penn

Red-Eyed Tree Frogs

When I was in Costa Rica last January, I had the good fortune to see lots of different tropical critters. High on my list of great sights were spider monkeys, snakes, and frogs.

About every other night, we took a night hike through the rainforest with miner-style head lamps (ran on four C or D cells, so much brighter than the standard REI headlamp). We were on the lookout for anything cool we could see, and we managed to spy lots of snakes (even some poisonous ones), spiders, cicadas, and lots of cool things. Notably, one night, we came across two red-eyed tree frogs (excuse the weird neon, but that's the female we caught) in amplexus, which basically means they were having sex.

As was also the custom during our trip, we grabbed the pair and put it in a ziploc bag. We collected any (non dangerous) unusual animals that we came across so we could photograph them the next day.

Despite disturbing them and sticking them in a bag, they still managed to finish the deed and lay eggs by the next morning. Our professor deposited the eggs in a usual red-eyed tree frog laying site and released the frogs after our pictures. I thought the whole thing was rather nifty.

Today, in my searching for graduate schools, I came across some recent research being done by a woman with whom I'd like to study. Karen Warkentin at Boston University is studying early hatching due to vibrational movements; turns out that the eggs hatch up to three days early if attacked by a predator, such as a snake. Even if you're not interested in the topic per se, go see the cool picture at the link. Nothing neater, as a researcher, than seeing actual photographic proof that a snake attack will make tadpole eggs hatch.

Of Old Friends and Lost Connections

When I first moved to Seattle, my only friends were the kids I met at church. There were two girls in particular that I played with: one was the daughter of the church treasurer, and the other was an adopted daughter of a prominent family in the church.

After a couple of years, perhaps three or four, the prominent couple decided to send their daughter away to a home for troubled youth. As the mom told it, she was a lying kleptomaniac that couldn't be controlled. My other friend and I were amazed at this news, and we were also really saddened that our friend had left.

Eventually, the couple left the church with their son. They had enrolled him at a local religious private school, and they began to attend the (more conservative) affiliated church.

Coming to the present, I still keep in touch with the daughter of the church treasurer. Mostly, we chat on msnim every couple of weeks or so. Yesterday, she was wondering what had ever happened to our friend. Through sleuthing, google, and myspace, we (hopefully) managed to find her, and my friend will be giving her a call sometime soon and letting my know what's up.

Later on yesterday, I was on the phone with my dad, and he gave me some surprising news. Supposedly, the talk of the church on Sunday was this prominent couple that had attended for years. The couple was apparently now divorced, and the husband (the more liberal, more likeable, and more involved in church affairs) was now living in a small place near one of our church members.

My dad asked for the contact information, so the member is going to try and find it. I encouraged him to make contact so we could find out how is life is going; I have fond memories of spending time at this man's house with his children. We even used to spend Thanksgiving with this family, since we don't have any relatives close by. Hopefully, my dad gets in touch.

Even more amazing than these two circumstances, however, is the fact that they both occurred within a day of each other. Both my dad and I were amazed by the coincidence. We'll see what comes of all this.

NPR

A self-professed NPR geek, I absolutely love listening to All Things Considered, Click and Clack, This American Life, and all sorts of other great NPR shows. When I was at school, it was my primary source of news while making various commutes.

At first, I was worried about not having NPR down here this summer; after all, I'm kind of in a remote area. I was so jazzed to get NPR signal down most of the coast, and I even got a signal here in Gold Beach.

However, as I've discovered this last week, I only get the signal for Ashland's classical station of NPR. Apparently, NPR is so popular in Ashland that they have three or more stations. Now, I couldn't get the all-talk, all-news station, nor could I get the various music station. I got the classical station.

There's nothing inherently wrong with classical music; in fact, I enjoy listening to it when I want to relax. But it's nothing I want to listen to while I'm at work and trying to stay awake, and I really miss my news. The station plays news for a few at noon and five, and I think it plays All Things Considered, but I'm not usually in my car then.

NPR is definitely an outside world thing to look forward to. But other than that, I'm starting to get adjusted to Gold Beach and my book-heavy, long evening walks way of life in this town.

The Sun

It looks like I'll have a nice farmer's tan at the end of the summer. My uniform shirt comes almost to my elbows, and I can't roll it up becase of the patch on the sleeve.

It also appears that, despite my best efforts, I'll have the dreaded truck driver's one arm tan. I spent a lot of time sitting in my car and watching for boats. Unless I switch over to the passenger's side mid-day, my left arm spends much more time in the sun than my right arm does.

Summer Reading Review: 1-10

I've made it my goal to read a lot of books this summer. In some senses, I guess I'm trying to live up to Jimmy's goal of 52 books for the year, and it looks like I'll make it without a problem. Well, one problem: I read a lot of kid's books too. I might just count the kids book as a half book each, but I haven't decided yet. Anyway, mostly, I'm just trying to see how much I can read and digest over the summer. To that end, I'll be doing mini-reviews up here to process the books and stay involved.

Apartment Tips

I don't know why I didn't think to look before I moved into my first apartment. Still, many of the tips are still handy. Ask.com has a great section on Apartment Living, complete with tips for the first time apartment hunter. I'll definitely be checking this out when my 100 days here are done.

Lemonade

Blonde and little, just like all Norman Rockwell 8 year olds, she sat on the side of the road with a lemonade stand. I was taking a detour of Oregon coast's scenic highway 101 to check out a little town nearby that I could have lived in (Pistol River). I didn't get far into the town, because what little bit I saw was fairly podunk. Plus, the image of that little girl was tugging on my heartstrings.

From years of both making and hawking lemonade on both the amatuer and professional level, I definitely understand the hardships of the lemonade stand. She was selling her lemonade for $1, which seemed steep until I remembered that I sold lemonade for 25 cents almost 14 years ago, and I even used cups recycled from the College World Series (side note: we'd bring a box to the game, or get one from the concessions stands, and clamber all over near the end of the game. Mostly, we went under the bleachers where trash was thrown. We got over 100 cups one year. Each one was washed by hand and then reused during our garage sale season for my lemonade stand).

I stopped to take pity on the little girl, and I even encouraged another car to stop too. I ponied up my $1, expecting lemonade made from a store bought mix, and I was happily surprised to see the lemons floating in a frothy, bright yellow liquid when I walked up.

The girl also pulled out a tupperware container full of ice and used metal tongs to pick up two pieces and put them in my cup. She then filled me a large plastic cup of lemonade with a smile.

The lemonade was pure heaven: not too sugary and just the right amount of tart. If only I saw lemonade stands like that more often.

Crazy Sculpture

I wandered across this gem in flickr today.

What do you think it is? Any thoughts? To me, it says entrails.

Accomplishments

Ant posted up a great link to a list of Things Other People Accomplished when They Were Your Age. I'm a little intimidated, but it's not bad. The Charles Darwin thing is cool, but I remind myself that he hadn't written On the Origin of Species by age 22; he just started off on his voyage. Anyway, I think I have plenty of time before I'm completely outranked by others' lofty achievements. Plus, the Depak Chopre/someone else I can't remember CD I've been listening to tells me not to worry about what other people think about me. It's an interesting thought . . .

At age 22:

Charles Darwin set off as ship's naturalist on a voyage to South America and the Galapagos Islands.

James Joyce left his family, his church and his country for the European continent, in order to become a writer.

By 22, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget received his Ph.D., published 20 articles, and wrote a philosophical novel that outlined many of the issues he would explore during his career.

Caresse Crosby became the first person to patent a brassiere, which was made of two handkerchiefs and ribbon sewn together.

The Greek orator Demosthenes, orphaned at age 7, took his guardians to court when he was 22 for misusing his inheritance. He won the case.

Olympic runner Herbert James Elliott, ranked by many as the greatest mile runner ever, retired undefeated at 22.

U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz won a record 7 Olympic gold medals.

Inventor Samuel Colt patented the Colt six-shooter revolver.

Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the McCormick reaper, which allowed one man to do the work of five.

Lingcod

In response to Juliana's question on my last post:

yes, lingcod can get really big. There's a minimum size limit to take lingcod (it's either 20 or 24 inches). But there is no maximum, and they can get really huge.

So far, most of my lingcod have been about 12-17 pounds, but I did have one that was about 25 pounds. None of the lingcod I've seen are as big as some of the pictures out there. But they are big fish.

I also got a little speared in the hand by a lingcod today. I was weighing it, and I didn't get a good hold on it. You hold lingcod in the eyes, because they've got big, sharp teeth in their mouth and gills. I dropped the ling and went to grab it from below with my right hand. The spines poked my hand (no big damage -- just a little stinging and some tiny holes), and I dropped the fish. Next time, I'm just going to let it drop. After all, it is dead.

Thankfully, many of the anglers are more than willing to help me weigh and measure the truly large fish. The men I've met here are all so sweet, and the three women I've seen fishing so far were all pleasant as well.