Manatee salad

In June 2007, I was fortunate to see some manatees in the manatorium* at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida. This manatee was going to town on a head of lettuce- some kind of manatee salad.

* I totally made up the word "manatorium.". A better word might be "Sirenium", from the Latin name of the manatee family, but it's just not as mellifluous.

Listen for the manatee music in the video (best from 0:20 to 0:55 or so).





Tonight at 11: When Manatees Attack British Naturalists.

Look out, Sir David!.

Another day, another walrus

Best headline ever: Another day, another walrus in B'klyn

Spotted in amNY, New York City's answer to the Red Eye, on Friday, September 28. The text of the article is available on their web site, but, to my disappointment, the headline was changed.

Seems a walrus was born at the New York Aquarium. According to the aquarium's press release, "This historic occasion marked the first birth of a walrus in New York City."

Walrus enthusiasts rejoice: http://www.nyaquarium.com/babywalrus

If it flies, it dies

Last week I realized my lifelong dream of visiting a Nike missile site. The Nike system was a surface-to-air missile designed to shoot down squadrons of Soviet bombers as they approached US cities. Nike sites were spread all over the country and concentrated around major industrial areas. In the Chicago region, there were Nike missile installations at Jackson Park, Montrose Point, Wolf Lake, Fort Sheridan, and the Skokie Lagoons, to name a few [1]. The only restored Nike missile site in the country is Site SF-88, located in the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco.

Behold the sweetness in my photo album from the site or from the official National Park Service site (the Marin Headlands are part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area).



I learned from the friendly NPS volunteer that the guardian of the Nike missileers is the Oozlefinch, a featherless bird usually often shown wearing an artilleryman's helmet and either grasping a Nike Hercules or crushing a Soviet aircraft in its talons. The Oozlefinch has no eyelids to disrupt its constant vigilance, so it flies backwards to keep dust out of its eyes. Worthy missileers were inducted into the the Ancient and Honorable Order of the Oozlefinch and then awarded various Oozlefinchling degrees as they merited. The motto of the Order is "Quid ad sceleratorum curamus," which may be loosely translated as "What the hell do we care?" [2]

The History Channel's "Weird US" series did a segment on the Nike program which they have kindly posted on YouTube.


[1] Ed Thelen's Nike Missile Web Site
[2] History of the Oozlefinch by Errol Porter

Bonus: NBC 5 Special Report: Chicago's Nuclear Missile History

Visit to the Zollman Zoo

The Zollman Zoo of Olmsted County, Minnesota is home to a variety of native Minnesota wildlife, including two very fat badgers.



Also, they have the finest river otter waterslide I've ever seen. See for yourself via their Otter Cam.

Wolf River rapids, again

When we rafted the Wolf River this June, the water levels were higher than we've seen in a long time (see Wolf River rapids, August 2006). It was glorious.

First-person video recorded with the Rocklobstercam Mk II; props to Scottie Z. for the third-person video.

Indiana's Waffle House Coup

Waffle House is familiar to anyone who has traveled through the Southeast. I used to think there were no Waffle Houses northwest of the Ohio River. Turns out that in Indiana, at least, they were just hiding. When WH sought to expand into the Hoosier State, they found that there was already a restaurant chain by that name in Indiana. The Georgia-based hash-slingers were undeterred, however, and named their Hoosier restaurants "Waffle & Steak" instead. Now, however, the original Indiana Waffle House has changed its name, and Waffle & Steak is Waffle House. Last week in Jeffersonville, Indiana (across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky), I dined at a Waffle House where shadows of the old "Waffle & Steak" signage remained visible after the installation of the more widely known Waffle House logo.

Until recently, Indiana seemed to be the last remaining champion of strange state's rights: in addition to the "Waffle & Steak" standoff, Hoosier timekeeping also presented a stumbling block to outsiders - hence the "What time is it in Indiana?" web site. However, in April 2006, the Indiana Legislature put an end to that. What's next for this Old Northwest bastion of state's rights? Will they finally reveal to the rest of the Union exactly what a "Hoosier" is? Only time will tell - eastern daylight time, that is, except in the ten or so counties on Illiana time

Indianapolis Business Journal - January 23, 2006

Waffle and Steak is now Waffle House. Well, the local diners have always technically been Waffle Houses, but the Norcross, Ga.-based company didn't have the legal rights to the name in Indiana. Hence, Waffle and Steak. Now that the company has acquired the name-after a fight dating back to 1974-it plans to dump the old Waffle and Steak signs and start putting up its traditional yellow and black marquees statewide.

Hot Brown

On Tuesday night, July 10, I realized my dream of eating a Hot Brown at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.

Here's the official description of the dish from The Brown Hotel:

In 1923, The Brown Hotel drew over 1200 guests each evening for its dinner dance. In the wee hours of the morning, the guests would grow tired of dancing and retire to the restaurant for a bite to eat. Bored with the traditional ham & eggs, Chef Fred Schmidt delighted his guests by creating The Hot Brown - an open-face turkey sandwich with bacon, pimentos, and a delicate mornay sauce.

The Hot Brown was made in 1923
Here in Kentucky, not in Tennessee.

-The Hot Brown Cheer

The screaming hose-nose

Tapirs are neat for a number of reasons. This encounter (May 2007 at the Minnesota Zoo) leads me to propose that the Malayan tapir Tapirus indicus be given the revised common name "screaming hose-nose."

More interesting taphonomy

This articulated skeleton was awaiting burial in fluvial sediments.



Seen in June 2007 in the upper Wolf River, Langlade County, Wisconsin

The Florida Lawnmower Fire of '05

You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens? This is what happens when you flip your riding lawnmower.



Witnessed by yours truly on April 20, 2005 in Highlands County, Florida.

Crurotarsan taphonomy

ABSTRACT: Taphonomy is the study of the processes that occur as an organism decays and, in some cases, is fossilized. A novel process of taphonomy was observed in an extant crurotarsan in the cypress swamp of the southeastern lowlands of the United States. Described herein are the methods by which the carcass was disarticulated and scavenged by therapod fauna.

Nothing says "welcome to Florida" like a bunch of vultures feeding on a roadkilled alligator.

Verbing weirds language

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson - January 25, 1993

I've had enough of this. Even if dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster have conceded defeat, I stand my ground: "access" is not a verb. Neither is "leverage."

"Access" is a noun. It's a thing. "Do you have access to the bear pit?"

Soul-sucking: Let me access that file.
Better: Let me get/find/fetch/look up/obtain that file.

"Leverage," too, is a noun. The suffix -age is a good indication of this. Leverage is the the term for the mechanical advantage gained by using a lever, such as Archimedes proposed to apply to the earth if given a place to stand. The verb referring to the use of a lever to pry or otherwise apply a force is, perhaps confusingly, also "lever."

Soul-sucking: We should leverage this new technology in building our robot army.
Better: We should exploit/take advantage of/apply this new technology in building our robot army.

Before anyone calls me out on this, yes, I enjoy verbing words when speaking or writing informally - but I do this only when I know my audience will understand and find it amusing. This isn't about English snobbery - it's about speaking precisely and making oneself clearly understood.

Also, programmers take note: the opposite of "stateless" (as in "HTTP is a stateless protocol") is not "stateful." "Stateful" is a adjective describing, for example, an event replete with pomp: "The representative of the Crab People was greeted with a stateful reception." The opposite of "stateless" is persistent. That is, the state of the transaction persists between sessions.

Soul-sucking: HTTP is a stateless protocol. My proposed method is stateful.*
Better: HTTP is a stateless protocol. My proposed method is persistent.

* This, however, would be acceptable if your proposed method were full of pomp and vainglory.

More on the death of language to come.

Ride the walrus

I propose that the walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) and the elephant seal (Mirounga spp.) fight to the death to determine which is rightfully King of the Pinnipeds.

Elephant seals are certainly mean when they're hauled out; however, anecdotal evidence from Inuit kayak hunters suggests that walrus are mean pretty much all the time. Maybe both species respect and avoid each other, and as such divided the world's oceans at a time immemorial: the high Arctic belongs to the walrus, while more temperate oceans in both hemispheres are the domain of the elephant seal.

Attempts at satellite tracking of walrus migration by a Danish research time suggest that walrus value their privacy.

The BBC seems to have a walrus fetish. Consider the plethora of walrus journalism from the UK:

• Ten Walrus Wonders
• Answers to your walrus questions
• Beast in sediment is photo winner*

* This also wins the award for "Nature photo most closely mimicking the way I look when I eat pudding."

Walrus much?

Atomic Tourism

It has come to my attention that a number of Cold War sites are now open for tourism. Road trip, anyone?


Nuclear explosion sites

• The Trinity site in New Mexico is open two days a year
  
• Nevada Test Site
  

Aircraft and missiles on display

• The B-29 Enola Gay is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington-Dulles Airport*
  
• The B-29 Bockscar is on display at The National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio*
  
• The Kansas Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, Kansas, has an outstanding collection of Cold War and Space Race artifacts from both the US and Soviet programs; they also have both a V-1 and a V-2 on display.*
  
• Strategic Air & Space Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
  

ICBM Silos and Nike Batteries

• Minuteman Missile NHS, outside Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota
  
• Titan Missile Museum, Tucson, Arizona
  
• Nike missile site SF-88, Golden Gate NRA, Marin County, California (update: I was there in August 2007 - see my post "If it flies, it dies.")*
  
• Chanute Air Museum, Rantoul, Illinois, has a nice collection of aircraft as well as a genuine USAF missile silo maintenance trainer.*
  

Other atomic tourist sites:

• Atomic Tourist
  
• This dude from Milwaukee has been to several of the above sites and has kindly posted his pictures and narrative: Trinity, Minuteman Missile NHS, and the Titan Missile Museum.
  

* denotes that I've been there and it's totally sweet.


Closing thought, from the journal of one of The Mighty Rando's lab-mates:

The U.S. government has a huge stockpile of nukes. Somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000, although no one--not even the government--knows for sure. Those beautiful engines of destruction were lovingly crafted out of pure taxpayer greenbacks, and by golly, they owe us. I say the government ought to be forced (either by popular vote, or because I damn well told 'em to) to set off one nuke every year at the Nevada test range, on the ground or in the air, just so dads all over the country can pile the family into the pickup or camper and drive out to the desert to see a little fireworks display, USA style. It would be good for all of us. To remind us that nukes exist, that they exist for a reason, and that we Americans are going to be their most important stewards forever. Because we built 'em first, we built the most, and they are not going to go away, no matter how much we might wish that they would. Hell, we ought to invite foreign dignitaries, too. I think that certain terrorist-coddling Middle Eastern heads of state could learn a lot from seeing a few square miles of desert instantly turned into glass.

Ask Doctor Vector: The Star-Spangled Incredible Hulk

Find-A-Species

This is neat: The International Species Information System has a find animals service by which one may search their member zoos and aquaria for a species by common or Latin name.

Other zoo/aquarium items:

• The Association of Zoos and Aquariums has a find a zoo or aquarium tool
  
• The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums also has a worldwide directory of zoos and aquaria
  

Snakes on a lake

We took some time on the way back from Cleveland to tour the Lake Erie shore. We visited Marblehead Light, the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes, and the we took the ferry to the town of Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island. It was totally sweet. Then, as if visiting Perry's Victory/International Peace National Memorial wasn't sweet enough, we got a herpetological treat at the ferry terminal back on the mainland: an encounter with a number of Lake Erie water snakes Nerodia sipedon insularum that were basking on the riprap. Any snake encounter is likely to be awesome, but I was especially jazzed because these snakes (and the slightly crazy snake biologists who love them) were recently featured on the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs.



Sorry, Sam Jackson, but I've far from had it with these snakes. Check off another enounter with a critter on The Awesome List.

The Ohio DNR's guide to reptiles of Ohio points out that the Lake Erie water snake is a subspecies of the northern water snake found only among the Lake Erie islands. It lacks some of the banded coloration associated with other subspecies.

Update December 2007: the Respect the Snake web site has everything you need to know about the Lake Erie water snake.

It wasn't a rock...

...it was a chalk lobster.

Loons

Another video from August 2006: a compilation of loon encounters in northeast Wisconsin.



Yeah, North Woods!

Wolf River rapids

I finally got around to editing and posting my Wolf River rapids movie from August 2006. The first-person view was recorded with the Rocklobstercam Mk II. Props to Paul Jung for the third-person camera angle.

Rocklobstercam Mark III

I have constructed a mighty Rocklobstercam. Again.

This time, I used a digital still camera to take underwater photos instead of video. The Rocklobstercam Mark III has proven a worthy complement to the storied Rocklobstercam of last summer. The results are posted under Hawaii 2007 Snorkeling photos.

Also, check out last summer's underwater videos made with the Rocklobstercam Mk I and II. Jacques Cousteau it ain't, but I'm pretty happy with the results.

I used the guide at marinelifephotography.com to identify the fishes.

The Awesome Project

After much discussion with many wise individuals, it has become clear that many things in the world are awesome. I've set out to make a comprehensive list of everything that's amazingly sweet; I'm starting with critters because they're already well-classified, and taxonomy and phylogeny appeal to my obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

The Awesome Project contains the first draft of The Awesome List, and the much-more-useful Awesome Wiki.

Let me know if you have suggestions for awesome critters. Right now I'm only dealing with Gnathostomata, that is, beasties with jaws including bony fish and tetrapods. Sharks are rays are pretty awesome, but I'll have to leave them for later.

Echidna love trains

Mammals! After thinking for a while that I was turning into a reptile (due to problems with thermoregulation), I'm excited again about being a mammal, because mammals are totally weird.

Example: echidna love trains

The Jess-Sled

She wanted to go sledding. We didn't have a sled. We did have a car, a shovel, and a length of rope.

Thermite on a frozen lake

We ignited about a pound of thermite on a frozen lake, releasing enough energy to melt through three inches of solid ice. This movie features additional camera angles courtesy of Marc and Melissa.

I've become everything I've ever hated.

Bah.