Another Brick in the Wall (Part One)

[candide]

Micro-Mini-ERE
=============

I am now on winter break, which will last a little over two weeks. This puts me in a position where I can be a little more strategical, and work on tightening up modules/systems/and work-flows in a way that will feed back into making them better when I am back in work mode. So the theory goes.

The thing I am learning is

Class: having a child changes everything
Instance: breaks/mini-ERE.

It looks like it will be really hard for me to, say, block out an afternoon to do something, at least not without a lot of negotiation with my wife before hand which then forces me into a work-flow I don’t like. Thoreau said it pithily

I love a broad margin to my life.

Yeah, me too buddy. It’s a great way to live and work. What’s that? You have more...

Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs …

Oh, that does sound nice. You start with a nice bath you say –

… in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.

Wow, you did not have baby at home.

Back to my monologue – rather than dialogue with a dead guy – there are lot of blooms of the present moment that I have to sacrifice as I am “on call” whenever I am home with child – as I should be. And then when there are slivers of time to work on something, I need to get right on it while the coast is clear.


Birds
====

I wrote about the beginnings of my bird-watching hobby only scant months ago.

Well, now that the leaves have fallen from the Elms and Sycamores, we are in winter enough that the birds are really coming for the seeds I’m leaving out. A half-dozen mourning doves at once was a sight to see. Wrens and House Finches are back to be seen, lowing the birdbath my wife got for my birthday. Blue Jays are no longer too good for me. The loyal pair of Cardinals, one dude and one lady, never left.

But our newest friends are the Juncos. This is my first learning about them, and it is nice to know they will be a common feature of my winters here every year if I keep putting seeds out.

I figure I’ll just keep checking and refilling seeds over my break. Still cheaper, and much better, than a streaming service.

[avalok]

Still cheaper, and much better, than a streaming service.

There is a joy and trance that follows watching them arrive to feed on the seeds you've laid out. Unfortunately every time we have tried to feed the birds in our current garden, very few have arrived; my parents down the road are like an avian Heathrow. Sounds like you are getting a great variety, and in good numbers; fantastic.

[candide]

Unfortunately every time we have tried to feed the birds in our current garden, very few have arrived

That is indeed unfortunate.

I will note that I've only had these kinds of results here in the last week or so. Before that, I had some spring sightings of Blue Jays and Wrens early in the season, but they both dried up as spring began in earnest... Only cardinals jived with the location, and frankly infrequent feedings. I think I will lean into this pattern of putting out seeds in the cooler months. The span of time sure is short enough here.

I don't know if this is a "module" you want to develop or not, but you might play around with seeds at different levels -- I have mine at two -- water sources, etc. Even with all that, there might be variables out of your control. If so, you have my sympathies in the matter.

[1] I am aware your bird scene is very different -- wow, doing some research, your jays (Garrulus glandarius) look cool. Here is wikipedia for blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata). At least they are related; one of the most interesting differences between common names of UK vs US birds is "robins." Apparently, American robins weren't named such based on them looking like European robins -- and they are indeed not related -- but instead based on their behaviors and habits (both love worm hunting, and will watch you dig with great interest). ETA: apologies if this is common knowledge; it was new to me as of very recently.

[avalok]

This was all new knowledge to me. In fact it has really surprised me; I ignorantly hadn't considered how different the fauna are across our continents and applied it to birds. I had no idea that your robins were different. In the UK at least, the robin is used as a Christmas symbol, so they're all over the place at the moment, though sadly not the real things. Blue jays are stunning.

Again, this has really surprised me; things I take for granted you do not have. This means you don't have blue tits, which are, thankfully, still a common sight in the UK.

[candide]

No, we don't have blue tits in my neck of the woods. Instead, our tit is the carolina chickadee.

I am on a fast from YouTube until February, but I'll add eurasian blue tit on my list of videos to see when I open a window to do such things.

I do want to put in a good word for our cardinals as compensation for lacking the blue tit.

[avalok]

That is one funky bird; you raised me a Northern Cardinal and I have no response .

[candide]

There is a joy in sharing things so that you can see them fresh through someone else's eyes. This is positive aspect of inter-subjectivity.

The cardinal is a common bird through most of U.S., but by sharing it, the bird becomes renewed in my sight -- though I must admit they are always a cherished sight, with the female of the species extremely underestimated. We have a mated pair that has visited us throughout the year, with the female totally bald when my wife and I came to incorporate noticing them into our lives -- you really see how birds are the surviving dinosaurs with images like that... There is also a preserved woodland (self billed "Urban Wilderness") near my house, and walking down those paths cardinals flit in and out through branches in much greater number.

My favorite, though is the Blue Jay. I am temporarily unblocking YouTube to pull up a video of a bird YouTuber who can do them justice:
https://youtu.be/Jpp7oa4QiB4

I do look forward to seeing videos of your birds sometime in February... For now, I'm sticking to my guns on the information diet, but I have them down on my to-watch list.

[avalok]

There is a joy in sharing things so that you can see them fresh through someone else's eyes. This is positive aspect of inter-subjectivity.

I felt this way too. It is funny having read about how common Cardinals are in NA; I would be stopping in awe every time I saw one, but I imagine many walk right by because they are used to the sight.

Thank you for linking to the Blue Jay video; they are wonderful. If you do want to have a greater look at what we are fortunate to have here in the UK, the RSPB have an A-Z, which includes song recordings.

[SouthernAlchemy]

@candide From the description of the birds in your yard, it sounds like we are in a similar climate/habitat. In addition to the seeds, you might try some suet through the winter and spring. It appeals to different birds such as carnivores like woodpeckers and it is helpful in winter for omnivores like wrens and early robin arrivals. The real treat, though, has been in the spring nesting season when the bluebirds show up. They are all about the suet. I never saw them that often until I began putting it out. Also, I've noticed the same thing about cardinals. They are around my yard but pretty sporadic about visiting the feeder. I think they might prefer small fruits such as holly and dogwood berries, not to mention my grapes

[candide]

I must admit that bluebirds (Sialia sialis) are a species I have never attracted, so I will have to look into suet.

[candide]

Time. A line, a circle? Anyone who enjoys a morning cup of coffee should be able to see how time can be periodic. Holidays, equinoxes, and solstices also argue for circular aspects – the first and last of that list being on my mind at the moment, naturally enough.

Our cultural training is all linear. Here are some corollaries (or perhaps comorbidities would be more accurate):

1) consumability – use it up. If what we seek is a line, might as well get to the end.

Thus
2) neo-mania (see also Taleb). Endless production of the new is needed. Get on a new line, get to a new end.
3) fungibility – all inputs that lead to same outputs are equivalent.

Perhaps counter-intuitively

4) sterile repeatability – if you are going to bother to go back to an artifact -- which is a weakness, that is easily exploitable, in the linear framework-- it will repeat the same pattern the same way. It is stamped in time, no “do overs.” (Think the difference between replaying a movie and having an elder re-tell a story).

So this is where the whole bit about the circle gets shown to be inaccurate. It is better to emphasize the periodic. When time is seen as periodic, there are variations on each theme, each time.

+++

This post crystallized in my mind looking out today and seeing a Carolina chickadee, the first in this winter flurry of birds that has characterized this lovely break.

In turn it all builds on a more ineffable epiphany I had once while hiking in the woods a few months ago – on the nature of what I want to share with my daughter.

[candide]

My New Year’s Resolution is a bit niche, but it is to have at least $300 in my Akrasia Fund at the end of the year. Plan A is to treat it as a no-spend <X amount of time> to get my Akrasia Fund fund to $300, and then get strategical with the extra perspective I gain with the time not spending.

[candide]

I have two gaps of time in my work day that I try to make own: lunch and then the gap in time between when the students are released and it takes for the parking lot to clear from all the parents picking their angels up – something like 15 minutes in the second case.

I used to socialize with other teachers during both these times. I even had a friend in particular that I would eat lunch with.

Well, since the last journal and now, that lunch friend has been involved in an affair which has ended his marriage and has been the talk of the school. (How about that for office politics?) This became an odd case of me being the first to suspect, but then among the last to know because as his attention went … elsewhere, I used the free time to start a hobby (of my own).


New Hobby – Music
===============

The ERE slant to this is that I haven’t made any purchases. Two years ago, looking for something to make, I saw this Phillip Stephens video, which in turn began research into cigar box guitars, one-stringers – whether you wish to call them diddley bows or not – canjos and the like (those should be enough search terms, if you too become interested in the topic). So I had a few one-stringers already. And playing around on those was all of the background I have had in music since I was in elementary school.

At the time, I ended up getting a recorder the same day I bought the strings, thinking it would be neat to also learn a wind instrument… This was back in my big-spender days. And then my mother and law gave us an old electronic keyboard that she no longer had any use for.

I brought the keyboard and recorder to school. The keyboard mostly stays in its bag and to the side when it is not in use, so the students have not noticed it. I tend to use the recorder more, though, as it is just convenient to pull out, practice some scales and then work on whatever phrase I am on.

New Hobby 2 – Flute Making
======================

When I was in the very beginnings of learning how to work the fingerings and not leak out air, I came upon the instrument called variously Irish whistle, penny whistle, or tin whistle. I thought that might nice to simplify the fingering and just overblow for the second octave. And oh boy, there are ones online for only $13.

But then my no-spend challenge (the post directly above) won out . Also, since it is not a tool, my rules are that the hit to the fund would be $26, not just $13.

If it is penny whistles I want, then I need to make them. I have some PVC pipes laying around (what hoarder doesn’t?) and I have already made my first abomination/mistake-ridden one. In the process of making the first one, I figured out how to do some key operations, including making a jig so hold the pipe in place as I work. Also, to get the precision I need I have made the switch to metric. To do so, I talked to science teachers at my school, and they just gave me a few meter sticks. I hung one up and cut to the other to 40 cm, so I can handle in easier to make the measurements I need on the pipes.

… It occurs to me that I am in fact making a penny whistle that will only cost me pennies in material.

[avalok]

The whistle project sounds really cool. I wonder how different the sound will be through PVC vs tin.

I have a friend from school who would pull out his harmonica while idling in the common room; it must be nice to be able to start playing music wherever you are. Also, thanks for linking to the two string guitar video; that'd be a really cool project to try sometime.

[candide]

@avalok

Here's a vid of a PVC instrument guru arguing there is basically no difference, at least between bamboo and PVC.

https://youtu.be/R35N43h8M5U?t=177

Although my plans are to switch to bamboo and wood eventually, if I reach the stage where I can give these things away as gifts.

==

Real time update.
=============

After posting the entry above, I started cooking several dishes for the week, ended up breaking a glass storage container, which my wife jumped at as an opportunity to clean that while I watched the baby, who was already in a bad mood -- and I got to get yelled at by a 6 month old for like 15 minutes....

I am absolutely fried.

I ask everyone's indulgence for this to be sufficient explanation for why I don't post as much as I once did.

[candide]

A severe storm came through. There were high winds, with several tornadoes touched down,one within miles from my house which could easily have hooked at hit us.

The power went out for several hours. The baby (7 months old) handled the hunkering down period really well, but afterwards she felt the effects of her routine being messed up, and maybe processed somewhere that the situation had been mildly scary.

With power still out and no wifi, I was at least able to play some lullaby music that I had saved on my laptop. Such is the power of local backups [1]. Even then I give us a "D" for our preparedness. For one, I didn't have the computer charged (I can only plead that I was extremely blocked up due to allergies, so I wasn't in top shape for clear thinking and efficient action). To keep playing the songs for my daughter, I put the brightness down and played the songs through command line, and it lasted as long as we needed.

The experience has convinced me to buy one of those deep battery units that people use when they are camping, and to not treat such a purchase as something "for the shop" or and thus requiring me earn it with my points for chores and exercise. My wife agrees with the idea, so it should happen sooner rather than later.


[1] My wife was still able to connect to the cell network, so I guess she could have streamed some song, but she was using the phone to text family and make sure everything was alright with them. So if nothing else what I did provided us flexibility with how we could use our technology.

[ertyu]

Glad you guys are alright

[candide]

I appreciate it, ertyu.

I know people with some fair-sized property damage, but everyone is alive and unharmed, I think.

==

Buying the battery and then solar panels should give me something fun to tinker with... but that was some of the delay in getting them. I was treating it something to earn with the akrasia fund simply because it would be fun. Such is the messed up thinking unexamined moral systems can bring out.

So, new understanding:

just fun -- count 2X cost to akrasia fund

useful to shop, but no immediate profit -- count 1X cost to akrasia fund

things that can help for emergency -- just buy it, as I am well past FU money... (When you have fuck you money, there is no reason to be fucked, which is something I said to my wife in the context of being more selective in her job search).

[candide]

Junk Punk
========

1. wood / pvc

Still building things out of junk. My wife is going to a consignment sale, this time getting rid of a bunch of our baby stuff in addition to saving on retail. She wanted a kind of portable rack to transport everything without it wrinkling. Enter a PVC pipe I had laying around (lucky it hadn’t been cut down in my ardor to work on fipple flutes), two boards from a magazine wrack I salvaged after a teacher quit, some slates from a bed I disassembled rather than have hauled off. I ended up using some screws that I had purchased, but as they can be pulled out and used for something else in a pinch, there has to be some discount about how much they contribute to the cost of the piece – I was storing those screws anyway, might as well store them in something useful.

Let’s price it at 25 cents – the ol’ two bits.

2. computing

I have found some uses for a chromebook from 2002 [edit: 2012. Good eye, Avalok.] that my wife abandoned a while ago. It started with grabbing a bunch of music scores to put on it. This got the ball rolling, and I loaded up a bunch of songs, as well as my whole collection of text editions of books collected from Project Gutenberg. And it shall never see the internet again, and yet still be of use for me, possibly for years to come.

Connecting to the Moby Dick thread, one of the books I have loaded to read is Melville’s earlier (and much more popular during his lifetime) book “Typee.” I am not very far in, but I am confident I will enjoy it.

[avalok]

I have found some uses for a chromebook from 2002

This is either an exaggeration or a typo, right? Chrome the browser wasn't released until 2008.

The projects sound cool. Project Gutenberg is a fantastic initiative, but I must admit I do struggle to read some of the more dated translations on there. It is often better for me to find the Penguin Classics editions at the library. Have you struggled also?