Bullitt List – 11.30.18

Today's category: Nature is not your friend

Look, don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of Nature. There are few things I enjoy more than getting out-of-doors, out of the city, doing some hiking, biking fishing... anything really that will get me away from the soul crushing mass of humanity that weighs down on all city dwellers 24-hours a day (Not you though. You're cool. You're alright. I'm referring to all of the other humanity).

But let's face it, that fandom is a one way street. Those people who say that Nature is beautiful are only partly right. Nature is beautiful, sure. But Nature doesn't give two shits how beautiful you think it is. And Nature wouldn't think twice about sinking a cobra fang into your neck if you let your guard down for half a second.

So, Nature Boy, while you're busy thinking up your rebuttal, here are a few Bullitt Points to back up my assertion that Nature is not your friend:

• Scientists Find New, Disease-Spreading Tick in 9 States
  It's not cute. It's not here to save the day. It's here to spread human-killing pathogens.
   
• New Wasp Species Turns Spiders into Zombies
  Just what we need, zombie spiders. Mark my words, this is only the first step for these wasps. They're coming for you next!
• New Weapons to Fight Baby-eating Snakes
  "…they have even been found trying to swallow the hands of sleeping infants."  Good luck with that, snake hunters.
• Young Girl Gored by Deer in London Park
  
  
  Yes they're magnificent creatures, so graceful and gentle... unless they're looking to get it on. Hey, if you only have a couple of weeks each year in which to get your freak on, you might feel a little aggressive at times too. Bottom line, kids: Stay away from horny deer.

Snow Country for Old Men

Suburban living for the 21st century male has several key milestones.

There's the point where you decide to pay a guy to take care of your yard because who needs that aggravation?

There's the point where you switch from a propane grill to a wood chunk charcoal smoker (dude, don't even bring that charcoal brick stuff around my house. What do you think this is, Gladstone?).

And then there's the day when you get your power snow thrower.

Of these three, I think the final one represents the furthest stage of "maturity." I mean, it seems like a bit of an extravagance. You're spending a couple hundred bucks or so on an appliance that you'll use maybe once or twice a year? But when you have a snow event the likes of which we had this week, you damn well are grateful that you have a snow shovel that you can plug in or power up and just walk behind to clear your driveway. That goes double if, like a majority of the guys on my block, you have "advanced experience in the role of life."

Me? I kind of take it as a point of pride that I haven't yet crossed that threshold. I'm still young. I'm able bodied. I ain't 'fraid of a little cold white stuff, and shoveling it off my driveway is my manly duty, a rite of passage each winter that, like the out-taking of the trash and the smashing of the spiders, proves how important I am to this family.

So I wasn't at all daunted when I opened the garage door Thursday afternoon to attack the thick layer of white stuff in my driveway. Hell, I was kind of looking forward to it!

Before: A tabula rasa

10 inches exactly

Then, I moved the first shovel full. This was a heavy snow.

And when I say it was a heavy snow, I don't just mean there was a lot of it. Don't get me wrong, there WAS a lot of it, but it was also quite wet and heavy. This was going to be a tougher job than I was expecting.

Frost thing's first. I shovel a path from the garage door to the end of the driveway. Whew, this is tough. Next, shovel out the rest of one side of the driveway.

Halfway done with half the driveway

By the time I'm halfway done with half the driveway, I've worked up quite a sweat -- a manly sweat, mind you. I can see that I'd better do little advanced planning for the post-shoveling recuperation.

I'm going to need this later...

I shed my coat and get on with the job. Soon, I've got half the driveway cleared. That's enough to get one of our cars out of the two-car garage, just in case we have some kind of emergency (like running out of Scotch). I've also got a helluva backache, which makes that Scotch emergency all the more likely.

After

It all got me wondering just how much snow I moved. We had our driveway and sidewalk replaced last summer, so I know that the area I shoveled is about 907 square feet (130,608 square inches). Multiply that by the 10 inches of snow over the whole thing and you end up with 1,386,080 cubic inches of snow, or 802.13 cubic feet¹. That all converts into a pretty seriously stiff back the next day.

But numbers aside, I was prepared to reward myself for a job... well... done.

Time for a cold one

Also, I'm totally going to get a snow thrower before next winter.

1) All math calculations done by the Internet and may be subject to my complete ineptitude at mathematics.

  tagged: winter, snow, Kansas, shoveling, beer, snowstorm, blizzard, weather

Song of Sap and Flyers

We were screaming at each other when we pulled into the docking bay* of the mother ship around dusk after a quick away mission to St. Joe.

But we weren't screaming at each other because we were angry (at least, not this time), it was because that's the only way we could communicate over the incessant high-decibel droning of the summer cicadas.

We, the adults, were used to it. My Supermodel Wife and I are both native Kansans and grew up with this particular genre of music as the soundtrack of late summer doldrums. But a precocious three-year old toddler has no such tolerance, and demanded an explanation in the form of a pitched "What's that NOISE!"

So while the light held out, we braved the still-triple-digit heat to check out the oak trees in our front yard. We found the empty larval shells by the hundreds. When I gently plucked one from the bark, attached it to my finger and advanced it toward my daughter to give her a closer look, she repelled in disgust at the alien-looking thing.

We talked about how these critters live most of their life underground, sucking sap from the tree roots. Then in the summer, they dig their way out, clamber up the nearest tree and literally crawl out of their own skins. I told her how they transform, how they grow wings and fly up into the leaves. How the boys start to sing to try to find a girlfriend and that is what that crazy 108 decibel noise is that we're hearing.

"And what happens when they find their girlfriend?"

"Well, they start a family."

"How?"

"Well… er… Check it out, you can take a stick and poke the shells off of the tree..."

So we spent the next few minutes playing mini-wiffle ball with a stick and cicada shells until we came across a cicada shell that was … still moving. The little guy was crawling slowly up the tree trunk, still alien-looking and creepy, but tantalizingly close to the business end of the mini-wiffle stick.

"Can I hit it off?" she asked.

"No. Let's leave him alone so he can grow up and find a girlfriend."

It was a pretty easy sell since the thing really did look gross. I mean, not that I'd look much better after spending my childhood years two feet underground.

Fast forward to the next morning when I wake her up to get ready for the day. The first thing she asks is if we can go check on the cicada crawling up the tree to make sure he made it. Okay, I'm up for a follow up.

Luckily it's cooler out this morning, the sun is just starting to shine through over the rooftops of the subdivision. Our friend from the previous evening must have climbed even higher, but he's got dozens of friends who changed clothes overnight and left their dirties on the tree trunks. In fact, as we look at the four trees directly in front of our house, we see multiple (I called it "a moltitude" but the pun was lost on a 3-year-old) cicadas in various states of emergence.

Since most of us don't get up early enough to really examine the critters that are making that insane racket in the evenings, my daughter and I decided to take a few pictures and share the educational field trip we took to our front yard.

This guy is still in the process of "inflating" his wings.

* I know most people call it their "garage" — but that's for you hoity-toity French speakers. Nope, ours is either the docking bay or the car hole (depending on context).

tagged: Kansas, Kansas City, science, cicada, insects, summer, education, nature,

Delugional

So a couple of weeks ago I posted some pics of a photo safari to the Kaw Point riverfront park in KCK.

You no doubt had this image of the Lewis & Clark sculpture seared into your memory…

The reason I bring up is that I went back to Kaw Point over the July 4th weekend, just to check things out. Most of the trails were blocked off for a pretty good reason, that being that they are now under water.

Here's a pick from Monday by way of illustration. This is as close as I could get without getting wet.

So you can see that if you did venture out to stand beside the sculpture, you'd be about neck deep in icky, dirty brown Missouri River mud. Also the mosquitoes are pretty bad down there, so if you go be sure to take a harpoon to defend yourself.

tagged: Missouri River, Kansas City, Kaw Point, photo, flood, nature, Lewis and Clark

As seen in Kansas: Kaw Point

An unusual set of coincidences Saturday resulted in all the women in my house being out on a girls date and me with no plans.

Free time is a rare commodity these days.

So because the weather was so great, and because I've been hearing a lot about Missouri River flooding, and because I've heard nice things about the place, I pinged Xavier Onassis, King of the Wild Frontier, to see if he wanted to go on photo safari at Kaw Point in KCK.

I've lived in the KC area for way more than a decade and never checked out Kaw Point. It's a really nice river front park/trail on the west bank of the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. And it has a remarkable view of downtown KCMO.

I've always thought rivers, and the concept of rivers, was a great metaphorical device. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming that as an original thought. Far better minds than me have had the same notion.

The river is a strong reminder that we are here but briefly. Water flowed down these channels long before we put up buildings and bridges. And despite our levies, dredgings and sandbags, it will overflow it's banks again. In the not too distant future, it will wash all evidence of our existence out into the ocean, leaving behind only a substance that is too thick to drink and too thin to plow.

That's a bit maudlin. I also like the river as an illustration of how we're all connected. Water that rushed passed us on Saturday was a few days earlier in Montana and South Dakota. And the same power that can uproot trees and destroy towns, can also lead to natural renewal.

The river has a kind of memory of its own. And while it can reflect the natural beauty of our world …

… it can also show us some of our own ugliness.

The river also provides an opportunity for us to bridge it. Calling to mind higher ideals like our drive to overcome obstacles and connect people and places in a positive way.

tagged: As seen in Kansas, Kaw Point, Lewis and Clark, Kansas, Missouri, river, photo, Kansas City, driftwood, mud, bridge

DAM!

And a few more looks at desperate homeowners trying to hold back the flooding Mississippi…

tagged: dam, flood, levy, river, water, photo

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice

El Borak's comment on a previous post got me thinking. I hate when that happens.

Here's what he said about the continued and rapid devolution of the human brain:

Take some comfort in the idea that if we are consumed by our little tragedies, it's because we don't have any big tragedies to worry about.

That's an interesting point. We humans have had it pretty good for a pretty long time. In fact, as far as we know, it's never been this good in the history of human existence.

And it seems to be driving us crazy. As Louis CK pointed out, "Everything's amazing and nobody is happy."

And there you have it. We have had it too good for too long. We're due for a "big tragedy" as El B calls it.

So, knowing that such a tragedy is virtually a mathematical certainty, why not have a little fun speculating about it? What kind of tragedy do you think we're looking at here? Lots of people have lots of theories…

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost could be kind of a downer at times. Fire and Ice are only two of the possibilities. Let's take a look at some of the more popular theories pop culture has given us recently.

First, is the dreaded Zombie Apocalypse. The current leading theory on this is that humans, through their hubris, create some kind of genetically modified virus either as a cure for cancer or as a biological weapon. The virus gets out of control, creating 5 billion zombies worldwide and leaving surviving humans to fend off attacks on their evolutionarily smaller brains.

I personally don't see this as a likely possibility. Still, it's good to have a plan in place just in case. So in the event of a zombie apocalypse, just keep a few things in mind.

First and foremost, always head to colder climates. Zombies don't generate their own body heat, so they freeze up when the temperature drops. Don't head to the beach, or Atlanta or anything like that. This is just common sense, people.

Be sure to stock up on guns, ammo and cricket bats. It's pretty well know that a bashed in head is the only way to permanently kill a zombie.

Remember that zombies aren't your friends. If a friend or loved one has been bitten by a zombie, you owe it to them to put them out of their misery. The survival of the human race is at stake here.

After zombies, the next most-popular sci-fi tragedy is the Robot Apocalypse. You know, mankind creates robots to do all the dirty work. The robots get too advanced. They realize the don't need humans around anymore and decide to exterminate them. Hilarious high jinks ensue.

This is maybe a little more plausible than the zombie apocalypse, but we're still quite a few years away from this. Of course, our military seems to delight in creating robots that can kill people. For the life of me, I don't see what good can come of putting a machine gun on a Roomba. I mean, think about it people. How long do you think it will be before that Roomba makes you go boomba?

Again, just to be safe, you might want to check out Humans United Against Robots (HUAR for short) for some helpful tips on protecting yourself from the inevitable robot uprising.

The next item on the menu of destruction is some kind of cataclysmic asteroid strike. This goes even higher on the plausibility scale, since we're pretty sure that it's happened to our planet before. In fact, we actually witnessed it happen to our planetary neighbor a few years ago.

It's also the event that, in my not-so-expert opinion, we would have the least chance of surviving as a species. I mean, if the dinosaurs — a much more successful animal the we puny humans — couldn't survive, that what chance do we have? I guess we have a superior intelligence to help us adapt… but I'm just thinking that whatever we become might not be recognizable as homo sapien anymore.

Of course we don't have to look to space for natural destruction, there is plenty potential for terrestrial tragedy. What I see as most likely, and most devastating to yours truly, is the explosive eruption (really, is there any other kind?) of the 925-square-mile supervolcano under the Yellowstone Caldera.

Already, a magma bed under the caldera has swelled and heaved the ground up by 10-feet. When it finally blows, a volcanic cloud will spew ash and debris 25 miles high while lava and pyroclastic flows cover two-thirds of the country from Wyoming to Louisiana and putting quite a damper on that summer barbecue party I was planning.

Also, it would totally fill in the Grand Canyon, which I haven't had a chance to see yet. So… moving that item up on my to-do list.

But even more likely than that, is a disastrous 10.0 earthquake that is due to hit California any day now. A few weeks ago, scientists on the History Channels' Mega Quake 10.0 all but guaranteed that a magnitude 10.0 earthquake would turn California into an island and Arizona into a state full of beach front resorts.

That is totally going to suck for everyone in California, but it might be just the kind of tragedy that could get us to stop focusing on how crappy our cell-phone service is and start focusing on actually helping each other out. So from that perspective, at least there's a silver lining.

Still, such a quake would probably turn the Grand Canyon into Arizona Bay, so my earlier comment about getting out to see the Grand Canyon? Yeah, still applies.

So those are the biggies as I see it. I guess we'll still have to contend with plagues once all of our antibiotics fail. And then there's always the inevitable Water Wars looming on the horizon. Oh, and don't forget about sudden widespread sterility due to all of the residual hormones in the food and water supplies.

What did I miss? How do you think we'll get our comeuppance?



tagged: Earth, destruction, volcano, Yellowstone, California, earthquake, robot, zombie, robot, asteroid, apocalypse, Robert Frost

Mr. Emaw's Neighborhood: Chapter 2 — For the Kids

When your kids start going to school, you're bound to run into minor differences of opinion in regards to parenting.

On occasion they can be major differences, but mostly (at least in our school district) all the parents want pretty much the same thing for their kids: good education, health, happiness, etc.

Well, it was one of these minor differences of opinion that I experienced the other day. I was picking up my kid from the after-school care in the lower level of the elementary. I bumped into the mother of my kid's best friend, and we were chit-chatting while our respective kids got their respective gear together so we could go to our respective homes.

Nothing but respect here.

As we were chatting an hyperacting 7-year-old boy came scurrying down the hall like a gerbil on meth. Eyes wide, hair wild, he looked at me and exclaimed, "Did you see all the snow we got! I can't wait to get home and play in it! Woooooo!"

This was followed by a back flip and a maneuver in which he ran up one wall, across the ceiling and down the other to stop and gave an unreturned high-five in front of me.

I, without so much as a pause, gave him my best "sorry to burst your bubble" look and said, "Oooh, yeah. Have you been outside since you got to school this morning?

"No," he said.

"Mmmm. Yeah. Well, it's been so sunny today that all the snow has melted. It's just a soggy muddy mess out there right now. Bummer, kid."

I swear, the kid shrank at least an inch. His shoulders, formerly held high in excitement, slumped in disappointment. His face, a few seconds ago alight with the enthusiasm of youth, was suddenly gloomy as a San Francisco summer.

With heavy feet, he trudged despondently back into the nearby classroom to ponder the cruelties of fate at robbing him of his fun in the snow.

My neighbor, the mother with whom I had been visiting, looked at me, a little surprised but also amused.

"You're mean," she said, smiling at my little joke.

But you know what? I don't really think it was all that mean. Sure I was having a bit of fun at the expense of this kid. But isn't that why we have kids in the first place? For the LOLZ?

But the way I see it, I was doing the kid a favor.

I mean, think about how happy he was when his parents picked him up and he went outside to see his winter wonderland intact and ready for sledding.

And besides, it was a valuable lesson for the young chap. Don't trust everything people tell you, especially if they're over 30. Gather evidence before jumping to conclusions.

And above all, don't let the words of a bunch of nattering nabobs of negativity dash your dreams or winter fun.

tagged: snow, school, neighbor, neighborhood, life lessons, kids, parenting

Random Photo XXXVI: Waterlily

This one's pretty self explanatory. It's always nice to remember the beauty of nature's seemingly simplistic patterns.


tagged: random photo, flower, waterlily, nature

After the rain

I have this weird kind of obsession that hits whenever we have these really hard rains like we've had the week or two.

It goes back to the first house we owned in the Roeland Park area. Every time a gully-gusher came through, I would get water in the (partially finished) basement. No matter what I did to try to stem the tide, water somehow found its way in during hard rains. It got to the point where whenever it rained more than a little bit, I was walking around the house with an umbrella and heading down to the basement to make sure it was still dry. It could start raining at 3 o'clock in the morning and I would get up to check things out.

The trouble is that when we moved, the obsession didn't stay at our old address. I still have dreams, on particularly stormy nights, about getting up to clear clogged gutters in the middle of a storm, or Shop-vac out a river of water flowing through the basement.

Last night was no exception. The rain was falling hard when I fell asleep between thunder claps that sounded like they were right on top of our house. I had a dream that a water pipe in our clothes closet was leaking with a "drip, drip, drip" sound. In my dream, I saw the leak getting worse. The more I tried to tighten the joints, the worse the leak became. Our clothes were getting wet and moldy and still the water kept coming.

When I woke up, I could still hear the "drip, drip, drip." Obviously, I knew it couldn't be from a water pipe in our clothes closet. They don't put water pipes in there. But I could hear the dripping and it wasn't letting up. As the fog of sleep cleared, I realized that the ceiling fan in our bedroom was out of balance it it was making regular clicking sound that my stupid subconscious had incorporated as a leaky pipe into another water nightmare.

Driving to work, I saw that my nightmare was the least of the damage related to the storms.

The little park at 97th and Roe, next to a storm water creek, was caught in a flash flood. The playground equipment was still there, but the picnic table was gone downstream. And the timber frame containing the wood chips has been washed out of position.

About a block and a half south, I what water damage can really do to a basement that's too close to a storm water creek. About half of the wall for a lower level room had been washed away and there appeared to be pretty severe damage to the garage doors (and presumably the garage itself).

Lots of people in the neighborhood were pumping water out of basements and garages. One guy had moved everything out of his garage and onto his driveway to dry.

I hope it doesn't rain on him again.

tagged: rain, weather, Johnson County, spring, home, dream, water

Random Photo XIX: Foliaged again

It's been a cold wet fall, but nature (or God, or whatever) has tried to make up for it with the beautiful fall colors. Unfortunately, the show is all too brief.

tagged: random photo, fall, autumn, leaves, foliage, nature

The Legend of Dexter, Part I

Let me introduce you to Dexter the Wonder Dog.

No, he wasn't named after Dexter the serial killer of criminals. He's been around much longer than that. He was actually named after Dexter, the boy genius.

Anyway, you may recognize him as a Jack Russell Terrier. Not sure how much you know about dog breeds, but this particular strain of terrier was originally bred back in the days of yore by the Parson Jack Russell, hence the name (this isn't getting too complicated for you, is it?).

It turns out that foxes were a huge problem in England back in Master Russell's day, and he needed a dog that would chase foxes, weasels and the like into their burrows and bring them back out or hold them there until they could be dug out. So the dogs had to be fierce, brave and smart, not to mention very athletic with lots of stamina (If you've ever chased a weasel into a hole, you know what I mean).

Our boy Dexter is all of these things. In fact, it is his superior intelligence and athleticism that allows him to do such things as Sit...

... Sit Up ...
... Lay Down ...... Roll Over...... Play Dead ...
... Stand ...... Dance ...... Take a Bow ...
... And even jump through hoops ...
Dog is smart, is what I'm sayin'. And while he's generally good tempered (he especially likes people (unless you're wearing a US Postal Service Uniform, then God help you...)), he has neither love nor patience for rodents roaming around his backyard.

Rabbits are summarily chase out without exception. And normally ubiquitous squirrels in our neighborhood caused him no end of agita as they taunted him from the treetops.

That is until a few weeks ago.

It was a pleasant mid-summer's day. Dexter was on his regular daily patrol in the back yard when he noticed one of the evil gray squirrels sharpening its teeth on our daughter's swing set.

He immediately gave chase, barking like Christian Bale on crystal meth. In a few seconds he had the quarry treed in one of the river birches we have in the yard.

Dexter barked and chased the squirrel from tree to tree for the next couple of hours. Yes, hours. That's why we sometimes call him The Tenacious D. He doesn't give up easily.

Eventually the squirrel made its way back to the wood-frame swing set. Typically, a squirrel will run back and forth across the top ridge of the swing set, working to get Dexter out of position so that it can make a running jump to the chain link fence and escape to the safety of the neighbor's yard.

But not this day. On this day, Dexter was on his game. He had put too much time and effort into chasing this furry offender, and he wasn't about to let him go.

When the squirrel made the leap, Dexter was ready. The rodent hit the ground and Dexter was on him in a flash. Powerful canine jaws immediately clenched on fragile rodent throat.

A few violent shakes of the head and the snap of a spine and it was all over.

The story was relayed to me by my backyard neighbor, who works from home and saw the whole thing (no doubt highly annoyed by the incessant barking, but entertained nonetheless by the exciting ending). He said he saw Dexter carry the carcass and leave it along the south fence line. I looked but couldn't find the remains of the squirrel.

I assumed that Dexter had devoured his hard-earned bounty. But a few days later I found the dead squirrel as I was mowing. It was undefiled by Dexter, aside from a bit of gnawing on its tail. Yes, it was smelly and maggot-infested, but Dexter hadn't eaten so much as an ear.

It was all sport for him. A killing driven by a deep instinctual need to fulfill that for which he was bred.

I should mention also that I haven't seen a squirrel in our back yard since this incident.

tagged: dog, pets, Dexter, Jack Russell Terrier, hunt, squirrel, wildlife