lost and found

i was printing something today when i noticed a notebook off to the side. i peeked inside. they were my high school notes from grade 12! sweet! free teacher resources! and look! doodles!!!!

click for more

if life were like this, you wouldn't need a Visa

under the right conditions, your mind can wander to exotic places and ponder irrelevant things ad nauseum and ad infinitum, like at the top of mountains, where nothing happens. in such meditative states, we often ask the questions that would stump the common man. we reserve them for God, who being the Creator, knows all things down to the finest detail. in His infinite wisdom, God sometimes answers immediately. it is in these moments that we encounter the sublime and the ineffable.

speaking of ineffable, what would you consider the most ineffable animal? by this i mean, when you see a baby of this species, you think, how'd they do that? what are the logistics? the angles? the procedures?

the animal that comes to my mind is the porcupine; porcupines look pretty ineffable. and one day, at the top of a mountain, i asked this very question, to which i was provided an immediate answer. here's a more thorough answer.

and now you know too, and can share this powerful knowledge with your friends.

it is 4 am

do you know where your children are?

i'm up right now because there is going to be a total lunar eclipse starting at 0451. it will take about an hour for the moon to be fully eaten by the Earth's shadow. for another hour and a half, every wannabe sorcerer and witch in the Eastern Daylight Time zone will be hustling to perform those once-in-a-lifetime blood rites, or whatever it is those crazy cats are doing these days.

there's nothing special about a lunar eclipse other than turning the moon into a hue of red -- like some sort of apocalyptic sign. i really didn't have to wake up, but i said i would and i'm not about to give up free bragging rights. i've got plenty of time to sleep after sunrise (which i will probably watch as well).

so i will head out to stand around in my yard for two hours pondering the mysteries of life, love and ladles (big and little ones). maybe i'll practice some waterbending to pass the time (waterbenders are strongest when the moon is full).

EDIT: 0610
i'm back inside now.
instead of standing in the yard, i maneuvered a park bench to face the West. i sat down as the top of the full moon started to become obscured. at about 1/3 coverage, i went back inside to cook up some breakfast (many mini pizzas). i came back out while they baked in the toaster oven. in the meantime, the moon had the upper half of its face eaten by the shadow. it looked like a kitten head. i wish i had a camera capable of capturing the moon. little point-and-shoots don't really catch the details when shooting astronomical distances.

when i came back out after retrieving my many cooked mini pizzas, it looked like a squashed kitten head. i lounged on the bench, eating my many cooked mini pizzas as the moon turned red. it passed behind some powerline towers as the eclipse reached fullness. with a stationary point of reference, i could visably see the moon arcing down into the horizon. i lost it behind a house.

so then i turned my attention to the sunrise, which was hot on the heels of the moonset. having seen the sunrise many times before under more favourable waterside circumstances, and having run out of cooked mini pizzas, i decided to turn it in. on my way into my room, i saw my mom coming out of hers.

mystery bug

on Friday, i roamed around the church parking lot with my camera, hoping to get a few shots of anything interesting. the wind was rather gusty that day and it apparently picked up a bug and flung it at me. the bug struck my shirt around the abdomen and clung on for dear life. naturally i brought my camera to bear, toggled the focus to macro and tried to get a good shot of it.

normally i'm pretty good with identifying animals, but this one completely eludes me. it defies any categorization of insect that i am familiar with. it is not a butterfly/moth, not a beetle, not a social insect, not a flier... i can only describe it as... a kiwi bug, on account of its resemblance to a kiwi bird.

it is about the size of a large housefly, but denser. its 6 legs (making it an insect) are rather muscular, like grasshopper legs, indicating some jumping ability. this might explain why it was on the wind in the first place. its carapace looks fairly sturdy with all its parts arranged very compactly. the eyes are relatively large in comparison to its head, suggesting that it relies mostly on sight to do its business. its business seems to have much to do with its huge red proboscis, from which some antennae seem to be attached. i initially believed it to be some sort of bloodsucker, but it doesn't appear to have the penetration power, nor the storage capacity. the drab colouring suggests that it is a tree dweller, so the proboscis could be for more benign use, such as sap sucking or nectar drinking.

through the course of writing this post, i did some digging around online based on the above information. there is no dedicated search engine to finding insects based on physical characteristics, so i had to search the hard way. i looked up "tree insects" can came upon a list of the most common types. a quick image search of the closest type yielded the answer i was looking for. the mystery kiwi bug pictured above is the pecan weevil. i knew all those hours spent reading The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew in grade 3 would pay off.

candid camera / a startling revelation

i must be so annoying =D

i recently reacquired the password to my second flickr account. since i am so gainfully unemployed, and since i've been such a shutterbug as of late, i thought i'd get off my lazy rump and start uploading. only about 40% of my shots make it online (blurries and pointless shots stay on my hard drive), so i'm learning to shoot more and decide what's good or not later.

---

today, i picked up tiffany c. from her house to go to church early because that's just how the schedule worked out. the first thing she said was, "my sister said you looked 14."

this would explain why the younger ladies latch onto me, and why the ones my age are much less inclined to do so (they have higher standards).

a few months ago, i was catching up with a friend whom i had slightly lost contact with. she told me that if i ever wanted a girlfriend, i would have to bolster my reputation with the parents age group at church and appear more mature. this was followed by the awkward reveal that she used to have a huge crush on me; i am denser than a yuletide fruitcake log.

obviously, i don't think very lowly of myself, so my immediate reaction was, "hey, i'm plenty mature" as a good poop joke flitted through my mind. this was followed closely by, "why do i have to perform for them? is this some sort of dog show?"

of course, i understand that maturity in a man ups his attractiveness four-fold -- who wouldn't want to be attractive? but i will not go out and pretend to be more mature in front of others because that is immature; it is tantamount to slathering a layer cake of makeup on to appear beautiful, glitzing up to appear wealthy and wearing platform shoes to appear tall.

my kids

since we left for Longlac almost immediately after school let out, i haven't really had a chance to process my experience at St. Florence. as i was going over some of the photos that i took, i realized that i missed my kids dearly. i still remember their names and faces and quirks and writing styles and hobbies and the shoes they wore and their hilarious questions and their ever present smiles.

me and the ladies


that's my normal photo face; theirs are better.


me with most of the girls and one boy. see if you can find him.


the pure joy of bubbles


LCG telling me a secret

my Bore-O-Meter (click)

i don't know if you know this... but i can't draw horses.

caption challenge #1!

below is an excellent picture (excellent as defined by me).
please send in possible captions, via comment, by next saturday, december 24, 8:00pm.

we'll start off with an easy one:

JONATHAN HAYWARD/CP PHOTO

summer has come and passed

this shot was taken by ms. nikki at the rouge valley conservation area, during a very boring field trip. it was a very hot day and we felt that this would be the most ridiculous way to cool off and, at the same time, tan our pale bits.

rory

i've never noticed before, having never really watched Gilmore Girls or Sin City, but Alexis Bledel has very, very pretty eyes. they're huge, electric blue and would be scary if they were on a robot. and she's extremely white, which leads me to believe that she might actually be a killer robot from Krikkit, but i digress. this is alexis seen at the premiere of her new movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, sporting an excellent haircut.

excerpted from Catherine Mulroney's article, "Life inside the Star Wars galaxy", The Toronto Star, May 2, 2005

"While watching television coverage of the election of Pope Benedict XVI, I launched into a monologue on what this might mean for the Catholic Church.

I was interrupted mid-sentence, however, by a child who was compelled to remark upon how closely the new Pope resembled Emperor Palpatine."

perhaps i should feather my bangs...

or you know, not sleep with wettish hair.

delxhair=curl(hair)=g*(integral(rho)dV-dw/dt)
where hair(r,t,p)=(r*cos(p)*sin(t),r*sin(p)*sin(t),r*cos(t)), p:[0,2pi], t:[-pi/4,3pi/4],
rho(r)=n(hairs)/(surface area of scalp) is the hair density
and w(T)=volume(h2o)-0.482exp((T^2)/humidity) is the wetness of the hair at time T.

Hottie of the Month

time for a new gimmick blog post. hottie of the month! w00t! this is where we (i) sift through a copious amount of applicants and after rigourous interviewing, one is selected to be the hottie of the month.

Name: Delfina Cabrera (not real, of course)

H:describe the perfect guy for you.
D:LOL alright... starting from head to toe =P
"cool" hair (black with highlights and weird, yet cool stuff), glasses!!!!! =P, biggggggggg smile, not a giraffe neck, broad shoulders, muscles..harhar.., abs baby, boxers, low-riser (but not too low), doesn't wear short shorts, or pants that are too small for him and wears FAT shoes

H:what do you think of shoelaces?
D:hmmm, well...they're quite useless.

H:how about ice cream?
D:hummm, they're delicious. especially mint chocolate ice cream with bananas. *droooooools* however, FATTENING!!!

H:mm... fat. which body part on everyone is generally too fat?
D:the errr...stomach? or whatever that part is called.

H:if you could give that part a name, what would you call it instead?
D:ummmm... blubber? lol

H:cool. thanks for the interview.
D:anytime.

vulcan logic

the main objective of any bathroom visit is minimizing the time spent in such a visit. the main deterant of achieving this objective is 'splash'. splash is caused by a force that displaces a fluid medium in diverse directions and it adds precious seconds to your bathroom visit time by a) splashing all over your pants, and b) splashing all over everything else. b is not that much of a problem if you have no bathroom etiquette, but a is an unfun situation that you will wish to rectify before exiting the bathroom.

splash is a function of distance, incident angle and ratio of the splash indices of the two media, water/urine and procelain. the index of splash of water/urine on water/urine is effectively one. the splash index of water porcelain is approximately zero. thus, to minimize splash, one need only strike porcelain, rather than water.

can that not be done standing? initially, yes. however, the horizontal component of the distance achieved is a decreasing function of the force of fluid pressure in the bladder. more plainly stated, is that the distance between you and the moment of incidence decreases quite quickly. to maintain the incident point (or splash point) at the strategic position of porcelain, one must move forward to decrease the distance between the initial position (d = 0) and splash point (d = f(p)) at the same rate of force/pressure decrease.

couldn't you just calculate the perfect angle to strike the water in which the subsequent splash is limited to the confines of the bowl? that angle is 0 degrees, directly above the bowl. any splashing that occurs will be directly upward with little to no lateral splashing.

therefore, the way to minimize splash is to assume a seated posture. initial release will strike the porcelain, nullifying any splash. in the latter portion of said release, when fluid pressure is near zero and the distance/force is minimal, the incident angle will be approximately zero, thus rendering further extrabowlular splashing to zero. furthermore, the seal formed by the buttocks and thighs will intercept any stray, stubborn droplets that cared to defy the laws of toilet physics.

efficiency is intelligent laziness
david dunham