jducoeur

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It took a couple weeks (after making an online reservation), but I finally got my confirmation for the NHC summer institute (Jewish learning program). So now all I have to do is decide on an airport and make reservations. Trains do not go there efficiently. That's a pity; I would like to be able to take a train somewhere someday. Doing the "airborne sardine" thing is over-rated. (Hmm. I'm taking it as a given that no one else from the Pittsburgh area is going, but I should check. Driving could work with the right group. But there is no way I'm taking such a road trip myself.)

Erik saw my vet tonight for a followup after his visit to the emergency clinic last week. He is eating but (still) not as much as he should be. I am to give him fluids for a while. We are waiting for an appointment for a consultation with a specialist, who'll look at the ultrasound and advise on options, including surgery. Poor guy. He's active and otherwise happy near as I can tell, but he does seem to have a case of ADR (Ain't Doin' Right), and I hope they can figure out how to fix it soon.

It's a little disconcerting to realize that my cat has better health care than many people who can pay (but live in places where there's none to be bought).

What does "X% chance of rain tonight" mean? Any rain anywhere in the region at any time during the night? That X% of the region will be wet by morning? That the whole region will get rain for X% of the night? Inquiring minds want to know, and empirical evidence is decidedly lacking.

Short takes:

As rjlippincott says, sometimes a product name says everything you need to know. Moo Doo, indeed.

For SCA folks: jducoeur's rules of water-bearing nails some of the current bureaucracy square on the head. Go. Read.

This kitten pile from kittenbreak is adorable. Assuming that's one litter, I'm surprised by both the number and the uniformity.

I'd never seen SCA equestrian activies before, so I decided to go watch. The event schedule didn't give a location, but I figured it had to be somewhere out near the battlefield and it would be visible. I'm glad we ran into someone who knew better; it was actually tucked way off in a corner of the site that I didn't even know existed, accessible via wagon. There was a wagon just leaving the battlefield, so I hopped on.

I was told there were eight horses there, though I never saw them all at once. The owners had set up pens next to their horse trailers and were camping back there (rather than in the main part of the campground). It seemed like they were having their own private (tiny) camp-out; it's probably not a good idea to leave the horses for long in an unfamiliar setting, and I saw no indication that the folks we saw there were participating in anything else at the event. I understand not wanting to have spookable half-ton horses "downtown" at an event, but I hope we can find better ways to make things a little more integrated in the future. I don't know how much of that isolation was needed for the horses versus imposed by the site.

The arena (a fenced-off ring) was set up for quintains when I was there. The SCA rightly does not do jousting (too dangerous); this is "jousting" at a target. A vertical pole has a rotating cross-piece with a small flat area (think shield); the contest is to hit that with your lance and the more times it spins, the better your score. I was surprised to learn that the biggest factor in how much spin you get is the weight of the lance -- I would have figured that half a ton of horse would dwarf a few pounds of lance or that lance cross-section would matter more than weight, but neither of those is true. (I didn't ask, but assume that where on the flat part you hit it also matters -- the farther out the better, right?)

I was surprised by how much warm-up the horses needed first. (It seemed to be for the horses more than the riders.) I watched the following sequence with one horse: first the rider walked the horse around the ring a couple times, then went around a couple more times a little faster (what's after walk, canter?). Only then did she pick up a lance, which she carried vertically while riding the horse around the ring again. (This was explained thus: anything taller than the horse is perceived as a threat, so this is to get the horse used to seeing that.) Only after a few rounds of this did the person level the lance and ride slowly toward the quintain, hitting and spinning it a couple times, all still at that one-notch-above-walk speed. I never saw a full gallop; it might not have been practical in that size ring. (I asked someone about possible top speed and he said 20mph if they were using the whole length of the ring, but the quintains were in the middle so not as fast.)

All of this warm-up was to get the horse used to something it had done a couple hours earlier. Wow. I asked one of the people how often he practices with his horse just for maintenance, and he said three times a week. That doesn't surprise me. He said is biggest challenge is winter, when sometimes it's too cold for weeks on end to do this stuff.

I saw a lot of practice but not the actual competitions (had to get back for something else at the event). I don't know when I'll next get to see this; in addition to site limitations, the SCA requires additional insurance if you want to have equestrian activities at your event, which cost smaller events won't be able to absorb. So it's got to be limited to larger events at suitable sites.

My cat Erik is fond of canned tuna. Actually, he is especially fond of the water. A few days ago he was ignoring the solids but lapping up the water, so I made more. I was able to leech out several rounds of tuna juice (I thought of almond milk while doing so) before the solids lost their ability to produce. Silly cat! (Yes, he's now eating solids, so whatever it was passed.)

Funny video #1, circulating on SCA mailing lists: toyota jousting.

Funny video #2, from brokengoose: cat washing machine.

Edited to add: Dani just showed me a candidate for most specialized blog on the net. The current entry doesn't make it real clear what's going on, but scroll down to some of the other pictures and you'll see. :-)