MADE ME LAUGH

OK folks, here it is: The Humane-Restraint Suicide-Prevention SLEEPING BAG

ROFL

http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/e9148cf6-88c8-4d0a-9d2e-d6e0072245b2/humane-restraint-suicide-prevention-sleeping-bag#46

Random Rambles - Cheese

OK, so I just watched a PBS special (per Netflix) called, wait for it, "The Cheese Nun"

No, I have not gone crazy.

I'm thinking of branching out in my microbial endeavors and cheese seems to be the next logical step.

This ex-hippie now-nun from Connecticut decides to make cheese. Goes to U Conn and gets a doctorate in microbial ecology, wins a Fulbright to go to France to study fungi, ends up working there for a few years then coming back to her cloistered life in the US. She studied the diversity of fungi in regions throughout France and is a champion of the small cheesemaker (save the microbes!). Altogether a great story and worth a watch.

So I'm thinking about cheese. I love cheese. I love beer and cider and bread, and have tried to do my best with those microbes, so what the hell? Let's try cheese.

Mozzarella first - I wonder if I can get a bison to stand still for milking? (totally kidding)

Making Cider

OK, earlier in the summer I put out a call for apples. It was, however, a bit of a shock when I came into work one day and found a bushel in my office. With deer and elk season due to start on Saturday, I felt a bit rushed to get the cider pressed and fermenting into a luxurious amber alcohol.

What else does one do in Gardiner on a Wednesday night?

The plan:

chop apples into manageable chunks

run apples through the meat grinder

put pulp into cheesecloth in a collander over my big brew pot

squeeze pulp

repeat

The good news:

Trudy came in just as I was getting started. If not for her, a bushel of apples would be in the compost pile still with their juice.

You see, it's really hard to squeeze juice out of apple pulp with just your hands. Pulp squishes everywhere and it takes a lot of work.

So...

Trudy went for her juicer!

Not just any juicer either -- "The Champion" industrial juicer!

I called Ssej in for reinforcement (what the hell would I do without such great friends?) and we got to work. With a break in-between to video chat with Kendra on Skype, we managed to get through it all. 1 bushel of Paradise Valley apples = about 3.5 gallons of apple slurry.

Pasteurized on the stove, added a cup of corn sugar, half a cup of local honey, and 2 tablespoons of pectic enzyme (breaks down the solid bits). Poured it all into my new 3.5 gallon carboy and pitched some lovely English Cider Yeast. Can't wait.

THANK YOU TRUDY & JESSI!!!

...and Eddie was his usual helpful self

The Television Saga - really boring

So, I watch TV. Mostly DVDs, mostly things I have already seen (TV series, old movies). It's often just background noise while I clean or work on the computer, but I do have the TV on a lot.

So I bought a used "AKAI" 36" widescreen flat screen (not flat panel) TV earlier in the summer off of Craigslist. The thing weighs a ton and just barely fits on my corner unit. It's huge and I luv it.

Thursday the picture went funky. I was very sad and thought, well I should start looking on Craigslist again. But then decided to upgrade to a TV I could lift on my own. Off to town for shopping. Jessi gamely came along for moral support. Found a great deal on a 32" Philips and grabbed it.

On the drive back, joked to Jessi that when I got home the old TV would probably work fine...

...not so much a joke...

It works just fine. No problems. Picture and sound are great.

So now I have a 32" Philips flat panel in a box in my living room.

It's about $20 in gas to drive back to Bozeman, and a minimum 3 hour drive.

Blah.

waiting for data to copy from one place to another

This is what I spend most of my time doing.

moving data

renaming data

concatenating data

zipping up data

extracting data

merging data with other data

parsing data

editing metadata (data about data)

data collection

analysis

cartography

That's what I got in this line of work for. And instead I sit and manage data most of the time (at least that's what it feels like today.)

Conference time again

How do I get roped into these things?

When a friend pops in the office and asks if you would mind helping with the conference in October - the answer is "sure, no problem!"

Then October comes, the boss takes off for a couple weeks, and the conference rolls around.

I'm just a soft touch, I suppose.

Short (2 day + 1 evening) conference. Good to see old friends and co-workers who have moved on to other places and other jobs. Fun to commiserate with current friends and co-workers. Long days, but all in all a pretty good time.

Thomas, Suzanne, and Ginger are visiting for a few days as well - just touring the park and soaking.

Unfortunately I have a bushel of apples that need to be ground and juiced and sauced, but they will have to wait.

Busy fall days, but the weather is holding - frosty nights and bluebird sunny days. Can't ask for more than that!

no, it really was THAT busy this year...

As an aside, there are still late-season bus trips rolling through the park - I got in line behind a load of Asian visitors attempting to order fast food at McMammoth today.

Yellowstone National Park

P.O. Box 168

Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 5, 2010 10-114

Al Nash (307) 344-2015

----------------------------------------------------

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK NEWS RELEASE

----------------------------------------------------

Yellowstone Breaks September and Annual Visitation Records

It’s official. Yellowstone National Park has already broken last year’s record visitation figure, with three months left in the calendar year.

For the first time ever, Yellowstone National Park hosted over half a million visitors during September. The 550-thousand recreational visitors to the park last month shattered the previous September record of nearly 490-thousand set last year. September was the fourth record breaking month in a row for Yellowstone.

Park visitation during the first nine months of the year topped 3.41 million, above the 3.14 million who came to Yellowstone during the same period on 2009. With three months to go in 2010, year-to-date visitation has topped last year’s record annual visitation record of 3,295,187.

Visitors 2010 2009 Change

---------------------------------------------

May 250,445 261,763 - 4.3 %

June 694,841 643,844 + 7.9 %

July 957,785 900,515 + 6.4 %

August 854,837 752,983 + 13.5 %

Sept. 550,504 489,438 + 12.5 %

Total 3,416,905 3,143,816 + 8.7 %

Recreational Visitors September Year to Year Change

--------------------- ------ -------------------

2010 550,504 + 12.5 %

2009 489,438 + 11.9 %

2008 437,552 - 5. 7%

2007 463,994 + 8.3 %

2006 428,369 + 8.9 %

2005 393,362

Visitation figures were up at all five park entrances when compared to year-ago levels. The West Entrance remains the park’s busiest, with nearly 216,000 visitors in September.

July is typically the park’s peak visitation month, followed by August, June, September, and May. In 2009, the park recorded just over 150,000 visitors during the months of October, November, and December.

Detailed park visitation information is available online at http://www.nature.nps.gov/stats/.

- www.nps.gov/yell -

weird sleep schedules

I've been so tired lately. So very tired.

The dog doesn't help. I swear half the time he channels a human, the other half a cat. After drinking water he licks his paws, then he sleeps. He vacillates between the Zen "chicken-butt" pose, curled up in a compact ball, and the arching-backed, legs splayed "I can take up more space than you on the couch" position. And he snores. Just like having any other man around the house, really.

But I digress. It's 10:25 pm on a Monday and I woke up an hour and a half ago. Nothing quite like coming home from work so exhausted you pass out on the couch for 4 hours or so, then wake up in a daze to face a long sleepless night. Joy.

Add to that I have day 2 of training tomorrow. Another 8 hours sitting in an extremely uncomfortable folding chair at a plastic table in the former Mammoth Elementary School, talking about the possibility of becoming a supervisor. Drinking way too much coffee. Dreading heading back to my overstuffed email inbox at the office.

I'm rambling now. You should definitely stop reading.

I think I shall read my lecture on raster analysis. Nothing like a little fuzzy reclassification to put you right to sleep.

One day off...sorta

It's been quite a week. Work is not slowing down, seasonal employees are leaving, and we have 2 late-season fires to deal with. Top it all off with the boss taking off for 2 weeks leaving me in charge (how foolish is that?).

Anyway, all this means that when a Saturday shift needs to be covered, no one else wants it, so it's down to me to change my weekend plans.

Finally got some sleep at least, but I've been missing out on hanging out with the boys online at night. Today is catch-up day, working around the house. I'm doing a bit of fall house cleaning and sorting through some more books to get rid of. I figure the ones I don't need I can take to AZ at Thanksgiving. Cannot wait for that trip.

I'm managing to mix a bit of studying in, but it still seems like way too much to do and too few hours in the day. Well, back to work.