Kids Love Baby Animals

Amelia and I rode down to Cedar Lake last Sunday. The nominal goal was to see the baby ducks and geese but it was also one of those "the journey is the destination" kind of deals.

The weather wasn't optimum, but the radar didn't show any rain on the way. It took us about 30 uneventful minutes to get down there. Upon arrival, we started a clockwise loop and discovered the radar may have been wrong. I'm not sure if it was truly raining or it was more a case of the Southwest wind whipping a mist off the lake. We wondered about finding a covered area to shelter in but, by the time we reached the other side of the lake, the rain/mist seemed to have cleared.



Cedar Lake, I must say, is an unlikely destination for anyone other than migrating waterfowl and fishermen. The surrounding scenery is very industrial and there isn't much to see or do. But the trails are nice and, crucially for us, it's a nesting site for ducks and geese.

With due North equating to 12 o'clock, we saw a couple ducks at about 11 o'clock as we started our loop, then three adult geese at about 2:30, and another couple geese around 4 o'clock whom were resting on railroad tracks. At 4:30 we saw a mother duck and three ducklings paddling along. We then stopped at an observation point located about 5 o'clock and observed plenty of goose droppings along with a rotting carp carcass. Finally, near the extent of our loop, we hit the mother lode: twenty to thirty goslings guarded by five adults.



A couple pictures later, we were on way again. I was intrigued to see a couple guys fishing with a net cast by hand from a small bridge. Before setting off for home, we stopped for a quick snack. More pictures here.

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Great Line

David Brooks with a great line from this opinion piece on vice presidential choices:

My first thought on the running mate question is that to balance his ticket, Barack Obama should pick a really old white general. Therefore, he should pick Dwight Eisenhower. John McCain, on the other hand, needs to pick someone younger than himself. Therefore, he also should pick Dwight Eisenhower.

Unbelievable

Just when you thought that the arguments couldn't more tortured, convoluted, or bizarre, Hillary is now pointing to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June of the 1968 primary season as justificaiton for her staying in the race.

Just to be clear... She should stay in because you never know when another candidate might get shot and KILLED.

Disgusting.

Just a Thought Pt. 2

I see there is an Associate Dean at the University of Iowa School of Law named Carin Crain.

How many first name last name combos are anagrams?

I Googled this one and discovered that the Animal Control officer in Alpine, TX shares the same name!

Sergeants 3

While flipping through the channel guide on ReplayTV, I stumbled upon the following description:

Sergeants 3 (1962, ***) Three cavalry officers and a bugler work together to thwart an American Indian Chief. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.

My first thought was this was a great example of unintentional comedy. But I've come to realize it's a little more complicated.

I'm familiar with the concept of unintentional comedy and the related unintentional comedy scale (Warning: extensive knowledge of sports and pop culture from the 80's and 90's is helpful, if not crucial, to digesting the UCR) from the writings of Bill Simmons, a columnist for ESPN. In his words:

"Unintentional Comedy," those moments when something or someone cracks you up ... even though that wasn't necessarily the original intention.

Prime examples include:

William Shatner's interpretation of Elton John's Rocket Man.

Brook Benton's video for Mother Nature, Father Time. In the words of Mary Tiegreen, "Ah, 1965, when music videos were elegant, simple, and classy."

And, of course, there's the version of Apache by Tommy Seebach which I've seen described as what happens when you have $10,000 to shoot a video and spend $9,000 on cocaine.

It doesn't have to be music related. There's also political examples although it should be said that Setting the Record Straight also qualifies for the unintentional tragedy scale.

But back to Sergeants 3. I think the aforementioned write-up is funny although there's no obvious reason it should be. It was easy, for example, to figure out which part Sammy Davis Jr. would be playing. So it seemed to be a candidate for unintentional comedy. I was loathe to undermine my unseen interpretation of the film, but I did click over and watch part of a scene.

Then yesterday that I did a little research and discovered that Sergeants 3 is a remake of the 1939 film Gunga Din!

Are there other Rat Pack films inspired, if tenuously, on Kipling poems?! I see there's a musical adaptation of the Robin Hood story transplanted to prohibition era Chicago. Somehow - I can't articulate how - this makes more "sense" to me than Sergeants 3.

So here's the tough part. I know the era featured plenty of campy films and I even see that one classification of Sergeants 3 is as a Comedic Western. That would seem to prevent unintentional comedy qualification although, at the same time, raises questions of judgement as far as making a comedy about a desperate confrontation with a rampaging Indian tribe. Certainly the original poem is an unlikely inspiration for humor. I guess I'd need to see both films to make a more informed judgement.

Should I watch some Rat Pack films for historical purposes?

First Graduation

Amelia graduated from pre-school last night. I'm a little frustrated because none of the pictures I took inside turned out due to the "no flash" rule. But here's a nice one taken afterwards in the parking lot.



The ceremonies, as they must be for 4 year olds, were straightforward and brief. The kids assembled in the chapel and ran through some songs. I'm happy to report that all the stereotypical roles for such an assembly were expertly filled:

• The kid who thought it was too loud and spent the concert with his hands clapped over his ears.
  
• The kid who got bored and started finding stuff in his pockets.
  
• The kid who sang just a little bit too loud.
  
• The kid who was dressed up and wearing a tie but, naturally, pulled up his shirt and untucked it.
  
• The parent who ignored the "no flash" rule.
  

After the songs, the children filled out and then filled back in by class by last name alphabetically. They came up on stage one-by-one to receive a diploma from their teacher and then joined family members in the pews.

Cynthia and Twyla made the trip from Marshalltown but, unfortunately, didn't have very good seats along with Jessica. Evan and I managed to snag seats in the third row and had a decent view of the proceedings. We ended up skipping the post-graduation "party" with cookies and similar treats. Too wild for our tastes. 8-)

I have only good things to say about Little Lambs if you've got a 3 or 4 year old in the Cedar Rapids area!

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In the words of WarScribe

While checking the political news this morning and hoping beyond hope that someday somehow the Democratic Primaries would end, I found the following well crafted post in the comments section of this article:

Reply #3, Posted by WarScribe, Date: May. 21, 2008 - 12:32 AM EST

I generally turn off my BS meter when Hillary Clinton begins speaking about leading Barack Obama in the popular vote count. I’m afraid the gauges might fly right off the machine when she suggests that — if you add two states where the votes weren’t supposed to count and ignore four states which haven’t yet released their figures but where the votes did count and then, of course, conveniently forget the fact that in one of the states that she wants you to count, no one else was on the ballot — she is one-third of one percent ahead.

And so my meter was firmly set in the off position during Clinton’s Kentucky victory speech, where she very predictably made the same convoluted argument (which doesn’t seem to have had any sway with the two dozen superdelegates who have swung Obama’s way in the past two weeks.) Which I think is significant — because I still had to scratch my chin when she suggested “it’s often been said, ‘as Kentucky goes, so goes the nation.’ ”

Really? That’s often been said? Hillary made the comment at approximately 8:28 EST. At 8:30 EST — hoping to beat the dozens of transcripts and news reports of her speech online — I checked Google for the term “as Kentucky goes, so goes the nation.” So I checked — Google.

I got 16 hits. Including one that referred not the presidential nomination but to the Kentucky Derby. Another was a quote from Clinton herself, the day before the Kentucky primary. Sixteen hits on Google is the zeitgeistian equivalent to nothing. The term “hamburger pants” nets 552 hits. The randomly selected letters “sdfv” produce 22,200 hits (betcha didn’t know there was a Scuba Diving Federation of America.) And the term “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation” nets 9,530 hits. That latter fact I find particularly interesting, because Ohio has correctly picked the president every year since 1964 — the exact same record as neighboring Kentucky.

So the spirit of what Clinton said was, in fact, true. Which makes me wonder, why couldn’t she simply say that? Why not say, “Kentucky — you’ve picked the correct president every four years since I was in grade school! Thank you for voting so overwhelmingly for me tonight!”? Why make up a lie — even a little white one — about something that people often say when, very clearly, they don’t often say it?

Which brings me back to Clinton’s stories about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia, (which also clearly wasn’t true — not even remotely so,) and helping to secure peace in Ireland, (which was nearly as big of a lie, but didn’t get quite as much play, because it’s harder to make a funny YouTube video about Clinton pretending to have played a role in Ireland.) In all of these cases, the simple truth would have sufficed. It might even have been impressive. But something made her fib, if only just a bit. But politicians lie, right? That’s just what they do, isn’t it? Yes and no.

The reality of the nation we live in makes spin a political imperative — so much so that the media now routinely plays “gotcha” with politicians who fail to spin. But the finest of spin artists craft their messages so that they are NOT lying. That’s why Clinton’s message about getting more votes than Obama — while intellectually dishonest and, quite frankly, complete and total BS — is so politically compelling. Because Obama can’t say it’s not true. Instead he has to craft a message that is equally confounding to explain why it’s not true. The fact that Clinton lies when she clearly does not need to do so represents a fundamental misconception about the world we live in — the world she purportedly is “prepared from day one” to lead.

By 12 a.m. EST, Google was registering 179 hits for “as Kentucky goes, so goes the nation.” As I suspected, most were simply transcripts or reports from Clinton’s speech. But a number were Netizens identifying the “it’s often been said” part of Clinton’s speech for what it was — a little extra BS slapped on top of a campaign that has spent no small amount of time digging out of BS.

I think this nicely captures the source of so much mistrust and frustration with the Clintons.

I'm not sorry but I'm concerned

A strange headline on CNN this morning:

White House denies Bush apology over Quran

So strange that I took a screen shot to preserve it.



Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki issued a statement today that President Bush "apologized" in the aftermath of an incident where an American sniper apparently used the Quran for target practice.

The White House, for some reason, was compelled to clarify that it was not an apology. Instead, Bush expressed "deep concern." I realize that words are carefully parsed in diplomatic relations, but can someone explain:

A.) Why an "apology" would be undesireable or unacceptable?

B.) Even assuming that an "apology" was inapropriate, might the diplomatic clarification not exacerbate the tensions surrounding the incident to the point that it would be preferable to issue no such clarificaiton?

This is very interesting. I'm so glad I took the screen shot because the headline has changed in the last several minutes!

A world first?

I spied a stray avocado in the kitchen the other night. I bought two for a meal several days prior but only used one and the second one was in danger of spoiling.

We were having frozen pizza for dinner; not an obvious vehicle for avocado delivery. But I figured it was worth a shot.

I can report that avocado topped pepperoni pizza is pretty good!

Now I have to ride back?

I've often thought about how nice it would be to commute via bicycle. I would save money. It's good for me. It's good for the environment. It's just generally fun to ride a bike. All that jazz...

But I never seriously contemplated trying it. I just live too far away. This week, however, I got a little crazy.

May is National Bike Month. As part of the festivities, the League of American Bicyclists promoted National Bike-to-Work May 12-16. So I figured 'What the heck?'.

This was an endeavor that took a particular amount of planning. Without a certain level of planning, it wouldn't be feasible. With too much planning, I'd come to my senses and call the whole thing off. So I swung into pre-action. I borrowed a bike lock from one co-worker, borrowed a locker room key from a second co-worker, and pre-positioned a change of clothes at work so I wouldn't have to worry about carrying anything with me when cycling.

I was hoping to leave home at 5:30AM. I figured the trip into work would take two hours at minimum. So, faced with such an early start, I laid out all my clothes, set the coffee maker's timer, and even went so far as to pre-measure oatmeal and water portions so I could flip on the stove top and get that started within seconds of walking into the kitchen.

Even with the planning, I didn't start pedaling until 5:44AM. But maybe that was just as well since official sunrise was at 5:46AM. I hopped on the Cedar River Trail in Hiawatha and, within a couple miles, wondered if I was overdressed. This was underscored when I passed a guy pedaling the other direction. I was wearing tights, a long sleeved shirt, a windbreaker, a vest, a skull cap, and a helmet cover. The other guy, in his 60's, was wearing shorts, a long sleeved shirt, and no head cover. Oh well. I unzipped the vest a bit and soldiered on.

I checked the computer as I emerged from the trail on the edge of Cedar Rapids and found that I was averaging 15.3 mph over the first forty-one minutes. Over the next sixty-six minutes, I took C St. South, turned West on Wright Brothers Blvd., crossed I-380, and pedaled South on Hwy 965 into North Liberty.

By the time I reached North Liberty, I had shed the helmet cover, eaten a couple fig newtons, and increased my average speed ever so slightly to 15.4 mph. It was a beautiful morning for a ride. The traffic thickened as I joined the stream of commuters into Iowa City on Dubuque Street.

After crossing the Iowa River, I jumped onto the trails near the Water Works, passed underneath I-80, dropped into the granny gear for an unexpectedly steep hill, passed Elks 590, and rejoined Dubuque Street. Moments later, I cruised up to the bike racks outside the Levitt Center.

• Distance: 37.4 miles
  
• Ride Time: 2:22:46
  
• Trip Time: 2:22:46
  
• Average Speed: 15.6 mph
  
• Average heart rate: 140 bpm
  

I felt good but my victory was tempered by the gnawing fact I was going to have to ride back home. To add a little insult to injury, I was taking a couple hours of vacation time so I could leave early enough to get me home at a reasonable time.

One thing I had going for me is favorable weather conditions. Morning temperatures were in the high 40's but, by the afternoon, were around 70 degrees. Winds were increasing throughout the day but, crucially, were coming out of the West Southwest so I wouldn't have to confront the wind directly.

Considering the hotter conditions, I was now wearing cycling shorts and a short sleeved jersey. I also drank a couple liters of water in the half hour before I left. Once on the bike, it only took a few minutes for me to realize that the return trip wouldn't be as fun. It was hot, my legs felt a little weak (not too bad) from the morning ride, and my route in the early stages was westerly enough for the winds to affect me.

By the time I turned onto Wright Brothers Blvd., I was an hour and twenty-two minutes into the ride and averaging 13.9 mph. The winds gave me a brief but thrilling boost in the short time I headed due East and then it was back to the low gears as I climbed C. Street into Cedar Rapids.

I passed AEGON around a quarter to five and jumped back on the trail. I ended up stopping twice in this stretch before entering Cedar Rapids proper: once for a bathroom break and a second time to move a turtle off the trail. I was worried that I'd have trouble with traffic downtown, but that turned out to be no big deal. All things considered, I felt pretty good as I rolled home.

• Distance: 36.5 miles
  
• Ride Time: 2:37:12
  
• Trip Time: 2:39
  
• Average Speed: 13.9 mph
  
• Average heart rate: 134 bpm
  

The minor difference in the distance as compared to the morning ride is because I just stayed on Dubuque Street and skipped the short Waterworks Prairie Trails detour on the way home.

Does this man look ready for a shower and a cold beer?



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ICE ICE Postville

Iowa is reacting to the recent immigration enforcement action in Postville which was apparently the largest single site-raid in United States history.

Setting aside for a moment the greater debate about illegal immigration, I was intrigued to see this related story concerning the plant's owners.

Agriprocessors attempted a novel union-busting tactic after employees at a distribution center in New York voted succesfully to unionize.

In an act of due-dilligence that I'm sure was unrelated to the union vote, the company reviewed the social security numbers of voting workers and discovered that many of the workers were using fradulent identification. Well this was a big suprise and very disturbing. So the workers were fired and the company sought to have the union vote invallidated.

This didn't work. The U.S. Circuit of Appeals and National Labor Relations Board sided with the union.

The article points out that one of the arguments for extending employment law protections to illegal immigrants is that it removes the incentive for employers to hire such workers under sub-standard conditions without fear of legal ramifications.

On the other hand, to the extent that employment law protections are applied universally, I suppose this adds an incentive (to immigrate) from the perspective of the undocumented immigrants. I have to assume that the greatest incentive by far, however, is salary.

Bill O'Reilly is a complete tool

If you didn't see Colbert mocking Bill O'Reilly and the old footage of him being him, you've GOTTA check it out.

Linky here.

What the?!

Maybe this doesn't quite rise to the level of the ACLU fighting for the Nazis in Skokie, but I never thought I'd find myself fighting for the right of men to wear small bathing suits...

What's the deal with the guy in Florida that got ticketed for wearing a speedo?

I guess the ticket was technically written for "trespass", but that's a particulary weak pretext since we're talking about a a public beach.

The linked article has some pictures. I was concerned at first. Maybe he DID deserve a ticket? But it's just an old guy reading a book on the beach. We're nowhere near Borat territory.

Ridedate 20080510

After biting off a bit more than I could chew with last week's ride, I decided, logically enough, to bite off even more this week.

A few goslings and their parents in Cedar Lake.



I thought first about a 50 mile roundtrip to Vinton but, after consulting the weather forecast, I ruled it out due to the Southeast winds projected to increase in intensity as morning turned to afternoon. Above all, I wanted to avoid fighting the wind on my way home so I decided to head for Solon and plan on the wind at my back on the way home. So this set up a contest between the weather forecasts and Murphy of Murphy's Law fame.

I stopped on the edge of town to eat a couple fig newtons. An elderly couple in a maroon minivan with Wisconsin plates stopped to ask me directions. They were heading to Dubuque and took a wrong turn of I-380. I was a little nervous because this was one of those times where I knew that I could get where they wanted to go, but I wasn't sure if I could verbally tell them the correct steps and reference the correct roads. But in retrospect, I think I sent them the best way.

Here are some curious cows enjoying the morning outside Ely.



I stopped at Casey's for a quick break in Solon and headed back North. As hoped, the tailwinds made it easier going. One minor bummer is that it started sprinkling by the time I reached the edge of Cedar Rapids. Luckily, it stayed light and never really opened up.

I saw two women jogging North on the trail system. I thought they might be the same two that I saw getting out of their cars at the Northern trailhead of the Cedar River trail when I passed them around 7:35 AM. If so, that was long run! I slowed down and asked them if that's where they were came down from. It was. They said they were on a "20 miler". I congratulated them and was quite grateful that I was on wheels.

• Distance: 50.6 miles
  
• Ride Time: 3:16
  
• Trip Time: 3:46
  
• Average Speed: 15.4 mph
  
• Average heart rate: 127 bpm
  

Considering how I've fallen out-of-shape (I've gained 20 pounds over the Winter) and was punished last week on the 28 mile ride, I was impressed how well I held up. I think "winning" the gamble that the wind forecast was accurate made a big difference.

I was tired afterwards, but just generally; no particular body parts were outraged.

A mother duck and her brood.



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A Chip off the old block

Last week, my daughter Amelia brought home a Guninea Pig from her pre-school class. Apparently 'Chip' is like a library book where the kids check him out. We took him home on a Wednesday and, because they didn't have school that Friday, he was to stay with us for five nights.

I had a Guinea Pig when I was a kid. I don't remember its name or much about it. I think I may have even had more than one? But after spending some time with Chip, I see that there may not be much to remember. Chip didn't have much of a personality and didn't move much more than he had to.



But there were no disasters and the cat's initial curiousity soon wore off so the Chip trip was a success.

One funny thing is that a mother of a pre-school student from the 05-06 school year (a classmate of Evan's) visited our house and observed that she didn't remember Chip looking like that.

We're wondering if the position of 'Chip' at pre-school has the stability and longevity of a Redshirt.

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