Wild about wild animals

The people of the world seem to be going wild with various ideologies that are harmful to others, and I need a break from writing about these foibles.  So, why not write about wild animals I’ve encountered?

My first close encounter with a wild animal that I remember was on a Boy Scout camping trip.  I don’t remember if I was a junior or an adult leader at the time.  I was sharing a tent with one of the scouts when we heard scurry along a bottom edge of our tent.  I got out a flashlight and we saw a mouse running around.

Without thinking, I grabbed the mouse and stuck it in my shirt pocket; the shirt was on a hanger on a rope at the top of the tent.  Then I started worrying that the mouse might gnaw a hole in my shirt, but I did nothing.

In the morning, I found my shirt pocket intact, but with the mouse dead inside.  I don’t think I injured it when I captured it; I think it died of fright.  I felt sad, but I felt it was a territorial dispute.

A much later animal intrusion ended more happily.  A bat went down the chimney at our cabin and rustled all night trying to get out.  Lucky bat, it was not cool or cold weather when we would have had a fire below.  I managed to get it out with chimney cleaning rods and duct tape.  I gave the rods a couple of taps on the roof and the bat went gliding off.

I’ve encountered bears many times, and my first Reader submission was a compilation of bear stories.  Black bears are more likely to turn and run when encountering humans, but don’t count on it.  My latest encounter was a bear in our cabin yard.  I stepped outside to take its picture, but I made the mistake of clicking my tongue to catch its attention.  I got its attention, but it chose to run the other way from that eight-foot tall animal standing to the top step.

We’ve seen moose tracks around our cabin, but these have all but disappeared as the trees have grown bigger.  A DNR forester told us that if we want moose we should clear cut.  The moose like to munch on young aspen.  Maybe we’ll have more moose as our recent clear cut fills in.

The most moose I’ve seen was on the Kawishiwi River in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  My son and I must have seen fourteen moose in one day.  We were at least three canoe lengths from one grazing the water plants.  I wonder if I’ll ever find those pictures in my jumbled archives.

Among the most skittish animals are woodpeckers.  Even if they are twenty feet up in a tree, they often will fly away.  I did manage once to get some pictures of a pileated woodpecker a lot closer than that.  Within a block of our house one was battering away, and I took several pictures almost level with it.

I did sneak up on a sapsucker drumming on the aluminum vent stack of our outhouse.  I guess it was so lovelorn that it didn’t notice me sneaking up on it to within eight feet.

Probably the least shy animals are wild turkeys.  Or is it most dumb?  A few years ago I saw one strutting around on the shoulder of Hwy. 44.  I stopped and took several pictures of it.  It would walk toward me and then back off.  I almost thought it was a domestic turkey.

But this past weekend I missed a flock of turkeys.  I saw a single turkey on the opposite side of the road.  I decided not to stop.  Then I looked to my right and saw about a dozen turkeys on my side.  Thank goodness they were on the shoulder and not on the pavement.  I slowed down but didn’t stop.  I was too tired from cutting up firewood.

One animal that I had to stop for was a huge snapping turtle.  Its shell must have been two feet or more front to back.  I stopped and took several pictures as it made its slow way across the road.  I doubt that anybody would have hit it; the damage to their car would have been considerable.

I do wish that I had stopped for another turtle crossing the road.  I was staying with my sister-in-law in a small town while I attended a conference several miles away.  As I drove to the conference I saw a turtle crossing the road.  I thought of stopping and carrying it across but didn’t.  When I came back in the evening, there was a broken shell only a quarter way across the road.

Another amphibian that fared better was a green toad that got caught in our rain gauge.  I tried shaking it out, but its sticky feet held tight.  I laid the gauge down on the ground, but it still didn’t leave its “shelter”.  I stomped or banged the ground behind it, and it darted out so fast that I almost couldn’t see it.

Deer are both curious and skittish.  I have taken pictures of them as little as thirty feet away looking right at me.  Other times I only have to wave a hand while I’m in the cabin and they will bolt.

I rarely see wolves, but we hear them or see their kills.  We came across a deer carcass on one of our trails. The next time we passed the spot, the carcass was almost gone except for an organ and some hair.

I did get a great “video” of a wolf howl.  You can listen to it on YouTube; look for “Wolves Howling in Brimson”.

You can also find some of my animal photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/28887068@N00.

Some year Mel will be organized and find all of his notes and pictures.

This version has a few corrections from the original article at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/08/5095_wild_about_wild_animals.

Proof that Muslims do speak out

The Huffington Post has a blog by Sophia Jones, “’SNL’ Has Nothing On the Way The Middle East Mocks ISIS”.  See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/03/mocking-islamic-state_n_6790254.html.  Many of the YouTube videos use the music from ISIS videos to mock ISIS.

Oh, yes, many are not anonymous.  The poster’s name and picture accompany the YouTube snippet.

See also “Muslims do speak out.  Are you listening?”

Early IT Professionals

I was cleaning up my bookmarks and came across this for “Early IT Professionals”.  I thought it would be about Grace Murray Hopper and others.  Nope, but it is a hoot.  You also get to practice your Danish.  You don’t know Danish well or at all.  Not to worry.  There are over titles in both Danish and English.

This clip does replicate many user problems today.  Your can find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxh37qciqKY

Little box vs. BIG BOX (Videos)

Several weeks ago we went to our favorite video rental store, Video Vision in the Mt. Royal complex of shops in Duluth.  We don't rent movies often, maybe twice a month on average.  Even then, we weren't big spenders, as seniors we paid $1.08 for videos not considered New Release.

As we entered, we noticed a sign that the store would be closing in about two weeks.  The sign referred customers to its other two stores that our outside our normal errands.  I should mention that the now closed store was in walking distance for us.

This store was tucked behind a coffee shop and not easily seen from the street.  It had a reasonable selection but was becoming eclipsed by two other competitors.  One of course is Netflix, which many people find very convenient.  The other is Red Box, which has a limited selection but is in high traffic areas.  The nearest Red Box is at Mt. Royal Fine Foods, a supermarket that probably has more traffic in an hour than the video store had all week.  Of course, not every supermarket customer is looking for a video, but I've seen many people standing in line with one.

The nearest video store to us now is a small shop that is for sale.  We haven't visited it in years because of its small selection and at that time, nearly no DVDs.  The next is Mr. Movies in the Plaza shopping center.  It does have a large selection, including many foreign movies.  But it is out of our normal shopping routes.

I couldn't tell you where the big video chains are without checking the phone book.  We may be skipping the big boxes for videos completely and going "out of the box".

With a nominal 7Mbps internet speed, we can access movies online.  It has some drawbacks, but we don't have to leave home to access a movie.  Both Google's YouTube and Apple offer recent releases at $3.99.  The customer has 30 days to access the movie and once viewed, 24 hours to complete viewing.  Viewing includes backing up to see parts again.

We gave "The King's Speech" from YouTube a try.  I ordered if from my laptop for delayed viewing and then we watched it several days later by streaming it on my wife's iMac.  Even with the supposed high-speed internet, we had little, minor, annoying discontinuities.

If I remember correctly, YouTube only offers streaming.  We could never watch a movie this way at our cabin with dial-up at 24kbps.  At this speed, it takes five minutes to load the main page of many online newspapers.  It would probably take most of the evening to get through the initial credits.

I checked Apple's iTunes store and they have the same deal for recent movies, but one can choose between streaming and downloading.  Since I already "blew" my movie "budget" for the month with "The King's Speech", I chose "All the Pretty Horses" at 99 cents.  I downloaded it for later viewing, but it took over two hours.  I have yet to watch it but plan to do so later in the week.  We'll see if it offers smoother viewing.

Wow, how movie viewing has changed in my lifetime!  Neighborhood theaters at 10 cents for kids with a newsreel, a short, a cartoon, and one or two features.  Were they ever crowded on Saturday afternoons.  Downtown theaters with first-run movies.  Drive-ins.  The suburban multiplexes, making money with many of the seats empty.  Then VHS for home viewing.  Then DVD for home viewing.  (Oops, I forgot cable because we never had it.)  Stores cropped up in malls and neighborhoods to rent them.  Each type of the movie theater has all but disappeared.  The video stores are disappearing.

I wonder if anyone has done an analysis at the number of jobs "lost" as the tastes and technology changed.

Now we'll have less than a dozen companies offering movies for on-demand viewing, each with its huge banks of servers holding thousands and thousands of movies.  It wouldn't surprise me if many movie producers had no hard copy of their work.  From camera to computer to editors to computer to the online retailers computers.  What meaning will "roll", "cut", and "in the can" have anymore?

Shall we boycott BP?

What if several thousand people stopped buying gas at BP stations?  Would BP notice?  Would a boycott have any effect on its safety practices?

It's easy enough for me to say; there are not that many BP stations in my area.  Also, the gas sold at them probably is not refined by BP.  Retail gasoline is generally refined locally by a few refineries and blended according to formulas provided by each retailer.

However, would a boycott of BP give a message beyond BP, say to politicians who have knee jerk reactions to any interference in the so-called "free market" or to wimpy politicians who live in fear of such reactions.  For how much time has been wasted see, "Obama and the Oil Spill", Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 2010-05-18.

I thought of doing a mashup for YouTube of testimony of how safe offshore drilling was combined with news footage of the spill.  To save myself the trouble I did a search of YouTube for "BP oil spill rainy" where Rainey is an executive who testified before the Senate on how safe offshore drilling was.  I hit pay dirt with "Play him off, Keyboard Cat (Sarah Palin, BP Oil Spill, Senator McCain) FAIL!!!!"