My current favorite word is “hooligan”. It’s origins are murky, but the authors of the Oxford English Dictionary say it first appeared in newspaper stories in 1898, to whit: 1898 Daily News 8 Aug. 9/3 The constable said the prisoner belonged to a gang of young roughs, calling themselves ‘Hooligans’. The story behind its emergence …
I was talking last week with one of my collaborators about the challenge of working. All the things that so fully occupied my time and brain seem so inconsequential right now. I envy friends filling the quiet with productive work. Me? I ride my bike. In the Time Before (was it just two months ago?) …
When I emerged from my office at home after recording my first university lecture of the pandemic era, Lissa told me I’d been using my radio voice. As a young journalist – before newspapers, before books, before my crazy new career as a university professor – I did radio. It’s been nearly forty years, but …
From the comments, DG elaborates on the task of stream gaging And I can see our intrepid hydrotech out on a walkway at the ‘gage’ (thanks for that), laptop in hand. He’s cabled up to a Data Logger dumping the collected data that had accumulated since his last visit to the site some 4 to …
Continue reading ‘Stream gaging in the time of pandemic, Episode II’ »
With a couple of days left in 2019 I’m at 4,303 miles bicycled for the year, so I made a map. My claimed mileage is almost certainly not accurate to that fourth significant digit, but since I GPS all my rides it’s probably close. There are a few hotel fitness center miles in there, and …
Priorities. Thrashing in a pile of work – a university program report that’s overdue, a book review (also overdue), two papers I’m writing with colleagues, a presentation for new grant funders to prepare, and a class to teach – I had plans for just a quick early morning bike ride this morning. But as my …
In the fall of 2003, I bought a new bicycle. I wore spandex and those practical (albeit a bit silly) cyclist’s shirts with pockets on the back for snacks. In the years that followed, I rode that bicycle a great deal. While my data are imprecise (my crazy data nerd spreadsheet has all the miles, …
Continue reading ‘The Bicycle of Theseus and the Paradox of Identity’ »
When you cross a bridge, Craig Childs said at an American Rivers gathering in Santa Fe Friday evening, stop, and look down. A couple of llamas stared in what I imagine was puzzlement this morning as I dropped my bike and walked out onto the planks bridging one of the irrigation ditches in Albuquerque’s South …