North Pole Weather 5/21/12

Sunrise was at 4:05 this morning, and it will not set until 11:33 tonight for 19 hours 27 minutes above the horizon. The days are beginning to lengthen more slowly; the summer solstice is still a month off but definitely approaching. It’s twilight all night, now, with the sun only getting about 5° below the horizon. In compensation, it’s now more than 45° high at noon. Still not quite reliably above freezing at night, but I’ve started leaving the hardening plants out, under floating row covers. Froecast next week are for low 30’s at the coldest, so I’m going to start getting the rest of the transplants out (at least in the daytime) and start planting as soon as the rototilling is done.

The lilacs are budded out enough I can tell which branches are dead and prune them away, something they’ve needed for several years. To my surprise many of the “dead” branches had side shoots with live buds, so I didn’t have to remove as much as I thought I would. The Amur maple needs the same treatment, but the buds aren’t quite large enough yet to be sure which branches are actually dead. You can tell it’s an import – the wild roses are well leafed out, the balsam poplars are shedding their sticky bud covers, and the rhubarb is almost ready to cut lightly. The white violets are actually blooming next to the house, and a number of perennials have new leaves.

It’s Haiku day on the blogathon, so I thought I’d put in a link to a haiku I posted earlier.

#WriteMotivation Check-in:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, I’ll try to get the beans started indoors by April 25 and the squash by April 30; plant outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

Seeds and some transplants are waiting on getting the rototilling done, but the beds are fertilized, have soil amendment added, and ready to till. Hoops and plastic are ready.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my sf novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday Sunday.

Fine so far.

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

Fine so far.

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homecoming/109303925759274

Fine so far.

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

I’m going to have to count the time I spend at the Farmers Market. I’ve been working on the garden, but haven’t dared take any long trike rides as I never know when the rototiller and/or handyman will get here. I hope that’s out of the way soon; I’m running out of things to do in the garden and yard until the rototilling is done.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible.

I’ve read it over, the Six Sentence Sunday posts are scheduled for the rest of the month, and I think I have one beta reader.

Six Sentence Sunday

This starts directly after the last sentence from last week, referring to the physician, Nik Tarlian. It then omits about a page that would be hard to follow as an excerpt and continues the scene from Tourist Trap. As a reminder, Zhaim is treating his injuries after beating Roi. He is also in rather a hurry to make a planned Council meeting.

The man was a competent physician, but he was also a sentimental fool. He was very likely to spread the word that one of Zhaim’s slaves had managed to defy him, or even pick up the fact that Roi had been involved, and later on, when the bodies were discovered, that might draw attention Zhaim could not afford.

He reached for the synthetic skin spray and applied it to both hands, then pulled on a pair of thin black leather gloves. He would wear his black leather tunic and breeches today, he thought. The crested shoulder would hide his own swollen joint, and the sleeve cut, intended to emphasize that the wearer need never exert himself physically, would explain any stiffness in his use of the arm. Fashion demanded that he wear gloves with the outfit.

That’s all from Tourist Trap, as the published book is available. Next week I’ll go back to bits from the trilogy in progress, or one of the shorter pieces I’m thinking of putting on Smashwords – if I can figure out how.

Meanwhile, have a look at the other fine writers participating in Six Sentence Sunday – just click on the logo.

Meals with Diabetes

It would really be nice just to eat what I want, or even just to eat what was good for me. But when you’re using an insulin pump with carbohydrate counting, things are never that simple.

The scale was tared for the weight of the pan; only the asparagus is weighed. This is only 6 grams of carbohydrate; asparagus is not a high-carbohydrate food.

Carbohydrate counting is a relatively complex way to handle the interplay between food and insulin. The simplest way, which is what the doctors started me on 40 years ago, was a rigid diet (the diabetic exchange diet) and an equally rigid schedule of insulin shots. It worked all right during the honeymoon phase, but few people stick to it, and by 10 years ago it wasn’t working. Even when I tried counting carbohydrates to get a more accurate food intake, the intake being dictated by my doctor, I still had problems. Sometimes I would go into shock at the most unexpected times (including while eating); at other times I would go high for no apparent reason.

It wasn’t until I got an insulin pump that I learned the most important lesson of carbohydrate counting: you adjust your insulin to what you are eating, your measured blood sugar at mealtime, and how your body reacts. Some doctors are still not comfortable with this.

The standard method of carbohydrate counting just counts the grams of carbohydrate in a meal, leaving the fat and protein to themselves except for avoiding too much fat and making sure there is enough protein. This works as long as each meal contains about the same balance of fat, carbohydrate and protein. When this balance varies, it’s better to use a complex formula that includes all three, as all eventually show up as glucose in the blood. One formula I’ve seen is grams of carbohydrate plus half the grams of protein plus one-fourth the grams of fat. I use grams of carbohydrate plus half the grams of protein, unless fat makes up more than 40% of the meal. (Not often.)

But how do you get those grams?

If you’re eating prepared food you read the nutrition label. These are actually available online for many national restaurant chains, though it means going online before you go out to eat, or order it sent. (It may also shock you at the amount of fat present.) If you are eating out other than at a national chain, you have to guess – and check your blood sugar often after eating. If you are cooking with fresh food at home, you need to weigh everything and refer to some kind of list, such as the one put out by the FDA, which has nutritional information for all kinds of foods. (The FDA list is available as an iPhone app, and there are may other food listings of this sort online.) Needless to say, this greatly slows down the process of preparing a meal, which is why I tend to rely rather heavily on frozen meals – reading the nutrition labels before I buy!

As to how to weigh food, the ideal is a gram scale, usually digital and battery-powered. Mine’s almost worn out from use, but it’s an essential part of food preparation for me.

As to getting all those weights into a meal, I use a computer program called Diet Sleuth, though it means running back and forth between the kitchen and the computer room to enter the foods I’m going to eat. Next week I’ll describe how it works.

Jarn’s Journal Year 2, Day 339

Year 2, Day 339

I am beginning to wonder if I may have promised more than I can deliver. At least it keeps me busy!

Yesterday morning was devoted to filling water containers, finding food (for three groups now) and checking on the woman whose name, I have finally discovered, is Meerkat. Then I teleported Patches and myself to the last camp of Lion’s group and had Patches try to track them to their next camp. Patches can move a good deal faster than they can, and they usually stop to hunt well before dark, so I caught them just as they are staring to look for a campsite. Yesterday I spotted a good site ahead of them and guided them to it. By that time, however, Patches was getting tired of tracking. Getting her to follow the hunters from Storm Cloud’s camp toward Meerkat’s took a good deal more mental control than I really like to use, and it was full dark before we found them and delivered their water.

I hoped to break up the tracking by having Patches track the hunters partway in the morning, as they leave as soon as there is any light at all. Then Patches could rest while I took food and water to Meerkat and filled the water containers for Lion’s group. Actually finding the group was as much a matter of guessing as following Patches, who by that time was sore-footed as well as rebellious. When it came to following the hunters from where they’d been around noon, she simply laid down and dared me to drive her on.

I thought that by then they might be getting close to Meerkat’s camp, as after all they had estimated two days to get there. So I teleported their supplies to the camp and then flew back along the route I though they would be using. Luckily there was a full moon tonight, so I was able to find them. Lucky also that they had estimated the time it would take them so well. And I have seen most of the trail they will be returning over, so if they tell me each day where they will camp the next night, I should be able to teleport to those sites, leaving only Lion’s group to depend on Patches’ skill as a reluctant tracker.

Farmers’ Market: Fairbanks, Alaska

The Tanana Valley Farmers Market is open!

Writers’ Guild booth

Not for produce – even the greenhouses aren’t producing anything but plants yet. And it’s cold – only a few degrees above freezing when the market opened. But there were lots of seedlings, potted perennial plants. and shrubs. Handmade jewelry, quilted and knitted items, local yarns and hand-decorated clothing were interspersed with jams and jellies, baked goods and candy. Food stalls were doing some business, though many people did not realize the market was open yet, or were attending the parade downtown. (Usually it’s quite a wait in line to get in to the more popular stalls.) Wood items varied from hand-turned bowls to furniture to birdhouses, and ceramics were also on display. And this year the Fairbanks branch of the Alaska Writers’ Guild has a table set up in the indoor part of the market.

Hand decorated clothing

So far we have three authors and six books, but we’re hoping to get more. The authors take turns running the booth – there isn’t really room for more than one person at a time. We’re still working out the schedule, but I hope it will be half days – a full day is a bit much, especially as the building is unheated.

I was shopping as well as selling books, and came home with several basil plants and some pear butter – from Alaska-grown pears, no less! I knew crab apples and lots of berries grew up here, but I have to say the pears surprised me. I’ll have to find out the variety, though I suspect they’re grown in a very favorable location.

Food stalls. The photo was taken while most people were downtown watching the parade. There are picnic tables behind the row of stalls.

If you happen to be in Fairbanks over the summer, come by the Farmers’ Market. It’s on the red and blue line bus routes, and it’s open Saturday 9-4, and Wednesday 11-4. Sundays 11-4 will be added at the end of the month, but only the outdoor canopies are used for that. Not good for selling books.

I don’t know for sure that it’s the farthest North Farmers’ Market in the 50 states, but it must be close to it!

Act 2: Retirement?

Don’t retire from – retire to!

Sue Ann Bowling

I spent most of my life as a researcher in atmospheric sciences, teaching atmospheric science and physics for non-majors (mostly astronomy.) I did research, wrote scientific papers, and for a while even wrote a popular science newspaper column published throughout Alaska. And I read – and made up my own – science fiction.

I didn’t seriously think about changing careers, primarily because I had excellent health insurance and retirement benefits and I knew that as a Type 1 diabetic changing jobs would not be simple. Besides, my specialty of ice fog and urban weather in a cold climate was not very portable. But I loved to write for non-scientists, and I loved to make up stories. Eventually, during the last decade of my employment, I began going to local writers’ conferences, taking classes in fiction writing, and writing down some of the stories that filled my head simply to get them out of there!

Fourteen years ago, the university was pushing early retirement. I’d contracted a common diabetic complication, diabetic retinopathy, and I was having severe trouble driving. The bus line in my area had been eliminated, and taxi fare to and from work was prohibitive. I was mostly getting rides with others who worked at the university, but things were getting difficult enough that I decided to retire early and write.

The writing started out just because I enjoyed doing it. The first two books started as one, became three, and finally became Homecoming and Tourist Trap. The first drafts were definitely written while I was still working, but at this point I can’t even find some scenes I later eliminated in the drafts on my computer. I’m sure some were eighteen years ago, and probably twenty years and about five generations of computers was more accurate.

I continued to make up stories in my head, but couldn’t get everything to come together for another novel until I realized that my stories would go together just fine if I changed the sex of one character. Eventually that group of stories became a trilogy. Over the next few years I sent the first two books out to several publishers, collecting rejection slips while writing the first draft of the trilogy.

Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I’m not very good at sending things out, and the cancer and a session on self-publishing at Festival of the Book made me realize that if I ever wanted to share what I’d written I would have to self-publish. I published Homecoming through iUniverse, with the help of the editor who I’d worked with me on the Alaska Science Forum. It received 5-star reviews and took second place in science fiction in one of the contests I entered. The sequel, Tourist Trap, not only took first place in science fiction a year later in the same contest, it won best fiction book of the year.

I have to admit that I enjoy writing a good deal more than I enjoy marketing. And I’m not making any profit at all. But I still get a warm feeling from hearing from people who love my books, and I’m still hoping to publish the trilogy and possibly another novel, now in the planning stage. A second act? Not a very profitable one, but very fulfilling.

Oh, and all the indications are that we caught the cancer in time.

Quote Contexts

The first six quotes are from Year of the Unicorn, by Andre Norton. All of the quotations were tweeted from @sueannbowling in the last 7 days. As this book was written in 1^st person, all of the sentiments are Gillan’s.

“How does one know coming good from coming ill?” It’s a time of change, with the end of the war with Alizon.

“Dared I hope for a wind of change?” A break in the usual routine at Norstead Abbey has Gillan hoping for something new.

“She who expects neither good nor ill has an equal chance of either.” Gillan speaking to Lord Imry when he discovers that she is not Mariamme.

“Why do you deem that which is unknown must likewise be ill?” Gillan to the other brides, before they meet the Were Riders who are to be their husbands.

“To look diligently to shadows is to find them.” Gillan to the other brides, trying to break their fears.

“Perhaps it was better to face that end than go mad of terror.” Gillan’s nightmare, shortly after she has fully realized Herrell’s ability too shape-change.

“If I’d just taken a look behind me now and then…” Sue Ann Bowling, Tourist Trap. Timi, blaming himself for not seeing the storm that strikes the sailboat halfway across the lake.

The Essential Dinosaur Pack Disc 1 (DVD Review)

This set of two DVDs, although the cover has a date of 2008, in fact combines episodes originally aired on the Discovery Channel from 2001 to 2008. The first disc contains four episodes:  Valley of the T. Rex (2001), T-Rex: New Science, New Beast (2006), When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001) and Utah’s Dino Graveyard (2005). Keep the true dates straight, because our interpretation of dinosaurs is changing rapidly, and the episodes at times seem to contradict each other. None of the interpretations are truly currant, or represent today’s ongoing controversies.

This DVD focuses on the processes of finding, unearthing and interpreting fossils, with only minor clips of computer generation of the living animals. It will be of more interest to budding paleontologists than to those looking for entertainment.

Valley of the T-Rex looks at the idea put forward by Jack Horner that T-Rex was primarily a scavenger, not a predator. The idea is hardly new, and is far earlier than the discovery of T-Rex’s tiny arms – Wiley Ley proposed it as a science article in the April 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. I really doubt that there is any such thing as a pure predator or a pure scavenger. Any predator will scavenge a fresh kill, and any scavenger will kill an animal down and helpless, if only by eating it. Like the short-faced bear, T-Rex may have used its impressive size to intimidate other predators off their kills, but that doesn’t mean it never killed.

T-Rex: New Science, New Beast is more balanced, mentioning that how T-Rex fed is controversial but not getting into the controversy. Rather, it summarized new (as of 2006) methods of investigating dinosaur fossils. This included learning how to tell how old fossil dinosaurs were at death (which led to the discovery of the fantastic teenaged growth spurt of T-Rex and the relatively young age (29) of Sue, the largest T-Rex found.) At least one dinosaur was sexed, though the technique only works with pregnant (with eggs) females. Study of locomotion in modern animals has been applied to dinosaur skeletons, suggesting a lower top speed for full-grown T-Rex than was previously estimated. The episode also mentioned the discovery that some fossil bone had collagen, study of T-Rex bite strength, and the discovery of feathered theropods, leading to the possibility that T-Rex juveniles, at least, had downy feathers.

When Dinosaurs Roamed America goes through the history of dinosaurs, using an American location to spotlight each time period. Remember this segment, and the computer animated clips included, is eleven years old in 2012.

The video starts with New York (Permian-Jurassic, first dinosaurs, early opening of the Atlantic.) It then moves on to Exeter Township, PA (Triassic-Jurassic boundary, theropod-sauropod split.) Utah was a savannah 150 million years ago, wandered over by giant sauropods, their predators, and the smaller herbivorous dinosaurs that survived at their side. New Mexico 90 million years ago was a tropical swamp, with an explosion of flowering plants and broadleafed trees. The notorious K-T (Cretaceous-Triassic) boundary and the final extinction of the dinosaurs is investigated in South Dakota. The video is not bad, but dated.

The final program, Utah’s Dino Graveyard, covers a single location with a huge number of dinosaur fossils of a single species. Falcarius Utahensis was a strange beast even by dinosaur standards, as are most of its Therizinosaurian relatives. It is one of the earliest of a group that evolved from raptor-like carnivores to big-bellied but still relatively upright herbivores. This does happen – all dinosaurs, even the huge sauropods such as Apatosaurus evolved from early ancestors that ran on two legs and preyed on insects. More recently, the giant panda seems to be a bear that has embraced a diet of bamboo.

The real question is, what killed large numbers of the same species? Their preservation seems to be due to the fact that they all died near ancient springs, with rock from the spring deposits forming a cap that preserved their bones, but could the spring also have played a role in their deaths?

In general the computer graphics are adequate but not inspired, and at times show behavior I have doubts about — but I’ll save that critique for the second disc.

North Pole Weather 5/14/12

Sign of Spring!

The sun rose this morning at 4:29 am, and will set at 11:08 for 18 hours 39 minutes of daylight – that is, with the sun above the horizon. In fact it doesn’t really get dark this time of year, and in two more days it’ll be civil twilight all “night,” with the sun never getting more than 6° below the horizon. The problem with astronomy up here is that when it gets dark enough to see the stars, it’s too cold to say outdoors very long.

The birch pollen count was high last week, and official greenup was May 10. Official? It’s based on when Chena Ridge, west of town, starts looking green instead of brown, and the day is identified by a local weather forecaster – but it’s a pretty obvious change, if you can see the ridge. I can’t, but midweek the birch leaves were showing in my yard, and today there’s a definite green mist to them. What’s more, the ground was thawed enough to till – I was able to get a spading fork in to full depth by Wednesday night.

A green mist is showing on the birches.

The weather forecasts for the rest of the week suggest nightly frosts are still possible, so I won’t even consider planting anything yet. The flats of plants are still going out as soon as the temperature is above 35°F and coming in before I go to bed. I’m certainly going to try to get someone to do the rototilling soon, though.

#WriteMotivation check in:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, I’ll try to get the beans started indoors by April 25 and the squash by April 30; plant outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

On schedule, but waiting for rototilling.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my sf novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday Sunday.

Fine so far.

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

Also up to date.

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homecoming/109303925759274

Barely made it Sunday, but no problem the rest of the week.

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

The weather is intermittent showers—not heavy, but I’ve been chased in several times from the garden, and I don’t want to risk getting wet miles from home—it’s still too cold! I’d say I’ve made it given that I specified “when the weather cooperates.”.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible.

Done, but I still would like to find a beta reader. Any volunteers?

Six Sentence Sunday

Last week on Six Sentence Sunday I posted the end of the scene where Zhaim catches and beats Roi unconscious. Here’s Zhaim, a short time later. Again, this is from Tourist Trap. Nik, by the way, is a physician, but also a good enough esper that he just might pick up Roi’s connection to Zhaim’s injuries.

Zhaim scowled as he dabbed antiseptic on his hands. Not only had he cut his knuckles on the brat’s teeth, the young devil had managed to bite him several times during the beating. He hissed as the antiseptic foamed in the crescentic wounds on the heel of his right hand. His shoulder ached, too, but at least he’d managed to keep the brat away from his face. As it was, he would have to keep his hand and shoulder hidden until they healed. Certainly he couldn’t ask Nik Tarlian to treat him.

Like the excerpt? Want to play yourself? Check out Six Sentence Sunday and have a look at the contributions of the other fine authors.