Even in Kyoto

The wind sock [bicycling, status]

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 12:39:18 GMT

Last weekend at the grocery co-op, I spied a rainbow wind sock for sale, quite modestly priced. Into the shopping cart it went!

Last night, while getting ready to go on one of the weekly Social Cycling rides, Pride Ride themed, I lamented to S that I didn't have a flagpole for my bike. "Want to use one of the fiberglass poles I ordered recently?" he asked.

Three zip ties later, I was ready.

The first stop was for some ice cream at a neighborhood gathering spot.

I left the wind sock on this morning for my commute. I think it might work almost as well as the pool noodle trick, when it comes to getting people in cars to give me space.

While biking up Van Rensselaer Boulevard this morning, I went past some parents waiting with their kids for the bus. One of the kids was wearing a rainbow dress. I think I made their morning as I went past.

Since I keep blathering about the weather and indoor temperature regulation: it seems like so far the rainstorms have mostly been missing Albany proper. We got both window a/c units installed last night. I still haven't quite figured out the one in the main bedroom yet. It has some sort of "eco" mode, and the best I can figure is that with "eco" mode it is less precise about monitoring and adjusting the room temperature. When it first started running, it felt like it chilled below the 77°F temperature setting, but once it finished that routine, it definitely felt far warmer than 77°F when I woke up overheated at 2 am, and the unit wasn't running anymore (the Aranet4 says that I was comfortable at 26°C, which is 78.8°F; when the temperature got up to 26.7°C/80°F, I overheated). When I switched it from "eco" to "cold" mode, it started to run again (fan but also chiller) and got the room back to a so-so setpoint.

In contrast, the louder floor unit in the back bedroom tends to chill the room more effectively and consistently, to the point where I usually set it to 80-82°F.

Perhaps the problem is these temperature differentials aren't all that great; it was 74°F outside when I got up this morning, but I left the house closed up because the dehumidifier in the basement has been running nonstop and the decreased indoor humidity is definitely more comfortable than the sticky business happening outside right now.

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Thermoregulation [status]

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:46:19 GMT

Last night at 2 am, the house thermostat read 83°F. That, apparently, is the temperature/humidity threshold where I now wake up from overheating. I actually recently finally got one of those Aranet4 carbon dioxide sensors, which also records temperature and humidity, so soon I'll have more specific data to play with, but the house thermostat is an okay starting measure. (the Aranet4 is also currently in the bedroom with S, who is still sleeping, and I'm not sure I can connect with it from further away)

S basically won't help with the strategy of opening up windows and airing out the house at night, so when I got up this morning I did as much of that as I could. The morning outside temperature is 68°F (and HUMID), and after 1.5 hours of airing out the house is back down to *checks thermostat* 80°F.

annikusrex is arriving on Friday, and these are temperatures that will cause someone who is not acclimated to wilt. It's not perfect, but I was realizing we have 2 room AC units nowadays, the older freestanding one that turns on and off with a clunk, and the newer window unit. So this year I'll set up the back room with its own refrigeration unit.

I also closed up some of the blinds on the front porch - can't hurt.

The weather forecast for today and tomorrow includes heat advisories, as daytime temperatures will climb up above 90°F. But there are also severe thunderstorms both afternoons, so overnight temperatures should once again get back down into the 60's.

It's looking like AKW and I will have a rather warm bike expedition up to Montreal. I'd better pack plenty of sunscreen, plus sun shirts and my Da Brim ridiculous helmet hat. I guess at least that means we're likely to be warm enough at night?

When I go to Arizona in July, it will be interesting to see where my research students demand we set the thermostat. The last time I brought students, they wanted the thermostat at a point where I slept under the sheets, and I think even under a light blanket. I guess they aren't as familiar with the game of Thermostat Chicken.

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Bracing by myself [projects, rowing]

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:11:51 GMT

A teammate who owns her own boats asked yesterday if anyone would be interested in a Wednesday morning row (our coached programs don't have practice on Wednesdays). I said yes! We were joined by a third teammate on a beautiful but humid morning where we made it up just past the Menands Bridge.

After practice and coffee, I went back over to the boathouse to try and wrap up a couple projects. The first was installation of a sculling grip that had been vexing Coach M. He just couldn't get it on (har har). I first tried a bike pump trick, to no avail.

Then I tried a different trick, which involved applying hairspray. That actually worked! I got the grip moving, but then ran into a different problem, one that might explain why the bike pump trick didn't work.

In this style of oar handle, there's a half-round plug that fits into the end of the handle, to create a thumb rest. Apparently this oar handle was missing its plug when the grip was first put on.

Whoops. My vague memory is that it's nearly impossible to get this sort of grip back off again, intact, after it has been gotten all the way on. (these grips need to grip tightly to work correctly, after all). So the grip will probably have to be sacrificed. I didn't know whether we had any more spare end caps lying around, but I DID know there was another set of oars in the repair pile with the exact same handle and grip type on it. So I swapped on a new handle unit and at least got this set of oars back in service for now.

We have like 8 or so sets of oars that I want to have serviced by the manufacturer later this year*, so it's better to just set the rest of that project aside for right now.

And so, back to the sweep oar rack.

I am fairly certain there are calculations one can/should do, to determine what sort of bracing to add to a structure like the massive sweep oar rack. I did not do any of those calculations. Instead, I used the chopped-off ends of the 2x4's I cut up to make the oar slots, and just made some nice angled cuts on the ends to turn the pieces into braces. So they are probably too small.

If/when these fail, we can rebuild better.

But at least for right now, I feel better knowing there's at least some bracing on this thing. I would really hate for it to come crashing down on anybody.

I think we'll wind up storing oars in every-other slot.

I still need to pick up some more 3.5" screws to install one last storage slot in the center. Mercifully, one of my teammates is going to spearhead the project of painting/sealing the wood, since this thing is living outdoors (albeit under a freeway, so it won't be getting all that wet or UV-exposed).

It will be really great to have this project checked off the list. It was not one I really wanted to work on, but it did need to get done.

*These oars all have an older type of white plastic "sleeve." I'd like to have the older white plastic sleeves replaced with newer, long-wear green sleeves, but the sleeves need to be put on at precisely the right angle (pitch) to ensure the oar blade can enter and exit the water at precisely the right angle. I did one set at home earlier this year, but I don't have a great setup for ensuring the correct pitch, and I really don't feel like fussing with 8 sets of oars if I can help it. The club can pay for that.

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Choice Photos of recent activities [photos, work, bicycling, rowing, gardening]

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:48:43 GMT

My rather busy lab space:

We're doing so many different things in a fairly small space that we are having to constantly rearrange everything to switch from one task to the next. This isn't a permanent situation, thankfully, and all things considered, there is enough space to do the things that need doing.

On the counter, left to right, you can see my drill press, our dish-drying space, the sink, and dishes containing freshly-poured dental plaster. The table in the foreground houses one of three dissecting microscope stations for taping ants, a pile of ant nest boxes drying after fluon application, and a giant roll of brown paper used for cricket housing. From this view you can't really see the computer cart, giant wood storage shelves, pile of bicycles in need of repair, or the other two microscope stations.

The packed-up bike valet next to the Dana Monument Horse Trough:

It is a bit odd to me that the drainage system for the horse trough appears to be: letting the water run off the edge and trickle down into the gutter.

Garden harvest, yum:

Related to the strawberries - annikusrex says I should update my name for the Useless Rhubarb, because it's true, I have managed to get 7-8 stalks off the plants. So it will henceforth be known as the Mostly Useless Rhubarb.

Another fun trailer load, the wood for building the massive rowing oar storage rack:

Oh, and a beautiful crosswalk along the bike path in the town of Bethlehem.

Test-fitting the massive oar rack:

Lastly, hauling S's kayak rack pieces home so he can decide what he wants to do with them.

That brings us up to date, at least.

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Status / Hooky [status, rowing, bicycling]

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:23:52 GMT

Saturday morning: National Learn to Row Day went well! I mostly ran around the boathouse like the Boathouse Gnome I am, poking at all the various projects.

Saturday afternoon: The bike valet at Art on Lark also went pretty well! We were located directly in front of Albany's Only Remaining Active Horse Trough. We did wonder whether humans could also drink the water, but no one actually tried. We did not have a ton of bicycling customers, but that was okay, we did learn a lot about site location for something like this festival, and were able to talk about plans for continuing to grow the valet (e.g. I need to register a domain name and put together an extremely simple website, suggestions on domain registration places welcome; I'll probably host through my existing website).

Sunday: All The Chores: groceries, litterboxes, vacuuming, laundry, and I even (hold onto your hats) mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors. And cleaned off the stovetop. The clean floors feel so amazing underfoot, I need to get onto a more consistent mopping schedule. I also had Princess TinyBike Spa Day; I had to get her a replacement generator hub wheel, then figure out how to wire it up. I also put on fresh rear brake pads and a fresh chain, although I might be too late with the chain, sigh. Oh, and I finally put the teeny-tiny mud flap back onto the rear fender. It's odd, the front fender's mud flap is bolted on, but the rear mud flap was riveted in place and the rivet failed. My repair is bolted, hopefully it works okay.

Monday: Played hooky from work. I first led a safety training during rowing practice, then joined teammates for a lovely, leisurely 2-hour morning coffee break. Then I biked up to the lumber store and bought a bunch of 2x4's and 1x4's. I trucked those back over to the boathouse and then spent the rest of the day sawing and assembling them and some other wood into a monstrously huge sweep oar storage rack/cube.

The oar storage cube isn't completely done yet, my drill ran out of batteries around when my body ran out of batteries, so I need to add a whole bunch of cross braces soon. But the process went well, overall.

Then I hauled the remaining parts of S's former kayak storage rack home.

I think I will sleep well tonight, and I am NOT going to get up and go rowing in the morning. I'm not signed up for the summer season anyway.

I have a major photo backlog. Tomorrow I will go to work and work on work things.

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Interstices / Now, where was I? [status]

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 09:41:38 GMT

The past week has been rather people-full, most especially the last 2 days, and today will also be very people-full.

I tend to lose track of my internal monologue in the midst of too much people time, and then I get kind of frustrated/discouraged in the moments in-between because I feel like I should be doing something with that time, but I really can't.

Martha the cat also thought I should really get up early this morning. Eventually I'll have a cup of coffee and be on my way.

Today: National Learn to Row Day in the morning, then bike valet at Art on Lark in the afternoon. At least the forecast thunderstorms have moved into the later afternoon/early evening.

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Roadside treasure [bicycling]

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:29:35 GMT

The most treacherous road on my commute home includes a small uphill, then a slightly larger downhill, then the largest uphill climb of the ride. For around the last 6 months, there has been a tree branch that's about as thick around as my thumb that has been protruding out over the narrow shoulder right at eye level as I bike. Most of the time when it's light out, I see it and move further into the lane, but when it was dark in the winter sometimes I would forget about it and a flinch at the moment I'm trying to build speed for the uphill is dangerous, to say nothing of face lacerations from actual contact with the branch, or potentially winding up in the steep ditch.

Tuesday morning on my way biking to rowing practice, I glanced down at the gutter on a street next to our house, and noticed a nice pair of gardening hand pruners lying there, so I circled back and picked them up. My father would call items of this sort, "Roadside Treasure," and he is not wrong.

I figure if God sends people signs, no one could ever hope for a sign any more clear than that.

The hand pruners were deployed along multiple sections of that road's shoulder on the ride home. That road's shoulder is not more than 6 inches wide at its widest, and the road is curvy with 40 mph speed limits. People who drive and commute regularly on the road almost certainly know of me bicycling on it by now, but that doesn't make it pleasant when someone impatient wants to pass me and I need to be located where a motor vehicle's right wheel usually travels.

I'll get to test my handiwork on tonight's commute home.

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The weighing, at least, is done [work, ants]

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:40:59 GMT

For the past year, I've had students helping me with two projects to characterize leafcutter ant worker size variation. The first project involved working with ants from a larger experiment where I fed colonies diets that contained different amounts of protein, carbohydrate, and phosphorus, and was partly motivated by a preliminary finding that the amount of cellulose in the food used to provision the leafcutter fungus can cause colonies to produce smaller workers.

Anyway, the challenge with the first project is that my overall sample size is ~80 leafcutter ant colonies. If I want to characterize worker size variation, I need to measure some number of ants from each of those 80 colonies. For a fairly arbitrary reason, I've mostly been measuring ~96 worker ants per colony. Now, do the math: 80 x 96 is 7,680 ants. If it takes around 3 minutes to measure each ant (rough estimate), that's 384 hours of work, or 9.6 weeks of measuring ants for 40 hours a week, without any breaks.

For that reason, I put off attempting measurements until I had a crew of students in need of a straightforward research project. I had that crew last summer, for a month. In that time period, we got through around 50 out of the 80 colonies.

Yesterday, I finally managed to finish the first stage of the measurement process for the last 16 colonies, weighing the ants, one by one.

Here's my little corner weighing station:

And a close-up of a small dish of the ants. Probably around 200 ants, in this case.

Manipulating individual dried, brittle ants without damaging them requires some good fine-motor skills. After I weigh each ant, I've been putting her into her own well in a 96-well plate (to the right in the photo), which now helps you understand where the number 96 comes from.

But body weight is only half of the equation. The other half of the equation involves measuring each ant's head width - the general proxy for an ant's overall body size.

The materials needed to measure ant head widths are far more portable than the ant weighing station, however, so it's likely I'll be carting these ants along with me to Arizona this summer!

Oh - the second ant measurement project is a smaller one, and also nearly finished, hurrah!

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An aborted RowCamping Overnight Adventure [rowing]

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:22:07 GMT

Originally, this weekend would have been Yet Another Long Bike Ride, but since I decided to stop doing that, instead I had time to go boating! Yippee!

Small boat sail-camping is called "dinghy cruising," but I think if I'm rowing and not sailing to and from my destination, it's more like RowCamping for me. Plus, it would be really tricky to create some sort of boom tent setup aboard Petrichor to be a more proper dinghy cruiser.

In any case, I really wanted to do a RowCamping trial sometime this summer: see how far I could go in Petrichor, see what it's like to try and stow camping gear aboard, et cetera. I even managed to talk scrottie into joining me for the first leg, at least*.

We managed to get ourselves down to the boathouse in a fairly timely fashion, departing a bit after 9 am. The only real issue was a very strong northerly headwind - unusual for our stretch of the Hudson. Thanks to the extra rowing practice this past Monday, S and I were able to do a lot of tandem rowing as we worked our way north towards Troy. That was necessary; if just one of us was rowing, the boat could barely make forward progress.

You can see some evidence of our desperation to get out of the wind in this map of our journey:

We tried crossing over to the opposite shore several times, to see if that side was more sheltered. The first time, we found some shelter and relief, but once we rounded the corner after the Menands Bridge, relief was hard to come by as the wind ripped right down along the river channel.

We were pleased to find that Petrichor dealt well with the swells and whitecaps. There was less than a centimeter of water in the bilge by the time we arrived at the public dock in Troy.

I also learned a few lessons about trying to use a pee funnel while aboard a rowing vessel. Let's just say these lessons ultimately resulted in S deciding to purchase a pee bucket from the hardware store in Troy (with any luck, he will also use the bucket on an upcoming actual dinghy cruise).

Upon reaching Troy, we were thrilled to discovered that a beloved vegan burrito shop, Burrito Burrito, has reopened! It's now attached to/associated with a neighboring bar and music venue, in a quite lovely spot with quite lovely eclectic decor.

It looks to me like the kitchen in the new space is more minuscule than in the prior location, but it's just so good to have a vegan burrito option again even if they can't deep-fry entire cauliflower heads anymore.

The farmer's market was pretty bustling. No 30-pound bags of carrots, but at least one place had decent bundles of rhubarb, and another stall had grapevines for sale.

That's the greenery tucked in behind me while I'm sitting in the bow, a grapevine:

Later on I made S trade seats with me as an experiment.

In the bow seat he could row away without triggering as much commentary from me about various aspects of rowing technique. Probably for the best!

Based on the ferocity of the wind, and the fact the forecast indicated it would continue until at least 5 pm, I decided I'd had enough of fighting the conditions and would just aim for home after Troy, instead of trying to fight further north up through the lock and towards Peebles Island.

Besides, that meant we could actually enjoy the wind as it pushed us back to Albany. We hardly even had to do any rowing at all!

Here's the boat back at home, with all the stowed gear:

All told, I learned a lot from the trip. Stowing the gear wasn't that complicated by itself, but I do think I should get a couple more proper drybags for everything, since it does seem I can basically guarantee there will always be some water in the bottom of the boat. Stowing the kayak dolly on the stern deck wasn't too bad, either. When we brought the boat back up to the yard, however, we did learn that the kayak dolly needs to be minded, or it can wind up slipping out from under the boat (or in this instance, getting flipped upside-down).

I do still think I need to get a good folding cane seat for a passenger, too.

I think now I'll generally be satisfied with just daytrips in Petrichor for the rest of this year. I already have plenty of camping experience, so I'm now feeling fairly well-prepared for the RowCamping adventure I have planned for next summer.

*He has a lot of work tasks and homework to attend to, so was prudent enough to only commit to a day trip.

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The itch to make things [work, projects, gardening]

Thu, 28 May 2026 14:22:57 GMT

I suppose it's at least progress to notice that trying to get myself to work on manuscripts triggers an itch to work on tangible projects and get various other things sorted out.

I *did* make some actual progress on two of the current manuscripts yesterday, yay. One is a project on seed harvester ant queens that I worked on with a graduate student and some undergrads back in the summer of 2021. The grad student (now a postdoc) and I have a standing weekly meeting to help ensure we make slow but relentless forward motion on the paper. Right now I am mostly refining the Introduction and Methods, but I do also need to review the Results again so we can then start working on drafting the Discussion.

The other manuscript is an unpublished dissertation chapter where I just can't stop collecting more data. That's a project where over the past year I've had a whole team of undergraduates help me to weigh and measure the head widths of thousands of leafcutter ants. We made good progress overall, but there are still ~15 colonies to finish up out of the 80 or so. Slow but steady progress, but perhaps it's some small consolation that it's a project that doesn't require too much thinking at the moment?

Anyway, brains working the way that they do, I have to allow for some daydreaming in the midst of attempting to write. Hence the travel planning and whatnot. But the daydreaming was also motivation to get the next oars sanded and primed, and to think about actually working on a solar-powered bike parts chandelier I want to make, and about getting back to work on various sewing projects, too. Soon.

But then I missed rowing practice this morning because allergies really got me down, so instead I finally got the soaker hose set up on the garden. This was becoming a rather urgent project, because the strawberry plants are all showing signs of wanting to produce a rather sizeable strawberry crop, but if the plants aren't well-hydrated the berries will be tiny and disappointing.

See what I mean?

So, soaker hose deployed!

I also planted a bunch of marigold seeds in among the chaos of the driveway garden:

This isn't the best photo of the driveway garden, but this year S dug out one of the burning bushes and replaced it with Brandi Glanville, the apricot tree that tried to kill me earlier this spring. He also added a strawberry plant, and I added a newer Dark Dahlia, which is already putting out lovely blooms. The hosta in the lower left of the photo and the rhubarb in the center were planted previously, and the back end of the bed has been taken over by some sort of lily. So, lots of random things going on in this garden bed, which is totally fine and fun.

Anyway, it's nice to have a part of the yard be experimental. The driveway bed could definitely use a bunch of soil amendment, though. It's just compacted clay right now, as a result of years of neglect.

Martha would have liked to help me, but she was forced to remain inside the catio, much to her dismay.

George also would have liked to help me, but he requires direct supervision on the catio, so since he was not permitted out he instead decided to inspect our freezer magnet Scrabble game.

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Ironing out the details [travel]

Wed, 27 May 2026 19:52:04 GMT

As expected, travel is eating my brain these days.

I got train tickets booked for traveling to/from Frankfurt out to Freiburg(Breisgau), where the international social insect meeting will be taking place in August. Now the main remaining piece is to figure out where to stay overnight in Frankfurt; most likely I'll default to a youth hostel there. I'm really hoping to manage with just carry-on luggage for that trip, which will be a squeeze but seems possible.

I also ordered a few bits and bobs for Princess TinyBike, in the event that the Princess winds up being the vehicle of choice for biking up to Montreal with annikusrex in June. That will all partly depend on whether or not a wheelbuilder in New Hampshire can finish building a new front wheel for the Princess. When I tried riding PTB in April, the generator hub was stiff and made such terrible squealing noises that I hopped off and walked. I'd thought the hub was a Schmidt hub, and sent it off to a bike shop for warrantee replacement, but learned I was mistaken. The new hub *will* be a Schmidt hub; the hubs on Frodo and Froinlavin have held up far better than the one on PTB.

There are two potential conveniences of AKW riding PTB: she has ridden PTB before and knows how the bike handles already, and since PTB is a folding bike we have fewer question marks about the logistics of getting a bicycle back to Albany from Montreal (so far there's no information from Amtrak to indicate the possibility of boxing a bike for the return trip, so we have to assume we might have to find a bike shop to ship the bikes).

I just contacted some key people in Arizona to let them know I'll be in Tucson in August. It's going to be interesting to see how expensive that trip gets, with what's happening with gasoline prices.

And I just bought plane tickets for a weekend expedition out to Chicago in September to row a half-marathon with some of my rowing teammates.

Bike commuting keeps me in good practice with folding myself up and transporting myself somewhere else, I suppose.

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Rowing things: regatta, oars, boats, more [rowing]

Wed, 27 May 2026 11:13:29 GMT

This past weekend, our team went to the Pittsford Regatta on the Erie Canal just outside Rochester. It's a favorite regatta, which is a little funny because just a few years back it was hard to convince my masters teammates to participate, and now we have a big crew that goes. This year the regatta weather didn't fully cooperate; when we arrived it was warmish, then it started to sprinkle, the sprinkle turned to rain and blowing wind, and temperatures dropped through the day. It has been a while since I've had such a rainy regatta experience, and I've definitely forgotten how to manage myself in the midst of it all. Being out in the elements all day is different from being out in the elements for just a rowing practice. Overall our spirits weren't too dampened; boats had decent races and we didn't have any serious misadventures (this time!).

I've started to think of my singles races as "scouting" opportunities.

( lots of photos in this post... )

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Let's organize our thoughts via book talk. [books]

Tue, 26 May 2026 18:39:55 GMT

In the summer of 2024, when I first drove across the country, I stopped in Moab to visit a cousin of mine - well, technically a first cousin, once removed (her mom was my cousin). It was a short visit, but a good and powerful one; she's on my dad's side of the family and we're close in age, so we had a lot of ground to cover in talking about the deaths of my dad and her mom. As a parting gift, she gave me a copy of a book called The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté.

Things about the book, before discussing its contents: the book is physically large, which made it cumbersome to read, especially factoring in cats that want to snuggle and get head scritches while I read.

The book's appearance had me a little nervous about woo-woo new-age pop psychology, so I put off reading it until after finishing a couple other books. But accepting the book was a promise to read it, so.

Actually reading it: my overall assessment as a person who reads a decent amount of nonfiction, is that the name-dropping and the use of the royal "we" were irritating. If the book had been heavily edited (I suspect the authors are the type to resist efforts to heavily edit), it might have been more impactful. I say this but meanwhile the book declares itself a NYT bestseller, and there have been occasions where I have appreciated NYT nonfiction bestsellers, so I wouldn't completely throw out the book, I'll just give it the side-eye. And other people might find it interesting and helpful for its central thesis about how profoundly macro- and micro-traumas can shape human behavior and health.

The challenge I have with books of this sort is that they do contain some useful ideas and information, the gems are just buried in a bunch of other words. And life is short.

In any case, I have finished reading it, and it was fine, so I can say as much to my cousin someday.

In the meantime, I have a bit of fiction I might read next. But also, for the sustainability teaching workshop last week, we were given a couple of reading assignments that convinced me to add at least one of the two entire (nonfiction) books to my List of Books to Read. Both books were published in 2024, although my sustainability colleague tells me that's somewhat coincidental; they are both more updated versions of the discourse within sustainability that has developed over the past decade or so*.

In any case, the two books are:
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, by Hannah Ritchie

and
What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (bought the ebook for this one).

The excerpts we read both make the point that Doomerism is unproductive (and in some cases counterproductive), and that people need to think about and do things other than stew in their climate or other anxieties. The works then did set us up well in the workshop for productive learning and discussion about what sustainability is and how we can work to incorporate sustainability competencies into our courses. I needed to hear all this, because in General Biology I teach about the sixth mass extinction, global climate change broadly writ, and ocean acidification, and in teaching about these things I do feel compelled to do more than just declare the state of emergency.

I do hope to write more specifically about more aspects of the workshop, but this is at least a starting point for doing so. The workshop was multifaceted and covered a LOT of ground in 2 days, both literally and metaphorically, so I have a lot to unpack for myself and I might not do all of that unpacking here on my blog.

But meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I just keep thinking, "Just say NO to Doomerism and Boomerism!!!!" heh.

*For me a big goal of the workshop was to gain an updated understanding of the contemporary discourse in sustainability; definitely do not assume that you are up-to-date in the field unless you are currently going to conferences and interacting with experts in this field, because a lot of what happens in this arena is very much misrepresented in popular media, and that's one of the points made by both books.

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The Days are Just Packed [status, projects, gardening, work]

Mon, 25 May 2026 14:07:49 GMT

It has been quite the weekend, to the point where today will likely largely be devoted to just trying to remember who I am, where I am, what I'm doing. I mean, yes, I have some sense of things, but I also have a big photo backlog from the past week, and need to sit down and rewrite my to-do lists.

Yesterday featured some of those moments of, "Do I sit down and think and write about things, or do I just get up and DO some of the particular things on the to-do list?"

I went with doing the things, most particularly getting the dahlias planted, but also tackling the next set of oar repairs and sanding, and tending to the most urgent laundry items. (so much laundry. too much laundry. but better than moldy clothes.)

Ultimately, though, I'm "working" from home today, so today will be a mix of thinking and doing. Sooner or later I need to get the soaker hose installed, and there are also several herbs that need to be repotted. It is another rather rainy day, however, so I might put off the soaker hose work until later in the week.

And now that I'm clear of the week of faculty development workshops, maybe I can finally structure and prioritize progress on research? Maybe?

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Bullet points for now [status, work]

Fri, 22 May 2026 13:56:01 GMT

Just emerging from a fairly intense 2-day sustainability pedagogy workshop; it was hugely helpful in multiple different ways. Hoping to write a lot more about that soon (heh).

About to head off to Pittsford, NY this afternoon, for a regatta tomorrow morning! This is always a fun one, hooray. I'm carpooling there with a teammate who shares my love of the Wegmans hummus, so you know we'll be stopping in this evening. At the Big Wegmans, naturally.

BUT - it does mean a whole lot of people time over the past week, which limits time for getting caught up on blog posts and time for thinking and writing. There will hopefully be more time and space for that next week.

It's tricky to pace myself. Right now I'm also training up a new set of campus animal care students, which is fun but time-consuming.

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I want to plant the dahlias [gardening, status]

Wed, 20 May 2026 11:44:17 GMT

Maybe I'll get to it this evening? This is a very busy week due to academic workshops that I've already complained about.

Yesterday evening was walking over to the local elementary school to vote in favor of funding schools and libraries (yes, both measures passed because people in this town at least recognize those are good things).

The main academic workshop today and tomorrow will be cool, because it's about weaving sustainability matters into the courses we teach. That means it's a good excuse to talk with colleagues about this vitally important subject.

I'll put the Dark Dahlia back where it has gone before, but I'm undecided on a newer one I bought at the grocery co-op 2 weeks ago, so I need to discuss it with S.

I also need to install the soaker hose pretty soon here.

Maybe this evening, or if not, probably on Sunday.

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The Bash Bish 400k [bicycling, randonneuring, brevets]

Mon, 18 May 2026 19:03:21 GMT

On the recent 300k 2 weekends ago, the ferns consisted of actively unfurling fiddleheads, past the stage where someone might harvest some to eat, but not quite ready for full-blown photosynthesis.

This past weekend on the 400k, the ferns were fully unfurled, tips standing straight upright, not yet so heavy they start to slump over.

The other most noticeable difference was that the insects and other ectotherms are out. There were some amazing frog choruses on parts of the 300k, but not so many insects. On the second big loop down into Connecticut this time, I rode my bike through an area where it wasn't just tent caterpillars trying to cross the road, but millipedes. So many millipedes, dark brown, wrigging along. At several points, flying insects booped me on the nose. At the very end, I pulled two large deer ticks off my shin! There was a butterfly, there were crickets, there were grasshoppers. The frog choruses are still going, but perhaps they're slightly more subdued now compared to that first frenzy of spring?

( Read more... )

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This, that, the other [status, bicycling, rowing, work]

Fri, 15 May 2026 19:17:24 GMT

1. I got to row my single this morning. Swoon! It was GREAT. I mean, the rowing probably wasn't perfect, but having the chance to get out there was so helpful right now.

2. I am going to undertake another overly ambitious brevet tomorrow. I am rather nervous about it but am going to try and set aside my fears to just go for it. It's going to make Sunday's graduation ceremony interesting, as I graduate college for the 9th time (lol).

3. I'm a little annoyed at work right now, but hear me out on why. This week is Senior Week, so I got all my grades turned in and harassed all the bicycling students to get their bicycles returned (they *mostly* did, I just have to go retrieve one bike off a rack, and I'll have to order new bike lock keys for 3 locks, lolsigh). Anyway, next week there are two conflicting/overlapping faculty workshops, and that's the thing I'm most annoyed at. Yes, faculty development workshops are a good idea, but why, college, do you keep stealing my precious summer research days?? Why??

I'll get over it, but I have to whine at least a little.

4. In part due to item #3 I've been working pretty hard to get things done in the interstitial spaces. I have had two projects going over the past year that involve measuring ant heads, and thank goodness, today I got the last ant heads done for one of the two projects. Too bad it's the easier of the two! But incremental forward progress is still forward progress, as I tell my research students.

Anyway, on that note, I'd better get back to preparations for tomorrow's bike ride...The best attitude to adopt, of course, is the Zen attitude of living in the moment, accepting whatever winds up happening. Easier said than done sometimes.

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Catio: George is still winning [cats]

Thu, 14 May 2026 18:04:53 GMT

So first off, S is back in town!! Yay!

What that means is he is getting a lot of quality time with the cats while I'm off rowing or at work or or or...and S must come up with his own cat management strategies in order to get his work done.

I dutifully apprised S of the catio situation, and in fact he found the video of George's attempted ninja escape rightfully hilarious.

The thing is that Martha has been exceptionally well-behaved when it comes to catio etiquette, and she asks so nicely if she can go out that it's hard to say no. So, how to manage one well-behaved cat and one miscreant? My method had been to open up the catio for Martha, but then close the door at the top of the basement steps. That way, Martha can come back inside the basement when she feels like it, but George cannae go out.

S says he had trouble with George darting down the basement steps when S opened the door, so he came up with a different workaround: use the basement window as a one-way catio valve. Leave the window hanging down but unlatched when Martha is on the catio, then she can push back in when she's ready to come inside.

...anyway, I knew nothing of the one-way valve setup when I arrived home last night. All I know is, I arrived home to see George out enjoying himself on the catio. Lucky George!

It seems necessity is very much the mother of invention, heh. He must have figured out how to push the window open far enough to squeeze out.

Also, somehow or another, a brick that I had used to temporarily seal one of the catio gaps also fell down*, so soon thereafter George was no longer on the catio either. When S went out to see what was up, suspecting a full escape, he encountered George out in front of the house, lolling in the grass, as George does. When George saw S, he trotted right back over to the gap in the catio and popped back inside.

We tried to have our supper out on the catio, keeping the cats company, which they greatly enjoyed, but then it got just a little too rainy and was time to come back indoors. We eventually lured the cats back in with bribes - their favorite freeze-dried salmon treats. But, geez.

Later in the evening, George came along and curled up on my chest for a snooze, prompting me to also have a little nap before heading to bed. This is the first time George has ever curled up on my chest! Emma used to do that far more often. It is irresistibly cute.

*Are we surprised? No, we are not surprised in the slightest.

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Plots and schemes and itineraries

Wed, 13 May 2026 16:53:16 GMT

Oh my lordness, give your travel agent an extravagant tip. Especially if your travel agent is YOU!

Trips this summer:

Bike to Montreal!!!! We'll go armed with a list of campsites and other potential stopovers, because there are Many Unknowns. Gotta figure out how to get bikes home from Montreal (train bike boxes probably), where to stay in Montreal, how many amazing things to see and eat whilst there.

Arizona Summer of Ants. Outbound, I'll make fun stops in Colorado. I'll probably repeat my return itinerary from 2024, which was shorter and less beautiful, but which will get ants back faster. July will be Busy.

August is Germany for a conference. Need to learn about places to sleep in Frankfurt, and to book a train ticket from Frankfurt to Freiburg.

I'm ignoring that I am going to Rowing Camp the last weekend in August, though that will deserve some attention eventually.

Perhaps my summer motto should be, "Have bedroll, will travel." Well, that and some good coffee.

Looking at it all, I am actually going to NOT try and sign up for Organized Summer Rowing. Just Disorganized Summer Rowing for me, because I won't be around enough to be Organized.

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Wherein certain longstanding complaints are longstanding [bicycling]

Wed, 13 May 2026 14:44:10 GMT

There have been some rather blunt reminders recently as to why I've backed off on involvement with certain forms of bike advocacy in the area.

For one example, today was supposed to be Bike to Work Day, except it's scheduled as a Press Op, and boy do I ever feel like a Token whenever I've tried to show up for it. It starts at 8:30 am, when many people need to already be at work, and it involves traveling on a dusted-off bike within a fleet of Bike Police some short distance over to a podium where some words can get said about things but little actually ever changes on the ground.

And due to the rainy forecast, it got postponed to next Friday anyway.

Yes, I biked to work, like I do every day. I am celebrating with a cup of tea at my desk.

For a second example, there are some people in this area who are working pretty hard to forge broader connections and community among bicyclists. Then there are people who refuse to do anything other than the very particular way they've determined is the Only Way things can get done. You can make a wild guess about the primary demographic that behaves in that manner, and your guess is very likely correct, because this has been a longstanding Known Issue within cycling advocacy, and was in fact part of the reason why our Arizona advocacy organization got started - there was an opportunity to create something more inclusive, and people did.

There are times when it sucks to live in a place and have to think, things could be so much better here, but this obstinacy is getting in the way.

But on the other hand, the bike valet is a thing I can do and help out with. So I'll keep doing that.

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The Bike Valet [bicycling]

Mon, 11 May 2026 15:50:26 GMT

What a weekend!

I don't remember how much I've blogged about this particular project, but over the weekend a couple other people and I finally put on the Bike Valet for our city's big annual spring festival, Tulip Fest. The bike valet built off of what other people got started last fall for a community street fair. It has felt like a somewhat odd "in" for me for bike advocacy, but in the long run, that's fine.

Step 1 for the bike valet was talking with the right people who organize Tulip Fest to get on their radar. Helpfully, they were able to supply perimeter fencing for us, whew! Step 2 was gathering up the supplies, including that sign-painting party about a month ago. Getting the supplies over to the site is its own adventure. I've been helping the rowing club haul supplies to and from this festival every year since moving out here, because the festival is located in a park where car access and parking are complicated. Hauling things on a bike trailer, NOT so complicated!

The bike valet supplies were a fairly big load, however:

( the ins, outs, ups, and downs... )

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Impossible working conditions [cats, work]

Thu, 07 May 2026 19:51:35 GMT

The cats have been "helping" me get things done today.

Martha was fascinated by the spinning bike wheel as I trued it:

Meanwhile...

Are you familiar with the acronym PEBKAC?

It stands for "Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Computer." It's generally used to refer to situations where the issue isn't so much the computer itself as it is the user of said computer.

Anyway, George is rather PEBKAC.

Here's his recent favorite snuggle spot:

He is easily offended if I dare to do anything other than just sit there, providing warmth and a nice snuggle spot.

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Graaaaaaaades...(said like Braaaaaains) [status, work]

Thu, 07 May 2026 16:06:43 GMT

Gave my students their final exam yesterday. I always include two "treat" questions on the final. The first asks them to identify and talk about one of the physiologically "exceptional" animals we've learned about over the course of the semester. I always enjoy hearing about which animals stand out the most to the students. I highlight a lot, ranging from the fact that bears don't experience muscle atrophy during hibernation, to the fact that tuna breathe using a method known as ram ventilation. Anyway, I always enjoy seeing which animals stand out for any particular group of students.

The second question asks them to identify three things that they think will stick with them from the course, 6 months from now. The things aren't limited to concepts, so it's also fun to see what everyone has to say.

These questions are actually a super important part of the course; inasmuch as we are learning lots of concepts and information, learning is also inherently relational. The personal connection to the ideas is what helps keep everyone engaged.

Anyway, I am really proud of myself because I managed to slog through the exam grading right after I finished giving the exam. Part of my motivation was wanting to be able to work from home today, which is what I'm now doing.

That said, I am also intentionally not working very hard today. Instead I am drinking extra coffee, doing some prep work for the bike valet this weekend, and catching up on various other odds and ends at home. Because frankly, by the end of the semester I'm running on fumes, and I know I need the time to regroup and recover.

I'll be back at work again tomorrow, because I'm not completely done yet. I have a student who needs to finish up a research paper, animals to continue taking care of, and some other stragglers, too.

And it's just about time to start getting ready for the summer. Another busy one, at that.

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Some blooms [gardening]

Tue, 05 May 2026 21:06:31 GMT

These are mostly from campus, but also my garden.

The internet tells me this is a Japanese Kwanzan Double Blossom Cherry. Anyway, here it is shortly before blooming:

And then bloom'd:

This year I was also really struck by the beauty of this stand of trees, which I believe are all crabapples:

There are a couple of redbuds tucked behind the crabapples, which I also really enjoy this time of year.

Meanwhile, in the garden, the Useless Rhubarbs are going wild.

If they could talk, I'm sure they'd say, "The better to propagate, my dear." But c'mon, rhubarbs, you have one job, and that job is to make delicious juicy stalks! Harumph.

Meanwhile, the rest of the bed is full of strawberry flowers, which will more happily turn into delicious strawberries at some point.

To celebrate this season of flowers, I'm having a beverage made with Creme de Violette. And also with some of the gin that a cousin gave to me like 5 or 6 years ago. And with one of the precious Meyer lemons my sister sent to me. My stockpile is dwindling but I'll enjoy every last one of 'em!

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