 |  |  |  |
 | |||
|
24 March 06 Frederick and I both love sci-fi, and recently he's gotten me into watching Babylon 5, as I never saw it when it originally aired. It has a very well-written storyline, and I'm quite enjoying the show. We've just finished watching the third season, and so many things are happening, it's hard to stop watching and go to bed! But the funny thing is, watching this series is almost like watching a history of the United States during the 21st century. In the TV show, the president of Earth comes into power only because of lies and deception (sound familiar?). The president then creates an organization designed to encourage civilians to spy on one another and report any "unusual" activity to the government, and any persons who disagree with these policies or speak out against the government are dealt with. All media is controlled by the government, and broadcasts are crafted as to make the president and the government look good; there is little truth to the news reports. Watching this show, ten years after it was filmed, is almost scary - all these things were/are happening to us! It makes me wonder how much more will come true. In B5, the space station declares independence and breaks free from Earth's control. Will the same happen with California? We can only hope. 19 March 06 So, yes, I have a new camera! It's a Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D, and was a belated Xmas present from my super-wonderful spousal-equivalent. In searching for a camera, I had to choose between the Minolta and one of the Canons, but I eventually went with the former because that way I could use the lenses from my Minolta film camera. (Even though K-M has recently discontinued manufacturing cameras, they have committed to supplying parts and service for the next ten years, and Sony has taken over manufacturing their lenses.) Friday night was the first time I really put the camera to the test, taking a couple hundred low-light action shots, and I was quite impressed by the camera's performance. Using my 28-75mm f2.8 lens, it was able to focus well in low light and returned great exposures both with and without the flash. Although I did have to increase the ISO to 1600 to take the non-flash photos, the additional grain isn't bad. I took a few pics with my 75-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens, but it doesn't perform nearly as well as the shorter zoom. It didn't focus well in low light, and I was having difficulty with the manual focusing under those conditions. Also, since it has such a small maximum aperture, I was unable to use it without a flash. I am a big fan of zoom lenses. Even though most of my SLR-wielding friends love their 50mm f1.4 lenses (and I can certainly appreciate the excellent low-light capability of those lenses), I love nice, tight, zoomed shots, so I'll give up that extra f-stop for additional focal length. With this camera, my transition from film to digital is complete. I no longer have any reason to go back *. [* Well, as a purist, you could argue that I'd need to use film in order to properly achieve certain effects, such as cross-processing and infrared colors. But those can be duplicated after-the-fact. And while Photoshop may be cheating, it's much cheaper, easier on the environment, and less time-consuming than dealing with film.] 18 March 06 Last night we went to see Deathline International. I brought them cookies (again), they played a good show, and I took lots of photos.  I love my new camera. I'm too tired to write more now, but there will be camera geekery tomorrow. 15 March 06 Yesterday I worked my first full day at The Marine Mammal Center. Granted, a couple of hours were just spent sitting around waiting until it was feeding time, but it is starting to get busier now. I've spent a bit of time these last few weeks attending various training classes so that I could work directly with the animals, and now I'm able to do just that. Of the seven emaciated elephant seal pups we're caring for, only two have learned to eat fish on their own. The other five, including two that arrived just the evening before, need to be force-fed a formula of ground fish, salmon oil, and milk replacement. To do so, we go into the pen where one person straddles and restrains the animal, while the other pushes a long tube down the seal's esophagus and into the stomach, then uses a large "syringe" to push the formula into the pup's stomach. It's surprisingly easy, and you don't really have the problem of accidentally pushing the tube into the lungs as you might with a human. The pups learn to associate this tube feeding with a full tummy, and one seal who's now been there for a couple of weeks practically tubes herself. I'm wondering how easy it's going to be to transition her to eat whole fish? As we teach these pups to eat, we're also teaching them to swim. Last week, we put two of the pups in the pool for the first time. They looked all the world like clumsy children dog paddling around, and nothing like the graceful marine mammals they will become. There's an eighth elephant seal pup that came in a week and a half ago. He's a fat little guy, probably 200 pounds or more, but he had been attacked by a male elephant seal about 10 times his size. He has some severe injuries, but is looking much better this week than last. Yesterday, I got to watch as the vets had him anesthetized, cleaned his wounds, and performed an ultrasound. (They were testing an endoscope ultrasound, which was very interesting - the scope was inserted down the seal's esophagus, and the heart and lungs imaged from within the body. I had never heard of that being done before.) This stuff is so much cooler than working with people. 12 March 06 Now I know how Dionysius felt. In celebration of my imminent un-singleness, a small group of wonderful friends treated me to dinner and a slumber party at a posh hotel downtown. Merin, Susan, and I checked into our room yesterday afternoon, drank a glass of wine, and polished off a bottle or so of champagne before heading downstairs to the bar to meet the others. There we found Kristin, Wendy, Angela, and Charlotte, and had a cocktail before moving into the restaurant for dinner. The Campton Place dining room is supposed to be one of San Francisco's top restaurants, and it didn't disappoint. Since this was a splurge, we all ordered the tasting menu with wine pairings, and the restaurant was very accomodating to those of us who requested vegetarian (and no horrible mushroom!) meals. Once the courses started coming, they didn't stop for hours. We were served plates with tiny, yet elegant, bites of food on them; sometimes the portions were so small we actually laughed! But after eating about a thousand small plates (including at least three dessert courses), each accompanied by a glass of wine, we were all a bit drunk and bursting at the seams. Luckily, they didn't offer the wafer-thin mint at the end - it could have gotten messy. Somehow we all waddled back to our rooms where the deep bathtub was immediately put to use. Slowly our food comas subsided and changed into our jammies to relax before going to bed. And yes, there is photographic evidence. Life is good. 8 March 06 Life is a bit crazy right now. There are only about three weeks to go before our wedding. The last few months have consisted of a lot of "hurry up and wait," but now that the time is drawing near we are drowning in details. Thank goodness for friends helping us out. I've only had two or three wedding-anxiety dreams so far, but, hey - there's still time for more! The house is still full of projects in various stages of planning and completion. I'm great at coming up with all of these ideas and starting work on them, but not so good at actually finishing them. That being said, as soon as I'm done here, I'll go put together that little kitchen cabinet I started to make. [Disclaimer: I don't actually know how to make cabinets, but I never let little things like that stop me from doing something.] 21 February 06 Today marked my second day at The Marine Mammal Center. Oddly, I woke up before my 6am alarm, which meant I had plenty of time to get ready before making the dawn drive to the Marin Headlands. It was so cold last night that there was still frost on all the open patches of land this morning. Pretty, but chilly! We (I and the other new girl) began doing a little bit of work today. There are only 10 patients at the Center right now, so it's a great time to learn, before it gets too busy. We also got to see more experienced volunteers giving injections, and then watch the vets restrain and anesthetize a young sea lion so that he could be xrayed and examined. Three of the California sea lions are there for domoic acid poisoning. Domoic acid is a neurotoxin released by a certain algae causing "red tide". The toxin gets into fish, and sea lions accumulate this as they eat the fish. (Humans can also get domoic acid poisoning from eating affected fish and shellfish.) It eventually causes brain damage, and the sea lions we see are acute cases which usually have frequent seizures. There is no cure, so we monitor the animals to assess the degree of brain damage. If they seem okay, they are set free once they've been stabilized. If they continue to have constant seizures, they are euthanized. It's a sad thing to see. One of the sea lions is recovering from a shark bite. This is the first time I've seen a live animal with a bite, and it's pretty interesting. He was bitten on the shoulder, from the front, and you can see the semicircle of individual teeth marks from the shark's upper jaw on the sea lion's back; the shark's lower jaw cut into the side of the neck and the leading edge of the flipper. This guy looks like he's recovering nicely, and will probably be released soon. Now to motivate myself to get out of this chair and into the shower... 18 February 06 Recent Readings, part two: Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson Considering one of my favourite subjects is animal behaviour, I was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. Grandin is an autistic woman with a Ph.D. in Animal Science, so I thought this book might have a somewhat scientific bent to it. Instead, it is written in a conversational tone, poor grammar and all. That aside, it has some other major problems: Namely, despite the book being about the similarities in behavour between animals and autistic people, the author never defines or explains autism. She occasionally refers to autistic people perceiving the world in a particular way, but the reader is left wondering what exactly autism is. In addition, all of Grandin's information about autistic people comes from her own experiences. Not that her experiences aren't valid, but we have no idea if they are typical. And she also paints a big line and places autistic people on one side, and non-autistics on the other, and infers that non-autistics just can't see what autistics do, and that's just not always the case; I notice some of the things she says "only autistics" do, and as far as I know, I'm not autistic. In general, there is some interesting information in here, and there are bits worth paying attention to. However, had it been written "right," it could have been a great book. 18 February 06 Recent Readings, part one: A Manual of Mammalogy with Keys to Families of the World, Martin/Pine/DeBlaise I enjoyed reading this book. It outlines, compares, and contrasts the anatomy of all families of mammals, and contains a wealth of anatomical and physiological information that is not possible to find in standard "bookstore" texts. It also contains a comprehensive dichotomous key to identifying mammalian families. If my zoology classes are as interesting as this book, they'll be a lot of fun! 15 February 06 I haven't felt much like writing lately. So, in order to spare you, my gentle reader, from the boredom of my life's minutiae, I've just been quiet. Three weeks ago I began volunteering at the zoo again. I'm working in the Animal Resource Center, the same area in which I worked before. The ARC houses animals used in the zoo's educational programs - the ZooMobile and other hands-on progams - so the animals we work with are, for the most part, tame. The "potentially dangerous" animals, such as the dozen or so birds of prey, bobcat, porcupines, and wallaby, are only handled by the staff or long-time (5, 10, 20 years) volunteers. I and the majority of volunteers work mostly with ferrets, opossums, chinchillas, hedgehogs, and a few dozen reptiles and amphibians. In my previous stint I had also done a little bit of work with the "dangerous" animals. Of course, what I love is working with big, toothy critters! It's not the "danger" aspect I enjoy, but rather, making a connection with a creature normally thought of as menacing, and showing that Big Teeth != Bad. Sure, anyone can go and get themselves bit by an alligator, but if I can have one relax and close its eyes while I'm holding it, that's pretty cool. So yeah, I'm working at the zoo again, and after a hiatus of a few years it makes sense that I need a refresher in how things are done. But now I'm not allowed to handle some of the animals I had handled previously until I've first been there awhile and then had a staff member oversee a training session. This despite the fact I've worked with these particular animals in the past, and I've even had some of the same species as pets. I guess I'm just feeling a bit underwhelmed. Instead of jumping back into working at the zoo and advancing further based on my previous training there, I seem to have taken a large step backwards. I don't dislike it; it's just not as exciting as I remember. Oh well. ... Yesterday I began my first day of training at The Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands. Working there is completely different than being at the zoo. Instead of working with tame and captive-bred animals and making a point of habituating them to humans, at TMMC we work with wild animals that can be large and dangerous, and we specifically work to not habituate them to people. Moving away from nursing into zoology, I was a little sad that I wouldn't get the chance to work in an emergency room. Well, now I'm working at what is essentially an ER for animals; TMMC treats and rehabilitates sick and injured marine mammals so they can be safely released into the wild. It's the best of both worlds! Working there I will not only help with the mundane cleaning tasks, but I'll also be able to teach pups how to eat (elephant seal pups actually need to learn to eat fish), give injections, observe medical procedures and necropsies (although the freezer labeled "HEADS" is a little spooky), and a host of other things. I'm really looking forward to it! 12 January 06 Paint is drying in the other room. I'm here wasting time while it does. I'm starting to take care of the pile of projects around the house; right now I'm finishing the last of the painting that needs to be done. Another coat on the trim and doors of F's office, a couple of hallway walls and I'll be done, then it's on to the next project. I'm taking advantage of all my new-found time and am going to the gym again regularly! About an hour a day, three days a week, often with Charbot. It feels good. A letter arrived in the mail last week officially accepting me into SF State as a Biology/Zoology major. I'll start in Fall, or maybe even during the summer, depending how busy/bored I am by that time. To take up my time, as well as feed my interests, I am attempting to volunteer at both the SF Zoo and the Marine Mammal Center. The area I want to work in the Zoo (where I worked before) currently doesn't have any openings, so I'm waiting for someone else to leave. But I've been accepted onto the Tuesday crew at the MMC! However, they only have two patients right now, so I won't be starting there until it gets busier, which won't be for another month or so. In the meantime I'm just painting and loafing. Did I mention life is good? ;) 9 January 06 Music Stuffs (things I've recently purchased; not necessarily new): Agonoize - 999: A double CD of good sounding electo-type industrial, but sadly ruined by overly-distorted vocals. Combichrist - Everybody Hates You: Two-disc set that I really love. Disc One is heavy, pounding, danceable electro, with enough layers and sound to make it interesting, but just enough quirkiness to keep it fun. Some songs have a definite techno/trance influence, but I'm okay with that. Disc Two is full of moody - sometimes spooky, sometimes ambient - instrumental pieces. Combichrist - Joy of Gunz: Their first album, from 2003. Some good tracks here, and the album as a whole shows potential. But immature - less full and layered than Everybody Hates You. Curve - Doppelgänger and Cranes - Loved: Old albums I picked up for cheap because I never had them. I like the Cranes' music, but their singer's voice gets to me sometimes - too childish & whiney at times. Curve, otoh, I do like. Pretty, but not wimpy, guitar-based music. Fear Factory - Archetype and Transgression: Their two most recent albums, and also their two albums without original guitarist Dino Cazares. FF seems to have abandoned the direction they had been taking with Digimortal; in other words, these albums are more thrashy, like their first couple of recordings. Like most of their CDs, Fear Factory has included a few covers, and I was quite happily surprised to hear covers of both I Will Follow (U2) and Millenium (Killing Joke) here. Feindflug - Hirnschlacht and Volk Und Armee ...: I haven't listened to these albums enough to really tell them apart, meaning, the styles on both seem similar. I'm getting the feeling there's not a lot of variety here, but the music is good, so that's not such a bad thing. Strong percussion underlies each track, although the tempo can range from dark & slower to fast & dancey. Vocals seem to come via German-language samples. Front 242 - Still & Raw: Remember that band that did Headhunter? Well, this isn't them. I mean, it's the same guys, but this album is nothing like what you're used to from 242. Here are six songs, all of which I'd consider to be something along the lines of 'dark electronic', sometimes almost verging on dub. I'm glad they took a chance on this; I need to listen to it more. Funker Vogt - Navigator: Well, if you know Funker, this is more of the same. If you don't, get their earlier albums instead. I think they've lost their edge. Navigator isn't bad, but it's certainly not their best work. God Module - Artifical 2.0 and Viscera: Two two-CD sets! There are a lot of strong songs here. A lot of distorted vocals too, but the music's still good. I'm not quite sure how to describe musical intricacies, but if you like electronic industrial with a good beat then you'll probably like this. Artifical 2.0 contains a cover of Depeche Mode's Little 15. Manufactura - Presence: Into The Here And Now: Heavy, and somewhat repetitive, but at the same time, infectious and stompy. This album is about as close to the noise sub-genre as I can get and still like the music. Midnight Oil - 20,000 Watt R.S.L.: I had been meaning to buy some Midnight Oil on CD, because I only had them on vinyl up until now. This is a greatest hits album with some classic songs I know & like, and others I'm not familiar with. They were an *excellent* live band, back in the day. Pop Will Eat Itself - Karmadrome: Wheeee! After ten years of looking, I finally found the song PWEI-zation on CD! The other three songs on here are good - typical early 90s PWEI - but I've loved the catchiness of that particular song since I first got the 12". Prodigal Sun - Twisted Harmonics: Some pretty good psychedelic trance; the first psytrance I've bought in a long time. This is from 2002 and is typical of the better stuff that was released around that time, with a 4/4 beat and squonchy sounds. I've been out of touch with the genre lately, so I don't even know what trends are happening with this music now. I should start paying attention again. SITD - Coded Message: 12: More newish electro industrial with catchy beats, and happily the vocals are not overly distorted. The band makes a good attempt to layer different sounds, although I would have preferred a little more complexity to the music. A few slow songs are interspersed between the faster ones. various artists - Endless Grindstone: I found this for $1.99, so I bought it to replace my vinyl copy. It's an industrial compilation from 1989 with bands like Data Bank A, Carbon 14, and Parade of Sinners. Nothing spectacular on here, but hey, it was $1.99! various artists - Forms of Hands : I'm not a fan of noise (just because something is unlistenable doesn't mean it's good!), but I figured I'd take a chance on this. There are a few decent tracks, notably Orphx, Needle Sharing, and To Mono No Aware, but they aren't worth the price of the CD. various artists - Nachtschwärmer 8: This was sold as "industrial music with all German lyrics" but there's only a song or two I'd consider "industrial". This is really a goth album and, well, I don't really like goth. 1 January 06 I tried to write a witty and interesting year-end wrap-up, but it didn't work. Last year was the best year of my life, to date. Most notably, I exchanged my super-wonderful boyfriend for a super-wonderful fiance. I am surrounded my super-wonderful friends. I finished my stint at City College, and when I return to school in the Fall it will be to study what I love, at a real university. Today starts a new year filled with plans and promises for incredible things. Here's to being able to live up to that. | |||
 | |||
| [ me ] [ musings ] [ mischief ] [ music ] [ home ] | |||