Hasn't Bush Heard?

Hasn't Bush heard? Neo-conservatism is dead but he refuses to believe it. He's going to send 22,000 more troops into Iraq but insists it isn't an escallation. He calls it s "surge." When pressed, Condoleezza Rice said it was an "augmentation." There is clearly no plan to remove these troops and prior surges into baghdad eariler this have failed.

Give me a break.

I went out last night to protest at University and 280 which is right outside Coleman's office. Starting at 6:00 we had a surge of our own as we filled one whole side of the bridge. Given the awful weather it was a pretty good showing. There was a real lack of good large signs however which needs to be addressed. The bulk of the crowd left within 30 minutes which is okay since the real goal was to get a crowd on TV. This protest site happens to be just down the street from Channel 5. They used some quick shots of the crowd on the 10:00 news to show that opposition to Bush's plan.

There is a larger rally tonight but unfortunatly I cannot attend. :(

~Kirk

Final 2006 Bird Tally

Here is my final bird tally for 2006. This was the first year I'd decided to count birds. I ended up having a lot of fun. The total was 126 birds though I know I saw more kinds of birds than that these were the ones I was absolutely sure about. I'd feel like I was cheating myself if I counted otherwise. I'm pretty sure I say a grey jay and I probably saw a rough-legged hawk. I also might have seen one more kind of cormorant but, again, they aren't on the list. I also saw more gulls than in any other year and I was only able to ID two of them. I have the ring-billed gull and the black headed gull. I had the western gull on the list temprorarily until I realized I was deluding myself about a positive ID. Gulls are an extremely weak point in my bird identification skills.

2007 will be a harder year in a couple of ways. I'm probably not going to be able to go to arizona and I saw twenty-two species there. Twelve of them are species not found in Minnesota. Likewise, I'll not be going to Washington state so the American Dipper, Caspian Tern, Tufted Puffin, Pelagic Cormorant, Stellar Jay, Pigeon Guillemot, Clarks nutcracker, and the Oregon Dark Eyed-junco are not within my grasp. Thats eight more to make up. Of the twelve species I saw in Norway, the only one I might see here is a mute swan but I don't count captive animals so that's out. All told, if I want to keep up with the 126 total I need to spot thirty two more birds in 2007 within the state Minnesota. Ouch.

Here's the 2006 list (essentially in cronological order)

1-10
Black throated sparrow
Great tailed grackle
Killdeer
Great egret
Great blue heron
Mallard duck
Violet green sparrow
Mourning dove
White crowned sparrow
Gambel's quail

11-20
Verdin
Great horned owl
Cactus wren
Curve billed thrasher
Cliff swallow
White breasted nuthatch
Ruby crowned kinglet
Western Bluebird
Yellow rumped warbler (Audubons)
Anna's hummingbird

21-30
Common Goldeneye
Common loon
Wood duck
Wild Turkey
Red bellied woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
Hairy woodpecker
Brown creeper
Northern cardinal
American robin

31-40
Blue jay
American goldfinch
Dark eyed junco (slate colored)
Pileated woodpecker
Black capped chickadee
Purple finch
Red shouldered hawk
Bald eagle
Hermit thrush
American crow

41-50
Eastern Phoebe
Cedar waxwing
European starling
Bufflehead
Ring necked duck
Canada goose
House sparrow
Fox sparrow
Turkey vulture
Hooded merganser

51-60
Ring necked pheasant
Brown headed cowbird
Tree swallow
Yellow bellied sapsucker
American coot
Osprey
Red-tailed hawk
Eastern bluebird
American woodcock
Eastern Towhee

61-70
White throated sparrow
Tufted titmouse
Red breasted nuthatch
Yellow rumped warbler (Myrtle)
Chipping sparrow
Barred owl
Barn swallow
common raven
common grackle
Common yellow-throat

71-80
Rose Breasted Grosbeak
American Kestrel
Rock Pigeon
Baltimore Oriole
Eastern Meadowlark
field sparrow
Northern Waterthrush
Green Heron
Eastern Kingbird
Song Sparrow

81-90
Scarlet Tanager
Chimney Swift
House sparrow
Mourning Warbler
Great Crested Flycatcher
Ruby-throated hummingbird
Sandhill Crane
Yellow Warbler
Steller's Jay
Oregon dark-eyed Junco

91-100
American Dipper
Clark's Nutcracker
pigeon guillemot
caspian tern
double-crested cormorant
brown pelican
belted kingfisher
pelagic cormorant
tufted puffin
Eastern Wood Peewee

101-110
American Redstart
House wren
Ring billed gull
Chestnut-sided warbler
Blue-grey gnatcatcher
Red-eyed Vireo
Magnolia Warbler
Connecticut Warbler
Black and white Warbler
White Pelican

111-120
Solitary Sandpiper
Magpie (european) [Skjœre]
Great Crested Grebe [Toppdykker]
Greylag Goose [Grågås]
Grey heron [Gråhegre]
Carrion Crow [Kråke]
Mute Swan [Knoppsvan]
Robin (european) [rødstrupe]
Pied Wagtail [Linerle]
Great tit [Kjøttmeis]

121-126
Tufted Duck [Toppand]
Great Spotted Wodpecker [Flaggspett]
Black Headed Gull [Hettemåte]
Golden Crowned Kinglet
Pied billed grebe
Trumpeter Swan

Visions of Pareidolia

Okay so I know it is just pareidolia but it sure looks like the nebula in this photo is giving me the finger.

Warner's Woods Without Tom?

My first day at Warner Nature Center I had a note on my desk from the director Tom Anderson. It read something to the effect of "Off to fulfill my pleistocene hunting heritage." It was a nod to author Paul Shepherd.

In Ecology and Man, Shepherd said, "If nature is not a prison and earth a shoddy way-station, we must find the faith and force to affirm its metabolism as our own---or rather, our own as part of it. To do so means nothing less than a shift in our whole frame of reference and our attitude toward life itself, a wider perception of the landscape as a creative, harmonious being where relationships of things are as real as the things. Without losing our sense of a great human destiny and without intellectual surrender, we must affirm that the world is a being, a part of our own body."

Now, as Tom resigns his position at the reigns so he can pursue other adventures , it is hard to imagine Warner without him because Warner is a part of his being and his being is part of Warner. He has eaten apples of the trees, eaten fish from the lakes and deer from the woods. These things all became part of Tom but it is the experience of place at Warner that has shaped him over these past 29 years into the person he is. Every tree, every boulder, fen, marsh and every hand full of glacial till has subtly shaped his life and as such, Tom is as much a part of this land as this land is a part of him.

His relationship to the land and to us is just as real and as valued as the physical materials that make up the whole.

It is hard to imagine Warner without Tom because in many ways they are in unison. They always were, are now and will forever be one and the same. It will be hard to imagine but when the day comes that Tom is not here every day it will, in effect, be a little like my first day. Tom may not be here physically but his influence and presence will be here even when he is out in other wild places.

You cannot truly remove Tom from Warner because you cannot remove a person from themselves.


~Kirk

I am so freakin' happy

Valleyfair get's a new woodie this summer!

Belated Halloween

Here's a shot of our halloween costumes.

Water on mars?

NASA may be poised to make a major announcement about water on mars. The details on this page are limited but it sounds like they have found a seep?

~Kirk

A caving we will go

I went into Spring Valley Caverns today with my co-worker Paul. It took us about two hours to get down to southern Minnesota and get into the cave. We were down there for about an hour and a half as we scouted the route in preparation for bringing a group of kids in a few weeks. I should have brought a camera!

It reminded me of one of the coolest things I did when I was young. We went to Woodlake Nature Center and went on a Storm Drain tour walking tour. We tromped around in the storm drains and learned how the water from the city empties into the nature center. What to bet hte city lawyers have ended that program?

~Kirk

Anyone have $200,000 for me?

If anyone has an extra $200,000 sitting around and they want to buy me a ticket on SpaceShipTwo I'd be happy to cook them a really nice dinner.

Sun Dogs

I saw a sun dog this morning on my way to work. It was the second of the season. I'd like to start carrying my digital camera with me so I can capture some atmospheric lens effects.

I am a dork.

~Kirk

Impressed

I sent my work MacBook in for repairs on Tueday and Today, Friday it is already back from Apple. That was a really fast turn around. They replaced the heat sink as the computer had RSS-Random Shutdown Syndrome. I wasn't impressed with DHL who has farmed out their call center to another country. The first person I spoke to barely spoke English. They asked how late a person could pick the package up and I said 4:00. That was Friday. When no one came I called on Monday and got a different person who barely spoke english. She kept saying " I show attempted."

When I asked her when it was attempted said, "8:45 P.M." When asked why they would attempt to pick up a package at 8:45 pm when I told them we were a business that closes by 4:00 she didn't have any answer apart from, "We show attempted."

Not impressed.

When I tried to schedule another pick-up I was told it was too late for Monday and they would send someone on Tuesday.

My computer had thus been sitting in a box waiting to be picked up by DHL for five days before someone actually came to pick it up.

Yeah, Apple. Boo DHL.

~Kirk

Happy Friday the 13th

Earlier this week a child at work wrote a poem about a tree. Unfortunately I don't have his name because he's a brilliant poet. Here goes.

Tree Huger

Today I huged a tree
Witch was kwit a glee

It was 150 years old
It had tree mold

Love that tree


~Kirk

Down by the Fireside

You know it is getting cold when the first fire of the year springs to life in the Warner Nature Center fireplace. More light snow today.

~Kirk

I'm gonna be a Star

This is a fantasic Onion article.

~Kirk

Let It Snow

There is something about snow that reminds me to blog. (Yes, that's a sprinkling of snow on my deck.) After all, the blog is called Phenomenological Visions and right now the predominant phenomenological vision out my window is one of swirling flakes.

Snow has come early to the north land.

Very little of it is sticking to the ground but there it is none the less; frozen crystals of water formed on microscopic dust.

They say it wil be a mild winter. We shall see. I guess I need to go home and finish lacing my snowshoes.

~Kirk

Technological Distance

Last week my sister-in-law phoned with disturbing news. Coming home after a date, she heard screams in the street. There had just been an accident. A woman who lived in her building was standing behind her parked car accessing the trunk when another car swerved off the road and struck both her and her car with tremendous force. The force was sufficient to sever the woman’s leg.

When my sister-in-law arrived on the scene, the woman’s friend had tightened a belt around her thigh as a tourniquet and held onto her femoral artery with his bare hands so she wouldn’t bleed out. They could not find the leg. My sister-in-law held the woman’s hand and tried to keep her calm while they waited ten agonizing minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

The driver of the car parked half a block down the street and didn’t leave her vehicle until the police escorted her into the back of their car. She was likely in shock over what she had done though she probably didn’t even realize how bad it really was.

This was just three blocks from my home. I have parked in that same spot dozens of times. Days later, I drove by and could see the grizzly fluorescent spray paint outline of the scene on the street. Every vehicle had been outline by the police so they could examine the scene; re-create that night; try to put the pieces back together.

I don’t know if alcohol was involved, or if the woman was tired or distracted. These are the questions that will be asked but they are irrelevant. The automobile allowed this to happen. No matter how fast a drunk, tired or distracted woman runs down a sidewalk in her tennis shoes she will never sever a person’s leg by running into them. The automobile allowed this to happen.

Leaving the nature center where I work just a few days later, I drove past two dead raccoons, two dead opossums and a dead squirrel. I saw them all within one hundred feet. They too were not killed by joggers. The car made this possible.

In the five years I’ve made my commute to my current job I’ve seen at least three squirrels hit by a cars while I watched. The country roads are deadly for wildlife.

I don’t know anyone who would purposefully go out of their way to kill a raccoon or squirrel or opossum. The animals I see every day are not purposefully killed. They are the by-product of our lifestyle. None of the people who hit them with their cars would kill the same animal if they had to do it with their hands. The woman who crashed her car could never imagine she would some day sever the leg of another human.

In the case of the animals, cars, and technology in general, can serve to distance us from the consequences of our actions. People see a dead squirrel on the road and they say, “That animal was hit by a car,” and not, “That animal was killed by a person.” A symptom of our denial.

In the case of the woman, technology has allowed someone to do something horrible they never thought possible. These are two sides of the same coin really.

We need to slow down, consider our every footfall, and take part in the world around us as one of many beings, not as just a technological passenger. Our technology allows to do the things we swear we would never do. We often drive on blindly, unaware of the carnage we leave in our wakes. Our technology has allowed us to move faster than the natural pace of the world both physically and metaphorically.

We need to slow down.

The Norway List

I saw many birds in Norway but I was only able to positively identify 12.

I saw:

Magpie (european) [Skjœre]
Great Crested Grebe [Toppdykker]
Greylag Goose [Grågås]
Grey heron [Gråhegre]
Carrion Crow [Kråke]
Mute Swan [Knoppsvan]
Robin (european) [rødstrupe]
Ped Wagtail [Linerle]
Great tit [Kjøttmeis]
Tufted Duck [Toppand]
Great Spotted Wodpecker [Flaggspett]
Black Headed Gull [Hettemåte]

I also believe I saw a Herring Gull, and I know I saw some kind of Cormorant. There are two possibilities but I cannot say for certain which it was. I probably also saw a Blue Tit but it was mixed in with some Great Tits so I can't be sure of the ID. I was distracted by all the great tits. How's that for exciting birding?

~Kirk

Jeg er “Flatlander”

I love to get outside and hike. My relatives in Norway knew this so when my wife and I visited last month they decided to take us on a hike. We had heard of a fantastic vantage point above the Lysefjord called the Prekestolen. “Ah yes,” they said, “the prekestolen is just a short hike. We’d love to take you.” Their whole family, including two ten-year-old twins and a twelve year old packed into two cars and headed out into the wilds of Norway.

My wife, who is not Norwegian by heritage, soon discovered a secret not much known to the non-Nordic peoples. We are descended from mountain goats.

I’d like to think that I am in reasonable shape but this hike was extraordinary. Living in the flatlands of Minnesota has diminished my mountain goat heritage. At some point there was mention of the hike being four kilometers long but not being so familiar with the metric system I let it slide. After all, I’ve run a 5K race before. It wasn’t so bad, and I was running! I could handle a hike up a hill. As it turns out, it was more like six kilometers and this wasn’t a hill. Running was out of the question.

If a Norwegian ever offers to take you on a short hike, beware. “Short” is a subjective term relative to the terrain in which you live as well as how far you are from your original mountain goat ancestors (assuming you have some).

I have a goatee; I am not a goat.

Six kilometers is three and a quarter miles. While most hiking I do at home is on nice dirt paths gently meandering through the forest, the trail to the Prekestolen was largely a skree field of boulders. Scree incidentally comes from the old Norse word Skritha meaning landslide. A lovely thing to ponder as I ascended the loose rock.

The elevation gain from parking lot to Prekestolen was 1,400 feet. The trail winds up and down what a flatlander like myself would call mountain ridges but locals would probably just call hills. Due to the up and down nature of the trail, the elevation gain felt like even more than the 1,400 feet obtained by math.

As I left the trees behind and walked across smooth alpine domes of rock I heard a tinkling in the air. It was the ringing of bells hanging from the necks of sheep. They watched our weary approach to the pulpit rock known as prekestolen. Drawing near I got my first dizzying view of the drop off and my heart raced with joy. This is living.

The prekestolen is a sheer face of rock shooting straight up from the water of the fjord. When you stand at the edge you are looking down two thousand feet to the water below. There used to be more of these outcroppings but over thousands of years the others have all sheared off and plunged into the cold depths of the 1300 foot deep fjord. The Prekestolen itself is slowly separating from the surrounding rock and the large crack is measured each year to chart the progress. We all jumped a few times but it didn’t budge.

I have always asserted that I have no problem with heights but peering over that edge, seeking the almost unfathomable distance between sky and self and rock and water, the very mortal part of my being screamed for retreat and forced me backwards. According to my estimate, it would only take a human eleven seconds to make the two thousand foot drop to the water below but I wasn’t about to check my math through first hand experimentation.

I reasserted my bravery and sat on the very edge of the precipice. I dangled my legs over the edge, thumbed my nose at fate, paused for the obligatory photo and retreated to a safer distance. After taking the photo, my cousin suggested we not show it to his mother. “Just thinking about it might give her a heart attack.”

The trip to the Prekestolen made me appreciate elevation in the landscape. My wife and I had to keep on apologizing for not being able to keep up with even the short legged kids who joined our trek. We needed to remind them and remind ourselves that we are essentially flatlanders. Successive glaciers and millions of years have worn the volcanic flows and limestone beds of Minnesota into a smooth rolling hilly landscape.

Bluff tops and the ancient mountains of the north shore of Lake superior are the few opportunities we have here to elevate ourselves. Elevation gives you perspective on the world, it allows you to see further and it allows you to dream more.