Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, but first I need more coffee.

Month: December 2007

Never stab your thumbnail while carving a pumpkin

I tried to take a picture of it with my camera phone but it turned out crappy. You cannot see where I pierced the thumbnail. Shortly before Halloween I went over to my sister Debbie’s house. She and her son Derrick were carving pumpkins. I decided to volunteer my cutting skills because the big pumpkin she was carving wasn’t going so well for her.

Since the pumpkin was tough and the knife wasn’t that sharp, I used the point to perforate a circle around the top. The idea being it would be easier to cut the top off by joining the perforations with a second round of deeper cutting. The blade was about eight inches long and an inch and a half wide at the base. At one point on a down stroke I missed the pumpkin and pierced my left thumbnail. I think had I stabbed flesh the blade would have gone deeper or hit bone. I don’t know how deep the point went but the cut in the nail was a quarter inch wide. I suspect the tip went about that deep too. a drop of blood welled up not long after. I cleaned and dressed the wound (and slathered it with Neosporin for the next couple of days).

It would have sucked mightily had if the nail bed had gotten infected. Six weeks have passed since the incident and the cut is growing out. Eventually the thumbnail will grow out and the cut will be gone. But for now it is a visible reminder not to stab my thumbnail while carving a pumpkin (or anything else for that matter).

For the record it did hurt and I did finish cutting the top off the pumpkin so my sister and nephew could scoop it’s guts out.

Ice Tree Down

On December 9-10, 2007, Tulsa had the worst and weirdest ice storm ever. Over 200,000 homes without electricity in the Tulsa area alone. Another 200,000+ in the OKC area. Trees and tree limbs down everywhere. We lost power about 1:30 am on Monday morning. There were some limbs down when we left for work that morning. When we came back that evening there were even more limbs and trees down. What was weird is that the roads never froze.

I made two videos: one just shows damage around our house. The other on a short drive near work.

Around the House

Short Drive

PSO our electric utility says it’s going to take a week to ten days to restore everyone’s power. I wished they’d been able to give an percentage estimate, that say X% would be on by such and such day and another Y% a day or two later. But they haven’t. Those homes which have lost their lines directly from the grid to the house (say a tree falls on the lines in the backyard) will be the last to get restored.

All of Oklahoma has been affected by this storm. Maybe I’ll write more later.

Permaculture

Fascinating. A nice vid about sustainability.

Permaculture is:

Permaculture is an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor. It teaches us how build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities and much more.

Ark

Ark (1970) written and directed by Rolf Forsberg. I saw this short environmental film in grade school. It left an indelible impression on me. It was set in the near future (our present day, most likely) This old man had a greenhouse and the Earth was very polluted. The greenhouse was full of life, animals and pants. Eventually, the neighbors destroyed it. Very dystopian. It was the first film to make me ecologically aware and has been with me ever since.

The other film that made a great impression on me was The Snow Goose (1971) It starred Richard Harris and Jenny Agutter. It was a made for TV film off of the book of the same name. Sadly neither of these films are available on video tape or DVD. It was about a young girl who rescues a snow goose and the man nurses it back to health. Later he rescues soldiers from Dunkirk and is killed doing so.

I could probably write a great deal more about these movies. Both were very powerful and I remember them to this day. Ark was shown to us in grade school. It’s hard to say exactly when or how old I was, but it was sometime between 1971 and 1977. I certainly saw it before Star Wars. The Snow Goose was a Hallmark Hall of Fame film.

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