June 21, 2022

Today at 09:13 Universal Time (5:13 am EDT) the Sun was directly above the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere, marking the summer solstice.  I have written several times about the winter solstice, but never about the opposite event that occurs in the summer.  Since prehistory, the summer solstice has been seen as a significant time of year in many cultures marked by festivals and rituals.  Traditionally, in many temperate regions (especially Europe), the summer solstice is seen as the middle of summer and referred to as “midsummer”.  In some countries and calendars today, it is seen as the beginning of summer.  While midsummer celebrations exist around the world, in the US they are largely derived from the cultures of European immigrants who arrived since the 19th century.

When I looked online, I found the summer solstice, also known as estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun.  This event happens twice a year, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern).  At summer solstice the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky and is the day with the longest period of daylight.  In the Arctic circle (northern hemisphere) or Antarctic circle (southern hemisphere), there is continuous daylight around the summer solstice.  The date shifts of the calendar but occurs sometime between June 20 and June 22 in the Northern Hemisphere and between December 20 and December 23 in the Southern Hemisphere.  The same dates in the opposite hemisphere are referred to as the winter solstice.  Celebration of midsummer in the Arctic now centers around the 24-hour presence of the Sun.  In Sweden, the Midsummer is such an important festivity that there have been proposals to make the Midsummer’s Eve the National Day of Sweden, instead of June 6.  In Fairbanks, Alaska, the Midnight Sun Game is an annual tradition where a regulation game of baseball is played at 10:30 pm local time and through the midnight hour with no artificial lighting.

As the longest day of the year and the first day of meteorological summer in the northern hemisphere, midsummer is most famously marker by early-risers at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, UK.  Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records and many aspects of Stonehenge (how built and why) remain subject to debate.  The great trilithon at the site the encompasses the horseshoe arrangement of the five central trilithons, the heel stone, and the embanked avenue.  These are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice.  Proposed functions for the site include usage as an astronomical observatory or as a religious site.  Recent theories speculate this was a place of healing, although they concede the site was probably multifunctional and used for ancestor worship.  Whatever religious, mystical, or spiritual elements were central to Stonehenge, the design includes a celestial observatory which might have allowed prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox, and other celestial events important to a contemporary religion.

THOUGHTS:  Midsummer is marked most famously by early-risers at Stonehenge where the event is known as Midsummer’s Eve.  The 5,000-year-old Neolithic monument is famed for its alignment with the midsummer sunrise and this year saw about 6,000 people at the monument to witness the sunrise for the first since the pandemic began.  The revelers got a bonus in the form of a rare planetary alignment.  In the east before the sunrise a First Quarter Moon shone close to Jupiter while all five naked-eye planets in the solar system were visible.  If this is the reaction in our day of science and telescopes, I can only imagine the wonder experienced by the Neolithic gatherers.  Perhaps a quote from Michel Legrand, a French composer and musician, says it best, “The more I live, the more I learn.  The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”  C’est la vie!  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 20, 2022

One of the opinions on the NY Times Morning feed spoke of a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate to protect endangered species.  US Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced the Rescuing Animals With Rewards (RAWR) Act passed the Senate unanimously.  This bipartisan bill would help protect endangered animals by combatting wildlife trafficking and poaching.  Specifically, RAWR would authorize the State Department to offer financial rewards for information that leads to the disruption of wildlife trafficking networks.  Senator Collins called wildlife trafficking a “transnational crime that requires a coordinated and sustained global effort.”  The RAWR allows the State Department to offer rewards for information about wildlife traffickers.  Senator Merkley added, “When wildlife traffickers, poachers, and profiteers kill magnificent animals like elephants, giraffes, and rhinos, they risk causing irreparable destruction to critical ecosystems and rob the world of a piece of our humanity and shared history on this planet.”   

When I looked online, I found wildlife trafficking is the second-greatest threat to the survival of species around the globe.  The billion-dollar wildlife trade leads to the overexploitation of species to the point of extinctions, while providing an avenue for criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations to profit from an elusive market.  RAWR would enable the State Department to tackle the threat to both animal species and security around the world.  The act is supported by a wide range of environmental and animal welfare groups, including the International Fund for Animal Welfare, National Whistleblower Center, Humane Society Legislative Fund, Humane Society International, NRDC, African Wildlife Foundation, the Environmental Investigation Agency, Wildlife Conservation Society, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, World Wildlife Fund, the Animal Welfare Institute, and the Oregon Zoo.  The act was bipartisan, multi-national, and found support of zoos and wildlife federations.  This was a rare win/win.

The bill had already passed the US House of Representatives when they voted 231 to 190 to pass the bipartisan bill to conserve wildlife on Tuesday.  RAWR will send $1.3 billion each year to states, territories, and tribal wildlife management agencies.  Fifteen percent of that money would be earmarked for protecting 1,673 species already listed as threatened or endangered, while the rest could be spent on protecting thousands of other species the states say are in jeopardy.  The legislation comes at a time of increasing concern over the decline of global biodiversity.  According to a landmark report released by the United Nations in 2019, climate change, pollution, human encroachment, and other factors threaten an “unprecedented” 1 million species with extinction.  Scientists warn that losing so many species could cause irreparable damage to ecosystems, climate stability, food security, and human health.  In the US, Fish and Wildlife Service data say saving all federally listed threatened and endangered species would cost $1.6 to $2.3 billion every year, or more than funds allocated by the Endangered Species Act.

THOUGHTS:  While RAWR is an important step in protecting endangered wildlife, congress is close to passing another bipartisan bill meant to protect human life.  According to Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa), the compromise gun control bill crafted by 10 Republicans and several Democrats is “more likely than not” to pass the Senate.  The plan would fund school safety and trauma programs, make for more rigorous background checks for buyers under 21, and add convicted domestic abusers and people under restraining orders to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.  This will help states create or enforce “red-flag” laws to authorize removing guns from those who pose a risk to others or themselves.  The bill is something Congress has not done since the 1990’s.  Laws to protect people should be as important as laws to protect wildlife.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 18, 2022

I mentioned earlier that tomorrow is Father’s Day.  Melissa and I beat the crowd and went out on Thursday to celebrate the occasion.  The weekend got even better when a package arrived from my son and his family on Friday.  I had gotten notice it was coming but Melissa had not.  Since she routinely receives packages of succulents from her suppliers, she assumed the package was for her and opened it.  When she brought it into my office, she mentioned that it was still wrapped, and she had left it in the box.  She cautioned me not to open it until Sunday and even checked today to make sure I had not opened it early.  I guess I can open it tomorrow while I am outside grilling.

When I looked online, I found Father’s Day was first celebrated in Spokane, Washington on June 19, 1910.  This celebration was sparked by Sonora Smart Dodd in honor of her father.  William Jackson Smart was an American Civil War veteran and a single parent who raised his six children in Spokane.  Dodd heard a sermon about Anna Jarvis’s Mother’s Day at Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909 and told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them.  She initially suggested June 5 as this was her father’s birthday, but the pastors of the Spokane Ministerial Alliance did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June.  Seems to me you need to come up with a different sermon every week.  It makes me wonder how much time the pastors needed to prepare.

The Father’s Day idea did not meet with as much success as Mother’s Day.  In the 1920’s Dodd stopped promoting the celebration while attending the Art Institute of Chicago and the day faded into obscurity.  Dodd returned to Spokane in the 1930’s and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness to a national level.  She received help from the trade groups that would benefit from the holiday, like makers of ties and tobacco pipes.  Then in 1938 she began to receive help from the Father’s Day Council, a group founded by the New York Associated Men’s Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the promotion commercially.  Americans still resisted the holiday and saw it as an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother’s Day.  Newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes about the day.  The trade groups did not give up and even incorporated the jokes into their ads.  The advertisers eventually succeeded and by the mid-1980’s the Father’s Council wrote that ” [Father’s Day] has become a Second Christmas for all the men’s gift-oriented industries.”  It seems the papers were right.  While Dodd sought to honor her father’s memory the retailers were more into making a buck.

THOUGHTS:  Father’s Day had just as hard of a time in Congress after the first bill was introduced in 1913.  In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father’s Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress feared it would become commercialized.  In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended the day be observed by the nation but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation.  It was not until 1966 that President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers and designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day.  The day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.  I still think it is an excuse to sell ties and make dads grill outside in the heat.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 17, 2022

This coming weekend is Father’s Day.  While moms traditionally get breakfast in bed on their day, fathers grill outside.  I assume this was intended to give each of them a break from their usual routine, although changing lifestyles no longer necessarily support these roles.  Families will often generally go out to a restaurant for mom’s and father’s days and save the toil for both.  Since restaurants are usually packed on Sundays, Melissa suggested we go out to celebrate last night instead.  She told me to choose “any place I would like.”  She also knows I am lax when it comes to making these suggestions, so she began to look as well.  Interestingly, we both hit on the same restaurant.  One of our favorite oyster bars was having a ninth anniversary celebration and was running a crab boil special for the evening.  We decided to go.

When I looked online, I found crab boil is a spice mixture that is used to flavor the water in which crabs or other shellfish are boiled.  A crab boil is also a social event where boiled crabs are eaten, a kind of seafood boil.  Crab boils are known in the Ville Platte areas of Louisiana as “dome lobster boils,” which comes from the local term “dome lobster” for crabs.  The name derives from the shape and composition of crabs and their likeness to a domed lobster.  The largest of these gatherings is the Crayon d’Orange festival (French for ‘Orange Pencil’) in Evangeline Parish.  There are notable variations to the type of boil used.  Boiled seafood in southern Louisiana tends to be spicier than found in other parts of the country and uses Zatarain’s.  Maryland crabs are prepared by seasoning generously with Chesapeake Bay crab seasoning such as Old Bay and then steaming over, not in, vinegared water (often, beer is added to the steaming water).  The Lowcountry boil, Tidewater boil, and Frogmore Stew are variations on the same theme in North and South Carolina.  Here, recipes may go in either a Louisiana or Maryland direction.  Other regional crab boil companies are Tony Chachere’s, and Rex Crab Boil, and some chefs make their own boil.  Most shrimp and crawfish recipes also call for added crab boil as a seasoning.

We arrived at the restaurant early as it is always packed and knowing it would be even more so given the anniversary.  We were one of only a few who had arrived to eat, although the bar was completely full of revelers.  As we thought, the place was packed by the time we finished.  The crab boil was not on the menu, but when we asked about it the waitress told us it would easily feed the two of us.  We ordered raw oysters for an appetizer and went with the boil for the entrée.  When the massive tray arrived, we found it was a seafood boil set up for three.  There were three half lobster tails and three half snow crabs to go with the pile of shrimp, mussels, andouille sausage, potatoes, corn, and garlic bread.  We ate our fill and still took home two to go boxes.  It was a happy early Father’s Day.

THOUGHTS:  When we moved to Melissa’s house in Arkansas, I came down several weeks early to prep the house for her arrival.  One of my tasks was to clear out the cabinets and get rid of the duplicate items to make room for our cookware.   Melissa’s dad had lived in her house before moving to a care facility and had become forgetful.  He would often buy duplicates of items when he forgot where he had put them, and that was especially true for spices.  When I cleaned out the spice shelves, I found four cans of Old Bay crab boil stashed in different places.  That added to the one we already had.  Variations apply regionally for food, culture, and language.  While a dish may not taste “like mom made it”, the variation can provide variety.  The same it true with culture.  Different does not imply better or worse, it means different.  Since moving south I have found I do like grits, but I still draw the line at okra.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 15, 2022

Several friends (and a mom) have extolled the virtue of having a good breakfast.  Breakfast is referred to as the “most important meal of the day,” and its proponents say with good reason.  Breakfast breaks the nighttime fast, replenishes your glucose stores to increase energy levels and alertness, and provides essential nutrients for good health.  On the other hand, I have always felt that no matter when I eat my first meal of the day, if it “breaks the fast” it is by definition “breakfast”.  Over the last 2 ½ years I have tried to follow intermittent fasting.  My definition for this fast was restricting food intake except between the hours of lunch (12:00 pm) and supper (8:00 pm).  While I have been good at sticking to this routine, I have been known to treat myself to the occasional breakfast.

When I looked online, I found intermittent fasting is any of various meal timing schedules that cycle between voluntary fasting (or reduced calorie intake) and non-fasting over a given period.  That includes alternate-day fasting, periodic fasting, and daily time-restricted feeding (like skipping breakfast hours).  In the 21st century this fast has been studied as a practice to reduce the risk of diet-related diseases, such as metabolic syndrome.  The American Heart Association states that intermittent fasting may produce weight loss, reduce insulin resistance, and lower the risk of cardiometabolic diseases, although its long-term sustainability is unknown.  A 2019 review concluded that intermittent fasting may help with obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and inflammation.  A 2022 review indicated intermittent fasting is generally safe, but adverse effects have not been comprehensively studied, leading some to call the fast a dietary fad.  The US National Institute on Aging states there is insufficient evidence to advise intermittent fasting and encourages speaking to one’s healthcare provider before making any significant changes to your eating pattern.

Melissa and I are planning a trip this fall and we decided to establish healthy patterns of diet and exercise.  While I have observed a breakfast fast, this is not possible for Melissa given her daily medication.  Today seemed like the perfect time to start a habit that included that “most important meal of the day.”  Several friends (and my son) have touted the variety of smoothies they drink as a breakfast substitute.  I have occasionally made smoothies and had a rough idea what went into this super drink.  Melissa purchased some additives that were recommended by a friend, we had frozen fruit in the freezer, and I bought bananas and plain Greek yogurt from the store.  Melissa warned me to not make it runny, so I use the frozen fruit and yogurt for thickening.  Smoothies are usually thick, creamy beverages blended from puréed fruits, vegetables, juices, yogurt, nuts, seeds, and milk.  Many include frozen produce or ice cubes to give the final product the cool, icy consistency of a milkshake.  The flavor varies tremendously depending on the ingredients.  The result I achieved was a glass of green gunk that tasted like yogurt mixed with whey.  I think I will try a different recipe for breakfast tomorrow.

THOUGHTS:  I tend to eat breakfast fare no matter what time of day when I am traveling.  My logic is the simplicity of the ingredients (meat, eggs, toast) usually found in this meal are hard to screw up.  One of my favorite road meals is chicken fried steak, but again the breakfast version (hashbrowns, chicken fry, eggs, and gravy).  During the school year over 14 million children in the US receive breakfast, but this appears to be underutilized.  There are 22 million kids who eat free or reduced-priced lunch at school, but only 12 million eat free or reduced-price breakfast.  Mornings can be a busy time for families and getting the child to school for breakfast can be challenging.  One solution is breakfast served as part of the school day, just like lunch.  No Kid Hungry has outlined successful state-level school breakfast initiatives, along with policy changes for states and localities.  We only need to implement them.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 14, 2022

This time last year I mentioned how the Arkansas Razorbacks baseball team has been dubbed the OmaHogs for their ability to get to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.  I have held off writing about Arkansas’ baseball team this year due to their up and down season.  Last year’s team set the bar high as they lead the country in home runs while winning more than 50 games and the SEC Tournament championship.  The team edged out Nebraska in the Regional and then hosted North Carolina State in the Fayetteville Regional.  After crushing the Wolfpack 21-2 in the first game, the Hogs went on to lose the next two, ending their season.  This year started with high hopes and impressive results, then the team seemed to collapse at the end of the year, losing both their last two SEC series and getting blanked in the SEC Tournament.  Another trip to the World Series seemed a distant prospect for the OmaHogs.

While the Omahogs were floundering Arkansas women’s softball was on fire. The LadyBacks ended with the best season in program history.  The Razorbacks clinched back-to-back SEC regular season championships, including the program’s first outright title, along with their first SEC Tournament crown.  Along the way the Hogs captured the most wins in single season program history (48) highlighted by an impressive 19-5 record in conference play.  KB Sides was the first Hog ever to be named SEC Player of the Year, Chenise Delce became the second-straight Hog to be named SEC Pitcher of the Year (Mary Haff earned that honor in 2021), and head coach Courtney Deifel became only the second coach to be named SEC Coach of the Year in back-to-back years.  Arkansas hosted the Regional beating out Oregon and recorded their first ever win over Texas in the first game of the Fayetteville Super Regional before dropping the next two to end their run to Oklahoma City.

In his 20 years as Arkansas’ head coach, Dave Van Horn knows the postseason is a different game.  Last year’s team entered as the No. 1 overall seed but fell short in the super regionals.  This year’s team traveled to both the Regional (Oklahoma State, Stillwater) and the Super Regional (North Carolina, Chapel Hill).  The Razorbacks earned a 4-1 victory in the opening game of the Super Regional series, but the second game started dicey.  The first pitch was thrown at 12:06 pm CT, then stopped for a weather delay at 12:44 pm after two scoreless innings.  The game continued at 2:30 pm, and the Razorbacks struck first with a pair of runs in the fourth and fifth innings.  UNC answered with two runs in the seventh to tie the score before the second weather delay at 4:24 pm.  When the game resumed, Patrick Alvarez scored the go-ahead run for UNC with a two-out single to center field.  Brady Slavens then had a walk-off single through the right side as the Hogs scored two runs in the ninth to complete their first comeback victory of the season.  The OmaHogs are going back to Omaha.

THOUGHTS:  On Sunday an Arkansas baseball fan seated behind the Razorbacks’ dugout snuck a sign into North Carolina’s Boshamer Stadium that read: Omahog.  The sign was taken by UNC personnel in the top of the second inning, but the Razorbacks went on to complete the sweep over the Tar Heels.  This is the third College World Series in four years and the seventh time Van Horn has taken the Omahogs to the College World Series.  When asked about his success, Van Horne said, “What never gets old is the satisfaction and smiles on the players’ faces.  It’s something they’ll never forget.  That’s probably what I enjoy the most now.”  In a year focused on NIL (name, image, likeness) deals, it is nice to have a different focus.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 13, 2022

Melissa has been giving Zena several different treats to see it there is one she likes that will last more than a few minutes.  We used chicken jerky as the special treat when we had Bella and she loved it.  She would grab her treat and carry it around the house until she found just the right spot to eat.  We even got to the point where we would often give her half a jerky treat and she would munch on it happily for ten minutes.  We bought jerky strips for Zena and found while she will also take it to a special spot, it takes her about one minute to eat an entire strip.  The difference might be that Bella was a sheltie who at 14 years old weighed 27 pounds (12.25 kg) and Zena is a Great Pyrenees who at 14 weeks weighs 46 pounds (20.9 kg).  What Melissa found that seems to last longer is pig’s ear.  I have heard “in a pig’s ear” most of my life, but I do not think this is what they were talking about.

When I looked online, I found the phrase “pig’s ear” has three possible origins.  As “pig’s ear” it comes from Cockney rhyming slang for beer.  Cockney is an accent and dialect of English spoken mainly in and around London by working- and lower middle-class Londoners.  One of the earliest examples of this use appears in D. W. Barrett’s Life & Work among Navvies (1880), “Now, Jack, I’m goin’ to get a tiddley wink of pig’s ear.”  You would need a Cockney to explain why “tiddley wink of pig’s ear” was thought to be an improvement on “drink of beer”, but “pig’s ear” does rhyme with “beer” and that’s usually enough for rhyming slang.  “In a pig’s ear” is an expression of disbelief that originated in the US in the 1850’s as a variant of “in a pig’s eye”.  Both phrases were used to express incredulous skepticism and meant the person is not to be believed.  “Make a pig’s ear” is a mid-20th century phrase meaning to make a mess of something.  This is first found in print in a 1950 edition of Reader’s Digest and derives from the proverb “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”, which dates from the 16th century.  When Stephen Gosson published the story Ephemerides in 1579 it referred to people engaged in a hopeless task as, “Seekinge too make a silke purse of a Sowes eare.”  To “make a pig’s ear of” alludes to the same result of resulting in a complete mess.  Zena could rip through a silk purse too easily anyway.

Another site addressed the trouble finding a healthy and nutritious snack for your dog.  This was said to be tricky if the dog is a picky eater or has intolerances, or if the dog seems to inhale rather than chew their treats (can you say, Zena?).   The site suggested the answer might be pig’s ear.  These chewy treats can last for ages and the best ears are completely natural.  But, how do you know which pig ears are best?  Luckily, the site pointed me to the seven best brands of pig’s ear.  Criteria for the best pig’s ear is it should be thoroughly cleaned and blanched to remove impurities and excess hair.  They are then dried slowly at low temperatures to remove excess water and the risk of salmonella.  The labeling should state the preserving method and list little or no added ingredients.  The best and safest pig’s ear comes from countries with high animal care standards.  If you find FDA certification, it means the pig’s ear have been processed to human food standards.  Anyone who has ever dropped food on the floor know dogs prefer it to be processed to human standards.

THOUGHTS:  I found it appropriate that as I researched the pros and cons of giving your dog pig’s ear, Zena came back to my office asking to be let outside.  I have learned these requests should not be taken lightly, so I attached her leash, and we went outside.  Zena immediately went to a corner of the yard where she found another of her favorite chew toys, a rock, and proceeded to roll around on the ground and chew on her rock for the next 10 minutes.  Perhaps I should save money and not buy pig’s ear.  Zena finally abandoned her rock when our neighbor came home.  Being a puppy, she is curious and can be easily distracted.  Human curiosity and our craving to know and understand is the driving force behind our development as individuals and even our success as a species, but it can be dangerous.  Encouraging others to explore and providing safe spaces to retreat is what binds us together as a species.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 11, 2022

On our way to Zena’s obedience training yesterday we passed a group of eight jeep wranglers traveling together.  It is not uncommon to see wranglers on the road, and I admit I do notice them more now that I own one.  Usually there may be one or two that just happen to be traveling along the same road when I come upon them.  I have even seen several small groups of two or three that appear to be traveling together.  When I approached the first of this group, I thought it was interesting.  As I passed, I noticed the two vehicles in front of this were also wranglers.  Then I noticed they all had Oklahoma license plates.  They were all traveling just below speed limit and were all 2-3 car lengths apart.  This kept the group close and discouraged others from breaking into their formation.  I realized we had us a convoy.

When I looked online, I found Convoy is a 1978 American road action-comedy film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, and Ernest Borgnine.  The film is based on the 1975 country and western novelty song “Convoy” by C. W. McCall.  The film was made when the CB radio/trucking craze was at its peak in the US and followed the similarly themed films White Line Fever (1975) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977).  The plot centers around a group of truckers who have a confrontation with the police.  The truckers prevail, and the Rubber Duck (Kristofferson’s handle) handcuffs Wallace (police chief – Borgnine) to a bar stool.  The truckers dismantle the police cars and head for the state line to avoid prosecution.  The truckers drive across Arizona and New Mexico, with Wallace in pursuit.  Additional independent truckers join them to form a mile-long convoy in support of Rubber Duck’s vendetta against the abusive Wallace.  The truckers communicate with each other via CB radio, and CB jargon is sprinkled throughout the film.  As the rebellious truckers try to evade the police, Rubber Duck becomes a reluctant hero.  Although the film received mixed reviews from critics, it was the most commercially successful film of Peckinpah’s career.

I also found 74 Meetups Jeep Clubs representing 54 cities and a total of 19,600 members when I was online.  While these clubs have shows and friendly competitions, the real draw is off roading together.  As one site proclaimed, “You Won’t See Any Bathroom Remodeling Or Candle Vendors At Our Show.  We Are Jeep People And This Event Is Dedicated To Nothing But Jeeps!”  I spent a lot of time around Moab when I lived in Utah.  This southeastern portion of the state is known for its slickrock trails and its jeep tours.  The Red Rock 4 Wheelers are based in Moab and was formed as a family club to have fun and promote responsible 4-wheeling.  In addition to the Easter Jeep Safari, the club sponsors the Labor Day Camp Out, trails of the month, do cleanup and mark trails, and participate in other club outings.  Much of the area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) so any jeep convoy requires registration, insurance, and permits.

THOUGHTS:  While I never participated with the Red Rock club, I was able to follow some memorable trails, including an old oil and gas road down into Barrier Canyon.  I thought better of it when I turned the corner onto the slickrock, but the grade was so steep I could not back up even in 4-wheel low.  We camped several nights at the bottom before attempting to climb back out.  While we got out with no problem, I had visions of leaving my jeep in the wilderness.  The deserts of the American southwest are rugged, beautiful, and fragile.  The tours and clubs travel in a convoy on existing trails and off trail travel is prohibited by the BLM.  It is said a single wagon (jeep) track is still visible from the air over 100 years later.  Our natural resources can provide amazing thrills and views, but careless use will cause lasting damage that spoils the beauty for others.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 10, 2022

I made a quick run to the market yesterday and when I got back to the car, I noticed a grasshopper hanging onto the outside of the passenger side window.  This is hardly a rarity and I paid it no mind as I sped off for home.  When I got up to speed, I glanced over and even though the wind was blowing the hopper to one side, it was still clinging tenaciously to the glass.  The hopper held on for half a mile (0.8 km) as I drove through town.  It was not until I stopped to turn that the hopper finally jumped off the glass.  While I could not blow him off in the wind, I guess he decided the free ride was over.

When I looked online, I found glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent amorphous solid, that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative uses.  Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of the molten form.  While most glass is manufactured, volcanic glass occurs naturally.  The most familiar type of manufactured glass is “silicate glass”, which is based on the chemical compound silica (silicon dioxide, or quartz), which is the primary element of sand. Archaeological evidence suggests glass-making dates to at least 3,600 BCE in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Syria.  The earliest known glass objects were beads.  Due to its ease of formability into any shape, glass has been traditionally used for bowls, vases, bottles, jars and drinking vessels.  Glass can be colored by adding metal salts or painted and printed as enameled glass.  The refractive, reflective and transmission properties make glass suitable for manufacturing optical lenses, prisms, and optoelectronics materials.  Extruded glass fibers have are employed as optical fibers in communications networks, thermal insulating material when matted as glass wool, or in glass-fiber reinforced plastic (fiberglass).  I have learned the hard way that glass wool cuts.

Numerous insects and certain amphibians and reptiles (tree frogs and geckos) can walk on and cling to smooth surfaces, including glass doors and windows.  In most insects, this is done by the large number of tiny bristles or hairs on the bottom of their feet.  Electron microscopes have shown “smooth” glass surfaces have microscopic bumps and fissures which serve as footholds for the tiny hairs.  The foot segments, or tarsi, at the end of insect legs also possess claw-like structures that help the insect hold on to different types of surfaces.  The tarsal claws grip the tiny irregularities of the surfaces.  Grasshoppers also make use of adhesion.  On a smooth glass, the insect hold on using the adhesive action of hairs located on sticky pads (known as the arolia or pulvilli) on the tarsi.  Grasshoppers have pads on each of their tarsal segments that contain numerous hairs that secrete an oily substance that causes the tips of the hairs to adhere to the surface.  The substance provides the traction and stickiness that allows hopper to hold on to the glass.  The combination of hairs, claws, sticky pads, and microscopic footholds let the hopper ride.

THOUGHTS:  While most see a window as a solid pane of glass, physicists looking at the glass on a molecular level have questioned whether glass is a solid or merely an extremely slow-moving liquid.  In physics, glass is a solid, but glass lacks the first order phase transition, meaning it does not have a volume (size), entropy (randomness), and enthalpy (heat content) throughout its transition range from sand to glass.  This sets glass apart from typical solids, and in this respect, glass resembles a liquid.  The atomic structure of glass is like that of a supercooled liquid and glass behaves like a solid when it is cooled below its glass transition temperature.  That means only the right questions can address (let alone find) the right answer.  When we deal with people, we often find the same is true.  We need to take time to learn the questions before we can expect to hear the answers.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

June 08, 2022

Farmer’s Markets seem to be the ideal spot to walk you dog.  I have noticed this at our local market and other famer’s markets I have attended around the US.  Most of the dogs have been small breeds and puppies but I have noticed some large dogs.  Thankfully, the owners have been courteous and kept the dogs on a leash although it may be obeying the law as most cities and states require a dog be “under the control” of the owner when they are in public.  While the produce has yet to arrive at our market, several of the venders identify themselves as “farms”.  I have mentioned seeing them selling eggs and honey, but another staple seems to be cheese.  While one vender sells packaged cheeses from a friend’s Wisconsin farm, another sells a soft goat cheese they make from their own livestock.  Melissa bought some of this goat cheese and said it was very good.

When I looked online, I found the domestic goat (Capra hircus) is a species of goat-antelope kept as livestock.  The goat is a member of the animal family Bovidae and the tribe Caprini, meaning it is closely related to domesticated sheep (Ovis aries).  Goats are among the earliest animals domesticated by humans and archaeological evidence shows its domestication occurred in Iran around 10,000 years ago.  The most recent genetic analysis confirms the archaeological evidence that the wild bezoar ibex (Capra aegagrus) of the Zagros Mountains (western Asia) is likely the original ancestor of all domestic goats.  There are now over 300 distinct breeds of goat.  Goat is used for milk, meat, fur, and skins across much of the world.  Female goats are referred to as does or nannies, intact males are called bucks or billies, castrated males are called wethers, and juvenile goats of both sexes are called kids.  According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, there were more than 924 million goats in the world in 2011.

I was surprised when I noticed one of the farm venders walking what I thought was an ugly, skinny dog to their booth.  What I noticed first was that the animal walked with a limp and needed to be helped around.  Initially, the vender put the pet in one of the camp chairs they had brought to sit in.  It turned out the animal was quite agile as it was all over the three chairs, walking back and forth across them as they were lined in a row.  After they finished setting up, they put the animal on a leash and set it down in front of their tent.  When I took a good look, I realized it was not a skinny dog at all.  It was a goat.  The goat began to do what goats do and ate the grass in front of their booth.  While several children stopped to pet the goat, most paid it no mind.  Apparently, the goat became bored because when I looked over, it was eating the plastic tablecloth.  Again, that is what goats do.

THOUGHTS:  When I was at the archaeological site of Petra, Jordan, the Bedouin were still living in and around the abandoned city.  While they mainly sold drinks and trinkets to the tourists, the children spent most of their day raising small goats.  One day the boys noticed as I set off to hike to the top of one of the surrounding mountains.  It only took me 30 minutes to follow the path to the top, but when I arrived two of the boys had set up a stand selling cold drinks for my refreshment.  They not only beat me to the top by another route but had brought their goat herd with them.  Domestication of cereal gains (wheat, rice, and barley) and animals (sheep and goat) allowed the earlier hunter gathers of the Neolithic to settle down and form the beginnings of civilization.  While some now do not like the smell of domestic goat or the taste of goat milk and cheese, we might still be wandering nomads without them.  When other people are different it can take getting used to, but together we can change the world.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.