Interesting Google Searches

I haven't done a post on interesting (strange?) google searches for a while. I got too busy with other things to keep up with them. But once in a while a saw one I felt the need to capture for posterity. So, here they are.

skype sex during deployment - - went to a post on a legislative committee talking about child custody during deployment which mentioned skype as a way deployed military could talk to their kids.

can you buy prostitutes at the ch2m man camp in north slope alaska - This man (I know, I'm assuming again) got to a post about CH2M Hill Corruption in Ohio.  Probably he meant a different kind of prostitute.



what do americans call rape seed -

This one was a perfect bull's eye. It went to a post called, are you ready, "What Do Americans call rapeseed?" 



outer space tables fastende to the grround I'm afraid I didn't note where this one ended up. Anyone want to take a shot at what he was after?


what to do in a day to be an interesting person - this got to a post called Interesting People and Events at UAA. I hope it was helpful, but don't know it was what this person from New Zealand was looking for.

black and tan flesh eating beetles- Last time I did a Search post like this I had along list of different ways people got to the post Tiny Black Bugs -  Fruit Flies or Fungus Gnats?  But none were as colorful as this one.  I also have lots of hits that go to  Brown Bug. It would seem a lot of people are experiencing the natural world in the form of bugs.


what can i send in the mail to my husband in alaska 2010 - This one just got to the blog, no special post. Don't think she found what she was looking for.

steven nannas arms guns manufacture - I think Google is trying too hard to have hits. What Do I Know? comes up #1 out of 45,000 hits, with this:

What Do I Know?
Apr 15, 2010 ... I apologize Steve. I was lost in the moment and am trying to get a grip on myself as .... NANA/TECK Contract Lobbyist; annual fee $20000.00 ...
whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/ - 9 hours ago - Similar

This is pretty slim pickins. Why even bother?


how much money do you get for setting up residency in alaska - This New Zealand based surfer got to a post on this year's PFD application deadline.  Others have asked the same question. 

parkinson's disease billboard omaha -  This went to a picture from a post about a fire prevention billboard in Thailand.  Not exactly what the searcher was looking for.  So why did this post show up? Because I have a link to a Parkinsons blog and some posts about Omaha. So I had all the words somewhere on the blog.  Just not in one post.  But this was an image search, so the person must have clicked to enlarge the photo.  Probably because it was too small to read and he thought it might be about Parkinsons and in Omaha.  By the way, google's new image search results are a huge improvement over the old way. 


who is the old bald guy with black glasses that soes sis flags commercils? - This person got to a post on Jehovah's Witnesses.  

what does 38 one hundredths look like -  How about 38/100?  But instead they got Claude Lévi-Strauss One Hundredth Anniversary. 




For the record, I had the  first visitor that I've noticed the other day from Bhutan.

Sorry, I'm Thinking Rather than Blogging

It seems I could post something of interest here at least daily.  But I'm having trouble posting.  I've decided it's because I have other projects which require the sort of thinking that normally goes into blogging.  Which made me realize how much thinking time I put into blogging.  It became obvious when I started posts, but don't finish them because they need more work but I need that time for other things I've committed to do.

For example,  I'm reviewing a manuscript for a journal.  I've got other personal housekeeping issues that need attention.  (I'm not talking about things like the howling pipes we've been hearing in the house at strange times.  The plumber came this morning and wasn't sure - he never got to hear it - but there was a faucet that wasn't supposed to be closed down and so maybe that was the cause.  We'll see.)  And some volunteer work to organize that isn't too difficult, but does require some concentrated thinking time.

How much time do you spend really thinking?  Not reading the product of someone else's  thinking, but pushing past your habitual stories about how the world works until you see patterns or meaning that eluded you before?  That change how you understand something, and perhaps even how you will behave? 

You simply can't do that when you are interrupted every few minutes by messages, calls, children, the radio talking, etc.  It requires finding a space where you are cut off from the rest of the world and just sit and concentrate and work through things.  What hideouts do you have where you can think? 

When I go for a run, my brain gets freed to sort through all the junk that's accumulated.  Unplugging my computer and finding another spot to write is another way I can block out normal interruptions.  It helps if there is no wifi available, but just being unplugged and somewhere different is good enough.  Knowing that the battery is running down so I have to stay on task is helpful. 

So, back to the manuscript.  My comments are due today, though I did tell them I needed a little more time when I accepted the assignment. 


Shut off your computer and think.

Dreaming Through Inception

I'd overheard a bit of Dicaprio talking about Inception - something about knowing what is real and what isn't.  Then a friend strongly recommended the movie, especially considering that this blog sometimes addresses the question What is Real?  

We saw it last night and I didn't think I'd post about it since its treatment of what is real seemed pretty superficial.  This was not the Matrix by any stretch.  But today there are a couple of NY Times articles on nightmares. (Guiding Your Sleep While You’re Awake
and Following a Script to Change a Nightmare).  The movie Inception mostly takes place in people's dreams and  both pre-dream guiding goes on and in dream script following occurs.

The movie is NOT a must see I'm afraid.  It carried on its conceits far longer than I needed and managed to slip in various cliche Hollywood action such as car chases and explosions.  The main idea was slim and lots of suspension of disbelief is required.  There's also a fair amount of head scratching.

That said, it did engage me to the extent that when we walked for dinner afterward we did continue discussing the movie and its various feints and sleights, and  made lame jokes about what level of dreaming we were currently in. But ultimately none of us felt we'd gotten any great insights and we agreed it went on far too long.

The two New York Times articles linked above are much more worth one's time if you want to know something about dreaming and they both also reference the movie Inception. 

If you got this far, you'll notice I gave virtually nothing away, nor did the movie inspire me to pursue some theme or idea raised.  Despite the hype, this is Hollywood entertainment, not the kind of movie that raises important issues.

Anchorage Garden Club Annual Tour Glimpse

Today was the Anchorage Garden Club's tour of gardens.  This is always a chance to get new ideas, but most importantly a not so gentle reminder to get working in the garden.  There's always at least one garden that makes it all worthwhile.  This time there were a number of gardens that I enjoyed. 

I think this first one was my favorite because of an overall combination of things:  probably the widest variety of plants; a number of spectacular individual flowers; while only about three years old, it looked fairly established;  names of many of the plants.



Look at how amazing the flowers are.  The first two are both red bee balm.

I think the bright red splashes in this second picture come out of those little buds in the previous picture.  This second plant is a further along. 

Artichoke

Dinner Plate Dahlia

Dinner Plate Dahlia Bud Opening

This is Jean Simmons, the gardener responsible for all the flowers above.






Jean's house was the lone South Anchorage location on the tour.  Then we went to see the cluster of four gardens in and around Bootlegger's Cove.

We were told this one is a bristlecone pine. That got our attention. From blueplanetbiomes:

If you could imagine a living tree as old as the pyramids of Egypt, what do you think it would look like? It would look like a bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva,the oldest known tree species in the world.

The bristlecone pine only lives in scattered, arid mountain regions of six western states of America, but the oldest are found in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California. There the pines exist in an exposed, windswept, harsh environment, free of competition from other plants and the ravages of insects and disease. The oldest bristlecones usually grow at elevations of 10,000 to 11,000 feet.

The oldest known tree is "Methuselah", which is 4,789 years old. . .

 As you can see, it is thriving in Anchorage, and it could have another 4,000 years to live.




I'm a sucker for birch bark and this tree was special.  I should have asked, because I couldn't get a definitive answer online.  Wikipedia lists some 15 North American birch species and 18 European and Asian species.




The bristlecone is the tree in the middle of the photo below, its top reaching the bottom of the big window.  The birch is on the right, and the tall skinny tree on the left is a poplar, I believe she said it was Scandanavian.

The newspaper clearly said to leave dogs and strollers at home.  That makes sense.  But the friend we went with was dog sitting and had the dog in the car.  But there were four houses nearby and we decided to walk around the neighborhood;  we'd just keep the dog out on the sidewalk.  When we got to the house on the left, the owner insisted we could take the Daisy around.   (She had her own dog with her in the driveway.)

As luck would have it, the President of the Garden Club happened to be visiting this garden and saw the dog in the back and let us know dogs and children were not supposed to be there.  (The paper only said strollers, not children.)  We assured her that was our intention, but that the owner insisted we take her rather than have one of us wait with her in front.  The owner didn't even know the President was there.  It was all worked out amiably.  Life is full of little surprises.

Trailer Park Foreclosure Sale Update

[Update July 26:  Mark Romick at Alaska Housing called this morning and says there has been discussion of doing this sort of thing.  He checked it out with google street view as we talked and promised to call Northrim Bank.  Obviously, there are lots of obstacles, but it's not impossible.]


About ten days ago I posted that Northrim Bank was selling a whole trailer park it had foreclosed on.  I mused about finding a way to work out funding for the residents to be able to buy it and make it into a trailer condo park.  One commenter said this had been done on Bainbridge Island, Washington where there is very little affordable housing.

So I called Northrim Bank after the sale to find out who bought it, for how much, and what they planned to do with it.  Turns out it wasn't sold and they will have another sale July 29.  And if my calculations in the original post were correct, the current tenants would probably pay less in mortgage payments than they pay now in rent. 

I've called the Alaska Housing Authority and Cook Inlet Housing Authority but neither has returned my call.  Anyone got $850,000 they want to invest in what ought to be a reasonable return and a good cause?

Film Workshop Fun

I went to a film workshop Saturday.  I thought it might be useful to sit in with a real filmmaker and possibly learn something or be reminded of something I'd forgotten that would help with my photos and video for the blog. 

Local filmmaker Bob Curtis-Johnson led the eight hour workshop and there were two things that were particularly helpful.  First was the section on lighting where we got to do some experimenting with different lighting - natural and artificial. 

That's Bob in the middle.  Because I'm basically lazy and cheap, I have embraced a philosophy of natural lighting, not flash, except in extreme circumstances.  And a lot of flash simply lights up the subject, but destroys the natural sense of the scene.

But more sophisticated lighting like these lamps and reflecting boards can dramatically improve the lighting. 

So we spent time trying out different things to see how it affected the images.

The other thing I particularly liked was the mix of people in the group.  We went from high school students to a local sound engineer to a retired guy.  Each was doing different things with film and brought up issues that were of interest. 

We also spent a fair amount of time looking at short videos and then taking them apart to see how different effects were achieved - through lighting, sound, cuts, etc. 

I originally met Bob when my daughter got involved in his Throwdowns, known as Bobs Shorts- challenges to make a film in specific time period, like three weeks.  One is being planned in the near future, but the date hasn't been established. 

Happy Birthday Monica, Alex, and Ropi

I know three others who have birthdays today and I want to wish them a great day.

Does this last birthday card translate across cultures?  In the US we can make a wish on a dandelion and then if you blow all the seeds off, the wish is supposed to come true.

Vegies and Good Neighbors

Yesterday I picked up our box of vegies and fruits from full circle farm.  It's a combination of a little bit of many different things, including things we don't usually get.  So yesterday I was online looking up turnip recipes.  We ended up with one called Red Kidney Beans with Turnips.


 We're going to have to talk to them about recycling the boxes though. 

Also that day, our neighbor came by with a jar of pickled green beans he made.  He uses them for martinis, but I've been eating them straight out of the jar.

The Human Toll From Our National Obsession and Ignorance about Sexuality

What is it about our inability as a nation to deal with sex in an adult way?  Despite the excessive use of sex in marketing of nearly every product, many US citizens aren't able to talk frankly, with knowledge, and without embarrassment about sexuality.

One side effect is politicians (we'll leave other professions for another day)  disgraced by the public disclosure of their sexual conduct.  Because of our cultural obsession with publicly denying real human sexuality in favor of  happily ever after fairy tales, these politicians  resort to twisted lies (from Clinton's "I didn't have sex with that woman" to South Carolina's Gov. Sanford's Appalachian trail story) rather than tell the truth.   In most cases, the deception becomes more problematic than the behavior.  

Here's an example from,  until recently, closeted gay California Republican state senator Roy Ashburn, who, apparently to cover his own sexuality, has voted his whole career against the rights of GLBT citizens. 

The following is a guest commentary by Sen. Roy Ashburn

Startled by the blurry reality of a red light glaring in my rear-view mirror at 2 am on the morning of March, 4, 2010, I knew my life was about to change.  The California Highway Patrol stopped me as I was driving drunk after leaving a gay club in Sacramento, California’s capital.   With my arrest and the media inquiry that followed, my deeply-held secret was no longer my own business.  My private life as a closeted gay man was now the public’s business, and I had a lot of explaining to do. [You can read the rest of the commentary by this 26 year Republican politician at GayPolitics which I found through BentAlaska.]

While his apology (you have to click on the link to get the whole thing) is welcomed by all who believe in equal rights, it only came after he was outed.  

The internet has made knowledge about sexuality and all its myriad variations (sort of like all the different flowers and birds and bugs in nature) much more accessible, and possibly more of our population has a more realistic picture of human sexuality than my generation grew up with.  But on the one hand,  the many misogynist lyrics and movies suggest  a lot of people may know more mechanics of sex than about the art of relationships.  On the other hand the denial of the many faces of human sexuality, most often by religious zealots,  suggests ignorance is thriving too.  Somewhere in the middle there must be a healthy mental and physical balance.

Fortunately, people like Dan Savage offer accessible and frank (and sometimes over the top) discussions of sexuality and relationships that were completely  unimaginable 26 years ago when Sen. Ashburn was first elected.  If he could have read columns like Savage's as a young man how different and more honest his life might have been.

UFO's In My Garden - More Flowers and Bugs

Here's an Unidentified Flying Object and I've got somewhat Unidentified Flowering Objects below.



The macro on my little Canon Powerpoint  gets me pretty good closeups that can be enlarged to see things normally invisible with the naked eye.

Pictures of flowers were going to be an easy post I thought.  Until I started trying to figure out what I was looking at.  I've spent way too long trying to figure out these flower parts.  These are things I normally can't even see.  

I'm hoping I can get hold of a biologist friend who can help me with the identification of these flower parts.

The illustration at the right, from  saburchill.com, might suggest that the green nub is the stigma and the little star shaped flower at the top could be (help!) also part of the stigma or polllen grain, or ???  See also the picture of the pollen grains on the lily stigma below flower functions at science-fair-projects-encyclopedia.  [Based on the diagram below from countrysideinfo I'm going to say that the green is probably the ovary, the star the stigma, but since the same parts of different flowers come in such different guises, unless you have someone who really knows, it's hard to tell from the diagrams.  So don't assume anything here is definitive.]

You can see an impatiens pod on this website, which I'm pretty sure is a later stage of the green part of the pink impatience flower in my picture above.  At the top this link has a discussion of getting seeds from impatiens and the pictures are at the bottom. 

To the right above you can see that impatiens flower from a little further back.  It also has a thrips on it. 

I had an image of that word in my head yesterday, but couldn't get the letters in the right order, but Jeff Lowenfels discussed them in his garden column today and then I looked them up online.  I'm pretty certain that's what it is.  Here it is a little closer, but they are really tiny. 

OK, now that you know your flower parts (that was a joke), let's look at this campanula.

The diagram at right/below and the text below come from countrysideinfo, a UK site, which I think clears things up much more.  

The female parts of a flower consist of an ovary, which contains one or more ovules, a style and the stigma. The ovary is at the base of the flower.
From the ovary, extends a tubular structure called the style and on the top of the style is a surface receptive to pollen called the stigma.
The stigma can take many different forms, most of them designed to help trap pollen. There are many variations on this basic structural theme.

The curly things have to be the stigma and suggests the star shaped thing on the impatiens is also the stigma.  And yes, more thrips on the campanula.  And the parts that look like they've collapsed are probably the stamens, or male parts.

OK, one more to check out.  A pansy up close.  So, what is the white hairy stuff?  Another form of stigma?  Surely the green seed pod is growing right inside there.