Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Author: John Winkelman

52 Degrees

John Winkelman

That was the temperature of Lake Michigan at Tunnel Park as of yesterday evening at 7:00pm. Swimming was a long, slow kick in the nutz.

The Flash Photo Album is nearing completion. 12k of Actionscript, compiled into a 3k .swf file. When I am satisfied with it I will upload a hundred or so Alaska photos. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow.

This morning I woke to the sound of a mouse in a trap. The poor little feller was trapped by his left front leg, up near the shoulder. He had been trying to gnaw himself free for some time, but couldn’t quite reach far enough to complete the job.

So I fed him to a stray cat.

I hate mice.

But not as much as I hate Internet Explorer 5.

Minor Project

John Winkelman

Today I began a re-build of the Flash Photo Album application, with an eye on using it as a CDROM presentation tool, among other things. So not much in the way of new and interesting stuff.

This is a sea otter we woke up in Prince William Sound during a glacier cruise:

sea-otter

Sea otters have the densest fur of any animal. The average human head has 100,000 hair follicles. There are 300,000 hairs in a single square inch of sea otter pelt. Sea otters do not have blubber, but instead, when cleaning themselves, blow air into their fur, where it is trapped and acts as insulation.

Slippage

John Winkelman

glacier-1

Boy, sorting through hundreds of photos takes more time than you would think.

It is official: Though the last two years have been wondrous fun, and I may have the most well-located apartment in the city, it is time to move on. Somewhere around the end of the month I will be moving three blocks to a house on a quieter street. Perhaps then, finally, my time will be a little more my own.

Nah, who am I kidding? That will never happen.

Re-Acclimation

John Winkelman

After being up for 40 hours, I slept for twelve. I was initially, as the song says, too tired to sleep, but Daredevil put me out like a light.

So: Alaska. Amazing place. We had, apparently, unusually good weather for this time of year; 60s and sunny in Fairbanks and Denali, 70s and partly cloudy in Anchorage.

Thunderstorm’s a’brewin, so I need to unplug. I will continue after the weather clears. In the meantime, look at this:

Celebrating Our Teachers

John Winkelman

Yesterday Master Lee and his students celebrated Sifu Day. Sifu is the Chinese translation of “teacher”, in the sense of one who imparts knowledge and/or wisdom. Sifu day is a national holiday in China (and possibly else where) which takes place on the anniversary of the birthday of Guan Gong .

Guan Gong was honored for his integrity and sense of justice – admirable traits to be had in a teacher. He was a warrior, and any teaching he did was more by example than by rote. When he died he was deified.

We held a simple celebration, everyone lit incense for Guan Gong, and Master Lee said a brief Buddhist prayer. Then we had food, then (my favorite part) the picture-taking.