The Passing of a Great Beekeeper

We bears have an especially tender spot in our hearts for beekeepers, those selfless men and women who provide us with honey. Today the world is sadly without one of the greatest beekeepers ever, Sir Edmund Hillary. Its not every day that a beekeeper gets knighted, you know. Here is a photo of Sir Edmund along with Tenzing Norgay, the Shepa. Together they were the first climbers to ascend Mount Everest.

Not only a beekeeper and a climber, Sir Edmund was deeply committed to helping the Sherpa people. He built hospitals, schools, and airstrips throughout Nepal and dedicated himself to improving their lives. The Bears Home Front Brigade wishes to salute the passing of Sir Edmund and extends their condolences to all those who mourn his death.

He will not be forgotten.

Travel Schlepp Book Now Online

For New Year's Day, Schlepp is posting the first four chapters of his new novella. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for the podcasts of the same.

Happy Holidays to All!

Here's Schlepp in front of a luminaria, a traditional holiday decoration in New Mexico. Whether you call it a faralito or a luminaria, they are beautiful when massed atop all the houses and along all the streets.

Have a safe, warm and happy holiday!

Winter in NM

Schlepp took Aunt Frances down to the Albuquerque Nature Center to see the winter wildlife. It was cold but sunny and there were lots of Canadian geese, a bunch of wood ducks, and lots of mallards. Here's Miss Frances at the observation room looking out over the Nature Center's pond with lots of Canadian geese in the background.

Oddly enough, we didn't see a single crane. We're guessing they are farther south at Bosque del Apache.

Tonight it may snow, but its just not cold enough for a white Christmas in Albuquerque. Maybe it will snow on Christmas Day.

To all the Schlepp fans, have a happy solstice celebration, whatever your faith. Be safe and stay warm.

Teddy Bears in the Sudan

Talk about a collision of cultures--today a court in the Sudan convicted Gillian Gibbons for letting her 2nd year class name their teddy bear Mohammed. If any foreigner in the Sudan had thought about how the Danish cartoons of the Prophet were taken, and if the Sudanese had thought about how precious teddy bears are to the Brits, this never would have happened. To misconstrue that this is some kind of pernicious plot to overthrow Islam is ludicrous. The Muslim Council of Britain was quoted as saying:

"(Gibbons) should never have been arrested in the first place, let alone convicted of any crime," Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Inayat Bunglawala said. "There was no crime, it was a wholly innocent and naive. ... The worst you could say about her actions is that she was inadvertently naive. She should not be put in prison for that."

Schlepp and all the critters of the Home Front Brigade want Gillian to know that we fully support her and find the recent actions of the court in Khartoum to only reinforce negative stereotypes.

My understanding from the press is that a disgruntled school employee made the charge and that students had been taking Mohammed home for the weekend since September without ill feeling. After all, it was the students who nominated and voted for the name.

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Monday 3 December update. With the pardon of Gillian Gibbons by the President of Sudan, perhaps some calm will come to a land under seige. Now the correct focus of our attention (and that of the media) should be the situation in Darfur.

Thanksgiving in Ne w Mexico

Schlepp went north to visit the Horaks and Ramsays (Karl's brother's wife's family) for Thanksgiving. The forecast was for a good bit of snow and it did not disappoint. Here TS helps dig the Prius out. For scale, remember that he's just an 8" bear.

Luckily, the snowplows had stayed on top of things and the roads were slick in places with a bit of snow pack, but easily traveled if you used some bear sense.

By the time Schlepp had shoveled Dad's driveway, it was 10:00 and time to leave -- we wanted plenty of time to get back to Albuquerque because the road conditions in Santa Fe were an unknown quantity.

As it turned out, the roads were turning slushy by ten and only a few icy bridges greeted us in Santa Fe. The Interstate was somewhat wet but not at all snowy from Santa Fe south. So the Great Thanksgiving Snowstorm of 2007 turned out to be not so horrible and everyone's back home, safe and warm.

Home Again Home Again, Jiggitty Jig

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This is the way Schlepp handles fatigue while on travel--main-lining Espresso straight from the machine. And fatigue is what we had coming back from Amman.

First there was an entire day of workshop, close-out meetings, workshop luncheon, and team dinner. Then there was an evening to pack, shower, and shave before heading to the airport at 11:00 PM.

Flight to Paris took off at 2:00 AM in an old 737 that was crowded, uncomfortable, and poorly ventilated. Arrived at CDG around 6:30. Here's Schlepp at Gate E-96 so early that none of the shops are open. We worked on the Schlepp Book for a good bit while Debbie slept on the floor. Got Chapter 3 finished as well as the Dramatis Personae at the front.

The trans-Atlantic leg was much more comfortable than Amman to Paris. Arrived in good shape in Atlanta. Had a moment for a light dinner, then home to ABQ before 9:30 PM. All in all, about 44 hours on the go. Whew!

Yet Another Banquet

Had another banquet, this time in Madaba, a town famous for magnificent mosaics. Here Schlepp views one of the pieces under construction. The mosaic in the background is over 4' across. Both of them show the "tree of life," a remarkable symbol that cuts across Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths. Many of these mosaics are crafted by the handicapped and the pieces are only 2 or 3 mm on a side.

Afterwards we ate outdoors in a Jordanian restaurant. There were a large fig tree, grape vines, and an olive tree covering the entire group. More mezza, more shish kebab, more good times. Schlepp made friends with the daughter of one of the participants, as you can see. He is such an international diplomat.

Banquet in Amman

Tonight we had a huge banquet at a Lebannese restaurant. True, there wasn't music and dance like last March, but the service was impeccable and the food limitless. To begin with there were course upon course of mezza (appetizers) laid out on the long tables. There was hardly any room beverages for all the little plates.

After eating our fill of a huge variety of treats, they came around with the main courses, lamb, beef, kebab, chicken. Of course, afterwards there was a yummy desert and deadly strong coffee with cardamon. In a pause between course, Karl took my picture with a variety of the guests and Hanada got me to sample my first "hubbly bubbly," a Middle Eastern water pipe. Finally, the evening was finished with a lovely glass of sweet tea with mint.

A great time was had by all and I did my part for international diplomacy. Tomorrow we have another day of talks and discussion by individual NGOs and then the technical part begins. Wednesday and Thursday the Plone training will take place over at the Royal Jordanian Scientific Society.

Travel Schlepp Visits the Dead Sea

The trip to Amman started off with a bad oman: a two-hour delay due to an oil leak in an engine. Got to Cincinnati with 5 minutes to spare. Luckily, the flight to France was at the gate exactly across the concourse from our arrival gate. Karl and I were the last ones on the plane.

Security lines in Paris were chaotic, but we managed them and our flight left CDG only an hour late.

Arrived in Jordan last night about 9:00. Thank goodness for the Mohammed, the meet-and-greet fellow. Asleep by midnight and in fact slept pretty well after the 23-hour long flight from Albuquerque.

Today five of us hired a car and driver for a trip to the Dead Sea, about an hour away. Its amazing how much elevation you loose going down so far below sea level.

Here I am sitting on a salt-covered boulder on the shore of the Dead Sea. In the distance you can see people floating in the water, where they can't sink because of the buoyancy. On the left is Jordan. In the distance on the right is Israel. The Palestinian West Bank is to my left (your right) outside the picture.

Schlepp in Northern New Mexico

Earlier this month Schlepp attended the InterLab 2007 Conference in Los Alamos, NM. On the way up he stopped at the obscure Mormon Battalion Memorial near Budaghers. (You have to look real hard at the bottom of the monument to see Schlepp.)

Then on the way back, he stopped at Camel Rock. Most people stop at the casino on the north side of the road, but there's a small parking area for the stone formation on the south side of the interchange. The rock is now fenced off, but when I first arrived in NM you could climb right onto the camel's hump. Worries about erosion and the loss of the camel have resulted in a closed off site.

Where's Terrance?

Can you spot him?

This photo from two weeks ago shows him foraging in the oregano, where he is almost invisible. Now the weather has turned cold and he's dug himself a couple inches into the leaf litter underneath the Vinca. If I poke around a little, I can just see the top of his shell.

Even though the low this morning is forecast to be 40, this weekend its supposed to be back near 80. We'll see if that warms Terrance enough to get him moving again. This time of year in Albuquerque there are only 11 hours and 11 minutes between sunrise and sunset. With a sun elevation of only 45 degrees and the porch shading the Vinca bed until 1:00, he won't be getting much direct heat.

Meanwhile, Schlepp and the gang continue to work on Chapter Three of his book. Its almost time for NaNoWriMo, but since we started this last summer, we can't take credit for the 8000 words written so far.

Turtle Weight Watchers

Something for the biologists out there. Here is the graph of Terrance's weight, which I've been tracking since July.

I'm a bit surprised that it took such a dive in August when I thought he'd be laying on winterfat. At least the weight loss has flattened out, but he seems to be turning up his nose at strawberries, his favorite summer food.

His current weight of 354 grams works out to about 12.5 oz. In the next 2-3 weeks Terrance will be burrowing in for the winter's hibernations. Be on the lookout for post-hibernation weights next spring.

Abo Pass

Schlepp and PC took a pilgrimage to Abo Pass yesterday. This obscure pass between Mountainair and Belen, NM handles an incredible amount of rail traffic. Apparently this line carries more freight than the combined maritime transport between Europe and the U.S.

For several tight miles down in the canyon on the west side of the saddle it is single rail, so the trains stack up waiting for one to snake through before another can climb up the grade.

We watched a dozen or so from various vantage points as the 9000-foot long intermodal freights rolled by. Here we watch an east-bound train head into the pass at the NM 47 crossing. I'll have a audio podcast up later today and post the video to YouTube.

We went off the pavement south of the highway just west of the ghost town of Scholle, under a trestle, and down a canyon looking for the twin horned serpent petroglyphs, but we were turned back by mud from the recent rains.

Terrance, Newport and Schlepp

Terrance was out for a stroll the other morning. I found him behind the rosemary, so I brought him a plate of strawberries (his favorite food). Afterwards he checked out Newport, Schlepp, and Roberta (off camera left--you can just see an ear).

Since then I've only seen Terrance in the vinca, probably because its been too hot in other parts of the yard. As we move into September and things cool off, he'll start using the rosemary bed more often because of its early morning warmth.

Schlepp Visits Acoma

Its been about three years since Karl was out at Acoma. This trip Schlepp got to go along for the ride. The visitor center, which burned down seven years ago, has been rebuilt and is a wonderful island of cool and shade full of interesting exhibits, a museum, a restaurant, a picnic area, and gift shop. Schlepp got to see the entire mesa-top pueblo, go inside the church with its fascinating mixture of Pueblo and Christian symbolism, and hike down the original trail from the cliff top. At left Schlepp rests on a bench in the main Acoma square.

From the mesa top, one can see marvelous vistas across the Acoma reservation. Here you can see the view out towards Enchanted Mesa, a very large, very vertical formation off to the northeast. The clouds in the background are probably building up over the Jemez or Sangre de Christo Mountains 75-100 miles away.

Matthew Meadows Neighborhood Association Online

The great guys over at Openia came through with a Plone instance for my neighborhood association. Now our little Matthew Meadows has a nice new home in cyberspace. With Plone we should be in good shape for moderated blogs, a community calendar, news listings, and a useful repository for handy community information.

Already I've raided the City of Albuquerque GIS and purloined names and addresses of all the residents. Links to govt, Yahoo, and Google maps are up, but relevant content is still short. I'm posting on various of my sites to get some cross-linking with the indexing services.

Note that this morning the WaPo has an article about community and neighborhood blogs. Very timely.

Memorial Day Weekend

Its been a busy weekend: Ty's graduation, shopping for plants at High Country Gardens, getting ready for tomorrow's evening get-together. For me, definitely not a morning-bear, getting up for the nephew's 9:00 AM graduation was a horrible way to start the weekend. But luckily, he graduates from high school only once.

Then, on the way back down to Albuquerque, we stopped at High Country Gardens so Caro could pick up some plants. The photo is of me in their green house by the petunias. Of course, buying plants means having to eventually plant them. So much of today was spent digging holes. Terrance was out and about, so he survived his little adventure in the swimming pool last weekend. Caro did the bulk of the work, but I'm a little sore in the back from digging and some heavy lifting.

Had time to tidy up some of the bonsai, especially a couple of the tropicals. The ginkgo is doing very well despite some critter trying to excavate a burrow in its pot. The little fern-like ground cover adds a nice touch.

Monday we're having eight or so friends over for bon bowl--our version of a Vietnamese noodle salad. Lettuce, cucumber, green onion, cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, and a pile of capellini topped with grilled shrimp and pieces of spring roll. Don't forget to sprinkle liberally with chopped peanuts. The sauce is noteworthy (from Sunset Magazine years ago):

3/4 c rice wine vinegar
1/2 c soy sauce
3 T sugar
2 T sesame oil
2 T minced fresh ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1-2 t red chili powder

Albuquerque Bonsai Exhibit

The Albuquerque Bonsai Club will have a display of bonsai, viewing stones, and accent plants at the Albuquerque Botanic Gardens over the Mothers Day weekend. BTW, Schlepp will be taking his turn as docent and guardian of the bonsai from noon until 3 PM Sunday.

Evolution

It came as a shock during the Republican Presidential Candidates Debate, not only that three of ten candidates do not believe in evolution, but that the question of evolution is a one to be asked. Even more astounding is that the answer is still open for debate among the Republican Party. A fourth candidate (McCain) has accepted speaking engagements from the Discovery Institute (the intelligent design think tank). We have a President who claims that the jury is still out on the theory of evolution. (The three who identified themselves as not believing in the theory of evolution were Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo. Curiously, a number of MSM outlets did not name names.)

This state of affairs represents a profound disregard for scientific knowledge, a serious lack of understanding of the scientific method, and a prodigious statement of anti-intellectualism at the very highest levels of U.S. government. No wonder our response to global warming has been held back for seven years. No wonder we have ideological recipes to justify the invasion of Iraq and then more ideology to design a failed solution.

What ever happened to plain old critical thinking?

(Truth in Blogging Disclaimer: Schlepp has a PhD in Biology.)