Ultima Thule

The biggest event tonight just might be the New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule, the most distant object yet visited in our solar system. 

The photos, however, will take a while to arrive back on planet Earth, seeing as Thule is 6 light-hours distant.  

Bad weather at this location on the home planet—rain most of the day, now turning to snow.  

Not the best for dog walking.  

A House Called Tomorrow
Alberto Rios

You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries
And fifteen, bringing with you
In every breath and in every step
Everyone who has come before you,
All the yous that you have been,
The mothers of your mother,
The fathers of your father.
If someone in your family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:
The bad do not win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.
We simply would not be here
If that were so.
You are made, fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.
You are the breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward
Through it all, even if so many days
Feel otherwise.  But think:
When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—
It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.
From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,
The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:
That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,
Is ourselves.  And that’s all we need
To start.  That’s everything we require to keep going.
Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.
Be good, then better.  Write books.  Cure disease.
Make us proud.  Make yourself proud.
And those who came before you?  When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.

Nice To See The Sun

Perfect day for ice boating, with a fine breeze. 

Only problem a lack of ice, with the nearest sailable being Puckaway. Instead of sailing, then, considerable dog walking.  

And for dinner... 

Outside Of a Dog...

 ... a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

     — Groucho  

Not much today besides reading and dog tending. Sunless, cold, and damp. Now, freezing mist.

Becoming Snow

Temp dropping slowly, and light snow all day. No real accumulation.  

Quite a bit of moisture in this latest weather event.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~

last cucumber from the garden

giovanni singleton

Rain Day

Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville.
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénêtre mon coeur ?

~~~~~~~~
Not much else today besides rain and dog tending.
~~~~~~~~ 
And here two quotes more relevant today than ever:

“Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”
~George Bernard Shaw

"Never argue with an idiot. You won't convince them of anything 
and they will wear you down with their experience at being an idiot." 
~Mark Twain

Looking For Parts In All The Wrong Places...

...but where they once were lost they now are found. 

And Nite 165 is finally reassembled and ready to race (assuming the weather cooperates).  

Buddy and Pip have joined us for a week, so it’s a three dog night, with rain in the offing.  

Big Brunch

Traditional fare, much of it from the family cookbook; including sausage/egg casserole, baked orange infused French toast, curried fruit—plus ham, world famous waffles, a cheese plate, two kinds of pie, and… the list goes on. There were a few leftovers. Sally and Glenn in attendance plus Sue’s cousin Patty and her two adult kids. Happy Christmas to all.

Two Hundred Cranes...

...overhead as we were leaving Whitewater for Fox Point.  

Some afternoon fun Including a game of kickball with Will. Then church service. Always great to hear a pipe organ. And quite something to watch Katy singing out the carols. That girl likes to sing, and that girl has a voice.  

Should’ve Been Sailing

Perfect day, perfect ice.  But, it being the day before the day before—and seeing as how Nite #165 is fresh out of the bodyshop—sailing was honored more in the breach than in the observance. In today’s moderate breeze the guys on Pewaukee were hitting 50 mph, so it would have been nice to be there.

In lieu of sailing, I worked on putting Solstice back together (a few pieces of hardware are still missing) while Sue did a major houseclean in anticipation of the upcoming holiday brunch.

Plot Twists

Ice boating on the morning agenda but…

…a few minutes before departure for Pewaukee, a call from Bri with the news that Ellie and Becca had been throwing up all night. With sailing plans scuttled, the Whitewater contingent decided, in keeping with the iceboat theme, and go pick up #165 from the bodyshop where it had been repainted.  The route included a swing through Oconomowoc to drop off hand sewn ornaments Sue had despaired of completing in time but had actually finished. Then, as we neared O’woc we got a call telling us that Ellie, with her dad, had recently taken an ambulance to the hospital.

Soon after getting up and out of bed Ellie had passed out. Actually, she and her dad were standing side-by-side, brushing teeth, when she keeled over. Dehydration was the cause, and she is fine now. Becca’s all better too.

The timing was right, and we were able to bring Bri’s truck with us to the hospital so that he and Ellie might have a way home. And not long after we arrived Ellie was discharged.

After that we drove in to the north-west part of Milwaukee and loaded the boat onto the newly renovated trailer.

Not quite the day planned, but we did make it home in time for (take-out) dinner.

Happy Solstice

A short, dim day with a chilly north wind.  

Here’s a link sent me by Trina with lots of great solstice info. It should also be noted that tonight we have a full moon and a meteor shower, but around here if you look up you won’t see anything of that. On the up side—the days are now getting longer and the summer solstice is coming into view.

Dark and Dank

But Maddie and Becca brightened things up.  Becca’s school Christmas show was a lively affair.

Then come evening, Mimi went with Maddie to gymnastics practice while I, disappointed at not being able to go along, went to the local Democratic party communication committee meeting I had agreed to attend. After driving to Elkhorn, I stood outside the locked office for 10 minutes until the committee chairwoman showed up. Since she had no key, we stood together for a while—until I went and got the truck and parked in an open slot in front. We sat there, in relative warmth, for another while until a third person tried the office door (and found it still locked). Then the three of us went for coffee at the nearby Elk restaurant. Few in numbers, we had a nice chat, and then the chairwoman informed the two new recruits that she had previously quit the committee, and things would be reorganized in the new year.

And to think I could have gone to gymnastics

Measurable rain last night, and then mist and drizzle all day.

Luncheon With Becca

Right after school to Roots for mac & cheese, a little hot chocolate, and a Krispie treat. And LOTS of conversation. Then, on the way home, a stop at Fowler Park.

Technically a warm day with temps in the mid 40s, but because of an insistent wind it felt chilly.

Aside

Here’s a riddle pun posted by Kagawong. Singing can help solve it.  

Microbes

Now for the Tangled Tree.  

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a remarkable technology that makes genetic engineering relatively easy. With it you can edit DNA, and snip out a gene that otherwise would cause a genetic disease. And, if you do it at the right time, you can actually strip the genetic problem out of not just one individual but of all succeeding generations. That’s not all, of course. Designer babies are now possible. But, what I want is a fungus-proof American chestnut.

This remarkable capability was built off a genetic capability evolved by prokaryotes—bacteria and archaea–to ward off the attacks of viruses somewhere between 2 and 3 billion years ago.

So…now that we are speaking of prokaryotes, that’s pretty much what The Tangled Tree is all about. There is a main character in the book, a person who appears (in the midst of all the science) in Chapter 1 all the way through Chapter 84, and who provides the narrative thread. That person is Carl Woese, at the University of Illinois.

He‘s the guy who discovered that there are not just two branches of all life, but three—bacteria, yes; eukaryotes, yes; AND also archaea. Woese was a pioneer in gene sequencing. Anyone even remotely connected with the field is also connected to him and to Champaign/Urbana Illinois.

Here are a few interesting factoids.:

• No animal could live without its microbiome—bacteria in the gut.
• Bacteria rule planet Earth. Every other creature is just an asterisk.
• If you weigh the average human, somewhere between 4 to 6 pounds of that weight is bacteria.
•The mitochondria inside all living cells are actually bacteria who invaded billions of years ago (Endosymbiosis).
• Chloroplasts (the photosynthesizers) in all green plants are also bacterial invaders.
• Evolution is not just linear, descending down form generation to generation. Horizontal gene transfer has played a major role in evolution (and still continues to do so).
• Actually, what matters—what evolution has done—is to create many thousands of genes, each capable of of some amazing accomplishment. Individuals, and even species, are just collections of various genes. You need something…there’s a gene for that.
• Life is amazing.

The book is good too.

The Tangled Tree

My plan was to review a book of this name today, but a multitude of other endeavors and distractions interfered. So that’s on tomorrow’s agenda. 

Instead, here are a few burr oaks.  

The distractions included a walk in the prairie, tanking up at the flowing well, finishing off the new Nite trailer, working out, and getting a noggin trim. Also prepping a bit of supper. 

Yes, Palindromes

And the idea to bring up palindromes comes from a book just completed that discusses, among other things: clustered, regularly interspaced, short. palindromic repeats. But no time for that now since today’s topic has to be bbq ribs for dinner at the Nies household. More on CRISPR tomorrow.

Days Too Short

To Madison in the morning to visit Jane, our across-the-street neighbor, in hospital (she is doing better). Then late lunch at Old Fashioned (when in Madison…) and back home with just enough light left to finish up the trailer. Pleasant, windless, sunny day, though cool. Hope it stays this way another day, so the paint will dry. Then colder would be okay.

Okay, so, below are two statements, and the question is—what kind of strange thing do they represent?

“A Santa dog lived as a devil god at NASA.” and “Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam.” Comment to answer.

Foggy Morn

But sunny and mild by afternoon. Weekend iceboating called off—no local ice, and with light winds and soft surface forecast, a two hour drive north is not that appealing

On the up side, the new trailer wiring harness actually works. When I bought the kit I thought I was buying one with a real ground wire running to each light. Turns out I was wrong, and had to ground to the trailer, which, on an older and somewhat corroded one, can be a real pain.

The photo below is pretty much self-explanatory, but does illustrate how the ideas of responsibility for one’s actions, respect for others, neighborliness, concern for the environment, etc. do not penetrate too deeply into the minds of a certain group of people.

Nobody Likes Pears...

...at least not Bradford pears.  

Vi has one growing right along the wall between us and her. Maybe 20, 25 years old, and quite tall.

What I don’t like about it is that the waxy leaves seem designed to clog gutters, and they don’t drop until well into December when gutter cleaning is painful if not impossible Then, once the leaves are down, the little spherical fruits rain down creating more litter. Another sign of badness is the fact that no wild animal will touch the fruit. While Vi’s flowering crab is consumed ravenously by voracious hordes, nobody can stomach a Bradford. if you don’t believe me, read this: “The Curse of The Bradford Pear.”

We attended the monthly meeting of the Democratic Party of Walworth County this evening, in Elkhorn. Sizable crowd of interesting* and very friendly people. Maybe we will be doing a bit of volunteer something or other with them.

*The people in any new crowd usually look unusual until you get to know them.