Crazybasenji.com

Alien Planet

Jul 262010

It didn’t look that different from my previous home. I could breathe the air. The sky was blue, the grass green (except where it was starting to turn a dry, crispy brown), the temperature hot. I could find my way around okay. Places I visited looked much the same. And like it or not, I was here to stay. Might as well start moving in the furniture.

I thought I would start with my music. It was no trouble to download all the albums into the shiny new audio player. None of the titles looked mangled — “Let It Be” downloaded as “Let It Be,” etc. Excellent. I wasn’t sure whether I got the volume controls set up correctly, but figured all I had to do was press “Play” and find out if any sound came out. Woops. Got a pop-up. “You do not have a decoder installed to handle this file. You might need to install the necessary plugins.” Gah. Like suddenly finding myself on the wrong street where I don’t understand much of the language. How the hell do I find out where to get the decoder and the necessary plugins???? (And could it be a decoder ring? Because that would be very cool.)

Okay, this is not the opening of a science fiction story. But it could be. Here’s what happened. I’ve been a non-fan of Windows since Windows was invented. I’ve used it plenty, always on computers “at work” that were hooked to great big servers and had a lot of RAM and everything else necessary to hurl that top-heavy operating system around with a fair amount of speed. At home I had Commodore computers, then Amiga, then Mac. They all had their own issues, but they didn’t need to have frakking Windows installed for me to do what I wanted to do on a computer. Then I got this laptop. I got it used, and it had Windows XP Pro installed on it already. I was planning to take an online course that required use of a Windows computer. Ugh. My frustration reached new heights. Opening a program required the patience of a saint — of which I am not one. It got to the point where I would click to launch Firefox, and then go fix my coffee, or start a load of laundry — and then maybe my browser would be open when I came back.

After about a year and a half of this nonsense, I was about to crack under the strain. I ended up not taking the course, and just kept using this laptop because it was a little newer and a bit faster than my old iBook laptop, but not that much. It seemed like I spent half my time at my computer waiting for it to decide to do something. Going back to using the iBook wouldn’t solve anything, because it is too old to update to the newer Mac OS. Then I remembered Linux.

My second ex-husband was a virtual bigamist the whole time I was with him. His primary relationship was with his computer. But I probably learned more about computers just living in the same air-space as him than I would have taking classes from anyone else. Of course I didn’t learn it in any sort of logical sequence. But Linux. He talked about Linux. An operating system (was my understanding, at any rate) that didn’t belong to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and would never put money in the pocket of either. I could live with that.

I did some reading on line about Linux, and found out that a lot of applications can be hung on the Linux “kernel” that make it easier to use for the less technically inclined. Great, I thought. Sign me up. I asked a local web design guru, Cody Marx Bailey, for some recommendations, and he said, “first, back up all your files.” And he meant somewhere off my computer. I already have a lot of stuff backed up on flash drives, but I got a two GB storage locker “in the cloud” at a site called Dropbox. Two GB is free, so I figured that should be enough for most of my stuff, especially if I zipped some of the folders. My music folder was another matter. All the music files were piled together with iTunes files and iPod files and whatnot, and rather than try to separate them, I just loaded the whole mess onto another flash drive. It was over seven gigabytes. It would have overloaded my Dropbox like Mr. Creosote.

Long story short, Cody also recommended I look at the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, and after a bit of mucking about, I downloaded a “low over-head” version called Xubuntu and burned it onto a CD. To make sure it was going to work properly, I ran it from the CD the first time and had a look at the desktop and some of the apps that came with it. I had just recently started using Thunderbird to handle all my email accounts, so I was happy to see that Thunderbird was part of the package. And it’s fast. Think Porsche 911 vs. ’64 Volkswagen bus.

However. Apparently the Exaile music player doesn’t line up with iTunes without some kind of additional gadget, which I don’t have or know where to find at the moment. But. I can put one of my music CDs in the drive and it will play just fine.

I am not worried. I like my new home. I may forget in what box I packed my favorite knick-knacks, but soon I’ll have them all around me once again. And Windows can bite me.

Of chocolate, ScienceBlogs, and Pepsi

Reading, Work, Writing No Responses »

Jul 152010

I recently came to the sad conclusion that I must give up eating chocolate. In all its forms. Entirely. That’s a whole food group kicked out of my diet. Because I tended to overindulge, and it started making me sick. I won’t go into detail. Let me just say that the consequences of eating chocolate became increasingly unpleasant over the past several months, to the point of some acute pain. Poor, pitiful me.

It is often the case with addictive behavior, that what you crave will kick your butt sooner or later. It’s why there are twelve step programs for so many things that so many of us do in non-addictive ways. I mean, we all eat (stop and you die, in fact), but food addictions are not healthy, hence, Over-eaters Anonymous. Then there are the alcohol addicts, drug addicts, sex addicts, solar eclipse addicts (I don’t think the last group has a 12-step program yet, though). People recognize and get help for their addictions or they don’t get help and they get in trouble with the law, or with health issues, or in car versus tree arguments, or they develop some kind of physiological symptoms of substance rejection like mine. My stomach started saying “no more chocolate, or I will make you pay, and pay, and pay!

For a while after I discovered Science Blogs, a site maintained by Seed Magazine that hosted a lot of great blogs about all kinds of science written by scientists, I was an addict. I could burn up an entire day reading the different blogs, the comments — and some of the comments were like blog entries themselves. And then I’d kick myself for not spending that time doing something worthwhile in the world.

I tried subscribing to the combined RSS feed for ScienceBlogs so that I’d get a chance to read samples from all of them. I was overwhelmed. I skimmed some, skipped a lot. Then I learned how to “mark all as read” so when I found 400 articles waiting for me (which would sometimes happen if I didn’t check in for a few days), I could just deal with them with a mouse click instead of the endless scrolling and scanning. I felt bad about not actually consuming more of the content, but there was just too much.

As with chocolate, I finally had to just stop cold. I started following a couple of my favorites on Twitter and Facebook, so that I could follow links they posted to articles that looked interesting. Because at the time I was trying to figure out how to make blogging profitable for ME, at least a little; I was trying to find a “day job” so I could keep it while I learned how to make a living doing something I love, because “they” always say, “keep your day job” when someone expresses an interest in trying to make a living in a way other than the accepted norm. It always helps if you actually have a day job that you can keep. Duh.

What I eventually found was in fact an evening job — or at least a late afternoon job — and is only part time, but could actually work out better in the long run because it leaves me with enough energy to work on my other projects. But I digress.

Last week, I read a tweet by Laelaps, one of the Sblings I follow, to the effect that “David Dobbs is leaving SB, and I’m thinking I will, too.” What? So I went to David Dobbs’ Twitter page and read a few tweets, and then I followed a link to a Science Blogs article about how there was going to be a new nutrition blog on SB, authored by employees of Pepsico. And many bloggers were up in arms over it. They questioned the logic of their blog administrators in allowing what they called “advertorial content” on the site, which would lower the credibility of all the other writers. I followed the arguments back and forth for days. It didn’t take long, after ten or more writers left as a direct result of the decision, for the SB overlords to cancel the Pepsico blog (or Pepsico pulled out to avoid more negative press).

I spent more time on the SB site in three days than I had for the past year. I was on a binge. Sad thing is that the surge in readership for the site as a result of the controversy still brought in a lot more readers. And some people will say there’s no such thing as bad advertising when the results are more sales — or more interest. It certainly worked with me. Now I have to be smart and start doing my own work again, hoping I can make something that will matter not just to me, but will affect others the way chocolate and Science Blogs have affected me. LOL

I write like...?

Uncategorized No Responses »

Jul 142010

Seriously, this is too bizarre. These people must have a limited selection of “write like” examples. Or maybe I should read more Lovecraft. Sometime, when I have a reason to want to not sleep for several days, I’ll do that little thing.

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Site updates

Computer literacy 1 Response »

Jul 112010

Nothing stays the same. Especially in the cyberverse. Not only does WordPress update the blogging platform, but authors of the various themes make improvements changes that they publish to the WP site, which sends out little nags to those bloggers using those themes. So I got a couple of updates to this theme. Now all the navigation is in one place, on the sidebar. Click on a tab and a dropdown menu opens, where you can click on the page title, tag, or category or whatever, to take you where you want to go. Text links now show up as orange, making them easier to see (unless you’re colorblind — then I don’t know what to tell you).

There is a new tab on the top navigation bar to link back to the home page. I had to add this because whatever functionality used to tie my logo to the home page went away. You can’t just click on the picture of the dog to go back to the home page. Maybe that will be fixed in the next update. I know it’s possible to add some code to a file to make it work in spite of the update, but these things are a lot more complex than the files I learned to work with way back at the turn of the century when I was learning HTML. I’m such a dinosaur.

Word Camp, and the whole blogging adventure

Computer literacy, learning curve 1 Response »

Jul 082010

I signed up to go to this thing as soon as I heard about it. It’s going to be in Houston (not that far to drive even in an un-air-conditioned car), at the Houston Museum of Natural History (one of my favorite places on the planet), I could afford the registration fee (a considerable consideration), and I figured I could learn something from it (if I record absolutely everything and listen to it over and over and over and over…). Well, you get the picture. Because I feel like a lot of what I’ll be listening to is going to be way over my head, in a language I don’t savvy, spoken by people less than half my age. WHAT WAS I THINKING??

WordCamp, in case you’re wondering what it is but aren’t curious enough to go to their site and check it out (the picture is a link, by the way), is a one-day workshop on August 7th, devoted to all things WordPress, which is the software supporting this blog. It is big time computer geekery. It’s like a whole other country. Or species. And I’m going into the middle of it. I have volunteered to help set up the breakfast and lunch so that I’ll be forced to interact with people. Light-years out of my comfort zone.

Well, okay, here’s the deal. I’m serious about my blog. I post a lot of nutty, fluffy, frivolous stuff on here, but I’m still learning and evolving as a writer, and as an artist, and planet maker, jewelry designer, basenji wrangler, and even maybe as a web designer. So I’m thinking that whatever it takes for me to up my game in any of these endeavors is worth a little effort. Even a huge effort in some cases, as may prove to be the case here. Time will tell.

On finishing things

Creative efforts, Writing No Responses »

Jul 072010

My first quilt -- called Gabbro

I got the idea for this quilt months and months ago. I had all these smallish pieces of fabric, because I have a friend who likes to hang out in fabric stores. Being one of those people who is attracted to bright or shiny things, I invariably ended up buying a handful of “fat quarters” or other pieces less than a yard. They were always in some random kind of pattern or batik that suggested water, or clouds, or sedimentary rocks, or some other bizarre thing. But I didn’t know what I would ever do with them.

Until I saw this picture when I Googled “gabbro” to find out what kind of rock it is.

Microscope slice of gabbro

I found the picture on a site with other pictures of “Rocks under the microscope.” Gabbro is an igneous rock made up of chunks of different minerals — not always the same ones. It’s a hodge-podge. I like hodge-podges. I like the opportunity to use the word hodge-podge in a sentence, or three.

I thought “Ah ha!” That would make a cool quilt. (Now let me issue a disclaimer, here: I am not a quilter — have never read a book, even though I own one, or taken a class in how to make a quilt. I know how to use a sewing machine. That’s it.) With my typical “Damn the procedure and full steam ahead” mindset, I found a piece of fabric that I could use as the ground matrix — that’s the darker gray stuff — and started planning out how I would assemble the jigsaw puzzle of all the various fabric “minerals.” What held me up for all those months was how was I going to patch together a bunch of odd-shaped pieces and keep them from unraveling around the edges, and then attach them to the back?

Then I discovered a lovely product that you can iron onto a piece of fabric, turn it over and remove the paper backing, and iron the first piece to another. Oh, happy day. I was on my way. Everything else was all done off the cuff, on the fly, by feel, or by guesswork. In other words — standard operating procedure for me — I made it all up. The real miracle is that it all actually worked. Sometimes I amaze even myself! (All right. Maybe I amaze only myself, but as long as someone is amazed, I have accomplished something.)

Something else I recently finished, although I had begun to doubt I ever would, was a correspondence writing course. And this is old school correspondence, using paper and envelopes and going to the post office to have the thing weighed and paying postage. Yeah. And I started back in…well, maybe I don’t want to think about how long it took me. The point is, I sent in my last assignment yesterday, and I did learn a lot from taking the course. Not just about writing. I learned about my own thought processes, and to what lengths I would go to avoid interviewing another human being face-to-face. Gah. Need to get over that. Need to chant my mantra “People don’t bite. People don’t bite…” etc.

So, now that those things are no longer sitting on the back burner simmering down to unrecognizable sludge, I can work on some of the newer things that have spent less time on the back burner. Time to get out the paints.

Return to Amber, part two

Reading, Writing No Responses »

Jul 052010

Okay, so I meant to write this review and get it up here on my blog a couple of weeks ago — it was supposed to follow the first review in somewhat shorter order, but you know how it is with the best laid plans and so on (you know you’ve heard the quote, modified from Robert Burns so we can actually understand what the frak it says). Mule shows and bird migrations had to be commented upon first.

When I read the second five books in the Chronicles of Amber, I noticed one thing pretty quick. Not nearly as much smoking. I thought, well, maybe Mr. Zelazny had quit smoking (to tell the truth, I don’t know for a fact that he ever smoked in the first place). There were a few mentions of pipes. Apparently, Corwin’s son, Merlin (Merle) would occasionally puff on a pipe, but not cigarettes. But as I got past the first part of the first book, even the pipes disappeared. To be sure, there was a lot of moving around, running, fighting, and such — not a lot of leisure time for a smoke — but I started to wonder. I finally realized that a book of matches had played a crucial part in one scene in the 3rd (or was it the 4th?) book of the elder Chronicles. (Sorry I don’t have the books in front of me — they had to return to Lubbock.) And from that point on, there had not been as much smoking in those books, either. Ah hah! All the attention on smoking might have been just a mechanism to ensure those matches were on hand when they were needed, and no one would be going, “Wait! Where did those matches come from? That’s cheating!”

People who tend to gobble up science fiction, like people who gobble up other genres, get quite good at spotting inconsistencies in the stories they read. And woe to any author who asks too much in the “suspension of disbelief” category. Even if that weren’t true, and readers just didn’t notice one or two inconsistencies, a writer shouldn’t get lazy, and expect his or her readers to forgive them for sloppy writing. It ends up being sloppy story-telling.

There was still plenty of other-worldly scenery in these books, mostly seen while passing through between this world, Amber, and the Courts of Chaos. The Courts were mentioned in the first books, but we didn’t get to really see the place until the final book. I wanted to see more. The sequel series, centered around Merlin, who’s mother was of noble Chaotic blood, featured a lot of Chaotic settings. (I like chaos. It’s fun to watch. I think it’s why I have basenjis.)

There was also a lot more emphasis on describing various magical powers. Considering that Mr. Zelazny was writing these books in the late 70′s – early 80′s that’s not surprising. Wicca magic, psychic readings, tarot cards and astrology were all the rage about that time. He was cashing in on a sign of the times. Aside from that, though, the story holds up as well as the first five books. I’m glad I got the chance to read them all.

...And I take that back

Nature No Responses »

Jul 012010

Turns out the martins haven’t actually left the area, they just moved out of the house. On reflection, it seemed like a bad time to migrate south — it’s still winter on the other side of the equator. Plainly, I don’t know as much about purple martin migratory habits as some people. I seem to remember my mom saying that they arrive in this area around Valentine’s Day, and leave again on June 15th. That’s pretty specific. But she must have meant that they leave the nest on June 15th. Or thereabouts. We didn’t get the house up until late February, and I didn’t see any martins around it until mid-March. Both families of martins were still using the nest a lot on June 15th. But now I see one group of four (mom, dad, two kids) fly over the house once in a while and never land on it. They hang out on the telephone wires out by the road. I’m sure there’s still plenty of good grasshopper hunting in the area. It just goes to show, you should never stop observing, and you’ll probably never be through learning.

Like thieves in the night

Nature No Responses »

Jun 292010

The martins are gone. No goodbyes. No forwarding address. They just took wing and flew away. Their house looks a little forlorn, with just a random sparrow or two perched on the porch railings, where a few days ago the two pairs of adult martins and their well-grown offspring had all been jostling for the best perches on the roof. It made for a busy scene as one or another bird got edged off its spot and flew out and away and up and around and back, all the while chattering in their distinctive purple martin language. It had lifted my heart considerably to have them back after an absence of several years.

But let me back up a bit. For starters, my yard is ideal purple martin habitat — a flat, treeless plain. With plenty of weeds. Grasshoppers like weeds. Purple martins like grasshoppers. For breakfast, lunch and supper. When my parents moved onto this spot after several years in a fairly woodsy location at Hilltop Lakes (where they spent a lot of time watching deer and other wildlife visit their back yard) my mom decided they should have a martin house. A lot of people (like my mom) think martins eat mosquitoes, but they don’t. Other birds might, bats definitely do, but not martins. Still, having a little extra help with grasshopper control is good, too, whether you’re aware of it or not — which my folks weren’t, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, my dad being my dad, he built the house for the martins. He didn’t go half measures, either. The house had 24 apartments, and was attached to a post that could be lowered every winter and the house taken off, cleaned out, and put in storage until spring. This was all to keep the pesky sparrows and starlings from moving in and making the place their slum. After my mom died, in 1989, the martin house never came down again. And the sparrows and starlings started taking over.

When I moved back home in 2002, I saw no martins move in the following spring. There were no vacancies. The place had taken on the appearance of a shabby old tenament, with faded, peeling paint, and last season’s nesting material overflowing out the doors. Pitiful.

Oddly, even though the upright had taken on a bit of a warp, and as a consequence the house leaned a bit to the south, it withstood our brush with Hurricane Rita in 2005. It came down that winter, all on its own. The upright failed under the weight of all that accumulated sparrow and starling crap one stormy night. It made a sad sight lying broken in the middle of the yard. By then my dad was past knowing or caring about it, so my brother and I just quietly cleared away the debris and dug up the foundation of the post.

I looked at martin houses on the internet, and couldn’t afford any of them. I knew I’d never get my brother to build one, so I just kept shopping around whenever I thought about it. I didn’t want to give up, because purple martins in this part of the country don’t even look for natural nesting sites any more. So many generations have been raised in artificial nests that they have come to depend on us to provide them. Finally, last year, I found a house I could afford at the local Tractor Supply center. It’s made of the same kind of plastic that a lot of dog houses are being made of, so it’s lightweight. And it has swing out panels on both sides so it’s easy to clean out. We just happened to have an old T.V. antenna pole just the right height and diameter to attach it to and set it up in about the same location as the old one. Disappointingly, no martins moved in. I wondered if our timing was bad or if for some reason martins disapproved of the material the house was made of. Maybe it smelled funny. The sparrows and starlings didn’t seem to mind, and several of them moved into one or another of the 12 apartments. When cold weather came on, though, we took the house down and I cleaned out all the old nesting material.

Whether spending a year out in the elements made the house lose its plastic smell, or we had better timing in getting it up this year, I was delighted to see the first pair of martins that did a fly-by wheel around and fly in for a closer look. By mid-June, I was pretty sure there were two pairs raising babies in the house, and they didn’t seem to be bothered that they were sharing the building with some sparrow families (I never saw any starlings around).

Before long, the young were all out of the nests, and the whole gang of them would try to perch on the same corner of the roof during the heat of the day. It made for considerable shifting and jostling around, and there was usually a bird or two in the air trying to fly in and land on the favored spot. Hopeless. I was glad, however, when I remembered that they would be leaving soon to migrate back to their winter range — it had to be getting scorching hot sitting on top of that house out in the middle of the prairie in the full sun. If they are going someplace even hotter, I wish them well. But now the Mexican Free-tailed bats are here, and if I remember to go outside right at sunrise and sunset, I can watch them skipping through the air chasing things I can’t see — hopefully mosquitoes. Now if I can convince my brother to put up a bat roost…

The Texas Shootout

Leisure, Pets No Responses »

Jun 202010

Right off the bat, when you read that title, what do you think? Yeah, I know. But it’s not about guns. Oh, no. The Texas Shootout — billed with the tagline, “Where East meets West, to see who’s best,” has nothing to do with guns. Or shooting. It’s a mule and donkey show. Or a donkey and mule show. Depending on which critter you favor more. Yeah. So, of course, I had no idea there was an annual mule and donkey show right here in my own back yard, as it were, and I only found out about it this year. But better late than never, as the saying goes.

The event was held last weekend in the newish Brazos County Expo Complex, and I found out about it on Saturday evening. In time to go see some of the event on Sunday. By which time a lot of exhibitors had already left. No matter. I took my camera and got myself over there to see me some mules.

I walked through the barn area and watched some riders walking and jogging their mules and donkeys around the exercise ring, and saw this overly excited guy standing outside his stall.

Maybe a bit too highly strung

…or maybe he just had his eyes closed so he could concentrate on whatever he was listening to.

When I went into the arena, there was a class being judged. A donkeymanship class. Not only is the name a little whimsical, but the donkeys in the class were putting their own interpretations on the exercises. I thought, “how basenji-like.” So no wonder I like these alternate equines. Like basenjis aren’t your daddy’s Labrador, donkeys aren’t your daddy’s quarter horse. They have their own way of doing things. Sometimes it’s the same as your way, and sometimes it ain’t.

At another point in my peregrinations around the barn area, I stopped to watch another mule in his stall, munching on some grain in a sack.

mmmmule noms

And I heard this incredible noise start up from somewhere close by, but all the other stalls were empty — or so I thought. When I peeked over the solid wall part, I realized why these guys were making so much noise. They just wanted to make sure I’d see them!

We gotta make noise cuz we be short

I couldn’t stay for the rest of the show because I had to take the camera to my brother, but I watched a couple of mulemanship classes (yeah, I know), which were also pretty entertaining. The mules were all sizes and colors. One probably had a quarter horse mom, because he walked with his head down at cow-eye level, another could have had a Belgian (draft horse) mom — it was big and muscular. And there was one I was sure had an Arabian mother because she had the prettiest face. I found out from her rider that her mother was a mustang (I bet there’s some Arabian blood in that mustang herd).

A very pretty mule

So when I got home I looked up some of the mule and donkey farms on line to see if there are any close by, and maybe I’ll be able to go visit some of them and get some more photos. Turns out most of the farms I found listed close to home have miniature donkeys. Criminally, insanely cute little creatures. And miniature mules, too. Oh, I am in trouble.

We're coming for YOU!

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