Monday, August 30. 2010
Bird Dog -
While certainly not as "dramatic" as your trip across the pond, we spent a week in the Maine woods, canoeing and fishing for Brook Trout and Smallmouth. We stayed at a traditional Maine "camp" http://www.bowlincamps.com/ Food was great (camp cooking and plenty of it). Other than rain for 1/2 the day on Monday, the weather was superb - temps in the upper 70's during the day and 50-55 at night. Camp is located 8 miles down a logging road (no cell phone or Blackberry - hooray!) and about an hour west of Patten, Maine. They have had little rain this year, so the river and stream levels were down, impacting the fishing. We caught some Brookies and one decent Smallmouth in five days of fishing. The fish were there, we just had to work for them. We canoed and fished the East Branch of the Penobscot River which is pretty daggone wild. We saw no other canoes or campers on the river. Saw a nice bear and wife almost got ran over by a moose while she was hiking. Had a flat tire on the Suburban so had to go to Houlton for repair (living where I do, I forget how nice the folks outside of the urban areas are to strangers. Guy at the tire shop just happened to have the exact size and make tire that matched the other three. It was used, but had better tread than the ones on the Sub. $50 on the vehicle. In and out in 45 minutes.)
Bowlin Camps is just a stone's throw from the Appalachian Trail. Guy came through for lunch - he was hiking from Gaspe Bay to Key West. Left Gaspe Bay in mid-June. No map, one pair of boots and I think, not a lot of money. Gave him our breakfast bars and some trail mix, for which he was sincerely grateful. Seemed like a nice guy, but maybe a bit too idealistic - hoped to make it to Key West by next summer.
Anyway, the camp was great, Pops, wife and the two dogs enjoyed themselves in the woods. We had hot showers, generator between 0630 and 2100 hours and gas lamps otherwise. Camp was getting ready for bear hunting season, which begins on August 30th. We saw several trail cam pics of bears that were 5-6 feet tall, which is a great black bear for Maine.
Couple of pics attached.
Your humble scribe - J
They have brief summers there. Like Maine, I think. Pretty much everybody has a small polyurethane greenhouse or two in the yard, near their house.
Flying East from SF Bay area over Rawlins Wyoming. Weekend was the annual hunt on the 35,000-acre San Felipe Ranch SE of San Jose. The furthest part of the ranch is a beautiful, tranquil valley surrounded by steep, high hills, and the air there was filled with dozens and dozens of whirling Red Tail hawks, Harlan's hawks (from Alberta or Montana) and Kestrels plus a golden eagle. It was the annual migration, and the Fish & Game biologist with me was whooping with delight and talking about putting the event "on the hot line!
Awaiting your pics, Gwynnie.
Sunday, August 29. 2010
 One place we did not get to on our trip was Salzburg. Wish we had had time to visit that medieval city which, as its name implies, got rich selling and transporting salt down the river.
Our guide pointed out to us how important salt was at the time - not as a condiment, but as a food-preservative. "White gold."
I wonder what salt mines were like in 1400.
Friday, August 27. 2010
 It's about time the scientists admitted it: Ogling beautiful women a natural reflex for men.
Fellows just can't help it.
Thursday, August 26. 2010
You get off the plane from NYC, dump your stuff off at the boat, then hop on the subway and get off at Stephansplatz. Suddenly, you are in a new world, like not Kansas anymore. Even for folks like us who have travelled quite a bit, it was awesome to climb up the subway stairs and to be greeted with this. With a dose of jetlag, it feels hallucinatory:
More snaps below the fold -
Continue reading "Some of my random snaps of Vienna"
Via Jungle Trader, a 155-Year-Old Drum Company Marches On.
The snare drum is basically a military instrument, with an interesting history. Ottoman armies used these drums to communicate orders.
Wednesday, August 25. 2010
You go to the home of Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, and so you naturally want to hear some of their music there. That was good.
However, what was most mind-boggling for me (and my son) was the Breughel collection at the Kunst Historische Museum:
It was a long, jet-lagged and befuddled but scenic trek to get there on our first day after a sleepless plane ride, but our Breughel mission was worth it to get close to those pictures. They have a third of the existing Breughels. They are quite large paintings with many small details, and no reproductions can do them justice. Some are oil on board, and some are tempera. You have to go and see with your own eyes. They have comfy leather sofas to sit on, too.
Pictures tell stories. If they don't, they are just "design." That's my opinion, anyway. People sure do love stories, especially when well-designed. I do not mean to disparage design: Picasso was a master of design. Matisse too, and the genius cave painters of Lascaux.
Hunters in the Snow (1565), his haunting hunting masterpiece:
Peasant Wedding, another masterpiece:
A good summary of Breughel's career here. It's interesting to me that the wealthy churchmen and princes of Austria found this Flemish painter's work so collectible. I guess they just had good taste in art.
Instead, some more thoughts collected from our trip. A Part 2 of my Guten Morgen post.
- Next time I travel with a group of family or friends, I will bring my 5-mile walkie-talkies that I use for hunting trips. A great way to call in and say "Want to meet for lunch?', since each subgroup seems to go off in their own direction.
- I forgot to mention how immaculate the bathrooms are. And, unlike NYC, you can just walk into any cafe and use theirs. They don't mind.
- I was amazed by how many people are crippled, hobbling around on crutches or in wheelchairs. Young and old. It made it clear to me how socialized medicine saves money on orthopedic procedures. In Regensburg I saw a pregnant young lady with, I think, moderate scoliosis, wobbling around town on two crutches, carrying a bag of groceries. That would never happen in America, even if poor. HSS would fix her up overnight - and thank her for the privilege.
- The vast majority of Austrians, and Bavarians too, are Roman Catholic. They go to church. Some Lutherans in Bavaria, and some Evangelical Lutherans too. Their old churches are still alive - not museums.
- If Freud had not been a Jew, he would never have come up with Psychoanalytic theory. Despite being a prominent young Neurologist and researcher/scholar, a Jew could not be appointed Professor in Vienna. The Gentile docs just referred him the wacky patients they did not want to bother with, so he decided to try to listen to them and to try to make sense of what ailed them. Had he not been a Jew, he would have been a wealthy Herr Professor of Neurology. Necessity is the mother of invention.
- Riverboat cruising has become a big deal over the past ten years. It's really a new form of vacation travel. I like it. I love ships and boats in general. No moving from hotel to train to hotel to car, and you always have guides right there when you want them. Our boat cruised back and forth between Budapest and Amsterdam, but most people just did legs of the trip (as we did). The boat had plenty of bikes to use, too. Just sign up for them.
- Wiener Schnitzel: I still don't get what is supposed to be so good about this cardboard-like food. Why do people eat it?
- Kesler reminded me of a thought I had had, regarding our deep Germanic cultural roots. (By "our" I mean especially Brit, Swiss, American, Aussie, Canadian, Dutch, etc.) Even our language is Germanic, not to mention our meat-and-potato diet. German is the easiest language for English-speakers to learn, and these folks live, act, and work like Americans. Quite a cultural contrast with Italians, French, and Spanish.
- One of the things that makes German and Austrian beers so good, over there in the biergartens, is that they are fresh, usually unpasteurized, and often unfiltered. Makes a big difference. Our big brand American beers really are not very tasty - but you knew that. Is Coors Lite or Bud Lite the best-selling "beer" in the US?
- Did we shop and buy stuff? Darn little. Mrs. BD bought a bracelet in Regensburg for 14 Euros. My daughter bought a cheese serving plate. I bought two sets of beer glasses from pubs, and a couple of beer mugs from a biergarten, all for 2-3 Euros each. Oh, also bought an umbrella at Schonbrunn when it started raining, but we left it behind somewhere after two days. Photos and experiences are what I like to bring home.
- Random factoid: The remarkable Marcus Aurelius died in Vindobona (now Wien - Vienna) while touring the edges of the empire. He was always at war with the Germans, but Roman civilization never extended much north of the barrier of the Danube.
Photo: Passau again, from the Oberhaus. I especially enjoyed Passau and Regensburg. Note the rotting mess of a 1960s-era, now-abandoned cafe up there on the left, while the c. 900 castle and fortifications stand strong and proud. Note also, from a high vantage point, how clear the demarcation is between town and country. No sprawl. That's their land use laws at work.
Our pal Nathan emails this cell phone pic from the Hagiwara Tea Garden, San Francisco. He gets around.
Tuesday, August 24. 2010
A friend returned this week from 14 days in Umbria and then Florence. This family is a high-energy biking group, and the first thing they do when they go anywhere is to rent bikes. They go everywhere on their bikes regardless of terrain or traffic. 20 miles of hills is a warm-up for them.
They told me about biking to Civita di Bagnoregio. Biked over the bridge, of course. I had not heard of this interesting, deteriorating wreck of a place. An image which sticks in the brain, because all of mankind's works come to this except some things that are put into words or math or musical notes.
More disorganized snaps from our trip. This is steaming through the green Wachau Valley in early morning fog and drizzle.
More pics below the fold -
Continue reading "A second, bigger photo dump of Austria and Bavaria, including Freud's potty"
Monday, August 23. 2010
My photo uploading system is testing my patience today. Thus some totally random and disorganized trip pics, beginning with this Bavarian farm scene near the hamlet of Baernzell, not far from Deggendorf on the Danube, with the great Bavarian Forest in the background (which is now part of a giant Czech-German wilderness park system). From hilltops here you can see the Czech Rep. (which I still call Czechoslovakia).
More pics below the fold. I'll try to get better organized soon.
Continue reading "A few totally random trip pics"
From The Union:
Planning continues for the restoration of a long-shuttered fire lookout in the Tahoe National Forest.
This fall, volunteers met with Forest Service staff to discuss fixing up the historic Grouse Ridge lookout for use as a rental facility. The circa-1923 tower near Washington sports a spectacular, 360-degree view and a fantastic location near a series of alpine lakes that are extremely popular with outdoor enthusiasts.
But the lookout off Bowman Lake Road has suffered quite a bit of damage over the years and includes an outhouse perched precariously on a cliff. One of the goals of the renovation is to maintain the historic nature of the facility, while still providing some amenities.
Contractor volunteers have met with Forest Service archeologist Bill Slater at the lookout to review restoration needs, said Public Affairs Officer Ann Westling.
“We're still putting together the work plan in terms of what needs to be done and the cost — and how it's going to get done,” she said.
The plans will deal with the needed restoration, health and safety repairs, and historical requirements. Because the lookout is a historic structure, the plans will need to be sent to the California State Historic Preservation Office for approval.
Grouse Ridge will be the third lookout on the Tahoe National Forest to undergo restoration.
The first two include Calpine Lookout, which has been available for rent for five years, and Sardine Lookout, which is expected to be available this year. The facilities are rented through the National Reservation System for about $45 per night.
Grouse Ridge Lookout with outhouse to right (my photos from this summer):
View from the top:
Sunday, August 22. 2010
 The Berkshire Hills, once snow-capped mountains and, in recent millennia, glacier-covered and glacier-scoured, run from northwestern CT up through western MA. They are contiguous with the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Today, tourism, skiing, and second homes form the economic foundation of this chronically economically-depressed but charming rural region which was once dynamic with farming, lumbering, paper mills, woolen mills, and quarries. It has become the sort of area now where locals cannot afford to dine in the upscale restaurants filled with Bostonians and New Yorkers.
Image is the Hoosac Tunnel, about which Walking the Berkshires has written, and which first connected western and eastern MA by rail.
Just east of Berkshire County are the Hidden Hills.
Check out this nice affable ticket seller in the 1989 movie ‘Let It Ride’. Doesn’t he seem kind of familiar? I can almost guarantee you’ve seen a very popular movie he was in later on, and I can definitely guarantee you’ve seen pictures and posters of him in the role he plays in the aforementioned famous movie.
Answer below the fold.
Continue reading "Guess the celebrity"
(Surnames Part 1 here)
Your surname means next to nothing genetically or geneologically. Furthermore, if you are of English or French descent, you are almost certainly some sort of relative of Charlemagne.
Taking our surname topic this week a bit further into the math of geneology, one quickly realizes that the surname or family name one ended up with is close to random. After all, how many c. 1500 AD ancestors do you have (around the time when surnames became fixed and inherited), each one an equal contributor to your genetics?
Well, just four generations ago, you had 32 living great-great-great grandparents (2 to the 4th power), all probably with different surnames. If you have a Mayflower ancestor, they were one of your mathematical 65,000 great-something grandparents 15 generations ago. The simple math, depending on the areas in which your 1500 AD ancestors lived, (your ancestry pool at a given time), indicates that I have up to a theoretical 4 million great-something grandparents who were living in 1500 (with ancestors doubling each generation of 25 years).
But, beyond the 4-10 generations back, those large numbers aren't possible, given the population pools in different local areas and the lack of mobility for most people at the time. (The population of London was around 50,000 in 1500. It is thought that the global population in 1500 was only around 300 million.)
Thus there must be abundant redundancy in our geneologies and tons of marriage and child production among cousins, in-laws, and other family members. This site, Redundancy in Geneology, takes a clear look at that subject.
 The technical term for this is "pedigree collapse," wherein our ancestral cone has a narrowing due to various forms of inbreeding, as it were. That collapse may have peaked around the year 1200, and in New England, there probably was another mini-pedigree collapse due to the small size of the population in the 16-1700s:
Colonial Anglo Population of New England through 1700
1650: 33,000
1678: 60,000
1706: 120,000
1734: 250,000
1762: 500,000
1790: 1,000,000
Population growth after 1640 was largely internal, not immigration.
It's still safe to say that I had thousands of c. 1500 ancestor great-something grandparents, and I happened to end up with just one of their recently-given surnames. Luck of the draw.
(If you are from England, you are still probably in some way related to almost everybody else in England. That's why we call our Brit fellow bloggers "cousin".)
Ultimately, of course, we all trace back to Mitochondrial Eve. She was certainly a cutie pie, and she must have had lots of kids.
Photos:
Upper: Holy Trinity Church, Long Medford, c. 1450.
Lower: Church of St. Peter in Great Haseley, Oxfordshire, c. 1200
Saturday, August 21. 2010
The story behind this: There's this nutball who digs things up in his back yard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific names and insisting that they're actual archeological finds.
So, here's how his latest submission was received.
Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Sir:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.
However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:
1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us simply say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.
Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.
However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.
We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive wrench.
Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe, Curator, Antiquities
A re-post from our archives -
I was amused to see Megan McArdle having problems positioning her stereo speakers because I once spent a frustrating year fiddling with that issue in our parlor with my ridiculously high quality but handsome 5 1/2', 175 lb. Legacy Focus speakers, which would be better suited for an auditorium, a barn - or outdoors. You cannot crank them up or it could remove my house from its foundation.
Good stereo speakers need to be at least 3' from the wall, away from direct sunlight, and 6-10' apart, depending on room size. Even so, there will only be one relatively small area in the room where the sound will converge properly. What if you want to sit somewhere else? You cannot sit in front of one speaker. (And don't even talk to me about that stupid "surround sound" fad of the 1980s.)
I finally gave up on doing it right, because it wouldn't work in the room, given the windows, fireplace, piano, and other necessary furniture. I even called Legacy and sent them a floor plan, and they were kind and helpful, but it just didn't work for the space. That marked the end of my pursuit of maximum recorded sound. It's a fool's errand unless you have a dedicated "listening room" like fanatic audiophiles do. Now, I'd just rather spend my money on hearing live music, and I mostly listen to music via my crummy old computer speakers.
My big Focus speakers ended up 24' apart, in corners, about 18" from the wall. Totally wrong, unless you are listening from the adjacent room. Makes me want to return to good old monaural and to heck with this stereo nonsense. I remember when my Dad bought our first mono cabinet "record player." Man, did that sound good. I even remember my kid sister playing "Meet the Beatles" on the thing, when the record came out. (I thought it was dumb music...at first.)
Here's a good how-to on speaker placement.
Photo is a Legacy Focus speaker with the cover off to show the components. Mine are with the gleaming Rosewood.
Weighing in at a bruising 11 minutes, this is the longest movie clip in my online collection, but also one of my favorites. It's from the movie The Pentagon Wars, a great story of bureaucratic corruption, ineptitude and inertia.
It's based on a true story.
One cringes to think how much.
Grab a munchie, pop this puppy open to full-screen size, kick back and enjoy.
I was curious about when English surnames became fixed in time by inheritance rather than being individual descriptors of convenience which were only used for one's lifetime.
First, we have to go back to the pre-surname era. In pre-medieval England, the population was so small, and most villages so tiny, that, if your name was Merthin, everybody around knew who you were. Then the Norman Conquest Frenchified England. Many or most of the colorful old Anglo-Saxon given names (like Aldwyn and Odelia and Theomund) disappeared and were replaced with names of French origin like these four:
It has been estimated that almost 50% of the male babies born by 1200 A.D. were using just four common first names: William (15%), Robert (12%), Richard (11%) and Henry (10%). Such percentages show the need, even by the Middle Ages, for a second name of identification. As a result, patronymic naming conventions came into play whereby sons were named after their fathers, and sometimes even after their mothers.
As with traditional Scandinavian names, patronymic surnames are not fixed but are labels of convenience: they change with each generation. "Which John do you mean?" "Oh, John Robert's son.") Robert Richardson's son John becomes John Robertson. (Shifting surnames, of course, persists with women still generally taking on their husband's surname.)
The Medieval Warm Period saw a rapid growth in the English population, with the growth of market towns and cathedral towns, often with thousands in population. Descriptors became necessary: John (who lives on the) Hill, William (the) Carpenter, Jack (who came here from) Aisnley, Roger (the) Knight. By late Medieval times, descriptive (but not fixed) surnames were fairly universal except in small farming villages. These were, generally speaking,
Place names
Occupation names
Patronyms
Descriptive or nicknames
Thus we had Christian (given) names, and descriptive, non-hereditary surnames. As best I can tell, literacy and record-keeping led the way towards fixed surnames around or slightly before 1500 (although they were probably implied before that among the land-owning aristocracy: eg William, Lord of Westmoreland's sons were probably forever Westmoreland in some way unless the King punished you by taking your land away, or cutting your head off.) As Wiki says:
In Britain, hereditary surnames were adopted in the 13th and 14th centuries, initially by the aristocracy but eventually by everyone. By 1400, most English and Scottish people had acquired surnames, but many Scottish and Welsh people did not adopt surnames until the 17th century, or even later. Henry VIII (1509 - 1547) ordered that marital births be recorded under the surname of the father.
Ah yes, there's the answer: government edict, no doubt for control and taxation purposes.
Because of this, it is difficult or impossible to trace non-aristocratic English geneologies much further back than 1500, when John Miller's son Jack the carpenter was named Jack Miller instead of Jack the Carpenter. Before that, there were minimal church records and either no surnames, or no consistency in them if there were any. Furthermore, it did not take long for every town to be filled with unrelated Smiths, Carpenters, Millers, Weavers, Masons, Brewers, Bakers, Hills, Fields, and Rivers. And Bankers (lived near a riverbank - there were no "banks") and Farmers (farm tax-collectors, not tillers of the soil). It's funny, but although they made up the bulk of the population at one time, Serf never became popular as a surname while Freeman did...
Perhaps serfdom isn't all it's cracked up to be, despite its European and maybe North American comeback these days.
More tomorrow, including why, if you are of English or French ancestry, you are almost certainly related to Charlemagne -
A re-post from last summer -
The old town of Lucca, still circled by the medieval defensive walls, is like a Disney Medieval Italy. Like San Gimignano but with many fewer tourists (they all go to Pisa instead, to see that dumb church tower, or to Siena or Firenze for the 10th time). Plenty of towers - if not as many as San G. but who cares? A tower is a tower.
The modern city surrounds the old town which is now preserved in amber (heavily regulated re historical preservation - and rightly so, I think).
This lovely Italian gal ducked, as if I had not wanted her in my photo. She was wrong. Her gladiator sandals are perfect for the location: this is an entry to the Roman arena in Lucca. Its walls are integrated with the walls of medieval houses built into and against the Roman ruins. (Lucca is full of charming northern Italian women. All of them know how to dress, and many of them are blondes.)
More doors and entries below -
Continue reading "My last summer vacation: Doors and entryways of old Lucca"
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