Saturday, September 24, 2005
Lab at the beach
For oceanography lab on Thursday, we went to the beach. First we looked at the sand through a magnifying glass and used a magnet to move around the little bitty pieces of black sand. Then we dug a big coffin-shaped hole with shovels, scraped off the sides, and saw the stripes from the difference between the sand deposited in the summer (small grains) and the winter (large grains). Then we threw oranges in the water and saw how the current in the surf moves parallel to the shore and the one far out doesn't. Then they gave us candy. Then we went swimming and played catch with one of the oranges. Sounds like a good lab, eh?
On Friday I went to Williamstown. My taxi driver between Pittsfield and Williams told me that I should never take cocaine. So, now I'm at Williams.
On Friday I went to Williamstown. My taxi driver between Pittsfield and Williams told me that I should never take cocaine. So, now I'm at Williams.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Some projects
Today is our sort of free day. It would have been quite a free day, except that we had an English paper due at noon and they added this "learn how to use Williams' computer resources" meeting in the morning.
I met with Katy (our Marine Policy professor) and she said it was a fine idea to research aquaculture off of Deer Isle/Stonington. She pulled up Jane McCloskey's testimony to something or other, which contained the names of a bunch of local people interested in the issue, and I was able to find the telephone numbers of four (out of five) of them using Google. Unrelatedly, I was looking at the list of the 25 recipients of the MacArthur "genius" awards, and one of them is:
In the afternoon I had boat handling again. We had a different teacher today, and he had set out buoys in the river so that we could do figure eights around them. If you drew a line between them, the wind was perpendicular to that line (on purpose). There was a good little bit of wind -- fine for a big boat, but a lot for a nine-foot boat -- but I did fine turning to go around the first one. When I was coming back and going around the second one, I hadn't crossed over the center, so it was like I was just going around them -- like a 0 instead of an 8. The guy said "you're supposed to tack instead of gibe" because if you did an 0 then you'd be doing one tack and one gibe, and I was heading for a gibe. I said "that's okay, I'll just gibe then," because I had gibed fine the other day. BUT today there was more wind, and so as the boom swung across, the wind hit it and the boat heeled -- whoa! about 70 degrees, enough that water was pouring in over the gunwhale -- so I stomped on the high side and put all my weight on that foot, and the boat came back up. It was the sort of thing where people were very impressed that I got myself back upright, and not so impressed that I got myself to 70° inclination in the first place.
After that there was about three inches of water in the bottom of the boat. Luckily I was wearing sandals, because sneakers would have gotten wet and flip flops would have fallen off. I bailed it with the bailer every so often, but it's hard to hold on to the tiller AND the main sheet AND bail, because I don't have three hands. I did manage to somewhat master the technique of sheeting in and sitting way on the high side to level the boat out. That works pretty well. This was after a while of purposefully luffing so that the boat wouldn't heel over. I did eventually gibe twice in a row, on purpose, after sheeting in as much as possible and making sure the wind was a tiny little breeze, and that worked just fine. No more tipping over for me.
Then I went over to talk to Lisa. She had suggested that if we wanted to model things for our project, we should talk to her. I said I wanted to take some data from 1990, mess with the variables until my model accurately predicted the data for 2000, then predict what would be there now in 2005, go out there and see how good the prediction was, maybe mess with the variables a bit more to make the model fit both 2000 and 2005, and then predict 2010.
Lisa suggested that I look at this marsh that is accumulating around the Morgan. Since the Morgan diminishes the wave action, the sediment has been building up, and then grasses grew, and now there is a little marsh there. The idea is for me to look at aerial photos, take some sediment cores, and do some mathematical modeling, and figure something out. It sounds good.
By the way, Jesus was in the clouds. If you're into that sort of thing.
I met with Katy (our Marine Policy professor) and she said it was a fine idea to research aquaculture off of Deer Isle/Stonington. She pulled up Jane McCloskey's testimony to something or other, which contained the names of a bunch of local people interested in the issue, and I was able to find the telephone numbers of four (out of five) of them using Google. Unrelatedly, I was looking at the list of the 25 recipients of the MacArthur "genius" awards, and one of them is:
Ted Ames, 66, lifelong fisherman who fuses his trade knowledge with fishery science to develop protection strategies for fish habitats in Stonington, Maine.So I guess I'll be contacting a genius. I hope his new fame doesn't prevent him from talking to me about fish habitats in Stonington.
In the afternoon I had boat handling again. We had a different teacher today, and he had set out buoys in the river so that we could do figure eights around them. If you drew a line between them, the wind was perpendicular to that line (on purpose). There was a good little bit of wind -- fine for a big boat, but a lot for a nine-foot boat -- but I did fine turning to go around the first one. When I was coming back and going around the second one, I hadn't crossed over the center, so it was like I was just going around them -- like a 0 instead of an 8. The guy said "you're supposed to tack instead of gibe" because if you did an 0 then you'd be doing one tack and one gibe, and I was heading for a gibe. I said "that's okay, I'll just gibe then," because I had gibed fine the other day. BUT today there was more wind, and so as the boom swung across, the wind hit it and the boat heeled -- whoa! about 70 degrees, enough that water was pouring in over the gunwhale -- so I stomped on the high side and put all my weight on that foot, and the boat came back up. It was the sort of thing where people were very impressed that I got myself back upright, and not so impressed that I got myself to 70° inclination in the first place.
After that there was about three inches of water in the bottom of the boat. Luckily I was wearing sandals, because sneakers would have gotten wet and flip flops would have fallen off. I bailed it with the bailer every so often, but it's hard to hold on to the tiller AND the main sheet AND bail, because I don't have three hands. I did manage to somewhat master the technique of sheeting in and sitting way on the high side to level the boat out. That works pretty well. This was after a while of purposefully luffing so that the boat wouldn't heel over. I did eventually gibe twice in a row, on purpose, after sheeting in as much as possible and making sure the wind was a tiny little breeze, and that worked just fine. No more tipping over for me.
Then I went over to talk to Lisa. She had suggested that if we wanted to model things for our project, we should talk to her. I said I wanted to take some data from 1990, mess with the variables until my model accurately predicted the data for 2000, then predict what would be there now in 2005, go out there and see how good the prediction was, maybe mess with the variables a bit more to make the model fit both 2000 and 2005, and then predict 2010.
Lisa suggested that I look at this marsh that is accumulating around the Morgan. Since the Morgan diminishes the wave action, the sediment has been building up, and then grasses grew, and now there is a little marsh there. The idea is for me to look at aerial photos, take some sediment cores, and do some mathematical modeling, and figure something out. It sounds good.
By the way, Jesus was in the clouds. If you're into that sort of thing.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Crabs & Celestial navigation
So yesterday we got up at 5:00 AM, headed over to Johnston for a breakfast and then went to lab at 5:30. We drove to the coast in vans and the sun rose as we drove, so that by the time we got there we could see what was going on. We went to a place with lots of rocks and tidepools. Low tide was at 4:30 AM, so we got there as the tide was coming in.
These white worms colonize the bottom of rocks, so if a rock has been in one place for a while, it is all white at the bottom. And you can tell if a rock has recently been flipped over, because then it is white at the top. This does not work in Deer Isle, where rocks are white at the top from seagull poop.
Jim was telling us about the different crab species. The most numerous crabs are the greenish crabs that you see all the time. They weren't here until the mid '80s. They came from Europe. A college class discovered them when they were tidepooling. If we found a crab that was not one of these, and picked it up, Jim said he would give that person a hot fudge sundae. There were two other types of crab, one which was red and white, and one which was brown with light brown stripes (it is from Asia, of course). I found a big one that was red and white. It was half under a rock, so I pressed down on its shell until it was in a good position for me to grab it by the "ears" (it was quite active, and would definitely have pinched hard if I had let it). This was, as Candice would call it, "an ice cream crab." We will see about the ice cream.
Also, periwinkles are not native. They were also introduced. Periwinkles are the reason why the rocks are clear of algae on the coast. And the seaweed you see all the time isn't native, either. These things are all "from away."
We had a bit of a break, and then there was oceanography class. We talked about continental drift and how they decided that it really was continental drift that was happening, that the continents were moving, that sort of thing.
Then history class met in the fo'c's'le of the Morgan. This is the inside of the bow, where the crew sleeps. We lay on the bunks taking notes as Glenn gave a little presentation about the fo'c's'le. (Don't worry; the bunks are reproductions, not national treasures like everything else in the museum). We will each give this sort of presentation about some historical object, so this was his sample of how it might be done. Then one of the librarians talked to us about and gave us a walk-through of the rare books and documents.
In the afternoon I went running. I timed it so that I would not be caught on the wrong side of the drawbridge. It worked. The sky was spitting the whole time, but it didn't rain.
At night we had celestial navigation. We spent some time in the classroom, then some time in the observatory looking at the stars, then some time drawing lines on paper in the classroom to see how you would navigate. He explained some of how it works to take sights and why it works, this sort of thing.
The strange thing about the observatory is that it looks so much smaller than the sky. The constellations are much closer together on the observatory ceiling. Also, the stars are much bigger, and brighter. It looks quite different from the sky on the ocean. There, even if the stars are very bright -- like planets, for instance -- they are very small points of light.
These white worms colonize the bottom of rocks, so if a rock has been in one place for a while, it is all white at the bottom. And you can tell if a rock has recently been flipped over, because then it is white at the top. This does not work in Deer Isle, where rocks are white at the top from seagull poop.
Jim was telling us about the different crab species. The most numerous crabs are the greenish crabs that you see all the time. They weren't here until the mid '80s. They came from Europe. A college class discovered them when they were tidepooling. If we found a crab that was not one of these, and picked it up, Jim said he would give that person a hot fudge sundae. There were two other types of crab, one which was red and white, and one which was brown with light brown stripes (it is from Asia, of course). I found a big one that was red and white. It was half under a rock, so I pressed down on its shell until it was in a good position for me to grab it by the "ears" (it was quite active, and would definitely have pinched hard if I had let it). This was, as Candice would call it, "an ice cream crab." We will see about the ice cream.
Also, periwinkles are not native. They were also introduced. Periwinkles are the reason why the rocks are clear of algae on the coast. And the seaweed you see all the time isn't native, either. These things are all "from away."
We had a bit of a break, and then there was oceanography class. We talked about continental drift and how they decided that it really was continental drift that was happening, that the continents were moving, that sort of thing.
Then history class met in the fo'c's'le of the Morgan. This is the inside of the bow, where the crew sleeps. We lay on the bunks taking notes as Glenn gave a little presentation about the fo'c's'le. (Don't worry; the bunks are reproductions, not national treasures like everything else in the museum). We will each give this sort of presentation about some historical object, so this was his sample of how it might be done. Then one of the librarians talked to us about and gave us a walk-through of the rare books and documents.
In the afternoon I went running. I timed it so that I would not be caught on the wrong side of the drawbridge. It worked. The sky was spitting the whole time, but it didn't rain.
At night we had celestial navigation. We spent some time in the classroom, then some time in the observatory looking at the stars, then some time drawing lines on paper in the classroom to see how you would navigate. He explained some of how it works to take sights and why it works, this sort of thing.
The strange thing about the observatory is that it looks so much smaller than the sky. The constellations are much closer together on the observatory ceiling. Also, the stars are much bigger, and brighter. It looks quite different from the sky on the ocean. There, even if the stars are very bright -- like planets, for instance -- they are very small points of light.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Sailing, Stairs & Smoke
This afternoon I had my first maritime skills course. You will recall that my skill is boat handling. We will be sailing 9-foot dinghy boats. The first thing we did was we went out with no sail or boom, only a mast, a centerboard, and a rudder. If you stand up and rock back and forth on your legs and move the rudder at the same time in a direction opposing the rocking, then you go forward. If you want to turn, then you push the rudder one way and lean the other way, kind of like turning in skiing.
That, plus the initial setting up of the boats -- dumping out the water and installing the mast -- took most of our time. Then we put the sail on one boat and each of us got to take it for a very short sail. We got a push off the dock, then sailed it out maybe 100 feet, jibed, brought it back in until it might hit the dock and then jibe at the last moment, and then out and back once or twice more. It was quite fun. The boom does swing across fast.
My maritime skills course was at 1330. At 1305, I was leaving for the post office, because I had to mail a package. It takes 10 minutes each way to walk to the post office. But then I fell down the stairs and caught myself on the railing between my arm and my ribs, which hurt, so I had to lay down on the floor, and everyone looked at me. Then I was sent on an urgent mission to procure cooking oil from CVS, which is near the post office. So at 1310 I left at a dead run to go to the post office and then to CVS and then to deliver the cooking oil and get to where I was supposed to be inside the seaport by 1330. I was only two minutes late, which was impressive considering that I also stopped to go to the bathroom.
Hilary made falafel sandwiches for dinner. A pita with hummus and homemade tabouleh and falafel. When she was frying the falafel, some of the broken off pieces in the pan got too hot and burned. It was not so bad, but then the fire alarm went off. It was very loud. So we were opening up the windows and doors, but the smoke did not really dissapate, and it was really loud. So I stood on a chair and looked at the smoke detector, which had an arrow and said "turn to detach." So I turned it, and the whole thing (except a plastic holder attached to the ceiling) came off in my hand. I took it outside and away from the house until it stopped beeping. Then I laid it on the walkway and we had dinner. It was really delicious. And we have a lot of tabouleh left, so we are hoping for another pot luck (though hopefully not on another of my nights to cook, because I would like to actually cook one of these times).
We all have lab tomorrow at 5:30 AM. I am told this is because of the tide. But in that case, I think it would be just the same to go at 6:00 PM tomorrow, which would be better for my sleep habits. But I have celestial navigation tomorrow night, so maybe those would conflict.
That, plus the initial setting up of the boats -- dumping out the water and installing the mast -- took most of our time. Then we put the sail on one boat and each of us got to take it for a very short sail. We got a push off the dock, then sailed it out maybe 100 feet, jibed, brought it back in until it might hit the dock and then jibe at the last moment, and then out and back once or twice more. It was quite fun. The boom does swing across fast.
My maritime skills course was at 1330. At 1305, I was leaving for the post office, because I had to mail a package. It takes 10 minutes each way to walk to the post office. But then I fell down the stairs and caught myself on the railing between my arm and my ribs, which hurt, so I had to lay down on the floor, and everyone looked at me. Then I was sent on an urgent mission to procure cooking oil from CVS, which is near the post office. So at 1310 I left at a dead run to go to the post office and then to CVS and then to deliver the cooking oil and get to where I was supposed to be inside the seaport by 1330. I was only two minutes late, which was impressive considering that I also stopped to go to the bathroom.
Hilary made falafel sandwiches for dinner. A pita with hummus and homemade tabouleh and falafel. When she was frying the falafel, some of the broken off pieces in the pan got too hot and burned. It was not so bad, but then the fire alarm went off. It was very loud. So we were opening up the windows and doors, but the smoke did not really dissapate, and it was really loud. So I stood on a chair and looked at the smoke detector, which had an arrow and said "turn to detach." So I turned it, and the whole thing (except a plastic holder attached to the ceiling) came off in my hand. I took it outside and away from the house until it stopped beeping. Then I laid it on the walkway and we had dinner. It was really delicious. And we have a lot of tabouleh left, so we are hoping for another pot luck (though hopefully not on another of my nights to cook, because I would like to actually cook one of these times).
We all have lab tomorrow at 5:30 AM. I am told this is because of the tide. But in that case, I think it would be just the same to go at 6:00 PM tomorrow, which would be better for my sleep habits. But I have celestial navigation tomorrow night, so maybe those would conflict.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Neighborhood pot luck
It was my turn to make dinner tonight. I was going to make Om Rice, but then since we had a bunch of leftover angel hair from the last pot luck in the fridge, I decided I had to use that instead. So I chopped up the angel hair, shredded what was left of two different blocks of cheese (cheddar and monterey jack) and mixed the pasta and cheese with a bunch of spaghetti sauce out of a bottle. I took some out at that point (it is bad form not to bring a vegeterian entree when you are going to a pot luck at a vegeterian house) and then added leftover beef from Ashley's tacos (it didn't have taco seasoning) to the rest. These I put in baking dishes.
Then I consulted the Joy of Cooking as to what temperature and time a casserole should be baked. There was not a single entry in the index for "casserole." I was shocked. Luckily the Good Housekeeping cookbook had a few casserole recipes, which agreed with Ashley that it should be baked at 350°. The cookbook was inconclusive on how long it should be baked -- everything was pre-cooked anyway, so it was just a question of warming it up -- so I put it in from when I woke up from my nap until when we were ready to leave the house. And it was fine.
So we walked across our back yard carrying a casserole to the neighborhood pot luck.
I'll make Om Rice on Tuesday, never fear.
Then I consulted the Joy of Cooking as to what temperature and time a casserole should be baked. There was not a single entry in the index for "casserole." I was shocked. Luckily the Good Housekeeping cookbook had a few casserole recipes, which agreed with Ashley that it should be baked at 350°. The cookbook was inconclusive on how long it should be baked -- everything was pre-cooked anyway, so it was just a question of warming it up -- so I put it in from when I woke up from my nap until when we were ready to leave the house. And it was fine.
So we walked across our back yard carrying a casserole to the neighborhood pot luck.
I'll make Om Rice on Tuesday, never fear.
Alumni weekend
Last night there was a dinner and auction for the alumni. We ended the silent auction at 6:30 and started writing stuff up (there were 200 people there so there was a lot of stuff to write up). At about 6:45 it started raining (we were under a tent). At 7:00 there was a large crack, a flash in the sky, and the power went out.
We turned the board we were writing on towards the door so that we could use sunlight. People brought out their cell phone lights and flashlights. The seaport dinner server people went and got gas lanterns for each table. It was still very dark. A quorum of alumni began singing sea chanteys. They only knew one verse and the chorus, but they kept repeating it for quite a while before they switched. I had not gotten dinner yet, so I did and I picked chicken and steamers with my fingers in the dark, which is what I do anyway, except for the dark.
Luckily everything we were doing, including the credit card machine, was by hand, so we could still take money and such in the dark (because it was getting darker). There was a motor-yacht anchored on the dock right by the tent, and they offered power to us, so someone got an extension cord from Craig Cottage and they ran the microphone and the spotlight for the live auction off of the boat's battery. It was a group of Williams-Mystic people, so naturally no one flipped out, and it was just kind of funny when the lights flipped back on when we were cleaning up at 9:45 or so.
It also knocked out the Internet, which we didn't expect to come back on until Monday, but here it is again. Pretty neat, huh.
Today is international beach clean-up day, so the alumni and students went to two beaches, one after another, to clean up trash. It was interesting how you look at the beach and you can't see any trash, and then you go around and pick things up and end up with 20 or 30 pounds of trash just from a half an hour on this little (200 meters or so) beach. We also had to record everything we found, and the categories were not perfect for what we found, but it was convenient that they had three lines to record tally marks for cigarette butts, because we sure found a lot of them.
We turned the board we were writing on towards the door so that we could use sunlight. People brought out their cell phone lights and flashlights. The seaport dinner server people went and got gas lanterns for each table. It was still very dark. A quorum of alumni began singing sea chanteys. They only knew one verse and the chorus, but they kept repeating it for quite a while before they switched. I had not gotten dinner yet, so I did and I picked chicken and steamers with my fingers in the dark, which is what I do anyway, except for the dark.
Luckily everything we were doing, including the credit card machine, was by hand, so we could still take money and such in the dark (because it was getting darker). There was a motor-yacht anchored on the dock right by the tent, and they offered power to us, so someone got an extension cord from Craig Cottage and they ran the microphone and the spotlight for the live auction off of the boat's battery. It was a group of Williams-Mystic people, so naturally no one flipped out, and it was just kind of funny when the lights flipped back on when we were cleaning up at 9:45 or so.
It also knocked out the Internet, which we didn't expect to come back on until Monday, but here it is again. Pretty neat, huh.
Today is international beach clean-up day, so the alumni and students went to two beaches, one after another, to clean up trash. It was interesting how you look at the beach and you can't see any trash, and then you go around and pick things up and end up with 20 or 30 pounds of trash just from a half an hour on this little (200 meters or so) beach. We also had to record everything we found, and the categories were not perfect for what we found, but it was convenient that they had three lines to record tally marks for cigarette butts, because we sure found a lot of them.
