More garbage from Freddy’s

And you know these plastic signs were imported, too.

Just finished one of my winter break goals. Check out this business on the link… if I can figure out how to tastefully include it here on the post I’ll do that later.
Hourly Soil Profile, Animated
Daily Soil Profile, Animated

Those things should update hourly & daily depending on the flavor. Just under the wire with 11pm approaching. At some point I’ll apply the temperature correction so that when it’s 0 C it’s not showing as 0.2 C or anything. I guess I should also explain the figure. It’s a little Canvas HTML example I did for another project a while back (Canvas HTML I don’t believe works in Internet Explorer but every other browser should be fine).
The data you see there is house temperature data as a function of depth into the soil below our house. The unlabeled y-axis is depth below ground surface basically from 0 to 3 feet and the x-axis is temperature. From -30C to +5C (-22F to +41F) at the moment. The orange vertical line shows the freezing point, 0 C (32F). So, you can see there the strong diurnal cycle of temperature and then as the soil moisture goes through phase change from liquid to solid the temperature at that particular depth hovers at basically freezing until the water has changed to ice. We have fine grained soil at our house (unfortunately!) so not all of the water freezes at 0 C some of it can be unfrozen down to even -3 C or colder. Anyhoo, a side project I’ve been itching to take care of… I guess why do I care is an obvious question. The answer is that I’ve focused on improving the thermal regime of the soils beneath our house to better maintain the integrity of the foundation. This temperature monitoring system allows me to finally keep an eye on it rather than just go on hunches that I’m making things better. Also, this is the start of a several year project. I’m expecting that as the temperature in the ground cools year over year it will be visible in this data set.

Given my love of pop cultural trash, one of the best things about the internet the past year has, I think, been the development or at least rising popularity of all the funky blogs on tumblr and such that are either found-art style current so-so cellphone pictures or old film scans but either way, pretty informal stuff. Here’s a sampler I started a while back and have slowly added to. I think things started out nicer back in the day with CuteOverload and such but the collective creative power of the internet has taken things in some other directions. Also nice is that the caption writing rarely lives up to the picture.
http://crappytaxidermy.com/
http://keggersofyore.com/
http://radduderadkidradlady.blogspot.com/
http://badstockart.wordpress.com/
http://sketchysanta.com/
http:/peopleofwalmart.com/
http://www.foundfootagefest.com/
http://www.everythingisterrible.com/

I think I’m missing a few here but the general gist of my reading this year breaks into two categories…

Stuff I read on vacation / the plane:

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
American Buffalo in Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella
The Art of Travel Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Sir Francis Galton
Cherry by Sara Wheeler
Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan by Alex Kerr
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
In the Land of White Death by Valerian Albanov
McMafia by Mish Glenny
The Mystery of Capital by Hernando deSoto
The Quantity Theory of Insanity by Will Self
Targets Hit and Targets Missed by W. Leslie Yaw
+ maybe another book on Cpt. Cook and some Irish book

Things I read during the rest of the year:

The Broken Dice by Ivar Ekeland
Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
To Win or to Die, by George Manville Fenn
Where to Invade Next, Stephen Elliot Editor

The tally is 14 to 4 and I think there are some books I’m forgetting that make the ratio even more lopsided. Also read but not really making the cut are some Harvard Business books on uncertainty, decision making and change. The general theme for this year (like most years) is nonfiction related finance/economics with a light dose of occasional polar adventure biography and absurd fiction. I sat down tonight (while looking for the buffalo money I misplaced on one of the book shelves) to see what I’d read last year. 2009 and 2008 at first were kind of blended together (Christmas 2008 and vacation 2009 are easily glommed together). Other ways to break this list:

Temporally –
January: 8
Spring (April – June): 2
Summer/Fall (July – October): 4
December: 4
Book Source –
Gift: 2
Project Gutenberg: 3
Jessie’ Library: 6
Purchased: 5
Other: 2
Crtical Categories
Eye Rollers: 2
Interesting nonfiction: 4
Neutral: 4
Boring / hardish to finish: 5
Enjoyed fiction: 3

We’re trying to reduce our book buying so it’s good to see that reflected on this list (since this has recently commenced) although my bought but unread list is quite a bit higher. Maybe for 2010 I will work on a few more categories. Christmas and Sunny vacation are definitely where the books get read though. So, sad that current time off is coming to a close. I made a point to leave the house as little as possible this December break so that worked out to a strong finish. I picked a few of Jessie’s list to explore something different but I didn’t end up liking them that much so now she doesn’t want to be in a book club with me. So, I guess stand by for more weird book choices next year…

Have yet to start working on the stuffed halibut but check out our cinnamon rolls. Looks like trouble.

A little late in the day for breakfast but check out what just came out of the oven.

a bubblewrap trap has been set for the dogs.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

So, kicking it in sf for work and have been catching up with some old friends. Had a fun lunch yesterday and then last night got to the first show of the trip, Los Straitjackets doing a Christmas concert. Pretty rad. I think we all had a great time and it was fun to see old Sitka friends, too. Not much else going on. Hopefully we have very big news that doesn’t involve baby friends to announce soon…

finale at the show

los straitjackets in the nonchristmas part of the show

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Had a friend bring over this choice bottle of wine tonight to Thanksgiving part 2. To sweet not to share. For desserts this weekend made some good ones:
Pumpkin Cheesecake was my favorite.
Jessie liked this chocolate tart best.
The other two were this best ever pumpkin pie involving carmelized sugar and lots of cream and a pecan pie made without corn syrup. I did my own crusts this year, first time in a while for that. The crusts were probably the best I’ve made but only okay on the taste scale. Oh well…

On to the next set of holidays!!

Note to self:
Next time I decide to start a commune don’t invite people with a handwritten note. I think it makes the invitation more personal but other people don’t seem to see it that way.