Little Dudes: Spea bombifrons -- Plains Spadefoot Toad

Doing a survey of all the vertebrate species in Texas for my Vertebrate Zoology class. This little dude's name just cracked me up. Bombifrons... sounds like a Jamacian rapper or something.


Other than being a cute LD (little dude) with a cool name, Spadefood toads are interesting in that they estivate (read: hibernation but when it's hot) during dry periods, then dig out of the soil when it rains and breed like crazy. They're basically desert toads. The whole family is cool that way -- living where amphibians have no right being.

Time is up, off to Aikido class.

[grabbed photos from californiaherps.com]

Enjoy your random natural anomalies,

Bp

Samoan with a sword, RUN!

Big Chocolate went with me to Aikido Club sword training today. I tell you what, I haven't seen anything in a long time as intimidating as a big Samoan swinging a sword. Yikes.

I have to stop typing now, my hands are too tired.

Enjoy your continued cultural collisions,

Bp

Geeked out in sword class today

Had my first Aikido sword class today. I've never trained in martial arts weapons before, so this was a completely novel experience. I have to admit, I freaking loved it.

I'm thinking this puts me into a whole new level of nerd/geek/dork territory. Perusing the vernacular definitions of these words (see links), I'm thinking this falls into more than one category. I say, Nerd and Dork. Geek seems to have an element of neophilia, and this interest is the opposite... I wonder what the word for that is. "Oldophilia?" I'll just say it's a Luddite persuit -- no electricity needed.

I'm doomed.

Ps/addition: I posted this video at school, and hadn't heard the audio til just now. Wow, what a strange selection of music to go with the visuals. Hilarious.

Enjoy your esoteric pursuits,

Bp

School coming up fast

Looking at the calendar, I see that school is starting next month and my heart races a bit. It is such an enormously different lifestyle, moving from living mostly through my body to living mostly through my mind. There are many things I want to change about how I "do school" this next year. More vegetables is one of them -- sounds small but probably will make a huge difference in my health and attitude. I don't even know exactly what I'm taking this next term -- I know I have Vertebrate Zoology and Organic Chemistry. Both are known ball busters, I'd better check what my other class is. I'll open a new tab and check.

So far, it looks like my other class is Aikido. This is good. Though I'm looking into doing a senior Capstone project/class that gets me into a local high-need High School to work as a tutor and mentor 2 hours a week. I need to sign up for that.

I hope all your fall and winter plans are coming together nicely. I know a few of you are in the last stretches of planning for weddings. Some of you are returning to school. Some of you are looking at ways to change your relationship to work and home life. I wish you all well in your endeavors. I've got a day to start, I'll see ya'll later.

Enjoy your plans and ambitions,

Bp

Typical study night with The Crew, some naming as well

Doctor Octagon, Captain America, Lil' Mike, Big Chocolate, Tweaky,the Sundance Kid and I convened last night at The Den to prepare for our upcoming tests. I wasn't present for the naming of Lil' Mike's girlfriend, but she has been dubbed Tweaky. Apparently she made some sound in Doc's presence recently that reminded him of the robot from Buck Rogers. Another name change occurred recently, in that Smartypants finally was re-dubbed as Kw; which not only are her initials, but is a constant we use all the time in chemistry. The Geek Rating (tm) of this nickname is basically off the chart.

Last night was a typical scene at The Den: small dining room table covered with notebooks and calculators; Full throttle, Red Bull and Rock Star power drinks were all represented, bags of various snacks were open and spread about including the infamous Cheezy Poofs. The Crew was huddled over their notebooks, plugging away at calculators, huffing and puffing over the problems. Occasionally loud expletives erupted from the table.

[A side note about Cheezy Poofs -- I am fully responsible for introducing this addictive substance to the study group, and I'll take my karmic lumps for that. A bag lasts approximately 7 minutes once opened -- if they weren't so rich they wouldn't even last that long.]

Tweaky and I were off in the living room, studying on the Comfy Couch. Despite the posh accommodations we had, I felt a little strange and a little anxious, as I was off to the side studying evolution instead of chemistry. It was like having to pull over on the side of the freeway, hood steaming with some engine problem, while all your friends in a caravan blasted on past you. I knew dam well I needed to put in study time for the upcoming evolution test, but I also knew I was falling behind in Chemistry. I guess it was one of those "character building moments" your grandparents always told you about. Or, one of those self-help opportunities that are dubbed in my house "another fucking opportunity for growth." Regardless, I pressed on and put in the minuscule amount of time that evolution gets allotted. I easily spend 85 - 95% of my study time on Chemistry.

I've now taken the mid-term in evolution, and it felt pretty OK. I'm going to walk around in the sun for a few minutes before Injury Avoidance class (Aikido) and possibly think up another post. I have 3-4 brewing at the moment, we'll see what arrives.

Enjoy yourself,

Bp

Biological musings, insomnia

Sitting in evolution class today, learning about relatedness and altruism in a biological context, it's almost impossible not to relate it to humans. I may launch into a more comprehensive explanation later on, but the basic concept that got me rolling was "altruism" in animals, in almost every single case, can be related to personal benefit. Either direct benefit through relatedness -- you help your sister raise their kids and some of your genes (also in your sister's kids) still get passed on to the next generation. Or through delayed reciprocity -- you help another couple of birds build their nest and raise their young because there is a lack of females around, so when her current mate dies you will very likely be his successor.

An important understanding is that the passing of genes isn't a conscious decision. Behaviors that successfully pass genes to the next generation themselves get passsed to the next generation. This fixes those behaviors in populations. It's not a personal thing, it just happens.

So how does this relate to humans? If you do the cold math, it would mean that if a passel of people were floating by in a river and would drown without help, you'd save the ones most closely related to you. You'd save brothers over cousins, and second cousins over strangers. Behavioralists have looked at whether these equations (that work pretty dam quite well in the animal kingdom) work out for humans, and in general they turn out to be quite true.

Humans are weird of course, especially now that culture puts such a huge emphasis on thought and intellectual property. New concepts need to arise to accomodate the value of passing on thoughts and ideas, placing them nearer the value of a purely biological heritage. Nowadays people want to pass their ideas along as much or more than they want to pass on their genes. This is where the term Meme came from.

And that is where this musing starts to wander far enough afield that I'll let it go for now.

At the beginning of this post I was going to make some reference to how the post might be odd or badly written because of lack of sleep. And then I realized, I have either referenced or wanted to reference lack of sleep in every post for the last week and a half. Or nearly so.

I'm starting to think this blog should have been called an insomniac's journal. I will be heading to the acupuncturist after Injury Avoidance class today to set things straight, so soon I trust the issue will be moot.

I know it's ravenously engaging for my readers -- no, really!

Enjoy your day,

Bp

Blog synchronicity, sore arms, sexy back

First off, I sat down this afternoon to type up a post from my fire lookout journal onto my other Blog, and it is covering some of the same material I wrote in this morning's post. I talk about the Hanbleceya ceremony specifically. Interesting little synchronicity there, I thought.

School report: Today was mostly about my Injury Avoidance class. We were doing wrist lock maneuvers which, if I were a better blogger, I would have the Japanese name for. What it left us neophytes with after class was arms red with "raspberries." As kids we also called these "Indian burns." Where the hell did that name come from?

A quick lookup in Wikipedia gives this:

Indian burn

A prank done by grasping the victim's forearm firmly in both hands, and then twisting the hands in opposite directions about the victim's arm, causing the tender skin to stretch making it red and sore. Also called a Chinese burn, Indian sunburn, Indian rugburn, or Snakebite.

The Wife has amused herself by putting Sexy Back on her headset and putting it on my head while I was writing this post. She knows I can't resist the Head Bob while that song is on, as poppy and pathetic as it can seem. It bumps well, what can I say. She left just long enough for the Head Bob to start up, came back in and leaned on the office doorframe rolling a cigarette and laughing at me. She's easily amused.