So much snow. So much grading. I need to dig myself out from under both today, so I’m not going to be posting much, even though there’s a few things I’m itching to write about. So, instead, I leave you with some dance moves.
It’s snowing. It’s snowing a lot. It’s also actually rather pretty outside, since I don’t have to drive in it. So I thought, once I got home this evening, that I’d throw the ol’ drone up in there and see how it coped with dim light and blowing snow.
No, it doesn’t. It flies just fine, doesn’t even notice the steady breeze, but the snow piles up on the lens and reflects the red running lights on the machine so you see next to nothing other than bloody red glare. You do get a blurry glimpse of Mary shoveling snow from the sidewalk, though — and now you know who does all the real work around here.
The weather is supposed to worsen over night, and the snow doesn’t end until Tuesday evening. It’s Minnesota, all right.
Rebecca Watson is trying to clear out all my old stuff, so she’s having a sale in the Pharyngula store! Buy this magnificent Chibi PZ T, use the code FREEMUG when you buy it, and she’ll toss in a Pharyngula mug at no extra cost.
Hot tip: if you’re one of those persistent Twitter eggs, or maybe some guy writing a frenzied anonymous email to me, I will be compelled to take you far more seriously if you’re wearing one of these while composing your assault on my dignity, or photoshopping my face onto something obscene. You’re so obsessed with me already, I don’t understand how you can not wear one of these.
Or alternatively, if you’re one of my students and really want to get to me, show up to class wearing one of these and you’ll make me blush and stammer and maybe even flee the room (flight not guaranteed).
Order now! For the War on Christmas!
I’m not from Minnesota, but my mother’s side of the family is, and my sister just posted this antique photograph of my ancestors living in Fertile, Minnesota in the early 1900s.
I knew that tall young man in the center at the back — that’s my great-grandfather, Peter Westad, and I recall him as a tall, lean, very old man with a thick Scandinavian accent and a magnificent mustache, apparently inherited from his father, Jens, the wonderfully bearded fellow sitting in front with his wife, Marit. I can see a bit of a family resemblance, but mostly I want to get a suit just like old Jens’.
This reminiscence brought to you by a brief break in my current grading/teaching hell. We’re in the last two weeks of class. I have to stuff so much stuff in their heads, and there is all this administrative stuff rising to destroy me, too. The life of a Minnesota farmer is looking awfully appealing right now…
Like many of you, we just finished a fine vegan meal assembled by my daughter, Skatje. Except most of you didn’t have the vegan part. And really, no one else had my daughter cooking for them. So we just have the meal part in common, but that’s enough, right?
I tried to start up that other fine Thanksgiving tradition, the fight over politics or religion at the dinner table, but was completely stymied by the fact that my entire family agrees on everything. No grace, and ugh Trump ick talk about anything else OK we hate him but this pumpkin pie is delicious.
I thought we’d avoid that other Thanksgiving tradition of the football game in the background, but for some reason, Skatje has gotten into handegg and has told me we must watch Green Bay vs. Chicago tonight. So that’s ahead of us.
Oh, you didn’t know you got me a present? You did! I’m in the Amazon Affiliate program, you see, and occasionally I include a link to that evil empire in my blog entries, and you click on it, and maybe you buy something, and then I get a tiny cut of what you spent. Once a month I get a little gift certificate from Amazon. I’ve been saving them up for about 8 months so I could splurge on a toy, and last week the total finally reached what I needed to cover all of the costs, so you got me an early Christmas present. It’s very nice.
I got myself a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced Quadcopter Drone
It’s slick and easy to fly, and the software is reasonably sophisticated. I did have a bit of concern when I first set it up and it told me I needed to update the firmware…and the stupid installation procedure failed utterly. I thought for a while I was doomed to have a plastic brick that could sit on the table and buzz, because DJI has a notoriously terrible reputation for customer service, but fortunately they released a brand new software update the day after I got it that worked perfectly.
So that’s how I spent Thanksgiving morning: I took it up for a couple of flights and went spying out the local neighborhood.
Here’s an ugly example. I just went across the street to the UMM parking lot and zoomed it up to a 100 meters and fumbled about with the controls. It was fun! It’s hard to get smooth movies that show what I want — partly because there were a few times I was wiggling the wrong joystick, and because when it was high and drifted away on this blustery day, I sometimes lost track of the orientation and had to scan around to figure out where I was and what way I was pointing. Don’t feel obligated to watch it — it’s just me noodling about in the sky.
Practice makes perfect, though, unless on one of these practice flights I crash it and then have to save up gift certificates for another 8 months to get a new one.
Now I just have to figure out how to mount lasers or a missile launcher on it, and I’ll have everything a boy could want, a real stress-reliever.
Four whole days of idleness and…grading. Oh. So much grading.
Surprise! My daughter Skatje decided to join us for Thanksgiving on the spur of the moment, so she’s in town with plans for dinner tomorrow, which makes this cartoon particularly appropriate.
Except, unlike Lio’s dad, I’m not at all glum about this — vegetarian food is really good, and she mentioned a few of the things she’s planning to fix, so I’m looking forward to it.
She also promised to conjure up Ol’ Scratch, Satan, himself. Or was it that she was going to show us how to make saitan, from scratch? Either way, it works.
I try to dial down the stylish awesomeness when I’m in public, but sometimes it just burns through regardless.
This is the table in my office. Those two stacks of paper in front are a) lab reports and b) a midterm exam. I will be parking myself at that table tomorrow, and not leaving until one of them is done. Then I shall do likewise on Sunday and complete the other.
And when I get overwhelmed, I’ll play with my toys in the background.
