Category: Life

The Condition My Condition Is In

John Winkelman

Well, howdy, y’all!

The past several weeks have been more chaotic than usual, which, considering the past year, is saying something. Ergo my reduced presence on the www.

After the car accident I made several immediate changes in my day-to-day life, cutting out a lot of frivolous expenses, opening up some free time, and taking stock of Where I Am In My Life. It seemed the appropriate time to do so, as so many things in the world have recently entered a state of transition: Western new year, Eastern new year, new president, new car, additional debt, changing global economy, my impending 40th birthday…the whole bit. I decided it was time to concentrate on more tangible things.

Oh: And I had problems with my home internet connection for about three weeks, and only just got back online a few days ago. I will probably post something about that here for any other Comcast subscribers who have problems setting up a wireless connection.

In my enforced down time I have buried myself under a pile of books, including, but not limited to, the following:

The Chronicles of the Black Company (ten books!) by Glen Cook.
Drood, by Dan Simmons
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan is one which I find particularly interesting, because it points out the futility of basing a complex system on predictable events, when it is the *un*predictable events which drive the system. We only need look at the current state of the economy to see where this would be useful information to have.

After the average temperature around here moved back above ZERO, my girlfriend and I ventured outside to explore some more of the open spaces in West Michigan. Two weeks ago we drove to Duck Lake State Park and wandered around on the Lake Michigan beach for a couple of hours.

P1010542

Click here to see the rest of the photos in this set.

More focused updates on my life will appear anon.

2008 Goes Out With A Bang, Crash, and A Boom

John Winkelman

So there I was, driving Rick home from tai chi practice. We were heading east on Logan, at the Madison Ave intersection, when I noticed the stop sign. I hit the brakes, but on the fresh-fallen snow even ABS gave me no love. At about the middle of the intersection I saw “GMC” fast approaching my side window, so I let off the brakes and gunned the engine.

Apparently, I was half a second too slow.

The Escalade hit this side.

The Escalade hit my car about even with the driver’s side rear wheel, which spun the back end of my car around, up onto a curb, and into a telephone pole. The pole made contact just behind the passenger side rear wheel, and spun us back the other way and into a snowbank.

A telephone pole and a curb hit this side

We sat there for a second, making sure all of our parts were in the correct places, then jumped out and ran over to the SUV to make sure everyone was okay. Other than a smashed grill, there was not a mark on it. According to the tire tracks, the Escalade didn’t even slow down appreciably when it swatted my car out of the way.

Fortunately, no-one was hurt in either vehicle.

That was all last night about 9:30. I just got back from Wealthy Body Shop, getting some personal things out of the car. Seeing it in the daylight gave me a serious case of the shakes. The specific damage is not as bad as seeing that the car is no longer symmetrical, left to right. The whole thing is…warped.

my car is no longer bilaterally symmetrical

This is the first accident I have been in where I was at fault. It sucks.

Eye on Gustav

John Winkelman

Given that my dad lives just north of New Orleans, I have a vested interest in keeping an eye on things down there. Therefore I have made this page to be a repository of links relating to the approaching storm and (eventually) the aftermath. It will be updated regularly.

Webcam Lists
Master list of New Orleans webcams

Specific Webcams
NOLA.com Bridge Cam
Post of New Orleans

News and articles
Wikipedia page on Hurricane Gustav
Hurricane Gustav links at Google News

Festival 2008

John Winkelman

Well, we finally got put on the schedule, so here it is:

We will be performing on Saturday, June 7, from 1:00pm to 2:00pm at the Adult Involvement Stage behind the County Building. The Adult Involvement Stage is the large terrace which overlooks Monroe Avenue and DeVos Place. Click here for a map.

If you have not seen our shows before, they area lot of fun. Photos from last year can be seen here.

Hope to see you there!

The Weekly Avocado, week 4 – and a how-to

John Winkelman

Avocado Tree, week 4

Yup. More roots coming in. Shouldn’t be long before there are shoots coming out the top.

In other news, two more of my avocado seeds have started sprouting. At the same time. The same day, even. So for all you people who want to know my secret, here it is:

1. Eat an avocado.
2. Clean the pit carefully, and set aside of a couple of days, until completely dry to the touch.
3. Carefully peel all of the brown skin from the pit. At this point it should come off fairly easily.
4. Cut the top and bottom from the pit; maybe a quarter of an inch each, but be careful on the bottom that you don’t slice into the seed inside the pit.
5. Now you should be able to see the natural split in the avocado pit. Carefully, very carefully, insert a thin knife blade a bit and just barely begin to pry the two halves apart. You don’t want them to come completely apart; just enough to weaken the seam between the halves.
6. Toothpicks around the perimeter, suspend the pit half submerged in a container of water as in the above photo.

The change here, from other online instructions, is the weakening of the seam between the halves of the pit. In most every failed attempt, the pit remained a solid whole and I think this prevented the seed from sprouting. This is not to say this method is foolproof, but it seemed to work okay for me (call it fool resistant instead).

I have two more pits waiting, and I will try with them too. I will post progress if and when there is any to report.