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A Waning Moon...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2028
A waning moon outside, the children in bed, and my work is done.
The fruit flies have evolved, there's a swarm of them in the bathroom - perhaps I mistook the compost for their home, maybe the workmen downstairs have left a body...it's beginning to resemble something out a Damien Hirst exhibition.
There's a Mouse in the House
Which is odd, it's a ragged old mouse, long tail, dirty coat, but it made it's presence known almost immediately after I moved in.
Which is odd, because I've had a mouse before...
Before moving to Cochrane, in my Calgary apartment, as something for the children to marvel at, I caught a baby mouse on a rare jog and brought it home. Leaving it in a shoebox, there was no way it could escape...
But it did, and for a month I saw nothing of it, and thought that it had met it's end in a box of detergent, or behind a bookshelf someplace.
It didn't. And from time to time I'd see it, leaving it scraps of food on the counter, see it crawl through the drawers, on the ledge above the fireplace, find stores of macaroni and seeds, little mouse turds masquerading as berries in the blueberry pancakes.
We tried to catch it a few times, always in the summer, to relocate it back to it's field before winter came. It wasn't interested. And so it became a part of the family.
When we moved to Cochrane I searched long and hard for it, hoping to trap it and release it. Not a sign, it had vanished, even moving the fridge, it's favorite hiding spot, no mouse to be found.
In Cochrane the children and I missed it, wondered as to it's fate, if the next tenants would be as tolerant as us...
But in Cochrane there were signs as well, a few months in, chewed paper began turning up in an old hoosier I had brought with me, then little piles of cat food, hidden away in corners. Perhaps the mouse had packed itself along?
We never saw it there, little wonder, we had 2 cats in the kitchen. But there were the occasional droppings found in the carpet, the hidden stashes of nuts and food gathered from floors and cupboards.
And moving again, this time my belongings packed for me and left in a garage, a new place, and a mouse.
It strains credulity that this could be the same mouse, it would be almost 4 years old now, very old for a mouse. But a loyal mouse, following the steady supply of crumbs left by the children, a feast for a plague of mice, for one mouse a kingdom.
I like to think it's the same mouse, when I see it steal out from behind the fridge, a couple of times I've caught glimses of it's tail under the bookshelves in the office, it's family now. Our mouse.
Late to the Post
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2067
A little late to the post this morning, apologies to all but I've been working (as I noted elsewhere, earlier on) on the journal of my summer vacation to Idaho.
Which, at already 10,000 words was looking done to me, and so I began to organize it, rearranging thoughts, events into the narrative order that would serve them best, removing bias and opinions, formating text, and I found that in the course of my narrative, 10, 000 words, I haven't even made it to Butte Montana.
Which, to explain, as you haven't read it yet, I haven't posted it, puts me a long way from being done.
I've thought of serializing, posting it a page, a post at a time, because, really, who would read it all at once anyways?
But I'm meticulous, thorough, and it' not just the story of a summer vacation, it's the inevitable course of events, the predictable end to an amazing relationship, and I want it to be precise, exact, I want it to be, well....
Perfect.
And as I write it I recall those moments before the end, those many rare and perfect moments, and wonder how to braid them in; because, in the end, that is what's worth remembering, but maybe that will have to be another project. A series of posts filed under questions & ideas..., or song cycle of poems...
In other news...
How about those Conservatives?
And this morning, up at 6:00, a full 2 hours before the dawn, washed the dishes, (a 4 day heap), emptied the garbage, took out the compost.
The compost was a bit of a job, sitting under the sink, too full to fit any more in, but becoming necessary to get it out of the house, fruit flies actively evolving, flying into the office while I work, each generation larger and more caffeinated than the last. Until finally, when they reached the size of small wasps and I was suspecting them of organizing their intelligence, I took the bucket and dumped it in the yard.
A steaming heap beside the fence. I need a shovel and rake, these are other things that need to be done...the yard has filled with twigs from the willow, the leaves I'm happy to let feed the lawn. A trip to Cochrane yesterday - the rural thrift shops are best for these sorts of things, turned up nothing. This thrift shopping should be a seperate series of posts, weekly finds posted with photos, a sales section for those pieces I thought I needed and later wondered what I was thinking... (Anyone need an AKAI MG1212 Studio Mixer in working condition?). Off topic, below find a photo of the nothing I found at the thrift shop yesterday...
The phone rings...
It's Canada Safeway - my LAGOSTINA Cookware set is in!! I won! I won! The boy will be able to give his mom a brand-new cookware set for Christmas.
On that note:
I asked if I'd won the car. Now, this, after all, was the prize I was going for. I don't need or want a new cookware set, any old pot or pan will serve me fine. Given my cooking skills it would be a little like serving a hamburger on a Wedgewood plate. But I do need a new car. And I have refrained from checking the results of their contest, which ended (I believe) October 4th, but may not in fact end until October 20th. The underlying theory behind this runs parallel to Schrödinger's cat- by not knowing I may have won, but by checking I may confirm that I lost. Ignorance preserves the possibility...
Idaho
I'll have to start posting this in series. Tonight, perhaps, if not certainly by the weekend.
Symmetry
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1689
And to ensure I sleep tonight I'll muse for a bit upon symmetry. Symmetry refers the ability of an object to be bisected or divided in such a manner that each half (or fraction) represents a mirror image of the other half (or portion). Nature abounds with examples of symmetry, think leaves, pine trees, fish, animals, people. Most of these living examples demonstrate a bilateral symmetry - which means that symmetry exists on only one axis. IE There is only one way to cut me in half and have the two halves resemble one another.
Curious note, we are evolutionarily designed to seek out people with a high degree of symmetry. Biologists use symmetry to assess the attractiveness of animals. People unconsciously are drawn to partners with more symmetrical features. Symmetry can often be an indicator of good or bad health (higher symmetry indicates better health). But not TOO symmetrical, a person who's left half was perfectly symmetrical with his right would look odd.
But there are other types of symmetry as well. For example, think rock crystals - they exhibit symmetry, but on several axis. This is referred to as Multi-lateral symmetry. Or think of music, where the symmetry isn't in space, but in time. Artists, Architects and Painters will use symmetry to create spaces beyond what they're working on - the mind will fill in the rest, provided the composition has lead it in the right direction. And there is supersymmetry as well. In fact, this entire blog could be filled with examples of symmetries in nature, mathematics, physics, every branch of science, art and understanding.
And symmetry is observed to the farthest reaches of the universe in the structure of the galaxies, and to the minutest observed particles and quarks. It characterizes the "spooky action at a distance " by which quantum particles demonstrate their entanglement.
So, what then would be the general rule? What would an assymetrical universe look like? And when is assymetry beautiful?
Analogue or Digital?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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Pursuing those questions that keep my up at night (or keep me occupied when I'm up at night) - Is the universe, at it's most fundamental level, Analogue or Digital?
By which I mean, if the universe is analogue there are infinite subdivisions that can be applied to it - colors, heat, mass, all can be measured more and more precisely without hope of ever coming to an end. There is, then, an infinite possiblity of nuance, and the universe would then have to be considered to be a wave - or a complex pattern or interference of waves.
However, if the universe is digital everything at some fundamental level can be measured exactly, and that's the bottom of it. The mechanics of this in physics are known as "Quantum", however it should be noted that they have subdivided the atom into 6 varieties of quarks, and there are even more subdivisions that go farther still. So "Quantum Mechanics" describes a level of physics, but an intermediate level (albeit very small) between other levels that use waves to describe their properties.
Light is both a particle and a wave - see Wikipedia yet again for clarification. This explanation, however, while pandering to both possibilities raises more questions than it answers. If you've read the Wiki you'll understand.
Then there is always the possibility that the question is invalid - it is, after all, the universe, and there may be more than these 3 possibilities...
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