Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. CNN: Canada will start putting health warnings on individual cigarettes, Hassan, Newton and Maxouris, May 31, 2023. CNN: US cigarette smoking rate falls to historic low, but e-cigarette use keeps climbing, Christensen, April 27, 2023.

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Daily Walks

Bicenntennial Minipark, The University of Alabama at Birmingham. I will neither confirm nor deny that I walked in a new place so that I would have something to post. {Virtual Mississippi River 1 May]

The rest of my daily walks were in the pasture with Rodney for Virtual Tevis.

Monthly 5K

In pasture, handwalk Rodney for Virtual Tevis miles. [VT Archive]

Other

Bike a few times on weekends.

Last month [Sunny Days, State of the Fitness]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. 15 states have more than one time zone: Florida, Oregon, Kentucky, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, North Dakota, Michigan, Alaska, South Dakota, Nevada, Kansas, Nebraska, Idaho, and Indiana. “Before the establishment of time zones in 1883, there were over 144 local times in North America.” DOT: History of Time Zones 2021. Hat tip to M.

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Updated Now page.

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June 2023

More walking.

More mileage.

Finishing Virtual Tevis.

🐎🐎

The dog training is going well.

As in, the dogs have us well-trained.

🐶🐶

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Last Month [Walking Into The Future]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Medium: Why was Marijuana Made Illegal in the First Place? -part I, Dodge, 2018.

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Rodney has been getting Smart & Simple CBD Pellets from Smartpak for about a month.

The theory is that CBD gives the herbal benefits of hemp extract without the drug component.

The claim is that it reduces the tension level just enough to enable conversation.

He seems calmer. But then, the temperature is going up. The warmer he is, the better mood he is in.

So … shrug?

Will stay with it for a while. See what happens.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. ArcGIS Online: Alberta Wildfire Status. ArcGIS Online: BLM California Wildfire Dashboard (Public).

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Virtual Tevis Cup 2023
100 Miles in 100 Days
19 April to 30 July

Rodney – 12 miles this week, 79 miles total
Milton – 13 miles this week, 70 miles total
Tues 16 May to Mon 29 May

As last week, mileage was handwalks in the morning, short rides & drives in the afternoon/evening. Mornings walks are done together. Work sessions are done individually. Hence the different mileage.

Sartorial Requirements

Rodney’s dress for a morning handwalk.

Long leadrope. Lets him swing his head – swat flies, look at cows – without jerking my arm.
Ear bonnet. Protect ears from flies.
Sweatshirt. Protect against morning chill.

Me: It’s a simple walk!
Rodney: Do I look like a simple horse?

Virtual Tevis Posts [Pack Train Practice, Strolling Through The 60s & Flourishing in the 50s, Virtual Tevis 2023] & [Archives]

Posts on Rodney and his fuzzy sheet. [The Old Man Card] & [Life Choices]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Vox: How African-Americans in South Carolina invented Memorial Day, Yglesias, 2014. Have not watched video. Plan to. Speaker cited here, Vox: How a group of African Americans was almost erased from the history of Memorial Day, Massie, 2016.

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Milton, you have a big, nasty bug on your belly. Lemme get that for you.

No touchie! No touchie!

Boing! Boing! Boing!

Remember the little dangly bits he had from his zipper? We think they were old stitches. [Milton’s Stubborn Zipper] & [Milton’s Belly 30 March 2023, photos, unsightly but not overly gory]

Looks like a new one popped out.

Little dangly bits are sensitive. Apparently.

Been a long time since he has run all the way back to the barn.

Fortunately, he is not the type to deliver a flying kick on the way by and when he’s done, he heads to his people. After he ran to the barn, he came out to meet me coming in.

Dangly bit gone by the next morning.

Sorry, Dude.

Photo behind the jump, not unsightly but I figured I’d stay consistent with above. [Milton’s Belly 29 May 2023].

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. “Donald Jackson’s illustration of “Creation” shows seven vertical slices representing the days of creation, beginning with fractals and the Hebrew word for chaos.” Library of Congress: Illuminating The Word, IRL exhibition. Also, LOC: Illuminating the Word: The St. John’s Bible, Online Exhibition. Same image, without fractal in the description. The Saint John’s Bible.

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My first fractal, a Sierpinski triangle. Draw triangle. Draw second triangle from the midpoints of the sides. Center stays open. Repeat.

I figured I’d “cheat” and use Inkscape instead of drawing by hand. Didn’t help as much as I thought it would.

1) I couldn’t get the math right to reduce compound figures. Had to draw each new size & then copy to the required locations.

2) Still confused the crap out of me.

Started with outer shape. Moved in. Five iterations.

About halfway thru, I filled in the center triangles with yellow as a clarification aide.

Hat tip to Gement for introducing me to drawing fractals.

Onwards!
Katherine

Gold is great. Don’t get me wrong. Who doesn’t love a soft, clinky pile of gold? But after a few hundred years, you get the knack of acquiring it. More is nice. More is always nice. But not exactly a challenge, ya know what I mean?

Some of us have branched out.

History Dragon. Collects facts. Not just names and dates, although many of those. What plants grew in the the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. How *was* Stonehenge built? Will often be found staging historical reenactments in pursuit of possible answers. History Dragons are great fun at LARPS, as long as you are willing to listen to the occasional 20-minute lecture on how to correctly recreate the historical accuracy of the fabric in your costume.

Cooking Dragon. Collects recipes. Knows over 200 ways to make dumplings. Collects cross-cultural comparisons, such as the prevalence of fried bread products: doughnuts, zeppole, churros, and so on. Good cooks, although accepting a dinner invitation from one is a gamble. Might be a three-star meal. Might be a seven-course meal focusing on legumes. Chickpea ice cream anyone?

Pop Dragon. Collects the zeltgeist. What song holds the record for #1? What was the hottest selling toy in 1969? It is considered unsporting to have a Pop Dragon on your trivia team.

Art Dragon. Collects art techniques, from fine oils to paint-by-number, from origami to reworking Breyer models. Will get into long discussions with history dragons over the composition of pre-modern dyes. Likes to work as a substitute art teacher to see what kids will come up with when presented with a pile of toilet paper rolls & an Erector Set.

Animal Dragon. Collects animals. Very conservation minded. Do NOT ask them about specimens. They “collect” animals by being in the presence of each one, the same way birders keep a life list. Some animal dragons are avid birders. One animal dragon who specializes in insects went into the Amazon basin several years ago and has not been seen since. They’re fine. We get emails.

Rock Dragon. As above, with minerals.

Dragon Dragon. Collects literature & art about dragons. Can often be prevailed upon to read aloud the more amusing passages.

~~~ Curtain ~~~

Afterword.

Influenced by Dragon Ever After, by Louisa Masters, 2021. M/M romance with shape-shifting dragons.

Fiction 4U. Tor.com The Fifth Dragon, Ian McDonald, 2015

Non-fiction 4U. Tor.com: The Ultimate Fantasy Beast: The Dragon, Judith Tarr, 2022. The Atlantic: No Old Maps Actually Say ‘Here Be Dragons’, But an ancient globe does, Robinson Meyer, 2013. Hic sunt dracones. The latter may be paywalled. Shows up on my desktop, not on my phone. Go figure.

Answers. Smithsonian: Taylor Swift Sets Record for Longest No. 1 Song, Beating Out ‘American Pie’ and the Beatles, The pop star’s 10-minute, 13-second rerecording of “All Too Well” debuted at the top spot in Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, McGreevy, 2021. Snoopy Astronaut. Reader’s Digest: The Most Popular Toy the Year You Were Born, Roland, 2022.

Onwards!
Katherine