October 27, 2009

I biked to work today for what has seemed to be the longest span of time in not doing so since spring; it was actually just two weeks. For the past two weeks, there has been quite a bit of sporadic showers, and with the cooler temps, biking in the rain for 30 minutes doesn't sound so enjoyable.

It was dark when I left and not many cars on the road. There were spots of low hanging fog in the park greens that I bike by. I encountered ice this morning for my first time; I knew it was cold but was surprised to see fresh thin ice/frost in with the fallen leaves on the road. I guess it was 33 degrees at the time I rode; still not bad for biking.

I will probably bike tomorrow again and possibly Thursday, but then rain is supposed to return Friday and Saturday, just in time for the Purdue game that Karen and I are attending. Some of bike buddies at work have encouraged me to bike all winter, but I am not sure about that as the roads I take are hilly terrain, especially one such hill that biking down at any speed with ice might not be a good idea; maybe I'll give it a try, though. I will need to get snow bike tires, though.

I finished reading an acquaintance's book today, Henry Watterson and the New South by Daniel Margolies. I think he still has his weblog - Unsullied and Undismayed. I should check it out again sometime; he usually has good posts.

October 25, 2009

I made a big batch of chicken soup today with two carcasses. Karen had engineered strategic places for the bird feeders outside, only to have the squirrels attack all of them; at one point there were nine squirrels in our yard, and we witnessed a gopher chase a cardinal from the feeder, but couldn't scare the blue jay - and we want to save the environment for these things, these animals? God, how revolting. I almost wanted to napalm the entire backyard.

Elliott drank some of my beer today while I was cutting up veggies for the soup. He was chewing on a stalk of celery, then I turn away to add the cut veggies to the pan, and he immediately goes for my pint glass and drinks from it; Imperial IPA, 9.5%ABV. He seemed OK; not a good idea, especially with his infirmity, but he weathered it well.

These animals are just getting out of hand; could be end times, surely.

October 24, 2009

It was nice not having a Badger football game today. Regardless of whether it is in-town or out-of-town, the games create quite a bit of bustle. So, it was nice to see things a bit more slower and quiet for the day.

I went to the Farmer's market near our house at the Hilldale market today. I amazed at how some of the veggies continue with the cold weather we have had lately. I purchased onions, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, carrots, garlic, cabbage, a red pepper (for Elliott), and eggs ($17.)

The trees are peaking in their colors around here. Our street is gilded gold by the sugar maples. Our hickory tree is now starting to turn its pale yellow.

Karen has set the bird and animal feeders out for the winter. It was approved by our usual crowd of squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and my fave - the female cardinals, no males out today for some reason.

October 9, 2009

Karen and I went to see an offering of abstract films/animation at the UW Cinematheque tonight. Marco Pogo was there, but he has been to every Cinematheque showing since the Com Arts kids started this program, except for maybe that one time when he to my friend's art installation. I think he wears the same shirt each time; it is a cardinal red sweatshirt that says Cincinnati, I think, I am not sure, though, I really don't give it a good look as he might think I am staring at him or something.

The films were introduced by their creator, Joost Rekvold. He is a very nice man, very thin and pale and wore an interesting array of threadbare clothes. Mr. Rekvold teaches at Leiden University, which I thought was ironic for the day in that the London Times had released its top 200 universities, and Leiden was right next to the UW at 61.

The films were interesting, but I thought that maybe he should have showed them separately, as even this avid fan of abstract film (i.e., geek) found watching the pieces a bit challenging all in a row. Still, it was nice to see these on a big screen. It reminded me of the time when there was a showing of German abstract animation from the 1920's at the Elvehjem back in 1992, and I saw it after I gave my graduate seminar class a presentation on the very same subject, talk about coincidences; everyone from my seminar went to the showing that night, except I think for Donald Crafton, our professor, but he told me he went to an earlier showing the next time I saw him at the Crystal Corner bar. Not that I really cared, but from the guy who wrote his dissertation called Before Mickey, you would think he might be remotely interested, and he even had the pleasure of interviewing Boris Kaufmann, whose brother was the famed Dziga Vertov, before Boris passed on. We parked in the Lake Street parking lot ($3.45).

There weren't many college kids out that night, maybe it was the H1N1.

October 4, 2009

We attended the final outdoor performance for the American Players Theater: Comedy of Errors. It was chilly out, about 45 degrees F, but no wind, so not so bad to be sitting for 2 hours with half-hour intermission. I have never seen Comedy of Errors performed before, only have read it a few times. But, the play surprised me how well it flows as my impression from reading it made me think the play a bit contrived; especially, it being one of Shakespeare's earlier efforts (or collaboration depending upon your theory of authorship).

I was surprised also by the number of bats still out. That is one of the fun aspects of seeing a play outdoors; nature as a character usually intrudes. So by the time the sun is setting, there are bats flying all around the stage and seating, and this time I heard a Whip-poor-whill calling.

October 2, 2009

After work and dinner, I attended one of the several art events that the city holds semiannually - GalleryNight. The event I attended was in the Mound St Yoga Center. It lasted about 30 minutes and consisted of several dance/installation pieces, one of which my friend participated. Their piece was about 7 minutes long and had to do with apples. The apples were brought out onto the stage area in red wagon and then strewn about the floor, after the dancers performed their installation in full, they ended by slicing up the apples and serving them to the audience; sort of Brechtian. The piece was charming and quaint, and I thought the best of the offerings. The Yoga center is celebrating its 25th year, so there was lots of vegan cake around with Prosecco. I had some water as I was parched from walking 3 miles to the event (I wanted to see how long it took to walk from my house to that area, about 35 minutes.) So, I got in a good hour of exercise in the deal.

Camp Randall is surreal when it is all dark and no on around. In walking through Kendall Street where many of the leisure liberal class resides, the street and houses are set up nice, but with my experience, theses little liberal bastions, like other across cities in the USA, are profusely congested by cars. I find it funny that most of these people would consider themselves environmentally conservative, but are truly liberal when it comes to using and owning automobiles; I think there was one for almost every tree on the blocks I walked.

September 27, 2009

Summer's reign pretty much ended today. At noon, I was outside mowing the lawn and its was bit humid and maybe 80 degrees F. In the afternoon, clouds moved in and there was heavy rain from time to time. After dinner, we reclined to watch some programs on TV, and about 8PM, we saw a bunch of flickering occurring outside. And then rain poured down massively, turning into the droning pelt of hail. It was unbelievable to hear such a deafening sound all throughout the house; winds also picked up tremendously. Karen checked the Weather Underground website and noticed that our region of the city was under a pink section of precipitation; this is beyond the red level. The hail intensified and then subsided after about 15 minutes; but what an unnerving 15 minutes to hear that sound non-stop; kind of scary, definitely unsettling.

Looking out our windows after the hail passed, we could see about 3 or 4 inches of standing hail. It was hard to see though as most of it was translucent and not opaque; so in the street lights, it glistened like broken glass. The temps fell to 50 that night, and the forecast did not have anything higher than 60 in it for the next week.