Author: cdwan

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This weekend, on information from redmed, is declared tomato sauce weekend. All who wish to sit around a very large pot of simmering tomatoes for many hours are welcome. I do not yet know whether the day will be Saturday or Sunday. Suggestions are invited.

Vacation continues to rock, but will soon be ending. I get on a plane tomorrow afternoon to return to the land of work and no beach.

This morning, I went on a little bird watching expedition. It was drizzling, which kept the people indoors. I was able to stomp around the south end of the island and sneak up on a number of interesting critters. The best was the bald eagle, who I saw from about 200 yards away. I had cut through a section of dunes, and I saw him as a sort of stump off in the distance. As soon as I got the binoculars on him, I saw that he was staring directly at me. He flat out saw / heard me from 200 yards away, and as soon as he saw me looking at him, he picked up the thing he had been eating (some sort of adolescent bird or small animal), and flew with it about 100 feet to the North, dropped it, looked at me, and then flew back South maybe twice that distance. He landed again and stared at me. As soon as I moved towards him (foolishly hoping for a better picture), he took off across the water. I wasn’t able to locate his food either. His ruse totally worked on me.

Also sighted a pair of Black Skimmers and a large group of mixed Terns (Royal and Sandwich).

Went to the Sea Turtle Hospital and saw the loggerheads and greens that they’re nursing back to health.

I love this place.

Yesterday, my sister showed us around her research lab at UNC Wilmington. She’s doing experiments on how drugs affect learning in rats. Apparently, drugs are bad kids. Drugs are bad.

Day two at the beach.

My brother and I spent most of the day amusing ourselves with feats of science, skill and daring:

• Knocking a hacky sack back and forth with karate blows
• Trying to juggle while one of us hung upside down from the porch stairs (impossible, it’s difficult to even catch a single toss).
• Eating little bits of habanero pepper
• Balancing on the porch railing, and trying to jump directly to said porch railing without the use of hands
• kayaking in the ocean
• Playing air hockey.
• Evaporating water to isolate salt

In addition, there was much talk about isolating iodine from seaweed, but an acceptable method has not been found. The ones available involve both chlorine and sulfuric acid. No good.

My dad and I walked and identified birds, and everyone sat out in the sun and became a bit more pink. Dinner this evening was bliss. Fresh cucumber pickles, seveche (sea scallops), shrimp, marlin, and a little bit of leftover marlin from last night.

Tomorrow, we plan to purchase, like, 10 watermelons and destroy them using fierce karate blows. If possible, we will capture the moment using stroboscopic photography. This vacation rocks.

This is what happens when you log in via cell phone, from the beach:


64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1023 ttl=238 time=13776.770 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1024 ttl=238 time=18148.142 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1025 ttl=238 time=19029.878 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1026 ttl=238 time=19129.802 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1027 ttl=238 time=19125.548 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1028 ttl=238 time=19106.258 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1029 ttl=238 time=19165.117 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1030 ttl=238 time=19487.892 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.99: icmp_seq=1031 ttl=238 time=20028.524 ms


There’s an internet cafe on Topsail Island now. The fourth horseman is neigh.

Anyway, it’s a peaceful day at the beach. I got to the house at about 8pm last night, walked to the pier for a sandwich, and then hung at the house until my brother and mother showed up at about 9:30. Stayed up on the porch talking to my brother until about 1 in the morning. Both of us thought it was, like, 10pm at the latest. Good times.

While driving to the place from Raleigh, I talked to my sister on the phone. She was driving from Topsail to Raleigh at the same time. We tried to find some place to pull off at the same exit and have a cup of coffee, but two factors conspired against us: (1) There are no houses of coffee in central North Carolina (2) Our cell phones cut out as we approached each other. At least we waved. She’ll come back tonight. Good luck to her on the MCAT.

redmed is scraping and painting today, with scaffolding and everything. I miss her, but she’s so productive when I go away.

Birthday was blissful. Huge pile of presents, including the Sibley “lifestyles of birds” (or similar title), which is the definitive book about how birds behave and why…with awesome illustrations. Two trophies (indicating that I have survived 30 years of life). I nearly wet myself, I was laughing so hard. I mean, I asked for trophies half in jest. I got two. My brother got me one with, what I’m told, is “male victory” on the top. It’s a heavily muscled guy flexing, on top of a gold chalice, on top of a nice wooden base. It rocks. Honestly, it was an awesome birthday.

Now, back to the beach. It’s brutally hot…but there’s ocean to sit in.

I’m an anti-post-structuralist. I think that deconstruction and neo-nihlism is crap. Bring on the structured analysis and the mighty towers of organized thought.

Off to eat birthday sushi. Yum.

I’m in an odd mood. I feel like I’m rebooting or running some sort of deep scan and cleanout of the memory systems.

There is a plumbing fixture company which has a line of products on which are inscribed “Turn to Silence.” Whenever I notice one of these little inscriptions, I like to imagine that it’s part of a very subtle campaign to move people away from the noise and fury of our modern age. Away from television and their thumping bass. Turn instead, to silence. I know that it has something to do with the noise of water gurgling … but that’s okay. I am not alone in this little oddity.

There is a guy, a Ninja guy who has posted a $10K Challenge to all the asshats who write in and demand a shot at beating him up.

redmed decided to work from home today, so we could spend some more time together. That made it a really pleasant morning.

Wow. There’s consumer rape and then there’s this. I need more memory for my laptop. I went to the apple store to be sure I get the right kind. They offered me a 1GB stick of RAM for $500. Tiger Direct offers something comparable for $144.

Ouch.

So, I’m in a mood to listen to dorky, silly, clever songs. These are not “good” by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re what I’m intellectually ready to hear this morning.

Fountains of Wayne: Stacy’s Mom
The Offspring: Pretty Fly (for a white guy)
Cake: Never There
Seven Seconds of Love: First Drink of the Day

And so on …

His friends say he’s tryin’ too hard and he’s not quite hip
But in his own mind he’s, he’s the dopest trip!

Bio IT World lets my company have a column every month to talk about whatever the hell we feel like. They tend to be a bit fluffy…but it’s kind of cool to have a regularly appearing publication.