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Rachel came by around 8:30am, we picked up Whit at 10:30am and by 11:00am we were at the New York Botanical Gardens. Rachel is a floral arranger and this was my first visit to the gardens with someone so familiar with the aesthetics of plants. She oooh’d and aaah’d as I had my first time finding flowers so impossibly captivating that a portion of my brain refused to believe they were evolved. No, these lotuses must be made, designed to be more vibrant than a neon bar sign. Evolution is a war where standing still means continuous improvement and adaptation. What war could spawn such beauty?

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

I know this is not the case. I know that each of these blossoms is either a direct adaptation or secondary exaptation that helps these flowers attract pollenating insects and that our enjoyment of them too was secondary until breeders began laying their genetic path. Each of these above facts makes them more not less beautiful although the awe response moves from amygdala to neocortex.

Whit is doubled over in laughter at a sign in the sensory garden that says “LOOK” with Braille beneath it.

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

We next went to the Museum of Modern Art. I had never been, Rachel had, and Whit was a member. The top floor held an exhibition space on children which was very well done. The most moving piece there was a set of drawings done by kids showing planes in a dog fight. I remember my friends scribbling the same and smiled until I realized the date and time: Spain during the Spanish Civil War. We had imagined our dog fights, they had not.

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

A floor down lied my four favorites of Magritte, De Chirico, Sheeler and Wyeth. The Wyeth was near a bathroom and I wanted my picture taken in front of it. I stood and waited for the crowd to clear but my presence made the crowd persist so I dodge over a piece until they dissipated and I got my shot or more accurately Rachel got my shot. Christina’s World is my poster child for underdetermination. The print looks like a meditation on distance, or feminine rights, or some other thing until one learns that the woman depicted has polio. This picture shows how she got around.

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

The next object I stared at unflinchingly was Charles Sheeler’s an American Landscape. Charles Sheeler is probably the only artist who I like enough and that is unknown enough that I could become a leading scholar on them. His depictions of American industry are both patriotic and haunting. He paints portraits of technology and progress almost entirely devoid of humans or their affects. I first saw A Classical Landscape in a textbook in 10th grade and have loved him since.

The final two pictures were Magritte’s Empire of Lights, II and Dali’s Persistence of Memory. I much prefer the former as an original work and he matter-of-fact depiction of the impossible challenges the viewer to remember the limitations of painting. What is on the canvas is only as real as the paint it is made of and no more.

Persistence of Memory was quite small. I figured it’d be 16″x20″ or so not the 9.5″x13″ of its actuality and getting a shot in front of it was tough as it is comparatively dark. Compare this to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon which is almost 64 square feet.

We saw Starry Starry Night, we saw the masters of Suprematism, and we saw more Monet than I ever again wish to. The next floor down was 1940-1980 and very quickly I lost interest. Conceptual art by and large doesn’t move me as I think the concepts artists reflect upon are small and much better expressed in science and math. A fractal or algorithm shows repetition much better than several not quite identical boxes.

We went to PizzArte for dinner and I threw keto to the wind consuming four slices of very good pizza. Almost immediately insulin stalked my blood stream and I nearly fell asleep at the table. Whit thought I was faking it until I started slumping over and had trouble asking questions.

The ride home was quiet and the day was over before 10. It had been a while since I’ve had one stop so early.

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I applied for six positions today and nudged two HR people about resumes I had submitted. After that, I lifted for a bit, fed the animals, then ran 10 miles. I returned to my desk, saw my resume open on the screen and again had that feeling that everything on it was shit.

So I’ve created a 3rd resume with less stuff on it, focus on software and coursework, and have started on another iteration of my cover letter. I’ll figure this out eventually.

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My camera is still in for repair and only in its absence do I notice all the things I want to do with it. I want to go light painting, I want to shoot portraits, and I want to take macro shots of household objects because I can.

I’ve borrowed my brother’s camera in the meantime and it more provides a security blanket rather than filling the full-frame DSLR shaped hole in my heart. While reviewing pictures of something from Saturday I found almost all the pictures were a little blurry. The sharper sound of the shutter on this camera made me think it was somehow faster.

Godspeed to my grey market, beat to shit, out of warranty Canon 5D Mark II that I bought from a man from Hong Kong in a parking lot in cash, godspeed.

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I considered adding a like/dislike button to posts.  After investigating, I found something a little fancier that let people reply with moods called MoodThingy. At a Japanese language site that used it, I clicked on an article at random and started playing around with it. I registered a vote and decided to see what I had done after throwing the site into Google Translate.  Apparently I had been “amused” by the article  “67 years Since Hiroshima And Nagasaki bombings”. Good job, Terry.

 

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A year or so ago, I gave a friend my stash of XXXL blue oxford shirts. I visited him tonight and he was wearing one. They aged well and look good on him. I hope they never look good on me again. Midway through the conversation, I started talking about success with a ketogenic diet and he seemed interesting. We talked about food substitutions and how to get nutrients as well as some pitfalls. ONe wouldn’t expect it but cocktail sauce has some three times the net carbs as ranch dressing. We talked about what it’s like to be a large person and he railed at people who are annoyed when sharing public transit. He made the observation that “when I sit next to someone, we’re both crowded” and I don’t think most people recognize this reciprocity. It seems neither wholly wrong nor wholly right to blame the larger party but there’s no convenient way to communicate that middle ground.  Between genes, choices, and engineering, how does one say “I’m 60% responsible for this discomfort.”?

I hope he gives low carb a try and that it works. If so, the baby blue oxfords that served me so well and then him will pass on again and maybe serve someone else. I picture wrapping them up with a few typed pages on dieting.  They would make their way across the country making large men look a little bit nicer on their way to becoming a little bit thinner.

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Max was out of antibiotics for his Lyme disease treatment so I drove to the vet and found it closed. Being in an affluent area of lower Bucks, there were no less than five places within 15 minutes with “pet care” or “veterinary” in their name and I drove to the closest which was about 6/10ths of a mile away.

They didn’t have any prescription medication but the store attendant recommended I contact CVS who sometimes allowed one to get emergency tablets. So I called.

Me: I’m looking to get two doxycycline tablets for my dog.
Them: What’s the name?
Me: Of me or the dog?
Them: You.
Me: Terry Robinson.
Them: Weight?
Me: of me?
Them: The dog.
Me: 86 lbs.
Them: Would it be under another name?
Me: His name is Max but he, being a dog, rarely visits CVS.
Them: We can’t help you then if we’ve not filled the prescription before.
Me: I just need two tablets to tide him over until tomorrow.
Them: We don’t have dosage instructions.
Me: That’s on the bottle. Two 100mg twice a day.
Them: That’s not enough.
Me: They antibiotics and I don’t want to miss a treatment and create some super strain like the TB that comes out of Russian prisons. I just want two. It’s not like he’s on oxycontin and I’m going to grind these up and snort them off of a mirror or resell them to school kids.
Them: We can’t help. I’m sorry.
Me: When Super Lyme hits, you will be. Watch for ticks.

I next called another vet and they gave me two tablets after I gave them the info of the prescribing doctor and telling them my dog was brown. I’m not sure why that fact was included, but it seemed important.

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Staff Member: Can I have a truffle?
Me: No, they’re for Fred for all the work he’s done.
Staff Member: Why can’t I have a truffle?
Me: Do you know what “raging entitlement complex” means?
Staff Member: No.
Me: That’s why, then.

Tonight was the last Magic tournament of the season. It was attended by six people. Last week, we had 56 in total. They played. They had fun. I gave them packs. I thanked Sam and Joe and they left. My job was done. So I too packed up and left for the 10th year in a row.

After the Magic tournament, I drove to Stomping Grounds, a new gaming store in the area, and sold my remaining grab bags, big box, and set up an arrangement to sell my deck of 6″ x 9″ promotional cards which I had sleeved in comic book sleeves. As of this Friday, I will own no more Magic cards and an 18-year chapter of my life will close. I once owned tens of thousands of cardboard squares. I now own merely thousands as I still have all my Star Trek and Star Wars cards.  For a time I was a n00b, for a time I was competitive, for a time I was a judge, and for a time I was an organizer. This process bears many parallels to my other interests:

Magic: n00b – competitive – judge – organizer
TF2: n00b – skillful – server admin – team founder
Scouting: Cub Scout – Boy Scout – camp admin – district activities chair
Skepticism: n00b – foot soldier – ?
Photography: n00b – guy who sometimes sells prints or photos – ?

Will my photography, interest in philosophy, professional career, or something else take this arc, too?

I can’t wait to find out.

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This is a public service post. I promised I’d make a baked good for a get together tomorrow and got around to it very late. Normally, I’d make a cake or something but with how short a time I had left, I grabbed a box of brownie that I keep on hand for such occasions and got to work. Do I feel bad doing this? Somewhat, I’ve made brownies from scratch, but I try to make them my own.

Making Your Brownies Better

  • Insert Butter – Chances are, if the recipe calls for both oil and water, you can substitute butter in. 10 oz of butter cuts out 8 oz of oil and 2 oz of water. The brownie batter I use calls for a cup of oil (8 oz) and 4 tablespoons (2 oz) of water. I replace this with 2.5 sticks of unsalted butter. Why? Butter tastes better and I think has a superior crumb. The mouth feel isn’t quite the same, though.
  • Make it Mexican – Add a teaspoon of cinnamon and a 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Mexican brownies!
  • Jam something else on top – When not quite done, topping with crushed Oreos, pecans, or something else can improve things. People like caramel syrups and can’t generally tell the difference between the stuff from a bottle and the stuff I (rarely) painstakingly make on the stove top.
    Note: Brownies do not take to most fruit toppings well. Stick with a drizzle or the sweetness becomes overbearing.
  • Underbake It – Shave 10-15% off the baking time to make things a spot gooier. Dry brownies are high calorie chocolate saw dust.
  • Vary the egg count – If you replace an egg with 2 whites, you’ll get a chewier brownie. If you replace an egg with 2 yolks, you’ll get a creamier and richer taste. If you replace 2 eggs with 2 yolks and 2 whites, you’re an idiot.

I’ve done all the above to great success.

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We rose at 10:30, packed, left, and had breakfast at a local diner. We settled up accounts for the weekend in such a way that at one point we had created some sort of CDO or credit derivative and then parted our separate ways.

Traffic on the way back to PA was hell and Mike and I lost two to three hours over optimum time during the return. Mike mostly slept and I mostly listened to things. Each of us was doing what we needed to.

Back home, I unpacked, found that my dad had given Max the appropriate pills in my absence and prepared Mike and I dinner. We chatted; the Mike and Terry addendum to yesterday’s man-talk; and Mike left.

The weekend scratched a weird combinations of nerves. My original mental plan was for Joe, Pat and I to go camping as a farewell to Pat before he left for Rochester. This time, I was saying “good bye” to Pat and “hello” to Spinrad as this was the first weekend the latter and I had spent in any social capacity. I didn’t mind Spinrad’s company but I found it jarring how little I knew about him despite how present he seemed at some point in life. Maybe it was the goatee.

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I woke up at 9:30 because that’s when the heat of the solar furnace/tent became uncomfortable and breakfast was a hearty affair of egg/bacon/egg/bacon/egg/bacon. I was still groggy, so I passed the keys to Mike and the four of us drove to Fort Ticonderoga. Pat called shotgun and said “there was a time when I would have felt bad taking the passenger seat from you”. I get the queerest compliments.

Fort Ticonderoga was hot and sunblasted and my camera was producing an “Err 30” which Google tells me is a shortcode meaning “prepare to give Canon your credit card”. Here is where I would normally show you all the pictures of the fun we had but I cannot for two reasons: 1) my camera was broken 2) we had none.

The second part is a slight overstatement but most of the traditional parts of the fort were quite dull. The encampment did have a sutler played by a very learned fellow from who was generous with his time and answered every question we could conceive of. Stepping away from the table, Mike spoke for all of us when he said “Now it was worth it”.

We returned to camp along a different route that was more Interstate and less state route and collapsed into individual nap-states in our tents. After waking, we tried to go swimming, then tried to go boating, then went swimming, then went sitting. The sitting proved the most popular and a very steamy dinner was made. Mike turned in early and the important part of the weekend to me happened: we talked. Man-time!

Note: There was a previous version of this post where every major action except for Mike driving was followed by “So Mike went to sleep”. Mike got a lot of bad sleep during the course of the weekend. May his sleep debt be paid before we next camp.