan is to put a propane tank along side the backup generator on the pad we're exposing by taking down the building.  This will be a fairly large propane tank, holding enough to keep the generator going for a few days.  Alongside those, I'm considering putting in a 250 gallon (or so) gasoline tank.  This will be very convenient for not only our cars, but also all the small engines I'm accumulating (seven at the moment) on lawn mowers, weed whackers, etc.  The price on delivered fuel beats the pump price by a few cents, but is just as volatile.  I'm also going to put in a much smaller propane tank and backup generator by the shed, mainly to ensure that the shed's heat is working even in a power outage.

I also stopped by a new (to us) bakery, recommended by a neighbor: Great Harvest.  This is a chain, with locations all around the country (including Charlottesville, Virginia, where my sister and mother live).  I bought a couple loaves of bread, which we haven't tried yet.  I also got a couple sandwiches, and Debbie and I really enjoyed them.  That place certainly was hopping!  I hope the bread is good, because since Crumb Brothers went out of business we've been missing that really good bread...

Yesterday afternoon Steve M. and his wife Janeel were back to continue the great outbuilding demolition project.  All three of us worked until about 8 pm (past my bedtime!), and we got quite a lot done.  We removed the garage door without damage.  All the roof trusses are removed and packed on his trailer, and Janeel got all the brackets holding the trusses removed in reusable condition.  Then Steve and I figured out how to separate the walls at the corners, proving it by completely loosening the front wall.  He tacked it back in place for the evening, and on Thursday he's bringing a small horde of young Mormon men to help load the walls onto his trailer.  At that point all that will remain of the project is cleanup, so I suspect he'll be all finished by Friday evening, exactly as he predicted (and faster than I thought!).

This morning Miki, Race, and I took our usual walk to the east.  We saw (and heard) lots of white-faced ibis, feeding in the soft soil under the sprinklers. 

Right where we turned around, there were a couple of swathers parked, making a nice farmer's sunrise photo (at right).  A few minutes later, on the way back down, there was a nice play of early morning sunlight on the mountains to the south and west, while where we were walking was still in the shadow of the Wasatchs (at left).

This morning I have an appointment with our new GP, for a physical and just to get to know her.  Debbie and I had been seeing Dr. Dill in California for almost 25 years, so switching to a new doctor is a little intimidating.  GPs are becoming a rare breed in the U.S., especially independent GPs covered by our fancy new ObamaCare insurance.  We were unable to find an independent, so we signed up with a doctor who works with a clinic associated with the local hospital.  If we like her, that will be great.  Otherwise, I'm going to keep searching for an independent GP who (a) is accepting new patients, and (b) will accept our ObamaCare plan.  As my neighbor said, “Good luck with that!” He also told me that clinic-associated GPs were unknown in Cache Valley as recently as 5 years ago, and that independent GPs have been retiring or going out of business at a prodigious rate since then.  That's basically the same thing we saw in the San Diego area, with the old-timey Dr. Dill hanging in there and scraping by somehow.  Sad, that is...

Mind your own biscuits...

Mind your own biscuits ... and life will be gravy.  Via friend, reader, and former colleague Doug S., who says:

I'm sure you're not one for music videos... But when they sing about Pourin' salt in my sugar won't make yours any sweeter Pissin' in my yard ain't gonna make yours any greener

I think its a hit!

The Pluto song...

The Pluto song...  From A Capella Science...

Then your eyes start to wander...

Then your eyes start to wander...  Watching this video brought to mind something that happened to me about 20 years ago...

I worked for a company called Stac Electronics, andI was (for a while) managing the customer service team.  This was a team of several dozen people, some technical, some not-so-technical, dedicated to answering questions from people using the company's software products.  One day a rather unusual complaint bubbled up to me, through a couple layers of management.  It seems that one of the young women working for us was causing some friction, and the managers working for me weren't quite sure what to do about it.  They wanted me to help; really, they wanted me to deal with it.

So I first went off to talk with the two employees who had actually filed a formal complaint.  One of them was a middle-aged woman, the other a young man.  After some discussion with the woman, I figured out what her problem was: she was offended by the attention the young woman she was complaining about drew from the men on the team, and she though it was entirely inappropriate at work.  Her complaint wasn't about the younger woman's behavior – it was about how she dressed.  Specifically, it was about the ample cleavage she routinely displayed at work.  Then when I talked with the young man, I discovered that his complaint was virtually identical.  It turns out he was a devoutly religious and socially extremely conservative fellow, and he was quite disturbed by the cleavage that bobbled enticingly all day long, directly in his vision.

Then I met with the young lady who was the subject of all these complaints.  She was indeed displaying quite a lot of cleavage, and she was quite well-constructed to do so.  When I told her why we were having the conversation, she was absolutely shocked and quite embarrassed; from all I could tell, honestly so.  I asked her why she dressed the way she did – and her answer is why I'm relating the story.  She said, “To get people to look at me, of course.  Guys, I mean.”  When I asked her where she thought the guys would be looking, she just smiled and said “It’s advertising!”  No delusional thinking there, that's for sure.

So how did I resolve this?  I had two real choices, our HR people informed me.  I could either institute a formal, well-defined dress code and require her to comply (and then fire her if she wouldn't comply), or I could find a way to work around the problem.  After five minutes of brainstorming (with HR) what such a dress code might look like, I gave up on that whole plan.  Specifying the inches of allowable cleavage didn't really seem like a practicable solution, though I'm sure I'd have had plenty of volunteers for enforcement :)  So what we ended up doing was creating a couple of spaces, just by rearranging cubicles, and putting people in with the young lady who weren't likely to be offended.  Since that meant mostly single young men, our young lady quite liked the solution.  So did the young men.  And then I had a lunch with the young lady and suggested that she might want to cover up just a tad more while at work.  She did, too.  All was well on that front, in the end...

Bibi has the best summary...

Bibi has the best summary ... on the Iran deal I've seen yet.

Personally, I'm thinking that we've totally squandered the largely-succeeding sanctions.  From everything I've read, the sanctions were actually starting to threaten the long-term survival of the hardliners in Tehran.  The mad mullahs were on the verge of being forced to make major concessions – one of which, certainly, would have been to stop supporting al Assad in Syria, the rebels in Libya, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the other external terrorist operations it's running.  With this deal, or the parts of it that have been so far disclosed, we get an unverifiable (and therefore useless) commitment for a short-term hiatus in their nuclear development program.  We don't get to inspect nuclear facilities on military bases at all – a hole in the fabric of the agreement that makes it obvious what Iran will do.  In return, Iran gets ... essentially everything they wanted, including the end of all sanctions (including arms). 

Why did we do this?  The easy answer is “To burnish Obama’s presidential legacy.”  The progressives are crowing, but their reasons all seem to be about appearances and a victory over conservatives.  I have yet to see a straightforward presentation of the reasons for this deal, other than the Chamberlain-esque “peace in our time” platitudes, which anyone with even three or four functioning neurons ought to know by now is indefensible.

I think the chances are very small that Congress will be able to muster the two-thirds majority to override Obama's already-promised veto.  Mad Mullahs: 1.  Us: 0.

Dang...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  We started off the morning yesterday with a brisk walk to the east, along our usual route.  We had one moment of excitement of the skunk kind, when a baby skunk (roughly 12" nose-to-tip-of-tail) burst out of the tall grass along the road about 15' in front of us.  Immediately Miki and Race were bouncing at the end of the leash, wanting to go introduce the skunk to their teeth.  The skunk completely ignored them, and instead calmly tracked down the night crawlers that the nearby sprinkler had raised.  Suddenly Miki ran behind me, and backed out of his leash.  I had no idea he knew how to do that!  Next thing I know, Miki is scampering at warp 12 toward the skunk, which is still ignoring him.  Not good.

Things happened very fast at that point.  I'm hollering at Miki to get his sorry field spaniel butt back with me.  As Miki nears the skunk, it whips around (those baby skunks can move fast!) and starts doing the stampy-foot thing that immediately precedes a spray.  Miki, jaws snapping, a look of happiness on his face, lunges toward the skunk.  The skunk sprays – I could see it – but misses.  His stink stream passes Miki about a foot away, and the light breeze blows it further.  Miki is still moving in.  The skunk hisses and jumps toward Miki, who pulls about 400 Gs to go into a complete reversal, nearly tumbling over backwards.  I'm yelling at Miki to stay away (thinking he's gotten some skunk-stink on him).  Miki runs back toward me and hides behind me, begging me to save him from the nasty skunk.  The skunk, meanwhile, goes back to munching on his night crawler.

After some careful inspection, I figured out that Miki had been only very lightly “painted” with skunk stink.  We continued on our walk, and then I left Miki outside all day to “air out” in the bright sunshine.  Amazingly, that worked – by evening he smelled like his usual self, unless you stuck your nose right in his fur.

When we got back, I used the cool morning to finish pruning the spray-damaged new growth on several blue spruce (see photo at right) around our yard.  That was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours: easy work, beautiful environment, instant gratification as the trees looked great when I got done.

I spotted my neighbor Tim D. moving pipes out of his field, and I managed to get over to help just in time to get the last one out :)  Then the two of us quite literally leaned on our fence, talking, and playing with the dogs.  Race kept Tim very busy throwing a stick, and it was a lot of fun for me to see the delight on Tim's face as Race kept bringing that stick back.  Tim also wanted to see my new air compressor, as he'd never seen a screw air compressor before.  On the way in, he stopped by the brush mower, which he also hadn't seen before.  I think he lusts after my brush mower :)

Next up: mowing.  On a small scale, I finished mowing our yard.  On a somewhat larger scale, Rob L. (who lives a couple miles north of us) drove his swather over to mow the alfalfa on our neighbor's field (where the first two photos are from) and both of our fields.  The last photo is our south field, seen early this morning, when the cut hay smelled especially good in the cool, moist morning air.  That's 20 acres in total, and it only took him two hours – with another 15 acre field in between!  He stopped to chat for a minute, and showed off his machine.  It's quite a beast!  It doesn't work like the reel or sickle-bar machines I'm used to.  Instead, this one has 17 rotary blades, each hydraulically powered.  These cut the alfalfa at about 3" high, and they move up-and-down independently to conform to ground contours.  To keep the hay from being mulched by the rotary blades, a huge vacuum lifts the cut hay up and away from the blades, and drops it into a 5' wide windrow in the middle.  The most impressive thing of all to me: that thing zips along at 6 to 8 MPH while cutting, and independently swiveling rear tires let it turn (quite literally) on a dime.  Very impressive machine!

Some flowers from around the place:

Later in the afternoon, Steve M. showed up to start taking down one of the little outbuildings on our property.  Last fall, he was part of a Questar Gas crew that was rerouting a gas main that went under (illegally) this building.  In the course of them doing this work, I mentioned that I was planning to tear it down (because we don't use the building, and want to use the pad for a backup generator, propane tank, and gas tank).  I was thinking of this as a demolition project, but he looked at it as an opportunity – for him to get a “free” boathouse.  After a little conversation, we agreed for him to tear it apart and haul it away.  Well, last night was his first attack on the problem, and he made great progress.  All the metal roof was successfully removed, no damage to the parts.  I gave him a hand taking all the junk out of the building, loading stuff onto his trailer, and making some measurements.

His wife (Janelle) stopped by to help a little later, and the two of them will be back every night this week until they've got it all down.  I'm guessing that will take all week, and maybe a bit more – there's quite a bit of work to do there!

It was a very busy day in Paradise!

Curiosity looks back...

Curiosity looks back ... at the plains it has climbed up from, as it winds its way up Mt. Sharp on Mars.  Note: this is a black & white photo because it was taken by one of the navigation cameras, not the mast cameras...

A good summary of the Ukrainian situation...

A good summary of the Ukrainian situation...  If that's something you're not well-informed about, this will give you a quick course.  There are three general conflicts that I'm worried about these days.  If I arbitrarily pick 10 as the magnitude of my concern, I'd rate these as:

10.  Russia's play for territory in Eastern Europe (including Ukraine and the Baltics).

4.  Iran's play for power in the Middle East, and in particular its threats against Israel and the U.S.

2.  Militant Islamic fundamentalists.

I can't help but note that my ratings are almost exactly the inverse of press coverage (and the closely correlated general American awareness) in the U.S...

A few of these...

A few of these ... (F/A-18E Super Hornets) buzzing around Iranian shores might have been a good influence on the Iranian negotiations.  Or an alternative to those negotiations...

New Horizons made the Pluto flyby...

New Horizons made the Pluto flyby ... and it looks like the craft was in great shape.  Up-to-the-minute NASA news here.  The photo at right is the last one taken before the flyby.  Flyby photos due later today.  You go, little robot!

Iran deal quick take...

Iran deal quick take...  Iran: celebrating.  Obama: putting lipstick on the pig.  Congress: WTF?  Arabia: fearful.  Israel: “An historic mistake.”

Doesn't sound too good to me.  In particular, when Obama says “every path to a nuclear weapon has been cut off”, all my natural skepticism cuts in.  My brain translates that to “Iran’s gonna get a nuke, we just don’t know whether its next month, or next year.”

Will our Congress approve it?  I'd like to think there will be a substantive debate, and if the deal is as I fear it is, then they'd reject it.  Given the political context, though, I don't think that's too likely.  Approval isn't quite a certainty, but it's darned close to it.  The only thing I can think of that might derail approval is a mighty roar from the American public – and what is far more likely is a mighty yawn...