Actually, this is all one banana. It just appears in the photos a bunch of times.
(These were photos I took a couple of nights ago. I have yet to pick which one will be the one I’ll include in my project 365 set. Want to help me pick a banana?)
that’s my boy
Tree-hugger.
This photo was from early July. (Another from my digital hoard.) Theo spontaneously hugged a tree in our yard. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. (Not that this is an apple tree. I believe it’s an oak. So I guess the expression “the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree” would fit better. It’s just not the version that I’m most familiar with.)
This particular tree is not one we had taken down, by the way. I have yet to really see what our yard looks like, as we returned home after dark.
can’t see the house for the trees
We can see the forest, all right. It’s right on top of us.
Below is our neighborhood, as seen from above. See the houses and driveways? Those are our neighbors. See the dark blotch right in the middle of the picture? That’s where our house is. Honestly, there’s a house in there.
Image from Google Maps.
When we bought our house, over 11 years ago, one of the selling points for me was the heavily wooded neighborhood, and the heavily wooded lot. I like trees. I wanted to live with trees. And the trees around our house are beautiful. We have towering oaks and maples, with a few other types that I could probably identify if I bothered to look them up in the tree field guide I bought so many years ago. (Or maybe I did look them up, and have now forgotten.) Our house is on a bit of an incline, and the trees continue down the hill behind the house. The result is that our upstairs windows look right out into the treetops. It’s a bit like living in a treehouse.
The trouble is, the trees keep growing. And some of them are really close to the house. This has become an issue over the last 3 or 4 years. The house just isn’t getting enough sun for things to dry out regularly. And when you live in a wooden house, this is a problem. We’ve had issues with rot and mold, and have had to replace doors and soffits. Our gutter fell off rather dramatically a couple of years ago. We’ve had to be vigilant treating our house for carpenter ants.
Tomorrow, someone is coming to take down some of the trees. I’m glad that we’ll finally be dealing with the issue, but I’ll be sad to see some of them go. (Actually, I’m not planning on watching–or hearing–them go. We’ll be getting out to avoid the noise and the stress.)
This oak tree is probably just over 4 feet away from our deck. It’s probably a good 50 feet tall now. (Yikes!)
Looking up at the oak tree from our deck (which is one floor above the ground).
The back of our house, again from the deck. I think that gutter is a good 25 feet above ground level. As you can see, the trees are taller than that.
once (once) upon a time(piece)
It’s 11/11 once more, and once again, I find myself wanting to mark the day with a bit of eleven-ness. A few years ago, I made an 11 list. (My list goes up to 11.¹¹) Last year, I got all creative with 11-related photos.
This year, it struck me (ouch!) that once is the word for eleven in Spanish. Which at once made me have associations with the English word once. (Once in a blue moon… once an X always an X…once bitten, twice shy.) Once that got started, it brought to mind the Once-ler, who was the one who did in all the truffula trees in The Lorax. Have I mentioned that we’re going to be having a bunch of big trees around our house taken down soon? I feel rather like the Once-ler. Except that I have no plans to make thneeds.
I also found myself wanting to take a picture of 11:11 again. This time I went all analog. (And now it’s time for me to get back to work.)
Once once on a timepiece.
¹¹ This joke never gets old for me.
cough, cough
I have a cough. It’s very annoying, and it’s been interfering with my work and keeping me from getting enough sleep the last few days.
This is what it looks like:
Image: Screenshot of a recording of my cough, displayed in Praat.
Is it still a still life if there’s a hand in it?
I’ve been hard at work most of today, when not distracted by apples. (Or coughing. But that’s another story.) I was going to eat this shiny little red apple when I was overcome by a desire to take its picture. In the end, I instead ate a very tasty small russet apple, which was neither red nor shiny. (And now I’m thinking I should have taken its picture, too.)
Now I need to get back to my work.
scenes from my day
My research group has a paper draft due today, so I’ve been pretty well tethered to my laptop since early this morning. I’m eager¹ to finish up with this deadline so that I can shift my focus back to a deadline for a project for my own research.
In other news, I wasn’t expecting to wake up to this scene this morning.
¹ Maybe eager is not quite how I’m feeling. Antsy? Anxious? Loopy? Maybe.
apple attraction
Today we went to an apple orchard for their annual apple tasting, during which they set out samples of several dozen of the varieties of apples they grow there. It’s a rather understated event, but it gives a rare chance to really try a large number of kinds of apples and learn a bit about them. We enjoyed it last year, and even dragged along a friend this time.
Apples were set out for samples along side a crate of that type of apple, most of which were also available for purchase. (There were a few varieties not for sale, as they were rare varieties–a couple even from the only tree of their kind on the orchard.) Each crate was adorned with a card with a bit of history and description of the apple, including lineage and gossip. This one had a description that particularly amused my friend, especially the bit at the end:
“While not a terribly attractive apple, its taste warrants its inclusion in any apple collection.”
On the other hand, I thought these apples were quite attractive. (I just don’t remember right off hand which they were. They might have been Rome Beauty.)
Phoebe and Theo spent some time impersonating bags of apples for sale. Attractive as they were, they proved tricky to photograph in the low light. (They were constantly in motion.) In the end, I didn’t end up with any one great photo, but the sequence rather amuses me.
the conference pants study: interim results
Background
Yesterday, as I headed off to a conference wearing my black pants, I presented to you the Black Pants Hypothesis, a nascent theory of lower-body-garment-wearing behavior of women attending professional conferences. My expectation was that black pants would be the most frequently observed category of leg-and-bottom-covering clothing at the conference I attended.
Interim results
After two days of conducting research on the garments worn by women at the conference I attended, I have been able to make the following observations:
- It is very tricky to try to actually tally rates of black pants wearing while attending and working at a conference, at least without actually making efforts to record such observations and potentially appearing creepy. Methodology was therefore not systematic.
- Informal pants counts supported the expectation of high rates of black pants, however an exact measure was not determined. In spotting clusters of women conference attendees, it was not uncommon to see a rate between 1 in 3 and 2 in 5 black pants wearers. Counterexamples were observed, whereby a group of 3 or 4 women were observed of whom none were wearing black pants. However, all observations of groups of 5 or more women included at least 1 wearer of black pants.
- Rates of black-pants-wearing were particularly high among women giving oral presentations at the conference. In a sample size of 8 talks presented by women attended by the experimenter, at least 5 of the presenters wore black pants.
- Other highly frequently observed bottom-half-covering garments among female conference attendees included jeans and black skirts, with rates of jeans-wearing appearing to be similarly high to rates of black-pants-wearing.
- Gray, brown and tan and other neutral-colored pants were fairly frequently observed, with 2 outliers sighted wearing red pants.
- There were occasional sightings of non-black skirts or dresses.
- There were no observations of shorts, swimwear or nudity.
Discussion
The current study could neither confirm nor disconfirm the hypothesis that black pants are the most frequent bottom-half-covering garment worn by women at professional conferences. While large numbers of black pants were observed, the methodology was flawed such that it was not possible to determine actual rates. Further, the pants wearing behavior of women at professional conferences may be quite variable by both field and geographic region, such that the population of the currently studied conference may not be a representative sample of professional conference attending women as a whole. Pilot survey data were inconclusive, with some women affirming the essentialness of black pants, and others stating the lack of ownership of any black pants. However, correlations of these responses with professional-conference-attending behavior was not determined. Additional data will need to be collected.
Conclusions
I was glad I was wearing my black pants yesterday when I spilled coffee all over them shortly before getting up on stage to introduce presenters.
collecting tokens 