back to work

For those who missed them, I've updated my cottage Blatherings for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

Ugh, the temperature is supposed to go up to 33ºC today. My motivation to go running in this kind of humid heat is pretty much zero; I think I'll opt for working out in the air-conditioned gym later today instead. And try to get up even earlier for a morning run outside tomorrow.





Some links:

My Songwriting Music Theory 101 column on Muse's Muse is up. This month's column: ledger lines, woohoo!

Ever wonder how your e-mail address gets passed from one spam list to another? Check out this story on Wired.

Yesterday I mentioned the snapping turtle in the lake at the cottage. According to this Reuters story, looks like some Germans in Munich have been having snapping turtle woes of their own.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Sara at the cottage.
	Reid relaxing in the lake.
	Luisa ready for a watery assault.

poll: heat wave

I've updated the Blatherings for Sunday and Monday, for those interested.

Ruth, Kaarel, Sara and Annie left the cottage this morning after a last swim in the lake. At one point, Sara yelled, "Oh my goodness!" and swam very quickly to the dock and climbed out of the water, saying that something had popped up beside her in the water and looked at her before diving down again.

Apparently the cottage snapping turtle decided to make a reappearance this past weekend. It's been around for years (if it's the same one, that is), but has only been seen a few times. About a foot and a half in length, it seems to mainly come up when it's really hot outside. Jeff suspects that the turtle lives underneath our dock, where it's dark and cool.





Earlier in the weekend, Jeff tried gently poking at the turtle with a canoe paddle to encourage it to swim away, but the turtle just ignored him. Interesting, since supposedly the snappers are "defensive if confronted on land, but, in the water, they usually slip quietly away from any disturbance".

We're going to try to figure out a way of safely moving the turtle to another area of the lake, just to minimize possible incidents in the future, such as someone accidentally injuring themselves on the turtle's shell, or someone inadvertently causing the turtle to snap.

Any advice from snapping turtle experts out there welcome!





As fun as the cottage weekend was, I'm glad to be home. I'm not great when dealing with humid heat. I far prefer ice and snow and subzero temperatures; at least you can always add layers to keep warm! This past weekend was especially bad for heat. We could jump in the lake to keep cool, but you can only stay underwater for so long. :-)

Poll: How do you deal with heat?

Do you prefer hot weather over cold? Do you have air conditioning? What do you like doing in hot weather?

I'm anxious to get back to work on my novel, which was sadly neglected during the audit. I've decided to postpone looking for new magazine articles this month so I can focus on catching up on my book.

Hope you Canadians all had a great Canada Day!

cartoon wars

Luisa, Reid, Ronnie and Michael came to visit this afternoon. Activities included swimming, watergun fights, stuffing our faces on hot dogs and frozen Lolas, and cartoon wars. The photo above is of Ruth taking her turn in a particularly exciting cartoon war.

In a cartoon war, you take turns with your opponent in destroying that opponent's cartoon character. Suppose I draw a picture of a bunny, for example. You could add a picture of an arrow being shot through the bunny's head. I could add a big lightning bolt setting the arrow on fire before it reached the bunny's head. You could add a bucket of water putting the fire out. Etc. etc.

As you can imagine, cartoon wars can get pretty gruesome. :-)

Photo below is of Sara, Ruth and Reid in the lake:





Here's a picture I took of Luisa:





Jeff gave Sara a canoeing lesson during the weekend:

cottage

Catching up on cottage Blatherings...

The photo at the top of the page is of Annie, Jeff and Ruth. Both Annie and Sara have cool swimming goggles with holographic images in the lenses. Annie's have big eyes, which is a little disconcerting, much to Annie's delight:





The purple and orange things are the kids' "noodles", which are made of styrofoam.





Above photo: Sara, who turns eight years old at the end of this month. Dear lord. EIGHT. I can't believe it.

The photo of me and Kaarel below was taken by my five-year-old niece Annie:

richard hatch photo

Gorgeous weather at the cottage. No sign of the bear; maybe he found more interesting food elsewhere.

It's so quiet here right now. The only sounds I can hear at this moment are the birds and the waves lapping against the dock. I could get used to this.






Looking forward to seeing Sara and Annie, who arrive in a few hours; it'll be their first summer visit to the cottage. My sister reports that both girls are pretty excited and have been (literally) counting down the days, started packing earlier in the week.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Thanks to Gary Ehrlich for sending this photo, which was taken at Marcon. The person on the left is Richard Hatch of "Battlestar Galatica" fame. I didn't realize it was him until partway through our impromptu jam session. Click on the photo to see a larger image.
	Sunrise this morning.
	Brittany and Jeff in the motorboat yesterday.