Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

So Channel 3 said on Friday that West Michigan hit 77°F for the first time in two hundred days. Lovely Spring weather. Mrs. Dr. Phil kept on saying it was summer, but she'd been in a meeting where the sun was broiling the room, so she's biased. Saturday was almost as warm -- lovely day for one last meat up with Momcat and Joe at what he called "The Bug Bunny" -- Grand Coney in Allendale. Then off to a game night.

Sunday still got up to 69-72°F, but by late afternoon it was all steady rain and cooling off. It's 4pm Monday and been gray and raining on and off all day. It's gotten all the way up to 46°F so far.

Definitely Spring, it's greening up. Our little bed of a couple of daffodils shows nice healthy green stands of leaves, but no hint of flowers yet. There are some daffodils about a mile from us and the peepers are still raising a ruckus at night so... Spring. The forsythia bush has one branch with bright yello flowers, hopefully the rest of it will be coming. We think that one branch gets more sun from a gap in the trees. (grin) It's gonna be a cooler week, though.

Speaking of Spring, I guess it's Finals Week at Western -- since I'm not teaching, I'm just not in touch with the calendar. But I did have an office run on Wednesday -- gorgeous day and topped out at 69-72°F.

But as I was leaving, I spotted an unusual sight -- a class being held outdoors of Everett Tower and Rood Hall. Huh. A mobile white board and a music stand as a lectern. And it was a Math class. Man, usually the outdoor classes are social sciences or literature. But no, they're dealing with polar coordinates. And mostly the students are taking notes or crap. Not even texting...


Naturally it's a young guy. Usually you can't bribe or badger the fogies to do an outdoor class. Physics is Phun enough, we don't need to go outdoors. Not unless we're pushing Suburbans around or launching water rockets. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Inset from a second frame. In the time I stooped the walker, got out the Nikon D100 and took a coupke of shots, he made a couple of jokes. Sine of zero is zero. Anything times zero is...? Come on, the zero multiplication tables are going to be on the Final...
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


Took another shot from the Blazer, showing the class spread out. There's one guy leaning back on both hands. Yeah, he's taking notes. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2015 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Oh my, what a glorious day it was today. And I don't even mean that in some ironical or April Fools way. Wednesday was just one fine damn day.

Sunday we had some snow. Actually, as predicted, it snowed quite hard, with the temp dropping from the mid-40s down to around freezing. We'd had a good spring warm up, with temps into the 50s and all the snow on our yard had gone, except for some bits in the shadows of the trees. But by Sunday afternoon the driveway and then the weeds and the back deck and finally the concrete pad in front of the garage were all white. And then it rained and it all washed away. Without even creating more than just some water in the drainage ditch by the road.

Wednesday, though. Well, Wednesday was blue sky and sun all day long. Supposed to get up into the 60s.

I had planned on doing my weekly run to the office on Wednesday, because the forecast was so nice. When I started planning I really had just one agenda item. When I last was there two weeks ago, I noticed that the 8GB microSD card I was using to have removable storage on OUEST, the university laptop, was down to about 400 MB free. Well, guess I had order some more tunnel.

Oh wait. I already had coming a 32GB SanDisk Ultra microSD card (with SD adapter) because the silly thing was only $12.99 with free Prime shipping and I figured I need it someday. Guess someday was now. Note that I had bought a 16GB SanDisk Extreme microSD card with adapter for $14.99 to use on ZEPPELIN at home. And I'd bought a couple of 8GB Sandisk MicroSD cards with SD adapters for $6.95 each -- one which went into OUEST last fall and was now full, and one each for our new LG phones back in January. At some point SanDisk and Amazon are going to be paying me to take their larger and larger GB storage units in smaller and smaller form factors. (Compared to the hundreds of dollars I paid for a 512MB IBM MicroDrive Type II CF card -- with a two-platter ¾" hard drive with read/write heads and everything!)

All I had to do was get a card reader for the office, so I could easily transfer from the 8GB card to the 32GB, without dumping files onto the laptop's hard drive ***. And it would be nice to have a Compact Flash reader as well. Alas, the current versions of the bulletproof Sony multi-card readers are very expensive, and the cheap ones had reviews which said they worked great with SD cards but the pins bent and broke on the CF slots. Finally I found a Kingston USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader for $17.43 with reviews saying the CF card slot guides were long enough for the card to go in straight every time.

Whew. So that was my plan.

But... I had a student who needed a new letter of recommendation for medical school applications. We made an appointment for noon. And since I was going to be in, I contacted another student who I'd been helping and we set up an appointment for 10:30. While I was at work I wrote another email to check on a third student -- and also got an email from a fourth student suffering from writer's block and wanted some help getting unstuck with their multiple papers due in mere weeks. That's more students in one day of office hours than I usually get other than just before an exam -- and I'm not even teaching anything this semester! Also did a few story notes. And started in on my PowerPoint for the MIAAPT Spring Meeting at MSU in two weeks.

I didn't get around to opening the 32GB card and card reader packaging and starting the file transfers until 4:05pm. (grin)

It was a good day. Very productive.

And when I got home just after 7pm, the temperature in Allendale was still 63°F. Hey, I could open windows and turn a little fan on in the bedroom. Put my leg up and napped for an hour. And when I got up, the neighbor's power tool bonanza was over.

Peepers.

Ah, the peepers were peeping out in the swampy drainage ditches. A True Sign of Spring and the first time for 2015.

Tomorrow is a writing day -- rain, rain, rain. (grin)

Dr. Phil

*** -- BTW, in case you wondering why I was going to all this trouble with microSD card storage, instead of just using the hard disks, it's pretty simple. On ZEPPELIN at home, I use the 16GB card as easily removed backup. On OUEST at work, I can pull the microSD card and lock it up. The university keeps worrying about security of grades and other materials, so I'd taken to locking up removable cards last year. Not that I want the laptop stolen. After all, before OUEST, the laptops in my office were my own machines.

Remember, nothing is truly backed up unless it's on two different media and in two locations. (better-safe-than-sorry-grin) And a Master padlock trumps a silly little desk key.

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

In Which Our Hero Falls To His Fate

I hate falling down. Nobody outside of professional stuntmen and some athletes probably do, but being a klutz I'm no good at it. Also, with my size I worry about falling and doing some serious damage to myself. Hasn't helped that balance and good footing with my bad left leg nerve leaves staying upright a tenuous balancing act. (grin)

In truth, though, I don't fall down all that much, thankfully. Before this year, I think it was probably ten years ago that I slipped on some ice on campus and had to pick myself up. Now, you must understand that I sleep on a futon on the floor. And I have exercises twice a day and sit on the floor to change my socks. But there's a ready chair nearby for me to use to help me get up. Standing up in the middle of nothing, that's not easy for me.

Earlier this winter I fell in the middle of the night heading to the bathroom. Hadn't realized that my left foot had gotten wrapped in a blanket, so Down Goes Frazier. Sort of a slow motion fall, on carpet. I almost laughed, except that I didn't want to wake up Mrs. Dr. Phil -- of course she woke up when I went THUD, so there's that. But other than being a little sore, no real damage.

However, Tuesday as I was heading out the front door of Everett Tower to cross the windy gap over to Rood Hall and my 1pm Physics class, I opened the door and went to plant my cane and... underneath the fluffy white snow was very slippery wet ice. Cane slid and in midstep onto the slight slope outside the door my feet slipped and down I went. Funny thing is that I was carrying a wedge seat cushion for the hard metal chair in the lecture hall, and that might've been involved.

Actually my immediate reaction was that I was damned cold. Wet and cold. My hands, which slid on the wet ice under the snow were so damned cold. Of course that same coating of ice meant that there was not sand, salt or the rough surface of concrete exposed to tear up either my clothes or the palms of my hands. So... this is good? And while I could get on my hands and knees, I knew I couldn't even trust the cane to prop myself up with and get up. I assumed that I had to slide back to the windbreak outside the doorway and lever myself up.

But rescue came. Prof. Kamber came out of Everett and one of my students stopped by to help -- after he skidded to a stop and got off his bicycle!!! Really? Riding a bike on sheets of wet ice? Didn't we cover static and kinetic friction and its effects in class?

Once I had my left foot planted, I just hoped that the two gentlemen could hold on and support my unfortunate bulk. They held, and I managed to get up.

As I headed to class, I suggested that Kamber tell the secretary to call for salt. And indeed, coming out fifty minutes later after class, the ice was completely melted. When I left to come home, the sidewalks were wet and sloppy and the parking lot was something of a mess, but that was just on campus. All the roads were wet but clear. I didn't have to struggle with a long commute on a skating rink.

I don't think I really damaged anything. Though in the middle of the day on Wednesday, I realized that I'd forgotten I'd slipped on the ice the day before and that perhaps that's why I had odd aches and pains, so took some Advils.

But I hate falling.

Winter Blows In Again and Again

And of course the insult to injury is that "spring" was coming. When we lived in the U.P., we always seemed to get a major storm right about St. Patrick's Day, just like the last of our giant front yard snow pile up there used to melt on Mother's Day. Here in West Michigan, the St. Patrick's Day storm isn't as consistent. Mrs. Dr. Phil wondered if the weather we had at the end of last week was this year's version. Maybe not.

Meanwhile people to the north of us in the U.P. were getting serious snow -- 16" to 24" by reports -- and there are snow tracks from the Plains states through the Midwest south of us, and on into WV, PA and NY. So I'm not really complaining, as others have repeatedly gotten clobbered worse than us, and even the weather forecasts of areas around here getting clobbered haven't done so much of that, either.

Vernal Equinox

Supposedly it happened on Wednesday morning at 7:02 EDT. You couldn't tell that by either the color of the lawn (white) or the overnight temperatures -- about 14°F this morning, with wind chills about -4°F. Mrs. Dr. Phil was grousing about it being a cruel month of January this March. (grin)

At least I hadn't heard a lot of reports about either flowers coming up or lots of buds or blooms on the fruit trees due to unseasonably warm February and March conditions like last year.

So we'll let the March storms get it all out of their system and wait for a real spring day to show up. Eventually. They always do.

Dr. Phil

Spring Will Come

Here are a list of reasons why Spring will someday return to West Michigan:

-- The temperature in Grand Rapids last night at 11pm was 54°F.

-- That was 11pm EDT, having endured the DST2007 early shift to Daylight Saving Time.

-- At 6am Monday, it was still 42°F.

-- It was already 50°F before 9:30am Monday.

-- There were worms on the sidewalks this morning after last night's rains.

-- College basketball conferences are having championships and tournaments, as a sideshow to the upcoming NCAA Division I tournaments.

-- The Cubs are losing a lot of spring training baseball games in Arizona.

-- There are Easter Peeps for sale in the gas station in Wayland MI.

-- WMU's Spring Break is over for Spring Semester, most of which takes place in the Winter and not the Spring.

-- Rain actually makes things wet, instead of freezing into sheets of ice.

-- 4WD not required for the drive in today.

-- Did I mention there was WORMSIGN on the sidewalks this morning?

Dr. Phil

Sure It Says Spring...

But the record temp for Kalamazoo for March 20th jumped today from 69°F to 84°F, marking like the fifth record day in a row. And Grand Rapids' 86°F was a record for the month of March in any year since they recorded temps. This is the weather usually reserved to start in June.

And tomorrow will be warmer.

Now in case you're thinking that Spring arrives on March 21st, remember that February had Leap Day, so March was a day late in starting this year. (grin) And for those of you who want to start spouting off about global warming -- in either direction -- remember that weather and climate are two very different things. (double-edged-grin)

It'll be cooler this weekend, with highs only in the 60s. But the apple trees are three weeks ahead this year, and we've heard tell that the strawberries will be early -- and we're eagerly awaiting the local asparagus from down the road.

Our forsythia bush, which we've never done anything with after planting it something like 18 years ago, should be gorgeous tomorrow. I need to try to get a photograph of it backlit when I get home.

Dr. Phil

80°F?

Monday it rained. Mrs. Dr. Phil saw wormsign on the sidewalks -- normal earthworm type, not Dune type. (grin) Tuesday night there were peepers in the distance -- tonight the peepers were deafening at the 84th Avenue cedar swamp.

And with a forecast high of 77°F today, it may have hit eighty. At least according to one sign along US-131 that's pretty reliable.

Oh, and though I didn't see them in time to slow down or get a camera out, along one of the 70mph curves on the M-6 this morning, there were three large wild turkeys strutting along the edge of the gravel.

Spring. Brings out the wildlife.

Dr. Phil

Calendar Lies

The WMU calendar says that this is the start of the Summer-I Session. But on the 9th of May, it is hardly summer. The temp may get up to the 70s today. If it does, it'll only be like the fifth day in the 70s this year. Driving south to K-zoo in sunshine this morning, the trees have gone from having the "green moldy" look of the weekend to just about almost being considered to having some leaves. Definitely still spring around here. Not summer.

Gas Surges, Then Drops For Dear Ol' Mom

Gasoline peaked here in Allendale at $4.29.9/gal for regular last week, then started dropping by a few pennies. On Wednesday or Thursday evening, we paid $4.37.9/gal for midgrade -- $72.00 for nearly 16½ gallons. Good thing that we're so worried about the oil companies not making any money these days, otherwise we'd be upset about sending them so much money. But they deserve it! (evil grin)

On Saturday gas dropped to $4.05.9/gal, just in time for Mother's Day, and today it was $4.03.9 for regular and $4.14.9 for midgrade. But I had a 50¢/gal and a 10¢/gal discount coupons from the grocery store, so my effective price was $3.54.9/gal. Yay?

Still a couple weeks until Memorial Day. We'll see what excuse gets coughed up as to why we need to pay more by then.

Dr. Phil

Snow

Besides an appallingly paltry six blog entries for the entire month of March, Spring arrived in West Michigan at 1:32pm EDT in the middle of a snowstorm. However, that was entirely temporary, and we began a warming trend that persisted into the beginning of April. Of course, weird weather still abounds in different parts of the country -- witness this past week's attempt by the state of Rhode Island to become an island nation unto itself, as both I-95 and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor were cut by flooding on the way to Boston.

Hot

Wednesday and Thursday the overnight temps stayed in the 58°-60°F range, rather than the 30s and 40s we'd been getting. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the temps hit 80°F+ and set records.

Red Flags On Parade

No, this isn't about government health care. Rather red flag fire danger warnings began creeping into West Michigan Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We were about 2" down in terms of rain so far this year, and weeks of warm weather has dried out the fields, but it is too early for a lot of the grasses and plants to be putting out much new green growth. Hence brush fires. Unfortunately, most of the rural fire departments are volunteer operations, which found it hard to put enough manpower and water on some of the blazes. One of the fires in Muskegon County got quite large and threatened a lot of homes. It wasn't helped by the stiff 20-30 mph breezes. (Why do farmers go out of their way to plow, disc and fertilizer in dry winds, so that vast clouds cross the nearby freeway threatening to shut down visibility? Oh, because farmers can't depend on the number of good working days, especially after last year's sogginess ruined planting or prevented it from happening at all.)

Living out in the country as we do and surrounded by scads of unchecked vegetation, I do get a little nervous during these times. Though I don't think our weeds were nearly as dried out as some of the stuff I was seeing elsewhere.

But by noon on Saturday, we were running only about 59°F and having a slight drizzle. Eventually things settled into a long soaking rain for a couple of hours. Should keep everyone safe for a while.

The Bluebird of Happiness...

... came calling last Sunday. A nice fat male eastern bluebird, with its blue head, red vest and white breast, nattily sat on our back porch railing singing up a storm. It stayed around for a few minutes, hopping around the railing, then fly off. It was followed by another bird whose species we couldn't immediately figure out -- kind of sparrowy gray and brown, but with a yellow beak. We look these things up in the bird book and either can't find them, or match it up with something which lives only in Costa Rica or is considered extinct and hasn't been seen since 1953. (grin) I was telling this to my mother, who mentioned that she'd never seen a bluebird. Huh. I recall seeing one once or twice in Medina and once, I think, in White Plains NY -- but I'll concede that they were uncommon sightings and ones that we remarked upon when I got home.

(*peepers*)

Also last Sunday, while sitting for dinner with company, we realized that it'd gotten warm enough for long enough that the swamps and drainage ditches were filling the evening with the sounds of peepers. Little froggy sounds of happy little froggies trying to make more little froggies. Definitely one of the signposts of Spring Really Arriving Here -- and a happy sound we really like to hear out in the country.

(*crickets*)

No, too soon for crickety noises. But this last week I was struck by how empty the streets were around 5pm. Huh. Kalamazoo Public Schools must've been on spring break, methinks. I believe Grand Rapids schools are this coming week.

So all in all, quite a beginning to spring. Hopefully April will continue on with somewhat less drama than we've seen. We could all use a pleasant spring renewal.

Dr. Phil