What I had for lunch

This is one of those "what I had for lunch web log entries." Old fashioned style, and I'm not talking about the drink. Probably.

You'll notice that I've not blogged for half a month. For the last three months, Amanda, Huxley, and I have been engaged in a very time consuming operation. We fixed up our old house (it needed nothing more than cosmetic fixing, but we did ALL of that), then searched for a new house, bought one, and then moved into it. We then immediately ran into some delays and difficulties in getting settled, and are no where near normal, but we are getting there fast and in two weeks we'll probably be 100 percent. OK, 80 percent.

Then, for the last few days, we took some time away to visit the cabins and family up north.

The last couple of weeks, things have been way to disrupted to blog much, and also, with the quasi-official end of the Primary Season (with the RNC) I may have been feeling a little burned out and in need of walking away from it for a few days.

My brother Joe just sent Huxley a robot kit, and we'll be building that over the next week or so, and I'll let you know about that along with a review of a book I just got on electronics for kids. I've been reading, for review, a couple of other books, that deal not with robots but issues of terrorism and warfare, so that is on the slate for the next week or so. If you've not seen (heard) the latest Ikonokast interview, check it out here.

Here at the cabin, there are two big changes, both related to a major storm that came through here about ten days ago or so. First, the storm knocked down a big tree. Not just any tree. The storm knocked down thousands of trees (and killed some people). But there was this one tree, an iconic tree, right next to one of the cabins, that fell. It could have fallen on the cabin, with my mother and father inlaw inside, but instead it fell several degrees off and landed more or less harmlessly on open ground (taking out one other tree at the same time).

As an aside, anyone interested in a pine tree? Let me know. Slightly damaged. But seriously, this tree was undercut by the lake shore; it was not rotten or in any other way fell-worthy. So this is like a logged pine. I'm sure the price will be competitive, if you are interested!

That's sad but even worse is the eagles. There is typically a pair of eagles nesting not far from, and in view of, the cabins. They had a juvi with them this year. As far as I can see, the nest is still in place, though I can't say if it is intact as it is a bit hard to see, nestled in a large white pine. The juvenile is all over the place, bothering the Canada Geese, seemingly getting enough fish to eat, etc.

But the adults seem to be gone. We've been here since Sunday, and have not seen them once. If they were here I'd have seen them. The loons are here, and they help spot the eagles. (Almost all day time vocalizations this time of year, or really, for much of the summer, are brought on by the eagle flying overhead, but the loons have been silent.)

Were they killed by the storm? I'm thinking yes.

The Olympics are starting up this week!

I can not remember a single Olympics that was not preceded by a great deal of press-fed consternation about how everything was going to be all messed up. LA/Atlanta did not have too much of that, because they are In America, so they can't be that messed up. Or other first world cities, same. Never mind that the only deadly terrorist events to happen at an Olympics were in Munich and Atlanta. Anyway, we often hear the consternation, and X 10 if the Olympics are set in a third world or non-western country.

But then, the problems predicted do not materialize. Some of those problems are remembered, and people think they happened even when they didn't. There are often rumors or reports of some problems in the beginning of a summer or winter Olympic event, which is not entirely unexpected. But generally, what happens is these problems were exaggerated or never happened, or were quickly addressed.

In other words, the typical scenario is that there is a hint of this or that going wrong, the press amplifies it, everybody gets all titillated by this news, and then the Olympics happen and nothing really goes wrong.

But for Rio, everyone seems convinced that this is not possible. Rio will Truly Mess Up the Olympics. Big time.

Will they? We'll see. Soon!