Boring Baby Video

Blizzard Time Again

Grace Pilar Roberts

Grace Pilar Roberts
5lbs 9oz
19.25 inches long
Born on 9/27/2008 at 12:34 AM

Nature, red in tooth and claw

Last week in my backyard:

CFL

There was an interesting discussion in Owen's comboxes a week or so ago that touched now and again on the use of CFL bulbs. I admit to being swept up by CFL fever until quite recently and at one point almost all bulbs in my mountain fastness were CFL. To their credit, I did see a significant savings, both in my electric bill and in the cost and frequency of replacements.

Then my wife got pregnant.

One day a few weeks after we learned this, I was putting a CFL bulb into a new lamp. Klutz that I am, I could not manage to hold a bulb, a lampshade and balance on a step ladder at the same time. As I swept up the shattered bits of glass that just moments ago were a 6 dollar lbulb, I recalled something I'd read on slashdot about cleaning up the home after a CFL breaks. You can read these articles here and here... as you can see, cleaning up after a breakage is no joke: Carpet removal, throwing away clothes and bedding, etc.

So, no more CFL bulbs for me or mine.

Claim Jumpers!

Apologies for the extended absence. Two weeks in Kansas City along with some visiting relatives have made my already infrequent bloggings even more rare.

Since getting back to the Black Hills, I've been playing catch-up with all my summertime hobbies, including gold prospecting. I don't claim to be any good at it, but I can tell you that there are few things as thrilling as finding a bunch of gold flakes at the bottom of your pan (especially when gold is over $1k an oz!).

For the last week or so, my buddies and I have been panning at Potato Creek (where Potato Creek Johnny made his great find) with good results... even our amateurish efforts yielded gold flakes in every pan. Apparently, our efforts did not go unnoticed, because a local mining operation filed placer claims up and down the creek last weekend. We have only ourselves to blame, I suppose... it only costs $150 bucks and some paperwork to file a claim and we certainly could have done so.

Ghost Towns

Recent posts by Fr. Greg and Owen have set my mind to wandering and thinking about my beloved, abandoned Dakotas. Abandoned mining camps, forgotten towns and the ruins of earlier greatness litter the landscape like Ramen Noodle packages litter the floor of a college dorm room. Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are gone, never to return. The Sioux stay on their reservations. Custer is dead in ignominy.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I made the 60 mile trip to Rapid City to do some shopping. Like a meth addict to the lab, I was drawn to the local big box book store. In the "Local Interest" section near the entrance was a coffee table book on the ghost towns of the Black Hills. I opened it and was surprised to find my own town listed.

When I was a little boy, my answer to the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" varied between two poles: Pavement Worker and Farmer. The joke is that, while we teach our children the joys of agrarian life through song ("Old MacDonald", "The Farmer in the dell", etc), this is not a life most children could choose even if they wanted to. Sure, they can attend any of our nations fine agricultural colleges, but where the hell are they going to get the farm? The sad truth is that, if your parents weren't farmers, you aren't going to be a farmer. I can take solace in the fact that pavement work is still within my grasp.

Can the clock be turned back?

Tornadoes

I've made the drive from Lead, SD, to Denver, CO, many times. I've got a million pictures of antelope playing, rainbows over the plains and ghost towns taken during the six hour drive. It figures... the one time I decide not to bring the camera, I see something worth taking a picture of.

My wife and I drove down to Denver on Friday to do some shopping in preparation for the arrival of our first child (there is not a Babies-R-Us within 500 miles of us). We were cautiously driving, through torrential down pours and hail, down I-25 around Wheatland, WY, when we noticed what appeared to be a large funnel cloud far to the west. Turns out it was one of the many tornadoes during this weekend's outbreak.

Tatanka

My wife and I drove down to Custer State Park this weekend, hoping to see some mountain goats. They were nowhere to be found, but we did see some antelope as well as several of the herds of free range buffalo.

Baby Girl

Man vs. Trout

Here I am with a smallish Rainbow Trout, caught last month on Crow Creek.



Here I am with an even smaller Brown Trout:

Spring Time in South Dakota

Wednesday night it began to rain. This is what it looked like by Friday afternoon:

UPDATE: The official tally is that we got 32 inches. However, I went out with a measure and consistently found depths of at least 40 inches and in many places it was well over 4 feet.

Triumph In Spearfish Canyon!

I struck out last week, but this afternoon I finally pulled my first trout of Spearfish Creek. It was a harrowing experience... I sunk waist deep in mud at one point and began to wonder if I would be able to get out. At another point I could barely make headway against the current and had to pull myself forward inch by inch. But at last I found a nice deep pool in the creek and I could see my adversaries at the bottom. Using a Copper John tied by my friend Patrick, I caught two brown trout (about 8 to 10 inches each) casting across the creek and slightly up stream. I had a couple of close calls with overhanging branches, but managed to get unsnagged each time without scaring off the fish.

The only disappointment of the day was that the flies I tied myself were not successful. Two were lost in the trees and one began to unravel... better luck next time!

Self Consciousness

One morning after Matins at Holy Resurrection Monastery, where I was once a novice, one of the monks looked at me said "Dear Br. Spyridon (for that was my monastic name), the one thing you need but can never have is a Catholic childhood!"

He said this because he had seen in me (a very recent convert to the True Church (TM)), from the moment I showed up, an awkwardness in my religion. Over the next two years he would do his best to give me the Catholic childhood I had missed. Using his unique spiritual gifts (discouragement and sarcasm), a vigorous reading program (the Sword of Honor trilogy, The Land of Spices, Speak Memory, to name but a few) and, well hidden beneath his crusty exterior, a generous amount of love and prayers, he attempted to transmute a convert still damp with the oil of chrism into a cradle Catholic.

Sadly, he was never entirely successful. I still feel self conscious when making the sign of the cross. I still don't know what to buy someone on the occasion of their first communion. Unlike the residents of Santa Dulcina delle Rocce, "... to whom the supernatural order in all its ramifications was ever present and ever more lively than the humdrum world about them...", for the me the supernatural order and clouds of witnesses are something I read about but rarely feel comfortable enough to treat as a reality.

My fervent prayer is that someday before I die I will be able to walk into a church and not wonder what the hell I am doing there.

More Fish Stories

I went fishing again yesterday after work. I first tried close to home, on White Tail Creek which runs through the Kirk Valley below my home. It is a pretty narrow stream at most places and those places where it widens up a bit have a lot of overhanging trees, so I wasn't able to do much in the way of angling.

So, I motored down Highway 85 a couple of miles to Spearfish Canyon and, after nearly getting the RAV4 stuck in about a foot and a half of snow on one side road, found a place to try my hand. My reading on fishing in the canyon indicated that dry flies were often successful, so I tied one on and started working my way up Spearfish Creek. The water moves pretty fast where I was so I was doing a lot of casting, but alas, no luck. I lost one fly due to a poor knot. Better luck next time!

Fishing on Saturday

Saturday, the first decent day of spring, found me out on Crow Creek with Jon and Patrick as we tried out our new fly fishing skills. I'd spent several hours last week standing in the middle of the street practicing my casting, but I was still nervous and convinced that I'd spend more time untangling my line from over hanging branches than fishing.

Jon and I started out at a wide pool at a bend in the creek. We were both fishing with a Hare's Ear, a wet fly tied by Jon himself, and it was clearly a great choice since we both caught fish within the first 5 minutes. Jon caught a smallish brown trout and I got an even smaller rainbow. Casting, at Crow Creek anyway, was easier than expected since the creek was pretty wide, there weren't a lot of overhanging branches and the brush hasn't really started to grow in yet. I only got hung up a couple of times and only one of those resulted in the loss of a fly.

We stayed out for about 5 hours and had lots of luck. Jon and I caught 4 or 5 each, while Patrick got 10 or so. Jon and Patrick each caught one fish of a size worth keeping (though we released all we caught), while mine were a little too small to fillet. We knocked off about 3:30 and headed to Sanford's for some much deserved beer! Below is a picture of Jon with one of his smaller conquests. More pics to follow!

My First Meme

The Rules:

a)The rules of the game are posted at the beginning
b)The blogger who gets tagged must answer the following questions about himself
c)After this has been accomplished, the blogger tags five more to answer the meme, and leaves a comment at their blog to answer it

1) What I was doing ten years ago: Working as a computer programmer for Meditech.

2) Five things on my to-do list:

• Clean the garage
• Figure out how to assemble my new fly fishing rod/reel.
• Finish playing Field Commander: Rommel.
• Put a patio in my backyard.
• Call a plumber about installing an spigot near the garage.
  

3) Things I would do if I were a billonaire:

• Buy a bigger house. Or maybe an entire subdivision of bigger houses.
  
• Buy my wife a car with all wheel drive. Or maybe a fleet of cars with all wheel drive.
  

4) Three bad habits:

• Laziness
• Nail biting
• Compulsive book buying
  

5) Five places I have visited:

• Nogales, Mexico
• Bastogne
• Wall Drug, SD
• The Cosmos Mystery Area
• Devil's Tower
  

6) Five jobs I’ve had:

• Combat Field Medical Specialist, U.S. Army
• Phlebotomist
• Deli Clerk
• Pizza Delivery Driver
• Computer Programmer
  

7) Five snacks I enjoy:

• Sour Gummy Worms - the best can be found at Wall Drug in Wall, SD.
• Anything Jerky
• Almonds
• Hot-n-Spicy Chex Mix
• Dried Figs

Five places I’ve lived:

• Greensboro, NC
• Longmeadow, MA
• Karlsruhe, Germany
• Newberry Springs, CA
• Kansas City, MO

Game Night

Last night I made the 40 mile journey to Beulah, WY, for my bi-monthly game night with Mike and Theresa. On the table this time was the highly anticipated Descent: Road to Legends. An expansion to base game Descent, Road to Legends adds a campaign setting to the game and the ability to continue your adventures over the many weeks it will take to complete it without having to leave this component heavy game set up on the kitchen table. After setting up and equipping our adventurers, we cleared one level of a nearby dungeon, then called it quits for the night. Though a bit too "dungeons and dragony", it was good fun.

Next, we played Through the Ages, a abstract Civilization-esque game. It is a neat game with elegant mechanics and a surprisingly quick pace. My only complaint is that it uses tons of these little wooden bits to track resources, population and other things and my clumsy fingers had a hard time manipulating them. Anyway, the object of the game is to produce more culture than the surrounding civilizations. This can be done in a variety of ways: science, art, religion, etc. Naturally, I went the religion route, adopting the Theocracy government type as soon as it showed up and plugged significant resources into my religion structures. Happily, I won by a wide margin.

All and all, a good time!

Baby

1052

Owen's recent post on St. David of Wales sent me on a trip down memory lane. It was a bit of a relief, honestly. I'm recovering from a bout with pneumonia (which I spent half the week thinking was flu), so a diversion to a more pleasant time is welcome.

As I've written elsewhere, I was once a novice in a small Eastern Catholic monastery in the Mojave Desert. To attempt to support itself, the monastery opened a bakery 75 miles away in the mountain resort town of Big Bear, California. For the first year of this adventure, a small house was rented in Big Bear and the monks assigned to the bakery (of which I was one) would live in this metochion during the week, baking bread and (in theory) living the same liturgical life they would have in the desert. What nobody realized at the time was that, in a bakery operation that ran 18 to 20 hours a day, the full liturgical life of a byzantine monastery was just not going to fit in. It's not as if you can say to the 50 lbs of dough you just took out of the mixer to just "hold it right there... I'll be back in an hour after Vespers!"

We faced other challenges to our liturgical life, one of which was a paucity of liturgical materials brought on by poverty. The monastery, of course, had the full complement of the St. John of Krondstadt Press Menaion (complete with hilarious mis-translations, absurd renderings into what translators thought was Elizabethan English and strident reminders about copyright laws and the pains of hell that awaited those who violated them on each and every page of this 12 volume set). In the metochion, we were not so fortunate. We had a three ring binder filled with printouts from Fr. Ephraim Lash's fine web-site and that was about it.

Another resource that I'd located on the internet was a free computer program called "Menologion", which had the troparia and kondakia for the whole Byzantine Calendar. This meant that we didn't have to use the generic "Office for a Heiromartyr" or the even more exciting "Office for two or more Heiromartyrs". The only weird thing was that the Menologion computer program, written by some guy in the U.K., included verses for every pre-schism saint in the British Ilse. Though certain of the brethren bridled at trying to mellifluously sing the praises of Kentigern Mungo, whose light apparently shone in Strathclyde like a beacon, I myself never really minded.

We'd, of course, been in stranger liturgical situations at the monastery, such as at the feast of St. Alexis Toth or St. Mark of Ephesus (when I asked the cynical but liturgically expert Br. James why we were celebrating the feast of St. Alexis Toth, he replied that the saint's great virtue was modesty because he'd kept all his other virtues secret). Yet I did find it curious that, at least in the eyes of the authors of Byzantine liturgical verses, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland had once been holy places, filled with holy men and women, until January 1st, 1052 AD at 12:00 AM exactly, when the Holy Spirit, "moving mysteriously it's wonders to perform", suddenly shot across the English Channel on a course straight for Eastern Europe, never to be seen in those parts again.

But things aren't always as simple as what shows up in your Menaion or your missal or whatever book your church gives you. Ask the Coptic Orthodox with a devotion Padre Pio or the followers of some Mexican folk saint. Or, for that matter, the Greek Catholic monks who sang the praises of Alexis Toth, who shone forth from Wilkes-Barre like a beacon of Orthodoxy in America.

How I Won the Cold War

I served in the U.S. Army during the last years of the Cold War... I was stationed in Germany from 1989 to 1991, where I served as medic in the 7th Medical Command. Here's my Cold War story:

The week after REFORGER (a large annual military exercise in Europe during the Cold War, simulating a Soviet invasion of Germany) in 1990 (or was it 89?), I was driving an ambulance from Landstuhl to Karlsruhe. The highway was clogged with military convoys and I pulled off at a rest stop to use the restroom. I pulled in behind a small blue Opel and noticed that it had an strangely familiar license plate. Realizing where I'd seen it before, I jumped out of the ambulance and fumbled for my wallet... there, behind my 1k Zone card, Code of Conduct card and military id was my SMLM card.

SMLM's, or Soviet Military Liaison Missions, were Soviet Military observers who were allowed to observe military forces in West Germany. However, there were certain circumstances where NATO forces could detain them. U.S. Army forces were required to carry a helpful card in their wallet that identified the SMLM license plate, who to call if you saw one and described the circumstances in which they needed to be detained. As fate would have it, one of the circumstances was close proximity to military exercises (but not, as you will see on the SMLM card, on the autobahn).

As I stood in stunned silence trying to figure out I if I should try to detain him and if so, how, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Emerging from the restroom, was a smallish fellow in strange combat fatigues. Our eyes met. He saw me fumbling around with my SMLM card, staring dumbstruck at his license plate. Effortlessly lighting a cigarette, he walked briskly past me and got into his vehicle, no doubt speeding off to report to his overlords. I was left with nothing to do but phone military intelligence (their number was on the back of the SMLM card) and report his plate number.

Less than a year later, the Berlin Wall fell. Coincidence?

Pink Sky at Night

I walked out the front door, just in time to confront an entire sky that looked like the photo above. I raced back up 2 flights of stairs to get my camera, only to find the telephoto lens was on. I didn't have time to change lenses since the pinkish/purplish light was fading by the second, so I was only able get a few close-ups. Not much visual interest... I really wanted to get the clouds and the hill line in the frame or maybe the hoist tower of the Yates Shaft from the nearby Homestake Mine.

Slashdot on the Pope

Working in information technology, I make it a point to visit slashdot, a technology news site, a couple of times a day. The subjects covered on this site are many and varied and the same can be said of the user comments attending each news item. Today, they linked to this story, in which the Pope spoke on various bio-ethical issues. Hilarity ensued. My favorite comment was this:

"First lets deal with the ridiculous: An institution whose authorities have never experienced marriage and procreation presents itself as an authority on marriage and procreation."

You could say the same of a lot of scientists and slashdot readers.

Backgammon

My father-in-law is a backgammon fiend. Having learned the game from him this past Thanksgiving, I was eager to play with my wife as well. I surprised to find that she did not know how, but I soon understood. I am myself the son of a highly competitive (he accused me of cheating at Candy Land when I was six) bridge player (it occupies almost all of free time), and despite the fact that my entire family plays, I do not. Fathers, it seems, often have difficulty passing on their passions.

After much cajoling, I convinced my wife to give backgammon a try. The rules were easily explained and before I knew it, we were off! Our first game was fairly bloodless... between her natural caution and my reluctance to ruin the game for her, no blots were sent to the bar and we both began bearing off at the same time. Fortune favored the cautious, apparently, because she won while I still had 5 checkers on the board.

Our next game was almost as bloodless... timidity was our by-word, but I did manage to swat one of her blots and keep it off the board for a couple of dice rolls. We both began bearing off at roughly the same time, but I'd had an extra turn or so to position my checkers in my home quadrant and, aided by some good rolling, managed to carry the day.

By this time it was late and time for bed, but I was pleased to see that she'd enjoyed the game and was looking forward to playing again!

On a side note, we'd been playing on a backgammon set I'd gotten for Christmas. It was a wooden set from Amazon that I thought would be nice. Sadly, however, the checkers are quite insubstantial and both die rolls and board jostling send the careening about like crazy. My father has a set that is fabric with leather pips, with stone checkers... I'd like to shoot for something like that.

Game Night: 221-B Baker Street

My wife absolutely adores Sherlock Holmes and this game is a particular favorite of hers. Even though I quite enjoy it, I am often loathe to play it because the game has limited shelf life, at least in terms of the number of cases available to solve.

She overcame my reluctance last night, however, and we tackled the case of the murdered inventor. We both "rolled and moved" about London and as we did, it occurred to me that, at least in two player games, starting with one each of the Scotland Yard and Skeleton Key cards is less than interesting. Because your opponent already has a Skeleton Key card, there is little incentive to place a Scotland Yard card... your opponent will, with a faint smile upon her lips, simply breeze through it as if it weren't there. You then laugh mirthlessly as you realize that you must go back to Scotland Yard if you want to try blocking another location. Why bother, you ask yourself, since your opponent will surely have the mystery solved by the time you get it. It might be an interesting variant in two player games to start off with 1 Scotland Yard card and no Skeleton Key. Or perhaps skip the cards all together.

But the game was afoot... I had scarcely entered my 4th location when I noticed that my wife was headed back to 221-B Baker Street. Good God, had she solved the case already? In fact she had, in just 4 clues!

In the post game discussion, she said that she'd taken a page out of Holmes' book and been bold with her accusations... often, in "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective" we'd spend hours looking for proof beyond a reasonable doubt... a signed confession, a self published book by the murderer entitled "How I Did It", etc. Anybody who's read Holmes, however, knows that he will trot out the old j'accuse on the slightest scrap of evidence. Her boldness also paid off, it seems, because she had it all: motive, weapon and killer. Drat!

For Pete's sake

If you feel like risking your sanity, read this article by the Ochlophobist. Owen writes:

But then again, one might begin to make suggestions that the bourgeoisie in the West have embraced baroque and folk Catholic art as perfectly acceptable. My boss, a wealthy white male who is an agnostic that reads Zen literature, keeps a poster of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the office restroom at work.

Could not the same argument be made about Byzantine Iconography?