Author: pseudoisaac

The Coldwater Spring area was occupied by a number of Bureau of Mines buildings until they were finally torn down a couple of years ago. Now oak savanna restoration is underway and the spring is more accessible via footpaths. It’s truly a great sight, only mildly impaired by the noise from Highway 55. Those abandoned buildings were fun to explore but the new prairie is even better.

It’s funny how society’s priorities change. Forty years ago having a steel mill (or whatever it was) seemed like the best use of this land. Now, with even greater property values, a nature preserve seems like a better use of it, even if it requires a lot of work in restoration and upkeep.

I look forward to spring when the prairie will be alive with third or fourth year growth.

I watched a funny video making fun of K-Cups. I understand why people hate these things. It seems like an unnecessary waste of plastic. They are expensive. And they come in stupid flavors.

But I made the mistake of straying into the comments section (why do I ever read online comments?) and noticed outrage, indignation and overall righteousness and fuming over how evil and environmentally destructive K-Cups are.

But coffee is grown in tropical forests and is imported from thousands of miles away. It provides no nutrition (though it has health benefits). Even the most ethical growing methods are carbon intensive and displace native plants and animals with essentially monoculture. And what if K-Cups use coffee more efficiently than other methods? It seems like I throw out a large wad of grounds after using my electric coffee maker.

This is an instance of selective outrage. It serves as a good reminder to me: whenever I feel peevish over something (such as people sitting in their idling cars while playing on their phones for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes at a time), I should examine my own conduct (am I driving somewhere? It would take only a one-mile trip to equal roughly fifteen minutes of idling, if comparing gas usage alone. I understand idling produces more toxic exhaust than a moving vehicle).

Included: what I think are coyote tracks on the Mississippi River. Also indications that a field mouse was bounding along and then dove headlong into the snow like Scrooge McDuck in his coins. Maybe it was fleeing a coyote!

​The low temperature last night was well below zero and it was very windy. The weather forecasts include admonitions to "help each other out" and "check in on elders."

But around ten p.m. last night as I returned home I let someone down. I was bundled up from head to toe and was almost running from my car to my apartment. I was walking toward a guy who was standing in front of a placard which was not a map but informational. I didn’t have my glasses on but I saw him wipe snow from it with his bare hand. My night vision sucks but as I got closer I saw he had on only a leather jacket, chucks and jeans; no gloves​ or hat. He peered at me blankly and I said hello. He asked, "What building is that?" I said it was the Wilson library, closed I think. His face was pinkish and he looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, probably native.

The signs of hypothermia include a lack of awareness of one’s condition and lack of judgement. And people who abuse alcohol are at heightened risk. Hopefully he is okay.

Holy shit, what a great way to spend a below-zero evening in January. I went with my little sister and my little sister’s girlfriend and my little sister’s girlfriend’s sister.

We enjoyed a band that takes its cue from Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grappelli: Parisota Hot Club.

The place is amazing, the best of the Victorian greenhouse tradition. And as the band plays on the ambiance changes as daylight fades and becomes dusky, then dark. The music is played on speakers throughout the conservatory, allowing you to walk among those amazing tropical plants while enjoying "Nuages" and "Minor Swing."

The place looks and feels totally different when it’s dark.

It serves as a reminder that when it’s cold outside you better just make your own warmth:

"What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals."

– I got the job. Fuck yeah.

– I hung out with an old friend and went to Acme Comedy club for amateur night. I was surprised when a previously funny act seemed angry and drunk instead. He then pulled out his phone and refused to leave the stage when his time was up. Maybe this means I should consider actually, like, paying for comedy sometimes, if I don’t want to cringe like that again.

– Chrimbus was a smashing success. I like my family more than I used to.

– New Year’s Eve at the Cardinal was FUN. I like my friends.

– Wood Lake Nature Center is a gem in winter. I stopped there on the way back from my pee test (for the new job) and hiked around the perimeter trail. I heard the resident great horned owl, then saw it swoop down from a tree and into another tree, where it disappeared. I looked for comet Lovejoy near Orion, which is supposedly visible to the naked eye. But I’ll have to try again with binoculars and in a dark area.

Then on the way back to the entrance I came across hundreds of luminaries lit up along the trail for their New Year’s Eve event, which I had forgotten about. It was pretty. A friendly gentleman was stoking a fire and asked if I wanted to roast a marshmallow. Duh. It was delicious.

When you have a campfire your jacket becomes permeated with a smoky odor that instantly transports you with nice memories for the next week or so, unexpectedly, when you put on the jacket or reach for something in your pocket. Smell is without a doubt the most evocative of the senses.

I had an interview this morning. Usually I do a thorough shave the morning of the interview. But doing so gives me little cuts. So this time I shaved the day before. I figured that if it came down to me and one other candidate, they will choose the one whose face is not bleeding. (Career tip!)

Included: the Wood Lake Nature Center marsh. There’s a curious contrast between the frozen marsh and the foggy, 50 degF conditions today. Also a taxidermied red squirrel and barred owl.

I happened to cut across a grassy patch in Cedar-Riverside and saw gray feathers strewn about in a circle. I looked up and sure enough the carcass of a pigeon was frozen there on a branch.

Apparently a Cooper’s hawk is going about its business there, surrounded by cars and trucks and pedestrians. It might have pulled off this kill without being seen by anyone at all. It’s fun to notice things like this. I like how birding allows you to reconstruct a scene from a small observation. In this case it was the ruthless struggle for existence playing out beside a bustling street.

This winter feels a little bleak. But it is my imperative to thrive under all conditions. So if long spells of cold and dark are punctuated by moments of truth and clarity like this, I’ll be thrilled.

Also: the Minnehaha Creek

By Robert Lustig. Some interesting points:

– Thin people are not in control of their eating any more than fat people are and they can and do “flip” any time.

– The industrial global diet is ubiquitous and in demand, which means more obesity is on the way worldwide.

– Fructose as the “number one cause of chronic metabolic disease. ” (This claim seems a little extreme.)

– Foods that cause an insulin spike (such as fructose) may block leptin signaling and cause a starvation signal in the brain, causing overeating.

– Exercise is essentially useless for weight loss but increases overall health.

The author is not hopeful about the situation but the last part of the book offers some useful ideas including buying screen time with exercise. Example: being active for one hour buys you three hours of internet/phone/video games.

Fun fact: today I learned that the person on Instagram with the username Cunt_Destroyer is a teenage girl ! Weird.

I had the experience of not knowing whether it was more polite to correct a person’s false claims or to let him go on displaying his ignorance at the risk of further embarrassment:

A guy told me potassium was a large protein with “lots of grabbers” to transport other molecules throughout the body for clotting (This is totally wrong and he meant vitamin K). He said he was an O positive blood donor, “the universal donor” (It’s actually O negative). He then went on a lengthy rant about how one’s phone is the dirtiest thing one touches all day because “lots of things are cultured from it” (But is there any evidence those bacteria cause disease?).

I have no problem with ignorance (the ignorance of the human race, of all of us) when accompanied by a little humility. This “papier-mâché Mephistopheles” was only annoying to me because of the way he told me, unbidden, that he used to be the director of the Children’s Hospital lab, and then reminded me of this again a week later. People who go around wowing and silencing others with credentials and technical terms should be aware that an informed listener might be present to call out their bullshit and point out that they are literally a goddamn idiatic.

Ultimately it seemed most polite just to smile and nod.

Included: icy Lake Nokomis. Today I learned a lot about the wetland and oak savanna restoration efforts underway there. Also a frog.

A man died on Broadway Avenue a few months ago while checking out a Nice Ride bike. Some lowlife in a van veered off the road, hit him, and fled.

I visited the site the day after and thought about how I sometimes repeat phrases from Moby Dick to try to attain inner calm when I feel harassed: "Deep down and deep inland there I do bathe me in eternal mildness of joy." Or I think of the Meditations of Aurelius, that emperor who was ever turning inward:

"If a man should stand by a limpid pure spring, and curse it, the spring never ceases sending up potable water; and if he should cast clay into it or filth, it will speedily disperse them and wash them out, and will not be at all polluted. How then shalt thou possess a perpetual fountain and not a mere well? By forming thyself hourly to freedom conjoined with contentment, simplicity and modesty."

But it’s not enough simply to regulate your internal environment. Suppose that crash victim was in total inner peace when he was hit by the van. It didn’t prevent him from dying. Sperm whales turned out not to be malevolent at all but instead quite docile and vulnerable to overhunting. And you’re not a well, spouting huge quantities of fresh water. You’re vulnerable too and you have to fight to protect yourself and improve your surroundings. You have to fight for bike lanes that are separate from vehicle traffic, for increased enforcement of drunk-driving laws, and for a livable city so you don’t end up like that poor man on Broadway Avenue.

Sure it’s good to strive for inner calm, but if a circumstance is not right you should always make an effort to change it.