failure of the B vitamins

Yesterday I learned that the local bike coop, BICAS, where you can rent bike tools, has a mosquito problem when they aren't running their fans. We paid $4 to rent a derailleur hanger straightener, and I got bitten four times. I was the only person hopping around and flapping, so I can assume there were only four mosquitoes in the whole place. This post is mostly a note to myself to dress for a desert trek (i.e. wear tightly-woven long pants and long sleeves) if I go anywhere near the place ever again.
A dollar per bite. Dress appropriately. Stop being a mosquito magnet.

In other bike-related news, I relearned how to ride part of Fantasy Island that will get bulldozed sometime in the future (the yellow part, below), but I also did really well on a short loop that will live on. My ribs feel fine, so despite the bug bites, progress has been made.

These maps are posted on the affected trails, but not anywhere on the internet I could find, so have a picture of a map.

crickety mayhem

Recently I sort of learned to make a cricket trap from a fairly standard wikihow, and by "fairly standard," I mean it had a massive lack of details, so I'm not going to link to it. This project came up because I mentioned that we had a cricket in the house the other day, but it was only a little annoying. It came to keep us company while we watched tv the other night, and it transitioned very quickly to super annoying because it kept talking whenever the show got exciting, plus it proved too elusive to vacuum up easily.

Later that night, I set up my trap with parts I had lying around the kitchen. All I had to do was wait and see what I had in the morning. I went to bed. I had hardly closed my eyes when I heard a thump nearby. The thump was unusual, but my trap was not going to make one unless someone kicked it into a wall, plus it was in the living room, so I did not immediately associate the thump with the cricket. That association did not occur until spouse reported that he had met the cricket in the hallway, and in a split-second decision, whacked it with his hand.

So God only knows if the trap would have worked (I bet not), and I'm not going to go recruit outdoor crickets. Crickets outside are fine as long as they don't invent little bullhorns and try to yell over my tv.

You know, this is a terrible story. It serves me right for not really learning something.

carbon sequestration, water in the desert, and project appropriation

Today I learned that people at Oak Ridge have figured out how to convert CO₂ to ethanol, and it was easier than they expected. Burning the ethanol would not exactly be carbon sequestration, but recycling carbon is better than pumping more out of the ground. Maybe we can have vast reserves of booze underground for future archaeologists to puzzle over. I don't usually pay much attention to news about things that have only happened in a lab, but I hope this one turns out to be good for something. In related news, the US Government Printing office decided to change the "ae" in "archaeology" to "e," but there is disagreement, so I used the ae.

In other nerd news, a company collaborating with UC Berkeley invented a device that condenses water out of the air -- reportedly 11 gallons per day, even in arid environments. It's not in production yet, but there's a go fund me with a buy-one-send-one-to-a-place-with-water-issues program. I totally want one. I do not need one. I don't really want to bury something 2 m deep in my yard. I still want one.

In yet more news, today you couldn't keep me out of the toys. Spouse wanted to repair the windshield washer squirter problem in the nice car, and in the past, despite my background, I pretty much just held the light and fetched things. Today I was busy taking out screws and breaking little plastic body clips faster than he could catch me. (I felt better when the clips broke for him, too.) Then we found the hose to the squirter had gotten either eaten or cut, and I stuck it back together not at all the way he wanted, but it works, so it was ok that I did whatever I wanted while he wasn't looking. He's going to have to watch out for hijacked projects if I keep feeling better.

Ooh, ooh! I got my ballot!

I got a green envelope from the county in the mail! I get to vote for President, and I can do it right now! Hang on....

Ok, I forgot about the roughly thirty judges on the ballot you have to sort through and decide if they're worthy. I got voting homework, and I'm not doing it on Friday night. (Not that Friday night is any different than any other night around here, but it's the principle.)

In other news, I can now do the backstroke with impunity, but hauling my mountain bike back into line when the tires don't go where I would like still makes my ribs a little sore. I can ride sedately around the Bunny Trail, though, so that's good enough for now.

It turns out that I just feel like talking this evening, but I don't have much else to report. I'm going to get the air conditioning fixed in my car because it's so good at getting me to the pool, and I don't reek after swimming like I did after going to classes, so I can ride around with the windows closed. There's a cricket living in our master bedroom, but we can't hear it over the air cleaner in the room we sleep in, so we don't have to actively hunt it. I caught six rats on the back patio last month. None of them tried to eat my car, but you don't want to have a bunch of rats running around on your patio.

Ok, that's probably enough.