UnSpace

Following an inopportune cough while I was swallowing a mouthful of my lunchtime salad, I went to blow my nose.

Some lettuce came out.

And it wasn't the regular kind of lettuce, it was the lacy, curly lettuce.

The communications director at my church left for another job, and I've stepped in to do the newsletter. I'm having fun, although it's a lot of work. I'll post more when things slow down!

Tuesday night, I looked up and saw the Moon heading toward Saturn. This surprised me for a number of reasons. I had no trouble picking out Saturn from the other stars, and I knew which direction the Moon would appear to head in the sky. All this stargazing seems to be sinking in!

While the Moon would progress through the night toward the same location in the sky as Saturn, I knew that the duo wouldn't be visible much longer in our sky. Venus and the Moon are easier to photograph, as Venus is the brightest planet in the sky. Still, after fiddling with shutter speed, I managed to get a picture that didn't completely wash out the Moon yet showed Saturn.

I went in and checked my astronomy program. Indeed, on the morning of April 25th, the Moon would occult Saturn. Astronomers from the far edge of the United States (Seattle, Fairbanks, and obviously Hawaii) would get to see the occultation. We missed it.

Still, it was a pretty sight in the night sky, and I post my picture here with some labels to give you an idea of what you're looking at.

Not every movie I review contains some aspect of time travel. Only The Lake House and Premonition (both with Sandra Bullock) contain time travel or time-travel-like elements. "Next" is the third:third rate stage magician Cris Johnson (who goes by the stage name Frank Cadillac and is played by Nicolas Cage) can see two minutes into the future, and FBI agent Callie Ferris (played by Julianne Moore) wants to use that two minutes to prevent terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb. Cris, who was studied as a child to the point of torture, doesn't want to cooperate. Cris is more interested in finding the girl of his literal dreams. While Cris can normally see only two minutes into the future, this woman (Liz, no last name, played by the beautiful to the point of being overdone Jessica Biel) somehow appears days in advance. Cris doesn't know why, but he wants to find out, so he sits in a bar every day at 8:09 a.m. and 8:09 p.m. sipping a martini, waiting for her to appear.

"Next" is based on the Philip K. Dick story "The Golden Man." Dick is up there with Shakespeare and Ian Flemming for having movies made based on his work that only bear a passing resemblance to the original. A surprising number of plot points from "The Golden Man" are carried over into "Next," although one is only hinted at, another is changed to be more realistic (possibly an improvement on the original), but they manage to cut out the most important point.

Still, "Next" is an enjoyable action movie. It's not as thought-provoking as "The Lake House." It doesn't have the "is it real, or is it the little blue flower screwing with the characters?" of "A Scanner Darkly." But the movie does keep you guessing, and there are some surprises I didn't expect. I did keep waiting for Jack Bauer to show up and say "We don't have time for this?" and have Cris say "Well, actually, we do!" What is it with nuking Los Angeles anyway? Some of the action scenes are exciting to the point of being overdone. Hmm, that seems to be a theme, doesn't it?

The movie sets its rules of time travel up and abides by the setup. At some points, you may find yourself going "Hey, but wait!" The writers and producers have played fair, telling you what you need to know. Whether you piece it together is another question. It does result in some interesting scenes, like the firefight where everyone else is proceeding warily except for Cris. Nicolas Cage does an incredible job of acting there, making Cris Johnson's power seem real — and believable.

Julianne Moore appears to be playing her Clarice Starling FBI character, but she is good at it. Peter Falk has a small part as "Irv" that's surprisingly enjoyable. José Zúñiga does a nice turn as head of security for a casino. He's an actor who's played parts on just about every show I watch.

We've got three more baby budgies we're raising. The big one with feathers coming in and the dark one are from Spangles and Spitfire, while Leela and Spot produced the one white one. They're cute. The dark one was a little sick when we pulled it from the nest. For some reason, some babies are born with black, tarry stools and splayed legs. We found that Propel Sports Drink with Calcium, used instead of water in the formula, seems to perk these guys up. As you can see, the dark one perked up and is now walking around without splayed legs.

They weren't red and white Playmate ice chests I was used to seeing years ago. The orange boxes appeared to be cardboard with integral handles. Variously colored stickers over the boxes clearly identified the contents conclusively. The airline employee, moving at a deliberate pace, pushed the dolly they were on down the hallway to the green scrub-suited person you can see above. They carefully took the boxes in, the paperwork quickly signed, and then the man in scrubs, the orange boxes, and their precious contents were gone.

I found myself marveling at the scene, and how a snippet of death and life played out in front of me.

Note: The above photo was taken with my Pocket PC camera phone, enhanced, and cropped.

Nancy and I went on a picnic down to Piney Fork in Jefferson Hills. I didn't take many photos, because we were on a picnic! Click on the photos to enlarge!

When we got back home, I had more time to take pictures. Here are some pictures from our yard. Again, you can click on them to see the larger pictures. The photo names tell what they are if you don't know.

Finally, we pulled two baby parakeets from a nest box today! We'll be hand-feeding them until they wean!

Kiva Han is a coffee shop in the North Oakland section of Pittsburgh, between Pitt and CMU. Kiva Han has giant windows and Christmas lights. Cathasaigh played a set there last night. I got to enjoy the music as well as play around with the camera.

Lighting wise, Kiva Han was one of the most interesting venues I've seen Cathasaigh play at, as you can see from the above photograph.

The music could be heard throughout Kiva Han and out into the sidewalk where people sat tapping at small tables. But for Cathasaigh, her contact with the audience was limited to the small room she was in. Musicians can feed off the energy of large groups; a small intimate audience like last night can presents challenges to the performer.

Cathasaigh adapted beautifully to the small audience, making it appear effortless.

Those in attendance were treated to some samples of some new techniques Cathasaigh explained to the audience that she's learning new musical techniques for the album she's recording. There are two basic styles of guitar: rhythm and lead. Rhythm guitar is the nominal style for the folk music genre, and most of what Cathasaigh has been playing until now. 'Saigh's learning lead guitar, which she demonstrated with a quick snippet of "Here Comes the Sun." But then she explained that she was also trying a combination pattern that took on aspects of both. The result had a bluegrass feel to it that seemed far more complex than standard lead guitar.

There was an audience Cathasaigh literally couldn't see. Behind her and through the window, there were passers-by who would stop and listen. Folks at the tables tapping their coffee cups to the music. Out in the line for drinks (they had sugar-free raspberry and vanilla flavors that made absolutely wonderful "Italian sodas") people listened to her perform.

In between my mental fights with shutter speed, f-stops and the exposure meter, and even while I'm wandering upstairs looking for an unexpected angle, I'm listening. Having attended a number of Cathasaigh's performances, I know most of her repertoire now, and I can catch the little variations and flourishes she throws in.

We just got back from the doctor's. The problem was not in the esophagus. Nancy apparently damaged her vocal cords from coughing when she had that cold in February, and that's what's been causing the pain. The vocal cords close tight when you swallow, and that extreme motion is what causes the pain.

The chords will heal and I seem to be less twitchy already. The flutter in my right eyelid was becoming constant.

There was even some "Rob-style" fun at the doctor's: He put a lighted scope through Nancy's sinuses and into the trachea to observe what was going on, and he let me look through the scope. The inflamed nodule at the anterior end of the right vocal chord was easy to pick out. I've never before gotten to see the anatomy alive, brightly lit and unobscured by vomitus. I was like "Oh, cool!"

Usually, when I say "Oh, cool!" you don't want to be the patient.

A famous paper by some colleagues from my EMS days also wound up being discussed:

O'Toole K, Paris PM, Steward RD, Martinez R. Removing cockroaches from the auditory canal: controlled trial. N Engl J Med 1985;312:1197.

A fun time was had by all. Trust me, when the topic of discussion on the way to the doctor's is "I might find out I don't have long to live," getting a tube shoved through your nose and down your oropharynx and trachea and discussions on the merits of oil versus lidocaine for cockroach removal is, in fact, a fun time — even for the patient — as long as the answer is "injured vocal cords."

Last Friday, my mom-in-law had her biopsy. Monday she got the results. When they did the biopsy, they got all the cancer, they got it early, and it was a mild form.We were already planning on walking the "Race for the Cure" on Mother's Day, but now we're doing it in honor of my mom-in-law, who is now a one week survivor.

Nancy goes in for an exam on her throat soon. The pain is still there.

There's a new Friday's Feast! If you'd like to participate, answer the questions on your blog and post a comment at Feast #140!

Note: Please don't eat the trilliums! If you want to look at a larger version, click on the image.

Appetizer
What is your favorite kind of bread?

The kind doesn't matter: I love fresh bread, right out of the oven or the bread maker!

Soup
When was the last time you bought a new pillow?

Last year. I'm hard on pillows.

Salad
Approximated how many hours per week do you spend surfing the ‘net?

About 30, although a lot is work-related

Main Course
What’s the highest you remember your temperature being?

104 F . I suddenly took sick while on a river cruise. I didn't get my temperature taken after the Pittsburgh Marathon. That might have been interesting.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: When I ____________ I _____________

When I do something creative, it never turns out the way I imagine it in my mind.

I was reading the New Scientist article "Impossible things for breakfast, at the Logic Café." The article has my brain grinding away at high speed.

To expain what's up, let me take a quick detour, so I can create a parallel (pun intended, as you'll see) between geometry and logic.

In geometry, there are five axioms that underly all Euclidian geometry:

1. Any two points can be joined by a straight line.
2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.
3. Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4. All right angles are congruent.
5. Parallel postulate. If two lines intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough.

For years, mathematicians tried to prove one of those axioms using the other four, and they failed. The axioms feel arbitrary. Someone finally thought of playing around with different geometries based on variations on the 5th postulate. What if parallel lines diverge? Or what if they converge? Of course, such a geometry would be useless. Parallel lines neither converge nor diverge in the real world.

Except it turns out that space itself is curved. Parallel lines can diverge or converge. In General Relativity, it's the warping of space into strange non-Euclidean geometries that causes gravity.

What happens if one were to dig deeper, to muck about with the very rules of logic themselves. Can a consistent form of logic be created? Of course, it wouldn't have any use, would it? Logic is logic, right?

Possibly not. General Relativity showed us that we actually live in a universe where parallel lines can meet or diverge. We just don't see it every day. In the same way, Quantum Mechanics shows us we live in a universe where strange logic applies: Schroedinger's cat can be alive, dead, or something in between. When dealing with large objects, logic still appears to hold, but the effects of the quantum world can still be felt.

The implications are astonishing, and I'm still trying to come to grips with it.

There's a new Friday's Feast! If you'd like to participate, answer the questions on your blog and post a comment at Feast #139!

Appetizer
When you were a child, which crayon color was your favorite?

Sky blue. I was fascinated with flying and space, and so sky blue was my favorite color!

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest), how likely would you be to change jobs if it required you to move?

Not likely. I like where we are now!

Salad
Take all the numbers in your birthday and your phone number and add them up, one by one. What’s the total?

70. I'm not sure I get the point of this question.

Main Course
Have you ever “re-gifted” anything? If so, what was it and who did you pass it on to?

I don't think I've ever done this. It might take a bit more organization than I can manage.

Dessert
Name something you need from the store.

Comic books, sodium hydroxide, a variety of grains, and a higher-wattage florescent lamp than the one I got from Home Depot today. The lamp's for the bird room — the poor little birdies are in the dark.

Because of the rain, the middle school kids at youth group skated in a section of the gym. They got a lot of air and I got a lot of great photographs, and they hardly ever ran into me in the process.

How would you caption this photograph of a baby squirrel?

When I got home from getting my stitches removed, I went for a cup of coffee. Looking out the window, I saw this grackle begging. I grabbed a camera and got a few shots.

From watching our parakeets and other birds, there's no question the fluttering of the wings and the open mouth is begging behavior. The question is, "Why?" This bird is too large and too shiny to be a baby from this year, and the eye is obviously yellow, not brown as a youngster's would be.

From the above picture, the tail appears to be shorter and the body color more brown, indicating this is a female grackle. This provides us with an alternative explanation for the behavior. This is a lone female advertising that she is available to the males who were in the area. Tail up, wings trembling, and mouth open, I'm sure we're all thinking of a caption for these photographs, but I'm not going to put it on my blog!

In the above photograph, the eye appears somewhat blue. I'm not sure if I caught the eye mid-blink with a shutter speed that made the eyelid semi-transparent, or if I caught the nictitating membrane partially over the eye. Usually, nictitating membranes move horizontally, so the blurred eyelid explanation is more likely. You have a nictitating membrane in your eye — it's that pink lump over in the corner near your nose. The nictitating membrane is not functional in humans and doesn't stretch out over your eye.

By the way, I noticed something interesting. The bird feeder was nearly empty. If I moved, the birds were far more likely to scatter than normal. I can't say if the birds are less likely to stick it out if there's a lot of food, or if they're more distracted when there's more food. Clearly, though, a full bird feeder with some fresh seed scattered below it is the photographers friend.

When we got home from church, the bird feeder was hopping. Ok, so actually, the birds were hopping, flying, and otherwise darting about. I got some action shots and thought I'd share them with you as an Easter present.

Above, you can see a female sparrow coming in for a landing, disturbing a male sparrow, while another female sparrow looks on.

The females don't seem to want to let the male sparrow come back to the feeder!

For some reason, this bird coming into the bird feeder reminds me of a Cylon raider. Clearly, I'm watching too much TV.

I don't know if this is an "action shot," but the wind was ruffling this female cardinal's feathers.

I called this picture "cardinal hop" but actually the bird was flying into the feeder and shut down it's wings at this point in preparation for a landing. It ran out of momentum at just the right time to perch on the feeder.

I love how the tail feathers and wingtip feathers are spread in this picture. There's a seed visible in the bird's beak.

The sparrow and the house finch aren't very clear on this one, and even the cardinal started to move because of the commotion. Still, it's a fun shot, and I thought I'd post it.

Thanks, by the way, to all who left supportive comments or e-mailed good wishes in response to the previous post. They help. If all goes well, I'll explain more when the results are in.

Is the news from the doctor bad or annoying? Is this problem livable, life threatening, or something to joke about? Uncertainty is, in and of itself, painful to deal with. Then again, there's the fear that at some time in the future, one might look back on uncertainty with longing. Even dealing with the anxiety uncertainty causes can cause uncertainty and anxiety.

There's a couple things going on in our family. In a week or two, I might feel stupid about having worried about anything. Normally, I hate to feel stupid, but right now I'm looking forward to looking back and wondering why I got so worked up over nothing.

Blogging isn't a high priority item right now. I might blog, to calm my nerves, or I might find spending time with loved ones to be more important. I don't know. Expect me when you see me, as Galen would say.

A Newsweek article has been sitting in my browser. Elizabeth Edwards was interviewed about her recent cancer diagnosis and her faith in God. Some of the things Elizabeth had to say made a lot of sense to me at the time. I wasn't looking for a chance to test it out, though.

If you've come here for the Friday's Feast, I apologize if I don't visit yours. I hope you'll understand.

For those so inclined, prayers would be appreciated.