Infospigot: The Chronicles

September 12, 2009

‘Inside of a Dog’

My friend Pete pointed me to the New York Times review of “Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know.” It’s a nicely written piece, and a lot of it resonates with what we’ve seen in the nearly three and a half years since we became unintentional dog “owners.” I like this bit from the review, for instance:

“The idea that a dog owner must become the dominant member by using jerks or harsh words or other kinds of punishment, she writes, ‘is farther from what we know of the reality of wolf packs and closer to the timeworn fiction of the animal kingdom with humans at the pinnacle, exerting dominion over the rest. Wolves seem to learn from each other not by punishing each other but by observing each other. Dogs, too, are keen observers — of our reactions.’

“In one enormously important variation from wolf behavior, dogs will look into our eyes. ‘Though they have inherited some aversion to staring too long at eyes, dogs seem to be predisposed to inspect our faces for information, for reassurance, for guidance.’ They are staring, soulfully, into our umwelts. It seems only right that we try a little harder to reciprocate, and Horowitz’s book is a good step in that direction. “

Kate points out there’s a comic reference in the title, an old Grouch Marx line: “Outside of a dog, a book’s a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Bravo, Kate!

September 11, 2009

Sky

So the Friday evening walk to the ferry to meet Kate often–usually–starts with a hike up the west side of Potrero Hill. Once, it was probably a working-class area; the older homes are modest in scale, mostly, and the heights are surrounded by old industrial and warehouse neighborhoods on the edge of the Mission, the south of Market area and (a new one to me) the Dogpatch district on the eastern flank between the hill and the Bay.

Anyway, I go up the west side, usually, and down the north side and then wind my way to the Embarcadero and the ferry slip. The bonus of the walk, which generally takes about an hour,, is everything you see along the way. Tonight, I hit the street just as the sunset color was coming on. I thought, “Ah, it’ll fade by the time I’m up the hill.” But it only got more intense. Above is the view from the upper part of 18th Street, looking down over the Mission. What an evening. End of summer. We’re just a week out from the equinox.

September 10, 2009

That Day

A semi-annual semi-tradition here, reposting an abridgment of a passage from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” that Scott Simon read on NPR the weekend after September 11, 2001:

“I understand the large hearts of heroes,
The courage of present times and all times;
How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steam-ship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm;
How he knuckled tight, and gave not back one inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,
And chalk’d in large letters, on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you:
How he follow’d with them, and tack’d with them—and would not give it up;
How he saved the drifting company at last:
How the lank loose-gown’d women look’d when boated from the side of their prepared graves;
How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp’d unshaved men:
All this I swallow—it tastes good—I like it well—it becomes mine;
I am the man—I suffer’d—I was there. …

I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken;
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris;
Heat and smoke I inspired—I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades;
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels;
They have clear’d the beams away—they tenderly lift me forth.
I lie in the night air in my red shirt—the pervading hush is for my sake;
Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy;
White and beautiful are the faces around me—the heads are bared of their fire-caps;
The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches. …

I take part—I see and hear the whole;
The cries, curses, roar—the plaudits …
Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs … the rent roof—the fan-shaped explosion;
The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air. …

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.”

September 9, 2009

Door

10th Street, South of Market, San Francisco. On my way from work up to the Civic Center BART station — a change of pace from 16th and Mission BART. I just liked the door color. And the rest of the palette, too. If you’re not a habitue of the city, this part of San Francisco was once filled with warehouses and light industry. Some still remains, but large tracts have long since been cleared and redeveloped into parks, hotels, condos, retail centers, and the like. This part of the South of Market neighborhood, well west of downtown, has changed more slowly and there’s still plenty of evidence of what used to be.

September 7, 2009

Morning Dew

Saturday evening, he had abundant low, thick clouds scudding in off the Bay. Not unusual. Less common: The air was warm and felt very wet. That gave way Sunday morning to very heavy dew. (The shorthand physical explanation: the air was near saturation with water and when the temperature fell to the “dew point” — in the mid-50s that night, I think — the water in the air was deposited on cars, lawns, and what have you.) On our way back from our usual Sunday morning walk down to the old Santa Fe right-of-way, Kate noticed a patch of grass in one yard on Rose Street, each stalk covered with beads of water. So–that’s where these pictures came from. (Click for larger versions.)

September 4, 2009

Bay Bridge: Friday Dawn

Spent the morning — Friday morning, I need to say, with Saturday morning fast approaching — out at the Bay Bridge construction project. I’d love to describe it in detail, and will, but right now I’m just plumb tuckered out. This is the scene at the Coast Guard boat landing on Yerba Buena Island. None of the construction is in this view, and it’s a little out of focus, but it does convey a little bit of the beauty of this morning. More later.

September 3, 2009

Warning

Seen today, posted in several locations near 16th and Mission streets in San Francisco. Several people who saw me looking at the poster stopped, took in the picture, and expressed dismay. Words to the effect of “that’s terrible!” Unknown to me is whether this is street art or a real warning or some of both. (Now to bed: I’ve got to get up in four hours to go out to the Bay Bridge construction site tomorrow to help in KQED’s coverage of the weekend closure.)

September 2, 2009

Potrero Avenue: PM Clouds

The other end of the day. Looking south on Potrero from Mariposa. Another warm evening, one that prompted me to run up to the top of Potrero Hill after I left work to watch the city and the sky. (And I mean run: I passed a cyclist who was struggling up the upper part of San Bruno Avenue. We said hi to each other, and she said, “You go!”)

September 2, 2009

Berkeley: AM Clouds

We at Infospigot Information Services are great fans of the evening sky, but we’re not often out and about to report on dawn-time sky conditions. This morning was the exception to that rule. According to the National Weather Service area forecast discussions, there’s some sort of low spinning off the coast and sending in a stream of moisture from the southwest, which takes shape as unusually high, fluffy, and abundant clouds hereabouts (are typical cloud cover in the summer months is a dense bank of low stratus). It’s also a warm, muggy morning, also atypical of our Mediterranean climatic regime.

September 2, 2009

Smoke

We have a fire in Southern California, and everyone gets to share in the fun. Above is a map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution (original here) showing the extent of smoke from the Station Fire in the mountains north of Los Angeles (and from a series of fires burning in the mountains of British Columbia). Here’s a snippet from the Smoke Text Product (actual name) put out by NOAA’s Satellite Services Division:

Monday, September 1, 2009

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT NARRATIVE FOR SMOKE/DUST OBSERVED IN SATELLITE IMAGERY
THROUGH 0400Z September 2, 2009

Southern Canada/North and Central Plains/Midwest:
Remnant smoke was seen covering a very large portion of southern Canada,
the Northern Plains, most of the Midwest, and parts of the Great Lakes
region. Most of this smoke is remnant from multiple large wildfires
that have been burning in southern British Columbia over the past few
days. Smoke stretched west to east from British Columbia to south Quebec
just north of Vermont, as far north as central Hudson's Bay, and as far
south as the Central Plains where it has been mixing with the dense smoke
from the southern California wildfires.  Several areas of moderately
dense to very dense smoke were present, mostly along and north of the
US/Canadian border with one of the largeest areas of very dense smoke
northwest of Lake Superior and another over southern Alberta/southern
Saskatchewan.

For more on how the smoke situation is evolving across the country, see NOAA’s Air Quality Forecast page, then check the smoke forecasts accessed through the table on the left side of the page. (NOAA’s graphical forecast pages are awesome, but they require either a tutorial or a lot of time just messing around with them — the latter is my method — to discover everything that’s there).

Infospigot: The Chronicles

Posts

‘Inside of a Dog’

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Sky

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That Day

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Door

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Morning Dew

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Bay Bridge: Friday Dawn

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Warning

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Potrero Avenue: PM Clouds

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Berkeley: AM Clouds

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Smoke

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