health 1: So the whole reason for all this blogation today is that I’m home sick. I’m not in terrible shape, but took a clue when a friend at work yesterday covered up his mouth and backed away uncomforably as I hacked.

health 2: I hurt my knee Saturday. My bad knee on which I’ve spent so much frickin’ time and energy. I hurt it at a math competition. I was a spectator. There’s a joke in there somewhere. I pretty much freaked out completely. Now I’m in an uncomfortable netherworld between denial and hypochondria. I think it’s fine.

reading 1: Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee. Diamond’s funny. Collapse took some key ideas in Guns Germs and Steel and ran with them. Guns Germs and Steel, in turn, took some key ideas from The Third Chimpanzee. It’s like he keeps writing the same book over and over again, slowly zeroing in. (I like all three books.)

reading 2: For class tomorrow, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecadal drought frequency in the United States, by McCabe, Palecki and Betancourt. They use statistical magic to connect drought in the United States with decadal-scale ocean patterns in both the north Pacific and the North Atlantic. Their bottom line is that the current pattern of both matches up nicely with conditions that in the past have included widespread U.S. drought.

word of the day: mufti – I’m thinking of the second definition, i.e. civilian garb worn by a member of the military.