Monday, January 31, 2005
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills
Mudpuppy night takes place every Friday in Oxford Mills, Ont. Mudpuppies are large aquatic salamanders never leave the water. As a result, they've never lost their external gills and developed lungs. The gills here are bright red (high oxygen content) and just at the back of the head.
We gather at the bridge in Oxford Mills around 8pm and tromp down to the edge of the water and watch Fred, the expedition leader, take his axe to the ice.
...ice?
Yes, these salamanders are active at subzero temperatures. They can be found in the summer, but they spend a lot of their time hiding under rocks and ledges.
After everyone has had their fill of photos, ice, cold and possibly a treck in the water, if the proper footwear is worn, we meet in a local restaurant for warm drinks and dessert. Good times, good people and great food -- who could ask for more?
Other mudpuppy night photos can be found on my flickr account - click through the link below the photo to see the rest.
Winter Fun
Last Friday 57 high school kids and four crazy teachers went tubing at a golf course in Coulonge. The weather was perfect and snow conditions were great -- even the kids behaved themselves!
The inner tubes were supplied by the golf course and there was a cable lift so if you chose not to walk back up the hill, you could get a tow!
We spent most of the school day there, returning to JPII in time for the kids to catch their busses home. It was a nice day in that I didn't have classes to teach, but being out and active the majority of the day, it was tiring in a different way.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
TV or Not TV
Jon and I have been discussing cancelling our cable (for TV, not Internet) on and off for a while now. We get more done if we're not vegetating in front of the tube all evening, and we generally feel better. If we started watching movies or shows that we already have, or rented movies, it'd waste less time (no commercials) and we'd be able to control when the shows come on. It's still in the air whether or not we do this, but we've had the TV off more often than on the past week -- the quiet is nice!
Science Sites
Electrostatics experiments online, with videos for each of the experiments.
Periodic table of elements software -- I've not downloaded the (free) demo yet; once I do and play with it a bit, I'll get back to you on it.
Recent Doings
I've been as busy as all get out this last week so haven't been able to post as much as I'd've liked. It was exam week at school -- read: exams to build, hand out, supervise, and mark. The marks for the students do not have to be entered into the system for another few days but the sooner they are, the better; at least it'll be one less thing to worry about.
My classes for the DECN are still going well; I've picked up another student so my class size is now up to five. Speaking of DECN, they snicked me out of JPII for the last three days to work on another project they're putting together: Physical Science 436, compressed into only the basics for kids who've taken the course once, failed and are trying again. The idea is that students will use the PowerPoint Presentations that the DECN puts together to review the course materials, study and, when the time comes, pass the exam. Other people will be in to work on the other sections over the following couple of weeks.
Of the three modules in the Science course, Modules I and III are my favorites. These deal mainly with chemistry and the structure of matter (elements, atoms and the like). Module II is all electronics and some magnetism -- not my forte though I've taught it in class enough to know the material. I'm also not done with my section, Module I, yet; I've got one more chapter to complete as well as having been asked to write a script to go with my PowerPoint presentation. Audio will be added to the whole package once it is complete.
In other news, it's freakin' cold here! With the highs in the -20°C range, we haven't been too keen on venturing outside a whole lot. On Friday morning, the temperature, with wind chill, was around -40°C. Kim, a coworker and neighbor of mine, called saying her car had died and she couldn't even get the keys out of the ignition! I wasn't sure if our car would start either; we don't have a block heater and it hadn't been driven since Tuesday because the DECN office is in walking distance. In the end, my car did, reluctantly, start and Kim got to school on time. Having a garage, even unheated, seems to make a difference!
All critters are doing well -- the cats are getting along famously; generally snuggling, play fighting or licking each other on a daily basis. We've even gotten Maya running after laser light again!
I found a couple of neat sites while working on the DECN project; I'll post them shortly.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Deep Sea Fish Hoax
This Russian site claims to have pictures of deep sea fish that washed up on beaches after the tsunami. While these are real deep sea fish, they aren't from the tsunami; they're from a 2003 research expedition in the Tasman Sea. (via Slashdot)
Fun with Sodium
I enjoy blowing up small pieces of sodium and potassium -- which are soft, highly reactive metals -- for class demos. The kids always want me to blow up bigger pieces. This is why I don't. (via BoingBoing)
Note: The site seems to be down at the moment; try later.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Geek and Science T-Shirts
For those that know me, I've got a collection of t-shirts that rivals my dragon collection; I've even got dragon t-shirts! So I've been playing around on the 'net the past week or so looking at different kinds of science T-shirts. There are a number of sites that have quite a good selection but my favorite has to be this one from computergear.com.
The shirt says it all!
Mysterious Shoveller
The past couple days there has been some small snowfall and when the plow comes by to clear the back alley and parking areas, it usually does not clear right in front of our garage. I was going to go out and shovel this strip the other day only to look out the window and see that someone else was in the process of doing it for us!?!? The person was an older gentleman and he was busily clearing the 2' strip that the plow left behind.
Yesterday I was going to go out again and clear the fall that had slid off the garage roof. When I opened the garage door, someone had already beat me to it!
I have no idea who this person is or why he's decided to finish clearing the area in front of the garage for us but I thank him, whomever he may be!
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Ice Is Evil
Especially when it's cemented your garage door to the ground! We didn't seem to have this problem last year, but the temperature's been a bit wonkier this winter. Our garage doesn't have a drainage system and any melt run off from outside has a tendancy to seep in under the door. If it stays warm then there's no problem; if it stays cold then there's no problem. It's when it thaws then freezes that it freezes the door solid on both sides.
I had to borrow a metal shovel in order to chip away the ice so we'd be able to move the car. The ice was about 1" thick so it took quite a bit of time and endurance to get through. The day was nice and, if not warm, was in the single digit negatives so using salt actually made sense.
I must've gone through at least half the bag of salt! Oh my! Poured it down both inside and outside the door then pounded away with the shovel trying to make a trough for the salt to eat away at. It took about half an hour to an hour of chopping, salting, chopping again to get the door unstuck and cleared. I eventually had to put my bike gloves on to cushion my hands.
That was two days ago and my hands and arms are still tender. Now it's gone and snowed a bunch today so I guess that means shoveling ... at least it'll be easier than the chopping!
Anyone Who Owns a Cat ...
... will appreciate and relate to some of the cartoons in Hallmarks of Felinity. The main character is a siamese cat but I can see a lot of Goober in the antics of said cat. (via MetaFilter)
Way Too Much Yellow!
My. Oh my.
Y'know, I thought I had a small compulsion to collect as many dragon related things as I could ... it's got nothing on this woman's obsession with Pokemon's Pikachu. I'm not sure how many rooms in her house are filled with this lil yellow character, but it seems to be at least 2 or 3. She even has a yellow VW bug modified to look like Pikachu. Makes my dragon obsession look healthy! (via MetaFilter)
Monday, January 03, 2005
Insistent Cats
Well, just one cat in particular -- Goober. He seems to need to be around me at all times: if he lets me out of his sight, he thinks I'll disappear forever. If I'm reading or watching TV or a movie, this isn't so bad. It's kinda nice to have a warm cat curl up in your lap and purr. However if I've got the laptop open and I'm trying to type, Goober still insists on trying to crawl onto my lap ... or at least part way onto the computer keyboard. I'm still not sure how to completely fix this problem if I have the computer open on my lap. But if it's open on the kitchen table, I seem to have hit on a solution: polar fleece. I folded my polar fleece scarf on the table beside the computer and, after sniffing at it, he completely crashed on it and started purring. Yay! The cat's happy and I can still type.
Update: Jon came in shortly after I posted this and snapped a photo of me blogging with Goober nearby. If you look closely, you can see the scarf that he's sleeping on. Look even closer and you may be able to tell what's playing on the iPod!
Snakes
Because I'm so much faster at it than Jon, I've taken over most of the care and feeding of our combined collection of reptiles. When I check on the guys in our converted laundry room, I make a point of checking on one of the newer arrivals, a female Baird's rat snake we got in September, that was just too skinny for her own good. We had taken her in to the vet for a check up a couple days ago and got her some deworming medicine. I don't know if the stress of administering the medicine was too much for her or if it was something else but when I went to check on her yesterday, I found that she had died sometime in the night. The vet was optimistic about her recovery so her death came as a surprise to us. Jon has covered it in more detail on his blog here.
Bridges
I've been teaching Introduction to Technology (ITT) at the grade 9 level for two years now and one of the chapters deals with structures, namely, bridges and bridge building. I was looking all over last year for footage of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse to show to my class. I remembered watching a video of it in Physics in high school and being impressed with the effects of wind on the structure. I try to bring some element of real life into my classes and this video clip would've been great. Unfortunately I didn't find a copy of it for last year except for online and thumbnail pictures. (Both video clips are QuickTime. RealVideo and AVI formats can be found here.)
Jon, knowing the fascination I have for bridges, forwarded this link to me this morning. It's got some amazing and beautiful suspension bridges. These are not only functional, but are also practical and can very easily be said to be works of art.
Snoozin' Goober
This is the newest mammalian addition to the household -- Goober. He tends to have two speeds: Stop (shown here) and Turbo. He works at keeping Maya active and on her toes.
For anyone wanting to see more of our cat pictures, you can view them on their flickr page. Any photos of the cats taken by Jon or myself will be posted there.
Juneco Wood Caboose (CPR)
I've been working on this caboose model for a while now. The stove pipe in front of the cupola got me stuck for a while as I wasn't sure how to drill a hole big enough to support it. I asked Jon's dad, who has also built one of these "cabeese", and followed his advice: "Just drill it by hand." And ta-da! Now all it needs is the paint job -- I'm sure there'll be an update at that point.
Other wood kit projects to come: refrigerator car, box car, flat car, CPR water tower, small house.
Fridge Magnets
I found this gem tonight -- be careful, it can be addictive! It's a virtual fridge complete with magnets for you to play with. The trick here is that you're not the only one playing with the magnets. While you're trying to write something out, someone else may be stealing your magnets for whatever they're working on. (via MetaFilter)
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Interactive Periodic Table of Elements
For those who are as obsessed with the Periodic Table of Elements as I am, here is an interactive table. Hover over the element of your choice and a plethora of information about it will appear. The table is a bit out of date as it lists elements 113, 114 and 115 as "not discovered yet". I remembered reading about the discovery of these elements last year so thought that I would include their discovery here. Regardless of the "omissions", it is a really neat table! (via Plep)
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Current Reading
I usually have several books in my "to read" pile. I may not be reading all of these books at the same time, but I'll usually have at least one or two on the go at any one time. Every once in a while, I'll post what is in the current list.
Current or future reading: The Lord of Castle Black by Steven Brust; Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; The Weblog Handbook by Rebecca Blood; Night Shift by Stephen King; The Stephen King Universe by Stanley Wiater, Christopher Golden, and Hank Wagner; and Digital Photography Pocket Guide by Derrick Story.
Turkey Glop
After nice results making duck stock, Jonathan and I thought we'd make some turkey stock. On the surface we did everything the same: enough water to cover the carcass, herbs, some veggies (an onion, a stalk of celery, a carrot), and a ton of salt. It boiled over at one point but we caught it and let it simmer for a few hours. We took it off heat then stuck it in the fridge. Easy enough right?
When we did this with the duck, we pulled the stock pot out of the fridge, pulled the bones out, and strained the broth into mason jars. When we took the lid off the pot for the turkey, Jon noticed that there didn't seem to be a lot of fat on it and that it was cloudy. When we went to skim what fat there was off the broth, we saw that it had turned to gelatin.
We didn't know if it was salvageable or not but thought we'd pull the bones out and try to strain it anyway. The thing was a huge mess. Glop over most of the counter and the sink -- it smelled good but that is the nicest thing I could say about it. Needless to say, we threw it out and there'll be no turkey soup here until we try it again ... probably next Thanksgiving.
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