Pipilio

Missed Opportunity

This entry could be titled the one that got away.  Just like the fish that got away, the image not captured is always the biggest or best or most insightful. 

Yesterday, I made a trip to the transfer station.  When I was growing up it would have been a trip to the dump.  In today’s world we are separated from the dump, we aren’t allowed to enter into the dump.  Instead we are directed to follow the signs to the transfer station.  Then we are further directed to follow traffic lane 2 or  lane 1. Then we are assigned a numbered slot to back the truck into, where we unload by tossing the load of rubbish over the railing.  Below, a large dark gray armored bulldozer machine moves back and forth pushing trash around.  Gone is opportunity to forage around at the edges of the dump to searching out discarded treasures or to aim a weapon at the rats.  Anything that might be a discarded treasure is quickly crushed and shoved aside.

But I digress. 

The picture that didn’t get made yesterday would have been the ultimate in political commentary.  There below me, as I was tossing junk over the railing, was a fallen yard sign urging me to vote for last year’s losing mayoral candidate. 

Some of my own junk landed on that sign.  Moments later the sign was gone, mixed in with all the other trash being shoved off to be loaded for transfer to the dump.  A missed opportunity passed away below me.

But alas, I had made the decision a few moments earlier when I was backing the loaded rental truck down the driveway, to leave the camera sitting on the desk.  I had considered stopping to go back inside to gather it up but concluded, no, there won’t be anything I would want to picture before getting back to the house.

But I missed that decisive moment as the sign disappeared.  I could only watch as that behemoth machine below me, indifferent to what might be in its path, came to push around and finally cover and crush that sign beneath more and more junk and trash. 

I missed the chance to demonstrate mastery of lessons learned from last week’s photo workshop with Sam Abell.  The image exists only in my mind as a recollection.  It is less of a story when I try to reproduce it in words.  But it would have been a wonderful story, if only. 

 

BARNS

 

I, with some regularity look at the blog discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ subtitled random samplings from a universe of ideas.  As the blog identifies itself, it is a “group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists.”  The blog goes on in describing itself to say that “Our day (and night jobs) notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting- science to be sure but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia.”  

  

Oftentimes the entries include unique equations and language invented and intended for communication amongst the clan of physicists.  A recent entry in the discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ blog uses one of these special and precise defined invented terms.  The term is a barn as in; “he can’t hit the side of a barn.”  It turns out that a barn is, to the layperson, a very small unit of area.  It is not a newly invented term but comes from the original particle physics conducted during the war effort.

 

To the particle physicists working on wartime research leading up to the crafting of the bomb, it was a large area.  These physicists were contriving to find devices to aim neutrons toward uranium nuclei.   To their way of thinking, the uranium nucleus should be considered to be a target as “big as a barn”, thus the whimsical and jocular derivation (according to Wikipedia) of the barn as a unit of area approximately equal to the cross-sectional area of the uranium nucleus.  The whimsy doesn’t end with barns.  A smaller division of the barn (b) equal to 10^-6b is an outhouse and an even smaller unit (10^-24 b) is a shed. 

 

I find it great fun that these high level and presumably highly paid physicists and technicians and engineers can and do use whimsy and jocularity in their language for desscribing and analyzing results from experiments using the very expensive to build and operate and veryhlarge complex Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  That is the very same very big piece of equipment that was expected by the everpresent and vocal doomsayers, to bring about the collapse of the world into a black hole. 

I think they, the doomsayers, are still expecting catastrophe when the machine achieves its ultimate energy level and begins to see the kinds of phenomena that might have been going on during the "Big Bang".

I, with some regularity look at the blog discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ subtitled random samplings from a universe of ideas.  As the blog identifies itself, it is a “group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists.”  The blog goes on in describing itself to say that “Our day (and night jobs) notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting- science to be sure but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia.”  

  

Oftentimes the entries include unique equations and language invented and intended for communication amongst the clan of physicists.  A recent entry in the discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ blog uses one of these special and precise defined invented terms.  The term is a barn as in; “he can’t hit the side of a barn.”  It turns out that a barn is, to the layperson, a very small unit of area.  It is not a newly invented term but comes from the original particle physics conducted during the war effort.

 

To the particle physicists working on wartime research leading up to the crafting of the bomb, it was a large area.  These physicists were contriving to find devices to aim neutrons toward uranium nuclei.   To their way of thinking, the uranium nucleus should be considered to be a target as “big as a barn”, thus the whimsical and jocular derivation (according to Wikipedia) of the barn as a unit of area approximately equal to the cross-sectional area of the uranium nucleus.  The whimsy doesn’t end with barns.  A smaller division of the barn (b) equal to 10^-6b is an outhouse and an even smaller unit (10^-24 b) is a shed. 

 

I find it great fun that these high level and presumably highly paid physicists and technicians and engineers can and do use whimsy and jocularity in their language for desscribing and analyzing results from experiments using the very expensive to build and operate and veryhlarge complex Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  That is the very same very big piece of equipment that was expected by the everpresent and vocal doomsayers, to bring about the collapse of the world into a black hole. 

I think they, the doomsayers, are still expecting catastrophe when the machine achieves its ultimate energy level and begins to see the kinds of phenomena that might have been going on during the "Big Bang".

I, with some regularity look at the blog discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ subtitled random samplings from a universe of ideas.  As the blog identifies itself, it is a “group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists.”  The blog goes on in describing itself to say that “Our day (and night jobs) notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting- science to be sure but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia.”  

  

Oftentimes the entries include unique equations and language invented and intended for communication amongst the clan of physicists.  A recent entry in the discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/ blog uses one of these special and precise defined invented terms.  The term is a barn as in; “he can’t hit the side of a barn.”  It turns out that a barn is, to the layperson, a very small unit of area.  It is not a newly invented term but comes from the original particle physics conducted during the war effort.

 

To the particle physicists working on wartime research leading up to the crafting of the bomb, it was a large area.  These physicists were contriving to find devices to aim neutrons toward uranium nuclei.   To their way of thinking, the uranium nucleus should be considered to be a target as “big as a barn”, thus the whimsical and jocular derivation (according to Wikipedia) of the barn as a unit of area approximately equal to the cross-sectional area of the uranium nucleus.  The whimsy doesn’t end with barns.  A smaller division of the barn (b) equal to 10^-6b is an outhouse and an even smaller unit (10^-24 b) is a shed. 

 

I find it great fun that these high level and presumably highly paid physicists and technicians and engineers can and do use whimsy and jocularity in their language for desscribing and analyzing results from experiments using the very expensive to build and operate and veryhlarge complex Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  That is the very same very big piece of equipment that was expected by the everpresent and vocal doomsayers, to bring about the collapse of the world into a black hole. 

I think they, the doomsayers, are still expecting catastrophe when the machine achieves its ultimate energy level and begins to see the kinds of phenomena that might have been going on during the "Big Bang".

Green Tomatoes

  My hands smell of tomato vines; it is not a completely pleasant aroma.  I just came in from examining the the tomato vines to check progress toward turning from green toward ripe red, or on one of the plants, orange ripe.

The race is now on in earnest, between the approach of autumn cool, and the ripening of tomatoes.  Already at the beginning of August, we have begun experiencing the approaching autumnal pattern of cool gray sometimes foggy mornings, with afternoon clearing and warming, if and when the sun eventually does show in the afternoon sky to heat the air.  Evenings and overnight temperatures will no longer be hot, as they are for so few days over the course of a Seattle summer.  And there outside the open window I have been hearing the jays squawking.  That sound is one I associate with the onset of the autumn season.  Back in Ohio the sound was of the squeaky pump handle, I think that is the mnemonic suggested for the call of the eastern blue jay.  But who is there among us who knows or has experienced the sound of a squeaky pump handle?  And with the advancing autumn season growing up in Ohio I recall finding and picking up to save, blue jay feathers.  More common around Seattle in this season are the black crow feathers lying about on the sidewalks and lawns; they have less attraction for being picked up and admired for their coloration.  Occasionally there is a stellar’s jay feather to be picked up but even they are dull in comparison to recollection of the colors of the blue jay feathers. 

Error

This sine is outside a small shop (Math n Stuff ) in the neighborhood selling math themed and other kinds of educational games. 

The obverse of the sine reads something to the effect that " a hungry clock will go back four seconds."

But what does one serve a hungry clock?

 

 

Lost Kitty (Part II)

Having given up any expectation that the lost Katy would reappear, I was surprised Saturday morning to get a call from a man identifying himself as Lowell and announcing that he thinks he has my lost cat.  He had been to the Pet Store that morning and saw the poster with the picture of Katy.  His family had taken in a kitty looking like the picture on the poster; did I want to come over to pick up the cat.  Well yes I will be over in 15 or 20 minutes.  Susan was out with the car so I gathered up a box for a pet carrier, put a towel in the bottom and set out to walk the few blocks to the address he gave.  At this point after Katy had been missing for such a long time, I was decidedly skeptical that the cat was truly the missing Katy.  But then he had said that the kitty had first appeared around their house more than a week ago so maybe.

I arrived at the front door, pet carrier box in hand and rang the door bell.  Lowell and his son greeted me, we spoke a bit before Lowell went upstairs to gather in the kitty who had taken to sleeping on an upstairs bed.  The kitty that he put in my arms certainly looked like Katy.  It had been a long time, she would have lost weight, and after this amount of time wandering the neighborhood, maybe wouldn't show behavior as if she recognized me.  We talked a little more, I thanked Lowell and said I would like to give them something for finding and taking care of the kitty and set out to return to the house with kitty in the carrier.  On the way I called Susan, she had returned from her outing to the farmers market; would she come to pick me up; she would be surprised when she picked me up. 

Got back to the house, let the cat out of the box, and knew for sure then that I had made a mistake, though I pretended to believe otherwise.  Dismayed that it wasn't Katy and shamefaced for not recognizing at first sight that the kitty isn't Katy, I called the family back to let them know.  No answer so I told the answering machine of the mistake.  Put the kitty back in the carrier and drove back to their house, but there was no response to the knock on the door.

Look alike kitty was with us for the week end.  I tried several times to call again but always there was no answer.  Look alike Kitty came and went Saturday afternoon and was in and out of the house on Sunday.  She followed me up the stairs Sunday night as I was going up to bed. Monday morning she was nowhere in the house and did not show up outside the house.  We figure she msut have come up the stairs and jumped out one of the open windows. 

Tuesday morning she had not reappeared and was not seen again as we worked around the house.  But there still had been no call back from the original finders of look-alike kitty.  Tuesday evening just at dinner time the phone rang, I felt apprehension that it would be the family returning the call from Saturday, and wanting the kitty back.  How could I tell them of losing the look alike kitty. 

They will let me know if somehow look-alike kitty shows up again at their house 

This morning I again have a task to put away the litter box and the food and water dishes.  This time there is less unused kitty litter in the bucket. 

But there is a good use for the left over litter.  City of Seattle waste collection utility advises using kitty litter as an absorbent for unused, unwanted left over paint.  When it is dry it can then be put out with the rest of the trash.  And we have a collection of partly empty cans of paint in the garage, and in the basement and upstairs in a closet.  The ones in the garage came with me when I moved into this house.  The others match a wall or trim color somewhere in this house or on the outside.

Making Bread

This is a breadmaking day.  Nothing particularly noteworthy about the day to make it into a breadmaking day except that it just is. 

The first stage of the process is underway as I sit at the computer.  If you like, and if you want to continue or start reading I will relate something about the process and experience of making loaves of bread.  I remember the first loaf of bread that I produced.  At least I think I remember.  As I get older there are memories that are so vivid in the recollection, that I begin to wonder if they can be real.  Whether it is real or not there is a video in my head of the third floor attic apartment in New Brunswick and the tiny kitchen.  And I recall thinking, as that first loaf came into shape under my hands, and then when it emerged as a loaf from the oven, that there was something magical about getting the dough to rise and make itself into a loaf.  This even as I understood a little of the science of how yeast grows and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.  And I felt some sense of accomplishment as the bread came out of the oven the first couple couple of slices were cut off the loaf.  I don't know if the loaves that come from today's exercise will be any better than what I picture in my head of that first loaf.   

Making bread nowadays doesn't seem quite so magical.  I have read more about flour and know a little about the chemistry and physics to make the process knowable and understandable.  There is no magic to getting the yeast to grow to generate the bubbles that pump up the dough, and it's not magic that with kneading the molecular gluten changes shape so that it holds the gas bubbles and holds the flour together.  No magic involved, but maybe it is mystical.  It is for sure a sensual experience.  Just think of the golden brown loaf just out of the oven, it is still almost too hot to handle when you put onto the cutting board and the yeasty aroma steams out from the initial slash through the skin of the loaf. 

So the recipe that I sort of follow when I make bread is very simple.  White flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, honey, water, and yougurt.  The methodology for the bread making is based loosely on what I read about making bread in "The Bread Bible" by Rose Levy Berenbaum.

First step in the process is preparing the sponge:    

• 2 1/4 cups flour, The flour can be a mix of white and whole wheat. I use 1 1/4 cup white and 1 cup whole wheat.
• 1 cup warm water
• 3/4 cup yogurt, Russian or Greek style plain yogurt, that is yogurt with the active culture.
• Yogurt adds a bit of fat to the bread. Also adds a little sour flavor. If you choose not to use the yougurt, replace with equal volume of other liquid, water or milk.
• Yeast. Proof yeast in 1/3 cup warm water with 2 tbsp honey or sugar. Start the yeast first so that the mixture begins to bubble and
  generate the wonderful yeasty aroma before it is added to the flour mixture.  Unless the yeast has been sitting in the refrigerator for a long long time well past the stamped expiration date, proofing is probably not necessary.  But if you don't you miss out on that yeasty smell. 

Stir the flour and liqid mixture vigourously for several minutes.  Mixture should be smooth with consistency of thick pancake batter.  This is the sponge stage.  Cover the bowl and let the sponge stand ar room temperature for several hours.  The length of time for the sponge development is not critical, longer and it will develop more flavor.  It can be put in refrigerator overnight.  Let sponge warm to room temparature after bringing out of refrigerator before continuing.

Add to the sponge:   

• 2 1/4 cups flour. Use mixture of white and whole wheat flour. Adjust ratio of white to whole wheat according to taste. Loaves with higher proportion of whole wheat will be more crumbly.
• 1 teaspoon salt.

Mix sponge and new dry ingredients together in bowl, until it begins to hold together and can be dumped onto floured surface for kneading.  Knead until dough until it feels right, depending on how vigourous the kneading this may be about ten minutes.  Add flour as needed during the kneading if the dough feels sticky.  More kneading will produce smoother bread, less kneading the bread may have more large wholes.  The kneading works on rearranging the gluten molecules into a more orderly side by side alignment which makes the dough more elastic.  It also continues the mixing process and the hydration of the dry flour.  It also can be a time for meditation.

When you are satisfied with the feel of the dough under your hands, return the dough to the bowl for the first rising.  I have found that first coating the bowl with shortening and rolling the ball around in the bowl to give it a thin coating of oil helps.  Cover the bowl and set aside in a warm place.  Allow to rise until double in size.  "Punch" down the dough when it is doubled in size and let it rise to double in size a second time.  During the rising there is fermentation wherein the yeast generates the carbondioxide, produces other by products which add to the flavor.  The rate of rising depends on temperature, lower temperatures it takes longer, at higher temperatures the generation of carbon dioxide is faster but at higher tempertures there is more production of less plesant smelling sour by products.  Better bread is produced if you don't try to speed up the rising process by placing the dough in the oven.  Satisfactory bread can be made with only one rising or if you only let the bread rise to 1 1/2 times its volume.  End result may have different flavor and texture.

Make dough into loaves when you are satisfied with the rising, or if it is getting late before you want to be able to serve the bread with dinner.  Divide the dough into three approximately equal lumps and form into three loaves to fit into 4" x 8" loaf pans.  Let rise in the loaf pans.  Longer period of rising, the bread will be lighter in texture.  If you are rushed, shorter rising time will produce more dense loaf.

Bake loaves in oven preheated to 435deg for 10 minutes then reduce temperzture to 400 deg.  Bread is done when internal temperature is 200deg.  A less precise measure of doneness is to tap the loaf with finger, it is done when it has a hollow sound.  Remove loaves from loaf pan and let cool on a rack.

But then you must, as soon as you can handle a loaf, or even at risk of some discomfort in trying to handle the hot loaf, put one on the cutting board and slice off the first piece,  You may have to contend with whoever else is in kitchen over who gets the heel.  And have honey or butter, ready.  A word of caution, that first loaf may disappear in mere moments upstting your calculations on how many loaves you will have for tomorrow.

I noted above that the methodology for making bread as described above is based loosely on recipes in the "Bread Bible" by Rose Levy Berenkbaum.  She advises that ingredients shold be measured precisely to assure success and consistency in flavor and texture with each batch of bread.  In my experience making bread is not dependent on precise measurements.  Breadmaking is forgiving of imprecise measurements and timing, except maybe be careful to measure the salt. 

Lost Kitty

Katy has disappeared.  She was last seen more than two weeks ago now. 

 
  
Susan put copies of this poster up on telephone poles and other surfaces in the neighborhood.  With the rain and weather most of the posters have disintegrated by now.  We did get one call from a neighbor who reported seeing a kitty looking like the picture of Katy.  Later I saw a sort of look alike kitty and presume the neighbor saw the look alike and not Katie.  Yesterday we put away Katy's food and water bowls and emptied the litter box for the last time.  We we did keep the litter box just in case.

Today I will make a print of a Katy picture to frame and hang in a place of remembrance in the house.

Katy had been with me since just after 9-11 and moved with me to this new house where we joined Susan and Savy.  Savy is a yellow lab style dog.  After a get to know one another period, dog and kitty got along.  Savy accepted Katy as part of the household.